Friday 4th April

Email is to me as tequila is to Terrorvision - it makes me happy.

Hi Sally,
I just wanted to drop you a quick line to let you know how much I've enjoyed reading your online diary. I've just spent the last hour or so reading the entries for the past few months, and it's been great fun!
I found your diary as I was looking up sites connected with Slimming World and I was happily surprised to find your writing. Funnily enough, we share a bit in common - I'm currently on a PGCE at Exeter uni, I grew up in Liphook, Hants and I'm a closet writer too!! And the SW thing of course - although I've only been on the diet "ahem" Healthy Eating Plan since January (lost 1st 7lbs so far!)
Anyway, enough gabbing-thanks again for a great read and good luck with your PGCE for September - it's great fun, I promise!
Take care and all best wishes
Fay

Isn't that lovely? I'm glad to be of service. It's nice to know that, even after keeping this diario for two and a half years, people are still reading it and finding it diverting, even though I am so caught up in Tomb Raider and other things that my entries are becoming ever more sporadic.

Have to admit, have gone to ground a bit recently. This isn't solely due to Tomb Raider, you'll be pleased to know - since reaching the penultimate level I've lost interest and am down to a scant half hour before bed, if that. No, instead of Tomb Raider I have been out trying to sort my life out. I've booked an eye test, signed up with a new GP, booked a driving theory test, and had a couple of driving lessons. Oh, an bought a house.

Yes! The house is ours. Mr Z and I are now homeowners. The survey of our preferred property came back with a list of problems as long as my arm, which was a bit scary because, as first time buyers, we don't really know what's normal and what's not, kind of thing. The surveyors valued it at five grand under our offer; when we queried this with the estate agent he said that the surveyors had "undervalued it" - I nearly laughed out loud at that one. We didn't hold out much hope that our revised offer would be accepted and started looking for other houses; we even went to view one - really big rooms but on the main road into Bristol, surrounded by boarded up houses and shops, with a chip shop next door but one, a run down, dodgy looking pub over the road and a handy knocking shop around the corner. But the same day that we went to see it, the vendor accepted our lower offer and our first choice was ours. Yey! They're in the process of doing the land survey to check there aren't any coal mines under the property (don't want to wake up one morning in a 50 foot hole) and we've got to do that exchanging contracts thing, but we're well on the way. Heopfully we'll be in by the end of this month.

The vendor, Dave, got Mr Z's phone number from directory enquiries and rang us up the next day to ask us if we'd like to buy the contents for a grand. We went round to look, it seems Dave is going to travelling for a few months, starting in Thailand, because his wife of 20+ years left him seven weeks ago and he's feeling a bit blue. To put it mildly. He's in a hurry to sell the place because it's the only house he's ever lived in, apart from his parent's, and living there is "tearing him apart". Healthy, n'est ce pas? I feel very bad for him but then, I'm very happy that we get the house. I just hope he's not hanging from the banisters when we move in.

Anyway, we've managed to kit out the place from the stuff he wanted to get rid of - basically everything from the TV to the year old, cream suede sofa to the pictures on the walls and the vases on the built in side tables. The cooker and the washing machine were both included so actually we've got a really good deal - all we'll need to buy as a matter of urgency is a new bed (his was a divan bed and I have an aversion to divan beds, don't ask me why, and in any case I don't want to jinx Mr Z and I by sleeping in the bed of a couple who have broken up...not that I'm at all superstitious).

Funnily enough, the day we heard that our offer had been accepted, Father Hand and Frankie got confirmation that their mortgage application had been accepted and that they were now persons of property too. This just proves the theory that good things come in threes, because also on that day my new Willo the Wisp dvd arrived. It's the first dvd I've ever owned and it's a corker. Mr Z bought a state of the art computer recently (of necessity - his old one died) which incorporates a dvd played and we've purchased quite a few recently. But none of them compare to the antics of Mavis Cruet, Arthur, Evil Edna and the rest.

Spent Easter weekend in Portsmouth and Kent; drove down to see my grandmother and spent the night in a fantastic little hotel in Hythe that was half the price of the B&B we stayed in in London for my birthday and twice as nice. For a start there was no dried blood on the pillow cases; the bed was comfy, the shower was hot, there was a hair dryer provided, as well as a fantastic cooked breakfast, and, best of all, there was a pub on the ground floor. Maternal Gran was looking a bit thin and pale and doesn't seem to be enjoying life in a home very much but she's been there for eighteen months now and so has at least come to terms with it. We managed to get her out on the Sunday morning to church and then to a carvery for a spot of lunch, after which she and Mother Hand went for a nap while I rowed Mr Z all the way down the canal to level with the Hythe station of the light railway, pointing out landmarks all the way. He was a bit nervous about the sharks and giant squid, but I assured him my rowing skills are second to none and I would be able to escape from danger at a moment's notice. Telling the story made for some laughs in the pub the next night; I told Char I had rowed Mr Z all the way along the canal but she heard "rode" - cue much sniggering etc etc.

All that exercise (I've heard rowing is fantastic exercise and I was at it for a full hour) and the fact that I spent the first three days of this week eating nowt but vegetables meant that I wasn't dreading my weigh in too much this week, in spite of the vast Nepalese meal we had on Saturday night and the apple pie that accompanied my carvery lunch (I managed to leave a big chunk of the pastry uneaten which was a struggle since I hate not clearing my plate). To my delight I found I'd lost a pound, which makes it The Diet - Day 187: 2 stone 9 pounds lighter. Haven't done very well since Christmas - apart from that massive 10-pounds-in-two-weeks loss when I moved to Bristol, I've been at a bit of a plateau. A couple of weeks ago I gained two pounds in a week, though, and that sort of kicked me into action; I've since lost four. I'm wondering whether now I'm getting thinner I should be trying harder. It hasn't been too much of a struggle so far: yes, I've gained weight on occasion, but I've always known why. I never thought that starting this "healthy eating plan" would change my habits for life but it's a bit scary how much it's affected me - I very rarely drink now (that's got to be the biggest change); I had some Dairy Milk the other day and found it overly sweet; snacking on fruit comes naturally (admittedly snacking on cookies comes more naturally but I only keep fruit in my desk); I've become helplessly addicted to yogurt; and I don't know what I ever did without quark. "Never curdled a sauce" comes to mind but, well, nothing's perfect. At least with quark I can explode the myth that people on diets aren't allowed to have creamy sauces.

Sunday 6th April

Well, I should have known I couldn't get away with writing my diario at work forever - my boss, the one who went to Sibling Hand's school, had a "quiet word" on Friday afternoon (after I had finished the entry below). It seems there's no work for me to do (I could have told them that) so basically, although I am the best temp they've ever had (that's a big consolation, honest) I'm out on my ear. Oh, as of Friday. Actually, as of 3.30pm Friday. As of exactly one and a half hours before close of business, thus giving me the smallest possible chance of finding employment for next week. Oh yes, they stitched me up proper. No chance of letting me know by, say, Wednesday, when I would have had a fighting chance of finding work for next week. No chance of even letting me know by Friday lunchtime so I could say goodbye to everyone. Still, that's Monkey Investors for you. Can't help but feel a little bit bitter - although obviously I understand why they had to get rid of me, I had to make one day's work last for five days last week. Be careful what you wish for, that's what I say. I said so many times, "I wish I could have a job where I get paid for doing nothing" - but it wasn't all it cracked up to be at the end of the day.

Anyway, I've made the best of a bad job and booked a driving lesson and a contact lense consultation for Tuesday. Snaps to Office Angels - they really excelled themselves and even at such short notice managed to find me one day's work for tomorrow, data gathering for the people that are recruiting stewards for Glastonbury. This caused quite a stir in the pub on Friday night and I left with no less than two phone numbers, although I'm not sure whether I'll be able to do anything with them. Friday night Mr Z and I were supposed to be going to see a band in town, but Sibling Z left without telling us because there wasn't any space left in the car (such consideration for one's fellow man is laudable) so we went to the Cherry Tree instead, where I proceeded to drink double vodkas and red wine and soda by the pint, get heinously drunk, give bad relationship advice to everyone and throw up once I arrived home. It took us more than an hour to complete what is usually the 15 minute walk home, because I kept trying to go to sleep on handy patches of grass, and Mr Z pulled a leg muscle chasing after me when I decided it would be amusing to run on ahead, hide behind a wall and jump out and surprise him. When we got home and he put me to bed he wanted to make sure I went to sleep in the recovery position before he went home, to ensure I wouldn't choke to death on my own vomit. Awwww, bless. That's true love and caring, that is (grin).

Totally reprehensible behaviour on my part - I'm just glad my landlord and landlady haven't mentioned anything about me hurling that last pint of red wine into their toilet at 2am. I'm fairly sure they must have heard. When I went for my optician's appointment, which was at 9.30am, she was looking into my eyes and she said, "Did you go out last night Sally? It's just, your eyes are just a little bit red..." and I thought, you should have seen them an hour ago. Afterwards, I returned home and went back to sleep until 3pm. I was quite ashamed and horrified about how drunk I was until Mr Z informed me, as I tried to decide whether I could get away with a high-sin curry sauce in Asda on Saturday afternoon, that I had consumed two bottles of red wine in total, on top of the vodka. Didn't feel so bad after that - but think I might feel bad at my weekly weigh in on Wednesday. Have planned vegetable meals between now and then.

Thursday 18th April

It seems that the vegetable meals counteracted the worst of the villainous red wine because my weigh in that week revealed a scant but strangely stimulating half pound loss. Complacency being the name of the game, I went home and ate ice cream with Mr Z; this, combined with a general apathy towards dieting and a horrible encounter with a cream slice on Friday (more on that in a moment) resulted in a maintain this week, which I was a bit gutted about because I've spent the past three days being HUNGRY (Mother Hand doesn't like me saying starving, not that it matters but y'know...if I could say STARVING without feeling spoiled I would). For some reason, even though I have been eating exactly the same as usual (possibly one or two apples a day less since I have nowhere at work to put them), by midday I am ready to start eating the mouse mat; lunch barely takes the edge off it for an hour; and I'm eating my dinners practically raw because I'm too hungry to let them cook for the allocated time. This resulted in the Cream Slice Debacle of Friday afternoon. The new place of employment, a small financial advisers, includes an affable chap (that's probably what he'd say about himself, old fellow) who seems to enjoy buying cakes for the fast-approaching-middle-age female staff (there are three, four or five of these, depending on what day it is). I was good and asked for carrot cake, hoping there would be none on offer, and there was none, so I congratulated myself on another pitfall skilfully avoided. Until the cream slice came marching out of the boss' office, uneaten, to be proffered to me by its purchaser.

Now, let's get one thing straight - I do not like cream slices. I never even think, "Ooh, I really fancy a cream cake" - let alone a cream alice. I'm more your muffin and chocolate cake sort of girl. I mean AHEM your ryvita and stewed apple with canderel sort of girl. I might even go so far, in my melodramatic moods, as to say I LOATHE cream slices. Too much fake cream. Too much stale pastry. Too much icing. But when it's sitting in its box gazing up at me, accompanied by a pleading voice saying, "Please eat it, you can eat it, it'll be thrown away otherwise" (this from the buyer, not the cake, I wasn't hallucinating under pressure or anything). "Well, maybe half," I said, before wolfing the lot. It was not very nice. It was, in fact, horrible. It left a synthetic taste in my mouth and I was nearly sick afterwards - although I don't know how much of that was the bad taste and how much was guilt at having consumed three days' worth of sins in one fell swoop. No vomiting, I thought, that's a slippery slope - I know, I'll skip dinner. I'm not hungry now anyway.

This just compounded the mistake, of course. I skipped dinner. I ate nothing. I went home to change my shoes before we left for the pub and thought, mm, well, I'll hve a yogurt. Oh, and this vegetable stew's been here a while and there's only a bit left - I'll finish that. And I've only got one slice of bread left, I'll have that with it. And a piece of this fruit bread. With butter. Maybe it's better toasted - I'll have another piece to find out. And so it goes. And so I maintained. Have to admit, I was more disappointed this week than when I've had a gain, for some reason. It's made me determined. I've started keeping the diary again, and was shocked to discover that, while I would have estimated yesterday's sin count at 7 or 8, it was actually 20. Have had no deliberate sins today to make up for it, just tinned rhubarb (not as much of a punishment as it sounds).

Also on Friday - I have to mention this evil little triumph of the childless female - I had a chupa chups lolly, a grapefruit one. It's only three sins so didn't feel too bad about it. Started eating it on the bus, and noted with sick delight that the two children sitting in front of me - roughly aged six and seven - swivelled their heads with Exorcistesque swiftness at the first rustle of cellophane. Had my personal stereo on so did not hear any of their dialogue with their gran, but in a quiet bit between songs I heard her say, "No, you don't want one, they only rot your teeth" and had to conceal a snigger. It was a little bit of harmless malice that quite cheered me after the Cream Slice Debacle. Felt mean for a while and almost wished I had more to offer them, but then Gran was right - they do rot your teeth. And children should learn to look but not touch and all that sort of thing. I'm sure if I ever have my own child I will be spitting at people like me, but it was amusing at the time. Mr Z says it takes Newly Qualified Teachers years to develop child handling skills like that so I'm well ahead.

The one day at Oxfam, recruiting for Glastonbury, was very interesting and I managed to sneak the guys from the pub and Sibling Hand onto the mailing lsit for application forms. They really got their money's worth out of me, I barely stopped all day. I had Tuesday and Wednesday off and then started at this financial advisers on Thursday. I have been there ever since, and it looks as if I'll be there for the foreseeable. The cake-buyer is a new recruit, and is bringing 500 clients with him, all of whom have to be contacted. When they respond, all the insurance companies they have policies with have to be contacted, and their details inserted into Access on separate policy sheets. So, there's a lot of work to be done. The original letters have all gone out, but each reply will generate enough work to keep me busy for a few weeks yet. Additionally, I'm doing a mail shot about mortgage rates (oh it's a dynamic and exciting life) to all the original clients - all 800 of them. I've done about 300. The bloke who wants them sent out, who I have not met (most of the advisers work from home), rang us yesterday to say the rates were out of date and I thought I would have to scream if he wanted them redone, but he said it was OK. Hopefully I will be there for a while, either until July or until the middle of May - any later than the middle of May and I'll be in competition with the swarming students back for the summer and probably end up cleaning toilets for two months. I prefer small companies - more friendly, more grateful.

Was amazed to realise that I have been temping for nearly a year now, it doesn't seem like so long. I have learned all sorts of things - Excel, Access, mail merging, how to make lots of tea, how to look busy at a desk when you're not doing anything...all valuable skills.

I have my driving theory test on Saturday and I have been neglecting my studies because Mr Z has bought a new game - Zoo Tycoon. On Tuesday he went out to skittles and returned at midnight to find me still sitting in front of his computer building a zoo, $2000 in the red. It was the bloody snow leopards - the miserable gits just wouldn't be pleased. I spent a fortune on them, and eventually ended up selling them and converting their enclosure into one for arctic wolves, who were equally unhappy, so I sold them too and bought some penguins instead. It was a turning point - I've got $250,000 now, and my pandas have just given birth, which earned me an extra 50 grand. Yes yes, I know...fiction, reality. But anyway, I can't be writing this anymore, I need to go and study for my theory test.

Saturday 27th April

How exciting! We're signing the house deeds on Monday completing on Tuesday. So by the beginning of May, I will own property! *Caper* I have been considering colour scheme all week. Mr Z has been considering the debt &c. I suppsoe we don't do much between us to destroy the old stereotypes.

How upsetting yesterday to find out that Lisa Lopes, of TLC fame, has died in a car crash in the Honduras. I am a big fan of TLC and was hoping to catch them on tour at some point, or hoping that they'd release a new album - it seems one was on the way, although who knows what will happen now that old Lefteye has met with an untimely demise. Between her and Aaliyah, the R&B industry in the States must be reeling. As an aside, I was reading an article last night that made much of the fact that, for the first time in 40 years, there are no British artists in the American billboard chart. Apparently, the Beatles had four songs in the chart at the same time in 1964, and exactly 20 years later, every entry on the chart was British - or every entry in the top 10, I forget which (that seems more plausible). But now it seems that Americans aren't going for our own particular brand of talentless bim- and himboes doing wishy washy covers of old songs, our Gareth Gateses and Will Youngs, our manufactured packages of famous for fifteen minutes idiots whose only merits include dancing in time and miming convincingly. I am surprised by that, how about you? What I REALLY find surprising (that was sarcasm before, by the way) is that the Great British public actually go out and buy this bollocks. I was horrified when Gareth Gates spent four weeks at number one with Unchained Melody - he sings like a girl, he was the LOSER on Pop Idol (although the whole show was for losers if you ask me) and, to make it even worse, Unchained Melody has already been covered in the past decade by that pair of opportunist prats Robson and Jerome. I didn't think it was possible to make a worse version of the song than they did, but Gazza managed it. And yet George Michael, a singer of critical acclaim and two decades standing, charted at number seven and promptly slid back down. Now, I'm not saying that Freeeeeeak! (or however many Es there were in it) was the best song George Michael has ever released, but let's face it, it was miles better than Gareth bloody Gates. And now look? "The LOSERS from Pop Idol present: Big Band Sound - the new album". Now, I only swear when I'm angry, and so with that in mind I'd like to say FUCK OFF! IT'S DRY! YOU'VE MILKED IT FOR ALL ITS WORTH! YOU *LOST*! YOU WERE *NOT* SUPPOSED TO GET A RECORDING CONTRACT! THE GREAT BRITISH PUBLIC DID NOT VOTE FOR YOU. And yet, the same people that did not vote for these losers go out and buy the record. The ten Pop Idol finalists played sell out concerts across the country (and yes KERRIE and LER and STUART and JENNY and RICHARD, I believe in naming and shaming, I am exposing you as people who actually went to see the show), just because they were on TV. That's bollocks. That's crap.

I was wandering in Bristol town centre recently and I heard a busker singing a version of Van Morrison's Moondance, accompanying herself on an accoustic guitar. She was doing a bloody good job of it, too. If I hadn't had to go back to Monkey Investors for an afternoon of sitting and staring into space, I mean work, I would have sat and listened to her all afternoon. Not only did she have a lovely voice, she was improvising, putting her own stamp on the song with a few different melodies here and there. It was fantastic. She should have a recording contract. She should have a recording contract, and Will Young and Gareth Gates and the rest of those losers should be released into city centres across the country to busk for a living. That's what they deserve - a long, slow, painful humiliation.

Bee in my bonnet? Ohhh, noooo, I wouldn't say that.

Something else I read in the news a while back actually made me gleeful, and restored some of my faith in Britishness still being alive and well. It seems there has been an ongoing group action against McDonald's here in Britain since 1996, concerning customers who were scalded when they spilled hot coffee on themselves or their loved ones (the younger the better - one of the burned was only two years at the time) - a case mirroring one which was won in the States, which is why if you buy a cup of soda in a gas station in Nebraska it will have "Caution - Contents Hot" stamped on the lid. However, after six years of legal wrangling, in which I am quite certain all the people suing McDonald's counted their money and possibly spent it a couple of times over, a British judge threw it out. He said that people drinking coffee would be in their late teens or older and should be expected to know that coffee is hot. He basically said that anybody who burned themselves had done so through their own clumsiness and not through McDonald's being negligent. I whooped when I saw that - thank goodness the whole world has not yet gone mad.

And yet, there is so much to convince the cynic otherwise. I see the Catholic church has only advocated the defrocking of pederast priests if they are made infamous by the crime. Is it me? Or is the Pope basically saying, "It's ok to sexually molest young boys (and girls) - we'll protect you - we'll even protect you if you get caught - but for God's sake don't let it get into the press because it does nothing for our image"? If I was the mother of an angelic Catholic choir boy in the parish of a lecherous priest, that would make me feel SO much better. Also in the news recently - pre-pubescent drugs mules. A 13 year old flew into Manchester from Pakistan with nearly a million pounds worth of heroin in her suitcase - apparently travelling alone. This week, a five year old was caught at JFK with a kilo of heroin in her suitcase - again, apparently travelling alone. Now, I can understand the 13 year old, I was travelling alone overseas at that age, but a five year old? Do me a favour. It's just sick and wrong. Insanely clever, of course, but sick and wrong all the same.

I've come up with a theory about drugs, by the way. It is common knowledge that a lot of the natives in the new world - the Indians of the Americas - died when the Europeans colonised that part of the world from flu and smallpox and what have you, because they had no natural immunity and the Europeans were carrying the diseases without knowing it - and, in some heinous cases, giving the Indians blankets and suchlike infested with the germs to wipe them out (that's imperialislam...imperialism, sorry...for you). Well, here's the thing. The Indians used opiates and other drugs for their religious trances - in small quantities, at certain festivals - and shared it with us Europeans (along with tobacco) without intentional malice. And now, because we didn't know what we were doing - like having no natural immunity, drug addiction is estimated to be responsible for a vast amount of violent crime and tobacco is one of the world's biggest killers. Hence, we gave them our poisons and they died. They gave us theirs - and we're dying. 'Stit for tat, innit. Not that I'm saying they're responsible at all, it's just that it's an interesting point about the mixing on cultures. I have just finished an amazing book called Big Chief Elizabeth, about the first settlers in the United States and their dealings with the Indians - I couldn't put it down. So I suppose that has prompted my ramblings.

Drug related news from Pittsburgh - apparently heroin is becoming the drug of choice among the rich high schoolers, while the poor ones stick to crack and pain killers. Interesting, because in Britain heroin use has become a threat again because the stuff is so cheap and the increased purity means you can sniff it or smoke it instead of injecting it (apparently - I'm no authority, you understand, I just pick things up), whereas crack is expensive and only has a short high - about 15 minutes. Heroin has also leaked onto the scene in the ketamine (horse tranquilisers, anyone?) niche - something to take to calm yourself down, chill yourself out, and make your comedowns from party drugs more manageable. There's not such a stigma attached to it these days, it seems. There is a whole generation below me who will have no recollection of Zammo overdosing on Grange Hill and dying against a dirty wall, his eyes blank, his mouth hanging open, clutching a wrap of silver foil, the the subsequent, massive "Just Say NO" campaign. That was enough to put me off for life - I can't say why it worked, but it did. Maybe because it was a storyline in a program aimed at children.

Alright, rant over. That's been a very extended rant about drugs and so on, but I think it's only going to get worse. One day, all the tea growers are going to realise that they're going to get richer growing poppies, and the governments won't be able to contain it anymore. It's all very well to blame Afghanistan and the other countries that turn a blind eye towards the growers, but at the end of the day it's just being enterprising - like the Europeans who purposefully poisoned the Indians, "clearing the land". The problem begins at home. As long as there's a market for it, it will be flooded. The only way to stop it is to convince people not to take it in the first place, and if you want to know how to go about doing that, I have no answers for you. Zammo worked for me, but who knows if he would work now.

Well, I'm sure you're all thoroughly depressed now, so on a more cheerful note - I passed my driving theory test last weekend. I scored 100%! So all that Zoo Tycoon did not have a negative effect after all. The test centre is in the middle of one of the nastier areas of town - even at 10am, we took a wrong turn and found ourselves on a street with youths lurking in hooded tops and overly baggy jeans, practising their menacing looks. Sibling Z promptly locked all the doors on the flash car he was driving (he borrowed it off a mate and Mr Z's car is in for its MOT) and did a speedy u-turn in the street. Inside the test centre there were signs up all over the place about escort services to the bus station after 5pm and waiting inside the lobby until your lift arrived, that sort of thing - most disconcerting. But, at least I passed. Work goes on. I was a bit hacked off with it on Friday - I was sat at a desk with no computer and expected to do more work than usual. That would have been a neat trick! Between that and the horrendous bus service home I was just about spitting by the time I got in. But things are looking up, I suppose. This time next week I might be typing from my new, permanent location.