Ouch!!!

I decided to cancel my gym membership, it's an unnecessary expense at the moment, what with being unemployed!! I bought My Fitness Coach for the Wii a while back and decided yesterday to do 15 minutes of Pilates and 30 minutes of the Fitness Coach, hard work, but felt great afterwards. On the other hand, today my stomach muscles, tops of my shoulders, lats and deltoids are killing me! Loving the fact that I can feel that I've exercised and have no excuse to not do it! I've set the Wii up with the days and times that I'll exercise and it works the program out for me! Great!

On the weigh in front, I stayed the same again this week, mostly due to laziness... I'm trying to be good or at least better this week, I'd like to see me back down closer to the 13st (182lb/82kg) mark come next Monday. That would mean a loss of about 5lbs, which is achievable at this weight. As long as I watch the Points and keep up the exercise...

On the job front, I've had 2 second interviews now and I've got 2 firsts lined up, one on Thursday and one on Wednesday next week. Both seconds went well, but the one closer to home this morning, I really panicked about and I don't think I've ever been that nervous at an interview!!! Sweaty palms, shaky, stuttering!! Not good, but they had made allowances for it and the parts that I really had great knowledge of, I flew on. The reason for the nervousness was that I had to prepare and present on the vendor that I would be looking after, with only information publically available on the internet... The interviewers asked a couple of questions that I really couldn't answer, as the information is not online, or if it is, you have to register for it as a partner. Anyway I should hear tomorrow or Thursday on the one from this morning and Monday for the other one on Friday. Fingers crossed on both of them!!

So, other than that, life is good. I'm going to be working on David's website this afternoon, needs some serious tweaking now that it's searchable on the internet, is on the van and the business cards and is in the Surrey Herald as we took out an ad. Had the first call from the ad already and we had a couple of lads come up to the workshop this afternoon after finding us on the internet! All good stuff!

Right, that's me for now, I'll update when I have more news... :-)

Take care all and enjoy the limited sunshine that we're having!!

Love
Weeza xxx

Job Hunt Update

Well, again, lots has happened in the last couple of weeks! My weight's stayed the same(ish) - 13st 5lbs. I have a little more motivation now and today is the first day of my alcohol cut down. I've bought a new bike, which will help me get a little fitter, as rather than in a car, where you just sit and turn the wheel, I have to work with it! Picture to the right!!!

I'm still hunting for a job, had a few interviews, mostly excellent feedback, only been one that knocked me back and that's because other candidates had more experience for the role. I've got one interview lined up for next week and one second already booked in, waiting to hear on another second, that looked really promising, but is going cold quickly! I'm on the case!!

Other than that, I'm enjoying my time in between jobs, in what we've got of a summer, today looks like a great day to get out on my bike, the sun's shining right now and it's not too hot!

Hope everyone is well and see you soon!

Love
Weeza xxx

I've been in Egypt, that's my excuse anyway!!!

It's true, I'm really pants at keeping this blog up to date and I have no real excuse, as I'm now unemployed!!! I left F5 on the 30th of June and I'm actively looking for a new job. There's stuff on the horizon, been to some really good interviews and I'm being put forward for a number of others via recruiters as well. Nothing solid yet, but then I've only been really working hard on it this week.

I was in Egypt last week, visiting my aunt and cousins, who have been in the Middle East for nearly 30 years now. I had an amazing time and best of all, as they are "locals", I got to see Egypt in a different light to perhaps the way the average tourist would! It was a whirlwind tour, but I've done a "little" diary below!!

I got to Heathrow after checking in online the night before, pre-booking my seat, for a good one that was out of the way (I like to be as alone as possible when I travel by myself). When I got to the bag drop for BMI, I was really pleased that I had done the online check-in, as the queue for normal check-in was huge! The agent took my passport and check-in details and said "Ah, you've pre-booked your seat as 37G?", which I said I had. I was about to launch into a tirade when she said that I'd been moved to 2H. However, before I could say anything, she said that I'd been bumped into business class as the flight was full!!!! I also had access to the business lounge, which I didn't go to, as there was only 45 minutes to boarding and I fancied a wander around. When we boarded, I was offered champagne, orange juice or water. As tempting as the champagne was, it was only 9:15am, perhaps a little early ;-). We were given menus to choose lunch from and informed that the chef would be round shortly after take off to take our orders! The seat were like first class and fully reclined into beds. In fact, from the experiences that I've heard from colleagues in the past, this was more like first class than business as BMI don't have a first class on their flights. After take off, the chef in his whites, came round and actually knelt in front of the passengers to take their order! There was a choice of starters and main courses, plus a selection of wines! A far cry from tin foil slop food and wine out of a carton that I've had before!! When I landed at Cairo airport, I got through to the immigration section quite quickly, but the signs aren't great to tell you that you need to buy a visa before you go to passport control... I eventually found it in the bank cubical. However, no Egyptian Pounds (LE), and it was 85LE for the visa. The one cash point didn't have any cash in it (?!) but eventually they gave me money through one of my credit cards and I entered Egypt! Suzanne and Natalie (aunt and cousin) had texted me to say that they were waiting in the arrivals hall for me. Grabbed my very small but quite heavy suitcase (full of Marmite, Branston Pickle, cayenne pepper and some herbal supplements for Suzanne) and met them in arrivals. This was quite an emotional meeting as I'm the first person to visit them out there from Suzanne's side of the family (she's my mum's sister), for over 20 years!!! They've been over to see us in the UK, but Hamdi's (Suzanne's husband) side of the family joked that she must be an orphan!! We left the airport and the heat hit me like a brick wall! I've been in hot countries before, but it was stinking hot and humid and I loved it!!! The airport is the other side of Cairo to where Amir (my other cousin) lives, so the journey took about an hour or so to cross Cairo. If you've ever been there, then you'll know how mad the traffic is, if you haven't, it's MENTAL!! There is only one rule, don't hit anyone!!

After we'd got to Maadi, where Amir lives, we dropped Suzanne at the Metro to get provisions, whilst Natalie and I went to Starbucks for a coffee. White chocolate mocha and it was heavenly! We picked Suzanne and the shopping up and then went to the flat, where we were met by Amir. I haven't seen Amir for 20 years, he was 9 when I last saw him (saw Suzanne in May and Natalie about 3 or 4 years ago). The flat in Cairo is an awful lot bigger than I'd imagined it and really nice. We then decided to go to Khan Khalili, which is one of the oldest souks in Egypt. It was a complete sensory overload, amazing smells, colours, people! You can buy all sorts of different trinkets, floor cushions, sheeshas, ceramics, fabrics, lighting, so much stuff!! We had a meal in a famous restuarant in Khan Khalili, I can't remember the name of it, sorry! I think I ate pigeon as well, and as I ate everything there and liked it, if there was pigeon, I liked it!! Afterwards we came out of the souk and sat outside Hussein Mosque in one of the cafes and had sheesha, or hubbly bubbly as it's also known. It's a first for me and I can say that I enjoyed it!! Apple flavour!! Amsterdam, Egyptian style almost!! Order it from the menu on the table...


The next day was a lazy get up as it's hot in Cairo at the moment, it's summer, so most things are best done either very early morning, or late evening. We got to bed about 1:30-2am the night before, so a nice long lay in!! We'd decided to go to the Egyptian Museum to see the Tutankhamun exhibition as I didn't see it when it was in London. Quite eerie in the museum, there's quite a few mummies in there and the tomb/coffin of Tutankhamun looks like he could actually be in there! Maybe I've watched to many movies, eh? After that we got a taxi to the Sofitel El Gizerah, which is on the Nile. Five star hotel that's just been done up and it's amazing! Amir used to work in there, doing all the IT, but he's got his own business now. We sat on what's called the Smoking
Terrace and had coffee whilst waiting for Amir and it was cool and breezy, watching the boats and falukas going past. We went home and had some lunch and then went off to the pyramids horse riding. As I write this blog a week later, I have only just recovered!! I haven't ridden a horse in 8 years and I hurt like hell! The pace across the desert was mostly gallop and not used to riding in trainers, when I jammed my feet into the stirrups (I know I should have been heels down) to stop me from losing my stirrups, the tongue of my trainers got stuck in them! Anyway, I enjoyed it, but was a little bit nervous!! Next time I'll do it on a quad bike :) That evening was a quiet one, we went to an American burger place called Lucille's in Maadi and it was great! 131LE (approx £13) for a meal for the four of us!! We then went back and called it a night.

On the Thursday, we didn't plan to do much as Natalie and I were going to see Amir DJ at the Purple Club on the Imperial on the Nile and then drive up to Alexandria after, during the night. Amir went to work and the remaining three of us decided to find a second hand bookshop that Suzanne had been recommended to go to. Well, let's just say we got a little lost looking for Road 7.... And had a little bump in the car... Everyone was fine, it really was a little bump, but the guy who's car we hit was an American, working for Schlumberger one of F5 customers, and it was a brand new company car. He called later to say it was all ok, his insurance would pay for the damage!! Result!! We had a look around some of the shops and then went down to Starbucks for a coffee. Suzanne cooked an amazing risotto for dinner and then Natalie had a sleep as she was going to be doing the driving later and Amir went to Purple to set up with Shahir, the other half of Masters at Funk (http://www.mastersatfunk.com). Suzanne and I watched Sweet Home Alabama and then Natalie and I went out at just before 12 to the boat. We got there about 12:30-1ish and it was just getting going. Amir and Shahir are really, really good, they worked the crowd, adjusted to the mood and it was rolling when we left about an hour or so later. Then we drove to Alex... It was about 2:30am when we set off and got there in around 2 hours. We took the Desert Road, but it was dark, so didn't see much of the desert! There's another road, the Agricultural Road, as well between Alex and Cairo. The house at Alex is on the 14th floor and what we'd call a maisonette, but oh so much grander!! There are photos on Facebook, too many to put on here!! You can see the Mediterranean from the terrace!!

The next morning, Natalie took me to Costa in her car, she's customised rag rugs for seat covers and they are amazing, not sure if you can see them in the photo here... Amir arrived from Cairo and we went to Balbaa, which is a seafood place. As it was Friday afternoon, after prayer, it was packed, but we managed to get a table quite quickly. I've never seen so much seafood and fish on one table! The food was amazing! (Thank you Uncle Hamdi!!). Natalie met some of her friends at Carrefour, the big supermarket (yes, same ones as in France) and Suzanne and I did the shopping and then she took me to see the "little arab house" at King Marriott. Suzanne bought this land and the house sometime ago and has finally relented to Hamdi to have it knocked down and a villa built there. The plans show that it's going to be an amazing place. The photos just don't do it justice, but when it's up, it will look spectacular! It's an area that's going through heavy development at the moment and some of the villas that have already been finished are beautiful. Uncle Hamdi and Suzanne have other land there as well, which they are hoping to develop as well, which lots of villas to rent and sell. Then Suzanne took me to her local souk and I got my hair done in her salon, which is a far cry from Luiji and Carlo's, but they did a fantastic job and I've never been to such a friendly place. It was a really lovely experience and I felt like a princess with all the attention!! We also visited the butcher, the local "corner shop" and what I can only really describe as the yogurt shop!! We went back and I called David and then Natalie came home. We had a fairly early night, at just gone 1am...

The next day I was really excited about, we were going to the North Coast to Rowad. I went with Suzanne to her country club first though and met Lady Alison, Louise, Marlise and Samir, Suzanne's friends and then Natalie and Amir came to pick me up. It wasn't that far, but OMG!!!! The water is turquoise and the sand is white. This is NOT how I remember the Med at all!! It was a brilliant afternoon, all hanging out on the sand and then Natalie cooked prawn creamy pasta for everyone, that is 17 people!! Vodka pineapple cocktails that didn't freeze the night before were put in a teapot and it was passed around for everyone to swig out of!! I will always have fantastic memories of this afternoon, great people, great food, good times!!! :) We then travelled back to Abu Talet and to the family house there, where I met Hamdi's family and I had such an amazing reception! These people had never met any of Suzanne's side of the family and welcomed me so warmly! I must admit that I didn't understand a lot of what was being said, but I know that it was all good!!!

The next day, Amir drove me back to Cairo and the airport and we got into the airport and my flight was delayed 2 hours... I'm not going to dwell on that, as the rest of the holiday was amazing and I can't wait to go back!! Missing them all already!!

Diet, crap, have an upset stomach now, had for 2 days, which I think is a bug, probably picked up at Tesco... More later, off to watch the Beach, as we're pining for Thailand right now!!! :)

Soon peeps, I'll be back soon!!! xxxxx

Where do I start?!?!?!

Well, so much has happened in the last week I don't know where to begin!! So, firstly, I've resigned from my job. I've been with f5 for a little over 4 years, but I'm just not happy. After a lot of thinking and working out, I quit. I was put under consultation in February this year and I had a choice, redundancy or take a new role created in the Inside Sales team. I took the ISR role and in hindsight, I should have taken redundancy. I think that I took the new role out of love for the company that I was working for, not really thinking about the bigger picture. For the most part of the last 3 months, I've been bored and fed up. It's not me, I've never been one for sitting doing the same thing day after day after day, and I've proved it once and for all. I'm a problem solver and someone that thrives on working with others helping to work out deals. I found my niche at f5 as distribution sales manager and I've always felt that the new role was a step back. I've made the big jump and I'm leaving f5 on the 30th June, forever. Sad? A little, but very excited about new things ahead! I've got a couple of interviews lined up and there's some applications made, but nothing to go to and a little scary! I've got a bit of dosh put away, but it won't last forever!!

We went away in the caravan this weekend, with the dog, successfully! Stayed at East Fleet Farm in Chickerell, been a few times now and it's a great place. Peaceful and lots of walks. The idea was to go spearfishing, but an overcast Saturday morning, meant that plans weren't made in time for the sun that hit us in the afternoon! We had a walk around Portland and across the coast walk at Chickerell and took in some wonderful sea air! Love it down in that part of the world. We'll be going back soon!

I weighed in this morning, lost 2lbs from last week, now am 13st 4lbs, which is 2lbs under the weight that I started WeightWatchers in 2006! Three years and I've lost 2lbs (I'm conveniently forgetting the 10lbs that I've put on during that time as well!). The gym hasn't happened for a variety of reasons, mainly my back, but once I'm a "lady of leisure" I'll be able to go during the day or late mornings.

Bored you enough now, so signing off, catch you soon! xxxxx

Sausages.....

Most of you will know about my obsession with sausages, particularly those that I work with. When the snack truck used to come round in the morning, I would buy 2-3, sometimes 4 (if I was having a bad day), large sausages, like you get in a hot dog roll, only without the bread. Each of these amazingly tasty morsels were as greasy as hell and certainly not the low-fat variety, which was probably one of the early reasons for putting on weight. It was around the time that the snack truck arrived at the office, that I starting gaining weight. That and boozy lunches, eating the wrong foods with the wine and giving up any form of exercise! Anyway, back to the sausages. I found that Tesco do a low-fat sausage and they are actually very good, a plain pork version and more recently a Cumberland version. When I stopped being in the office full time and out on the road, I stopped eating so many sausages, and a treat now is the low fat ones. You can even fry them, as hardly any fat comes out, even if they are pricked all over. Imagine my delight, when I come home from work on Friday and David's bought a pack of Richmond sausages. Now these bad boys are so high in fat, they could probably clog your arteries in one sitting, but they taste like no other sausage! The ONLY way to cook them is in the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Machine. You can see just how fatty they are, as when after they've cooked, the fat drip tray underneath is almost full of fat and juices. Before the days of the dog (who now consumes that fat with a frenzy), we let it solidify before scooping it out into the bin. Approximately 5 dessert spoons of fat for 8 sausages, which is disgusting! Still, even though they are Foreman'd, they are still incredibly high in fat. So, we had them on Friday and then guess what.... Another packet on Saturday morning! Jeez, not good! I'm now off sausages for the foreseeable future, as I need to wean myself back off them!

Other than that, the diet has been shocking! It's slipped badly, I've been hit and miss on the Alli, been better than usual with the booze though, which is good. However, after an amazing day of deals in the office on Friday, I bought 2 bottles of rose cava on the way home and as David doesn't really like it, I polished off one and a half myself!! A bit of a sore head the next morning, but nothing I couldn't handle!

On the exercise front, I've been wearing my pedometer religiously and maintaining the minimum 3800 steps or more. Today I've done 8438 steps, of which 1415 were aerobic (14 mins). I've rejoined Riverbourne gym, I've been once in the week since I joined, but I put my back out the day after I went and it's not been strong enough to go back. I went to yoga with Helen on Tuesday, first time in over 6 weeks, and my back was twinging a bit, so didn't risk the gym. However, going back tomorrow straight after work. I've also sorted out the menus for home for the week, so that I'm back on plan and I've got skimmed milk for the office again, as I'd started using semi-skimmed milk in the office. I've got salad stuff, pasta, rice and tuna in spring water, plus new potatoes as well for some substance to my salads!

Anyway, off for now, sorry it was a while again, I'll try to come back tomorrow night, to log if I've behaved and what the weigh in is!

Take care all
Weeza xxxx

Another bank holiday, but....

...it didn't rain today!! Yay!!


Sorry I've been away again for a couple of weeks, it's been a bit crazy... We were away last weekend at Dive Fest, down on the south coast of Cornwall, about 5 minutes from Mevagissey. The event itself was fairly crap, the weather didn't help, it was windy and rained alot! We changed our minds the day before about staying in the van and decided as we still had it, that we'd take the caravan and boy are we pleased that we did! Most of the other people stayed in tents, one in a "tent" on top of his car, like a safari tent and got a big surprise when he climbed down the ladder out of it the first morning as he must have been about 70 years old! The star billed hog roast on the Saturday night was pathetic, 3 small slices of meat in an oversided bap, a small heap of salad and quite honestly, a teaspoon of pasta with pesto. There was one marquee with some trade stands in it, that took a grand 10 minutes max to go round (we did it 3 or 4 times, just to see if it was anymore interesting than the first time, it wasn't...) and we'd really looked forward to seeing Monty Halls who's been on the TV recently with his programme Beachcomber Cottage. He spent 8 months up in the Scottish Highlands living in an old crofter's cottage, and as he's a marine biologist, we were expecting his talk to be on diving around the UK, etc. There was a slideshow of sorts of diving that he'd done around the world at the beginning and then the next 45 minutes was all about his TV programme with the obligatory plug at the end for his book and DVD, utterly disappointing. After the shite hog roast, we went back to the caravan to cook something a bit more filling, watched a DVD (not Monty's may I add) and then went to bed. The tents all got battered with the wind and rain and on Saturday night, most of them must have been shitting themselves as the rain came down in full force! It woke us up at about 3am, the noise was incredible and the wind was rattling the caravan, sod being in a tent in that weather! Anyone that went to dive, couldn't, the chop on the sea was too bad. The diver's seemed to prefer to play cricket on the beach in their drysuits instead, which was odd...






On the Sunday we walked around Mevagissey for a few hours, as we'd both been there as kids, got a pasty and ate it on the side of the harbour and had a cup of tea in a tea room when it looked like it would hammer down, which it didn't :-)





We then went back to the campsite to have a walk along the beach and had a wander around Pentawan, which funnily enough, was shut! Only the pub was open, which was tempting, but we decided to attempt to fly the kite that I'd bought. When we bought the kite, we'd decided that a 1.2m kite just wasn't going to be big enough, so we decided to go all out and get a 3m one, despite all advice to get a 1.8m for beginners. Pah, we thought! OH MY GOD!! Well, to start with, the whole thing got tangled in the wind and I decided it was crap and to throw it in the bin, but David being the incredibly patient man that he is with anything to do with knots, untangled the whole thing in the caravan and then we walked back down to the beach, got it set up and then up in the air for all of 3 minutes before it made a beeline for my head, crashing down onto the beach. After a few failed attempts at getting it back up in the air, I realised that I was trying to launch it upside down and when I turned it the right way up, the bloody thing took off and David had to dig his heels into the sand to stop it from dragging him up the beach!! Then there was a crack and a flap, flap, flap, the bloody lines on the left side had snapped and it crashed back to the beach again! He's going to fix it so that we can have another go, when we remember! It's currently in the garage where we regularly kick it as we trip over it...

So on the diet side, been relatively good, despite the weekend away, didn't lose anything that week, put on 2lbs, but this week I'm down 4lbs and currently weigh in at 13st 4lbs. The best bit? I am starting to be able to wear clothes that I've not been able to get into for 2 years and that feels REALLY good! Today I put on a pair of shorts that I wore in Thailand and they are way too big. Good! I dug out a pair of combats that I bought to go to Thailand year before last and they were on the tight side and now they are just right and I'm incredibly happy. It really motivates me to lose more and stay on track. I'm wearing my pedometer again and that encourages me to walk more, hit the minimum 3800 steps. The Sunday at the Dive Fest, I walked 11,390 steps, 7.75km! Today I've been walking around and putting up the tennis/badminton/volleyball net that we've got for the garden and Helen next door came round late this afternoon and we attempted volleyball, but the ball was too hard and not round (and I'm shite at it as well) and gossiped whilst "playing" badminton, which I'm marginally better at!

So, off for now, but won't leave it so long next time, I promise :) xxx

That's better....

It's a bank holiday and guess what??? It's wet! Oh well, some things never change... However, what has changed, is my weight! Yes indeedy! I got back on the scales on Tuesday, which I know I shouldn't have, but I weighed 13st 7lbs! 3lbs less than the day before? Anyway, pleased to report that I've lost another pound on top of that, so I'm now officially under 13 and a half stone, 13st 6lbs to be precise! The Alli is working and so far so good with what they call the "diet related side effects"! As I've lost weight, my points on WeightWatchers have been reevaluated and I'm now on 21 points a day instead of 22. Not having to change much as last week I struggled on a couple of days to actually consume 21 points! Fingers crossed that the wine that I've drunk over the weekend hasn't upset anything too much... I still need to get back into exercising and the gym didn't come back to me, so I'll pop in there tomorrow lunch time.

Today's my Dad's birthday, grand old age of 65, officially pensionable! LOL! He doesn't look 65 and is still my Dad who I used to follow around the garden when I was a tot! We're having a BBQ and there's a May Day fete down in the park, so David, his Mum, his sister and her friend are down there at the moment and I'm waiting for my lot to turn up so that we can go down as well. It's bloody noisy down there but finishes at 4:30, so then we can put some music on!

Right, I'm off to finish of the last of the mountain of food that I've prepared and catch you all soon!

Weeza xxx