Hen Party, Wedding Stuff, Fitbit, Roxy in Diary

Still busy as ever, Download Festival lasted for five days, tomorrow I have a 5k race followed by an 80s themed roller derby party, and then we’re going to see The Offspring on Sunday night!

Fitbit
I lost my Fitbit at Download Festival, it cost me £150. Stupid of me to take it but we always do so much walking I was interested to see how far we walked. Sadly I never found out as my battery ran out before Friday was over, and we were there until Monday, but I think it was about eight miles a day. So I put it in my bag and had it right up until we were packing to leave. Jay decided that we were going to leave a plastic box behind as it was too much to carry on the way back and he started filling it with rubbish. I told him to check inside it first as there were some things that we needed to keep. I stupidly assumed that he would check and take out anything that wasn’t rubbish. But, when we got home, I couldn’t find my Fitbit anywhere and can only assume it got left behind in the plastic box.

I feel completely lost without it, I have it on all the time except when I’m in the shower. Measuring my steps, heart rate, my sleep, GPS making little maps of my walks and runs. People do get addicted to it! I have my first 5k run tomorrow with my roller derby friends and, for months I’ve been looking forward to logging it on my Fitbit, but now I can’t. Well, it isn’t really a normal 5k race, it has giant inflatable obstacles in it so it’s just a bit of fun really. I suppose it means I’ll just have to sign up for another 5k race when I get my replacement!

The good news is, a couple of people told me to contact Fitbit as they had their trackers replaced for free. I thought this was incredible; how many other companies would replace items that you lost due to your own negligence? But I contacted them anyway and, amazingly, they said they would send me a new one, completely free of charge! It won’t arrive in time for my 5k but I’ll have it within a few days, I can’t believe it!

Roxy
Roxy the Rottweiler. I’ve been walking her after work every day for the last three years and get paid £30 a week for it. The last few weeks she’s started walking with a limp so we took her to the vet. They did some x-rays and tests and found out that she’s had elbow dysplasia ever since she was a pup, but it was never noticed because there were no symptoms showing up until recently. She’s going to need a new elbow joint put in at some point in the future and the vet has said she needs to stay off it and can no longer go for walks longer than 10 minutes at a time. I spoke to her owners on the phone and they can’t afford to pay me to walk her on top of all the painkillers and anti-inflammatories they need to pay for, plus they can manage 10 minute walks themselves (they had me take her for 30 minutes but they both have physical problems meaning they can’t handle a strong Rottweiler for more than 10 minutes at a time, which is why I was taking her.)

So that’s the end of that, no more walking Roxy. This is a big deal for me. I’m going to miss her firstly; I’m glad I didn’t know our last walk was our last or I would have been in bits! Also the money I’m losing is a big deal, it’s like having a £1,500 annual pay cut. It’s very strange going straight home after work as well.

I don’t want to start getting a new dog to walk, walking Roxy was perfect as she just lives around the corner from me and I got to know her and her owners very well; I’ll just have to do what normal people do and rely on my normal wages! I still have a few ad-hoc customer when they go on holiday (chickens, rabbits, cats) so that’s a bit of extra money in the summer. I’ll just have to enjoy the extra time I have and maybe do some mystery shopping instead or something like that.

EU Referendum
So next week, British citizens have the chance to vote on whether or not we remain in the EU. I was unsure as to the benefits of staying and leaving, but so far, the only reasons I’ve seen people put forward for leaving was because they don’t want any more immigrants coming in. Amy at work said she’s voting to leave “because Turkey want to join the EU and I don’t like the idea of that because there are a load of Romanian kids on my street and they always cause trouble.” So, the biggest decision we’ll ever make for our country is based on you not liking the Romanian kids on your street?

If that’s the only reason for leaving, I’m voting to stay! It just seems like xenophobia to me. These people seem to forget that British people also emigrate to other countries; Australia and Spain in particular have hundreds of thousands of British immigrants, but that’s ok as long as we don’t have foreigners trying to get into Britain.

If anyone can give me an actual, real reason for leaving the EU, please feel free to let me know, I’m genuinely interested.

Hen Party and Wedding Stuff
We went to give our notice of marriage the other day, that’s the last legal thing we have to do and now the wedding can officially go ahead! We had a confirmation through the post yesterday with the registrar details, order of the day etc. They’d put it all together in a nice little pack with “The marriage of James Davies-Shuck and Michelle Moore, 28th April 2017 15:00” in big letters on the front, so that was very exciting!

I was a bit nervous about the interview, it’s just to make sure you’re not related or already married to someone else, then they interview you separately and ask questions about each other to make sure it’s a real marriage and you know each other properly. She asked me Jay’s job title and I panicked; he only started last week and I don’t know his official title! I guessed Marketing Manager and started dithering about in a panic, but she said it’s ok, I could go and ask him. He told me he’s a Marketing Executive so I guess that’s close enough; she signed it all off anyway so it must have been ok haha.

A few people were asking what I was doing for my hen party, so I started a Facebook group to get it organised. I added a poll with suggestions of activities for people to vote on (weekends away, go-karting, various other stuff) and someone added an option for mountain climbing! I do enjoy climbing mountains, I used to do it every week, but not for my hen party; it’s supposed to be exciting activities and drunken shenanigans! I have no idea who added that but only four people have voted for it so I don’t think that one’s going ahead, haha.

I still need to write about Download Festival, but I want to link some photos from Facebook and I’m at work right now, so I’ll do it when I’m at home.

Last updated June 17, 2016