I haven’t blogged in over a month, which is quite depressing. My days are so busy now that I’m typically on the go from 7am until 8 or 9pm, which is when I crash because I’ve been so busy. It’s hard to fit in all the stuff I need to do; although Joe starting a new job means I’m better organised, it also means more work and more stuff to get done. So even though I got a postal vote to vote in the UK’s local elections, I only had time to fill it out this morning and so I’m going to have to hand it in rather than posting it (mostly defeating the purpose, but never mind).

Every chance I get for some time off, I’m always saying I’ll catch up with web stuff. But having finished a whole website for a family client and now partway through a second, there doesn’t seem to be much time to catch up. I’m doing freelance SEO work as well, and on top of that freelance writing, working 40 hours a week, and everything else going on in my life. So here’s a quick overview of the more interesting parts of my weekend, which started on Friday thanks to the Royal Wedding, and ended yesterday thanks to the May Day Bank Holiday.

I was going to blog about the Royal Wedding, but I’m totally saturated by it and sick of hearing about it. I went home to my parents’ for the long weekend, and there were SO many flags up everywhere compared to Nottingham.

I didn’t take any pictures on Friday because I went shopping in Manchester with my sister, but I did spot a woman frantically trying to take a picture of a sheet of newspaper that was blowing along in the breeze (wind?). I was amused to see that it was a full page picture of Kate Middleton (Windsor) in her wedding dress, and impressive considering she’d only been seen in it for the first time about two hours before.

On Saturday I helped my mum out at a craft fair…she loves doing card making stuff and sells some of it locally as well as on eBay.

Whilst I was there, I got a call from one of my uni friends, Bethany. She said she had ‘a weird question’ to ask me, which immediately intrigued me. It turned out she has to go to a conference in Rome and asked if I wanted to go on holiday with her in July. I absolutely love Italy, so I wouldn’t pass up a chance to go. I’ve been to Rome a couple of times, and it’s fantastic, if a little expensive! I’m hoping we can get a day trip in to Capri as well – I went there on a college trip several years ago and I absolutely love it. It’s one of my favourite places to visit. I really want to buy a house or some land in Italy one day, preferably near a beach.

Talking of beaches, Saturday was spent in Wales. My parents live about 45 minutes away from the north coast of Wales, and it’s a region we’ve been to quite a lot over the past few days. One of the things I really miss about living in the Midlands is the lack of sea and beach – we’ve practically as far away from the beach as you can be in the UK, and the nearest one doesn’t have a particularly good reputation anyway. It’s been sunny in the UK for a good couple of weeks now, and although it was a bit colder and very windy by the sea, we still had a great time.

Of course we had to have the usual comments from my dad about how young he looks when he saw the photos of himself (to be fair he actually does look a lot younger than most of my friends’ parents, despite being about ten years older – he’s 61 in a couple of weeks). I just look extremely short, but the camera never lies after all!

My dad thinks I’m crazy because I was taking pictures of the rocks and the cracks in the ground, but they just screamed ‘texture!!!’ to me, and I just like that kind of artsy look:

We always go to a particular market in Wales, but I hadn’t been for a good couple of years. When we went this time we actually thought it hadn’t opened yet; the car park was deserted, no one was charging the entrance fee, and the stalls didn’t have their awnings up. It was depressing to see that the state of the economy had pretty much destroyed it; there were only a couple of clothes stalls, burger vans and a small carboot sale left.

Monday was spent walking the dogs, travelling back to Notts and then doing boring things like food shopping. I ended up staying in with Joe as our local pub was shut for refurbishment, and of course we got plenty of attention from the cats who were feeling deserted. Unfortunately they are all extremely moulty at the moment, so we ended up having to change our bedsheets. Even Halo just brushing past my shoulder results in a cloud of fur and a million white hairs on my sleeve. Joe is forever asking how Halo actually has any fur left, as there’s literally nothing in our household that doesn’t have Halo fur on it (except perhaps the toilet paper).

Yesterday I went to the gym after work, and half the TVs were showing the Osama/Obama stuff. I am a big fan of Obama and I honestly think that he’s a great world leader. Although to be fair, I can’t think of any other good world leaders right now (or even in the past twenty years). The conspiracy theorists are out in full online I see, although they don’t seem to have really hit the UK media yet. I’m not really sure how I feel about it – I just hope that it’s not spin and he really was responsible, and I also hope that there aren’t any bad results from this. I’m actually a pacifist on the grand scale of things; I just think that violence, especially violence between people who are effectively told to – and paid to – hate each other rather than because they have personal reasons behind it, is a bit weird and strangely primitive. I’m sure I won’t be popular for that view because the military is so highly regarded in so many countries; personally, I’m glad that services in the UK tend to offer emergency services discounts rather than military discounts.

Tonight I’m going to the cinema to see Thor in 3D with Rich and Joe. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but it has a good IMDB score and I’m sure I’ll get into it. We went to see Sucker Punch last week which I loved. Then tomorrow evening I’ll be in the gym again, and then I have a whole weekend to look forward to. I’m not going to curse myself yet again by saying I’ll get web stuff done – especially as my beloved laptop is definitely dying – but hopefully I’ll get the chance to do more than simply upgrade WordPress!