30 September 2009 – alcohol is not my friend

Wine, oh dear!

All this celebrating is becoming a bit of a habit and, if I’m not careful the scales will be going up again. Still, I have been dashing around getting as much done as possible, knowing I will be working five full days a week for the next six weeks while I’m training at The Mad House. There has been cooking to fill the freezer, lots of food shopping to get the food to cook and a massive house spring clean because I can’t see where I’m going to fit in proper housework. The training sounds like it’s going to be pretty full on and I figure I’m going to be dead on my feet by the end of each day, too tired to be cooking or cleaning for sure.

28 September – a surprise loss

I feel a shopping trip coming on

Well, the weigh in this morning was a bit of a surprise. After the wine and curry yesterday I’d expected a gain, at best a stayed the same. What I actually got was two whole pounds off? Eleven stone seven. So much better than I could have ever hoped, at this rate I could even get into the tens by Christmas. Perhaps this is a catch up week, all that walking in Barcelona paying off, just a little delayed.

27 September 2009 – a last supper

Cooking with Joe

Mac and Joe came round last night to celebrate my new job so today I am feeling slightly delicate. It was a great night though. Joe came laden with carrier bags filled with the makings of a Thai green curry, I’ve only ever used jars to make them before but he fancies himself a bit of a cook so it was cooking from scratch. While Mac and Commando cracked open the first (of many) bottles of wine and sat about watching, Joe and I cooked.

25 September 2009 – good news, I think

A new dawn? Maybe

Finally all the washing is done, dried and put away and the house is looking normal again. Of course, as soon as everything was done and I stopped dashing about, I started worrying about the job issue. One more week and I would be officially on the dole. This was not a happy prospect.

23 September 2009 – back to cold hard reality

All about washing

Today was all about unpacking and washing churning away in the machine. How come such a short holiday can generate so much dirty laundry? I’m sure it breeds in the suitcase on the flight. After the Spanish heat it felt cold. We’d gone from cropped trousers (me) and shorts (Commando) with thin t-shirts to jeans and thick jumpers in the space of a couple of hours on a plane.

22 September 2009 – job centre worries

I sense an impending trip to the job centre

We never did get to see the blue legged chickens or the beach at El Prat de Llobregat. We spent the morning, or what there was of it before we had to catch our flight, sitting in the sun outside Cerveceria Cataluña with a cool drink watching the world go by. It was a lovely relaxing end to a nice break.

21 September 2009 – Nou Camp, Parc Guell and the ghost of Gaudi

The gates of Parc Guell

Monday morning had me checking my phone every five minutes to see if the Mad House had called. Every time I looked and saw no missed calls and no texts I became more sure I hadn’t got the job. Ok, so I didn’t really want it but if I couldn’t even get a proxy call centre job I didn’t want what hope did I have? It seemed the only people who wanted to employ me were people I couldn’t bear the idea of working for. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

20 September 2009 – Barcelona, what a city!

Casa Batlló, my favourite of all Gaudi’s creations

As this is just a weekend break we wanted to make the most of the time we had but today was Sunday so we weren’t sure what would be open, especially as Spain is a predominantly Catholic country. We decided to head towards the centre of Barcelona and see what we could find. After all, the Gaudi buildings could be looked at from the street, even if everything was shut. If the worst came to the worst we could head for the beach.

19 September 2009 – fear of flying

Ironic how much I hate flying

For someone as fond of travel as I am, it’s quite an irony how much I hate flying. Actually it scares me, especially take off and landing when I am usually to be found gripping the arm rests and holding my breath. I’m not exactly enamoured with airports either, all that waiting around. Why exactly do you have to check in two hours before your flight anyway, other than a cynical ploy to get you to buy overpriced food and junk in the airport shops?

17 September 2009 – holiday preparations

Packing, I don’t see what the problem is

Commando managed to get the heating working again today. Isn’t he a clever thing? Ok so it’s summer, we don’t actually need the heating right now but it is one less thing to worry about. At the beginning of the week there seemed to be so many problems. So many things to get worked up about I couldn’t even begin to think about our weekend break to Barcelona. There was Mini Commando’s infection, an interview and, of course the boiler but, one by one they have been sorted.