dimoreien's blog

It's my birthday tomorrow. My friend's birthday is on Saturday, and as a result we're having a joint birthday party in Glasgow on Saturday.

I've been spending the last few days making her an album...what do you guys think? It's been a year and a half since I've last done any album making...an excruciating long time. It could do with some improvements, but I think it looks good considering.

I just checked my work email from home, and to my delight, I received an email from my VQ officer.

I don't know if I ever wrote about this..I think I did, somewhere back in the beginning, but from March to December 2006 I was putting together a portfolio at work to get a vocational qualification in Ordinary Civil.

Well I've achieved it!

I'm the first person ever to get this VQ as the Ordinary Civil course was just rolled out last year.

I'm so pleased.

Hi Dhana

Your portfolio has been internally verified, I am happy to say that Congratulations are in order, well done!! I hope your experience of the VQ process was positive.

You certainly remained focused and achieved within a very healthy timescale, despite having a very busy year with personal events and everything else you have been involved in.

I have claimed your certificate and we should receive it within the next week or so,normal process is for the Centre to retain your certificate until the next Award ceremony, are you ok with this? The Awards Ceremony is an annual event and we hope to hold this in April, I will keep you informed.

Your portfolio will be retained until the next external verification visit planned for Feb 26th and it will be returned to you following that. I have copied both David and Gail in on this but please make sure that you forward this email to any other reporting officers involved in your development.

Can you supply details of your home address please? In order tocomplete the administration process I will transfer your SQA detailsback to your ID rather than the Centres and send you your unit listing certificate within the next few weeks.

Janice O'Donnell

VQ Centre Manager

Tonight Steve and I are going on a date. Having a nice dinner at Da Vincis before coming home and chilling out. We WERE going to go see a film, but The Prestige is no longer playing at Livi, although it is in Edinburgh but we don't want to drive all the way out there...

Tomorrow morning I leave Livingston bright and early at 9:00am (well, it might not be bright, but it'll definitely be early for a Sat morn!) for Edinburgh. The train leaves for London at 10:00 a.m but I'm meeting Helen (one of my Stranraer buddies who is also going on the trip) at 9:45.

Arrive in London sometime around 3pm. (The official time on the ticket says 2:45pm arrival at London's King's Cross, but we'll see about that!)

I then make my way to Covent Gardens on the tube to the Strand Palace Hotel, where I stay overnight.

This is the official Itinerary for Brussels:

SUNDAY 3 DECEMBER

1.15pm We meet outside the Eurostar ticket office in Waterloo station

2.41pm Train departs.

6.03pm Arrive Brussels Midi Station and transfer by bus to NH Hotel Grand Place Arenberg

7.45pm We meet in reception of the NH Hotel Grand Place Arenberg to walk to the Bedford Hotel (in Rue du Midi for dinner.

8.15pm Dinner

MONDAY 4 DECEMBER

8.30am Depart NH Hotel Grand Place Arenberg for NATO

9.15am Arrival at NATO

9.45am Welcome and introduction

10am Briefing: NATO's Transformation into the 21st Century, by Dr Knut Kirste,Information and Liaison Officer for the UK and Germany, Public DiplomacyDivision

11am Tea/coffee break

11.30am Briefing: NATO's Current Operations, by Rob Ayasse, Operations Section,Operations Division

12.30pm Informal buffet lunch in the restaurant

2pm Briefing: NATO's Role in the Fight Against Terrorism, by Jonathan Parish,Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section, Political Affairs and SecurityPolicy Division

3pm Meeting with a representative of the United...

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Well I've just booked my train tickets to London. I first attempted to this afternoon at work, but it was just so bloody frustrating. So I decided to wait until I got home. Thanks to my friend Pete, a fellow CKA'er, who is very familiar with London, happened to be online when I came on and walked me through the whole ticket booking system.

Geezus. I've never seen so many price scales before in my LIFE.

Ah well. It's done with now.

I depart for London on Saturday 2 December at 10:00 am. Pete tells me that my particular ticket is good for a breakfast in the 1st class lounge. Yummy!

Arrive at Kings Cross around 2pm and then I'll transfer to the Waterloo station. Going to try to find a hotel in the area.

My pal Helen is on the same train as me! Yippee!

Right.

We have to meet at Waterloo on Sunday 3 December at 1pm to catch the Eurostar to Brussels. All I know about this day is that we have a dinner that night.

Monday 4 Dec, breakfast and then the morning/afternoon at NATO. We're having lunch at NATO too. Man that's bloody cool. We'll be sitting in on some briefings about key NATO operations around the world. Apparently there will be some very high profile speakers.

We catch the train that afternoon and are back in London at 7:30pm Monday night.

Tuesday 5 December, Helen and I are on the 14:07 out of Waterloo, to connect with the Edinburgh train at Kings Cross. I get home around 7pm that night.

I'm so excited!!! Not only have I not been to Belgium before, but I haven't seen the English country side either, so it's going to be awesome taking the train down!

Less than three weeks to go

I was feeling incredibly lazy this afternoon, but I bit the bullet and started doing the chores. Steve unloaded and loaded up the dishwasher and I started on the laundry. I then proceeded onto our bedroom and a)re-arranged furniture once more and b) cleaned it up and changed the sheets on the bed. I moved our bed because where it was situated before, if you were lying in bed, you were in clear view of the door, and disturbingly enough, both Steve and I have awoken in the middle of the night to see someone standing in our doorway. Our flat is haunted, we know that well enough, but it's creepy to see someone standing in your room. So I moved the bed and hopefully, as Steve put it, he won't actually come all the way into the room now and hover over us.

My stuff from Canada arrives tomorrow so I was making room for my books that are coming. I can't wait to get my hands on my Pierre Berton and my Mary Stewart collection. I've missed them dearly! My LOTR collection is also arriving, but I don't have anywhere to put it, so it will stay in the storage bins until we move into a house probably LOL. My hope chest is coming, and I've cleared a spot for it under the window in the bedroom. My Royal Doulton figurines will also probably stay in their boxes as this place is just in too much of a shambles at the moment to put them out. I have all my pictures and picture frames of friends and family and those will go out around the flat too.

Our wedding gifts/cards are also arriving so I can finally get started on my thank you cards! At this rate they'll be included in with the christmas cards, but it's better late than never right? I also can't wait to get my Grandma's cookbooks that my grandfather gave me at the wedding...mmmmmmmm I finally have her recipe for spaghetti sauce and all the other lovely things she used to make. She was a cracking cook and in fact, the cookbook, one of them, came from HER mom, so it's actually passed down to me from my great grandmother.

For the...

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