A brave new world!

Some time ago a friend told me I should start a blog (she liked my status updates on Facebook and I do have the occasional witty turn), but I resisted the urge.......who would want to read what I had written for a start, and then we got on to what would I actually write. So, I thanked her for her kind comment and declined, thinking no more about it.

So here we are several months down the line, what has changed? Well nothing really, only I have been reading various other peoples over the last few weeks (doing some research for something else) and thought why not give it a go, so here we are.

Firstly I guess I should explain a bit about myself, for those who want to know. I am English (not British, as if the Scots and Welsh can differentiate, then so can I!), married with no children (yet, maybe!), though I do have a hamster, whose name is Amber, and when I figure out how this blog thing works, I might even add a photo or her. I am the right side of 40 - just, and live in the Thames Valley. I work, full time, for a government agency (which is just another way of saying Police), so yes I am one of those rich civil servant types who get to retire with a pot of gold (ha ha - in reality I get paid peanuts for being sworn at, threatened and abused and the only thing I can look forward to is a final salary pension which the government are now trying to change!), but I do actually love my job, despite all that.

I used to work in the 'hospitality' (what's so bloody hospitable about long hours and crap pay I don't know) industry, but after about sixteen years (and two redundancies later) I finally saw the light and escaped to the 'Real World' (which is how us hospitality types refer to what the rest of you call normal life!), hence the title of my blog. Hubby is still in it, but we are working on that one. One thing about having spent so long working shifts and weekends, I certainly did not want a Monday to Friday, nine to five job, and hence my current job is shift work, but we do an eight week pattern and can view our duties over 900 days in advance, which makes things like trying to plan to have a life a lot easier!

What else can I tell you about me?? I do my bit for society, well run a Brownie unit if that counts (blame my friend who roped me in while I was under the influence of lots of wine), I try to scuba diva (not very often - bit of a wimp when it comes to cold water, like what our little island is surrounded by), am a bit of a scifi fan (well TV shows - yeah, I know not very girlie, but those who know me would never call me a girlie girl) and have family spread in various parts of the world. I spent my teenage years in the Netherlands -which was great :), plus a couple of years in Austria when I was little.

So here we are, 'A brave new world' as the title of the post suggests - or me on the web! Maybe I should have called it 'A scary new world' though not sure if that is for me or those reading it!!!

Well I think I shall post this now, as I have various other mundane tasks (cleaning) to do before going to my weigh in.