Finally finished all my Open Uni coursework. Hoorah, time to get a life again. Wine is in the fridge waiting for me.

Spent most of the day wrestling with Sixties counter culture, particularly Religion and Science. Its all very interesting reading about it. Putting a lengthy essay together on the subject, that is cohesive and makes sense…. well that is an entirely different matter….

I have been neglecting the weblog over the last week as I have been concentrating on getting my OU course completed. I should get completed today, and it will be nice to get my life back. It has been a quiet week so far. Tricia has taken a load of Brownies on a pack holiday, Ellie has gone with her and they are not due back until Friday. Nikki has also spent a couple of days with them, she is a young leader and has been helping out. So, it has just been me and Robbie in the house. Feels very odd.

A high last Friday night, Nikki was on her 6th form prom night. She had a great time, and looked great as well.

She went with a group of friends in a stretch…. that as you can see is bright pink. Not my taste.

The low came on Sunday evening when a long standing friend called me to say he had bladder cancer. I went to school with him, and have stayed in touch over the years. I was lost for words.

On a recent blog I mentioned my big toenails coming off. In March I played my first game of golf for the year. My golf shoes had wintered in the garage. Thye felt a bit tight when I put them on, but didn’t think too much of it at the time. However, by the time I had reached the 14th they were really pinching my toes.

The upshot is my big toes were very bruised. As a result the toe nails came off last week. It was painless, and I have some lovely new ones starting to grow. Isn’t nature wonderful. I offered to make a guitar pick for Nikki from one of my toenails. This totally grossed her out.

Tricia has a real stinker of a cold, and is down at the moment. She is taking a whole heap of brownies on a holiday next week, and is getting a bit stressed about getting everything ready. The cold isn’t helping.

I am supposed to be writing an essay on the femininity of Medea, and Eliza Doolittle (compare and contrast). My OU course is nearing completion and I have a backlog of work to do….

I have had to spend Monday and Tuesday of this week in Wakefield. I was summoned for a workshop. Wakefield is slightly less horrible than Hull, but has the bonus of being near Barnsley. And a very good friend of mine, and his lovely wife, both of whom I was at school with, live near Barnsley. Longead and I actually worked together for five years as well, before he went into the police, so he is a longstanding friend.

So, Monday night I went and stayed with them. His real name is Kevin. But to me he is Longead, on account of his long head. That is what I have called him since he was about 18, and that is what it will always be. He calls me Speed. Which is another story.

It just so happened it was his 46th birthday on Monday. Not that we normally need an excuse for a good drink, but somehow it legitimised the excessive quantity of wine that was drunk. Longead is also a Mystic Wizard, like me. In the Mystic Wizards he is the ‘Cardinal Wizard’. One of the MW songs is one the audio tab.

 It was my nephew’s 18th last week. Alex is my brother Stephen’s son. He had a party to celebrate his 18th last night which we all went along to. Alex, like me, shares a passion for West Ham United football club – in fact I took him to the cup final last year when West Ham played Liverpool. We had a great time until Liverpool won on a penalty shoot out.

We all had a good time, Ellie danced until she virtually collapsed exhausted, Tricia made Alex a special West Ham / 18th birthday cake, and it was good to catch up with some family and friends I haven’t seen for a long time.

Nikki and Robbie with Alex in the middle.

Ellie enjoying a break in the dancing, sat with my brother Stephen.

Tricia made the cake, and iced it in West Ham colours, and made the club crest from icing.

Now I must get on with an essay I have to write…

Well they are for Nikki, my eldest. It certainly makes me feel old.

Here she is aged 11…. it really doesn’t seem that long ago.

In other news, both my big toe nails came off this week. Is this a mystical sign ?

My football team, West Ham, pulled off a minor miracle. Seven wins from the last nine games meant they finished 15th in the league. We even beat the champions on the final day at their place. I should be ecstatic, but it is all muted. West Ham broke a contractual rule earlier in the season with two players they had signed. We were fined ?.5m as a result by the Premier League. A number of clubs in the league think we should have been docked points, which would have meant relegation. Even though the season is over, one of the teams has taken legal action against the Premier League saying we should have been docked points…. and so it all rumbles on.

Currently reading Alice with my daughter Ellie. At her instigation…. my other two were never into reading so I am taking advantage of her joy of reading.

Nikki finishes school on Friday for good. She has just had a splendid final report. Her final exams are a few weeks away, she just needs to find the energy to keep revising now.

I don’t recall it raining at all in April. One of the warmest and driest on record apparantly.

May doesn’t seem to have stopped raining.

I have to drive up to Hull shortly. Rather than get myself stressed in the traffic on Monday morning, I am making the trip this evening. I shall probably have to fit an outboard motor and a rudder to the car there is so much rain.

There is going to be an announcement of some sort at work tomorrow, some restructure, which will be the greatest thing since… well, since the last restructure. Me, cynical ? Surely not.

The dress code for the ‘communications event’ is smart casual. Which is always confusing, to me it is either smart or casual. Anyhow, apparantly we are allowed to wear ‘smart jeans’. What constitutes ‘smart jeans’ ? Jeans that I have done the gardening in probably won’t fit the bill. But jeans that are clean, but slightly faded or worn, can they be ‘smart jeans’.

Think I will wear a normal business suit, but not a tie. Less thinking required.

Robbie was 15 on May 5th. To us he is known also as RobDobs, Robster the Lobster, and more recently hairy lump. He is a good lad, with a nice sense of humour. On Sunday he went bowling with his mates to celebrate his birthday. Is there a collective noun for a group of long haired teenage metal enthusiasts ? If not, I would suggest the term ‘grunt’ would be appropriate. A ‘grunt’ of hairy teenagers. Seems they communicate in grunts so it fits.

Tricia made Robbie a birthday cake with the Slipknot logo on it… Slipknot are Robbie’s favourite group.

Robbies unique way of cake cutting, whilst his young sister looks on.

The other good news about Saturday was my football team won again, 6 wins in 8 means they now are out of the relegation places with a game to go. Unfortunately that game is against one of the top clubs in Europe, so I am still pessimistic about our chances of staying up.

Mrs HoG told me yesterday that I needed to pick up the German lad, from Aylesbury bus station at 7:30 in the evening. All the German students had been out for a day in Oxford.

So, as the bus station is on my route going home from the office, I worked late, and set off to pick him up at about 6:50pm.

At 7:10 I got a phone call on the mobile phone telling me I was late. Apparantly it should have been 6:30 not 7:30. So, I was an hour late, and had to make grovelling apologies. Mrs HoG was not popular. Well, not with me anyaway.