Yeah, yeah we both saw that after-school special. But I'm not an alcoholic, and you're not an ice skater.

Evening all! I'm very relieved to say that I seem to be mostly over the flu. I mean, I'm still going to moan and whinge a little bit about my sore legs and being tired and all, but mostly I'm fine. I was back in work today and everything. Hopefully I'm done now with the lurgies, fingers crossed.

I spent yesterday mainly moping around the house and sleeping, but I did also take delivery of a new dress. I was browsing on Sunday for potential birthday presents for a friend and, of course, ended up buying myself a present. That's how I roll. In my defence, it was an actual bargain in that it was something I wanted, at a greatly reduced price. I bought myself the Fever Delilah dress from online boutique My Violet Hill. I have to say, I could not be more impressed with their service. This isn't a sponsored post, or anything, but they did well! My dress was amazingly priced at £19.50 and they have a price-match so if I'd seen it elsewhere cheaper, they would have sold it to me at that price! Also, it came really fast, beautifully wrapped with a hand-written note and some vouchers enclosed. I think it's safe to say that they'll be getting some more of my hard-earned cash in future. Anyway, on to the dress - which I wore to work today. I figured I'd need something to make me feel excited about going into work!

Fever Delilah dress and Firetrap Desire shoes

Sorry, the lighting's not so good in this one. Nic snapped me in the fading light as soon as I got home from work. But you get the general idea. I was tickled by how the ruffles on my shoes mirrored the ruffles on the neckline of the dress. I loved wearing this dress. This was due, in some part, to the fact my colleague Darren described it as 'power dressing' and then went on to say I reminded him of Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. As I love that film, I took that as a compliment!

Lovely lovely ruffles

This is the face of a woman who has spent most of the day copying, collating and labelling modified test papers. Sometimes my job is so exciting I can't cope. Actually, though, apart from all of the photocopying (the photocopier mercifully behaved itself today) my work day was pretty okay. I had my appointment with the Better West Midlands consultant. I've decided not to go for the Prince2 course. I was totally tempted by the fact that it's expensive and would be paid for, but in the end I thought I really did not want to be spending my working life wrangling spreadsheets and PRIME and god knows what else. So instead I'm going to probably be doing a management and leadership course. It's less fuzzy than it sounds - there's an actual, nationally recognised qualification. So that's pretty cool. I should be getting the details in the next few weeks. I have to say, I'm pretty relieved. And I'm excited about the course, whenever it starts.

I'm sure I'll be back in the next few days - I'm hoping the end of this week will compensate for the rubbish start. Nic and I are off out tomorrow night for a meal with some friends, and on Friday night I'll be at the pub to celebrate a good friend's birthday. And who knows, maybe I'll be passing some of my cash to Lauren at the vintage fair this weekend.

I'll just leave you with a shameless plug for a guest blog I wrote. Ria's fantastic blog About Your Dress is now home to a post by me, about some pretty dresses I want. Go and read it! Then, you know, have a cup of hot sweet tea to compensate for the shock of discovering that I want a new dress.