According to this article millions of men don’t know their partner’s dress size, date of birth or eye colour. If the article is to be believed it would seem that many men do not know some basic facts about their other half. A survey carried out by the Perfume shop on 2,000 men who were buying perfume for their partner founds that although six out of ten man thought they knew her, 12% did not know their partner's eye colour, 10% did not know her date of birth and 8% did not know her natural hair colour. Other questions which drew blanks were favourite perfume, bra size and the name of their best friend. According to relationship expert Francine Kaye although small details are important to women most men do not notice them. I must be lucky then, my husband knows all the answers even if he does describe my favourite perfume as the one in the green bottle. It’s close enough, to find it in a shop, so it’s good enough for me.

The number of people getting married is now at the lowest rate since records began in the 19th century. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics there were 232,990 weddings in England and Wales in 2008, 35,000 less than ten years ago. Figures also show that people who decide to get married are leaving it much later. The average age of marriage has now increased to 36.5 for men and 33.8 for women. Fewer than two thirds of weddings are now the first marriage for both partners with more than one in six ceremonies involving people who have been divorced or widowed. Figures have also suggested that more people are choosing to raise children outside of marriage.

According to this article marriage could actually be good for your health. Psychologists have found that people that are married are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. However, those who end their marriage are more likely to suffer from mental disorders when the relationship ends.

It started snowing here in Sevenoaks last night and we now have a good covering of snow. Whilst the foxes have been jumping around in it and playing the cats are not impressed. Our white cat Ollie (pictured) ventured out for a look but the other are all curled up inside. Below is a view of the trees in our garden.

I have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) for a number of years now and have learnt to control the condition with a combination of diet and exercise. Until recently I had got to the point when I was only suffering the problem every few months and usually when I had eaten something that I knew would trigger the symptoms. I was surprised then, when after my move back to Sevenoaks I found I was suffering from the condition every day.

At first I didn’t occur me what was wrong I assumed that the symptoms were a stomach bug, but after a month and half of symptoms I realised that the IBS was back with a vengeance. I went back to square one keeping a food diary, cutting out any known triggers completely and making sure I exercised every day but the symptoms still continued. That’s when I realised that the only thing that had changed was the fact that before our house move I was drinking water only from the filter tap. The new house had no filtration system installed and since we had moved house I had been drinking water straight from the tap. It seemed a long shot but I stopped drinking the tap water and started buying bottled mineral water. After a few days my stomach which had felt like a beach ball for nearly two months finally went back to normal and all the other symptoms stopped soon after.

Since then I have continued to drink only mineral water and will later be installing a new filtration system. I am now back to the occasional IBS flare up when I eat something I know will upset me but I like, such as cheese or red meat. I can only assume that there is something in the tap water that not only triggers my IBS symptoms but makes them much worse than usual. I have read reports that suggest fluoride in drinking water can trigger IBS but up to now have been sceptical and as I have no idea whether the tap water in Sevenoaks contains fluoride I am unsure whether this is the cause. What is clear, however, is that I can’t drink the water.

Our cat Oliver is notorious for being very timid, he usually hides when we get any visitors and get beaten up by our other cats. Bearing this in mind we were very surprised when a large fox wandered into the garden and approached him. Oliver and the fox regarded each other for a while before the fox rolled on the ground. It was obvious to us that the fox wanted to play but Oliver seemed to miss the point and chased him away. You can see pictures below of the encounter, click on the images for a bigger version.

It has been nearly three months since we moved into our new home and we finally have a working shower. What seemed a simple job has taken a lot more time and money that we expected. We were really pleased when we managed to purchase a shower for £35 and a screen for just over £40, particularly as I paid for them using my Nectar points. Whilst the initial cost seemed very reasonable what we hadn’t taken into account was how difficult the shower would be to install.

As there were no plumbing or electrics in place there was a fair amount of work that needed doing. We called the plumber first who had to install the pipes needed. He found that the pipes in the house were old steel pipes and these needed to be replaced with copper pipes. The plumbing and tiling took several days due to various other problems that occurred and with labour this cost just over £350. Next we had to get power to the new shower. My husband routed the cable through to the unit which involved removing tiles and parts of the ceiling and took several weekends. Then we finally called the electrician who came to connect the power and install the new consumer unit. This cost another £100 plus £80 of materials. All in all our bargain £75 shower ended up costing just over £800. I’m really going to enjoy that first shower.

One of the best things about our new house is the large garden which is full of wildlife. On the day we arrived we discovered a hole at the bottom of the garden and were curious as to what might be inside. A few days later I came across a large fox sunning itself on the lawn and it now appears that we have a whole family of foxes. I have also noticed several squirrels and there are signs of hedgehog activity although I haven't actually seen one yet. We also have a variety of different birds. The most abundant appears to be the big fat wood pigeons and doves which sit in the tall trees surrounding the garden. I have also seen blackbirds, song thrushes, robins, green finches, coal tits, blue tits, great tits, wrens, crows, magpies, starlings, gold finches, woodpeckers, sparrows and some type of small hawk. As a keen birdwatcher I can see I am going to like it here. Once I have found where I packed the camera I hope to have some pictures of the wildlife so expect these to be posted shortly.

Moving house can be quite stressful especially if you have pets. Having four cats this was one of the main concerns we had about the move. Not only did we have to get four cats into four boxes (a miracle at the best of times) we had to do it whilst they were stressed out because of the strange people in the house and we had an hours drive ahead of us to get to our new home. One thing that made the move easier was that we had decided to do it over the course of two days. On day one we locked our furry friends in one room in the old house. The removal men then moved everything out of the the other part of the house. Once they had left for the day we moved all the remaining furniture out of the “cats room” so that the following day the removal men could take the rest of our stuff and just leave us four cats in an empty house.

On day two the rest of the house was cleared very quickly and the removal lorry set off to the new house with all our belongings packed up. We then proceeded to catch the cats starting with Willow and Oscar, the most docile and leaving Lucy and Oliver (evil hissing balls of fur) until last. Surprisingly we managed the near impossible feat of getting all four cats into boxes within the hours and even more surprisingly we still had all of our fingers. We then packed the boxes complete with cats into the car and set off to the new house accompanied all the way by Oliver howling at the top of his voice. Just over an hour later we arrived at the new house, with Oliver still howling in protest. Once again we put aside a small “cat room” and put the cat boxes into the room. We set up a clean litter tray and some food and water, opened the doors of the cat boxes and put a sign on the door on the room reading “do not open cats”. With the cats taken care of we moved all of our things into the new home.

We then used the “cat room” as a base for the cats. Once the house was free of removal men we opened the door and gradually one by one the cats plucked up the courage to come out and explore. They were initially very nervous but curiosity quickly gets the better of even the most nervous cat. Now nearly a week later all of the cats have left the “cat room” and now spend most of their time sitting on the windowsill hunting the fat pigeons in the garden. The next step will be to let the cats outside to explore but we will leave it a few weeks before we introduce them to the outside.

Its been just over a week now since we moved into our new house and the place is just starting to feel like home. Whilst the inside of the house has all of our old things in it I must admit I am finding it hard to get used to being in a different location. Having been away from Sevenoaks for nearly ten years its strange to leave the house and not see the familiar surroundings of Egham. In many ways Sevenoaks is as I remember it but there are some changes and it frequently surprises me when I find a building has disappeared or its usage has changed. It will certainty take time to get used to the area again but it is nice to be just around the corner from my family and be able to just pop round for a cup of tea rather than facing a long drive on the motorway.

If you follow my Twitter updates then you will probably know we have recently moved house. Whilst the move went well and we and the four cats have arrived safely at our new house in Sevenoaks, getting back on broadband did not go so smoothly, hence why my blog has not had many updates recently. As I work from home Broadband is an essential service so we phoned BT before we moved to ensure it would be set up on our arrival. What we were not prepared for was the fact that the previous Broadband provider had left a marker on the line. As a result of this BT were unable to set up the Broadband as we had requested and instead cancelled the requested service leaving us without Broadband for a week. After many calls and a long wait we are finally back on Broadband and blogging once more.

We recently put our house on the market and received an offer after only two weeks. Since then we have been frantically viewing properties in various areas with limited success. We thought we had finally narrowed the search down to just two properties in Egham where we currently live. However, at the last minute a new property was thrown into the mix in a totally different area. Despite our reservations about changing areas as well as moving house, my husband fell in love with it. It now appears that not only are we moving but we are relocating to a completely new area, something that proves to be quite a big decision and is exciting but also quite frightening.

We ordered some new sofas about a month ago to replace our very old moth eaten ones and the new ones arrived yesterday. We brought our original sofas when we moved into our house about eight years ago and not being the most expensive or well made they had got to the point where the seats has dropped and springs were sticking out of the back. Coupled with the toll of four pairs of claws (the cats) it really was time to replace them. The new sofas were ordered from Furniture Village and made to order hence why they take up to a month to arrive. We were slightly concerned that they were going to make it in tact because our doorway is too narrow for sofas so unfortunately they need to go over the garden wall and through the patio doors at the back of the house. Whilst this manoeuvre is not hugely difficult, in the past we have encountered problems because health and safety rules do not allow delivery drivers to lift items over a certain height. Despite us informing Furniture Village on three occasions the drivers were not aware of the potential problems when they arrived. However, unlike last time when Argos left our sofas on the lawn they quickly agreed that the sofas needed to go over the wall and after about 20 minutes the new sofas were unwrapped and in the living room. As I am typing this I am sitting here enjoying that new sofa smell.

I took my car for its MOT yesterday and was pleasantly surprised when once again it sailed through with no problems. I have had the G registration Ford Fiesta for ten years now and at 20 years old I expect every year to be its last. I was slightly offended by the guy at the MOT testing station who said to me “I recognised your car from last year and realised it probably wasn’t as bad as it looks”  and I must admit the comment made me wonder if perhaps it might be time to buy a new car. Saying that having just paid for a years MOT, perhaps I should get my moneys worth first and look for a newer car this time next year.

We usually go out on Valentines Day but this year we decided we would stay in and cook at home. I received a gift of flowers and chocolates from my husband in the morning and then we went out to source ingredients. We ended up going for a menu of seared scallops with a tomato salsa, fillet steak with rocket salad and banoffe pie accompanied by a bottle of Bollinger. It was all cooked to perfection and was very tasty and when I consider that to purchase food of this quality in a restaurant would probably have cost double what it cost us to cook at home I think we did quite well. That's not to say we won't be going out for a meal but we will go next weekend when we won't be paying over inflated Valentines Day prices.

I recently got Rockband and Rockband 2 for Christmas with all the instruments and have been having a lot of fun playing over the past few weeks. One thing that I initially found a little odd was that not all the songs advertised on the back of case were actually included on the game. It took me a little bit of searching around on the internet to find out that to access all of the songs you first need to complete either the game or the challenges to unlock them, there is however, no mention of this in the manual that comes with the game.

I went through Rockband on a solo tour as a vocalist and unlocked all the songs this way. There is a cheat that allows you unlock all of the songs by entering a sequence on the start screen but this apparently does not allow you to save your progress so I decided to do it the hard way. I later discovered that for $5 you can purchase a license key that allows you to import all of the Rockband songs onto your hand drive, so if you are buying both games together and want to access all of the songs from within Rockband 2 then this is quite useful. Since then I have been busy working my way through Rockband 2 unlocking the songs on this disk and now have quite a collection to choose from. My only problem now, is that I want to play in a band and my husband is always too busy to join me, so my band which I named Bunny Foot only has the one member, still it means I get plenty of practice.

I woke up this morning to find there had been some snow in the night. Its not very much but its quite a rarity to see any snow in Egham so it was a surprise. The cats spent about 10 minutes outside digging holes in the snow and then pouncing on them before it got a little too cold for them and all came back aside to find a warm spot to spend the rest of the day. It seems cats don't like snow very much because it makes their paws wet.

Happy 2009 to all my readers. After a very busy few weeks with friends and relatives visiting we spent a very quiet New Years Eve at home with our cats. Although its nice to have company its also nice to have the house back to yourselves. An evening in with a bottle of champagne and watching the neighbours fireworks, was not the most exciting New Year Eve I have ever spent but much needed after all the excitement of the past few weeks. Back to work tomorrow.

After several days of eating too much food and drinking too much wine I am starting to feel the effects of too much Christmas cheer. Whilst in many ways it has been a good Christmas spent with family it will be nice to get back to eating normal, more healthy food and a regular exercise regime. Saying that, I still have a few days left of holiday which I will probably spend trying out some of my other computer games, after I have been running of course, that way I can justify sitting in front of the games console.

One of the presents I received this Christmas was Rockband for the Xbox. I have wanted this game for a while and it was a real surprise when my husband appeared with a huge box on Christmas morning. After putting together the instruments I had a go at the drums and Rory tried the guitar before switching over and trying the other instruments. Both instruments took a little bit of getting used with the singing being the easiest and least challenging part. After a little practice, however, this game gets really addictive. I haven't quite mastered the guitar but I am starting to get quite good at the drums. This is a game that appeals to all ages as well. Rory's parents spent Christmas with us and we formed a band with me doing the singing, Rory's mum and dad taking turns at manning the drums and Rory on lead guitar. Despite it being quite an expensive game I can see we are going to have hours of fun with this. Once we have exhausted the songs on the original disk I will be off to the music song to download more.

I would like to wish all my readers a happy Christmas. I have received lots of new toys today and will be reviewing these in the coming days so watch this space.

This article suggests that the average cost of a wedding has doubled over the past decade and now costs around £21,000. I wonder whether its just a case of people not shopping around when they are planning their wedding. When I got married two years ago I spend a total of £9880.81 on our wedding which I considered to be quite a lot of money. For that, however, I got a lovely ceremony in my local church in Egham followed by a stunning reception for 120 people at Royal Holloway University as well as an evening buffet for an extra 50 people.

My dress cost just under £600 including the veil and tiara and the bridesmaids dress was around half that. I definitely didn't cut corners but was aware that our total budget of £10,000 could not be exceeded. We had a little help with my parents paying for the photographer and we made all of our table decorations and favours to save a bit of cash. The only thing we couldn't afford was a honeymoon so we came up with the idea of asking our guests to contribute towards this and as a result had a nice relaxing break in the sun without having to worry about the cost. I found that the £10,000 budget went further than expected and our wedding day was certainly not lacking in any way in fact it was pretty much perfect, a little careful budgeting and research can go a long way in planning a wedding, and I don't think it needs to cost £21,000.

Recently the news has been full of details about the case of Baby P who died after sustaining shocking injuries inflicted upon him by his parents over a long period of time. In the case of this child, he was seen by social workers more than 60 times and also examined by a doctor just days before he died and no one picked up the extent of his injuries or felt that the child should be taken into care. A postmortem examination showed he had a broken back, eight fractured ribs, missing fingernails and toenails, multiple bruises and an injury to the inside of his mouth. He had also swallowed one of his own teeth. This is clearly a shocking case and one where social services have failed to protect a vulnerable child. I do think, however, that shocking as the case is that cases of extreme child abuse such as this are in the minority and that this should be taken into account.

The majority of parents would not consider causing harm to their child and are perfectly capable of raising happy well adjusted children. Whilst I can understand the strength of public feeling regarding this case, I do feel that the backlash from this case will mean that the majority of good parents will now be under more intense and often unnecessary scrutiny. These cases often lead to unnecessary measures such as the call to ban smacking which apparently "infringes children's rights to dignity". There have already been cases of parents being taken to court for simply smacking their children. Smacking, however, is not child abuse and should not be compared in the same light, after all children are children not adults, they do need discipline but within reason and only when necessary.

I can't help thinking that the many inquiries that follow this case will not help to protect the minority of children that are really at risk but will simply lead to more cases where parents have their children taken into care simply because the authorities have unsubstantiated suspicions. In my opinion the inquiries into the case of Baby P should concentrate upon the failings directly related to this case, such as why his injuries went unnoticed for so long and why social workers did not notice the physical signs of abuse. Perhaps the focus should be on better training for those who have to determine whether a child is at risk and not introducing new rules and regulations that could penalise the majority of good parents.

We seem to be spending an awful lot of out time at Homebase at the moment. Last weekend we went four times and so far this weekend we have managed three visits. Each time my husband promises he won't have to go back again and each time he forgets something. As the only driver in our household, I get the job of driving him there and sitting in the car park waiting for him. With any luck he now has everything he needs and can get on with the job of finishing the laminate flooring, but knowing Rory there is some essential piece of kit we will need to go back for.

It was my Dads birthday last night so we decided to book at a table at Villa Rosa in Egham. I have been a regular visitor to this restaurant for the past nine years and and am yet to have a bad experience. As always the food was cooked to perfection and the wine although a little on the expensive side was very good. At around £30 a head for a three course meal, including wine it also doesn't break the bank. As always the highlight of the evening has to be the dessert trolley. If you are planning on visiting Villa Rosa, I would recommend booking on a Friday and Saturday night because all the tables are usually taken, perhaps an indication of how good it is.

Its Halloween again and much as I dislike children I went out and brought a couple of bags of sweets. The doorbell has been ringing every five minutes for the last couple of hours and a succession of witches, vampires, skeletons and zombies have all gone away happy with some candy. The sweets have nearly run out now, so I guess its time to turn off all the lights and pretend I am not at home, after all I think I have made an effort.

We spent last weekend fitting laminate flooring in our dining room and today I am in pain. My whole body hurts so I guess I have used some muscles that don't usually get much use. I thought fitting laminate flooring was meant to be easy. All the instructions say that the pieces simply lock together. What the instructions don't tell you is that "lock together" actually means you have to hit them very hard with a mallet until they fit. The instructions also fail to mention the challenges that you face fitting the floor when the walls in your house are not straight. Sure the walls look straight but when it comes to lining up the first the few planks of flooring you suddenly realise that they are not. The job does get easier after you have put the first three rows of flooring down but it certainly took a lot longer than I expected. I now have another thing to add to my list of hated DIY jobs. Next time I might just buy a carpet.

On Friday I went to see Spyski at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. Whilst the play would not have been my first choice it was better than I expected. It started off as a production of The Importance of Being Earnest which as it turned out was a cover for the actual production of Spyski. The idea here is to create the feeling that the cast are actually telling you a true story but disguising it as another play so that the authorities do not detect it. The story recounts the events that the actors have experienced over the past week. The plot centres around the lead actor who stars in the cover production, he ends up in the same hospital as a Russian spy who has been poisoned and who eventually dies. Whilst in the hospital, however, the dying spy passes on his secret and the actor is suddenly thrown into a deadly plot. I won't divulge any more of the story, but will simply say that the acting was rather good, the storyline for me perhaps got a bit sketchy and lost at times but overall it was a funny and rather light hearted show.

Well I won the lottery last night but unfortunately it was only £10 so I guess it won't change me. It is my first win for some time though and I guess it will pay for 10 more lottery tickets. Hopefully one of those will be a bit more lucky.

With my husband working hard on important project at work I find myself spending more and time at home alone with my four cats. Generally I have quite a few TV shows that I like to watch but when there is nothing else on I like to treat the cats to a nature documentary. Whilst this might make me sound like a crazy cat lady I do quite like nature documentaries. Not as much as my cats, though. They especially like documentaries about birds and watch every moment intently with their ears flicking constantly. They also make hunting noises at the TV when they see certain types of birds, usually songbirds which I guess they are familiar with seeing in the garden. Rather confusing, however, is that my cat Oliver has recently started making hunting noises when he sees Alan Titchmarch of the TV, why I don't know, but for some reason my cat wants to hunt him.

I have mentioned screaming frogs on my blog before when my cats have caught them. For those who are unfamiliar with them, frogs tend to let out a high pitched scream when cornered by a curious cat. Today Oliver caught a frog and brought it back through the cat flap where he decided to deposit it in his food bowl. I'm guessing he was then about to eat his latest victim. What actually happened was I heard the now familiar high pitched scream of a cornered frog and found that I had a very large frog hopping around my dining room with four cats in pursuit. This frog was lucky I got to him whilst he was still alive and he is now safely back in the pond.

With all the stories in the news about identity theft I am very careful about sorting and shredding all my mail. I tend to shred anything that has my address on it and put everything else in the recycling bin. What I do find particularly irritating is junk mail from credit card companies. I get at least 1 credit card application every day and they will insist on filling in the name and address details on the application form. We still receive these application forms for previous occupants of our house even though we have lived here for 5 years. It seems to me the credit card companies are making it rather easy for people to submit fraudulent application forms. I wonder if there is a way to stop this rather annoying deluge of junk that regularly arrives through my letter box.

I hate spiders so have had a rather nervous couple of days. It appears that as the weather has got a bit colder all the spiders in the local area have decided to move into my house. Whilst that may be a slight exaggeration we have certainly found a lot of spiders this week. It started two days ago when I was sitting watching the TV. My husband (with none of the sense of urgency needed where spiders are involved) said "move your foot". Looking down I saw the most enormous spider about to crawl over my foot. Naturally this led to much screaming whilst my husband moved all the furniture trying to locate the spider which I guess must have been scared off by the noise. Later that night I got ready for bed and was fast asleep when I was awoken by my husband pottering around the bedroom for no apparent reason. Thinking nothing of it, I quickly fell asleep again. The next day my husband informed me that he had "found another one of those giant spiders on the wall above your head" and that "he didn't want to wake the neighbours" so had removed it discretely. Whilst he was probably right not to mention it at 1am ever since then I keep thinking there are spiders crawling on me. I'm probably just being paranoid as I have found no more giant spiders, only smaller ones which to me are just as bad. I just hate spiders.

I am being to think that I might suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) because the last few days I have felt very run down and depressed with little energy to do anything. The constant rain means that even with the lights on in the house it still seems dark and dingy. Its easy to take the sunlight for granted but when you don't see any for a couple of days its amazing the negative effect it can have on your mood. Its also been too wet to go running which puts me in a bad mood. Its days like this you just want to eat a big bar of chocolate, bring on the sunshine.

I had rather a lot of time on my hands last weekend as my husband was working all weekend. One of the things I have been putting off for a while is clearing out my cupboards and having nothing better to do I spent Saturday doing just that. I went through all of my clothes with a view to getting rid of everything that I haven't worn for a while. I ended up with four carrier bags of clothes some of which had simply worn out and had seen better days. What surprised me, however, was that I had a bag or brand new clothes, still with their tags on that had never been worn. All of the item were things I had purchased in sales and were impulse buys chosen because they were a bargain. With each item I had decided I didn't really like it when I got home, hence why they had sat in my cupboard for a couple of years. It made me realise that many of the sale bargains I purchase are actually false economy and that I need to think more carefully before buying an item just because it seems like a good deal.

I still don't know what bit me last weekend but the good news is that the rash has nearly gone and so has most of the swelling. Whilst this bite was different to the usual mosquito bites that I suffer from on a regular basis, it still seems to respond to the same treatment. Generally I find the best thing to is to open up the bite wound every evening and squeeze out as much of the pus as possible. Whilst this does really hurt, in my experience getting rid of the poison helps the bite to heal more quickly. It also seems to reduce the infection making the bite feel less hot and reducing the itching sensation. In combination with this I also find that using tea tree oil or a bite cream that includes tea tree overnight  tends to work quite well. Saying that the best thing to do is try to prevent getting bitten in the first place. Whilst I never know when the critters are going to get me at home, when going abroad I take a course of garlic tablets. These are available from most health food shops and I find taking them for a couple of weeks before you go abroad and whilst you are away does cut the amount of bites I receive, although some of the more determined insects will still get you.

I have a very swollen foot where something has bitten me. It started at the weekend when I noticed a small black beetle type creature on my ankle. At the time, I just brushed it off and thought little more of it. Now, however my whole foot is swollen and is covered by a very itchy and painful rash which surrounds a single puncture wound on my ankle. I'm not entirely sure what the creature was that bit me, but this is a different type of insect to the normal ones I have. It seems to be more painful and it is taking longer for the swelling to go down. Do you think you know what it was that bit me, if so let me know here?

This article suggests that clumsy children are more likely to become obese as adults because they exercise less. It is based on a study that found children with poor hand control and co-ordination are more likely to be obese later on in life. I'm not entirely sure the link is down to the children being clumsy, its more likely to be down to lack of exercise as children. I was a very clumsy child and have always managed to break pretty much everything I touch, I still amaze myself how quickly we seem to get through glasses in my house, I never have a set for more than a few weeks before an accident occurs. Whilst naturally clumsy, however, I have not grown up obese, although I was quite an active child.

My ankle has eventually healed after a frustrating week of not being able to do any exercise and I am now back to running every day. It is getting easier and I am now looking forward to my daily run, the only problem appears to be fitting it in around the dreadful weather. I also came across some further motivation in the form of this article which suggests running can help halt the ageing process. The article talks predominantly about older people and the fact that elderly joggers are less likely to die prematurely. I'm guessing the same principle applies to younger people who run on a regular basis, so hopefully I will not only get fit but live a bit longer as well, either way the exercise has to be good for me.

I have been taking a forced break from my new exercise regime over the last few days due to trying to do too much and ending up with a swollen ankle. I am actually finding I am missing my morning run, and am getting a little impatient with the slow healing process of my ankle. For those who don't have the time to exercise there could soon be a new solution in the form of a pill. The pill fools the muscles into thinking they have worked out which means they burn fat and increase fitness. In effect it should give you all the benefits of exercise without leaving the sofa. The bad news is it is not going to be available for several years. Back to running then as soon as my ankle is better.

As most of work involves using my computer I spend a lot of time sitting on my bottom. I decided that its about time I spend a bit more time getting fit. It is, however, really hard to find the time and by the evening I am usually just too tired to make it to the gym. That's why I have taken the rather painful decision to start running in the mornings. My new exercise regime involves getting up at 6am in the morning and going for a 30 minute run. Having never run before in my life this is proving no easy feat. The first day of running was two weeks ago and I honestly thought I was going to die. That day I spent more time walking, than running. Since then I have been running 6 days a week with a day off in the middle of the week to allow my muscles to recover. Every day I seem to be able to go a little further and I can now manage all of the 30 minute circuit followed by a short walk. I am already starting to feel fitter and slimmer so although it hurts I will continue to run. Perhaps after a few more weeks I might start enjoying it.

Insects really like to bite me and every time they do I seem to suffers quite bad reactions. I don't know when they got to me this time but today I have at least three insect bites on my thigh. The combination of the three bites has meant that my entire upper leg has swollen to about twice its normal size, and it really is painful and itchy but also numb in places. In fact I think this might be my worst insect bite so far, it looks so hideous that I'm not going to post a picture this time but if you check out the last time I got bitten and imagine this but much redder and four times as big, then you are nearly there. Needless to say I am in a really bad mood today.

I had a very unproductive weekend last week because I have been revisiting some of my old computer games that I have never got around to completing. The main reason for doing this is because I am feeling a little poor at the moment so rather than spending money on new movies or box office films I thought I would make use of what I have already. That said, my husband is obviously not feeling poor because another box arrived today with a Playstation 3 inside. I'm not sure where he managed to find it because its one of the 60GB versions which will also play Playstation 2 games (yes I have already tried it, even though I am meant to be working). I expect there will soon be more details on Rory's blog shortly as well as a more technical view of my new laptop. I see another unproductive weekend ahead.

It was our wedding anniversary a few days ago and I was surprised to receive a parcel from my husband. I was even more surprised to find that it contained a new laptop from Dell. Its a Dell Inspiron and it makes my old laptop look very inferior. I am currently busy installing everything, so am still mainly working on my old machine for now. So far I am very pleased with the new one, its certainly a lot faster and it has the advantage that it doesn't constantly overheat and of course its nice and new and shiny.

We found a recipe for strawberry souffle and thought we would give it a go. Unfortunately we must have done something wrong because although the end result tasted quite good, our souffles failed to rise. Below is the recipe we used.

Ingredients
Souffle aux Fraises
Strawberry souffle
to serve 6
450g of strawberries
350g if frozen
3 eggs size 2 separated
1 extra egg white
200g of caster sugar
25g of cornflour
50g of double cream
1 dessertspoon strawberry liqueur or kirsch
juice of 1/4 of a lemon
18cm / 7 1/4 in diameter souffle dish
Strawberry Souffle

Heat the oven to 190c or 375f gas 5 hull the strawberries and blend to a puree.
If frozen thaw and drain first. Butter the souffle dish, beat the yolks and sugar together until white and frothy.
Add the cornflour, cream, liqueur and a few drops of lemon juice and beat until smooth.
Add the strawberry puree and mix well.
Beat the egg whites to a stiff peak and fold into the strawberry and egg yolk mixture very carefully.
Pour into the souffle dish about three quarters full.
Bake in the oven for 30 mins serve straight away.
You now have a strawberry souffle

The mixture before it went into the oven.

I and Rory checking the progress of the souffle.

The finished dessert, tasty but disappointingly flat.

We will try this again in a few weeks, perhaps with a different recipe. Watch this space for attempt number 2.

I am slightly happier today after my bad day yesterday. My laptop is alive once more, for how long I'm not sure, but for now it works. I might still look into purchasing a new one soon, as the problems appear to be caused by it simply overheating.

I have had a really bad day. It started when I turned my laptop on this morning, only to get a blue screen of death moments later. The laptop appears to have died completely and I'm not sure whether it will live another day, it depends on whether my husband can do anything to fix it. In the meantime I have been using a really old really slow computer. It doesn't have most of the software on it that I need to complete my day to day work and I am also unable to access most of my email. It has been a very frustrating day. My only consolation is that I don't store any work locally so whilst I am inconvenienced I have not lost any data. If my laptop is dead though, I might have several more frustrating days ahead whilst I wait for a new one to be delivered. Watch this space, will the laptop live again? Who knows?

An extended end terrace property situated within a cul de sac and located within half a mile of Egham high street amenities and mainline train station. Accommodation comprises entrance hallway, lounge, kitchen, dining room, shower room, double bedroom, first floor bathroom, mezzanine study area, own private rear garden and off street parking.

I am still enjoying playing with my new camera so I will probably be posting lots of pictures in the next few weeks. I took this picture of Oscar using the close up setting and was quite impressed that you can see the wet part of his nose in the picture. The second picture was taken last night when we went out for my 30th birthday. I had a great evening and had 16 of my friends join me for dinner which was great. Thank you to everyone who made the effort to come out and also to all the people that have sent me messages on facebook, sms, email etc. If you are my friend on Facebook you can see more of the pictures there.

Its my birthday today and I have just opened my present from husband. I have wanted a new camera for a while now and am now the owner of a Nikon D40. So far I have just about figured out how to charge the battery and attach the strap. As the rest of the buttons are rather similar to my old SLR camera, I'm sure I will taking lots of pictures soon so watch this space.

We are now back in the UK after a week in St Lucia. I spent most of yesterday recovering from jet lag, hence no blog posts, but am feeling a bit more awake today. Further to my post about our open top jeep ride around St Lucia, I have now been able to get to the pictures. I found that the jeep ride was a particularly good way to see the island, mainly because there are only 8 people to each jeep, so if you have any questions you can ask the guide at any time. You can also ask to pull over at any time, if there is anything you want to explore further.

The tour started by driving through some of the more built up areas of island including the capital Castries. Pictured left is one of the islands many Catholic churches.

Pictured right is the tour guide Chris and our friend Dave who also came on the trip with us.

Here you can see one of the many places along the road where the local farmers offer some of their fruit for you to taste.

Pictured right is just one of the many banana plantations that we drove past.

Pictured left you can see me at the front of the jeep and next to that some pineapples growing in one of the plantations.

Here you can see the landscape as it starts to change as we reach the range forest. At this point the air becomes much cooler and the tracks through the forest are at times no more than dirt tracks.

To the left you can see a view of The Pitons, St Lucia's most famous landmark  that stands over 2,000 feet tall. To the right is a picture of Rory enjoying a dip under a waterfall which is meant to have healing properties.

On the left is a picture of the Sulphur Springs at the dormant volcano and on the right myself, Rory and Dave at the springs.

This shows our visit to a cocoa plantation. The picture to the far left shows the cocoa beans drying in the sun and the other picture shows a lady pealing the roasted beans before they are made into cocoa sticks. According to the guide over 90% of the cocoa from this plantation ends up in the US.

In the afternoon we made our way  back by boat. Here you can see me enjoying the boat trip and Rory swimming in the sea.

We had a busy day yesterday as we went on an open top jeep ride through the rain forest. We set off just after 8 in the morning. Seeing St Lucia by jeep is definitely the way to do it and although it gets a little hairy on some of the steep tracks in the forest, you see a lot more than if you were confined to the coach. You also have the advantage of being able to stand up and take photos whenever you want. We also stopped at a cocoa plantation where we were able to see how they make chocolate, one of my favourite things. Needless to say there are lots of photos but these will follow when I get back to the UK tomorrow.

We arrived in St Lucia yesterday evening for a five day stay during which we are attending a friends wedding on Tuesday. I must say I was dreading the eight hour flight but it was better than I expected, perhaps because I managed to watch three movies on the way. We did, however, arrive very tired and so last night we just stopped for a bite to eat before heading off for an early night.

So far I am impressed with the hotel. We are staying at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort in Rodney Bay. On arrival we were greeted with a glass bucks fizz and the staff couldn't be any more helpful. Obviously I have the promised internet access, which is essential for keeping track of my various businesses whilst we are away. I will also post some pictures of the room shortly. We ate in the resorts Hi-Tide Restaurant last night and once again my first impressions were good. Rory had red snapper and I had a baby rack of lamb that came with a sweet potato mash. We are just about to head out for breakfast now, so more on this later, hopefully with some pictures of the island.

This is Ollie, fast asleep.

I woke up this morning to find that it had snowed during the night. Although there is not a great a deal of snow it was still enough to create some entertainment for the cats, well for Willow anyway. Oscar and Oliver pictured to the left went out to investigate before coming straight back inside and sitting on their bean bags refusing to leave the house again. Lucy pictured on the right simply sat under the bench looking miserable before also retreating inside.

It was my Dads birthday a few days ago and as I wasn’t able to see him on the day I sent him a gift. I used this website called realbeerbox.com. They carry a range of beers and real ales from some of the smaller, lesser known breweries. My Dad is always keen to try new ales so I ordered a case of mixed bottles. It’s the second time I have used them and I have been impressed both times. They delivered when they said they would and according to my Dad the bottles were wrapped securely in a large box. He seemed very impressed. I will definitely be using them again.

Lucy is always finding new places to hide and we can often lose her for an entire day before discovering her latest hidey hole. She managed to find a small space under the stairs the other day and when we located her, Rory took this picture.

Rory has been busy with work this week, so has been working from home most evenings. This means his cat Willow has not been getting as much attention as usual. Generally when this happens she drives us mad by running around the house howling at the top of her voice. As you can see Rory has come up a solution to keep Willow happy. A well placed cushion and she settles down for the evening, whilst Rory can still get his work done.

I went to the hairdresser today to get my yearly hair cut. My hair is very thick so it had got to the stage where it felt like I was wearing a carpet, and the weight of it was causing me to have headaches. Now I have considerably less hair. I must try and go at least twice a year in future.

With all the bad weather yesterday it was hard to do anything much outside. I was lucky that I didn’t have to use public transport otherwise I would have been stuck. I did, however, have to take some urgent parcels to the post office which is ten minutes away from my house. The trip there and back was interesting in that all the roads and footpaths around here were flooded with water. Not only did I get rained on, I also had to avoid the splashes from passing cars. I got back rather wet, my waterproof jacket had protected the top part of my body but as you can see from the pictures my trousers were a little wet.

I like to cook and often experiment with new recipes with varying degrees of success. Sometimes, however, it’s the easiest things to cook that end up in disaster, mainly because you are generally doing other things whilst cooking them. I found some sausage rolls in the freezer this weekend and decided to cook them as a snack to use them up. Unfortunately in my rush I turned the oven setting to grill by mistake. After about fifteen minutes there was a strange burning smell and the kitchen was full of black smoke. This is the result (below) with me looking very red faced, needless to say they went straight in the bin.

There have been many times when my husband has been nursing a bitten hand, disinfecting a scratched arm or cleaning up cat sick, that he has uttered the phrase, either the cats goes or I do, I know he doesn't mean it, but found this amusing.

Rory still has tooth ache, so is still on a diet of soup. I made a surprisingly good batch of carrot and orange soup. Basically you just boil some carrots and onions with some chicken stock, until they are soft. Then put in the blender with some freshly squeezed orange juice and blend it until it’s smooth. Lastly just reheat it. 

It’s our first wedding anniversary today and we had planned to go out for a meal tonight to celebrate. Unfortunately my husband has tooth ache and can only eat soup so it looks like we will have to postpone it to another day. He did, however, surprise me this morning with an iPod nano, which being my first iPod, I am having a great deal of fun playing with.

We had to break into our house yesterday after Rory lost his key. This involved us having to force open a small window so we could open a larger window from the outside. Rory then crawled through the larger window to open the door from the inside. It amazed me that someone of Rory's size could fit through the window but he managed it. Rory later found the key in his pocket so it was all for nothing in the end.

It did however, make me think about security. You naturally think your house is very secure but when you can break into your own house within 20 minutes it makes you wonder how long it would take a burglar to do it. It’s certainly the last time I leave the house unattended with even the smallest window open. Next time we lock ourselves out, we will have to call a lock smith as there will be no open windows to crawl through.

I read this interesting article on the Daily Mail website. Researchers at Warwick University carried out tests on 200,000 people to see how good they were at locating objects and came to the conclusion that women are better at finding things. I’m not sure whether it’s true or not but my husband certainly has a habit of losing his keys or his wallet because he tends to leave them in random places around the house. I always keep mine in the same place so I know where to find them, perhaps that’s the difference.

This was my first trip to Ireland and although most of our time was spent at a friends wedding, I left with the intention of going back again for a longer stay. It definitely wasn’t the weather that made my stay enjoyable, it basically rained on and off all weekend. I did however find it refreshing to be surrounded by beautiful countryside instead of feeling rather crammed in as we tend to be back in London. One thing that immediately struck me was that every person we came across whilst in Ireland greeted you with a cheery good morning or a friendly wave. Back in London, things are slightly different, if you even so much as glance at another person on the bus or train, you are met with a blank, unfriendly look.

During this visit we hired a self catering cottage from Dream Ireland. The cottage is located in the grounds of the Mount Wolseley Hilton Hotel. It included a double room with en-suite bathroom, two rooms with twin beds and a third room with a single bed. It also had another bathroom and toilet as well as kitchen and large living/dining area. In fact it was much bigger than our house and cost 420 Euros, that’s about £287. I was very impressed with the accommodation offered for the price and you also had the option to use the hotels pool, spa and gym. The cottage also had the advantage of being located within an easy five minutes from the main hotel which has several restaurants serving food for most of the day and several bars which were open until very late.

The atmosphere in the hotels bar was a welcome change from a smoky pub; smoking having already been banned in public places in Ireland. On the night we arrived, at nearly midnight, we were surprised to find the hotel’s main bar still open and the locals enjoying a good singsong well into the early hours of the morning. In fact they were still singing when we left at three in the morning. In all it was an enjoyable few days and I will definitely be going back.

Views of the living area in the cottage.

I didn’t get chance to post this before I went to Ireland, but here it is now. Rory made me a birthday cake (pictured the cake that is, not Rory) and was also kind enough to only put one candle in it.

I just got back from my trip to Ireland during which we stayed in a shared cottage. It's always so nice to be home. All the cats were pleased to see us and Rory's father was kind enough to trim our hedge, whilst he looked after the house for us. I really missed home, but most of all I missed my nice new TV.

I and my husband are heading off to Ireland this weekend for a friends wedding. It always occurs to me when going away how much easier it is for men to pack. They simply pack a pair of jeans and a pair of trousers and a couple of tops. My packing dilemma goes something like this. We are going away for 4 days. The first day we are at the wedding, so I have my dress and shoes, but what if it is cold, I might need a jacket. The next day I will need something casual to wear during the day, so I pack jeans and trainers, but wait I am going out in the evening, will I need something smart? So I pack a skirt and top, but what if it’s too cold for a skirt… I pack trousers. The thing is trousers require different shoes to a skirt so I pack my smart boots as well as my strappy shoes. Ok, the bag is starting to get heavier at this point and thats before I think about day three. Men have it easy. 

I found this odd looking spider in my house today. It was crawling on the ceiling and was a reddish brown colour. When I crept forward for a closer look it jumped off the wall as if to attack me. Now I'm not great with spiders, even the regular kind, so after I had finished screaming, I did what I usually do. I got a glass and placed it over the spider and waited for my husband to come home. When he arrived he slid some paper under the glass and we examined the spider more closely. Looking at it, and comparing it with many spiders on the internet we finally came to the conclusion it was a hobo spider and not native to this country. I'm not sure where it came from but strongly suspect it might have crawled out of the bananas in the kitchen.

This picture is of a female hobo spider, not the actual spider we found because Rory squashed that one.

Another year, another birthday and its getting to the point where I am not going to say how old I am today. I received a nice new TV from my husband and although it did actually arrive a few days ago, it was still a nice surprise.

Further to my post about Lucy's attack on Rorys hand, Rory had been been feeling hot and generally unwell for most of the weekend following the attack. When he went to the doctors he was told his hand was infected and given a huge dose of pills (pictured below) with the instructions to take one three times a day for a week.

Lucy is not a very popular cat.

Lucy the evil cat.

Cats can be very unpredictable creatures. You just think you are getting along and they turn round and attack you for no reason. Lucy did just that today leaving Rory with two nasty bites and several scratches, making it the worst attack yet from one of our cats. The only previous attack that involved biting was when Ollie bit Rory’s hand several years ago. That particular attack did not really come as a surprise, as we had only just got Ollie from the cat home and he was slightly feral. With Lucy, however, what caused her to attack is a mystery. One thing is for sure, if this becomes a habit it will take a lot to convince Rory not to send her to the cat home.

Rorys hand after the attack.

Lucy (left) and Willow.

A survey looking at the working patterns of women in men across 25 countries has found that women do work longer hours than men. Although it only amounts to an extra ten minutes a day it appears that women do an average of 250 minutes of unpaid labour, just working in the home. Men on the other hand do an average of 130 minutes of unpaid work although they tend to spend longer at the office than women. In all the survey concluded that the workload is evenly split between the sexes although it still appears to be split between traditional roles.

Further to Rory’s article about naval defence cuts I came across this article on The Daily Referendum that Portsmouth Naval Base is under threat of closure. To help keep it open you can sign this petition.

It was Rory’s birthday this weekend so Tamsyn, Brad and Jim came over for a Braai (BBQ). We spent much of the evening playing on the Wii console on Wii Sports having tennis and boxing tournaments. Although I proved to be fairly rubbish at the Wii Tennis I managed to emerge as the ultimate champion of the boxing knockout.

Brad and Jim playing Wii boxing.

From the left: Rory, Tamsyn, Me, Brad and Jim tired out after the Wii Sports tournament.

When my parents came to visit this weekend Rory set up the Wii to show them how it works. I don’t think my Dad has every played a computer game but before long he was trying out the tennis game and hitting the ball like a pro. After several games of tennis Dad proceeded through the other games, trying out the bowling, golf, boxing and finally the baseball which was his favourite. Within a short space of time he had learnt how to play all the games and it was difficult to tear him away even when we suggested going to the pub. It occurred to me the real appeal of the  wii is that people such as my Dad who may have never played computer games before can pick up the remote with no knowledge of how it works and within a few minutes can be happily engaged in playing a game. With most other games consoles this is not really possible.

We went shopping today trying to find me an outfit for a wedding we have coming up in May. Whilst I appreciate my husband accompanying me on these shopping trips, it usually involves me trying on anything from ten to twenty different outfits and then coming home with nothing. As frustrating as this can be for me, it is far more frustrating for my husband who spends most of his time waiting outside nearly every changing room in the shopping centre. Noticing the gathering of other boyfriends and husbands doing exactly the same thing (you can spot them by the defeated look in their eyes, the many bags they are carrying and the look of immense boredom) I realised there is a huge untapped resource here. If only shopping centres would realise this, they could fill the area around the women’s changing rooms with a variety of cool gadgets guaranteed to interest bored men. I’m sure if shops started doing this their sales would increase dramatically and perhaps my husband would look forward to going shopping with me.

Well I always knew it would happen. My husband is obviously so successful they finally named a town after him. The first step towards world domination.