Girls' weekend

How is it that it is ALWAYS Monday? Every time I turn around, there's Monday again! It's like the annoying girl at my riding school who once you make eye contact with her she sticks to you like glue the entire time you're there, even when you go to the loo.

I have training today and tomorrow, so it's not all bad. A little break in the day-to-day routine. It's some soft skills course called The Winning Edge. I've heard it's really good, so I'm optimistic that it will keep me awake on this cold morning.

Had a really great weekend. John was in Brussels for Rich's stag do. Friday night I went to the store as I hadn't gotten groceries for a few days. Then I had to vacuum and clean up for company as I was having the girls over on Saturday night. Once I was done with all the boring chores I poured some wine, watched some tv, and loaded all my Beatles' albums on my Ipod. I'm slowly but surely getting that puppy filled up, although I still only have about 4 gig loaded (out of 30).

Saturday I had meant to get up about 8:30 because Michelle was due to arrive at 10:15 and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to do any last-minute tidying. However, between pressing the snooze button about 5 times and snuggling the cats I ended up running late. I had just finished changing the bed sheets and other odds and ends when the doorbell rang, and in the end I didn't even leave enough time for breakfast!

Helen picked us up at 10:30, we swung by to pick up Gemma, then we headed to Reading for some shopping. The goal was to get dresses for Anita's wedding (unfortunately Anita was in Bournemouth this weekend so couldn't join us), but we all had a wandering clothes eye and ended up getting several different bits and pieces, from scarves and belts to necklaces, jumpers, and shoes. The best excuse of the day for purchasing something was from Michelle: 'I only tried on the shoes (which she bought) so I could have a sit down!' Gemma and I did find dresses for the wedding. The other girls weren't as lucky on this trip but there's still time.

We shopped for ages. By the end we were all so tired that we couldn't bear one more shop. We went home after about 5 or 6 hours of shopping. We went to my house and chilled out for a while, then I made some pasta (with pesto, which Gem and I were excited about because our husbands don't like pesto so we don't get to have it often), salad, and bread.

After some drinks and time to do ourselves up, we headed into town. Started at Rhu Bar and met up with Gemma's netball friend. We played the drinking game 'I Never', which kept us entertained. My friends from work, Jason and Dave, were out and they hung out with us for a while as well. From there we went to Silks, which is the place were Gem, Helen and I went a couple of months ago that had some pretty alternative people that scared Helen. They were playing good music so we went on the little stage to dance, and it didn't take long for everyone who had been on the stage to leave. I'm not sure exactly why we scared them off, but it didn't really bother us that they seemed put out that we had arrived. I imagine we weren't alternative enough, but we didn't really care. Eventually people came back on the stage, once they got over whatever the problem was.

We stayed there for a few songs and then went to Liquid, the big nightclub in B'stoke. They were playing really good R&B music. We danced for quite a while there, but you could tell we were all getting really tired after a long day of shopping and a few drinks, because where there was a song we didn't like as much we were hardly dancing very much, but when a good song came on you could tell we all mustered more energy for dancing. We bumped into Jason there also, and it was good to have him there because five girls dancing together seems to attract a lot of attention from guys who think you want them to join you. One guy kept hanging around us for quite a long time, and I finally told him we were all married and it was amazing how quickly he left. I think next time I'll make us all signs so we'll get left alone from the start!

By the time we got home we were all sore! The soles of my feet were hurting so badly that I was limping once I took my shoes off! We had some munchies and finally at about 3:30 we went to bed. We all stayed at my house for a little slumber party.

Sunday we got up late and after a while everyone was gone. I eventually got around to showering, etc, and then John and the rest of the boys needed to be picked up from the train station in the afternoon. John had been up until 7:30 the night before! So he and I had a little sleep, and pottered around for the rest of the day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone is having a lovely Thanksgiving!

I am at work, of course. Obviously the silly Brits don't celebrate Thanksgiving. So instead of sitting on a couch watching the NFL while people make me yummy food (don't forget the mashed potatoes!), I gave a three hour presentation this morning, followed by an hour of cleaning up a mess my US colleagues created. That's all sorted now, so I have had time to wind down and do some personal emails, etc. Because the US isn't in today it's remarkably quiet in the office. I guess you just get used to how active the office becomes once Indy's day starts, and when they have the day off you can tell that it impacts the workload of everyone over here.

Tonight John and I are meeting Steve Bulger (best man) and Ruth for Thai. We made the plans early last week, and I'd forgotten it was going to be Thankgiving. But I'm very much looking forward to the traditional Thanksgiving Thai feast. I think history has gotten it all wrong and instead of the pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a peaceful turkey dinner, it was actually a meal of spicy Thai delicacies.

I got my ipod today! I'm very excited and distracted. It's in my drawer, waiting to be loaded and played with. I'm leaving exactly on time today to get home and start using it. Only 20 minutes to go!

Olivia Grace Doel has arrived!

Michelle and John had their baby! I spoke with her mom briefly. It was a fuzzy connection, but I think she said she went into labor on Sunday, Nov 20 and had the baby on the morning of Nov 21. I also think she was 5 lbs 12 oz. She was a month early (if memory serves, Michelle was 36 weeks and I guess full term is 40 weeks?). I called her husband's cell phone last night and they were busy learning how to nurse. He said it was a 'four hand operation'. :-) I'm sure they will be very busy for a while!

I will post pictures whenever I get them. Yay Michelle!

I love my Colts

I am very proud of my Indianapolis Colts. John and I have been keeping a watchful eye on the boys, as always. 10-0 after last night's win over the Bengals! The broadcasted the game on our satellite last night. They always show 2 NFL games on Sundays. Indy vs Cincinnati was the late game last night, so we only got to see the first half before it was time to go to bed. It's just brilliant seeing the team finally come together after years of watching other teams have their glory.

The disappointing thing for John and I is we aren't going to America this year for Christmas. While obviously I am sad not to spend Christmas with my family, it also means that this of all years will be the first in at least 10 years where I haven't been to at least one live game in the dome. But I will happily sacrifice my chances of seeing history in the making for this franchise if it will somehow mean they will continue to dominate the NFL. GO HORSE!!

Martin and Caroline's

That was weird. Just a second ago I'm sure I heard a faint whisper of someone saying 'Kara'. And I turned around and there was no one there. I wonder what I heard! Or maybe the voices inside my head are starting to sound like they are coming from outside my head.

This weekend John and I went to visit Martin and Caroline up north, about two and a bit hours away. John had underestimated the amount of time it would take to get there, and thus we didn't leave Basingstoke until 11:45 (45 minutes later than we said we would), due to having to run a couple of errands before and traffic in town. He thought it would take about an hour and a half to get there, but we didn't arrive until about 2:30. Caroline made us a lovely soup lunch (we were starved by the time we got there), and we went to a pub in nearby Stamford to watch the England footie match. I hadn't really noticed that it was a rough pub, but John said that he and Martin had to go to the loo but would try to hold it until we got back to their house. I didn't understand why, and I went to the loo myself a little while later and it was fine. It wasn't until I felt my hair move and I turned around to see some guy's face really close to mine that I started to see what they meant. Martin had seen that the movement against my hair that I had felt had actually been him licking my hair. You can't make this stuff up. I don't know what that was all about, but it was disturbing. He asked me if he could buy me a drink, so I don't know if this was some sort of chav dating ritual, but we didn't stay long after the game finished to find out.

We went back to Martin and Caroline's for some wine and lovely nachos. Caroline had made a beautiful vegetarian lasagne, but I ate so many nachos that I couldn't eat much dinner when the time came! I'm sure the boys were thrilled that they had to eat a veggie dish when the vegetarian could hardly touch the main course.

After dinner we watched X Factor. We were obviously shocked along with the rest of the country when Maria got voted off. She was my girl (obviously I need to actually start voting, though). What was Louie thinking?!! I mean, the Conway Sisters? I think the public have made it clear that it's time for them to go. Although admittedly I do like their harmonies. But still, Maria could have won the darn thing! How could Louie say she was worse than the Conway Sisters? This is a travesty, and I'm boycotting the show. Until next Saturday.

On Sunday we had a nice breakfast before we left. We got home with enough time to potter around for a while before the day was over. I thought about helping out at the stables but because we hadn't been home for much of the weekend I decided to take it easy.

Tired and thirsty

Faithful Kara's World readers (read: me, bored in a couple of months, reviewing past posts), I do apologize for taking my sweet time updating my blog. It's been work again keeping me from blogging. I do think it should slow down soon and continue to be slow for the rest of the year. I don't particularly look forward to things being really slow at work, but it should afford me more time to update my blog.

So I am actually at work at the moment. I went out last night for my work friend Earl's leaving do. It was great fun, but I drank too much and didn't get enough sleep. John is away with Rich for 2 days on a golfing holiday, and that means he wasn't there last night refusing to go to Liquid (the local nightclub) after the bars closed. So off I went with Earl, the lads, and my work friend Laura and her friend. It was good fun dancing and laughing with everyone. There were some Lilly guys from another department who know Laura, and one of them is a really nice guy who knew that Laura had a driving lesson in the morning and told me about it and said she should get home. He had to tell me a couple of times (she wasn't leaving on her own will), but finally I left and she followed, and thank goodness he made us go because I am so tired today and if I'd left later I would have been more tired than I already am, which is darn near impossible. I just thank the good good Lord that one of the contractors in India who is constantly on instant messenger and email asking me questions has the day off today so I can sit around and not have to think too much.

When I woke up this morning I found I had only slept under the duvet and hadn't bothered to get under the flat sheet as well, I still had my contacts in, I hadn't removed the Oxford pillows or moved the 'nice' pillows to sleep on the regular pillows like normal, and I had a trail of clothes from the stairs to the bed where I'd obviously just stepped out of them and left them. When I went downstairs the jacket I'd worn out was laying on the stairs, where I'd obviously done the same thing. Couldn't be bothered to even set it on the banister.

As far as anything that's new since my last entry, there's not too much to report. I've been helping out at the stables at least once a week, which has been good. They are still really happy to see me when I show up to help so I'm glad I am making a difference. On Sunday I had a couple of new tasks I hadn't done before, including walking the hunting horses who weren't being used that day around the block. That was nice. I always take a special treat to give to my favorite horse, Prague. He's such a sweetie. In my Wednesday lessons I've gotten to ride him the last three weeks, which is so great. We've started jumping in the class the last couple of times, which is good because when I get in the habit of not jumping I get more nervous when we do get around to jumping. I hadn't jumped Prague before last week, but he was really good. This week they booked SEVEN people in the lesson. SEVEN. It was crowded. Also, I had to lend Prague to someone at the end because this guy had only jumped once before and didn't trust the horse he was on. So I was a bit bummed that I had to get off him early, and then the guy only jumped him once and just sat on him the rest of the lesson! The cheek of it.