a little story!

Some time ago I mentioned a contest that entailed writing a short romance scene in order to win a book or two! I have deliberately not read any of the other submissions as I find that I tend to absorb what I am reading and use them in my own stories and I didn't want to end up being accused of copying anyone!! Anyway, I am not entirely certain that what I have written is a romance scene if a romance scene is defined as lots of mushy kissing or all sugar and sweetness! Nevertheless I think that what I have could be defined as romance! I shall now let you all judge for youselves! (It is my first ever attempt at a story since I was about 13, so please be gentle!)

She glanced at him, wondering what he was thinking. Alex reached for the coffee whilst continuing to read, took a sip and grimaced when he realised that it was cold. Sara couldn’t bear it any longer and slipped out to the kitchen, and stood looking out over the garden and pressed a hand to her stomach and breathed deeply

As Sara leant on the kitchen counter to steady herself, her mind wandered......

The sun sparkled off Sara’s white wine as she listened to the Australian twang that filled the air and she smiled at the turn of fate that meant that she was having barbecues in January instead of battling the cold rain of a British winter.

After four months in Australia, she still felt a bit nervous about meeting new people but was glad that she’d accepted Mandy’s invitation to the barbecue. She listened carefully as Mandy introduced her to those nearest – “Emma, Simon, Alex, Ian, Natalie, Phil, Jo, and that’s my Ben is over at the barbecue”.

“uh, Hi...I hope I can remember all your names by the end of the evening!” They all laughed while Simon began to talk about ways of remembering who was who and Sara’s gaze swung back to Alex as Simon showed no sign of stopping “...and so if they have a large nose it puts me in mind of...”

Alex stared straight back at her and rolled his eyes making Sara smile and look away for fear of laughing. The shout “Grub’s up” came from the direction of the barbecue and everybody turned and made their way down the garden. Alex waited for Sara to come alongside him and said “So, what it is about me that you’re going to use to remember my name?!”

“oooh, I don’t know yet, I will have to--

Sara startled as she heard Alex walk through the kitchen door, but she didn’t turn round. She sighed as Alex wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head “Sara, those vows are amazing and I wouldn’t change a thing, I’m so glad you’re marrying me”.

Looking Fine for 2009

As mentioned yesterday, Looking Fine by 2009 is a bloggy challenge as set up by Daily Mish Mash - you can see the funky picture (complete with url) in the column on the right!

That lovely little rhyming sentence, Looking Fine by 2009, was catchy enough to get my attention as I like little sentences like that seeing as they are easy to remember! As you may have already gathered by the photograph and the words in challenge sentence, this is all about looking a little better in 2009 than we did in 2008!

As Jen from Daily Mish Mash says, this is not about faddy diets or starving ourselves, but simply treating ourselves a little better. There's a new acronym that I've been seeing in the last few months - HAES - Health At Every Size, which although the proponents of HAES would say does not fit with weight loss, I think that it suits me here because I am simply NOT healthy at the size that I am and by that I mean that I am not vastly overweight, but I AM overweight and not even healthy with it.

I doubt that I am actually making any sense here, but what HAES means is that you can be larger than the perceived norm and still healthy because you eat the right things and do the right exercise, just that due to a combination of factors, you are not the "normal" size 8 that "everyone" thinks that we should be.

My personal problem is that I am a lazy bum! On top of which, I eat far too much fatty foods - biscuits, ice cream, chocolate!! Therefore, any changes I do make are bound to have an effect on my waistline, so, while I have absolutely no plans to post a pic of me in my undies or bore you all by posting my daily food habits (fastest way to lose readers I reckon!!) I will be using Looking Fine by 2009 to give myself some much needed incentive and will be blogging alone with all the other Finers once a week.

And so, along with the Daily Mish Mash blogger, I say that I will eat more sensibly, exercise more, drink more fluids (I would say water, but I am NOT a fan of plain water, so this includes herbal teas and water with a drop of squash in it) and basically start taking more care of myself.

The first weekly weigh-in/measurements is actually today and so, I hereby begin with a scale busting weight of 11 stone, 10 pounds and 6 ounces. Which converts to 155 pounds for those that don't use the British scale of stones.

self-flagellation!

This the moment where I start to beat myself up because I haven't blogged in ages and I'm getting to the point where it begins to feel like it's too much bother to blog at all, which is a shame because I do enjoy blogging...I just have a serious inspiration problem, as I think that I may have said before!

After all, who wants to read about a not particularly interesting moment that happened or the things that I think about. Ugh, I sound like a maudlin, whinging female that thinks that you want to listen to a bunch of whining!

I do apologise, and hereby vow to pull my socks up and blog a heck of a lot more, starting with tomorrow's post all about Looking Fine by 2009 as hosted by Daily Mish Mash! More about that tomorrow.

A freudian slip perhaps?!?

I simply do not watch television if there are no subtitles, even if it is a film or programme that I know well as I do not get the same level of understanding that I would if it did have subtitles.

There are very few programmes or films that do not have subtitles these days, but they do crop up every now and then and that does annoy me rather. So, despite the fact that my oldest brother says that live subtitles are crap and the providers could do better, I am very appreciative of the fact that there are indeed live subtitles as I realise that they must difficult to provide.

A rather good side benefit of live subtitles is that they go wrong sometimes, usually in a very funny way, and the example that I am about to give you is no exception!

I was watching the 7pm coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony, it wasn't actually live because this was seven hours after the event, but the commentators were live at that point telling us about it although the ceremony itself wasn't - did that make any sense to you!!?

Anyway, I was very impressed with the ceremony, the drums were fabulous, I loved the way they lit up when hit, the fireworks were good too (but that's apt seeing as China is the birthplace of fireworks). The commentators were telling us all about the ceremony and the subtitles were having a bit of a job to keep up and there was a point where they should have said "One world, one dream" only it came out...."One world, one Downing Street".

That still makes me laugh even now, was the subtitler trying to tell us that our government are intent on taking over the world?!

Lifestyle dreams

Hmmm, don't tell my parents, but I've been rummaging around the property websites of Australia, Melbourne in particular! You get so much more for money when compared to the United Kingdom as the Australians clearly know how to design a house - open plan living with formal spaces tucked away, large master bedrooms with walk in wardrobes and fabulous ensuites (not to mention lovely things like laundry rooms and walk in pantries and covered outdoor spaces)

For the same amount of money you get so much less on this side of the world, clearly we don't have the same amount of space to play with and neither can we really have dedicated outdoor space as it rains far too much here, not to mention that we have far less sunshine (or at least pleasant weather) year round.

At this present point in time I have no plans to go to Australia as I have plenty to do in the UK (like get a Masters - paid for by work hopefully!), but I have been thinking about it, particularly as the outdoor lifestyle does rather appeal. I will continue to ponder on this issue, but I am thinking that when I get to 40 (erk!) and if I still don't have a partner or family and am more or less doing the same job, then I will think more seriously about possibly popping over to the other side of the world, even if just for a few years.

Of course, why not do this now....well, despite the fabulous houses, I don't think that I am quite ready to make such a dramatic move now and in any case I think that I'd get a better chance of finding a job with this Masters that I am thinking of doing. I am thinking that if I just go about my life and putting some savings away at the same time, then I can see what might happen in a few years time? Naturally anything could happen between now and then as I am still only 33!!

Spelling rite or rong?!

I found this rather interesting article today on the Times newspaper website. It's all about spelling.

Now, you would assume, wouldn't you, that in this day and age the article is all about the poor spelling skills that students have these days and how even graduates don't seem able to spell the simplest words.

Well, you'd be wrong, this article discusses Ken Smith (lecturer at Bucks New University) and this idea that we should accept certain basic spelling mistakes as variants on the word and not correct them.

I have to say that any university that can't be more imaginative than calling itself New University deserves to have lecturers that thinks like this! Now, I can appreciate that there are people with dyslexia who will always have trouble spelling particular words, but allowances should be made in this case just as allowances are made for the fact that I don't use the telephone and can only use the television with subtitles.

However, to suggest that we accept variant spellings such as opertunity for opportunity, speach for speech, thier for their and so on, just doesn't make sense to me. I know that in times past there were umpteen variants of the same word, heck, Shakespeare couldn't decide how to spell his own name! Today however, there is no excuse for poor spelling; I mean, if the people of my generation and my parents generation could be taught how to spell correctly why on earth aren't today's graduates being taught how to spell properly, or at least how to use a dictionary?

I would assume that very very few essays these days are being handed in handwritten, so there is even less excuse for not having correct spelling if you are using a computer, unless of course you have the spellchecker set to the American language instead of British!

That's amore!

How do you fancy winning a romantic book or two!? Memarie Lane is holding a contest with a difference...write a short romantic scene and enter it in the contest and you just might win!

Of course, you'd have to want to read these books! I don't mind admitting that my preferred reading 'drug' of choice are romance novels, I love reading about the complexity of relationships, I love the happy endings, not to mention the odd sexy page or two!!

I am always keen to add to my stash of reading, so watch out for my romantic story to appear on these pages, whether it will be any good I have absolutely no idea, but it's good to stretch my thinking muscles and perhaps even win a book or two out of it!

Are you up to the challenge? Go visit Memarie Lane!