Running off the Cake

I ran my first 5k this weekend! I am just a little bit proud of myself. I know it's not a super huge achievement. There are people who run marathons, but I still can't help myself and feel a bit proud.

As I did not really have any idea or feel of how long 5k was I ran it super slow because I didn't want to run out of steam. As a result it took me forever, but I enjoyed it. Was a great day to do it. I did it in the morning (late morning), the sun was out and it was very cool. Perfect running weather.

It was a much needed run as we had cake week at work. Every year during Frankfurt book fair most people from my department go to Germany to attend the fair. Not me. So all of us who are left behind bring in cake. I kicked off the week with cinnamon rolls on Monday morning. I actually prepared them on Sunday, but didn't actually bake them till Monday morning. So they were all nice and fresh. Though I was sweating on the way to work as the dish was superhot. But the bus and tube was so packed that I couldn't put it down. I think it turned out ok:

The bottom was a bit gooey. We have a shitty microwave oven. I don't think it actually heats to the temperature it says on the display and the heat is very uneven. I left it in twice as long as instructed and it wasn't cooked through all the way. Next time I will try to make a bit less dough to give it a better chance to heat through. They were delicious nonetheless!

Next day one of my co workers brought in chocolate cake.

I didn't remember to take a photo until after I ate almost all of it. Soo good! The icing was made with kahlua and I think got me just a bit tipsy. I didn't take pictures of the other cakes, but they were: ginger cake, golden syrup sponge cake, lemon drizzle cake, ricotta and raspberry scones and forest fruit cheesecake. All of them were amazing. But now I am all caked out and really needed some exercise. Will go for another run today (though a bit shorter) and do a little workout. Makes me feel less guilty about all those sweet things.

Next week we are back to normal boring work. But I found out last week that I still have three days of holidays unallocated for this year. Must have calculated things wrong somewhere. So yay, feels like an extra prezzie now. Might take a long weekend in October and maybe some long weekend in November and December as well. Cannot wait!

But now back to enjoying this weekend. Lunch time. There is some nice olive bread, beef, gherkins and mustard. Love me some good bread.

Shamed

I did not finish the meme as intended. When the post about my workplace came up I felt uncomfortable posting anything from work, so just planned on skipping it, but instead ending up not posting for almost three weeks. Big fail on trying to post every week. I will do better from now on. No more memes, just plain posts.

I am actually typing this at work (shame on me even more), but wanted to get that out the way to start anew this week with just a regular post.

A crazy period at work just ended so I feel a bit more able to breathe. Of course this will only be temporary as London Book Fair is fast approaching. But I am still enjoying the 'quiet' time. Also, my colleague who was on jury duty for three weeks came back, making life a lot easier. That was another reason I didn't post. I was doing two jobs at work. But now I am free again and only have to do mine. Yay!

Anyway, lunch break is over and I need to get back to work. Hope to still have some readers left after being AWOL.

Work, work, work

Work has been stressful the last few weeks. It seems like everyone is on holiday. Not only does it make it hard in asking questions and getting answers. I also need to check other people's inboxes and decide which queries are important and need to be dealt with and which ones to ignore. Ah well, only a couple more weeks and everyone is back from holiday.

Cannot wait for probation to be over. Holiday please come sooner.

In other news, the girl who has the same role at work that I have, but is in charge of Asia, while I do Europe, is moving jobs. She's staying in the department but joining another team. Now I'm thinking I should go in and say that I would love to cover Asia instead of Europe. But I think it's too early. I just started, so I shouldn't already try to move around. They are stressed enough, that they need to train another person. Plus I might also have to switch imprints then and I really like the one I am working on now. Ah I wish she would have switched next year and not now. Then it would have been totally ok for me to start moving around. *sigh*

Ah well, still love my job. And it's kinda handy to be able to speak German with some of my customers. Would have no advantage in the Asia market since I don't speak any of those languages. Darn.

Just outside of Cambridge...

A few weeks back I had to go to Cambridge for a couple of days. My whole department from work went to a conference. It was just outside of Cambridge in the most beautiful halls I have ever been to.

This is the view out of my bedroom.

View of the main building from my bedroom.

 My little tiny bed, in my little tiny room. It was student accommodation after all. But I loved it. It was even an en-suite!

View of the little courtyard.

Other side of the courtyard.

Parking lot overlooking beautiful countryside.

Cute hut in the garden next door.

View from the back of the main building, with the 'little' English Garden.

 

I didn't really have enough time to appreciate all of the surrounding countryside. Was too busy sitting inside listening to presentations, and giving two of my own. Yay. But it was really nice to be surrounded by all that greenery and have all that fresh air. Sometimes I miss the countryside.

I was only there for three days. Next year there will be a new conference, am already very excited about where they choose to send us then. I know last year they went to Oxford. So I guess the theme is university towns? But that's next year. Now it's back to normal work.

Speaking of work. In five days I will be done with my probationary period. Yay! Gonna book a flight home this weekend for November. Cannot wait! Haven't been since Christmas. And that trip was cut short due to the snow chaos at the London and Germany airports. So no snow in November pleases! I am planning to go see my new nephews. Yes that's right, my sister and sister-in law are pregnant. Due dates end of October. So I'm hoping going early November will mean I can meet both of the babies.

Wish me luck!

Busy Post

I finally managed to get off my ass and start my dissertation. Which now means that I work full-time during the week and spend about 6-8 hours each day on the weekend working on my dissertation. I did this for three weeks now and it's making me tired. Staring at computer screens every day is so exhausting!

It's only till the end of September, so I shouldn't whine too much and just deal. But I think a little whiny post is not too much... I feel a bit guilty complaining about it since I'm getting paid and get a good education at the same time. Boy but sometimes I wish I could just slag off for a day or two (ah, whom am I kidding, for at least a week or two). I guess that's what you get from going straight from classes into employment. I am very glad I got this job, since I love and was super scared that I would not be able to get a job in publishing like the last time I graduated. But still, I need free time to hang around and do nothing.

Now enough with the whining. In good news: It's Friday, I only have a half day today. And the later half of the day I will use to do ... nothing. Huzza!

In other exciting news (this is exciting, since normally I don't do anything special on weekends): next Friday I will go to Globe Theatre and see the midnight performance of As You Like It. A friend of mine booked us tickets on the highest floor in the back. Not gonna be a brilliant view, but it's gonna be so lovely. I hope it's a cloudless night so we can see stars (who am I kidding, no stars in London anyway). That will also be the day we will find out whether bf will get a new visa for the UK. If not, they will kick his ass back to Canada. So fingers crossed that everything will be fine for him that day.

The weekend after we will go to the Royal Opera House and get a behind the scene look at it and get to see some performances for a special they have on. Bf won those tickets at work. Not bad I say. I am very excited about all the culture we are squeezing into our schedule (and perfect excuses NOT to do anything on my dissertation, double win).

Yeah, that's about all that is happening over here. Now that London got all boring again and stopped the riots (thank you very much). Ok, should get my lazy ass into the shower and off to work I run!