Still here.

Sad news is brother Phil, Mum and Patrick are gone.

Happy news, Lucy & Cam now have Johnathon Anthony.

Jenny is now Mrs Douglas Wyllie.

Ronnie is still off the fags.

I'm still overwieght with a bad back and gout.

Hey Ho!

I've been to the Emirates

Just realised they've named a whole country after the new Arsenal stadium!

I promised myself I would go to The Arsenal's new stadium as soon as I could get a ticket, so when they became available for the Arsenal - Bolton cup match I was off.

I booked the ticket, no problem. Then I had to get there. Train and coach meant travelling the night before and coming back the night after so I was left with flying. Booked the tickets again with no problem apart from the fact that £26 return became £79 with airport taxes and such.

I was up at 5:00 and out by 5:20 to drive to Durham and Teesside Airport. I arrived there at 5:45 and checked in at 6:00 for the 6:50 flight to Heathrow. The departure lounge was full of soldiers in desert gear, probably off to the beach!

We got to Heathrow at 8:05 so I now had almost 8 hours to go to kick off!

I got the tube to Old Street at 9:30 and then walked up to Provost Street where my parents and grandparents lived. From there a bus to the Angel and then walked to Liverpool Road and the Old Royal Free Space (Fever Hospital) where I was born.

A long walk on a sunny Sunday morning eventually took me to The Nags Head in Holloway Road where I had brunch (11:30). From ther it was on to Highbury and look around what was left of the old stadium - not much.

Then around the corner to the Ashburton "Emirates" Grove with still four hours to go.

They let us in at 2:00, I was very impressed and releived that the high tech card system worked with no problem, apart from the fact that once I was in I dropped my card and a security lady had to get it back from outside the turnstile for me!

Now only two hours to go and all they had to drink was John Smiths and Fosters! At least they were showing the Chavski match live alongside highlights of some recent Arsenal games.

After a crap pint of JS and a "meat pie" that cost almost as much as the flight (don't eat there again). I made my way to my seat, what a great view. Only complaint was that I couldn't see either of the jumbo screens, the one opposite was hidden by the roof and the one to the side was barely visible, still there were no highlights as far as I was concerned so I didn't miss much.

The match was about as good as the pint.

I had to leave early, something I hate doing, so that I could be guaranteed of getting my return flight. At 5:30 with twenty minutes to go I was off to the Arsenal tube station with the wails of the Gooners in my ears.

The tube journey was horrific - ninety minutes packed in like sardines, human beings shouldn't be made to live like this. The thought of 10 million people living in this place is amazing, I think that all the ones not in the Emirates were on the tube that afternoon.

After an hour and a half of ordinary rendition at the hands of London Underground I got to Heathrow with plenty of time before my flight. I phone Ron and looked up the score on the net, 1-1 with Kolo equalising, thank God, Allah, Krishna and the rest.

I was back at Durham & Tees by 21:15 and home for 21:50.

I've got more pictures and they're on Flickr under arowsell.

Flocking Again

Just re-installed Flock so I'm giving the blog another go.

Ronnie's knee has been done. She went in on October 1st and was out on the following Saturday.

As last time she had problems with an infection but they caught it early and it was cleared up in about ten days.

She's just returned from a week at Caroline's, her sister, in Liecester.

At about the same time that Ronnie went into hospital we discovered that Patrick, our oldest cat had high blood pressure and an over active thyroid. He's now on two tablets a day to treat that and seems to be doing OK.

This is a picture of him taking his medicine from the spoon!

Blogged with Flock

First One Since April

Can't beleive it's been that long.

What's new.

Ronnie's knee problem is now definately arthritis. After going to the hospital for physio she found out that it needs replacing. Now the long wait, October is the best bet.

To add to the complications I put my back out so I couldn't push a wheel chair or do the garden. We missed getting the sweet peas in but did manage to plant out the runner beans.

I was feeling all "green consumer" earlier this year so we replaced our old boiler with a high efficiency super duper condensing combi thingy. Great, hot water but you don't lose the skin off of your hands when you wash them and the shower is wonderful.

Just after it was installed we were going to bed when Ronnie noticed that the lounge carpet was wet. On investigating we found that one of the radiators had burst. We got the insurers out and they sorted a new lounge carpet. That led on to a refurbishing job, new hall carpet to match the lounge, redecorate the lounge and hall. We then had to have the path sorted out where the new gas main had been run in - new block paving - bloody boiler.

The picture - it's the female umbrellas of a dioecious liverwort. Fascinating! I hear you cry. The story is that Lucy found some in Cam's mum's back garden and thought they looked nice. Now we've got a plant pot full of them - turns out that they're a bit of a pest because they can take over a potting shed. Just as well we don't have a potting shed.

Computers
Desktop - now I'm using Kubuntu Linux. I got a bit frustrated with Mandriva, videos refused to play, little things didn't work the way I expected so I swapped. So far I'm more than happy. Pretty well everything works, the occasional loss of usb ports and keyboard but that has always happened, probably dodgy hardware.

Handheld - I've had a handheld for ages, starting with a Psion II moving through the Psions then Handspring and Palm to a Zire over a year ago. When Ronnie's knee went West I dug our old mobile phone out of the cupbaord and started carrying that so that she could get in touch when I was out. It seemed sense to get a mobile that would do what a handheld would do as well as be a phone, the best bet looked to be a Treo and so I started looking for one. Great, it's a 600 from ebay, but it works. Loads of free, good software and it links to the desktop OK.

Well - that's that done for now. I'll probably do more on Wednesday evening assuming that Arsenal don't crash and burn out of the Euro Big Cup.

April and Flocked Already

Just moved up to Flock 0.5.13.2 whatever that means.

I don't know how you load photos or videos, not that I ever knew how to load videos.

Watched Manchester United beat Arsenal on tv today, just a touch depressed about that. Still it's been a good few weeks for the team, EUFA Cup semis, fifth in the league with a decent chance of forth, better than most teams are doing.

Went to Emma & Louise's 21st party last night but couldn't drink. Still it was good to see everyone again. It was Nancy's X9th birthday as well.

I'll have to get back into the habit of blogging again.

Bye for now.

February 2006

The snowdrops are out, the weather is cold, EUFA Champions Cup is back.

Not a lot of news, hence this is the first post for some considerable time.

Jenny had her birthday, Dougie's is due this week. I think we'll just have a couple of beers.

Next week Jenny & Dougie are holding court in a Scottish country house. I think we're due to go up on Tuesday and stop overnight.

Sat in last night, and the night before and the night before now that I think about it. Watched the mighty Arsenal humble Real Madrid on tv. I don't know who was most surprised, me or Real Madrid. I think we benefitted from the fact that they didn't try to kick us off the pitch.

Watched Chelsea tonight trying to kick Barcelona off their allotment. It was great to hear the pundits trying to defend Del Horno's assault on Messi. I guess they have to stick up for the British clubs but I do get tired of them pontificating on the "dirty cheating foreigners".

Ronnie still off the weed, six weeks now.

I'm off to the quack tomorrow to get my ears checked out, I'm sure they should be on opposite sides of my head. Hey ho.

May blog again soon. Pictures of Jenny & Dougie's Scottish retreat and our garden.

Just when things looked good.

Last night Ronnie cried out in pain as she sprang from the couch. Her right knee had "gone", locked solid.

We suffered a sleepless night but waited until today to go to the hospital. We had to wait until the shop had delivered our new fridge freezer before we could go.

Fortunately they were fairly early and we got to the hospital for 10:00 am. The Accident & Emergency Department (A&E to you Casualty @ Holby City fans) have a new system and we were done and dusted for 10:45.

While we were there we bumped into John and Sheila Bailey, he knacked his ankle on Christmas Eve whilst swerving to avoid an oncoming can of lager, or something like that. At first they thought he had some broken bones but now they've wiped the photo with an oily rag they can't find the break so now he's got torn ligaments.

The knee is not dislocated as we feared, but she has torn the ligaments, around the knee, painful. I think they must have a "Buy One Get On Free" offer on torn ligaments. So now it's rest and recuperation for a few weeks. Bang goes our regular walk and Ronnie's exercise regime.

We had a take-away curry for tea and settled down to watch Wigan - Arsenal on tv. What a load of old rubbish - the match, not the curry. It's almost like going back to the 60's, sparkling one minute, deadly the next. Still I suppose you can't ask to much of a bunch of teenagers with some grumpy old git up front, I can remember Ljungberg when he was great.

Talking of great, the photo is of Haddon United. The team include me and my brother Phil with his son Nicholas as mascot. We were awesome, we ruled the Enfield Sunday League with a rod of .. celery, but we had a good time doing it.