Got myself a new toy recently! It finally arrived after having to submit the order 3 times due to various credit card f ups. It's not been my month for online credit card payments as Paypal has also arsed up denying my 4 digit verification code was correctly entered, so now they're refusing to let me use my card. Helpful. Stroppy fax with details they've asked for has been sent. Anyway the iPaq is great. I've got a GPS thingy for it which is brilliant for navigating me from work to home, esp when I decide to ignore it and take another route. It replans very quickly and carries on directing me. Maybe one day I'll get it to take me somewhere I've never been before...

Took Friday off cause I felt like it. After the previous weeks ridiculous intervention I found myself less motivated at work so fancied a day off. Spent half of it in bed and half of it looking at possible Christmas holiday destinations for 5 of us. A day to myself was very nice! Got a full 5 day week coming up though which isn't so good!

Had a nice weekend, satiate was just S and I mooching about. Went for a walk on Dun Laoghaire pier. Actually managed the 10,000 steps on my pedometer on Sat! Today I've done less than 2000...

Went to the Crosslinks 20s and 30s Ball on Friday in Belfast. Was a fantastic evening. S and I took the "Enterprise" train up from Dublin as I was asked to work the night before so wouldn't feel like driving (more on that in a sec!). We stayed the night in the Hotel which made things nice and easy and more relaxing than worrying when to drive home. 5 others from Dublin came as well, but most drove back at around 1am...

The next day we walked into Belfast main shopping area and had a mooch around. Bought a pedometer to keep track of how many out of the recommended daily 10,000 steps we manage. It aint many!! Even with walking miles round Belfast it was only approaching that. Yesterday I managed a grand total of just under 4000.

I have been relegated to the twin room. That was a really bad word to pick given the circumstances, but anyway. NTL was broken, which is typical when the one evening in weeks I happen to be in when there's live football on. Managed to get a watchable TV3 signal on the portable with the indoor aerial so S settled into the lounge with C to teach her french. When NTL decided to sort itself out they were too settled to let me back in! Anyway I should stop this for now and pay attention to said football. I've not forgotten about the over night work - just to say that it was a total utter waste of my time. From 2:30am until 7am just cause someone couldn't manage to organise it properly. As a result I've been less motivated this week.

We had a lovely weekend with our TNT group up in Co. Mayo. It's a rather long way but worth it when we got there. We left Dublin at about 1pm on Friday and got to the house in Mayo by 7pm having only stopped for lunch and briefly in a shop for essentials. It was beautiful surroundings with a rather large hill as the view in one direction. While it was crying out to be climbed, we didn't have time and ended up going for a long walk on a beautiful sandy beach on the Saturday afternoon.

S is on her way back from Belfast and needs to be picked up at Dun Laoghaire Dart station, so I'll finish off the weekend another time. You know full well I'll never get round to it!

I'm sitting here watching Brainiac and am amazed to see a kid who has bought a little gadget to make his bike sound like a motorbike. When I was a kid it consisted of a piece of cardboard and a cloths peg. This kids gadget came with a piece of cardboard and a peg plus something to amplify the sound... I imagine it cost him more than mine did me! And now they're experimenting on the cheeky girls.