The last week or so has been madness. Feeble excuse, I know, but I haven’t had the energy to post. I wonder how people manage to publish every single day, I’m guessing that’s their main job? OK, fine, I’ve been on holidays, so I can’t use work as an excuse, but seriously.

I have just checked and wow, it’s been 15 days since my last entry. I get it now why you’re upset. I even get that you barely remember me!!

OK, so here’s the update for the last 15 days!

Saturday 13th July.

The day started well. I went to my guitar class and it was great. This time, I arrived with plenty of time, so I managed to get my guitar tuned by the teacher. Also, my nails were perfectly clipped so I had a better grip! We practised some blues basic notes, as well as more chord changing (A to D to A to E to D…) which I still suck at, but I did pretty well considering I hadn’t had any practice at all.

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After my class, I went to Surbiton, to some friends’ place, for a barbecue. It was so much fun! My brother came along, and I think he enjoyed it as well. We stayed there for a while, playing with bubbles and eating burgers. However, we didn’t stay too long, as I had to be somewhere else afterwards.

I was volunteering for the London to Brighton Night Bike Ride, and I was supposed to be at Clapham Common. We went there at about 7pm, even though the even would not start until 11pm! Anyway, it was fun. I met some people, saw people I had met before at my previous London to Brighton volunteering day, and mainly enjoyed the sunshine. Afterwards, I was sent to stand next to the temporary traffic light, just as an extra measure of safety, to ensure cars would stop when they needed. Only 2 cabs actually didn’t stop, but there were no accidents. I made sure to curse them in all languages I know (2 fluent, many swear words in many other languages!), and kept on minding my own business afterwards. This finished after 1am. It made me realise that even when I’m bored and on my own, I still manage to have fun and find stuff to amuse myself! It was quite entertaining overall.

Sunday 14th July.

I’ve been meaning to write about this day since it happened! Gosh, I really am a lost case… So this day was the day of The Color Run (pardon the misspelling mistake, but it’s an North American event) in which a group of work colleagues (friends, really) and I were participating in. The idea was to run 5k and get covered with colourful powder at certain points, much like a Holi festival. It was ridiculously hot that day.

I set off and while walking to the Tube, I saw a group of people, all dressed in white, walking in front of me, so I figured they were going there too. I was meeting my friends at Wembley, so I had to journey alone. When I caught up with them at the station, I asked them how they were getting to the place, and they told me to tag along, which I did.

As it turned out, the tube was pretty packed with people going to this run! It was fun. These guys I journeyed with were such a nice and fun bunch (and I’m not writing this in the off chance that one of them, freshly added to Facebook, happens to read this, I actually mean it) that I felt welcomed.

We got to Wembley, and they decided to go towards the start line, but since I had to wait for my friends, I stayed behind. I got the name of one of the girls, to try to find her on Facebook afterwards.

My friends arrived, and we set off. Have I said it was very hot? It seems we were c.15,000 people running that day, and they were letting us start in small batches, to avoid congestion and possibly, accidents (come to think of it, we did the same at the night bike ride the previous night!) so as you can imagine, it took us forever to cross the start line. By that time we were already hot, sweaty and tired. However, we made an attempt to run, and after about 5 seconds decided that it was not going to happen. This wasn’t an issue, as there were 2 kids in our group, so we all stayed together for the majority of the course.

The actual colouring was a bit disappointing, but still fun. I had imagined it as a proper cloud of colour, powder flying everywhere. In reality, it was a bunch of people squeezing some bottles full of the coloured powder and kind of asking you to keep moving and not stop. However, we all made it fun and enjoyable!

As you can imagine, we ended up pretty covered! At the finishing line, there was a stage with music, more colour powder in bags that they gave us so we could play with them, and people with hoses. So not only we were dirty, but we ended up completely soaked!

One of my friends and I decided to leave, so we rushed to catch a tube. When I got in, the guys from the morning were there again! Happy coincidence! They told me they were going for a drink and asked me if I wanted to join them, so I went. I’m glad I did because I had a lot of fun. In the end, I exchanged Facebook details with another girl and then added a couple more at home.

This leads me to a point I’ve been making for a while now: challenge yourself. I would normally have gone on my own, all shy and quiet, but I forced myself to talk to strangers, and it led to a fun day. They were great people. True, they could have been rude and told me to leave them alone, but they weren’t, and chances are most people are nice people if we give them a chance.

Anyway, it was a packed weekend.

Monday 15th July.

After work, like every Monday from now on, I had my pilates class. I love pilates, it’s fun and it’s a proper workout, without the massive sweating and tiredness. You feel your muscles stretching and you have pain afterwards, but it’s more enjoyable and easier than a proper bootcamp!

Tuesday 16th July.

After work I attended an event on a boat, along the Thames. It was a work thing, a PR event and my boss’s boss thought that since I work in Internal Communications now, it would be a great idea. When I asked her who else from the company was going, she said no one. So I was going to be stuck on a  boat for 4 hours, on my own. Again, it was another challenge for me.

As soon as I arrived, I spotted a group of people, and went to talk to them. They turned out to be quite nice again, but of course, I didn’t feel I should be stuck to them all evening, they would probably want to do their own thing, and I really needed to network a bit.

In the end, I met quite a lot of people. Some of them were friendly and nice, others not so much. There were a few normal people, but there were plenty of silly ones (you know the kind, them girls full of make up, perfect hairdos, and talking at you while looking around to see if they’re being noticed; them boys boastful and silly, thinking they’re super macho or something like that. It was very cheerleader and quarterback sort of gathering).

For most of the evening it was fun, but at some point, I had enough. As soon as we docked, I said bye to the few people I really liked and ran like the wind.

Wednesday 17th July.

After work I had to rush to the new flat to sign the tenancy agreement and do the check in. Yay!WeI have a new flat at last! In the evening, my parents arrived to visit us.

Thursday 18th July.

I had Thursday off to attend a minor surgery. I was terrified by the fact that I was going to get general anesthesia and would be unconscious for an hour or two. I’m a bit of a control freak, and I don’t like being knocked out. People seem to be terrified of actually being conscious while they’re getting surgery. I think if that was the case, I would probably be traumatised for life, but to me being unconscious was worse.

I almost started crying just when they were injecting me the drugs, but the team was really good. They knew I was scared, and they did their best to make it easier for me. They told me that they considered me young, healthy and physically fit (Fit? Me? Ha!), so they weren’t worried at all. They didn’t make me count back to 1, and I didn’t get to tell them a joke and leave them with a cliffhanger, but we did speak about Ryan Gosling.

When I woke up, I felt perfect. I had no dizziness, no nausea, no pain… I knew where and when I was, and what had happened to me. They kept asking me and checking with me. At first, the machine checking my heart rate did bother me, as it kept ringing because my heart rate was getting too low. The nurse kept asking me how I was feeling, and I was perfectly fine. They kept checking everything and when I finally had to ask about it, she told me that since I’m a runner and I workout and I’m healthy and again, physically fit (Seriously, I’ve been medically deemed fit, even though my BMI says I’m overweight??) it was normal to have a lower (slower?) heart rate. Anyway, I was free to go home that evening.

My friend Jay drove me home (thank you, thank you, thank you!!) and I managed to rest, at some point that night. I was thirsty and starving, so of course, we had pizza for dinner! I would have had a beer, but couldn’t so whatever. The downside is that now I cannot run for another week. I think I should be OK, but they told me not to, so that’s what I’m (not) doing.

Since then, I’ve spent all my waking hours packing boxes for the move. When I haven’t been packing, I’ve been journeying back and forth with my brother, carrying suitcases full of stuff to the new flat. I’m so tired… Yesterday, I even had a siesta! A 2 hours siesta, actually! And then, I wanted to go to sleep early again.

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We’re finally moving on Monday, I think, as another friend has offered his help (thank you, thank you, thank you! Aren’t my friends the best, by the way?) and from then on, I won’t have any phone or internet at home! I wonder what I’m going to do… It will be like back to the stone age!

Am I already warning you I probably won’t post again for a while? Maybe… I’m not back to work until the 5th August, so who knows… I will try to post again this Sunday, though, as usual, even if it’s a small update from my phone, so I can try to keep up with the schedule. This Sunday, actually, I’m meeting a friend from Paris for Sunday roast!! It’s going to be awesome!

Anyway, thanks for reading this long post, if you’ve done so, you’re great! I need to get back to packing boxes, and changing address in the different services I use, and then, rest.

Have a great evening!