I was rather tired come Friday evening. The boss has been away, and so I had some extra work this week. Which all went well fortunately. I have to say I am enjoying my work at BP at the moment. It always helps if you enjoy your work – Sunday evenings aren’t quite so bad if you don’t mind being at work the next day.

On Friday evening Tricia and I went to some friends for a curry evening. This is something that we do once a month generally, but we haven’t done one since June time, because of hols etc. It is just six of us, Alan and Rachel from next door, Pete and Sara from in the village. We take it in turn hosting. It is always a good evening, and Friday was no different. We actually started the evening outside, enjoying the summer evening, before coming in to eat.

On Saturday the sun shone. Yes, read that again, the sun shone, and it was nice and warm. Well, I took advantage and got myself into the garden, and cut the grass. Which as usual, upset the rain Gods, as it is teeming down this morning. In the evening Tricia and I went to a friends 40th at the village hall. Tricia had worked hard during the as she was doing the food for the party. It was a great evening, lots of good music, nice beer and dancing. So, late to bed, and feeling tired this morning.

We are supposed to be playing cricket later on – cricket club family fun day, but I suspect the weather is going to put paid to that. A shame for Robbie, he was looking forward to bowling at me today…. as fast as he could. I am not too upset about missing that

Here are Tricia and me trying to remember how the cha cha cha went…

A quiet Bank Hol weekend. Didn’t do much, other than small jobs around the house.

Dad is at home and recovering still. Rob has had his confirmation letter that he is accepted for sixth form, and has to go in for a day on Thursday. My boss is off at the moment and I am inundated with extra work. Tricia is fine. Not really too much to say about anything…. so I will shut up then.

Robbie got his GCSE results today, and I have to say I am pretty pleased with how he done, A* and an A in Art, A in Music and RE, B in ICT, English Lit (), Maths, and Graphic Design, were the highlights. He got a C in Eng Language, and so has all the basics covered. He was disappointed not to get an A in Graphics, and was very disappointed with his D in German, but overall a good set of results, and he can now look forward to 6th Form.

Tricia has spent the week in Yorks with her sister and her family. Ellie and Rob went along as well. Nikki has been around, her back is good at the moment, and she went and did some weightlifting on Wed evening. She enjoyed the session, but as she hasn’t lifted for a while was somewhat stiff yesterday.

I was in to hospital to see my Dad during the week, he had a minor op on Wednesday. It seemed to be successful, and should relieve the problems he has been having over the last 4 months. He come home Thursday, and was glad to get home. Hopefully he can get some quality rest and recuperation in, as he has to have a further op in six weeks.

A busy week at work, I got back from hols, and it seems everybody else has gone, so I seem to be picking up plenty extra. The good news, is that the company has concluded a round of redundancies, and I am still there. I am enjoying my work at the moment, which always helps.

I went to a meeting of the local amdram this evening. We have started to consider what we might do next. We may go back to doing a traditional farce, or follow on the success of ‘allo ‘allo by looking to do a stage version of other famous sit coms, such as hi-de-hi. We will see.

Well, we went off to North Wales on Monday. More of that later. Whilst we were there my Dad was taken ill (Wednesday), and taken into hospital – lung infection, kidney infection, and issues with heart rate and blood pressure. The hospital stabilised him, and sent him for all sorts of tests and scans. It was another occurrence of the problems plaguing him over the last three months – that have never been properly solved, and this time it was worse. On Thursday, things weren’t looking good, when at last, it was identified that he had a gallstone blocking his bile duct. So, he was moved hospital (to Oxford) where a procedure was undertaken on Friday to ret and alleviate the problem. It didn’t work. The doctors have since re-evaluated the situation, and he is now having an alternative procedure tomorrow.

Tricia and I saw him today, and he is doing well at the moment compared to how he was earlier in the week. He is pleased that the root cause has been identified, and that if all goes well tomorrow he can concentrate on recovery, and get back home. Prayers will be being said tomorrow morning, hoping for a straightforward procedure and a solution.

The holiday in North Wales itself was quite good. We were camping, and it rained very heavily at times, but it was mainly in the evenings / overnight, and some of the days were quite good. We had done a good job pitching tent, and so the rainfall was of no real issue.

The scenery in North Wales is breathtaking. On one of the days we went up Snowdon. Tricia and Robbie completed the trip to the top. I went up with Ellie, we got abvout 90% of the way up, but the route we took had dramatic drops on either side at that point, and Ellie had had enough. We also visited Caernarfon castle, and Portmeirion. Ellie and I visited the Lloyd George musuem, whilst Tricia and Robbie went walking up more peaks. I like the history of the early 20th century, and Lloyd george was a prominent, and interesting character, so I enjoyed the musuem trip. We got back Saturday afternoon. We have been catching up on the Olympics, there have been some wonderful performances the last few days. The football season started yesterday, and West Ham started with a win. 3 points in the bag, good start.

Back to work tomorrow. Not that it really is an issue, I have been enjoying my work at BP this year, and I am happy to get back into it. I have another week off in October anyway, which isn’t too far away.

Some holiday pics…

A good profile of me in the castle, and a railway station with a very long name.

Robbie shows how to ‘eat’ an ice cream, and Ellie outside her dream house (it’s pink) at Portmeirion. Portmeirion, as well as being famous for its design, was used as part of the set in the 60’s series The Prisoner.

Tricia and Robbie at the top of Snowdon.

Another one of Robbie at the top of Snowdon, and a view from up high.

… we were going to today, but have deferred till tomorrow. Yesterday Tricia was catering for a wedding, which from her perspective went well, and she got loads of nice compliments on the food. But the weather was awful, strong winds and loads of rain. You had to feel sorry for the bride. The wedding ran late, so Tricia, Nikki and Robbie were late home and it took forever to get all the cutlery in and washed etc, so we decided to delay going to North Wales by a day.

Tomorrow looks like being the warmest day of the week at 17c. This is supposed to be the summer. Whatever.

I watched some of the Olympics today and saw a terrific cycle road race, which was won by a British woman. Well done to her.  Three and a half hours in an absolute downpour, she did brilliantly.

Beijing suffered a lot of rain today. Which is a good thing as it will get the Olympic movement used to having the games in the rain. After all, London is hosting next time, and there will be plenty of it.

Tricia and I celebrate 22 years of marriage at the end of this week. We may still be in North Wales in a tent on the day itself, if so I just want to wish my wife happy anniversary.

the rain gods again. Why is it, every year I book my two weeks in the summer, the heavens open. I really cannot remember the last time I had a sunny holiday without going abroad. We don’t go to North Wales till Sunday, but some nice weather might have encouraged me to get out on the bike a bit more this week. These pictures were taken this morning…

You can see the rain teeming down. Today I was forced asked to go shopping with Tricia, to buy food for 3 million people (well the wedding she is catering for, and it seemed a lot, so please excuse my mild exaggeration, it is actually 200 people). So a good chunk of the morning was spent in costco, and then tesco. At least both places were dry. It was then a dash back to take Ellie to her final day at a dance class, and to see her perform. She did very well.

Last night Tricia was competing in the vets athletics league for Milton Keynes. They won the regional champs, and here is Tricia proudly wearing her gold medal.

Well, it’s been a busy day, without having really achieved anything. I am enjoying a glass of sherry presently, and then I am off to bed…. Night all.

What else can you say to a picture like this…

A relatively peaceful day. Tricia has been busy preparing for the wedding she is catering for on Saturday, but we did find time to take Ellie on a bike ride. She then had a dance workshop this afternoon, so no wonder she seems so soundly asleep. She loves to have the cats with her.

As was Tricia was busy, I decided to ‘help’. I stripped the beds, washed and dried the linen. I then tried to put duvet covers back onto the duvet.  I can just about manage a single duvet, but the double was a disaster. After fiive minutes of wrestling I could say that the duvet was in the duvet cover. After a further five mins, it kind of resembled a flatter shape, but then gave up to let Tricia weave some magic on it to make it look perfect.

On the sporting front I would like to say two things. One, well done to Andy Murray last night. He won a Masters tournament and played well. Two, if the English cricket selectors had not already repeatedly displayed incompetent selection this season, they have gone mad by picking Kevin Pieteresen as captain. Absolute madness. A brilliant batsman, but really he is a South African, and his ego will get in the way of making the right decisions.

This blog may seem somewhat rambling, but will be just a general catch up from the last week. The first thing I want to write about is Radio Birdsong. On Thursday evening, Tricia was out doing athletics coaching, and then planned to go and do a late shop at Tesco’s. Knowing I had an early start on Friday morning I took myself off to bed, and left Robbie to wait up for Tricia to help her get the shopping in, and put away. Having climbed into bed I turned the radio on, thinking I would listen to something soothing, and ease me into a sleep… knowing Tricia would be in later and could turn it off. Now normally we listen to Classic FM. But when I switched on the radio, it wasn’t the calming soothing Classics I had hoped for, but something more lively. So, I started to flick through the radio channels (digital radio) and was presented with ‘birdsong’. Intrigued, I switched into it. And it was entirely what it said. A whole radio channel playing just birdsong. This initially struck me as being a bit bizarre, after all I only have to step outside to hear bird song. But not everybody has that privilege. Having said that, it was 10pm at night, and I would have thought the odd owl should have been recorded, I might even write to them and suggest it. . I eventualluy switched the radio off, and went to sleep anyway. So it was all a pintless exercise, and has now contributed to wasting space on the internet.

In my last blog I suggested that I might do some cycling this week. Well Monday, I drove to Berkhamsted, and cycled the last 14-15 miles into work. Then in the evening I cycled back. It was good exercise, and I enjoyed it. The weather was good, which helped. Fortunately, at my place of work there are shower facilities, so I was able to freshen myself up before the work day. I repeated the exercise on Wednesday, and so feel pleased with myself. I intend to do this 2-3 times a week fom now on.

Except for the next two weeks that is, as I am now on leave from work for a fortnight. This week will be spent at home, a few days out, and some time spent with Ellie and Robbie. Tricia is catering for a wedding on Saturday, then on Sunday morning we head off to spend the second week in North Wales… in a tent. I just hope the weather picks up. I worked a long day Friday trying to make sure my workload was either completed or assigned elsewhere. It started to rain when I left the office, and it seems to have continued since. An old friend of mine ‘Big John’ has spent the weekend with us. I worked with John at M&S in the late 80’s, and he has remained a friend since. Saturday evening we had some friends around to join us for a meal, and we had a good time.

This morning I took Ellie up to church, she had been asked to do a reading. The difference is that she was not just presented with a typed prayer to read, she was asked to do a read a passage from the bible. This made her feel very grown up. She read very well.

In between showers we had a bbq at lunchtime. It would have been nice to eat it outside, but the weather prevented it. Nikki has gone back for week 4 of her placement this evening. She is a bit down at the moment, her back continues to play up, and she just can’t exercise as she wants to… and Nikki has always been active. It is causing her some considerable frustration. She is back at the doctors on Friday.

And so, it is a quiet Sunday evening. All the better for the fact that I do not have to get up tomorrow, my first day off in 2008, so I am ready for it. I have enjoyed some cheese and crackers just now. Champagne and rhubarb cheese. Absolutely champion. Although it will probably mean some vivid dreams later on. The only thing that I have to do tomorrow is take Ellie to a dance class. Good night.