THANK YOU!!!

I’m off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Auz… except that I’m not seeing a Wizard or going to Auz, but I am off! Yip, I have been given the green light to fly to London tomorrow night for the epic adventure that is the London Marathon, hours of drinking champagne and chatting to girlfriends and a number of hundred pounds spent on buying clothes. Whooppeee!!!

I shall be leaving behind a plethora of work which will be studiously ignored in favour of the above, a seemingly excited Chef (excited to see me leave, or excited for me I have yet to figure out!) and a gaggle of ladies who I promise to spoil on my return! What I will be going to is another gaggle of ladies, congested tubes, £4 coffee and indecisive weather… THE EXCITEMENT IS MAMMOTH!!!

I want to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored my charity. Thank you to The Globe Trotter, The Grandmother, The Parentals, The Parentals Friends, SuperMom, The Adventure Queen, The GBF, The Old Boss, 2IC, The Cousin, The Rider (soon becoming a runner), One Half of The Boys, Pop Tart, Thunder Struck, The Chef, The Barman, Running Mom, Pint Size, Glass And A Half, My JHB Partner in Crime, Sonic Hater, The Consistent One, Mr Lumps and Bazza! You guys are amazing, all the support and encouragement has been incredible!

Farewell All, Running Family no injuries please!

Mwah xxx

UPGRADING IS NOT ALWAYS THE BEST OPTION.

With the total lack of creative inspiration circling my office this morning, I’m afraid today’s post is borrowed from the wonderful Chef. In true guy IT style, he sent through an email which can only be descried as hilarious and ever so perceptive for the male species.

Readers, please enjoy: Installing a Husband

Dear TECH SUPPORT

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as Cricket 5.0, AFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate.



Dear DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.

Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.) In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck!
Tech Support

I know, I couldn’t help smiling either! So I sent it onto the wise Grandmother for comment. Here is what she had to say:

Grandmother: Loved this one, funny but very true!!
Me: Then in that case, remind me not to upgrade from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0!
Grandmother: Husband 1.0 does have compensations though!! If it is a good system it will last for years, without too much in the way of up grades, and it is a comforting companion that one gets to know very well without too many undesirable programmes....However there will always be cricket, tennis or worse still RUGBY!! Or horrors of horrors...red wine and snoring!!! Husband 1.0 actually leaves Boy friend 0.5 way back in Windows 98.
Me: OMG Gran, you are amazing!

IN THE BEGINNING...

The past couple of weeks have been strange. Not strange in a bad way, just peculiar and maybe slightly out of the ordinary. Daily life has remained fairly the same, it’s just that the element of religion (so well ignored over the past few years) seems to have felt the need to make itself known. Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe in the fact that there is something bigger than us out there, I’m just not sure if it’s an old bearded man (be he in a Catholic Robe, Jewish kippah or Muslim jubba).

I do believe that any form of belief in any religion does give those believers a sense of community in what is often a very chaotic and terrifying world. I appreciate that and am more than happy to sit on the fence in any discussion surrounding the topic, or in fact play (a bad) Devils Advocate to the best of my ability (which is consciously limited lest I get trapped in a conversation with a fervent believer!). My general feeling towards religion is that it is a personal choice and as long as it is not pressed upon me, I’m happy as Larry. I have obvious concerns surrounding the more fervent believers and do think that religion in these kinds of circles causes more trouble in the world than in necessary; however we all have brains to think and mostly I believe that is what we should do.

The reason for these meanderings was initially triggered by The Chef (wonderfully religious in every sense and a joy to be around), re-iterated by The Grandmother (years of knowledge on the subject and forever committed) and finally pushed home by The Cyclist. The Cyclist’s religious beliefs run along the same lines as mine and have never had a hugely significant impact on his life… or so I thought. My mind was recently changed when I saw him with a book depicting the religious journey of a Jewish man. Now the fact that he was carrying a religious book was not what shocked me the most, it was the fact that he was returning said book to it’s original owner after having read it from cover to cover in 2 days! The Cyclist does not read books. Not because he is lazy, but purely because he enjoys the ramblings of magazines and online publications far more. Now I am an avid reader and go through books faster than I can eat a pizza (which is saying something) so I have always been an advocate for the wonderful gems of fiction that can take me away from reality for a long as I care to concentrate. Needless to say, he had finished this book, a religious book, and found it wonderful…

So maybe, just maybe, there might be a place for religion in this crazy world... it did get the Cyclist to read a book after all :-)