Katie Butcher

This weekend Nigel and I went to Aylesbury to see my family. We hadn’t been for a while and knew we wouldn’t have any more opportunities until after Christmas, plus it was Grandad Butcher’s 80th birthday on the 22nd November.

We drove down on Thursday evening and got to Nanny and Grandad’s at about 10:30pm. On Friday morning we called over to my other Grandparents (Butcher) to wish Grandad Happy Birthday and give him a present (some posh preserves I got from Leeds Farmers Market earlier in the month). We didn’t stop long as we’d decided that on Friday we would go to Whipsnade Zoo. I hadn’t been to Whipsnade Zoo for years, but remembered enjoying it the last time I went so thought it would be something a bit different. The weather wasn’t great, and but we still got to see quite a lot. Nanny and Grandad came too, and Nanny bought some pork pies and crisps so we had a picnic in the car.

See Whipsnade Zoo pictures here.

In the evening, my aunt, uncle and cousins came over for tea at Nanny’s (as is usual on a Friday) so we got to catch up with them for a bit. Then at about 8:00pm we headed over to my sister Claire’s new house which I hadn’t yet seen at all. It was very nice.

On Saturday we went over to Grandma and Grandad Butcher’s house at about 11:30am. We picked them and Auntie Elizabeth up to go to ‘The Polecat’ in Prestwood for lunch with my Uncle and his family. It was lovely, I hadn’t seen much of the Butcher family for years and it was great to catch up, and the food was very good. I had the ‘Magret of Duck’, mainly because I don’t have duck very often and I thought it would be a bit different, although to my surprise three others in our party of 11 chose the same dish.

After lunch we went back to my Great Uncle’s house for tea and coffee. Grandad opened his present from his four children – a shiny new laptop! What a great present for him.

See pictures of Grandad’s 80th Birthday celebration here.

We spent Saturday evening with Nanny and Grandad, which included a few drinks in the pub across the road, then left to come back to Bradford around lunchtime on Sunday. I had a very enjoyable weekend and as I grow older I find myself valuing these times with my family more and more.

I don’t think I’m a typical female as I absolutely detest clothes shopping. I’ll only really shop for clothes when I have to. I hate traipsing around shop after shop trying to find the only pair of trousers that will fit me and I have to buy, even if they’re disgusting. Hence I was delighted and quite shocked when I went into Next the other week and managed to pick out loads of stuff and get trousers that fitted! Whoosh £150 flew out my bank account but freed me from a frustrating hunt for clothing in hot, busy, and overcrowded shops.

It annoys me that people think if you’re slim you don’t have problem getting clothing. NO! Without a doubt the larger sized people are much better catered for, and to make things worse, shops, without doubt, keep making their sizes bigger. Since my late teens I’ve gradually had to start buying smaller and smaller waist sizes and that’s without losing any weight – I used to buy an size 10 or maybe an 8, and now I’m lucky if size 6 isn’t too big. If the shops continue making sizes bigger they’ll have to introduce a size 4 or I won’t be able to buy anything. It’s ridiculous, I’m ‘petite’ yes, but not skinny, and there are certainly many people slimmer than me, so I would love to know where they shop.

I’m actually find size 8 jean in ‘Topshop’ fits perfectly, but I’m starting to feel a bit old to shop there now, and I find their stuff overpriced considering most of it to me seems to resemble bits of rag. ‘Dorothy Perkins’ trousers have ridiculously huge bums – size 8 is about right on the waist but really baggy on the bum, but size 6 fits on the bum but tight side at the waist. ‘M&S’ trousers and skirts are just massive full stop. I tried a petite size 6 skirt on recently and could fit both arms in along with my waist – it’s stupid. But then I bought a size 10 top and really it’s a bit tighter than I prefer. So that makes out like I must be really oddly shaped to be a size 12 in tops but a 4 in bottoms – which is what I seem to be in M&S. In ‘Next’, size 6 petite is acceptable but if they start making their sizes any bigger I’ll have had it, unless they introduce a size 4. ‘George’ and ‘Matalan’ smallest size is 8 and that’s huge, particularly George, I’ve never managed to buy anything from there ever.

It also annoys me when the media go on about size 6 models and make out that if you’re size 6 you must be unhealthily thin or have an eating disorder. There are plenty of people who are slim and that’s the way they are, it doesn’t mean they’re unhealthly. I wear a 6 but I’m a healthy weight for my height and consider myself to be reasonably well proportioned. BUT, I would also argue that I’m not ‘actually’ a size 6, I think I’m an 8-10 but it’s the clothing retailers that make me be a size 6.

I think us slim people are losing out because the shops are trying to make larger people feel better as they can buy a size smaller than they are. I think it’s not fair and that’s part of the reason why I hate shopping. It makes me feel like I’m a freak because nearly everything is just too big and usually I end up having to buy something just because it fits and not because I like it.

Finally. I’ve moved office to Bradford. Yay!

It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it might be, the loading and unloading went very smoothly, mainly due to Nigel and his van kindly taking a day out and helping. I just hope all the computers come back on okay tomorrow when we set everything up again. I also now hope to gain about 1.5 hours of free time a day not having to spend at least 2 hours a day travelling by car, train and foot. I will miss my chats with Chris who gets on the same train as me and walks in the same direction up to Leeds University, and I’ll still have to traipse to Leeds a few times a month to set up for training courses, but to me, the benefits of moving to Bradford, far outweigh the negatives.

So tomorrow I get to have nearly an extra hour in bed as I won’t have to leave until 8:30. I used to have to leave at 7:40.

I’ve been busy at work lately and then had very little inclination to use a computer for purposes other than work, hence a lack of posts recently.

Last Wednesday I wanted to make it to work early so I could get on top of things. I left the house at 7:00 and was at the station in plenty of time to get the 7:27 train. Unfortunately it was delayed (no surprise there really). But by the time it got to 8:05 and there had been no trains for at least 45 minutes (and no sign of any on the way), I gave up, got a refund on my train ticket, and went to catch the bus. Of course the traffic into Leeds was dreadful, and as we got nearer it got worse. Another 45 minutes later we reached Armley and I decided to get off and walk the rest of the way, I walked a brisk half hour walk from Armley up to the office and made it in at 9:15, over an hour later than I intended.

Just as I was getting settled, the telephone rang. It was the Telewest men who were in my new Bradford office putting in a cable line. I had asked the reception desk at the Bradford premises to let them into my room, which was fine, but they were insisting that somebody from the company had to be there when they put the line in. I couldn’t believe it – it had just taken me over 2 hours to travel from Bradford to Leeds and now I was being told I had to be in Bradford. Nobody from Telewest had said anything earlier about someone having to be there for the installation and I hadn’t need to be there for the installation of the BT line. In the end I managed to make an agreement that they would start work and I would try and get there for around lunchtime.

So I had a frantic morning and finally managed to leave work at 12:30. I got into the Bradford office at 1:30 and the cable men were just finishing off. After some polite conversation they showed me that the internet connection was working and tested the phone line, and then packed up and left! Why did I have to go there? It was so pointless. So it was past then 2:00pm and since it would take over an hour to get back to the Leeds office, there didn’t see much point going back.

In the evening, after de-stressing at the gym, Nigel and I had a really nice meal at the ‘Ital’ restaurant down the road. It was quiet and we had a great table and it was nice and relaxing. I decided to have the ‘Seafood spaghetti’ as I don’t often have shellfish. It was delicious and I managed to eat every bit (just). We rounded off the meal with a coffee, but just I finished it I suddenly came over a bit queasy. We paid the bill and left, but as soon as we got home I was sick. What a waste! It just rounded off the day really.