Obligatory countdown

Holiday countdown. This time I started a bit rarely. Only 11.5 days left after today, then two weeks in France.

Relaxation

Poppet's favorite place it's snuggled into my forearm.

Handbags at dawn

During the hot weather I've taken to leaving my suit jacket at work. That leaves a problem as to where do I put my wallet, railcard and mobile?

Answer, in my tablet case. Or as my friend James calls it "my clutch". Which I guess it is.

New game

Prepare to join the darkside. Bought this game from someone on eBay for £20. Should be fun.

Frog Blog

April nearly stood on this little feller on the way into work.

Not as bad as expected

Here's April in the beer garden at garlic and shots after going to see Wadjda at the Curzon in Soho.

The film was very good by the way. Weird country and weird beliefs though.

Afterwards we went for a Chinese in China Town.

My phone is due for delivery

Should be between 10:54 and 11:54.  Yeah!  Back in the 21st century!

Phone update

Looks like my phone's been repaired.  With any luck I should have it by the weekend.  It's getting delivered to work so I don't have to pick it up from the post office (it needs to be signed for).  It had better not turn up on Saturday! 

 

It's been weird living without my smart phone.  It's like living in the 1990's again.  This temporary phone i'm suing has pretty much has the same features as my first ever phone which I think I got back in 1999.  I guess it does have a colour screen and a torch though.

 

One good thing about the phone is it's battery life.  We charged it fully on Friday night and i've only lost one bar of battery.

Post 3000

Who would have thought I'd have made it to 3000 blog posts? Maybe those that know me also know that I have a handful of ocd tendancies so I don't really have a choice. 

Quizzy Rascals

I participated in a friend's cricket club's annual fund raising quiz last night and am proud to say we came joint last... 

 

I did win £8 however on an individual bonus question at the end where I jointly guessed correctly (or was the closest to)

 

What year was Hadrian's Wall build?

 

I guessed 105AD

 

Answer 122AD

 

Good fun though although my sat nav didn't help as I nearly didn't make it  IT kindly directed me 4 miles away from the venue, luckily I managed to to find someone who could point me in the general direction.  Not having a phone with numbers and maps makes things fairly difficult.  Hopefully i'll get mine back soon.

What goes around comes around

Because I made April see Pacific Rim last weekend she's making me watch this on Thursday

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2258858/

My temporary phone

Jeez. Not many features. But it does have an integrated torch... Hopefully, I'll get my real phone back soon enough.

I'm on a new number though as it didn't recognise my Sim.

Is this the life?

I'm currently in my garden with a glass of wine, listening to Planet Rock, i'm also catching up on a blog update or two plus playing a couple of cheeky games of football manager.  This is the life.

Quick review

I watched Pacific Rim with April on Sunday night. 

Verdict:  Excellent!  Ask April for her opinion..

Testing, testing

Australia can you hear me?  I know it's a long way away but by all accounts April's Dad hasn't been able to read my blog for over a month.  Any IT geeks have an idea why he can't see my blog over in Australia (he always has been before, it just suddenly stopped about the same time as I renewed my domain name).

Anyway, in a little over 6 months we'll be visiting again so I guess we can have a big catch up then.

New opportunity

I had an interview yesterday which I think went quite well.  No feedback yet which is annoying but for some reason the consultant is extremely confident.  Fingers crossed I hear something new tomorrow.

Incommunicado

The insurance for my mobile phone has been provisionally approved so will be without a phone for at least a week.  So, if I ignore you, that might be the reason why.

Colour test

TEST, 
TEST, 
TEST
TEST

Last night

We went to see Political Animal last night at the Udderbelly.
 http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/andy-zaltzman-political-animal-71776
But before that I met up with my mate James in Waterloo Station for a couple of beers, we've found out about Bite card.

https://www.bitecard.co.uk/

Not sure what they get out of it but it gives 20% off stores at participating stations.  Stores such as Upper Crust, Pumpkin and even Burger King.  The bit that caught our eye however was you also get 20% off booze in the bars!

After that I met up with April for a quick drink before our meal at the Archduke (part of the Black and Blue chain).
http://www.blackandbluerestaurants.com/page/the-archduke/7/7

Very pricey for what it was and my main was served cold, T-bone steak which had to be sent back.  All this was just shy of £100 after £10 discount for the cold food.  In comparison it wasn't too far removed from the price we paid to go to Thakerays the week before which is Michelin stared.
http://www.thackerays-restaurant.co.uk/awards.html
Anyway back to the Udderbelly.  We arrived just in time for the show,

MC Andy Zaltzman
Matt Forde
Paul Sinha
Mark Thomas

I'm a big fan of Andy Zaltzman, or more accurately the podcast he does with the Daily Show's John Oliver.  Although not a natural MC he did a good job and made everyone laugh.

Matt Forde, I don't think it was him, but whoever replaced him was less good, basically just an angry lefty loon.
The next chap who I'd not heard of before was Paul Sinha and we were both impressed.  Very funny man who apparently used to be a doctor.
The headline was Mark Thomas who was a late replacement for Josie Long.  Mark Thomas is of course another angry man with definite left tendencies but the main difference with him and the Matt Forde imposter was that he was funny.
Anyway, a good night out.  Not sure if I'd pay the extra money for the 'sirloin' seats again.  It just meant we were near the front in the middle.

I’ve often wondered…

Why are there no spiders at work?  I work in a huge open plan office but I cannot remember the last time I saw a spider.  Our cleaners are not especially good (even though they're in every night), in fact they're generally rubbish.

Is it because there are no flies?  Therefore no food.
Is it because they usually come in from the garden?  There's not much green space round here.

Either way I still think I'd have seen one.

New show

I know my opinion doesn't count for much but for what it's worth here's a link to a new comedy show on bbc3 by a group of guys I really like. Pappy's.

Http://www.Comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/badults/

I've not seen their show yet as it starts in a couple of weeks but I have seen them with April about 10 times in one guise or another and I think they're hilarious. 

New website

April's band now has a new website

www.theswallowsband.com

Please take a look and add to your favourites.

 

 

 

 

28 days later

28 more days at work before I can have a break from work.  Tock, tick. I cannot wait. I'm going slowly insane here.  And to top it all off the guy I sit with and have the most fun with is off on holiday for the next three weeks. 

Jeez.  Not sure I can cope.

Sun trap

Having cleared out a load of the rubbish in the garden we have quite a pleasant spot at the top of our garden. Planet Rock on the radio, cold beer on the go. Living the dream...

Looking forward to the geekend

Am back home next weekend to play a few board and card games with three guys. Now to convince April too... Although this would be her first weekend free to herself in ages, I'm pretty sure she'll want to keep it that way.

Football Manager off road

And why not? It is the summer after all.

Enjoying the sun

Biscuit chillin' in the summer sun.

Late night

Finished work late at around 11:30 last night and have been given the day off as a thank you.  I finally got in at around 12:15 so pretty tired.

Plans today 

Haircut (tick)
Clothes shopping (tick)
Catch up on a bit of TV, (Revolution, Arrow) (tick)
Meal with April, Thakeray's (Tunbridge Wells)

Another one...

...bites the dust. Second mouse in two days!

First blood

Just found the first dead mouse of the year.  Poor little guy.

Not bad for the 2nd of July though.  We've usually had a couple of frogs and a bird by now.  The cats must be getting old.

Busy week

It's going to be a busy week this week.  We've got a big deadline on Thursday and are up against it.  We've even been told if we're staying late we can order out for food and even book a hotel!  We'll wait and see if I need to do that...