Very sad news today. One of my work colleagues died over the weekend.

Aged 32.

Very fit - in every sense of the word.

It is just awful.

2 hours, 15 minutes, 37 seconds.

That is one hell of a phone call.

LELI is in the depths of Oop Norf, alone in a hotel. I offered to ring him when he finished dinner (and I had finished making my goulash soup - yummy!).

Jesus, calls that long to his home country will cost me a bloody fortune!

Went back to parents this weekend, to take my mom to a health farm. My sister and I promised we’d take her if she got a new swimming costume, as her Mother’s Day present.

It was also Father’s Day this weekend, since my dad didn’t know what he wanted this year - said he had everything he wanted - so I took him 4 large steaks from the butchers at the local farm shop, and some of the local potatoes. He was dead chuffed.

Yesterday was when we took mom to the health farm. It was fun. I expected there to be tears from us all, but there wasn’t any. Well, apart from those of laughter. We had such a fun time, but we did so much.

We got there at 8.30, paid an extra £5 to have the buffet breakfast there, then spent the whole day doing some sort of active thing - cycling, walking, swimming, sauna, steam room jacuzzi, ‘water massage therapy’, yoga, pilates, gym workout.

I don’t ache as much as I thought I would. I went to bed super early last night though, and tonight will also be an early one, since sleeping at my parents I never get a decent sleep.

I do sometimes wonder how I can be part of that family though. At lunch yesterday, my mom and sister were discussing pubs they had been to recently for dinner. My mom was complaining about one in particular, about how long it took for the food to be served. My sister compared this to another one she had been to - where from the time of ordering, to the time it was served was 10 minutes, and how it only cost £5 for two dinners. They both agreed this was a great place to eat.

Now. This is my idea of food hell. 10 minutes? That tells me it’s a supermarket microwave meal, with the extra 4 minutes taken to place it on a plate, drop on a sprig of parsley and bring plate to table. And for that I would want to pay considerably less than £5 for 2 meals. In fact I wouldn’t pay for it - you would have to pay me to eat somewhere like that.

They really don’t seem to understand that for ‘proper’ food, you have to wait for it to cook. Not wait while it is heated. If I want fast food, I’ll go to Burger King. At least they don’t pretend to be anything they are not.

What a day. Spent the whole day in a meeting with consultants. It was actually not that bad a meeting, just long. S, the boss annoyed me. I have been saying for weeks she needed to come to this meeting, and she has basically been saying that she finds the project boring, and she can’t be bothered to come, she has other things to do.

She said she would come along for the first bit, and then leave.

It became clear very early on that she was needed for a decision (I am not in a position to make this type of decision - basically to choose between using incorrect data, or delay the project by 3-4 weeks). I waited, and waited until I lost my rag, and had to leave the meeting to go and fetch her. She was pissed off that she had to come, like it was a big deal.

Her comment on being at the meeting was she didn’t realise it was so important, and that so many of the consultants would be there.

It was noticable then that she stayed for the rest of the day.

Creepy A was there, and stupidly, when I spoke with him on the phone yesterday and he asked if I was around tonight I said yes. So of course he expected me to have dinner with him. God bless LELI for saving me. Well, half saving me, and coming along too.

We spent ages chatting in the pub, and then went to the restaurant for food (thank god for the speed of Nando’s). At 9.30 I put my coat on, even though LELI still has half a glass of wine to drink.

“I need to go now, before they close the car park at 10.”

He waves at his drink, “Wait 5 seconds, I will finish this.”

“It won’t be 5 seconds, it will be 5 minutes.”

I was wrong. It was almost 15 minutes.

We leave Nando’s and LELI has his bike outside. He rides it alongside Creepy A and I, as we walk towards his hotel and the carpark. We say goodbye to Creepy A (quickly, as 10 o’clock is quickly approaching), and LELI carries on alongside me.

“Why are you cycling this way, when you live in the opposite direction?”

He shrugs - quite impressive, as he was riding his bike at the same time. “I will see you to your car.”

We end up parked outside the carpark, his bike leaning against a lamppost, sitting and chatting. Until 20 to midnight. And only finished then because I was desperate for the toilet.

God, I will miss him when he goes.

…is my new bestest friend in the whole world.

Her response, via email, when I told her I was 39 was, “How on earth are you anything over 27-29 ish?! Sorry, I’m just a little stunned at that one! I didn’t think you were that much older than me!”

And she’s only 21!

Just got in from aerobics and belly dance class, I am knackered!

Tonight X and I went back to the gym we went to last Monday, for aerobics and yoga. Laughing about whether yoga would be cancelled again.

Get to the window, hand over my entrance card, to be told that yoga has been cancelled.

Again.

Oh well, just aerobics then.

We get changed, and head off up to the room for the aerobics. X and I are the only ones there. But then, we were early. We stand chatting, and I show her some of the new moves from belly dancing last week (she didn’t go).

We chat some more.

Eventually we leave the room, and are heading for downstairs when this guy bursts through the doors. “Are you ladies waiting for the aerobics? Sorry, it’s been cancelled.”

Well bugger me, how bloody annoying.

We went to the gym, but it was awful, full of bambi women, and testosterone fuckwits.

Give them one more chance next week, otherwise we’ll go off and find another one.

Bit of a shitty day at work, just not got the motivation any more. ONB is in a mess. Can’t really blog it, because I know he is trawling the internet for information, and if I write about it, it will turn up on google. I am just hoping that everything will turn out alright for him in the end.

Two plus points - LELI was back today, and I went to lunch with my new work friend. She is a temp covering for one of the PA’s, and she is so nice. We exchanged almost whole life stories in an hour and 15 minutes, it was incredible. It usually takes months for me to share some of the things I shared with her, and sometimes I never end up sharing it with some people.

Mind you, she is training to be a counsellor!

This is why I don’t want LELI to go. One bottle of red wine, and onto the raspberry vodka. Of he was around, we’d have gone out, I’d be driving, and not drinkign.

And another thing for Lionel.

I don’t need to make up the rules, somebody already has!

….is so much better than cooking for one.

Although Lionel’s eyes almost popped out of his head when I brought the veggie pasta bake out of the oven.

“Am I expected to eat *all* of that?”

I had made quite a lot of it - but it’s to feed me for the week. I didn’t do any cooking last weekend, so have spent the week eating crap. Now I have pasta bake, and feta and pepper spread to eat at work for lunch and before my energetic exercises.

Tomorrow I might make soup, since Lionel inadvertently reminded me of a soup cook book I have. I will see what ingredients I have, see if I can actually make some without having to go to the supermarket.

I also made some super-duper scrummy oaty peanut butter biscuits. The recipe called for chocolate chips to be added, but I added caramel chips instead. To be honest, I don’t think they needed either - detracts from the oaty goodness of the biscuit (of course they are good for me - they have oats in. Shhhh, don’t mention all the sugar, butter and peanut butter…..).

They will also give me lots of energy for my energetic exercises. See? Good for me.

Although I have had 3 of them tonight, and the most exercise I have had is bending down to take them out of the oven.

Weather has been pretty crappy here the last few days.

This picture is from Thursday night, before we went inside for the girly meal. The sky was incredible, and in the background, you can see where the rain ends.

This picture is of Friday morning, when I was waiting at the station for the taxi to bring me home again. It was about 7 o’clock, before there was much traffic about. The sky was absolutely black, although the picture doesn’t do the sky justice. Can’t really complain, given it was taken with my phone!