Friday 12th January

No weekend plans, although we are thinking of going to see Apocalypto tomorrow. Just chillin' and workin' out.

Re. my mini rant about Pru yesterday - you'd think that private sector would be sharper and have moved on wouldn't you? Not in my company. It's awful.... on the one hand they speak all the buzz words and make a big thing of political correctness. On the other hand they take actions that prove they don't value their people at all.

Well, five phone calls to make, five emails to send and my work here is done.

I am on hold with a call centre which boasts on it's website that 80% of calls are answered in 20 seconds. Unfortunately they didn't say how long it takes for them to pick up the rest and I've been holding for 4 minutes already. This must cost a fortune as it is a premium rate number (I'm on my office phone though so will let my lovely company pay).

Ahh, now up to 7 minutes holding time. I'm trying to get through to the company which makes my boiler. It keeps going off - has done since we got it really - and numerous plumbers have failed to fix the problem. So I will try to get one of their own people out to have a look.

After 16 minutes (cost: £1.12) I got through to an insurance company!
Me - "But I wanted to speak to Boiler Company"
Them - "Ah you pressed repair or problem so you've been put through to me. I can sell you an insurance policy for £288 to cover fixing the problem.
Me - But I want to speak the the Boiler Company about the problem. Do you have a number for them.
Them - No, you have to ring them again.
Me - But then I'll get back through to you.....
And on and on... so eventually I found a "back door" number for the Boiler firm and they've put me onto a local specialist who said it won't cost anything like £288 to fix the problem. Hopefully. We'll see. Rant over.

I've been baking apricot and nut wholemeal scones. Mmmmm, they're lovely - lowish fat and sugar too. I just adapted a wholemeal scone recipe and hoped for the best. Had one for lunch with some Clementine Marmalade. I had eggs for brekky. Tonight it's lentils and feta with rocket. Am hoping to get to the gym for a swim.

Waiting in for the Bose to be collected again. I did my first proper workout with weights yesterday (up to now I've been mainly going on the CV equipment). Touch wood, I'm not aching TOO much just yet. So a nice swim and steam should loosen me up.
I am trying SO hard to ignore the 6 bars of Lindt in the fridge. Evil SIL2BE knew exactly what she was doing when she put those in my Christmas present, didn't she.

We're planning a few weekend trips while I'm off, but I don't want Roy to lose too much time off work as he's self employed. We'd already booked for South Africa from 17th March - 4th April so I am thinking of extending that so we come back a few days later.