YAY!!!!

The Abercrombie hoodie was still there!!

And now, it's MY Abercrombie hoodie!!!

(paid full price for it though, I was hoping it might have been reduced by now.)

Reading = :-( Abercrombie = :-)

Well, after all that I haven't done any more reading! I just can't seem to get started on 'The Lord of the Rings' but I don't want to give in and start one of the other books either. *sigh* I'll just have to sit down and make a start, and hope that once I get going I can get into it a bit.

There's a shop in a local town that sells second hand but 'nice' clothes. You know, the things that are too nice and worth too much money to give to a charity shop. It's a 50/50 shop, so the shop takes 50% of what the clothes sell for and the owner gets the other 50%. Well, in this shop there's a gorgeous Abercrombie hoodie which I've got my eye on. It's £20 which is a bit over my budget for a hoodie really, but, well, it is Abercrombie...

Anyway, at badminton last night the treasurer decided we had enough money in the kitty to each have a free term. So, now that I don't have to pay £30 for badminton..... yep, you can see what I'm thinking!!

So, it's been in the shop for 2 weeks now, what's the betting that when I go back on Saturday to buy it, it'll be sold? Yeah, that's the kind of luck I have.

I'll let you know!

Reading

I've been trying to get back into reading recently.

I started with 'The Hobbit'. I really want to see the film when it comes out in December but thought I would read the book first, since books use your own imagination and once you've seen a film, you tend to rely on the film's visuals instead of creating your own.

'The Hobbit' was OK. I've never really been into that type of book before so it was a new genre for me. I can't say I loved it, but I did finish it so that's better than hating it.

Then I read 'One Day' by David Nichols. I'd heard good reviews of this and again, it's been made into a film which I might try and get hold of if I can find a copy second hand. I did enjoy this book, and it had a twist at the end which I had to read about 3 times before I could believe what had happened!!

Next on my list is 'The Lord of the Rings', for the same reason that I read 'The Hobbit' really. I have got the DVD's waiting to be watched so I need to read the books first. I suspect that reading the books and then watching the films will probably take me up until Christmas - just in time for 'The Hobbit' film!

I have also got 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjama's' and 'The Time Traveller's Wife' waiting to be read as well, so I probably do have enough to keep me going for the rest of the year! I bought those because again, I have heard good reviews and I thought I might need something to break up 'The Lord of the Rings' with!

I got all of these from charity shops including the DVD's. I prefer to buy books rather than go to the library because I hate feeling pressured by time limits to finish a book. Yes, I know you can renew library books, but it's just something else to remember to do and I struggle to remember the stuff I must do, let alone adding extra things to the list. Brand new books always feel like a waste of money when there are millions of unwanted books waiting to be read, hence looking in charity shops. Sometimes it takes a while to find what I want, but there are now charity bookshops popping up in bigger towns, rather than just a single shelf in a regular shop.

Here's a taster of 'The Hobbit' which will be released in December 2012.

Two years

Two years today since I last held my girl, since I last brushed her coat and since I told her I loved her for the last time. 

Two years that feel like yesterday and forever, at the same time.

Pippa

30/05/96 - 22/02/10

Nothing's forgotten.

Nothing's ever forgotten.

Random events

I have a few unrelated things to blog so this post might be a tad random in places...

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I have just got back from the South East Berks Gang Show, which my friend's little boy (sorry, young man!) was in. It's the third one he's done and so the third one I've seen, and the standard is amazingly high! I went with my sister and Nephew#1 who loved it!
http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/5069/shows/south-east-berks-gang-show.html

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I had an email from an old friend in America. She and I worked on Scout camp together in 1991 and 1993, and we've kept in touch albeit sporadically. She was writing to let me know her mother is ill with a terminal illness. It's news like that which makes me take stock and appreciate what I have got in my life. This little saying popped up on another friends facebook today, and it definitely applies to me these days.

I'm going to make it my new mantra.

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On Monday I helped another friend with a house clearance. An elderly family friend has passed away and her parents are executors, so she was doing some clearing of stuff for them and I gave her a hand. The old man had lived locally to me and my friend and her family now live some hours away, so she stayed with me Sunday night and we did some clearing on Monday. It was lovely to see her and catch up, it's been almost 2 years since I saw her last! We got a lot done too which was good.

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I didn't run for 2 weeks. There was ice and snow one week, and then I had other things on the next week. I went to track yesterday though and it was hard work.... got to get back into it! Hopefully we've got some better weather coming now that we're heading into spring, it's definitely a much more pleasant hobby in the summer and I'm actually quite proud of myself for sticking with it through the winter months! I do need to push myself though as I have definitely plateaued, I doubt that right now I would manage the '8 in 80' I did back in October!

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Yesterday was my sister's birthday! Happy birthday sis!!

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My brother and sis-in-law got another dog! Can't remember if I blogged it, but the old dog died before Christmas. They have got another collie, this one is a 2 year old bitch called Trixie and she's a total sweetie!

This is her picture off the rescue website, she's much prettier in real life and just wants cuddles all the time!

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So, I think that's it, but if not I'll be back to edit this post over the next day or so I'm sure....

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Just another February....

Can you believe February is half way through already? I can't.

We've had snow this week. That means I haven't been running for a week now because I'm too scared to run in the snow and too lazy to dig the treadmill out from under the boxes of car boot stuff.

At the end of January, I went to see Blood Brothers with my friend. It was her birthday present to me, and it was fab! I have seen it before but a long time ago, and I was surprised how much of it I had forgotten. I made some popcorn to take. I love toffee popcorn and wanted to make my own instead of buying it. It took a few goes but I finally got it almost right.... one more try and it'll be perfect I recon!

Shopping!!

I had some money for Christmas/birthday.... so I've been shopping!!

Firstly, last year I had an Amazon voucher for £15. I never got round to spending it, there never seemed to be anything I needed and when I did need something, I forgot about the voucher! Anyway Amazon vouchers are only valid for 1 year so a week before my birthday this year I decided I really needed to spend it. Suddenly, I remembered that Amazon also do sports clothes and I really wanted a long sleeved running top.... duh, I really am a bear of very little brain sometimes!! So I got 2 running tops with my voucher and they're great! They came to £15.35 between them.

They're both really comfy, the black one is nice under my red club running vest for cold cross country races! I like the blue one best though. 

Then, with birthday money I went to Sweatshop and got new running shoes in the sale. I'd been getting calf pain which is what happened last time my running shoes wore out back in March last year. I got Adidas Supernova Sequence 4 in bright yellow! I have a bit of an issue with pink in as much as I won't wear it for sport (other times is fine, but not for sport - too girly!!). So yellow was just fine by me, I love this fluorescent yellow! They were £85 reduced to £52. I did try on others and these were genuinely the best fit and most comfortable. I didn't buy them based solely on colour! It was a happy coincidence that the ones I liked the look of best were also the best fit. 

I also had the full gait analysis and found that my brother and I were right when I did the 'wet foot' test last time I bought shoes, and I do over-pronate mildly. 

Also, someone at club posted on Facebook about a Garmin GPS watch which was half price in the Sweatshop sale, £150 down to £75. The store I was in had sold out so I ordered on line and am now the proud owner of a Garmin forerunner 110. It's the most basic one so doesn't have a heart rate monitor, but I still love it and it's all I could afford being half price, so I'm very happy with it. 

Just gotta remember to switch it off at the end of a run if I want a correct time....!!!

Whilst in the mood for shopping I needed a new sports bra. Mine is great, but I only have one and as I do sport a minimum of 5 times a week I often find myself taking it in the shower with me and handwashing it! I got it from M&S and it's a zip front which is so much easier to get on/off.... I'm quite sure normal sports bras are designed by men - they're just so hard to get into! Anyway, M&S stopped making the one I like so I was looking elsewhere, but then I found M&S have brought out a new version of the one I had from there before! So, with the M&S vouchers I got for my birthday, I bought 2 new ones!

My other bargain purchase, was new walking boots. I always seem to need new boots at this time of year, I just have to make the old ones last until the sales start! This time I got Karrimor KSB's, originally £109 but reduced to £35!! I did toy with the idea of buying 2 pairs at that price and keeping a pair for next year, but in the end I didn't. 

So that sums up my January bargains! (Except for the charity shop bargains... I don't normally shop this much! Honest!!)