Smokin'

Just had a moderately successful first fire in the new Chiminea, although I do smell of smoke now. I think the next one needs smaller twigs (the log I used was a little ambitious) and better kindling (Scrunched up Whats On TV clearly didn't fit the bill). It's only saving grace (and the reason it stay lit at all) was the Ocote Mayan Firesticks I used. These are basically twigs with a high oil contan so they light easily and stay lit for longer.

Still my chim does need easing in so its probably best that my fire wasn't a roaring success! (sigh)

I'm not sure what possessed me to sor that out tonight...I've just got back form shopping and it was shit. Asda had barely anything in so I ended up going to Tesco as well. I hate it when that happens! I suppose I could have tucked into my new Gamecube game, Killer 7 (birthday presnt from my brother, thank you Jamie!) but the video was about to kick in to record Silent Witness and a complex arrangement of wires, boxes and scart connections means I can't play games and record at the same time! Silent Witness is getting the vide treatment as Kath is at a women only rehearsal for the show.

Chim-chiminy, chim-chiminy, chim-chim chiminea

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

This was one of the many presnts I was lucky enought o receive on my birthday this year. Mum was a little concerned at how big it is (it barely fit in her car for the journey from Derby) and truth be told it is a little big for the garden. No matter, we'll all get very hot when I light it...hooray! Can't wait to give it a go nut unfortunately its pissing it down at the moment...89% humidity outside according to my new weather station (I was certainly spoilt this year!!)

Mad

Its been a hectic couple of days so I don't really know where to start....

My mum and nan finally arrived around 1pm on Friday so the birthday weekend could start proper. Prior to that Kath had been galivanting around getting stuff ready and even finding time to go to Debenhams and sort out our duvet problem. I think I mentioned it a few posts ago that we'd decided to order a goose feather duvet. I ordered the thing from Debenhams Direct and it had failed to materialise. The pillows arrived Ok (well as OK as they could be after being thrown over the back fence) but of the duvet there was no sign. I got a letter saying it was on its way but still no duvet. Eventually I got fed up and sent them an email, the next day I got the lovely "Thank you for your email" email and a message saying someone would deal with it in the next 5 days. Finally I get an email saying...

"Due to high demand, we are now out of stock of the following items. Please accept our apologies. Unfortunately we do not expect to be able to obtain any more stock. We hope this isn't too inconvenient for you."

This was after they had accepted my order and after they had sent me a confirmation letter advising me it was on its way!! I was annoyed but not as annoyed as Kath who was ready to complain to the chairman of Debenhams himself!

Fortunately the shop had them in stock and apologised for the rubbishness of Debenhams Direct so now we have a feather duvet, much thinner than I expected but very warm!! Which is just as well as the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse!

Camp

I've gone camping mad! I can't stop thinking about tents and campsites and equipment and all the rest of it!

Hopefully today (birthday -1) we'll go and buy the tent of our dreams. All the stuff I've read has instructed me not to buy a tent until I've sat in it and seen it erected. So once my Mum and Nan arrive we'll be off tent shopping!

Picking one has been tough but I think I've identified the one we want. As far as i can tell its about middle price point for a 4 man tent. there are some very exclusive looking ones here. The point is with these is that they almost put themselves up! At £300 though I think we'll give that a miss. Fingers crossed the one I think I want will be nice in reality and not just look good in pictures....

Anyone for a punt?

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Lovely day in Cambridge yesterday that had unexpected consequences!

We met up with Chris and Emma in Cambridge as they were on a weekend away in their new caravan. Not really my cup of tea, but sitting outside in the lovely campsite in the sun and Kath and I have sorted out our September holiday!

We've joined the Caravanning and camping Club, and we're off to buy a tent! We've been threatening going camping for years now but never got a round to it...now we have some spare cash and a week off so it'll be cheaper to go camping! Just got to get all the kit for it now....and go on practice stay at a local campsite.

Lovely!

Book Crossing

I'd heard of this a while back but actually got introduced to it by a friend last night. The idea is simple, mark books you have read and realease them into the wild. Then track their journey across the globe and see where they end up!

Fantastic idea as we have a load of books that we're proably never going to read again that someone else might like the chance too!

So....

Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at
http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Leighbob

Also a quote worth knowing....

A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.

Henry Miller
The Books In My Life (1969)

Lots of stuff

I can't believe its been a week since I last blogged! Been very busy at work and its been too hot to do naything too tasing in the evenings. I have been keeping my eye out for things to blog so I suppose I better get down to it!

The first thing I should mention is ICE. This is a scheme set up by some chaps from the East Anglian Ambulance Trust which has come to mass media attention due to the bombings in London last week. Essentially its all about the fact that people don't carry next of kin details but do carry mobiles. And often the emergency services need to contact someone in an emergency to get medical history, and other details. So what you do is you prefix the name of someone in your phone book with the initials ICE (In Case of Emergency) and the emergency servcies will have a much easier job of things...their website is here for more details.

Despite the fact that Johnny Depp looks a little strange as Willy Wonka the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film looks pretty good. Tim Burton has apparently ignored the previous film and actually based this one on the book! This means we get to see the full darkness of it and its more about Charlie than Willy Wonka (the previous film was renamed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and gave more emphasis to Gene Wilder who I don't really like as he only seems to be able to play himself, and by that I mean he plays the same way in everything I've seen him in!!)

Apparently Roald Dahl was not best pleased with the original film....

My birthday rapidly approaches and I've been surprised by the number of parcels that Kath has had delivered...slightly unfortunate that I've been the one to open the door and be handed a parcel from the postman with a really obviously named company stamped on the box! Oh well I'm sure I'll still be surprised! My mum and ana are coming to stay over so Kathryn is desparately cleaning the house...I need to do some gaden stuff otherwise my nan will be out with the secateurs! I should be getting a Chiminea from my parents but mum is concerned that its a little large...I must say that is a worry as my garden is tiny and it might be a case of we won't be able to sit in it when the Chiminea is lit as the heat is too much! We'll have to wait and see! Apparently though I'm going to have to cure it by building little fires in it for a while...full instructions here, thankfully!

Check out my new blog

I've started a new blog which covers all aspects of my interest in food and cooking. It can be found here and hopefully I'll be able to keep a log of what I've been cooking, and what exciting food I've been buying as well!

Enjoy!

Green Fingers

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Kath mentioned on her blog that I had got my enthusiasm back for gardening and she's right! A poorly time piece of weather that caused my Acer to sprout and then get killed by frost had dampened my spirits but a bit of spare cash and a visit to the garden centre has got me excited again!

Spent a few hours sorting stuff out and its looking pretty top notch again. A nice new parsol means that I can spend time in it without frying in the sun (my garden is very sheltered and gets very hot). I'm even trying to grow tomatoes!

The Acer has been moved to the back door but I get the impression we're going to have to wait til next spring to see if it comes back to life again...I hope so I really like that plant. A buddlieh (spelling?) has taken its place (as seen in the photo next to the bench) so hopefully we'll be getting butterflies as well!

Lovely and Talented

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

A picture of my lovely and talented wife....

Not so Fantastic

It seems that Fantastic Four has had a bit of a mauling by the critics in America. Its a shame as the trailer had managed to turn it around for me...I wasn't impressed but the trailer makes it look really good. Thats the skill of trailer makers I guess!

London

I had decided to forego writing a blog entry about London and what has happened there over the past few days but watching TV last night has changed my mind.

We had just finiched watching yet more Family Guy when we switched onto the Channel 4 news. There in a bed in a London hospital talking to the Queen about his ordeal was someone who looked and sounded like our dance teacher! Thanks to the marvel of the internet (how did we manage before?) we discovered (via the local newspaper website) that 2 Ipswich dancers had been on one of the trains with one of the bombs but had miraculously escaped serious injury. It just brought it all very close to home....

I'm not sure what the bombers hope to achieve as it seems that terrorist activity just strengthens resolve and bands together groups of people through adversity. It still isn't clear however who did all this so we'll have to wait and see how it all unfolds.

Time to get tictactical

If you would appear my constant badgering has failed as a tactic to get Kath to update her blog. I need to think up another tactic....

Perhaps if I say I really, really enjoy reading them as I think anything my wife writes is hilarious will do the trick? It also happens to be true but perhaps I just haven't said it enough? I'll have to wait and see if it has the desired effect.

Only me....

Just a couple of things today as I need to be quick...the missus and I are going to a play tonight so we need to leave sharpish when she gets home from work if we're to fit in a bit of dinner first.

I noticed this site that has you try and guess the next words in news stories, pretty interesting but I was crap at the hard setting...must try easy setting at some point.

Also the BBC website has its own magazine/blog type thing and the editors column is usually very interesting...it can be found here.

Also I want to do another plug for Google Earth. It is amazing! I discovered today that I can see my sister in laws house in its glory and that in selected US cities you can make all the buildings 3D and fly around! Although I notice that the White House is jarringly low resolution when compared with the rest of Washington DC. Perhaps there's a law against photographing the White House from space with spy satellites...dunno...

Alex texted me today as he was watching an old episode of House of Elliott on the telly. My abiding memory of that show was the cheesy, jolly theme tune and how inappropriately it was used! Usually each episode would end with something very dramatic and then the 20s styled brassy tune would kick in...so you end up with something like..."Its worse than that Miss Evie...I'm pregnant" ya ta ta ta ta ta ta-dah, ya ta da ta da ta dah. Brilliant!

Peel me like an orange!

The aftermath of the sunburn a few weekends ago is finally coming home to roost! My entire leg seems to be peeling off and I seem to leave a trail of flaky skin wherever I go! I can't resist a good scratch and that usually means a nice sprinkling of skin is left in my wake!

In other news Alex has posted his pictures of the wedding and you can check them out here. It really was a fab day and I hope R&R are having a great honeymoon as I type this. the wedding ended up costing me more than expected however as the hotel's luxurious feather duvet and pillows meant that I spent the remainder of my bonus money on a new feather duvet and pillows for home. Bye bye artificial filling, hello goose down!

In other news I finally managed to download Google Earth and its amazing! If you've got broadband I would heartily reccomend you download it and see for yourself. Kath reckons its like being on CSI, you can zoom in to virtually anywhere on the planet and see cars and buildings. Admittedly the US coverage is better but even so its an eye opener. Check it out!

We've just discovered Family Guy and its great! They've even got a blog! Although annoyingly their website won't open in Firefox!! Why don't people test it in something other than IE! Damn you Microsoft!

Finally (as I want to have a quick session on Puzzle Pirates) go check out the wife's blog! Its here. Post comments to encourage her to write more...I think its hilarious, she's not so sure!

I am not a number

Nuptials

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Well it was the wedding of the year and a great time was had by all!

It was a roaring success from start to finish despite running a bit late. There's probably loads I could write about it but I think I'll wait a bit. I'm in a rush to go and make dinner but I did want to upload my photos...go to Flckr to see them in all their glory!

Weird Weather

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

It seems I forgot to mention the bizarre hail storm that pelted the car on Wednesday! Felt like the car was being shot at (although I can only assume this as I've never been shot at, in a car or otherwise) and the accompanying rain flooded the bottom of my road.

Bizarrely the hail managed to last for 2 hours despite the temperature being around 18 degrees.

The other thing that happened that night was running over a dog on the way to Asda. Well I exaggerate, a dog ran into the side of the car when we were doing 30 mph up Norwich Road. I assume it was OK, Kath said it was just after she told me to put my foot down and not look back!

Data Overload!

For once I've got loads I want to put in my blog but I've just had no time! And even as I write this I am acutely aware of the time as I've got loads to do today. The thing is if I don't blog now I won't for a few days. The Pinhorn-Sunley nuptials are tomorrow and thats why I'm busy. In about 3 hours the first house guests will arrive and the house is a mess and I haven't done any baking!

Kath's at work and she's usually really good at getting me to stop flapping (this usually involves her telling me to sit down while she sorts stuff out but it gets the job done). Anyway deep breaths, get this blog done and we'll be fine!

Something that looks really interesting but I am having problems accessing is Google Earth. Its basically a collection of all the Earth satellite photos joined together in one big map! I need to keep visting the site to see when the beta re-opens.

City of Heroes has kind of petered out. The game shines when you can team up with people online and fight the forces of evil but my infrequent playing schedule has meant potential team mates have levelled way past me and I need to keep finding new ones...which has proved difficult. I think unless it improves soon I'll cancel my subscription and move onto something else. Speaking of which I've spotted a new MMORPG which looks promising...with a name like Yohoho! PuzzlePirates you can't go wrong! You're supposed to subscribe to it and pay a monthly fee but so far I can't see what extra I will get. It's this type of game that would be dangerous to let Kath near as its made up of all the types on online puzzles she likes...if you do go online for a trial and spot a pirate called Bobbyblade on the Cobalt ocean say hello! I chose that name after the Pirate name generator (unrelated to puzzlepirates I might add) came up with Barney the Pink! I think not.

The last thing I wanted to touch on (the wedding singing rehearsal woes can wait until after the wedding methinks) was this site and some amazing 3d drawings drawn on pavements around the world. Truly astonishing! Although he does seem to have a penchant for Diana...strange man!

Grrr

Another tuesday and another day waking up with a headache that I can't shift! Fortunately work is suspiciously quiet so I was able to make a quiet exit and log on and deal with important stuff at home. My first thought is stress but then I've got nothing to stress about at the moment...

Have now received final instructions for the wedding of the year (tm) and everything looks ready. A load of friends from Uni are piling down to chez Caple on the friday to rehearse some singing that we're doing but hopefully it'll turn into a party!

Spotted this today which is a follow up to a news story I read a while back. It seems pretty incredible that we're going to be able to build a thermonuclear fusion reactor on Earth! The official site is here and it won't be built until 2015 but it still seems pretty amazing. Its very easy to say thts 10 years away but it seems that my life is speeding up! Who knows what will happen by then and where I will be? It seemed unlikely that I would move away from Nottingham but here I am in Ipswich coming up for nearly 5 years! 5 years!

Mondays

Another strange day at work...we have a big re-org coming up and its almost as if everyone knows the end game but no-one has really thought about how we're going to get there. It does make it tough to get things done!

I notice that Monopoly are celebrating 70 years with a brand new London Here & Now edition. The idea is to build the board based on now. The London Eye makes it in as does the BT telecom tower (good things) but so does The Sun newspaper and skateboard and rollerblade playing pieces (bad things). There's also chance to play in a live version based around London. They give you money and you buy your properties. You pick a london cabbie and then 5 otehrs are sleected at random. Whenever one of the other real life cabbies lands (ie visits with a fare in their GPS tracked taxis) on your properties you get the rent. This is played over 24 hours and then you get entered into a draw to win prizes...I currently have £55 million in my balance but the best players have hundreds of millions. Check it out here.

While browsing the net I noticedsome blogs for food...in this case bread. I was wondering if I should start a new blog and detail recipes I cook...I wonder if anyone would be interested and whetehr it might end up too time consuming...although it would make a handy reference.

In unrelated news Richard Whitely died last night. I find this really hard to believe, he was only 61 and such a nice man to boot! He always had a pun ready (never a bad thing) and Countdown is a national institution! Oh well...

Also I've managed to get Kath addicted to my Nintendo DS! Brilliant!

Woo-hoo!

After months of badgering our dance teacher finally managed to drag us to one of their medal presentation dos and I must say we had a great time! We arrived a little after it had started because we'd been watching the tennis (Andy Murray lost but it was a great match!). That tuned out to be a mistake as the place was packed. We perched ourselves in the bar area but soon were spotted by Pat who match-maked with some other young couples and were squeezed onto their table. God bless her for interfering as we met some nice folks who liked dancing too (obvious really as they were at this event)

I managed to dodge entering the Adult/Juvenile mixed competition as there were too many adults but Kath got a bit confused with the taps on the shoulder. A tap was a good thing! The upshot was the Kath danced in one of the finals when she'd already been knocked out of the heat! Brilliant!

We got awarded our Bronze medal for the exam we took and as is usual in any of these situations the presenter couldn't get the name right! "Caple rhymes with Staple". I suppose its difficult for people in Suffolk as a lot of little villages around here are called Capel St. Something and its pronounced the same way. One of the other couples were collecting their third pre-bronze medal and they suggested that if we wanted to enter competitions that we should delay completing our pre-bronze for as long as possible so we could compete in the easier competitions. Sounds like good advice if entering comps was what we wanted to do..which I'm not sure it is...anyway...

The other couple we were sat with were collecting their Silver medal for Salsa. They did a demo for everyone at the end and they were fantastic! She was only 15 and Kath and I couldn't believe it! We were trying to work out his age but I guess he could be anywhere between 20-30.

Jenny roped us into entering the competitions on the night and we ended up dancing in the Waltz and Cha-Cha. Amazingly we passed both heats and got into the Grand Finals for both! Gareth was telling us that we were in the finals over and above another couple he kew that dance in open competitions! Anyway we got awarded sixth place for Waltz and fourth place for Cha-Cha...not bad for our first foray! Gareth and Claire came forst in both so our table was doing very well that night! The table also won 3 of the raffle prizes, talk about lucky!

The presentation did go on a while though as the competitions were all split into a million age groups (slight exaggeration). We finally got home at about 11 and decided it would be a good time to watch CSI:NY, which I must say has really grown on me, although Danny is really annoying and it was good to see him come a cropper last night!

Ooops better go...off to see batman Begins this morning!

3 years in and still going strong...

I can barely believe that Kath and I will be celebrating our third wedding anniversary in a couple of months time...where has the time gone? As is traditional I wanted to try and get a nice gift that fits the proper conventions. Helpfully there seems to be a traditional list and a modern list. Year One was Paper (trad) and Clocks (mod), that was easy I got her a watch and made some origami flowers. Year 2 was cotton (T) and china (m) so I think I bought her a porcelain figure to match the one I bought for the wedding.

Year three is Leather (t) and Glass/Crystal (m) and I was just doing a serach for leather and I found this site with a reasonable sounding name and some hilarious pictures within...quite alarmingly you can buy leather duvets!

I guess I'll just have to keep looking...

Blueberry Tar

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

It's supposed to be jam but is it? No it's buggering not! It's bluberry tar!

I'm going to have to throw the jar away! How upsetting!

I was reading a fantastic preserving book today in the bookshop and I can't wait to actually make some jam that works! If you're feeling generous you could buy the book in question for me from here. Thanks!

Still really really hot!

But at least my sunburn is subsiding! Just got back from dancing and realised the onion in dinner was a mistake, its all I can taste. I'll need to hunt out a mint at some point!

Time is flying by in a haze and I feel like my blog entries are becoming a little pointless! Not really got anything to link to or wisdom to share. Ho-hum!

Sunburn

Thankfully the pain is staring to go and my leg doesn't feel quite so itchy any more. What this probably means is that next time I go out into the sun I'll forget the pain and forget to put sun cream on again and then whinge about it on my blog! The cirle of life!!

The good weather has continued and the garden is looking deader every day...if only I could be arsed to water the garden!

The hot weather has also had a strange effect on our dancing teachers...we more or less did latin dancing back to back and there was some very sultry dancing from Pat...managed to learn the meringue (spelling) and did some more Salsa too but boy was it hot! Added to that floor was very slippy and we ended up sweating like bastards!

Just trying to look at the Roald Dahl website at the moment, they had good things to say about it on Radio 2. I remember being told off in a school library once for singing and dancing the intro to Tales of the Unexpected too loudly! Oh happy days!

The sign of true Britishness

Forgetting the sun cream and thinking "we'll be fine without it"! My wife has very pink knees and a weird pattern on her feet from her sandals and I have pink forearms and a very sore left leg (my right one is fine though!).

Spent the entire day sitting in the sun and eating...firstly at Kath's mums and then at Kath's dads. Strawberry overload but its difficultto say no. Kath's mum must have thought she was feeding the five thousand as there was far too much food! I did manage to acquire a copy of 'Mrs Beeton's Cookery and Household Management' though. Its really good especially when you realise she wrote it in 1859.

One phrase she used in the preface to the first edition always makes me laugh, in her words "I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly cooked dinners anduntidy ways" Not entirely politically correct but very much of her time. The book literally covers everything about running a house from buying or building one to decorating, childrens illnesses, recipes, etiquette and much more...truly amazing!

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Certainly not me after watching the final episode of Dr Who this evening. I thought it was referring to the God of the Daleks but when he proclaimed half way through that he wasn't Bad Wolf it got me really excited!

The Doctor shoving Rose back into the past to save her was great as well...it prevented the whole episode being guns and shouting, although Rose did her fair share of shouting back in London. All in all I can't wait for me, Kath's face when David Tenant popped up as the new Doctor at the end was priceless! And as for the resolution to Bad Wolf and the Dalek invasion...brilliant!

Right need to go and make some daiqiris, the heat is high and we need some cooling off....

Gah...

...my get and go and got up and gone! I feel so bloody apathetic at the moment...nothing can keep my interest....

Another week gone by.....

Where do the weeks go? Its friday afternoon again and here I am on a conference call for work...16:30-17:30. What a great way to end the week! Because Kath gets up at a ridiculous hour to trek halfway across East Anglia to go to work, I get up to. This means I'm usually in work by about 8am and can leave fairly early most days, until my boss's boss asks me to attend a conference call that is! I was almost tempted to stay in the lovely air condidtioned office (its 28 degrees outside at the moment) but the traffic off the park and the fact that the Orwell bridge is down to one lane means it can take an hour to get home....

It could be worse I suppose...I'm sat in my shorts, typing this and waiting for the call to begin...again I'm on mute so no-one knows I'm here but at least i don't have to say anything...I can slurp my can of Sprite in peace...oooh its started!

Another reason for having to leave early is that I wanted to get something for Kathryn...as she passed her exam!! Not that I didn't think she would! She often worries but I have supreme confidence in her...well done Kathryn!

Looking forward to the nice weather at the weekend as the garden is looking a little neglected and we've got a BBQ in lovely Great Yarmouth.

The call is really dragging on.....better go as I should be listening....bye bye!

Are my spending days over?

I have a surplus of cash and no desite to spend it...Am I ill? Or have I finally realised the rewards of seeing empty credit cards and money in the savings account? Living in a small house certainly helps. The things I would want to buy we can't put anywhere, my garden is full of plants and needs no more and my wardrobe is bursting at the seams!

The problem is I can't stop thinking about it! Part of me keeps saying "you have money, what are you going to spend it on?" while the other half can't think of anything to buy.

On other news really looking foward to the last episode of Doctor Who this week...should be great!

Thats it, nothing else to say.

A good day had by all...

....at least that was the impression I got when I left the event I was attending this afternoon. This mood was probaly helped by the fact we had watched Eddie Izzard teach us about body language and its use in presentations, seen one of our colleagues walk on broken glass, been given exciting light up pens, heard how our company will do great things, been served champagne as the afternoon refreshment and had a sumptious buffet lunch in a swanky Park Lane hotel. Oh and the £100 we all got as recognition for doing a good job as Agents of Change went down well to! Why can't all events be this good?

Not sure what I'm going to spend the money on but I do have a couple of ideas....

Sci-fi Crazy!

Ok...I've spoken about Dr Who before, about how I hated it and now I'm really loving it...I still am! I'm a bit confused about bad Wolf...not really sure if it wasanythign portentious but the episode last night was great! All those daleks...whats going to happen? And will we see the new Doctor next week....too exciting!

We went to see Star Wars 3 this morning and thepower and the brain strikes again! I had convinced myself it was going to be awful but it turned out much better than I expected! I didn't realise Anakin was going to get all his limbs hacked off and then set on fire so that was a surprise! George Lucas managed to excel himself with poor dialogue again but at least it wasn't as bad as Star Wars 2!

The trailers included items for Batman Begins and Fantastic 4 and they both looked great! Its really good to see Hollywood appreciating a good superhero story at last!

In a bit of a jam

It's generally accepted that I'm a good cook. I can whip up something tasty quick and I have a good knowledge on what goes well with what. Leave me in a book shop and I'll generally gravitate to the cookery section. I don't know whether this due to talent or the fact that I've had a lot of practice I don't know. Fortunately in this house doing all the cooking means that I more or less avoid any other housework...ok, I'll do a spot of ironing from time to time but generally I miss out.

Kath decided that she would cook for me yesterday and I must say it was delicious! Strange smells wafted form the kitchen and she looked very red faced when I poked my head around the door but all in all a success. The extremely strong margheritas helped as well.

Having missed out on the cooking yesterday I thought I would do extra duty today and really I'm not too pleased with the results....the problem is this...I can't do jam! Its either runny and water or like tar! Take the blueberry jam I made this afternoon...it won't come out the jar! I keep trying to preserve things but it ends up a disaster. I'm either too cautious and whip it off the heat before its reached the setting point or I take my eye off the ball and BAM! it take a pneumatic drill to get it off the pan. If anyone is reading this is stuck for birthday present ideas head over to my wish list and get me a jam book!

Shhhhh!

I'm currently on a conference call with a load of senior managers with instructions to stay on mute and not say anything...nice! I guess I'm being a bit naughty by updating my blog but hey ho!

We watched Kath & Kim last night and its really funny! New Aussie comedy and I can't really think of anything else to say about it...being distracted by conference call.

Looking forward to a relaxed weekend with no real plans except getting my hair cut. Kath is cooking for me on Saturday which is a real treat as my share of the household jobs includes doing all of the cooking. Apparently I'm being treated to a 2 course meal with surprise ingredients! Although I do know that it'll include pork chops as I was told I need to find something else to cook for sunday tea!

Hmmm

Nothing really to Blog about today, although not really sure that's a verb! It might have been added to the dictionary though. I spotted a news article today that was detailing new words added to the dictionary. Chavtastic is one of them! I'm all for new language and modifications of uasage but...chavtastic!

Another item that cuaght my interest was this....seems like Dr Who related shenanigans are back with a vengence!

Anyway better go...I've got 2 pork chops marinating and I need to cook 'em before Kath gets home!

Tuesdays

Some days you just wake up feeling crap…welcome to my Tuesday! There’s no real reason for it that I can tell. I don’t know whether it was because my incredibly deep sleep was rudely interrupted by my waking up I don’t know, but I have a headache and nausea! Nice!

Kath and I managed to confuse ourselves by watching dinnerladies last night. We watched what we thought was the last episode and were perplexed when a load of stuff that should have happened didn’t! Turns out that there is a second DVD on its way to us (courtesy of LoveFilm) that has 4 more episodes of the series! A quick search of Amazon shows that I can get the Series 1 & 2 DVD boxset for £7.97! I may have to order that and my ‘Spend No Money’ scheme be blowed!

A weekend away

The power of the mind is a great thing. Having convinced myself that having to spend the entire weekend (Friday night to Sunday evening) engaged in stag festivities would end up being less positive than negative, I am pleased to report we had a great time!

Highlights include: chatting to Chris and Emma in their new house until the early hours of Saturday morning, not spending any money on awful horror DVDs, drinking all afternoon and having a meal at the end for only £30, really getting along with people I previously wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck in a lift with, discovering new depths to Dr Who (and the fact that everyone seems to be loving the new series), the appearance of 2 drunk fairies halfway through a viewing of The Beast Must Die , the smugness felt when Dracula vs. Frankenstein turned out to be rubbish (I wanted to watch the original House of Wax), no hangover at all, a nice quick lunch in Burton Joyce with the Sunley-Pinhorns (of Burton Joyce) and discovering that we can get home from Burton Joyce in just over 2 hours!

We shall be seeing the same crowd again at the Sunley-Pinhorn nuptials at the start of July…where is the year going?

I am so mean!

I've guilted her into doing it and the fruits of her efforts are here....

I am so mean!

I'm rubbish at art!

But it is a good demonstration of a funky little art thing I found on the internet!

Go here and marvel at my crap drawing and painting and see my frustration boil over into an attack on my picture with a large tin of black paint!

Enjoy!

Commercial Break

Now usually these are a big turn off for me (and are a big part of the reason why I don't watch ITV) but every now and then comes along an advert that is really good. And if you like the product then all the better. An example of this is the recent Muller adverts that all share the slogan "Lead a Muller life". They show normal looking people dancing in strange places. There's something about the combination of images and the choice of music that means once I listen to it its stuck for the rest of the day. And so as not to be selfish you can check it out here. Hopefully it'll get stuck in your head too!

And thank god Michael Winner is off the TV with those stupid eSure adverts coming to an end. Michael Winner in drag is not something I want to see thanks very much!

Getting drunk

Now, I don't know if its me but I find that I don't like drinking around my family. Ever since going to university I feel like I'm a different person that myfamily don't really know. This is demonstrated by my parent's misinterpretation of me whenever we meet up and my unwillingness to get pissed around them.

When I was younger I was always the sensible one in the family (and to be honest I still am) and I guess I don't want to offend anyone with my drunken antics. Anyone who knows me now knows that I get incredibly insulting and rude when drunk and I'm not sure what my family would mae of it.

Last night at John's 50th was a bit of a revelation. My nan was...I don't want to say plastered as that will give the wrong impression...but she was VERY merry. To the extent that she forgot my name and birthday! Bridget burnt herself on the oven (although whether that was drink induced I'm not sure) and my mum thought it acceptable to throw white wine in my dad's lap just after someone suggested it was the best way to get rid of the red wine someone else had just spilled there!

Thankfully we didnt have to make the first move to leave as my brother was in attendance and working the next day so he had to leave early. This paved the way for Kath and I to get on the road. Lucy picked probably the rowdiest family get together to be introduced to everyone but she probably had a fairly good filter up given that she was still horrendously hung over form the night before. Her and my brother did the usual effort and persuading me and Kath to get a cat. Kath is very keen but I'm afraid there is no way! Pets and my nose do not mix!

Bank Holidays

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Today started with the rain waking us up at about 6.30am. I rolled over and pointed this fact out to Kath. Our plans for today had included a picnic somewhere in the country and clearly the weather wasn't going to help.

We finally were both up at about 10.30 having fallen back to sleep after my weather announcement. Being asleep so late is unusual in our house as Kath is usually up at the crack of dawn but 2 very late nights in a row had conspired against us. The first was saturday night where we finally finshed off 24 with 4 episodes back to back! Fantastic end but I knew Mrs Ortega was going to shoot Stephen Saunders the moment she laid eyes on him!

Then we were at my uncle's 50th birthday over near Stamford. Didn't quite realise how far away that was until I was driving it at 11.30 last night!

In the end the sun came out today so we set off for Lavenham with a picnic ready. As we arrived at Lavenham a thnder storm broke out so we sat in the car and ate our sandwiches (see photo). After 30 mins still no sun so we came home! We had hoped to stop off at the Bonsai nursery but we couldn't find it!

We then decided to go into town to see Star Wars 3 but couldn't get a parking spot. We loitered in Waterstones for a good 30 minutes and I eventually put down the cookery books that I was lingering over. And then we came home!

Ok so this blog entry has turned more into a diary entry and probably is a little dull because of it.....can't think of anything else to type!

Rhubarb

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

It's definitely in season and I'm lovin it!

This is rhubarb ready to be roasted with sugar...yum! Turned this batch into a trifle as I recall and later today will be turning a new batch into Rhubarb sorbet.

I'm starting to get this whole seasonal foods malarkey. They do taste much better! Give me ripe british summer strawberries over the overblown tastless winter spanish jobbies any day! Although to be fair I'm not getting obsessed by it. I don't know how I'd cope without peppers on hand all year...they are a real staple in our household.

Does not compute....

Its a bank holiday weekend and the sun is shining! How bizarre is that? And I'm inside typing at a computer...phew, I thought the world had gone topsy turvy for a second there!

What I should be doing is sorting out my garden or cleaning my teeth. Either would be a better use of my time but since I haven't updated my blog in such a while this seems a reasonable activity too.

My plans for the weekend are fairly simple and should be easily achievable....

• Make rhubarb sorbet (see another blog entry for more about this)
• Do some gardening....this includes planting out some herbs and trying to fix the almost dead japanese maple
• Go to my Uncle John's 50th Birthday party. This is quite easy to do so should definitely get done
• Go shopping with wife

Thats all for definites, I may do some other things as well! Lovefilm has sent us a good selection of DVDs including the final disc of season 3 "24". Must try and watch that if possible.

It seems odd that we're going to John's 50th birthday party. He was always the young uncle and thinking of him as fifty just makes me feel old. Its even more difficult to think what to get him. I've never bought John anything before in my life so find myself at a bit of a loss. My instinct would be an expensive bottle of champagne but I'm not sure how appropriate that wouold be given that he lost his sense of taste and smell in an accident a few years back. To be hoest he'd probably appreciate the thought anyway and champagne does have a touch aspect as well as being able to get you pissed. Hmm I'll have to ponder.

Watched pot....

Along with the old adage that a watched pot never boils I'd like to add that a watched washing machine never finishes its cycle!

I'm sat waiting to go to the supermarket but we have to wait for the washing machine to finish first...sigh!

This is so we can take advantage of the sunshine and hang the washing out....I don't trust the weather at the moment though...freak frosts have all but killed my Japanses maple and i don't know what to do to sort it out. Added to that I'm scared to plant my herbs in case they get killed as well...what to do?

Eurovision was again a debacle of political voting. I don't know why I expect anythign different. the UK entry was the best in years but we finished third from bottom, while weird euro tat romped home to victory...there's no justice!

My democratic right

Ok, so I've done it....I went to the polling station and voted. We even walked there, its that close (although it would have taken less time if we'd gone the way I wanted to instead of Kath's!).

Two points of note, firstly I was a little disappointed with the choice of candidates. Our area has the fortune of having the county council elections on the same day as the general election and I hoping for a interesting read on the polling card. It seems only with the European Elections do you get hundreds of fringe candidates...does this tell us something about the validity of that parliament?

Secondly one of my cards was white and the other lilac. Now I don't know if I'm going slightly colourblind but they both looked like white to me! Fortunately the man in the polling station seemed to keep a beady eye on me when I posted them into the white and lilac slots so I must have done it right. So now just the 14 hour wait to see what effect my vote has had...oooh the excitement (yawn).

Heroic

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

The computer game I have been playing for a while now includes a natty feature where you can take screenshots. This is a picture of my hero, 4th Dimension, just coming down from a leap.

Full details of the game can be found here.

Dedicated follower

When I was much younger I didn't really care for fashion, clothes, shoes etc. I don't know why really. I remember being the last one in class to discover jeans (tracksuit bottoms had been my leg wear of choice up until that point) and moon boots passed me totally by. It may be because my parents dressed me as if I were half of a twin even though I am 3 years older than my brother (although if you ask him its 2 years 9 months and 15 days) , who knows?

But now....well I seem to have a fixation for shoes. I complained at my wife for the amount of shoes she has but it appears I have 8 pairs that I regularly wear plus many others that just come out for special occasions! Now this may not seem like much but for me it is. I spent today trying not to try on shoes in almost every shop I went in (although I don't look great in Dorothy Perkins slingbacks). There are so many nice shoes out there its a shame I won't get to wear them all. I limited myself to the one pair today (Autograph range from M&S) and they are to replace the shoes I got married in. Quite expensive but the last pair lasted for ages and were very comfy and these new ones were very nice.

The shoe buying frenzy was prompted by the 3 weddings we're attending this year. 2 of them were expected and are friends but one is a family wedding and a little controversial. And what's wrong with Saturdays as a wedding day? 2 out of the 3 are on a Friday which is just a pain really.

I seem to have spent my recognition money already and don't really have anything to show for it (besides new shoes and a suit). I m still tempted by a new camera or perhaps a barometer. I need to accept that my garden isn't really big enough for a gas patio heater or a chiminea and stop pining for one!

The heat is on!

The weather has gone crazy! Suddenly 24 degrees from nowhere and my energy is sapped. Which is a bit of a bugger as I'm off for a week and want to have high energy to do stuff!

The conference went especially well at work this week. The welcome experience could have been better but the exit was great. No queues and everyone seemed to have had a good time. Even better was that the share proce fell so we didn't need to count pennies into a bag for 200 dividends!

The best part howver was getting recogniton for doing a good job this year! I got the annual prize and now have to work out what I'm going to spend £760 on! I couldn't believe it! Totally unexpected. Sensible things beckon like some new shoes and a suit and paying off some of my credit card but I also intend to splash out a little bit too!

Demolition Squid

And in case you only chuckled at the previous link and didn't explore further...this is great to!

Demolition Squid

Want pie?

Just stumbled across this site....brilliant!!

Want pie?

Busy busy busy!

Not really had much tie to do computer stuff this week as work has been manic! Helping to organise a conference and the main organisers seem to forget that I'm helping in addition todoing my normal full time job! Oh well it'll all be over soon!

Over on Niles's blog there's some nice pictures of Everest and it reminded me that the Director of our unit at work is currently trying to climb Everest as I type. You can catch up with his progress here. the best part is the 'bowels rating' where he gives an update on the situation. I'm not sure what motivates people to climb Everest in the first place? I think what would annoy me most is the cruching sense of anti-climax when you've reached the top and you realise you have to climb back down again! I suppose it will give you a different persepective though. Anyway check it out its quite an interesting read!

I just want to mention another website as well, How Stuff Works. This is a great site for answering so many questions. It has gone a little commercial (ads and stuff) in recent years but generally the content is pretty good. There's a good article about the origin of Wonder Woman on there as well.

Pretzels

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Despite going to bed at 6.10am this morning and getting up at midday I still managed to find time to make pretzels! I am insane! Now these are very tasty but I'm not sure they were worth the effort to be honest. Lots of kneading, waiting and pissing about rolling out. The problem is my work top was not large enough to roll them out properly! That's why I've ended up with these kinda fat looking pretzels! I've also made a couple of meat and potato pies! Look at Flickr (link somewhere around here) in the food directory to see the results.

She's back!

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Bringing the digital camera with her. Hooray I can take random pictures and update my blog with stuff.

A visit to Camden market produced a nice t-shirt for me whihc apparently is titled 'Figting Spirit' (spelling mistake intentional). Although slight downside is that it requires a cold hand wash....hmm perhaps Kath could do that for me?

Also I had a little box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts bought back for me from Selfridges, yummy!

Wisdom of age

I wonder if there will come a time in my life when i realise things are bad for me and I don't actually do them?

When I was younger I would think nothing of doing things and assuming my body would cope. Now I'm in the stage when I know its ill advisable to stay up all through the night, even worse if its playing video games but yet I still do it. I wonder how old I'll have to be when I realise I'll feel shit afterwards enough so that I don't do the thing in the first place!

Needless to say I helped Sister Psyche (alongside my Task Force) and stopped Clamour of the Freakshow from turning Brickstown into a new Faultline, much to the relief of the citizens of Paragon City!

The digital revolution

I love my digital camera! Its strange that before pictures didn't really seem so important. Now, with digital, I'm always snapping away. I kinda feel lost as Kath has taken away with her to capture the excitement of her weekend in London, yet I wish I had it here so that I could take some photos and show what a good job I made of changing the bed (see blog below). I wonder if someone will be able to read this in years to come? It may be that my family learns about my past via a blog? I certainly think that this has become a habit now and hopefully it'll continue.

The absence of the camera has made me think if we should upgrade and become a 2 (digital) camera family? Already we have 2 cars (although one belongs to my employer), we have 2 telephones and recently we got a second televison. Is it time for a second camera? I was looking at the Nikon Coolpix 4600 which is essentailly an upgrade of the one we already have. It would make things easier memory card and functionality wise, but should I play safe? To be honest its a bit of a moot point at the moment as I don't have £150 to spare but maybe when I get my bonus....

One thing K and I have been looking at is getting involved in the geograph photography project. This project wants to get a photographic record of the country. It looks like our area is pretty poorly represented so perhaps we can do something about that?

While the Kath's away....

...Leigh ends up doing the housework! Although I have been a bit of a demon already...a load of washing, the supermarket shop and I've changed the bed. God is that a nightmare or what? Good job beds are designed for sleeping, changing one is a knackering experience. (Note to self: Help Kath change the bed in future)

Yes I am wife-less this weekend and instead of living it up I'm doing housework. I've also got a list of cooking projects I want to tackle. Yay! I can do what I want, eat what I want, stay up as late as I like! What will probably happen is I'll eat bacon sandwiches for every meal and go to bed really early. Thats the kind of crazy guy I am.

Present from Wales

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

We treated ourselves in Wales and bought a new number for our house. And here it is in all its glory...nice eh!

Apparently its welsh slate and we should clean it only with Linseed oil. The question is should I keep the old ratty number so that when we move house I can take this one with us?

Time to come clean

I must say I've really been enjoying the new Doctor Who!! Now I'm sure some of my friends will express surprise at this, as my annoyance at Doctor Who has been a point of interest over the years.

I am finding the new stories interesting but I must admit that I'm finding Christopher Ecclestone a little tiring. All he seems to do is have an inane grin and folds his arms a lot. Having said that its lots of fun to spot all the semi-famous actors guest starring all over the place! Penelope Wilton (who was great in Shaun of the Dead) cropped up in a two parter this week that we didn't realise was a two parter, imagine Kath's face when the end credits music started in the middle of a cliff hanger (although we didn't know it was a cliff hanger at the time!) The BBC slightly ruined the effect by showing a 'Next time on...' style clip at the end that ruined any suspense of the Doctor being in serious jeopardy. Oh well I guess that's the consequence of a society with the attention span of a. Anyway looking forward to what the rest of the series will bring and then the prospect of a new Doctor in the shape of David Tenant. Kath and I have really enjoyed Casanova which has been on with him in it so hopefully he'll make a good Doctor. (Not sure of the grammar or sense of that last sentance but I can't be arsed to sort it out!)

Tony B. Liar

Ok...so I just watched the Paxman interview with Tony Blair and I must say he seemed to come across quite well! Far better than I thought he would...hmm stilll don't think I'm going to vote Labour though! What will be really interesting though is the Michael Howard interview on Friday. Must remember to watch it.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

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?

It's only day 9....

....and already I seem to have broken all of my resolutions!!!

I spent money yesterday (but to my wife's surprise put back a number of things that previously I would have bought), still haven't exercised and missed filling in my blog for a couple of days. On the positive side, because of my blog, I am in more regular contact with one of my friends. Also I'm got back into the joys of cooking and am just waiting for my shoulder of lamb to come out of the oven.

A slight issue with forgetting that my potatoes were on to parboil means we'll be having mash instead of roasties! I'll even be making some meringues for later!

One of my few pre-new Year no spending resolutions treats was to buy a food processor with my back pay. I'm still waiting for it to arrive but a space has been cleared on the work top to accomodate it! Apparently its what all the chef's use and I can't wait for it to arrive. My wife is also looking forward to the many culinary treats that it will produce.

Right better go and mash some things for lunch....

Hectic Days

Yesterday was so hectic that I completely forgot to fill in my blog!!!

Work was busy as usual, its like I've never been on holiday....

After work Kath & I went to give blood. We used the new appointment system which worked fine for me but not so great for Kath. I do always feel good for having given blood but when I'm lying there I do feel an almost uncontrollable urge to pull out the needle!!! Its not painful, I'm just incredibly aware that there is something sticking in my arm and I want to scratch it out. Fortunately I've resisted the urge so far! Everybody who is able should give blood, there really are no excuses!! An interesting (well maybe) fact about me is that I'm AB positive which I think makes me the universal receiver (ie any body's blood will do for me) Unfortunately for everyone else my blood can only go to people also AB positive...and thats only 2% of the UK population.

We were also due to go to the Theatre to Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood (a rock and roll panto). We did eventually make it after a hold up in McDonalds. We missed the first 5 minutes but were let in after that! It was great! And a full house! It always annoys me when we go to see a good show/play and the theatre is only half full. People are probably too busy watching ITV to give a damn about quality theatre. Hmm I'm not a snob really... :-)

We got home just in time to see Desparate Housewives (Channel 4, its OK!) which has had a massive promotional presence on the small screen recently. I actually really enjoyed it except for Nicolette Sheridan who looked as if she'd been under the surgeon's knife one too many times. I remember her from repeats of Knots Landing I used to watch on UK Gold after escaping college on Friday afternoons for my driving lessons...ahhh nostalgia!

Anyhow the MOST exciting thing yesterday was a parcel from my friends Krista and Brent in the US. It seems we have a number of small gifts and lengthy instructions on how to open them (all I'm saying is that it involves sheet music and making up a song!). We were too tired last night and tonight Kath has gone off to join a new orchestra...we'll have to wait until tomorrow...I'm quite excited!

Other notable news is that I made headway into one of my resolutions and set up a new savings account with ING. It looks to have a good rate of interest and seems pretty much hassle free...hooray!

Ok since my wife is out I'm going to make the most of this time and get some video gaming in! I'm currently playing Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and its distrcated me from the other games I was in the middle of playing...so little time so much to do!

Dancing Shoes

Ok so I've managed to spend money (bad) but it was on an hour of exercise (good). The exercise in question was the weekly trip to the dance class to learn how to whirl around the floor in a flurry of turns and spins!!!

Hmm so that makes it sound so much better than it actually is! We did finally get to grips with the slow foxtrot which is a blessed relief as we were really bad at it until tonight. Pat (the instructor) also showed us the 'check and weave' in the waltz which she always shows us thinking its the first time! Consequently we've learnt it about 8 times now ans its really starting to annoy me! Hopefully next week she'll remember we've already learnt it and show us something else. The school's website is here

Anyway I do need to spend some money now as I've been putting off getting some dancing shoes for months. I do have some spare cash and I do need the shoes. I'll be getting them from a shop cheerfully called Glamour Gear which makes it sound rather more like a sex shop than anything else.

Resolutions Update

Well I've so far succeeded with a couple of my resolutions.....

1. I'm updating my blog!
2. I didn't spend any money today at all!

The others will require some further work....a trip to Ikea has been planned so that I can get a replacement futon matress for the spare room. While this won't help at all with the spending money resolution it will allow me to use the spare room for exercise again!

Anyway after a day spent at Kath's mum's house I'm going to go and enjoy my last evening before its back to work!

This is a test to see if I can upload picturs to my blog.....this is last year's New Year Party. I'm the one with the medallion....playing a character called Imran Khant. It turned out I was sleeping with the daughter of the murderer...great stuff.

Happy New Year!!!

I really can't believe it's 2005. It's true what they say, time flies by when you're older. I can clearly remember 2000...what I was doing and who I was doing it with.

This new year we celebrated with a Murder Party, something which is fast becoming a tradition (much to the chagrin of one of my friends and fellow bloggers). Once I work out how to post photos into my blog I'll do so, so you can see the spectacle of costumes!!

My new year's resolutions in no particluar order....

1. Do more exercise. I want to lose weight but I enjoy eating too much to diet...exercise is the only answer.

2. Spend less money on crap. I really do buy a lot of crap that I don't need. If I can do this then the next couple with be much easier.

3. Save more money. Having just had a sizeable increase in household income I need to do this now before I become accustomed to the extra cash which usually would have disappeared on number 2.

4. Give more to charity. If I'm too lazy to volunteer then my money should help those in need...especially in light of number 3.

5. Update my blog every day. Not only with this allow me to keep a track of my performance against my resolutions it will also make this a habit and routine which is the only way I can get these things done.