Rawk, Work and Fat in Diary

Wow, I just haven’t had the time or energy to write in here lately. The two main things that have been going on are my new job and Download festival.

New job. I’m, on week three now and still think I’ve made the right choice. After seven weeks in my last job I was ready to leave and actually left after nine weeks, so I’m doing well so far. All the people we’ve been meeting have worked for the company for many years, most have been there for 10, 15 or 20 years; staff retention is a very good sign!

We haven’t actually started doing the work yet, but it seems pretty straightforward and the people seem great. During week one, we were put into groups, given a company car and sent off to visit all the other offices around the country. That’s quite trusting of them when they don’t even know us! So I’ve been to Nottingham, Ipswich and Cambridge so far, staying overnight in Ipswich. Sticking five people, who don’t know each other, in a car for three days and a hotel for one night is a good way for us all to get to know each other. We all got along well and were playing travelling games in the car, having a laugh and learnt a lot about the company and the job.

Last week was training on the software systems we’re going to be using; there are five or six of them so it’s going to take a while to get used to them all. This week, we’re off travelling again, in different groups this time so we’ll be getting to know different people. Thursday and Friday I’m going to be in London, the rest of the week we’re just sitting about in the office, doing nothing at all. We’re all trying to make the most of it while we can; once the phones go live on 6th July, there’ll be no time for chatting!

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Download Festival, my fourth time. It was wet. It was muddy. It was loud. It was epic. It started raining heavily at 7pm on Friday and continued to do so until about 7pm on Saturday. By that point, every single thing I owned was sopping wet, including all of my clothes, the airbed and our sleeping bag. Apparently our tent is only showerproof. The entire site was also covered in six inches of mud, which made getting about interesting. Buying a couple of pints from the bar and trying to get them back without slipping over was interesting.

These are my boots.

Loads of people in rain ponchos.

More mud. Welcome to the great British summer.

This is quite a pretty photo, taken on the first night before it was raining!

But of course we were there for the music. We saw Blues Pills, The Cadillac Three, Clutch, Thunder, Judas Priest, Black Stone Cherry, Slipknot, Apocalyptica, Black Star Riders, Faith No More, Muse, Tremonti, Blackberry Smoke, Billy Idol, Slash, Mötley Crüe and Kiss. That’s quite a line up!

My favourite were Muse, who are probably my favourite band ever. When they play live, it’s note perfect and sounds exactly like it does on the album. Even Matt Bellamy’s singing is absolutely spot on, with his range of four octaves he never sounds flat or misses a beat. Their stage show is quite camp, though, with loads of streamers, confetti, giant balloons and fireworks, but it just adds to the spectacle.

I managed to randomly bump into a bunch of my friends from Loughborough and some people from roller derby. Out of 90,000 people I somehow found Chris, Steph and Darren, then Rich and Jess, plus Charlie and Luke walking past but too far away to fight through the crowd for. Another day I saw Jen and Jules, Becky and Louise AND Jo and Ade. I suppose I do know quite a lot of people who were there so I guess it was quite inevitable that I should see at least some of them :o)

Since coming back, though, Darren posted a photo of me onto Facebook which disgusted me. I’m here, in the back left of the photo, holding a green cup and talking to Chris.

I have a spare tyre around my belly! Where did that come from? When I was 19, I had a stomach like a washboard and didn’t have to work for it. Since then, I’ve been doing a lot more exercise (roller derby twice a week, being walked by a Rottweiler five times a week) and yet this layer of fat has somehow snuck up on me.

Well anyway I’m now on a diet. Another reason to eat vegetarian food; healthy Quorn and tofu salads for me from now on! I would like to lose 11lb and gain a flat stomach so I’m going to try and do a Jillian Michaels workout every day that I’m not at roller derby. Starting today, I’ve had an orange, yoghurt, grapes, baked potato, tomato soup, salad and Ryvitas as well as walking Roxy and doing an intense 40 minute ‘Six Week, Six Pack’ workout. Let’s see how long I can keep it up and gain any results. I’m going to use this photo as inspiration.

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Oh my gosh, I forgot to write about Sarah and Kit’s wedding! Mam and Dad came down to our house on their way to Portsmouth to catch a ferry to Spain; they’re going to their apartment for three weeks and have taken their dog with them rather than put him into kennels, so they had to drive and take the ferry. Anyway, I told them we were going a wedding in Preston and camping overnight, but they decided to come down anyway and stay in our house while we were there. I felt rude leaving them but we couldn’t not-go to the wedding.

It was in a field and it was lovely. Loads of wild flowers, haystacks to sit on, friends, food and drink. Even though I hadn’t seen my Loughborough friends for months, it never feels like it; every time I went to go and get a drink or go to the toilet, it took about half an hour as I kept getting accosted by people wanting to have a chat, which was lovely.

I only took a couple of photos on my phone, but you can see the wedding location in this one:

And Sarah’s big fairy princess dress!

That entry took far too long to write, it’s now bedtime and I haven’t done anything this evening!

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Last updated June 16, 2015