Trish likes to keep herself busy at the best of times, but at the moment it is helter skelter. She runs her own little catering business, and specialises in bespoke cakes – done to a design requested by the purchaser. This is going quite well, and she has done a number of cakes already this week, and is presently in the kitchen doing another two. The chutneys she sells via a baker in a nearby village have also been selling very well so she is under pressure to produce more. She also does athletics coaching, and this has led her to coaching at Stowe public school each afternoon for the summer term. She also coaches at her own club, Milton Keynes on a Tuesday evening and a Saturday, and she is now also being paid to coach at Aylesbury athletic club on a Thursday evening. One of our neighbours is away in South Korea for a month, and she has agreed to help with walking the dogs and keeping the house in order… and then she has us herberts to cope with as well. Phew.

Robbie is in a quandary. Next school year, he was hoping to do A levels in Art, Graphic Design and Music Technology. Unfortunately the timetable won’t allow him to do Art and Music Tech… so he isn’t happy. This will mean he has to do an A Level in something he doesn’t necessarily want to do… So, he has been looking at a few colleges instead. Oh well, best he does his GCSE’s first. He thinks he did ok in his music exam the other day.

The Eightlem news wasn’t produced last week, due to a strike by the editor. Fortunately a deal has been negotiated to produce it on an ‘as and when’ basis rather than having to do it weekly. This keeps us all happy, we still see the newspaper, but the editor is not under pressure to produce it evey week.

Well, GCSE season starts in earnest for Robbie tomorrow. He has a music exam at 2:30pm tomorrow. His final exam isn’t until June 23rd, so they are spread out over two months, and I daresay by the time the final exam is done he will be sick and tired of revising and doing exams. Anyhow, we all wish him good luck with his exams. Nikki has some coming up as well, her end of first year exams. Ellie has the easy life for now.

Long day today, I was in the docklands, so an early start. On the way back I had a dental appointment, with the hygenist. She was pleased with me, apparantly I have been a good boy with my teeth , and she didn’t have too much work to do. I didn’t get a discount though. I told her she is the last woman I think of before going to bed (when I am flossing, I think that if I don’t do it properly she will nag me when I go in for an appointment). This made her laugh, and she told I am not the first man to say that to her!

The weather was nice today. Warm, pleasant, springlike. Hurrah. About time.

Last year in the village, we held a Burns night. The purpose was primarily fund raising for the church restoration (yes, a typical English village, we have a church restoration fund), but of course it was also an excuse to eat and drink and have a good time. One of the reflections on the evening, was that it was all well and good gatecrashing a Scottish tradition, but why don’t we have an evening to celebrate Englishness.

Well, some people were a little uncomfortable with this, as it felt somewhat jingoistic. Which defies explanation really, as most countries in the world celebrate their culture. Why shouldn’t we. Anyhow, last night we had a St Georges day dinner (even though it isn’t St Georges day until Wednesday). I had been asked beforehand to do a speech from Henry V as part of the evening’s entertainment. Of course I don’t need any encouragement at all when it comes to this kind of thing, so I prepared a preamble, explaining some of the background to the passage I was going to do…. and then got stuck in. I did the passage that starts ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’ and ended ‘Cry, God for Harry, England , and Saint George’. Feedback was positive, but I don’t think Kenneth Branagh will be losing any sleep.

Overall it was a good evening, and we finished by all singing, I vow to thee my country, Jerusalem, Rule Britannia, There’ll always be an England, and Land of Hope & Glory. Rousing stuff. There really should be a national celebration. The photo isn’t too clear, but here I am in flow…

Friday evening I had to go and pick up Nikki from Hatfield, so she could collect her repaired car. She works Friday evening, so I had to pick her up at 11pm. So it was a late night. I was then up early on Saturday, as Tricia and Robbie were continuing their Ridgeway walk. The plan had been that I would drop them off, and that the husband of a friend who was walking with Tricia and Rob would pick them up later in the day. Unfortunately on Saturday morning they called to say they couldn’t do the walk. So… I had to go out later in the day to pick them up as well as taking them in the first place. Not too much of an issue, until Tricia called to say they had gone wrong (managed to go along the Thames the wrong way), and I had to drive to a different location to find them. Oh well…. all’s well that end’s well, they enjoyed the walk. By Saturday evening however, I was fed up with driving all the time to pick up / drop people off.

Here are Tricia and Robbie at ‘Bury Down’, just off the A34, where they started the day. As you can see, Rob needs a haircut before going back to school this coming week.

A field of rape, a common sight in our countryside this time of year. Tricia was pleased with the photo.

I didn’t much feel like it, but thought I should get some exercise today, and so got on my bike and did 20 miles. The weather was a bit gloomy, but once I started, I enjoyed it. Ellie want to a friends party this afternoon, and Nikki has gone back to uni. I am going to go and park myself in front of the tv and watch the Bafta awards… the only problem is Graham Norton is hosting, and I don’t like him much. I would rather Jonathan Ross was doing it…. and that’s saying something.

Footnote…. just watched the Bafta’s. Most awards went to people I didn’t know or programmes I haven’t watched. How on earth Harry Hill won 2 of the things I will never know. He is unfunny and irritating in my view.

I have spent most of the week at a hotel in Runnymede. Runnymede is on the Thames, not far from Windsor, and is famous as the location of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 by King John I. My appearance at Runnymede is of course of far less historical significance.

The hotel was very nice, and my induction course was excellent. The first photo is taken from the back of the hotel, the second one about a mile further down river. I have been learning about oil, gas, hydrocarbons, refining, and alternative energies. All very interesting, and helped give me a wider view of the oil and gas industry.

On the home front, Tricia took Robbie and Ellie to the dentist today. Ellie needed a small filling. Apparantly she was near hysterical, worried about how much it would hurt… but of course it didn’t and she was fine.

Nikki’s car broke down on Wednesday. The clutch has gone. So that has been towed back to the garage near home where it is being repaired. On the upside, her old car has been sold. Which will help finance the repairs on the new car… all very confusing. I am going to have to pick Nikki up tomorrow after she has finished work, so she can come back and get the repaired car. She has also found out that she will be working in Watford hospital out patients during June & July.

The return on BBC tonight of Waking the Dead… my fav tv programme. But why oh why are they showing it on a Monday and Tuesday evening instead of Sunday / Monday. Tomorrow I go on my BP induction course, which I am really looking forward to … no, honest, I am… but there is a meal in the evening at 7pm which we all have to go to. Hopefully it will be finished by 9pm so I can get back to the hotel room for the second part. The course is being held at Runnymede, near Egham.

A long day. Up at 5, in order to get to todays ‘diversity and inclusion’ workshop. It ran till 7pm, and was a long day. But the workshop facilitator, who came all the way from Texas, was excellent, so it wasn’t dull.

I am now crawling off to bed. Robbie is watching a dvd of Beowulf, which seems to be an excuse for blood, mutilation, screams of agony, and more blood. Perfect for Robbie. Tricia has been busy making cakes, and just finished the European ironing montain. We are both tired and so off to bed….

Footnote… reading a friends xanga blog, reference was made to a shopping expedition to Bicester last week, that Tricia and Ellie went on…. apparantly Ellie ‘sure knows how to shop’. Not sure if this is a good thing. In fact on reflection, it isn’t. It looks like I will find this costly over the years.

Oh, and Nikki passed the uni exam that she took last week, so, well done to her. I think that’s all the news, I am really going off to bed now.

Yesterday, Tricia and Robbie were scheduled to walk the next part of the Ridgeway. They were walking 20+ miles from near Princes Risborough to Wallingford. Nikki decided to join them, so drove back from uni on Friday evening and was up early on Saturday morning. Now the previous week, a friend of ours, Pat, had joined Trish and Robbie for the walk. This meant I dropped them off, and Pat’s husband went out later and picked them up. Unfortunately Pat wasn’t doing the walk this week. So, Tricia asked me to follow them to Princes Risborough, where they would leave her car, and then take them over to Wallingford to drop them off. No problem I said, but (BUT) I had an appointment for a haircut at 11am…

To cut a long story short, we were later leaving than expected due to lots of prevarication over hats, gloves, etc etc. Then it took a bit longer to find the exact drop off point on the Ridgeway. I ended up being too late for my haircut. I was seething…put myself out for everybody else, and missed the only thing I had fixed to do. Fortrunately, I managed to get a later appointment and took Ellie swimming. Having got my haircut later in the day, by the time the weary (knackered), blistered and aching walkers returned I had calmed down.

Some photo’s the walkers took on the day….

Too old to be playing in puddles surely…. ?

The wearly walkers at the end of the day’s walking.

In the evening Tricia and I were at some friends for dinner. A very pleasant evening, and I thought Tricia did well to stay awake considering the walking and the fresh air she had during the day.

I got out for some exercise myself this morning, and did about 20 miles on the bike. Very pleasant, and I arrived back just in time, as we had a downpour. Nikki went athletics training, and says she had a good shot putt session, but couldn’t do much sprinting because her ‘glutes’ were sore after the walking. A sedate Sunday afternoon after lunch was spent watching the Man Utd v Arsenal game, whilst trying not to fall asleep.

A busy week ahead… I am in a workshop tomorrow from 8am to 7pm, and then I am on a company induction course for the rest of the week.

I was in London today for a conference on Data Centre’s. All related to my job of course, but it really was geek central, with men getting animated over the best ways to keep computers cool… that is, as in cooling them down. With the modern world pointing fingers at industrial plant and cars / planes for being the main causes of global warming, it surprises me that people overlook the world of computing. Data Centre’s consume vast amounts of energy. Of course they provide us with our wonderful technological world, where you can do almost everything you need from home… and we wouldn’t want to be without the internet now that we have it. But it is one area that does seem to get overlooked.

On the bright side, the IT industry does seem to be acting upon the situation. Efficiencies are being gained, within processors, memory, disks, power supply units. But let us not fool ourselves that it is all due to a green conscience. If Data Centre’s consume less power… they are cheaper to run. That is the real business benefit.

The conference was at the Royal Lancaster hotel, by Lancaster gate tube station. I took the main line into London Marylebone this morning, and then hopped onto a tube to Oxford Circus, then got the central line to Lancaster gate. Coming out this evening, it was very pleasant, so I opted to walk. It took me 10-15 minutes to walk. About 5 minutes less than travel time on the tube. Perhaps I should have walked this morning as well!

Nikki did an exam today, and was reasonably pleased with how it went. She was less pleased though with a paper she was given back that she handed in before she went on break. She passed, but seems her grammar let her down a bit. That is the one thing I can help with. So I have offered to check future papers.

It is school holidays at the moment, so Tricia and Ellie went to see the Spiderwick chronicles today at the cinema, and enjoyed it. Rob has had band practice a couple of times.

I have been left speechless this week by the developments in the Shannon Matthews abduction case. Her mother has been remanded in custody over perverting the course of justice, and child neglect. Her partner has been charged over pictures of child pornography. What sort of lives do some people lead. Having spent some time as a police officer many years ago, I really should not be that surprised at what some people do… but this lot. Lost for words.

Portsmouth couldn’t be satisfied with getting to the cup final could they. No, they had to go and beat West Ham last night as well. Needless to say, this has eroded my somewhat generous spirit towards them.

Robert Browning wrote ‘home thoughts from abroad’…. he should have kept them to himself. Not to much happening on the chaffinch front this morning, just loads of snow. As you can see, the cats enjoyed the snow, and trying to catch snow flakes.

The snow has pretty much cleared now. But the forecast says we may get more snow on Mon & Tue. I am sorry but I thought it was supposed to be spring… some showers ok, some windy days ok… but not snow.

Unfortunately Barnsley lost in the other cup semi final today. My mate Longead (aka the Cardinal Wizard), lives near to and supports Barnsley, so he won’t be best pleased.

Nikki has gone back to Uni this afternoon. With some reluctance it has to be said. I think she had enjoyed her break, and knows she is going back to exams, and hard work.

  Just in time for the weekend I get a cough, and a cold. Well, at least it meant I could sit and watch the football. First up, my Dad’s fav team, Portsmouth in the Cup semi final against West Brom. A tight game, where West Brom played well, but Portsmouth played below there normal level. Portsmouth won 1-0, which will please Dad, as they have got to the cup final for the first time since he was 3! They will be favourites as well.

Robbie and Tricia went on an extensive hike today. They intend to walk Hadrians Wall in the early summer, after Rob has finished his GCSE’s. So, they have started to do some walking by way of preperation. I dropped them at Ivinghoe Beacon this morning, and they walked along the Ridgeway to WhiteLeaf cross near Princes Risborough, a walk of around 18 miles. It is quite hilly, and was wet today.

So, upon their return late afternoon, they were muddy and very tired. Rob was wearing new walking boots, and has a blister. Tricia, after sitting down and having a hot chocolate, tried to get up, but found her muscles seizing up (particularly around the knee) and staggered around, pretty much as I expect she will when she is 80… They will both sleep well.

I went to funeral this morning for an old work colleague, and ‘thespian’ friend. I worked at Safeway for many years, and during that time I was in the drama group, and we put on a number of productions. One of the crew who did a lot of the front of house / costumes, was Mandy. Mandy passed away last week, at the young age of 42. Always helpful, and with a wicked sense of humour, she will be missed.

I saw a number of old work colleagues / friends at the funeral, just a pity that the circumstances weren’t better.

Nikki’s new boyfriend came to tea this evening. I behaved myself, I didn’t wind him up. Perhaps winding up Nikki’s boyfriends is wearing off.