Holiday weekend

This is the last holiday weekend of the summer and miraculously it's been great weather after the dire summer we've had to endure this year. This was especially good news as our friend's daughter got married on Saturday so we had all been hoping that it would be a good day and it turned out to be pretty much perfect. We went to the evening reception and had a good time and as always it was great to see old friends as well as John and Debbies kids.

Watched the Turkish GP today and was more than happy to see Hamilton get beaten by all his main rivals - especially Alonso who I really want to see win the championship again this year.

Picked up 10 new goldfish for our pond today from John and Debbie - they were left over from the table decorations at the wedding yesterday and needed a good home.

Day in court

I was sitting in court all day today. I took Simon, one of the kids who is a neighbor, with me as he's interested in studying law at uni when he gets there. Anyway the morning wasn't too interesting with lots of fairly mundane stuff to deal with until our chairman had to leave urgently. We were then without a chairman so it was left to one of the remaining two of us to take over the role. While I would have been prepared to do it myself the other guy had far more experience than me so we agreed that he would fill the gap. We then had the prospect of doing some warrants which is actually quite a rare thing and luckily we could do a couple each.

In the afternoon we had mostly motoring offences to deal with and it never ceases to amaze me that when people choose to defend themselves that they often throw away their opportunity because of bad preparation or simply missing the point altogether. I'm sure it's a very difficult and daunting thing to do but simply having a rant against the system isn't going to gain you any sympathy and probably won't make you feel better at the end of the day either.

The weekend

Fantastic weather so did some jobs outside like grass cutting etc. Helped Andrew clean out the soakaways in the road which turned into a long job. Went over Pete Seddons place in the evening, Jo his sister was there, and as it was such a nice evening we all went for walk along the river and then went to the Jolly Roger. Went back to Pete's for dinner and I think I had too much to drink! I suddenly got very tired which is usually a sure-fire sign.

Consequently I woke up feeling pretty crappy on Sunday morning, so we sat around reading the papers until about 1:00. Did lots of odds and ends all day as the weather was very unpredictable. Still, the good thing was that I caught up on a few things that have been hanging out for quite a while.

Decisions decisions

Time to start thinking where we're going to go for our October vacation. I'd be quite happy to go back to Maldives for the third time, but Sheila is thinking it's time for something different - even if only slightly. She's thinking of Mauritius or Seychelles which are both different but not by a huge margin.

The thing I love about Maldives is that there is nothing going on there that makes you feel under any pressure whatsoever. No cars, no bikes, nowhere you need to be, and no when you need to be there by. You can eat and sleep when you want and don't need to see anyone else for days on end if you don't want to, so it's easy to feel like you've got the whole island all to yourself. As far as I'm concerned these are the things that make Maldives unique.

Looking at photos

How long is long enough when you're looking at other people's wedding photos? Just lately we have been presented with a few to look through and this question has become quite a topic. Sheila was looking through some a couple of weeks ago and, as is usually the case, the happy couple were present, but I didn't really know them so I had little real interest. Sheila seemed to spend an age looking intentley and closely at each picture and making lots of comments etc, whereas I just wanted to skim through them all in as little time as possible.

When I asked her about this afterwards she said that you have to take your time, look at the details, and ask questions to show that your interested. But two or three minutes a picture?

I reckon 5 seconds tops is more than enough for any picture in most cases.

Skiing and sleeping

I'm in the process of arranging a ski trip with a few good friends who are all Americans and live in the US - two in New York and two in Denver. We're planning to go to Steamboat and rent a house for a few days and have found one that looks pretty good and seems to fit the bill. However there is one slight problem. The house has 3 bedrooms each with a queen sized bed. There are, currently, six of us, two married couples and two male friends, and the problem is that the two guys predictably don't want to sleep in the same bed. They are both married (their wives are staying at home) and have known each other for many years, but even despite their long standing friendship they can't bring themselves to do what actually makes perfect sense.

I'm sure this is a pretty normal reaction but the thing about this that seems a bit odd when I think about it is that as kids we all love sleeping with our friends when it all seems like really good fun. Even as teenagers it's not really too much of an issue, even with the same sex. But then at some point, and this seems to be mostly in the case of men, it becomes a big problem. Sleeping in the same room doesn't seem to be an issue, it just seems to be the idea of being in the same bed. It's crazy really, but maybe it's just that as adults we worry to much about what other people think we might be doing, even though it's the last thing on our minds.

Guitar time

Had a very busy day at work and arrived home to a rainy evening so that could only mean one thing... at least an hour in my music room playing one of my guitars. I have 4 guitars at the moment comprising an old Fender Stratocaster that I bought in 1976 which is still in excellent condition, a G&L ASAT Special that I just got last year and is my current favourite, a nice Gibson 335 copy - a gift from an old friend, and and Ovation Balladeer.

I try to spend at least 30 minutes practicing each day and have been doing this, on and off, since I was nine years old, but I do it more now than ever - probably because I feel (hope) that I've made some huge leaps forward in the way I play. I've been spending most of the last 3 or 4 years learning new techniques and styles which have made a huge difference to my playing.

Working Monday...

Spent a lot of today trying to get a presentation that could easily fill and hour down to just 15 minutes. Pretty much got there in the end but not without numerous replays of the words to use - or rather, not use. Roll on 7:30 Tuesday morning when I have to present it.

Got home to find that Sheila had bought even more rock lights for the garden. Hardly a day seems to have gone by recently when some new ones haven't appeared! Got given instructions on using our new fancy coffee maker - it's makes great coffee but does seem pretty complicated. Every type of coffee seems be accompanied by a different set of instructions printed in type so small that I'm considering keeping a magnifying glass close at hand!

Watched another interesting show about India presented by Sanjev Baskar. The best bit was at the Indian/Pakistan border where they have this really wacky marching ceremony every night when the gates are closed performed by soldiers with bizzare moustaches.

By 10:0pm the new rock lights were doing a great job of lighting the waterfall.

Sunny Sunday

Another great sunny day - in fact it was very hot - the weather just seems to be going from one extreme to the other at the moment. Read the papers and a particularly interesting article about Marco Pierre White - sounds like a pretty interesting person who doesn't take any nonsense from anyone, especially idots like Gordon Ramsey.

Watched the Hungarian GP and was disappointed to see Lewis Hamilton win after causing so much disruption in his own team. He's clearly not a team player but prefers to do what he wants irrespective of the impacts that may cause. Thankfully Kimi came second which was the best he could hope for as he was never going to pass LH. Hopefully Hamilton will get a couple of DNFs before too long.

Spent the rest of the afternoon doing jobs around the place and helped Sheila cut Horst's bushes back. Finally got around to asking our neighbor to cut his silver birch tree down a bit - hopefully he will now that he knows about the problems it's causing.

At last - a sunny Saturday

I can't believe it - it's Saturday and for a long time it's also sunny and warm - this must be the first time it's been good as this since April! Took advantage of the sunshine and took some pictures of the small garden that Sheila has just redone and I've put them here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/slkmaniac/Garden

As the weather was so good we decided to go out to the New Forest this afternoon. Sheila wanted to go to a couple of plant nurseries which to me is about as much fun as having a cactus in my underpants. Anyway the mission was a success and we came away with one new plant and some pots.

Dropped by dads on the way back home and was a bit shocked to hear that Kimi Raikkonen has only qualified 4th in the Hugarian GP.

Getting ready...

Spent most of today getting ready for a presentation we need to give to a VP next week of the progress our area of the company has made over the last 5 years and where it's going over the next 5 years. Went down the pub for lunch as it was such a nice day and talked about vacations and where to go this year - Maldives, Mauritus, or Seychelles?

As it was such a nice afternoon I drove home with roof down and came back through Durley. Marianne just called a fw minutes ago (it was her birthday yesterday) and told us what she did on the day.

Time to start over

I haven't added to this blog for ages but today I went to a talk about blogs given by Cerys G and it re-ignited my enthusiasm to get back into updating this thing on a regular basis. So... I'm planning on trying to spend 5 minutes everyday adding something here no matter how important it may, or may not, seem at the time...