Well January not only delivered plenty of cold weather and snow, it also brought with it plenty of little aggravations. As can be seen from the previous blog, I was getting pretty frustrated with the snow and cold weather. Fortunately the snow has cleared, and whilst it hasn’t been much warmer out at times, it has been possible to get on with things. As for the aggravations… Nikki’s car is off the road.. water pump, and starter motor. Fortunately these repairs have been done, and what with a fresh new MOT certificate she will be back on the road later this week.

As well as that, the dishwasher has been pronounced terminally ill. After it had leaked a load of water that is. The man we call to fix our appliances had a poke and a fiddle and said…hmm cost you over £200 to fix this, you might as well get a new one. Which was good practical advice. Now I would normally sit on the internet for a while, looking at the various options before selecting the new dishwasher…

But, then the home computer decided to throw a wobbler. Well, it had been misbehaving for a few weeks with an issue. Now on each occasion I had corrected the issue, and got the system up and running, but I knew it was heading for something nasty. Well just at the time I wanted to start looking online for a new dishwasher, so it decided to do something nasty.

So, I have had to rebuild the system temporarily, recover all our data, then do a fresh build again, and gradually build the system up. But it takes ages, with about 5 years worth of security and windows updates all to be applied, and updated drivers, and reinstalling software till such time as I could then restore everybody’s data. Well, it is finally done… and that is one of the reasons I haven’t blogged, and why I can now do so. Oh, and I can start looking for a dishwasher… and not before time as we are all getting fed up with washing up.

Nikki had some bad news in January as well. Since getting selected for the GB Ladies Junior World Champs she has been training really hard. She wanted to do well, as the event was just before the Olympics and still had hopes of forcing herself into the Olympic squad. However, the driver of the Bob, was also the driver for the second senior Bob, which qualified for the Olympics.. and she decided she wanted to just concentrate on the Olympics, and not do the Junior World Champs. GB Bob team management, decided that without a Bob driver to withdraw the team, leaving Nikki high and dry, having worked really hard. She was obviously upset and angry, but is determined to persist.

But there have been good moments. Tricia was inspected by the local council, who come around yearly to look at her kitchen and books, making sure the kitchen is clean, and that all the books are in order. Well she got top marks, and was awarded 5 stars. So Tricia was very pleased with this, as 5 stars is the top rating.

I have been pretty good with my New Year resolutions to date. I have given up bread.. and maintained that, no crisps or biscuits either, kept that up. I have also managed to stay off alcohol (with one exception – the safari supper evening), and cake… I have also been exercising, swimming 3 times a week, and a bit of running and cysling. I have entered myself into a swimathon in April. This will be a 200 length swim. I am doing 50 length sessions at the moment, but will build up. The net effect of all this, is I have shifted a half stone in weight, and the good bit is that I feel better for it.

We had a Safari Supper in Jan, which Tricia and I organised. 16 couples took part, and the theme was pub crawl. Well it was a cracking evening. Tricia and I hosted the end of evening at out house where everybody comes back together. Our friends Pete and Sara helped out. Here we are together, along with a picture of Pete (who works for Diageo who produce Guinness) with a wonderful little gadget that turns canned Guinness into a draught Guinness, and it was very popular!

Some other pics… the cat lady of North Marston with all her cats. She is a happy lady when all of the pussy cats are snuggled up around her. The two ginger cats have now accepted the kittens, and Lily even seems to mother them at times. Then one of Ninja, who Robbie tutned into a Ninja warrior by making a helmet for him !

Robbie has started back at indoor cricket nets a couple of weeks back, and he has also been doing some weight training with Tricia. He has been working very hard at his main A Level piece of art which is 2m x 2m. They have been very impressed with the work he has done. Yesterday I was working backstage for the day (3 performances) in Winslow for their local panto. As I am directing the production in North Marston, I said I would be to busy to be in the Winslow panto, but one of the backstage team had to pull out of the Saturday, so I was asked to help out. It was a long day and hard work, but whilst I was there I was talking to one of the cast who goes to Robbies school, and is about a year younger… she described Robbies painting as awesome. The photo of the picture here is not the final version, but gives an idea of the scale as it is against the window. I will get Robbie to take a photo of the finished article.

Here is a piece of work Robbie did recently. He went to see the film Avatar, and was so inspired by the animation and illustration he decided to reproduce one of the characters on the computer. He started with a freehand drawing using an electronic pen then built up the colours. It is very difficult to tell the differences.

Ellie was at a dance display yesterday morning. Tomorrow night she is teaching Tricia’s Brownies how to do the Jive and Rock’n’Roll. Which reminds me, I need to make a R’n’Roll cd up for her so I had better go. Lark Rise to Candleford in a minute.