Sorry it's been a while

I do keep on meaning to post, but things have been manic, again! I even start posts that get about half a paragraph in draft, and then I get called away / distracted...

The last few weeks have been fantastic for friends, family and laughter. The Easter weekend was brilliant - there were ten of us round the dining room table (immediate family (including my gran), plus other halves), we had roast turkey with all the trimmings, and then played some very silly games - it's like having a second Christmas (including the crackers!) but with chocolate instead of Santa Claus...

I've had a hockey tournament, which was great fun - a hockey team is supposed to have eleven a side, and we managed eight from our club... We managed to persuade one of the organisers that she would like to play for us (and I really don't know how she did it - she was running around organising, then refereeing a match, then coming straight off and playing for us. She has to be in her late forties at the youngest!), so we were nine, with most of our team older than 30. We were playing full teams, where most of the players were under 18. In our heats, we won, drew and lost one game apiece, and our loss was only by one goal - this got us through to the semi finals, where we were soundly trounced! But we were very impressed overall - it's a good start to the summer season which starts next week.

I've also had two fantastic social gatherings - John and I went to a friend's post-wedding party - a slightly delayed reception (by a year...) - we met up with a whole gang of my school friends - the first time for two years that we've all been together. In that time, there have been two marriages and three babies born - John and I are the last of the group who are in a long term relationship who do not have a child (no, that isn't a hint at all - not till we get to NZ and I've then qualified for maternity pay!!). It was brilliant to be able to chat to everyone, progressively getting more and more random as we worked our way through the very generous free wine that Steve had provided...

Then yesterday, a group of us went down to Glastonbury for the afternoon. It was my first trip since I climbed the Tor as a child, and definitely my first into the town itself. Sadly, I wasn't overly impressed - the hippie shops were all very much a copy and paste of each other, though they were all trying to outdo each other with the amount of incense that they could burn... We did find a lovely cafe for lunch, and a fantastic Tea Room that did the most gorgeous scone tea. Plus, it was a wonderful chance to chat with friends, which again got more random (though this time no alcohol was involved!), and did culminate in a discussion of a radio show which included an ongoing sketch about Chicken Man...

I've also made some more attempts to up my fitness levels - I've gone for another couple of runs, and I walked in to work this morning (6 miles, because I took a slightly wrong turning, in 1hr 36 mins...). I'm still hoping that I'll be able to run the full 5K without stopping - six and a half weeks to go! I've also been amazed at the generosity of my family and friends - with only a few donations, they have already met and exceeded my target for fundraising (and my increased target!) I've definitely got a lot to live up to now!

Brilliant Weekend!

I had a friend to stay for the weekend - I've not seen her for 14 years. We were best friends at my first secondary school, which I left aged 14, in really a very bad headspace (the school was rife with bullying, and I was not temperamentally suited to staying at a boarding school). By the time I felt able to think about my time there (without the attendant mental and physical pains - I would get really bad stomach cramp!), we had lost touch. An attempt to get back in contact through Friends Reunited didn't work.

Then, in January, she got back in touch through Facebook. We started emailing, then using MSN, and suddenly the years had disappeared, and it was as though we had never lost touch.

So she came up to visit us on Saturday and stayed overnight - poor John didn't get a word in edgeways as we chatted pretty much non-stop - ranging from general state of the world through to what my ex-classmates are now doing (I can't think of a more fitting punishment than "estate agent"!). It was incredibly cathartic - I was able to lay a lot of demons to rest, and it was actually genuinely interesting to find out what was happening (including the very real sadness at learning that one of the nicer people in my year had died a few years ago from a drugs overdose - not the end that I would have thought for him aged 14).

Whilst I know that my time at that school will always be with me - every so often I will get a flashback, usually from an unintentional comment (a recent one was our hockey coach saying that he'd forgotten about me whilst sorting out the training - that pushed me back to being the only one from my year in our boarding house not invited to a party - the group left from the bus stop opposite my bedroom window...), but I can now accept that what happened, though unpleasant, helped to shape me and is part of who I am.

In other news - my training for the Race for Life is going really well - I went out for a run last night (hooray for lighter evenings!), and went a little bit further than I'd intended. Mainly because I got lost... The outward journey was not too bad, but the last bit got a bit muddy and slightly overgrown, so, when I turned round and spotted a nice paved path heading back in roughly the same direction, I thought that would be ideal! Unfortunately, it very quickly curved away from the route that I had initially taken, and I ended up doing quite a big loop before it rejoined the main pathway (and as it scrambled down the hillside at the end to a three-way path split at the bottom, I was very lucky to get the right one heading back!). But I did just over 2 1/2 miles, and most of it was running, so I'm feeling very pleased with myself.

Catch up

Apologies for the absence of blogging recently - life has been very manic, both at work and at home.

Last weekend, we had a number of university friends come to Bristol for a spot of festive shopping (where I got loads of ideas for presents, then, as today has been the first day I could go in to actually buy the items, I go into town and discover that everything I like has sold out... Panicing? Not yet...), carols and music at our orchestra Christmas concert, and then a very cold, but nonetheless enjoyable day out at Caerphilly, where they had a medieval festival (though sadly very much reduced as a result of the atrocious weather that they'd had the day before) and Christmas market. We had a fun lunch in a pub where the waiter was (without meaning to be rude!) obviously hired on a 'positive action' programme. The first couple of times he came up were ok (he came to check the food order that we'd placed - 9 people meant that there was a lot of food!), but the popping up every five minutes to check that the food was alright, and to give us "Mr Pepper"... started to get a little bit creepy! The castle itself was gorgeous, and I'd like to see it again, in warmer weather. All in all, a good, if exhausting, weekend.

This weekend we had a very lazy Saturday and Sunday day, but busy evenings - Saturday, we were over at Oldland for the orchestra Christmas Party - a very silly, fun evening. Then, Sunday evening, we went out to see the Golden Compass. This is one of those films which has been hyped a lot, right from the first moment that it was announced (and even before - the books have generated a lot of coverage, mainly from the rabid-Christian types who don't like the idea of anybody even thinking of querying their beliefs, let alone writing a book which might be read to impressionable young children... (NB - Disclaimer - I am not claiming that all Christians are like this. Just the complete nutters...)) The cast list is amazing; Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Derek Jacobi and Freddie Highmore (and yes, I know that Freddie is still only a kid, but his name on the credits is now enough to make me want to see a film!) all making an appearance (even if Mr McK and Mr H are only in voice rather than appearing on screen). The graphics are fantastic - the daemons are gorgeous, and the scenery is beautiful (both real and imaginary - the scenes of the Scandinavian country - it isn't clear whether they are going to Norway or Sweden - particularly the going up the fjords and the docks, brought back very vivid (and happy) memories of the honeymoon). Some of the concepts could have done with more work - the idea of the daemons being souls are really only mentioned in the introduction, and not really covered in the film - and there were a lot of ideas and people which could have done with going into in more depth - the film felt like it was skimming over the surface. However, the acting was fantastic, particularly from Dakota Blue-Richards, who plays the lead - at age 12, and not having done any screen acting (at least, nothing that has appeared on IMDB...) before, she was breathtaking. She had to do a lot of acting against bluescreen (particularly everything that was done with the bears), and that in itself is very impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her! Overall, I wasn't as blown away by the film as I'd hoped to be, but it is still definitely worth watching, and I'm looking forward to the next film.

Also, since I last blogged, Heroes has finished... I've left this till last deliberately in order that anyone who hasn't watched it, and doesn't want spoilers, can stop reading now ;-)








A finale which answered most of the questions, but left enough hanging that I'll want to watch the next series (even though indications from the US are that the second series is rubbish). Sylar's meeting with his mother was brilliantly done - his final hope for redemption being rebuffed. There are queries hanging over Peter's need for his brother to fly him away from New York when he already had that power - my theory is that Peter, at this stage, is unable to control his powers enough to be able to use them more than one at a time (we know that in the future, he can, but that is a different Peter, one who has had more time to practice using his powers). I really enjoyed this - not as much as some of the episodes (particularly the mid-season break one, which had cliffhangers for all the characters), but the writing was great, the acting brilliant, and I am still of the opinion that this is, overall, the best TV series to grace our screens for a very long time (yes, even beating Dr Who - whilst DW had some great episodes, it was not consistently good, as Heroes has been)