Embarrassing or what?

Since finishing work Claire has made me take exercise each day and so far we have only missed one day, Tuesday when we were supposed to be walking to the cinema and back. As we left it got very dark and it seemed rain was a certainty so we turned back. Before we had even got home it started so it’s a good job we turned around when we did. We took the car instead and spent the extra time looking for exotic snacks in Waitrose; far more civilised than the expensive rubbish they dish out at the cinema. The film we watched this time was called “The Town” about a bank manager lady that was kidnapped by one of the bank robbers and let go minus her drivers licence. The robbers threatened that if she said anything they knew where she lived. One of the robbers follows her and arranges to bump into her to start a relationship so he could find out whet she had told the police but ends up falling in love with her. Another good film but not as good as the excellent film about Facebook where Jesse Eisenberg plays an excellent Mark Zuckerberg who wrote the Facebook program. It is played out as court case where he is being sued and is played back in flashback. He plays an incredibly intelligent role even set against his Harvard colleges and the lawyers. Both these films are worth watching.

Although Claire and I have always been early risers, since we got back from our Australian adventure we haven’t been waking up until around 8am. However, I have been getting up at 5.45am for the last 3 months and can’t seem to get out of the habit since I have finished; in fact I seem to be waking up earlier since I have finished. Tuesday night I wake up at 12.30am before most people had even gone to bed and couldn’t seem to get back to sleep again. By 1.30am I went to the toilet and by 2.30am I had woken Claire so I got up at 3.30am to allow her back to sleep. I took my current book with me that I am really enjoying; more about that when I have finished it. Claire must have gone back to sleep as I didn’t hear her until about 7am when she went to the toilet so I snuck back to bed in the warm again just as the heating was coming back on. Having had hardly any sleep and being cold all night probably didn’t help me avoiding the “man flu” that I now have. Anyway, this hasn’t stopped my continuing with out exercise routine and we were at the health club by about 9am. Upon arrival, I was greeted by, what sounded like some Bletchley yobs, F’ing and Blinding loudly enough to be heard by all in the changing rooms. There seemed quite a lot of people in the club changing rooms so I had to share a changing bench with others; I set my bag down and took out all the items that I would be needing for our session in the gym. My gym shoes, my water bottle, my small sweaty towel, my T shirt, my shorts that seem to have something attached to them. Oh my God, it’s a pair of lacy knickers. They have attached themselves to the Velcro on my back pocket; they are either Claire’s or Harriet’s but everyone thinks they are mine! It’s enough to make one start F’ing and Blinding. Sorry, but I had to reconstruct them for the photo; what would it have looked like if I had taken a picture of them at the time?

At the end of last Wednesday’s boy’s night out, I suggested that Chris brought along Vanessa so we could talk to her about her adventure up Kilimanjaro and we ended up with a ladies night out. We had a great night, which always seems to go quicker when there are more there but you never get chance to talk to everyone. I didn’t even get chance to talk to Vanessa which is why the night was conceived, but not because I didn’t get around to it, but because she was poorly and didn’t come down. Get well soon Vanessa! You would think that with the amount of time that we have been blogging that I would be taking photos at every opportunity, but you would be wrong. I never took a single picture the whole evening, I didn’t even think about it until this morning.

Talking of photos, I finally got around to sorting out our photographs from our Australian tour and made a folder with all the best ones in it. Now I have my new iphone you can access “Dropbox” from it just like you can from any computer in the world. Whatever you upload there you can access on the internet so its ideal for travelling or showing photo’s on your phone. All I need to do now is all our other holidays, then get the 2 boxes down from the attic with all the real pictures in and sort those out, digitising all the best ones. This is a job that I have had in mind for several years. Anyway, once I had made a best folder I made another subfolder of all the best ones of Claire and printed some off to mount in the picture frames that I bought from Ikea. I’m really pleased with them and would like to get some more of these frames so as to make different themes.

Unfortunately I had to abandon my last OU course about Combinatorics because of the new contract and associated travel. However, I intend to take the last two books with me on holiday so as to at least finish the course off. I won’t get anything for it as I failed to hand in half the work or take the exam but at least I can learn all that there was to offer. If I had my wits about me I could have deferred the course until next year and save the expense of paying again but I was too slow. The reason I do these courses, are for self enlightenment and the qualifications are secondary so I have decided to do a different course this year. The one that I chose is SM358 “The Quantum World”, a course that I have wanted to do for many years and now I feel ready. My interest was rekindled by Alan and Sue who we have recently become friends with. Well, Alan really as he is fascinated by it and talking to him has reminded me just how interesting and weird a subject it is. I read a couple of books that I already had and started looking for others in the library and bookshops but there is no better way of learning about something than an OU course. The only trouble is that you can’t brush over the bits that are not interesting or are too hard and you are forced to learn the whole course. There is quite a bit of maths in this course but reading through the previous requirements I should be ok if I can remember anything. Anyway I’m looking forward to it and hope that the units come in time for the Christmas break so I can start early and get ahead in case I find another job next year.