I thought i'd pop a few photos of sammie up here for all to see. I haven't managed to get any really good ones of her close up, as I haven't wanted to scare her with the flash, and my camera sometimes seems to have problems focusing on her cos she's vaguely sawdust coloured!


This is Sammie's palace:




... and this is Sammie peering down one of her tubes:




... and finally, Sammie herself!




Isn't she wonderful? Even though she tried to nibble my finger last night, I love her loads and loads! :)

 Sammie is wonderful! After about a week of being a very nervous hamster, she's suddenly turned the corner, and now whenever she's awake wehn we are, comes sniffing up through the bars, taking food from us... hopefully she'll be calm enough to be held in places other than the bath (empty!) soon. With Ben and Sammie to make me happy... life is pretty damn amazing!

Tonight after work Ben and I are getting the train up to Croydon to pick up our new car. It's very exciting, although paying £500 for insurance on the net this lunchtime wasn't quite so exciting. But it means Ben and I have so much more freedom now - just in time for the nice summer weather.

All is good. I'm off to catch my bus. :)

We have a hamster!! Most people who know me will know I absolutely adore hamsters - between teh ages of 12 and 16 I had 3 wondeful hamsters (Harry, Pip and Barley) but when Barley died a year before I went to University, I couldn't get another one as I wouldn't have been able to take him to Uni with me.

But now, after five years, I no longer living in University accommodation, or shared houses... and I have a hamster! Her name is Sammie, she's a lovely ginger/cinnamon colour on top, with a white belly, and is absolutely wonderful. We got her on Sunday, so she's still getting used to everything, but I managed to hold her for the first time last night.

She's been quite timid when we're around the cage, so we opened up one of the openings.... and really didn't expect her to immediately walk right out onto the floor!! After we'd managed to get her into her ball, she climbed out and all over me, started gnawing the tassle on my hoodie, then jumped right over my legs and arms to about half a metre away!! After a couple more incidents when she managed to jump right into the middle of the living room, we decided that she should go back in her cage, but I'd managed to hold her!

She's still quite timid, but was very friendly, no biting... just lots of inquisitive exploring. I can't wait to get home and hold her again. Holding her made me realise that she still has quite a way to go until she's fully grown - she was so light and soft!

I've waited since April 1998 to have another hamster, and now.... well, let's just say I am very very happy. :) :)

Yesterday Ben and I celebrated our one year anniversary. :) The weather was decidedly nicer a year ago when we had our first 'date' so yesterday we spent the night in, cooked a meal, watched tv... T'was nice. :)

I can't wait to relax at the weekend - we're both quite tired at the moment - Ben's temping work is very boring and monotonous, so he's tired from that, and I'm knackered from trying to stay on the ball and take everything in every day in my new job! I've turned into someone who lives for weekends... and I've only been working for 3 days!!

Still, everything's good. I'll only be really happy when Ben has a job that he enjoys and pays him what he deserves (which is very definitely not £5.12 an hour. When he's happy I'm happy.

If anyone one from 'back in Guildford' is reading this - hope everything's going well! We miss you loads... X x X

Well, my first day is over and.... it went really well! The people are great and everyone's really friendly. my job's looking really interesting and varied... and I may even get to spend 2 weeks travelling around Europe as part of it next March!! Nice. Only problem is that I have to drive a hire car around to schools for my liason visits (presentations on uni finances, UCAS forms etc etc) and the minimum age for that on the uni's insurance policy is 25! So ickle old 22 year old me might have a bit of a problem.... but they're looking into whether I can be put on the insurance seperately.

It's all quite exciting. All we need now is for Ben to get the wonderful job he deserves. His temping went ok today - pretty boring work, but some nice people, and he's very happy at the thought of some money coming in.

All is good! :)

Ben's auntie Jackie popped down for a visit today (with the luxury of a car!) so we went for a drive all around Southampton, as we haven't seen too much of the city by foot. It's sooo nice around here - we're so lucky to have ended up here. Things are going from great to greater and i'm loving living with Ben. All is good! Ben has temping work starting on Monday, and I start for real then too, so all we have to hope for now is that that ends up good. Yay!

On Wednesday i toddled down to the bus stop and headed to the University for my induction day. It was a little overwhelming... meeting loads of people, being told what they all did, how my role fitted in with theirs etc... but i really enjoyed it. Everyone seems really nice and I'm quite looking forward to starting on Monday. ben's got some temping work in the city centre from monday too, so it's gonna be quite cool starting on the same day. Earning a sizeable amount each month ain't going to be too bad either!! :)

We've settled in really well here. it's a week since i finished as a sabb and I'm missing Chris, Claire, Pete and Chops quite a bit, but we're all staying in touch via text and email. I must post some photos of the flat up on the net sometime... well, this year i'll (hopefully) know the luxury of relatively free evenings, so maybe I can actually start work on my icklesarah.co.uk phase 2 soon.....