It’s been a while. Lovely to read how you’re all doing. I’ve been keeping busy. Watching the events in the financial market with dismay and v. grateful for all I’ve got!

In lighter news, I went to the Lake District for a long weekend to see how many unused muscles I have in my behind. I found quite a few, all of which were ungrateful to be roused from their slumbers. Sitting down and getting up is quite a feat now. I’m hoping it will kickstart another round of gymming.

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My favourite author's new book "Good to be God" is coming out soon. Here's the synopsis:

"Using the credit card and identity of a handcuffs salesman, professional failure Tyndale Corbett arrives in Miami for a law enforcement conference to discover the joys of luxury hotels and above all the delight of being someone else, someone successful. Feeling his previous lack of success might be due to insufficient ambition, Tyndale decides on a new money-making scheme.

My last post contained the following plan:

1. obtain job.
2. hire fastidious cleaner.
3. join gym.
4. become sickeningly fit and healthy.

Well, number 1 is done. I'm back into it all -  the commute and the joy of running for the bus in heels. The commuters and their varying application of deodorant. The coffee run. The lunch run. The afternoon chocolate bar run. I like it.

Today was my last Sunday as a church mouse. That's right, folks... I'm shortly to be re-entering the big bad world of secular living-earning.

It was a good Sunday to end on; there was a church meeting to elect this year's PCC and then a church lunch. Think rows of ladies stationed behind a table of dishes, swatting away anyone attempting to snaffle some of the home-cooked goodness before the decreed time. Then think throngs and queues and smells and smiles and sharp annoyance at kids throwing crisps at each other.

It's a stereotype, but I'm loving the Japanese attention to detail. When I get back to the UK, I'm going to 'invent' mirrors that defog, loos that have warm seats (I hate them but I reckon you'll all love them), and taxi doors that open automatically. Mirrors are all at the right height here too, which is nice. And there's lots of orange (see pic above).

Mums are fun. They give birth to you, raise you, and then entertain you for the rest of your life. My mum normally holds the title for Most Straight-Shootin' but my friend's mum held the title for a brief, glorious weekend.

A had been working 12 and 14 hour days solidly, and the night before we went away even had to work THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT. Insane, but then she's a lawyer, and they never said law was a particularly reasonable profession. So we were in touch via text hoping and praying she'd finish on time to join us. What does a girl need when she's faced with an all-nighter? Li'l bit of maternal sympathy, perhaps? Well, poor A sent a text to her loving mother bemoaning her plight and expecting some appropriate cooing in return.

I'm eating mini eggs, and I can't stop. I'm seriously so pleased that they're only here once a year.

1. Had builders in who completed a job on time, resulting in increased joie de vivre and  pigs flying.

2. Shrank a dress from full-length to cocktail-length. In a weird way it still works. Emphasis on the weird.

3. I was a cultured jaffacake Sat night and went to see Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Glorious. Big. Very big. Two organ's worth. On the tube home, a drunken South African (sorry, Tuberider) saw the programme and said, "Have you been to see Jesus Christ Superstar?"

On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on [sound familiar to any churchgoers?]. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead [not as familiar, perhaps].

I often have weird dreams. When I was young, my mum banned me from reading Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree series because they would make me sleepwalk and hallucinate about Moonface and those other wonderful characters

In last night's dream, I was standing on a shopping trolley going very fast downhill on a road through huge waves of water, hydroplaning across the road, etc. *Where* that comes from I have no idea. And if I wondered what each of my crazy dreams meant, I'd go slightly crazy!