Well, the next blood test was not so good, with 23 people in the queue ahead and only 2 flea bottom ists on duty, but she said Happy Birthday, and I bought lunch, ate lunch and read a paper while I was waiting for the test. My birthday weekend was great, on the Thursday my house group suprised me with a Scarbble tournament, which Paul won with 'zag' on a triple word score. Beginner's luck. Bah. I'll get him next time. Then after work on the Friday the GGG and H and A had done a secret birthday tea for me, then R took me out to the Osborne View for dinner, and we bumped into a colleague of his who I had wanted to meet to talk to about sports wear. For my birthday I was given NO slippers ( but some money so off to buy them later) but a holiday in a railway carriage. How good is that! It's one of my holiday ambitions, so today I found one and booked it. The only downside is the location, in some sidings in Eastleigh. no, Yorkshire, in the countryside. We booked the last week they had which was in August, and it was a ridiculously cheap price for a week anywhere in August. Hooray!

Also today the garden designer came round with final designs so now its up to me to get smashing, digging etc. I need green wine bottles and brown beer bottles so if you are local and can start collecting please let me know when you have a box full and I will collect. Full would be good, but empty will do. Also old bike wheels if you have any spare? Like taking coals to Newcastle I am sure, but worth asking. As she was leaving, I mentioned I hadn't won anything lately, and then an hour later, a DVD Encyclopedia Britannica was on the door mat, which I had won in a magazine competition. I spoke to Claire Cressey today, she has won a designer bin worth £150. That is a good win. Made my DVD look a bit crummy.

Back to last weekend. We went to Moors Valley, along with the delightful James Taylor, House family and the Whitmore family. I got to see the Wildlife photographer of the year winning pics, which are always awesome. They are never of robin in your garden, the caption always reads like this:

After several months bivouacing in the Himalyas with only my camera and a yeti for company, I managed to get this long range shot of a dancing reef fish off the Gold Coast with my Cannon DGFFEEDD 180 3 B lens with the shutter speed set to 0.111 blinks per minute.

Did you? Well good for you! and well done for winning. On our return we had to go swimming despite all being shattered, as Paul and Ang were busy doing our house up for the cocktail party they had planned for me. A select group of friends dressed up for the event and I was plyed with drinks with the colour of toilet duck and a taste to match. After several of these increasingly complicated concoctions we played a silly men vs women game that a friend had bought me and it went down very well. so, I was very appreciative of the efforts of my friends to be nice to me. Especially Emma, who knocked back the cocktails despite being very pregnant. That's true commitment!

I have managed 2 weeks in a row teaching in Year 1, and still love it, despite being a bit ratty this week, frustrated with the 40 minute PE slot which gives us almost no time to do anything, as putting the mats and benches out takes 30 minutes, and changing takes 5 each side. They wrote some super sentences and I feel like we are getting the measure of each other! H and A had their parents' evenings this week, nice to be on the other side, H has done some really good writing and A is a brainbox at maths, which we know to our pain as she beats us on mental arithmetic and can do two step operations. So nothing we didn't know, but all good and the school are very good at teaching exactly what the child needs and monitoring their progress. Which once again encouraged us that sending your children to an OUTSTANDING school, even in Thornhill, is a fab thing to do!!! Oh, did I mention that Kanes Hill is OUTSTANDING? That's better than good! Shame about the secondary school eh? Known as Woodlands school for hooligans, it has to take all the children who get excluded from everywhere else. Hmmm.

Today is less than a month to my first race and I went for my first training run with my running guru, Sarah Gale. I managed to keep running the 5k track round the common, but the first third I thought I was going to give up, and the last 500m were terrible, in the middle I had a good bit where I was able to keep going and breathing. We did it in 33 minutes, which is not great as I need to be under 30, but for a first proper run with a runner, it was ok. Sarah barely broke a sweat and was more speed walking than running, but I did it! Tomorrow and next Sunday I have swimming lessons planned, for £5 at the university, I am taking along someone I met at the swimming pool who wants to learn to front crawl too. Will report back, but really I need to spend this week on running improvement. Yesterday I meant to do a slight detour to make my cycle to school a bit longer to act as a training ride (say 4 miles instead of 2) but miscalculated the bridge over the motorway and cycled via Fair Oak to Hedge End. Did it in 35 minutes and the fact that I had to get to work in time was a good incentive to keep pedalling. By the time the children arrived I looked fairly normal, and its lovely out there, as soon as you cross the motorway its all farms and peaceful.

Off out on my bike now to M and S. It's the most ethical shop on earth and so by cycling there to buy my slippers I feel I am adding to the good of the earth.