Woo, it's holiday time! In about an hour Ben and I are off to Derby to visit my Granny for a few days - can't wait! We're dropping Sammie off with her grandparents (ben's parents) on the way, so she's going on holiday too. :)

By the way - apologies to anyone who's tried to call/message me over the last 11 days... i've been changing from contract to payg with o2 (the most useless company ever) and was without my number until yesterday (since august 17th!)... and now they've eventually changed it over they've deleted my credit, so i can't use it! They really are the worst company I have ever come into contact with... I'm only with them cos they're cheap, but they've really got problems...

But i'll end on a happier note... I'm off on holiday! Have a good week everyone, and we'll see you soon... :)

I've visited the counties in yellow.
Which counties have you visited?

I've just got a letter from the University.... and I've got a payrise! Woooo! Unfortunately, it's not cos I've been absolutely amazing and they can't do without me; it's because the University are moving to a new pay and grading structure. But, for some reason, I seem to have jumped a spine point, so have managed to get a pay rise of £1.6k pa - nice one! :)

Ben and I are off on holiday this weekend - we're going up to Derbyshire to stay with my Granny for a while, and I can't wait. My Granny is absolutely amazing, and it'll be great to spend some time with her (haven't seen her since Christmas, when Ben met her for the first time). We're also going to use it as a base to explore the Peak District, as Ben's never been up there before. It's really exciting (not least the fact we get a week off work) and I'm counting the hours until the end of the day....!

A car just went down the road outside my office with its engine making a sound exactly like the infamous music from 'Psycho'! hehe!! :)

All is good in the world of the Berryman-Butterworths. :) (no, we're not going to double barrel our surnames, don't worry!) Today Ben started his new temp job with Southampton City Council. He's earning almost £2 more an hour than his last temp job, and from the messages he sent me at lunch he seems to be enjoying himself. Woo!

I was off work ill yesterday - been having really bad headaches for the past few weeks, and woke up feeling awful, so ended up spending most of the day asleep! But it may have done the trick for the time being, as I've felt pretty ok today...

Found myself missing the union yesterday... more specifically, the endless supply of cold pints of water, and free meals only a few metres away. Actually, in all seriousness, I really miss the people I worked with there, both the sabbs and permanent staff - they were a great bunch of people. The ex-sabbs are now spread out across the country - me in Southampton, Pete in Leeds, Chris in north London, Claire in South London (soon to be back in Guildford) and Chopsie in Guildford (or underwater somewhere). I really miss them!

So, if you're reading this - a bit hello and hugs to everyone back at USSU and UniS. :) X x X

'Twas the night before the weekend
when all through the office
Not a creature was stirring,
not even a.....

What rhymes with 'office'? Hmmm.... nothing, it would seem.

It's 4.51pm, and it seems like Helen and I are the only people left in a 16-seater office! Everyone always seems to disappear early on a Friday... maybe I should follow the trend!

It's Ben's last day in his current temping job today, so we're probably going to spend the weekend finding him something for next week! He has an interview on monday with the council temping agency, so fingers crossed something will come of that...

I'm looking forward to the weekend. We have no plans other than a bit of shopping and trawling temping agencies, but i'm always excited about the weekend - spending 62 hours solid with my ben is amazing!! :)

It's A level results day today, so everything's revolving around Clearing here at work. But more importantly - well done to my ickle sister Rachel, who just called to let me know she got 4As and 1B in her AS levels - nice! So a big well done to her!! :)

One of the funniest referrers to my website so far.... (page doesn't actually exist any more, but it made me giggle!)

This week's shot by! It's now almost 2 months since we started renting our flat and moved down to Soton... so we have 4 months to get a mortgage, find a house, buy it, and move into it! It's all exciting stuff.

I don't feel like I have too much to write - life's good as always; Ben and I are very happy, Sammie is still a bit jumpy and nibbly but she's wonderful, and.... well, all's good. Ben had a job interview on Wednesday, but he doesn't desperately want it, and he's got an interview a week on Monday for temporary work with the council, that pays a damn sight better than the pittance he's getting at the moment. And the deadline for his dream job is 23rd August.....

It's almost 9am so I'd best get on with some work. Fridays always feel weird... like everyone in the office is winding down... so I hope it shoots by... roll on the weekend!! :)

Happy Birthday to me...
Happy Birthday to me...
Happy Birthday to Sarah...
Happy Birthday to me!

:)

And so, the change is upon us! After hours of hard graft, I at last have a webpage with is half way worthy of being viewed by the big wide world. I’m going to add more pages over the next few weeks, but very soon… I’m off home to enjoy my Birthday Weekend with Ben. :)

I promised ages ago that this summer, icklesarah.co.uk would be getting a makeover... and slowly but surely, it is! i've spent the last few evenings working on a new design, with a bit of help from blogskins and it's looking really rather funky. I'm quite proud of myself... i downloaded a basic template from blogskins, and have done loads of editing and messing around with it so it's very different to its original form. My web design abilities aren't amazing, but they're growing, so it gave me something to work with, and i've learnt quite a lot more html in doing it.. and i've really enjoyed it!

I'm aiming to launch it pretty soon - it's going to be much more of a weblog with extras, as opposed to a website, as icklesarah.co.uk seems to have evolved into my weblog more than anything. But i'll get the photos and stuff up there eventually, and am going to make a 'hamsters' page too! It's quite exciting.

So... keep your eyes peeled at a website near you over the next few days.....

I've just downloaded the Google Toolbar onto my work computer - not only does it block almost all popup ads (woo!) but it also has a 'blog this' button - so I can click on it, and instantly a little window pops up in which I can write my weblog. Pretty groovy!

We've had wonderful weather lately - Ben and i spent weekend driving around the area getting to know places, which included going for a lovely little walk in Bursledon (where we'd live if we had £500k to spend on a house) and sitting on the beach in Highcliffe. The area we live in really is wonderful. We went to a place called Buckler's Hard, which is a museum with a nice place to sit near the river... and we met Bob, the General Manager of USSU! How bizarre. It was lovely to have a chat with him.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, and I hope the weather stays as it is at the moment. We're going sailing on Saturday with Ben's family (no idea whether we're talking tiny one man boats or big yachts) and it's my 23rd birthday on Sunday, so I'm having a think about what I want to do then. Time's going very fast at the moment - we've been renting our ickle flat for almost 2 months now! When Ben gets a job (and he is applying for his idea job at the moment) we're going to be straight down to Nationwide/Abbey National/Natwest etc etc to find the best mortgage deal for us, and then hopefully by Christmas we could be in a house of our own. A very exciting thought.

I'm writing in a tiny window so I can't quite tell how much I've written, but I hvae a feeling it's quite a lot. Anyhow, I should probably get to work.....!