Hard as nails

I'm tough. Check out my callouses fingers from hammering out the tunes on my guitar(s).







- Posted from my iPhone

Yum

Gym followed by a delicious salad made for me by jen :-) deeeeeeelish!






- Posted from my iPhone

Gin

...& slimline tonic plus ice and a sploosh of squeezed lime. Frickin' lush.




- Posted from my iPhone

Rain, rain, go away.

It's a rainy day and we're staying home today. I'm going to put my old apple iBook G4 laptop on eBay to fund my new guitar hobby and then I'm gonna sort through all my old PhD stuff and throw all my old notes, draft copies and papers away! How lovely!

Hmmm...

My wrist is incredibly sore. It feels like it needs to 'click' and it's stiff. Having a night off playing the guitar which sucks so I've bought a magazine (about guitars!) instead! Hope it sorts itself out.

urgh.

Still got a nasty cold and I'm SICK OF SNEEZING!

Nerdy but Nice

My new guitars needed a home. I don't get paid for another week so I did some searching online and after a fair few sites visited I found this dual guitar stand £8 cheaper and FREE (next day!) delivery from www.normans.co.uk. A grand total of £13! What a find! And the fact that my new guitar is called Norman clinched the deal!

Here is Cleo helping me unpack it.



















Tada!

- Posted from my iPhone

Part 2: BBQ time!

After our visit to Triangular Lodge we tootled back home where Eve (Jeni's twin sister) had made home made burgers. She didn't like the smoke. Note the summer shorts and winter Ugg boots.

Here is a pic of me and my partner Jeni enjoying our brand spanking new garden bench.

After our lovely dinner I showed the gals what I'd learnt on the geeetar.

All of this accomplished with a head cold and period pain! LOL

Part 1: Triangular Lodge

Today myself and Jeni went to a 400 year old building called Triangular Lodge which is about 10 minutes away from where we live.

OMG it was very spooky inside! Jen found it VERY spooky when we were taking the steps to the basement. She didn't realise there was someone already down there and almost pooped herself when she heard a noise. HA! Well we did see a ghost, here it is...

I got scared.

Here is me on the spooky stairwell...

EVERYTHING was triangular. Even the teeny tiny windows.

Very cultured today! Now on to part deux!

The Law of Sod

Tis a beautiful day, it's my first day off in 3 weeks and I have a sore throat, blocked up nose and a headache. My fingers have pins and needles from tinkling away on my guitars...YES readers! I said guitarS! And here is why. The day before I bought my lovely electro-acoustic guitar from a shop in Kettering, I put a shout out at work for anyone selling a guitar. Naturally, when I decide I want something I want it IMMEDIATELY (I'm not the most patient of peeps), so when no one replied after a couple of hours I went and bought one! But yesterday someone at work told me to go and meet him at the boot of his car because he wanted to show me something. 'How rude' I thought, but went along anyway. Well, it turns out that he had a very rich Aussie house mate who used to travel the world and one day he came back from Canada with a hand-crafted Norman B18 acoustic guitar that he bought for about £350. This Aussie house mate has since left the country and left his didgeridoo and guitar because he couldn't fit them in his bags. Due to his richness he would just go and buy some more! The man at work offered me £180 for the beautiful hand-crafted guitar. I've become very good at bartering recently (I don't really know how!) and got him down to £120! HURRAY! And this guitar is A-MAZING! Here are some piccies of it (it still had plastic wrapping on part of it!).

Meet Norman,

Look at the little Maple Leaves!

Here it is!

What a bargain! But my fingers are VERY sore today. very very sore. No pain. No gain.

Update

My fingers hurt already.


- Posted from my iPhone

Splurge

I never splurge. I worry too much about money (or lack of it). Apart from today. And this is why.

A couple of weeks ago when I was working over the weekends, I went into a magazine shop to get something to read on my breaks. As I stood in front of the hundreds of magazines in front of me I suddenly realized that I have NO hobbies. I didn't want to buy any computer mags, no photo magazines, no fashion mags (definitely not that!), no lifestyle mags, no art mags, no nothing. I ended up buying a newspaper instead (I do love them, especially the Guardian! LOL). So these past couple of weeks I've been thinking about what I really enjoy doing. When I was 11, I was awarded a music scholarship to a private school.  I was very musical back then and I was talented at playing the piano and the violin as my main instruments. I was in the choir and I also played a bit of the guitar and drums. Once I went to university, alcohol and partying became my interests (and science too, Mother!) and playing any instrument went out the window.

SO...today I decided to buy a guitar. A nice guitar that I'm going to enjoy playing. I can't afford a piano and there is no place to put it. I don't fancy resurrecting the violin as I'm not keen on classical music. Now the guitar will be my interest and next time I'm in a magazine shop I won't feel so lost!

It's an Ashland electro acoustic guitar and I LOVE it! I'm going upstairs in a minute to learn a few Catie Curtis songs! WAHOO!

Whoops

I've been told off for not updating my blog last week (sorry Sarah!). This is because I had a DULL DULL week. I was working all of Easter weekend and this one just gone and I was in bed by 8pm most evenings due to early starts. Thankfully that is alllllllll done and I get to have a lie in this saturday WAHOO! I've just been to the gym and on thursday I'm going to circuit training. I think it might kill me but bring it on!

Jen's mum and nan are coming over in a minute to look at the new bench they've bought us for the garden. I always get nervous around nan because she is a 200 year old fossil and doesn't hold back on insults. 'My, you've put the weight on', 'you don't want to get too fat do you?' etc etc. She insulted me the night before my PhD viva and I travelled on the train to london in tears. Not a good start to preparing for the most important academic day ever. She got a bollocking from Jen's mum though and hasn't said anything since.  I wonder if she'll say anything tonight...if she does I'll just sit on her and suffocate her with my mammory glands.

Poop-a-looped

Getting up everyday including over the long weekend has knackered me out. Tomorrow I have to wake up at 4.45am to get to work for just before 6. This time next week it'll all be over. Tonight I'm going to crash out in front of the tv and have an early night. Boring times at the moment! Work, sleep, work, quick drink at the pub, sleep, work....

Anyway, this is my favourite video on YouTube at the moment

Job. Done.

5.30am wake up call - done.
6.30am begin work (one TRIPLE time! Hurray Good Friday!) - done
11.30am leave work (five hours of triple time later = £££) - done
12pm gym o'clock - done
1.30pm - lunch (a healthy chicken wrap!) - done
3pm - supermarket for ingredients for home made pizza tonight - done
4.19pm - lying in bed about to have a snooze before everyone gets home - almost done

A productive day, all to be repeated tomorrow and the next and the next. Joy.

Turtlina

I'd like you to meet our 1 year old tortoise Turtlina (Jen named her). I always like the name Tilda but it was Turtlina from day 1. Anyway, here she is...




Silly tortoise!