Scary wake-up call

When Stu's alarm went off this morning, at 6.30am to be precise, I dragged myself out of bed as I desperately needed a wee. On my way to the toilet I was woofed by a distinct gas smell. A little alarm in my head went off but was suppressed by the urge to wee, quite badly. Whilst I was being freed from the bladder pressure, Stu came out of the bedroom, smelled the gas and ran to the kitchen. My brain was active enough at this point to realise he was checking the cooker. If he'd only given me 5 more seconds, I would have come up with that idea as well.

The cooker was off, the boiler/heating was off but we could still smell gas. At this point, I had successfully emptied myself of bodily fluids and alarm bells had started ringing in my head too. We immediately opened all the windows (it's freezing in the morning now!), called British Gas and closed off the mains at the front of the house. Stu then abandoned me as he had to dash off to work, leaving me on my own to wait for the gas man who, I was told, would be with me in under an hour.

45 minutes later, the man arrived. He checked for any drops in the pressure of the system but he couldn't find anything. At this point I was freezing my t*ts off and must have looked like a human penguin with PJ on. The gas man then decided to wake up the lady under us, as gas rises. (I vaguely remember a physics class explaining this, but did I pay attention?!) After a while, he came back up and it turns out the people from the garden flat (new neighbours; Mexican; not German) had left one of the hobs of their cooker on all night!!!! Flipping ek. I'm surprised they didn't gas themselves down there...

America, here I come

Everything is booked! I haven't been so excited since, well, since Spooks started yesterday. (Yeah, naked bum in the first 20 seconds!) I'm extremely excited about the train journey as I've booked a Roomette for the first part of the journey. Check it out! On top of 2 beds, a sink and a toilet in my cabin, all meals are included and I receive a newspaper each day! I'll be leaving San Francisco on the 6th of November after having spent a week there. The train will take me through mountains, passed lakes and amazing views until I arrive in Chicago on the 8th. I'll be staying with Rose in Madison and will visit Chicago together with her. On the 12th, I'll be leaving for Washington D.C. where I'll be staying with Darcy and her family. Tea at the White House? On the 15th I'm heading for Orlando where Andrew and Carrie will meet me. We might stay with Luerne for the weekend and even squeeze in a Day of Disney fun!! My last week, I'll be spending at A&C's house, next to/in their pool, under a palm tree. Life can be hard.

As I have the feeling I haven't stopped working yet since my exams, I'm going to have some me&myself-time. Obviously I would have liked to spend this experience with Stu (who's too busy working) but I'm already making plans, including Stu, for February.

Had a day at home today, being a housewifee. I cleaned, did the laundry, dishes, hoovered, did groceries, bedding and cooking. Christ. Being a housewife is more tiring than working.

R E S P E C T.

I haven't seen Stu properly for over a week now. His big project in Brighton has started which means I only see him in bed. He leaves at 7am (I think) and is hardly ever back before 11pm, including weekends. I'm feeling a little lonely at the moment...

Anna has been sent home after 24h in hospital with contractions because as sudden as they came, they also disappeared again. She currently doing a lot of hopping on her yoga ball.

Spooky MI5

We had our last girly evening on Thursday as from next week, on Tuesday's to be more precise, the 6th season of Spooks will start. Oh thou god of sexiness, blessed with gorgeous spikeful hair and looking extremely handsome in thou jeans and polo neck. Humhmenna humhmenna. Also from Tuesday, us girls have decided to allow the boys to join us; only they don't seem to realise this is a huge gesture.

Went biking today but only did 9 kilometres, which I thought was a little disappointing since our 36K the other weekend. But the weather was gorgeous for mid October and I thorougly enjoyed being outdoors. Melinda and I are now bike twinsisters as she bought the identical one to mine. And whilst we were biking, we saw a little girl who had the baby version of ours!

My tickets to the States are booked!! I'm currently organising my train trip and figuring out where I'm staying along the way. I'm getting v.v.v. excited now! Stu however is getting v.v.v. excited about buying a new car. We've set terms and conditions but I'm sure he'll pull the same trick as he did when I was in Russia... He's allowed to buy his Beemer (within the set budget!) once he's sold the Vectra and Dino, but what's the chance? Perhaps I should set some terms and conditions in case he doesn't stick to the rules.

Mum and dad are coming over next weekend together with dad's cousin and his wife. The four of them would like to be taken to London, so I'll have to get my tourist guide umbrella out!

And oh yes, Anna is currently in labour in hospital!!

Bookworm

First of all, there are more Go Ape pictures from Dan this time. (I find wearing one of those harnesses quite sexy for some reason?!)

Went into work this morning as the Boss Man had organised a meeting to resolve the issues we're having in the office. Since our team has been joined by a new member of staff, the general atmosphere hasn't been great. We were all affected by moodiness, grumpiness and miserableness - as if regular PMT isn't bad enough! I won't go into details but it basically meant that I wasn't looking forward going into work anymore... We had an 1 1/2 hour meeting which was productive but still left me feeling not 100% happy, which is something I need to sort out myself now. And really believe things will change.

Going to Mary's book club tonight. She's organising a 'book swap' club where you each take 3 books you don't want anymore and you swap them for 3 new ones which other people bring along. That way, you recycle your old books and end up with 3 new and free books. I like it. I'm currently staring at my library wall, having debates with myself which books I want to get rid of. On top of my list is probably my Russian>Dutch dictionary (but I doubt anyone would be interested), also having trouble deciding on Donna Tart's Little Friend - I still haven't finished it and not sure if I ever will... (it's weird how I LOVED her Secret History but hated this one!)

Top 5 of unfinished books:

• Perfume (Patrick Suskind) - details annoyed me beyond belief
• Brick Lane (Monica Ali) - far too slow
• Sophie's world (Jostein Gaarder) - philosophy at an early age is never good
• The constant gardener (John le Carre) - talking about descriptive text
• How to be good (Nick Hornby) - sad, depressing, downright bipolar

Go Ape pictures!

Chrispie has put his on Facebook. Dan and Jamie took some as well so I'll keep you posted when they appear online! (I thought it was a bit risky taking my camera, dangling 20 metres above the ground...)

Accountant to be

I promised myself never to translate anything too financially complicated again after my disaster two weeks ago. I was asked to translate an Annual Account - how hard could that be? With the European Terminology Database helping me out, and Wikipedia trying to explain some (most) of the content, I started off in good spirit. Two days later, I was having tantrums and fits. Luckily Lin, who came 4th in the World (!!) on the international accountancy exam, was there to help. I felt a lot more relieved delivering, what turned out to be, a good translation...

What did I do on Friday? I accepted another disaster!! (I was tricked into it!) This time I'm translating a Statutory Report (what? Precisely.) After sitting behind my pc for 4 hours this morning, I had the most genius idea that surely somebody must have translated this type of form (30 pages!) before. And yahaaa, I not only found 1 but 2 translations of the identical document. Translating has become a lot easier all of a sudden...

Haike is coming around tonight for her weekly Dutch lesson. I'm so proud of her, cuz with quite bad dyslexia, it isn't straight forward learning another language... Stu sticks his head through the door from time to time with comments like 'that's not the way you pronounce that' or 'don't you know the word for that?' - big mouth. It does amaze me how much he knows though.

I'm back!

I haven't been on here for such a long time, I've nearly forgotten how to do this... My apologies to all of you for not updating you on a regular basis after having pushed you guys into starting a blog - I'm well aware of the fact I've been slacking! As some might know, I've had a summer of working my arse off, both in the office (as PM) and at home after work (as freelance translator). There were many evenings when my laptop felt more like a boyfriend to me than Stu did, but I've decided that's got to stop. I've just finished my first week of part time in the office, part time working from home - and it suits me quite nicely.

I'll be trying to keep a regular blog from now on (I know you've heard this before!) and I've also noticed there's a feature now for adding videos - perhaps that might be an easier option!?

Quick update and some pictures:

• Been to Poland and the Czech Republic for a week - which I'm sure most of you will know by now. (see pictures below)
• Been to Scotland last Tuesday on a consultancy trip for work, which nearly killed me getting up at 4AM to catch my flight. I managed however to sell 30 licenses - yeah commission!!
• Leaving in 3 weeks on my American adventure - but more details about that soon once I've booked my flight!
• I love being self-employed - waking up at 8.30, walking into your office (opposite the bedroom) and being your own boss is brilliant!!
• Went on a special birthday gathering yesterday for Jamie. All 14 of us decided to Go Ape. It's one of those places where you climb in trees and do crazy things 20 metres in the air, obviously wearing harnesses. Absolutely brilliant. (BTW Bram & Danny - I was thinking you might like this as a birthday present?!) No doubt there will be pictures circulating soon from everyone who took some - I'll post the link.
• I've become Queen of Match Making!
• An in-depth personal profile (done by the company I went to see in Scotland - that' s their business) shows I'm the 'Motivating Inspirer'. It's a 15 page document about my personality and how I interact with people - which made me laugh out loud on the plane back as it was bang on!
• My vegetables are growing really well!! I now have 2 (perhaps 3, although I'm not sure if one isn't weed) cabbages growing, lots of turnips and 3 rows of carrots. I'm sure they'll be full grown by Christmas so I can make a lovely soup out of them!
• Babies: Katrien had a girl (Kaat) 4 weeks ago, Anna is due next week, Did in 5 weeks, Lin is having a boy (February), Boss David is become a granddad for the first time and Carrie is having a little sprout as well!!!!