Alive

30 things I have done since I last wrote a blog post:

1. Applied for a new job in Leeds
2. Started the new job aforementioned job and joined the other thousands of people who commute to Leeds every day
3. Bought a new car
4. Sold the bullet and made a grand total of £10 profit
5. Become the proud owner of an overpriced parking space in Leeds town centre
6. Bought quite a few things in the Leeds branch of Harvey Nicks
7. Joined an equally overpriced gym in the centre of Leeds that has a very cool swimming pool on the 5th floor with a glass roof. (which incidentally I haven’t swum in yet).
8. Agreed to go on a bike ride for 4 days to get from Lincoln to Cromer which is a total of 160miles.
9. Thought about buying a bike
10. Agreed to run a 10km race in July.
11. Bought tickets to see Muse at Wembley in June so it had better be finished
12. Learnt to get up at 5.55am everyday
13. Sat in a lot of traffic jams
14. Worked far more overtime than I have ever done in the past
15. Learnt lots of exciting new architecture stuff
16. Got used to working in an office of 80 people and the amazing volume of crap you get emailed everyday when you work in such a large office
17. Found a route from my car park to work along the river which is really pretty
18. Went to the Costa Del Sol for a very ‘classy’ mini break!
19. Learnt that when your oven is broken for 3 months that there are in fact a lot of dishes that can be cooked on a hob
20. When deciding that when the oven is broken buying a new kitchen is not the answer as it cost lots of money to fit (boo)
21. Decorating is my least favourite way to spend a weekend
22. Discovering Phil can actually sit through Happy Feet without falling asleep or complaining
23 Discovering Phil can’t actually sit through any Audrey Hepburn movie without falling asleep or complaining
24 Realising that with the new series of Top Gear that I still hate Jeremy Clarkson
25 Discovering the Shield is the best cop drama ever made..role on season 6.
26 Lost is rubbish
27 Went to see Ben Folds who was again a genius on the piano
28 Went to see Richard Ashcroft who was amazing live
29 Found that I love Masterchef Going Large
30 Had no time to write my blog

Helloooo

I’m not very good at this website thing am I? I have a list as long as my arm of things to tell you. Some of it is from so long ago I doubt I’ll ever get round to it.

I’ve still got loads of pictures from my phone to post but first I must magic them on to the computer. Recently I have mostly been nursing Phillip back to health after a rather nasty bout of man flu and stressing about camping. Lots of decorating has also been done and I have finally stripped all the horrible wallpaper from our stairs and landing. (The painting hasn’t quite happened yet.)

Tomorrow I am going to lay everything out on the bed I am taking to Leeds and then try (probably unsuccessfully) to pack it all in my rucksack and still be able to lift it! I have definitely bought enough wipes to cover all occasions!

Going to see ‘Snakes on a Plane’ on Sunday - will report back next week on whether it lives up to the hype!

Future City

I have come into work an hour early to print out my CV as I have run out of black ink at home. Unfortunately so has my boss who sits only 2 desks away so there is no way he wouldn’t notice me printing out my CV. So I have an hour to kill and I’m buggered if I’m doing an hour of work.

Well it has been a busy few weeks. So I haven’t been blogging much. The sunshine has definitely been a factor in reducing my posts. Most evenings I much prefer sitting on a bench in the garden with a G+T and gossiping with Jo to going to type up a post! So what’s been going on? I shall write up my adventures in London the other week bit by bit.

I had one day on my own in London which was actually really odd. I can’t remember the last time I had this kind of time to myself with the choice of exhibitions, shops, etc before me. So I decided to visit the Future City exhibition at the Barbican.

I have only been to the Barbican once before when I was a child. I couldn’t really remember it very well and as the Barbican is an icon of architecture of a sort I thought I’d go. The exhibition was also curated by Future Systems, the Architecture firm famous for the Lords cricket ground and the Selfridges store in Birmingham.

I was interested to see how the exhibition was designed as much as its contents. The show attempted to bring together urbanist’s ideas for the future of the city from the 1950s to now. The first part of the exhibition spanned the 50s, 60s and 70s. Each major movement in urban design was represented from the Situationists to Archigram. There were some pretty spectacular models of the Smithson’s future house from 1956 and crazy living pods for space from the 1960s. I thought this part of the exhibition was very simply designed and easy to follow if a little bit boring. It felt like Future Systems had simply put together a history of urban design. There was no discourse on the success or failure of these ideas neither had they related them back to the modern day city.

Downstairs was put together differently. Projects rather than manifestos were the order of the day, running in approximately chronological order. The projects were interesting and included all the modern starchitects you would expect. Libeskind, Tschumi, Foster, OMA, MVRDV. It was an interesting collection and mostly in Model format but again there lacked any kind of discourse about the relevance of the ideas in the project on urban design and the future of the city.

I enjoyed my little visit to the Barbican though and wasn’t surprised to find it is difficult to find anything. The exhibition leaflets and the website just said The Barbican so I took an educated guess that it was in the main centre. Once I arrived after walking under a really ugly concrete road underpass I found no sign of it. In the end I asked at reception and they directed me up to the Art Gallery on the 3rd floor, obviously!

Right I shall publish this now and stick the pictures and links in later or it will just sit on my computer for another couple of weeks!

New Gadgets

Phil has a new phone. It is a smart phone obviously that does all the things a computer does apparently but also makes a lot of annoying noises. It even looks geeky this time. It is giant with a slidy keyboard. I have banned Phillip from wearing it on his belt in public!

This phone isn't really what I wanted to tell you guys about. We now have satellite navigation for the bullet! (It came free with the phone apparently...not sure I believe him.) This clever gadget also means we can look up on line where the bullet is at all times and send each other messages to it over the interweb like 'When will you be home?'. Funny I thought that what phones were for but oh well I am but a technophobe. I know we all need as many multifunctioning gadgets as we possibly fit our pockets. (Like Phil's new LED packed pedometer which is rubbish at counting steps but great for putting silly messages on and then pinning to your shirt.)

Well Phil was just demonstrating this new technology and it tells us that the bullet is currently in Chichester. Wow I think someone has actually managed to steal it..but no it is still outside the house, faithfully not breaking down. Phil got a bit annoyed when I told him it was a bit rubbish this new gadget and went off mumbling something about the website crashing.

On another gadget front I have decided to buy a MP3 player with a screen because my shuffle is pissing me off. So if anyone is off to USA soon let me know and I'll put an order in.

Race for Life Mark 2

It is now 2 days since the race and I have now just got round to writing. Jo and I were very conscientious and tried not to drink for a whole week before the race….harder than it seems when you consider how beautiful the weather was. Perfect for sitting in the garden having a BBQ (which we did on Saturday) and drinking Pimms (this we left out).

I was feeling pretty nervous about the race on Saturday and quite apprehensive. Jo and I had been training quite hard for the last few weeks but all our runs were based on time not distance as we don’t have a pedometer or anything similar. So we started getting stressed thinking we probably only run about 1 mile and would collapse on race day. Jo came to the rescue by looking up our normal route on a website called mapmyrun.com or something. Thankfully it turned out we had been running the right distance so we stopped panicking.

On race day we got the tram out to Don Valley and did the big group warm up session and then before we knew it we were off. We managed to run the whole thing in 37 minutes so we are feeling proud of ourselves especially Beth who got a stitch half way round and still managed to keep going. The weather was really sunny and hot so by the end we all looked bright red and pretty sweaty. The photos are here so have a look!

Thanks everyone who sponsored me. I raised £170 for cancer research which isn’t bad considering it wasn’t too painful! The only injury sustained was a blister on my right foot.

Jo and I are planning to carry on running throughout the summer and maybe run a 10 km race later in the year. I have really surprised myself by enjoying running plus the added advantage has been losing an inch and half around my waist which can’t be bad! I have a feeling we will feel less keen when the winter comes so I might as well make the most of my new found fitness levels while it lasts!

Race for Life

As you may or may not know I am running in the Race for Life in Sheffield next Sunday. I have been training for the last couple of months and I think I am just about ready. Gulp. I am raising money for cancer research. I have sent out a load of emails but if you don't get one please, please, pretty please dig your hands in the pockets and sponser me here. I think it is pretty safe to say this is the one and only time I will run a race so be generous!

Thanks everyone.

xx

Saville gardens Vistor Centre

Here are the pictures of Saville Gardens Visitor Centre under construction I promised ages ago. Please excuse the quality, I took them on my phone.

Up date

So what has been going on? Not much worth writing about really!

The past few weeks have been massively busy. I have been at work, been training, throwing Eurovision parties, going out for Chris's 30th and lots of other stuff too. Some of my uni friends all made the effort to come last Saturday so thanks Rachel, Liz and Lottie. You all travel a pretty long way and I really enjoyed seeing you all.

Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago I hurt my back and have been going to a Chinese doctor for the last few weeks so that I am able to run in the race next Sunday.

In the wake of the recent comments about complimentary medicines by the NHS I can definately say acupuncture helped me. I know lots of people are very suspicious about complimentary medicine and all I can say is that chinese herbs and acupuncture have helped me with migraines and exzcma far more than my normal doctor ever has.

I have absolutely no idea how it works as I am dubious about the existence of Qi. But it does work for me. I went to a new doctor this time and he not only did acupuncture on my back but cupping a la Gwenyth Paltrow. Oh I feel like I should be in the pages of Now. Here is a picture of one the bruises it caused on my back. Strangely it didn't hurt and they faded in a couple of days. I was pretty shocked at how bad they looked though!

Right I'm off. Byeee

A Rant

I am fully taking advantage of this blog being a forum for me to moan about things that annoy me.

Jeremy Clarkson et al (the short one and the one with really, really bad hair) get on my nerves.

Maybe that is the point of Top Gear, to get on the nerves of every girlfriend in the country.

I truly believe that Philip can find a programme at any time of the day with Jeremy blithering on about some crap, generally looking smug about smashing a crap car or caravan up or driving a car that costs more than 3 times my house did.

This rant was caused by the smug student walking by me at lunchtime with a T-shirt that stated in white writing on a black background…

“I am the Stig”

Oh for god’s sake.