The last couple of times I’ve been out with people from the old work place, I have driven. This has been an informed choice - it both saves me money, and stops me from getting stupidly drunk.

Last night I decided to take a taxi.

When I got there, my friends had already been drinking for a couple of hours, so I felt the need to catch up.

One bottle of wine was ordered.

Embarrassingly, I had to ask the barman for a glass - not sure if he really did think I was going to swig it straight from the bottle.

I then foolishly got into a round with the bloke Q who used to work for me. Vodka and coke for me. Doubles.

I have no idea how many I had. It was one of those rare Friday nights out when I even managed to make it into town. Where, of course, I carried on drinking.

I do know I only just had enough money left for the taxi home.

I only got up at lunch time because I had to get to the hairdressers. I suspect I was probably over the drink-drive limit. My voice still sounds gruff.

I also managed to upset FKM without trying. He hadn’t been there - I guessed he wasn’t going to be, as in one of his rare interchanges with me he had said something about only working a 3 day week. However, one bottle of wine and about 4 double vodka’s into the night, I was at the bar with Q, when he smiled at someone over my shoulder. I turned around, to see FKM in a ridiculous light grey suit, and a pale blue tie.

I collapsed into hysterics.

He wasn’t pleased.

I was extremely pleased.

I am biting the bullet, and have booked another flight with Ryanair (and no, there wasn’t an option to pay extra for the oxygen!). I am off to spend a weekend with LELI.

I am so looking forward to seeing him - I’ve had another flurry of sad little emails off him today. Hopefully I can cheer him up a bit.

However, he has cheered me up no end. The weekend before I go, one of our old work colleagues is having a birthday party. It appears that LELI has been invited, and (I think, anyway) he has made the snap decision to book a flight. I got an email headed “want to go to dinner before going to neilo’s party?”, and attached to the email was another email, confirming his flight out from his home town on the Saturday, back on the Sunday.

But the flight was to Brindisi.

I emailed him back. “Please tell me you were joking about dinner, and really did intend to fly to Brindisi for one night, and that you didn’t really mean to book a flight to Bristol…..”

I’ve had no reply.

Love him. One of the most intelligent people I know, with the commen sense of a gnat.

Email received today -

I lost fate…….i am neither Italian not English but London is the solution, may be, working during the week and travel somewhere sunny during the weekend

“We need to simplify it in such a way so that we don’t over-complicate it.”

‘Beginners Aerobics’ it says on the leaflet. I went two weeks ago, and it was fairly hard - left me too knackered to do the pilates I’d planned to do afterwards.

I didn’t go last week because the parents were here.

Tonight. Well. What can I say? The ‘warm-up’ left me gasping for breath, it was so damn fast. It’s supposed to be half aerobics, and half toning, but tonight we did about 50 minutes of aerobics, then some arm exercises, and right at the end, with the martial arts class kids and families looking on, we did sit-ups. Very embarrassing, given my beetroot face, and hair looking like I’d been dunked in the swimming pool!

But yay me! I then went and did Pilates.

And that teacher was a bitch too, worked us really hard. At least it was more toning on the legs, so in a way it was good we didn’t do any legs and arse work in aerobics, because I probably wouldn’t be able to walk!

Found some great cheap flights to Barcelona with Ryanair on Sunday - £10 each way. I also found a nice looking, *very* cheap hotel for the 6 nights (168 euros - where is the euro symbol on the keyboard? I can see it on the 4 key, but no idea how to get it up).

I decided to sleep on it - I never book anything so far in advance usually.

Then yesterday I thought sod it, and went to book it.

The special offer flights had jumped from £10 to £15, and were not available on any of the dates I wanted to go. Price had jumped to over £100.

Today while at work I had a quick look to see if anywhere else was available at a cheap flight, and found £15 fares to Porto - had a quick look at hotels, but got too busy.

Just came home, and found what looks to be a nice hotel for 245 euros bed and breakfast - sounds like a bargain to me!

So, then went back to Ryanair, just to check on the flights. And, amazingly, the price had FALLEN, and was advertised at £5 each way.

However, even though the recent legislation says they have to advertise the *full* price of a flight, this doesn’t actually cover everything I had to pay. While I don’t mind too much having to pay for check-in, and to have a bag (although !5kg doesn’t sound very much….), I totally object to a £4 surcharge EACH FLIGHT for paying by credit card. Or debit card. That is total extortion, and more than covers what it costs them to accept a card - credit card interchange is now in the region of 1.5% of the total amount charged - they do not get charged per flight, how the hell does the credit card company know that anyway?

Having got that off my chest, I still think £50 for a return flight to Portugal is a bargain. Even if it is Ryanair.

1) My floors look great, the man did a really good job, would definitely recommend him.

2) Parents were as annoying as expected. They are still being annoying. I have a coat stand, which I keep in the hall. They took all the coats off and moved it for me, for when the man came (despite me only asking them to take the books off the bookcase - they decided to clear the hall of everything - I can’t really complain at that, although if I wanted them to clear it, I would have asked them to). Then, after the man was finished they moved the bookcase and coat stand back. After they had gone, I started putting the books back, and also hanging up my jackets. I went to twist it around, to put on more coats, and the bloody thing slid on the floor, and fell into the window. Thank god for double glazing! My dad has very kindly tightened the coat stand up for me - “It was *very* loose you know,” he told me today when I asked him why he did it. “IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE!!!!!”

3) Still trying to decide where to go for some sun, but Barcelona seems to be leading the pack at the moment.

4) Weather is totally getting me down.

5) Know what is really pissing me off at the moment? Those stupid anti-perspirent adverts with the ‘upside-down roll-on’. Talk about gimmick - how hard is it to turn the thing upside down before rolling it on your underarms? I mean, you have to turn it the right way up to roll it on anyway. And that gumph about it ‘being always ready’ is total shite. My parents were staying in my room (they complain too much about the spare bed), and I left my upside down roll-on in that room, so was using the spray I keep in my sports bag. The morning after the parents had gone, I went to use the roll-on and it was as dry as a normal one - had to give it a little shake. So what is the point other than to fool stupid people into thinking they are buying something new? That is why I hate marketing people.

6) Another thing that is pissing me off is the press reporting of the ‘credit crunch’. Even the two words set my skin crawling. I could rant about this for hours. I am nto disputing things aren’t bad, but the way the press have been reporting it has blown the whole thing out of proportion. And at the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy - well, it’s just not as bad as the last time! When mortgage interest rates were running at 17% (I had a great fixed rate ‘bargain’ at the time of 12%), inflation was a damn sight higher than it is now (who cares that it’s more than the target, historically 5% inflation is bloody low!), unemployment was a lot higher. I wish people would just get a grip. Falling house prices are actually only a problem if you are looking to sell your house and either buy a cheaper place, or take the money and not buy. And even then it’s likely not that much of a problem. The real facts are that you haven’t ‘lost’ any money, you just haven’t made as much as you thought you were going to. Deal with it.

7) Finally - I actually couldn’t give a shit about how many medals ‘we’ have won at the Olympics. Please stop trying to ram it down my throat.

Thank you.

Parents are here. Already driving me mad. Glad I am off to spend the night in the office tonight.

Someone got to my blog by doing a search for “woman hairy bottom problem”.

The mind boggles.

1. SE came to stay - he is so lovely. However, he made us stay at some weird blokes flat - only admitting to me on the drive there that he hadn’t actually met him in person. He had assured me he had asked if I could stay too, but listening to one side of a phone conversation it became clear that he hadn’t given the guy much notice. SE got off the phone in a panic. “He said he has a small apartment. He said if you were my girlfried we could have his bed, but I told him it was okay, you’d have the couch and I’v have the floor. He then offered to share his bed with me……” The look on his face was pure horror. Hilarious! Guy turned out to be a complete arse - the very next day we were discussing if we could politely say we didn’t want to stay with him any longer, but decided that he would be deeply offended. I so wish we’d gone to stay with Andy instead.

SE wanted to investigate the night life of London. This comprised the Thursday night having one drink in a pub round the corner from this guys flat, and then leving because “It got too noisy!” Friday, SE and this guy had to go off to some university do - the plan was they would text me when they were done, and I would meet them somewhere. By 8.30 I’d heard nothing, so went for an Indian with Andy. On the bus back, weird guy rang me, and I said I was on the way back to his flat, but could stay on the bus and come meet them where ever they were. “No, it’s okay, we are on the way back too.” SE was fuming - apparently they’d been for dinner with a group of about 10 people, most of which were then off to China Town, but this guy wouldn’t go.

Saturday night was much better - we met some other ‘real’ friends of SE in a pub by the river in Putney. It was so nice and relaxing - even when this absolute tosser of a bloke (you know that if he had been born 20 years earlier he’d have been a second hand car salesman) joined us. If he wasn’t so annoying, he’d have been funny - what on earth did he think he’d achieve by trying to impress me and SE with his lifestyle? He told me about his flat - 9 floors up, looking over London, right on the Thames, lovely views. So I told him about my old apartment in New York - 16 floors up, views of the Statue of Liberty from the living room, and what used to be spectacular views of the WTC from the living room and all 3 bedrooms….. At that point I expected some comment about the WTC - this is usual in this sort of conversation. Instead, his reaction was, “Well, we only have two bedrooms at the moment, but I am thinking of moving to three in about 6 months time….” I got news for you mate - I couldn’t give a damn how many bedrooms you have!

2. FKM is completely doing my head in. I am not sure what has happened, but he has suddenly pretty much stopped talking to me. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s gone from long calls at midnight, because he learned something in the pub that has upset and bothered him, and wanting advice on what to do, to hearing not a word. It wouldn’t be so bad if he could at least say “Oh yeah, I’m busy,” or if I have said or done something to upset him, to tell me. But he is denying he is ignoring me, says nothing has changed. When it quite clearly has. I am not going to stress over it - I’d rather know what has happened, but I can’t force him to tell me if he doesn’t want to.

Also, months ago I bought tickets to go and see OMD this autumn. At the time he was very excited. I actually ended up buying two lots, for two different nights, because the first lot were up in the gods, then they released another date, and I managed to get tickets on the floor for that date.

Last week I decided I needed some sun, so tried to book the last week in September off work Due to other commitments for the other people in the office, there is no cover that week for the place I am working in, so they asked if I could go the following week. I said no - because that was the week of the concert. After much negotiation, I am taking the week off before I wanted - not too happy about it, because holidays and flights are that much more expensive - but I can live with that.

I emailed FKM, told him I’d got the week off work. His reply? “I am going to Spain the first week in October….” Right - and what about the OMD concert?

I am so angry - if he’d bothered to talk to me, then either he could have changed when he was going, or I could have booked my holiday for that week too, and just sold the tickets. As it is, I am now going on holiday in a week I didn’t really want, and not even going to the concert.

3. Two people I used to work with left their jobs last week, so I went out with a bunch of old work mates. I try not to get too big headed about it, but it is always nice when I go out with them, because I always get told how much they miss me, how things aren’t the same as when I was there, systems don’t run as well and users take the piss because I am not there to keep them in line! It seems they have finally got a replacement for me, he started last week. The comments from two of the the three people that used to work for me have both, independently, been, “We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt…”

Anyway, because I now have to come home first, get changed, then head down to where they are drinking, I decided to drive because otherwise it would have taken forever waiting for a taxi, plus cost me a fortune. The plan was to go to the pub for some drinks, then when they headed into town to go clubbing, I’d go home. So I decided to wear my high heeled boots - after all, I wouldn’t be on my feet all that much would I? Oh silly me…. Of course I ended up in the club, and danced my pants off for about an hour and a half, until I literally could not stand on my feet any more. It took me 20 minutes to walk to my car, which I had parked 5 minutes away! And Saturday I didn’t go anywhere because my feet hurt too damn much!

4. Having my floors done next week - Yay! Carpets in the hall and all the bathrooms (cos I’m posh, you know, more than 1) being replaced with wood laminate. Then I might, finally, get around to having my house warming party!