Election Blues

After my initial excitement with the General Election my interest is starting to wane slightly. Sure there's coverage everywhere but nothing really exciting has happened! Where's the Deputy PM, John Prescott when you need him? I can just imagine him puching some old granny...now that would stir things up!

The BBC have got loads of coverage as per usual and there's some great Peter Snow tools on their website to play with! Fortunately I'm on leave form work the week on the general election so I'll definitely be able to vote and hopefully stay up late enough to catch the action as it unfolds. Reading some of the manifestos is great fun as well! UKIPs or Veritas...I can't remember which think we should pull down all wind farms and replace them with Nuclear power stations...a sure fire hit with the voters there methinks!

I'm looking forward to watching the Paxman Interviews tonight as he is interviewing Tony Blair...should make interesting telly!

Speaking of which The Apprentice is on tonight. We've really got into that show even though reality TV is not usually our thing. They are so annoying on it that it makes compulsive viewing. Hopefully Paul will go tonight as he is really annoying!

Video games gone mad

Just got time to post this crazy link with people singing Nintendo video game tunes a cappella with actions to go with! Crazy!!

Weird singing people

Wales

In other news we just spent a week in Wales (after the kitchen was done in main part but before the finishing touches were done). I didn’t know what to expect but it was great to get a week off from work. The cottage was different to what we were expecting but once we got used to it, it was great. I suppose Wales will forever be in my mind as a place where there are sheep everywhere, it rains a lot and everywhere has a strange sounding name.

We did however climb Snowdon (and none of the train up and down malarkey) which was an experience. Kath had been keeping me motivated by the thought of the café at the top…somewhere warm to sit and dry off. We did take waterproofs but the sunny skies and clement weather at the base threw us off guard and by the time we should have had waterproofs on we were already soaked through. The café turned out to be a bitter disappointment as it was shut, so instead we huddled in the lee of it, out of the wind drinking tea from a flask. I guess what really made it special was the dense ,clinging fog which stripped away any sense of achievement of climbing 1000m. We could have been anywhere for all we could see!!

Other exciting daytrips included Bangor (please ignore the song, there’s absolutely piss all there) and Lllandudno which was actually quite nice. Especially when I made Kath think she’d left her glasses behind in the restaurant! God I’m mean sometimes!

We also went to the CAT, which is the Centre for Alternative Technology. Very interesting but I do feel somewhat guilty now about everything I do. It became clear that we should do more for the environment so we are going to start trying. Number one on the list is to start composting, followed by buying local produce and buying green energy. All of them are eminently achievable its just getting around to doing it. B&Q only seem to sell a composter that is far, far too large for the 2 of us and would take up half my garden. The problem is I don’t want to go the worms route because you have to actually look after them or they’ll die. I need to do some scouting on the net and see what I can find.

My new cooker

The finishing touch

Lovely Kitchen

Hell's Kitchen

Before you start nagging I know its been a long time since there’s been any activity on my blog, but in my defence I’ve been hellishly busy!!

I’ll try and update you on everything but please accept my sincere apologies for missed items! So where to start?

I guess the kitchen has to be the starting point. I’m about ready to talk about it now. I can really see the appeal of getting people in to do this sort of job for you. I guess my expectations were wrong and I shouldn’t have expected it done in only 4 days. Still 2 weeks on and it is finally finished and might I say looking fine indeed!! It’s almost a shame that my living room and dining room were out of action at the same time (due to piles of kitchen and DIY stuff) because when the kitchen was finished I spent most of my time enjoying a tidy living room and dining room but what can you do!

My next post will include some pictures but until then....a massive thanks to my parents, to my dad for doing most of the work (in my defence he wouldn’t let me help, perhaps he knows what I’m like with tools) and thanks to mum for giving me a high score to beat on the DS. Seriously between the 8 trips to B&Q over the weekend my mum spent the rest of the time playing a handheld computer game!!!

But that is all behind me know….its finished and I put the very last finishing touch on to it just now!

Slight Insomnia??

For some reason I am up very early on a Sunday morning....I lay in bed for the last hour or so thinking about getting up. It was only at 6.45am that I finally got up...strange! Usually I can sleep through anything...there was a time once when vandals wrecked 30 cars in our street and police cars, alarms and helipcopters were chasing them and I remained bliss unaware. Its not as though I am stressed out either, or listless due to no activity, we spent all yesterday doing DIY with more to do today. Its just that I can't seem to switch my brain off!

Oh well, at least I'm doing something vaguely constructive by updating my blog! After this I have a choice of the very scary Resident Evil 4, that has scred teh shit out of me lots of times already) or a more sedate play on City of Heroes....hmmm I think City of Heroes. I'm very close to getting some fancy new powers and I want to try to break through to level 20!

Progress on the kitchen was very good yesterday. Just a little bit of plaster to remove and general prep of te walls ready for coffee liquer paint on them. My dad seemed concerned that we were working too hard on it prior to his arrival! Don't worry Dad, there's still bugger loads to do!

I only have 4 days of work left and its going to be a struggle to stay focussed! Fortunately I'm going to be really busy so that should help. Right am off to get some gaming done before Kath gets up....

Random musings

Ok, so the new coffee table is great, I do love it, really I do, but (you were waiting for that weren’t you?) now that we’re decorating the kitchen it takes up so much space in the living room. All the things that I used to use the floor for are gone forever. Ironing is a pain (need to move the thing), the DVD player has a weird infra-red sensor that works only if its directly pointed at (and the coffee table is in the way). The end of it gets very hot (too near the fire) and I have to move the ‘Cube onto the top of it to play otherwise the controller cable won’t reach!

Having said that I can put post on it (have to carry it through to the dining room otherwise), I can put my feet on it (handy), I can put my drink on it (good for not getting drips on the fireplace) and we can store tonnes of crap in the handy storage boxes underneath. I think the good outweighs the bad.

I guess I’m slightly frustrated by lack of living room space due to major kitchen refurbishment activities. Because of said activities the dining room is a place where few dare to tread…not only is it full of tools for kitchen refurbishment (KR), it also has new cupboards, new worktops, a new floor and a great wodge of underlay (underlay, underlay, heeber, heeber) in it. On top of this it also has a new cooker and a load of current kitchen stuff in it that has been moved while we sort the walls out!

Whoever decided that Artex on walls was a good idea needs a good slap! No, more than a slap in fact but I can’t eloquently put it into words! The nightmare that constantly preys on my mind is the removal of the damn stuff! We’re half off and still half to go and my god has it been hard work! What with coordinating that with the arrival of my specially selected work gang (my mum & dad), the work the gas engineer needs to do and delivery of everything we need (why oh why did we pick a kitchen that wasn’t available in store I’ll never know) its starting to get a little fraught at chez Caple!

The plan is to finish de-Artexing by the weekend so that I have time next week in the evenings to Smoothover and paint it ‘Coffee Liquer’. Crown has a great little tool that allows you to upload pictures of your rooms and change the wall colours! Anyway this activity is so that the kitchen is ready for the arrival of my parents on Good Friday to stay for 4 days to do the kitchen and whatever else. Now, I don’t think we’ve had guests stay for longer than about 3 days yet without me wanting to physically throw them out of the front door, so this might be an interesting situation. I blame the smallness of my house and the fact that there’s nowhere to escape to. This coupled with the overwhelming need to be a good host puts me under more than a little strain.

Coupled with the fact that I’ll have no kitchen and we’ll have to eat out for every meal might mean I am a little short with my parents!! Hopefully my Easter present to them will make them forgive me. Continuing my tradition of Best Present Buyer Ever (self awarded title!), I have arranged a corker of a gift…we’ll have to wait and see the response! Although I hope the tears shown at the 25^th Anniversary will not be repeated! I must remember to ask my mum to bring ‘Mum & Dad’ Monopoly with them when they come so I can beat them by buying childhood memories and charging them outrageous rents (although my record for Monopoly against my mother is less than impressive). The coffee table in the lounge is also excellent for board games (no more kneeling on the floor)!

I just need to focus on the fact that I’m on holiday for 2 and a bit weeks starting in 9 days time. Granted the first 4 days of said holiday will be doing KR but it will be worth it. It’ll also give me time to get a hair cut and drown myself in video games!

Speaking of hair I am very tempted to go really short…I imagine in a few years it’ll be my only option as thinning and receding are taking their toll! I think my brother inherited my dad’s hair which has receded but not thinned significantly but mine is definitely on the way out! It’s also a pain and looks a mess most of the time. The only problem is that my hairdresser doesn’t ever seem to cut it short enough! And I’m too polite to say anything! I must be firm and tell her if I need it cut shorter…I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Touch me!

I can’t remember if I’ve written anything about my DS. Despite the risk of repeating myself I’m going to mention it briefly again. It’s great!! I think the bets bit for me was watching my mum get slowly hooked to the point where she was asking my Dad to buy her one! Kath seems to enjoy fiddling about with it as well. My only concern is that there seems to be nothing decent game-wise coming out for it in the near future. I guess Nintendo were forced to release it early so that it could get a march over Sony’s PSP which is due to be released at some point in the future (I think its been delayed a couple of times already). I can’t say I’ve ever been attracted to the Playstation family of products and the PSP (Playstation Portable) hasn’t really changed that.

Lousy Smarch weather

It always amazes me how we are so unprepared in this country for the snow! I suppose that because it happens so infrequently that we don't ever put anything in place to handle it. Oh well...here's a nice picture of my back yard when we had some snow.

I've got a few other pictures that I might post later.

I'm currently enjoying a free friday afternoon...thats what happens when you do 12 hour days in the rest of the week! Trudged through the snow to go to Tesco and now am back home...2 hours later and the 2 inches we had this morning is gone in the sunshine. Feel a bit foolish for annoying Kathryn until she came home early. Relented and phoned her to tell her it had all gone so she could stay at work....a mistake you may say, dear reader, but the guil she'd have felt means that staying at work on a friday afternoon is preferable!

More great furniture!

Anyone for coffee?

The delightful furniture!

Pi-KEA

If anyone suggests that you go to Ikea in a single car and leave the other one at home, say NO!! It seemed like such a great idea. Not only would we be able to be social with our guests (sister in law and partner) it would act as a deterrent to buying too much stuff. While the first held true, it certainly didn’t stop us spending a significant amount of money between us.

The interesting part was the Krypton Factor style challenge of getting everything wedged into the car for the journey home. Whilst we did eventually manage it (albeit after 3 attempts) the new futon mattress didn’t escape unscathed! Kath’s skill with a needle and thread is definitely required!

Despite all that we have a new coffee table looks great and we’ve finally thrown out (well its sat in the spare room, ready to be thrown out) my old canvas and plastic, fixed together with press studs (don’t ask!) bedside cabinet which was serving as a telephone table in the dining room.

We suddenly feel very grown up having a coffee table. Until now we’ve never had one and as far as I can recall my parents never had one either. True it does get in the way of the ironing board and stops us from practising dance steps in the lounge but with its handy under table storage that double as extra seats I can forgive it the space it takes up!

Interesting Entry

I read this blog and then read other blogs and can’t help but think I’ve got nothing of any import to say! Other blogs discuss important things and detail often profound reflections on life/reality/the universe. Mine talks about shopping, video games and cooking. Hmm bit of a difference. Is anybody really interested in what I write? I wonder how many people actually read this blog?

Despite this I think I’ll plough on as I’m pretty sure at least one person reads it. Well I know I read his….

Perhaps if I had more time and made this a priority to complete (by setting aside 20 minutes day perhaps) then more insightful comments would appear. Having said that trying to force out an update a day may result in a load of banal tripe that is of no interest to anyone…who knows?

Lazy blogger

Again I have managed to go an entire 2 weeks without completing my blog! I don’t know where the time goes…I should fill it in when I get home form work but I find that I have too many other things I want to do instead.

Depending on when I leave this office I have between an hour to an hour and a half to myself before Kath gets home. In this time I have to cook dinner. This is the only thing I HAVE to do. We usually aim to eat at around 18:30 so I need to get cracking when I get home. This may seem like a long time but we tend to only eat stuff cooked form scratch. I’m not a fan of ‘processed food’ to be honest so always try and use fresh ingredients. I find that ready meals always look appetising on the label but end up tasting a bit shit really. Added to which they are absolutely loaded with unnecessary sugar, salt and fat means that they aren’t exactly nutritious either. A normal meal would usually be a stir-fry, pasta and a sauce or couscous. Jacket potatoes (as long as I get home early enough to put them in the oven) are another common meal.

The recent SUDAN 1 dye problem hasn’t affected us too much because of the general lack of processed foods in the house. Although the list does keep getting longer! I can’t believe its in Walkers Worcester Sauce crisps!! Its amazing how many foods have got this illegal dye in them!

The rest of the time is spent checking email and then playing computer games. This is a distinct activity separate from video games. With video games (Gamecube, GBA, DS) I can play them downstairs and be “social”. Kath is happy for me to hog the TV and play them, while she gets on with some reading, cross-stitch or revision.

Computer games means games played on the PC, which is upstairs. This form of entertainment is even more antisocial for Kath. Currently I’m playing in a MMORPG called City of Heroes. This means that I’m actually playing alongside other people in Europe. Not sure how long I’ll want to continue though…CoH like other MMORPGs has a monthly fee. I think I’ll play out my trial period and then reassess.

Out and about on the town....

.....or Massive Update part 3.

Still gots loads of things to provide an update on although I'm finding it hard to focus on the screen. That's what work will do for you! Exercised as well today so I'm gonna have sore legs in the morning.

I had my hopes cruelly lifted and then dashed by the missus today. She thought my new super duper video game console had arrived but it, in fact, turned out to be the personalised Monopoly set I ordered for my parent's 25th Wedding anniversary. Hasbro offer a great service where you can customise the whole board with new streets and everything! My brother and I came up wth the titles and hopefully my parent's will like it. If they don't and in case they are reading this its OK because we have something else up our sleeves.

Ok before I start the update proper I just want to say that I've discovered pies! Alright that is a slight exaggeration having been the butt of a 'Who ate all the pies...' style chant when I was younger. What I should have said was I have discovered the joy of making pies! My new food processor makes pastry effortless and a big pie can feed us for Sunday and then Monday as well. Handy when we usually have to do the shopping on a Monday evening. Today's is mince, potato and onion and last week's was Chicken and Bacon! Delicious!

Any update for what we've been doing since Jan 9th. It was my lovely wife's birthday towards the end of the month and her sister arranged for us to go and see 'Relative Values' in Norwich at the Maddermarket theatre . We had a great time! We also did some shopping in Norwich and I bought a load of crap that I didn't need but we won't go into that (home pretzel making kit....what was I thinking?)

Next up and K had bought me some tickets to go and see The Prodcuers at the Theatre Royal Druy Lane. It was fantastic! I urge anyone reading this who likes the theatre to GO AND SEE IT!

Right I'm off to do something else as my eyes hurt and I'll need to do a separate update for what we did the weekend just passed! As a hint I'll just say it involved a pair of Marigolds and a lot of gay men.

New year Shenanigans

The glamorous Kitty Killer & Terence Shrimp attend a party at New Year.

My video game hell

Well it would seem that my love of the video game art form is still burning bright! The lovely Nintendo have decided to bring out a new handheld console the Nintendo DS. This isn’t due for release until March 11^th but since I am a lovely and devoted fan I was able to get my hands on one of 3000 early releases and it should arrive in the next couple of days!!! The beauty of this new console is that it allows game playing in new ways and I can’t wait!!

In addition to this I’ve just ordered a new MMORPG game called City of Heroes. This will allow me to don my cape and tights and take to the skies in a persistent online city and save the citizens from maruading thugs!

In an effort to free up time to undertake these activities I’m desperately trying to finish my current game of Tales of Symphonia. My current game has so far clocked up 47 hours and I’m sure I’m skipping through bits and missing side quests! Hopefully it’ll be finished soon! This will allow me to start Metroid Prime 2 again. That isn’t even counting Pokemen Colloseum which I won in a competition, Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and Final Fantasy: Tactics Advance which await me on the Game Boy! Eek! That’s scary.

Future possible purchases include Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat and Resident Evil 4!!

Massive Update

As the title suggests this is going to be a massive update! I had gotten lazy and I'd decided that I would only update my blog once my friend Alex had updated his. I thought this was a sure fire way of not having to update anything! But no, to spite me his blog saw a flurry of activity and so I am forced to update mine!

Its hard to beleive that it has been almost a month since I updated my blog! Time sure does fly when you get old! Such a lot has happened that I'll probably forget to include everything but I'll try my best. I may even attenpt to reinstate one of my resolutions and update this every day!

Where to begin?? OK resolution update.....

Exercise....Wahey I've actually done some! Went to aerobics twice last week and am attempting to make this a regular occurrence. This should be very achieveable as long as I'm not working out of the office. We have also started private dance lessons! These should help us with our shoddy technique but I am dreading the lesson when Bruce asks to see our quick step!! Along with the Foxtrot that is the dance that we can't do!

To help with the exercise I have also bought a cheap Yoga dvd and will attempt to learn the basics. When it arrives and after I have undertaken some, I'll provide an update. I've aso bought a slimming/hypnosis book which caught my eye and hopefully along with the exercise the weight should start to drop off!

The saving money seems to be going well also as I now have £200 in my savings account and so far its staying there!

Alas the not spending money on crap resolution has pitifully fallen by thewayside. My ability to spend money seems undiminised! My only rationalisations are that I don't smoke, I save, I don't go out all the time and apart from the mortgage I'm debt free....why shouldn't I spend my hard eaned money?