Girl Racer

Still under house arrest today (my heinous crime being the inability to nurse my husband back to health), I happened upon an old episode of Top Gear on some random Sky channel.

I am by no means a petrol-head, far from it in fact. I know less than your average person about car makes, models or engines.

I do, however, have a penchant for driving fast - I know it's not big or clever but I just can't help it. I exhibit a hard accelerating, hard braking, take no prisoners style of driving, with a liberal dose of horn-honking thrown in for good measure (apart from when my Mom's in the passenger seat, as she's a sensitive type with a moral objection to driving over 35mph).

This information may lead you to imagine that I have a spangly car with a big engine, but alas my 1.0 litre VW Polo does not live up to expectations. Much as I love that little car, it doesn't really cut the mustard in the fast lane of the M1 when the bullies come cruising along at 120mph.

The point is that when I see Jeremy Clarkson and co. racing those cars around the track I feel my heartbeat quicken and the adrenaline starts to pump around my body. I WANT A GO!

It's not worth getting another car while we live in London. We share the Polo at the moment, and it mainly sits around, parked two or three streets away from the house, gathering scratches and prangs from passing idiots, and getting broken into once every few months just to ease the monotony.

Once we move away from the Big Smoke though I've now got my eye on a cheeky little MX5 - a sporty little two seater, not too expensive, and with a boot just big enough to keep my handbag in. What more could a girl ask for?

Education, Education, Education

Today has been a complete non-starter due to extended Florence Nightingale duties.

Still, it's not all bad - at least my English GCSE efforts have finally paid off.


You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

Congratulations! If your mission in life
is not already to preserve the English tongue,
it should be. You can smell a grammatical
inaccuracy from fifty yards. Your speech is
revered by the underlings, though some may
blaspheme and call you a snob. They're just
jealous. Go out there and change the world.

How grammatically correct are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

An Addiction Is For Life

God that felt good. I just bought a pack of cigarettes for the first time in five and a half years.

Don't get me wrong - it's not the first fag I've smoked during that time. I belong to a particularly annoying and, dare I say it, hypocritical brand of ex-smoker. I really can't tolerate people smoking around me, particularly in restaurants, but very occasionally when I get drunk with one of the (literally) dying breed of people who haven't yet managed to kick the habit, I'll "borrow" the odd one. Or six.

I used hate people like me when I was an avid smoker. Have you got a spare fag? No, I'm planning on smoking the whole packet, but thanks for your concern.

My husband's illness is back with a vengeance. He's had some kind of viral infection going on since before Christmas, similar to the 'flu (and I mean the real deal, not man-flu a.k.a. the common cold). He came staggering home from work tonight, close to death's door, and requiring large doses of TLC.

Unfortunately he makes for a terrible patient, and I'm not the greatest of nurses, but I have given it my very best shot.

After spending all but about 5 or 6 hours of the week by myself though, all I want to do at the weekend is let off a bit of steam, which I'm clearly not going to get the opportunity to do. Again.

Anyway, I was sent out on a mission to buy salt & vinegar crisps, since that's the only thing he could face eating.

En route I had an overwhelming urge to be 15 again. I had such a great time around then; it was my coming of age. The biggest issues of the day were dry or sweet cider, The Wonderstuff or The Stone Roses, B&H or Silk Cut (the former being the answer in each case, although The Stone Roses came a very close second). Back then our futures were so uncertain. We could have turned out to be anyone, doing anything.

Of course, it was probably as scary as hell most of the time, but that's not the way I remember it.

Now I've just turned 30 and I have a husband, a mortgage, a screwed up career and a biological clock to concern myself with, all of which are looking pretty certain.

Armed with these jumbled thoughts I somehow found myself at the front of the queue in Tesco's asking for 10 Marlboro lights and a box of matches, and feeling extremely pleased with myself, not least because if my husband knew he'd be really pissed off.

I smoked just one on the way home, and got such a nicotine rush from it I really did feel 15 again, if only for those few minutes.

Fuelled by a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio I may nip outside and relive the moment shortly. It's not quite the same as a 2 litre bottle of Strongbow, but it may just do the trick.

Armchair Crime Fighting

I prevented a crime today, just by my very existence. A pretty impressive feat, I'm sure you'll agree.

While sitting at my desk this afternoon I was suddenly aware of a man peering in at me just a few feet away over next door's fence. Then another popped up for a peek. I shot them a filthy glance and turned away, assuming it was their latest batch of workmen, doing their caveman thing ("ug...you wo-man").

It took me a couple of minutes to realise that this was not quite right. Living in a Victorian terrace I can hear my neighbours through the wall, and the absence of that infernal screaming baby surely meant nobody was home.

After much snooping, I came to the conclusion that there were no neighbours at home, there was no building work being done, and that I had in fact foiled the evil plans of would be burglars - TaDaah!

Upon hearing the news of his talented wife, my husband came over all protective and called the local police station. Within a few minutes they were storming through the house like a SWAT team, although of course the culprits had long since disappeared.

They shouldn't escape the long arm of the law for too long though, due to my superlative powers of observation. Watch out for them on a wanted poster near you: Two white males, one wearing a hood. Pure genius.

Tea for One

The trouble with working from home is that you don't see anybody else. This has its obvious benefits, in that you aren't forced to collaborate with the various misfits and miscreants that form an integral part of any self-respecting work environment.

On the other hand, there is something about putting on a nifty suit and getting down and dirty with the office gossip which can blow away the cobwebs, and give you that little spark to get your day started.

Pyjamas and a quick conference with the cat on her way out for a hard day's stalking just don't hit the spot somehow.

All of which leads me to confess that I've had a rather introspective day; one in which I've shied away from the phone. In fact I've made about 7 calls. I should have made 100 or more.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a better day.

No Surprises

Well, as predicted I've spent a large part of my day on blog-related issues, namely searching endlessly for a fabulous template.

Nothing, however, seemed to match my exacting standards. I was left with no choice but to customise a standard one, meaning I had to tinker about with CSS (which frankly scared the bejeezus out of me - I'm more your "HTML circa 1999" kind of web developer). But then the resulting splash of pink text was so worth it.

Consequently very little "real work" as such has been undertaken today.

Meanwhile, my poor husband isn't even home from work yet. He's had to work late, and is probably now wrangling with tube delays caused by London's 10 minutes worth of snow today (which, incidentally, doesn't fall underground - someone really should mention this to TFL so it can be removed from their Lame Excuses list).

Birth of a Blog

I have decided to start a blog about my life as an entrepreneur. It’s entirely possible that I will find it motivating to document my successes; therapeutic to purge myself of my failures, and challenging to write creatively about my endeavours.

Of course, it’s much more likely that I will deviate from the intended subject matter, and use it mainly as a place to store all those pointless links with which I usually clog up my favourites list. And to be honest, whilst I love starting new projects, I’m not really known for being a "finisher", so the chances of my blog lasting past week two are fairly slim.

No matter. I like the idea, and since I work by myself, for myself, I can do whatever I feel like doing. I just need to suppress that nagging feeling that this is merely my latest tactic of procrastination, doomed to stop me from being a successful entrepreneur.