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• is still feeling a little tired after going out nightclubbing last night – I didn’t get to sleep until just after 4am! #
• I’m liking the new themes on Gmail! #
• I’ve got a mammoth 3 hour meeting this afternoon (to discuss our team strategy for 2009) #
• The 3-hour meeting went well, although the 2nd half was a bit boring as it wasn’t really relevant to my own work tasks. #
• is fed up with popular people who know absolutely everyone and get invited out absolutely everywhere! #
• My eyes have been stinging for most of the day – not sure why, as i’ve been getting at least 7.5 hours sleep for the last 3 nights #
• As mentioned in my last blog post, i’ve got my first IVC meeting this evening and i’m feeling nervous as i’ve never met any of the people #
• It’s been a very busy day, but also a good day. The meeting went well after all. #
• is feeling very tired and can’t wait to go to bed extra early tonight #
• It’s been a very busy week – I feel like a zombie and I’m very tired! At least I don’t have to get up until about 9am tomorrow! #
• On another subject, I’m looking forward to going to the Chocolate Show with my friend Naomi tomorrow! http://chocshow.com/ #
• I must have slept for about 11 hours last night – i feel so much better now. Chocolate Show here we come! #

I’ve been sitting here for the last few minutes, pondering where to start. I’ve had another busy week, with preparations for Christmas coming up. At work I’ve also been busy trying to get all my major projects completed before the holidays start.

On Thursday night the Christmas lights were switched on outside City Hall, so I met Mum after work and we watched the switch-on together. The ceremony was better than in previous years, as this time they had carol singers and fake snow too! As usual, there was a burst of fireworks as the lights were switched on. Seeing the lights switch-on always makes me happy, as it means the Christmas holidays are just around the corner and it puts me in a festive mood.

I’ve also been reflecting on the year so far and what aspects of my life have changed. Overall, I feel much happier now than I was this time last year, or even this time 2 years ago. So far, 2008 has been a better year than 2004 (which was when I first started this blog), 2006 and 2007. This year, I’ve been able to meet up with my friends more frequently than has been possible in the past, and I also enjoy my current job more than the jobs I had a year or two ago. It’s fairly unlikely that there will ever be a better year than 2005, as that was a really good year for me, with several happy events such as my 21st birthday, my graduation, Mum and Terry’s wedding, my first 2-week holiday in the Lake District, getting my first ever full-time job, amongst several other things. However, this year I have been feeling more confident in myself, and fortunately nothing too negative or scary has happened to me so far this year, unlike in previous years.

Last night (Saturday night) I went clubbing with my friend Kay. The evening started just after 8pm when I met Kay in the Glasshouse pub, where she was having a meal with her co-worker Rachel and Greg (Rachel’s boyfriend). I didn’t have anything to eat as I had already had dinner at home – the others had gone to the Glasshouse straight after work, so they were hungry. Rachel and Greg went home straight after the meal – it seems that Rachel doesn’t like going to nightclubs as much as she used to in the past. So again, it was just me and Kay who went to the club. The nightclub we went to was the Chicago Rock Cafe. I had wanted to go to Mercy, but Kay doesn’t like it there quite so much.

We were going to go to Liquid afterwards, but we didn’t realise they stop letting people in after 1am and we were 5 minutes too late so we got turned away! (I don’t think it actually closes until 2am, but for some reason they don’t let any more people in after 1am). I was a bit disappointed about that, as I’ve never been to the Liquid nightclub before, and I had wanted to see what it was like. Oh well, maybe we will go there next time instead. Kay had been going to sleep round my house, to save her having to get a taxi home as my house is closer to the city, but her cat Mally was ill so she decided she had better go home. When Kay first told me about Mally a few weeks ago, I remember thinking that it was an unusual name for a cat. There was a boy in our class at high school who was nicknamed Mally, so I thought perhaps Kay had named the cat after him! However, when I asked her, she laughed and said that wasn’t the case at all! It turned out that when she first got the cat, she thought it was female, so she called it Molly. Then the vet told her it was actually male, so she changed the name to Mally, as it is fairly similar.

Following on from what I said in a previous post, I have joined the local IVC club and I will be attending my first clubnight this Wednesday. It will consist of a meal at a local hotel with 30-40 other members. I am a bit nervous about it, as I won’t know any of the people there at all. (It was one of my managers who told me about the club, but she won’t be attending on Wednesday as she hasn’t yet decided whether to renew her membership for the coming 12 months, since she is often too busy to attend many of the events). It actually took me about 2 days to muster up the courage to send an email to the new members’ officer to enquire about joining! However, they soon replied to me, saying that they would make me feel very welcome on the evening.

I’m always nervous when meeting people for the first time, and just a couple of years ago I would have probably been too scared to join an events club like this. But I also realise that it could help me meet new friends and get me out and about in my free time in the evenings and at weekends, rather than spending so much time at home on my computer or reading magazines etc. Many times in the past, my co-workers asked me on a Monday morning if I went anywhere nice at the weekend, and I remember that I often used to say that I had done nothing exciting and that I had just had a quiet weekend in. Some people must have thought that I was boring. I don’t want to be boring! So even though I’m nervous about attending this club for the first time, I know that it could potentially change my life for the better and help me to become more confident and outgoing. The worst thing that could possibly happen is that I don’t enjoy it or I don’t like the other members very much, and in that case I would never have to go again. So I may as well try it.

• I’m currently trying to sort out my TwitterTools weekly digest, containing all my tweets from last week. #
• Yay, it’s worked: http://creamed-coconut.org/wp/?p=284 #
• I’m currently writing content for my new website to be launched in January. I only get a few hours at the weekend to work on this. #
• Had a weird nightmare: someone was angry with me and a few others, so they sent a diseased toucan out to bite us #
• Today has been 1 of those “Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong” days: a bad start to the week. At least things can only get better! #
• wishes there were newspapers or magazines in this office to read at lunchtime #
• Today has just been an ordinary day for me. Nothing too exciting and nothing too irritating. #
• is feeling in a festive mood, as the Christmas lights outside City Hall will be switched on this evening #
• The Christmas lights switch-on was good, and they had carol singers and fake snow too. #
• I’m excited because I’m going out clubbing with my friend Kay tomorrow night. #
• I’m confused – my bank rejected my payment to Windows Live OneCare. No idea why – they must have thought it was a suspicious transaction?? #
• After searching on Google, it seems that other people have had problems subscribing to OneCare too. I’ve sent a message to billing support. #
• Grr! What is it with all these strange error messages on Facebook today?! It happens virtually every time you click a link! #
• Yay! It’s snowing again! It snowed overnight too, but it was only a light dusting. #

• I’ve just got back from seeing my niece Emily – she is 10 today #
• I’ve just eaten my lunch and now i’m dreading fixing these really slow database queries when i go back to work #
• This freaky woman keeps walking up and down our office with a clipboard – nobody knows who she is or what she’s doing :-S #
• I’m glad to be home at last, in the warm. It’s been a long day – my usual bus home was cancelled, so I had to get a different one. #
• Eek! My right shoe fell off, just as i was walking past a huge line of traffic. It happens: my right foot is slightly smaller than my left. #
• Just posted another blog entry: http://creamed-coconut.org/wp/?p=279 I’ve been updating my site much more regularly recently. #
• I’ve just installed TwitterTools to my blog: it’s really good. #
• I can just tell that this project is going to be a nightmare. Testing results are not looking good so far. :’( #
• I’ve just bought some nice cakes for the charity cake sale we are having at work tomorrow #
• Thinking I’d better go to bed early tonight, as I’ve got a busy day tomorrow and I’m going to the cinema straight after work. #
• The cake sale this morning was good and i liked the fondant fancies. Hopefully i will enjoy the quiz after lunch. #
• I just know that some of my colleagues cheated in the charity quiz by googling answers, and this makes me feel sad #
• I’ve just been to the cinema with Mum to see Quantum of Solace. We also had dinner at Malaysian Delights. It was a good evening. #
• Got woken up after 7 hours sleep this morning. I feel a bit groggy but couldn’t go back to sleep. Will probably have a nap later. #
• Is wondering when the X Factor will start #
• My friend Kay texted me a few minutes ago asking if I want to go clubbing tonight – I had to say no because it’s too short notice. #
• Oh no! A mouth-ulcer appeared on my lower gum just a few minutes ago and it is sore. No idea what caused it! #
• It’s 11pm – I’m going to bed now as I’m feeling sleepy. I never did have that nap in the end. #

On Monday evening we went round my sister Suzanne’s house to see my niece Emily, as it was her 10th birthday. It was a good evening. My present to Emily was a posh box of Thornton’s milk chocolates. She also got some good presents from her parents, including a Nintendo Wii and an iPod Nano. Suzanne’s fiance Paul baked the birthday cake, which was a nice chocolate cake with white chocolate buttons.
As a coincidence, on the same day Suzanne was featured in the local newspaper, the Evening News. Every week, the newspaper has a reader makeover section. As Suzanne works in the clothes shop Outfit, she was chosen to give fashion advice to the lady having the makeover. We went out and bought copies of the paper, but the full article, complete with all the pictures, is available online if you click here.

When I arrived at work on Monday morning, I told some of my colleagues about the firework display that I attended on Saturday night. I also mentioned about the fireworks being 35 minutes late. It turned out that several of my co-workers had attended the same fireworks display (although I never saw them because there were thousands of people there). It seems that the organisers deliberately decided to delay the fireworks display because there were still queues of traffic outside the venue at 8.15pm, and they didn’t want anyone to miss the fireworks. At least I now know why they were late!

Recently, one of my managers at work has been trying to persuade me to join the IVC (Inter-Varsity Club) which is an events-based social club. She has been a member herself for a long time, and she thinks it would help me find more friends and improve my confidence. Today she brought in a programme of events, covering the next few weeks and it sounds really good, so I think I will join. All the events are organised by the members themselves, and there are usually about 2 or 3 events per week, such as visits to the cinema, walks in the countryside, 10-pin bowling, pub nights, club nights, meals out, parties and many other things. The club was originally aimed at recent university graduates, hence its name, but its scope has widened over recent years. They encourage each member to put on one or two events a year, but it doesn’t need to be anything complicated; it can be as simple as arranging a visit to the cinema or booking a meal at a restaurant. Every month, all the upcoming events are collated into a bulletin which is sent out to all members, and then people contact you if they are interested in coming to your event. I never even knew this club existed before my manager mentioned it, so it will be good to see what it’s like.

In spite of what I wrote in yesterday’s post, we did manage to get out to see the fireworks display at the Norfolk Showground as it stopped raining. I was very pleased about that! Terry agreed to drive us there, but he didn’t stay as he is still busy working on the new porch on the front of the house. (He is very eager to get it completed by Christmas). There was a funfair and I went on a few of the rides. After that we had a hotdog each, although we had to queue up for about half an hour to get them. I liked my hotdog, although Mum said she found hers a bit greasy. Unfortunately, there was no bonfire at the event (which was a bit disappointing, considering the event was held to celebrate Bonfire Night). The fireworks were due to start at 8.15pm, so we started waiting at about 8.10pm. However, at 8.15pm nothing happened. Even at 8.30pm, the fireworks still hadn’t started, but there had been no annoucement about what was happening either. I began to get worried, thinking that maybe something had gone wrong and they would have to cancel the fireworks. At about 8.45pm, when there was still no sign of any fireworks and no annoucement, some of the people in the crowd became frustrated and started slow hand-clapping and jeering. About 5 minutes later, the fireworks finally started. They were really good fireworks though, so it was worth the wait in the end, but I think next year we will go to the Earlham Park display, as long as it’s not raining!

In my post yesterday I said that we would be going to the cinema to see the new James Bond film if we didn’t go to the fireworks. Now we plan to do that one evening this week instead.

I’ve had a very busy few days, with a number of happy events as well as disappointments. On Tuesday, my immediate department had an “away day” which is when we spend a day at a local conference centre and they organise presentations, talks and interactive sessions about various work-related issues. I took part in several group discussions and I was also picked at random to stand up in front of everyone and present my group’s ideas. I was a bit nervous about that, but it was only a quick 30-second presentation so it wasn’t too scary and I managed it fine.

We also had 2 free meals in one day! Let me explain: usually, when we go on an away day, they organise a buffet for lunch, and that’s what happened this time as well. (On a normal work day, people make their own arrangements for lunch). However, as it’s nearly the end of the year, they decided that we should all have a nice celebration meal in the evening as well, to celebrate our achievements this year. We had the evening meal on the same day as the away day – we went to an Italian/Mediterranean restaurant called Artorio’s, based on Riverside. I had never been there before, but it’s only been open for a few months anyway. The food was good and it was different to the sort of restaurants I would normally go to, so it was a nice change. They served up several different dishes of food, and you could put whatever you wanted on your own plate. My favourite dish was the chicken in a tomato-based sauce. For dessert I had rose-flavoured ice cream, which was very unusual. I had lavender-flavoured ice cream when I was on holiday, but I’d never tried rose ice cream before. I really liked it, but a lot of the others didn’t and they left some of theirs.

Now on to the disappointments: this is the second year in a row that our Bonfire Night celebrations have been ruined. You may remember that last year we missed the fireworks display because someone had put the wrong time on the events website, so that by the time we arrived, the fireworks had already begun and the gates were locked. This year, the official Bonfire Night fell on Wednesday (5th November), so a lot of people were holding their firework displays Saturday last week and today (in addition to Wednesday itself). The big Earlham Park firework display was held last Saturday, and that’s the one I wanted to go to, but heavy rain was forecast so we decided not to go in the end. I was really disappointed about that, but I read on the local news website that visitor numbers were only a third of what they usually are. I also had a hairdressing appointment yesterday, and the hairdresser said that some of her friends went to the Earlham Park display, but because of the heavy rain they decided to go home before the fireworks had even started! Apparently, they were soaked to the bone, and even their wallets and money were all wet! So now I’m glad we didn’t go.
As we missed Saturday’s display, we decided we would go to a local one at the Sprowston scout hut on Wednesday. Terry drove us there, and it was quite difficult to find somewhere to park, but by the time we got near the entrance gates, there were hundreds of people standing on the road, and the attendants told us that they couldn’t let any more people in through the gates as the venue was full. So a lot of people had decided to stand on the road and try to watch the fireworks from there, but we decided to go home as it wouldn’t be so much fun. There would have been no atmosphere and we wouldn’t have been able to see the bonfire anyway. So that was our second Bonfire Night event ruined. We think the reason why the venue got full up so early is because a lot of people who didn’t go to last Saturday’s display because of the rain decided to go to that one instead.
Then we decided that we would go to the big fireworks display at the Norfolk Showground on Saturday (ie today). Guess what? Rain is forecast yet again, so it’s unlikely that we will still go. In fact it started to rain about 5 minutes ago, while I am typing this blog entry. That’s the third fireworks display ruined! So Mum and I have decided to go to the cinema instead, to see the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace. Before the film starts we plan to have a meal at Malaysian Delights. So at least we will still have some kind of happiness this evening. I just hope that next year’s firework displays will be OK – it’s annoying that everything has gone wrong for 2 years in a row now.

At least something amusing happened yesterday – a lady at work (who works downstairs on the level below mine) decided to hold a cake sale at her desk to raise additional funds for the local hospital, as her uncle had recently received treatment there. I had never met the lady before, as she is based in a different department, but she had sent out an email inviting all the people in our wing of the office to come to the cake sale. So just after 10am I decided to take a wander down to see what was available. I was impressed at just how many cakes there were – we do occasionally hold charity cake sales on our floor, but they never seem quite so popular. A lemon cake caught my eye, but the slices were very big, so I had second thoughts about buying a piece. I looked around some more and I decided that I would have a slice of the lemon cake anyway, as well as a cookie. So I paid my money and then went back up to my desk. I had the slice of lemon cake on a paper plate next to my computer, and I was eating it gradually as it would be too much for me to eat all in one go. It had icing on the top and butter cream in the middle. Several of my co-workers teased and joked with me about the size of the cake – they kept saying things like “That’s a big piece of cake you’ve got there!”, “Is that a whole cake you’ve got there?” and one man even laughed and said, “That could kill a child!” These comments made me laugh and I was grinning to myself as I was eating the piece of cake. Even once I had eaten about 75% of the cake, someone wandered past my desk and said it looked like a big piece of cake, so I was thinking to myself, “You ought to have seen it when I first got it!”

I think I’ve finally managed to get Twitter working again. It seemed that I must have been using an old link on my mobile phone, so that when I sent a message via mobile web it didn’t work. However, I found out the correct link and I sent a test message, and fortunately it worked. So I will start using it more often now.