Homemade soup - enough for at least a week’s worth of lunches, nice and thick just as I like it, and no points! Good stuff.

Finally, finally we went swimming tonight. The last time we went swimming (properly) was six months ago. I was anticipating pain, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. My leg muscles were burning by the end, but in a good way. It’s always a case of having to drag ourselves there, but once we’re there and doing it’s fine. And I feel so much better for it afterwards. Let’s hope we can keep it up.

I’ve put on a stone in the last twelve months. Add that on to the fact that I was probably already about a stone overweight and… well, not good. So I think it’s back to counting points again. We did WeightWatchers a couple of years ago and - combined with swimming twice a week - it really worked. Tomorrow I’m going to dig out my old points journal and start counting everything again. Swimming twice a week will do for now, but ultimately I’d quite like to add more exercise in. I don’t know what yet. Running, aqua fit, aerobics… it all sounds appealing, I guess I’ve just got to find what’s best for me. I’d also like Wii Fit, but nowhere has them in stock at the moment. Still, small steps.

Laaaazy day.

Cooked a rather awesome vegetable Thai curry, if I do say so myself. Secret ingredient: peanut butter. Mmm.

It’s Saturday night. That means my weekend has begun. I think that right there is enough to smile about! I have absolutely no plans - no exciting plans, anyway - but who cares? An excess of reading, sleeping and telly sounds good to me!

Making me happy today - curry buffets and not having to cook.

That is all.

Ahh, there is something so very satisfying about completing a job - and doing it fairly well, if I do say so myself!

I have a meeting in the city centre tomorrow. I had one a couple of weeks ago, it was the first time I’d ever had to drive into the middle of the city on my own. Only the second time I’d ever done it full stop. It was… well, not a disaster, but not fun either. I had no idea which lane to be in and just ended up crawling along at one point because I needed to be in the next lane over but couldn’t get across. I also parked in a ridiculously expensive car park (SIX pounds for just THREE hours!) - it was the first one I came to and I just wanted to get off the roads, heh.

I’ve been told there is a much cheaper car park a bit further in town (90p an hour, woo). It’s also a lot closer to where my meeting is. But that’s just it: it’s further into the city centre. I was a bit nervous about it, since I still don’t feel confident with city driving, so Pete and I did a practise run tonight. It went fine and I feel so much better about it all now. Yay for Pete indulging me!

Is there anything more to say? Oh wait, I think there is:

“We will restore science to its rightful place…”

“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

“On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

That sound you hear is a big fat sigh of relief. And hope.

I did the grocery shopping on my own today (hoorah for having my own car!). It was… quite an expensive shop actually. I don’t think I got anything out of the ordinary, or ridiculously expensive (well, except for toilet paper which was FIVE WHOLE POUNDS OMG), so I guess that’s just how food prices have changed lately. It did however make me send a silent thank you up into the ether: we have enough money to be able to still do our regular shop, to stock our cupboards, to live.

The next few months are quite uncertain as to my job, my pay, how much spare money we’ll have. Things may get a bit tighter. But thank God we can still live fairly comfortably for now and we can prepare ourselves for what may come in the future.

Yesterday I finished reading I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Then I had a bath and I wanted something easy to read whilst soaking, so I picked up JKR’s The Tales of Beedle The Bard. Lovely - short and light reading, I finished it in the bath! And then today I started reading Dooce’s book - Things I Learned About My Father (In Therapy). Somehow I managed to actually finish reading that today as well! Seems kind of crazy, but then when I think about it, it actually just felt like I was reading a selection of long(er) blog entries, which I probably do in a day anyway. Which got me to wondering how many “books” worth of blogs I’ve actually read in my time… then I thought maybe I don’t want to know after all!

So today, in contrast to yesterday - having the time and the opportunity to do things I enjoy makes life sweet.  (And again, thankful for good books too!)