Something I realised just on Friday of last week - I am beginning to feel comfortable at work. You know how it can take a while to really feel like you’re doing a good job, well at this particular place of employment, it’s taken a long while. I don’t know whether it was one good day, or if it was the start of a new upwards trend, we’ll have to see how it goes. Here’s hoping.

I dream very vividly. Sometimes it’s very scary, and not at all a pleasant experience. But sometimes, just sometimes, I manage to get something out of the so-real-I-could-be-awake experience. Just recently I was having such a convincing dream that I woke up and immediately wrote it down. A couple of hours later and I had the plans for another story. It was quite amazing. I don’t know where my subconscious plucked the idea from in the first place, but it certainly turned it into something good. Perhaps it is worth having the horrible scary dreams sometimes, so long as it is made up for by the occasional dream that is inspirational.

My first ever job was actually as a waitress. It lasted four hours before I ran out of there screaming and never went back. So, my first real job was as a “kitchen assistant” in an old people’s home. I put the quotes in there, because where it says kitchen assistant, you should read: girl who washes up. It was a part time thing, and I only got the job because my best friend at the time couldn’t do it anymore. Her hands were a little bit worse for the wear from all of the washing up and she wanted to do other things.

People often ask me why I’m keeping our wedding a secret. Do our families not approve? Is it that we are embarrassed? Do we have something to hide? The answer is none of the above. I want to have a private wedding because that is what I want. I don’t want to have everyone we know and lots of people we don’t there. I don’t want to stand up in front of people and have to say all that stuff.

Just recently it has started to come to my attention that I may not be as good a driver as I first thought. I mean, touch wood, I have not yet crashed. It is bound to happen, but I would rather put it off for as long as possible! I passed my theory test first time, and my practical driving test first time after only six months of driving lessons. I think that’s pretty impressive, even if I do say so myself.

There are certain jobs I would love to do. For instance, I sent my script to the BBC to have a read through. There’s a process that unsolicited scripts go through, which involves being read by certain people and either discarded or moved along the chain. How do you get the job to be the person that reads the scripts? How do you get the job to be the person that updates the website on certain television shows?

When the window is open, all I can hear is the crickets. They chirp so loudly. Every time we pass some long grass, there are crickets making ridiculously loud noises. The building site nearby has just recently put up two flagpoles. The flags flap away in the breeze and look very swish, but the rope slaps against the pole with a really annoying clinking noise. Mr C says he likes the noise, finds it relaxing, like wind chimes.

I think everyone is OD’ing on the coffee to try and stay awake and focused on this Blogathon. Are you? Unfortunately I don’t like coffee, so this option doesn’t really work for me. I love the smell of it, and could sniff it all day, but to actually drink it gives me a headache. At work, I don’t drink tea or coffee. There’s a really nice canteen that serves good hot chocolate that I used to drink but I’ve gone off that now.

Having been staring at my very special Blogathon header picture for 12 hours, it is now seared into my brain. I wish that I could make things like that. When it comes to art, I can see exactly what I want to happen in my head, but I can never get it to come out on the paper, or whatever medium I happen to be working with. I remember one particular art class at school where we were drawing pictures of some fruit in a bowl, and my apples actually looked like an apple, and I got a B or something like that. I was so impressed with myself that I was skipping with joy for the rest of the day.

There’s a programme on the BBC at the moment, and it basically involves three “celebrities” going to France and trying to learn the language. It is a reality show, but it’s not like Big Brother or anything like that. The celebs are staying in a posh villa in a really nice, rural part of France. They are not allowed to speak English between 9am and 5pm, or something like that. They have their own personal French tutor to help them. They spend the morning having lessons, then they head out in the afternoon, into France and take on some kind of challenge to help them practise what they’ve learned.

When we got back from holiday recently, everyone at work scanned my hands to see if there was an extra ring on a particularly special finger. There wasn’t. I really like the fact that they’re all interested though. If I was a different person and talked about my wedding non-stop, they probably wouldn’t care less. Because I’m keeping my wedding quiet, they seem to be a lot more interested. One woman even went so far as to make me show my hands to her.

Is it just me or do some people swear too much? I don’t swear very much. It doesn’t sound right when I do it, and Mr C has been known to laugh at me when I swear, so I try very hard to avoid doing it. Sometimes, though, it’s just necessary. When you drop a hammer on your foot, or when something doesn’t work out like you planned, or if something bad happens, swearing is the perfect thing to do. Sometimes it works in a sentence perfectly, because it adequately describes the pain and frustration you are feeling at that particular point.

We have now officially started a new day! I was thinking, earlier, about how rubbish television is. I love watching it and I spend much too much time in front of that grey box in the corner of my living room, but it’s actually getting quite predictable. The thing that most dramas are based on know is the lack of communication. The only way soaps can have so many bust ups between characters and so many love affairs and relationship crises, is that they never talk to each other. Nobody does.

The last time I did go to the supermarket, and that was a while ago thanks to the all new super-duper home delivery service I signed up for, it was busy, as usual. There was one checkout boy who had a completely clear conveyor belt, so I headed straight to him. I usually try and stay away from the youngsters, particularly when I have alcohol, but this time I was being good and didn’t need an over 18.

While we were in Newquay, we ventured into a club. I don’t do this very often, clubs are definitely not my scene, but somehow Mr C convinced me to pay a chunk of money to get my hand stamped. Inside, I spotted a little desk set up in a dingy little corner of the club, that was selling balloons. At first I couldn’t figure it out. Then I remembered the news item I had heard on the BBC about people sucking up helium or whatever from balloons. Apparently it gives you a bit of a high, for about ten seconds. So worth it.

So, how’s everybody doing? I was really having a good time an hour or so ago. I was updating and listening to some podcasts, reading and commenting on some other Blogathon participants, and even sponsoring some other people. I’m actually quite amazed at how quickly the time passes between posts. You just manage to get one written, you surf around to see who else has updated and what they’re saying. Check to see if there’s any news on the Blogathon homepage, any new games to play, etc. And by that time, you’ve got ten minutes to write the next post and get it updated.

When I was in my teenage years, I pretty much lived in my bedroom. I had everything I needed in there, books, music, television, computers. To get out of the house and to get some well-needed exercise, my mother started dragging me along to her keep-fit classes. I wasn’t so sure at first, what with being a body-conscious teenager and all. Actually, they turned out to be quite fun. The emphasis was on the dance rather than the exercise, and I found that I quite enjoyed myself. I was amazed when we went to a demonstration, with groups from all around, and I got up and did a routine with the others in front of lots of people and had a really good time.

I don’t know much. I am constantly learning things. Geography, politics, history, general things in life. I am constantly learning new things. I love to learn new things though. I like it when suddenly something begins to make sense. Like why the government act like they do, or what happened in the past that makes the present what it is. I actually think I am pretty good at learning things. Usually, you will only have to tell me something once, and I will understand and remember. And if I don’t understand straight away, I can take the information away and process it without having to ask the same question twice.

Why is it that being in upper management makes you suddenly believe that you can behave rudely and aggressively and that it’s acceptable? I know of someone who is quite nice, really rather laid back and generally an okay guy to work with. Other times he’s lucky he doesn’t wind up with a pair of office scissors in the side of his head. So, what is it that makes him think he’s so much better than the rest of us, and that we can be talked down to like idiots?

I was on a communications course at work, and learned plenty of interesting things, even about the art of conversation. I was told that the best way to start and maintain conversations with people is to ask questions. Ask about themselves, and when they answer, let it initiate more questions. Apparently, people like talking about themselves and love when someone takes an interest in them. Here’s the thing I don’t understand. I used to have a Bulgarian friend who, quite predictably, came from Bulgaria. She would talk, incessantly, about herself. Her boyfriends (yes, that’s plural), her family, her ambitions, her work, her friends, her plans for the weekend.

Snakes. Last time I was at a zoo, I went into the tropical display and the first thing I saw was a huge, enormous snake. Just thinking about it now makes my skin crawl. At the time, I jumped a mile and hid behind Mr C. Never mind the very thick glass that separated us from the snake, and never mind that it was more interested in the thermostat control on the wall of it’s tank. It was horrible, and I ran into the building, away from the snake as soon as I could.

A colleague and I were discussing the Red Arrows - she was keen to see them, and I was saying it was a lot of effort. She was a bit flabbergasted. The thing is, you see, that we have already seen them twice this year, so far. We saw them at Goodwood, where they were fabulous, although a little lost behind the trees. We also saw them at the Air Tattoo, which I don’t think I have mentioned, but we took plenty of pictures and you can look forward to those soon. At the Air Tattoo, they did a really long display and it was absolutely amazing.

There are building works going on nearby. It’s quite annoying, but I think it could be worse. They have certain time restrictions from which they are allowed to work, and it usually manages to coincide with when I am out of the building. Not today, though, and this morning it was loud, loud, loud. People have said it must be awful for us, but I don’t think it is all that bad. When my parents visited, they said they hardly noticed it.

Last weekend, I had to catch up with all the television that I had recorded whilst we were on holiday and the recovering week. I basically spent all afternoon watching different dramas. I was busy doing other things at the same time, so it’s not like I wasted an afternoon or anything, but it was a lot of television. So many different stories appeared on the screen, that they started to merge together.

We met up with a friend a while ago and went for a drink with him. Discussing our jobs, I expressed dissatisfaction with mine, and he said: “What would you rather do?” “I want to be a writer,” I replied. Oh. My. God. I said it out loud. I want to be a writer. I went on to talk about how I want to write scripts for television and that I had written one comedy/drama type script.

A few nights ago, I came home to find a little solar panel hanging out the window. How cool is that? We’ve been talking about green issues recently (more on that later), and now we have our very first solar panel? We sat back and watched in amazement as the camera it was powering spat out a picture that had been picked up using the sun’s rays alone. Suddenly, the picture started to lose it’s colour and then the picture started to fuzz.

I’m eating chocolate biscuits. It’s very bad and useless for the diet but delicious. There’s a guy at work who is religiously good at what he puts into his body. He has precisely two cups of coffee a day, and then up to three cups of tea. He will not have any biscuits, cake or anything anyone brings in. He has a salad lunch brought from home every single day of the week. He tells us all about the delicious but fresh and home-cooked food that he eats every night of the week.

When I decided I wanted to buy a laptop, I was in the middle of a shop, I saw one I liked, I bought it. When I buy things, it is usually spur of the moment, with some but very little market research, and much excitement. Mr C is the complete opposite. He does not like to buy anything just like that, will research all the possible options ever, find the best one, but have to think about it for a while before he actually buys it.

Today, for the very first time, I had my weekly supermarket shop delivered to my door. It never really occurred to me to do this before, because how hard is it to go to the supermarket? But they can be difficult places to deal with - too bright, too busy, too much sensory overload. They say that once you’ve tried shopping this way, you never go back. I’m not so sure. It was good, and I was very happy not to have to leave the house, and not to have to go to the depressing place that is the supermarket. I was a bit worried about not being able to pick out my own goods, although they seem to be alright. The shopping came in way too many plastic bags, about ten or so, when usually I would only use four or five.

It always happens: I go on holiday, taking a week off work, and when I return, they’ve changed everything. The IT system was completely different, logging on had changed and we were on new servers. I managed to figure it all out but this time they’ve got a new, stricter internet filter. The only thing I can look at is BBC News and Wikipedia. I have never loved BBC News more.

I’ve noticed, and we’re only two posts in, that doing this Blogathon means that I will never be unsure of the time for during the next 24 hours. Each time I write a post, I am checking what the time is, and which particular half an hour I am relating to this time. This doesn’t really make a change because I am always aware of the time. It’s a rare day that I go out without my watch on, and at work, my eyes are always flicking to the clock on the wall. Although, to be fair, that’s just because I’m counting down the hours till I get to go home.

I’m blogging for Diabetes UK. It took me a long time to decide on who to blog for. I thought long and hard: cancer, lifeguards, children, Africa, but decided that I would sponsor something a bit more close to home. My family have been affected by Diabetes, and that’s why I’ve opted to support Diabetes UK.

What have I let myself in for? So, Blogathon 2006 begins and I find myself sitting in front of my laptop, tucked away at my desk, looking forward to the coming hours. When I woke up this morning, I was concerned at the shiny, bright weather outside the window, and that perhaps I would be missing out by staying only half an hour’s distance from my laptop. Now it is pouring with rain and I am not bothered.

Recently, I have slept a lot, and the more I snoozed, the more tired I seemed to get. Things do not bode well for my ‘staying up for 24 hours’ attempt tomorrow. One of the most annoying things about the whole experience is that it’s based in America, and they are blogging from 6am to 6am the next day. Fair enough. But you have to take into account the time difference, which means I will be blogging from 2pm to 2pm the next day. This, in turn, means that I am awake for a whole morning in advance of the blogging. Not fair.

Something kinda personal has happened and I don’t know whether to blog about it. I have things to say on the subject, but I’m not really sure whether the blog is the place to do it. I’d like it to be something I talk about and share with others and see what everyone else thinks, but at the same time, it’s not the kind of thing I would usually blog about.

Every time I get in my car, I have to pull over for an emergency service vehicle. There’s always something happening. Every day, for the last seven days, I have heard the sirens and moved out of the way. I’m beginning to hear them in my head and check my mirrors when there isn’t anything there! Is the summer a more dangerous time for people or has this just been a bad week?

Not content with getting through an entire day at work on Monday, I also decided that was the day to go back to the gym. I was really surprised at how happy I was when I got there. Don’t tell anyone I said so, but I actually missed going to the gym. While I was puffing away on the cross-trainer, I plugged my iPod in and played a random playlist. There was some quite uninspirational music. Will Young?? He’s not the best for working out, is he?

When I was a kid, some days I would get fed up with my mum and dad niggling at each other, sharing those little bitty remarks that seemed completely unnecessary. I would close my eyes in the back of the car and sing Backstreet Boys songs to myself shut out the noise. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my mother on the phone, and having a conversation with Mr C at the same time. My mum remarked on how we sound just like they do.

Returning from this holiday has hit me harder than any previous holiday blues I have experienced. I was definitely looking forward to this holiday from a few weeks ago and to think that it has all been done and is all over is really quite depressing. Where did the time go?

Who would have thought that getting no sleep, leaving the house at 5am, traipsing around a field for ten hours, then packing bags and driving to Cornwall would be tiring? First task was shopping. A bit of advice for you: Stay away from Truro. Last year we got stuck in roads and roads of traffic, no matter which direction we turned in. This year, we headed to Truro and got there with no trouble, but there was nowhere to park. Plenty of carparks but not enough spaces.

My mother and father are coming to stay and to prepare for their arrival, I have cleaned and tidied the entire place. There’s something about cleaning that makes me feel incredibly guilty. I never enjoy it, but while I have my iPod plugged into my ears and just get on with it, it’s not all that much of a chore. So, then I start to question why I don’t do it more often.

It’s been brought to my attention that I didn’t really explain myself properly when I was talking about Blogathon a couple of posts ago. Some people may know what Blogathon is, and some may not, and it was remiss of me to just assume that everyone would know what I was babbling on about. That being the case, I would like to introduce you to the world of the Blogathon.

I’m doing Blogathon this year. I thought about it last year, but wasn’t sure if anyone would bother to sponsor me. However, I have a bit more faith in my blog this year, and a charity that I want to blog for, so I’m going to go for it. I don’t know how I’m going to stay awake for that long, but I’ve got some ideas what I’m going to talk about. It’ll be interesting, I promise.

I don’t know if you noticed the adverts that appeared on the left hand side. I always said I would rather stick a fork in my eye that put adverts on my site, and let me tell you, if I could find a fork, I might be heading towards a hospital right about now. My only defense is that I was talked into it. With five sites to my name, most of them still under construction, domain and hosting prices are creeping ever higher. I didn’t want to do it, but it’d be nice to recoup some of those costs.

Yesterday, finally some good weather arrived, and we went to see a friend who was about to jump off a cliff. Don’t worry though, he had some kind of parachute wing thing strapped to his back, and said it was all in the name of sport. Some people really are crazy. Although he tried several times, the weather wasn’t really suitable for flying off a cliff, not windy enough apparently. So, we snapped a few pictures and went for a beer instead. Mr C was very interested in how much the wing cost, and how long the training took.

I think I’ve told you about how I read the entire first season of LOST through transcripts before it was aired in the UK. This wasn’t the cleverest thing for me to do, because I was discussing each episode with a colleague of mine and suddenly started getting confused with what I had seen and what I had read. I stopped watching, but kept up the pretence of talking about the show without actually saying anything.

I had to think for a while about this one. It was a quiet day for a lot of the drivers. I don’t remember even hearing Webber’s name, Alonso kept his head down at the front, Button had a quiet day until Coulthard overtook him. The main focus was on Schumacher, desperate to catch up to the front, and Villeneuve, as it was his home race. Either way, I was going to put Raikkonen down as my driver of the day, because he did a superb job of holding back Mr S, that is, until the last minute when he had an issue with a chicane. Regardless of whether it was his fault or not, letting the red car flash past is an unforgiveable action.

The comment spam has caught up with me. It was only a matter of time. Actually, there was a spate of it a month or so ago, (it started the day after I commented on someone else’s website to say I’d never had any - now that’s irony!), but we put in a temporary fix by closing the older comment forms. However, I came across some spam on my latest entry. It may have been a one-off, but it’s unlikely.

I was watching the football last night - Argentina vs Holland was promising to be a fantastic game and yet there were no goals whatsoever, how disappointing - and I suddenly realised how much sport I watch these days. When I was a kid, and I was a little bit plump, and PE was hell, and they turned my school into a sports college which was my worst nightmare and I am not bitter about at all, I hated sports. The only sports I could stand to watch was Wimbledon because hey, Tim Henman was going to win one day!!

The good thing about moving house is that it means you can get rid of a lot of junk. You can dig through all the stuff at the bottom of the wardrobe and throw a good proportion of it out. However, you have to learn not to be sentimental about things. While we were digging through all our junk, I came across our dartboard. We haven’t used that thing for ages but, for some reason, I couldn’t bear to throw it out. I loved having a dartboard in the house, and when we buy our own place someday, I know we’re going to have a dartboard up somewhere. It’ll probably be a new one, a better one, and one with plenty of cork padding around it.