Everybody loves a good gossip, wither it’s about the next door neighbours nightly visits from a strange young man (ie.. my happy-married-mother-of-5-neighbour!!!) or the latest scandal about Britney’s custody battle. It’s human nature, really. Hell I know that I’ve spread gossip on my blogs before…mostly about celebrities and their scandalous lives mind you, not about my neighbours. Don’t think that’d go down to well if they ever found my website. When I come to think about it, every single magazine that I read is full of celebrity gossip.

That’s why I can’t wait to see the new TV show from the creator of The OC, Gossip Girl on The CW. It premieres tonight in the USA so I’ll probably need to wait for ever to see it over here in Scotland. Still it looks awesome, it’s based on the books by the same name and is about extra privileged teenagers who live in Manhatten’s Upper East Side. They find out that the local party girl is back in town via the blog of an unknown, going by the name of ‘Gossip Girl’. She relays all the town’s gossip via her blog, where every body logs onto to find out who’s fallen out with who and who’s asking who out!!

Sounds like an awesome idea for a blog, it’d be cool to find one based on my town…as long as I was never mentioned!

So leaving everything to the last minute actually was a godsend. It meant that I worked my ass off harder than if I’d finished before my deadline which meant that I had a lot more evidence and information in my folder for my trip to the office. Which turned out to be a bit of a shambles anyway since the guy who was supposed to be running me there was off that day and my boss ended up driving me down. Ohwell, at least I got there.

I got praise for my folder, the way it was laid out and some of the ways I had shown evidence and explained things. I went further than just typing out lists, I got well into the drawing flow charts and pie graphs and so forth. It was awesome when the training woman took evidence from my folder to add to her own! Now that’s kickass.

This Thursday we are having a birthday party in the store to celebrate Spar’s 50th. We’re having a Grease day, with us dressed up and playing the soundtrack, wine tasting, freebies for the kids and karaoke and raffles. I can’t wait, it’s going to be awesome. I’ll post pictures, I promise!

Anyway, enough of work. I got a compliment on my hair the other day, some girl asked me where I’d got it coloured and when I told her that I do my hair myself she was a bit shocked. She was even more shocked to discover that I use Tesco ownbrand shampoo and don’t use any (well, not usually) products in my hair. Rock on natural beauty!

[edit] I got my costume sorted. A black and white polkadot shift dress, neck scarf and ballet shoes but the wedged ones. Plus a quiff in my hair. It rocks. And cost me nothing!

Since it’s the middle of the month, it’s time for my oh-so-awesome playlist suggestions. If you’ve missed this before on either of my other blogs (hell, you think I’m giving out the links? Go find them!) it’s simply me posting my top songs that I’ve been listening to this month with a short reason why I think you should check them out. They could be old songs, new songs, album songs, b-sides. Whatever. I love my music and I love sharing.

Oh-So-Awesome Playlist August 2007

Calvin Harris – Acceptable in the 80’s
This song is wonderfully electro and..well, 80s. I have a liking for Calvin Harris just because he’s also Scottish but man that guy makes good music. He’s been linked with Kylie Minogue, so that just shows how good he is in bed at music making.
Acceptable In The 80’s is a feel good dancing song, guaranteed to get you up on the dance floor! Written and produced by Harris, before he slapped in to BMG Records to stick their name to it, it’s proof that there are still great musicians out there in the chaos of manufactured bands who all bring out the same sort of tracks. A definite Friday night song.

Mika - Big Girl (you are beuatiful)
I don’t care what anybody says, when a Mika song comes on you sing along, even if you don’t like him. This has to be my favourite Mika song by miles. Don’t ask me why, it’s probably because it’s not old enough to be as overplayed as ‘Grace Kelly’ or ‘Love Today’. It’s a real feel-good song, and not just for ‘big girls’. At last, a famous person who embraces the non-size 0 world - even if he is as skinny as a lolly pop!

Rhianna - Umbrella (Sensation White version)
Again, I don’t like Sensation White (dance festival-thingy) but this version of Umbrella is the best one that I’ve heard. Somehow, making the ‘Ella, ella, ella’ bit last long works bloody well and gets your feet tapping. Dude, if you only listen to one other version of ‘Umbrella’, make it this one.

Reverand & the Makers - He Said He Loved Me
Classic Brit-Indie. I was convinced the first time that I heard this song that it was somehow interrelated to Franz Ferdinand. Alas, no. Reverend is from Sheffield, England. And is actually boringly called Jon McClure. I can’t explain this song very well, you’ll just have to listen to it. Especially if you like Franz Ferdinand, Artic Monkeys or anyother Brit-Indie band.

Newton Faulkner - People Should Smile More
If you haven’t heard of Newton Faulkner, what rock have you been under? Granted his music maybe a bit folky, but it’s amazing. This is my favourite song off of his album because it reminds me of an advert for ‘Orange’ mobile phones. Total chill out music. Great for Sunday mornings.

Groove Armada ft Mutya Beuna - Song for Mutya
Ex-Sugababes stunner, Mutya Buena, has teamed up with Groove Armada to come up with one of the best songs of the summer. Question is, is the song directed at the Sugababes or an ex-boyfriend? Great for the pop-lover you know you really are.

Have I missed a great song? What have you been listening to this month?

Last Wednesday I attended our company’s head office to (finally, may I say) begin my Management Training Course. It was a chance for the 8 of us on the course to meet each other, meet the two ladies who are running it properly, ask any questions and generally find out more about the course. All the four hours did for me was get me very, very excited about it!

We got our first section - The National Lottery, which we have 4 weeks to complete - or at least try to complete. So far I’ve completed 90% of the questions and found about 25% of the evidence required to back up the answers. It’s taken me hours to complete so far, there is a hell of a lot of work involved in it. Not only writing up answers and whatnot but finding the answers. Most of them are simple - ‘Where does your pound go after you buy your ticket? - but prooving the answers? Not hard as such, but it involves thinking.

I’m doing a lot of graphs, flowcharts and taking/drawing a lot of pictures of various Lotto-related things in the shop. The amount of paper and toner for my printer I’ve used so far is astronomical, but it’s worth it.

I just hope that I can keep up the enthusiasm for this course, not that I think I’ll get bored of it, but because I am determined to show that I could run a shop even though I’m only 21. It’s been my dream since I was knee-high and I’ve already proved myself within the company. I’ve only been working in SPAR for a year but already I’m a full time supervisor on a training course to become a manager, which I am ultimately proud of.

So it turns out that this year the boyfriend & I aren’t going to Blackpool. We aren’t going to Benidorm, we’re going to Los Cristianos in Tenerife sometime in October. The only downside to this is that he’s also invited our friends. *shrug* I suppose it would be fun with them but obviously I want to go away together alone. We’ve only done it the once and that was to Dublin about 3 or 4 years ago.

I’ve had a look on various websites for pictures and reviews of Los Cristianos, and my gosh it’s a beautiful place! There’s a water park and places to go out on boats to see dolphins and whales nearby and I think it sounds wonderful, even if I’m afraid of boats!

Hopefully, we’ll be staying in self-catering apartments rather than a hotel. They’re a lot more fun I think, and at least you know what you’re eating - the last time I was in Spain I thought I was eating onion rings when in fact it was squid rings. Yuech! The apartments I fancy are something like the Reveron Apartments, it’s £238.00 for both the boy & I for a week in a studio apartment which is not bad, really!

If anyone has been to Los Cristianos, or Tenerife in general, recently…what did you think? I’ve not been since I was about 4 and he’s not been for at least 5 years! But Tenerife means something to him, so that’s where we’re going!

In other stuff that I’ve been up to..wow what a busy weekend I’ve had! On Friday night the boy & I went to our friends to play poker. I ended up making dinner, a gorgeous chicken and vegetable stirfry with lots of soy sauce and peppers. It was amazing! And I didn’t poison anyone. I think I might post the recipe for it, because it really was out of this world nice. I can’t believe I actually cooked something without killing anyone. After dinner the boys got drunk and we played Xbox and had a sort of mini-pub quiz. It was great fun, but as it turns out my night was about to get so, so much better! The boy & I left the guys to play poker and went into one of the spare bedrooms for a little fun ourselves…won’t go into too many details but it was a great night. We also talked and talked and talked like we haven’t done in ages and decided (half-heartidly on his part I guess since he had been drinking) to start saving money for holidays, a car..whatever.

2 hours later we actually went and played poker. I was the dealer and my god those guys totally loose the knowledge of how to play poker when they’re drunk! Heaven help us if we ever go to a real casino, they’ll be thrown out for acting the idiot!

On Saturday we went shopping and played some pool, which I actually won a game of, very impressed with myself on that one. I was getting fed up of the boy constantly winning so I started playing properly (like putting some power into hitting the cue) and won! I wish we’d put money on the game now. The rest of the night was spent watching nearly all the episodes of Still Game that have been put out on DVD and eating kids sweets that we picked up in PoundLand - you know, strawberry laces and dolly beads and sherbet. Teeth-rotting stuff.

(I apologise.. my writing skills today are rubbish!)

Last night was the staff dance at Motherwell Civic Centre. It was a great night. I didn’t do any dancing, but I’m not a dancer. Not by a long shot. Anyway, I wasn’t wearing the right shoes to dance! I wore the prettiest dress (black, purple, grey and white bold patterned empire line) over skinny jeans with kickass black and wood wedges. I can walk fine in them but dancing? Just not going to happen.

I met up with Andy in EK bus station and went to Shenanigans with him and the boyfriend while waiting for our manageress to come pick us up. After a quick drink the boyfriend went to his mates and Andy & I headed to Linda’s house. Sitting in your bosses living room drinking Jacques cider is a strange one - it’s a bloody good job that we get on so bloody well!

After that we went to the dance and the three of us looked all lonely sitting at a big table by ourselves. We were soon joined by three people from an other shop and two from the shop along the road from us. I knew the supervisor, Colin, from there so it was all cool. Also bumped into my friend Malcolm, which was cool. I forgot that he worked in SPAR too!

After much drinking (not on my part.. I had about 5/6 vodkas and coke and half a bottle of Asti Martini and wasn’t even drunk. I know I wasn’t because a)I didn’t throw up. b) I could still walk. c)I didn’t end up sitting on somebody’s knee. d)I didn’t dance. e)I didn’t flirt outrageously with people I shouldn’t flirt with!) Andy and I tried to work out how to get home. Hah, fun times! Everybody had booked minibuses to take them wherever they were going. We nearly ended up going to the Hamilton Palace, I remember Alasdair trying to get us to go on the bus but I didn’t fancy it too much. We ended up leaving Linda outside the hall with one of the warehouse guys and getting a taxi. I think she was getting a taxi with him. I bloody hope that she did because she wouldn’t get in our taxi! The taxi driver took £30 for Motherwell to EK to Govanhill which was pretty damn good!

Anyways, I need to go shower. I’m still wearing what I had on last night because I came in, spoke to the boyfriend on the phone and fell asleep on the sofa watching Property Ladder.

Now, I’m not a fashionista by any means. But I like keeping up to date with fashion, styles etc and waiting about 2 weeks before buying the cheaper, ripoff version from Primark or New Look. One thing I won’t be buying though is this TopShop bag. It’s horrendous, and doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than a bag for shopping or to carry your grandparent’s bowls in. It reminds me so much of the jelly shoes I had when I was 8. I thought I was so cool. I had silver sparkley ones, pink ones and flowery ones. The more I think back the more I remember they were damn uncomfortable and left you with the funniest tan lines on your feet.

What do you think? Is this your sort of bag? What would you use it for? Surely everything would fall out of it, or would be rather easy to pinch. Oh, and if you’re interested, it costs a fiver.

All photos were taken on my phone which is why they’re not brilliant quality. I totally forgot about doing this during work (probably since my manager was in here) but there wasn’t much to take photos of, except cages of groceries that were delivered!

I’m up at 5.28am, even though I don’t start work til 7am.

I make a cup of coffee in the best cup in the world - my ‘Best Girlfriend In The World’ cup that Chris bought me after we’d been going out for a month.

I check my email, feeds and stuff. Notice the HUGE cracks on my laptop moniter. Roll on June when I get access to my savings through work and I can replace it.

Put on my makeup… Hell I hate photos that are face on, I look so… huge!

My phone - I take all my photos with this since my camera is at Chris’ and I need to get batteries for it.

I stick my hat on (hey it’s cold outside) and take a picture of my eye. Because I’m cool like that.

Then I decide that ironing my uniform would be a good idea.

Can’t forget my badges, they’re the most important bit of my uniform (aside from my shop keys)

Man don’t I look happy?

My dog Abbi comes in the car with me and mum every morning when she runs me to work. Abbi waits at the door every morning for us.

Out to the carpark. It’s still really dark outside..

I goto the back to discover that I have no cash, just a tenner which I half with my mum since I pay petrol money.

This is my shop, well the first aisle anyway. The fruit and veg are my section and I’m glad to see it looking full and clean. Shame there’s no semi-skimmed milk left, I hope the milk delivery comes early.

The office. This is where the supervisors & manager hang out. Well I say that, today was only me and my manger who was in at 8.30am. We have a laugh in here, but work too - doing orders and money and paperwork and stuffs. Yes, stuffs.

I swear that the back shop is tidier than the shop floor sometimes. This is what I see as I walk out the office. I notice that some things will go out.

Go outside for a cigarette at 7.05am and notice that the papers have been left behind the shop again. Finish my cigarette and take them in to the shop to put out.

I do the money and it all balances out. Makes a change…

Super zoomed in view of my shop. Well the sign for the shop. To the right of that Spar sign is a hill and the shop sits at the top.

Waiting on a bus… is this it? Nope!

So when is my bus due? ‘Every 10 minutes or better’. My mum calls and says she’ll pick me up. Result.

I come home and crash out for 6 hours! Shocking. Wake up at some time during the 6 hours and the dog’s sleeping on top of me. Aww.

So, there we go. It’s just a shame I forgot to take pics in work. I will do this again soon though!!

I have the worst tooth ache, ever. My mouth is constantly throbbing and I can actually feel my teeth pressing against each other. I have two crowns (my front two teeth) which I’ve had since I was about 13. The tooth next to one of the crowns is slightly ‘twisted’ to the side and is twisting more and more as I get older. So the side of the tooth is pushing up against my crown and my god IT HURTS. Oh and on top of all that? I have an abscess on the same side of my mouth!

I’ve just gotten my mother to lend me £4 and take me to the SPAR near my house to get painkillers as there are none in the house. £3.70 for Nurofen! I should know that - the SPAR’s owned by the same company mine is! Since she ran me up she got me to get her a bottle of wine. Which is no problem except I didn’t have my ID with me. The woman asked me for it (our company’s policy is ID under 21 even though the legal limit is 18) and I said ‘Oh god no, I should have it - I work for *****, I know I need it.’ And she put it through!!. That’s shocking beyond belief since she was wearing a manager’s blouse and not a shop assistant’s one. I’m absolutely shocked.

Uh, anyway I am going to die quietly in the corner now.