He'll be up to his hoop in DeLoreans. 12, to be precise.

I have been trying to get the time to write a blog post for the past few days, but every time I've had the time to do it, the internet hasn't been working. The fog breaks the wireless signal, or something. I don't know. Anyway, I should be getting to bed early because I have to get up at 5 am but still. Here I am.

I can't believe I'm heading back to Leamington tomorrow, the time at home has gone by so quickly! I've had a really good time, and hopefully I'll get back again in February. On Sunday, my parents and I went to Lisburn to have a wee look in the sales. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, the sales have been shite this year! I bought a cute wee Max C bag in TK Maxx, and some tights, which was good but unexciting. It was good to get out of the house and get some fresh air though, I was starting to get Cabin Fever. I had a bit of a headache, though, after drinking too much champagne with Emma the night before. Some extra strength paracetamol and a lunch at Harry Ramsden's helped to sort me out. YUM!

On Monday morning Daddy, Kelly and I took the dogs to Monaghan for a sponsored dog walk. It was extremely cold, with freezing fog, so walking through a forest park was pretty treacherous underfoot, but it was lovely, and so beautiful! The park had three lakes, all of which were frozen over:

The dogs were hilarious. Paddy barked with excitement the whole way there, and it was all my sister and I could do to stop him from climbing into the front of the car to sit on Daddy's lap:
Paddy in the back of the car

Minnie and me pre-walk

After the walk we dropped the dogs off at home and headed over to Cookstown - the peanut butter and banana bagels in Streat are so good that my Dad will drive 20 miles to get one! Today my parents and I went down to Belfast to have a wee look in the sales there - again, nothing special. I bought a cardigan - highly exciting, isn't that right?! Actually, I was very pleased with the cardigan as it was exactly the one I've been after - a size smaller than I would have liked, but I wanted to have it small-fitting anyway so that's fine.

It has been really good to be at home. All of my siblings had time off too so it was really good to get to spend time with them. It was excellent to see Emma and her family, even if I did have a horrible hangover the next day! Oh, I also had lots of time to finish the blanket I've been making for my mum. She loves it, and it looks excellent on her bed:


Unfortunately, it hasn't all been good. Some really bad behaviour from extended family has meant that my parents have been pretty stressed for the past few days and I don't know how that's going to get resolved, and I'm sad that I'm not going to be here to support them. I'm just going to have to make sure to be more conscientious about ringing home, I think.

I am really looking forward to getting back to Leamington to see Nic, and I'm not afraid to say it. I have missed him, and I have missed my own bed. And, cute though the dogs are, I am really looking forward to being able to wear dog-hair-free clothes! Right, now I'm away to bed. I have to get up much too early tomorrow!

Proposed Northern Ireland prawn quota cut reduced

A slight deviation on my normal 'quote as blog heading' thing, today's title comes from a headline on BBC News NI. I love the way these things are worded, and I spent a few minutes puzzling out alternative meanings for this one before giving in and clicking on the link. Needless to say, the story isn't all that exciting.

This is a bit of a cheeky blog, because I am entering the 12 Days of Christmas competition over at the Domestic Sluttery blog, and there is an extra entry if you blog about the comp! I have mentioned Domestic Sluttery on here before, I always find it an entertaining read and getting daily doses of pretty help to make my office day go by faster. So, if you haven't been over there for a read you should get over there now!

To enter the competition you have to describe how you'll be spending Christmas. I'll be spending this Christmas very traditionally, with my family. Every last one of them lives in Northern Ireland and all of my siblings still live at home. I don't get home nearly as often as I would like - since I left teaching I have fewer holidays (although I can take them when I want, so WIN) and I have to divide them up between going home, going to Kent to see Nic's family, and doing fun things with Nic. This isn't a complaint, I actually feel very lucky that going home is a holiday in itself. I'll be home for 8 days, which will be the longest I've spent at home this year. I'll go out for spins in the car with my Daddy, watch TV and chat with my Mum, shop with my sisters and sit in companiable silence with my brother. I will have lunch in my sister's cafe, drink lots of tea and eat Tayto crisps. I'll hopefully also catch up with some old friends from home. None of this is very exciting or unique, but I love going home at Christmas because it gives me the chance to just relax and be with my family. And this time next week I'll be at home, and probably still in my pyjamas. YEEEEOOOOO!!!!

As my nephew would say: 'This shit just got real.'

I meant to write a blog post yesterday and I completely neglected to do my hot or not on Thursday, how lame am I?! I think that my New Year's resolution will have to be to be LESS LAME. How about that, then?

I'm in the office right now, peering out of the windows every few minutes to see if it has started to snow yet. I don't know why I'm getting excited about the idea of snow, especially as it will only make my commute that bit more tedious, but still. There is something very magical about the snow, I particularly love watching through my fifth-floor bedroom window.

I managed to recover from my sad little hangover well enough to enjoy Mr and Mrs Z's Christmas party on Saturday evening. I wasn't able to wear my Escala dress after all as the zip is broken on it (a boring fact here. It isn't the zip that has broken. The zip mechanism is working fine, it’s the little bit of the zip that you hold to pull it open or closed that has broken, but that will mean having to put a new zip in the dress. Isn't that irritating?!) As luck would have it, though, I have a number of party frocks in my wardrobe so it was all good. I was still feeling a bit too delicate to really let my hair down, but I had a lovely time all the same. I had a good old chat with Denise from Peeko about crochet (and other matters) and, of course, it is always good to catch up with the girls.

Nic and I had a lovely, long, lazy Sunday. Well, it was lazier for me than it was for him as he was still knee-deep in essays. Poor old thing, as I read on the sofa and drank tea I could hear the occasional whimper from the table, it was pretty heartbreaking. Still, we found time to watch the most recent episode of Gavin and Stacey and the last episode of The Thick of It. I can't adequately express how much I enjoyed The New Malcom (as opposed to 'Yestermalcolm') semi-flirting with Terri while wearing a 40 tog fleece. Also, any episode that contains Julius Nicholson gets my vote, I think he is my favourite character (just a day boy, not a boarder) I'm very sad that the series has come to an end and I think I'm going to be rewatching the DVDs of the first series and the specials. And hopefully I'll continue to have good dreams involving Peter Capaldi – NICE! I didn't enjoy Gavin and Stacey quite as much as usual, and I think this is because there was only one scene including Pam and Mick, and no Dave Coaches at all.

I spent much of Sunday and some of yesterday evening rereading Running in Heels by Anna Maxted. I first read this book a number of years ago and felt an urge to reread it recently after recommending it to a friend. In the Wikipedia entry about Anna Maxted she is described as writing at 'the higher end of chick-lit' and this meaningless description makes me really cross. It makes me cross because it is an insult masquerading as a compliment, and it doesn’t do any justice at all to her writing. Anyway, the book is excellent, I have bought another one of hers (her first novel, called Getting Over It) and I have been feeling inspired by it in all sorts of ways. I'm not reading Getting Over It straightaway (I learned from my John Wyndham and Patricia Highsmith binges that it's best to space these things out) so my next read is a book I bought at the tip shop, a Margaret Forster book called Mother Can You Hear Me?. I might save Maxted for when I go home next week – I'm able to bring a suitcase with me this time so I'm planning to bring lots of books to read.

List of loathe
The trains again. I got on my train this morning only to discover that it was being diverted and that my journey to work would take three times as long, and would mean I needed to get a taxi at the end of it. As luck would have it, though, I was able to get off that train and get a lift, but it annoys me that it wasn't announced until I was on the train. BOOOO!

The whole zip thing mentioned earlier on.

Bloody Amazon. The Christmas present I ordered for Nic on 30th November STILL hasn't arrived. I emailed Amazon about it last week and they told me to wait until 16th December before complaining again. It still hasn't arrived and even if they send out a replacement it will not be here in time for Christmas. Thanks for nothing, Amazon.

List of love
My tartan Lavrel dress. I wore it on Friday night and it's ace.

Vegan sausage bagels from Burst on Regent Street. I hope it's not too internetty to say it, but NOM.

Alex Maqueen. He is brilliant.

This time next week I will be back in sunny(rainy) NORN IRON. Hurrah – or should I say, YEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Pacman. It's pronounced Pacman.

Shamefully enough, I'm still in pyjamas as I write this blog. Nic is too, but he is working (marking) and I'm just trying to think up ways to avoid doing the washing up!

I'm still in my pyjamas because I am a wee bit hung over. Last night was Sugar Plum's hen party. I had yesterday off work and spent most of the day faffing about, and then feeling anxious about going out. M came round to sort me out and we had lots of fun icing cupcakes and getting ready. I wore my new strapless tartan dress and backcombed my hair, and it was fun!

The hen party wasn't one of those where everyone gets dressed up and drinks too much through penis-shaped straws. I was the only person drinking, and I got myself a little bit tipsier than I meant to. This was even more embarrassing because everyone else had been drinking diet coke or water all evening! Still, luckily enough my friends know I'm just a harmless slabber so I don't feel too much shame. Poor Mrs Z gave me a lift home and was treated to a monologue about the weird dreams I've been having lately - luckily for her, it was just a short drive to my house!

Nic had been out as well, and arrived home shortly after I did. We stayed up very late talking about Doctor Who and Katharine Hepburn - I don't quite know how we managed to connect those two thoughts! This is partly the reason why I'm still lounging around in my pyjamas and last night's big hair at two in the afternoon.

That last sentence made me feel a bit shamefaced so I'm going to go in a minute and get dressed. Oh, but I have discovered that a dress I really, really like is now in the Fever sale. Check it out! I might be naughty and buy it for myself when I get paid next week. I know it's bad, but it's an investment dress. I think. :)

Tonight we're off to Mr and Mrs Z's house for their Christmas party, which will be lots of fun (I'll not be drinking, I think!) and I'm trying to decide what to wear. Last year I wore my lovely blue Escala dress and I think I might wear it again this year. It's so festive and I never get the chance to wear it otherwise, it's too fancy to wear to the pub! Maybe I will put up some pictures tomorrow.

Right now, enough of this debauchery. I'm away to get dressed.

"What is your mother's maiden name?" What's her first name? I just knew her as "Ma"! That'll have to do.

It's Friday morning and I have a lovely day off - hurrah! Nic is marking essays, though, and I have some stuff to do so it's not quite the lazy day that it could be, but that's okay.

I had to go to Manchester on Wednesday for a conference. It was excellent - the conference was being held in the Town Hall, which is an amazing Victorian building. The conference room we were in looked out over St Peter's Square and the Christmas Market, and it was a lovely clear sunny day. The conference was really interesting - it was about the proposed Primary Curriculum for RE, and the day went by very quickly. I was EXHAUSTED by the time I got home, and no wonder. When I counted it up I realised I had spent 12 hours out of the past 3 days on trains - not so much fun!

That said, I did get a lot done on the train. I read one of my library books, A Special Providence by Richard Yates. It was okay, but by no means my favourite of his. I also made lots of notes for something creative I'm planning, and I also had lots of time to read trashy magazines and daydream. Still, I'm glad all of the train travel is over for this week.

I had a quiet work day yesterday, and then met up with M to take advantage of Leamington's late night shopping. I had to buy a bag and a wrap to complete my outfit for Sugar Plum's wedding, and I also bought myself these shoes from M&S. They won't set the world alight, but they are very cute and practical! I also managed to get the last bit of Nic's christmas present and I also bought myself some Tigi Small Talk to make my Barbara Wright style beehive dream come true. It was a very successful mini shopping trip. Sugar Plum met us when she finished work and we headed to the pub for hot chocolate and chats, and were joined a little bit later by Nic and N, which was most excellent. It's Sugar Plum's hen do this evening - I think it'll be a quiet enough evening but it will be lovely to have all the girls together. I imagine I will be the only one drinking, however, so I'll have to be very good.

Otherwise, I don't have much to report. I'm making some little christmas presents for my family this afternoon, and want to get a bit of writing done, and Nic and I are going to watch the rest of Doctor Who: The Romans. And I'm going to see if I can figure out why my poor wee laptop is making a strange noise. I've just downloaded Safari 4, which is maybe a bit whizzy for my 3 year old iBook to handle? Anyway, more tomorrow, perhaps.

Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?!

I'm back at home after a night away and it is good to be sitting on my sofa! I'm waiting for Nic to come home so we can have dinner, and I'm enjoying the lights of the Christmas tree.

I had a good time in Leeds. My journey up yesterday was pretty pants - the train was too cold and I spent the entire journey listening to the girl opposite me having inane conversations on her phone and then listening to her personal stereo very loudly. I have written before about my inability to tolerate other people's noise on public transport so I won't go over old ground. I have experimented with using my ipod but creating noise of my own doesn't seem to be a satisfactory way of solving the problem. I suppose it's something I'll just have to suck up until I get a car etc but I will still moan about it from time to time as it is therapeutic. If you're reading this, girl who looked like a pug dog on the train to Leeds last night - when you weren't talking shit you were listening to shit music and I glared at you so hard it made my neck ache. It didn't solve the problem and it didn't make me feel any better.

The hotel I was staying in was very comfortable. My room was enormous and I ordered room service and, as I don't have a TV, watched some very bad TV just to see what is going on in the world. My thoughts on that are:

1. I still love University Challenge, and would definitely have a go with Paxman if I got the chance. The man who calls out the names has gone mental, though. By the end of the episode he was SCREAMING, it was great!

2. School of Saatchi or whatever it was called? SHUT UP.

3. Miranda on BBC2. Now, I liked this a lot. It would have been improved if they had dispensed with the aggressive laughter track, but I loved the format. Also, I love Sally Phillips. She is gorgeous. And I love Adrian Scarborough as well. This is one I'll be watching on the iPlayer.

4. Some I'm a Celebrity... follow up programme about the contestants getting out of the jungle. This was okay actually, but I think that watching Katie Price is a bit like watching a cobra. Also, Gino d'Acampo? You don't talk to your wife for 24 hours if she farts? SHUT UP.

5. Ugly Betty - yes, whatever.

6. America's Scariest Prisons, or something, on Channel 5. I wanted to watch this, but it was too late and I was tired. The bit I saw looked great, but it was on late because they were showing stupid Tears of the Sun. Oh, boke.

So, I'm happy enough with not having TV, all things considered!

The reason I was in Leeds was to man our organisation's stand at a conference run by the TDA. I was mainly just looking after the stand and giving out our publications, but I was also able to sit in on one of the presentations. It was about teacher development and the effect that the variation in performance between teachers can have on students. It was very interesting. As a former teacher, it got me thinking about my own professional practice and the experiences I had while teacher training and while in school. I worked in a department full of good, creative, energetic teachers and we usually worked well together and learned from each other. But this didn't work so well interdepartmentally. It was rare for us to share exciting and good practice with teachers from other departments, and rare for them to share that with us. This was something that we all should have been doing but weren't, at least not as often as we ought to have been. I think that some of this can be attributed to the way in which teaching can become an exercise in personality. I have a friend who doesn't like it if one of us buys something that she already has, and I think that teaching can be like this too in a way - a balance between wanting to share good practice and being very protective of your teaching style, wishing to keep a mystique around it. This can make it hard to accept advice, and means that teaching isn't usually consistent across faculties.

The organisation I work for is undergoing a restructure, and in addition to this, I'm about to move from one department across into another. I'm excited about the move (it means more money and more responsibility) but I'm very nervous about it too. Hopefully with the restructure we will be better at sharing our good practice, but I am certainly nervous about moving to the new department. They're nearly all based in London (on a different floor to where my current department were based) so I don't really know anybody. I don't know how they do things there and how it'll be different. I hope that I can strike a balance between consistency and personality anyway.

Hmm, I didn't link those two thoughts together as well as I would have liked. Oh well, onto other topics... when I got home there was a good lot of post. The shoes I had ordered to wear to Sugar Plum and N's wedding, something that Nic has bought (I think it is a Frank Capra box set) and also, excitingly, one of my christmas presents. Nic and I are getting each other little surprises this year as before, but we also each picked something out and the thing I picked out arrived, a lovely short wool coat. Hurrah! I'm looking forward to being able to sport it in January.

Right now, after spending hours on the train I am really in need of something to eat. Time to go and forage in the fridge!

You're sticking one tit moment on top of another tit moment! That wouldn't happen in real life!

Hello Monday, where did you come from?!

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I had a lovely one - I was working from home on Friday so I was able to meet Sugar Plum nice and promptly at 5 for some very fast after-work shopping (I bought a hair accessory to wear to her wedding) and some coffee and a chat. I usually work from home on Friday so it's becoming a nice little end-to-the-week ritual. Nic and I then had a nice quiet evening in with some DVDs and vegetarian toad in the hole. YUM!

Nic and I headed down to London on Saturday to do a bit of shopping and meet up with some friends. I bought my dress to wear to Sugar Plum and N's wedding and a few other nice dresses from the Fever shop, and I paid a second visit there with M later in the afternoon. It was very pleasant, but by the end of the afternoon my face was beetroot red from the effort of trying on so many dresses! I got the dress I wanted for the wedding, and the tartan 'Lavrel' dress, and another nice frock from the sample rack as well. It was lots of fun! Nic and I had a lovely potter around Soho, and paid a visit to the Vintage Mazagine shop so I could have my picture taken with Jon Pertwee:



We repaired in the afternoon to the John Snow on Broadwick street to have a few drinks with some London based friends, before heading home a little worse for wear in the evening. As always with going to London (for pleasure rather than work) I enjoy myself hugely until it's time to go home, and then the thought of getting the train back up to Leam is unbearable! Luckily we had the company of the lovely M for the whole journey so it sped by.

Nic and I have both been feeling rather under the weather this week - I have been coughing and sniffling for some time now and he caught my lurgy. Yesterday he was feeling particularly grotty so we had a duvet day of DVDs and tasty food. It was lovely to stay in the warm and drink lots of hot drinks, and I managed to finish the throw I have been making to go on the back of the sofa:



I'm very pleased with how it turned out and am already planning my next project!

I'm going to have a busy few days. I'm off to Leeds this afternoon for a conference tomorrow, and then on Wednesday I'm off to Manchester for another conference. It isn't long until work breaks up for Christmas and I head home, so I'm going to enjoy this little boom before we drop into the pre-Christmas lull. Unfortunately I haven't the time or the money to explore around Leeds or Manchester this time around, but that's probably just as well for my bank account as I still have a little bit of Christmas shopping to do. Luckily I don't have a lot more to do, but enough for it to be on my mind.

Other than that, I don't have anything exciting to report. Maybe after I've been up north for a few days I will have something more interesting to write about! Until then, here are a few more pictures from the weekend:

I never get tired of trying on Nic's hat.

Some nice characters we encountered in the John Snow. I think this is Popeye and Bluto. Nice!

Don't make me talk about it, Gwen. I don't want another fatwa.

I'm doing my Thursday list, actually on Thursday this week. Check me out, all organised!

Hot
Puff pastry mince pies. I like the regular pastry ones too, but I bought some puff pastry ones yesterday to bring round to see Mrs Z, and they are lush. I've got a packet waiting for me at home as well - hurrah!

I'm not going to be in the office at all next week. I'll be working, but I'm out on external events for a few days. Any week where I don't have to spend too much time in this office is all good, as far as I am concerned.

William Hartnell as Doctor Who. For real, I think he's really good. Nic and I have just finished watching The Dalek Invasion of Earth , which was brilliant for lots of reasons:
- The story is a lot like Day of The Triffids, which I love.
- Ian and Barbara have lots of action, and they're both amazing. Barbara's massive beehive never moves, even when she is put to work in a Dalek work camp. Also, she almost manages out outwit the head Dalek, and the scene is so good.
- The ending is very touching. Even more so than the ending of The Green Death I cried a lot. I think Russell T Davies could learn a lot about how to write emotional scenes for Doctor Who by watching this, it's so subtle and moving and you really see the best of William Hartnell and Carol Ann Ford. There's no need for anyone to blink exaggeratedly, to say 'I love you' or 'I'm so sorry' and there is no need for an expensive and intrusive score.
- Daleks taking over London, it looks incredible. Daleks trundling along the South Bank, Daleks in front of the Houses of Parliament, Daleks at Nelson's Column. It must have terrified the children of the 60s!
Nic and I have ordered a box set of The Rescue and The Romans so I'll be getting more Hartnell pretty soon.

Mr and Mrs Z very kindly donated a Christmas tree to us, so Nic and I will be putting it up at the weekend. We didn't have one last year, so it will be nice to make the flat look festive.

My new manager called me this morning and I'll be moving into our new office two weeks earlier than I thought. This is good for a number of reasons, mainly because I hate hate hate this temporary office. It means I'll be back to riding the 12, but what can you do about that?

I'm looking forward to watching Gavin and Stacey tonight.

Not
The flourescent light above my desk is flickering and it is making me feel headachy. I've reported the fault to faciliies and pointed out that it's making me feel sick, but they haven't come to fix it yet. The only free desk I can see is next to someone who has been blanking me ever since I got promoted so I'm not sure what to do!

I have a cold, again. Booo!

That's it for the Nots, actually. I'm feeling pretty positive about life at the moment! I've got a busy few weeks coming up - I'm travelling a fair bit for work next week, and then I have busy weekends as well. It should be really nice, I love being able to catch up with friends at this time of the year. Nic and I are off to London on Saturday, partly so I can rinse my bank account in the Fever shop and also to meet up with some friends in the afternoon.

So, maybe a proper blog this afternoon. This flickering light is wrecking my head, I'm away for a cup of tea.