I thought yesterday that I'd be a lot stiffer and sore in the muscles after having gone to the gym after a long break on Monday evening, but then I thought, maybe it'll be the following day when it really hits. However, I have managed to get through with only slight muscle ache, and even managed to go to the gym this evening as well! Then it was bus home, then drive to parent's so I could help out with a slight problem mum had been having with her web site. This turned out to be relatively easy to fix, so didn't take a huge amount of time, and I got fed as payment. Chicken New Orleans, Mmmmm.

I ended up going home with some home made lemon curd, a freshly baked malt loaf, and a roll for tomorrow. :)

The old computer at work that has been sitting in the corner while I waited for stuff to get installed on new machine, and to transfer those last few files over, has gone! (I did reclaim my mouse & keyboard though) I am all installed in my new office. Just the whiteboard to go up and maybe a few more posters and I'll be set.

Now if only I could get completely caught up on my marking. And the lecture I have to present on Friday... and the other stuff I have to get done this week. Oh well, will try go get a bit more of lecture planned out before I sleep.

On the slightly down side the chapter for a book I was co-authoring turns out to be a no-go. We're not nano enough for them. (Fair enough. We were hoping to get some data, or stuff from literature, but the equipment hasn't been working, and apparently noone else has done it. So if we get equipment working there's a paper in it for us!)

After months of being sick, busy, sick, insanely busy and then sick again, I have finally managed to get back to the gym!

I'm feeling OK now, but I suspect I'm going to be feeling sore and stiff tomorrow.

With a bit of luck, now that life isn't so insanely busy I'll keep it up. Just as long as I don't get sick again.

I've felt frustrated about not being able to get my exercise. Though I have only lost a bit of muscle tone, I don't appear to have put any weight on, though I could have gained a bit of fat & lost muscle I guess, but I'm still fitting into my newer clothes so I think I'm fine there. :)

Well, this week has been busy busy again.
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I should have just booked the flights on Saturday. I'm going to the UK for 3 weeks mid-year, primarily to do some short courses in scottish gaelic at the college on Skye, something I've wanted to do for years. But I didn't book the flights on Saturday. I did them today. And of course they were more than a little more expensive. I shall count it as an expensive life lesson. It's the first time I've travelled overseas since 90-91.

I got distracted by the other expensive purchase I made this week. I've been saving so I can afford, but was still an expensive, expensive week.

On the other hand. That's it more or less. The course is booked. The flights are booked. My leave application is in process. I have my passports. I just need to figure out which friends and family over there I'm going to visit before and after the short courses.

So the stressful part (making decisions) is now over.

I still have to pay for the rest of the course and accommodation, but my bank balance will have had a chance to recover by then.

My various friends have been attempting to corrupt me for a while now, but finally I have succumbed. I have got myself a new computer. It is a shiny mac. I now have to learn how to use it.

Which means I have a triad of computers in that I have in my house my slightly old and still working (if non-portable) Dell Laptop running XP. An old PC which is acting as my print server running Linux (Ubuntu) and soon to join them my new Mac.

For the first time in weeks, nay months I am feeling really relaxed. I've still got stuff to deal with in the next few weeks, but I'm starting to feel that I can cope with it all. Swancon is over (and in spite of a few hiccups I had a reasonably good time considering I was on the committee), and while I still have to deal with the books, I'm not finding the idea too daunting (yet). I've had a very pleasant, relaxing evening, re-watched a silly movie featuring hopping chinese vampires, and now I'm going to bed I think and enjoy this relaxation some more.

My parents are home from their trip around NZ with some old friends from Scotland. While they would have preferred a bit more time to do things leisurely, they are glad to be home and the dog is ecstatic to have them back.

I took the remains of last week off work after the con and I think I was right to do so. Even now I'm still slightly frazzled and stressed, but that might be because I had things get in the way of preparing stuff for this week. Still, I shall get through. And, since I do have work tomorrow, I am doing the sensible thing and getting an early night, well sort of, considering that this time yesterday it was past midnight but meh.

Please can we not do daylight savings again?

No backup to be seen. Just hoping there wasn't anything important in it. Other mailboxes OK.

Some of them are ripening! I see redness.

In other news work is busy busy busy....

A friend of my mother's died yesterday. She'd been seriously ill for at least a month. She wasn't what I think of as old, and while I didn't know her very well, it's always a shock when someone you know dies. It still feels like one of the taboo subjects. We really are here for such a short time.

It's been a busy busy week.
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Mint is withering - I think I forgot to water one of the hot days :( There's still a few green leaves down the bottom so I'm continuing to water and hope it recovers.

Tomatoes still appearing and ripening. None ripe yet.

Rest of life really really busy.

A while ago I was excited by the appearance of a couple of tomatoes on my new tomato plants. And now, it has reached higher levels as more and more little tomatoes have appeared. The plants are apparently bush cherry tomatoes so are not likely to grow huge, but I'm looking forward to them ripening

I got home from work today, not having gone to the gym because of the heat, so I decided to swim instead. It was a nice swim and I felt better for it, but by the time I was done the local shops were shut and I was out of bread. I suppose I could have driven to the ones that opened later, but a friend of mine has been baking bread recently and I thought, why not. I had some yeast in the fridge and the rest of the makings of it, so after mixing & kneading and rising and kneading and rising and making into a loaf & some rolls and baking. Bottom tapped hollow so it's looking good. Pic of the finished loaf
Looking forward to breakfast. :)

fe2h2o's puggle insisted that I have a couple of tomato seedlings for Christmas. And in spite of the fact that I only have a balcony and am dubious about my ability to keep plants alive, I planted them in some self-watering pots, and have been endeavouring to keep them, and some mint I already had, watered and happy. And amazingly enough they have been thriving. The tomato plants have grown significantly (some flickr photos) and then flowers appeared, and today I spotted, in amongst the leaves of one of the plants, a tiny little tomato. My first ever. And another couple of even tinier ones on the other side of the plant. I did a little brushing of the flowers with a little paintbrush to encourage more of them to do so.

I may even get food out of this! Eventually.

But now it is very late and the R&J-like bollywood thing has come to its tragic end and I'm going to bed.

I took some snaps of the astounding cake and a few other bits & pieces at splanky's daughter's 1st birthday party and have uploaded them onto my flickr account

Party was very pleasant. Glad I felt better and able to go.

Today wasn't so bad. Stomach still not the happiest it's ever been but back feeling much better! Even managed to go in to work. And get some stuff done! Which frankly was amazing considering the major construction works going on right underneath my office.

Took a little break from the hammering & drilling to get a haircut. Yes, it's short again. Well, it's rarely long, but it's shorter than I used to get it cut. Partly change in hairdressing people (though not establishment) and me not being able to see what they're doing with my glasses off. On the whole though I think I quite like it. It's easy to take care of and cooler in the warm summer days.

Then after work visited parents & sorted out some software that had gotten confused due to visits to the computer repair people. Was fed and had pleasant end to evening sitting out in the balmy evening.

Still, even though it's not quite so early a night as I managed to get the last few days I'm going to head to bed.

I figure in about half an hour i'll head to the shops though as I have no bread or eggs and very little non-dairy consumables. The dairy is not good for icky stomachs, and the walk to the shops might be good for sore back. I have no idea why I have this combination of symptoms but on the whole it could be worse. A friend of my mother's has been in hospital for 2 weeks now with a collapsed lung :(

I have eaten all my grapes and have one apple left. I've got stuff for dinner that I'm pretty sure I can stomach but want stuff in case I need to snack and for breakfast tomorrow as before I remembered the grapes I was a grumpy person. Blood sugar low = unhappiness.

I had a cold shortly before Xmas and what with one thing and another took a while to get back to the gym. Then I went back and after 2nd session got a bit of a relapse. So break again, try to build up swimming, keep walking (now catching bus to work - yay bus) to and from bus stops and all is fine. And yesterday afternoon I think to myself "You know - tomorrow will be a good day to go back to the gym" So of course I start feeling icky late last night, and today also feeling icky and my back aches. Stuck it out at work as much as I could, but by 3ish I was nearly crying with the yuckiness of it all and decided to go home.
So, currently I am lying in bed with laptop, may do some actual work later. Painkillers should be kicking in soon, though lying down has helped a fair bit Now I just need to work out if there is anything edible that I can stomach in the house as I could not face going to the shops.

I do not think that it is my body not wanting to go back to the gym, as usually I enjoy the energised feeling I get at the end of a gym session.

The reason I am not using contractions is that I have to find out how to turn off the damn quick find in firefox again. Every time I try to use an apostrophe it kicks in. (That and the international keyboard setting I suspect)