NYC Christmas photos

Thanks to the rather frustrating photo handling on blogger, these are going to be in a rather random order...

Fairy lights galore. Pretty trees near the Plaza Hotel

The stunning Met Christmas trees

We were almost trampled half to death getting this shot!
Radio City Music Hall - home of the Rockettes

With The Rock in the background

The Rock

Stephen wrapped up against the cold in Times Sq

Me and Gracy in the bar

The Bladerunner shot...
Times Sq in the rain from the 8th floor bar of the Marquiss

My first Starbucks of the trip!

The fabulous tree at the Rockefeller Centre

Our first night. Stephen and the tree.

The lights of Times Square

The Christmas Lights Sculpture on 6th Ave

And the Christmas Baubles

The skating at Bryant Park, just before we were party to the proposal!

The Shops set up in Bryant Park

Bryant Park

A snowy 5th Avenue

Breakfast at the friendly diner

Not quite his name in lights...but Stephen in front of the lights!

Stephen in Times Sq - well wrapped up! It was freezing!!

Big Yellow Taxi

Another one of Bryant Park

The partially iced up fountain in Bryant Park

The Russian Tea Rooms
Beautiful stained glass ceiling, art deco glass mirror walls and a beautiful golden tree decorated with illuminated eggs

Freezing in Central Park on Christmas day

Me again!

Stephen standing in the Literary Walk in Central Park.
The other Scots found there included Rabbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

The heaving crowds on 5th Ave

The Russian Tea Rooms again

At first I thought the glass bear was filled with vodka, but it was actualy filled with fish

The Bethesda fountain in Central Park

The hoardes on Times Square

Lots of shots of a snowy Central Park coming up...

Fairytale of New York

We're back home after a lovely, manic, exhausting few days in New York.


The flight out was fine. After consuming a few glasses of champers in the lounge, we then got a couple of glasses on the flight as Stephen has a gold card. YAY for the gold card! We were off the flight and through immigration really quickly, then had to wait 1 1/2 hours for the bags to come off. There was a "problem with the system" which meant that about 10 bags from our flight came off then that was it for 1 1/2 hours. The ground crew were getting dogs abuse when, after 1 hour, bags from a different flight appeared on our carousel! I could sympathise with the woman who practically had this guy by the throat demanding that our bags should be given priority as we had been waiting much longer...we were all getting tired and fractious!


The blast of cold air when we walked to the taxi rank was a shock! How quickly we forget!! Even with a heavy coat on the wind was biting. We were relieved that there was a very tiny line at the taxi rank and we were soon ensconced in the warmth of the rear seat of a yellow cab en route to Manhattan. I sat there and thought: its as though we've never left. It was a slightly strange feeling...


We got to the hotel, dropped off the bags and headed out for a wander about Times Square before heading into "Johns" for a superb wood-fired pizza. Its something of a tradition of ours to go there, and have recommended it to everyone I know who is visiting NYC...which probably explains the enormous throng of people waiting for a table! After dinner we walked up to see the tree at the Rockefeller Center which was as lovely as it looked on TV. They use 5 miles of lights to decorate it. Can you imagine how long it would take to untangle that lot??!!


It was exceedingly festive around the Rock. Saks 5th Avenue have giant snowflake lights on the side of the building and they were synchronised to music, and there was an avenue of angels leading from 5th Avenue to the skating rink. It was exceedingly festive and exceedingly busy!


Thanks to a combination of Stephen forgetting to switch off his mobile and his brother texting at 6am there was no snoozing on for me, although Stephen managed it! We had breakfast in a deli, and it was very much NY style! OJ, endless coffee and 3 eggs, bacon, breakfast potatoes and toast...enough to keep you fuelled up for a few hours! Mind you, the weather was so cold you certainly burnt off the calories! We decided to do the Christmassy things first and after a walk around Times Sq we headed off to Bryant Park where there were shops set up alongside the skating rink... We were snapping away when a couple skated up and asked us to take a photo. I passed camera duty over to Stephen and as the chap handed over the camera he whispered something in Stephen's ear. Ah-ha, somethings up I thought! Stephen played his part really well. He was all "oh, I need to take another one, stay there" as the chap reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a ring box and dropped onto one knee...and got a resounding yes from his lovely girlfriend. I was all teary. It was very romantic! Proposing on the ice rink at Bryant Park on Christmas Eve, whilst having the presence of mind to ask someone to take photos is very romantic indeed and beats the heck out of when Stephen proposed to me!! (Even he will admit that it wasn't terrifically romantic!)


We jumped a cab down to Canal Street for some designer fake shopping. It was the first time we'd really done more that pass through it and it was quite fun! I was bag shopping (of course) and was lead down though this arcade of shops, further and further back to the bowels of the building. When we stopped at the room with the curtain across the door and the chain barring the way I was checking that Stephen was following and thinking "what the hell...", but the lady pulled back the curtain, lifted the chain, switched on the light and invited me into handbag heaven! I got a beautiful bag...it is the softest leather and the stitching and the detail is exceptionally fine. If it wasn't for the price tag, you'd swear it was authentic. Stephen got a watch - $160,000 in the shops, $110 on Canal St...and it hasn't even turned his wrist green yet!

Dinner was at Ruths Chris steakhouse - another favourite. We had a G&T sitting at the bar...or rather we had a G sitting at the bar. I don't think I could taste any T in it at all!! It went straight to my legs! We were too full of steak and gin to do much more than stagger back to the hotel and into bed...well we did try one bar, but they were closing up for Christmas and sensibly we called it quits.

Christmas morning was grey and cold. We pulled on a suitable amount of clothing and headed out. Our hotel was just off Times Square and we commented on how quiet it was as we crossed it en-route to breakfast. We had our Christmas breakfast in the Stage deli, served by possibly the rudest waitress in the world! She wasn't overly rude to us, but some of the other tables - wow! It was staggering! One British family were getting the full treatment and you could tell that Dad was not happy...you could sense that special Christmas day feeling was in danger of being spoiled as she kept on about their son's order (he'd ordered sides and she was pointing out repeatedly that they cost extra, and Dad was pointing out that he could order what he wanted as the $3 for the side wasn't going to break the bank). I did feel like pulling her away and saying "In the UK its a tradition that you can do and eat pretty much what you want on Christmas Day". My God, kids back home would have consumed about 5 chocolate bars before their breakfast, so the fact that the kid wanted a side of bacon was really no big deal!

We walked up to Central Park and wandered through the park along the snowy paths. I had my sensible, warm boots on and I was walking across the snow and ice with the confidence and agility of a mountain goat. Its a shame they weren't actually comfy, supportive or waterproof! After several miles of wandering my feet were wet and broken! My jeans were also wet to the knees and crusted with grit - lovely! We walked back to the hotel and passed back through Times Sq which was now significantly busier than it was at 9am...

After a shoe change we walked along 6th Avenue and joined the throng admiring the sculptures of Christmas Lights and Baubles, along to the plaza at the Rock which was absolutely heaving with folks taking photos of the tree. After a spot of lunch we walked down 5th Avenue to have a look at some of the department store window displays. Not that we managed to see much of them! It was absolutely heaving with people! After being rammed up the back of the legs with a buggy several times we gave up and went in search of a Starbucks which was open and not thronged with people. We failed! I was keen to sit down by this point, so we ended up on a couple of little chairs in Times Sq - just us and the millions of other people with the same idea!

Booking the Russian Tea Rooms for Christmas Day dinner proved to be an inspired choice. What a fabulous place! It was possibly THE most gorgeous decorated restaurant that I have ever eaten in! We were whisked upstairs with Stephen making grumbling noises (downstairs also looked fab and he was worried that we were being led off to some crap upstairs room reserved for tourists). As the lift doors opened we could see that wasn't the case! The room sparkled from the lights of many chandeliers and the walls of art deco stained glass positively glistened. It was gorgeous!!! The food was also very special, the service was good and we managed to spot a rather delicious wine which was patently mis-priced on the menu! They did come out with the lesser wine from the same vineyard (which was more expensive), but Stephen held firm and sent the waiter back to get the correct bottle.

We walked back through the throngs of people back to the hotel. When we passed the guys selling stuff on Times Sq it became apparent that I'd been mis-hearing them on the first night, and now things finally became clear. The guys would stand at the side of the pavement saying "Horlicks, Horlicks, Horlicks" which confused me. Why would they think that I'd need a malted nightime beverage?? My this time I fully had my ear tuned in and I realised that they were saying "Rolex, Rolex, Rolex"....

Stephen's brother continued his excellent early morning alarm call service and for the third day on the trot I was woken early by the beep of a text message arriving. On this day I wasn't too grumpy as it was Shopping Day!!YAY!!! We grabbed a Starbucks and headed down to the Worlds Largest Department Store - Macy's on Herald Square. OMG! It was INSANE!! We started in the gents department, found a complete bargain - a cashmere jumper reduced to $35! We picked one up and headed up to the gents casualwear in search of shirts. It was as we were paying that I realised that we'd been totally and utterly stoopid! Cashmere jumpers for $35 and we only bought ONE.... We headed back down the stairs and back to the stand to pick up a couple more. It was totally packed out on the ground floor and the lines for the tills weren't really moving. Whichever till I picked it was guaranteed that the person at the front would begin negotiations to buy the store. I stood at one line and didn't move for 10 minutes before stropping off in search of a queue that was actually moving. I released Stephen to do more fun stuff and I headed up and began shopping for me. I was laden down when I headed into the fitting rooms, and only marginally less so when I headed for the till!

Getting back down from the 7th floor was interesting! I have a down escalator phobia so the only way down to the ground was by elevator. Easier said than done I have to say! Despite the fact I was on the second from top floor, every elevator that came along was stuffed to overflowing. Eventually after about 10 minutes I just made it into a lift. The only way I could get in with the enormous bag of shopping was to stand facing into the elevator with the bag in the gap between legs. I was horrified when the door opened on the next floor down and a moderately elderly lady said in a singsong voice "Oh, there's room for little me", shoved me in the back and launched herself into the lift. I was completely off balance and nose to nose with the person behind me, mouthing "sorry" to her. I was exceedingly relieved to make it out of the craziness of the store. Not so relived when I realised it was still absolutely pelting down with rain...thank goodness they put a plastic bag inside the paper bag, coz the paper bag disintegrated within about 15 minutes!!

After walking along to 5th and tackling Lord & Taylors gents department my feet were broken! They took a pounding on Christmas Day and they were making their presence felt. Stephen wanted to look round Best Buy, then walk to the Apple Store so I took one for the team and offered to take the bags back to the hotel. What an idiot!! They weighed a tonne!! And trying to juggle handbag, shopping bags (some hand carry, some shoulder carry) and an umbrella all the way back through the crowds to the hotel was no mean feat (or feet haha!). After dumping that load of shopping I headed back out to do the all-important Sephora make-up shop. I was buying some things for a friend as well, so was walking round the store happily filling up two shopping baskets as I went. I won't divulge how much I spent, but I got an e-mail today from them to say I'm now a VIP shopper!!!!

We had made arrangements to meet up with Gracy for a drink at the hotel, and it was lovely to catch up and have a good gossip! She had been at the holiday party with the folks from the old office a few weeks before, so it was good to hear how Dawn and Tim et al were. It was lovely to see her!

We hadn't booked anywhere for dinner on Saturday as we'd been hoping to catch a show. As it turned out we couldn't get tickets for the shows we fancied so we just headed off in search of a restaurant. Stephen fancied BBQ, but the hotel recommendation had a 45 minute wait for a table so we trudged on through the pouring rain. Eventually we came to Famous Dave's BBQ where we were overwhelmed with food. We ordered potato skins expecting maybe three to come out. There were 6 1/2 potatoes topped with cheese, onion and BBQ pulled chicken on the plate. Enough for 6 to share! The mains were equally enormous and overwhelming! Stephen decided on ribs and the waitress actually talked him down from a half rack to 4 ribs. (How refreshing to be talked down!) Even so, he could only manage 3. Mind you, these must have been bigger pigs than we're been used to eating - they were not babyback!

As I was once again wearing jeans which were soaked to the knees we stopped by the hotel before braving the lake that was Times Sq and heading to the 8th floor bar of the Marriott Marquis - our favourite cool spot to watch the craziness of Times Sq! It wasn't actually so very crazy by this time as it was just SO wet that people had thinned out to a few hardy souls. It was nice to sit with a drink and relax for a bit as we'd barely stopped to draw breath since we arrived!!

I couldn't believe our final day had arrived. We got up and threw a few things in the case, and realised that we'd need another bag to take our shopping from the day before! We headed out to grab a coffee and headed off down to take a few photos. We found a suitable bag and I got the pleasure of carrying it back...I am still the pack horse!! After packing we checked out and left our multitude of cases and coats with the bellhop before heading to the Met. We were determined to tick off another few corners as it is totally vast and we'd barely scratched the surface up to now. I'm not sure we scratched much below this time either!! We were both absolutely bone weary and walking was bearable, but standing still was excruciating!! We did get round a fair bit - we say the beautiful Christmas tree, the new American wing, the Armour, numerous Old Masters and the photography exhibit along with the Greek and Roman wing. By that time we were pooped, so we jumped a cab down to the shops on 5th. Traffic was slow and I was so tired I actually nodded off in the cab!! 5th Avenue was insanely busy so we decided to head over a block and go down 6th. This strategy worked well for a few blocks, then we got to the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall....just at the time when one show was coming out, another was about to go in and everyone else in New York State was there to see the Christmas Lights and Baubles statues. It was packed solid! I haven't been in such a crowd since Edinburgh during the Millennium Celebrations. Not only were the pavements gridlocked, the roads were too. We had a little panic about missing the flight and decided to get back to the hotel and jump a cab to the airport. We were allowing loads of time to get through security at JFK as we'd heard of big delays in the UK due to the extra checks being carried out after the terrorist attempt on Christmas Day. The driver had thought that it was likely to take 1 1/2 hours to get to the airport...in the end, the traffic melted away and he was dropping us at the terminal 45 minutes later!! Security was no worse than normal and so we spent simply hours in the Lounge!!

Snow!

We have had complete travel chaos here in the UK this week. We've had a few inches of snow across some of the country (NOT Malvern!) and everything ground to a halt. Can you imagine if we'd had the 2ft of snow they had in Virginia and DC?? Mind you Washington DC ground to a halt too, but they maybe had a better excuse!! We had training running at Farnborough this week and I had lots of calls and e-mails to say it had taken 10 hours to go 10 miles on Monday night. This was not good news as we were driving to Fleet to meet former-POQI and the family for dinner en-route to our Heathrow airport hotel! Everyone was telling us we'd be insane to even attempt going near Fleet, but Paul phoned and reassured us that the main roads were clear, we didn't need to detour around half the country and to basically not be wimps!!

So, we're now sitting in the Lounge at Heathrow airport, drinking champagne by the bucket, listening to Christmas songs and looking forward to our trip to New York. One of the girls serving here is just back from there yesterday and said it was magical and exceedingly Christmassy after all the snow. Just what the Doctor ordered as I seem to have had a Christmas Spirit Bypass this year!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Climate Change

Stephen has been getting annoyed and doing a lot of ranting recently. With the Copenhagen summit on climate change going on there has been an increased focus on climate change...a subject dear to his heart. There was major ranting going on when he found out that all the data comes from one source. The UK Met Office has by far the largest data set on climate change in the world. This is analysed by ONE group at the University of East Anglia, and there has been some controversy recently as they have been "sexing up" the language they have been using.... This is continued by the UK media who are using increasingly emotive terms - for example, the glaciers aren't melting - they are dying. Grrrrr....

There have also been many programmes on what we can do to prevent Global Warming...

We can switch all our light bulbs to the energy saving variety. And whilst energy saving bulbs are environmentally friendly (apart from the mercury they contain, but we won't go there) they take a long while to get up to brightness, not that bright is a word I'd use. Its maybe better to say they take a long while to get to a decent level of dimness... You soon won't even have the choice as to whether you go with the "mole burrow" lighting scheme - and its the lack of choice which annoys me! You can't buy 100w bulbs in the UK any longer and 60w bulbs are set to disappear too.

We can all drive Electric Cars. Erm....I don't want to be the one to point out the flaw in this logic....but where does electricity come from? Surely its generated by enormous power plants which pump out tonnes of nasty pollution (not to mention consume tonnes of fossil fuels) in order to generate the electricity to power these "clean cars"?? In the UK you are looked on as some evil planet murderer if you drive an SUV or a "luxury car" with a big engine. Before we moved to the US Stephen had a BMW with a 4.5l petrol engine and I had a Ford with a 1.6l petrol engine. You would imagine that the 4.5l engine would produce much more CO2 than my little dinky Ford engine right? Wrong! My Ford only produced around 20 CO2s less. So therefore its the millions of Fords which are the problem..! We are both now frowned upon planet murderers...the crops in the fields apparently wither and die as we drive past!

We can stop eating beef. Farting cows produce a lot of methane and we should therefore stop eating beef and switch to eating more environmentally friendly meat such as lamb, or even better, become vegetarian. You can imagine how much the steak-chowing, vegetable-hating one appreciated that suggestion!!

Following this through logically, there is one major item they didn't think to mention, and possibly a serious danger to the environment. They need to ban Indian restaurants. We all went for a curry last night (it was de-lic-ious!) but there are side-effects!!!! I'm pretty sure if scientists look, there will now be a hole in the ozone layer over Leigh Sinton, coz I'm pretty sure we punched a hole in it last night!!

A Panda's plea....

I spotted in the paper that Tai Shan, the panda born in Washington DC zoo a few years ago, is to be sent to China. Can you imagine the conversation going on in the panda pen?

"OH. MY. GOD! Are you kidding me? Seriously, are you freakin' kidding me?? China? You're deporting me to China? I'm an American, man... Look at my passport...not the photo, it wasn't my best day - my mascara ran, I've got panda-eyes...Look at it, look at it, it says United States of America on the cover... Call the State Department! In fact, forget Hillary. Call the President! They can't expect me to leave my lovely life here in DC and go to China. Look at all these people out there... they love me... they're here to see ME! You can't disappoint my fans and send me to China! I'M A CELEBRITY! I don't care if it was part of my parents contract. BREAK IT! Get me a lawyer now! Phone Rob. I hear he's excellent... And what happens about the food? I mean, I get tons of the very finest bamboo shoots delivered by room service every day and I'd have to, what, like, FORAGE? in China. I DON'T THINK SO! This is so totally not going to happen. I'm like, totally, not going to go...Where is China anyway?"

O! Christmas Tree..How (huge and) Evergreen your branches...

All trussed up it didn't look very big....

But then we unleashed the branches and stood back!

Champagne is essential when tree decorating!

The finished article


The fancy no-flash shot. Stephen, very bravely, did point out when I'd finished that there were more lights on the bottom than the top.

Well OF COURSE I couldn't wait until morning to decorate the tree!! We pulled the furniture out the way, dragged the tree in from the garage and wrestled it into the tree stand. Then we cut off the netting and stood back as it filled the sitting room with branches. How come it didn't look that huge when we were looking at it at the Farm?

We had to get our US decorations from the garage and our UK decorations down from the loft. Which was something of a minor trauma as I don't do ladders...Stephen climbed up to get the boxes out, then tried to drop them down to me, which meant that I had to climb up the ladder to get them. Okay, so it was only a couple of rungs, but I REALLY don't do ladders, so my knees were knocking! Then, having got everything I needed, I had to untangle the giant ball of fairly lights and put it all on the tree. Three hours and a noticeable denuding of enthusiasm later I was done. It looks lovely!

O! Christmas Tree...

It was time for the Christmas trees to go up on site this week. With the imminent visit of our CEO and all the preparation that it took, my friend in the building next to mine sent up the distress flares. "I'm running around like a mad thing, they've given me a student to help put the tree up but he hasn't a clue, can you please help?" As I had bought the decorations and the tree back in the day when I was the Ops Manager for that building I am obviously an expert at their tree assembly! Time for the "Creative Director, Christmas Trees" to take charge. I soon got Tom licked into shape and we got the tree assembled and the lights on in record time. I don't think I traumatised him too much (I can apparently be a real stickler when it comes to decoration - but I don't believe I'm that bad!!), but he was pretty quick to disappear when it was time to release him back into the wild!! I left the tree in the ladies hands safe in the knowledge that with the stunning silver colour scheme we had picked out years before, it would look stunning.

I went back to my desk and asked if our building was putting up their tree. I was told that the PA who now has responsibility for putting it up had said that she didn't have time to take it down, no-one offers to help, so she wasn't going to put it up. What?? No tree, because taking it down was a problem? Bloody hell - Bah Humbug indeed!! What was I to do? I volunteered of course!

When I saw the decorations I actually wished I hadn't bothered! There were multicoloured lights and a pitiful handful of red and gold decorations. Unfortunately they were mostly pretty new, so I felt compelled to use them. I discarded the tatty tinsel and the even tattier fairy and Gill and I did our best with what was left. Unfortunately half of the pitifully small amount of decorations were SO naff that they were relegated to the back of the tree. We kept explaining to people that we were "doing our best with what we had". It looked truly pathetic!!!

Stephen and I were laughing this morning...we thought it would be hysterical to go into work this weekend and swap the two trees over!! We could have the gorgeous tree and they could have the eyesore... However, I came up with a simpler solution....I went to Homebase and bought three giant tubs of silver and gold baubles. I am going to strip the tree and begin again with something more tasteful! Unfortunately we're stuck with the multi-coloured lights as it was really expensive to get new ones, and there is no work budget for this. I bought the baubles out of my own pocket as my reputation as an ace tree decorator was going down the toilet!!!

We've just been along to the local Christmas Tree farm to get our tree for home. This is the place that supplied the Downing Street Christmas Tree last year, and is owned by our neighbours family. He actually drove us along in his van to pick it up so we didn't get needles all over the car. What a wee star he is! Its currently sitting in the garage as I need to clear a space in the sitting room to fit it in. I'll be doing decorating magic tomorrow morning...YAY!

We're lost!

We were invited round to Steve and Graham's for dinner last week as they wanted to show off their new pad as well as their culinary skills. I'd asked for directions and was told that google map directions got you there with no problems. If only that were the case! They might if it was daylight, but it was dark, it was pouring with rain and the car kept misting up. Oh, and did I mention that their house is down little country lanes with precious few road signs? Consequently we couldn't find it! After a few miles of driving about with no sign of it we called them. Stephen and Steve came up with the quite brilliant idea of using the GPS feature on our blackberries to find them. Stephen duly typed in the postcode and we set off...

After a couple of passes through Dymock (which I knew wasn't right), with Stephen getting grumpier and grumpier we tried again. It told us to take a right which we did...at this point I was getting worried for the suspension as we bounced down a farm track. Stephen was convinced it had to be right...until the GPS said we had to take a left...through the electric fence and into a field! This was definitely wrong! Of course there was no place to turn around until we got to the farm house. I was fully expecting a farmer to appear with a shotgun and tell us to "Get orf my laand"!!! We trundled slowly back down the track to the main road, pulled over at the Dymock Golf Club and fired off the distress flare!! I was practically hysterical with laughter when I called and said "come find us!".

Thankfully it didn't take Speedy Steve to find us and lead us back home and we were soon tucking into glasses of fizz. Just as well they hadn't made anything that would spoil as we were nearly an hour late at this point!!! Their new house is lovely! It has beams and everything, plus a kitchen to envy and a huge conservatory. I approve! Dinner was superb. I need to raise my game when they come to us...beans on toast won't cut it!!

We played a couple of games of Buzz on the playstation which was absolutely THE best fun! Stephen is now allowed to buy one!! I got to be Vampira and we could give the opposition a "virtual" cream pie in the face...or as I managed, you could give yourself a cream pie in the face... I have the reflexes of a sloth!!

Graham sparked out relatively early on, so it was just the three of us sitting watching music videos and chatting to the wee small hours. We took up residence in the spare room in the West Wing and soon collapsed into unconsciousness. I woke a couple of hours later needing a wee. The bed was against the wall and I was at the back. Stephen didn't respond well to my pleas to at least sit up so I could crawl out.."Climb over zzzzzzzzz". I was muttering nasty words as I was left with no choice but to do that. When I got back he was lying in the middle of the bed with the duvet tightly wrapped around him. More nasty words were muttered!!! I ended up sleeping under a towel clinging to the edge of the bed whilst he snored away oblivious to my discomfort. He was entirely oblivious actually! The young kitty was mewing and pawing the door at about 7:30, then coz I can't have closed the door properly on the catch, a few seconds later there was a thump as the cat landed on the bed and walked up and all over Stephen's chest. He didn't stir! As he's allergic to some cats (but not this one as it turns out!) I got up and shooed the little kitty out the door. Kitty was SO not speaking to me at breakfast!!! I think he was hoping I would feed him!

On the way home, with directions this time, it turned out we were within 100 yards of the house before we detoured to Dymock. D'oh!

Sleep deprivation

Our new CEO was visiting our site on Wednesday and Stephen was invited to a breakfast meeting with him, along with some of the other Fellows and graduates. It began at 08:30 sharp (our new CEO cannot abide unpunctuality and who wants to be the person to test that?!) so we were planning to be in at 8am. This meant a re-setting our our alarm clocks the night before....

S: "Right. We need to be up by 7:30 so I'll set mine for 7:20"
K: Thinks - no way! It takes me an hour to get ready. I'll set mine for 7:00...
S: "Hmm - maybe 7:20 is too late. I'll set mine for 7:00"
K: "Better allow some snooze time. I'll set mine for 6:45"
S: "You're right, I'll set mine for ..."
And so this went on until we were practically setting our alarms to go off 2 hours before we went to sleep!!! I think this had a knock-on effect...

I read my book for a bit as I wasn't particularly tired and switched the light out at 11:30. I woke up - wide awake, feeling refreshed and convinced that it was morning. I checked the clock. It said 12:35. I didn't believe it. I checked my watch and was convinced that it said 7am. I checked the clock on the blackberry. It also said 12:35 and I still didn't believe it!! It was only when Stephen grumped at me to stop fidgeting and go back to sleep that I began to realise that it really was only 12:35 and I'd only been asleep for an hour!!!

Fantastico!

We have watched it avidly for the past three weeks and finally its at an end. Gino has been crowned King of the Jungle in "I'm a Celebrity, Get me out of here". His final Bushtucker trial was genuinely retch-inducing, so he's a deserved winner!

I'm just glad that we can finally get on with having a life!! We've had little choice but to watch it recently...we've been getting home late and by the time we have dinner and clear up its just coming on the telly, so we're pretty much forced to watch it! Then its time for bed. So...our weekday lives consist of work, dinner, I'm a Celebrity and sleep.... no wonder we're dull boys and girls right now!!