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I never wanted to become one of Them, infact I always thought them to be rather boring and of course, in my younger years I was certain that Sundays had one purpose and that purpose was to give your body a mini-detox -- recuperating from a weekend on the town and preparing you for the week ahead.

Well, I have turned into one of them. I have joined the Sunday People! Gone are the days of lie-ins, hangovers, lazing about. Suddenly it's all about walks in the countryside, museums, zoo's and other local attractions. Suddenly, Sundays have become the day where I enjoy myself, my company and my local surroundings. It's become the day I look forward to throughout the week. It's become the day where I don't mind mud, rain, cold..

And to think, I used to bemusedly snigger at the Sunday People -- finding their jumping into their walking boots soon as Sunday lunch was consumed to set off on a hunt for the countryside rather silly.. Though as I age I realise that perhaps the rest of the week doesn't really allow you to do such things, a busy work week doesn't exactly allow for hours of wandering on the moors..

So now I spend my Sundays outside, I get my ass out of bed as early as any other day of the week and I do something. It may not be all that productive but it sure is enjoyable. And I am loving it. And it gives me something nice to look forward to when slaving away during the week longing for the weekend to come around.

The last couple of Sundays have been most nice, rather than just a countryside walk we've actually been places.

Weekend before last we headed to the Downs, walked around in the Urban Greens (it's not proper countryside!) before heading to the Observatory where I enjoyed the Camera Obscura before going down into the Giants Cave and finishing off with a visit to Bristol's number 1 suicide hot spot - the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which fittingly has advertisements for the Samaritans help line!

Last Sunday we went to Bristol Zoo Gardens where we spent an enjoyable five hours wandering around. In the evening we went for yet another walk, which was most pleasant. I wonder when I became boring enough to enjoy long walks?

This coming weekend we're planning to head to Brean Down on Sunday, visiting Brean Fort and generally wandering around. It's bank holiday weekend though so we're off to the North Somerset Agricultural Show on Monday -- I decided I wanted my birthday treat to be a day watching tractor pulling, terrier racing and other such fine yokel activities. I look forward to it.

Saturday I managed to get a bit sunburnt spending a good 6+ hours outside on the cricket ground in Eaton-in-Gordano where the 2nd XI's played United Banks (and lost by 58 runs), mind, the match was somewhat of a one-man-show with United Banks Dan Lockwood scoring a century which included several big sixes. One of the balls never to be retrieved after it cleared the roof of the local pub; the Rudgley Inn.

It was a very pleasant day mind. If only every Saturday was that nice and sunny! This coming weekend sees another away match, this time against St George. I am hoping the powers that be will provide some sun and pleasantness!

Hullu,

It's been quite some time since I blogged, I'd like to be able to say that it is because I have been on amazing mission into outer space and was quite simply too busy and overwhelmed to write.

But that would, of course, be a lie. A lot has happened in the past five months, some good, some bad, some really, really good and some really, really bad. Instead of doing a re-cap of it I shall simply quote Steinman/Meatloaf:

"There were nights when the wind was so cold, that my body froze in bed at night if I just listened to it right outside the window. There were days when the sun was so cruel that all the tears turned to dust and I just knew my eyes were drying up forever.

I finished crying in the instant that you left and I can't remember where or when or how.. and I banished every memory you and I had ever made.

There were those empty threats and hollow lies and whenever you tried to hurt me I just hurt you even worse and so much deeper.

There were hours that just went on for days.

But you were history with the slamming of the door and I made myself so strong again somehow. And I never wasted any of my time on you since then.

There were moments of gold and there were flashes of light. There were things I'd never do again, but then they'd always seemed right. There were nights of endless pleasure."

Song lyrics aside, life is - as is the norm, pretty busy these days. But it's good. I am happy and enjoying everything that goes on around me. Work is good, freenode/PDPC takes up my spare computer-y time but that's good also. I'm getting better at making time for fun though, and am enjoying things like going to gigs, visiting museums, going to the theatre and having some proper good jolly-ups in fantastic company.

I am also spending a good chunk of my time at the gym, aiming to do a half-marathon with Bryan (kloeri) in june! Go us! And I've taken up one on one boxing lessons -- which is tremendous amounts of fun. On the subject of er, close contact sports.. I may have developed somewhat of a thing for rugby. This may be a sign that my britification is nearing completion.

Though, perhaps a more telltale sign is the fact that while I may have a "thing" for the rugby I am enveloped in a bizarre obsession with the cricket (whether this is at all related to terribly sexy tall batsmen or not I am still unsure).

Speaking of obsessions.. I am going through a 80s phase at present too. Trying not to take it too far and doing my best not to purchase a pair of really dodgy looking white stilettos!

I made a really difficult decision a while back and choose to resign from Gentoo.

Er, I think that's about it for a canned update. Right now I am mainly just counting down to Easter, which shall, of course, be filled with nights (and days) of endless pleasure!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b-fJxzpK7s

I haven't blogged much lately, been pretty busy with work, life, stuff. And when I've had some free time I have dived into the wonderful world of Marvel

Everyone else was doing it, being a lamb I had to follow...

Soo... atleast I'm not as nerdy as some of you! Hah. Some new exiting people in my life, which is great. I love getting to know new people. Booked tickets for Christmas in Norway the other day, looking forward to a trip home.

Spending a fair chunk of time looking for a new place to live, need somewhere bigger.. but trying to take the time to find the 'perfect place,' viewed this one house at the weekend which was pretty rad. More country-sidey than where we presently live but really nice.. I'm crossing fingers and toes!

Bar that, all is well. Busy but well.

It's almost the weekend - Thank God! Can't wait to just have a couple of lazy days to chill out. If the weather is nice I suspect we may head to the sea front and laze on the beach for a bit too. 

This week has been.. a multitude of various shades of interesting. I've gotten to know some really interesting new people, I've learnt a ton of things which hopefully won't be entirely useless.. Caught up with work, sort of. And been amused beyond belief.

The internet never fails to provide the best entertainment.. sometimes it may be wrapped in a package which wouldn't have made it all that attractive in the shop, but who am I to resist a good proper bottom of the belly laugh which leaves me heaving for breath and with tears running down my cheeks for hours? I for one, raise a glass to my new delusional and raving mad overlords!

The house hunt has so far been.. I won't say unfruitful, if we want the first house I decided I liked then it's ours.. but, while the house is a good size, and the garden lovely and all that jazz the kitchen and living room are somewhat on the small side. So I am desperately trying to find a few more properties to view before we make our minds up. Now, we've spotted a couple of properties which could be ideal, while somewhat out in the sticks.. which I am all for, just need to convince Chris that the benefits of a detached house with a huge garden is worth not doing the city thing for...  Hopefully we'll manage to book a viewing at a couple of them for Saturday. 

This evening I intend to have some proper me time, I have a nice bottle of white chilling and a pile of new books to pick from... I suspect I shall have a nice, long, bubbly soak and just enjoy some quiet time.

My weekend started on thursday this week, which was nice! The intention was to house-hunt friday and saturday, though, so far one hasn't found the dream property. Have decided that Topsham is fairly nice and a very possible place to live, it's pretty, nice, quiet but close to the city. Did lunch, scenic green walk and a quick bout of bird watching with Simon while out in Topsham.. I enjoy spending time with Simon, he also introduced me to some of his other friends who seemed most charming and who had two gorgeous children who were both tremendously well behaved! Adore

The evening was a fairly quiet one, mexican food and beer.

The bestest thing about the weekend must be having spent hours and hours catching up with my friend Norm, we speak way too rarely these days. It was tremendously enjoyable, also made me realise how much I miss that group of my friends and how crap I have been at keeping in touch for the past year.. (not to mention my attendance record for any get togethers..:/ I'm sorry guys! I do love you!)

Relaxing with a cup of coffee and some 90s music right now.. wishing the weekend wasn't nearly over.

I'm also thinking about, and sending good vibes to my friend Roz (and her family) whos dad passed away earlier today. Having had the pleasure of meeting him a few times I can attest that he was a really nice guy, really smart, friendly, helpful, funny in a super quirky way.. and the man I hold solely responsible for me getting so tipsy at Roz and James' wedding! Roz, James.. if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to prod me, ok?

I am really tired today. We got back to Exeter at like 8 last night, just as I'd sat down to open two weeks worth of post the phone rings; it's Matt Lee (GNU Community Manager) wondering if he and his entire stag party may pop around for a quick drink! They just also happened to be outside the gate to my place.. a couple of bottles of vodka later we've all endured his best man Nick playing the guitar and singing while trying to convince Liam (who owns a record label) to sign him.. '12 pints later with Nick Hancock..' 

Had a good time, nice to meet more of Matt's friends, decided we're all of to New York next July for the last HOPE, should be fun! Managed to crawl into bed at 4am and am suffering for it today

Done some house hunting these last few days, off to view a few places this coming week. There's one which I am totally in love with.. Fingers crossed and all that jazz eh?

I ordered the Avengers boxset before I went to Texas, it has arrived! Hooray! Well, I only ordered the episodes with Emma Peel, but hey, 17 dvds, I can't wait to watch them all

Chris just set off back to London a couple of hours ago, the next few days I need to focus focus on work. I want a holiday tho..

Rumour has it that James Nesbitt may be replacing David Tennant as the next Doctor, having mulled over this I have decided I may not have too much of a problem with it. I mean, I adore David Tennant and I think they will be hard pushed to find a really good replacement.. but James Nesbitt is incredible.

I just hope he doesn't do a Tennant and drops his accent, while I'd have preferred Tennant as a Scottish Doctor I think Nesbitt could make a wicked Irish Doctor! I mean, wow, he has the most awesome Irish accent, ever.

I'm unsure if I like the rumours about Kylie Minogue becoming the next assistant though.. I mean come on? I want Billie Piper back! While it took a while before I warmed to her as Rose Tyler I came to adore the character and I have missed her tremendously since she left.. I don't particulary care much for Freema Agyeman/Martha Jones.. hell, I preferred Catherine Tate to her!

I'm also not much liking that there's no Dr Who for the next few months, the Christmas special is oh so far away!

In other non Dr Who related news.. I am back in England, over the jetlag, trying to catch up with work, Gentoo and freenode in between attempting to get my head around the PDPC paperwork I picked up when in Houston.

It's nice to be back home, just wish the next couple of months weren't poised to be quite so busy.. but hey..

Looking forward to meeting a few more Gentoo developers in Zurich next month, and we've started semi planning a mini vacation/long weekend to Ukraine in October, which I am really, really looking forward to. The next few months are going to fly by I suspect and then suddenly it will be christmas.. and a trip home to Norway. Can't wait to see my family again.. and snow, I like snow.

I should consider getting changed as Chris shall be arriving home from work any moment and I believe I am taking him out for dinner.. because it seemed like the sort of thing I should do today..

For some bizarre reason I always react really badly to insect bites and stuff, like I was bitten by a horsefly years back and ended up at A&E.. well, something bit me.. and yesterday I noticed this stupidly itchy little bite.. as the day went by the pain and discomfort went up until I had a golfball sized big sore area on my stomach. 

The locals had a look and could inform me that I had been bitten by a chigger larvae.. the bite got (is) terribly infected, I'm having hot flushes, fever, pain and am throwing up like crazy.

It has made me realise that I completely love and adore Richard (RichiH) and Marek (nalioth) as they've been so good at looking after me, hot compresses, various ointments and topical antibiotic has been applied. Every time I throw up, or make them stop the car so I can do a rather impressive bout of projectile vomiting Richard appears by my side holding tissues and water. They've made me nibble on salty crackers and generally just looked after me well and proper.

Also, Richard gives the bestest hugs when I'm feeling 'bleh', the combination of feeling sick due to infection, feeling emotional and upset after visiting Rob's grave and feeling a whole host of stuff from meeting up with Debbie and Ben made me a somewhat wobbly lipped and exhausted Christel.. So I was given an amazing supar hug, it was good.

Marek and Richard are both napping at the moment, I just hung up the phone with Chris.. we should probably head out to do some stuff soon.. then tomorrow evening we set off back to Europe. Looking forward to coming home, although, overall I've had a really nice time here.

Have a busy couple of months coming up, but it should be all good. Oh, and I wrote a platform for the Gentoo Council elections.. then my battery died and Ooffice decided to not let me recover it! Damn. I guess I have to start over again when I get back home

Mmm bit sleepy, it's only 10.30pm but I am dead ready for bed.

Admittedly I woke up before 5am this morning and was unable to get back to sleep as it was rather on the hot side, and as the AC makes Richard (RichiH) sick we can't have it on.. tossed and turned for a couple of hours attempting to not wake Richard.

Chris phoned around 7am to let me know that he was bored out of his mind and had decided to fly to Holland to look at monkeys(!?), part of what attracts us to eachother is the love for travel, the impulsive streak and our shared love for monkeys. I hope he has a kickass time, and of course, that I don't come home to find that a chimpanse(sp?) has taken over my half of the bed!

After breakfast this morning we headed off to the jewish cemetary to visit Rob (lilo) Levin's grave and put down some flowers. I miss him.

I then sorted out some PDPC business with David before we all headed to Katzs Deli for lunch, went on a hunt for Cowboy hats (hey, we're in Texas, I thought I'd get myself a hat...), didn't find any wicked cool pink ones that I liked but er, ended up with a funky handbag. 

This evening I have mainly relaxed, broken a nail.. far enough down for it to be immensly painful and bloody.. currently using plasters in abundance to keep it in place until I can visit a nail place to have it fixed.. and er, what else? Oh yes, relaxed in the outdoor jacuzzi with a book. T'was nice.

Now I think it's time for snooze, in the morning I shall set off to locate a nailbar, a Hot Topic, somewhere they sell postcards so I can do the 'Hi mum, wish you were here.. oh wait, no, I dont' thing and then meet up with Debbie and Ben for lunch.

Tada!

The last couple of weeks I've been having serious issues with my moods, like, proper moodswings. Overly sensitive to anything said or done, proper exhausted and generally just feeling pretty blah. Worked on the assumption that I just had a really bad case of PMT, but have realised that it appears to be a combination of PMT and needing to have my Thyroxine dosage adjusted as I am now at the forgetting stuff stage. Go go gadget me!

Gloom aside, I am currently in Houston, TX where it is nice and hot, Air France decided to leave my luggage in Europe mind so it only caught up with me late tonight. Been doing Texan things like play with guns.

Had a nice time at GUADEC at the end of last week, and a decent weekend with friends before flying out.

Missing my man.

Now I shall sleep. When I wake up, I shall sneak off outside to test the pool!

While GNOME isn't quite my desktop flavour of choice I shall still be heading up to catch the tail end of GUADEC tomorrow.

As it happens, my friend Daniel (drobbins) once introduced me to a nice young man called Eitan (eeejay), who happens to be a GNOME developer.. having hooked up at previous conferences he made sure to poke me to let me know he was in my country and it seemed like a good reason to head up and say hi to him and a few others.

So, I'll be hitting Birmingham around 5pm tomorrow, heading home friday evening as I am hosting one of my geek parties this weekend. I know a few Gentoo devs are at GUADEC, but I can't remember who.. so er, if you read planet, prod me or come find me and say hi!

On a entirely different note, I caved in and realised that when it comes to laptops I am very much a Dell whore.. so my four month old pile of crap Sony Vaio is being replaced with a bubblegum pink inspiron 1720. I can't wait to have a laptop with a decent screen resolution again.. it should be arriving just around the time I get back from Texas! Hooray!

I should crawl into bed as I need to get up and head out to Stansted to locate Richard (RichiH) around noon, haven't seen him since FOSDEM so it should be fun!

Just as I typed 'bed' Chris decided to make me a double chocolate mocha, I guess I'm not heading off for beddy-byes just yet then... oh yes, we've been invited to one of his colleagues wedding. Now, the couple are muslim and I am super excited at the prospect of attending a muslim wedding ceremony!

True to my Gentoo roots (cough) I shall be going to the Debian UK BBQ at the end of August... Annabelle and Jorgen is coming over from home, so they've convinced me it is infact the place to be. We also had a discussion about wintery type stuff earlier as I said I'd like to bring a few of my UK friends over for a week of skiing in Trysil this winter, provided the weather is decent.

Annabelle and I realised this was the perfect time to introduce these poor unexpecting Brits to snow rafting, drunken telemark and 'rumpebrett' (assboard) sliding.. Fantastic. I can hardly wait! I miss Norwegian winters..

More often than not these days I find myself without the time to blog, however, I suspect my family (who in part use my blog to gauge whether I am still alive..) deserve a quick update!

Work is busy, busy, busy these days and take up a bit more of my time than what I would ideally like, however, I shant complain.

Managed to get my ass over to the friday night social gathering of Gentoo UK, but had to miss the rest of the weekend. Nice to see a few faces again, and match names to new ones. Saturday morning (well ok, afternoon, may have been somewhat of a hangover involved) one headed off to the South-West.. nice to get home, even if it was just for a mere night. Got some stuff done, wrapped up some work, watered plants and headed back up to London Sunday evening..

Decided to take the A303 back, which is a nice drive, I like it.. but realised that when dark and foggy parts of it are tremendously scary in a haunted sorta way and I'd never dare make that drive on my own. (ok, so I'm a bit of a chicken!)

Today I'm mainly focused on work and trying to wrap things up before the weekend, I have a few friends staying at mine over the weekend.. then I'm off to Houston, TX on tuesday.

Anyhow, I am alive and well, and mum; I shall be purchasing plane tickets for Christmas soon.. I'll be in touch when we've picked dates and all that jazz! <3

Headed up to London on Wednesday as I had made dinner arrangements with Joerg (Ganneff) for Thursday, however.. he stood me up! I know, unbelievable.. something about 'Debian pancakes'. (I presume they have the swirl and all..?)

Chilled out, got some work out of the way and tried to get sufficient rest to be able to enjoy Lugradio Live despite being drugged up on morphine for the past few weeks. Set off down to Wolverhampton when Chris finished work on saturday, headed over to the hotel to check in where I bumped into a few freenode users; Dave2 and Ebola who informed me that we arrived just in time for the LRL party.

Having dumped our luggage we got ready to head over and made our way out, bumping into Chris DiBona in the corridor, a hug and a quick catch-up later Chris (mine, not DiBona!) made our way over to the LRL venue where I was instantly ribbed by Jono for arriving late.. The bar was located as were old friends and a load of #lugradio users who wanted to say Hi!, I love meeting users in person, it's always great to put faces to names and chat to people face to face.

We decided we needed to search for some food and located the most bizarre and totally excellent take-away place which did roast pork sandwhiches.. They alone were reason to drive down! Found a couple of people from my GLUG; Simon and Gemma.. was a nice evening which ended in the Hotel Bar. Jono carries a white paper heart around in his wallet, signifying his love for Gentoo. Or was it Gentoo's love for Ubuntu? I don't remember anymore.

Woke up slightly later than intended today, made our way back to the venue, caught some talks, met more people, were fed pizza by the Bytemark people! (What excellent hangover food, thanks Alex and Matthew!) and wandered around a bit with Matt Lee discussing various bits and pieces. Were highly amused by the Great Lugradio Quiz... and when the conference were announced over struggled to drag Chris away from the synth he had taken hostage from Gordon and the guy from 64Studio. Managed it at last and went off in search of food, where Matt, Simon and I ended up discussion something rather geeky while Chris' eyes started glazing over.. realizing it was probably time to make a move I left him to head back home to London while Simon gave me a lift to Exeter.

Currently downloading a few days worth of e-mail (amazing, I didn't get my laptop out once during the weekend!).. when I've perused some of that I shall head to bed for some much needed sleep.

Had a really great weekend, it was low-key and really funny. Congratulations on a job well done; Jono, Ade, Stuart and Adam! Already looking forward to next year

Chris survived a weekend with geeks, and a few of them tried to convince him that he should yanno, become geekier and one of the collective. I will do my best to prevent this from happening.. though I was glad to see him wander away from the Ubuntu stand with a bootable Ubuntu USB fob!

The coming week shall be filled with GSoC, Work.. a bit of PDPC/freenode related work and will be rounded off with Gentoo UK this coming weekend in London! Looking forward to seeing a few new faces there.

I managed to do my back in with my crazy DIY obsession and the past week and a bit has mainly been spent in bed, doped up on morphine and having wild and obscure dreams as a result of being high on prescription drugs.

When I have't been asleep I've been at my chiropractor having my pelvis pushed and crunched and forced back into place.

Slowly recovering, a lot more straight (I am no longer loopsided, hooray!) and the pain is lessening and so I am slowly lowering my dosage of pain killers while trying to catch up on work and stuff in between snoozing. (Sleep is all I want to do still, damn drugs!)

The good thing is that before I managed to misalign stuff we got loads of DIY out of the way and threw away tons of crap that we don't really use that much and don't really need. Having some stuff being picked up by 'Turntable' next week so that they can pass it on to someone who could actually make use of it (some furniture, TV, Freezer etc).

All that remains to do is hang up some shelves (kitchen, smaller bathroom and study) and replacing the coffee table and the entertainment unit. I am having no luck actually finding a entertainment unit which has enough room without being incredibly large.. I just want something fairly simplistic that can hold a 32" flatscreen tv and has shelves for digibox, dvd player, hi-fi, amp, PS2 and XBOX 360.. and I guess a teeny bit more DVD storage would be useful...

Let's see.. what else is new? I'm looking forward to the next couple of months. We're off to LRL at the start of July, Gentoo UK the weekend after and then hopefully we can manage a little trip to France one weekend.. August has a fairly full social calendar also, I am still unsure whether I can make it to CCC Summer Camp, I would really like to. Depends on whether we can get the time off work and stuff.

Then theres Picnic, Pidgeons and Pimms in the Park in Bristol on the 11th (or was it the 10th?) courtesy of Mr. Durrans.. I am looking forward to that. Week after Helen's exhibition opens and we do of course intend to go check out the art and partake in the wicked cool party at opening night! And perhaps pick up a nice painting or two

Then I was invited to a VIP boat party the weekend after, must remember to go pick up our tickets from Simon one day.. shall dance the night away and attempt not to fall into the water and drown, as that would suck.

September doesn't look bad, I think there's a couple of free weekends before we head to Belgium for a few days (17-19th iirc) before heading over to Switzerland for Open Expo.

I'm not 100% certain but I think I want to spend christmas back home again this year, so need to look for tickets at some point soon-ish. However, it would only be a quick trip, like, 10 days or so.

Ok, I am rambling. I shall go lay down on the floor (!) for a bit and then I shall try eat something and take some more drugs, which unfortunately wants to be taken with food.. which is shite as the other drugs make me feel nauseated. Duh.

Here's to hoping that I'll be properly on the mend by the end of the week!