Shock at work

It was a big shock this morning when one of my colleagues Penny resigned. I knew there was something going on at about 9:15 when I saw her gathering her stuff and then left the office. I asked one of the other girls what was happening but she didn't want to say. Then I noticed that our team leader, Carole, was crying, and just at that moment the manager, Gavin, walked past asking to see her out in the back room.

At 10 o'clock we had a team meeting and the first thing on the agenda was confirmation that Penny had resigned for personal reasons. Apparently she did give notice but the manager said she didn't have to stay and work it. So she's gone and we're not likely to see her again, unless of course, she chooses to stay in contact with anyone.

It was quite sad actually, despite not knowing her for very long. Although she's been with our section since November, I was off sick at that time and only returned in March. It wasn't until two weeks ago when the person sitting next to me was on holiday that I got to know her better, as she came and sat at the spare desk. I found we had a very similar sense of humour (both mad) and I was very glad of that opportunity.

Poor Carole was still very upset afterwards and said she felt partly responsible for Penny's departure. I tried to reassure her that it wasn't her fault but I guess if I put myself in her shoes, I'd probably feel the same. No-one except, I suppose, Carole and the management know the exact reason for her resignation but my hunch is that she was fed up with the feedback she was getting about her work - when we sat together she did confide in me saying that she thought the feedback was inconsistent, considering the way other staff in our section worked certain things procedure wise. Of course I only have Penny's version of events, and there are always two sides to every story.

So, all in all, it's been a strange, sad day and I will miss her.

Scrapped out another result

England 1 Ecuador 0



David Beckham hadn't scored from a free kick for over 3 years but what a time to do it! Usual slack first half from England, I don't know why we expect anything more these days. Actually the second half wasn't that much better but it only takes one second of brilliance to change the game. There were a few really good individual performances such as Ashley Cole, Owen Hargreaves and Michael Carrick (man of the match - yay!)- even little Aaron Lennon who only played about 8 minutes but he just puts a buzz into the game when he runs at players. I really don't know why they don't use him more. And that's not me being biased coz he's a Spurs player! I dunno how England manage to do it - play distinctly average yet still win the game.

Next up: a quarter final clash against either Holland or Portugal. It's gonna get a lot harder - after every match, the players, Sven and the tv pundits keep saying we haven't seen the best of England yet - SO HOW LONG HAVE WE GOT TO WAIT?!!!

Naveen............aaaah ;-)

Naveen Andrews will be a familiar face if you're a keen follower of the tv show 'Lost'. Hooked from the offset, it's now into its second series with a further three or so planned. Not like anything else that's been on tv (as far as I can recall), the scripts are really innovitive and you just can't help watching. It's probably a bit like marmite - you either love it or you hate it. I just have a couple of questions: what happened to the polar bear and why hasn't Hurley lost any weight?!!

Although Sayid is one of the main characters, he hadn't really caught my eye until recently. It's weird how some attactions are instantaneous and some aren't. I dunno what it is about him, mabe it's his curly hair and his sad puppy dog eyes. I wouldn't normally find a man of Indian descent sexy but I suppose there's always a first for everything.

I didn't realise at first that Naveen is actually a British actor; he was born in South London in 1969. If you've seen those snippets of celebs between programmes on Channel 4, you might have heard his cockney accent - sounds funny after hearing him talk with a Arabic accent in Lost.

I was quite surprised at how many films he has appeared in. The only one I've seen from the list below is Bride and Prejudice which was really good.

London Kills Me (1991) ... as Bike
Wild West (1992) ... as Zaf
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) ... Karim
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996) ... as Raj Singh
The English Patient (1996) ... as Lt. Kip Singh
Bombay Boys (1998) ... as Krishna Sahni
Mighty Joe Young (1998) ... as Pindi
Rollerball (2002) ... as Sanjay
Easy (2003) ... as John
Bride And Prejudice (2004) ... as Mr. Balraj
Provoked (2006) ...
The Ten Commandments (2006)

It's just been announced that he's to star opposite Jodie Foster in a new thriller 'The Brave One' to be released in 2007. Looking forward to that.

At the age of 16, whilst still at school he fell in love with his Maths teacher Geraldine Feakins, with whom he had a son, Jaisal, born in 1992.

Naveen is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. He suffered from these conditions when he lived in London during his early twenties, and his promising screen career nearly ended. He was forced to move across the Atlantic to the United States to seek rehabilitation and get his life back on track. His efforts were successful, but he says that London provides painful memories of his alcohol and heroin addictions.

He is in a relationship with actress Barbara Hershey who is 21 years his senior and they currently live in LA. The couple separated briefly in 2005, and during the time, Andrews had a son with another woman.

In 2006, he was voted one of People's Magazine's 'World's Most Beautiful People'. I definitely agree with that!

I actually had a dream about him last night. It was one of those that you don't wanna wake up from (nudge nudge wink wink). Let's just say we made a really lovely couple! :-)

......Not since 1968 & so it continues

England 2 Sweden 2



Sweden are definitely one of our bogey teams - we haven't beaten them since 1968, the year I was born!

The match got off to a terrible start for England when after only one minute Michael Owen fell awkwardly when a knee injury and crawled off the pitch in pain. Looks bad, I don't think he'll be back for the rest of the tournament. Crouch came on as sub.

We had plenty of shots on goal in the first half but it was pretty even steven.
Then out of nowhere, Joe Cole pops up in the 34th minute, takes the ball on the chest and volleys the ball spectacularly from about 25 yards out which looped over the Swedish goalie. Raaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

In the second half England looked vunerable in defence, unable to deal with set pieces. It wasn't long before Sweden equalised following a corner which Allback headed down, with Ashley Cole being unable to clear off the goal line.

We were under continued pressure until the 85th minute when Gerrard scored with his head from a Joe Cole cross. (Incidentally, I ran around the living room at that point woohooing like an idiot). Could it be a very rare win against the Swedes? Could we hang on for just another five minutes? Hell no! That would be far too easy. Again, England's defence failed to deal with the ball and Larsson bundled it into our net in the 90th minute. ARGH!

Thank goodness we didn't lose though. As winners of our group we will now be facing Ecuador in the 2nd phase instead of the Germans.

BB so far

Totally hooked as usual. It's amazing how vastly different it is each year with so many varied personalities. I've never seen so many fake boobs in one place at the same time!

Grace has just been evicted - just desserts, what a bitch! Accused everyone else of backstabbing, yet she was the main culprit! Can believe she threw water over Susie (the golden housemate) as she left the house - after all, being nominated is what the game is all about. GAME. That eviction was nearly as satisfying as Sezer who left two weeks ago. All he talked about was girls and sex and sex and girls, totally shallow and thought he was the world's greatest love machine - and he wasn't even remotely good looking! 91% of the public voted him out so he was very popular! Davina didn't say what percentage voted for Grace-it must've been extremely high. Nikki has been up for eviction two weeks running but although she is totally childish and a complete drama queen, she is very entertaining to watch. I think she'll stay for a while yet. Lisa has got to be next surely? She has such a foul mouth, is not at all ladylike and I'm fed up with seeing her sour face. She always looks like she's chewing a wasp. In between Sezer and Grace being evicted, poor Sam was booted out. He/she (part transexual) was picked on by the bitch squad and because he/she was up against Nikki, didn't stand a chance.

So we've had two walkouts, one ousting, two replacements, four evictions, one golden ticket winner, laughter, strops, tears, bitching, stealing, lying, smooching, and much more. And there's still ages to go yet.

PETE TO WIN HANDS DOWN! He's the sweetest guy - so caring, natural, thoughtful and funny, and never talks about anyone behind their back. He's fab!

Almost an embarrassment

England 2 Trinidad & Tobago 0






Well after the 2nd half of the last game, you would be forgiven for thinking that England would have injected a bit of energy into this game. Sadly it wasn't to be. A really lacklustre performance I'm sure anyone who watched it would agree. You can never under-estimate any team in the World Cup because if they managed to get there in the first place, they can't be bad. Trinidad & Tobago proved that and played extremely well in my book, closing England down and not allowing them space. However, just when you may have either started to drift off or settled for the 0-0 draw, Sven makes a double substitution: Rooney on for Owen and Lennon on for Carragher. This meant a change of formation, putting Becks at right back. Young Lennon was superb (I hope my team Spurs can hold onto him), beating defenders with his pace and getting balls into the box. With just seven minutes remaining, up popped our Becks with one of his super-duper crosses, staright onto the head of beanpole Peter Crouch to score our first goal. Phew! What a relief! Yes I would've settled for 1-0 considering how they played but somewhat suprisingly in injury time, Steven Gerrard very typically cut inside a defender and scored yet another stonker from long range. Not sure we deserved 2-0, and if it had been against any other team, I would've felt sorry for Trinidad & Tobago.

The second phase here we come - we'll just have to wait and see whether we'll have to play Germany or Ecuador. I hope the latter but to be honest they could be a dangerous side. The Germans have won both their games so far but have not been convincing - I just don't fancy the idea of another penalty shoot out! I don't think my ticker could take it!

What is up with our laws?

I was so angry when I heard the news about paedophile Craig Sweeney. Not only had he commited sexual assault on a 6 year old girl previously and was released early from a mere 3 year sentence, but then after being found guilty of a similar offence and given a life sentence, it emerges that he could only serve 5 years! And this is purely because he pleaded guilty. What is that all about?!! Life should be life in my book. The bastard should've got life in the first place; these type of people always reoffend, they are scum and don't deserve a life. If he had killed the child, it would have been life. Sexual abuse of a child is the next worst thing in my opinion. After all, that child is going to be affected for the rest of her life and it has an impact on the whole family. It makes me sick and I really don't understand why our law is not stricter. Who are we trying to protect here?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5063664.stm

Phew! What a scorcher!

What a difference a week makes in England. Reference to my blog entry of 29 May, we are now in the middle of a heatwave! The weather has been consistently warm and sunny for the past seven or eight days and is set to continue into next week. In fact I think they are predicting temperatures of up to 30 degrees tomorrow. Phew! That's too hot for me. It's horrible when you're stuck in an office all day when it's so nice outside; you totally lose all enthusiasm and energy levels are low. Still, it's better than being miserable and chilly as it was in May. Are we ever satisfied?!

I'm just watching a World Cup match on tv and I don't know how the players have the energy to run around in that heat for 90 minutes.

A game of two halves

England 1 Paraguay 0



England's World Cup campaign got off to a great start and after only 3 minutes, Paraguay put the ball into their own net from a great Beckham cross. The whole of the first half England dominated and the opponents looked extremely vunerable every time we approached their goal.
As usually happens though, despite all the pressure and positivity from our boys, we failed to score another. The second half was almost dire - I don't know whether the heat had got to the players but all the good play of the first half just disappeared into a puff of smoke. Paraguay had sniffs of chances but didn't look like they were going to score, but at only 1-o it's always a worry that one little slip up could spoil the game. Sven strangely and debatedly substituted Michael Owen 10 minutes into the second half which was a so called tactical decision. I hope he learns by his mistake because this backfired terribly as this left Crouch up front on his own with no-one to run onto his flicked headers. This put us under increasing pressure and the defence were pushed further and further back, allowing Paraguay to have most of the possession.

I suppose we have to be thankful for the 3 points rather than the performance. If we can beat Trinidad & Tobago, we know we can take it easy for the final group game against Sweden.

The country's gone flag mad!

I don't recall in days gone by (with the exception of the last few years) all these flags
everywhere in support of the England team
in the World Cup. Some people say it's stupid but I like the way the country unites at times like these. I don't have a car flag myself, neither do I have a flag hanging out of my bedroom window, but that doesn't mean I'm not patriotic. And as you may know by now - I'm a huge footie fan! Actually I do own a large flag but it's just not hanging anywhere visible - maybe give it an iron and find a place for it.

I had to laugh as I was driving home this evening.
I saw this gigantic flag hanging outside someone's house -
in fact it was covering the entire front of the house!!!
Now that's a first!

Only two days to go till the World Cup starts and three days to wait for England's first match
against Paraguay. HOORAY! I'm literally gonna have no life for the next month or so - as well as the footie, there's Wimbledon and of course Big Brother carries on until August. :-)

Well done Lucy!!

And so the X Factor Battle of the Stars is now over and I was thrilled that Lucy Benjamin won it. She seems such a lovely person, really sweet.
Considering how she started a week ago, oh so nervous with a wobbly voice and wanting to go home, Lucy improved every day. She was lucky to survive a head to head against Michelle mid-week but Simon Cowell voted to save Lucy; Simon had allegedly made a move on Michelle and she turned him down, so it was deemed sour grapes on his part.

There was so much hype about Nikki Sanderson's voice and how she should get a recording contract but I didn't rate her at all. Did no-one else hear all the bum notes?!! Chris Moyles was very entertaining and it was a shock he didn't make the final. Nevertheless, Matt Stevens was very good too. The main thing is that all the celebs raised a lot of money for charity and I have to admire them for having the guts to get up on stage in front of millions.

Well done Lucy-Lou! Good luck to her in whatever she does in the future and I hope all goes well with the baby.

A bit of a downer :-(

We were all called into meetings today at work; all we knew was that it was something to do with the structure of the teams within our department. When this happens, you always get suspicious and know that you're in for some news that isn't gonna please. Yep! What a downer - they're swapping our team leader Carole for another team leader on a nearby section so it's all change again. Carole has only been with us a year, although for me it seems a lot less because I was off long term sick for 5 months. No sooner do you get used to someone, they whip em away from you! She is such an easy person to get along with too - so approachable, laid back, good sense of humour, and just on a level with everyone. I sit opposite her so I will miss her immensly, as will everyone else on our team. I just hope her replacement lives up to Carole's credencials.

Happy Birthday my Johnny!

You have every right to pull a scary face Johnny - 44 today - What an old man! Hehe!

By the way this is my other half if you didn't already know!

Honestly, this man is the most impossible person in the whole wide world to buy for. When I went to lunch today I bumped into him carrying a JJB Sports carrier bag. I asked what he had bought for himself this time? ANOTHER PAIR OF BLOODY TRAINERS!!! That's three pairs in as many weeks, if not less. He does it every time - whenever you ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas, he can't come up with one single thing....but then leading up to those two events, he buys himself stuff which someone else could have got. ARGH! So, guess what he got from from? Sweet FA. An invisible one at that.
John's not one of those people who gets excited about receiving stuff anyway - he really only gets pleasure from giving.

So that's that. Another year has gone by - it's quite scary to think he'll be 50 in 6 years time.

Come on England!

As a woman, I'm in the extreme minority who are looking forward to the footie World Cup which starts in a week and a half from now. It's what most woman dread - weeks and weeks of constant football disrupting usual programming (Al will know what that's like-bless her), but me
I LOVE IT!!!

Tonight England played Hungary in a friendly warm up match at Old Trafford. The usual dull first half was displayed with the exception of a penalty which we were luckily awarded after Gerrard was supposedly fouled. I think justice was done when Lampard's penalty shot was saved. Suddenly at the start of the second half, it was like they had bombs up their arses or something!? Two goals in four minutes, both from Beckham crosses I might add. I don't dare what people/the media say about him, I've always liked him enormously and really admire his talent. He may not be quite the same footballer as he was a few years ago but I feel he's still such an important influence to the team and a real roll model.

Unfortunately Hungary scored a goal a short time after our second-quite a spectacular one actually. Robinson had no chance. The game kinda petered out after that...until the 84th minute when Crouch turned and put the ball in the net. 3-1. The next friendly will be on Saturday afternoon against Jamaica.

It's ironic that there's been nothing on the telly all weekend and come tonight, there's tons I want to watch: Eastenders, Location Location Location, Match of the Day, Celebrity X Factor, Big Brother and Lost. I've already got two videos on the go recording stuff while I watch the footie - there's not gonna be enough hours in the evening.

What's happened to summer?

Yet another weekend has gone by and we still haven't had summer sunshine and temperatures. I recall a few good days at the beginning of May but since then it's been crappy - the last two weeks have been so wet and miserable. What I don't understand is that we're repeatedly being told by scientists that the globe is warming up - I think our summers are actually getting worse.
:-( It's not surprising more and more Brits are moving abroad. Let's hope June is a lot better.

I just love surprises!

...Not for myself I might add. This one was for my Dad. Invited Mum and Dad, my brother and the kids around for dinner tonight and between a lovely roast dinner and an equally yummy trifle, I presented my Dad with an envelope. It's his 60th birthday this year (August) and my Mum has already arranged a 4 day trip to Rome in September (well I arranged it actually-Mum hasn't a clue with computers) and John, myself and my Mum have also collaberated in arranging a surprise birthday party/come barbeque at our house. Just by chance John was on the laptop and came across an Eagles concert taking place at Wembley Arena on 18th June (coincidentally this is Father's Day). This must have been an extra date coz we knew they were performing at Twickenham and did look to book the tickets for that gig but there weren't any good seats left. So this was good news - it was The Eagles farewell world tour so there would never be another opportunity to see them live. I've never been more decisive in all my life - I thought 'this is my Dad, sod the expense, just book em!' And so when Dad opened the envelope, he was totally gob-smacked. He just sat starring at the tickets and kept saying 'I can't believe it'. Awww. My Mum was chuffed too coz she's really grown to love The Eagles, after my Dad kept playing their cds.
Goes to prove it's far better to give than to receive.

Photo above shows my Dad on his 59th birthday when we presented him with a left handed electric guitar. The years of watching his 'air guitar' had taken its toll - now he can actually hold a real one!

Taylor made (it)

Recorded American Idol last night as I was round Al's and
watched it back this morning. Apparently, the media announced on UK TV who had won BEFORE the show was broadcast over here, which was out of order - luckily I hadn't heard the result.
It was amazing how many stars they managed to get onto the show - Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Prince, Toni Braxton (although she was pretty rough I thought), Mary J Blige and Meatloaf. It was hugely entertaining and a gob-smacking 63 million votes were cast. I wasn't really bothered who won this year because Chris was my favourite and he unexpectedly exited
two weeks ago - he was so clearly the most talented, such a brilliant voice and a great rocker. I would certainly listen to his cd when it comes out - I say 'when' not 'if' coz I just can't see how he could avoid picking up a contract. I predicted Katharine to win, I suppose because she looks more of an idol than Taylor, but I was proved wrong when Taylor picked up the prize. He definitely has a huge amount of charisma and I wish him a lot of luck in the future. Clearly, grey is back in!

It's all about doughnuts!!

Had a girls night in round Al's last night; Groomie and Samuelo also in attendance. It was the first eviction on Big Brother and so an obvious excuse to get together for a laugh. It turned out that Bonnie (pronounced Bonna in Loughborough) was turfed out - not a surprise at all as she hadn't contributed anything at all during the past week. However, all that was overshadowed by the delicious box of fancy doughnuts that Al had laid on for our pleasure - in fact there was enough for 3 each! I didn't make it past 2 - I would've been sick but they were very yummy indeedy!

Dublin: Part 4

Sunday morning. The weather outside was horrendous; the wind was howling, it was pouring down and as we found out when we set off for town, it was really cold - it could've been February. As you can see from the photo, John was all geared up and glowing nicely in the gloom. What an embarrassment - I was always 20 paces in front or behind!

Nothing seems be be open in Dublin on Sunday. We headed for the National Museum and found that it didn't open until 2pm so we ended up at the shopping mall to get out of the rain and only found one store open! As it neared midday, however, more shops began to open - clearly the Irish like a lie-in. We wandered around aimlessly for a couple of hours, stopped at a cafe to have a bite to eat, and as there was nothing more we could do in the rain, we decided to go to the cinema to see The Da Vinci Code. Both John and myself have read the book, and despite the bad reviews, wanted to see it for ourselves. It was very long but I enjoyed it - it was the book to a tee. It was as if everything you imagined when you're reading the book ie. the characters and locations, came to life in front of your eyes.

The length of the film put us a little behind schedule as we needed to get back to the B&B to collect our bags and then head to the airport. We'd purchased a 3-day bus pass when we arrived as this seemed the easiest and cheapest way to get around. However, as was the case when we arrived in Dublin, we seemed to wait an eternity for the right bus to take us back to the airport. We eventually got there just after 6pm, about an hour before our flight. However, being RyanAir, the flight was of course delayed! Thankfully it was only half an hour. We finally got back home at about 10:30.

Dublin: Part 3 (Bon Jovi gig)

It was like a miracle. The sky was blue with little fluffy white clouds and it was fairly warm. It was like someone was looking down on Dublin that evening. We arrived at Croke Park stadium during Nickelback's performance, the support act for Bon Jovi. Actually there were two support acts but I've never heard of Jaded Sun, so didn't bother going early to see them. The stadium was amazing and huge but at this stage, was only half full. We had tickets for the golden circle which was a designated area near the front, but behind the area reserved for the fan club members. Nickelback were very good live; Chad Kroeger has an amzing voice. They finished with their biggest and first hit 'How u remind me' which I was pleased about coz I love that song. Then there was a gap of about half an hour before the main act.

I wondered why there was suddenly a stampede forward and loads of screaming but then I realised....Jon stood about 15 feet away on a gangway that ran all the way from the side of the stage, right round and in front of the golden circle and round to the other side of the stage. It was quite surreal actually - it was like 'God! That's Jon Bon Jovi standing right there'!! I was being squashed like a sardine and as I'm little, I was being bashed by people's arms trying to take pictures of him. Still looking as sexy as ever I must say!

Well all I need say is ** BLOODY FANTASTIC! ** Two and a half hours of magic. The stage set was awesome, the atmosphere was superb and I can't wait to go see them again! I haven't been to a stadium concert since 1988 when I saw Michael Jackson at Wembley and I'd forgotten what a fab atmosphere you get with so many people. I'd say there must have been 80,000.

Having done so much walking around the city earlier that day and after walking most of the way to the stadium, standing for hours and then walking most of the way back again, my feet hurt sooooo much I could barely move. Every step I took was like this: 'ow' 'ow' 'ow' 'ow' 'ow' 'ow'. I can't believe John didn't offer to carry me!!!!!!! Getting back to the B&B and taking my boots off was like heaven. Sleep then came easy - I was knackered but it was completely worth it.