The things you do...

When you have no internet or phone at home! I feel like I'm living in the 19th century. It doesn't bother me that much but I do miss certain conveniences:.

• Beings able to check stuff online outside of work (bank account, email, phone bills, facebook, blogs). While I check blogs on my phone I do feel out of touch and it's slow. And I can't post as much...I miss it!! Nuff said.



• Having long chats with my family or friends of a quiet evening. At the moment this entails seizing random opportunites (like being in a hotel with decent mobile signal or lunchtimes at work) or standing very still in the bedroom with 1 bar of signal which wavers in and out and repeatedly being cut off and having to redial.....grrrrr



• Being able to receive text messages instantly. Now you do get them albeit sporadically if you remember to leave thephone on the windowsill but then have to check the phone from time to time. It can be frustrating.

I makes me realise how used to can get to new things. I would never have thought I would miss the internet or my mobile phone even just 5 years ago, they were "optional" extras to my life.

But, on the flip side, there are things I appreciate about being off the radar:

• Rich and I don't sit on separate sofas surfing on our separate laptops. Admittedly we didn't do a lot of that but it was not something I particularly liked and he does have a tendency to get lost in golf websites searching for the perfect driver/shirt/golfing break which I do not miss. (He'd probably say the same about me blogging though....whoops!)



• I can definitely do without mindlessly wading through Facebook reading inane statuses and looking at pictures of other peoples' holidays. I like to dip in and out but less is more on the FB front.



• More dog walks, golf, gardening, cooking, chatting. Less timestealing computer stuff. Go Real Life!!

So, here I am, during my lunchbreak at work, sitting in the darkest, most cavelike Wetherspoon pub you have ever seen....honestly, I thought I was going to rediscover Golm and his precious ring amidst a cavern of stalachtites and stalagmites I have ventured so far from the doorway and any source of natural light. (As an aside, why are so many Wetherspoon pub called such strange names? Why would a pub in central Rotherham be named "The Rhinoserous"? I've serached for a clue among the decor but the pub is stubbornly silent about its name...)

But the wifi is free and reliable and the sandwich and diet coke cheap so not complaining.

The valuer was pleasingly positive about the house, my hard work and possible sale prospects. I still have a couple more to see before it goes on the market but at least it wasn't bad news.

Golf in the morning was excellent too; I won!! To be exact I have picked up the Betty Carson Trophy for winning the Stableford Final. Yay - go me!! My handicap came down too. I'm so pleased to have had a good round finally. It has been threatening as I've been playing well but have always thrown in a bad hole or 2 to scupper my score. This time I managed to keep the whole round tidy (bar the 17th) and came in 3 under par. Really gratifying. And nice to know that I've got some silverware so early in the season and that my name will be going up on a board in the clubhouse for posterity. I'm sure it's been the fact that I'm playing regularly and not just at my home course. Playing at different courses with Rich and his mates has toughened me up a bit and made me more consistent, thoughtful and less risk-taking.

I can't think of a handy analogy in real life though so I won't try and shoe-horn some wisdom into this blog. I'll just crow a bit - I won. I won .I won.

So, home, sporting and romantic life going well and work too. Sorry to be so Pollyanna about this but sometimes I really love my job. Not always obviously. But sometimes I really feel that it is using my skills to their best effect. I'm not a grinder. My legal skills are certainly not the best ("detail/schmetail" is probably not the motto of top quality solicitors). But I am good at negotiating, bargaining, explaining, cajoling, selling, apportioning risk, giving men (it tends to be men) an "out" or face-saving option to allow them to agree to things which they don't want to but have to agree to. In other words I can do a deal. I'm really good in meetings where awkward things have to be said and awkward concepts faced.

So today, I've just come out of a meeting with a certain well known supermarket chain where we the Council did not stick to the pre-ordained script of dim-witted public servants slavishly willing to accept anything in return for a shiny new supermarket beads but stuck to our carefully negotiated guns and came out with everything we wanted. Yes folks, that's everything! So satisfying and so good for Rotherham I hope.

Well I've blathering on for too long now - see what happens when I don''t blog often enough -my back aches from typing at a pub table and I can't see much due to the womblike dimness. I had better go. I hope you're all trundling along nicely and getting some sunshine amid the showers. Adios amigos!! xxx