Non-work Catch-up

This 15 minute malarkey has been going quite well, so I thought I’d have another go today. I’ve so far only talked about work, so thought I’d better give some kind of catch-up on the rest of my life since I last wrote. The problem with not writing is that I’m always thinking of stuff I ought to write about, but when it comes to actually writing an entry, I can’t remember any of it. So I’m not sure how this will go, but we’ll give it a try.

I suppose I ought to start with my birthday, although that seems like years ago now. It was my 25th birthday in October, probably the first birthday I’ve had where I could truly say I felt different. Being 25 makes me feel OLD. I very much feel like I have no idea how I got here and have the feeling of ‘wow, I’m 25, how did THAT happen?’. But overall I had a good birthday. It was on a Friday and I took the day off work and my parents came to take me and Tom out for lunch. We went to Zizzi’s and it was delicious. I can’t really remember what my parents got me, oops. I think it was a new subscription to Good Food magazine and a box of chocolates. Tom bought me a few different things, including sweets and a new cross-stitch, but the main thing he bought me was the new Kindle, which I love. Best present ever, and totally unexpected. So we had a nice meal with my parents and then didn’t do much for the rest of the day. We invited friends up from home for the weekend and Ffion and Westy arrived Friday night so we spent the evening in with them, I expect playing board games. Fee got me lots of random stuff, and Westy bought me an excellent baking cook book. In the morning other people started to arrive, and we all had bacon sandwiches, and then I dragged everyone off to play bingo. I had a lovely time, but some people were a bit sceptical. Some people won money though, so that was good, although one person was having serious problems playing and I now suspect he may be dyscalculic so I felt a bit bad about that! He seems to have fun though. I made everyone stay in and watch Strictly in the evening (shows how long ago it was!) and then we went to TGIs for dinner and all ate far too much food, and I got sang to. On the Sunday we went out for lunch, but couldn’t get into the place we’d been aiming for, but still had an alright lunch in Café Nero, then everyone started drifting off home. It was a really fun weekend, although someone gave me an awful cold, which took ages to shift (I suspect Ben). I got some lovely presents as well, mostly related to baking – I got many cook books, plus an icing syringe thingy and little baking trays, etc.

So, good birthday overall. Of course, being 25 also meant I got invited for my first ever smear test, which was something I am not especially eager to repeat. And the nurse told me the results could take a while, but obviously if there was a problem they’d let me know ASAP. So I was pooping myself when a letter arrived about 2 days later. But luckily it was all clear. So that’s not something I need to worry about for another 3 years.

Christmas then. Christmas was lovely. Didn’t get very much time off work at all, just a long weekend really, but had a very nice time. We went back to Malvern for most of it, and spent 3-4 days with Tom’s family. It was all very nice, very family-orientated, lots of silly games and things, but lots of fun. Had lots of delicious food, and met up with our friends a few times as well, which was nice.

Time Up! To be Continued…