It’s a beautiful day, and I’m feeling really lazy. I’m still in bed, reading Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories and browsing the Internet. It might be something to do with the fact that I was awake at 6am yesterday, and didn’t go to sleep until about 1 or 2am.

Yesterday, Reading was really fun. We had lunch at the Slug and Lettuce, bought Krispy Kremes, went shopping (I bought a top for work and a jacket), and generally caught up over the past year or so we haven’t seen each other. Vitushni is the closest non-work friend I have to where I’m living now (we live about 80 miles apart), and it was actually so easy to meet up for both of us that we said we’d have to do it more often! It’s so weird to think that less than a year ago, my closest friend was a five minute walk away or even literally in the next bedroom along. Don’t get me wrong, I love my work friends, but most of them live much further away than that, and a lot of them have their kids, partners etc. Also, we spend around 8 and a half hours each week day together anyway…!

I have chores to do today, and I might go food shopping. So exciting I may save my lesson planning until tomorrow, because my mobile Internet usage resets, and it’s pushing the limit as it is. One of my work friends also lent me a fitness DVD, so I might have a go at part of that today though it looks pretty tough. If I were somewhere else, if this was a year or two ago, I’d be going swimming with someone, or shopping in town, or visiting my parents and going out for the day, or taking Pom to the park with my sister, or having a BBQ with a load of people, or lazing outside with a book. Hmm. I guess this is all very ‘woe is me’, and I am happy that I can function perfectly well living on my own, but on sunny weekends I especially miss having people around.

I think I’ll get dressed and have a tidy round, put some washing in and then head outside for at least a few hours…it’s too nice to waste! I was so hot yesterday, even just wearing a loose top, cropped jeans and sandals. It was the hottest day of the year supposedly, though I don’t think today will be much cooler, so walking up the hill where I live will be fun!

I’ve had a hectic few days with various things going on, which is why I haven’t blogged. Mainly due to various work-related things that I won’t go into here, but sometimes the mind boggles. Seriously. It’s just mad.

Anyway, I went to Nottingham last weekend to see Joe So I had a nice weekend relaxing and shopping. I bought a couple of summer scarves and new tops and a new pair of jeans.

Recently here it’s been very hot and sunny, and it’s really hot today. So this morning I made a lovely frozen smoothie with berries, melon and banana and drank it as I walked to work, pretending that I wasn’t in England *cough* One of the things about getting into cooking and juicing after a while away from it is that you realise how much nicer things taste. I only cook simple stuff, mainly because I’m on my own and I can’t be bothered, but I made a stir fry with carrots, beansprouts, pepper, mushrooms, peas, cabbage, peppers and various other things and chucked some of Jamie Oliver’s Chilli and Tomato Sauce on it. I had to have it with spaghetti as I didn’t have noodles, but it was really nice. The sauce is a bit hot, but a nice change.

This lunchtime I went with Wirginia to the car wash – she’d never been in one before. Ever!! We were both freaking out and it was pretty funny. Silly work lunchtimes are fun

Next week I’m going back to Notts on Tuesday night because I have a job interview, so fingers crossed.

In other news, supplementing your income (or even creating it if you’re unemployed) is definitely a good way to beat the recession. I’m back into my paid writing, and also doing surveys occasionally. Also, I’m tutoring a 10 year old in English which will be fun, give me something productive to do in the evening, and look good on my CV. To be honest, I’m kind of missing learning new things and doing new things as I have been doing since I started nursery school…! I’ve finally found a master’s I’m interested in doing, unfortunately it’s at a terrible time. I would like to do it though and I’ve asked for permission, but I don’t want to have commitments here so we’ll see. I’d much prefer to be further north.

Generally, everything’s ticking along as usual. Tomorrow I’m meeting a friend in Reading and we’re probably going to have a meal, shop, maybe go to the cinema. I also have to sort out my lesson plans this weekend, and tidy up etc. Nothing too exciting, but at least it will be quite relaxing.

I also have random things happening over the summer, really far in advance, which is unusual for me. Em’s wedding is in August, Karen’s leaving party is in June, Faye’s work hen party is in August, my dad and sister are planning a family trip to go to Germany/France in June/July, Chrissy and Toni are having a flatwarming party sometime soon. Unfortunately there are things in Notts I’d love to go to but can’t, but then again I’m going to be travelling all over the place as it is!

The weekend started off quite well – went to a friend’s gig from work and she was amazing Plus it was a cheap night out as I got a lift there and back. I didn’t go to sleep until about 4am though, and then I felt quite rubbish on the Saturday. It was too late to go shopping and I went downstairs to find loads of ants in the kitchen, which put me completely off cooking or eating anything in the house! Plus 2 of my housemates moved out, so there’s only me and another guy now and he’s not been in for the past week. So I didn’t really achieve anything on Saturday except for cleaning.

Oh, and I got a new addiction – that ‘Be a tycoon’ application on facebook. I’m alternating between it and the online version of ‘Settlers of Catan’. And I also found an amazing website for downloading exercise and workout videos – exercisetv.tv. Unfortunately it didn’t occur to me until I got a warning message that downloading them would use up so much of my mobile internet bandwidth for the month, but I still have about a gig left to play with which should be enough for random browsing.

Sunday was a much better day – I put down salt to get rid of the ants which has mainly worked. And I went shopping in town and treated myself to a new long sleeve top from Animal and got a couple of cheap workout DVDs from a charity shop. The Pilates one I did the other day – it’s very soothing because it’s set on the beach with the tide coming in and out. The other is MTV Power Yoga, which is pretty hardcore and doesn’t have a warm up. I think once I learn the positions better and do a proper warm up beforehand it’ll be more enjoyable! For now I’m sticking to the ExerciseTV workouts, which are great for mixing and matching. And I can really feel the burn from the past few days!! I’m following one of their 2 week workout plans, which is helpful because then I can do the right amount and type of exercise, and be motivated to do it. I’ve downloaded a good mix of pilates, yoga, cardio, stretching, dance and other workouts so I don’t get bored.

I also bought a top which I’d been looking at a few months ago, but decided it wasn’t worth it at £32. But on Sunday I saw it reduced to £7!! And I got it home, tried it on and realised it would go perfectly with a navy blue shrug type top I got from Poland a couple of years back and have never really worn because it clashes with almost everything. So happy about that! I do need to buy some new pairs of jeans because all the ones I have are too big or have holes in. I’m waiting until I got back to Notts for that though so I can get Joe or someone to use their student discount When I got out of the outlet centre, I noticed a proper farmers’ market (small but perfectly formed). As well as fruit and veg, they had homemade doughnuts and ice cream and stuff as well. I didn’t buy anything, but I’ll definitely be back. It’s so nice having a couple of markets close by, and I’m going to make more of an effort to buy from them (especially food). Not only is it a lot cheaper, but it also hasn’t travelled thousands of miles and helps out local farmers. It’s just more convenient to buy from the supermarkets as they are open for much longer, but hopefully I’ll get out of that habit.

Now that I’m alone in the house, I’ve monopolised the kitchen space more. I bought a cheap blender, and lots of frozen and fresh fruit, and made smoothies yesterday. Lovely and chilled and fresh I’ve decided that I’m going to get back into my old good habits of cooking properly instead of just eating cereal for dinner! I also need more energy for the workouts. So I’ll probably be posting lots of my recipes – generally quite healthy, very simple, and very quick. I don’t cook meals which take more than about 20 mins total unless I’m cooking for a load of people.

I’ve also been looking into web design courses, and I have quite a few choices and things that I’m qualified for but I’m not sure what to do at the moment. There are a couple of great courses, but at 3 years long I’m not sure I want to invest the time! There’s also a master’s course I’m qualified for at a really good university, and it’s all online, but it costs £16,000 (average master’s is about £3,500 to £6,000, so it’s a lot more expensive). Then I have the option of doing a short course, but there aren’t any good ones near me, and I don’t think I can get to them whilst living/working where I am. Sigh. I think I just have to keep looking.