Sofa calling…

Its 4.30 on a friday afternoon and I can’t wait to go home. Its really grey, cold and miserable outside and all I can think about is going home and curling up on the sofa for the evening with a dvd and a chilled bottle of white wine – oh and darling boyf too, as long as he doesn’t want to choose the dvd or drink the wine

Sometimes on a friday afternoon I feel all excited and ready for a good night out but tonight I think relaxation is the name of the game. My pjs and ‘chick flicks’ are calling already… and if darling boyf grimaces at the choice of film I’ll just gently remind him of the weekend of bugs and busses that begins tomorrow and pour myself another glass of wine.

Beetle blues

It’s wednesday afternoon and usually by this stage of the week I’m eagerly planning and looking forward to my weekend, but not this weekend… No, this weekend I would quite happily come into work and pretend it was a weekday… at least on sunday anyway.

The reason for my misery… this weekend I get to go away for a night in a nice hotel with darling boyf, where we will meet up with friends that we have not seen in ages and then, and then… on sunday we get to spend a WHOLE BLEEDIN’ DAY walking round the volksworld show at sandown park, looking at the same bugs and busses that we have looked at at this event every year for the past 8 years – seeing the same people that we see every year and having pretty much the same conversations again and again! The whole saturday/hotel/catching-up-with-friends thing I’m really looking forward to… the day that follows… not so much!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge darling boyf his vw passion at all – in fact I love that he has an interest that keeps him out of the house for long periods of time but really, I have no interest in actually sharing this passion and the idea of trailing round a big draughty room for about 6 hours, looking at engines and tyres and bits of metal, pretty much leaves me numb! And the worst thing is that ALL the other girlfriends seem to be having a really good time while I’m walking round wondering if killing myself would be less painful! How can they be having a good time… its sooooo bleedin’ boring!

Every year I go with all the good intentions of at least ‘looking’ like an interested girlfriend, but every year, after about the first 45 minutes, when we’ve been round it all once and I just know that I’ve got a least 10 more circuits to do – just in case we’ve missed anything you understand! – I can feel my smile slipping, my feet protesting and my fingers going numb from the cold.

I can’t be the only vw ‘widow’ that dreads these events, can I? Maybe the other girlies are just better at hiding their boredom… Or maybe there’s some secret room at sandown park where all the ‘less polite/tolerant’ girlfriends go, somewhere that’s warm and clean, with comfy seats and no rusty bits of metal hanging about… Can someone please tell me there is such a place – I’ll meet you there on sunday!

Its a gal thang!

I’m sure it must be a side-effect of being female, that spending money on clothes equals happy smiley faces… I know that when I drag darling boyf out to replenish his ‘jeans and t-shirt’ wardrobe he grumbles and groans and totally begrudges the amount of money he has to spend on his attire, but with me its the exact opposite. If I’m having a crappy day then the only thing guarenteed to make me smile is going out and spending money on pretty girly stuff. (Chocolate used to be the other ’sure-fire mood booster’ but since the healthy-eating kick that’s not allowed.)

In fact even the prospect of clothes shopping makes me happy and today was no exception. I woke up in a pretty bad mood this morning – mainly because of ‘ickle merry waking me up at 3.30 by hitting me in the face with his paws and meowing in my ears ‘coz he wanted some attention! So I decided pretty early on that I would go out at lunch and treat myself. I’ve had my eye on this fab wrap-over dress for a few weeks now and decided that it would be just the thing to chase the blues away.

Gave darling boyf the excuse that I need to look fab for his gorgeous niece’s christening in a few weeks but the main reason was that I was tired, crabby and needed cheering up – and it worked  They only had one dress left and it was just my size (fate or what!), and the best bit is that because its a wrap-over, it will still look great and fit perfectly even if I carry on losing weight. (This has been a bit of a shopping dilema recently, I desperatley NEED new clothes but am reluctant to buy anything that will be too big in just a couple of weeks!)

So my recipe for being a ‘happy gal’… go out and treat yourself, you’re female and you deserve it!

Just don’t tell the bank manager or show darling boyf the receipts

Bouncing babes

Mental note to self… next time ‘pals’ are organising a work fundraiser, RUN A MILE… (obviously this won’t be the advice if the fundraising event is actually running a mile but you know what I mean!)

A few weeks ago, a work chum mentioned that there was an event called the ‘big bounce’ happening locally to raise money for ’sport relief’. The idea of the ‘big bounce’ is that you have teams of four and you have to do a relay race around a course and see how many laps your team can do… oh, and the best bit – the relay race has to be done on giant space hoppers!

Bravely, 4 girls from the office rose to the challenge and said that they would undertake the humiliation of bouncing round on giant toys that most of us grew out of when we were about 7, and, under much duress, another chum and I said we would be ‘reserves’. Actually, I’ve been told that I said I would be a reserve, I’m sure I distinctly remember saying ‘no – not on your life’!

Anyway, yesterday (the day before the ‘bb’) one of the gals came into the office apologising profusely (via email) but saying that the ankle injury she sustained a while back was still a bit dodgy so could one of the reserves take her place. Sadly I read this ‘pleading email’ after the other reserve did so she got her excuse in first! Not sure that going home to ‘bounce around with hubby’ is a valid excuse but nonetheless, she beat me fair and square for speed and inventiveness so it was left to me to fill the final place in the ‘big bounce’. Now I am not a sporty person, not even a little bit, and so the idea of bouncing round on a giant space hopper pretty much filled me with dread anyway, and when you take into account that people, and even worse the local media were going to be there watching, well, we’re getting into ‘nightmare’ territory!

Anyway, the first problem of this morning, what to wear… The ‘bb’ was happening at lunchtime but I still had to ‘dress for work’ so I figured that my emu boots, a little skirt (with leggings underneath to protect my modesty) and a casual jumper were my best bet. Turns out I was the only one who had thought about the practicalities of wardrobe planning this morning, as two of my fellow ‘bouncers’ showed up having completely forgotten about the whole thing, bless ‘em. They came into work in wrap-around dresses, stilleto boots and other such girlie outfits and the look of horror on their faces when they remembered that they were due to be straddling giant red space hoppers at lunchtime was an absolute picture.

So lunchtime rolled around (funny how time never stands still when you want it to isn’t it?) and we made our way to the venue, with me going via home to pick up a jumper to hide the ‘ample cleavage’ of pal in the wrap-around dress – we were a little concerned that in just her dress there would be slightly too much bouncing going on

It actually wasn’t too bad – there weren’t that many people there (I’m trying not to think about the film crew for the local news!) and as a team we did pretty well – managing 13 laps of the circuit and beating the team we were bouncing against by 2 laps

Probably the most amusing thing about the whole experience was showing up and finding all the other ‘corporate’ teams looking very sporty and athletic in their co-ordinating (and branded no less!) tracksuits while we walked around looking like a fashion parade in comparison - if there was a prize for the glam’est team I’m sure we’d have won

It was also very amusing watching my team mates trying to get onto their space hoppers without giving the audience a quick flash! I was less reserved and just ‘hoiked’ my skirt up – leggings remember! – much to the excitement of a couple of pre-pubescent boys watching… who went very red at me pointing out that I was not just wearing tights!

Anyway, in addition to winning our race we also managed to raise over £250 for ’sport relief’ and are feeling very proud of ourselves… off to polish the halo now

Living in fort knox!

Darling boyf and I had a very successful ‘diy day’ yesterday – and we even managed it without maiming or killing each other

A few weeks ago boyf decided that he would take his beloved 1961 karmann ghia off the road for some much-needed tlc and restoration work and since then I have been slightly concerned that our neighbours think they are living in chav hell… The driveway is littered with bits of rusty metal, all manner of tools and mechanic’y’ gizmos and basically the entire interior of the car being on its exterior… ie on the drive! Not a good look when we’ve spent the past three years doing the house up and generally trying to making it look as good as poss!

So an agreement was reached, rather than huff and sulk about the state of the driveway and rush darling boyf along to get the car done as soon as humanly possible, I suggested that we find a way to ‘hide’ the fact that the side of our house looked like a breakers yard. I said – very fairly I think – that if we could spend a weekend or so doing something to make me (and the neighbours) not cringe when looking up the drive, then I would not make one single comment about how long the car was taking to do, and therefore darling boyf could indulge in his restoration passion without fear of a whinging me

I decided that our best bet would be to put up 6 foot gates halfway down the drive and that in front of the gates would sit my lovely new car and behind would be the ‘work in progress’. This might sound bizarre but living in a 1930s house our driveway goes all the way down the side of the house and easily fits three cars down it. We’ve also got a 6 foot fence running the length of the drive so its actually quite practical to have gates half way down.

Anyway, as is my way I was less concerned about the practicalities of the venture than I was about the timescale! I happily ordered the fence panel, gate and posts to be delivered on saturday afternoon and was totally confident that. by the end of sunday, not only would the gates be ‘in situ’ but I would have also had time to paint the old fence and the new gates and get it all looking pretty! Although daunted by the task, darling boyf set to with a vengence and by 6pm yesterday evening it was all up. (I’ll have to do the painting another weekend!) And to give him his due, he’s made a bloody good job of it, we now have a brand new gate and fence panel to hide the ‘workshop’ behind.

The best bit about it for me though is the extra security and privicy it gives us. Whereas before the driveway – and therefore the garden, garage and back door – were all accessible to anyone passing, you can now only get half way down the drive before being stopped by a 6 foot fence and a padlocked gate (fort knox eat your heart out!). Much safer though, when you think that gardening at the bottom of the garden means being 97 foot away from an unlocked back door.

It also means that – and dare I say it… – my ‘issue’ with darling boyf’s dad’s insistence on using the back door when showing up unannounced, becomes a mute point. He’ll have to use the front door (and the doorbell) now as he won’t be able to get to the back Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with him coming round at all… I just like my privacy. And the time when boyf and I were upstairs getting ready to go out and we found his dad halfway up the stairs ’coz we hadn’t heard him knocking is taking family relations a little too far!