"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.