Monday 29th March: Wet and very wild

This pretty much sums up the generally shit day I had today ...

Sunday 28th March: ... Goodbye old car

As I write this, I still have a lump in my throat. Today I had to wave goodbye to my old car, which I've had for five years.

I'm aware that most people will think I'm being ridiculous, but as I watched it being driven away, tears sprung into my eyes.

It holds lots of memories, good and bad, and has been one of the few constants in my life during that time.

What made the moment even more emotional, is that I learned that the old man buying the car from me (pictured), lost his wife suddenly last Monday, and they haven't even had the funeral yet.

He is unable to cope with his existing car as it's so big, but moreover, he drove his wife in it for the last time when he took her to hospital shortly before he died and it's just too much for him.

Apparently he was so happy this morning when he was collected to come down here and pick it up, and before he left, he brought his hands up and said about the car: 'It's all I have now.'

Now if that doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you're a lot stronger than I am.

Saturday 27th March: Hello new car ...

Picked up my new car today, and I love it! Amazingly, I also sold my white Fiesta, which is being taken away tomorrow ... it's going to be a sad day :-(

Friday 26th March: Happy birthday to my brother

Happy birthday to my brother, Paul, who is my inspiration. Here he is with his latest project, a steam lorry that he has built from scratch; almost every single part on here has engineered but him, except the boiler.

I'm forever in awe of what he does, as I've already mentioned in another blog post, not only because of his immense skill, but his attitude too. He puts me to shame.

Happy birthday Paul, you're a pretty cool brother.

Thursday 25th March: Room with a view

View from Altitude 360 on Millbank as we attended the BigMouthMedia Retail Summit. Great to have such a view, but it wasn't that distracting as the talks were really good, apart from the last one ... yawn!

Wednesday 24th March: Sigh ... if only

Found a very nice house for sale which would be perfect for this supposed hot summer we're about to have.

You can but dream ...

Tuesday 23rd March: Pitter patter

How depressing is this picture?!

Monday 22nd March: Ahh, back to the commute

After a great weekend feeling the wind through my hair (quite literally thanks to the Mazda!), it was a different sort of wind through my hair courtesy of the open window on the tube this morning.

Not a great look when you already have mad hair; there was definitely a case of Bridget Jones post-drive sports car hair, without the joy of an open-top car, just a miserable tube.

Sunday 21st March: Buy!

I pick her up on Saturday!! Eeeeek!

Saturday 20th March: To buy or not to buy?

Do I or don't I??!!

Friday 19th March: The Elephant Cafe

Hard to see, but this is the band we were listening to while having dinner with friends (Sarah, Sim and Pippa) at the Elephant Cafe in Sheffield Park.

Crap photo; great singing.

Martin should have been there too, but he caught a stomach bug and was sick all over our toilet. Cheers Martin.

Thursday 18th March: Pregnant Zoe

This blog post today is for my good, and very old friend, Zoe, who I yesterday found out is three months pregnant!

Congratulations matey, can't wait to meet the little thing when it pops out!

Wednesday 17th March: 500,000 miles on the clock

Bit of a bad photo, but I was getting a lift home in a taxi when the driver said: 'The taxi in front has just done 500,000 miles; the guy wanted to get to half a million miles before letting it go.'

I thought 100,000 miles was a lot! Looks like my Fiesta, with 47,000 miles on the clock, has some miles in it yet!

Tuesday 16th March: Angry birds

I'm addicted to the iPhone app Angry Birds! It requires almost no thinking (a bit of strategy, but that's it), and highly entertaining.

Monday 15th March: Chips and a good man

So, I debated whether to go training this evening as I didn't feel great, but my conscious got the better of me and I went. Twenty minutes in to a hypoxic set (holding breath for a stupid amount of time while swimming hard) and my head was pounding!

Annoyed, I got out and sat down, but 15 minutes later I knew I couldn't get back in, and at this stage was so hacked off that I could have been at home doing something productive instead of wasting my time at the pool.

Bottom lip out and in a huge sulk, Mark, as always, came to the rescue with a kebab, and went to the chippie to get me some chips while I waited for the kebab to be cooked.

Feeling very spoilt, and greasy, the bottom lip eased its way back and a smile returned to my face.

Sometimes you just need a good man in your life. And chips.

Sunday 14th March: F1 is back!

Forget 1st January, the start of the Formula 1 season is the real start of the year.

Must admit, the race was duller than I expected given the new no refueling rule. Thought there would be more on-track action.

It's still early days though and there are still a lot more improvements to be made to all the cars.

My bet for the top 3 places in the championship after the first race is Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton. I'm not that fussed either way, but I do hope it gets a little more interesting!

Come on Schuey, start taking 'em out ...

Saturday 13th March: Dinner with friends

Had a great evening with four friends, a six-course dinner and a pair of "Sausage man" pants. What else could you possibly need on a Saturday night?!

Friday 12th March: apostrophe

This picture/logo is of a cafe in St Christopher's Place. There are some things that can't be written on a public blog and this is one of them. Suffice to say it's here to remind me of a meeting of an interesting kind.

Thursday 11th March: Not so Vogue

After recently watching The September Issue, I've wanted to buy an edition of American Vogue to see just how good it is, given Anna Wintour's supposed credentials.

Just over 100 pages in (including six pages for the cover) I reached the first 'editorial', if you can actually call a 'Contents' page; rather it was the first non-advert page I had come across.

Another 25 pages, including an 8-page pullout-style advert, I was greeted with the next 'Contents' page. I was slightly less annoyed as there was a picture of Robert Pattinson staring out at me, and he gave me incentive to continue.

But 40 pages later and yet another 'Contents' page, I was losing the will. By this stage, I was about a third of the way through the magazine and hadn't read a thing!

Ten pages later, and the FOURTH 'Contents' page is upon me, and at this stage I look at the cover of the magazine again thinking I must have picked up an edition of 'This isn't a magazine, just a selection of model pictures', March 2010 edition.

Sixteen pages later (with an ad for The September Issue thrown in), and I'm now on page 198, reading the first bit of editorial, which just happens to be the 'Letter from the editor'.

I don't know what I was expecting, maybe an apology from Anna Wintour for editing a magazine that was nothing of the sort - no wonder she's still got a job there, she only edits about six pages. You can't even read the full editor,why bother putting it on one page when you can split it in two and get eight more pages of adverts between the first and second half?

Thereafter, I folded down the pages of the strictly editorial content (ie, not the letters, not the comments from the readers, not the contributors). The first proper piece of editorial came from Sophie Dahl, on page 266 - that is just over HALFWAY through the 528 page magazine.

After seeing so many adverts, I didn't have the capacity to read. Moreover, I didn't have enough saliva in my mouth to help me turn another page.

In total, I had 22 corners turned down representing editorial on a 528 page magazine, all for a fiver. I could have gone to Sainsburys and bought a book full of words for that.

At least I'm no longer intrigued by the enigma that is Anna Wintour, what bemuses me more is the American pubic, because they're the ones who are clearly accepting such a rip off from the magazine they buy.

To quote Wintour herself: "Just because you like to put on a beautiful XXXX coat, or a pair of XXXX jeans, it doesn't mean you're a dumb person."

No, what makes them dumb is if they put on the coat and pair of jeans and they're carrying a copy of Amercian Vogue.

Wednesday 10th March: The Daily Note

As if we haven't got enough freeby tat in London, we now have The Daily Note, or, in the case of this fella here who was trying to get rid of them today ..."D'ly note, d'ly note, d'ly note, d'ly note ..."

NO THANK YOU! I swear he would have tried to put one in my bag if I'd turned my back on him.

Tuesday 9th March: Depressing wardrobe

I must have THE most unappealing wardrobe in the world! I open it up and all I see, apart from a flirty flash of colour, is dull dull dull grey, blue, black and white.

I've promised myself that the next time I go shopping, I will not buy any of the above colours, and will only purchase something bright. No, I don't intend to turn up to work one day wearing a rainbow, but I do need to bring some colour to my life, even if it's just some extra blusher on my cheeks in the morning.

Come the end of summer, I don't want to open my wardrobe and see this sight. Give me until the end of September and I'll post another picture of my wardrobe. Please gawd don't let it look anything like this ...

Monday 8th March: Reasons to like this picture

There are several reasons why I like this somewhat dull picture:

1) It's a picture of light;
2) It's a picture of light, therefore I can take the shortcut through the park instead of walking the long way round;
3) It's a picture of light because I left the office nearly on time so I got home to take said picture before dark;
4) The light reflecting on the trees was beautiful, it reminded me of the summer evenings that aren't too far off;
5) There's light at the end of the tunnel if I'm managing to leave work at a sensible hour;
6) It's just light bloody fantastic, ok?

Sunday 7th March: Snowdrop heaven

If there is such a thing a Snowdrop Heaven, then I've come the closest I ever will to seeing it.

Today we popped to Kingston Lacy, a National Trust house with the most staggering collection of snowdrops. It was the last day to view them and, as I also needed my dad to change the battery on my car (yes I know, a bit random), we thought we'd meet Mum and Dad halfway and take in some of the little white flowers at the same time.

The winter blue sky and the crispy freshness made the carpet of white even more special. What a perfect few hours. You can see more pics here, if you wish.

Saturday 6th March: Mouth-watering

Couldn't resist taking a photo of these in WH Smiths this afternoon, one look at them and my mouth completely over-salivated!

Friday 5th March: Uggly man

Men in Uggs ... just no! Even the guy on the left of this picture looks doubtful!

Thursday 4th March: Back to Sudokus

I used to do several Sudoku puzzles a day, and then there always seemed too much work to do on the train so I never even reached these pages in the morning and evening papers.

But tonight, this one caught my eye, and I've recaptured the number bug! I'm not a numbers and sums person, preferring the far more interesting and subjective world of words, but if this will help keep dementia at bay, then a few numbers a day will hopefully keep the doctor away.

Wednesday 3rd March: A day out of the office

Every time Debenhams has a 'megaday' (to the outside world this is usually a sale with up to 25% across the whole store), head office staff have to work in store for a day to help out.

Working online, we tend to head to Southampton to our beauty and fragrance distribution centre and spend the day packing beauty products into bags and boxes.

And this this was my day today, and I quite enjoyed it!

Whether it was because I was away from the mad world that is my day job, or different scenery, I found the whole act of packing bag after bag after box so therapeutic. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if I had to go back again tomorrow I would hate it, but for one day every few months, I actually find myself looking forward to it.

The mundane should be celebrated sometimes, if only to give you a wake up call and an appreciation that you don't have to do that job every day.

Tuesday 2nd March: Regal Regent Street

Sometimes, no make that usually, when walking through London, everything just seems to pass you by. I often scold myself for not keeping my eyes open and treating each day like I'm a child seeing things for the first time.

But walking down Regent Street tonight, taking a different route, I had my kid's eyes well and truly open and it was like I took in the grandeur of the street for the first time. It gave me a real buzz and I felt like a tourist. I wanted to head to the Ritz, but hopped on a bus instead and I switched off yet again ...

Back to boring reality.

Monday 1st March: My sweet tooth

Caught up with old swimming friend Diane in Pizza Express and you can guarantee we always have a dessert. Rather than cheesecake or banoffee pie though, I went for this fudge-ice-cream-strawberry-wafer sugar fest.

Still got the sugar high now ... wouldn't be so bad, but I also have a savoury tooth and an alcohol tooth too aka A PIG!

Sunday 28th February: Those kodak moments