Well, well its been quite some time since my last blog entry. Since then love has been in the air - Katy Perry has got engaged to Russell Brand, Sienna Miller has got back together with Jude Law and I and my partner of 3 years got engaged in New York in February. All very romantic! We're now looking forward to getting married, although with that brings loads of stresses. Who do we invite? Where should it be? How do we pay for it? etc...etc... Its a common dilemma that all couples have to face.

To be honest we've both had the 'big white wedding' the first time round so we're off the hook for that one. On the 2nd marriage I've noticed a different kind of interest from friends & family. Family are generally disinterested, they've all seen us stand up and commit our lives 'until death us do part' only to have walked away from it a few years later so why get excited about us doing it again?

In contrast one family member that is excited is my 11 year old niece who I've asked to be a Bridesmaid, she has no cynicism - she wasn't born first time round. Also friends are really keen - we all know at our age that a good wedding only comes round every so often so its a great opportunity to get together and have a party. There was a time when we seemed inundated by 21st's, engagements, weddings, christenings etc.....but as you reach late 30's it does go unusually quiet in these areas.

I also have a quiet resentment about the cost of weddings. Everything is overcharged if 'wedding' is in the title - functions - locations - dresses and cake - we don't even eat cake!?!?

I think we'll stick to the plan and have a smallish wedding in New Zealand, where my sister, hubby, niece & nephews live. We then have to look at putting on a doo in the UK when we return. This will be great to celebrate with mates and pals that can't make the trip but whether to invite all of those random - once a year - rellies is another question. After all, I wasn't invited to their weddings - I wasn't born first time round :-)

British Summertime

Hello All,

Its been some time since my last blog entry. Maybe I'm being fuelled by the latest surge of British summer weather! The last couple of weeks we've been very lucky and enjoyed wonderfully hot days upto 28deg down here in London. Yesterday I went along to the Capital Radio (London) Summertime ball and have to say - it was fantastic!! There's not many places where you can go to for one concert and see such an amazing line up!! The link if you want to take a look for yourself is http://www.capitalradio.co.uk/music-showbiz/summertime-ball/ but to give you an idea......

The show was opened up by Katy Perry - she was brilliant - a fantastic voice and got the crowd warmed up with a bit of 'I kissed a girl..." and "hot...cold"... We also got to see JLS, Ciara, The Noisettes and Alesha Dixon. But for me the real stars of the show were Dizzee Rascal with Calvin Harris 'dance wiv me' and was completely 'BONKERS', the gorgeous Enrique Iglesias who 'can be my hero' anytime even if he was a bit wussy and wore a hat and scarf :-/ The amazing voice of Leona Lewis - her version of 'Run' - goosebumps!! The very polished James Morrison and Kelly Clarkson, the very raw and talented Akon, the very impressive The Saturdays and the amazing performance of the one and only Lionel Richie. It did make me laugh though as the lady in front had to explain to her 8 year old 'that's Nicole's dad!' Others included Shontelle (?), Daniel Merriweather and Mark Ronson. The reformed Blue finished the show and lets just say they gave us a brilliant reason to head off slightly early to avoid the crowds at the Arsenal tube station. A fantastic night in all!! One to be remembered.

So back to 16 degrees today and a thought whether it was all a dream or maybe that was it - British Summertime 2009!

The Credit Crunch

Well instead of showing pictures of a lovely trip somewhere exotic, this time my blogspot is about life in the Credit Crunch. Surprisingly to me many people are only just starting to feel the pinch due to the credit crunch. For those of us that work in the FSI (Financial Services Industry) area the CC has been a reality since the beginning of the year.

The events over the last couple of weeks have been amazing to watch. I've worked on the Lloyds TSB account for the past 2 years and a more conservative customer I have not met. In what seems to be a fairy tale story like the tortoise and the hare, Lloyds TSB have come through this winningly. The top job at my company on this account recently became available. After waiting in the wings for 2 years I, like a few others, threw my hat in the ring. On the morning of the interview, Thursday 18th September it was announced that Lloyds TSB had bought HBOS and was now double the bank - a 'megabank' the BBC called it. So being interviewed for a job that had now changed scope was very interesting.

Needless to say, our boss took the safest route on this one and has stepped down all of his original candidates in favour of getting in a 'big hitter'. Who is a 'big hitter?' Where do they come from? And how do you become one? We are all waiting to see what this 'big hitter' will do to save the day.

On a personal note, this time of financial instability has been a challenge. For those of you that arent aware how all of this started, the over-confident banks in the US decided to lend money to people who couldnt pay it back - and for some reason they didnt think that would be a problem down the track. For those of us who did take out a mortgage at the end of last year - just before property prices started to fall the choice was endless. I was offered magnificent amounts of money but fortuntely only took what I could affort to pay back. Simple concept really. As the months have rolled by and my monthly pay has diminshed I've been set the interesting challenge of life with no 'luxury fund'. Shopping has gone from M&S food and the occasional dip into the vintage section of wines at Waitrose to selecting the 2 for 1 specials at Morrisons & Tesco - even if I dont normally eat the product :-) Wine is now more for necessity than entertainment. The £2.99 introductory priced wines are now a hot favourite. Shoes get re-heeled and suits get repaired. I'm fortunate that after paying my essential bills I can afford to live the rest of the month. A great line in a newspaper column read "I'm finding that at the end of my money there still plenty of month left". It has been a sobering experience (thank god for the introductory wine offers) and probably a good 'down to earth' exercise. On a funny note I was shocked to see that someone had stolen our green recycling bin from outside our front door. We suspect its our neighbour who has suddenly acquired a green bin. I was quite happy to ignore and order another until I found out that a replacement is £33.00. I'm now planning a night retrieval of said-bin, so that could be my entertainment for this evening!

Here's hoping that we are now in the 'eye of the storm'

Cannes baby Cannes

Yes its that time again when the film world goes crazy and has a mad two weeks of frantically selling movies in the beautiful location of Cannes - Cote d'Azur - South of France.

I was lucky enough to be asked by HP to escort one of my customers to the event this year and after having gone last year I was now a professional at the format! It took me about 2 seconds to accept and about 3 seconds to text Phil to tell him we were going.

We set off on Sunday 18th May, flying very early from Luton to Nice where we were escorted in a chauffeur driven limo through the winding streets of Nice to Cannes and pulled up to our fantastic hotel - the Majestic Barriere. This is right opposite the red carpet and our view was amazing.

As luck would have it the premiere that we were going to see was Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull which was amazing. Behind us on the Red Carpet were George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Goldie Hawn, Kelly Brook - Billy Zane to name but a few.

If you look close in the pictures taken inside the theatre you can even spot Lewis Hamilton....yes thats right - just in front of Superman :-)

Harrison Ford and Calista were there too of course......

Oh and us too - a brilliant trip all round :-)

Is it March Already?

Ok I cant believe its mid-March already - where did those first 3 months go? I feel like I've been hiding under a dark cloud here in the UK since returning from our trip to New Zealand and Australia for Christmas and New Year.

It all seems such a long time ago now - and what a brilliant time we had. To all of you that are reading this that we spent time with - have to say - we just had the best time catching up and I totally miss you all so much. I wish you would all come and visit my wee house in Radlett. I'm hoping that my highly effective IT skills has enabled me to not send this invite generally out to the web - else I could be one of those home owners featured after one of their members of family advertise a party on bebo or something and end up with their house wrecked.

Ok so I'm waffling again....



Seriously though - we had a fantastic time. Arriving in New Zealand a few days before Christmas Eve, seeing my gorgeous wee nephews Max and Otis and my beautiful niece Dharma!! It was lovely to see my sister Helen and her hubby Dean!! Mom and Dad had been staying out there for 6 months and it was lovely to see them looking tanned and relaxed. We had a brilliant family Christmas and finished our holiday with a bottle of Deutz (NZ Champers) on the beach before taking a flight to Sydney.



We arrived in Sydney the day before NYE and stayed with one of my best mates Kathryn - she did a wonderful job of showing Phil the city of Sydney and we started the leg of the holiday in Sydney with a wonderful BBQ and of course some yummy Aussie sparkling shiraz. New Years Eve we were off to see Gina and Mark, Mel and Andy - Sooooooo much fun catching up!! Seeing Jordy again after all this time. She had grown up into a proper young girl - she was only a baby when I saw her last. Everyone looked so well and healthy - it put my chubby English - almost transparently white body to shame :-)

New Years Eve was amazing! Mel had talked this lovely girl who had just moved to sydney and had this fantastic apartment overlooking the harbour, to have a NYE party and thats what she did!!! One of the highlights of that night for me was seeing my old mate Vicks - who I miss very much. It was brilliant being out with the gang for NYE and Phil saw Syndey in the very best light - as did we! A night to remember!!

We had a couple of really fun days staying with Gina and Mark. Mel and Andy are so much fun that I hope that we can catch up with them again really soon! Then we headed down the coast to see my old mucker Vickie Van Heu - with her new beau Lee - or was it Stuey?!?!? Anyway - a gorgeous couple all the same and good to see that although Vickie may have lost her wardrobe of shoes, handbags and evening dresses she still has a hugely competitive streak and had the board games out almost as quickly as we could pull onto the drive.

We went out for dinner with Vickie and her sister Brenda plus the boys - that was a brilliant night - awesome food, shame the old man fell down the stairs - i often think about him and hope he was ok the next day! There is a picture on here of us girls, I'm the pale one in the middle :-)

Heading back up to Sydney we went to stay with me old mate Vicks - what a pad!! Amazing - minus the stalker!! I just wish you would hurry up and meet the millionaire that you're supposed to meet and then move out of that pad in the bush! It was awesome staying with Vicki and seeing Matt, Mitch and Jane. Vicks did her wonderful BBQ supper with all the trimmings - yummy, yummy, yummy!

We also had a night out with some very good mates, Paola, Thomas, Michelle, her bloke Trevor, Kathryn and Michael, Vicks and Gina - brilliant!!!! I hope if I can get this blog working properly I can put some photos up. Anyone know someone good in IT? :-)



Ok so that brings us upto the first week of January - I think I'll take a break, have a glass of wine and relax before writing the next few months worth of stuff.............