Is it possible for someone to be double your age and still get asked ifshe's your sister?

My mum used to revel in the glory when someone asked her whether she was my sister when we were out together. A few people were joking, a lot of people were serious. Mum LOVED it.

So now mum is officially double my age after hitting 50 last weekend. Her birthday was on the Thursday but as she was working away she decided not to open anything until the weekend when our family was all together and could celebrate properly. My sis and I had told her a while ago to keep 9 November available as we would be taking her out for the day, but that it was a surprise and we wouldn't tell her where we were going. 

I booked Swan Lake (Matthew Bourne) tickets for our theatre in town on 15 August for mum, me, my sis, my friend and my brother's girlfriend, and everyone knew about it apart from mum. As it got closer to the date it was sooo hard meeting up with mum for coffee in case I accidentally gave away any spoilers. 

So the day came and we drove mum into town and to a bar / cafe for an amazing cream tea. 

Whoever invented the idea of making scones and filling them with cream and jam deserves a medal from my tongue and a slap from my thighs. 

We all relaxed and chatted for a while and mum still had no idea that we were going to the theatre. But then it was time to take her in and we were thankful that there was a Bonnie Tyler exhibition showing on the same day as that's what we told her we were going in there for. I still have no idea whether she was mocking us and going along with it just for fun or whether she guessed that we were seeing Swan Lake right from the start, so who knows!

We made sure we were early because mum is disabled and has limited movement so we didn't want to end up in an accident on the one day Dad allowed her to be out of his sight;) so we had another coffee and when we knew the announcement was near for the show, we decided to take her upstairs ready for the exhibition. Then when the show came on over the tannoy I said to mum "do you want to go and see this exhibition or would you rather see SWAN LAKE". To say she was excited is a bit of an understatement:)

The show was excellent, really moving and great ballet however I did ask my sister in the interval to explain a few things to me because with the no singing and talking thing going on I just had to check that my interpretation was correct;)

After the show we headed home because we had told mum that we were taking her for a small family meal, just the 5 of us with 3 partners. Here was surprise #2 because mum had no idea that dad had been working his behind off to organise a surprise dinner with 30 people including my grandparents and some of my parents' closest friends. 

To say mum was surprised was an understatement. I went to meet her at the bar when she arrived and I took her arm to help her down the steps, telling her that we had already taken our coats off and sat down. When she finally looked up as we were walking down towards the table, you could see her eyebrow twitch as she spotted one of her friends. She looked really confused for a second before looking across and spotting everyone else and realising what this was. She ALMOST shed a tear. And to say that me and my sis were relieved when mum finally showed up without a hitch was even more of one! Dad was telling everyone "I tried to get her out of the house and here on time but she couldn't decide what to wear"! Mum proceeded to going around and smacking everyone on the arm saying "I only saw you yesterday, I can't believe you were in on this!" It really was lovely to see her so happy. 

Mum joined the iPad club (spoilt by dad) and we bought her a case plus a very special present. Mum's birthday was a special one because she turned 50 but this was the first birthday in 17 years that mum has spent without her best friend Georgina, who passed away earlier this year. Every year for mums birthday George would buy mum a Steiff bear. My sis found one on Amazon called Georgina, so this was mum's special present and I think she will treasure it forever. 

Dans x

When was your last good deed????

A couple of weeks ago, the BBC's random stat of the day was:

"48 good deeds a year on average are carried out by each Briton per year"

(BBC.co.uk/news)

So this equates to each Briton doing a good deed almost once a week each year, bar four weeks when they feel like being a bit selfish (I bet on January). 

Do you do a good deed every week of the year???? Do I????

It made me think. I would like to think that I am a generous person, and get told so quite often too. But there are definitely people who are much kinder to people than I am, for example my mum who always seems to put everyone first all of the time without any kind of bother or resentment. She would give you her last £3 for a coffee even if it meant she had to go without one herself. She donates £50 each Christmas to buy chickens (or is it goats) to feed people in developing countries. I spend £50 a year on a mini mani month advent nail polish advent calendar. She is 100% a good deed person. 

So what constitutes a good deed?

You'll be unlikely to see me letting you out in front of me if you want to switch lanes on the roads when I'm either on the way to work or coming home after a stressful day. Does that count? I wouldn't say that is refusing to do a good deed, I just say that you should have been driving in the right lane to begin with. 

I pull my neighbours' bins back in towards their house if they haven't quite made it home from work (or golf) yet after the recycling men have been. But is that a good deed too or is it simply playing your part in the community?

Earlier this week in Wilkinsons I was looking for some nail polish remover when I saw an elderly lady scanning the shelves and looking at the products very closely with a magnifying glass right up to her eye. So I stepped in and asked her whether there was something I could help her to look for. "Well my dear I am looking for something to help my piles", she replied. So I helped her look for something for her piles. I think that was definitely my good deed of the week. 

I thought that people giving up their time / money / efforts / comfort to help someone else was becoming rare. I know that we Brits are known for being kind and patient and helpful but we all lead such busy lives and sometimes it's easy when you're late for work or rushing around or generally just busy, to put yourself first. But I was proved wrong just 5 minutes ago because as I have been sitting here at Birmingham train station waiting for my train to Bristol for a charity event tonight, not one but two separate men have stood up and offered their seats to approaching women. Now that is definitely their good deed for the week. 

What do you do on a day to day basis to make up your 48 good deeds of the year?

Dans x

Santa's got a long shift this year.

Let's talk about Christmas spirit. 

Yes I know it is far too early. 

It is 12 November and Christmas is EVERYWHERE. The big companies' adverts have already been launched, wrapping paper has been in the shops since October, and there are winter bonanza sales everywhere to tempt you to start the Christmas shop early.  

I do admit that apart from my Christmas jumper buy (Primark sell out so early) and scoffing a Boots cranberry and turkey sandwich (it was the only one left promise), I was really hoping to lay off Christmas everything until 1 December. I even avoided the Benefit advent calendar launch (that was hard). I was half tempted to buy a Gregg's mince pie on my lunch break the other day but my friend and I decided to make a mince pie lunch date on 1 December and avoid them until them (that was extra hard).

DC leaves the Christmas shopping up to me, and my friend & I go to Birmingham every year to make a trip of it, shop until our hearts content, and fit in a few mulled wines, but I'm finding it harder to hold off this year. Everywhere you look, there are pretty shiny things and I find myself thinking "oo he will like that" or "oo if I buy her that I might sneak one in for myself too" and I'm so tempted to get my wish list up and running. 

12 November, people. 

I especially feel for people who have children; it must be pretty hard to hold off the excitement for so long. As soon as Halloween is over, the shops clear their shelves and go overboard on the next 'must have' item. 

I know everyone says "it's officially Christmas when the Coca Cola advert comes up" but come on Coca Cola Christmas is a holiday and NOT ONE AND A HALF MONTHS LONG. 

I might sound a bit like a Scrooge which I'd like to stress I am not. I LOVE Christmas. And there's so many great things going on during the season that I do start Christmas early and start celebrating on 1 December. And I do like the feeling of being enticed by mulled wine, cider, mince pies, cheese, cranberry sauce and those cheese nibbles that you always get on the table at your nana's Christmas buffet (yum). I just think it's too early right now. Autumn is my favourite time of year and I like appreciating the cold wrapped up bonfire nights before moving onto the Santa talk. 

The only thing that seems to agree with me is the radio, as I haven't heard a single snippet of a Christmas jingle blare through my car stereo yet. But if I do hear All I Want For Christmas Is You before I am ready, then trust me it won't be pretty. 

What do you think? Is it too early or should we succumb to the commercial pressure and start celebrating now?

Dans x

Let's get back to business

I took 2 weeks off from blogging. And two weeks off from everything else too really. A few personal things have happened I haven't coped with very well so I gave myself two weeks to wallow and feel sorry for myself, because let's face it sometimes it's hard to be happy with the world on the outside when you're not particularly feeling great on the inside. But I did realise that when these things happen, the following are essential:

1) take time off. Feel sorry for yourself. Tell people you are not happy and LET THEM HELP YOU.  

2) surround yourself with family and friends. I have learnt who my friends aren't but I've definitely also realised that if you surround yourself with the people who you care about in life and who truly care for you then you will feel miles better. 

3) eat good food. I.e. Chocolate. It helps, I guarantee it. Even if the scales go up, it feels good at the time. Chocolate, cake and pasta have been my best friends. 

4) don't overdo it. I haven't exercised because I knew that I needed the break. Taking a break from exercise makes you feel better about getting out there and starting again because you know you can take it on. A bad run wouldn't have helped me emotionally but now that I'm feeling positive again I know that tomorrow when I get out on the road it'll be for all of the right reasons. 

5) Topshop. Yes ok I'm fickle. But new clothes make me feel good and when you feel good, you can take on the world. I'm not sure whether my bank manager will agree with me but who said we had to be friends?

But it's not all been bad while I've been away. Here's a little recap in pictures:

There were so many adorable kids at our door for trick or treat. But then we decided to shut up shop early and close the curtains not only to keep the warmth in but so we could raid the sweet bowl too. 

Autumn. My favourite time of year. Hair in buns, jumpers, scarves and layers. And I love my new glasses too. 

New clothes. My new favourite dress from Topshop, which I can rely on through the colder months. Dress up, dress down, tights on, tights off. Versatile, stylish and feel good. 

Nanas. My nana is actually the best. I am going to print this photo and frame it to treasure forever. This night, my nana shouted DC over and asked "when are you going to make an honest woman of my granddaughter?" But then added..... "To be honest I think she just wants the ring." Genius (not denying what she says is true).

I love it when friends add forgotten photos onto Facebook. This is my deaf friend Andie who I caught up with at a party a few months ago. I remember feeling good this night and being happy to be surrounded by my old friends, who I still have so much in common with. 

And last but not all happy birthday Ryan Gosling you fine specimen of a man. No you don't fit in with my recap post but who is arguing?????

Dans x

Running for fun

I did it. I went out. I didn't want to. I had a stressy day and a lonnnnnger than usual drive home from work (never take a new route thinking it would be quicker. Stick to the plan!) and when I got home I was 99.1% tempted to put my jamas on and 0.9% tempted to go for a run. But I knew that the one thing I needed to do to get rid of my negative thoughts and feelings was to get out on the pavement. 

6.0km later, I finished strong and happy. I was supposed to stop at 5.5k but I felt so good that I thought another 0.5km wouldn't do any harm. It was a slow run, no way near my fastest but I needed to make the decision whether to concentrate on pace or distance, and my shins were saying long and slow. I muted my Runkeeper and just ran based on feeling. 

I said before how both the trail and running up to the next village are now off limits because neither have street lighting and DC (and me) is not comfortable with me running in places where I'm not 100% safe. So I had a mental challenge too knowing that I would be running laps around the village, which is not the most interesting running route and definitely proved hard when I started lap 2. But as soon as I was up our main village hill for the second time, the positivity returned knowing that it was all downhill and flat until the end. 

I love running in the chilly weather. Running in the heat makes me feel really overwhelmed, so a dry Autumn night is perfect for me and tonight's run reminded me exactly why I got into running in the first place. 

Advantages of running in the wind:

1. It cools you down

Disadvantages of running in the wind:

1. Must remember to Vaseline the lips thoroughly before I leave the house

2. The smell of the chippy drafts all the way up the village and it is torture running through it

So tonight was a fun run and I came home feeling on top of the world. This mix of running and swimming is really helping. I had a mega strong swim yesterday and came away feeling great. I know that I'm never going to be the best or fastest runner but I'm going to try my hardest to get fitter and enjoy it at the same time. 

Tuesday: 30 lengths swim

Wednesday: 6.0km / 39:09 / 6:31min per km av pace

DC got the call today to say Ofsted are in tomorrow so he didn't get home from school until 8pm, where of course his favourite meal was waiting for him. 

It's my turn for bake off tomorrow night so I'm going to get some recipes out and see what I can come up with to feed the girls tomorrow. 

I also found this year's Christmas crackers that I am going to buy for my annual Christmas bake off night, although it might be too early to tell you all that ;)

Dans x

Bridget: a mixed review and a well overdue weekend

I finished the new Bridget Jones book 'Mad About the Boy' and even though it was a good, easy read I wasn't 'Mad About the Plot' and didn't come away from it thinking 'I'm Mad About the Book'. I quickly slipped back into Fielding's informal writing style for this line of books and I liked all of the reality drops i.e. Starbucks tax avoidance (can't remember any more which shows I was not really into this book) that makes Bridget easily relatable to the every day woman. I think the main problem I found was that it was hard for me to adapt to an older Bridget, and she never really had any goals throughout the book other than having sex with her toy boy. Gone was the passion for her job (she was texting her toy boy throughout every single meeting) and even though she was widowed and mentioned a few times of her guilt for leaving her children to her nanny, I didn't find that her children were a main central point of her life either. 

The name 'Roxster' grated on me. It was so stereotypically 'toy boy' I just didn't like it. I also didn't take at all to Mr Wallaker. I guess I'm hung up on the way there was just something so likeable and lovely and lush about Mr Darcy and the whole whirlwind love story that there was just nothing to compare to it from this book. Yes I wanted Bridget to be happy but all of a sudden 10 pages from the end she was in love with Mr Wallaker and that was it, happy ever after. I didn't like seeing Bridget settle. The man I fell completely in love with was Daniel but that's a no brainer as he is just Daniel. 

I didn't like the unbelievable event near the end, it turned me off in the same way the second film did with the whole prison thing. It just dragged out and didn't seem real enough to me. 

I really, really wanted to like this book. 

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My weekend in Manchester was amazing. And chilled. It felt so good to catch up with my friend JT. We're not big for texting in between meetings but it's not a bad thing as we have a million things to talk about when we see each other. 

The first thing we did when he met me at the station was go for lunch. JT had already picked out where we were going to go, and it was best. food. ever. We went to Oklahoma, a half-shop half-vegetarian cafe and both ordered the chick pea curry with sweet potato and mango chutney, along with Moroccan mint tea. 

I was tempted to ask for the recipe but I don't think they would have given it to me. I definitely need to learn to cook this. 

We walked around the shops for a while and talked about his latest hill race and how my running was going. JT, my best friend of 18 years, never ever thought he would have an afternoon's worth of conversation with me about running. He was surprised when I started out last February and even more surprised that I'm still at it. His favourite sport related hobby is climbing (he lives for it) but he did swimming a lot growing up and he's an all round good athlete. He ran 15 miles last week just because he felt like it, in 1hr 47. Amazing. 

The highlight of my afternoon other than this hot spiced apple drink and sharing carrot cake was when JT promised to pace me when I grow some balls and run my first half marathon. I'm really looking forward to this, so watch this space. 

We went out for Thai food with 2 out of 5 of his housemates, who are all completely lovely and took the time to chill out with us all weekend. They all have the same interests (climbing) and even though they're all full time working and not students any more they still get on great and have their own bachelor pad thing going on (read: messiest house I've ever seen (there was absolutely no way I was going to shower in either one of their bathrooms)). We bought some beers from a supermarket and went back to relax and watch the XFactor. We had planned to go out for a drink but the weather was terrible and we were happy enough staying in watching films. 

Sunday we all went to a bar / cafe down the road for some pulled pork ciabattas before going to Aldi to stock up on ingredients for baking. 

JT is not the biggest lover of photographs, not sure if you get that impression. 

We all demolished our chocolate brownies ASAP while they were still warm and it got to this point before I remembered to take a photo. They were pretty good brownies seems as we were lacking every single utensil you can imagine you might need to make any form of cake. 

An hour before I was due to train it back, we cracked open the monopoly. 

You wouldn't believe from this pic that it was the guys' idea to play this game. 

I have never even seen an electronic version of this game before let alone played it but it was really fun. Instead of paper money you all get a debit card that you pop in the electronic meter and it deducts and adds all the money you need.

I didn't get very far in the short time we had but I'm planning in sourcing this game for our family in time for Christmas. 

The last thing I did before I left was steal this from JT's bookshelf:

He recommended it so I can't wait to start reading. 

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Although I was inspired by all of our running talk over the weekend, I skipped my run today in favour of making my favourite chilli. I feel a bit demotivated by the darkness and rain and even though I was running last winter, my distance was low and one lap of my village was enough to complete my training plans. Now that both the trail and next village are out of bounds due to the dark, I would have to run over two laps of the village and this is just not inspiring me at the moment. But I will get out, I am just not sure when. 

Dans x

Ps sorry for whatever is going on with my font, hopefully get that sorted soon. 

Hello weekend

I had a job interview yesterday. I have absolutely no idea how it went. I don't think I can ever judge these things very well, because I get in there and as soon as the first question is asked I seem to forget everything I've prepared and just start spouting a load of verbal d. It was an internal interview so I knew the person who was interviewing me but I'm not sure whether that made it better or worse. 

There will be another stage yet, the next one with the main person you will be PAing for if you get the job, and I think at the end if the day it all comes down to chemistry. If there's no chance of developing a great working relationship together then you won't get the job. As my PA colleague said when I caught up with her after the interview yesterday: "It's like a marriage without the sex".

I think they're keen to get someone in quite quickly so I might hear back at short notice for the second stage early next week. Fingers crossed. 

So this had been on my mind since Wednesday and along with my opticians appointment my mind has been pretty occupied (no Mrs Optician I am not wearing contact lenses right now *cough*) and I haven't had much chance to think about my trip to Manchester this weekend, which has come at PERFECT timing after a busy week. My oldest and dearest friend moved to Manchester to study at Met over 6 years ago and never came back home to stay. I guesstimate we have been friends for approx 18 years. 

As these photos were taken over a year apart, that green v neck sweater must have been a favourite of his. 

He always comes home to visit his family and me but a trip for me was well overdue so am currently on train (searching for wifi) on my 3 hour train journey with nothing to think about other than writing blog posts, reading the news and reading Bridget Jones (and fretting about my interview feedback but determined not to think about it). Bliss. 

I haven't been for a run for a week now. I was supposed to go yesterday but I had a headache from the mega early start and from concentrating on the motorway in the pitch black and horrendous rain. I haven't been doing nothing though:

Sunday: 30 min swim

Monday: 30 min swim

Tuesday: rest

Wednesday: 30 min swim

Thursday: 30 min swim

Friday: rest

Saturday: rest

Not a bad week but aching to get out for a run so shall make it happen on Monday. 

Dans x