Fine food, wine, the apple store & fires

All in all an exhausting weekend.

Tasha & I enjoyed a fantastic night out at Pascals at the old vicarage, great food and a beautiful bottle of wine.

Today we headed off for our child free day at the bullring. Had a look at the apple macbook in the apple store and was almost won over. I also went and had a look at the ultra portable Sony range in Selfridges. Torn.

On the way home we passed a steam rally at Barton, one of the competitors was trundling down the road, setting fire to mthe hedges as he passed!

Driving Practice

Had some idea of how much driving I'll need to do when I go to France. We are planning on about 300 miles a day, in 2 steady 3 hour stints. Today I went to Heathrow and back (via Leicester) a total of 240 miles - but I was being the wheel for about 7 hours! Had to go for a secirity check and photo (took about 20 minutes).

Feel drained

Have been asked to revamp the pre-scholl website. Have some good ideas, will post links when I get into it.

Looking forward to our pampering weekend. Holiday planning on Friday night. Florence the party animal taxiing on Saturday, with a meal at the Old Vicarage in the evening, then the Bullring on Sunday.

Trading a paper clip for a house

An interesting experiment

Zidane

I've always had a lot of time for Zidane, I've watched games when he's played for Juventus, Real Madrid and France and thought that he was genius. After a minor holding incident last night in the World cup final (Zidane's last game for his country) the Italian defender said something that made Zidane flip and he head-butted him in the chest. Non of the on-pitch officials saw the incident and at the moment its thought that the 4th/5th official saw it on the video monitor and reported it to the referee. This goes against the FIFA philosophy altogether - but the resulting red card was the right decision. Zidane had no place on the pitch after that, and he went down in my estimations. The red card came in extra time, after he had nearly got his country into the lead, Viera and henry had should be substituted and if it was going to penalties, you'd want Zindane there. It did go to penalties and France obviously lost, the Italians put away some great penalties.

Old fashioned service

We had our 4x4 serviced this Saturday. I'd been told that its best to get it serviced by specialists as there are numerous other things that need checking. The garage that we bought the car from, didn't inspire confidence, so we decided to go to a local independent. Frankerbrook Garage, near Belper was where we decided and it was very good. Its the kind of service that my Mum & Dad would have raved about, very pleasant. Everything was fully explained and I felt very confident about all the work. They managed to sort out a couple of niggling things too. The drive home from Belper felt great, a new car!!

On the flip side of that, I waied in all day for someone to come round and collect something they'd bought of eBay from me - no show. I wish people would just let me know they don't want stuff. Would have been a completely wasted day apart from the Wimbeldon final - wish was a good watch. I thought it was going to be a complete white wash, but Nadal finished strong.

Last night saw Italy through to the world cup final. To be honest that was a bit of a shock to me, I thought that Germany would do it. If they had it would have been the 8th time they'd reached the final, more than any other country.

The space shuttle mission final took off yesterday too, it seems that some foam came off this time too, but the astronauts are performing several new techniques and tests to check for external damage.

We got sent home from work at lunchtime today, due to a huge powercut in Leicester. there was a pretty violent storm, with heavy rain and lightening for about 45 minutes, the result of which was a powercut at 1030. John and I went to the sports centre and the power was out over there too, all the traffic lights etc enroute were down. Aparently a main line took a direct hit.

Florence got her first 2 swimming badges tonight for 5 & 10 metres. I've not seen her swim for ages (due to not normally being home from work), she has really improved over the last few weeks and is gaining a lot of confidence in the water. We're all very proud of her.

Arranged the shareholders dinner at the vicarage, the final part of hopefully a great weekend.

No doubt there will be fireworks all over the US today, but the heat is coming from the weather over here. In the new office there is no air conditioning, in my car there is also no air conditioning. I went swimming yesterday lunchtime, and within minutes of getting dry, was drenched again.

The drive home was hot too - made more irritating by my card getting a random authorisation check at the service station and I ended up speaking to someone on the phone for 10 minutes, with a huge queue building up behind me! Got home and was issued with a cold Stella, from Tasha, and the BBQ cooking some mackerel.

Have decided that it is the time of year to do my life laundry thing again. I've pretty much sorted my GTD life out now, and have settled on using good old text files for all my lists (this actually works a lot better than I thought it would). I keep them on my pen drive so that they are portable between work and home. I found that when I truely wrote down all my projects and next actions that there was too bigger turnover of paper to keep things together in a filofax (unless you do the 1 item per page thing).

Started watching the tour last night. Think I will be able to catch up with much more of it this year as it is on TV at a better time for me.

Weekly roundup

A really busy week on all levels. Started to get involved in a few more projects at work, which is good because all elements of boredom have gone. John and I got into going to the gym together, which works really well. We've booked a squash court next week.

More people are leaving work. Rumours abound, both from people at Coventry and backing up by people at my current assignment that more interviews are being set up. Adrian managed to bag his project too, so there are only a handfull of folks left. Big news to is Dr Simon from Manchester has also quit.

Had a great weekend at the South Staffs Strawberry Rally at Haywood Park Farm. Fantastic "heat wave" weather, with not a drop of rain and read hot temperatures (good practice for France). We arrived Friday tea time and got the BBQ sorted straight away. Up to go fruit picking at 9ish the next day and got a good booty of raspberries and strawberries (and picked up some graet homemade ice cream to go with them). Went into Stafford town centre late morning for a mooch around the shops and had lunch out at Bella Italia. On the way back to the car indulged in some chocolate fountain bits and pieces. Got back in time to listen to the football on my new DAB radio. Had another BBQ.

Disappointing! I thought the critism targetting at Sven was a little harsh, after all it wasn't him who missed all the cahnces on goal, the penalties or stamped on someones knackers.

Switched over after that and was cheered by the tennis.

Sunday saw some more fantastic weather and another trip for fruit booty, gooseberries, starwberries, raspberries, tayberries and red currants were had (and eaten). Tasha sat outside and did some dance work for this ebening's rehearsal, then we packed ourselves up and came home. Next time we sit on those chairs, we'll be breakfasting in France (which is a great thought). Got home and rounded off the weekend with another BBQ.