Does anyone know the way to the garden party?

So, all the life coaching training courses are now over, and bar another 20 hours practise coaching I am qualified! (And what’s 20 hours between friends?) We also got a freebie course to learn how to become a trainer, which I think is going to be very useful at work; and I am picking up loads of practise at negotiation with this wedding planning. Argh. Input and suggestions I love, but then please, let me make the decisions? So, I am officially People Skilled up. Ask me anything, and see if I can give you something powerful and incisive in reply. (Well, anything bar nuclear physics or about the finer workings of an internal combustion engine.)

Learning to train was entertaining. We all had to do 20mins of training each other on something, so now I can make a cocktail, frost a cupcake, and have an inkling about photo compositions and swimming butterfly. Can you guess what I got them to do? Can ya? Yes, I got them all knitting. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to make sense of a tangle on a stick when you’ve never looked at stitches before. I had people trying to knit from the blunt ends of the needles, with the knitting sticking up rather than hanging down from the needle, knitting over and into the next stitch instead of slipping the just worked one off the needle…. Phew. And all in 20mins, less preamble! I was shattered! But good to realise for next time the things that knitters take as read that you actually have to point out to a newbie.

This was the view from the training room.

Right into the Queen's back yard, where they were setting up for a garden party from the looks of things.

We managed to coincide some breaks with the changing of the guard.

You can just see the brass band bits there. Good job the horses don't mind all the racket.

I’ve started the summer jumper. I know we’ve had our annual week of sunshine, but this is for Florida in October. I have a horrible feeling that although I measured my bust size properly (Liz can vouch for this because I did it during knit group in the middle of the restaurant), it’s going to be rather capacious. Possibly there’s not as much shaping as the baby cables jumper, which is my main comparison. Hmm. Anyway, it’s being done in a Twilley’s yarn called Gorgeous which is 75% bamboo (how terribly modern of Twilley’s!) which looks like being quite nice and drapey. Not as silky and floppy as the Soya yarn I used for Daisy’s hoodie, but not bad.

Uh-oh. Just found the jumper on Ravelry and everyone says the sizes come out big. I have a feeling that I should have succumbed to my inner vanities and gone for the smaller size – it was borderline between the smallest given and the next one up, but I went for the next one. But having spent three days worth of train journeys on it already, I’m not sure I have the heart to rip it. What to do what to do? Ah come on woman, where’s your knitterly bravery, people have ripped a lot more than 5 inches of st st. Just because you had that trauma of starting out and realising your lovely knitting-in-the-round was twisted into a mobius strip… you can do it again. Deep breaths.

This weekend The Man is competing in the London Triathlon at the Excel Centre in the Docklands. He came up a few weekends ago to practise the swimming section, which was just as well, as he now has tactics on how to avoid being drowned by other competitors. Watching him wriggle into his wetsuit is the funniest thing in the world, but hopefully he will be in The Zone at that point and not thinking about me unable to breathe from laughing!

Update: It's ripped. That'll teach it.

Goodness, where does the time go?

I knew June and July were going to be rather manic, but they’ve been fun too. The prospect of having a quiet weekend at home is beckoning though and I am soooo looking forward to it.
I’ve been on life coaching training courses, a hen weekend in Bath, helping at the shearing competition, to a wedding fair and a birthday party. But this weekend The Man is celebrating his birthday and I am not going anywhere. Bliss! A lie in! Time to tidy up!!

Knitting seems to have been on a go-slow lately, but the interlocking leaves socks are looking great, and such a cunning heel design! I’d not come across it before, but then again I’ve only knitted three pairs of socks in my life, but this is so cool – a sort of short row heel flap but the slipped stitches make it double thickness. I can see me using this technique again. I managed to finish one on the train back from the hen weekend, and am just about to turn the heel on the other. It’s all about being disciplined and not snoozing on the way home but making use of the time!

(I must ‘fess up to making a positive choice to take the train to Bath, rather than drive, so I could knit. I am turning into a true yarnie.)

The new Socktopus club parcel arrived last week, and I’m not sure what to think about it. OK, I still haven’t finished using the previous yarn, which is making me feel guilty for a start. But this one came without the extra goodies (for which there were apologies, granted) and seems to be a rather plain pattern with block colour yarn. It is an Ysolda pattern so no doubt with be full of hidden complicatude, so we will see. I hope the goodies are exciting when they arrive with the next parcel. I was disappointed with the last one I have to say – a few peas to plant? (I don’t even have a garden!) I’d heard great things about this sock club! So there, I’ve said it – I shall have to subscribe to that Knitting Blasphemies thread on Ravelry.

So you know of my quest to find the perfect Pride and Prejudice spin off? The other week I came across this:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

‘Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class conscious landed gentry?’ It’s had mixed reviews, not surprisingly. There are brilliant illustrations including Lady Catherine du Bourgh sending her ninjas against Elizabeth, and Elizabeth kick boxing with Mr Darcy. Barking. It was suitably ridiculous, but I have to sympathise with one reviewer on Amazon who said the good bits were the bits taken from P&P and all the badly written bits were the new additions about zombies. So you may as well save yourself £6 and reread P&P from the bookshelf. Although I will never look at Charlotte Lucas in quite the same way again.

So, while sort of on a Jane Austen theme, I have to tell you Bath is a lovely place to spend a weekend. Especially when the sales are on. But if you’re over that way, you must try out the new thermal spa, where you can actually bathe in the spring waters. It’s a great facility, four floors, two pools (one on the roof with great views) and one massive steam room with four pods, all with different essential oils, and a yummy restaurant. We also got around the Jane Austen museum, the Roman baths and popped into the Pump Rooms to try the water (which is much nicer than T Wells water), took a boat on the river up to Bathampton, and ate out in some great restaurants (Fishworks was amazing). The girls (bride and her sisters) discovered this bizarre shop called Hansel and Gretel which sold anything Bavarian and German, and had a strudel bar downstairs. They loved it. (On the other hand I discovered a bead shop downstairs in this little jewellery/gift shop which was amazing, but they were completely uninterested in. Each to their own!)

On Saturday night we were joined by John who apparently entertained the traffic stuck in a jam on the M4 on the way back on Sunday. He is so thoughtful.

The Man and I went to see Thriller. I’d spookily booked tickets on the morning before the news broke that MJ had died. I suspect tickets are like hen’s teeth now – it was booked out when we were there. Including some fanatical fan who kept shouting, ‘Michael! I miss you!’ until someone told him in no uncertain terms to shut up. It redeemed itself in the second half with an amazing dancer from LA doing the routines from Smooth Criminal and Billy Jean, but on the whole I preferred Jersey Boys. Jersey Boys had a plot, whereas Thriller didn't, and could have really done with one.

Mum and I went to a wedding fair near Maidstone on Sunday, and I think it was a bit of a revelation for her. I was quite surprised – she’s been involved in organising weddings recently, but there were things there she was pulling my sleeve and pointing at. We both tried on some tiaras and veils - I don’t see why she can’t have some fun too! And we found a really nice dress in the sample sale, which I didn’t buy because I’d probably be bored of it in a year’s time, but for 400 notes you can afford to run that risk and just bung it on ebay or sellmyweddingdress.co.uk if I changed my mind! Hey ho, it’s gone now. I must stop thinking about dresses and sparkles and concentrate on the bigger white thing ie booking a marquee! We are still in negotiations about that. I found this amazing company that does marquees with indian block-printed liners, but the quote was the GDP of a small country. There are other marquee companies which also do the marquees at the county show and other such events and are not very weddingy, but apparently they’re happy to put the bill down to hardcore (tarmac rubble) or cherry tree covers so you can put it through the farm books and claim the tax back. (Was I supposed to write that here?) So, we are still working on marquees. Will need to be inventive I think. And also check out our requirements in the way of generators, toilet trailers, chiller trailers, lighting and flooring. Then we can get on to the tables, chairs and catering stuff. Argh!

Just had a mail back from a photographer though so we will have a chat with him and see what he has to say.

Sigh. I am really looking forward to that Hannibal moment when I can suck on a cigar, smile, and say, 'I love it when a plan comes together...'

How to shear a sheep

Yesterday was the second Romney Shears International Shearing Competition to be held at Aragon Farm.


The winning shearer managed to shear 20 sheep in 18 mintues, which is a sheep in approximately 40 seconds.

There were also ferrets. These were babies and made only a half-hearted attempt to take my finger off.

And spinners.

We were of course also selling yarn, and didn't do too badly considering.

Hurrah for random things to do in the British summer!

Blimmin Chavs

This is not a classy new look. This is down to chavs. I'd just done perfect nails last night, gone to bed before they were totally dry, which I often do because I can fall asleep with my feet sticking out, but because the sitting room windows were open I could hear the drunken chavs out in the street. So I climb out of bed, close one window, but to get to the other one I had to climb on the settee, and... guess what. Smudged nail, which I had to take off until I have time to fix. Blimmin chavs.


Another unusual look is this:

Sainsbury's Wild Alaskan salmon fillets. What's with all that white goop that's come out of them? Ew! Like cheap bacon. They must have been pumped full of that salt sugar water preservative stuff to keep it and make it weigh heavier. Well Sainsbury's, that pretty icky. Kindly desist.

La belle France

So, work sent me on this terribly painful course for four days at a chateau outside Paris.

The food was amazing and there was wine with every meal (well, not breakfast).

There were opens bars all around the house, and they fed us every hour and a half.

There was pool and archery and a tandem bicycle and Wii and poker and karaoke and a hammam and tisane de rose boutons (rose bud tea). Isn't that just the best teapot you've ever seen?

And now I'm back to curled up sandwiches and manky machine coffee. Sacré bleu.

(All is not lost, they're sending me back there in November and most probably April as well.)

As penance, we have to do a team challenge, and the decision seems to be the Three Peaks. It seemed a good idea after a couple of glasses of vin rouge... The team is made up of English, French, Germans and Italians, but they are a good bunch and they all speak very good English. I always feel so bad when you go abroad for business meetings and everyone else there is fluent in three languages, although I suppose if English wasn't the international business language then we would be too. My French is coming along but it's still woefully clunky.

On the way, I met an old school friend in Paris. She's been living there for years and recently got engaged to a Frenchman. We all had lunch together and I am happy to report her man is lovely! They are very loved up, but I didn't mind being a gooseberry because I am sickeningly loved up too. After lunch us two girls went to investigate the wedding dress shops on the Boulevard de Magenta, which is right by Gare du Nord. There are some uber tacky and some nice ones, and dresses are much cheaper than in the UK. It appears we pay for having some customer service. Where in the UK you have a huge dressing area with pretty chintz curtains and a chaise longue for your long-suffering friend/mother to wait on for two hours while your helpful and cheerful attendant helps you trying on every dress in the shop, in Paris it's cubicles with formica doors and you have to use the mirror on the (spartan) shop floor. Getting a smile out of the staff is rare. Dresses rammed on the rails are shrouded in plastic like the chiller section in Sainsbury's. I'm happy to pay an extra couple of hundred notes to look back with pleasure on my dress buying experience.

That said, my friend has got hers already and it sounds beautiful, and very similar to what I'm looking for myself. Yay her!

No new knitting news other than I've finally finished the back of the cable and rib cardigan and have started on one of the front panels - with proper cabling. I thought the back was slow going... I fear this might have to go on hold if I want to ever start my summer knitting!! (It was supposed to be a spring cardi, but looks like being an autumn one instead.)

Cake

Look, I've made my first yarn cake. Yum! The Man acted as a very good swift until the football started and then attention waned and we ended up with a massive tangle which took half of NCIS to unpick. But Cake!! Why are yarn cakes so satisfying? Is it the squishiness? Is it the diamond shapes? Is it the promise of creating something professional-looking from your I'm-a-real-knitter-now properly wound skein?

So this yarn is from the Socktopus sock club March parcel - Artist's Palette yarn Sweet Feet, 80% merino and 20% bamboo, in a beautiful angry sea slate grey/blue. I'm not doing the sock club pattern, this one is Interlocking Leaves from Knitty.

Also found this handmade yarn at a craft fair yesterday at Petworth House:

It's a very autumnal looking blend of wool and silk with a few metallic sparkles. Not sure I approve of metallic sparkles in yarn but they are very subtle in this one so I'll let them off.

It's hot hot hot out today - hurrah for some British sunshine!

For goodness' sake

So the Speaker of the House of Commons has quit because MPs have been diddling their expense accounts. For goodness' sake. That's like a load of schoolboys getting caught, standing there looking shocked, then all as one pointing the finger and going, 'He's in charge! It's his fault!'. This expenses system seems to have been in place for decades, certainly since before this Speaker was incumbent. If it was me, I'd be furious! I'd bash my gavel and shout, 'Don't you dare blame me you dishonest bunch of [wotsits]!', but he just apologises!!! What are they going to fob the blame off for next? Things are not perfect. The law is weird in places. We have a PM who looks like this

rather than this.

Deal with it and sort it out people! Don't just keep manoevring for position and trying to keep the newspapers happy. You're not going to achieve anything that way, apart from piss a load more voters off.

Sheesh.

She said He said

I seem to be in a spin-off vibe this week. A friend has directed me to a piece written from Edward’s point of view (Edward the vampire from the Twilight books – yes all right I know I should be reading something more high brow but everyone has their guilty pleasures, right?) which is as yet incomplete but is an entertaining start, and then a book arrived which I’d ordered from Amazon which tells P&P from Darcy’s point of view. I am still searching for a satisfying P&P spin-off. This one, praise the lord, has not offended me with horrendous clangers which the editor should have picked up on, like using modern language or playing free and easy with the characterisation (Darcy does not go to haunted house parties in the wilds of Wales, get pissed trying to forget Elizabeth and end up with a deranged woman trying to seduce and/or kill him). It is, however, a little dull in the end, despite some good angst in the middle. Perhaps there is something to be said for the bodice-rippers after all.

I have another weekend of coaching this weekend. I am shattered to start with, so I’ve booked off next Monday for holiday. As usual, I was hoping for an easy day, but suddenly everything has become booked up. Uncles and aunts are coming over from France and want to do lunch, but I have already arranged lunch, so perhaps we can do tea? And I need to do some much neglected cleaning, and shopping, and I suspect sleeping. Not sure I can remember how to have a lie-in, or even how to turn the alarm clock off….

We finally managed to book a day to see the vicar. 1 June. What kind of world is it that it takes over a month to get in an appointment with a vicar? I’m not quite sure what he wants to say to us either, and whether there are some answers to questions that are real no-nos. Any advice on this gratefully received! I know one of the questions he asked my brother was, ‘What would you do if you found a bottle of gin in [sister-in-law’s] handbag?’ (I believe Pete’s reply to this was, ‘Ask her for some’, but I can’t swear to it.)

Musings on Sparklyness

One of the knitting girls quite rightly commented at the last meet-up on the proximity of a blog post here whingeing about not being engaged and wanting to be, and one featuring a heavily sparkly finger. Indeed an interested phenomenon. I’m 99% sure that The Man doesn’t read my blog, but hey ho. Just shows the power of articulating your wants and desires! Or something.

So, I am getting used to wearing a ring on that finger, so much so that sometimes I have to check it’s still there. I’m also getting used to being engaged. A couple of the girls at work warned against the one-week-cross, where it seems that about a week in you get cross and grumpy for no real reason, but apparently that’s normal. Have to say that I didn’t notice it, but now, at nearly a month in (already??!) I’m starting to come down off the champagne fuelled cloud.

I did initially have three days of panic at the prospect of organising a wedding, which really perplexed me because that’s the sort of thing that I usually love doing. (Some lovely friends talked me down with stories of how much fun they had organising their weddings.) I think now it was the prospect of the soul-destroying task of sorting the nice wedding things from the tacky hideousnesses that some purveyors of bad taste seem to think that brides will go for. Your portrait etched in a heart-shaped lump of glass and backlit in colour-changing neon anyone? See through lace wedding dress? No? I could physically feel my heart sink as I sat with the first bridal magazine in my lap, gearing up to peel back the cover. Needed brandy rather than tea in my hand. But I have found it very cathartic to scalpel out the few things I like and then throw the rest of the wretched publication away. To be fair there have been a few good ideas. As long as you try to ignore the pouting models with their heaving bosoms. The vicar would have a heart attack.

It’s been interesting to people watch girls on the train and around town with engagement and/or wedding rings, and speculate about their state of mind, especially when you see them out with their other halves. A ring is a real brand to the world that you belong to someone else. On one hand, that’s good – you are in a partnership, a team, and someone loves you enough to spend the rest of their life with you. But on the other hand, it changes you. I feel a little like a pie (bear with me on this) in which a slice has changed forever. That slice is now The Man’s, and that slice, slim though it is at the moment, cuts right through to the core of me. And it’s taking a little time to get my head around that, because I’ve always been very self contained, and to have something dissecting me is something I instinctively resist. Well, you do, don’t you? Change is hard. And that slice of pie (or thin end of the wedge, whatever) is just going to get bigger. I’m going to have to change my name! That’s drastic!

Do men go through all this? They just get to wear a ring, and even that’s not compulsory. They get a social secretary and someone to do the laundry. And bear their children if they want. Good deal?

Before I get Anon on my back again, I am very very happy indeed to be engaged, but I’m just taking a while to get used to it. And learning to get used to the idea that The Man does actually love me that much! He’s so laid back sometimes that it can be a stretch to imagine him doing something so extravagant, but he does, even though he’s only going to let me talk about wedding planning three days a week.

In other news:

1. Life coaching training continues this weekend and I’ve just started with a new client which went well, so fingers crossed it continues to do so.

2. Mum and I just realised that I’ll be away in Florida during the knitting show at Ally Pally this year, which turns out quite well because we both dread it and we can try to go to Woolfest or Wonderwool instead next year. Which are nicer and smaller and cheaper for exhibitors. Hurrah!

3. Have nearly finished the baby hoodie but the hood/collar border needs ripping out and starting again because I can’t work out how to overlap the front and keep track of how many k2togs I’ve done at the ends of the rows. But it’s nearly there.

4. Have picked up the cable/rib cardigan/gilet again and god, it’s the slowest knit in the world. [sigh]

5. Have had a genius thought that perhaps our yarn with work for Liesl. In discussions with mum about giving it a try.

6. Ordered more yarn for projects I don’t have time for, inc some malabrigo lace from Pure Purl, who I have to say have great customer service for people like me who can’t make up their minds. Thanks Kim!

And now I’m off to meet some friends who are taking us out to a posh restaurant underneath the Metropolitan hotel. Oo la la, aren’t we high falutin’.

Hunt Watch

I loved Life on Mars, but the scriptwriters for Ashes to Ashes are really going for it with the Hunt-isms. Hurrah for un-PCness! Gene Hunt we love you.

From Ep 1:

Hunt: Put your knickers on, you're nicked.

From Ep 2:

Hunt: (To the team) Don’t ever tell me how to drive, this motor’s more a part of me than my own ball sack.

Hunt: (To Alex Drake) You’re looking very chirpy Bowles, been sitting on the washing machine again?

I'm going to start a drinking game - for every quote that you'd get hauled in front of HR for these days, drink a dig*. For every time he says 'knickers', down it. I foresee some messy Monday nights....

*dig = digit, ie one finger's worth of whatever's in the glass.

Winging it

Trying to make a hoodie to go with the heart trousers, without a pattern. This is where I've got to:

And I'm hoping it's going to end up something like this:

Which is a Baby Hoodie pattern for Blue Sky Alpacas.

It's quite possible I've gone drastically wrong already, looking at this pic. Hey ho! Next time it will be better. Or at least not so bad.

On a side note, I love working on circular needles. Look how I can knit bits and leave bits and jump bits - how cool is that? And no poking fellow commuters in the beergut either!

Normal service will resume

Here are the latest knitting projects:


Cable rib cardigan from Debbie Bliss, which will be sleeveless and therefore a gilet.

Heart baby pants (trousers, people!) from Hannah Fetig's Cherished Knits. It was a bit difficult sewing the hearts on while on the train without pins and getting them level so I think the one on the left knee (on the right here) will need to be repositioned.

And finally what I bought with some birthday money. An all grown up wool winder! No more hand-wound balls rolling off the settee and into teacups! Hurrah!

£16 off ebay plus P&P. Bargain.

Sparkly

Sorry for not posting for a while, but last week (on my birthday) this happened:

As you can imagine it's been rather hectic since then! The Man proposed beautifully, with dinner at The Ivy followed by a private pod on the London Eye, complete with champagne and chocolate truffles laid on, where he snuck the ring into my glass. I was completely surprised as I thought it was all for my birthday!

I am so clueless sometimes.

But extremely happy.

And slightly panicking about organising a wedding!

Abolish Money!

Took this at lunch time of the G20 'riots' at Bank. Also been following the fun on Twitter (what has the world come to when we turn to twitter for breaking news? Why can't the proper news sites keep up?) and these are some of the best comments (excuse the screwy formatting, blogger doesn't like it when I cut and paste):

1 person breaking stuff and 200 filming it. Idiots.

Stupid anarchists drinking Starbucks. Right.

*We* own the banks now. Stop smashing them up you idiots!

City workers hanging out of windows waving £10 notes at protesters. A few years ago it would have been fifties and bottles of Veuve.

This is the worst festival I’ve ever been to.

Someone just said it feels like glasto without the drugs.

They've reportedly been smashing windows at that RBS branch for an hour now. How many windows does it have?!

G20 protesters say 'Abolish Money!' Okay, let's start with them: turn all your cash in right now!

"Hippies. They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad" - Eric Cartman

Sshhh dont tell the G20 protesters but the banks have no money - so no point storming them ;)

Can someone tell the man smashing the RBS windows that he (presuming he is a taxpayer) will have to pay for that.

Trannies protest too

Latest placard: "Down with this sort of thing"

Illegal venue rules apply know your exit, watch your back and run as soon as someone up the front starts playing bongos

Shocked at the number of greengrocers' apostrophe's (sic) on the G20 protest banners. Follow the hobbyhorse for grammar crimes.

Can't believe all the fuss over G20. They didn't even win the X Factor and their Bohemian Rhapsody cover was terrible.

Police still in RBS when I left. disabled chap at 'Camp Climate' complaining about wheelchair access

Ask yourself Sarkosy: what would Chuck Norris do?

Lots of unwashed types at the g20 protest - Brighton town centre must be empty today.

OH MY GOD, A MAN HAS SPIILT HIS COFFEE AT THE G20 IN LONDON. IT'S ALL KICKING OFF NOW!!!! OMG!!!!!

14:37, Rage Against The Machine playing outside BofE

I'm protesting against the miserable state of G20 protesters: using my brain, working hard and wearing a Saville Row suit.

Do the protesters know that the additional police will cost the taxpayer? Could they even spell counterproductive?!

Embattled bankers are blasting out James Blunt and Dido through RBS building loudspeakers. Crowd disperse

The G20 protesters have the cutest angry clothes! Apparantly The Gap are basing next season on them.

If this was Paris would there be more burning cars and less standing around doing nothing by now

Just saw a couple of clowns wander past drinking strongbow. Literally and metaphorically.

Anyone else chuckling at all the anarchists with iPhones?"Fight the power, yeah? With your £50-a-month O2 contract."

A G20 protestor penned in with others slammed police "Some of us have to pick children up from school!" Planning's not her strong point eh?

Only things getting through police lines are portable loos. Lombard St, in case anyone needs to go

I keep missing all the constructive suggestions being put forth by protestors on how to remedy the economic downturn.....

Apparently seen in bank HQ window during G20 protest: "While you are here protesting, we are repossessing your homes"

Have the collapsitarians managed to overthrow capitalism at the G20 or are they pausing for tea time?

G20 Protests: All iconography and no ideology.

Which just goes to show that Twitter is used almost exclusively by bored office workers.

Lisa and I popped down at lunch time and saw about the only interesting thing to happen - the policeman that got hit over the head here being dragged back to the police vans, all bandaged up, and about thirty riot police plunging into the crowds amid much shouting. It sounded quite like someone had scored a goal. There were indeed eleventy hundred reporters and rubberneckers and not that many actual protesters. And no one is the wiser what they're protesting for. There were lots of hippy women with push chairs and papooses. Just the sort of thing to take your children to!

Anyway, why are these people causing a ruckus? If they really want to make a difference they should form their own party and their own policies, and run for office. If it works and people like the ideas they'd get voted in. Then they could sort it out themselves.

Blimmin soapdodging grufty hippies.

If you want something done….

…give it to a busy person.

Did anyone ever say to Richard Branson, ‘do you think you’re taking rather a lot on?’ Or to my parents even. They run three businesses and have various other enterprises on the side. I expect that’s where I get this entrepreneurial tendency to do loads of things from. But it’s true, finding a balance is important and something that my parents are just now starting to concentrate on.

Tosser did actually raise some quite valid points in his/her second comment, and some that I did consider myself when I decided to do the coaching course. I have a full schedule, work wise and socially, but then I am not a person who is happy to stay in and watch Eastenders every night. Achieving things makes me happy, and it’s really not that hard to do with a bit of application, organisation, imagination and common sense. Life should be an adventure, whether it’s work, travel, or having fun.

So, re time for coaching – yes, I will be pushing it while I am doing my training, but that is for four months. After that, I hope to keep it ticking over with one or two clients on the go at any one time, which is only a couple of hours a week therefore realistic to commit to, until such time as my situation might change and I want to increase the hours. As for it meaning I don’t see The Man, the sessions are most likely to be phone sessions (these days most coaching is done over the phone, or even over Skype) which I can do during quiet time in the evening while he’s happily watching the footie.

Do I see The Man enough? It’s true we’re both busy people, but we’ve discussed this in the past and we quite like it. It means we look forward to the time we have together and make the most of it. We go out to dinner and Talk To Each Other rather than sitting in front of the TV every night not communicating. We are both of the opinion that having our own interests is good for the relationship – we retain our own freedoms and that’s important, it means we never feel stifled. It also means that we respect each other more for our accomplishments.

The engagement drama was just a wobble caused by a combination of hormones, wine and all the girls at work talking about their own weddings / engagements / ring hunting. Yes, I am a confident independent woman who, if she wants something, goes and gets it, but on the other hand I also have a lot of old fashioned values about things like manners, integrity, professionalism and love, and one of those is that the man should ask the woman. I suppose the main justification of that is that if the man asks, without prompting and/or thumbscrews, then he should be really sure that that’s what he wants to do, and he’s come to the decision of his own free will. That’s what I want when I get engaged, and for that I have to be patient. (Patience, unfortunately, is something I know I need to work on.) The Man is totally aware of how I feel and knows how important it is to me, but I am not pushing it, it’s up to him now when it happens. And actually, I’m happy to wait. For a bit. *;)

What would Chuck Norris do?

Well, it was more of a ‘what would Puss do?’ moment. In the middle of Saturday night, I woke up with a start to someone (clearly pissed and having a laugh with the flats' keypad, or having forgotten his mates' number so trying the lot) pressing our door buzzer. I never usually notice the thing in the day, but in the dead of night it’s quite loud. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz………..Buuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Being suddenly woken up like that gives me a huge adrenaline rush, but the continuing noise just made me cross. Fuming, in fact. The alarm clock said 1.29am, and I had to get up early again on Sunday and needed my sleep. I wished I could have made the door phone cord reach the window, and carried out this exchange with the door person:

‘Hello?’ (me)
‘Shello?’ (pissed door person to disembodied voice)
‘Darling, could you just step back a second and look up to the right?’
‘Erm, OK.’
[flash]
‘Nice mugshot. Now f*** off you c***ing twat or I’ll call the police.’

That would be what Puss would do.

Thank you for all the great comments on Navel Gazing. I don’t think I’ve had so many since the post on Men’s Pants! I’m exhausted today but feeling a lot more positive, thanks mainly to my first weekend of life coach training. It was so motivating I got home completely drained of energy, and I’m wondering whether I’m going to be able to keep up with everyone else’s frantic pace. I suppose when some of them aren’t working they have time to go to all the seminars and meetups and read all the notes as soon as we get them. Thank God that I’ve already read the first text book a year ago! So, I’m looking for some practise clients to accrue enough hours for accreditation, if you know anyone. No friends or family though, although I’m happy to refer F&Fs on to some of the other trainee coaches.

I think I need some coaching myself on time management. Full time job, a business I’m supposed to be running with my parents, and now setting up another business… It’s not unheard of, but I’m going to have hit the Red Bull!

So, things with The Man are back to normal (normal being good), and this week we celebrate being together for two years. Two years!! It seems so fast and yet our first date seems so long ago. Perhaps it’s because we’ve done so much together since then – his brother’s wedding and now his brother’s baby, my brother’s baby, trips to Wales, Egypt and the States, moved in together, had a health scare (me, all fine), changed jobs (both of us), helped his mum move house. He is the first boyfriend I’ve ever had who I am completely myself with, and it’s so amazing to be able to just be me! Sometimes when he’s there I have to just jump up and down (he thinks I’m barking) because I’m just so excited to be with him. And yes, you’re all perfectly right, I should appreciate having such a good thing and stop wishing my life away. Well, for once I am going to listen to some advice. Write it in your diaries people, it’s a red letter day!

Navel Gazing

Apologies, but this will be a rather introspective post. I've been feeling a bit dreary lately, and while I could put it down to hormones or post-holiday blues, it feels like more than that. I had a minor meltdown on Sunday night, sobbing on The Man who dealt with it valiantly. Frustration and impatience seems to be the main problem at the moment. There are lots of major life changes on the brink of happening, and I want them to happen, but they're just not getting there, and it's driving me nuts! I'm so used to being a can-do get-done person that I obviously find it hard to cope when I can't influence situations and make them happen. So, I just have to sit and wait for the small sparkly ring and the new house, listening to the girls at work planning weddings and putting a brave smile on for all the people who keep saying, 'Has he proposed yet? Tell him to get a move on! Have you found a house yet? Yadda yadda yadda?' while inside a small (and apparently growing) part of me is screaming. That's another thing I've discovered about myself recently, I cope with stress by ignoring it and blanking it and blithely carrying on until finally I snap and crumple. This is not good. I need to find a way of monitoring the scale a bit better and doing something about it.

The worst part about the minor meltdown was that The Man was trying (quite rightly) to find out what was wrong, and how could I say, 'it's because I want to be engaged dammit! And I want somewhere to live that has a garden! It's you and the housing market conspiring against me!' Garbled snotty explanations at 11pm must try anyone's temper, but he weedled it out of me anyway, assured me that it definitely all would happen, laughed at my fog-horn nose blowing, and somehow made it all OK. And then next day when I got home from work, hugged me again and checked I was still back in the land of the sane. He is a trooper that one.

Still, there are those people who have asked the $64,000 question - why wait? Apparently my brother was sure The Man would propose while we were away in the States, and mum said my brother was actually quite cross that he didn't. My brother proposed to his wife after six months, and fully subscribes to the 'if you know, you know, so why wait?' school. I think I'm sort of a 'wait a bit and check you can live with their weird habits' person, but if that's all good, yes, why wait? We might get run over by a bus tomorrow, or struck down with some dread disease.

So anyway the upshot of the meltdown is that I feel like I've put pressure on The Man when that was the last thing I wanted to do. Like he said, a proposal should be a surprise. I want to feel that he's done it 100% because he wants to, and I don't want even a tiny bit of the motivation to be because he knows it's doing my head in that he hasn't yet. So now I feel guilty about that too. The rational part of me says that of course The Man wouldn't do anything he didn't want to do, he's almost as stubborn as me and won't be pushed around, but hey, there you go.

Anyway, I must shake my shoulders, give myself a kick up the arse and cheer up, because it's really small fry in the great scheme of things, and life coaching training starts at the weekend. Who wants a gloomy melancholic life coach?

Development

I was walking to knit group last night, and at the lights at the end of the Pantiles did the usual City-worker thing of seeing if I can nip across the road without pressing the button. It seemed not, there was a car roaring down the hill, so I thought sod you speedy, I'll press the button and make you stop. Don't you love how lights turn red immediately at night-time when it's quiet? Speedy duly stopped, and then I got toot-tooted at. The cheek!! The nerve!! Worse, the window was wound down and I was shouted at: 'Don't say hello then!' It was The Man on the way home from football.

(Amusingly he'd carefully measured the pancake batter before he went out and warned me not to use up more than half of it Or Else.)

Knit group was really good fun last night, I'd missed seeing the girls and talking yarn. We nattered about holidays, it seems that quite a few of us have been to the Canyon, and also welcomed in two new recruits, which was ace. They even work in the local crafting shop! (We need to educate them about indie yarns though.) The venue had a salsa class tramping away above us, which I have to start attending again to work off some of this lard (added to nicely in the States). We all cooed over new yarn, marvelled at my Soctopus sock, and I knitted my first ever stitch *Continental Style*. Well gosh. The cuff of the sock calls for knitting with two strands of yarn, alternate stitches, in rib. So, K1 in yarn A, P1 in yarn B. You can imagine the tangle and the frustration of that. So, the best solution was to knit it like the advanced knitters do intarsia or fairisle, with different colours in different hands. Yeah, right, look at me the advanced knitter! (Guffaw.) I think it was quicker to drop the yarns and undo the tangles, but hey, I have one more row to do (and the other sock), and I suppose I should try to figure it out properly one day on a (duh-duh-duuhhh...) swatch.

The Man and I are starting to househunt again. I've seen a few places online, but there's not much about at the moment, people are sitting tight until the prices come back up. I wish I could cut and paste bits of various houses to get the perfect one! There's one that's right place, right garden, outside garage, but the house is just a bit meh. There's another which is right price with 4 beds (pole room *and* craft room!!!), nice enough but wrong place and rather soul-less. I am not looking forward to trying to find somewhere good in this climate. I fear we might be reduced to posting notes through the doors of places that look remotely suitable, but at least that dispenses with the evil agents. Buying the old flat was pretty painless, selling it was a royal pain in the arse. Useless agents, even more useless solicitor. Well, she was part of a package deal with the agents, we should have known really.

I am feeling a bit fidgety to get settled, I must say. The flat we're in is lovely (I felt a pang leaving it to go on hols) but I can't feel totally content until we have a place of our own together. I'm looking forward to having friends to stay and BBQs, which requires a spare room and a garden. It will come, I just need to be patient and keep my faith in the housing fates...

Howdy

Well, adventures are over for the time being. I feel like I've had a good travel. Do you agree with me that there is a difference between travel and holiday? This was definitely travel.

After a loooong flight and a loong drive, ending with a loooong gravel track (at which point Doris the sat-nav gave up knowing where we were), I finally found the ranch. It's right at the bottom right hand corner of Arizona, at around 5,000 ft up. The moonlit scenery looked stunning as I was driving through.

Trouble is, the next morning it looked like this.

Luckily in Arizona, snow doesn't last too long.

You can see Mexico from the south pasture, but as neither of the cowboys have passports they're not allowed to go there. This is me helping to move some (pig-headed stubborn) cattle.

Here is the ranch manager looking picturesque in Jackwood canyon. He was younger than me and would sometimes answer questions with a 'Yes, ma'am'. I couldn't work out if I liked it or if it made me feel 102. The Man has not been able to adopt this without a heavily sarky tone so unforts this sign of respect will have to be limited to interactions with cowboys. Shame. ;)

Then on to Tombstone, tourist-central. I have never seen so many tacky gift shops!

Big-Nosed Kate's Saloon - she was Wyatt Earp's girlfriend. I love the sign on the left. Perhaps we should get one for the flat.

The Man gave me a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon for Christmas. It was stunning. This is him looking slightly scared (he doesn't like heights).

And guess what? There was snow at the Canyon too!

It's a mile deep, and the river has now eroded down to the earth's crust through all those layers of sedimentary rock. The canyon is just so big your mind can't compute it, and all formed by the Colorado river.

Then on to Monument Valley, where they filmed nearly all the Hollywood Westerns. Here are the Mittens (left and right hands - see?) ...

...and the Three Sisters, which also looks like a W for John Wayne, apparently.

And back in Scottsdale in Phoenix we got busy in the cowboy boot store.

There was a Chihuly exhibition at the Desert Botanical Gardens, which was amazing. The pieces are internally lit at night, it must be magical. They were impressive enough with the Arizona sun streaming through them. (Click on these for bigger versions.)

And now back to work. Yay.

Off on hols (hopefully)

The forecast says more snow for monday. My work friends are all saying, 'Have you seen the forecast? Will you be able to fly?' Well, I bloody hope so!! I'm not missing my holiday for a bit of frozen water.

It's so going to snow again and stop all flights out of Heathrow, isn't it....

The Man has flown out today with his team for his golf tournament pro-am thing, and they started as they meant to go on by having lunch at the Gordon Ramsay restaurant at the airport. I have the rest of the weekend to sort myself out which is good, and it's also Fenella's 30th birthday party on Saturday night. It's a TV/movie theme, and I'm going as Indiana Jones. So I'm doing movie *and* tv! What more can she ask?

I'm going to Arizona to be a cowgirl for a week, and then meeting The Man after his tournament and we're going to see the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley together. I can't wait! As long as I get there OK....

Meanwhile, on knitting news, the experiment socks are finished and I'm onto the Socktopus socks. Excuse the very yellow artificial light here.

As it goes, I have to eat my words. I've started the bed socks and ohmigod that yarn is delicious! Chameleon Colourworks Evolution, which is mechanically stretched merino apparently that's supposed to feel like cashmere but feels almost like silk. The feel of the yarn is so nice that it's made the colour grow on me. I wouldn't choose pink out of choice but the yarn so soft and fluffy it works. So, currently I'm enjoying them. Even if (and excuse my warped mind) the view of the sole does look kinda phallic at the moment. Don't they? (Please say it's not just me.)