Tuesday December 4th

With all this dieting obsession I totally forgot that last month the diario was officially

I am curious as to whether I have any regular readers who have actually been following my words of questionable wisdom from the start; that would take a titan effort and I thank you. I'm also quite excited because I'm coming up to 8000 hits now which is that little bit closer to 10 000. I was looking back over the "Five Things You Always Wanted To Know About Sally" from last year and can say this of them -
1. I still cut my own fringe, but I have a nice pair of blue handled scissors now - no more nail scissors for me!
2. Still no hair growing out of the scar.
3. I have been drunk and *not* embarrassed myself in the past year! SEVERAL times!
4. I have GIVEN UP sucking my thumb! With the aid of yards of sticking plaster.
5. I have no more need for 4 page descriptions of my ideal man, because he is mine, all mine. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I were to go through my old journals and find this description, it would bear an uncanny resemblance to the Marvellous Mr Z.

Here are Five More Things You Always Wanted To Know About Sally -
1. I harbour secret(ish) desires to be a famous novelist/travel writer/columnist.
2. Up until a month ago I didn't realise that all the pictures in Freemans catalogue were shot against backdrops - I thought they were all done in exotic locations.
3. I am helplessly addicted to Freecell.
4. I once put a condom on a cucumber orally in front of an audience of hundreds in a Portsmouth nightclub for a Valentine's Day competition they were doing (I didn't win)
5. When I was about 2, I drank a bottle of lemon scented nail varnish remover.

The Diet - Day 63. I lost only a pound this week, but Mr Z and I went out to dinner on Saturday night to celebrate a year of being an us and the meal, although it was relatively healthy (all protein and vegetables, cooked to order on a big griddle) I think the 3 double vodkas afterwards didn't help. Nevertheless, a pound is a pound. Next week's weigh-in isn't until Wednesday so I have plenty of time to eat better. Christine, one of my Slimming World colleagues, ate half a box of chocolates last week and lost 3 pounds. That's a diet I fancy trying. Christine, who is a few years older than me, suffers from a painful arthritic knee sporadically and is currently walking with a stick. Our consultant - who lost five stone with Slimming World - also has this problem. I am wondering to myself whether this has anything to do with excess weight, and am thankful if this is the case that I seem to have avoided it so far, and that I have finally gotten around to losing weight. I remember how my legs felt after my day in New York - my ankle was the first thing to start aching (I believe I broke it running down some steps a few years ago, but didn't go to the doctor because I was afraid he'd make me take time off work so I think it's healed wrong) (I'm a bit of a hypochondriac), then my hip joints started to grate, then my knees started aching which I was grateful for at first because it took my mind off my hips but eventually it felt like someone had been at them with a crowbar which was NOT pleasant. It took me three days to recover fully. I wonder whether this is (a) because I wasn't used to walking very far, (b) because I was walking on concete - and standing in queues for much of the time, or (c) because I'm so heavy. Maybe a little of all. Anyway, I'm well on the way to retifying the problem. Last week, when I got my interview date though for my PGCE (14th December) I immediately started trying on clothes and finally settled on an outfit which I then displayed to Mother Hand. "Mmmmm," she said, "you can tell you've lost weight - last time you wore that shirt it bagged out at the buttons." Cheers for letting me know, Mother Hand! At least it's not longer the case.

Tuesday December 18th

Bah! The Diet - Day 77. I GAINED a pound this week! And last week I lost two so if that pound had been a negative instead of a positive, then I would have reached my Christmas target. BAH! And DOUBLE BAH! Of course, there was that 15 inch steak platter with chips and onion rings and stuff on Saturday, followed up by the numerous vodkas. There was the McDonald's hot fudge sundae on Sunday (Mr Z fatally pointed out that I hadn't had ice cream for ages and suddenly it was all I wanted). There was the chicken salad sandwich I made right after I got off the train last night. And, lest we forget, last week's class was on Wednesday, so I only had four days to lose that pound. Well, five. Bah, anyway. It's not a good omen for Christmas. I might actually have to dust the old roller blades off for a bit of Yule exercise *shudder*.

Lots has happened. The occupants of various desks at work have changed amid much upheaval and some weeping but I still seem to be secure enough, sat next to Rita sniping at the world in general. I am convinced I have been sat next to her too long; one of the women at Slimming World was very happy last week at finally being able to fit into a size 16 top, and I congratulated her; she later told the class, "I got into a size 16 top today, no, TWO size 16 tops!" and on reflex, before I could stop myself, I quipped, "What, pinned together?" Luckily she saw the funny side. Rita preens herself a lot these days about being such a good teacher so I have taken to calling her a crone. It's our Christmas meal on Saturday, which should be amusing.

Had to take a day off last week because of The Interview at Bath Spa University. Armed with two new pairs of shoes (naturally I only wore one pair) and a new hair cut I felt quite confident. Indeed, after ruthlessly straightening my hair and smothering it under three layers of styling products I actually managed to smooth most of the curl out of it for the week which was a bonus. My outfit was carefully ironed and I actually wore jewellery, which was a bit of a novelty, since I spurn even a watch these days. I woke to the irritating alarm on my new phone (it plays a bloody tune - more than I can cope with early in the morning) (although I love the phone) on Friday morning feeling quite confident, having read the Times Ed Supplement on humanities and memorised my crib cards on teaching policies. The first minor mishap came as I perched on the edge of the bed with my hosiery half way up my haunches mending a ladder with nail varnish; I wordlessly grunted when the tap on the door came, thinking it was Mr Z, only to realise it was Mother Z, with a towel. Mortifying though that was, it was only to get worse. Half dressed in my underwear and my pyjamas I went upstairs to get my carefully hung interview clothes from Mr Z's room; he was still in bed and I was telling him Mother Z had just walked in on me while I pulled on my skirt and attempted to extract my shorts from underneath. Sadly, the skirt came too.

I'll start a new paragraph just for the sheer horror of the situation. There I am, bent over with my back to the door wrestling with a skirt and a pair of shorts around my ankles with my sadly not yet dimunitve rear in sadly dimunitive underwear pointed at the door, whispering in frustration, when suddenly....Enter Father Z with coffee. Several hundred apologies and broken explanations later, Exit Father Z. I think I actually died of embarrassment, but comforted myself that (a) like spiders, he was probably feeling worse than me and (b) he could have walked in on worse things. However, it did not bode well for the day. After being so careful not to jinx myself, as well.

I was quite easily the first person at Bath Spa (gorgeous campus, exactly as I imagined it with the possible exception of the cow grazing next to the driveway) for the interviews; the woman at the desk asked me if I realised I was due at 9.30 and not 9am when I gave her my certificates to be copied. So I went and hid in the toilets for 20 minutes - fantastically straight hair can always do with being admired in the mirror - and then went back and sat next to the Christmas tree and watched my rivals come in. Mother Hand was right about my outfit being too summery - nearly everyone else was in black. Comforted myself with hope that I might be more memorable for looking coldest out of everyone. There were five history applicants and we scuttled off after the history tutor like goslings, two men, two women and me. The interview did not go as imagined. There were no questions answerable from the things I had researched. We had to discuss what we would do to interest children in some artefacts (I suggested Cluedo and felt this went down well) and then we had to do a lesson plan for a historical topic, which scared me witless until I realised I did not know the depth of my knowledge on life in 19th century British cities. A numeracy test, an IT audit and some planning later and I was pulled aside and asked why I had chosen Bath Spa and whether I was worried about my lack of British history knowledge. I said, by reputation and no, respectively...at that point, the tutor said that if I had any questions he could help with, over the next few months, to contact him, which I thought was extremely positive, and gave me imcreased confidence when I gave my mini presentation with the aid of an OHP. After that we had to write a short book review (I managed to write rough notes on both my neat copies and had to be given a third, doh) by way of a literacy test, then we had lunch (I switchd my phone on and Mother Hand rung about three seconds later to find out how it had gone - I swear she is psychic) and then the Head Tutor for PGCEs gave us a 20 minute lecture on funding and course structure, and tried to put us off. Yes, it sounds tough, and I might end up doing teacher training in the wilds of Essex instead of a nice cosy home school I can spit on from my back garden, but I am still not deterred. I'll know within a month.

Such was The Interview. I adjourned to Mr Z's workplace and sat in the smoker's staffroom having a very discreet nervous breakdown, smoking lots and talking to teachers I have previously been acquianted with, including the Hutch. There were BISCUITS there which may have been responsible for that pound, come to think of it. Goodness knows I try to stun my appetite into unconsciousness with heavy blows of nicotine...Friday worse than usual in fact as I managed to smoke a whole packet in the space of 24 hours, a feat unequalled since I left Vegas...but sometimes the sugar is a necessary evil too.

Saturday saw Mr Z and I out to dinner in the freezing, networkless wastes of Outer MonBristola with the aforementioned (VERY afore-) Phnarr, he of manic hours of tetrinet to the detriment of my dissertations fame, who had ventured out of London for the weekend. We ate, we drank, we were merry, all that seasonal stuff. We tried doubling up on Mr Z at the pool table but we did not manage to beat him. In spite of this I still saw fit to pass my skewed pool playing advice on to two female munchkins who came and wrestled the table away from us. Not that they needed it - I realised after not very long that they were better than me. Much was made of my particularly blonde way of answering questions without listening to them ("They've got Pairs on that games machine!" "What, fruit?" "YES!!"). After dropping him home there was the far more unpleasant business of meeting my potential landlord, who actually turned out to be very nice (although his current Flemish lodger seemed to be a few expletives short of a Kevin Smith film) - it seems everything will be sorted in plenty of time for moving on January 19th, which is my planned date, although I am going to be at work until January 25th it seems. One problem with making oneself indispensable - one is indispensable. Temporarily, at least.

Have realised I am ruined forever for the cold after a winter in Vegas. It seems aeons ago that my toes and fingers and nose were all warm at the same time. I am sick of the cold, sick, sick, sick. It's enough to make me eat blueberry muffins (not being weighed now for 10 days so I don't care for the moment). I have this persistent cough that won't die and seesm to be exacerabated by every breath of cold air I take. Work is overheated; home under. Getting out of bed is only achievable under duress (I crawled out of bed six minutes before I had to leave this morning). Even typing is a chore, my fingers frozen to such stiffness that I fearrrr.r..rrr........

Just kidding. I though that was quit inventive of me though. Ha, I'll be a storyteller yet...