My sole post all week has been the latest Big Finish releases, which included the subscriber special The Five Companions. Which was fun - I want to see more of Ian and Steven teaming up now.

Friday was our work Christmas party, which I've only just recovered from. All I did was to sit around and talk (and stand for an hour) but I was tired from it I slept for 11 hours Friday night, still felt tired and slept for 10 hours last night. Now I don't feel tired.

In the work secret santa for the first year in I don't know how many, I didn't get a Doctor Who related thing. I got a rabbit instead. Which is good, because generally you can't go wrong with with rabbits. However, this one has a hole in it that you're clearly meant to put something in, but no one knows what. There was no packaging, so presumably my santa doesn't know either. The most suggested things at the party were mobile, iPod and remote control. I tried putting my phone in it and the hole holds together too well to get anything in there easily. So I am stumped.

There was also food, which I mostly couldn't eat. The chef wouldn't understand that I just wanted to know what was in it, I didn't care about contamination, which she was more interested in telling me. I don't think she wanted me to eat at all. Fortunately, I brought my own - I remember last year well when I got a salad.

I have things booked for January now. I am going to see the Gymnastics at the O2. It feels like we can't get away from that place. I'm also going to see Spamalot. For the third time. But the first and second times were on Broadway and in the West End, this one's in my nearest city.

I am so glad there's only three weeks left before Christmas, when I get ten days off in a row (including weekends and bank holidays). Although the two weeks coming are likely to be the busiest as we try and fit as many projects in as possible before Christmas in a rush.

In other news, I had mushrooms last night and wasn't ill. They were nice as well, I'd forgotten! Even better, I had them on pizza. Sainsbury's Free From pizza bases don't go completely solid in the oven either. They're just expensive, which is why pizza is a treat. But since the smallest amount of mushrooms I can buy was 150g, I will be eating mushrooms every night this week.

Mushrooms are the last thing I have to try before I'm onto wheat and wheat gluten. It's a tricky one because I don't want to eat something that I'll remember the taste of and then might not be able to eat again, but I could eat half a breaded fish from the fish and chip shop, so I will need to eat quite a bit of gluten to test it. I am intending to have a tube of Pringles because limiting yourself to one or two is really hard. I think it'll have to be pasta - I have plenty, so I can always have half ordinary, half gluten free.

At some point I will have to try an actual egg and not just egg in bread and biscuits. But since I really don't want to remember what one tastes like and then potentially not be able to eat one again, I'm not in a rush.

This week has felt so long. After not being very busy at work for months, this week I was suddenly really busy. I was definitely ready for it to be the weekend on Wednesday, after I'd worked late on Tuesday, then come home and did some more work. But I still made it to ballet on Wednesday, which did make me less tense.

The crazy part is that I can't quite believe it's gone from being hot enough to need the windows open all evening to being so cold the heating needs to be on in the space of a week. This time last week I was at home, trying to take photos of the cat (who really doesn't pose). But he did recognise me, even though I hadn't been home since Easter, which is good.

Before work got busy I finished off my girlsavesboyfic fic, and have now managed to get the time to post it: Winds of Time (When Ian is lost on a cold, empty planet, it's up to Barbara to save him.)

I'm really liking the people I work with at the moment. I keep remembering back to when I was going to SG cons and I hated how at work all the talk would be of Eastenders and Big Brother, and the cons were the only places I could talk about interesting TV (in person, obviously I can on the internet).

And then the other day someone mentioned that Dave are making more Red Dwarf. Someone else was talking about Kochanski and said "You might remember, but she was played by someone else at the beginning." Someone else pointed out that "You might remember" was a really stupid thing to say because of course we all do. And then we had a discussion about exactly which series which actress was in, what Craig Charles was up to and how the new episodes a couple of years ago weren't that good.

Other discussions this week have included a chair that makes you feel like Captain Kirk and whether you can hook one leg over it, wearing your pants over your trousers, when Doctor Who starts again, the varieties of Star Trek, Forbidden Planet and the late lamented Friar Street Bookshop.

Also, Tablets, Ubuntu 11.4, IE9, Safari and Macs. Most of these were work related.

Today I went back to work after a week and a half off. Which was never going to be great, but bits of it were really bad and some of it was good:

Good: It was very sunny and light when I got up
Bad: I had to scrape the ice off my car. It wasn't thick ice, but I am definitely moving to somewhere with a garage, I can't be doing with that any more.
Bad: Both my bosses are off during most of Wimbledon, which includes the date my tickets are for. No one else is allowed time off during that time.
Good: Work gave me money for having worked there for ten years (it's not actually quite ten years yet), so I am going to use it to buy myself a red ebook reader.
Bad: Where did the time go? I feel old. I don't want to be old. I want to be 22 again.
Bad: I took my new 10 colour Dalek pen into work and it vanished into thin air. I do it with pens all the time, but I thought this one was big enough not to lose.
Good: I wasn't too busy today.
Good: It was still light when I left work.

I had every intention of actually updating at some point this week, but I went back to work and then remembered why I have no time. And today's xkcd is a pretty good demonstration of how my working day goes. Especially the bit at the bottom that says "Are you done yet?" "No, and the requirements have changed". This is usually when you're nearly done, it's 4pm and it has to be done by the end of the day...

I get back from work about 6pm - if I can escape early then it's earlier, or if I have to stay late it's later. But it's 6pm if I leave on time. Although annoyingly, it's also 6pm if I leave ten minutes late, because that's long enough for the rush hour traffic to have gone.

So then I have to cook and eat dinner, have a lie down because I haven't had one since I got up. During this time I'll also read my emails and RSS Feeds and Twitter feeds. By the time I've done all this, it's 7pm or 7.30pm depending on how long dinner took and how long a lie down I needed.

I have to go to bed about 10pm because I still need 9-10 hours of sleep because doing anything at all wears me out. So that gives me about 2-3 hours of evening. At some point during that time I need another lie down, so we're down to about 1-2 hours to get anything done.

And you can't concentrate for that long, especially after having concentrated all day, so you have to stop whatever you're doing for breaks, which leaves me with about 0-1 hours to get anything done in, depending on how tired I am. And the further through the week we are, the more tired I get.

Which leaves me with what feels like no evening at all to get anything done in. Hence why I don't get much done during the week. Although I'm sure some days I have more time than that, I just don't know where it goes...

I have nothing on this weekend apart from cleaning and catching up on sleep (which would work better if I'd slept later), so how about a discussion.

I think occasionally about what would be the worst job I could possibly do. Not because it's a terrible job per se, or something I couldn't do because I haven't had the training, but something that I just couldn't do no matter what.

I think the worst thing I can come up with is hearse driver - because I have a phobia of dead bodies and I hate driving.

So what's yours?

Today has been one of those days. I woke up to find three fire engines and a police car at the end of the road... By the time I left for work it was two police cars and a fireman van type thing and a fire engine that tried to get into the road as I was going out. Except that it's just not wide enough for that...

Then I thought work would be relatively quiet so I could get some stuff done, but it was ridiculous instead. I needed to start on a new project, thought I could do it in the morning, then thought I could do it at 4pm, then 5pm and eventually started ten minutes after home time...

But on the plus side, our Rotaract handover/16th charter celebration last night was good, especially to see some old friends. And I got home to find altariel1's Doctor Who book on my mat, which I am saving for my train journey to London on Sunday.

I suddenly feel that weekly posts might be more common from now on... Basically, work is very busy and not looking to get any less busy. In fact, I think it's possibly only likely to get more busy. And to make it worse, that means I won't get to see as much Wimbledon because I'll be getting home later and the World Cup is on every afternoon so I won't get to listen to it at work either.

I am looking forward to Wimbledon, though. I have picked out my fantasy Wimbledon team which will hopefully not be as crap as last year's. Although since I take no notice of the women my team mostly consists of the Williams sisters and cheap people who have interesting names. I have added the Wimbledon feed to my Twitter, so I can read all about what happened at Wimbledon six hours later when I get home.

Friday night I went to see the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue stage show. It was so good my throat still hurt on Saturday from laughing. The new series starts tomorrow - it'll be one thing I won't be saving for after Wimbledon.

TGI the weekend. This week has been so busy at work - I've been doing 9 hour days. Which at least means I leave after the rush hour, but doesn't leave very long evenings or energy to do anything in them. This would be why I haven't been around very much.

And my right wrist hurts. It's caused by me sleeping on it, and I sleep on my right when I'm stressed (and I've been dreaming about work this week - and not sleeping much because my brain won't stop working). And the bit of my left hand between my thumb and forefinger hurts. I only just worked out last night that it must be caused by holding the mouse. I might have to try a small mouse out next week and see how that goes.

On the plus side I didn't get as tired and as dizzy as I thought I would. But I did get a sore throat instead. And had to miss my two Rotaract meetings this week, which is really annoying. I do only have a four day week next week, as on Friday I'm going to see ISIHAC. Although this does, of course, mean doing five days work in the space of four. Mind you, this week I did six and a half days work in the space of five...

I did, however, manage to write 25 of my 100 drabbles (well, I started on 1st June). I ought to sort out posting some of them this weekend. I did also find mini eggs in the health food shop, which kept me going in the afternoons (I was looking for smarties, and got some of those too, but mini eggs are nicer).

Because our overtime year ends at the end of June and I'll have at least three and a half days then, I'll get paid for it at the end of July. And I've just won tickets to the final Saturday at Wimbledon (Women's Singles Final, Men's Doubles Final, Women's Doubles Final) and because I know this money is coming to me, I can afford to go. I am also going on the first Thursday - both times are to Centre Court too. Mind you, if I'd got tickets to the final Sunday I wouldn't be caring how much money I had

I am so busy at the moment, it's crazy. Yesterday at work was terrible - I worked straight through lunch and didn't leave till late. Today I didn't think it would be quite so busy. I did get a lunch break, but didn't quite manage to start on today's work until 4pm and then left late. Tomorrow I have so much to do I can't see how I'm going to start on tomorrow's work. Then I'm off on Friday and Monday and going to the Balance Clinic on Tuesday afternoon. Which means the only way I can get tomorrow's work done in time is going to be to do it at the weekend, I think. Everyone else is busy at work too. The only good thing is that at least there are only two weeks left after this one.

I'm still catching up with stuff I need to do at home after spending my week off ill. I got really anxious about Yuletide and wrote the first draft while I had a really bad cold and felt awful. Which is something I've learnt to do from being ill for so long, it's just something I'd rather not do until I have to. And then I had to work hard to get it into something vaguely readable. Tonight I managed v3 - of 5500 words! I should just have to read it through a couple more times, then it can go to beta. Which is good because I need to get it out of the way so I can do betaing, treats and my TR secret santa. And maybe catch up on my viewing.

This week hasn't been too bad a week. It helped that it was only four days long and working from home Thursday afternoon. Although I spent the whole week confused so I forgot that it was the day I buy the newspaper until Thursday evening. It is all on the website, it's just such a pain to read that way, I'd far rather have the paper.

This weekend I even felt well enough to clean the flat and go out to Sainsburys, so that's an achievement. I'd quite like to go out for a walk at some point, as I currently get no exercise. I couldn't fit that round cleaning, though, but maybe next weekend I'll do that instead.

I'm onto the head moving exercises, which are really hard. But I knew they were going to be because I already don't nod or shake my head, and try not to turn round at work when I hear something interesting from behind me.

I am working on watching all the stuff on my PVR so I actually have some space to tape everything that starts this autumn. After having had the prompt for a week I managed to come up with the whole plot for my Sarah & Harry ficathon story. I even started writing it. I seem to be on about 300 words at a time at the moment, which is about half my usual, but will get there in the end as long as I keep up with it.

For some inexplicable reason half the week's TV is on tonight (Last Chance to See, Miss Marple (who I don't like as much as Poirot) and Joanna Lumley doing something with cats. And the US Open is on the radio from tomorrow, so hopefully there'll be lots of exciting tennis to listen to and they'll get it done quickly because I really can't stay up late these days.

And now I need to have a lie down so I won't be too dizzy to cook dinner.

It's been a bit of a dramatic week this week. First my landlord delivered my new washing machine last Saturday. Except when I did some washing when it spun it made loud noises and moved around - so much so that it came out from under the side and the pipe taking waste water away came out, so there was soapy horrible water all over the cupboard under the sink. I looked in the manual and on the internet about what it could be and found it must be something to do with it not being level. Read more...

We've had what must be the most excitement ever at work the past few days because Midsomer Murders have been filming outside out office. Wednesday afternoon they spent doing up the outside of the shop in the courtyard and playing about with a dinghy. Thursday afternoon they pranced around a bit, had very bright lights and did a scene where someone dressed something like Neptune walked from their fake giftshop out of the courtyard. This morning they stood around and chatted and drunk tea. This afternoon they were filming in the shop with some black curtain over it, so we couldn't see what they were doing.

No sign of John Nettles so far, but according to their letter they'll be back on Monday. And we all await the new series of Midsomer Murders with baited breath. Or the fast forward button, in most cases.

My Yuletide fic is up to second draft and 2000 words. I ought to have it finished this weekend. It was helped a lot by my neighbours being surprisingly quiet, although not helped at all by work being stupidly busy. Today was one of those days where every time I started to do something I got interrupted by having to do something more urgent. But I got two projects launched and another should go tomorrow so that'll help a lot. Maybe I'll even get a chance to listen to the SJA audios I bought at the weekend.

I've been watching Lost in Austen courtesy of Lovefilm. I didn't watch it when it was on TV, I think it was because it clashed with something else. I liked the idea of modern girl in Pride and Prejudice, I'm just not that excited about the book. I've never actually read it, but I've seen a couple of adaptations. I think. I have a feeling the only part of the Colin Firth one I've seen is the bit where he comes out of the water. But I am liking Lost in Austen, it's interesting. But only half of it was on one DVD, so it'll be a little while before I get the next part, depending on what Lovefilm decide to give me - you never can be sure with them.

I've been promising/threatening for ages to do a post about what I actually do, since it's insanely complicated to describe. As I haven't been there since Friday lunchtime, I'm not feeling too much like 'ugh, work'. I hate talking about work outside of work, it makes me feel like I've never left.
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It was at 4.30pm on Friday that I thought my brain might dribble out of my ears. And there was still an hour of work to go at that point. I did quite a bit of overtime last week, which has something to do with it. The weather isn't helping. At the moment it's slightly too hot for a quilt and slightly too cold for a sheet. At least, it is in the night. Once the sun rises I wake up boiling and have to put my sheet on. And consequently wake up really early.

I also seem to be allergic to something. Last night once it got dark I blew my nose every five minutes before I shut the windows and decided I'd rather be hot.

And what's really annoying me at the moment is WP keeps logging me out, even if I don't close Firefox and even though I tick the 'Remember me' box. My fanfic blog was fine, until I decided to check it this morning and it won't let me in at all.

I do like my new job, I just have to keep reminding myself that because I am ded from it this week, not helped by me not sleeping. Last night it was really cold, so I took my bunny to bed and before I fell asleep I'd run out of cold bit. And I have a double bed, so there is quite a lot of cold bits, in theory.

I have a project that they were absolutely desperate to go live on Tuesday, so I busted a gut working on it, along with another project that had to be done on Tuesday and a third that had to go live on Wednesday. At the end of the day we were just waiting for the client and it could go live Wednesday morning (that would be this morning - I'm terribly confused about the days this week, and the date).

What really rankled was that while I was doing this on Tuesday I had constant hassling emails on how it was going and why it took so long because it was a 'simple' project (it wasn't, let me tell you). After the client fiddled about with a few bits three times, we got the go ahead to launch it mid-afternoon, after I'd contemplated asking them what was taking so long since it was simple to test. It doesn't work that way though - it's alright for one department to hassle us about getting stuff to them now, but we can't hassle them when they're holding us up.

About one minute before the project went live the client changed their mind about something major in the project. So, this project that had to go live on Tuesday will now go live on Thursday. Probably. And I get to spend the third day in a row desperately trying to get it to go live. I wouldn't worry so much about it at this point except that I just want it to go away.

It doesn't help that I only have one bread mix left, the health food shop can't order it for me because their suppliers don't have it, and the only place that sells it is the big Tesco half an hour drive away. And I still don't know if I'm well enough to drive. There are no buses, of course. Because public transport is stupid and who would want to use that?

The bright spot is I went out to dinner last night at one of the Italians in town and I could eat three things on the menu! I actually couldn't decide what to have. The last time I experienced that was last August, I think. And they had sorbet for dessert, which was really nice.