Been a while...

So I haven't updated this bad boy for a year. I've did this year's half marathon a couple of months ago and realised my last post had been amazed that I got round in one piece after the 2010 one!

In the past 12 months a lot has happened:

• I done and got myself a new job
• I done and got myself married
• Me and my new husband are buying a new house
• I have become obsessed with the following tele programmes:

1. True Blood
2. Glee
3. The only way is Essex
4. Peter Andre - the Next Chapter

• I haven't lost any weight

Run, Forest, Run

Well bugger me, if I didn't just go and run the Brighton Half Marathon a month ago!

I am most definately built for comfort not speed, so it was nothing but a sporting miracle that I managed to do the training, let alone get round the course on the day.

I'm a human, chubby, bi-ped and ginger version of 'wacky races'.

I have developed a perverse love of running tho. It's bizarrely cleansing. and i LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the waving!

There are a collection of moves I employ when I'm out and about:

• The grim smile (dispatched when running up a steep hill at sympathetic runner coming back the other way)
• The cheery smile (most popular runners greeting)
• The simple hand raise (usually unleashed at runners of the opposite sex, so you can't be accused of trying to flirt with them by smiling when sweating)
• The open mouthed smile and double eyebrow raise (employed at pairs of female runners older than yourself as greeting and physical exclamation of us hilariously "being too old for this!")
• The double eyebrow raise and eyeball roll (used in foul weather conditions as if to communicate "gosh aren't we bonkers!" to other stupid idiots out in the pissing rain)

I have committed to three others to raise money for Haiti.

And if I hadn't discovered 'carb loading', I would have been expected to have been a size 8 by the wedding. But sadly, my greedy little monkey paws can't stop reaching into the bread bin.

Cheating on Weight Watchers with Slimming World

Who would have thought it, I've turned to red/green side.

I did it because it was right next to work and they had a big banner outside and it was in a church and I wanted to see if Jesus would help make me thin.

Would Jesus turn my lard into evian? He bloody hasn't - the big resurrected meanie.

Anyway, the eating plan has been a REVELATION. It takes a while to get your head around it, but it's a godsend for the greedy.

On a green day, you can literally eat pasta and rice ALL DAY and it's all allowed. It's just too exciting to go through all the details now, but if you do it right, you can lose 3 - 4 lbs a week and KEEP IT OFF. I tell you it was like an episode of Majorie Dawes and Fight Fighters in there. All of us gagging for a Toblerone, but making do with a Total 0% yoghurt.

Anyhoot, needless to say, with my flibberdegibbet attitude, I lasted about 4 weeks. I have lost weight, but that's down to the running.

And it feels very odd talking about Slimming World as I'm sat here in front of the tele with a mug of full fat Horlicks, burping up the four rounds of peanut butter on toast I had for tea "because I wasn't really hungry".

If I was in the film 7 with Brad Pitt, I would be the gluttony murder victim.

I'm back!

Hello dear reader.

Oh my, has it really been eight months since my last post?

I have become as lazy as my darling fiance... oh, yes, dear reader, in those eight months, the following things have happened:

• We went on am amazing holiday to Bali
• ...where we got engaged
• I ran a half marathon (and committed to four more, like a blithering idiot)
• I cheated on Weight Watchers with Slimming World
• I went for the 70's Fleetwood Mac look for Sian's wedding, accessorised with heaps of bangles and silver gladiator sandals

So the proposal:

Who'd have thought it, but I'm a traditionalist at heart.

Sweetheart saved it all up for the second last day and asked me under a full Bali moon on our private beach after a candle lit private meal in our Villa!

He had the ring in his shorts pocket for 2 weeks before the big night and chose very well indeed.

Not so well that I can't blow a couple of monkey's on the wedding ring though (heh heh!).....

We spent al the next day playing in the pool and planning the music and wedding cakes.

Actually one of the happiest days of my life so far.

*wipes away emotional tear*

Then I got home and started a wedding scrapbook.

I am bridezilla. hear me roar! well... get sniffy about the pantone reference of icing sugar...

I'm back

Shopping for wedding outfits

What larks, dear reader

A chum is getting spliced in three weeks and i'm on the hunt for an outfit.

There is absolutely no chance in the world that I am going to be even in the same league of good looking ness as the rest of the guests. For a start the bride is a GORGEOUS blonde size 8 who wears the most fashionable city shorts with high heels and all of her other mates are a maximum size 10, all of which are tanned, blonde goddesses or fabulously sleek limbed brunettes.

This tubby ginge, just ain't gonna cut it at this party.

However, it does give one a certain freedom in the wardrobe dept. They all either don't know me from adam or think I'm a bit of a twat anyway, so if I chipped up in a Banana Man costume, it would be rather par for the course. With this in mind, anything off the high street will attract zero interest, so I can look as stupid as I like.

Cue the ridiculous shoes I have just bought http://www.irregularchoice.com/

My boots are so ace and new and brilliant that they're not even on the website yet! They're silver material, with rows and rows of different colour metallic spots on them, with a lace up in blue ribbon at the back. I am going to wear them with either:

• a light green vintage 60s shift dress with a big panel of lace down the front
• An electric blue, silk, floor length fleetwood mac style 70's number (first choice if temperature is less than 20 degrees)
• A bright green knee length grecian style dress I bought in the M&S sale today (is a bit bland, so am going to put different coloured ribbon around my waist to match the shoes and peacock feathers in the barnet)

Awesome awesome awesome!

Sweetheart doesn't seem to mind if I look like a ginger leprecaun on acid and I don't know any fecker apart from the bride, so I'm planning to chip up dressed like I ran through Littlewoods in 1974 on my way to a marc bolan concert, get leathered on the free booze, flirt with the brides dad and be sick in the taxi home. EXCELLENT NIGHT OUT!

Last time I did that though, I had to be escourted from the wedding reception at 8pm, totally shitfaced after slurring at the people I had deemed as "boring" - "i don't care you're not talking to me - you're all a bunch of c**** anyway!"

*close eyes in horror at own shame*

I'm not all that good with strangers. Sweetheart thinks I'm super confident, but that's only because I have to do the jazz hands shizit for the two of us because he has a massive confidence issue. In reality, I'm cringing inside and have to have about a bottle of rose inside me before I can talk to people.

Not a fact one of my best marras was concerned about when she made me do a reading at her wedding a couple of years ago - but that's all water under the bridge now. I'm going to make her do a dance routine in a freakin' leotard at mine.

God, better buy something off the wedding list this weekend. With only 3 weeks to go the affordable stuff will all be gone and the only stuff left will be single salad forks (which will make me look like a tight arse) or a dining room table. Damn my tardiness.

I tell you what, grapple fans - if I ever get spliced I'm going to make it fancy dress and we're all have a lovely old sing song to Dolly Parton and Queen instead of all of this stressful giant dress, sit down tea and massive event business.

eeks!

broken neck

So I totally broke my neck last week.

Well, OK, seriously pulled the muscles in it. Eitherway it was incredibly painful. I'm not sure why or how I did it, but I did something odd to the muscles on the right shoulder blade, which tightened and shortened them, which in turn pulled the muscles on the left side until I was constantly pulling the one that runs down your head and over your shoulder that starts with S and has 6 syllables. That was the one that hurt. A lot.

Super Sam @ Body & Soul who sorted it put me through 45 mins of intensive full on agony on Tuesday night - but by Thursday night I could turn my head again and sleep without painkillers. Awesome. I then went back on Friday night (I know, the glamour) for stage two of magical neck recovery and now I can pretty much spin my head around like an owl and could go for a run this morning.

What was a bit worrying was my mum emailing me with a recipe for mixing non prescription painkillers to get the most effect cocktail of pain relief. Impressive, but slightly worrying - don't think you learn that from Women & Home.

Yes I know this post is minus in amusement value. But it dominated my week, so you're hearing about it anyway.

So there