… because for some reason, I can’t find it any of the supermarkets or corner shops in my town. Which seems pretty sinister to me. Either very few people in the north-west eat Marmite (which is entirely possible) which leads to it not being stocked, or there is some Evil Plot designed to deprive those of us who do.

Oddly enough, I could still buy Twiglets if I wanted to (which are of course flavoured with Marmite). And Asda even sells little snack packs of crackers and Marmite. But nothing to go on my toast (or be sneaked into casseroles and stews).

I do love my Marmite though - in fact, I actually prefer supermarket own-brand, but the Tesco Express in which I found Marmite (in two different sizes of pot as well - I got the large) didn’t have their own-brand. The flavour’s subtly different; the own-brand tends to be lighter in colour as well as slightly lighter in flavour.

One of the high points of my life (and there have been many) was touching a Marmite tanker while visiting the Bass brewery in Burton-on-Trent. Mmmm. All those thousands of gallons of Marmite, just waiting to be potted and shipped and spread on toast…

And of course, it’s very good for me, chockful of B vitamins. I rather crave some now, but I’ll wait for breakfast tomorrow. I have leftover beef enchilada waiting for me right now… Mmm.

… according to Marion’s Wii Fit, which I hopped on to (literally, with the balance board) for the second time today. I’m now younger than my actual age, which is nice.

Still too heavy though and I have no sense of direction. But my virtual trainer seems happy with my posture…

And I went for a walk too. So it’s been an active day.

Also today, I am mostly … actually quite glad it’s Sunday

… and that my working week starts tomorrow. I’m not sure why - this is definitely an unusual thing for me because I love my weekends. But I’m looking forward to getting up and getting on with life tomorrow.

Any bets on me being as sluggish as normal? (Ref: the last poem I posted on Sharp Words: Nine Minutes.)

I’ve had a reasonably productive weekend though. Marion and I went to see the Kaiser Chiefs at the Belfast Odyssey on Friday, supported by some Scottish skinny punks called Dananananakroyd (we decided they were like a bunch of Andrex puppies playing Rock Band) and the excellent Black Kids. I would have enjoyed the gig more if I hadn’t had my nose stuck in a very belligerent woman’s bare armpit for much of it, as she kept encroaching on my personal space. Grrr.

Played a lot of Rayman Raving Rabbids on Marion’s Wii on Saturday as well as doing the Wii Fit; did some shopping; had a headache-induced nap; made enchiladas; watched a crappy film. And then today I did nothing very much. Laundry and cooking and the afore-mentioned exercise, and that’s been about it.

So I feel like I need to start being productive with my life… starting tomorrow. :)

… as I always seem to do when I’m working in the office rather than at home. It’s partly because I need an excuse to get up from my desk in a way I never seem to when I’m at home; and it’s partly because we have a proper coffee maker. You feed it water and beans, and out comes coffee straight away. It reminds me a bit of the mice’s chocolate biscuit machine in Bagpuss, into which went ‘breadcrumbs and butter beans’ (supply your own squeaky voice here) and out came a chocolate digestive. Over and over. Thankfully, the coffee I get from our machine doesn’t have to be recycled in quite the same way…

I rarely have more than one or two cups of instant coffee on days I work from home though, possibly because I have a fridge full of juice and pop as an alternative. (Although I do drink lots of water in work as well.) Sometimes I take the time to make decent coffee in my cafetiere, but I can’t always be bothered.

But I do get up from my desk a lot less at home, which seems counter-intuitive. Yesterday I sat down at my desk a good hour earlier than usual, but didn’t stop work that evening until the usual time, without really thinking about it. In the office though, I’m always clock-watching - well, I do often have to get a bus, so that does determine my finishing time. And with that two-hour commute… Hmm.

On the plus side, my commute three days a week is a mere 15-20 seconds. So it averages out to something a lot more sensible…

… and even more of one than I already knew I was, in fact.

I can’t handle injections - even the thought of maybe having to need one makes me turn pale and feel faint. The only time I’ve been to try and give blood, I went so white and shaky after the finger-prick (to test type and quality) that the nurse told me to go away and never come back.

(At least I tried - most of my colleagues wouldn’t even do that.)

Anyway, I thought my twenty-year phobia was limited to injections, since I’ve had my ears and even my navel pierced quite happily. (Dad, if you’re reading, it was years ago, and I took it out fairly soon because the skin wore thin.)

So, after deciding it was time to get the crop of harmless skin tags removed from my neck, when I went to my doctor’s appointment today, I thought I’d be fine. My GP was going to nick the damn things off with a scalpel - minimal bleeding and no fuss, although I have so many that I’d need a couple of appointments. Still, it would all be over quickly enough today.

And yes, in the event, it was over quickly. My doctor carefully and quickly removed the first of the tags from the back of my neck - I couldn’t even see what he did. It hurt, but not even as much as burning my fingers on a hot plate had done the night before. The silver nitrate tab he touched to the wound stung a lot too, but it was still just a small pain. It didn’t even bother me to look at the little lump of my skin now lying on a piece of tissue on the table.

But the low level of ouch didn’t stop me from going white and starting to shake, not did it stop the irrational and involuntary tears. A few sniffles later, and we decided not to carry on with cutting the tags off.

Thankfully, the other option was to have them frozen witha dab of liquid nitrogen, which kills the cells so that they drop off in a week or so. Although this actually hurt a lot more than the slicing, it didn’t bother me in the slightest, and my GP successfully attacked at least half a dozen. (And on the plus side, I didn’t have to have black marks all over my neck from the silver nitrate.) And I’ll be going back in a few weeks to get another batch done.

But I was still rather embarrassed to realise what a wimp I can be…

Also today, I am mostly … cooking yesterday’s leftover asparagus

… into a very tasty omelette with ham and cheese. I’d do that again - not that I have leftover asparagus very often in the first place. But it was good. And the asparagus counted as one of my 5-a-day… I’m desperately trying to eat more fruit and veg at the moment as I haven’t been getting enough this winter.

I did quite a bit of cooking over the weekend, and made sure we both got our greens though. I hadn’t been going to bother on Saturday; I couldn’t have cared less about Valentine’s Day and anyway, the rugby was on (Wales beat England, thankfully - I hate it when we’re favourites for that match; it makes me nervous of hubris). I did cook dinner on Saturday in the end though - a two-course candlelit dinner with wine, no less - and I’m glad I did, since I’d barely seen Colin for a week or more. We crashed out on the sofa afterwards with the cats to watch Tropic Thunder, and all-in-all, I had a good weekend. And I’m looking forward to a peaceful and productive one next week too.

… for the first time in bloody ages. I don’t think I was over there the last couple of times I’ve been back to Barry; no real reason to, now that none of my family live there.

I might not have bothered this time either, but a friend back in Northern Ireland is a Gavin and Stacey fan (and so am I for that matter) so I wanted to take some photos. Of course it was cold and grey, with snow on the English hills over the channel, so the Island wasn’t at its prettiest. But then I’m not sure it has a prettiest anyway.

And I’m allowed to criticise! I’m a third-generation Barry Islander after all… :)

Also today, I am mostly … recovered from reacting badly to mussels

… which although tasted pretty good when I ate them for lunch yesterday, made me queasy during the England v Italy game (although the game itself was dreadful enough to make me feel ill) and then throw up horribly at half-time in Ireland v France.

I was recovered enough by 7;30 though to wolf down some of the Indian takeaway that I’d been promising my parents. I’m just annoyed because I like mussels, and I don’t want to have to stop eating shellfish for fear of a bad reaction to them.

I could blame my dad, I suppose - he cooked them. But I won’t. (Though my mum probably does.)

A proper Sunday dinner today though courtesy of my mum, the kind I rarely bother to cook, with roast lamb… And she’s made me Welsh cakes to take home.

… while also being really really glad I travelled yesterday. I went by taxi, bus, another bus, on foot there and back again, onto another bus and then by plane. And at the end of it, I came about 400 miles from my home in Northern Ireland to my parents’ home in Wales, via my work in Belfast. (I checked the exact distance on Google Maps, using postcodes, and though it took me on the Rosslare - Fishguard ferry, I was really amused to see that the last half mile of the journey was driven on the exact route my dad always takes even though it’s not the most obvious one.)

The worst bit was getting up at 5 yesterday morning, otherwise known as stupid o’clock or pig’s tail o’clock (it’s twirly), after less than 5 hours of sleep troubled by dreams of shooting polar bears. I survived though (even if the polar bears didn’t), even if I didn’t go to sleep till after midnight because I was reading (bloody typical).

Headed into Cardiff this afternoon with Mum anyway, once we saw that it wasn’t really going to snow any more today. Met my brother for lunch, and bought some boots and some new T-shirts with relevant Wales-related slogans since my others have got tatty.

And that’s the excitement for now…