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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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'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 …

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, …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Got to be Alonso, hasn't it? And at the end, when Schumacher was being a complete ass, and sulkily pushed the camera out of the way, Fernando's cheery and accommodating personality shone through and showed the older man up.

Broadband!!!! A day early and not a day too soon. I was about to get on here and start saying how great dial up was compared to stealing intermittent broadband. Dial up?? What was I thinking? How will we ever manage to get any sleep tonight when the entire internet is out there just waiting for us to get caught up?

Since the world and his wife started blogging, comments have become a very popular thing. Everyone wants more and more comments, recognition of the writing and opinions, and generally, nice compliments and that feeling that you are not alone in this crazy world. You would think that commenting should be a good, positive thing. A forum to share opinions, discuss important issues and find out what other people think about …

A few days ago Wayne Rooney kicked a football. Yesterday, David Beckham got on a plane. Today, Frank Lampard drank some water. This is what constitues news at the moment? World Cup fever has seriously gripped everyone. There is no escaping from it. It's in the news. It's on the television. It's in every single advert ever. An advert break on television now may contain only one advert that doesn't …

A friend of mine from work is jumping out of a plane today... on purpose... for no apparent reason. The plane isn't going to be on fire, and he's not going to have to jump out to survive, apparently this is all in the name of fun. And charity. Thankfully, he will have a parachute, and a whole other qualified person strapped to his back, so he is likely to …

You know, I was so excited that Big Brother was back on our screens. Looking forward to the opening credits, to seeing the lunatics they've picked out and, of course, the new diary room chair. A few days in, and I'm bored. It's not the people, though, I think previously, they would have been very entertaining. It's me. I've changed. It makes me so angry when they won't listen to …

Every year since I was allowed to stay up that late, I've watched the Eurovision with my mother. One year, my friend was staying over and we watched it together. We all were allowed one vote and had a fabulous time laughing at all the entries and deciding which one was going to be worthy of our vote. Last year, my parents were on holiday in this area, and I …

The thing I hate most about being ill is the lack of productiveness (is that even a word?). For the past two days all I have done is sit under the duvet, work through boxes of tissues, drink buckets full of Lemsip and my bodyweight in orange juice. All that Vitamin C - yuck.

Well, today's race took a turn for the better - not so much frustrating as boring, really. However, Schumacher didn't win, so that makes everything alright. Button was rubbish, but at the moment I expect nothing less. Have you seen those adverts on the television at the moment for Mars? They're in support of the World Cup and telling everyone that to win, we need to really, really BELIEVE. Oh, …

I was reading one of the websites on my RSS feed list, and came across this question: Which is your favourite Tom Hanks movie? At first, I thought the answer was obvious - Cast Away. But then, when I thought about it a little bit more, there are so many others. Obviously, Forrest Gump, and I am a little bit partial to You've Got Mail, which although a weird film, …

Today, there was a man in a blue t-shirt and he was floating around the weights section. Every now and then he would lift a really heavy weight a few times, make a lot of grunting noises and let us all know that he was very strong. Then he would put the weight down, and wander round for a bit. He would stalk around the weights in a predatory way, …

There's a woman who works at the gym, she's actually the one who gave us our induction, showed us how all the machines worked, and expected us to remember which machines worked which muscles and which order to do them in. She's pretty in a tomboyish kind of way, with spiky dark hair and a piercing on her face. I find this woman very intriguing, and I think it's because …

Another frustrating race, not much to say really. The first pit stop was exciting, just wish that it would have carried on for the rest of the race, but Schumacher had the edge today. Driver of the day goes to Rosberg, who kept his head down, kept out of any scraps, and came storming through the pack from the very back to end up seventh. It's not a stunning position, …

What is it about being near a policeman/woman that makes you feel incredibly guilty? I just walked behind two community support officers on my way to the shops. As I was walking, I couldn't take my eyes off the guy’s handcuffs and kept thinking to myself that I should never have left the chopped up body parts in my handbag - what if they turned round and searched it? Of …

I watched the first episode of the second series of LOST. I thought about staying up to watch the second one but midnight was just a little bit too late for me. Anyway, you know what it's like, by the time you actually get to bed and get to sleep, time is ticking on. That means, this morning I am tired. I set the alarm to get up to go …

Since watching The Apprentice episode where they went on board a cruise ship and basically made a mess of their tasks, I've been wanting to go on a cruise. I'm not sure it will ever happen because they are way too expensive and usually involve flying somewhere before getting on a ship. Days after I had given up on the thought, we see in the paper that the Freedom Of …

So, basically, this race sucked and did nothing to improve my mood. I'm not even going to talk about Jenson Button because there aren't really enough words in the dictionary. Alonso should have won but didn't. Schumacher won. He's an idiot. A spectacular rolling crash from Albers at the beginning was about the only incident, which makes for quite a boring race. Everyone seemed to have bad luck, Raikkonen was …

Today we got up feeling a little bit tired. The reason for this is a little thing, it's called Tomb Raider. That's right. Another game we're obsessed with. It came out on Friday, and whilst I was at work, Mr C purchased it, played it and sent me an email saying how it was. It went something along the lines of "Controls a bit better, but not great. Graphics a …

Have you heard about the Guinness Surger yet? The official site (link retired) can tell you about it. It only tells you how to do it though, because no one knows how it actually works. Something to do with fairies, I think. Anyway, it's only available in a certain supermarket that begins with a T and ends in Esco, and so now I have to return there to get the …

The Boat Race 2006 was held over the weekend. We accidentally watched it, what with live coverage being on directly after the Grand Prix, and us being way too tired to switch it off. I've never watched the Boat Race before, never really been interested, and I can tell you now, after seeing the entire thing in all it's glory – I so am! The first thing that grabbed my …

I wanted to write this after we finished watching the race live. Mostly to prove that I was up in time to watch it (5am and I didn't fall asleep two seconds before the start this time - go me!), and also because I like to write about the driver of the day when the race is fresh in my mind. But the problem with the race this time round …