"Why’re You Intimidating My Wife?"

...is a great question (and a last minute blog-title rethink). I’ll fully(ish) explain it later. For now I’ll revert back to my original title: Beer, Balls, Bath and Bits of Everything Else.

Beer.
Tuesday was Pancake Day AKA the day everyone half heartedly agrees to give something up for Lent, because…

A)   They want to acknowledge the sacrifice Jesus made when he went in to the desert/wilderness for 40 days, something happened, a stone was moved... (I forget the exact story).

B)   They have massively failed in their attempts at sticking to a New Years Resolution.

Or, the one that applies to me...

C)   Everyone else is doing it and, actually, I want to play too.

Decide amongst yourselves which of the above applies to you.

I haven’t ‘done’ Lent since second year of university when the 6 41-Second House girls (plus OB) gave up one thing each and the loser had to buy everyone else a Nando’s. I had to give up pizza and pasta which happened to be the only thing I could cook at the time. It was tough but we all made it, and my cooking skills haven’t improved much since.

I’ve given up, ‘all drinks that are traditionally served in a pint glass’. Now I know what you’re thinking, “but that leaves a world of alcoholic options” but trust me, for a girl who had a first taste of booze sneakily out of dad’s pint glass many moons ago – this is tough. Nobody, not one person, can watch a football match with a glass of Red and have their footballing opinions taken seriously. One week in and I’m doing OK.

And when I say ‘OK’, in mean I’m dying for a pint!!...

I seriously doubt I’ll make the whole 6 weeks. The real test will come in Manchester in a few weekends time… We shall see!

Balls.

Netball – we’re now 4 games in and we are actually getting better! We had our best loss so far this week with a 12-7 defeat. I’m rather pleased with that. I stayed again for a second match with a team who was struggling for players and won that one 13-11. Then I shuffled home, aching, bruised and exhausted. More of the same next week!

A really bad picture of training...

Football – On Saturday morning I headed down to Clapham Common again where I enjoyed another training session with the AFC Phoenix Academy. We did some fitness training, drills and skills, and finally a 10(ish)-a-side match. The sun was shining, I was having a great time and before I knew it, it was 12pm and I had to dash across London back to the house then head back to Paddington Station ready for the journey to…

Bath.

Yes, on Saturday afternoon I made my return to Bath to visit Nat and Binks who, along with their housemates, were hosting a Pre-lash Party before heading to the SU night, Fuzzy Ducks. The theme at the SU was Cowboys and Cowgirls but the housemates had decided it would be much more fun for the theme to be – Cool Runnings! An excellent movie and a great fancy dress theme. Unfortunately, and in a very uncharacteristic move, I didn’t get my act together in time and sort out an outfit… So Binks basically tricked me into wearing ridiculous zebra leggings – which, after a bottle of red wine and a shot of Stroh, I thought was a fabulous idea. The photos (treat yourself at Facebook) tell a different story entirely. I had a flipping brilliant night, great to see the girls and even a surprise pit-stop from Becky who was in Bath too.

Hangover hilarity (and this video you can see on YouTube) is what led me to this week’s title – top stuff, proper ROFLs. Clearly I was late to this with already thousands of views but it just shows how some people are properly mental - pretty lengthy video so highlights include:

4.46 - "this'd be great on YouTube"..."are you threatening me?!"

6.55 - "why're you intimidating my wife?" [repeat 20000 times]

Sadly I’ll miss the next Africa Gang get together over the Easter weekend. I can’t complain too much though as I’ll be in New Zealand! In other Big Trip news, it’s now only 5 weeks away and I really need to plan…stuff. I’m not sure what, but I feel a need to write lists or make a spread sheet or something...

Passed!

Bits of Everything Else.

I got my results from the ITIL exam I took and it was all good news! I passed and have the certificate to prove it. In other BCS related news, this week I went to a lecture hosted at the BCS HQ close to Covent Garden – ‘HiTech Transport – Were Is IT Going?’. Geeky, yes. But actually rather interesting and…excellent catering. And wine.

RUN sculpture outside the
Copper Box (Handball)

On Friday I went to a TfL organised event at the Olympic Park in Stratford. Every TfL employee has been invited to attend a Fit For London session where we got the chance to ask senior directors questions about preparation for the Games, TfL's Olympic legacy, and how TfL can work more efficiently in the future. After the presentation and Q&A session we were loaded onto double-decker buses and set off into the Park. I really enjoyed it and thought it was quite cool getting to see it as it's being built - not many people get the chance to do that and so far it's looking incredible.

I also found out this week that I won tickets to the recording of David Mitchell’s BBC Radio 4 show The Unbelievable Truth in a couple of weeks. Ace news!

This week I’ve got a few things on at work that should be quite interesting; a writing workshop (fingers crossed these get a bit better!), Cycle Hire training and the annual TfL All Finance (including IM) conference. All followed by a weekend with so far no plans – possibly time for London Adventure III.

Until next time,

Bren x

PS, The only photo I got in Bath:

PPS, I learnt about this at the HiTech lecture - amazing:

PPPS, Anyone been watching Homeland?...I won’t lie, I couldn’t watch at a one-per-week pace. I’m 8 eps in and it’s pretty great. If you’re not watching it, get on 4OD and catch up!

PPPPS, Some more photos from the trip around the Olympic Park:

Pre-presentation
'Thought Wall'

The 'Who Are You
Supporting' wall.

Someone with a
sense of humour!

Crap picture of the
Athletes Village

View from the front of the bus

Weird clouds

One of the main entrances
to the stadium

The River Lea

River runs through
the whole park

Velodrome

Start of the BMX track

Basketball Arena

Sunshine

And the Brit Award goes to…

Red Carpet Queue

...loads of people who we didn’t find on our celeb-hunt this evening. I’m just back from the red carpet at the O2 where the Brit Awards were hosted tonight. Michaela suggested we do it. I went along with it… and OK, I’ll admit it, I enjoyed it. I spotted Jessie J, Pixie Lott, Fearne and Holly, Plan B (while he was sober), Dizzee Rascal and more...

I’ll apologise if this blog isn’t very well written. I’m watching Coldplay open the awards and now Florence.. Totes amazeballs.

But for now let’s go way back to Monday last week. I headed to Westminster City Hall for the first day of my ITIL Foundation course. I was there for 3 days learning all about IT Service Management stuff and had an exam on the Wednesday afternoon. I should find out in the next in week or so whether I’ve passed, fingers crossed!

Brennan's at
00'00'00

On Wednesday evening I headed to Convent Garden to meet up with Traum and Calla before they headed to see the Lion King. We found an Old Man Pub, treated ourselves to a few ciders and found the comfy seats upstairs. I was still knackered from the weekend and so after a good ol’ catch up I headed home and got straight to sleep ready for the first day in the office of the week and prepared to face 100+ emails!

Little did I know that at 10am on Thursday morning I’d get a call from a guy I know, Craig, who works in HR and I met when I went to the careers fair in Loughborough a few months ago… He needed someone to cover this years interviews of the next intake of grads! And so, just one year on, I was sat at the other side of the desk as the final 11 applicants were put through their paces with interviews, presentations, written exercises, group discussions and an IQ-style test. It was draining (for me!!!). Listening to their answers, taking notes and thinking of probing questions all at the same time – tricky! At the end of the day we had a ‘wash-up’ session and final decisions were made. It was a really useful thing to get some experience of and quite strange to think that they were discussing me at a similar ‘wash-up’ one year previous.

On Friday I finally got a chance to catch up with everything I’d missed from earlier in the week. Alas, that was cut short as I left at 2.30pm to head to our office over in Southwark for a lecture with speakers from the Deep Tube Programme, Crossrail project, and the new Fairs & Ticketing wave-and-pay project. All very interesting, but perhaps a bit too engineery for me – I still don’t know what a train bogie is…but I know it made me silently giggle ever time anyone said it. That finished just after 4.30pm and I dashed straight home to clean and tidy (glamorous, I know) in preparation for the Brennan sister’s arrival!

Rice Balls

After collecting them from Euston at 10pm, Friday was a quiet night with a couple of glasses of wine and hearing all the goings on with the Fam and peeps Up North. On Saturday we headed out all over London! Greenwich, Stratford, the south bank and the O2. We climbed up to the Royal Observatory and took silly pictures over the Prime Meridian and started the Heat Tour of London… Yes, that’s right, Jess bought a copy of Heat Magazine and got lots of pictures in front of famous landmarks…much to Naomi’s horror and my amusement. Highlights of Saturday included, rice balls, bratwurst, laughing in the face of pissing down rain and Naomi realising that the Tate Modern wasn’t the gallery she was thinking of when she insisted it was factored into weekend plans. We got back to the house fairly knackered but powered through and headed out with Michaela to Heaven where Cher Lloyd was playing this week…………………………. Thank Christ we missed her because whilst we were raving upstairs she was miming to the horrendous song that is Swagger Jagger. Bore off love.

Heat Tour hits Tate

Brennan's in Heaven

Headache. Headachey pain pain headache. And as I jumped on Jess with my fake, Sunday morning enthusiasm for making the most out of the weekend, carpe-ing the diem, only living once and generally loving life, I’m pretty sure she hated me right at that moment… But off we went in time to see Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. It was huge, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people!! We saw the band and had a wander around in the sunshine and up the Mall as the crowds dispersed. We got coffees, lunch and had a sit down (as I finally sobered up). We went to Oxford Street and found the secret little hide away St. Christopher’s Place. After more coffee we decided that the best plan of action was to find HMV (which turned out to be in Selfridges) and treat ourselves to DVDs then head home for a PHAT nap before the girls headed back to Euston for their 9pm train back to Manchester.

Tiny Ben

I had such a good weekend! It was great to see the sisters and have a laugh and giggle and dance and drink. TOP EFFORT LADIES.

This week I’ve played another netball match, done some more ICSA training and been to a British Computing Society lecture. I’m also heading to Bath at the weekend for some Fuzzy Ducks funtimes.


In other news, I've given up 'all things that are traditionally served in a pint glass' for lent. It's going to be a loooong month...

Until next time,

Bren x

Ps, AS IF they cut off Adele’s acceptance speech at the Brits… RUDE. They were already late for the news, just let the woman say her thank yous… tut.


Pps, After going to the BCS lecture, I'll be telling you more about this next time... Watch it and be amazed...

Ppps, some more pics from the Heat Tour of London:

At Zero

Greenwich

East meets West

Wooden Box Covered in Felt
and Perspex = modern art?

Naomi needed a
sit down..

Horse Guard's

Heat Tour at
West Ham

Palace in the sunshine

Military Band

Help getting down

Nelson's

Royal Gates

Press Gaggle

Brucey pose at
the Column

Bigger Ben

Heat Tour outside
The Globe

Hundreds of people at the Palace
on a Sunday morning

Get Sporty.

Here I am again – only sportier.

Saturday Morning Football Snow

Over the past week I’ve played three, yes THREE netball matches. I’ve also joined a football team and been to my first training session in sub-zero temperatures!

Last Monday I headed to the Globe Academy (school’s are pretty swanky these days eh?!) at Elephant & Castle where our netball league, Go Mammoth, plays on a Monday evening. Our game started at 7.40pm but we got there pretty earlier to sign a waiver (if we die, it’s not their fault blah blah blah…), get out league t-shirt freebies, and warm-up – which was no easy task at -4°c.

We lost 22-2.

But, bearing in mind that some of the girls had never played a netball match before I didn’t think that score was too bad. I stayed for an extra game because the teams on next were missing a couple of players.. knackered.com!
This week we improved loads. Well, we still lost… but we managed to score 6! 13-6, not bad at all. And, as a rather cringey side-note and in an ‘Ode to Chippy’ [I tried to link to the page, alas they've made their group 'private']:

Match 1 – Player of the Match: me.

Match 2 – Player of the Match: me.

[For  anyone who doesn't know Chippy/didn't see her CRINGE post that won't mean much..] So that’s nice.

Back to last week... I have been getting stuck into work and was busy catching up with my project managers to make sure there was nothing I was supposed to be doing that I wasn’t and everything was progressing smoothly with their projects. I was also preparing for my 6 month probation meeting with the Grad Scheme sponsor. It was my chance to discuss my progress so far and my plans for the next 18 months. The good news is my sponsor wants to keep me on the scheme, pheuw! And that’s usually followed by bad news but…I have none! How can there be with only FIFTY, 5-0 days until New Zealand!

I’ve been in touch with Connie and Jenny and an itinerary is in the process of being arranged – hopefully we’ll also be able to meet up with Heather and Jimmy while I’m there before hopping over to Sydney to see OB and Joe. Incredible. I absolutely can’t wait.

On Friday, I had a pretty early night knowing I’d be up early to get to football and preparing myself for a big night out on Saturday when Cam and Gemma came to stay for the night. I woke up early doors and headed out in the fresh snow(!) and still sub-zero temperatures(!!) and headed for Clapham Common. Yes, I know I was taking the piss out of all the keen beans running around the Common on a Saturday morning last week – I have become one. Football was great! A good group of girls and a great coach – we did some fitness (which nearly killed me), skills and drills (where I made a tit of myself by into a mound of snow and face-planting the ground) and finally a good long game (where I scored a cracker!). All in all pretty great.

Candy

Guard blates
fancied Cam

I quickly made my way back to the house to spring clean, scrub off the mud, and put the wine in the fridge and headed back out to Euston to meet Cam. We headed to Borough Market and Straford where we met Gemma and came back to the house and prepared for the night out with crap TV, some TOP DRAWER gossip and lots of booze. Lots of giggles later we got to the (still horrific) Candy Bar after a brief stop by G-A-Y Bar to collect our wristbands for Heaven. After a cheeky Jagerbomb and a rather long wait in the queue we finally made it inside and what are we rewarded by?...Emeli Sandé on stage! Her voice is a-mazing and it set us up for a good ol’ boogie for the rest of the night on the stage. At 4.30ish (and near closing time) we called it a night and headed for the night bus (via McDonalds and an early morning wake up call to JenLa obvs..). I may or may not have fallen off my seat as the bus took a corner rather sharply – but I kept hold of my BBQ sauce so all was well with the world. We strolled home in blissful unawareness until, during the tea and toast come-down, we saw on the news that Whitney had died. And I thought it totally appropriate to call mum to tell her – sorry mum! Really, really sad news.

Sandé

After a few hours sleep (for me, on a rather uncomfortable couch) we thought the best thing for he hangover was a walk around London in the fresh air. We visited Buckingham Palace, strolled up the Mall, around Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall and past Downing Street, Westminster, Big Ben until we decided on a late lunch at Wagamamas on the South Bank. Lovely.

Cam and Gem

We said our goodbyes as we went our separate ways at Euston. We’ll definitely be doing all of that again sometime soon – a brilliant 24hrs.

This week I’m out of the office on a course Monday – Wednesday doing my ITIL Foundation and on Thursday I’m helping with the Q&A session for the next Grad intake’s assessment centre – I can’t believe it’s come around so soon!! I’m also meeting up with Traum and Calla after my exam tomorrow who’re in London to see Lion King. I’m 100% sure I’m playing my classic role of third wheel in what is probably their Valentines date…sorry girls – Can’t wait to see you though!! And the Brennan sisters arrive on Friday.... messy times.

Until next week,

Bren x

PS, **Depressing Moment of the Week (and my life to date)**: EBay sending me an email advising I buy myself a Valentines gift. Fuck you, EBay.

PPS, If you’re sat at home alone this evening whilst housemates/siblings/parents/EVERYONE ELSE is out doing something romantic…… go ahead, treat yourself…

PPPS, More pictures from the the weekend:

Sandé

Heaven

DJ LOVE

From the stage

No idea who he is

LOVING LIFE

Martha...

Downing Street

Buck House

Frozen fountain