If your 'Hazel' stops working for any reason, or fails to give satisfaction, please return to manufacturer with original packaging, and a replacement product or full refund will be forthcoming. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Life ok. Job reasonably interesting. First meeting with clients on Wednesday. Meh. Should know what I'm talking about by then. Erk. Might have joined GSM choir. Not sure. Bit hard to tell. Will find out Wednesday. Rescued Carl from A&E yesterday, where he was because he hurt his wrist. Christian in States, so am animal sitting, and occasionally scrounging the double bed. Am actually spending Time at home though. Eating shit. Always do when it's just me. Run out of money. Can't pay Feb's rent until I get paid for Jan. Crap. Went running yesterday, because it was gorgeous - stiff as a board today. Went for AGES, rather than just being unfit (am that too, but it's not like I've done no exercise at all the last few months (coffee shop job on feet all day, fair amount of cycling)...if had gone for the normal 15 I'd have been fine, but went for 45...), but still.

/ramble

New Job.

Since the last post, Andy has deleted himself from the internet. I suspect I managed to imply that I thought the whole thing had been a waste of time from the beginning, which I didn't feel at the time at all. It's just that now, it's clear that it was always going to work out like it did. But we had to try and make it work in order to find that out. I understand why that might come across as 'I wish I'd never started it', but it's not exactly what I meant. Anyway. It.

New job's quite good. I spend ages in Excel un-mangling box office data and making it readable and understandable and then turning it into graphs for PowerPoint presentations. That sounds really dull, but it's actually quite good. At present, anyway, it's pretty interesting. I hope when I've learnt how to use Excel properly it's not going to get boring, but I don't think it will, because hopefully then I'll have started going to meetings and talking to clients and that kind of thing, and it'll be interesting in a different way. So yes. It's good. And disconcerting similar to what Melissa's doing at Merrill Lynch, and being paid Lots for. Ah well. She won't get to wander into interesting theatres, and I don't have to stay at work til 4am several times a week.

I think Christian was feeling guilty this week, cos he bought me flowers AND took me out for dinner at the Vietnamese place on Magdalene Bridge. Both were awesome. Maybe he was just feeling nice, but it was still great. He had no real need for guilt - he's just been really busy, which I understood, even if I would have rather he was around...

Kate, Melissa, Lee and Graham T and me went to the Natural History Museum yesterday. Was FANTASTIC. I had bullied them all there to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which was absolutely brilliant. It's made me keen for sitting in hides waiting for birds and things. I'll keep my eyes out for beautiful days and pretty places to go, I think. I'm also likely to negotiate for a decent camera from one of the two friends I've got who have spare digital SLRs... The NHM is the kind of place you could go to every week for 3 months and not go through the same room twice - I'm quite keen to go back AGAIN, despite the fact that this was the second time in about 2 weeks (I went the week before very briefly with Eleanor when we went shopping on Oxford Street and got caught out by the 'you can't use cheap tickets in rush hour clause'). I'm also keen on the Science Museum AND the V&A, and am planning a champagne picnic in London Zoo in the summer. Will be fantastic. I know it's expensive, but I don't mind donating money to the zoo, because they do good stuff with it. It's like paying for the Eden Project.

I got to see Graham's new flat, too, which is lovely. Doesn't have the view of the previous one - which was about 10 feet from the south bank of the Thames. This one looks down on a panorama of Elephant and Castle. Not so pretty, but still a great flat. Also really near a rather nice indian, which was dinner. Was nice to catch up with everyone, and enjoy the book I bought from the NHM (Extreme Nature - I KNEW I wouldn't be able to go back without buying books. I also bought Darwin's account of the Voyage of the Beagle, which looks pretty cool.). I'm going to see them all next weekend for Leigh's birthday evensong at GSM, which I'm looking forward to. I'm tempted to ask Leigh if I can join GSM choir - they have adult female altos, which is something. Would give me a chance to find out what's what in Cambridge singing, and I'm going spare with nowhere to sing.

Well. I came home for chillis and red onions. Off again now. I nearly have housemates again. I've decided that it's less weird that I'm back in this flat, and more that Will and Tom live here too...

New Year.

I hate New Year. I say this every year. I think it's mostly because I'm shattered by the holiday season by the time we get to it, and this year was definitely no exception. The yukky antibiotics (second installment - better be it) didn't help, it's true. In some ways, I really ought to feel quite pleased to be seeing the back of 2007 - there've been some pretty horrible bits to it. There were some awesome ones, too, like RTTFP and getting a choral award among others. I never feel quite content admitting things are over, though. It's supposed to be pretty childish to cling on to things when they're finished, but I always do. I guess this year it's partly the fact that I have the new job to start after Christmas, doing something I know very little about, and, for a change, which I care about doing right. I don't usually care about the shitty little jobs I get in order to pay the rent or feed myself or whatever, but this time I do. I think. What if they don't actually LIKE me? What if I can't do what I'm asked? What if I just sound really stupid? Meh. This sounds really pathetic written down, but it's probably still true.

I'm trying to look at the New Year as a way of erasing the bits of last year that made it so bad. I'm not talking about Andy and me, the relationship, though I do mean the way that things ended. Contrary to what I'm fairly sure he believes, I do feel sincere regret for the way things turned out between us. The regret I had is that I badgered things into starting when I should have thought more honestly, right at the start, about how far I could see things going between us. I don't mean that I thought even then that we wouldn't have a future, but I do think I should have taken it more seriously. I was (am?) in a place where relationships are more fun than serious, but I think I put over the opposite message. I don't know. I have a suspicion they need to be both, but that's pretty hard. I don't really mean that I regret we ever started, because I think if nothing else we both learnt a lot in that relationship and that we supported one another through some bad things. I do mean that it would have been better that nothing had happened than for stuff to happen and then leave us both where we are. I think, anyway. But if it hadn't happened, then neither of us would have learnt what I think we have, and I, at least, wouldn't have found a relationship that I'm happy with. I wish, really really wish, that Andy could let things go. Just allow that they've happened, and that such things are complicated, painful, and necessary, sometimes. Then he'd stop tormenting himself, and by proxy, me. Some of the things he's saying now prove how badly he actually knew me. Stuff about deliberate cruelty, for a start, which I completely resent. I would almost mind less if he thought it was unwitting, but he doesn't appear to. Is it selfish to believe that I have never, or very very rarely, been guilty of deliberate cruelty? Unthinking, possibly, but I'd be mortified if I ever found anything like that out about myself. I don't think I lack self-knowledge, but that maybe wrong. Anyway. I really didn't start this to talk about Andy. I've been avoiding the subject because I still don't really know how to talk about it, not, as he seems to think, because it matters that little to me.

I was going to talk about New Year's resolutions. There's the standard 'lose weight and get fit' one, to be achieved by cycling to work every day. Shouldn't be an issue, I hope. Having spent a considerable portion of my life playing sport, the fitness thing is not something I really find difficult to engineer, but losing weight is always harder. Other things include 'join a good choir' and 'make some effort'. Generic and dull. Sorry.

Christmas.

Christmas was quite good, actually. I had fun singing - my voice has been enjoying a break and so was really rather nicely responsive when I came to use it for high descants. Unfortunately, this didn't last for long, because the 6 hour drive down in the car with my dad, who had a streaming cold, meant that I ended up snuffly. I made it just about to Christmas lunchtime though, by which point the singing was over, so I guess it could have been worse. Me and the brothers took the dogs to the beach at Perranporth. I tried to take some pictures of the Christmas tree someone had put up on the rock that's in the middle of the sand, but they didn't really come out. And then Kiri fell in the swimming pool. It had muck in the corner, and she thought it was solid and tried to walk on it. She felt a bit silly.

We had beef for Christmas lunch, from the farm up the road. Properly fed, properly looked after, properly killed, proper beef. It was absolutely lovely. It's not often I rhapsodise about meat on here, for the sensibilities of the orthodox vegetarians who drop by, but this was really lovely. It's ok. I'm stopping there. Presents was good too. I had a watch from my parents, which I must go and get shortened, probably on Friday, and a proper ice blender for making smoothies and crushed ice, among other things. My brothers bought me rat things and a plant. My parents seemed to approve of the things we got them, and even my brothers seemed reasonably pleased with the things I'd got them, which I hadn't been sure about. Ooo and I had glasses made from half wine bottles in my stocking. Really nice.

I enjoyed being in Cornwall this time. Kiri was really upset when I left. She hates watching you pack the car and goes all sad and pathetic. I actually found myself wanting to be able to stay a bit longer. I headed up country on Boxing Day though, with Rocky in tow. He was much admired at the dinner party Christian had that night, and then came up to Derbyshire with us the following day. We had a tiny little cottage that looked like it had once been a stable, right on the edge of Bakewell - it was lovely. Sadly, the weather was less so when we tried to go for a walk the next day. We managed about half of what we'd been intending to do, but we and the dog were so cold and bedraggled that we gave up and went home for curry.

Christian decided he was brave, or foolhardy, enough to join in my mum's family's Christmas in Coventry. Not really sure what he made of it, or how much gossip we've now created among my somewhat peculiar family, but it could have gone worse. Rocky, however, loved it. LOTS of people to play with, yet another new house to explore, AND a big game of football to impede. Auntie Helen kept up her usual tradition - she gave me what I believe is called a 'snood'. In the last three or so years she has given me a pair of gloves, 2 scarves and a hat, as well as the 'snood', which is a cross between hat and scarf... All very nice, but I do find it rather funny. Could have been worse, I suppose.

Then we brought my brother Ed back, so he could meet the rats. He liked them. Then I finished moving house. I'm now back in Cambridge, in a room that at least feels homely. And somewhat full of stuff.