The list never quite made it to the PC.  But, oh boy, did I achieve after I got back from the County Training Day yesterday.  And I slept in this morning.

• Created the basic Pack Holiday Diary
• Ditto Wildlife Explorer Badge books
• Pack Holiday Accounts
• Brownie Accounts
• Installed new camera software (not yet tested)
• Installed new anti-virus software
• Failed not to laugh at the boy when he texted to inform me that, after the army-navy rugby match (which I imagine as being rather similar to the first day of the sales at the Army & Navy stores), sitting stings.  I have suggested that he sit on some ice.  This has not gone down well.  Note small letters: he is still a friend.
• Sowed basil, thyme, majoram, dill and sage seeds in pots.  Sowed sweet pea seeds outside.  Hosed down the potting compost that escaped onto the table.
• Brought in less-muddy boots. 
• Bought folder for Pack Holiday
• Managed to put last year's Pack Holiday Health forms into a sealed envelope (The shame, this should have been done back then).
• Made a pile of paper to be shredded (some of which should have been done in 2007.  The shame).
• Made one last effort to de-pink the rugby shirt.  Failure.
• Thought deep thoughts about Oscar certificates for Pack Holiday.
• Worked out how many Overnight, Pack Holiday, Advanced Pack Holiday, Cook & Advanced Cook, and Wildlife Explorer Badges I need.
• Written consent notes for parents for Archery and Sleeping on the Top Bunk and Using Makeup/Nail Varnish.
• Written the cheque for monies owed to me from the trip to Legoland last November (you don't want to know how much).
• Sewn a nametape onto Guide Uniform.
• Answered an awful lot of emails.

And now, I shall go and knit some of the most boring collar in the world for le pull français, and mend my gloves, my vest, and my grey sweater.

xxx

Apparently so.  I got given a badge at the Guide County Day today (which was, by the way, SO much better than any day I've been to previously, I could not begin to tell you how much better it was.  We had adult sized chairs, for starters, and the sun shone, and the sessions were really interesting, and relevant and useful).  I've been a Guider for Five Years.  Just.  Ish.  And I'm still waiting for my Brownie Holiday Badge.  With luck, I'll get it while I'm on Brownie Holiday this year.   I really want that badge, despite the fact that the new design stinks and I prefered the old fashioned enamel badge in, for a Brownie Holiday, Gold-Green-Gold.  I volunteered to organise a Guide overnighter next term (to get my Guide Module) which would mean I could wear my Blue-Green-Blue old Guide Holiday  badge, bought on eBay.

And here, is a FINISHED OBJECT.  Tom is wearing his hat, and smouldering.  It was a very satisfying knit.  And doesn't he smoulder well?

Meanwhile, the small boy downstairs has been chalking....

I don't believe that the bees are disappearing.  I saw one in Regent's Park yesterday, for the first time ever.

xxx

When the weatherman says it's raining,
You'll never hear me complaining,
I'm certain the sun will shine....

At least, I hope it shines tonight.  We're dancing out.  And it's never fun to dance out in the rain.  Slippery cobbles, shirts-going-see-through, generalised dampness (I was a cat in a former life.  I seriously object to generalised dampness, and I have some issues with specific sogginess too).  Unless one is thoroughly soaked, at which point some sort of Blitz mentality descends, and the determination to Keep Dancing and Have Fun rather outweighs the discomfort of it all.  Particularly when one knows that there is probably hot chocolate in one's future.

I'm feeling somewhat better than yesterday.  For starters, I had more than two hour's sleep last night, I had not imbibed three gin and tonics and a tequila shot on an almost empty stomach beginning at 11pm, therefore I did not wake up drunk this morning.  Instead, I had supper at The Carlton, and demolished salmon mousse followed by calves' liver and bacon with french beans and sautéed potatoes, with a pudding of crème brûlée.  No alcohol.  Being as this was my first proper meal since Sunday evening, I more than did it justice.  We wound up with coffee in the ladies' sitting room, and were home by 10.15pm.  Partly precipitated by my having a nosebleed in the ladies' sitting room: it punctuated the evening nicely, and I was ever so lucky and did not drip on the sofa.  It was shortlived and entirely random, and suggests that we are not only heading into the hayfever season, but that I'm also a bit stressed. 

Sources of stress include (but are not limited to) Pack Holiday, First Aid for the rugby team, Softball Season, Websites: essentially most extra-curricular activities.  Am very bored with knitting the collar for le pull français, as it is 8cm of 2x2 ribbing.  Booooooring.  It is not good commuter knitting as it tends to fall off the knitting needles, being too long for my ancient, old, geriatric, inherited from my Grandmother, metal straights.  I was going to say I should shift over to my 3.5mm lace turbos, but, they're too pointy for the yarn (DK, splitty) so I may buy a new set of bog standard turbos.  If I leave work on time, I shall detour via Waterloo and I Knit. 

I'm now going to go and eat a solid lunch (I weighed myself yesterday, and, a BMI of 19.6 is plain STUPID, plus I ended up snabbing the belt from my morris kit in order to keep my jeans up - particularly necessary owing to all the silly puddles) and go down to M&S and buy a pair of these.  My last pair got trashed at a ceilidh.

xxx

I can't believe that it's the afternoon already.  So much to do.  In no particular order

• Huge quantities of laundry Have managed to dye my rugby shirt slightly pink on the white bits.  Distraught does not even begin to describe it.  WOE!  Two washes in anti-dye-run have not rectified the situation.
• Clean incredibly muddy boots seems that merely spraying water over them is not good enough.  Have bought scrubbing brush.  North Carolina mud is evidently used as the base for glue.
• Re-waterproof incredibly  muddy boots once clean need to buy stuff, which apparently cannot be bought from the cycling shop's real shop, only online.  Hence, this has been downgraded to 'buy waterproofing stuff' and the boots need to dry out anyhow.
• Pack Holiday Admin (subset of 'organise cheques to pay in', 're-do plan', 'establish final day's theme', 'sort out activities')
• Supermarket Shop
• Bury Pruefish *sniffle*
• Fish Tank Gravel and Tubes Now need to get new materials for a filter.  That's for next weekend, which could be interesting, given that I have to faff about am on a county Guide training day. Then I can begin the process of letting the water bed down.
• Breakfast
• Get all overexcited that Clothkits is in business again.  Order skirt.
• Pester people for sponsorship
• Bake
• Tidy sitting room
• Tidy bedroom
• Catch up on Facebook Tags (the entire rugby team is tagging itself....)
• Knit the collar of Le Pull Français I have knit all of two and a half rows.  But I'm taking it on the tube to The Boy's with me.
• Try to stay warm (it's cold here, and I need to shut the bathroom window).
• Write thank you notes Heather, Alex (anyone else I've neglected to thank recently who reads this?)
• Wrap presents Heather & Kirsty
• Buy bulbs to replace dead bulbs in sitting room.  Replace same.

xxx

I don't Meme often, but Fibermom tagged me, and then she posted another nicely interesting one.  So.

7 Unusual Things about me (Iteration unknown).

1. I am determined to read all of the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die".  This is doing grand things for the quality of my reading matter.
2. While I am a member of the Carlton Club, politically I am both a Libertarian and Undecided.  I have a sneaking admiration for Margaret Thatcher, and I think Boris Johnson is great.  I ought to be a dyed-in-the-wool, true-blue Tory, but really, I'm a bit of a Socialist at heart.
3. I have been on Facebook ever since it first opened up to the UK.  It was really boring until about May last year, when everyone suddenly joined.
4. I don't do running, or jogging.  My natural distance is the fifty-yard-cross-rugby-pitch dash.  However, I've signed up for a Race For Life (message me if you'd like to sponsor me, and I'll send you the relevant link).
5. I work in an office that's entirely male from Wednesday to Friday.  I counteract this by decorating my noticeboard with a batch of pink fluffy fairy lights.  They have been electrically safety tested.
6. My education was almost entirely funded by winning scholarships.  It was a shock to the system to do a Masters degree and actually have to pay the full fees.
7. The vast majority of men will not apologise for coming out with the most appalling language in front of me.  They will, however, suddenly start apologising if another woman appears.

The meme below comes from What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University.

If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright. To participate, copy and paste…then unbold my responses to make your own.

Bold the items that apply to you:

1. Father went to college

2. Father finished college

3. Mother went to college

4. Mother finished college

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. We made good use of the library.

9. Were read children’s books by a parent.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.

Me and my boys.  Mr Still Attached is in this photo: which do you think he is?

BTW, we are sponsored by BarCap, and some of the team may work there next year, but that's the total of our connection.

As I promised Emily, the Hairy Fairy (white coat) really did look like he'd managed to get dressed in the dark.  Not a good photo.  I was trying to be subtle.

Fairy Cakes, from a looong time ago.

More Fairy Cakes.  And they were yum.

My nose is beginning to peel.  And that's about it, really.

xxx

The Dishy Barrister has bought 'The EasyMailer Interface'.  Bearing in mind the ghastliness of trying to set up the mailforwards for the website, I am currently quaking in my boots at this new development.

I did take photographs both of last night's pizzas and of the fairycakes.  I failed to upload them.  Fibermom, I've got more about the Roald Dahl museum from when I went there in December (between Christmas and New Year).  With luck, Ciorstadh will send me the picture of me in the replica Roald Dahl chair

Today began inauspiciously enough when I tipped my cereal into my lap while adjusting the tablecloth.  I think it was fortunate that I was wearing my pjs, rather than being dressed.  I just missed a bus, was late into work, ended up with lukewarm coffee and yeah, it's just going like that.

On the plus side, I finished the pink emergency sock last night.  It looketh v. weird.  Am onto the cashmere toe-cosies now, which look like truncated footies.

~x~

I want that chair.  Well.  I want one that's a bit smaller, with lower arms, and a squishy cushion at the back instead of a hole, but with wings, and a headrest, and a blanket to go round my knees, and a writing board, and a thermos of tea...