This morning I heard a good friend of mine and ex work colleague has found out that his ball cancer has come back.

This afternoon I had my lovely shiny new touch-screen phone in my pocket. When I took it out, the screen was shattered. It’s not insured. I guess I’ll just have to go and buy a more ‘manly’ one, won’t I?

Just now I hit my left index finger with a hammer. There’s a big lump of flesh hanging off and I’ve been standing at the sink with cold water running over it to numb the pain. It’s the sort of injury that you just know is gonna get more painful before it gets better.

And that’s why I’ve decided not to do any more DIY today.

I better go round and clear up all the tools that I threw down the garden…

Obviously I wouldn’t expect any sympathy from you lot, but I hope you’ll all feel better knowing that I’m having a sh!ttier day than you.

P. 

Our week long stay in sunny old Dubai was an enlightening event. For those rich people who had been there before us you will know what the place is like, half luxury and half building site, as we were the poor relations we were not even allowed into the alleged 7 star hotel and had to make do with our lowly 5 start slum.

The whole trip was a revelation as to just how rich some people are, outside our hotel almost every night were ferraris, lambos and even Audi r8’s, most are never used to anything like their potential. Rolls Royces were simply too common to be worthy of comment.

The hotel - Atlantis lived up to its reputation and we enjoyed the water park to the full, we even got to meet some of the local mammals, some of us even had a quiet snog when no one else was looking - there are some images for public viewing, some may even be released to you via this site.

The desert sand crash testing went well, by that, I mean we all survived the somewhat scary experience of a local driver showing us just how to attack sand dunes in a toyota land cruiser.

Ted discovered the joys of sand boarding and looks a natural for a ski trip some time. Any foolish volunteers to partake in such a dangerous holiday put your names forward……

See you all saturday, apologies for the typing, a knackered elbow doesn’t improve my already atrocious typing.
trev

It’s too good to let it go after all…..

If anyone sees this, post up and say so.

Today is Monday Jan 19th 09.

P.

Rob -Thanks for your order with CD Baby!Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make
sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, July 16th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.”  We’re all
exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…

–
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music

It brought a smile to my face……

Well , Vegas was a blast! No clocks on the walls & constant half light whenever you are indoors meant we had no idea of the time. The hotels are MASSIVE - it took over 12 hours to walk what would have been 3 miles as the crow flies - no wonder we needed all that beer to numb the pain in our aching tootsies. Between us , we have loads of photos to share - shall we do a sweep on how many? Or do’ya think I’ll mash you all again like in Jen’s magnet competition?!? Looking forward to the judging of the photo competition (or is that just a hardly needed excuse for a get together & a few more beers?)

Progress on this path has been slow, mainly because someone inconveniently put the Solent in between Wokingham and the Island. Which means we can only tackle the walk when we have a chance to get over there and have enough cash to pay the extortionate ferry fares. 

So we decided we needed a long distance path that’s closer to home, which we found, and is called the Three Castle Path. This path is approximately 58 miles long and runs from Windsor Castle, via Odinam Castle at the halfway mark down to the site of Winchester castle, now just an old hall. 

And so, on Saturday 5th April we tackled the first leg of the walk, from Windsor to Ascot, which covered about 8 miles of the path itself, plus additional bits getting to and from start/end points, meant we did a total of 9½ miles. All before lunch! 

At 8:30am, the taxi turn up to drive us to Windsor. Bit extravagant you might shout, but it only cost £5 more than the train and only took us 25min. Whereby as the train would probably take us 2 hours as it’s not direct. 

The taxi dropped us at the exact start point of our walk, at the bottom of Castle Street. Fortunately it being so early in the morning, the area was pretty much tourist free. No loud Americans saying “Isn’t the castle quaint” and “We have bigger ones back home that only took a week to build” blah blah blah. 

From here we headed down the cobbled streets around the castle past Nell Gwne’s house. Those not up on their history, Nell Gwne was famous for inventing the Intermittent Window Screen Wiper…….Or was she the one that was King Charles II mistress……….nah definitely the Wipers. 

There was even a Ye Olde Nell Gwne Chinese restaurant. No Chop Sticks here. You use Wiper blades instead. 

OK, back to the walk. We carried on through the cobbled streets till we came across the crooked house. 

This stands on the corner of Queen Charlotte Street which apparently is recorded as the shortest street in the country. I’m sure the Ewens know better, but we’re going with the what’s on the plaque. 

From here we headed towards the Long Walk. So called because….. it’s a long walk !  2½ miles from the Castle to The Copper Horse. One of those treks that just goes on and on and on. Bit like this blog! 

And hour later, we finally reach the Copper Horse on top of Snow Hill. The statue is actually of King George the II on his donkey. 

The views from up there were excellent. We could see Harrow on the Hill, Wembley Stadium Arch, and the baggage mountain at Terminal 5. 

Next was another long trek through Windsor Great Park and onto to the start of Ascot Race Course. Here are the Golden Gates at the start of the Old Mile Course now replaced by the inspirationally named New Mile Course! 

Walking along the side of the Old Mile course we spotted several of these concrete pillars. These were erected during the second world war and were used to support steel cables across the course to stop Ze Germans from using it as a place to land their planes. 

Finally the end of today’s section of the walk, at the crossing point of the New Mile course. You can see some old nag was running. Apparently odds on favourite for the knackers yard. 

Then it was just 1 more mile to Ascot station and home. By the way, the train was 35 min late. Nothing new there then. 

No pedals…cut out the middle man, and put your best feet forward!

Air conditioning self-regulating - just speed up or slow down!

Only 100 yards on the sundial, and a spare wheel in the boot….