Moments...

... embarassing, awkward, oh my gawd and the ones where you need minties (sorry all, it's probably only NZers that will get that one) instances in your life where you your heart does a little jig, the breath quickens and normally, well in my case, blush from toe tips to ear tips and all the tips inbetween!
I guess the main thing about these is that if they didn't occur, life would be a little less interesting, blood would flow slower round the body and you would not have a cringe or grin memory for the rest of your life... though I sure wish the grin memories would start to balance out the cringe ones at some time in my life!

Mobiles...

... the phone kind. Just don't get the fixation that people have with them. Apparently there's now a disorder where you think you hear your mobile phone ring / vibrate and it's not. Being a recent user (bought my first one 5 years ago and only recently upgraded to a handset that has all the bells and whistles - even MTV if I want it!) I just can not understand these slaves to a little bit of technology!
As my friends know I am terrible to get hold of on mine... it's either at home, run out of battery or temporarily in another dimension hiding from me! Or if I do have it with me I don't recognise the ring as being mine or in trying to remember which button to push to answer it, it clicks through to voicemail. Then people get mad at me cause they don't get hold of me, oh wow, some of the voice messages left I can tell you - if air could turn blue, it would have!
What really annoys me about mobiles though is that they're looking at you being able to use them on planes and the tube - good grief, if it isn't enough already to have the guy next to you on the train say "it's me dear (like she doesn't have his name in her phone), I'm on the 1801 (like I have been every week night for the last five years), and I'll be at the station at 1957 (as that train is every week night), see you then"!
The only use I can see is in an emergency, though if it's big enough the service crashes anyways, and to find all your mates at the festival, where 100,000 other people are trying to do the same and oh, the service crashes!

Men & Their Toys

For a start, best to just let them get on with their toy indulgence, besides it leaves you more time to play with yours! Though I am always astounded by how much they pay and how protective, (don't touch that) of their toys they are. Quite funny really considering they quite often refuse to pay more than 70p for a loaf of bread and are quite happy to pay £200 for a gadet that they end up selling on the 'e' site a month later, for a profit too!
Though at least men are upfront about how much they have spent on their indulgence whilst woman quite happily knock of about 30% (depending on value, this quite often increases to 50% or more... of course something that I have never done!) when asked.
And, I also have to say that men's toys are a heck of a lot more fun than women's, which are usually clothing / make-up / etc related.
I did get one of those remote controlled daleks for Christmas and I can tell you it is one of the best presents I've ever had, scared the heck outta Miss Yo Yo and amuses all that play with it... even better if it'd been the battle one, and had two of course, as that would mean hours of fun watching them 'exterminate' each other!
A dear to me gets the T3 magazine and they had the top 100 gadgets for men, or guilty pleasures as they called it. My favourite was The Gatling Gun at £400... shoots a hail of 144 rubber bands at the turn of a handle! Bet Miss Yo Yo would really freak out then!

Cute!?!

How on earth can you call a 30+ year old woman cute? CUTE?! And don't say, you just open your mouth and say cute! Two year olds with those big eyes, ringlets and dimpled smiles are cute; kittens doing the hit each other, then fall off the couch are cute; little fluffy duckings chasing after their mother, stopping at the waters edge then piling in on top each other are cute.... I am not! Lovely, charming, beautiful and the odd sexy lady I'll accept, cute I will not! That's the last time I go out with my hair in bunches!!

Dirt, bugs and rain...

.. the joys of gardening! What else to do on a long weekend except join the millions heading off to garden centres, pick up a couple of plants and then put them in earth and hope to heck that they grow!
Found a new garden centre today, the nearest one to me smells, is terribly laid out and is just depressing, and it was fabulous! Didn't know where to start, so something safe... lawn needs it's patches fixed - easily sorted with a box of lawn for dummies seed. Then it was off to the plant area, oh wow, plant heaven and not a care that it was steadily drizzling in the outside areas! A lovely blue grass discovered, some fabulously coloured oriental poppies and of course flanders poppies as well (hopefully these will grow from seed and yes, red seems to be my flower colour at the moment! Well would have to be after the black tulips and iris'!)
Then the farm shop was discovered... all grown on the grounds (this place is huge and I mean HUGE!) and you can drive round and pick your own too! There were even a couple of vegetables and fruit that this travelled person had never heard of.. though were rather scarey looking and not sure if I'd want to figure out how to eat them! Could have spent oodles of money in there, though restrained myself to rhubarb and a delicious steak and kidney pie with the pastry that makes you go mmMMmm! Was sorely tempted by the stem ginger ice cream but at £7.00 for 1 litre I thought that was a bit extreme, even for my spending sprees!

Reality

Funny (haha) day at work today. Everyone seemed to be going on about Jim*, Sarah*, Lisa* and lots of other folks that I had not known were employees at work. That one said that about the other, this one did that and heavens above this one just walked right out! I thought there was some huge group session going on, gales of laughter, very loud discussions (almost involving fisticuffs, yet not thank goodness) and lots of "I think this" and "I think that" being said. Was it some new HR plan for everyone to bond? Gawd no it was that 'reality' tv programme that has recently started!
And I mean reality in the most loosest of terms. I mean how can a group of people, stuck in a small area, with cameras on them 24/7, (and let's not mention the limited wardrobe!) actually be classed as reality? How can selective showing of what's going on (though they say not), choosing people with incompatible and compatible personalities, and from the sounds of it, people with serious life issues, actually be classed as reality tv watching! Gimme a break!! And, give me Sir David Attenborough anyday! How more real can you get knowing that the five second footage you just saw of a 100 metre high pile of guano, covered in cockroaches and decomposing bats, took over ten days to film!
* Not they're real names, as you no doubt can tell, I don't really give two hoots!

Freebies...

...brings up connotations of coupons, that day out of date food, what the stars get at the oscars and in general just stuff that they can't sell! Trouble is, because it's free do you accept it?
If you were offered a basket of whale derivative body products would you take it? How about a custard tart that was due to explode, or turn into a new lifeform tomorrow? Or how about two tickets to a certain boy band that has got back together to tour the UK at the moment, including hospitality and the chance to meet said band?
Was my said dilemma today...
Our company is the proud sponsor of said band and as such my boss was offered two tickets to go, not his kind of thing, and offered them to me... also not my kind of thing (sorry to say but formula pop groups just do nothing for me and heck, I don't even know a single one of thier songs - give me Stacey Kent, Marilyn Manson, Kenny Rogers, or Foo Fighters any day!). I guess I could have said yes and found a friend who did, or even sell them on that 'e' site and made a huge profit out of nothing.
Trouble is, if I don't want it, even if it's free, I'll say no thanks... not quite sure what it says about me, though I'm durn sure it says something!

Daytime TV

Well it's day two of being ill at home, and suffering through the indignity of daytime tv! Yes, indignity... chat shows, 100 year old repeats, years out of date soapies and those let's make cash from your antiques (crap) programmes!
Do the programmers think that people at home during the day are not intelligent, do not need their brains stimulated or is it that it's a ploy between them and the Government to get everyone out of the house!
Conspiracies aside it's a great way to catch up on all the DVD's I have not yet watched, plus indulge in a few favourites again. As well as watch the odd what the heck was I thinking when I bought that one DVDs.
Plus of course Miss Yo Yo thinks it's fantastic because I can get up and down every five minutes to pander to her in and out's! Perhaps I should duct tape her to her bean bag... now there's a thought!

The Gray & Pram Brigades

Off sick today with the most disgusting head cold ever! Snot everywhere, though I'll keep the more grosser details to myself... can't have the reading audience being ill now! Of course there was virtually nothing in the medicine cabinet, so off to the chemist I go.
Don't get the opportunity to get out and about at the shops during the week and oh man what a change. Elderly people and people with prams dominate... even the shop assistants are older, not a pimple in sight! The person behind the counter actually talked to me (about cats actually as Madam Yo Yo was out of biscuits and of course needed a new toy to annihilate), nearly gave me a heart attack I can tell you, smiled and told me to have a nice day! Well wicked!
Older people and pram pushers walk a lot slower I can tell you. At first it was frustrating and then I thought, what the heck, I aint in a rush (though would dearly love to drown a gallon of paracetamol and a couple hundred day nurse) and took the time to just dawdle. Only bad thing about that is that I discovered a whole lot of new products in the supermarket that I JUST had to try and spent three times as much as I was intending too!

English Weather...

... I love it! Changeable, unpredictable and totally English! Here we are in the middle of a drought, with washing cars, filling pools and watering the garden bans and it's been raining, as well as blowing a gale, for the last three days! Wicked! Well it is still May, so not officially summer yet, and the land / reservoirs here certainly need it. Hopefully of course it's the 'right' type of rain as there is the wrong type you see... something about it not soaking in etc.
Another reason for loving this weather is that it's cool! Not a hot temperature type myself (spent three months in the Middle East with the average temp 45 degrees celsius and wilted like a kiwi rose). And yet another, is that it reminds me quite a lot of NZ! Where you can have sun, rain, snow, gales, rainbows and incredible sunsets all in the one day! Even had a day when it was beautifully sunny, not a cloud to be seen, and it suddenly pours with rain, kiwi land eh?!

Woo hoo!

My first comment! Excellant... I forgot (temporarily) that people could leave their thoughts on my words - not to be forgotten again!
Well Mr/Ms/Mrs/Mrs/Dr/Sir/Your Majesty/Other Anonoymous the male friend in question was not S. S is his usual fabulously, wonderfully, marvellous self - as you well know! No, this male 'friend' was a someone that I thought was and has proven not. Such is life, take it as a learning experience and move on I say!

Doing the thing I said I'd never do.....

working on a Sunday! Joys of deadlines now and having to go into the office on a Sunday. Was an interesting experience, no air con, dead quiet with no phones or people talking and the cafeteria was closed! Certainly meant that a lot was achieved! And at least it was pouring with rain and I had no other plans... though it also means being at work at 7:30am..... just checked train times and that means up at 5:30am - haven't seen that time of day since I last went clubbing! Though of course it'll mean a day in lieu and that should come in handy when a friend from S.A. comes over in June. Well I did use up all my holiday this year for a trip back to NZ. Roll on July when I get another 25 days!

One of life's conundrum's....

... men! Unsolvable, paradoxical and insoluble beings! First they want to spend all their time with you, texting / calling you, emailing you and then nothing, nada, zilch! I think women friends are easier to deal with than men friends... at least with the women you can bitch with, fight, be truthful, kiss, make-up, not see each other for years & start the conversation where you left, and talk complete & utter bollocks with and not feel like you're in a hot and cold shower as with men! Argh! Think I'll grab a girlfriend, watch trashy dvds, eat really bad food and drink lots of wine with!

Fermented Grapes...

.. otherwise known as wine, port, sherry etc etc & currently my work... ahhh tough eh? Had the NZ wine maker in today to introduce the new vintages and range. All I can say is yum! Can't wait for them to appear in the staff shop and of course will have to taste them in the free Friday bar!
Has actually been a rather 'tasting' week really... hours spent at the LIW&SF (1,300 exhibitors from 35 countries!) where I met up with many a tasty drop, especially a delectable little austrian trockenbeerenauslese. Can't believe that the entire Excel centre was full of wine, and the odd spirit and for the folks that came with me it was rather overwhelming. Guess if you've never been before, stuck in the office all day staring at a computer screen and crunching numbers you have no idea, at all!
Also had a wake-up call that yes, I too once knew nothing about wines & spirits (now have two certifcates though still can't figure out the dang French system of categorising wines!) and that I should not assume that folks know what to do in a tasting, let alone know about viticulture, viniculture, terrior and even why use screwcaps (stelvins) or cork! Gawd I hope I don't end up one of those pretentious, up their arse hint of lime, touch of lemon, dash of dandelion and a whisper of cat's piss types!

Ahhhhhh, soccer

Depressed looking people on the train, quiet everywhere (even the traffic seemed muted somehow), into the office and a couple of folks crying.... who died? Was it the Queen? Did Backstreet Boys get back together? No, a football team lost! Obviously an English team against another country (no idea which or what the game was in aid of) and they lost! Oh my, shock, horror, get me a Prozac®!
Being a New Zealander and with rugby, cricket and netball being our sport 'religion' I just do not understand this obsession that the English have with soccer (alright, alright, football). Though of course if we lose to Australia in the Bledisloe, which we haven't since 2002 (and just the by NZ has won it 67 times and the Aussies just 30 since 1932!) the tears shed will be of course just be something getting in our eyes!

Miss in and Out

Cat's eh? Well what can I say. The one I indulge with all my love and whom gets away with murder... well she is a cat, does go outside and bring back 'presents'. Would much prefer them as a dead present rather than a live one... ever heard a toad scream? Worse than a rabbit for sure!
Well the weather is warming up now so she wants in, then out, then in, then out etc etc etc. It'd be alright if there was a cat flap in the door, or even window... trouble is double glazing & even with a glazier there's no gurantee that the cat flap wont screw up the seals!
So at the moment I guess you could call me a doorperson (got to keep the old PC crap going), nah feck it.. door woman! that lets little miss in and out and in and out, perhaps I should have called her yo yo?

Office Wingers

Why do they do it? She this, he that and on and on. If you have an issue with someone, why on earth talk to everyone else about it except the person concerned. It doesn't get you anywhere, annoys the hell out of your co-workers and in my case, makes me avoid you like you've got the plague.
Though my main gripe about office wingers is that why oh why do I always end up with them! Is it because I'm a good listener, make appropraite comments or just that I have sucker written in office winger can see only ink on my forehead!
Perhaps I should take my own advice and just tell these winger mingers to go talk someone else's ear off cause I really don't give a damn if so and so is number illiterate and entered everything on the system wrong!