Always have something to look forward to

I’m going on a course to Frankfurt, Germany in a couple of weeks. It’s in one of the other offices of my company. I’ve chosen to leave the UK on the Friday evening rather than on the Sunday (the course starts on the Monday).

I’ve got a couple of days to wander round Frankfurt and hubby has decided to stay at home. This means I won’t be with an English speaker and can practice my German to my hearts content.

I’ve not been to Frankfurt before. Does anyone have any suggestions as to places to go or things to see in a Feb weekend?

Also do you know of any vegetarian restaurants in Frankfurt?

I also have a course for a couple of days in Lille, France the week after. Not looking forward to this as much as I don’t believe I’ll see anything of Lille other than my team, the hotel and training rooms.

• going away for a short weekend to Brighton for a friend’s 40th soon
• having a few couples/friends to stay over the next few months
• Reading festival in August (no idea yet who’s playing)
• my 40th birthday later this year
• my great aunt’s 100th birthday in August (I hope!)
• my first ‘meet’ for Figaro cars in London in April
• hopefully going on a foreign holiday
• being healthier than last year and restarting exercise
• losing the weight I gained in 2011

In July I have tickets to see Foo Fighters and They Might Be Giants (different gigs!) and am also having a spa day with my mum. We also have at least 2 sets of friends coming to stay at weekends.

In August I am going to Reading Festival (a music festival in the UK – nothing to do with books). Also have possibly got house guests too.

I have friends (and their 2 kids) coming to stay next weekend which will be a bit of hard work as house guests always are but will be really enjoyable at the same time.

I have booked my half day at a spa for just over a month’s time.

I have a couple of parties coming up in London – an engagement party in Feb and a 40th birthday in March.

We have our 10th wedding anniversary in April and have decided to have a lot of family (but not all of my side as there’s way too many 3rd and 4th cousins that I’m in touch with!) over for a buffet lunch to celebrate.

I need to book it still but it sounds really fab.

- A one-hour Dermalogica facial
- A 30-minute Indian head massage
- A one-hour OPI manicure
- A one-hour pedicure or a brow tint and reshape, plus an eyelash tint

Really looking forward to this but know it will be a late one! The couple can’t slope off early and have to stay around till beyond midnight.
What a way to spend New Year with your family and friends!

I have bought our tickets and we’ll be there again next year.

2010 was hubby’s 25th Reading Festival – his Silver Reading Anniversary ;) We had cake and candles :)

It’ll be fun regardless of who plays – we see our friends and rock out.

Our neighbour had a contractor working on her property and he dug through our water supply. It’s not fixable and was probably leaking under the property built over our water supply between the neighbour’s garden and ours (don’t ask!!) so it had to be capped off leaving us with no water.

Another neighbour (the one with the house above the most likely position of the leak) has provided us with a feed from their water supply (through a garden tap of mains water) which is really kind of them. The pressure isn’t good but will keep us with some water whilst we get our supply fixed.

We now have a big hole in our small courtyard garden with a length of blue poly pipe connecting our supply to the neighbour’s house. This will have to stay till we can get the new supply sorted – we just have to remember not to trip over the pipe when we go outside!

We now need a brand new dedicated water supply (that we were looking into anyway but decided against for now due to the cost) but the admin of the water board takes 6-8 weeks for it to be approved. I’ll be doing all I can to speed up that process – even if all the call centre people know me by name at the end. Apparently there isn’t a faster admin process for emergencies.

We’ve been offered a decent sum towards getting a new dedicated water main from the neighbours whose contractor accidentally started all of this which helps.

One thing I’m really glad about is that in the 18 months since we moved in we spent time getting to know the neighbours so that they are happy to help us out (as we would be to them if the situation was reversed).

I’ve got a ticket to a decent covered grandstand for the British Formula 1 race in July. Luffield.

I’ve been twice before – 2 years ago I spent the whole race under a giant fishing umbrella with my brother, 4 years ago I got sunburn with hubby. After those two I thought the best bet for race experience may be a covered grandstand ;)

I’m going with 3 people from work (one, the other female, is staying with us for the whole weekend).

I’m going to Champneys Tring at the end of May with my mum. We’ve known that we’re going for a couple of months now but hadn’t booked the date.

We’ve not been to this one before – we usually go to Henlow (not that we go that frequently!)