5 weeks of updates

My apologies for 5 weeks without blogging.... Work has been insanely busy... It's wonderful. Here is a brief synopsis of what I've been up to (in point form)
Week 1
ICE meeting about St Germans Pumping Station - As a new graduate member of ICE, and employee of Atkins I went along with Rosie to attend the local ICE branch meeting where John Shepard, from Atkins, was giving a presentation on the St German's project. It was really interesting. The pump station is used to drain a large area, known as the Middle Level System, which is below the level of the Great Ouse. The exisiting station needed replacement, and Atkins did the design and are managing the construction tendering process.

Signed rental agreement - Finally took the plunge and signed lease agreement for 6 months on a new house. This was all very scary, but the new house is great!

Moved into new house - Dave came up for the weekend and he and Paul helped Rosie and I with the move into our new house. Moving wasn't too arduous, especially as Joan's (from work) son and his friend moved the bulky heavy items in their van. carpet fitters by trade, they even did a free job on the carpet which was coming loose on the stairs!! In the afternoon, Dave devoted his time to building my new wardrobe, and Paul helped Rosie install her poles and racks in her walk-in wardrobe/dressing room. Some amusing jokes were made about it being her pole-dancing room!!

Music quiz evening - In the evening after moving we met up with Andy, Fanny and Andy's dad at the local primary school for a fundraising event for the local cricket club. The event was a Music Quiz, with questions based on music from the 50's through to the Noughties!!.... I wasn't much help having little idea of any pop music let alone British pop!! We didn't do very well, but we got to eat some dodgy fish and chips (which melted the polystyrene box), drank a bit of beer and wine, and had a lot of fun!! Fanny won an enormous bottle of wine in the raffle and promised to share it with everyone in a few weeks.

Shopping in Peterborough - Paul stayed over on the couch after the Music Quiz and the next morning he discovered that he had fallen asleep ontop of his glasses and broken them. Rosie thus offered to take a grumpy and slightly blind Paul into town to get a new pair. Dave and I tagged along to do a bit of shopping. Dave had brought up some koeksusters and boerewors for the weekend, and was eager to braai in my brand new garden (aka patch of grass). So I bought bbq from Argos which he assembled when we got back.

Dinner at Dr Cashin's - Unfortunately (much to Dave's dismay), the bbq had to be put on hold as Sean (from work) invited us all to Cambridge for a dinner party. It was brilliant!! He did all the cooking himself and put out a delicious spread. Starters were Bruscetta with salsa and pine nuts, followed by calamari; and the main course was roast lamb, roast chicken and roast veggies (peppers cooked separately for allergic Rosie). Yummy!! We slept over at Sean's and in the morning Dave and I washed up the dishes.... My goodness!! Sean must have used every pot, pan, plate, glass and utensil in the flat!!! It took forever!!! Once everyone was awake were took a walk through Cambridge and had breakfast in a pub restaurant before heading back to Peterborough.

BBQ on Bank holiday Monday - Back at the new house Dave finally got to try out the bbq. The braai's boerewors was delicious, although I think the look of it terrified poor Rosie!! She ate chicken while we devoured our wors rolls!!! Dave even brought me some Mrs Balls chutney to go with!! Thanks Dave!

Week 2
St Germans Flood Risk Assessment - It was a good thing that I attended the ICE presentation in the previous week, as this week I was asked to assist with a Flood Risk Assessment for the station Planning Application. This was my first project that I got to work on alone (with the help of Helen and Marc)

Atkins Rivers and Coastal Team Meeting - We had a Team Meeting at work where the progress of the Rivers and Coastal Section was discussed. It was great to feel included and many of the young staff had been involved in assessments to work out where problems lay in the team operations, and methods for improvement.

Project Leader meeting - I was scheduled for an interview with my line manager, to test my knowledge of project management, which would result in my being declared a "project leader" authorised to manage small projects. However, I was told that the meeting was cancelled and so didn't prepare becuase I was busy working on St Germans. Then the interview was suddenly back on and I was terrified! Luckily my line manager just used it as an opportunity to inform me about what I need to learn for a future interview!!

Bowling - Month 2 - We had our secong round of bowling this week. Rosie and I were both much improved, and my scores were 89 and 98!! I'm now in the top 5 based on handicap!!

Weekend: Sick with the flu - It seems that Dave transmitted the dreaded lurgy when he visited last weekend, and this weekend although I visited him in London, I was miserable, sniffy and coughing. The plan had been to go out for dinner, but this was abandoned due to my flu and cool riany weather in London.
On Saturday we went shopping for camping gear at Decathlon in London - I bought some shorts, slops and a sleeping bag!!
On Sunday the weather was bright for a few hours and we headed out to Putney where we had lunch in the sun at an outdoor cafe. Great! After that it was back home to Peterborough as the rain began again!

Week 3
Work was busy this week as I progressed on the St Germans FRA report as well as working on other projects.

Weekend: On Friday afternoon I went to the Brewery Tap (local pub) for drinks with Richie and Danielle (the Aussies), Andy, Fanny and Rosie. We also ate soem great Thai food there for dinner.

FA Cup & House-warming - On Saturday it was the FA Cup final, and Rosie had planned an impromtu House-warming party in the evening. We invited people to come around to watch the football before the party, but in the end only Mark Carroll arrived. We put him to work helping prepare for the bbq in the evening and the poor guy had to watch the football with two uninterested girls!!! I fell asleep!!
The house-warming went very well, with loads of Atkins friends pitching up. Tom and Sarah brought me Sarah's old bike when they came to the party, but unfortuantely I'm too short to stand over the frame!!! We had loads of food for the bbq, and I made some great kebabs!

Rosie, unfortunately was still feeling depressed after her Uncle's passing and funeral earlier in the week, and disappeared early from the party leaving me to host the remaining guests. She went out clubbing with some of the guys. It all ended well and fun seemed to be had by all. I was a little worried when I heard 2 sets of footsteps returning home and going to Rosie's room, but luckily it was only Andy who had to sleep on the floor because I had given Mark Carrol (who also slept over) all the cushions from the lounge sofas to sleep on!!

On Sunday I helped Rosie with the Clean-up (she was up early feeling bad for deserting everyone the night before) and she made breakfast as an apology.

I was a bit depressed during the day because it was Mothers' Day in SA, and my mom was out most of the day so I couldn't call her. During the afternoon Rosie took me into town and we did some retail therapy!! I got a new pair of heels!!

Week 4
Happy Birthday Dad and Happy Mothers Day to Mom!!!! - Monday was my dad's birthday, and I phoned home to wish him and my mom for the previous day. It was great to hear from everyone.

Work - Back at work, I started on a new project - I had do do some hydrological data analysis and plot flow duration curves to assist with a water supply authority's drought permit application. The SE of the UK is experiencing a drought at the moment, and they need to look at the effect of changing the conditions on an abstraction licence in Kent. At the beginning the project sounded very complicated, with lots of possible options and analyses, but ultimately these fell away and it became fairly simple. It was a very interesting piece of work, although I was al little scared that after mentioning that I used to work with licence applications in SA, that I might be doomed to work on licences here permanently!!

More shopping!! - During the week I went shopping again with Rosie and I bought 2 new black blouses. I am anticipating some warm weather and needed them to match my skirts!!

Weekend - Dave came up to visit on the weekend, and on Saturday morning we went cycling (me on Rosie's bike and Dave on Sarah's old one that was too big for me). It was really cool, but I realised how unfit I am and my butt was rather sore subsequently!

Later on in the day Rosie took Fanny across town to Halfords to collect her new bike, and Dave and I tagged along. At the shop I ummed and ahhed for ages before buying a bike myself. The next day Dave rode through the rain to buy the tools, nearly had and accident, and built my bike for me. Unfortunately the rain prevented me from taking it out for a test drive.

Eurovision party at Lenia's - On Saturday evening Fanny, Dave and I went to Cambridge for a dinner party and to watch the Eurovision Song Contest at Lenia's. Lenia cooked loads of divine Greek food and we all had fun commenting on the Eurovision acts. The winners were a heavy metal band from Finland who were dressed up like demons/aliens!!! Most amusing! Another amusing act was from Lithuania, who had a football chant type song entitled "We are the winners - Of Eurovision".... My goodness!!!

The evening ended well with a bit of Salsa music and Latin dancing!!

Week 5
Work - Since I only had a 4 day week, with loads of work to do, I was busy busy busy!!

Thursday became Friday and Dave, Fanny and I headed off down to Newquay in Cornwall for the weekend. Camping in the rain!!!!