Rudolph in the office

I hate it when technology crashes and we're left wondering what to do. How on earth did we cope before email, word and outlook? Our system went down at work and it was awful so we couldn't use our PCs.

When I first started work, they were still using typwriters! My first proper job interview as a secretary for the BBC in London was mostly conducted with a typewriter. I'd not long since left Uni and I'd paid to learn to touch type at night school, which was the most useful thing I ever learned to do as I can type really quickly now and hardly maike any mostakes!

Our email was down at work for ages this morning and we were all forced to talk to eachother, Lol! It's not as if we could have got on with any writing as we couldn't use word either.

The atmosphere at work is very laid back as you would expect so close to Christmas. I met a colleague for a breakfast meeting this morning and I sat and watched him devour a whole cooked breakfast: bacon, egg, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast, sausage - talk about my eyes on stalks. He did ask me if I wanted some of his toast but as tempting as it was, I declined.

I really wanted a cooked breakfast though!!

I reminded me of the ones that my Mum used to cook on a Sunday - they were well worth looking forward to. That was of course in the days when I wasn't doing the radio show on a Sunday. I usually didn't bother until I got to work and then everyone would send the phone-answerer out for McDonald's breakfasts - mmm, just thinking about them now is making my mouth water!

Why is it that I'm obsessed with food? I guess it's because I'm not eating much of it at the moment and have to rely on what other people tell me it tastes like, Lol!!

My friend certainly enjoyed his fry-up the other morning. The look of sheer joy on his face when he started tucking into his sausage was a delight. Oh how I wished I could have tucked into his sausage as well, Lol!!!

It was a sad occasion for me as I'm not really going to see him now for the best part of a month. How will I cope without my little myrth buddy to keep me going with really bad jokes and innuendos? We tend to quote fast show lines to each other via text, especially the Suit You, Sir ones.

The radio in the office plays Radio 2 and they are playing a lot of Christmas songs which is making me feel very Christmassy indeed. However, the version they played of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was the Frank Sinatra version and the best version, in my opinion, has to be the Judy Garlan one as sang by the great woman herself in the wonderful tear-jerker of a film "Meet my in St. Louis" where Judy sings it to a young Margaret O'Brien as Tooty.

The family are going to be leaving St. Louis and moving to New York and no-one wants to go. The song comes at a time when they are both looking at the snow family in the garden and they get all nostalgic about St. Louis and Judy sings the song.

I cry every time. Tooty goes off on one and runs downstairs and goes outside and starts smashing the snowmen to bits.

If you've not seen the film, you're missing a treat!

Another Christmas must is The Muppet Christmas Carol. We usually watch it on Christmas Eve but as my brother-in-law is staying with us, we might watch it the night before. Whenever we put it on, it will mean that Christmas is just around the corner and I feel ready to bring on the festivities.

What I will miss this year is Baileys and Snowballs - both drinks I love but both drinks are highly calorific! Can you imagine drinking cream and whisky and eggstuff and lemonade? I could have a whole Christmas dinner for the amount of calories that those drinks would cost me.

I am determined to lose weight over Christmas. It's not impossible. I would love to be able to go to class on December 30 and be down a couple of pounds. I don't want to cancel Christmas, it's put on hold. However, even when I've lost the weight, there is no way I can go back to eating the rubbish I was before or the weight would come on again and I don't want it to so my eating habits have changed for life.

I get home at night looking forward to eating my chicken pieces whereas before I would have stopped off at McDonalds and got a Big Mac Meal, so things have changed and progressed.

I will try and blog over Christmas and post a couple of messages as I haven't done a video for a while! I won't rival the Queen's speech to the Nation. It'll be Ali's speech to the cats, Lol!!

Busy weekend but very, very cold!

I might look like I'm enjoying a bit of Christmas cheer, but looks can be very deceptive!

I've just come back from a visit to see my sister and her family in Notts, but we had to cut the visit short as the snow started to come down thick and fast and we were worried about getting back.

As it is, it took us just over two hours to get back which is only fifteen minutes more than it normally takes.

It was lovely. I took a bag of presents with me for my niece and nephew. My sister and I don't bother buying for each other, but I always get something for the kids. It is very difficult to know what to get teenagers, but they seemed delighted with their gifts. Of course they didn't wait until Christmas to open them! They have inherited the Aunty Ali impatience gene, lol! However, I've not opened one of my presents yet so that's a first!

We had a good journey up there and I actually stayed awake for the whole of the journey, again, which is unheard of. Sadly, I couldn't stay awake for the return journey. It was very slippy and we saw a couple of accidents but nothing that we were involved in, thankfully.

I looked like a little old woman in the car, wrapped up in my blanket! Oh well, I am after all nearing my dotage, the next thing to come out will be the bath chair, Lol!

The cold has been a theme of the weekend. Yesterday, hubby and I were in Warwick to see a friend of mine from work get married. It was a really lovely Church that she got married in. It was the main Church in Warwick and it was so big.

We got into the Church and saw Michelle from work sitting three quarters of the way back so we joined her on the row. Then we found out the reason why Michelle was sitting there, it was right by the radiator - top choice.

I was smartly dressed but also dressed for warmth and I had several layers on and over the top, my long, black leather coat.

The vicar did the usual before the start of the service, he asked everyone to switch off their mobile phones and I had already done that, so I was sitting pretty. However, half way through one of the carols, I realised that I had my work phone with me and that was switched on! I was dreaded it going off during the really quiet bits. The last thing I wanted was to ruin the wedding vows with my phone going off.

So, I started to have a good firtle around in my back to find my phone but the more I firtled, the more my coat squeaked, this went of for several minutes. I wasn't aware that my coat was squeaking but hubby was and he kept digging me in the ribs! The rest of the congregation must have thought a family of mice had moved in!

I eventually found the phone when we started to sing the next carol and then turned it off. Great, I thought, I could relax!!

However, what I didn't bank on was that some of the traditional words for the carols had been replaced with other ones and boy did I feel foolish half way through Hark the Herald Angels Sing! I was singing totally the wrong words and then I got several digs in the ribs from hubby who could hear me go off on a tangent so the loud, angelic voice that I was singing in, was dropped to a sotto voce mouse voice and one that could barely be heard by me, let alone anyone else!

The wedding was lovely and Katharine looked like a tiny little doll - she looked beautiful in her dress and as it was so cold, she wisely had a beautiful cape and white muffler to put her hands in when they did some of the photos outside.

After the service, we all trooped over the road for cookies and mulled wine. There was a really good turn out from people at work, which I am pleased about. I was very good. I didn't have any mulled wine and I just had a taste of a cookie, so I didn't go overboard.

Once we got home, we had a few hours to thaw out before we went out again to meet some friends in town for a drink. We chose a pub that had a real log fire and sat next to it all night! We're not daft.

You would think that someone with my blubber wouldn't feel the cold, but I do and I hate being cold. No matter how many layers I had on, I couldn't keep warm, so that's why I didn't move away from the fire.

The cats have got the right idea. Even as I'm typing this, one of the cats is lying by the fire stretched out and I don't blame him. Once I've done my washing and had my tea, I'm going to wrap myself up in my slanket and spend the night under it watching TV.

I'm looking forward to work next week. I'm hoping to get quite a few kisses under the mistletoe - why not!! It's Christmas after all!!! So, if you're a bloke in the Coventry area, watch out, or I'll be sneaking up on you with my sprig of mistletoe!

Here's a bit of the wedding from Saturday 19 December! Ahhhh.

Meet my friend Walter

The youngsters amongst you won't remember the actor Walter Pidgeon so the name I have given this city pigeon will be lost on you.

However, this is Walter. I met him last week by Coventry Cathedral. He was so tame and friendly and genuinely wanted to stop and chat but I had to fly so didn't get the chance to have much of a conversation!

He isn't your typical city pigeon. For a start, he's got both feet - some city pigeons are really manky and have claws and feet missing. Also, city pigeons are a bit scraggy looking and as you can see, Walter is a beautiful plump specimen. Finally, look at his colouring. City pigeons are dull and grey and Walter has some colour in his feathers, especially around his neck. In fact, he is a wonderful example of a bird and I was glad he stopped to say hello.

I used to be able to talk to chickens when I was a little girl. On the way home from school, I used to walk past this house that was set back from the road and it had a lot of land in front of it and was fenced off.

In the front facing on to the pavement the house owners chickens used to roam free and I often stood at the fence and talked to them. I used to mimic the way they walked and talked and was so good at it that they used to wait for me to come past every day and when they saw me, they used to gather around as if they were waiting for me to say something to them.

I didn't disappoint. Every day I would stop and tell them something in chicken. Lord knows what it was I was saying but my friends and family used to think it really funny that these chickens genuinely looked like they knew what I was saying. For all I know, I could have been spouting words of mutiny.

One hot, Summers day, I was coming home from school and noticed that there was a small hole in the fence. I was quite worried because a lot of dogs lived on that road and it only took one cheeky little so and so terrier to get in there and before you know it, there would have been fur and feathers everywhere.

I stood by the fence and did my usual mimic of their clucks and they all came running towards me from all four corners of the grassy area. This was very nice, what wasn't very nice is that they squeezed themselves through the hole and with almost military precision, they followed me up the road and carried on towards my house. The more steps I took and turned round, more and more birds were following me.

I got in a bit of a panic. My Mum and Dad let us have pets. In fact we had a cat and a dog, but even they would have drawn the line at me keeping 40 odd chickens!

I turned round and started to herd them all back down the road again. Sort of like a Pied Piper in reverse. It must have looked a right sight and at the time, I thought it was funny but have you ever tried to get a chicken to observe the green cross code? Imagine trying to do it with 40 of them!

Traffic was stopping left, right and centre. I was causing chaos. Eventually, I got back to the house where the chickens came from and went and knocked on door.

The door slowly opened and this little old man popped his head round.

"Yes, what do you want?" he snapped.

"I'm sorry to disturb you" I said, "but did you know that your chickens are out?"

You should have seen the look of horror on his face when he saw all these chickens walking around everywhere. Most of them were still on the path outside the fenced off area. Some of them were congregated in the road and one of them had even got on the bus and taken a trip into Stoke (he muttered something about having a gig with KFC and the Sunshine Band).

I decided that I'd done my good deed for the day and legged it back up the road to home. I didn't see the point in telling Mum and Dad what had happened as I would have only got it in the neck from my Mum. I lost count of the amount of times she warned me that nothing good would come of my chicken speak and she was right.

To this day, I have never spoken to a chicken and if one should stop me in the street start up a conversation, I'd have to tell him politely to "Cluck Off"

TTFN

Tis the season to be......jolly?

The jacket I am wearing in the photo is the very same one that someone was sick over at the German Market in Birmingham on Friday and before you ask, YES I HAVE SINCE WASHED IT!!! As soon as I got in on Friday night, in fact, it went into the washing machine.

I call that jacket my "Brokeback Mountain" jacket because it looks a lot like one that was worn in the film. I have a tendency to spin the odd yarn, I'm surprised I haven't actually tried to pass the jacket off as the SAME one that the late, great Heath Ledger wore in the film.

My friend Dave, asked about my jacket and if it had got over its ordeal. He said that on the night in question, you couldn't actually tell that the coat had got sick on it because it looked like the pattern on the coat! This man is so full of compliments to me, lately, LOL!!

As I said, I am prone to making things up sometimes just because I have a creative mind and I like to make people laugh. When I was having my hair done last weekend, the ladies in the salon were talking about "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" and how wonderful they thought the winner, Gino Diacampo was.

I of course agreed. I thought he too was "fantastico" and told them that I knew him when he was fifteen and working at his Dad's Pizza Parlour in Stoke. Of course, it was a pack of lies. I doubt if Gino has even been to Stoke but the ladies were hanging on my every word when I told them that he used to put extra Pepperoni on my Pizza because he fancied my sister and thought I'd put in a good work with her for him!

However, when I do spin a yarn, it is never done to hurt anyone, it's just to make people smile and then give them something to go home and tell their friends and family about.

Robertos Pizza Parlour was our favourite hang-out in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent and many a time a load of us from the radio station would go for a meal and we had lots of nice times there, but sadly, Gino wasn't working there. Just like Jeffrey Archer's CV, it was all made up!!

I have done lots of things that I can honestly say are true and some of them quite interesting.

Here are a selection of things I have done:

I've been shared a lift with the man that played Alec Gilroy in Coronation Street, I wrote a song for Barry Manilow (he never recorded it, but I wrote it and gave it to him!) I wrote a song for Geoff Boycott the Yorkshire and English cricketer (he wrote and said how good he thought it was - well, he wasn't going to tell a 15-yr-old girl it was crap, was he?) I've met Prince Charles, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and had my picture taken with the late Pope John Paul II.

I have met Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, nodded at Phil Jupitus in a London street and saw Terry Waite on a street in Manchester just days before he was taken hostage. I've sung one of my own songs on stage at a venue in Crystal Palace in front of Gerard Kenny and Diddy David Hamilton, my elbow was once in a Nat West commercial, I used to sing radio jingles and wrote the words and sang them on Piccadilly Radio's breakfast show in Manchester and I used to write horoscopes under the name of Madame Nosila, the Potteries very own mystic.

I've met Stanley Matthews, the sporting legend who told me that he had always wanted to meet me as he used to listen to my radio show, I've spoken to numerous presenters on QVC because I'm one of those sad people who ring up and tell them how good their products are. I've met Charlton Heston and I've seen the film Ben Hur 76 times. I used to be the press officer for a civic moggie. I stopped a page three girl from showing her breasts to President Bill Clinton and I pinched some grapes from a bowl of fruit in the offices of a former Minister for Sport in London.

All those above are true apart from the Pope one. I did have my photograph taken with him, but he was a cardboard cut-out in a darkened room in a shed on Blackpool pier in the 1980's!

I could go on and even though I've lived a very interesting and entertaining life to date (I hope I still have a few good years left inside me) it still does not stop me from making the odd thing up.

At home, my husband and I have a code of ethics. When we're chatting and he thinks I am not telling the truth about a certain subject, there is one agreed phrase that I say that alerts him to the fact that what I am saying is true and he knows that when I say this line (which I can't tell you or I'd have to banish you from my kingdom) he knows that I'm telling the truth.

I guess when you work in PR, you have to be economical sometimes with the facts and be able to put something across in a way that reads like a good story, even though it might not be. It's all about being creative and making a lot out of a little.

I found a brilliant shop in Coventry the other week called Harpers Bazzar and it sells lots of retro toys and gifts. I love it and have bought several gifts for family and friends from there for Christmas. I was telling my friend Dave about it today and very nearly let slip what I'd bought him as it was from that shop.

I'm sure he'll love it. I used to have one when I was a little girl and it is a great gift to give someone.

I have spent the past couple of nights just wrapping stuff and getting them packed ready to dispatch. Sadly, I can't rely on Santa to deliver my stuff for me as the reindeers are threatening to join BA and go on strike over the Christmas holidays. Let's just hope the ACAS elves can talk some sense into them as I would hate to be a fly on the wall in houses all over the world when the little 'uns get up on Christmas morn, only to find out that Santa hasn't been because Rudolf was holding out for one more carrot.

C'mon Rudolph, you can't let the kiddies down!

I had another close encounter of the squirrel kind today. The cheeky little beggar had jumped in a bin near to the Cathedral and pulled out an orange Sainsbury's bag which had a discarded meat pie in tin foil in it.

He saw me, dropped the bag and the foil and pie went all over the place. He then ran towards me as I thought I must have something tasty and when he realised I hadn't, he ran straight past
me.

I'm thinking of taking him a turkey dinner for Christmas (with all the trimmings) - that'll put the man with the Marks and Spencer nuts in his place (read a previous blog for reference to this!)

I'm going to have to go now as my nephew has just Skyped me and he has just split from his girlfriend and he's gutted and I think he needs to talk to his understanding Aunty!

I am to relationships what Pavarotti was to ballet - so I don't think I'd better get that involved!

Well, I think I've rabbited on a bit too long. Das Boot is playing on the movie channels - why I would be interested in a film about German footwear?

Bye for now!

When only a sausage will do!

I went to the German Market in Birmingham tonight.

Apologies for not blogging much this week, but it's been bit of a hectic one and also a very sad one in terms of news I received from a very dear friend.

First of all, today has been a day that I have been counting down to for over a week and a bit. I am in the process of losing weight and so far, in seven weeks, I've managed to lose 2 stones. It's been hard and I've been strict with myself, some say too strict, but I do believe that the end result will be worth it. However, I was determined that, diet or no diet, I was going to have a sausage at the German market in Birmingham.

Some of us from work decided to go and make an evening of it. However, we didn't manage to leave work until 5.30 so didn't get into Brum until about 6.40 - which wasn't really all that bad.

My mate Dave said that he would buy me a sausage and I wasn't going to stand in his way! I stood behind him in the queue and then those words that I had been longing to hear him say came out of his mouth "white or red, Ali?" He was of course, asking which colour sausage I wanted so "white" was my reply.

All week we had been sending each other suggestive sausage-based text and now sausage day was upon us!

While he was standing in the queue, my other friends, Michelle, Karen, Matt and Matt went to get a drink and so I told Dave that I would go and get him a Gluwein while he got the sausages.

This was a good plan, until I couldn't find him once I'd purchased the drink, so I made my way to nearer the stage where we all first stood. While I was making my way over, a guy came rushing towards me and started being sick - it shot out of his mouth so fast and covered everything in his path, including down the right side of my coat! Lovely.

I rang Dave to ask him where he was and then we found each other. Even though my sausage had gone cold, it was well worth the wait! I gave him his drink and told him about the sick man and he immediately started to help me wipe off the mess (what a gentleman).

I started to make a joke about it but I was very annoyed because I didn't really want to smell of sick all night - especially as a) it wasn't mine and b) I wasn't even drinking!!

We all met up again and stood listening to the group of singers who were performing some songs from the shows - we were treated to Cabaret, Chess, CopaCabana, Guys and Dolls and a couple of big band classics as well as "santa baby" which I have reluctantly said I would sing at work when we have our Christmas get together!

It was such a nice atmosphere - all of us standing round chatting (me singing and generally playing the fool) and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells.

Dave had got a party to go to and so he said his goodbyes and the rest of us went walkabout. I bought hubby a gingerbread man with "I love you" in German on it and the craft stall holder tried to fob me off with an Irish Five Pound note! He gave it to me in my change but it was crumpled up. It wasn't until I took it out of my purse and looked at it that I realised he'd tried to fob me off with it, so I went back to the stall and told him to give me an English fiver.

You could tell he was disappointed and his mate gave him this look as if to say "you nearly got away with it" but I was not going to have it, no way!! For once, I decided to not be fobbed off!!

Matt and I tried on some very silly hats - and I mean silly and we carried on walking around stopping here and there looking, tasting and touching things.

We went for a pit stop in McDonalds before making our way to the train and eventually got back to Coventry. We all said our goodbyes and made our way home - it was lovely.

However, as much as I enjoyed this evening, I was still downhearted and knocked sideways by some news that my lovely, gorgeous friend from work told me this week. I don't want to name her as it's bad enough what she's going through, but she gave me the devastating news that her cancer had come back and the doctors have told her it's terminal.

What do you say when someone you love dearly tells you that? I was speechless - there were no words to convey my feelings, nothing I could say that would make it better for her, indeed, I just sat there in utter disbelief to hear that a young beautiful woman had been given the worst kind of news.

I could tell by her voice that she'd been crying for most of the day and that her voice was so weak that she could barely speak. Once I'd said my goodbyes to her on the phone, I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. How could life be so cruel? Why her when there are so many bad and nasty people in the world? It just doesn't make sense.

I was angry and then scared and then angry again to think she's already gone through so much and had such a battle to get through cancer the first time round, only to be told that this bastard disease, that robbed me of my Mum, is now going to rob me of my friend. IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!

I just wanted to drive round there and hug her but she was tired and needed to rest and when I'd made arrangements to meet her later in the week, she'd had to cancel as she just wasn't feeling up to it.

She called me tonight but I couldn't speak to her as I was on the train and the signal kept breaking up and I wanted to call her back but by the time I had got back in, it was after 10pm and so I didn't want to disturb her.

I really question sometimes the way our lives are mapped out for us. I have friends who desperately want kids and can't have them, I have a friend who has been robbed of her sight and now I've got a friend who is terminally ill with cancer -I just wish I had a magic want to make things better for them all, but sadly I can't.

So, as much fun as I had this evening with my band of friends, I was still thinking of my mate who is now facing the hardest, toughest journey of her life and I want do do what I can to make things easier for her - if she gets the offer of pioneering treatment in the US, she'll get it. We'll raise the money somehow - any glimmer of hope has to be grabbed by both hands, doesn't it?

As we were saying our goodbyes tonight, I hugged and kissed my friends and thanked my lucky stars for what I have, the family and friends I love and the home life that hubby and I share.

I am a very lucky person indeed and should count my blessings and if you are reading this and you are feeling that life is getting you down, remember, someone, somewhere is having a far worse time than you, so live each day to the full and grasp every opportunity you can.

I will certainly never complain again about being overweight, at least it's condition I can do something about, others aren't so fortunate.

Sorry I've gone on a bit but I needed to get this off my chest.

Bye for now.

x

Don't it make my grey hair blue!

I went into Coventry this morning to get my hair done and to do some more shopping. I've virtually got all my Christmas presents now so I just concentrated on getting even more stuff for myself!

As I said in yesterday's blog, the new Poundland Store was opening today and so I went down to see it being officially opened by Katherine Kelly aka Becky McDonald from Coronation Street.

Quite a number of people turned out to see her cut the ribbon, me being one of them and I took my video recorder thingy with me so I could post it on my blog and facebook page. You will see what it looks like at the end of the blog.

As you can see, my hair is now short and blue. I didn't have it done blue, it's something that I have done myself with some blue mascara but it makes me look very hip and trendy and "down with the kids".

Talking of kids, I was sitting next to a lady from South Africa in the hairdressers. Her daughter was having her hair done and Granny was looking after the little boys and boy, were they naughty. The were running round the hairdressers and screaming and generally being loud and annoying. The smallest one found a magazine with some Christmas things on the front, so I persuaded him that it would be a good idea to come and sit down and look at all the toys in it.

This was fine, but the other one (older boy) wasn't having any of it and started snatching the mag from the little one. Their Gran was in pain with her shoulder and I felt really sorry for her because she was trying to keep them good and at the same time, try to stop her shoulder from hurting any more.

I had a very interesting chat with her about the reasons why she left South Africa to come here and basically, it was because of the fear of crime. She'd had a couple of scares with her bag being nicked and being mugged and basically, she'd had enough of it. From what she was telling me, it was a very unsafe place to live.

That's why I'm worried about the World Cup being in South Africa because of how violent a country it is, I just hope it sorts itself out in time. Fingers crossed.

By the time it was my time to get in the chair to have my hair done, the kids had gone and it was quiet. The bit I dreaded was coming up - sitting in the chair to have my hair washed (my bum always gets stuck in the chair!) but not today. The couple of stones I've shifted must have come a bit off my bum!

Well, when I say a couple of stones, I am one pound away of losing two. It's just a drop in the ocean to what I have to lose, but it is coming off and going down the right way, so hopefully, this time next year, I will be half the size I am now.

For some reason, the city centre was extremely quiet today. Maybe people are saving to do the prezzie shopping until later, or they are making use of late night shopping on a Wednesday or, maybe they just can't afford. Whatever reason, the shops were not very busy. I even got a seat in Druckers for a cup of coffee!

Also, as if I haven't got enough handbags, I bought myself another one today but a nice purple one (you can't beat a nice bit of purple - Nancy Kaminski swore by it!) and it is the "in" colour this season (ooh get me, CoCo Chanel!)

I bought myself something stupid (name the singers of that song - either version - answers at the end of the blog). As I was saying, I bought something stupid in town. I can't find real mistletoe and so I got a headband with some plastic mistletoe on it. Well, Christmas is the only legitimate time I can go round kissing blokes and getting away with it! Don't worry, I have told hubby that this is my intention and he's cool with it.

He knows what a big flirt I am and so I am not hiding anything from him :-)

Right, the video has now loaded from this morning so you can sit back and relax for 90 seconds but before I go, the answer to the Something Stupid question is:

Frank and Nancy Sinatra who did the original version and Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams who did a version of it.

Now, over to Becky McDonald opening the new big Coventry Poundland store!

Hi - yar Becka!

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Monkeh Shepherd?

I have been trying to get the Christmas spirit into the office at work and so out came the Crimbo decorations, the naff baubles, the tinsel, the lights and the sweet treat decorations for the tree.

The only thing wrong about our new office is that the lights don't dim as they are the kind that come on automatically when there's someone in the room and go off when there's no one there.

So there is no chance of working just by the twinkling Christmas lights, which is what I did last year and our office looked like a fairy grotto. It was ace!

We have a little room that I would like to make into a grotto of my own. I have this wonderful idea. I am going to do it out with tinsel, lights and a big comfy chair and go and sit in it. I will charge people £1 to come and see me and I will let them have their photo taken with me and if they're lucky, they will get a little prize! This is definitely a work still in progress.

Today, I made my weekly trip to the shop of shops, the golden ball of the snooker table, the jewel in the crown of Coventry shops, POUNDLAND!! Gosh, I do love that shop and the great news is that another one is opening tomorrow in the old Woolworth's shop. The actress that plays Becky McDonald (Grainger as was) in Coronation Street is doing the official opening.

I picked up a few things including some hair mould stuff, a purple crown, a pen, a mug (which read Office Totty!!) a set of Christmas hats to put on your wine bottles (!) and a cow-shaped screwdriver, all things of course that I needed - I also bought a Shepherd outfit for Monkeh and took great care in dressing him up in it when I got back to work (to say that my colleagues thought that I had lost the plot is an understatement!!)

They still think I'm barking after a close encounter I had with a squirrel the other day. It came up to me and ran up the outside of my skirt. Now, I was wearing brown, so he could have thought that I was a tree with plenty of room for him to nest in! He was such a sweet little thing as well, so it was no wonder that we struck up an instant bond - nothing to do with the fact I guess that I was carrying food bags at the time!

So it was just another day in the saga that is my life that the next day I went back to find my squirrel armed with raisins and this time he took one out of my hand, only to spit it out again and leg it down the path when he saw a man with a bag of Marks and Spencer nuts. How can I compete against those?

I was in a very funny mood at work today. Not funny peculiar, but funny ha ha. Everything I said or anyone else said, I laughed at. I think it must be the lack of food that is making me delirious! I was also pulling the lovely Graeme's leg a bit about him being so young and lovely - he is rather delicious and we are really good friends.

I am feeling so much better having lost a little weight. I know it's only the tip of the iceberg that I have lost (I am just one pound away from losing two stones in six weeks) but I do feel good and in spite of my lovely friend saying I looked like Ena Sharples, not even that could dent my confidence!

Today, the same friend called me the "Thinking man's top crumpet" - talk about trying to make it up to me, Lol!!!

I have also made a great discovery - Primark make good knickers! Now that's something you don't hear me say very often. I've bought a few things from them in the past but it's mainly been costume jewellery or hats, but this time, I've branched out to knickers - where will it end I wonder?

I was really looking forward to the weekend being here as it has been a hard week for me. I am doing more walking but as a result, it is making my knee hurt - they do say no pain no gain but boy, is it hurting now! It really does look like I won't be a contender anymore for the 100 metres dash in the Olympics, so sorry if you had a bet on me winning a gold medal.

Well, having made a disastrous batch of soup this evening, I treated myself to my first chocolate in six weeks and I savoured it - and it tasted so lovely. I am allowed treats or "Syns" as they call them at Slimming World. I haven't had many syns since I've been on it, so this was a long time in coming.

I had a dream the other day that one of my friends had a statue of himself made out of chocolate and that it was kept in a chilled cabinet..... but that's a story for another day... but he wasn't half tasty! Lol!!!!

TTFN