Day before D-Day

This is probably the first Sunday in over 3 months where I'm actually looking forward to work tomorrow.

Breakfast: Oats so simple golden syrup porridge pot

Lunch: Wholemeal pita bread, 1 raw pepper, 1/2 pot of Tescos Moroccan houmous 

Dinner: Baked BBQ chicken breast, rosemary toasted baby potatoes and steamed baby carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas and baby corn

Snack: Marks and Spencers wholegrain BBQ crisps

Unlike Friday night, I unfortunately didn't sleep as well - I think it was too hot in my friends spare room and I woke up a few times after dreaming about my car being vandalised. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat regular occurrence for me. About 8 years ago, my car was vandalised 7-10 times and the Thames Valley police were utterly useless. My car was keyed more than once, all 4 tyres were slashed, my wing mirrors were kicked off 5 different times. I had a love poem put on my windscreen and the best one, my drivers door was crowbarred open, my CD's were taken out of my car and placed in a pile by my front door (my car was parked about 20 meters away from my house at this point).

I turned into a wreck, constantly paranoid, couldn't sleep as every noise I heard, I'd be looking out the window, seeing if my car was OK. When I phoned the police, they never bothered coming out and on the one occasion they did, they said 'Oh, it's probably just young lads, walking through to the pub, having a laugh....' they didn't even take the CCTV offered to them by a local Indian restaurant. In the end, I ended up parking my car 1.5 miles away at my friends house and walking back home - I did this for over 6 months, before I moved house. Despite it being 8 years ago, me having a different car and having moved twice, I still get paranoid, I still wake up in the night and if I hear a weird sound, I still look out the window to see if my car is OK. 

Despite not sleeping overly well, I got up, made myself breakfast and chatted to my friend for an hour before heading off back home. I did remember to leave her the 'present' that I had promised her - the fake poo! When leaving her house, she said to me, 'So you didn't scent mark my room then?' I replied 'Just go and have a look' :-) I think it looked quite realistic and had me chuckling to myself like a child for a few minutes. Unlike Friday, the M4 was really empty so I made it back in under 3 hours - Just in time for lunch! Lunch was 'the usual' and after unpacking my stuff, I decided to chill for a few hours. 

I seem to have been bitten quite badly by something - Whilst I don't want to accuse my friends cat of having fleas, it's either fleas or mosquitoes and I've not quite worked out, which. Either way, I have a number of bites on both my ankles and they're itching like crazy :-S

Dinner tonight was another BBQ marinated chicken breast with rosemary roasted mini potatoes, steamed carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas and some baby corn - Delicious. I'm just heading out with my Boyfriend to go for a glass of red wine in a local pub and catch up on the weekend :-)

Tomorrow is D-Day. It's the day I sign the job offer to my new job and it's also the day I ask for a meeting with my Boss to try and negotiate a financial settlement.... Let's see how this goes... 

Making the most of the sun

I've found some amazing clothes and I wasn't even looking for them

Breakfast: Oats so simple Golden Syrup porridge and raspberries

Lunch: Jacket Potato with beans and coleslaw, small bottle of apple juice

Dinner:  Ebi Katsu Don, miso soup and Salmon Teriyaki side dish @Wasabi restaurant in Swansea
Snack: 4 mints that my friend gave me whilst walking around the botanical gardens

I've had a lovely day with my friend and I'm really taking advantage of the fact that I'm not worrying about work, I've got so much more headspace. I slept much better and unlike the last few weeks, I didn't wake up at 4:30am, instead waking up at 7:30 to the sun streaming in through the window. 

I was the first one to wake up, so went and had a shower, made my porridge (I brought two pots with me) with raspberries and a nice cup of tea and browsed the internet, waiting for my friend to wake up. This morning we decided we'd go to McArthur Glen outlet village and as we managed to get there 10 minutes before the shops opened, there was plenty of parking and it wasn't busy at all. I have to be honest - I'm really not a shopping kind of person. I really hate queues of people as I'm really impatient and am much more of the 'go in, look around, get out within 1 minute' type of person - If I have to try clothes on, I can usually get in and out of the changing rooms within 2-3 minutes.

We spent about 2 hours wandering around the shops - some shops we knew we wanted to go in (Next, Marks and Spencers etc) and some that we steered very clear from (I'm looking at YOU Cadbury and Thorntons) I didn't really think I'd find anything but was very happy to wander around, chatting to my friend, looking for random presents to buy people for Christmas. My friend said she wanted to go into Phase eight, so I wandered in, looked around and found a V-Neck jumper in maroon, size 16. It was really my kind of jumper - 3/4 length sleaves, looked quite baggy, but long in the body - (Kinda like this but V neck and a different colour) Could it fit? Let's go and see...

I went into the changing rooms and tried it on - I hate looking in the mirror as I hate what I look like, but I was actually really impressed with my figure - the top fitted! It looked amazing and I felt so good in it - I've never bought anything in Phase eight before as it's a shop I associate with slim people. When I looked at the rail again, there was another size 16 jumper in grey... and a size 16 wrap cardigan - This is great! Looking at the price, they were reduced from £55 to £17.50 each - Bargin! Taking all three up to the desk, I was thinking of how I'd tell my sister (who loves Phase eight) 'Oh, you like the jumper? Phase eight daaaaaaaarling' :-)

Feeling rather chuffed with my new purchases, I also found a pair of Skechers shoes with memory foam, size 8 in black, for £30, rather than £55 and a couple of hairbands from Claires Accessories. Mega successful shopping trip! 

As my friend is 14 weeks pregnant, we had to make a number of toilet stops as sadly she's experiencing some morning sickness - It got to 12:00 and she said she was hungry, so we immediately headed to the food court. Looking around, there wasn't a lot of options - A carvery, a noodle bar, Millies Cookies, MacDonalds and a 'Spud U like' - faced with those options, the most healthy option was a jacket potato, so I decided to opt for a baked potato, beans and coleslaw and a small bottle of apple juice - Absolutely perfect :-)

Once we'd eaten, we decided we'd make the most of the sunshine, so headed down the M4 a bit more until we reached the National Botanical Gardens - I'd not been for about 8 years so it was nice to see what had changed. My friend was feeling a bit less sick so we wandered around all the beautiful gardens and then headed to the glass dome to see all the exotic flowers and the mushroom display in one of the side rooms. It was really interesting and as I love flowers anyway, I took the most of the opportunity and took a LOT of photos. 

After a good couple of hours wandering around, we decided to head back to my friends house so she could have a bit of a rest and we could watch some trashy TV including 'Little women LA' (Little people who fight and bitch about each other) 'Teen Mom' (Clue is in the title... pregnant teenagers in America) and Little Britain.

We decided to try and book a restaurant for tonight, however we had to phone 5 restaurants before we were finally able book a table (I guess as it's Saturday night and therefore everywhere is busy) Turns out, it's the restaurant that I used to go to a lot when I worked in Swansea - Wasabi, a Japanese restaurant in the Uplands of Swansea. Table for 2 at 7:30, please!

It was a mixed experience - my Ebi Katsu Don (tempura prawns with rice, egg and onions etc) and salmon teriyaki was lovely, however my friends Chicken katsu curry was cold and despite her sending it back, it came back even colder, with an extra bowl of piping hot katsu sauce on the side :-S I know I ate too much - I was starving, but yet again, my stomach told my brain 'order a main course AND a side dish', yes, it was nice - but I didn't need both and I did feel too full afterwards.

Before heading back to my friends house, we took a quick detour to Tescos - I bought more porridge and food for tomorrow, including more milk for tea. This means that no matter what time I get back home, I don't need to go out for food and can chill tomorrow afternoon :-) It's currently in my friends fridge so I'll just pop it in a cool bag and it will come back with me along the M4.

I'm now going to spend another hour with my friend, watching some weird murder documentary on the CBS reality Show before hopefully having a really good nights sleep and doing the 3 hour drive back home tomorrow.

Summary: Great day with friend in the sun.. Not too bad on the healthy eating front, but shouldn't eat too much at dinner!

Hello from Wales!

I think this week is the week of traffic jams

Breakfast: Oats so simple golden syrup porridge and 1/2 carton of raspberries

Lunch: 1 pita bread with 1/2 pot of houmous, a raw pepper and handful of tomatoes

Dinner: 1 pita bread, baked chicken breast, 1/2 bag of salad and a handful of tomatoes

Snack: Bakewell Tart nakd bar

On Tuesday my Mother and I took 2.5 hours to do a 50 minute journey when we went to Hampton Court and unfortunately it took me 3.5 hours to do a 2.5 hour journey to Wales due to bad traffic on the M4 :-( 

I am now in Wales! Staying with my lovely friend until Sunday morning and am just about off to bed - The day hasn't been too bad really. I had my porridge and raspberries this morning and worked from the office until midday. It's becoming harder and harder to muster up any motivation at all, now that I know I'm resigning on Monday, however I tried my best as I don't really want to doss around even considering how my Boss has treated me.

At lunch time I headed home and spent most of the afternoon answering emails with the TV on in the background. I got really excited at 3pm as al the offer and contract documentation for my new job came through - so that's it... I resign on Monday! I was still ever so slightly worried until I got that email - What if the company change their mind? What if the email never comes? It's funny, as since I got a job offer, lots of other really, really good companies have responded to me sending them my CV.... It's nice to know that other places liked it as well, even if they're a bit too late - it gives me more confidence that I'm not that useless :-)

As I knew I'd be seeing my friend tonight, I planned what I'd eat for dinner and kept it really simple - I baked a chicken breast in BBQ sauce and toasted a pita bread, wrapped them and some salad up in tin foil and plonked it in my bag. I'm glad I did, as by the time I got to my friends house I was really, really hungry so having dinner ready to eat was a Godsend.

I've spent the last 3 hours chatting to my friend and I still don't think we're totally caught up on stuff. The most 'OMG' story was the one she told me about her friend, 'Lisa' - My friend announced she was pregnant and Lisa (who has no boyfriend) apparently said that she was thinking about getting pregnant as well - she found 3 men on a swingers website and slept with them all within one week. She then discovered she was pregnant.... no idea which one the Father was. She contacted all 3 men and 2 said they had had vasectomies (whether that's true or not, who knows?) the third guy turns out to be a good friend of her Fathers and she apparently doesn't even like him.

This Guy has apparently blocked her on Facebook (she's 35 by the way, in case you thought she was a teenager) and she's now complaining that he doesn't want anything to do with the baby.... It's... Yeah, just completely, Wow...

My friend only moved to her house in December, so she's still in the process of decorating, however the room I'm staying in is lovely. She knows I love peacocks, so she called it 'Imogens room' and whilst we have different taste in some places, I do think she's got good ideas about things.

I'd write more, but I'm knackered. Suffice to say, the healthy eating has gone well today and my friend said she's absolutely fine to go to a restaurant tomorrow that has healthy choices so that should be awesome. I think we're shopping tomorrow and then heading off to the beach, so I imagine more gossiping will be done :-)

The weekend beckons

It's a lovely evening and it's going to be an even lovelier weekend

Breakfast: Quaker Oat so simple Caramel Porridge pot

Lunch: 1 Pita bread, 1/2 a pot of Moroccan topped houmous and 1 raw pepper

Dinner: BBQ chicken salad 

Snack: Nakd Bakewell Tart bar 

Today has been pretty awesome in a lot of ways. For the first time in ages, work actually went OK. I didn't get upset when I saw 'The woman' meeting with one of my business areas. Nor did I feel sick when I had a meeting with my Boss - in fact I was willing him to bring up the prospect of me leaving, however he didn't, so the meeting was very, weird.. as I've already mentally checked out of the company. Sitting in a room with him, talking to him about 'the next few months' when in my head I'm singing 'La la la, don't care, don't care.. I've got another job offer' was really surreal - However until I've got a contract in front of me, I need to play the game.

I wandered into town at lunch time on my own as sadly my lovely work colleague was on a training course - I felt so light, as if I didn't have the worries of yesterday. Rather than heading straight to Marks and Spencers, I actually wandered around a bit and decided to go into HMV and buy a new CD to listen to, when I drive to Wales tomorrow. I'm not a big fan of music, however I do like both classical music and also dance music (very different, I know). Driving 3 hours on the motorway isn't my idea of fun, so having a new CD to listen to should make the journey go quicker - I hope 'Now dance the best of Summer' lives up to its name!

I left work slightly early today as had a chiropractors appointment, unfortunately ever since the Take That gig at the 02, my back has been really painful. It's something that's been an issue since I was 18 but it's not that serious at the moment, apparently it's just muscle weakness. Every few months, something will trigger it and ever since I decided to see a chiropractor, things have got much better. Vera was lovely as per usual and 15 minutes later, I was already feeling a lot less stiff and my right hip wasn't hurting as much. 

After that I headed over to my friends house as I had an appointment for a facial and getting my nails done - I appreciate I must sound like I love myself so much with fake eyelashes, facials, manicures, however I think the photos I posted earlier today show that I'm really not a dolled up type of person, I'm just, well.. normal (at least I think I am, anyway). We had a nice catch up and after 1.5 hours, I headed home to make dinner - a really tasty BBQ chicken salad which I really enjoyed eating whilst watching more episodes of Hannibal (which is still really gruesome).

Tomorrow I'm heading to Wales to see my pregnant friend (the one who had the gastric band, lost 7 stone but has put on over 2 stone back on since the start of the year) and spend the weekend with her. She's a lovely person, but I wonder if she's actually addressed the reasons she was eating too much in the first place - I won't say anything as it's not my place and I don't know what's going on in her head, however if I can help or support her in any way, then I will. I don't know what we'll end up doing, but I'll take my laptop with me so I can write about our fun and (hopefully) nice weather :-)