First post for a new year

Hello again all, sorry i have neglected this for so long but i had fallen in to a bit of a malaise with the onset of winter and the necessary hibernation that that involves here. Nothing has particularly changed since my last post, the house is still up for sale, no one has been to see it, we have had to drop 30,000 euros off the price which will have a bit of an impact on our future house buying choices but we want to get moving.

The one big change since my last post is that we have both stopped smoking, i can't say it has been an entirely smooth experience and we have fallen off the band wagon a couple of times, most notably on boxing day where we smoked a whole packet of Jackie's ciggies. A consequence of giving up smoking is that i have put on weight, not something i really needed to do, so am now very unhappy about the way i look. Ant, of course, is very supportive and is still as randy as rabbit, telling me i am the sexiest thing ever and that kind of thing but it is a big stretch of the imagination.

There was a point where the lack of anything to do, the lack of movement on the house, the weight gain, money, and the situation with ant's work all came to a big head and started to really get me down until finally ant raised a huge argument in the car and forced the issue in to the open and we worked out a couple of solutions, starting with me going to the gym, firstly to give me something to do and secondly to get some weight off.

Christmas and new year were as disrupted as normal at our house with ant returning from Japan on Christmas day and me going to pick him up from Heathrow, then us being stuck in a squalid little room at Heathrow for new years as he was on two hour standby. I was quite unwell at new year with a touch of glandular fever that has more or less lifted now, though i can still feel the swollen glands slightly.

Ant was sent on a trip on new years day and i drove back to France alone, but at least the festive period is now over and we can start looking forward to our great trip to Australia in January. This trip is almost mythic to me at the moment and until it actually comes off i can hardly believe it is going to happen. With the strikers threat still hanging in the air i don't even know what will be happening in three weeks i can just hope that we get there. This is the big difference when you are traveling on a staff ticket, you can't just book it the look forward to the event coming you have the constant worry that at any point in the chain of flights you won't be allowed on the flight because it is full and then what are you going to do, anyhoo i am not going to let it get me down, i will just slavishly check the flight loads on a daily basis.

Well now that's all there as background for the everyday i can start!

Sunday: Ant was due back from a trip to Denver. I got up in the morning and went online for a while, i had a bit of a swimmy head for some reason and was feeling quite dizzy. Ant phoned to let me know he was in the uk and was making his way to Dover. I got off the computer and made a start on the housework. The dishwasher gave up the ghost a few weeks ago so all the washing up is being done by hand now, which i am quite enjoying. Ant had initially wanted to replace it but i said we are not paying two hundred odd euros just to throw something away in however many months.
I have to say out hot water fountain has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as it spits stuff all over the place, which is not good when you have stainless steel tops as it stains them and it is a bugger to get off, so that will have to go, i have seen a kettle in the Aldi freebie paper for 9 euros so will get that on Monday. I put together a nice stew with a brisket joint i had picked up cheap in Tesco on new years day and left that going in the slow cooker.
I had the housework done by mid afternoon so dollied myself up ready to pick himself up, i am dressing in black a lot these days to disguise my figure, not that it works unless the room is dark! and then had a bit of a relaxing afternoon. Himself phoned to let me know he would be getting in to Boulogne at 8.45 in the evening so i had plenty of time to sit about and wait for him, which i did. There were two lovely old episodes of the Simpsons on the latter being the one where Lisa has a crush on her male supply teacher, this is such a well written emotionally troubling episode and i was sat with very moist eyes throughout.
I set off to pick himself up and took the dogs with me in the car, i had not put any fire on as i would be out for too long so thought it better they came in the warm car than sit in the cold house, and it is a little company as Ruby sits on the front seat upright looking out of the window just like a person. When i got to Boulogne i went to the car ferry and ended up in the ticket sales line, then i spotted the foot passenger bus as it headed out of the port so i had to back out of the port and try to figure out where it was going. I eventually found him at the old port, picked him up and we headed home. We got back just in time for 'La Vie En Rose' the film of Edith Piaf's life, which we actually have on dvd, but he wanted to watch it anyway. I put his dinner together and he had a glass of wine. After dinner i gave gran a phone and we chatted for a bit, then she chatted to ant. By eleven it was clear he needed to go to bed so i sent him off upstairs and left him to sleep for a while. I watched two new episodes of Family Guy on BBC 3, they really should make more of the fact they have the franchise, then headed up to bed.

more of David's exciting adventures tomorrow? You'll have to come look to find out, it's like blog roulette