Two sticks on my feet, some snow and a hill...

...in Milton Keynes of all places, my feelings about which have been previously documented.

For my birthday, in preparation for spending 6 months in a ski resort, David bought me a skiing lesson at the Xscape SnoZone! which I had yesterday. Given that I can't remember ever having been in the same room as a pair of skis, let alone had them on my feet, it was a steep learning curve but in 3 hours I went from "how the hell am I supposed to move with these bloody things on my feet?" to "get me higher up this damn hill and watch me kick some powder!"

If you'd like to see how I ended up, watch this:


But if you'd like to see me fall over the first time I tried turning (and I'm guessing that you would), see here (sorry it's sideways):


I had a blast but, inevitably, my thighs are paying for it today.

Baby names - again

Remember the couple from New Zealand who wanted to call their son 4Real? NZ authorities blocked it, because numbers aren't allowed in names. So the parents have now settled on something a bit less controversial. Superman.

Sigh.

Au reservoir work

Well my last day at work didn't go quite as planned. I haven't finished my (yawn!) audit for starters, because I'm very lazy when it comes to boring data input, but I still need to finish it at some point. I can do the lion's share at home but will have to pop in to the hospital next week to tidy up. On top of this, I have a case conference (social services meeting) to go to on Monday, because it's one of my girls I've spent months working with and fighting for, so I don't want to let her down by not attending just because I've left work!

Today I was asked to meet Debbie at 1.30pm in the community office. This I did and was taken round to my 'surprise' leaving party, which was very nice, and I ate lots of food. Then I had to finish a report for the social services meeting on Monday. It took me ages, because I had a load of research to do for it, then I tried to email it to the social worker, but our email client at work is being migrated this weekend and it wouldn't let me log on. So I thought I'd photocopy a load for Monday instead. Half an hour and SIX jam clearances later, I'd failed to copy even one bloody report. I thought I'd give up and go home, so I went out to my car, only to find the sodding thing wouldn't start. It had done this the other day and I'd taken it to the garage, who said they'd sorted the problem. Obviously not. So I contacted Security and they came out to jump start me, bless their cottons. I noticed my phone had run out of battery and had a barrage of messages when I switched it on. One was from Claire, for whom I'm housesitting at present while she's in Portugal, who'd had a garbled message from her cleaner about something she couldn't understand, so she was panicking. I promised to get home asap to make sure everything was okay (which it is, it's just that the cleaner had shut the door behind her and left some documents in the house by accident). I put my car stereo in to relax me and, lo and behold, the sodding thing wouldn't do a dicky bird. Won't even switch on. No idea why. I have a CD stuck in it too.

Now I've got home I'm pissed off and bloody starving in that order, so I need to find something to eat and then syringe feed the hamster. Don't ask.