A good example recently of my sever lack of general fitness, was my failure to complete another bike ride. Similar distance, similar ride route, lighter and easier to ride bike and I checked out after only 20 miles.  I felt like I’d completely let myself down so have decided to do something about it.

I joined my company bike scheme and am now the proud owner of an ultra-light road bike (see pic at the end of this blog), and am making the effort to get out on it as much as possible.  Cycling to the station for work is an option, but leaving my expensive, pretty road bike parked all day is not.  I’m on a mission to find a cheapy thing from eBay that I can lock up there and not worry too much if it gets stolen.

So on top of riding my shiny new bike, we both now have training programmes at our local gym.  It’s hard going, but at least by going together we have the motivation, plus the leisure centre has a pool so we can cool off after a session.

I hope in the upcoming months that I will be able to report that I’m feeling a lot healthier and looking a little more toned!

My shiny bike

We found somewhere we all liked (which was looking like an impossible task to begin with) and began the process with the estate agents. From day one we told the agents we’d like the keys and to begin moving in this coming monday – 10th August. My other half and I have been doing most of the groundwork, owing to the fact that the third person sharing with us is in Cardiff and will be for the next two months. As neither my partner or I have reneted a house previously, we’re not entirely sure of the process, so this is where – you’d imagine – the estate agenets come in… or in our case, not.

They sent us a breakdown of payment to be made only yesterday (bearing in mind we wish to move in about four days time) and it was only as a subscript on that document that we were informed they needed utility bills and a form of ID. The ID isn’t a problem, but the utility bills are as neither of us have names on anything.

This coupled with the fact that we were only advised of the final payment figure yesterday, therefore, only able to begin transferring money today meaing they may not have cleared payment by Monday.

I’m really hoping this won’t be the case.

Arrgh!

Work are being a bit of a pain about me taking time off to move – it’s not my fault they haven’t hired a temp to cover the girl who’s seconded elsewhere, it’s not like they haven’t known about it for, oooh, a MONTH now!

Anyway, I’ll stop ranting and post again when I know more.

The photo below is of my beautiful fiancee, who drove 53 miles round the M25 last night to spend the night with me as I’d had a rubbish day. She spent two hours on this dreaded stretch of road (and she hates being stuck in traffic) just to give me a cuddle and spend the night snuggled up to me in bed.

I love her so much :*

My beautiful wife-to-be

Girl, Interrupted

I first saw this film about nine years ago, before I even began my Angelina Jolie obsession. My friend and I rented it one evening on recommendation from the lady who owned the video (!!!) shop, and being 16 and bored gave it a watch. If you’ve never seen this film, then I recommend you do. Not only does it have a stellar cast (Whoopi Goldberg, Angelina Jolie, Winona Ryder and Clea Duvall to name but a few), the storyline is both affecting and heartwarming. It’s by no means a happy film, especially as it’s based on the true-life memoirs of Susana Kaysen (Ryder’s character), but the human strength depicted in it, as well as mental care home conditions in the nineteen sixties, make it well worth a watch.

Moulin Rouge

Another one that I saw around nine years ago (no pattern to this, I promise) and ended up seeing it as we’d turned up at the cinema to see something else – can’t for the life of me remember what – and that was sold out so we saw Moulin Rouge. Being an emotional, hormonal thing with a knack for missing crucial lines during things, the line uttered by Ewan McGregor, “The woman I loved is now dead” at the start bypassed me completely so I was devastated when Satine died from consumption at the end. This is a film where you can just get lost in the magic of the romance and the music. It’s a little cheesy in places (the highly camped-up version of “Like a Virgin” springs to mind) and not all the cast are hugely talented singers, but it still remains a firm favourite of mine.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

This is such a classic, and I don’t really need to say any more on the matter.

The Emperors New Groove

This is a little gem from Disney, before everything went CGI, and was one of their less-famous titles. Which is a pity as I genuinely think this is the best Disney animated film ever! It’s the usual “life’s lessons” storyline of an extremely selfish Emperor who gets his comeuppance by living in the body of a llama for a while. He learns important lessons and by the end of the film is no longer the selfish little so and so he was at the start. The storyline is less important than the hillarious sub-characters, Yzma (Emperors’ aide) and Kronk (Yzma’s aide). So much so, that the character of Kronk earned himself a spin-off film (which I’ve yet to rent and watch). Just another one I highly recommend. Oh, and look out for the immortal line from Yzma, “and when it arrives… I’ll SMASH it with a hammer!” … it’ll make sense in the context of the film.

The Importance of being Earnest

This is the film version made in 2002, starring Dame Judi Dench, Colin Firth and Rupert Everett, plus others. It’s a very good adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play (which is one of my favourites anyway) and it’s a nice alternative if you a) can’t afford to go and see the live play or b) it’s not being performed anywhere near you.

So they’re my top five films. If there’s any you haven’t seen then I’d recommend a rental, all are worth an evening in with a bowl of popcorn and a snuggly blanket.

It’s in a village within Staines (Surrey) and there’s a pub very close by, as well as a little green with some cute little sheep on it! It’s got three good sized bedrooms, a garage and a nice little garden.

Hopefully we’ll be moving in the next few weeks.

Our new home

Enjoy!

*drools*

Love the "girl next door" look

Showtime promotional pic as Helena from The L Word

Meaning business as Helena Peabody

So this week wifey and I are viweing two to three properties per night until Saturday!  I’m really hoping we’ll find something we like and get signed off on it by the end of this week.

I will keep you posted, in the meantime,  here’s a random photo of house that we’ll never be able to afford!

He was partly correct though, it wasn’t actually the email issues that were causing the problem and the girl I share my office with had the same problem earlier in the week, so she fixed it in two seconds for me…

*slow sarcastic clap*

——————————————————————————–
From: Ashley P
Sent: 10 July 2009 10:33
To: Everybody – London
Subject: Email Connectivity

Morning All,

It appears that Rackspace, who host our exchange servers, have been carrying out some essential maintenance work on the servers. This will effect some users ability to connect to email. This was expected to be completed by 11am GMT, but it looks like to be extended to 12noon. Unfortunately, this work was unforeseen and the disruption could not have been avoided. If any of your colleagues are having problems with emails, can you please pass this information on.

I will update you as soon as the work is completed

Thanks

Ashley

——————————————————————————–
From: Ashley P
Sent: 10 July 2009 13:31
To: Everybody – London
Subject: FW: Email Connectivity

Just to keep you updated, some work is still ongoing in the background and there may continue to be disruption to email

——————————————————————————–
From: Susan Mould
Sent: 10 July 2009 13:31
To: Ashley P
Subject: RE: Email Connectivity

Hi Ashley,

I’ll assume that’s why the scanner on the 1st floor isn’t working then…?

Thanks
Susan

——————————————————————————–
From: Ashley P
Sent: 10 July 2009 13:42
To: Susan Mould
Subject: RE: Email Connectivity

it shouldnt affect the scanner. is it not scanning at all?

——————————————————————————–
From: Susan Mould
Sent: 10 July 2009 13:52
To: Ashley P
Subject: RE: Email Connectivity

It says there’s no connectivity to the network. Shall I log an official helpdesk call?

——————————————————————————–
From: Ashley P
Sent: 10 July 2009 14:07
To: Susan Mould
Subject: RE: Email Connectivity

I’d power the scanner off and then back on again as it may have just lost network connectivity briefly

——————————————————————————–
From: Susan Mould
Sent: 10 July 2009 14:16
To: Ashley P
Subject: RE: Email Connectivity

I just tried that but the error message is the same: email gateway not responding…

——————————————————————————–
From: Ashley P
Sent: 10 July 2009 14:33
To: Susan Mould
Subject: RE: Email Connectivity

ah, right if that is the error then i guess it could be due to the email issues, we are having.