So, having spent a whole week on a course, I got into work on Monday to find that I was going up to York to install a new DC. Fortunately my boss went with me because I have No Clue. I did all the dusty pulling cables out bit, and thought that I could do more useful stuff with my time. I also did a lot of knitting while waiting around for processes to run. Oh, and I learnt the dcpromo command. I doubt I shall ever have to do this in my career again. On the plus side, it was an overnight trip, so I got to hang out with my friends from uni in the pub after. Bless them, but there was a degree of desperation in their attempts to amuse themselves by being silly. It was as though the last 10 years had never happened. It was just somehow sadder to watch them push their way through a portal to the future, then the past. Sort of Goon show on Speed, and live, and hilariously funny, and so very sad as well. Frozen in time. Then I had a birthday, and a trip to the ballet, and many lovely presents. I'm now waiting for my parents to arrive so that we can go .... And we went to the zoo. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, Dad or me. I'd wanted to go to see the baby gorilla, Tiny. He was terribly cute, and still very little. Much smaller than a human baby at the same age. Brown eyes to die for. There were also baby meerkats, monkeys and mole rats. All ridiculously cute. Then sleepy tigers and wide awake giraffes and three lions. Gloriously sunny weather too. A very satisfying trip out. I ought to get a season ticket and go more often. I'm vaguely watching a film, then I shall go to bed. Knackered. Must be all that fresh air. Xxx

Help the Girl Scouts of Japan directly.

British Red Cross

Japan Earthquake Relief Fund (set up by Japanese students in Britain)

In other news, yesterday I started a course about SQL design and optimisation.  And managed to turn up to the wrong training venue.  Fortunately it was the right training provider, and I had half an hour to get from Clerkenwell to Bank via bicycle.  They did try giving me just a mini-map of the area between Bank and Monument Tube, but I pointed out that it was very little help if I had No Clue how to get from Clerkenwell to Bank, so I directed them round TFL and they printed a route off for me.  The guy on reception had the most appalling halitosis: not a good move if you're the face of your company.

Mind you, given that I spent Sunday very, very hungover indeed: never been ill the morning after the night before in my life, it's quite impressive that I ended up at approximately the right place at approximately the right time.  It could have been Much Worse.  The Annual Rugby Club dinner on Saturday night had some of the roughest red wine that I've ever encountered, and my system didn't like it at all.... I feel rather sheepish.  At my great age, you'd think I'd realise that 3 glasses are quite enough if the wine is rough.  There were highlights.  The George-Clooney-Alike did a topless Haka, and. Well, actually that was the highlight.  He's dishy he is.  Definitely dishy. (can you say "Unrequited crush"?)

So Sunday was a write off, last night I failed to get through all my to-do list: and tonight I'm going to yoga.

xxx

So much devastation in Japan.  So much potential loss of life: and so many more lives saved, because Japan has always known that earthquakes will hit, and the Japanese have built to withstand as much as possible, and practice to be safe.

I hope my friends in Osaka are OK: I think their experience may well be more similar to my experiences of an earthquake.  The room shook for what seemed like an awfully long time, but can't have been more than 30 seconds.  Mum and I clung to each other in terror (Dad thought he'd kicked the table on the balcony), and that was that.  It was only 5.0 on the richter scale, the earthquake we experienced in Skiathos.  I woke up when we had an earthquake in the middle of the night in the UK a few years back - the bed was shaking from side to side, in a manner similar to a couchette on a train.  Nothing really fell over, my books stayed on their shelves (just as well, I would not have liked them landing on me in my bed!).  Still.  Not experiences that one invites or wishes to repeat.  I'm worried about The Merchant Seaman, on his ship: however, it was last tracked to the vicinity of Perth, so I like to believe that he won't really be affected.  Didn't do much for being able to work, tracking his ship down, checking where Osaka actually is on the map, locating the map, and so on.

I've got a map of the world spread out over the floor, so I can see how far the tsunami has gotten.  It'll hit Northern Australia in the next hour or so, I think.

Watching the movement of the tsunami waves, the debris they're carrying, is quite, quite scary.  Japan's all mountains.  Except where it isn't.  And where it isn't, it seems to be as flat as Norfolk.

How lucky I am to live where I do.  Fewer earthquakes.  I shall go and make a donation to, well, actually, I don't know whom.  Perhaps the Guide Friendship Fund, to help the Girl Scouts in the North East of Japan.  The Girl Scouts of Japan were so kind to me two years ago. DEC doesn't seem to have anything specific on its front page, nor does MSF.  Early days, yet: and Japan is a highly industrialised nation, and has many resources.  But, this is very, very big.

xxx

1.59.53, which I was so, so proud of, until the senior sleazebag at work announced he did it at age 50 in 1.57.58.

I refuse to be beaten by a guy with appalling teeth and a grease spot on his tie.  I don't care if he's got longer legs.

So I'm trying another one in September... not sponsored. Just for me.  Just to be faster.

And hoping my sub-ungual suppuration heals in the next week so I can start running again.  Competitive much?

xxx

I'm sitting on a strange sofa, in a former fellow student's house (she is at her boyfriend's place, and we had run out of Brownie gossip so it's not a problem. nice to have the place to myself). Tomorrow morning, I shall run the Bath Half Marathon. In the meantime, despite the heating, I am trying to stay warm, to keep my spirits up, to drink enough liquid, and to not dissolve into a wobbly heap owing to the fact that Em should have been 34 today and I am full of hormone (nice timing, body. Well done there).

I think I shall go override the heating. I have just checked the radiator, and it is not hot at all.

And the heating was set to go on for an hour at 6 pm. Then off until 10pm, when it comes on for another hour. Then on again from 6am to 8 am. Adjustments have been made. I have also slightly broken into a bottle of Ribena, being in need of something hot, yet not caffeinated. I am not sure how blue my fingers are, as a bulb went earlier on. So, the kindness of C nothwithstanding, I could be warmer and see more. When things have warmed a bit, I shall prop up the iPad and watch Charlie Chaplin. At the moment, I'm listening to something on Radio 3. It is Bel Canto in style, and I'm quite happy with it. It might be Verdi's Aida, and it's live at the New York Metropolitan Opera. I may not watch Mr Chaplin. I have Withnail & I on DVD with me. Anyhow. It is 4 degrees outside, and heat is needed. I am full of rice and peas and chicken, and I need to warm up before pudding of ice cream.

I feel better for that bijou whine. Thank you for letting me get it off my chest.

I popped into Loop this morning. I want to knit shawls, to knit hugs for Big Jane and her daughter S. Big Jane is the daughter of friends of my parents, and i look upon them as family. I was little Jane (being all of three when she got married) and she was Big Jane. She's a bit taller than me still, but very thin. Last spring, her middle daughter C died of Cystic Fibrosis. This January, her eldest daughter E died of the same thing. S doesn't have it, thankfully. But, I thought they could do with hugs and in more cheerful shades than any of the lace weight or 4 ply in my stash. I have some lovely yarn now, and will photograph when I have better light. A knitted hug is not the same as a real one, but it is portable. I knitted Em a hug when her cancer came back, and I'm wearing it now. For courage for tomorrow. Because it's her birthday. Because it's such fine stuff that it reminds me I can do anything. It has taken me nearly two years to wear it. Silly really.

Warmer now. Not ice cream warm, but warmer. Feeling less woebegone. Going to do something useful rather than continuing to witter on. I shall finish casting on and then I shall knit the first shawl. Then, a bath, and bed at 10pm.

Night all.

Xxxx

In my case, about a week will just fly by and never be seen again.  Been a spot of knitting, though... (please excuse my pigeon toe at the bottom of the picture)

And a rather nice sunset.

And all sorts of other lovely things.  More running, cooking kedgeree (although by Saturday, I was sick of the sight of it, having cooked it on Thursday), proper fresh eggs from a colleague's hens, knitting (the dress is one thing, I also produced a baby sweater on Saturday, which I have failed to photograph).  There was a Queen's Guide to present with her brooch and certificate, and the plans for Em's memorial were ceremoniously unveiled.  Mum's promised us some snowdrops for this, as there will be bulb planting.  There's also been a deal of running.  That 10 mile run?  It turned into 11 miles, then I collapsed, then I discovered I had to be at rugby a mere 15 minutes later (and I was not showered, or fed, or watered, or anything useful) and then I was in a Very Bad Mood.

Half term helped (writing that has prompted me to find out what we're doing at Brownies this week: we are making hats and having a night at the races).

I can now, it seems, complete a 2.61 mile run in 22 minutes.  I was slightly distressed at the end of the run, thinking the route I'd chosen was 2 miles and 'how can I be getting slower?' and then actually mapped the thing.  And there it was.  2.61 miles, 8 mins 22seconds per mile.  Since I started this thing able to run a mile in 9 mins 30 seconds, I am entirely chuffed.  To bits.  The race is this weekend. I am not thinking about it tonight, I am going to retreat to the sofa.  I've spent the evening having started off some of the Pack Holiday planning, and then gotten stuck: we are taking the Brownies away in June.  I meant to have a planning meeting this weekend, but it did not quite happen, so we are having it via email... so I have sent the most enormous email and am waiting for responses.  If I don't get answers soon, I shall have an Aliens themed Pack Holiday and we shall make Alien deely-boppers.  And have Alien food.  Slime.  Yum.

Mostly, I want to knit the baby hat I've started.  It has bunny ears, and it is ridiculously cute.  It doesn't look remotely hat-like at present, but that is fine.  I'm only a dozen rows in.

Dinner in Pinner was fab, drunken, full of morris dancers and excreable haikus.  And knickers.  Including the ones made out of sweeties.  But not the ones that somebody was (obviously) not actually wearing.  Sunday lunch turned into an afternoon dinner affair after I almost expired with hunger at 3pm.  We had steak.  It was Very Good Indeed.

I have just run out of energy again.  Anon.

xxx