I want to go now

Ski holiday for two £900
New, less foggy goggles £80
New, shorter ski poles £40
New, less bulky suitcase £30

Re-living your favourite part about having been Canadian - priceless

For lift passes, beer and boyfriend ski rental there will have to be VISAcard

150cm at the top. 70cm at the bottom.

On the health front, I had my lungs tested today. Turns out my lungs have the physique of a 27-year old. Could someone persuade my skin the same thing?

Bad news is, I am level 4 allergic to dustmites - on a scale of 1 to 6. I am not at all allergic to cats. Which brings me great pleasure. I am level 1 allergic to some grass which will explain my occasional hayfever. I am still more worried about the dust mites though, because I am mentally averse to cleaning and this will have to change.

On that subject, I have struck a deal with the boss to move me back home at Easter - if nothing else comes up in the meantime. There's the vague possibility I can organise some kind of deep-clean - NHS style - including nice new flooring prior to me moving home so that middle-of-the-night sneezing fits and wheezing can be minimised. With every day that passes, my urge to leave the fens grows stronger.

The Dark Side

After 9 months in this flat, I finally went to Ikea and bought curtain panels to cover the gaps in my blinds.

Last night, for the first time in 9 months I slept soundly in my own bed... all night.

And I saw lots of lovely things to buy for my own house.

They will have to wait.

Getting Nowhere (Please click on the link if nothing else)

Ever feel like you just can't make any progress?

Despite my present contract being very lucrative, I am now resolutely bored of it. It was exciting at the begining - learning how things are done and making them better then getting out there and developing new ideas, better answers.

9 months on and month-in month-out it's the same. Chasing the same managers for the same approvals. Reporting. Somehow we report £200,000 worth of energy savings every month. That's 1500kWh or 1145 Tonnes of CO2 or 2000 flights between Edinburgh and London and I do feel good about that because for every 1145 Tonnes, you can add in the 1145 Tonnes saving we enabled last month, and the one before.

But it's no longer me that's out there. I have to send other people out there and those people don't question like I do. The return and pee on my idea. They don't bring me the information to make up my own mind and still I'm not allowed to go and make my own mind up. I nudge, I chase up, I enquire politely and contractors come and they bring me pens and mugs and cheap diaries and expensive whiskey because I bolstered their sales.

So I went to a conference and I brought you all this back.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever Watch

(It's not really that scary so go ahead and click - especially if you're Canadian and feel inclined to forward it to those climate-change denial leaders of yours).

As for me, Libya has been mentioned - a project to bring water from aquifers to the city. The environmental consequence is questionable but the alternatives are depriving the people of the water or installing carbon-guzzling desalination plants close to the city.

Sharjah was mentioned. I'd no sooner like to work in the UAE than in the USA. Rich Arabs / Americans not being my "thing", much to the regional manager's disappointment.

So now I'm pinning my hopes on Glasgow and wind turbines. Watch this space. Whilst I do some swotting.

Ball Breaking Bitch...

Is how my resource manager described me when I was a mere graduate.

So that way, I found myself sitting around a table with 6 regional or skill directors of my company being trained on how to do a performance review with the intent of reviewing at least one minion this year.

If nothing else, it was a useful insight into what my own performance review might contain.

The man next to me complained of how he did not agree with performance related pay. That this was one more quill in the prickly porcupine that this company has become.

I asked him if he has any shares yet. No.

And apparently he has had the good fortune not to work with anyone that doesn't pull their weight.

I'm looking forwards to being a part of a new, less fluffy company.