Strictly sad

I’ve just read in the news that John Sergeant has pulled out of this years’ Stricly Come Dancing and I have to admit that I think its really sad that poor old ‘Sergeant Charming’ feels like he has to do this

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t by any stretch of the imagination think he should still be in the competition – I personally think he should have been voted off a good couple of weeks ago but I think its really horrible that he obviously feels so bad about the situation that he feels he has to pull out! When all’s said and done it isn’t John’s fault that he’s been kept in the competition week after week and I would bet money that the people who voted for him last week simply to spite the judges (apparently a survey of 3,000 viewers found that 53% of those who backed John did so to rile Craig and co.!) are feeling pretty bad now – their ‘champion’ is leaving the show this weekend anyway and has been pretty much ‘forced’ to leave in a really horrid way.

I can totally understand why John has chosen to ‘gracefully withdraw’ but I do feel its a shame that he didn’t get to leave under the traditional rules of the show. Here’s to you John – a true gent!

Ps. Christine or Jodie to win. Yay

Kristina and her 'Sergeant Charming'

My guilty secret…

I was listening to the radio on the way back from the shops and happened to catch the lunchtime news. Apparently there has been another statement released about the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand/Radio 2 debarcle and it left me wondering WHY is this still such a hot – or even interesting – topic? 

Everyone with a pulse must have heard about the incident at the time… Yes, they were naughty boys, Yes, they should have gotten their wrists slapped, and Yes, it shouldn’t happen again… but really – is it still news!

The reason this is bugging me now is that I happen to find Russell Brand very very funny and I’m a bit peeved that liking him has somehow turned into something akin to a dirty habit… something that I should not admit to without expecting glances of dismay or outrage! There definitely seems (to me at least) to be a bit of bias against Brand too, he seems to be the one whose come out of this worse but surely JR is just as much to blame… In fact the idiot that approved the broadcasting of the show is, in my eyes at least, the mayor culprit!

But anyway, the upshot of this is that my ‘amusement’ of Brand’s style of humour is having to be hidden away… I even found myself the other night switching the tv over in the middle of Ponderland, just so as darling boyf wouldn’t know I was ‘giving in’ to my dirty, guilty habbit. Not that darling boyf even cares what I watch, I’m just so used to now ‘not admitting’ that I like RB to save myself from the disapproving glances cast about whenever the whole escapade is mentioned, that I turned the channel over without thinking…

In fact you could go so far as to say that RB has replaced chocolate as my naughty passion… something that I am happy to induldge in in the privacy of my own home but not to admit to in public! One the plus side its probably less fattening!

A smashing time…

A few days late admittedly but I just wanted to say a huge thanks to my mate CK for hosting the ‘funnest’ bonfire event ever last weekend…

When I first got her email about a piano-smashing bonfire party I have to admit I did think she was having a bit of a funny turn… the idea of drunken maniacs wielding sledgehammers in the dark and then burning the remains seemed more appropriate for Halloween than Bonfire night, but the enthusiasm demonstrated by darling boyf as soon as I mentioned the invite (he started planning how to weld viking horns onto his sledgehammer!!!) meant that I was in no doubt that we’d certainly be joining in the mayhem.

And mayhem it was… but mayhem in a bloody-good-fun kinda way Firstly we had piano massacre number 1 and I’ve never seen such pent-up agression displayed at a bonfire party before… I think it only took about a minute before one of the sledghammers was in pieces. The worrying thing here is that CK’s other half then produced a lump hammer as a replacement… hmmm, one sledgehammer-wielding-nutter with no control over the weight of the thing he/she’s hurling around and another, even more insane person, crawling around the feet of the sledgehammer-wielder, hiting bits of wood with a tiny lump hammer… A&E anyone!

Once the piano was in bits the next challenge was to post all the pieces through a letterbox-sized hole in an old door and on to the awaiting bonfire… this seemed to be the safe bit so I was more than happy to muck in – that was until one of the guys decided it was a good idea to ‘help’ by standing on the other side of the door and pulling at the bits of wood I was pushing through… That idea works great unless you’ve managed to get your bracelet strap caught around the piece of wood and find yourself being pulled through the door with the old wood! I still have the bruises!!!

We then had a break from the pianos for some scrummy chilli and lots of fireworks. This sounds harmless untill I tell you that the fireworks seemed even drunker than half the guests – in so far as they couldn’t seem to stand upright and on one memorable occasion fired off horizonatally into the spectators… I’ve never seen so many men run away so quickly! Oh, and I was also convinced that Monkey – who seemed to be the official ‘firework-lighterer’ - was going to do himself a severe injury with the sparklers he decided to carry around in his back pocket!

Piano massacre number 2 I pretty much missed… I was hiding my eyes… I simply couldn’t bear to watch as one of girls smashing around with the sledgehammer missed the head of another girl using the lump hammer by about 0.5 millimeters!!! At this point CK’s health and safety regs had well and truly flown out of the window methinks!

So, all in all a fabby night. Lots of fireworks, alcohol, good food, and hilarity. Oh and sledghammers of course… Thanks CK – see you for the next one!

Quick update - CK’s now posted the vid of the night’s escapades… click here for a look

Spot the difference…

Yay my favourite time of year is fast approaching… the mornings are getting fresh and crisper, the nights are drawing in, halloween is nearly here and yes… Strictly Come Dancing is back… and this time its bigger and better then ever.

So far we’ve said goodbye to Phil whats-his-name from Eastenders – he wasn’t too good to be fair – and Gillian (I talk like a man) Taylforth, which actually was a shame as I think on the whole she did well – I wanted Jessie Wallace to go personally! And it really is shaping up to be one hell of a competition. There’s just something so warm a fuzzy about the whole show and it makes for a fab staple of my weekend telly for the next few months.

Just one thing though, has anyone else noticed how much James Jordan looks like Beavis from Beavis and Butt-head… uncanny! I really struggle to watch him now without expecting Butt-head to waltz onto the stage sporting a spangly outfit and high heels!

separated at birth...

An emotional time

I’ve just realised that I’ve been neglecting my blog recently so have decided that I should try very hard from now on to get back on track with writing it…

The reason for my absence… Oh, where to begin… The day after my last post, darling boyf and I found out that I was pregnant!!! Now this was a complete shock (I’m on the pill you see) so this was a time of much ‘oh my god’ ing and stressing about how we’d cope with the grown-up-ness that is parenthood. However after a day or so we realised that this actually was pretty fantastic news and we happily got very involved with planning for the future – well, feb 2nd 2009 to be exact.

Sadly however, when we went for our 12 week scan (four weeks ago now) we found that our darling bump had died five weeks before. If I’m honest its impossible for me to describe the feelings that we experienced while sitting in that hospital scan room – being told that our tiny baby was dead was bad enough but finding out that it had died so much earlier and realising that I had been carrying it round, not knowing, for all that time was just horrible. The operation that I had to have two days later wasn’t much fun either, it used to be called a d&c but nowadays they’ve decided to give it a new name – evacuation of retained products of conception (erpc) – just in case you managed to forget what you were having to go through they decided to make the name a bit clearer!

You go through a whole range of emotions when something like that happens, from bewilderment (how could I not have known?), to anger (why us), to resentment (directed at all the other couples in the opc unit happily waiting for their scans) but the overwhelming feeling is such a strong of mixture of grief and numbness it doesn’t seem bearable at the time. It doesn’t matter that ‘bump’ only lived until it was seven weeks and that we’d only known about ‘him’ since week five, that was still ‘our baby’ and the loss was immense.

Luckily both darling boyf and I have great family and friends and have found a lot of support over the past month, and I’m pleased to say that it does get easier day by day. I still have ‘wobbles’ when I just want to scream and cry that its not fair – especially when I see young babies and pregnant mums-to-be, but the gaps between the wobbles are getting greater. And looking for a silver lining – you have to try to find one don’t you – at least it has made darling boyf and I realise that we do want a family, and sooner rather than later!

So here’s to baby-making and future ‘yummy-mummy-hood’… and to having lots of fun trying to get there!

Truly Radley Deeply

Last xmas my mum and dad bought me a fab stocking filler – a really cute little Radley pencil case and pen set. This was all well and good but did set me hankering for the real thing – a Radley bag to put the set in.

Niavely – and after a few too many glasses of xmas baileys! – darling boyf promised to buy me the bag to match. To be honest I don’t think he was really aware of what a Radley bag costs when he offered to buy me one… you’d have thought that the knowledge that just the pencil case cost £45 would have given him an inckling of what he was letting himself in for really but nevertheless, a promise IS a promise and for the last 4 months I’ve been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the promised purchase…

Anyway, last saturday we actually went shopping together (this happens very rarely as darling boyf is totally allergic to shopping) and he not only remembered his promise but actively steered me towards the bag section in John Lewis! So I am now the proud owner of a beautiful Radley handbag which is sooooo pwetty it makes you smile just to look at it

He did ask this morning if I was taking my beautiful new bag to work though!!!! Of course not… it might get scratched

True love … is buying your girlfriend a Radley handbag

Twelve… is my magic number

I had an absolutely fabulous day yesterday… I’d booked the day off work (which in itself is cause for celebration!) but the day got even better when my mum phoned up to see if I fancied a girly day out shopping

Now I’ve been a bit ’lacking’ in my clothes shopping expeditions recently, not for any bad reason but purely ‘coz I didn’t see much point in buying clothes while I’m still doing my healthy eating kick and losing weight. I have in fact, been under strict instructions from darling boyf to buy nothing until I stopped dieting as I already have a wardrobe full of stuff that’s now too big for me.

However, a girly day out with mum is never to be turned down so I happily tootled off – promising darling boyf that I wouldn’t buy too much – but not actually specifying what ‘too much’ was

I’d got a couple of bits and bobs – a couple of tops and a LBD for an upcoming wedding (oh, and a pair of killer heels to go with the dress!) when we popped into my ‘mecca’ – NEXT! Well, I tried on a lovely blue party dress – in my usual size and it looked really pretty but I then got a bit disheartened as I tried on a grey dress that looked really nice on the hanger and really wrong on me…

Neither mum or I could work out what the problem with the dress was and try as we might we couldn’t get it to hang right. It was only when the changing-room assistant came over and pointed out that the reason that it looked wrong was that there was too much fabric hanging down did the light dawn on what she was getting at… yep – I needed to get a smaller size and not only in the grey dress but I needed to go down to a size 12 in the blue one too!!! It totally made my day, I even had to phone darling boyf up to share the amazing news…

I know that everyone had been commenting on the fact that I have lost weight, and I do feel much better (I’ve lost about a stone) but I really didn’t expect that I’d have dropped a dress size – and without really having to try that hard

I think darling boyf thought I was going slightly mad though when I insisted on showing him the labels on the dresses at least a dozen times last night… I wonder if I should wear these dresses inside out now… that way everyone can see that beautiful number 12!!!

Men’s mixed messages

Why is it that men can’t just come and and say what they want? Most guys I know say that the female of the species is difficult to understand but honestly, understanding the fairer sex is a walk in the park compaired to getting to grips with the male psyche.

A friend of mine had a few dates with a ’seemingly normal’ guy recently – on the surface he looked pretty sane, he had a good job (he was a copper), no obvious personality defects and hadn’t been smacked with the ugly stick… all good!

Everything was going well, or so she thought- they’d exchanged soppy valentine’s prezzies (well he had – she made a bit of a faux pas by buying him a chocolate heart when he was alergic to chocolate!), had had cosy nights together in front of the tv and seemed to be getting on fine. Then, just like that, the text messages ground to a halt, and when she commented on his sudden silence she got fed the old ‘I’m just not in the right place for a relationship right now’ crap…

Now being a cool and sassy chick, my mate wasn’t overly concerned by this and had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing when, out of the blue, ‘wierdy-cop-boy’ started texting her again… WTF!! Why would he do this, he’s not asked her out or anything, he just keeps sending her bizarre texts about random rubbish and my poor pal doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going!

The latest of these messages was the bizarrest though… its his b’day this weekend and he’s asked her if she wants to go out with him and his mates!!!??? Now this would be quite a big deal if they were actually dating… meeting the boyf’s mates is always a big thing, but what does it mean when you’re not actually in any kind of relationship with the bloke in question? Can you imagine how difficult it could potentially be? And what would happen if he had a really hot mate… would it be a ‘no-no’ to say ’see ya later’ to ‘non-boyf’ and bugger off with his bezzie mate?

Its no wonder there are so many single gals out there when the messages sent out by their male counterparts are so damn difficult to decipher!

CSI MK

We’ve had a sad start to the week in our office, we came in to work on Monday to find a friend who we were very fond of had died over the weekend. Little fear – the fourth office fish – had sadly passed away

Accusations of bullying from the other fishies – juan, dos and trey – were bandied about, as were medical oppinions such as ‘fear was the little fat one… maybe he died of obesity?’ But whatever the reason for his untimely demise, little fear had certainly left a golfball-shaped hole in our fishtank.

So the decision was made to go back to the garden centre that we bought him from – receipt in hand, and ask for a replacement. We had only had him for 5 days after all and apparently they’re guarenteed for 14!!

When we arrived at the garden centre though I did start to feel a bit like a suspect in a murder enquiry… Firstly we were told that we could only get a refund for the cost of the dead fish if we brought him back in with us (??? – it’s a dead fish for christ’s sake – not the kind of thing a gal really wants to carry round in her handbag!), and not only that, we had to take a sample of the tank water in with us so they could get in analysed for toxins… Our arguments that the other three fishies were thriving held no sway with the ‘Inspector Morse’ of the fish world who said that under no circumstances would a refund be issued without a) a body, and b) a water sample!!!!

I actually think this guy was under the mistaken impression that he was working in some crime scene investigation squad for MI5 rather than the local garden centre!

Nor did he find our growing hilarity about the whole situation endearing… As our giggles about the ‘nonsense-ness’ of it all increased, so did his earnestness about the need to examine the water for toxins. He certainly didn’t appreciate us asking whether they needed to have the body back because they were planning on carrying out a post mortem to determine time and cause of death!

So – without our refund, or our dignity we left the garden centre with a new playmate for juan, dos and trey… welcome to our world little fumph

All the nice girls love a sailor…

… well this one certainly does naval pilots in particular!

Everyone knows that there is something incredibly sexy about a man in uniform but until now I’d never been lucky enough to actually meet any men wearing their uniforms and therefore was a bit ‘non-committal’ about the effect the uniform would actually have… Well, its true girls… boy oh boy is it true!

Last saturday Rob (one of my work mates) and I had to go down to London to interview and video some naval pilots at their graduation ceremony. Having to work on a saturday is never my idea of fun so it was with great reluctance that I hauled my ass out of bed for a day of ‘work’. Work – ha… I think I might actually have paid my employers to be given this job

Our basic task was to meet the guys, organise photographs with the naval photographer, watch their cermony and then interview/video them about their studies afterwards. It wasn’t until they actually arrived – in all their naval splendour – that I realised just how scrummy a uniform makes a man. OMG! Fantasyland or what!

Watching them on stage, saluting the presiding officers and looking all smart and shiny in their uniforms had Rob and I glowing with pride at ‘our boys’ - even though we’d only met them for 10 minutes or so by this point! And by the time we got round to properly chatting and then interviewing them we were both giggling like a pair of schoolgirls with the most enourmous crushes! I got even more giggly when I had to give one of them my card so he could get copies of any of the photos taken - good excuse or what

I’m not sure what it was exactly that caused my regression to giggling teenager mentality, all I can remember is the uniforms and an incredibly strong desire to re-enact that famous scene out of An Officer and a Gentleman!! And I had to try really hard – when one of them talked about settling down and having a family in the future – not to propopse to him right then and there!

Wonder if there’s any way of persuading darling boyf to sign up…