Mmmm. Mood food works.

I got in from work feeling rubbish. I was too tired to think (goodness knows why) so I left as early as possible, and my supervisor made a snide remark, which helped not.

The menu: Cous cous with chickpeas and pine nuts (gotta love those carbohydrates - screw Atkins), Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Oktoberfest Beer/Bier (alcohol is not strictly reccommended, but I'm sure people will testify to its absurdly cheering effect on me, though it doesn't much improve their situation), unadulterated chocolate, honey on toast, a strawberry and banana smoothie, and to finish, one loganberry yoghurt, and a glass of water.

I watched an entire show about home improvement in benign spirits and laughed before the opening credits of Dawson's Creek. I am in a goooooooooood mood.

It was David's birthday on Friday, he generously took his shop staff, his parents, his sister and his accountant to a meal at the Chinese restaurant nearby. I enjoyed it especially because I enjoyed the food, whereas normally I'm not a fan of Chinese food. Spending the time with everyone was nice, although tiring for me.

A more pleasant journey back to Camberley this time. Think that taking a bus to London then taking a train to Camberley has left me less stressed than the usual all-train journey via Reading. Surprising I would have thought that the extra journey time would leave me more stressed. Perhaps the lack of bored children, mountains of luggage and the lack of overcrowding helped as well. The only fly in the ointment was the fact that the girl sitting in front of me was talking with her friends behind me in a unfamiliar language.

Having returned home it was not long before I was heading out again this time to the caravan with my parents and Nan. We stayed overnight in the caravan and were entertained by parts of the closing ceremony for the Olympics. Early in the mourning we headed out again to Branksome Chine Beach, before most people were up. When we first got there the tide was still coming in! Thankfully there was still plenty of beach to set up on, so we got on with a nice relaxed day. I forgot to put on sun lotion until the afternoon so I'll probably be doing my lobster impression for a while.

I'm planning on taking a more leisurely trip home, going into London with Nan on her way home and then ambling around London until I catch the return bus to Exeter at 5:15. I'm hoping that it will be a little quieter than last time but am unsure that the Summer holiday is the best time to visit London at all.

Well, after dinner I shall be driving down to Trelowarren for my silent reatreat. Apart from involving my bible, and silence, I'm not sure what's up, but hopefully it will be helpful. If I come back feeling "very zen", give me a slap, that should sort it out. I'm taking my mobile in case of disasters, otherwise ta-ta for the week, and have fun.

Good B3ta. DIET PILL GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU LOSE 30 POUNDS!

Huh. Gavin's been updating his blog again. Dunno if it warrants putting back in my header - probably not. Apparently he wants to get shot of a kitten, and is putting all his salesmanship into it:

That kitten is still on offer! I’ve been lumbered with the creature this Friday night while Mum and Dad have been away. It’s a pain in the neck and will probably be living in the greenhouse when the parents go away for a week next month. Doesn’t do what its told, is either in your face or in your food all the time (the pushing onto the floor has become throwing it to the other side of the room and still it doesn’t learn), and it has barely spent any time asleep when usually it sleeps most of the day.

No doubt when they get back the cat will have full sympathy and I’ll get none despite the rat slitting the side of one hand open today (not an accident and would have been worse if my reactions hadn’t been so quick).

At least with Obby if you shoved food in her bowl she loved you for days. This thing needs its head read - if it carries on I might just do that.

Saying that, he would make someone else a lovely pet! Any takers?

He'd be able to learn a few things from Adam when he gets back. I might get "I don't want a bloody encyclopedia." made up into a placard.

I've just been told that Andy Wilkinson, one of the members of CTaCH, has died in an accident. Please pray for him and for his family.

Right, due to insomnia, you can have an update regarding my progress in the musical.

The singing is fine :)
I have been through all the tap, but can't remember any of it :(
I reckon I've got the hang of the kick-line :)
I was in Scotland when the can-can happened :(
I've volunteered for the birdie (Not quite sure what this is, but I think it involves being on a large swing in a bikini, and going into the audience to flirt with people. I just know I'm going to regret this at some point!)

And now, after some of the other scenes have been arranged, I'm also a waiter and a fisherman. So in summary, I'm a singing, cross-dressing waiter, who can dance a bit, and smells of fish.

Well, well, well. Today I got a text from Amy saying that she was coming back to Exeter for training, also a query on the death of the author. Cheh. I dunno. Some people just aren't good at leaving Exeter I guess. [smiley]

We went on holiday last week to Scotland. Stayed at a nice B&B near Fort William. We found out while we were there that we were near where they did alot of the filming for the Harry Potter films. We went and found the huge Viaduct but didn't go on the steam train going over it. Its a day trip and we found out later that it is booked up pretty much a week in advance at the moment due to the films and the kids being on holidays.

To get up to Scotland we spent the whole day in the swealtering heat driving in our little car. As soon as we got there the weather changed and we had lots of rain. We heard on the news that scotland recieved more than its average rainfall for August in 48 hours. Ade bought a raincoat and I got some waterproof trousers and we went for walks and went waterfall hunting. They were quite impressive with all the rain! Despite the waterproofs though it was raining that much that we were still getting soaked and kept heading back to the car and the B&B to dry off.

We went funyakking (which is like white water rafting but in two man boats known as divorce boats) since we were already getting wet. That was quite fun, we only fell out of the boat once.

Then on Tuesday I got stung by a bee. That wasn't very nice, I've never been stung by a bee before and wasn't sure what it was at first just that it hurt very much. We were sitting on a bench in town watching this band that were playing in the street (the first time I think that it had stopped raining) and i just put my hand down on my lap and i think the bee must have been sitting on my lap and thought that i was trying to squash it or something. We went over to safeway to see if they had anything to put on it and the people there told us to go over to A&E as it was over the road and they didn't know what you could put on it. The nurse at A&E sorted me out. I still had some of the sting left in which was why it was hurting so much. So for future reference for bee stings the best thing to do is to scape the sting out with the edge of a credit card and put bicarbonate of soda on it. Oh and vinegar for wasp stings.

Then on Wednesday we went walking in the rain again and my mobile ended up in the bottom of Ades bag in a pool of water from where the water had soaked through the bag. So that died. Mark at work has now lent me his old mobile to put my sim card in until i get a chance to sort it all out so its now working again.

Now you think that would be enough for one holiday, but no things come in threes they say. So on Thursday we went mountain biking. That was really fun. I've never done any off road biking before and its wicked. We went on a massive bike ride all around the forest, down hills and rough tracks, it was wicked. We got back to the hire place and decided to just go round a little loop bit nearby and thats were I fell off going rather fast down a hill. It looked really difficult so I was going to go slowly but some guy at the top told me to go high on the bank where it went around a corner. He didn't tell me that was how you go faster! So I lost control of the bike. My loving, caring Adrian described the crash as like out of a cartoon! Something about flying up in the air and back down behind a hill. I just remember thinking as I came off this is going to hurt. Luckily I was wearing a helmet so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I vaguely remember my head scraping along the floor at one point. This medical student came running over to me to see if I was alright and I got up a little scraped and bruised thinking wow amazingly I'm alright. I even carried the bike back down the hill. It was only later when I was having a shower at the B&B to get all the grit out of my arm that I realised that my arm was stiffening up!

We ended up going back to A&E - twice in one holiday! I think everyone had been out that day as it was the first nice weather that we had had. When I went in with the bee sting there was no one there. On Thursday however there were quite a few, a lady had badly twisted her ankle walking, a little girl had fallen off a slide, everyone had gone out and injured themselves. Good weather is bad for you up there I think.

So now I'm stuck with my left hand for a few weeks. My writings getting better, it now looks like a five year olds rather than a four year olds! And everything is taking longer than usual even this!

The worst bit was getting back from Scotland. Our little car is a little bumpy on the road and with that and the vibrations you get in cars on the road it aggrevated my arm all the way home. Its rather a long way to Scotland. We ended up getting back on Sunday not saturday after staying in the worst B&B ever near the lakes.

So you might get the impression that we didn't have a good holiday but surprisingly apart from the mishaps above we had a great time. The lady who ran the B&B we stayed at was really lovely. She even bought us some mugs with scotland on as a gift because she thought we were not seeing scotland at its best because of all the rain. And for breakfast she cooked us different things most mornings so that we could try some haggis, cooty dumplings and tatty scones. It was great!

Fantastic news! Will and Rebekah both got jobs! I expect they'll let people know all about it.

Bit of bad news. We got back from Scotland on Sunday, after a mostly nice holiday. The not nice bit was that Emma fractured her right elbow (the end of the radius - one of the two bones in your lower arm) whilst mountain biking on Thursday. It needs to be immobilised for 2 weeks, rested for 6 in total. It's just in a sling, as it's not a break, and all the bones are in the right place, save for the crack. I'll blog properly about it later.

Anyone for Brighton on 26th September?