Car Accident

My sister and nephews were in a car accident last night. Barring a broken arm for Kieran though, they're all ok. Mostly shaken.

Katie was driving home last night and was about to turn into the road to her village. There was a 36 tonne lorry coming in the opposite direction, but she saw indicators so thought he was also turning into the same road. She started turning since she was closest and the lorry would be slowing down, but it turns out the lorry was actually going straight ahead, so it ploughed into the passenger side of the car at 30mph, pushing it halfway along the road before it stopped. The driver of the lorry (who is also ok) said he hadn't indicated, so I'm not sure what happened. It was raining heavily though, and it's possible Katie saw a reflection from another car or something and mistook it for an indicator.

There was no passenger sitting in the front, so Kieran got the worst of it because he was on that side in the back seat, but luckily no worse than his arm because he was in his child seat.

The car is a complete write off, and I'm so glad that they all came away relatively unscathed. I haven't told anyone at work yet because I'm worried I'll get upset as soon as I mention it. Whenever I think about how close they came....

Anyway, they all got home from the hospital last night. They were going to keep Kieran in overnight because he was very quiet and withdrawn at first, but he brightened up after a couple of hours, so let everyone go home. We now just have to convince him that having a cast is the coolest thing in the world, because he's not to pleased about it at the moment!

So weird!

Right now, in Samoa, it is 1.40am on Wednesday 18th October, and right next door in Tonga, it is 1.40am on Thursday 19th October.

Right next door!

Weird.

Dude! Emily Gilmore is the mum (or mom, if you'd rather) from Dirty Dancing. I never realised!

I'm having a bit of a crisis of faith. I miss Blurty. This is why I've been quite quiet lately, because when I want to post something, I can't decide where to post it! Especially since I mainly want to post my thoughts on West Wing. But I feel like I shouldn't post on Blurty anymore until I decide for definite that I'm going back there. I don't like my blog posts being spread out like that.

Naughty shopping.

Pretty (brown) shoes!

You know, for someone who doesn't like shopping, I have been doing rather a lot of it lately. I need to stop myself. Although the shoes were an absolute necessity! I went to take a skirt and jumper back to the shop yesterday (trying to save myself some money, see!), but I was past the 28 day returnm period (I've been busy), so couldn't get a refund. But they let me exchange them, which they didn't ahve to do, which was nice. I got a pair of woollen light brown trousers and a dark brown wrap top. But I have no brown shoes. Hence the necessity. See?

Get in there!

Come on you wee beauty!

Home & Away

I'm in a deep state of sulking. I missed the Wombat Grade 2 exam! I've bgeen waiting for it for months, and it had to arrive right in the middle of my hectic two weeks of business trips! I'm so upset, especially after my outstanding result last time! No fair!

*pout*

In other news, I'm home. Thank goodness. I'm so not cut out for this jet setting lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be ungrateful. A lot of people would kill to have a job that sent them to Bermuda and Madrid, and I appreciate that. I'm just not one of them. I'm a little homebird, who doesn't like to leave the roost unless I have to. Especially when it's all work and no play. I was in Madrid for two and a half days, and the most I can say for it is that the hotel the conference was at was very nice. And the road to the airport is...like any other road (albeit with slightly more crazy drivers than you get in the UK). Oh, and Madrid Airport is bloody HUGE! Of course, the same can't be said for Bermuda. I did have a lot of fun. Still. Nice to be home.

I have a feeling that autumn is well and truly here. Finally! You have no idea how happy I was to step out of the airport when I got back from Bermuda to a dark, rainy morning in the UK. I love this weather!

Bermuda (so far)

So much for me not getting online. I've barely done any work for the past two days! OK, granted, I was in a conference for the past two days, with five minute breaks between each hour and a half (minimum) presentation, with no lunch. But it didn't really feel like work. I was surprisingly alert through the whole thing, even with jet lag.

Tuesday night, I went to a cocktail party at the MDs house. AMAZING view. I didn't get to see much of the inside of the house because we spent all night out by the pool (they all have pools!), but watching the beautiful sunset over the Atlantic ocean isn't a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.

Last night Gary (the guy from my team who I came over with) and I went out for dinner with my boss and his wife, which was lovely. We went to a little outdoor restaurant with lovely food, and we sat drinking wine/beer and chatting till about 11.30pm.

I tried to do work today. I really did. But I have to access the server in London to do anything, and my computer really doesn't like that. It takes me about 15 minutes to even open a file, let alone do anything with it! So I got a bit of training done and a little bit of work, and before I knew it, it was 12.30pm and time to head down to the harbour for the afternoon boat ride! Which was fantastic, by the way. I felt a bit self consious at first being the only peely-wally one there (Gary goes on the sunbed once a week), but it was so hot that I had to sit on the back of the catamaran and take my cardy off and hitch up my skirt! I even went out on a canoe! It was lovely. I've had about three glasses of wine, and now back at the office, waiting for 5pm, to go to my bosses house for dinner and drinks with people that I used to work with, but have since moved to Bermuda.

All in all, the trip has been a pleasant surprise so far. I have enjoyed myself far more than I thought I would have, and I'm starting to see the attraction of moving out here!

Bu-Bye!

Just a quick post to let you know that I'm travelling for work for the next couple of weeks so I won't be around much. I'm in Bermuda all of next week and doubt I'll get online at all, then I'm off to Madrid for a conference next Tuesday. I might get online between the two trips, or I might just sleep. We'll see!

Don't have any loud parties while I'm gone!

Bank Job

I've updated my "Song of the Moment" on the sidebar. It's now Bank Job from the new Barenaked Ladies album Barenaked Ladies Are Me. I finally managed to get it downloaded earlier in the week (I was looking for the delux edition, which includes the album that will be released next year sometime). I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It'll probably be a grower, like their last album. But there are a couple of really good songs on first listen, including Bank Job. If nothing else, you can always rely on BNL to make you laugh.

We all had our ski masks
And sawed off shotguns
But how do you plan for
A bank full of nuns

But I guess we panicked
We all have taboos
And they were like zebras
They had us confused

Golly Gosh, And All That Bally Hoo!

How introducing us to guns is supposed to help us bond as a company, I have no idea, but whatever. It actually turned out to be a relatively amusing day, a day out of the office at least. Although I'm not sure I'd go again.

But it turns out I'm a bit of a natural with a gun. At least, I started out that way. We went round five stands, each with a different way of releasing the clay. Some rolled down a hill, some flew up into the air towards you, some flew up into the air away from you, etc. I got 9out of 10 on the first two stands, had a bit of a slip on the third and only got 6 out of 10, then got back on form for the fourth stand and got 8 out of 10. Unfortunately, I completely blew my score on the last stand and only got 3 out of 10! In the end, I was only 5 behind the person who won the prize for top gun, so if I'd only kept up my standard, I could have won. Never mind, I can't be too bitter when the guy who won had been in the South African Army for two years.

I did ok on the archery too, getting 42 out of 50 on that one. And my team won the prize for biggest overall score! Woooo! We got a shot glass each. Shot! Geddit?! ;)

Now I have a very sore shoulder where the butt of the gun kept banging against it. Those things have a massive kick! Although I'm just pleased I stayed standing. I'd watched an episode of West Wing the night before where Toby went clay shooting, and the force of the gun knocked him on his back. I had mental images all day of that happening to me.

I missed out on the dinner that night because I was off the the theatre to see The Last Five Years. It finishes this week and my friend wanted to see it after I raved about it, so I went with her. Even better, second time round!

Winter Shopping

I went shopping today at Canary Wharf. Actually, my friend wanted to go shopping because she loves shopping and had never seen Canary Wharf. I just tagged along because I didn't have any other plans. My friend ended up buying just a couple of items, while I went a bit crazy. Probably not the wisest idea considering I don't get paid till Wednesday, but oh well!

I'm so happy with one of my purchases! It's my first winter purchase of the year, so you know what that means. Christmas is just round the corner! Ok, ok, I won't go on about it. I'll just leave you with this photo of my super-cute scarf and hat combo (you should be so proud of me Caz!).

Miscellaneous Thoughts

The results for my September 2007 exams will be released on 21st December! The 21st December?!

a) People are most likely going to be travelling home that day for Christmas
b) Christmas! Are they trying to destroy it?! I'm probably going to be miserable about failing.
c) The results used to come out at the beginning of November and the exams were in April. Now they keep pushing results back and back, but not changing the date of the April exams. If you're planning your exams around any resits you might have, this completely screws that plan up because you're effectively losing two months of study.

I know it seems insane to be worrying about this just now, but this is how early we need to start planning things. It's just one thing in a long list to indicate that the Institute are taking the piss! Grrrrrrr!

I made lasagne for the first time the other night. It was very nice, if I do say so myself.

House! I want to talk about it, but I can't work out how to do spoiler tags in this blog, and my comments are a bit more spoilery than my last ones. I might make a special entry in my Blurty.

I've put my name in the pool to be an audience member for Strictly Come Dancing. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

It's the final of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? on Saturday night. I'm so excited. I know that Connie is going to win, but I'm still holding out hope for Helena. I love Helena! She's come through against all odds (She's been in the bottom two nearly every week, but ALW has always saved her. Then amazingly enough, she made it through both public votes last week and didn't have to do the sing-off for ALWs save. Yay!). I don't get what the public has against her. I think she was unlucky enough to be clearly the worst in the first week and the public hasn't really forgotten that. But based on her performances since, I'm putting that down to a bad song, because I think she's great! She could totally do it, if the public could just get their heads out of their arses! Connie is a good singer, she's professional, she has stage presence, blah-de-blah-blah. There's just something about her I don't like. I wish I could put my finger on it. But I'm not too worried though, because I honestly think that all of the three finalists have what it takes to be a good Maria.

I'm going clay pigeon shooting on Tuesday. Look out people, they're giving me a gun! And a bow and arrow! I must admit, when the activity was first suggested as a team building exercise, I really didn't want to do it because I don't like guns and it all seems a bit too upper class for me. But everyone else seemed enthusiastic about it, and we'd been through about 10 other ideas and couldn't reach a consensus, so I wasn't going to be the only one to veto this idea. But the teams have been selected and the trash talking has started, so I'm starting to think it could be a good laugh. We'll see.

House Season 2

My lovely, lovely boxset arrived on Friday! Joy! I probably would have finished it by now, but I had plans to go away for the weekend. As it is, I've only just started the second disc, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm enjoying it even more because I can watch it guilt-free, without the worry of studying looming over me.

A couple of observations:

~ It's very funny. I have laughed out loud at several things, and I don't tend to laugh out loud when I'm watching TV on my own.

~ I can't say that I really like any of the three underlings, Chase, Cameron or Foreman. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly dislike any of them (even Chase, which is more than can be said for him in season 1). There are times when I really like their storyline or something they've done. But there are too many times I don't. I think the ratio of me liking them to not liking them is about 50/50, whereas I tend to like House, Cuddy and Wilson a lot more often. Especially Wilson! :P

But my opinion of them in comparison to season 1, Foreman is pretty much the same, Cameron has gone down, and Chase has gone up. So I guess Chase is doing better than any of them.

~ It's not as formulaic as season 1. And some of their patients are actually dying! Much more realistic.

~ Is it just me, or would anyone else love to see Stephen Fry as a guest? I had it in my head a while ago that this was actually happening, but couldn't find anything about it, so concluded I'd just made it up. But ever since, I've been thinking about it and would love it to actually happen!

Exam Round Up

9.45am - 1pm - Assets
Not bad actually. I don't think I could have asked for a better paper, in fact. If I failed it, it's not through lack of knowledge, but through lack of detail. I don't do well with wordy exams, and I might write something that I think is worth 10 marks, but only get 6 for it.

2.15pm - 5.30pm - Liabilities and Asset Liability Management
(I only discovered that was the name of the subject today when I hard to write it on my exam paper!)
Worse than the morning paper, but better than I expected. I nearly started crying when I read through the questions, but when I started to work through them, I realised they weren't so bad. There were a couple of things I made up on the spot, but I expected it to be a lot worse.

The crappy thing though is that it's actually one subject and I have to pass both papers to pass it. I could get 100% for one of the papers, but still fail if I fail the other paper. And have to do it all over again! But all in all, it could have been a lot worse. I really had no hope going into it this morning. I'm not saying I've passed. Just that I might have failed by less than I was expecting! It's a sad day when it comes to that phrase making me feel better! :P

7.30pm - bedtime
I was planning on cleaning the flat, but I really have no energy. I'm going to order take away, then plonk down in front of the TV to watch Gilmore Girls.

I might just clean the bathroom. And the kitchen. And put a wash on.

Aahh, no studying! :D

I Don't Trust It!

My water was due to be switched off at 8am this morning, and for the next three mornings, for "essential engineering works". It's still on.

Building work was supposed to be starting in my house at 8am this morning, to add a fifth flat to the loft space. I got a letter today saying it had been postponed to mid October.

Two things that were going to interrupt studying for my exams on Monday, suddenly disappearing? Call me paranoid, but I don't trust it. Something else is going to go wrong, and this time I won't be expecting it! A nice little power cut the night before my exams, maybe?

In other news, Kieran started nursery yesterday. Where is the time going? My sister said that, despite her being worried about him being clingy, he was fine. In fact, he couldn't run away from her to the toys quickly enough. And she was fine too. She didn't get emotional. Much!

Goodbye Chips

My dog was put to sleep this morning. He was having difficulty breathing over the weekend, which was attributed to bronchitis, so my parents took him to the vet and got some tablets to help it. Unfortunately, it got much worse last night and he was taken to the vet again first thing this morning. After some x-rays and tests, it was discovered that his windpipe had collapsed and that he had also developed Cushing's Disease. There was an operation he could have undergone to fix the windpipe, but the trauma he'd experienced over the weekend had exacerbated the disease, and he would still have been extremely ill. So it was decided that the kindest thing to do would be to put him to sleep.

He was an old dog with a lot of health problems, and every time I'd go home, I'd worry that that would be the last time I saw him. But even though I've been expecting this phone call from my parents for a while, it doesn't make it any easier.

Chips originally belonged to my brother in law and we took him in when my sister and brother in law moved in together and they weren't allowed pets. It was only supposed to be a temporary solution, but 10 years later, he was still at my parents house. He was a crazy little Jack Russell pup who mellowed a lot in his old age, but I was still gobsmacked at the amount of energy this 14 year old dog had. He was almost completely blind, but that didn't stop him wanting to play football in the back garden every chance he could get. It didn't matter to him that he couldn't see the ball unless he was two inches away from it! He would sleep in my bed with me whenever I went home, and he liked nothing more than someone taking his collar off and giving his neck a good scratch!

He was such a good dog, and I'm going to miss him so much.

Big Mistake. Big! Huge!

I have been so tired lately, which I don't understand because I've been getting as close to eight hours sleep a night as possible, which is practically forever for me. I usually get by on about six hours sleep perfectly fine, but I find myself barely being able to function at work at the moment with the extra couple of hours.

I got home tonight and was so completely wiped that I lay down for half an hour before I did anything. Two hours later I woke up. This was a big mistake for several reasons.

1) I didn't do any studying tonight - not a huge deal though, because I don't know how productive I would have been anyway;

2) I bet you I have trouble sleeping tonight, despite the fact that I still feel like a walking zombie;

3) That will just mess up my study day tomorrow because I'll feel tired and lethargic all day. I don't mind feeling that way at work, but it pisses me off when I ruin my study days by feeling that way!

Typical Me

I really like this photo of me.



It pretty much sums me up. Plus, my hair is so shiny! :P

12 of 12 (but not!)

I was going to do one of those 12 of 12 posts, but Blogger is being all funny with me and not letting me load all of the photos. (I know, I know, it's supposed to be done on the 12th, but I missed that bit in Helen's post when I decided to do it yesterday. Yes, it took me two times reading it for that to register, despite it being the point of her post. I'm thick, so sue me!) Which is fine, because it was turning out to be a really boring post, and I was just using it as an excuse to tell you something anyway. So I'm just going to tell you the normal way.

I sat my theory test for driving yesterday.


I passed! Woo!

Why Do You Build Me Up?

My mum and oldest sister are coming to visit me in December. The main purpose of the trip is for them to get a bit of Christmas shopping done and for me to treat them to a West End show, Wicked. It's been organised for a while and they booked their flights months ago.

I mentioned it to my other sister last week when I was getting ready to book the theatre tickets, on the off-chance that wanted to come. She was really excited about it. It'd be a weekend away from the kids, which she's never had since Kieran was born. She just had to make sure that Graeme could get the time off work to watch the boys, but that wouldn't be a problem. And it wasn't.

But I got an email from her today saying that she can't get the time off! She hadn't even considered that!

Boo! I'm really, really disappointed. Once the idea took root in my brain, I started to get really excited about it, a weekend with just my mum and her girls*. Finding out it wouldn't be happening threw me in a way even I didn't expect. I was really quite down about it for a few hours after I got the email.

I've spoken to my sister since, and we've come up with a couple of different options, included her trying to convince someone at work to swap holidays with her, so it's not compeletely hopeless. And even if she can't come down, I'll still have my mum and my other sister, which will be great! But how much better would it be if it were the four of us? So, please keep your fingers crossed that she can get the swap?


* I did also mention it to my dad, but his reaction was:
"A shopping weekend in London with four women, even if it is my wife and daughters? No thanks!"