Well, oiled, that's what you are.Come on, and ride, in my muscle car

A few weeks ago I pulled my calf muscle [more specifically the Gastrocnemius_muscle]. It wasn't anything major and it usually felt completely better by a week later, although I could still feel the pull a bit. I'm quite naughty in that I don't normally treat injuries with the respect that I should. I'll get a pull and always take a risk and play sport before I know it's properly healed. Of course there must be some physical activity to aid with the reabilitation, but usually something more sedate than squash or football.

Yesterday I had football training, and I did my stretches and went for a light jog before doing anything that would put too much pressure on my calf, but about 40 minutes into the session I sprinted and changed direction at the same time and I felt a 'pop' in my calf and had to hop off the field. Damn! I am now going to have to restrain myself so that it can heal properly. I'm not going to play sports for a few weeks [hopefully not too much longer], but it's what I have to do to make sure this doesn't become a chronic condition. I can still walk fine, and should be able to ride my bike, but I just can't run on it. Plenty of stretching is called for too to aid the gastrocnemius muscle's reattachmnet to my achilles tendon, and to ensure that by the time it heals I can get back into sport far quicker than if I hadn't done aany physio on it.

Enough about my body now. Now onto what really matters... money!! Last month I told you I was switching over from a Pay Monthly phone contract to a Pay As You Go system. It's now been a month since I made my first top-up and I was interested in seeing how much money I've saved. My bills previously were around £40 a month, of which a vast majority was line-rental, and I was hoping that I could half this to just £20 a month.

When the new SIM card arrived it had £1 already on it, and in the past month I've topped it up with 2 x £10, although I've still got £9.25 left on it, so I've only spent £11.75, £1 of which was free. Brilliant. I also got a text this morning telling me that based on my top-ups from the past month I've earned a bonus of £4 which will go onto my account within 72 hours.

I'm definitely saving money, which was the main idea, but I have to admit that I've changed my phone habits greatly. I've limited the amount of calls and texts I make and now will try and use a landline where I can. At work I was using my mobile instead of the phone on my desk, and I was also sending out quite a few text messages where as now I'm using Skype, emails, and also the 30 free texts that orange customers get from sending messages directly from the Orange site.

It's nice to be able to keep track of the amount I'm spending instead of just getting a surprise bill at the end of the month. All I have do do is select the 'balance' function on my phone and a free text arrives within seconds telling me of my Top-up balance. I am happy to be saving money.

I also had some good news on Monday. I was in Canterbury and my General Manager told me she had 2 bits of good news for me. The first one was that I had been underpaid... for the whole year, and I was going to get this backdated to late August! It's not a huge amount of money but means I will get an extra £200 or so in my pay at the end of the month.

The other bit of good news was something I've been waiting on for a while. You may know that I have 2 part-time jobs - one at the University and one at the pub, and I've done this for the past 2 years, well now my University job will be going full-time!! At first it didn't merit full-time status, but the way the job has progressed over the last year has meant I've been stretched and not been able to commit myself as much as I would've liked. Now I should be full-time from 1st September [fingers-crossed that there are no cock-ups]. Obviously the Uni job pays more than the pub, so fitting in nicely with the vast majority of this post I will be getting more money too, which means I'll be able to sort out my finances sooner, which have been getting on track anyway.

Phew. That's been my longest post for a while.