Preparation's what you need....

My eyes are turning square today. Too long parked in from on the monitor looking at smaller squares and trying to make the numbers at the bottom come out differently. (Silk purse and sow’s ear comes to mind…)

We have Quite A Lot On at the moment. For instance:

1. Planning a wedding
2. Buying a house
3. Getting ready for Xmas
4. Hospital visits to Grandma
5. Xmas social calendar
6. Work

Which doesn’t leave a huge amount of time for things like:

1. Food shopping
2. Laundry
3. Cleaning
4. Sleeping
5. Speaking to each other. It seems that we do most of our conversing over email these days! Although The Man did come with me last night to visit Grandma so we had a good catchup while walking up the hill to the hospital. Ah, multitasking…

So, how is the run up to Chrimble going for you guys? I don’t usually feel this shattered until the 15th at least! I am now, sitting at work about to go out for my second (no, third!) restaurant dinner of the week (yes, I know it’s only Wednesday), about to start writing Christmas cards. I am shamed that this year (same as last) they are not homemade – while some amazing person at work has even made her own wrapping paper. Just to set the bar somewhere ridiculously high. Sigh. One day I shall do that, and all the gifts will be handmade too. Yeah right, who am I kidding. *;)

Katie…must remember that listening to audiobook versions of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on packed commuter trains is not a good idea. It’s hard to have hysterical laughter quietly.

Ah, audiobooks. Why didn’t I download some of these before? If anyone has some good recommendations, please let me know. I’ve just started on The Historian, which is about Dracula, so we’ll see how that goes. It's been good so far apart from having what seemed to be a Brooklyn policeman based in Oxford. Why do so many American publications have these glaring editorial errors? At least now I can read and knit at the same time. In effect…

As promised, here are some pics of the other half of the Florida trip:

Intracoastal waterway, with some sort of egret on the dock.

Nuclear sub coming out of port, with two shield ships.

Daisy on the beach.

The Man's choice of motor.

Things I have also done (but which there are no pics for):

Been on a business trip to view some distribution centres for a very large highstreet clothes chain, which was huge and mainly automated and involved lots of robots and conveyor belts and did indeed in places look like the door storage area in Monsters Inc in its vastness.

Visited some friends and their new baby who is only a month old and still in the floppy poo-scream-eat stage but still super cute. I felt bad invading but Jo seems to be totally in control and the whole family (including the dog) working like a well-oiled machine. Impressive!

Made half a santa hat. But then I saw someone on the train wearing a variation of this, and I thought that I could improve. Trouble is I was meaning to whizz this pattern off in a few days for the Wealden Times Christmas fair which mum is manning a stall at, but I fear I’m now cutting it rather fine…

Tomorrow I'm off to Bristol for another work thing, and I've signed up for golf on Friday. The only girl to play, with about 40 men. (Essential comma there.) I'm scared!! How embarrassing, I shall be particularly rubbish, but hey ho, you have to start somewhere.

Status updates

Too many to do today so here they are all at once:

Katie…

...is repulsed by the dapper old man on the train filing his fingernails and then using the sharpened talons to pick interesting things out of his beard and peruse them.

...wonders how on earth The Thong Song got on her ipod

...is amused by the power exec in his large Merc listening to Guns n Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine at top volume at the traffic lights

...is pleased her car worked this morning – hurrah for WD40!

...is kinda relieved what she thought were just fat ankles are actually disfunctional muscle build up do to with things to do with her bad back. If the back gets fixed perhaps they’ll go away.

...likes the Green Slime chocolate rolls someone has brought in for their birthday cakes.

...is tickled by a restaurant having a caviar menu. Starting at £120.


Next week I'm away training in Paris, back at that lovely chateau. Shame.

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.)

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.

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!

New job

Changes with new job:

From having 498 items in my inbox I now have 19.
I have time to read long and involved documents.
I have not read my normal list of blogs because the boss can see over my shoulder.

Loo watch (different floor, different loo):

Day 1
Dirty mug, light bulb gone, two bottles of mouthwash, distinct smell of saddle soap

Day 2
Dirty mug, light bulb gone, two bottles of mouthwash, biro, distinct smell of saddle soap

Day 3
Dirty mug, light bulb gone, two bottles of mouthwash, three biros and propelling pencil, blocked sink, distinct smell of saddle soap

Day 4
Ditto

Interesting commentary on the standards of the girls on this floor, methinks... *;)

On knitting news, I have cast on for the Baby Cables and Big Ones Too jumper, using Sublime extra fine merino DK, which is sooooooo nice to work with - so soft! Hope the jumper stays that way after I wash it. It also requires working from two parts of the pattern at once and a dozen different coloured stitch markers, so a really sensible choice for the train... Ahem. Pics will follow.

Friday Random Sheepiness

OK, so what would you normally do on a Friday lunchtime in the City? Lunch and drinks in a trendy wine bar? Work through and leave early? Or pop down to London Bridge and watch 400 Freemen of the City exercising their ancient rights to drive sheep across the Bridge?


Here are Hadlow College students making sure no sheep escaped down Cannon Street. Note they are Romney Sheep, an ancient Kentish breed, so kinda local. Not provided by us, but by a farming friend, and Dad was the vet on duty.


The sheep had their own guard! I presume that as this was organised by the Lord Mayor of the City of London he sent some heavies down. They were aiming to raise £40,000 for charity.

The Worshipful Company of - erm - Frameweavers? Or something. And Chairman of the Romney Sheep Breeders' Association.

Monks with digital cameras.

Armour on a sunny day - looked rather warm attire to me. Nice frilly lace collars and burlesque-style feathers though - rather incongruous with the long pointy stick.

Had to have a bloke in a bowler, with the Natwest Tower (sorry, Tower 42) in the background.

So, I have nothing further to add to that, other than is was very strange to see my father, loads of farmers normally hailed at the County Show, and sheep, on London Bridge where I am normally just one of thousands of worker ants migrating north in the morning and south in the evening, from and to the station. Here's to random amusements and ancient rights of the City of London.

Confloption

New word for the day: confloption (n) a random mishmash of parts that may or may not work out. Such as, for example, a flight booked under one company name (XL), arrives as a rust bucket of quite different branding (Viking Airlines) with Finnish food, Spanish crew and Welsh pilot.

I feel for the poor people stranded abroad at the moment. Not only does XL fold, but the Channel Tunnel has a fire and closes for two days, sparking Operation Stack up with M20 and whatever the equivalent is in Calais. And also apparently bun fights in business lounges when economy is booked out and they check in too many people for the business seats. (Fenella will vouch for that.) What a lot of travelling we do these days, without realising until there's suddenly a problem.

The Man and I will hopefully be adding to the stats soon, with a week or so in Egypt in October to try to find some sun (shock!) and heat (will we cope, it will be over 20 degrees?!). We've never had a holiday together before so it should be interesting! His job means that getting away in the summer is difficult, but does mean that any holidays will therefore involve winter sun, which has got to be a plus.

The flat is coming together. The huge mirror is up, and looks elegant and homey. We had our first proper visitors the other day - Clare and Nick came over to see our friend Sarah who currently lives in Paris, and was back visiting her family. Sarah even cooked dinner for us poor working unfortunates! She's got herself a boyfriend and she brought some pictures to show us. 'Don't you think he's handsome?' she demanded, while Nick and The Man looked on. Is one allowed to appreciate other men when one's own is in the room? I decided yes, and Clare did also, pronouncing him 'very Gallic'. And also, it seems from the two pictures of him holding babies, good with children, and from the last of him holding a scribbled 'Sarah is so lovely' note to the camera, not scared to show how he feels. Which I guess is also a French attribute. Aw.

I have 12 more working days of being in the IT department, and suddenly, with booking underwriting training courses and taking holiday sheets to someone else, it's actually dawned on me that I'm getting a new job! I can't wait - not just to get out of this crapola, but to start something fresh and have opportunities and learn stuff. There is more weekend work this weekend, and it seems that won't be the end of it, but the hands on stuff in the UK is done, and what the French teams want to do to mess it up from now on is up to them. This may be the last overtime I get from this company so I'd better make the most of it - IT is the only dept that gets money rather than time in lieu. (BTW we were working until 4am the other night.)

While work is crazy I am seriously behind on knitting. The big stitch show at Ally Pally is coming up at the beginning of October and I have to check-knit a baby jumper and design, knit, check-knit and write the pattern for a felted bag. Argh! Knitting on the train and during lunch hours is the only option. Once AP is out of the way, I have seen several beautiful jumpers on the net lately that just have to be knitted: this one, but with something different done to the sleeves, this one, with brilliantly quirky cables, maybe this one, this bag and this scarf. Yikes! Looks like some serious stash enhancement will be happening at AP!!

Brave New World

Well, a new chapter has well and truly started - not only have I now moved house, but I've just accepted a new job! Same company, but completely different department. I've been doing some key account management for about 18 months, which means I've been working directly with clients, who are big multinational companies, and coordinating the teams (underwriters and claims) dealing with them. About a month ago, I had a phonecall from my dept manager to say that one of the underwriting teams wanted to invite me to apply for a vacancy with them. Which was a bit of an, 'Oh, right!' suprised moment, but made sense when I'd thought about it for a while. It was by no means a dead cert as paperwork must be followed and I had to interview, but everyone who knew had great confidence in me (even if I didn't), and thank the gods, I got the job.

If life wasn't so manic and crazy at the moment I might actually have time to sit down and think, 'wow!' about all this. I was so excited before moving about living with The Man, but since we have moved I've been so shattered I've hardly been able to keep my eyes open when I'm at home. Added to that is the pressure of this big IT project (for which we are working until midnight tonight) and all sorts of other things at work. I am hoping that after tonight's work, and a good sleep tomorrow night, I'll get that amazing lightness of heart feeling like at the end of exams, and feel happy happy happy like I should do. At the moment I just feel drained, and I think more likely I will suddenly get ill. I've been too busy to have time to be sick lately!

The new flat is coming along. It turns out The Man is a real tidy bug and all the boxes really stressed him, so the bedroom and sitting room are now almost done, even if everything else is crammed into the other bedroom. We have cooked our first meal there, and even before the curtains were up The Man ran around the house, first to be nekkid in every room. Something tells me he is somewhat excited to have his own place at long last!

Mice and Men

Cities are funny old places. If a mouse ran under the table if you were at the farm, you would have stern words with the cat about responsibilities and layaboutish tendencies, and spend some time evicting the mouse while mentally scripting a good story to tell everyone later. In a London restaurant, everyone goes, 'Oh look, a mouse!', pushes their handbags around with their foot a bit (I suppose to scare it away from jumping in) and gets on with their meal. Any thoughts about Health Inspectors are not (loudly) voiced.

Anyway, I was having dinner with an old uni friend, let's call her The Lawyer for the time being, otherwise I'd just have to call her CRAZY!!! because she was telling me, again, about her working hours which make my last week look like a walk in the park. I mean, I know lots of my friends work long hours, but she never eats at home, all her colleagues get takeaway dinner in the office every night, they usually work until 10 or 11pm with no lunch breaks, and several regularly work until 2am. To me, this kinda screams sweat shop and employment law and so on. One presumes there's something in the contract to say that they will work until they drop. You can keep it, frankly.

So, a deal has recently fallen through which is bad but it does also mean that work is quite quiet for her at the moment and she can escape at a reasonably time (read 7 or 8 ish) each night. After two weeks of this, she's finally realising that there is actually a Real Life out there, and you should indeed have a couple of hours in which to do things you want to do in the evenings. Like, meet up with friends for dinner, or go to tango classes (which we didn't quite manage, but hey, the intention was there). And you can see in her face that this is an amazing realisation for her! Huh?

I do get concerned about the slightly crazed and hunted look behind the eyes that some of my friends get in times of greater stress at work. I really don't think it's right that work should impact that much on your psyche. After all, the company doesn't really give a shit about you, you're just a grunt (at whatever level) who can be replaced if necessary. The company might shrug and go, 'it's a shame that Vladimir/Horatio/Bob has gone', turn around and get on with the next thing, while poor Vlad is instantly forgotten (until they can't find a file or spreadsheet that Vlad made about something, then his memory is cursed and secretaries are sworn at).

Perhaps I don't get it. I suppose the friends with the hunted look also are the friends with bloody-great and gorgeous houses, and the ones who can afford the sharp suits and gadgets and posh holidays (but, I'm guessing, struggle to get the time off agreed and then never turn their blackberries off). To be honest though, I'd rather live a little more humbly and have time to enjoy myself between the posh holidays.....

Smug-making incident of the week: seeing a fat-cat executive Audi being towed, and as the truck moved off the car alarm starts shrieking.

Ew! incident of the week: Woman on train, having spent the entire hour-long journey talking about her baby (how cute / how strong / teething / nappies / botty burps etc) to her poor un-fecund friend who is now bored to stone, then starts breastfeeding in a carriage full of commuters.

Happy of the week: Getting a text from Fenella saying she'd been up since 3am, then another that she was cross she'd not heard anything, then finally one saying she'd just had a call and that they have completed on the purchase of their new house. Hurrah!

It was a long week...

...and unfortunately it got the better of me on Sunday night. I'm just not used to working a full day and then on until 1am under a lot of pressure (breaking and restoring our whole network), and then back in for a long day to do the same thing all over again. So by Friday night I was somewhat emotionally exhausted tense, but managed to get over to the The Man at his mum's while he watched the golf. Now, The Man is usually wonderfully considerate, but he has never worked in an office environment, much less under pressure. I expect the nearest he has come to feeling how I did would be after a 24hr flight with delays and transfers. Kinda like you've been through the wringer. Perhaps I should point this out to him, so he can empathise a little more next time, instead of teasing me and not being helpful. He did however quickly take the hint when I stopped playing along and has been an absolute sweetie since.

The rest of the weekend was wonderful but not restful. My brother was having his 30th birthday party, complete with hog roast (yes, a whole pig) and 50 people or so, so on arrival at the farm at 11am I just walked into organised pandemonium of sorting out catering and beer and balloons and lighting and music and more beer and wine and babies and people arriving and beds and feeding puppies and so on. My brother invited some of my good friends too which was lovely because we don't get to catch up often, and serendipidously another friend from Hong Kong was over to go to a wedding the previous day just down the road! It's kinda weird but kinda nice that my parents get on well enough (ie very well) with my friends that they all get drunk together and laugh at each other. Dad, at midnight, came into the house to find his ancient Russian phrase book because he wanted to show some Russian bird who had come to the party around the farm in his Land Rover. We all told him not to because he would probably drive off the bridge into the river. Mum just laughed, rolled her eyes, and asked for more wine from the bottle she relocated from the bar table for her own purposes. (Later on it turned out the bird was German anyway.)

(This kind of makes it sound like my parents are alcoholics...)

So anyway, after a lovely lunch and mooch around in T Wells on Sunday, I retired to the settee with a cup and tea and a DVD of Becoming Jane, and half way through, from a combination of relief at work stress being over, happiness at spending time with lots of the people I really care for in the world, general tiredness, time to sit down, and PMT, I just burst into tears and cried for about half an hour. And I still easily could if I started thinking about it all again. I am so lucky to have the option of immersing myself in such a charmed life. Some people would say that coming away from all that back to work in London is coming back to the real world, but more and more I think it's the other way round.

(Sigh.) Life is good.

(Apart from crappy work, but we won't talk about that.)

Somebody get me out of here...

Over the past two weeks I've had a horrible nasty glimpse at the stress levels a lot of my friends work under all the time and I really don't like it. But at least now I can empathise a little more. There's a Europe-wide network infrastructure project underway, commissioned by head office in France, and we've been trying to do the UK branch of it. Trying being the operative word there. I don't know what school of project management they've been to but now it all becomes clear why France always ended up waving the white flag in the wars. Organisation? Pheh.

It's just been postponed again for another month or so, so at least I get some breathing space for a while.

Meantime, Clare tagged me on a meme a while ago, so until my brain puts itself back together here goes:

1. What were you doing ten years' ago?
In 1998 I was at university, although it would have been the holidays by now, so I'd be at home in the two week recovery period that apparently I always took after the two-month jolly / bender / stress fest that was a university term.

2. What 5 things are on your to-do list today?
Fix DHCP scope on a DC
Conf call with France
Various other phone calls to sort out problems following conf call with France
Confirm all OK for The Man's b'day surprise
Get something for supper

3. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Be very pleased with myself. Invest some, give some to charity, put some into trust funds or other things for deserving relations. Buy a largish house in the country, where there should be: a large garden, a few acres for some horses, a large living room with a baby grand piano, a craft room (with lots of windows), a beautiful kitchen, and a kitchen garden. After I'd got bored of pottering around that I'd do something entrepreneurial, set up some businesses, invest in property. And qualify as a life coach. And get married and have babies. *:)

4. List the places you have lived:
A bungalow near Maidstone, with a few acres which contained sheep, chickens, dogs, puppies and a few racehorses.
A large white Victorian villa house thingy on a hill near Maidstone with ditto accoutrements.
A succession of rented houses while my parents looked to buy a farm, several of which I swear were haunted.
A mobile home, while we built a house.
A farmhouse lovingly built with help from all the family.
In the family house of a now-good friend's family in New Zealand.
A grotty student halls.
A grotty rented student house.
A castle, with a million steps and untold drafts, and water which came out of the taps orange from rusted pipes, but still, my address was 'The Castle, Durham'. It was a great place to live!
A flat in a converted Victorian townhouse in London (top floor - I hate carrying supermarket shopping up stairs).
A maisonette in a 1960s terrace in London.
A beautiful flat in an Edwardian house in T Wells.

5. List the jobs you have held:
IT Architect
Founder of a wool business (Co-Director, but I could call myself anything I like really!)
IT Service Technician
HR Assistant
PA
Waitress
Care worker in a brain injury unit
Bar maid
Grain sampler for farmers' cooperative
Check-out chick
Babysitter
Cherry seller
Veterinary nurse / assistant
Farm worker
Strawberry seller in Fortnum and Mason's (for a day)

6. List the people you'd like to know more about:
Buddha
The Man (he can be very elusive)
My parents and brother (life is often too busy to just sit and chat)