I had to leave the pussy cats for two nights this weekend. When I got home yesterday, of course the first thing they do is run away. They then spent the rest of the evening playing, “I want to come, I want to go out.”

Had a big cuddle off Mister, until he remembered he was supposed to be sulking, so he went to sit on the other settee, but as close to me as he could get.

Madam, didn’t seem all that bothered.

Come bedtime, and they are both in.

I go to bed, and Madam is sat on the bed up near the pillows. This isn’t where she normally sits - she normally sits near the bottom, so I can get in the bed without disturbing her too much. Great. She often goes a bit ‘mental’ if you try and move her when she’s all settled.

“Come on sweetheart,” I said, patting the bottom of the bed. “Why don’t you come down here?” Little, mew, and lo and behold, she stood up and walked down the bed. She let me get in with not a murmur, and as soon as I was lain down, she crawled back up to lie next to me for a cuddle.

I was deeply honoured - she doesn’t do this very often.

Then there was almost a fight as Mister jumped on to the bed, almost on top of her. This would normally lead to a big hissy fight, and them both jumping off, but instead Mister just headed down the bed, to lie on my legs the other side of me. Five minutes later, Madam headed down there too.

So, I spent most of the night penned in, with one cat stretched out against one leg, and the other stretched out against the other.

There is nothing in the world to make you feel all warm and fuzzy like having such love from 2 cats.

But it got bloody hot, and in the end I had to kick them off!

I left work late tonight, so instead of going to Pilates, I went to Sainsbury’s.

I only really needed some cat food.

I spent £60.

Part of that was down to them having some very good wine offers on at the moment, with some nice wines at half price, putting them less than £4 a bottle.

And of course, once I had bought a couple, it’s then worth buying 4 more, since I get another 25% off.

Lots of other things were bought - cat litter, washing powder, diet coke.

When I got home, Mister was waiting for me. Very vocal, as he had obviously been hanging around in the rain, waiting for me. I opened the front door to let him in, and then went back to the car to get the shopping.

I loaded up with shopping bags first time round.

Second time, I grabbed some more shopping bags, my lunch cool bag, and my sports bag with my pilates stuff in.

By this time, Mister is totally getting on my nerves, insisting on walking underfoot and almost tripping me up.

While I was in the kitchen I heard, “Wine!”, and some clinking.

I ran to the front door, and just caught sight of a bike riding off behind the neighbours wall.

Bastards had grabbed all 6 bottles of wine in the nice cardboard wine carrier the nice lady at Sainsbury’s had offered as I was putting them into carrier bags.

I suppose it serves me right for not shutting the boot of the car, but for god’s sake, it was a matter of seconds.

I feel sick.

Went back to parents on Saturday, to take my mom to the BBC Good Food show at the NEC, along with my sister.

It was a lot of fun.

Didn’t eat or drink as much as last time we went two years ago, but did get a little widdled. I managed to spend almost £80. Bought wine, kippers, bacon, bread mixes, cake mixes, corn cakes, biscuits, ice filtered vodka (for my brother-in-law’s birthday present), toffee vodka and some matching glasses, wine infused chocolate, spices, Italian ‘goody bag’ (which was a con, since one of the packet of biscuits in there was from Belgium), hot sauce (and ‘passed’ the hot sauce challenge).

Last time we went, I remember spending ages filling in forms to win loads of stuff. This time there were hardly any competitions.

Also did a wine tasting session, which was much more fun than the one we went to last time.

Also saw (from afar, I so couldn’t be arsed to queue up for signatures) Oz Clarke, Anthony Worral Thompson, James Martin and Gordon Banks.

Family driving me mad as usual. I had a bet with my exercise friends that my mom wouldn’t say anything about me losing weight.

I thought I might win the bet, but she did mention it eventually. I got there around 3 in the afternoon, and it took until 11 o’clock at night for her to say, “You do look a bit better, have you lost any weight?” I told her I had lost around 2 inches off my waist. She didn’t seem too impressed.

Good job I wasn’t counting on her for some encouragement.

Of course, my sister never said a word. God forbid she say anything encouraging to anyone. And she wonders why her kids have confidence problems!

I know I am setting myself up for a whole load of abuse here, especially from Daisy and Lionel. But it’s such a funny story…..

I went to a meeting today with the ‘guys upstairs’. Big generalisation here - it was one woman, and two blokes.

One of the blokes is extremely Welsh. Worse On top of that, he’s from Barry.

While waiting for G to arrive, we somehow got onto the topic of some bloke who has barricaded himself on the top of his house, to protest against evistion, or poll tax, or some such thing. J (the Welsh guy) and P were laughing about him, but in a nice way, saying how everyone is rallying around, the local people take him food, the press love him, and so on.

Then there is a pause, and J says, “He’s probably a relative.”

We all look at him.

“Oh, his surname is whatever, and I have cousins of that name, and there can’t be that many with that surname, so we are probably related.”

I ask him, “Don’t you know?”

“Well,” he says, “My family is so big, I have hundreds of relatives I’ve never met, and never even heard of. In fact, once in a club one of my mates came up to me and said, ‘I’ve just pulled your cousin.’ I didn’t know who she was, he pointed her out to me and I had no clue who she was, but she recognised me from some or other cousin’s wedding.”

I look at him open mouthed. “Isn’t that a bit dangerous? I mean, it’s possible you pull your own cousin.” S (the other woman) is laughing along with me.

J, deadpan says, “That happened to my brother.”

Jaw drops even further.

“His first girlfriend, turned out to be one of our cousins. He went round her house and says, ‘Why have you got a picture of my Uncle Bob on your telly?’, and she says, ‘But that’s my Uncle Bob’.”

S and I are laughing even more, but in an extremely horrified manner.

Another long pause.

“And he lost his virginity to her.”

When I pointed out that he was actually adding weight to the stereotype of the south Welsh, and how they were all related, all slept with their cousins, all interbreeding. He just nodded.

….but sometimes he is just too cute for words. Spelling exactly as in the emails I received.

LELI -

I’m trying to learn howe to pronunce

Air , heir , her ,hair, hare

confuesd & confusing

Me -

The first two sound the same, the last two sound the same, the middle one sounds different from the others.

I don’t know why you would find that confusing at all.

LELI -

I set a meeting with J , Z and k tomorrow to go through them .

I don’t know why you would find that confusing at all. - I am just to able to pronuance them-

Me -

It’s not different from there and their and they’re.

I never understood why these all sound so different - through, though, thought.

Good old English language - probably would have been okay if we’d never had the latin influence….

LELI -

but I kbnow hoew to pronunce (or at least people usualy understand me )
there and their and they’re.

while I cannot pronunce

Air , heir , ,hair, hare

and not sure I can either

- through, though, thought.

Me -

I can’t say I’ve ever had difficulty understanding you, but then I’m not sure we’ve ever had a conversation about heir’s. Or hares.

LELI -

I can’t say I’ve ever ………does it mean
1) I have had difficulty understanding
2) I have not had

?

Any way I do have or at least I do want to improve my pronunciation, extremely difficult for me but I have to make an effort

Me -

The answer is…………

2)

“Can’t say I’ve ever” = “Can say I’ve never”

And I guess it is difficult, but I would also guess that your pronunciation is a hundred times better each year you are here. Let’s face it, most people find it easier to understand you than to understand S J! (note, SJ is an extremely Welsh man we work with, who even most of the Welsh people can’t understand, his accent is so thick, and he talks so fast. There is an urban legend that he interviewed LELI, but this is not true).

LELI -

and he has been here for a while

Work is still going fabulously. I am loving just about everything about it. Being in a job you love just cannot be compared to anything else - you spend so much of your life at work, and when everything you do is a joy, it makes your whole life seem a lot happier.

Conversely of course, hating your job can have such a detrimental effect on your life.

I have been in both situations, and I am not taking how I feel now for granted, but I am going to enjoy it to the full.

My two ‘boys’ are great. Two weeks ago, to bribe them to come to a ‘team meeting’ (which, even I have to admit for only 3 of us it can be a bit much to have one every week) I brought in some home made banana cake, and told them they could only have a piece if they came along and didn’t whinge.

What a great meeting that was. And when it was finished, they both said how great it was, and that we should have cake every week for team meetings.

I agreed.

And told them they could decide which of them made the cake next, and the other could make it the following week.

They looked a bit shocked.

But, to be fair, they have (sort of) agreed. Originally they both said they’d get their wives to do it, but one look at my face soon made them change their minds.

G has promised us some homemade samosas (which, he is honest about that his wife or his mother would have ‘made’ them), but he assures us he will get them out of the freezer and cook them himself. I am not entirely sure I believe that, but we shall see. He is a great guy, if I ask him directly, he can’t lie to save his life.

Last week he went out the night before the meeting, so didn’t have chance to cook, but instead went shopping at lunch time to get us some traditional Indian sweets for us to share. Good on him.

Tomorrow is S’s turn. Bless him - he got his wife to help, but he had a ‘practice run’ at the weekend, and has promised us a victoria sandwich tomorrow.

The rest of the department are jealous.

The bad news is that S has applied for another job in the company. Even worse - in my old department. I understand totally his reasons for it - but I am gutted that he will be leaving. Well, may be leaving. Although I can’t see any reason for them not to employ him. He is smart, bright, eager, and will always do a good job.

However, all is not lost. I reckon it wouldn’t take much to persuade ONB to move down. Although, I have to admit I’d rather keep S than have ONB - in fact, in an ideal world I’d keep S and G, *and* employ ONB.

I have just got home from belly dancing (and I did aerobics first too, I am *such* a good girl). The teacher often has a bag of ‘goodies’ for sale, mainly belts and tops (the tops are generally too small, not made for the ‘ample bosomed woman’ such as myself).

Tonight she had hats. Which said like that sounds a bit odd. But I put one on, it was made mostly from bright blue beads, with some gold ones, in a proper Cleopatra style. Hell, just putting it on made me stand about 6 inches taller.

It turned me into a goddess.

And that, I think was £8 well and truly well spent!

Although god knows when I will ever wear it. Apart from the belly dancing Christmas meal next week.

Ooh, and it matches perfectly my bright blue eyeliner. Combine it with some nice thick black eyeliner, and my false eyelashes, and I will *be* Cleopatra!

Update

Ooh, ooh, it looks a bit like this, only it’s blue. And looks better on me.

Almost forgot. I grabbed a pair of jeans out of the drawer to wear tonight. I bought them a few months ago, only worn them once because with sparkly sequins on the bum, they are not that practical for most jeans wearing occasions.

They are a little too big around the waist.

They weren’t when I bought them. If anything, they were a little too tight.

I celebrated by having some chocolate.

Been on a hot date with the Italian Stallian tonight. Went to see James Bond - and what good fun it was. That’s the thing with James Bond - you know exactly what you are going to get!

Mind you, it left me feeling a little bit down. I quite like Daniel Graig - such wonderful blue eyes - but as I was watching it, I thought he was looking a bit old.

Then I paused.

Bugger. He’s the same age as me.

Mentioned this to LELI in the restaurant afterwards, how he is looking old. “Yes, but he is quite old, isn’t he?” says LELI. “Not really,” I begin, and he interrupts. “How old is he?” “I think he’s 39,” and LELI nods, in a knowing fashion, and he begins to say, “Yes, he is……” when he pauses. “Yes,” I said, “He’s the same age as me….”

LELI changed the subject. Very diplomatic.

However, he more than made up for it by making me laugh so much.

“What does ’sucking up’ mean?”

I begin to explain how it’s crawling to the boss, when again he interrupts.

“Doesn’t it mean absorbing water?”

Oh bless. I mean, he’s right isn’t he? But he obviously heard the phrase, and in his head is someone absorbing water somehow, because he just couldn’t figure out the meaning.

How can people be so stupid?

How could anyone think that buying Welsh Dragon Sausages could be confusing to vegetarians, because the name of the product doesn’t include the word ‘pork’ in it?

The world is going mad.