Another day, another new job... at least it's sort of how life feels at the moment! Actually got headhunted, or should I say temp hunted last week. Had an email from someone I worked with in the press office last year. They are now working for a different but connected dept and she wondered if I wanted to help out for the next four weeks. There was no reason no to jump at the chance. I had become a little tired of working solely on one project and this job is all over the place. There's events to organise, meetings to go to and yesterday I even found myself trying to secure unpaid work experience for a few local ex-homeless ex drug addicts ! Much more interesting indeed

The other weekend I had a moment of pure jealousy and it was not pleasant at all! Bit of a shock really... S had sent a text on the saturday night that I didn't actually see until sunday lunchtime.... and it made me turn completely green... S was at the Scissor sister gig in Trafalgar sq and I sooooo wanted to be there... it's a few years since we first saw the sisters and they were always an enjoyable gig. Think my favourite was the dance tent at Glastonbury! That was amazing and as I had managed t osqueeze my way right to the front it felt a very personal little show!! In fact that's what they have always felt like, somehow the sisters have made it feel like an intimate little gathering and you were a special part of it regardless of how many people are actually in the audience... so I was jealous and there was nothing I could do but get over it...

Went surfing in Newquay last week...



well I say surfing but............. it just didn't quite happen. Arrived wednesday all excited, the waves looked enormous and fairly choppy but standing at the top of Fistral beach they never look too big until.... got up thursday morning donned the rash vest wetsuit outfit that I had not needed in Hawaii and selecting a different board to try out ( a mini mal Bic 6'10) did my excited trot wavewards... the water was cold but not breathtakingly so and it was so clear it was stunningly beautiful. I stood for a moment looking out feel calm and excited at the same time. There was a slight problem in that there was no discernible channel to use to swim out as the waves were breaking all over the place but I walked and jumped through the baby stuff, jumped on my board and started paddling. Then hit brick wall after brick wall, at one point I didn't know whether I was up or down, swimming or simply drowning. Wave after wave pounded me. I tried walking holding the tip of my board but got bashed to pieces, I tried a dive through the waves but got upended and swatted unmercifully. My arms very soon became like dead weights and utterly useless so I retreated to the waters edge and watched others, whilst actually gasping for air.... I wasn't the only one having the same problems but I've never been a particularly strong swimmer and I knew that my arms were actually knackered... so that was it for the first day......... I couldn't even get out to try the board or see if I could still do the standing up thing.

next morning the air was still. It was beautifully warm, there was clear blue sky and it had a balmy summer's day sort of feel.... trouble is that presaged something I didn't even want to consider a possibility... drove down to fistral and stood watching the water...yes it was water.. there were no waves at all, barely a discernible ripple! Had to stand with the surfer's chill and accept it was not to be... so decided that friday night had to be hitting the town night and had a marvellous bop in a place called the Walkabout... felt recognisably female and got chatted up and danced with and one little chap even asked for the slow dance thingy at the end of the night... I had felt I was in my element! No longer the invisible woman at all....

Saturday no waves

Sunday long clean breaks so got on the shorter board and promptly fell off it... turns out it was much too small for me and I didn't do much more that play in the white stuff... then I got a stomach bug, haven't felt so ill since... I cant remember ever feeling so ill... spent most of the night in the camp site loos as the tent seemed like miles away!! So finally monday I had the right size board, the waves were probably the best I've ever seen in the UK.. and I was rubbish... gave up, got my camera out and took loads of pictures of sand...



it's remarkable how similar sand shaped by water is to mountains shaped by rivers... so my surfing in Newquay turned in to a bit of a non surfing trip but hey it was good to get away and it was sunny... drove non-stop home just to see if I could do it.. took 6 hours... have felt completely knackered all week since my return....

it's saturday and I'm in Cambridge, the computer is connected and I have a new job...

so once again a new start a new beginning... I wonder if I should be getting tired of it but so far I'm finding it new and exciting

the oddest realisation is that by doing this I am really putting myself first as when working at Mepal I have been pretty tired in the evenings and although I have a climbing wall at hand I just haven't felt up to using it...now I'm sitting at a desk all day I have bundles of energy left over for me! So am cycling to work, climbing with Jake on a regular basis and now looking out a yoga class and will swim a couple of times a week too... I have actually put on weight this summer too, have quite a bit of a belly so am not eating cakes, biscuits or any chocolatey stuff for a least a month.... and next week I go surfing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

watched Riding giants last night and oddly it made me want to jetski again! There's a sequence at the end with Laird Hamilton



talking about how they surfed Peahi (Jaws) and just seeing them play on the surf reminded me of how I used to love zipping around on one of those things... will have to check out somewhere next weekend maybe