Senior Moment

The other day I came in from work. I had a couple of phone calls to make and I had to write a cheque before I went to a friends house. All succesfully performed. I went to my friends and when I came home received a phone call. I could not find the phone anywhere. I could hear it but not accurately enough to locate it. I rushed upstairs to answer the extenstion. Afterwards I enlisted Erin's help to find the phone. I pressed the button on the phone's cradle which makes the phones trill and she followed the noise with her more youthfull and accurate hearing. Lo and behold she found it. I had put it in the drawer where the cheque book lives! Fortunately I hadn't followed through and tried to put the cheque book where the phone lives!
Blush! Can't even blame the Large Hadron Collider anymore!

End of the world not nigh for another year

We can all live another year as they had to turn the Collider off as it sprang a leak. When they turn it on again next year the world may come to an end. Isn't that reassuring?

George Bush joke

Well, although I shan't be sad to see him go I do think W has been an excellent source of humour. So on that note I shall start the week with a joke I lifted from the Guardian.
Three George Bushes were walking along when they came to a river which they couldn't figure out how to cross. However at that moment a genie appeared and granted them a wish each.
The first George Bush wished to be 10 times as clever as he was. Lo and behold it was granted so that George Bush lashed together some logs to form a raft and crossed the river.
The second George Bush wished to be 100 times as clever as he was. Lo and behold it was granted so that George Bush swung from a vine and crossed the river.
The third George Bush wished to be 1000 times as clever as he was. Lo and behold it was granted so that George Bush crossed the bridge across the river.

Did it!

So this morning I ran 10k in 1 hour and 14 minutes for Cancer Research UK. This is a slower time than I had hoped to do, however the course was way harder than I thought it was going to be! We rounded the first corner and there was a HUGE hill, followed by several other hills, a nice bit of down hill in the middle and then another couple of the beggars at the end. It was also 'multi-terrain' i.e. mud track which I haven't really practised on. But I'm making no excuses, I'm proud of my achievement and it was a beautiful day so I got to see some great views of the Wiltshire country side too (it's quite nice outside of Swindon). Here's a pic of me with two other girls I know that also ran today.

Thank you very much to everyone who has sponsored me - I have had a lot of support and let me tell you, it really helps when you're puffing up hill wondering what the bloody hell you're doing there! Between online and offline donations I've actually already beaten my target of £250 but obviously it would be great to donate as much as I can. If you haven't already, you can still sponsor me here (mum!): http://www.run10ksponsorme.org/katemcnabb
Love Kate xxxx

Not Bruges

Well we managed to get booked into a hotel on the Norfolk coast and had some lovely walks, some lovely food saw some interesting birds and went on a boat trip to see seals. The weather was kind so it was a pretty good non Belgian weekend. Can't really be too angry with the large Hadron Collider. Though apparently it's more likely to bring about the end of days in 2 or 3 weeks. So we all need to keep planning that last supper!

I blame the hadron collider...

...between flooding (which did admittedly start before the collider thing kicked off), euro tunnel incidents and server meltdowns there's definitely something going on. e2train's server decided to call it a day on Thursday night and shuffle off into the dark night of the hardware graveyard. We've therefore been without email, internet, intranet and shared drive access ever since which has actually made it quite hard to get any work done! Doesn't compare with mum's rubbish working situation really but is a pain in the bum when you're trying to organise your company's annual conference.

I've also had a headache now for over 24 hours and am starting to feel really quite grumpy about it. So in my scientific opinion, this collider thingy might not have caused the world to end but might just explain some of this other crap that's going on?
Love Kate xxxx

PS: Despite all this though, there must still be a god because Strictly starts next Saturday! Did everyone see the swimmer Mark Foster, who's taking part this year, wearing a skimpy waistcoat in the preview last week? :)

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

Hackneyed quote but quite appropriate. The weekend before this one our office was under 6 inches of water, which although not biblical in scale, in nevertheless quite sufficient to mean we have lost at least £20,000 worth of stock and loads of furniture etc. We spent 2 days chucking wet books, carpet, boxes etc onto skips, and moving dry books etc to dry places - shoving them into corners in 2 other buildings, and shoving me and my 2 colleagues into the meeting room in Barry library, the admin staff into a corner of another room in Barry library, another member of staff is borrowing Sully library when it is closed, and Christopher is of no fixed abode. Staff phone and ask where he is and we just say to email him, as he'll pick them up eventually.

It is a real pain. The loss adjuster said that it would be 3-9 months before we are back in, and we can't stay where we are till then, but the boss is in Greece (lucky her) till 22 Sept so we are all in a state of great uncertainty which is very frustrating!!!!!

However when all said and done it's better than your home being flooded because none of it is personal stuff (bloody irritating though - we keep saying "where is..." or turning to get something which is either on a skip or 3 miles away.

Weekend in Belgium

This weekend we were due to have a lovely weekend in Brussels and Bruges. This is our view from the restaurant at lunchtime
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Looks like London doesn't it. That's because it is. The view of St Paul's from the Tate Modern. Yes, being green we had decided to go by Eurostar instead of a cheapy airline. Fire in the tunnel on Thursday no trains on Friday. Ah well, you can't win them all.
On a more succesful note Matt came over for a visit a fortnight ago (Trev has only just uploaded the photos.)
Here we are at West Mersea.
Here is a rather atmospheric shot of the estuary at West Mersea

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At the weekend we went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at Stratford. One of the few sunny weekends this summer and we were in a theatre! However it was an excellent production. It contained a fart joke which I found far funnier than anybody else in the audience (note to self, must grow up sometime). We met up with Helen, Brian and Kate and here is a picture of us strolling around the park after the theatre and before dinner.

Brian is hiding behind me as he is very camera shy now he is famous and on the radio.

A legitimate blogger...

...that's me! Hello!

I am currently listening to a new orchestral work on iPlayer by a chap named Brian Noyes... Marvelous. I find it beautiful, eerie, disturbing, and as I am an amateur musician, rather intimidating. What a fantastic sound it creates from the orchestra! I particularly love the core influence of John Clares life... I may have to hit the books to find out more. :oD

More anon. Alice xxx

End of days

Over the last few days there has been a lot of news about the large hadron collider in Cern, Geneva which was switched on today. Some people were saying that it would actually create a black hole and destroy the earth.
So yesterday at my coffee break at work I thought I would treat myself to a pain au chocolat. May as well push the boat out if the planet was only going to exist for another few hours. Imagine my disappointment to find they had all been eaten. Clearly everyone else had the same idea. But if that was true my fellow diners were all remarkably calm. This is a group of people who almost riot when the prices in the cafeteria are raised so you'd think they might panic a bit when the end of the world was nigh.
Anyway, the planet hasn't vapourised so it was just as well that I had a healthy banana instead. I also had a perfectly normal dinner but if I was going to plan my last supper I would have roast duck, with crackling, and roast potatoes followed by Choccie denver and raspberries.

Birthdays etc

Inspired by Alice I will put on some piccies of the succession of birthdays we have in July/Aug.

Here is Carl and his mum Lynne - just to prove to Matt and Sue that he does exist and isn't Kate's imaginary friend. As you can see I managed to have my birthday on the one hot day in July and August and we needed the umbrella for shade!! Incredible as it may seem having had nothing but rain and clouds for the last month.

Here are Nicky and I enjoying our personal passions in self indulgence!

Moving on to Kate's birthday lunch here are Lynne, Adam and Kate - not the barbeque this time, instead a Mexican feast indoors.

And here are Adam, Kate and Nic

Here is Kate being a bridesmaid for her friend's wedding, with Carl

Here is Nic being a bridesmaid - also a sunny day this summer. These were seriously lucky brides!

I can't find the picture of Nic's birthday so it must still be in the camera.

Brian and I were glued to the radio last night listening to the programme with Points of Decision in it. I know we have the cd but it was still very exciting to hear it actually on the Radio!!! And Brian talking on the radio too.