Countdown to Christmas

So, an eventful, or not, week.

I spent two days on a course learning all about Shopper Marketing - I think I didn't learn a huge amount about how to do it, because I kind of already know, but I did learn a lot about what the process should be, and isn't, in our company.

I came away with a better understanding of how to engage with my Shopper Marketing colleagues who need to be spoon fed - my efforts over the past 2 years of giving them reports, tools and training having failed, I now see that I need to do fact pages for them which are engaging and bring the data to life. Spreadsheet reports are not what they need - they need pictures and fluffy marketing.

The 2 days seemed to fly by though, and on the bright side, my team won both of the "energiser" music quizzes and the final presentation (measured by Clapometer, so we didn't really clap for anyone else, and as we were last we just kept clapping and whooping until we knew we'd clinched it!).

I managed to squeeze in a 5k run while I was away - frustratingly having to weight for 20 minutes for a treadmill. I hate women who are slim, yet spend 30 minutes walking on the treadmill at a pretty slow pace and not even working up a sweat - if you're going to do that, walk outside, dammit, and let those of us who want to do a proper workout get on the machines!

Today I had a day's holiday, and roused myself to go to the gym and do 10k. I was really struggling and wanted to do a minimum of 8k, but I forced myself to do the extra 12 minutes. Even then, I've worked out that even if I can do another 2x10k runs on Monday and Wednesday and then 3x15k runs while I am at the in-laws over Christmas, I'm still going to be 50k short of the target. Definitely so close, and yet so far.

I then took myself off to go and see the new Narnia epic - based on one of my favourite Narnia books - The Voyage of the Dawntreader. I loved it and I think I'm a little bit in love with King Caspian aka Ben Barnes. I got a bit of a crush on him in Stardust and then consolodated it with Prince Caspian.

Now we are getting ready to go out and treat ourselves to a truly luxurious night away - to celebrate 7 years since our first date. We're staying at the Waterside and having dinner there too - something we've done twice before and love. It's a real treat, and made possible by the lovely share payout that I got recently. Bliss.

It's all downhill til Christmas now.... whoot!

Happy Holidays everyone!