A Tribute

I walked into work this morning with a very sombre atmosphere surrounding the sales floor. People had shocked looks on their face and my manager had sore, red eyes from obvious crying. It was only through hearing people chatting while making their morning cup of tea that it suddenly dawned on me what had happened.

One of my colleagues, Dave Webber, a field rep on our team of just 11 members had been taken ill on Friday lunchtime with a suspected heart attack. An ambulance was called and the paramedics had suggested an ECG test which confirmed he had a heart murmur. They took him to the Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham and was released later that same evening. The following day, Saturday, he complained again of pain and collapsed. He passed away on Saturday morning with his wife by his side.

Being in the office today has been hard. It's hard to describe quite what I feel. Dave was an impatient, tempestuous man who loved to complain about anything and everything but when he wasn't talking or thinking about work, he was lovely. He was always the first one in the office in the morning and would always say good morning to everyone who passed the end of his desk. I had helped him on many occasions sorting out technical problems and sending across his paperwork to the art studio. I suggested one morning to him to write down what I was doing so he would know for the future if ever I was off. He wrote down every detail as I was telling him. But every week, when Tuesday rolled down he would shift from one foot to the other standing over my desk asking me to help him again. Of course I helped him. It took two seconds out of my day but if it made him that little bit calmer, I did it.

A year or so ago, I was talking to another colleague about my travels to Australia. Something I love to talk about, when Dave chipped in and said his daughter had once done the same after she finished university and I remember us having a conversation about how he felt with her across the other side of the world and how he knew what my mum felt.

He was distant and never usually talked of his family, so it came as a bit of a surprise when he joined in our conversation.

Today, I can't stop thinking about him and his family. The impact it has had on them so suddenly. He hadn't even been ill. One minute he was there and the next- just an empty place at the table. It's hard from our point of view. He left to go to the hospital so suddenly on Friday afternoon that all of his possessions were still on his desk this morning. His pens, his laptop, his car keys. The car is still out in the car park and there is a bag of sweets on his desk that he won on the sales day on Friday morning. We've had to go through his desk and sort the bits and pieces out. We've had his customers calling asking to speak to him, oblivious of what has happened. It's been very hard and I've had a lump in the back of my throat all day trying not to cry.

I feel that I'm expecting to see him walking down the office in a minute complaining about his March target. I glance over at his empty desk and expect him to be sitting there- it makes me feel so sad. The ironic thing is that he won salesperson of the month in November last year- something which has just been announced but he will never get to collect his certificate or his prize money.

What makes things worse is that I spend more time with my work colleagues than I do with my family and friends. It makes me physically sick to think that I spend more time at work, trying to earn cold, hard cash to buy materialistic things than I do with the people I love most in the world. It makes me want to take 2 weeks off work or to the extreme, quit my job. I just can't seem to get my head around the fact that he's gone. That it could happen to any one person at any given time.

It's given me a massive dose of reality. The money that I have saved in the bank- I'm going to spend it. I'm going to do the things I want to do. I'm not going to let my job rule my life. If I quit tomorrow, I could find another one closer to my loved ones. I'm not going to pick up the phone or text, I'm going to visit people. I already have a dinner and a sleepover at my mum's, lunch with 2 old friends that I haven't seen in a while and a catch up and a cup of tea with my best friend and my god- daughter, planned for this weekend. I'm not going to spends evenings watching soaps or rubbish TV when I can be out down the pub with my friends making memories. I'm not going to spend day after day obsessing with my weight, if I want to eat something, I'll eat it. Life is too short to say, 'What if I had more money', or 'What if I just do the holiday of a lifetime next year instead.' Do it now. Book that holiday, visit that old friend, quit your job if you're not happy. Surround yourself with people who love you and get rid of those who make you unhappy.

My tribute to Dave is to live my life the way I've always wanted to. To own my own magazine, to own a beautiful house and fill it with kids and dogs and marry the person I love. I want my life to be filled with the things that I want. Lastly, I'm going to tell the people that I love, that simply, I love them.

Nothing to report!

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last week or so. All has been quiet in my world- with nothing much to report!

I'm still having an onward struggle with Weight Watchers each week. To be honest, I haven't been for the last 2 weeks. What with mum's birthday and Valentines day, I knew I would be eating more than I needed to and indulging in chocolate so thought I would cheat and not go. However with the sunlight rising earlier in the morning, I'm finding it ever so slightly easier to drag myself out of bed and get to the gym. 7am I was in there this morning- that's dedication! I managed to do an hour and then took a freezing cold shower in the run- down horrible changing rooms. What is it with council owned leisure centres? They make the effort to make the gym rooms, swimming pools and fitness suites quite nice and then not take any notice of the changing rooms whatsoever. That said, I can't really complain. I get the gym for free at the moment so I guess I can handle a freezing cold shower in the mornings. I quite like going to the gym in the mornings actually. I've never done it before. I always went after work, complained all day that I had to go to the gym afterwards and trundled there in the dark, starving hungry. But in the mornings, I eat after I've worked out (something to look forward to) and I feel really awake which is quite nice. The only bad thing is that come 4pm in the afternoon, I'm falling asleep at my desk...that and having to get up at 6.30am.

I'm venturing to Leamington this weekend to do a restaurant review for my magazine. This nice, new restaurant called Queans which has a rather interesting looking menu but has had amazing reviews. I haven't been out in Leamington for a little while- I feel like a Leamington veteran circa 2004 when me and my school friends would pub crawl our way around ending up in Rio's. I feel as though I look old compared to these fresh faced young things who seemed to have just tripped out of primary school and found their way to a bottle of Smirnoff ice or Bacardi Breezer (my drink of choice when I was young).

I'm really not that old. I'm just saying that I feel a little older compare to the youth of today. To top that off, I found a grey hair on Saturday. I'm talking a full on thick, grey hair. I had to pull it out and Dan thought it would be amusing to say repeatedly, "Look, it's an actual grey hair. I've only been joking in the past that you're going grey but you actually are!" Lovely. Seeing as I'm 3 years older than Dan, he takes great pleasure in the fact that I'll always be older than him.

Hopefully with all these early morning gym visits, I'll soon have the body of a 18 year old again.

Valentines Weekend and a dash to Waitrose

My Valentines weekend didn't start exactly how it was planned in my head. My idea was to wake up early on Sunday morning with Dan and have a nice drive down to Oxford and spend the day strolling through the town in the lovely sunshine followed by a lovely, romantic dinner in the evening.

The reality was trying to deal with a hungover Dan, who had lost his van keys and the heavy rain battering against the van windows. To top this off, we got into Oxford town centre and spent an our driving around trying to find a parking space until Dan finally lost his temper and had enough so we went to check into the hotel. This in turn put me in a bad mood as I had my heart set on strolling through Oxford in the sunshine! (It was still raining by this point!)

We had decided to not do presents this year because we were both skint. Last year Dan bought me a gorgeous necklace which was two intertwining hearts which I loved but we had still decided on just doing nice cards this year. To make matters worse, as we were driving to the hotel to check in, he informs me that we need to stop at a shop as he hadn't bought me a card yet. Now, unbeknown to him, I had spent the previous week lovingly gluing and sticking hearts and red glitter to a massive card that I thought I would hand make for him. It had taken AGES and the fact that I was already in a strop on the way to the hotel, it didn't help when he dropped this bombshell.

We found a Waitrose in the end and while I stocked up on goodies and nice things to eat, I left him in the glowing red section of the store saturated by last minute male shoppers. It was quite a funny sight.

We had decided on staying at a lovely little country pub/restaurant that we had stayed once before. The Doghouse in Frilford, Oxford. While being a lovely, intimate place, they also had amazing food so we booked a table on the Sunday night for our Valentines dinner. Once we checked in, with the rain still hammering on the window and Dan still hungover, we decided to stay in, watch some TV and eat some choc. It turns out that we actually had a nicer time doing this than traipsing around Oxford in the rain. We snuggled in the white waffle duvet and while Dan fell asleep, I watched Pocahontas and took great pleasure out of singing along to all the songs. We exchanged our cards (note: Dan actually asked to borrow my pen to write the card- and they say romance is dead) and he gave me a massive box of Milk Tray and some gorgeous red tulips. All was forgiven. Our dinner was lovely and looked very calorific but decided to throw caution to the wind and enjoy it.

The following day, we woke to bright sunshine and I finally got my stroll through Oxford! Dan had to work on the night so my Valentines night was spent with Soph my flat mate and we could hardly contain ourselves with the cutlery that she had managed to find so match our new plates. 'This' I told her, 'is what our lives have come to'. Still at least we weren't alone.

Had a lovely text from Dan after he finished work which made me realise how lucky I am to have him. Even though the weekend hadn't gone to plan exactly, we didn't stop laughing the whole weekend and I realised I'm more in love with him now then I've ever been.

The whole card fiasco just made me laugh as this was just another Dan-ism- something that Dan does- not on purpose but is so busy that he doesn't have the time.  He did explain that he planned to get a card a few days earlier but was helping his Dad move house one day, then spending time with his friends the day after. This is what I love the most about him. Even though he lives his life at 100 miles an hour, being massively busy with work, college and assignments, he splits his free time equally between his family, his friends and me.

Also, it was our second year anniversary on Valentines Day which made it even more special. I never thought I was the soppy type but it just goes to show that the most un-romantic of people can turn out the soppiest of all when they meet the right people. Right off you go to throw up! No more soppiness!

Sleep Deprived!

After the stress and organisation of the weekend just gone for my mum's 50th, I have to say I'm absolutely knackered! I feel like I need to take a week to recover and am still suffering from sleep deprivation. I must be getting on a bit. For some reason this week, all I want to do is hide away in my pj's, eat some naughty food and snuggle in bed with the croc and a pile of DVD's. Unfortunately, I have to work which is not good. Soph, my flat mate, is extremely ill with a 48 hour bug so will probably do me good to get out the flat away from her. Saying that though, I do have a banging headache and a sore throat this morning which does not sound good.

This week, me and Dan are going to Oxford for the weekend, yay! And he's off work all weekend, double yay! We're having a romantic stay at The Doghouse in Frilford, Oxford on Sunday night to celebrate Valentines Day and our anniversary which I'm looking forward to.

What I'm not looking forward to is spending money. I am flat broke. The festivities from the weekend have left me extremely short so I think the trusty credit card will be making an appearance at the weekend :-) Why is it that it takes us so long to get back on our feet after Christmas? It's got to the point where I actually googled 'How to make cash fast' and it came up with a number of extraordinary suggestions.

One I will be trying is this Music Magpie one. Apparently you put in the bar codes of your unwanted DVD's and CD's and it offers you cash for them. Since I moved into the flat, the unwanted ones have just been clogging up my amazingly massive wardrobe, space that could be better used on my clothes and shoes. Another good one is to become a mystery shopper. My mum actually tried this one last year and was quite good at it. She made £30 a time for every mystery shop she did. It didn't involve much paperwork and seems pretty cool, like your an undercover spy or something. £30 would be my food shop for a week and it would be £30 more than I had before.

Will be blogging after the weekend so keep an eye out - photos will be coming too.

PS. I miss my friends :-( Fowler and Hallas, please come back to Brum soon! I miss you much lots and am in need, not so much of a night out, but a catch up! Maybe dinner?? Please advise of dates when you will be returning to the Homeland!! :-) xxx

A Surprise Party!

ARHHHHHHH!!! FINALLY I CAN REVEAL IT TO THE WORLD!!!!! After months and months of planning- my family and I pulled off the most spectacular surprise 50th birthday party for my mum last night, 6th February!

I have been dying to vent about the stresses and strains of actually planning and organising it, but I know mum reads this blog from time to time and couldn't risk letting it slip! For the last few months it has been nothing but dresses, cars, decorations, champagne, music, invitations, place settings, slide shows, presents, set menu's and photographers and that's just to name a few! It has been stressful and we have verged on the edge of arguments,  and there has been meeting after meeting. God knows how many phone calls have been made between my older brother Richard and his girlfriend Claire, my younger sister Rachael and her boyfriend Phil and my Grandparents but I'm guessing our phone bills will have rocketed by a couple of hundred pounds next month.

That said, it has also been amazing, emotional and endearing. Somehow without even discussing it we seemed to each take up responsibility for tasks and things seem to have just slotted into place. My job (amongst others- including keeping the peace so no arguments occur) was to design the slide show. It has been an amazing roller coaster of emotions trailing through reams and reams of old photographs supplied by my grandparents. Thank god I have the facility to scan photographs and import them onto a slide show. Grandpa finds it hard even to get the mouse working, bless him! I have been up in the loft for the first time in my flat to try and dig out old photographs (I did try and send Dan up but he wasn't around- I just got the lend of the ladders!) and nearly killed myself with a mound of heavy boxes and getting tangled in the loft insulation. After all that, I still didn't manage to find the photographs.
After about a month of starting the slide show- it was finished and I'm going to try my hardest to upload it onto the blog for you all to see. It was quite amazing really because for the first time I realised that she hasn't always been mum. She was a girl, a teenager and a young lady. She had first cars, first days of school and first boyfriends (and kisses). Honestly the stories you could hear about my mum from my grandparents would make your toes curl. There has been laughter and tears whilst putting together this slide show. It has been a privilege to do.

The night itself was amazing and went without a hitch. There was champagne and tears (luckily I remembered the tissues) but never again will I take responsibility to organise a party. We had amazing food and amazing dresses (the boys were all in shirts and ties) and it went past in a beautiful, champagne tinted haze. I looked around the room a few times and everyone was happy and everyone was smiling and mum looked the happiest I'd ever seen her. After the slide show, the mascara started to run (I'm sure I told everyone to wear waterproof mascara!) and we moved onto speeches which had everyone in tears again but it was just a brilliant night. The stress of planning and organising all the details had all been worth it, it worked and it worked well. Maybe a little side career in party planning wouldn't be such a bad idea after all :-)

The function room

Mum with massive 50 balloons!

Mum when finding out her present! (Silverstone laps in a Ferrari!)

Me and the Croc!

A gym bunny!

Lost 1 pound this week! Woop Woop!! Quite happy with that as I made a cracking beef and filo pastry pie out the weight watchers recipe book on Sunday night. Dan's been badgering me for ages to make it and finally got round to it on the weekend. The Christmas present I had from him came in very handy as I chucked all the ingredients in the slow cooker (after some preparation) and went out for the day.  Very happy with that!

So my gym ordeal happened at 7.30 am on Thursday morning. I say ordeal but I actually arrived at 7.15am after moaning for a week that I would have to get up early. The induction lasted for 5 minutes then I was free to start using the equipment. My legs feel more toned already! (Not really but they do ache...a lot!) I have to admit I am knackered but mightily relieved that I don't have to go after work and I can go home and put my pj's on whilst watching corrie.

So my plan is to go to the gym twice a week on a weekday including a Wednesday morning before the weight in on the evening, then maybe an extra swim at the weekend. Having said that, I have some very very busy weekends coming up so the chances of me doing that are quite slim.

This weekend is my Mum's 50th Birthday! Woooo! So last night we had a meal out and then to a club which involved Italian food and alcohol. Not a good start to the weekend in terms of my weight loss plan. Today involves more eating at a family birthday party at my brothers with buffet style food (yummy) and wait for it...more cake. I actually will be the size of a house come Monday morning and all of my efforts so far will have been wasted. Maybe I should try Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning in the gym in a bid to get rid of some of that gorgeous jam and butter cream icing that will be lodged around my middle from all the cake.

Then the following weekend, Dan and I are off to Oxford for the night to celebrate Valentines Day and our 2 year anniversary (technically 3 but  officially 2!) which involves a romantic valentines dinner and a fry up the following morning. Why is it that social events always involve consuming calorie packed (albeit delicious) food? I will just have to restrain myself and say a big NO to desserts all the while enjoying myself.

Lots more posts to come this weekend (if I get chance) about the festivities! Here are just a little selection of photos from last night!

Mum enjoying dinner

Mum enjoying a dance with her friends

Me and younger sister Rachael. (I don't think we look alike at all?!)

A tattoo...I'm sorry!!

Before I start this particular blog, I have to apologise both to my mum and my grandparents. (who I only found out the other day read the blog, hi!) I have to say sorry because I really want to share the experience I had on Saturday to the world! So I'm sorry but yes, the good girl of the family has got a (very small) tattoo.

It's something I've wanted forever but I could never decide on a design or where I wanted to have it on my body. I wanted something plain and simple but also something that delicate and resembled me a little bit. It was only when we went in last Friday to have Dan's tattoo retouched that I thought, 'If I don't do it now, I never will.' It was my plan to have it last year but like I said I could never settle on the perfect design for me. So there and then, on the Friday, I booked and paid for my tattoo and left the design with them to draw up.

I have to admit, I was very nervous. Curious, like I always am, but massively nervous. My flat mate, Soph, came with me in the end (she didn't have much choice really), she's had many tattoo's in the past and thought she would be perfect to come and hold my hand. Turns out she was more of a hindrance than anything. More of that later.

So we arrived in the tattoo parlour and 10 minutes later, I walked away with my tattoo. I couldn't believe how quick it was, I'd like to say it was quick and painless but I can't. It was very painful. It's really hard to describe what it feels like. Many of my friends had described it as a bearable pain, then realised that the friends who had told me this have actually gone through labour so in my eyes, their comments about pain were null and void. I went to a friend who had a tattoo who hadn't gone through child birth and she pretty much said the same. It was a bearable pain, it isn't nice but it's just about bearable.

So here's my take on trying to describe how it feels. It feels a little like someone is slowly dragging a small, very sharp piece of glass across your skin. The outline was definitely the worst part of it and made me wince in pain every 30 seconds or so. The black colouring was done with a different needle that wasn't half as bad. Having said that I was gripping the side of the chair for dear life throughout the duration. Soph, as I said earlier was more of a hindrance, started uttering; ' Ooh you're bleeding, that looks like it really hurts', and 'Just wait until they start colouring it in, then you'll feel pain.' It was nice having her there though as she did drive us there and back and even stopped off for a curry and a bottle of wine on the way home.

I slept on it the first night with no pain at all which was good and it was only when I put some loose trousers on the day after that it started to rub on the waistband- ouchy! I had to stuff a tissue there just so I could sit down. Today, it feels a million times better and I absolutely LOVE it. The redness has gone down and it looks lovely. It is a little cheeky one as it just pokes out the top of my trousers which feels a bit naughty! Blimey, when I lose that weight again, I really will want to dance around naked!