Fire pit

I put the fire pit on last Friday and watched a bit of TV and listened to some music.  I do love it but you do come back in stinking of smoke!

 

More soup making

I also made some leek and potato soup last weekend.  It was great but I made far too much of it.

Birthday trip to the pub

 On Saturday night a bunch of us went to Chiddingstone (Penshurst Station) for a friend's birthday.  We popped to the Little Brown Jug then a short 10 mins walk to the Greyhound for a lovely Kent summer countryside walk.  It was beautiful. 

Arthur's learning to ride his new bike

 April found the scarf method on line and although was pretty hard work lifting up the big lump he was very good on his first outing.

Made these last weekend

 Lovely.  The kids got me a meat rub so I put it on some ribs and made the bbq sauce!  Delicious.

Note to self

 Don't come in drunk wanting one more beer

I'll be very much disappointed.  Mmm... salty!

That woke her up

 

Next door's evil cat was let out.  It didn't stay long after I squirted it with my water pistol.  They got into a fight outside our front door earlier in the week.  There was lots of fur everywhere.  Not sure if it was from Josie or this dick head.  He's also the one that came into our house and scratched my legs to pieces when I was trying to shoe it out.  What a wanker.

Even if I wanted to work

 I couldn't.

No weight loss

Excluding weekends I've been to the gym 15 days in a row and i've still not lost any weight. I've definitely trimmed down though so unless i'm storing up a really big shit I must have replaced it with muscle. 

I'm beating my distance on the elliptical, up to 10.8km in 45 mins now and I just beat my fastest 500m swim (12m59s).  When I would normally have done 1 at a push 2 front crawl swims per 20 laps i'm now doing 10.  Let's hope I can keep it up. 

6 more months

Contracts came through this afternoon and I've signed and sent them back to HR.

Who knew I actually snored?

I usually charge my watch overnight so have never used the sleep monitoring feature.  I've tried it for a few nights this week and it turns out I do snore...

New contract

 Well looks like i'm going to be fully employed till the end of the year.  My company has offered me a new and improved ftc (fixed term contract).  It's a new role that they created that spreads across Risk, Capital and aggregation management.  It comes with a £20k per year increase in base pay, plus due to the timings will get a 15% retention bonus (if I stay to the end of the year) instead of the normal company bonus scheme.  That's a win win for me as it's due to be another heavy year in terms of US landing hurricanes so the company has a high chance of not making targets.  This is more of a guarantee! To top that off i'll be here in July too which means I trigger another bonus, a nice little £2.7k for taking part in a successful project last year.

Hello birdie

 Since i've scared off next doors cats (with a water pistol) i've started to see a few extra things outside my office window.  Here's a friendly bird.

Dragonfly

 I had to help the dragonfly escape before the dog ate it.

Last night's game

 We managed to hook up one of the TVs in the function room above the pub last night.  We're going through a huge cave system at the minute.  Pretty good fun.

Honey, thyme, walnuts and brie for tea

 One of the survival (outdoor boys) guys on youtube I watch has this for a snack fairly often so thought i'd give it a go.  We both enjoyed it. Now to work out how to turn it into a good looking starter.

It's been a while

 I cooked my first Sunday lunch in ages yesterday.  Pretty decent effort.  I used my crinkle cutter for the potatoes, carrots and parsnips for extra surface area.

Waitrose had two options for chickens.  One at £6, the other at £22.  I went for the more expensive one as I can't imagine the life the cheap one had had. 

Father's day breakfast

 Peppered smoked mackerel with chili beetroot.  Yum.

Party time

 We went round Flo's twin friend's house yesterday for their birthday party.  It was supposed to be the whole year but due to the weather they had to scale it back considerably.  We were one of the lucky families to still get the invite.  The kids had a lovely time.  They're a lovely family but they've changes schools so a lot harder to stay in touch.

Height comparison update

 They still both quite a bit above average in height for their age.  Arthur is 6 cm taller than average as a 4 year old. Flo approx 4 or 5 cm

Checking out weight for Arthur.  He's supposed to 16.3kgs, he's weighing in at a whopping 22kgs!  He's going to be a beast!

My succulent is trying to reproduce again

Last time I snipped it off. Maybe I'll wait and see what happens. 

New salad

We've been meaning to make this salad for a couple of weeks now and finally got round to it for lunch today. Very nice. Will work well as a starter. 

New toy

 A very generous friend gave this to Arthur this morning. He's very pleased. Her daughter is a bit too old for it now so passed it on to us.

Strawberries are looking good

 I will under if I'll get to try some this year. 

5 out of 5

 Another 5 / 5 work days where I went to the gym.  I've not lost much weight, but i've certainly toned / bulked up.  I've been enjoying it.

I always end with a 20 lap swim which i've been speeding up.  The pool's fairly quiet which is good but there are a few swimmers with flippers and hand paddles.  Apparently it's for improving your swim posture.  But I think it's cheating.

10 Years!

 It's the 10 year anniversary of moving into our house today.  Wow.  It's certainly the longest i've ever lived in one place.  Here's for another 10!

NOFX

The first time I saw them was with Ross and Dave Bruce back in 1995, nearly 30 years ago!  Jeez!

 

Pre gig burgers

I went to see NOFX with one of my friends last night, we decided to have some burgers before the event. 

5 days in a row

 I went to the gym 5 days in a row last week.  Pretty much did the same thing each day.  45mins / 10km on the sit down cross trainer thing and 15mins / 500m in the pool.  For those shit at maths or without excel in front of you. 50km cross trainer, 2.5km in the pool.

Bbq at the rugby club

 My rugby club has a new caterer for next season, she decided to have a short notice tester event at the club this Sunday for all of the junior sides coaches and their kids.  As soon she mentioned hog roast, 210 of us replied with a yes!

It was a good event and the club should be doing more of them.

Catnip is the shit

 Or at least that's what Josie thinks.

Grilled Mackerel

 Last week I grilled some mackerel topped with chilli, lemon grass and ginger.  Not bad.  Thanks Nigel Slater

39,000 steps yesterday

 Walked the kids to school and back, went to the gym, walked the dog over lunch then played touch rugby in the evening.  A bit tired today, but still managed to get to the gym. 

The game from the 1960s has arrived

Only 2 chapters left

But they're pretty big.  Our party survived 3 direct fireball hits in 1 round!  that's 24d6!  I managed to dodge all three so would have taken half damage, but as my shield guardian was within 60ft of me he took half of that damage so I only took 1/4!  Bloody useful that thing.

Despite getting our dining table back we're still gaming upstairs in my local.  I prefer it up there and it means that if i'm not available one week they still have somewhere to go.

Exercise update

 I've been going to the gym for a little over a month now.  40% days.  If you include me playing rugby / touch rugby it's up as high as 51%.  My aim is to keep this up and try to lose a bit of weight.  The problem is I think i've been bulking out instead.  I'm about 94kg at the moment which is the same as when I started.  I basically just sit on a cross trainer bike thing for 45 mins (10km), then go for a swim (500m) and finish of with 5 mins in the sauna.

I definitely feel better though which is good and think i'm a little trimmer.

New game for the kids

Kanoodle. It's pretty difficult, but Arthur was excellent at it.