Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2007
Edit Blog Post
I think I spent most of the beginning of the week (after I finally woke up) trying to sort out the clutter I’d accumulated after the past few weeks, and reading some stuff. Takes a while for my brain to re-set after so many changes, and I keep forgetting that, and keep giving myself too much to do!
By Wednesday I was ready to leave the house, and went for a walk - thought it was an opportunity to test out the hiking boots over a short distance (I’ve been wearing
Merrells for over a year, and find them really comfortable for walking long distances in (I used to walk nearly 2 hours a day!), and when I saw these in Switzerland - the same as I’ve worn, but with ‘ankles’, thought they were a pretty safe bet - and they’re not bad! I settled down on the edge of a field with
Brilliant Career Finder, as lent by Tam & Andy - good book, given lots of things to think about - still got more to do, but have noted the bits I want. Real shame I missed the
LICC event in Manchester about skills-identification, but I just couldn’t get there
... starting to wear in...
the Hiking Boots that I bought in Lauters (after about 4 days of trying on just to make sure!) - maybe there’ll be another one I can get to! And yes, in the photo, I am wearing my
Oak Hall gilet - it’s warm and its comfortable - just what I need at the moment - oh, and it was on the top of my “I must put that washing away” pile when I was feeling a bit chilly!
Spent quite a lot of time on the phone to
Tiscali trying to work out what’s going on with the broadband connection we ordered, as we’re still on dial-up and it’s driving me slightly mad - having gone from a high-speed pipe at work plus ADSL at home (so I automatically turn to the Internet as my first source of information), to 28.8k dial-up is a bit of a shock. I keep having to make lists of things to look at, or ask my brother if I can borrow his broadband connection - they went on holiday so one night I sat there til 2am uploading pics for this travelblog!
Facebook is also a great time-waster!
By Thursday I thought I might have the energy to finally try and sort out the clutter for a car boot sale (it’s
all in a pile)… but I’m not sure if I can be bothered. Took the clothes to the charity shop, as they’re not worth much.
Bullock Fair Charity shop is one of the best charity shops I’ve come across - although I’ve not been to the one near Winchester that Christina and Fran keep telling me is amazing (people can afford to throw out designer gear round there) - but for someone who reads books as fast as me, the book section of that sells most fiction for 80p, factual books for £1 - and yes, Mills & Boon for about 30p - occasionally there’s good mush, although I still prefer Georgette Heyer, who has strong historical grounding for her books, and tends not to go beyond ‘flashing ankles’ in the raciness stakes! So, after a run, I made it into the Charity shop on Friday 13th (ooo - scary… so much stuff in the papers about how statistically there are more accidents on Friday 13th - although I think their explanation makes sense - people who are superstitious drive more erratically because they’re worried, so have more accidents… the only reason I don’t walk under ladders is that there is usually
Chilled out
Worked my way through a good portion of this book! someone up it with something that may land on my head - common sense, not superstition!)
Can you tell I’m getting more opinionated?! My opinion I as valid as anyone else’s and I want to get less worried about upsetting people whilst expressing it - I am who I am… which does mean that I also care if I upset people, so it’s just something to keep working on!! Anyway, I think
Harleston is a great place - it has loads of great little shops - and people in the area are keen to shop local, so the shops not only support this, but are supported! Thought I’d check with the Drs how my travel notes were going, and I have to go back next week for over £200 worth of jabs - apparently Japanese encephalitis and Rabies are prevalent in Vietnam, and are two of the most expensive jabs! Ah well - needs must. Still have to sort out Yellow Fever jab, and malaria and Dengue Fever tablets - not sure how much all that is - maybe I'll check out a traveller's health website?! Also realised have no idea how much I need for visas - must
sort those out soon - maybe whilst I’m in London for my authors meeting for
London Transport Museum.
By Saturday the lovely weather had inspired me. Strangely, I feel like getting my bike out, not for “exercise”, but for fun - so, leaving the heart-rate monitor behind off I go, and over an hour later get back. Very different from the gritted teeth experience where I got lost and cycled for 2.5 hours, and also from the 3-4 mile cycle ride I used to do every day to and from work on the rubbish bike! This was also a good release as I’d spent the morning preparing for my TEFL telephone interview, which then didn’t happen! On Sunday I borrowed keys to my brother’s house, and, going to Fressingfield church in between (for a good ‘20s30s’ run service, lots of music, chocolate fountain after!), I was on broadband til 2am uploading photos, and driving back the next day (despite stubbing my toe so painfully I couldn’t really put anything on my feet) to upload the rest.
At this point it’s Tuesday and I’m here til Thursday. I spent this morning waiting for Nina to ring from Vietnam - which turned
Could this photo go...
in Farmers Weekly (yes, I have read it - quite a lot - usually not much of it!)... it\'s the kind of thing they have lots of pics of! out to be an interview as to whether I’m a nice person, cheerful, flexible and all that - now my CV goes off to the Schools, so I still don’t have a date for leaving - which is a bit worrying as I’m sure that flight prices continue to increase, and I’ve already been told that it’ll probably be more than the £1200 I’d put aside because I’m going back through South America - well, that’s the whole point, although maybe the timing could be altered - July is the most expensive month to head out - after 16th August would be loads cheaper for RTW tickets! As you can maybe tell, I’ve then spent the whole afternoon catching up with my travelblog…!
I get my jabs on Wednesday morning, and need to make sure that I’m ready to hit Manchester on Thursday, when I will put in some serious work on my London Transport Museum chapter, and more TEFL - I passed Module 2 of 10 on Saturday with 88%, and am halfway through Module 3, which I want to finish today - we’ll see!
Wednesday: I finished Module 3 just after midnight "yesterday", and today have
had 5 innoculations, and paid £220 for 2 more - lovely! Right, on with more grammar work... and maybe a few more odds and ends on Facebook!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.437s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 20; qc: 94; dbt: 0.1659s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Karen
non-member comment
what a lovely walk
Feel like I went on the walk with you. Thanks for the good writing. Of course I love the bright flower pics - :O)