Cyberpunk turned up today

 My copy of Cyberpunk turned up today.  Pretty cool.

As with the SLA industries book that I got earlier in the month I will most likely never play again but I like to have it as it brings back some happy memories.

Here's a few others.  It would have been nice to have kept all of my old Rifts sourcebooks, I think I may have had 20+ (90% bought from Mr Ripoff, 10% from the shop in Leicester) at one point but I ended up selling them whilst at uni to one of Ian's friends down in Bristol. His e-mail address had the word Phoenix in it somewhere if my memory is correct and I think I got around £200 for the the lot.  Quite a bit back in 1998. 

Another Sunday

 Another country walk and another Sunday roast.

Here's Flo and our friend's daughter Chase.  She's a couple of years older than Flo and it really helped with getting her to do most of the walking.  I probably only had to carry her half the way when two weeks ago it was 95%.

They also found a rope swing, which we didn't know was there.

New arrival imminent

 We went back home to see my parents on Saturday.  With the A14 finally finished the way down must have been the quickest time ever.

We popped round my Mum's first for a cup of tea, here's my Dad reading Flo a book.

The most important thing that we did on Saturday was meeting the new addition to our family for the first time.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce you to little Arwen (Winny).  Isn't she lovely?  Aren't I pleased???

Flo's excited too

We met her parents and they're both proper working dogs.  We also met her 7  brothers and sisters.  Lovely things.  4 weeks to go now.  We can't wait.

Practice makes...

 ... a mess

We took Flo ou for another Chinese meal after nursery last night.  Here she is trying to use chop sticks for the first time.  It wasn't the most successful attempt.

Google knows me too well

 

I was looking up the contact details of our local doctors as i've been experiencing tingling feelings in the tips of my fingers.  Look at google's description of where it is.  "A 3 minute walk from the Man of Kent"  Are all of my location descriptions based on proximity to a pub???

P.S. The doctor thinks i'm trapping a nerve in my wrist / elbow whilst sitting at a desk all day (and now night).  I've ordered one of those gel wrist supports and am borrowing April's office chair.

In answer to my earlier question, yes they are...

Photoshoot

 Josie's going to be getting a lot less attention in the weeks to come as the new puppy settles in so here are some shots of her this morning.

Out of our top window

View from below

Closer view

Cat's are so funny from below

That was quick

The new builders next door asked if they could take down the tree on the corner of their property as i may damage the boundry wall.  They would repair if it did.  I said yes.  Before I could get up to film it it was gone!

Do you think they'd let me have a quick go on the machine if I asked nicely?  It would go someway of placating my dream about going on Discovery's Goldrush.

 

Mortgage agreed in principle

We're about to agree a new mortgage.  This one is an offset with the facility to draw down quite a bit of equity out of the house.  We'll need it as we're pushing through with the renovations to our kitchen / garden.

We've seen an architect and have an arboricultural (tree guy) consultant coming round for a visit early September (delayed by 6 weeks as he had a month off in France and now has to self isolate).  If things go a smoothly as they can work may start in the spring.

What a state

 

The hoardings have finally come down from the building works next year and what a state they're in.

The developers have had to get a new set of builders in to finish the job.  We met him last week and he expects to be all done in 3 weeks.  Ha.  Good luck.

2nd work laptop

 My work has sent me a second more powerful laptop to run models on.  My previous company's have had huge banks of servers but this one is pretty small and runs everything locally.

The first was a fairly powerful i7 with 16gb ram, this new one is a higher spec i7 with 32gb ram.  Nothing when compared to my own desktop.  In case you've forgotten, an i9 with 64gb ram.

I try not to look under the desk too often

Sunday lunch

 Another Sunday, another walk to a country pub for Sunday lunch.  Luckily we'd finished eating before the rain started.  You've got to love British weather.

Flo's new bed

 

Friend's have given us their puppy crate so Flo decided to try it out for size.  We meet her on Saturday, then 4 weeks to go.  Not long now...

Still no name yet although i'm holding out for Kloppy.

Josie is not a fan of next door's cats

 

They also have a third cat, not sure where that was, probably shitting in our garden. 

Chinese for tea?

 

Flo had her first Chinese meal yesterday and it was largely successful. 

Flo was very pleased to get some complimentary ice cream.

I'm getting prepared for my own new arrival

Time to do some research for the new arrival.  We'll be getting tips from friends and my brother but what's the worst that could happen.

Poor mummy, our dog is somewhere under that.

Surprisingly there's lots of poo

 

April has both kids on Wednesdays at the moment and today she's taken a trip down to sunny Worthing to see my brother's family, or more importantly to meet his new puppy.

Here's Bobla

I see you

 One of our next door neighbour's cat keeps watching me whilst I work.

Air con

 To the rescue

It's a sure fire way to end the summer.

Puddle cat

Josie has basically turned into a puddle cat.

 

Tonbridge or Dagobah?

Spotted this on my walk this morning.  I was half expecting to see half an x-wing sticking out of the water.

 

Birthday fun

 It was a friend's 40th birthday this weekend so a few of us met up on the fields by the rugby club for a picnic.  Again, it was too bloody hot but we did have good fun.

Speaking of being too hot, April's caved in and just bought us 3 air conditioning units.  That's a sure fire way to end the summer.

Sunday's walk

We went for a country walk with friends and their dog yesterday.  Although very hot and having to carry Flo for 99.9% of the way it was great.  We had lunch at the Rifleman, myself and Jono went for The Monster.  Why have 1 roast when you can have 3?

They were round ours in the evening too for our weekly film night.  I also made roast beef!  Yum.

 

My brother's new dog has arrived

 Meet Bobla

Well, that's useful

 

Just found out that I can change the colour of the lighting of my cpu.  FFS.  This is the light on the other side of my PC, which is currently next to a wall so that I can't see it.

Can't see anything here

Blue

And now red

The absolute bastards!

 

They've just sent me a photo of the rack of lamb.  Complete and absolute bastards!

Feels nice to be back

 April's off for a fancy lunch with a couple of friends today but it's too far to travel there and back during my lunch break.  Boo.

Here's the menu, I would have ordered the rack of lamb, and if anyone thought I'd share...  they can fuck off.   It's the new sister restaurant of the place I took all of the Tonbridge lot to last year for my 40th.

Not wanting to miss out on all the fun (if only I didn't have to work), I popped into Fuggles for a quick pint and a toasted sandwich, it's the first time since lock down.

Nice and quiet.

I've been helping to keep them afloat by ordering a box of beer from them each month.  35 quid for 12 cans of various types of pale ale.  The percentages range from 3% to 8% so is a real mix bag.  I like pale ales but there's too much variance in each box for my liking.  I don't really drink beers less than 4.5%, I mean what's the point?  And 8% is just insane.

Saying that I don't really drink beer / lager at home.  Only round friends really.  I generally only drink (far too much) wine.  I had my latest 24 bottles delivered a couple of days ago.  Should last a week or two...