What now?

Yes, it's over. Yesterday we had our Christmas lunch, to much drink and food and today I feel exhausted.

Here's Lucy about to attack a present withCam, Dougie and Jenny wondering where their next drink is coming from.

I watched Arsenal finally win a game on tv before picking Lucy, Cam, Dougie & Jenny up.

We ate lunch with Liverpool - Newcastle in the background before opening our presents.
After more drinks and sweets LCDJ got a taxi home and we collapsed. A great day.

Christmas Day

Yes, it's food unlimited - well at least until it runs out.

It'll be quiet in our house today, we celebrate tomorrow when Lucy, Jenny, Dougie Cam come for lunch and football on the telly.

Stayed in last night to avoid a hangover, did very little except scour 89 digital tv channels for something worth watching, but alas it was all in vain.

Today started with opening a couple of presents each. Ronnie got a diary and some pens and paint, I got a Bergkamp T-shirt and some smellies.

Breakfast was croissants with lots of fresh coffee. We whiled away the time until lunch with a phone call to Caroline, truffles, more coffee and The Railway Children.

Lunch was traditional, Fino sherry, curry and chocolate cake.

Then it was wait for Dr Who. Jenny, Lucy and Belinda all rang and were doing OK.

Dr Who's over. It was OK, I'm not convinced Mr Tennant will be as good as Mr Ecclestone but we will see.

Now it's back to tv surfing, hey ho! At least we can watch the Gunners on tv tomorrow, hope they win otherwise Boxing Day will be tough. It'll be even worse if Newcastle, Chelski, ManU Red Soxx and Spurs win. Maybe the Flikr topbar will load properly tomorrow and I can include some photos.

See yuh

technorati tags: Christmas, Dr.Who

A Long Rest

Ronnie proudly displays Caroline's meringue. Caroline didn't want her photo taken, something about the camera stealing her soul and her hair being a mess.

Anyway, I'm back again.

I'm sure that lots of things have happened but I'm not to sure any of it is as interesting as this site usually manages.

Ronnie has started her fitness drive and I went back to the gym after a two week lay-off after contracting a bad back. Probably got it from sitting about, not over excertion.

Arsenal, as football followers are probably aware, are going through a bad time. No goals for three games and losing away to Newcastle - now that is serious. If this continues it may be the end of civilisation as we know it, or more likely a return to the good old unreliable Arsenal of former times. At least it may be possible to get in to the new stadium even if the team resembles the ones that played in the 1960's.

I'm going to publish this now, the last four attempts have crashed out.

Bye

December's Here - what happened to November?

No picture today, sorry Didn't do much today - seems to be the pattern of things.

Ronnie woke up this morning and said that she couldn't manage to get up in time to go to the Artrium (art studio), I didn't argue. Eventually saw the light of day around 10:00 and didn't do much more than eat breakfast.

Around noon we had lunch and watched a dvd, I can remember when we watched videos! The film was Ladies in Lavender - slow but fairly good.

After we went to get some lights for the dining room, managed that but when I plugged them in they didn't work, so it's back to the shop tomorrow to replace them.

Browsed some great short films on http://www.lovefilm.com/ and wasted plenty of time before watching Bleak House, Scrubs and The Worst Week Of My Life. Bleak House has got to be the best tv series since I Claudius, it's atmospheric, has enormous villains, good kind people who always seem one step from disaster and plenty of characters that you can't decide if they're good, bad or indifferent. Great, although TWWOML was so cringe making I had to turn it off before the end.

Ronnie's having a blood test tomorrow so it's no supper for her tonight, and then we have to get to the quack's (doctor's to non-cockneys) by 9:00, so I'm off to bed in a minute, I'm not a great morning person - not much in the afternoon come to that.

Another day nearer the old age pension - hey ho!

November's Gone

I must try to get a grip on this software. I keep typing stuff in and losing it, ah well try again.


Ronnie Lucy on the Tanfield Railway

Well Ronnie's back from her stay in Leicester. I drove down on Monday and brought her back. We left in a bit of a rush because great big snowflakes started falling. So we packed the car and left. By the time we got to Nottingham it was OK and we were back home in just over three hours.

I think that sitting in the car for seven hours did my back in and now I don't bend in the middle anymore, at least not if I don't want to suffer excruciating agony.

Back was still stiff on Tuesday so I didn't go to the gym, that's two weeks I've missed. I'll never make the Olympics now. In the evening I went for drink with Nigel, first time in ages. Enjoyed it that much that I mssed the last bus and it was taxi home for me.

The Young Gunners did the business against Reading on Tuesday in the Carling Cup. There's a totally unbiased report here - Arsenal.com - The Official Arsenal Website . I remember when Reading were called the Biscuitmen, now they're called the Royals! Maybe they don't make biscuits in Reading anymore, or perhaps they only make Shortcake Royals - who knows, or even cares - we won. It's been an unusually successful November for the Arsenal, they normally go the whole month without a win.

Wednesday today, Ronnie went Christmas shopping and came back with stuff for Cam and Dougie. Hope she's got me something expensive.

Patrick is happy again now that she is home. I guess that they're both asleep on the settee with UK Gold blasting away on the tv, God he'll watch anything that cat.

Well, now it is December, I'm having a cup of chocolate and going to bed.

Bloody Hell it's cold.

The photo is me and Ron Hamm at the bar in Corfu, 1990. What handsome chaps!

Took Ronnie and Caroline down to Leicester yesterday.

Not done much today, just chilling out - bad choice of phrase - and waiting for Arsenal on tv tonight. I've just finished watching "Motorcycle Diaries"on DVD, very impressive - recommended.

The cat's aren't really talking to me after leaving them in the conservatory all day yesterday.

Went to The Studio on Friday (The Clashed, punk). One of Ste Ainger's gigs, good atmosphere, Dawn's birthday. Spoke to "Gooner", nobody knows his name and he wouldn't tell me so it's still Gooner. He was going to Wigan the next day.

Watched Wigan - Arsenal on tv on Saturday morning. It would be really nice if they (Arsenal) would stop letting in goals, then we would be OK to relax a bit once we're in front. Still, we won, actually they did and I watched them. Didn't see "Gooner" on tv, maybe he'll make the Third Eye on Saturday!

Saturday night was back to The Studio, I was "minding" Peter who did the sound for Larry Miller, a long haired "rock God" guitarist. He's always good fun, you almost feel guilty if you don't join in, he smiles non-stop.

Woke up slightly frazzled on Sunday but survived.

The highlight of the weekend had to be the number of emails that I received, forwarded and replied to on the subject of age restrictions in The Studio. Between Friday and Monday I had 25 emails on the subject. I'm expecting plenty more.

13 November 2005 - Back Again

Back Again

Just bashing away trying to understand what I'm doing.

Today, or more correctly, this evening I'm typing into Flock as a draft and seeing if I can transfer the blog to Blogger

Nicholas Carla came through yesterday on the train. Probably worth pointing out that the photo is me, Nick & Ronnie from 1992

Sat and chatted and watched football most of the afternoon before going to Al Syros for a great meal. Frittata, pork with crackling and creme brulle - yeah. I think the others ate as well.

Went to Silks after for a pint, what a dive, before Nick and Carla got the last train home.

Today we didn't do to much. I went through to Middlesbrough to the computer fair but didn't have the courage to buy anything. I could really do with a cooling fan that doesn't break EEC Noise regulations.

Tomorrow Caroline comes up and we pick her up from Darlington.

8 November 2005 - Flock Blogs For All

Well,

I was just typing a FlockBlog in praise of the programme when it went t!t$ up and disappeared completely! That's what you get for saying how good it is. I think I'm more impressed with the link to Blogger. This looks like it might be fun.

I've just spent a couple of hours installing Open Office 2.0, God knows why, I hardly use 0.1% of OOo1.1.5 but I have a thing for dabbling with the new - hence Flock.

Anyway, I couldn't install it from Mandriva Club, something about the service being down. So feeling brave after installing Flock and not totally destroying my system, I downloaded it from Open Office org and followed the installation instructions. Lo and behold it works, well all but the Mandriva menu bit. I can't get icons into the menu, just white boxes. I guess I can live with that.

My First Flock Blog

Well I've started using Flock

It's still running after 10 minutes although I did shut it down by mistake after entering my first real FlockBlog

Some day I'll put up some pictures

As for now I'll just enjoy Ronnie trying to get Meggie into the conservatory.