So that's where our fees go

 Our financial advisor has given us an early Christmas present.

Teaser 5

Teaser 4

 

New fortress idea

 I used to think the safest place to be during a zombie apocalypse in Tonbridge was the castle.

I've changed my mind, it's the BT building just off the high street.  I don't know what they've got in there but it must be worth protecting.  

Might play a bit of this later

 

In the pram again

 Arwen underneath the pram on the way to Pre-school.

Lazy dog!

Well that is disappointing

We've just found out that the whole of Kent will be in tier 3 from the 2nd December.  That's a real ball ache as we'd planned to have our rule of 6 Tonbridge Christmas party on the Saturday.  All the boys round one house, girls round ours.  Now it looks like we'll have to do it remotely, if at all.  

I guess we could all do it outside in the park.  Urgh.  

All because of some pikey fuckers in Swale, Thanet and Medway (1st, 2nd and 7th worst in England), our region Tonbridge and Malling is below average.

More doggy antics

 This morning's walk, same place as yesterday.  I made extra time by taking the dog with me to drop Flo off.  She sat under Flo's pram all the way.  Lazy dog!

Longer walk

 April has Flo on Wednesdays so I had a bit more time to take Arwen for a walk.  She loved it.  Lots of hedges to run through and leaves to jump in.

The full version of football manager has now been released!

 After two weeks in Beta the full version has now been released, yeah!  Well done Sports Interactive!

Teaser 3

 

Dog training update

 It's going very well. 

Are we a little stressed?

 This is one of Flo's latest pictures 

Me on the left, April on the right

I think it's a really good likeness and pleased with the level of detail, especially with the addition of lines on both of our foreheads.  She's asked me about them a few times recently,  I just tell her it's because i'm old.  But are we more stressed than usual?  

I don't think so.  We've got a lot on, 2 kids at different ages / needs, a new puppy, lockdown and not seeing friends, building work issues with next door, extension, large remortgage, moving pensions etc. but I don't think things are bad.  We've got a lovely house, we're all healthy, there's plenty of money coming in (more than going out).  So maybe that's all it is.  We are just getting old.

Teaser 2

Maybe I should brush up on my Danish? 

Fancy a swim?

 Arwen decided to go for a swim this afternoon.  Thank god she only went into the drainage stream and not the river.  Otherwise I would have got very, very wet fetching her out.

Brrr...

 It was -1 in Tonrbide last night, not much warmer on Tonbridge Racecourse this morning.  My hands are still warming up now.  

It's like the Christmas day truce

 This is not normal.

But for one special moment each day peace has returned to the Clark household, left over chilli on Wednesday

Left over lasagne yesterday.

First release

 We took Arwen for a late afternoon walk yesterday and as the park was quiet decided that it was time for Arwen's first release. 

She had two plays with other puppies with two successful recalls.  Textbook.

Not sure what's wrong with me today

I feel a bit down.  Maybe i'm coming down with something.  Maybe the lockdown and not seeing friends is taking it's toll.  Maybe it's the weather.

Weight news

I weighed myself this morning and i'm down to 90.1kg.  That's pretty low for me.  It may surprise you that I actually have a spreadsheet to track it, although I haven't recorded a new entry for over 2 years. 

To put that in context my weight averages at 93.64kgs, max was a whopping 97.6 (15st 5lb), and a low of 89.2kg which if I remember correctly was after a bout of food poisoning so was more down to dehydration than any effort to reduce my weight.

What have I done to get so svelte? Nothing much, although i'm out walking the dog a couple of times a day i'm actually walking less, partly because of the new lockdown, and partly due to the weather.  I don't really eat that much so that helps but I still like a drink or two and that certainly hasn't cut down.

Let's see if I can get to just being overweight rather than obese in the next month or so.  Oh dear, Christmas is coming...

House update news

 Things are moving on with our house extension project.  We've spoken to our neighbours about our proposal, building on to their extension foundations and they have no problems in principle.  This means our architect has been given the go ahead to push things on.  He's now arranged for a building contractor, structural engineer and a heating engineer to come round on Monday afternoon to discuss the plans.

It's all getting a bit exciting and who knows, work may even start as early as Spring.

Still a lot to do though as we need planning to be improved too.

Really bored today

Half an hour into my working day and I am completely bored.  I've been working on a project for over a month and can see that it's nearly done but just can't seem to garner enough energy to push it over the line.  I've got a meeting with my boss to discuss next steps at 12 today so hopefully that will give me some fresh impetus.

I think the main problem is that the piece of work doesn't have to be submitted till March / April next year (i'm only contracted till mid Jan) so seems a little overly cautious.  I prefer to live life to the extreme...

One bit of good news is that another piece of work that i've been working on was signed off yesterday and that's over a week early before it needs to get submitted to Lloyd's.  

Once this piece of work is finished hopefully I can get a few smaller tasks with tighter deadlines.  That's where I work best and hopefully it will get me more interested again.  2 months and 2 days before my contract ends.

Christmas has come early this year

 

Not quite as early as Kris though, he put this stuff up on the 7th November!

If you look closely you can spot her.  Hint follow the lead.

Here she is all pooped out.

 

Big boy

 April's just weighed Arthur and according to the NHS baby charts is between 91st and 98th percentile in weight for his age 6 months on Saturday).  What a whopper!

Flo is just below the 91st percentile.

Oops!

 I was making some small changes to the blog and got carried away.  Bear with me, I'll get it looking nice (with April's help) soon...

I've still got it

 Beat the dog in a straight sprint today.  I've still got a little gas left in the tank.

Guard dog extraordinaire

 Arwen defending our garden from one of next door's cats.

Teaser 1

 Sturgen Klarp FM21 coming to a blog near you...

Here's some pictures of the flooding back in 2013

At least we're not there yet.  My friend Mark's house got flooded on Christmas Eve (middle picture), urgh.  That was terrible.

 

The flooding's getting worse

 

There's a couple more days with a chance of rain this week but other than that not too bad so hopefully it will reseed soon.

Flo was playing with her dolls house yesterday

 I asked her who was watching the TV.  She said Jono and Daddy are watching the football.

Mucky pup

 Arwen has been trying to get back into the kitchen by repeatedly jumping up on the conservatory doors with her muddy paws.  Bloody dog.  You'd better not do it when we get the the new extension built!

Here we go again

 Tonbridge Racecourse has flooded again.  Last year it was flooded from December to April.  Let's hope it doesn't take as long to drain away this time.  

What fun

 We took Arwen and the kids to Bedgebury Pinetum yesterday and did a big walk around the managed forest. 

She really enjoyed running around like a look through the pine cones. 

Chasing zombies in her sleep

 April refuses to watch the Walking Dead so Arwen drew the short straw and has to watch it when everyone else has gone to bed.

And so the journey begins

 

Flo having fun with mummy

 

Whilst April's still on maternity leave she also has Flo on Wednesdays. 

Here they are at the playground. Poor mummy. 

I love a fire with a dog

 

And my favourite shows about hunting for gold. 

The return of remote sportsnight

 Tonight Matthew we will be watching, no not Stars in Your Eyes, we'll be watching You Bet!  Another of Matthew Kelly's flagship ITV entertainment shows.

I never realised how much he looked like George Michael.

Such a good girl

 Arwen checking in on me during our walk this morning.

I don't think she likes the wet.  I had to carry her 50% of the way to the park.

First release

We let go of Arwen's lead during yesterday's lunchtime walk. All part of her training before we let her off the lead completely.

She was very good. 

It's ready!

Unfortunately I have a video call with Shaheen and Ross in 2 minutes. I'm sure they'd understand... 

I am so bored

In the middle of a weekly team update meeting and I am so bored.  I really am in the wrong industry. 

Arthur watching the football with the hound

 

Tired Flo

 

Flo was tired yesterday afternoon so decided she wanted to have a lie down on daddy whilst watching a little TV.

Almost here

It's that time of the year again, the new version of football manager is almost set to be released.  in 15 days time to be precise.  In line with tradition there is usually a beta version released 2 weeks before so i'm checking every couple of hours on steam

Here's my update history. 

That's almost a year of gameplay!  This is of course only part of my FM history.  The first football manager was released in 2004, and before that Championship Manager in 1994, the table above only shows my steam history.

Keeping my local establishment alive

 Ordered this in the week from Fuggles and it arrived yesterday.  I don't really drink beer at home anymore but I like to do my bit and help out our local businesses where I can.

Arwen's first bath

 It was surprisingly harmless.  I wouldn't say she enjoyed it but it wasn't that bad.

Photos from my dog walk this morning

 Tonbridge Racecource

Photos from my dog walk last night

 Tonbridge Castle