creamed-coconut.org

I’ve been home from my holiday for over a week, but as I’ve been so busy catching up on things it’s only now that I have some free time to update my blog.

This is actually the 4th time that I’ve been on holiday to the Lake District, although this time my 2 nieces Anya and Emily came as well. (Last year they stayed with us for a few days, but not for the full holiday, as they had other things planned).  There was no mobile phone reception available in the holiday cottage where we were staying, so I kept a paper diary instead of using Twitter.  At first I was a bit disappointed about that, but at least it meant there were less distractions.

At the beginning of the holiday (Saturday 7th August), we arrived at the cottage in Grasmere just after 3pm.  Much of the evening was spent unpacking, although we did go for a short walk by the local rock stream.  I had a nice big bedroom at the cottage – in fact I think it’s the biggest bedroom I’ve ever stayed in! The following morning, we went for a walk up to Easedale Tarn.  We do this walk every year, but on the first full day of the holiday I’m not usually very fit and it takes me a couple of days to get used to all the climbing, especially as we live in an area with no hills at all! Therefore I was dreading going to Easedale Tarn on the first day, as there are some steep climbs involved.  At one point during the walk I thought that I was going to be sick and I felt dizzy and light-headed, so I had to stop and drink some water.  Luckily I felt better once we’d reached the top of the mountain (where the tarn/lake is).  I never had any more of those dizzy feelings during the holiday.  Later that afternoon, we went to the Cumbria Carvery (which is favourite restaurant in Grasmere) for a meal.  I had a Yorkshire pudding filled with Cumberland sausage, chips and gravy.  That is a typical local meal in the Lake District.

On the first Monday it rained heavily, so we didn’t go on any proper walks.  Instead we visited a village called Hawkshead and we went to the Beatrix Potter Gallery.  There wasn’t that much to see, so we walked round it fairly quickly.  We also looked round some of the local shops and had some sandwiches and a piece of cake in one of the cafes.  On Tuesday we walked round Rydal lake – this was a walk that I’d done 5 years ago, but I still enjoyed it.  Luckily I didn’t get too worn out this time!  The first part of the walk is all uphill and quite tiring, but after that it is OK and the scenery is very good, and you get a nice aerial view of the lake.  On the higher path, there is a big cave – I’d actually forgotten just how big the cave is, since the last time I’d been there!  It started raining really heavily and all our clothes were soaked right through.  At the end of the walk we went to the Rydal cafe and had a quick walk around the Rydal gardens.  On Wednesday we went for a walk at Thirlmere, which is a reservoir near Coniston.  There was also a woodland walk where we saw a waterfall and a really big old tree (European Silver Fir), which was about 200 years old.  Later that afternoon, we went to an internet cafe in Grasmere, but there was only one (really slow) computer, so I didn’t have a chance to do much with it.  I just checked my email and that was about it

Thursday was Mum’s birthday so we all gave her birthday cards in the morning.  We spent most of the day in Ambleside, which is a town near Grasmere.  We walked to a waterfall and we had lunch in a pub.  When I’m on holiday, I always miss my weekly takeaways, but this pub served chicken makhani curry with rice and naan bread, so I had that and I enjoyed it.  After dinner, Emily and I played on one of the quiz machines.  We walked around the town and we went to a chocolate shop where I bought some chocolate truffles and some jelly beans.  On Friday we went for a really long walk up to Codale Tarn (which is the second tarn after Easedale Tarn).  We’d been there 5 years ago, but this time we took a different route.  It took much longer than I thought it would – in fact we were walking for over 6 hours, making it the longest walk of the holiday.  We saw many streams and waterfalls along the way, and it was a very pretty walk, even though it was steep and slippery in parts.

On Saturday we went to Coniston for the day.  We hired out a motor boat for an hour on the lake and we had a meal at Harry’s restaurant afterwards.  There was a meteor shower that evening, and as there was a clear sky, we were able to see the shooting stars.  It looked very pretty and I took several photos of the stars.  When we are at home, we can’t see the stars so well in the city due to the light pollution.  On Sunday we did another steep walk – this time to the Lionhead and Lamb in Easedale.  We did this walk 5 or 6 years ago and the path at the start is very steep and not very well laid out.  However it was all worth it in the end, as we had lovely views all over Easedale and Grasmere.  From the top, we could see Easedale Tarn and Grasmere lake, along with Windemere and Coniston lakes.  On Monday, we got up early to go to Aira Force, which is one of my favourite walks in the Lake District.  We walked amongst the waterfalls and woods for 2 and a half hours and had a picnic at the top of the waterfalls.

On Tuesday we went back to the cafe in Rydal but this time I had a white hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows and a flake.  It was one of the nicest hot chocolates I’ve ever had in my life!  We parked at the cafe and walked into Ambleside.  I bought everyone a meal at the pub, where I had the same chicken makhani meal as before.  On Wednesday we went to Derwentwater and had cream scones and milkshakes at The Grange cafe.  Afterwards we walked around the village.  On Thursday we visited John Ruskin’s house at Brantwood, which was very interesting.  We walked round the gardens as well.  On Friday – our last full day – it rained very heavily so we didn’t do much.  We had been planning to walk up to Easedale Tarn again but it was too wet.  We had a meal at the Cumbria Carvery, bought some gingerbread at the Sarah Nelson gingerbread shop and then we walked to the top of Sour Milk Gill (the waterfall leading up to Easedale Tarn).

Several exciting things have been happening since we arrived back from our holiday.  On Tuesday last week, Anya received her GCSE exam results.  She did very well and she got 8 Grade A’s and a Distinction for ICT.  We went out for a meal at The Oaklands in the evening to celebrate.  It was a really nice carvery.  On Friday evening Mum and I saw Toy Story 3 at the cinema – unfortunately it wasn’t being shown in 3D, but we still really enjoyed it.  Afterwards we had a meal at Malaysian Delights.  On Saturday night I went clubbing with my friend Kay.  Today Terry and I went to Norfolk Lavender.  Disappointingly, the lavender fields weren’t open (as they’d already been ploughed) but we still walked around the gardens and farmyard, and we also had a snack in the cafe and I bought some lavender oils.  I also had a piece of lavender cake and a little tub of lavender ice cream, which was nice as lavender ice cream is very rare.

For the last month or so, we’ve been having a heatwave!  It hasn’t been quite so warm for the last 7 days, but before that it was very hot, with temperatures frequently reaching 30 degrees C.  Late last month, we went for a walk at Hoveton Hall Gardens, which was a nice way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.  One evening a couple of weeks ago, I bought Mum and Terry a meal at Malaysian Delights.

Last Sunday (probably the hottest day of the year so far) we went to the beach at Sheringham.  We sat on the beach for a while, but the tide soon came in, so we couldn’t sit there for too long.  It was amazing how quickly the tide came in!  We had a lovely walk around the town too.

The good thing is that it won’t be long until we go on holiday to the Lake District.  We will be staying at a holiday cottage in Grasmere.  We have stayed in Grasmere before (in 2004 and 2005) but this time we are staying in a larger cottage as my nieces Anya and Emily will be coming as well.  Near Sour Milk Ghyll there are 2 cottages side-by-side, and this year we will be staying in the larger of the two.

This week (on Wednesday evening) I went round my friend Naomi’s house.  We had an Indian takeaway and we watched the film Van Wilder.  The film was very funny and I enjoyed the evening.  Naomi’s sister Sarah was also there, as she is currently on holiday from university.  It was good to see them both again.

A few really bad things happened this week.  Firstly, our cat Holly has fleas, so we’ve had to spray the house to try and get rid of them.  Also, my step-dad Terry has really bad back pain.  It first started a few weeks ago when he was leaning over to cut the hedge.  He had back pain for a few days, but it wasn’t too bad and it soon went away.  However, on Thursday morning the pain came back with a vengeance. On Friday he could hardly move – he couldn’t walk very far and he couldn’t drive either.  As he can’t drive, he hasn’t been able to visit a chiropractor.  On Friday evening we looked through the Yellow Pages and Terry phoned a chiropractor and he was told to use a hot water bottle and an ice-pack on his back (alternating between them every few minutes).  The chiropractor said that eventually Terry should feel well enough to be able to drive their practice.

Late last week we heard the news that our local woodland could be cut down by property developers.  There is a link to an article about this in the local newspaper here.  If you scroll to the bottom of the article, you will see that I’ve added a comment of my own.  Everyone in my family is very upset and angry about the proposals, particularly my grandmother as she often walks her dog there.  Last Saturday we went for a walk through the woods – this could be our last chance to do so before the houses are built.  Fortunately, the proposals haven’t actually been given the go-ahead yet, and we are hopeful that the local planning authority will reject the plans.  Here is a link to some photos I took of the woods last week.

Work is still going well – I am currently working on new websites for several weekly London newspapers.

This has been one action packed month! So many things have happened that I’m not sure where to start!

On the 13th of May I attended the Norwich City football club victory parade with Mum, my sister Suzanne and my nieces Anya and Emily.  Norwich City came top of Division 1 and they are being promoted to the Championship for the new season.  I’m not really a football fan, but I like the atmosphere of the victory parades – the last one was in 2004.  We all had a good time.

The following weekend, we went on a bluebell walk at Blickling Hall.  I always enjoy going on bluebell walks and I took many photos.  A week later we spent an afternoon at Redwings Horse Sanctuary.  The weather has been nice and sunny recently, so we have been going out more frequently at the weekend.

Towards the end of May, I received some good news at work.  My manager told me that I’d successfully completed my 3-month probationary period and that from then on I would be officially treated as a permanent member of staff.  I was so happy!  In general, work is going very well.  In the last few weeks, I have been studying more JavaScript and jQuery.  I think I’m getting the hang of jQuery – some of the things you can do with it are very effective.

I’ve been out clubbing with my friend Kay twice in the last 2 weeks.  I really enjoyed going clubbing last week – I felt as if I was in an extra good mood and I enjoyed it more than I normally do.  Yesterday I went with Kay and some of our other friends to watch the England match at The Woolpack pub.  There was a photographer from the local newspaper, the Evening News and they took a photo of us in our England T-shirts.  This afternoon I got a call from Suzanne saying that she’d seen the photo on the Evening News website.  I was so happy when I found out that our photo had been used!  It will probably be published in the paper version of the Evening News tomorrow, so I will have to remember to buy a copy.

On Wednesday evening I went to the cinema with Mum and Anya to see Streetdance 3D.  It’s one of the best films I have seen for a long time.  It featured a lot of famous street dance acts from shows such as Britain’s Got Talent and Got To Dance, including Diversity, Flawless, George Sampson and Akai.  The soundtrack was very good and I enjoyed the story as well.

Overall, it’s been a very exciting month!

The last month or so has gone well.  I am still enjoying my job – I have created 7 sites so far, but none of them have gone live yet.  Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before that happens.  Last week I had a catch-up meeting with my manager and he said that he’s very pleased with my progress so far, and that he’s received positive feedback from my colleagues.  We also discussed what I would be doing once I’d finished building all these new websites (which should be sometime in July) – he said that I would be involved in making further improvements to the site and adding extra functionality, such as geo-tagging and improving the event search pages.

Towards the end of April, I had a meal at Mambo Jambo’s with the IVC social club, which I enjoyed.  I also got myself a new hair cut (which I prefer to my old one) and some new clothes for the spring and summer.  We revisted Burlingham Woods for another walk, but almost all the daffodils had died out and the bluebells weren’t yet out.  There were a few primroses though.  We plan to go back again sometime to see the bluebells.

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend, and on the Saturday night I went clubbing with my friend Kay and her work colleague Rachel.  I met Kay out of work and we walked round Rachel’s house to get ready.  We then had a meal at Artorio’s restaurant on Riverside, which was really nice.  I had meatballs and spaghetti.  Then we went on to Lloyd’s and Chicago Rock Cafe.

On Thursday it was Terry’s birthday, so on Friday evening after work we all went out for meal at Malaysian Delights.  I had so much rice and noodles that I felt too full up to have a dessert, which is unlike me!  It was a nice evening though.

Yesterday morning I went to watch my niece Emily play football for her Norwich City girls’ team.  They were playing against Gorleston Rangers, and the match was held at the recreation ground just down the road.  It was freezing cold (ridiculously cold considering it’s May!) so I had to wrap up warm with my winter clothes!  It was also very grey and drizzly.  During the main part of the match, no one scored so it had to go to extra time.  In the end, Emily’s team lost but everyone thought that they played very well.  I had to warm up in front of the fire when I arrived back home!

All in all, I’m still very happy and 2010 is turning out to be a much better year than the dastardly 2009!

I enjoyed my Easter holidays last week (I had Good Friday and Easter Monday off work) and I went on a couple of daffodil walks.

For Good Friday, we spent most of the day taking Easter eggs to our relatives. On Easter Saturday, we went for a walk at Burlingham Woods, which is somewhere I’d never been or even heard of before.  It was a very enjoyable woodland walk and it was nice to be out in the fresh air.  I took several photos whilst I was there.

For Easter Sunday, I had a quiet day at home.  Mum bought me a Mars Easter egg and Terry bought me a Lindt Lindor one (which is my favourite chocolate).  On Easter Monday, we went for a walk along the riverside in Norwich.  There’s always lots of daffodils there every spring, in a wide variety of colours.  When I was younger (up until the age of 10), I often used to go and visit the daffodils there as my Dad lived in a flat just across the road from the river.  I always used to enjoy running amongst the daffodils and I even used to pick some and take them home.  Click here to see the photos.

Last night I had my belated birthday/Easter party with all my best friends – Naomi, Sarah, Kay and Gemma.  We had a meal at Frankie & Benny’s – the awkward thing was that they would only accept a booking for 5.30pm (they had another party booked for that table at 7.30pm), whereas Kay doesn’t finish work until 6pm.  So we had to book the table for 5.30pm and we had our drinks and starters while we were waiting for Kay to arrive.  Kay arrived at about 6.20pm.  Luckily it all worked out fine and we finished in good time – we even had enough time for dessert.  Then at 8pm we went to the cinema to see the new Nanny McPhee film.  It was very funny and we all really enjoyed it.  We also exchanged Easter eggs, which led to me getting 2 more chocolate eggs – a Crunchie egg and a Dairy Milk Buttons egg.   It was good to meet up with all my friends again – due to a couple of them studying away from home, it is only once or twice a year that I get to see them all together.

Work is still going well.  A couple of weeks ago, I went on a week-long Prestige training course which was held at the office.  I learnt about the Prestige system and how it interacts with the Polopoly content management system that I use in my day-to-day job.  I also learnt how to use Adobe InCopy and InDesign.  Although those programs are mainly aimed at print designers, it is still useful to know and InDesign does share several features with Photoshop.

I’ve also completed my first full website, for a weekly newspaper based in Hertfordshire.  It has been tested but it is not live yet – hopefully it will go live some time in the next few days or weeks.  In the meantime, I’m working on a website for a Devon weekly newspaper – I’m currently about 80% of the way through it.

I’ve also been studying some web development books in my spare time in the evenings and at weekends, in order to learn more about JavaScript and PHP.  I’m particularly interested in learning more about jQuery – one of my colleagues uses it a lot and he says it’s very good.  Overall, I’m very happy with the way things are going in my new job.

Now that it’s the weekend I’ve finally got time to blog about the non-work related things I’ve been doing recently.

During the Easter weekend I had my belated birthday party. We had a meal at Old Orleans restaurant and then we went to the cinema to see The Boat That Rocked. The best thing was that all 4 of my closest friends could make it – we hadn’t been out all together for several years! It was just like the old days when we were still at high school.

In April I hosted my first IVC event of my own – I arranged a meal at Malaysian Delights and 9 people attended. I was really pleased as it all went well. I’ve got a nightclub evening coming up soon, so I’m looking forward to that. Last week I went to Quasar Elite (the laser-gun game) but I wasn’t very good at it – in fact my score was the lowest out of the whole group! I enjoyed it as it was a new experience for me, but I don’t think I’d be that bothered about going there again. At least I now know what it’s like, as I have been curious about it in the past. I didn’t really expect to be very good at it, but I wanted to give it a try.

2 weeks ago I was sick and I had to go home after being at work for just over half an hour. This was the second time I was ill in the space of a month. No-one else in my family caught this bug, so I’m not sure how I got it – it could’ve been something I ate. I felt very weak and lethargic for most of that weekend. I went to Felbrigg Hall Gardens with Terry, but we had to return home after less than an hour as I felt so tired and lacking in energy. There weren’t that many flowers in bloom anyway, but I did take a few photos.

On Wednesday it was Terry’s 65th birthday. We plan to go to Malaysian Delights (what yet again, I hear you cry!) tomorrow evening to celebrate.

On Thursday 28th May it will be my sister Suzanne and her fiance Paul’s wedding. Finding a dress to wear at the wedding is proving to be difficult so far; I rarely ever wear dresses these days, and the ones I tried on yesterday evening didn’t suit me. Suzanne has her hen night on 16th May, so I’m looking forward to that.

My new job has been going well, mostly. I’ve created several ad-hoc reports so far. This morning was very tense though – I completed a report to a very tight deadline. I wasn’t totally happy with the layout of it, but I thought I’d better send it out anyway in order to ensure I met the deadline. All the necessary data was there, although the report wasn’t very elegant or user-friendly. I had to create the report using a pivot table in Excel, and I’m not an expert in constructing pivot tables (yet), although I know enough to get by.
This morning, I received a phone call from the person to whom I sent the report. I wasn’t too worried about this, as I thought she was just going to ask me some questions about how to use the report. However, it actually turned out to be a complaint! The lady said that she wouldn’t be able to use the report to extract the figures she wanted, as the drop-down menus weren’t working correctly. All the figures were there, but it would be very time-consuming for her to get the high-level summaries with the report in its current format. She didn’t sound really angry, but she wasn’t very happy as she urgently needed the report to be ready for a meeting later in the afternoon.
She was quite senior – in fact she’s the head of a department. I was really nervous during the phone call and I could feel my voice was a bit shaky, and that made me feel embarrassed. I apologised for the problems with the report and told her that I would make it my top priority to put it right, and that I’d ask other co-workers for advice if necessary. She seemed a bit happier then, although she said she definitely needed the report by mid-day at the very latest.
Straight after the phone call, I told my manager what had happened, and he helped me to rebuild the report. He was very patient with me and he showed me exactly what to do, so I should be better at creating pivot tables in the future. The new version was a lot easier to use, as you can easily see the summarised data. I managed to get the revised version of the report sent out just after 11am. I felt so relieved!
When I came back from lunch, my inbox contained a thank-you email from the lady, and she said the new version of the report was much more user-friendly. I was very happy about that, and it helped to put my mind at rest.
On Tuesday and Wednesday morning I had a co-worker training me on how to do ad-hoc reports and I was “shadowing” her for most of the time. Unfortunately she had to go home at mid-day on Wednesday because she was ill, and she hasn’t been back since then. So I’ve been completing several ad-hoc reports on my own, although I have been asking other colleagues for advice on where to find the raw data when necessary. I probably haven’t had as much training as I should have done. I would’ve preferred to have had more training before I began handling actual customer requests on my own, but I don’t suppose there was much that could’ve been done about it. I do feel bad though, as I hate to feel that I’ve inconvenienced someone, especially someone who is quite senior within the company. In future when I’m creating a complex report, I think I’ll ask one of my co-workers to peer review it before I send it out, until I build up more experience. Maybe I’m being too harsh on myself, as I’ve only been in the job for a week so far.

I didn’t update my blog last weekend because not many exciting things happened that week. In fact, the only exciting thing which happened that week was that I went to a co-worker’s leaving party at the Spice Lounge restaurant, as she has recently moved to a new department.

However, this week was much more exciting, and there were even a few surprises. The week began in a rather tense mood, as my sister Suzanne was told that she must attend a meeting on Monday morning, along with all the other staff at her shop, as the store manager would be making an important announcement. In advance of the meeting, the manager refused to say what the announcement would be about, so everyone was worried that it might mean the shop would be closed down and everyone would lose their jobs. However, it turned out to be not quite as bad as that. All the staff were called into the manager’s office one by one, to be told about the status of their jobs. A couple of people were made redundant, but Suzanne had her hours cut by 6 hours a week. She was very upset about this though, especially as her wedding is in May and she is saving up for that.

So Suzanne decided to start looking for another job. She searched on a local jobs site, and she saw an advert for a sales adviser job. The advert was from the same employment agency where I found my first full time job. Suzanne came round that evening as she wanted me to help her design a CV. She also told me more about the job, and it turned out that it is at the same company where I work! I was really surprised and pleased about this, even though she would be based in an office in a different part of the city from me. Suzanne went to register at the agency on Thursday evening and they gave her a mock interview and a typing test. She passed this test and has been offered an official interview which will take place on Wednesday.
I really want Suzanne to get this job, so I’ve been helping her prepare for the interview by giving her background information about the company (from the website) and printouts from websites containing tips about job interviews. Obviously there is no way of knowing exactly what questions will be asked at an interview, but there are several websites on the internet containing lists of frequently asked questions and how to prepare for them.

On Wednesday I met my friend Naomi for lunch. It was a big rush as Naomi’s lunch-hour didn’t start until about 1.10pm, but I had to be back at work for a team meeting at 2pm on the dot. This meant we didn’t even have time for a sit-down meal, so we ended up getting food from the market. I had chicken fried rice which turned out to be really greasy and yukky! But at least I got to see Naomi! It was a strange lunch-hour, as on at least 3 different occasions we overheard people in the city having noisy arguments with each other. So Naomi laughed and said, “Is it national swearing day today or something?!”

Last week I was really disappointed as my co-workers and I were supposed to be having an SQL programming course on Thursday and Friday, but the provider cancelled it on Wednesday as there were problems with the payment. However, yesterday we were all told that it would be re-scheduled for Thursday and Friday next week, so I’m pleased about that, even though it meant I had to abandon my plans to take Friday off as holiday. Instead, I’m taking the following Monday and Tuesday as holiday because my birthday is on Sunday so I’ll be able to have a long weekend.

That brings me onto my next subject – it’s my 25th birthday on Sunday 15th February. However, I’m like the Queen because I have to have 2 birthdays! This is because a couple of my friends won’t be available until Easter as they are studying away from home, and I wouldn’t want them to be excluded from my celebrations. So I will do what I did last year: I will have a meal with Mum and Terry near my actual birthday, and then I will have a separate party with my friends during the Easter holidays. I’ll be having my meal with Mum and Terry at Mambo Jambos on Monday 16th February.

It’s nearly midnight and I still haven’t mentioned everything I want to cover, but I’m starting to get tired so I’ll stop now.

The last few days have been pretty good. Last Tuesday I met my friends Naomi and Sarah in the evening after work and we went to the cinema to see Bride Wars. I enjoyed the film; it was very funny! Afterwards we had a meal at Nando’s. It was the first time I’d ever been there, but I liked it. I had the peri peri chicken with mango and lime sauce. It was very hot and spicy to start off with, and my eyes started to water a little bit. After a few minutes, I got used to it and it didn’t seem so bad. For dessert, I had vanilla ice cream with toffee-chili sauce, which was nice and it helped to cool my mouth down after eating all that spicy chicken! It was good to see Naomi and Sarah, especially as Sarah returned to university a couple of days ago for the spring term, which means I won’t be able to see her again until Easter.

On Friday I had my end-of-year appraisal for 2008. (These always take place in January, for reviewing the second half of the previous year. We have appraisals once every 6 months where I work). I was really pleased with how my appraisal went, in fact I think it was probably my best ever. While I was preparing for my appraisal, I received a lot of feedback from my co-workers – 8 people responded to my feedback request, whereas usually only 3 or 4 people reply. They were all pleased with the work I have been doing, although most of them still said that I am very quiet and that they would like to hear me speak up in meetings more often.

During my appraisal, my manager said that he is very pleased with my progress over the last 6 months, especially my technical work. He also said that my “soft skills”, eg communication, relationship management and decisiveness have improved, although he hopes they will improve further in 2009 (so do I!). During the appraisal session, my manager gave me some good ideas about how I can improve in 2009.

For example, in the past I’ve had a tendency to send people emails rather than go and speak to them face-to-face, mainly if there is a problem or misunderstanding about something. That’s because I’m not very confident about solving misunderstandings face-to-face, as I’m afraid of inadvertently saying something that might hurt the other person’s feelings. Also, sometimes when I’m very busy with my work, I find it easier to write an email rather than get up from my desk and go and see the person. It’s not that I never used to go and speak to people face-to-face, it’s just that I should do it more often. I think the managers of our department want everyone to reduce the amount of email they send. My manager said that progress can often be quicker by speaking to the other person face-to-face.

So yesterday I decided to give it a go. I went and spoke to an additional 4 people face-to-face, whereas in the past I would have probably sent them a quick email. I found that most things can be done much quicker face-to-face, and I felt more productive. You get a response instantly, whereas with an email you might sometimes have to wait a while for the other person to reply. I also felt more confident.

On Friday evening, I met Mum after work and we went to see the film Slumdog Millionaire. It was a good film with a good storyline, although some parts of it (particularly towards the beginning) were rather violent and disturbing. After the film, we had a buffet meal at Malaysian Delights, which I enjoyed as I hadn’t been there for quite a while.

On Saturday evening I had a meal at the Old Orleans restaurant at Riverside, organised by the IVC club. I enjoyed the meal and several friendly people were there. It was the first IVC event I had attended in about 3 weeks, as I was too ill to go to a couple of the events in December, and none of the events at the beginning of January really interested me. However, it looks like there are going to be several interesting events in February, such as a ten-pin bowling night. By February, I should be a fully paid-up member which means I’ll be allowed to organise my own events. On the first Wednesday in February, I’ll be co-hosting a clubnight at the pub/restaurant near my house. (It was another member who suggested to me that we organise an event together). I won’t have to do anything particularly daunting though, it just means that some of the calls/text messages/emails from members wanting to attend will probably come through to me and then it’s just a matter of turning up on the night.

We had some good news yesterday as my step-dad Terry has been offered a new job. He will start in February and he’ll actually be working for his previous employer (the same company he worked for before he retired 5 years ago). The job will involve developing sales leads, which I think is similar to the job he used to do. He will only be working 3 days a week (Tuesday to Thursday), but that’s all he wanted as he will soon be old enough for his pension anyway! I’m very relieved that Terry has found a new job, as I did start to get worried for him, as I thought that it might take a long time because a lot of companies are laying people off at the moment.

That sums up the most interesting events of my life over the last week or so!

My first week back at work has gone quite well, although I’ve been very busy already. On Friday I was told that I (and all the other technical staff in my department) will be going on an IBM DB2 SQL course at the end of the month. It’s a 2-day course, and one of the good things about it is that the tutors will be coming to us, so that we won’t have to travel anywhere. We will also get a completion certificate and a USB drive containing the training notes at the end of it. I already know quite a lot of SQL, but this course is specific to DB2 SQL, so it may be slightly different to what I’ve used before.
One of the reasons why I’ve been extra busy this week is because a lady in my team has been off sick for several months and I’ve been asked to continue with some of her work. Up until this week, most of her work had been put on hold, as the managers didn’t know when she would be well enough to return to work.

Last Saturday I went nightclubbing with my friend Kay. This time we went to Liquid nightclub, which was a new experience for me, and I enjoyed myself. They have several lava lamps dotted around the edge of the dancefloor, which was pretty. It wasn’t particularly busy though, but I suppose this was because a lot of people had already gone out for New Year’s Eve, so they probably didn’t feel like going out again just a couple of days later.

As for what I did on New Year’s Eve, I just stayed at home and watched the London fireworks display on TV, like I normally do.

Something funny happened on Monday morning – Kay played a trick on me! I have an hour for lunch at work, and once I’ve finished eating my dinner I usually go and sit in the nice breakout area above the canteen. There, I usually switch on my mobile phone and check for any text messages. Then I visit the mobile versions of websites such as Twitter and Facebook, mainly to check people’s status messages.
That day, Kay had sent me a text message which really shocked me as it was out-of-the-blue. It said “I know it’s a surprise but just thought I’d let you know I’m moving to France Wednesday 7th Jan. I’ll keep in touch. Take care, I’ll miss you.”
I then started thinking how weird this all was; for example I was wondering why Kay didn’t mention this when we went out on Saturday. I was also wondering why she had all of a sudden decided to move to France, and who would be going with her. Even though it all seemed very strange, I didn’t think it was totally implausible, as Kay can be quite spontaneous at times. I just assumed that maybe she would be going with her new boyfriend. Anyway, I decided to reply to the message, asking why she was moving to France and who she would be going with.
Just as I was keying in the reply, my phone beeped as I had just received another text message, but I decided to carry on anyway and I sent the reply. Then I opened the new text message – it was from Kay again, and at first it was the same as the previous one. Then I noticed that there was a scrollbar to the right of the screen, meaning the message was too long to fit on the screen in one go. I assumed it would be just whitespace, but I decided to scroll down anyway. It was then that I realised that the whole thing was a joke – the sentence right at the very bottom of the message said: “Send this to 10 people in 10 minutes and see what replies you get from the muppets that don’t scroll down!”
I felt relieved that Kay wasn’t really moving abroad, but at the same time I felt a bit stupid and embarrassed that I had actually replied to the message before realising it was a joke! I’m not normally that easily tricked! Looking back, it does seem like an amusing prank to play on a friend.

This has been one of the most bizarre Christmases of my life. Fortunately, we’ve all been slowly recovering from our illnesses, but none of us was feeling 100%. Over the last few days I’ve been feeling very lethargic – even if I sleep for more than 10 hours a night, my eyes still feel tired and I don’t have much energy. I haven’t really felt like doing much, so it’s unlikely I’ll set up my new website for at least another few weeks, as it’s nowhere near ready!

As for Christmas day itself, I woke up at 8.30am and opened my presents, like I usually do. My main present this year was a new CD player – one which can play MP3 CDs as well as normal CDs. It is fairly similar to the one which Terry bought Mum for her 60th birthday, which is in the lounge. I also received several smaller presents, such as new tops, chocolate selection boxes, CDs and DVDs.

After opening our presents and having breakfast, Mum and I went round my sister Suzanne’s house to exchange presents. Terry usually goes as well, but this year he didn’t feel like it and I think he was also afraid of spreading his illness. We only stayed for about 20 minutes anyway, as Suzanne and her family had arrangements of their own.

Terry still cooked our Christmas dinner as usual, but unfortunately he ended up leaving most of his meal as he didn’t feel like eating much. He has lost his appetite in recent days, and he just doesn’t seem his normal self. I think a lot of it could also be to do with the fact that he is upset about what happened to his Earsham Fencing business. He had been running that company for 4 and a half years (he set it up when he retired from his full-time job as a sales rep), so it must feel strange for him, like he is at a loose end. At least he has been offered a new job though, so he will probably start sometime in January.

On Monday night before Christmas, I went to see my friends Gemma and Naomi at the Railway Tavern pub near where Naomi lives. Unfortunately Naomi’s sister Sarah couldn’t make it as she was ill, but it was still a nice evening. We sat by the roaring open fire, had a couple of drinks and discussed what we had been doing for the last few months (Gemma lives quite far away from us, so we only get to see her about twice a year). During the evening, Gemma mentioned that she would like to go to the cinema to see Madagascar 2. I said that I’d be interested in seeing that too. So on the Wednesday (Christmas Eve) we all went to the cinema. Luckily, Sarah was well enough by then, so she could go too. It was a good film. The only bad part of the day was that we had to run for the bus on the way home from the cinema, and that made me have a massive coughing fit!

I return to work next Monday, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal by then.

It will soon be time for me to do my review of 2008. I always look forward to writing my review of the year – it gives me a chance to reflect on what has happened over the previous 12 months, so that I feel prepared and refreshed ready for the new year.