Rigatoni (penne) Gorgonzola speck

 We used to go to Strada fairly often when the chain was still open and this is what we usually ate.  I've attempted to recreate it and I think it turned out well.  Garlic bread may have stayed under the grill for a touch too long...

Swimming lessons

 I had a 9am meeting with a recruiter in Tonbridge so couldn't do my normal routine in the gym this morning.  Instead I decided to just go for a swim.  40 lengths or 1km.  Half way through a South African ex swim instructor spoke to me when I was having a breather and gave me some tips.  Maybe she saw how much potential I had...

Karaoke night at the Chequers

 Ruined by 9 drunk rugby coaches!

We had a curry night with some of the minis rugby coaches on Friday.  We kicked off at 5, followed by a curry at 8, before descending on my local till last orders.  We easily drowned out the the sound of the microphone.  He, he!

Present for me

 When I take Arthur to do the shopping I usually let him choose a hot wheels car as a thank you for helping me.  This time I spotted these!  I deserve a present too!

Tonbridge Juddians Beer Festival and England match

 It wasn't too busy to begin with then everyone descended on the club for the rugby match.  Shit game and result, but good fun.

Progress

 Flo's 1,000 piece disney jigsaw finished on Saturday.  The edges were done last weekend and then annoyingly took up far too much space on the dining table all week till we eventually picked it up again on Saturday.  1 piece missing! 

More fish

 Thai style rainbow trout with mashed new potatoes and chives

Breakfast of champions

 I had some peppered kippers that needed eating so had them for breakfast this morning.  A bit too much for me so the animals had my left overs.

Quesadillas!

 Made quesadillas for the first time today. Turned out pretty well. I used the left overs from Saturday's fajitas (a bit late but sure week be fine...). The bottom wrap shrinks faster than the tip one so I may add the lid next time as I think steam may help.

Pitches flooded again

 It's a bit ironic as Tonbridge is currently hit by a series of water outages caused by an electrical fault at a pumping station.  Here's the rugby pitches tomorrow.  It's designed to be a flood plain so not surprising this time of the year but is annoying.

Taken in the morning

Starting to drain at about 3pm

Finished another campaign

 We finished our cyberpunk campaign last night.  It was good fun.  We've been playing it for 3 months or so, since our last d&d campaign came to an end.  Next week we're doing session 0 of the Vecna: Eve of Ruin campaign which is for levels 10+.  We're all keeping our characters but having to remake them in d&d v5.5.  Should be fairly straight forward for me as other than a few wording changes of spells, the wizard classes have stayed broadly the same.

Still unemployed

 It's been 4 weeks without a contract.  This will be the longest i've been out of work since I started contracting 5 and a half years ago.

I've had a couple of interviews during the 4 weeks but nothing has come out of it.  I've had a couple of leads this week but no sign of an interview yet.

Pasta lover

Arthur really loves his pasta. I made spaghetti carbonara this time. Yum.

Rugby canceled

 I was supposed to play rugby yesterday for TJs vets, I was down to be captain too, but 15 mins before kickoff the referee said all of the pitches available were unplayable.  FFS!  We were all soaking wet and cold from the warm up, in fact we couldn't get any wetter.

Watching football

 This is my current proffered method of watching football.  Sound down low on the big screen whilst watching live watchalong commentary by someone else.

Thursday

Tuesday

Impromptu night out

 I had an impromptu night out on Friday with one of the u6 coaches.  I got a message asking if I was free so said yes.  It ended up being quite a late one.  Good fun though.

Geodes

 We smashed a few more geodes on Saturday.  I smashed them directly with a hammer this time rather than with a screwdriver and hammer which surprisingly ends up with much smaller pieces...

Iron Maiden wine

 April bought me a box of these for Christmas.  I took the first round my brother's house last week.  I opened this for the bolognese last night and polished it off in the evening. 

Linguini bolognese

 The kids enjoyed my Linguini bolognese last night.  They wolfed it down.

Current office set up

 Highlights include, lightsabre , Han-Solo blaster, thermal detonator, Tonbridge massive fantasy football winners trophy, a million useless dice.

Sleep over

 We had a friend's daughter over on Saturday night as they were out for a meal.  It was pretty smooth running.  They all played together well and I think they had a good time.

Played rugby on Saturday

 I played rugby on Saturday for Leigh again and it was good fun.  My friend from TJs played to so it was good to get game time with him.  We ended up winning 64-7, I scored (credited with 2) and ended up getting man of the match.  Not sure it was deserved but I had to down a pint of fosters on a chair for the privilege.  Urgh.  

Still pretty sore now 2 days later, but should be good for Sunday afternoon when I have a vets game against Cranbrook.

StuCorp Ltd is no more

 This week i've signed off the final accounts and put StuCorp Ltd. to the great company heaven in the sky.  The insurance contracting market has completely died over the last 3 years or so due to the enforcement of IR35 rules.  Outside IR35 roles disappeared from the market so I could no longer invoice a company for my time.  I've had to hire an umbrella company to do my payroll where I effectively have to pay employers and employees national insurance before I get paid on a normal paye basis.  My company was basically stagnant for 3 years paying £100 a month accountancy fees for doing fuck all so with a couple of hundred quid left in my company account I finally signed the relevant paperwork and it his now formally closed.  RIP StuCorp Ltd.

I did get one souvenir

 I did get one souvenir from my time play testing.  I accidentally kept the pen I was given to take notes.

Games testing

 I was in town on Friday to play test the latest edition of my favourite computer game.  It was an interesting experience and glad I did it but not sure if i'd do it again.

Chicken and sweetcord chowder

Exactly what you need in this weather.

 

Cold out there

 Some pictures from Tonbridge in the freezing cold snap we've had recently.

Rugby

 My game was cancelled with late notice on Saturday but we managed to get to an all weather pitch for the kids on Sunday.  8:45 start and -5C though.  Brrrr....

Good spot

 I walked passed a charity shop the other day and spotted these bad boys.  I though Flo would love them so we went back out and bought them.  They're a little big but she will grow into them.

We did another jigsaw

 This time only 500 pieces (the Mandalorian was 1,000).  They're quite addictive.  The kids enjoy it too.

Phew

 We finally completed the Mandalorian jigsaw only for there to be one piece missing!  It was so frustrating!

I than sat at the other side of the table and I saw something glinting on top of the jigsaw.  It was the missing piece.  What a relieve.  What a bunch of idiots.

It's been a while

 With the fields that I usually walk the dog on being flooded I took Arwen out behind Deacon Lees.  It's been a couple of years since we were last there.  It was a still muddy but the snow / ice firmed it up a bit. -5 in Tonbridge tonight!