i feel 'all grown up' now, having spent the last few hours mowing the lawns and weeding a very overgrown flower/plant bed outside the conservatory. And you know what? i really enjoyed it! Can't wait to see when (if!) the plants I've managed to de-weed will grow... and what they'll grow into! We have a rather nice garden, but it has barely been touched for about 9 months, since the pervious owners moved out. But we're going to make it look wonderful!

Toby is doing wonderfully. He is very very friendly, although still isn't the biggest fan of being picked up, but today I held him for a bit, then popped him up on the sofa with Ben and me. He proceeded to stay there and snuggle up in between us for about 20 minutes.... we even managed to get a photo of the 3 of us with the self-timer on my camera. Unfortunately Sammie was asleep, it being the day time... out next project is to get a proper 'family portrait'...

Ah, the wonders of being a lady of lesiure.... in the past 4 days, I have painted 2 undercoats and the ceiling in the 2nd bedroom, spent lots of money in argos, constructed a very sexy television/media stand for the living room, cleaned out Toby and Sammie, taken Toby to the vets for his immunisation, watched more episodes of '24' with Ben, replaced our windscreen wipers (not as easy as it sounds!), spent a day in a Primary school, de-sealant-ed the bath, re-sealed the bath... not really that leisurely, I guess...!

I am almost into my last hour working here, and it's a very very strange feeling. I've just finished my handover file, and i'm very proud of it - hopefully it should give me (unfortunate) replacement a decent start, if nothing else.

I was going to relaunch icklesarah.co.uk, but I don't think I'm going to get time to upload my new pages, so that'll be an excitement that will have to wait a couple of days/weeks.

I probably won't be able to update so often in the next few months... but it'll be around.... maybe...

keep your fingers crossed that I find a job in the next 3 weeks! :)

Today my work colleagues threw a surprise cake-party for me. It involved copious amount of chocolate cake, cream scones, eclaires... and a card and £20 of M&S vouchers for me - awww! I'm not going to miss the job itself, but I will definitely miss the people I work with.

I'm feeling in a rather end-of-term-y mood... might have something to do with the lovely weather outside my window. I feel like I have a holiday coming up... so it's a good job I have! Well, not a going away holiday, but a not at work holiday, which is pretty much as good.

Today my youngest sister, Rachel, and Dad came to visit Southampton, as Rachel's applying to stufy music here - and she loved it! It would be great if she came to study here - I left home when she was just 12, so we haven't really been around each other in a social context, at an age when we're likely to be social with each other (if that makes sense). Would be very surreal to be a student at the same University as my sister, though...

I'm planning a design update for icklesarah.co.uk in the coming days, so keep your eyes peeled...

It's slowly starting to sink in that I only have *checks watch* *realises that watch doesn't have date on it so checks phone instead* 9 days left working here. Wow. Things aren't looking too bad on the future-work front - I'm applying for a couple of teaching assistant jobs, and failing that, I should be able to find some temp stuff - a cool person from the tes forum has put me in touch with a supposedly good temp agency around here - thanks Luke!

I'm looking forward to having 3 weeks away from work to spend some time with my wonderful boyfriend, strip lots of wallpaper, and stare adoringly at Sammie and Toby... :)

I've opened an account with flickr and have uploaded some photos of Toby, Sammie and a few of our new house... I'm very impressed with it so far (although I seem to have used up almost all my 'credits' for this month...

ENJOY!