The Secret to a Good Weekend

1. Sleep in. Don't feel pressure to get up.

2. Have guests in town. Go to a couple of galleries, have coffee and cake, talk and laugh.

3. Do a little work. Take a trailer load of green waste to the tip, raise the shed up on a layer of bricks so that when you pour the concrete it won't end up being in a hollow, collect water and develop rust. (Have a friend whose an engineer and used to work in a concrete company, it helps.)

4. Beat your computer nemesis at scrabble in consecutive games.

5. Go to church on Saturday night and experience the guiltless freedom of not having to get up early on Sunday morning, but get up early anyway because A. you invited the visitors round for breakfast, and B. because you forgot to put your clock back an hour when you went to bed cause daylight saving was finishing.

6. Cook breakfast on the BBQ.

7. Go to another couple of galleries, followed by coffee at The Goose overlooking Geographe Bay and a browse around the markets in the park that you didn't know were there cause you're usually at church on Sunday mornings.

8. Watch your footy team massacre their opponents by 99 points and play a brand of football that makes even one-sided slaughter a pleasure to watch.

9. Have a little snooze in the recliner chair after the sports news is finished on TV.

10. Go to a Christian men's course and learn some good stuff on Sunday evening.

11. Buy a Vanilla Diet Coke on the way home.

12. Blog about it.

Why Did I Wait So Long?

Hallelujah!!!!

There is great rejoicing today in the Holt Press world!

After enduring the importunate intrusion of a pop-up virus (Beware "Win antispyware!!!!) on my computer for well over a year, and having tried on-line help and a variety of programs (Spy Bot, AVG, Panda, Zone Alarm) without success, I have grown accustomed to this masquerading marauder inhabiting the bottom right hand corner of my monitor as an impenetrable nemesis, destined to live their forever, or until I buy a new computer, whichever comes first, (probably the former).

But, today is a day of celebration and liberation!

What's happened?

After failing via the cheap-skate methods of on-line freebies, I finally bit the bullet and bought Trend Micro's Pro Internet Security software ($20 off at Hardly Normals) and spent an hour installing it last night before I started my taxi shift. I had to remove all other security programs and restart the computer 4 times to complete all the uninstallations before it finally installed. Then the scan for problems ran for a couple of hours with a steadily mounting toll of threats and problems identified.
I entrusted the final "Fix all problems" part of the process to Fashion Boy in my absence and according to reports this morning, there was a moment of great rejoicing when some time later, the offending pop-up bit the dust. And even better, it does not appear to have reared its ugly little head again since!

Hallelujah!

Why did I wait so long?

Sometimes you've just got to pay up and accept some short term pain for some long term gain!


Oh, and today is also our 22nd wedding anniversary!!

Happy anniversary Mrs Holt Press.

March Milestones

March is a big month for milestones in the Holt Press family.
Mrs Holt-Press was born on the 8th, in a year no longer able to be disclosed without threat of violence! Suffice to say it was before I was born.
We got married on the 29th, in 1986. The nimble-minded amongst you will have already worked out that tomorrow is our 22nd wedding anniversary. The Heir, pictured here when he was the sole heir, will be 21 on the 29th of May.
And Favourite Daughter was born on the 24th, having celebrated her 19th birthday on Easter Monday. Check out that gorgeous curly hair!
Scenes from our wedding day, in Geelong, our spiritual home! The black and white photos were my idea and this one won an award and featured in a photographic magazine. My brother Bruce was best man and the wedding was performed by our dear friend Skip who has since moved back home to America, but is an occasional reader of my blog. Hi Skip and Terry! 22 years seems to have flown by! Shame I can't fit into that suit any more!

Cat Haven

Having finished building THE SHED it needed a finishing touch to personalise it; what better than a heritage Cats sign from the local salvage yard. I just have to update it by adding 2007 to the list of Geelong premiership years!

Emboldened by my success in building THE SHED this afternoon I booked a cement mixer from the local hire place and on the weekend plan to pour a concrete floor into the shed. That can't be too difficult?
Then we'll be able to start the biggest job of all, sorting through all the STUFF in the carport and on the patio, working out what to keep, what to store, what to put in a garage sale, and what to take to the tip!


I may have made a critical mistake last week, by allowing Sport Boy to enter our school footy tipping comp and enter his own team in the Dream Team comp on the AFL website. Not only did he tip 6 winners to my 5 in round one, but his dream team out-scored mine by 200 points!
Hopefully just beginner's luck!

It is Finished

With great rejoicing and gratitude to a God of patience and mercy, I proclaim THE SHED to be completed!
Despite his doubts and initial protestations, The Heir and I this afternoon applied the finishing touches to THE SHED!
You can see here in glorious technicolour the last holes being drilled, the last rivets being popped and the final roofing sheets being secured!
This has been a triumph of engineering and problem solving, a victory for the non tool-guys out there who like me are not "technically minded" or "practically adept". I fall more readily into the "power tool challenged" section of society, but not any more, not since the awesome arrival of THE SHED!

I feel good! nananananana

AAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!

Favourite Daughter's Birthday Picnic

My little girl is growing up rapidly, today is her 19th birthday. To celebrate we went on a picnic to a lovely littlepark in west Busselton. It's an undiscovered gem in the town, with well kept gardens, lawns and picnic tables beneath beautiful shady trees. We played bocce after we ate, then Mrs Holt-Press and I went for a walk down a long winding lane with the wetlands nature reserve on one side and houses and backyards on the other. To our surprise the lane kept going and going, with pleasant scenery and birdlife all along the way. We must have been gone a little too long for the kids because the Heir came looking for us and when we got back the picnic gear was all packed away and the kids were sitting in the car waiting to go home!

I am pleased to report that the shed is really taking shape. The walls are all up, the doors are hung,and the beams are in place. All that's left to do is put the roof on! Yeehaa! There is the small matter of the 4 lengths of angle iron that I can't find a home for! They can't be critical surely! This time tomorrow I reckon it'll be finished!!!

The Shed Takes Shape

The shed building has begun!

Yesterday I spread a load of sand and levelled out the pad, sort of! I couldn't find my level, which is tiny anyway, it wasn't billiard table standard but at least it creates the impression of being the sort of thing you could build a shed on.

The walls are all up, a tricky operation in windy conditions, requiring the help of all members of the family at various times.
The centre beam is in place and more solid now that I drilled holes and put bolts right through it and the brackets it sits in. The original small screws for the purpose didn't seem convincing, especially as we had a hard time aligning the holes.

I broke about half a dozen drill bits whilst drilling out all the pop rivets in readiness for the next, and most challenging stage, putting the door frame together and rehanging the doors. It is a complex puzzle and made out of heavy and awkward material. The Heir and I scratched our heads over it for quite a while this afternoon, and it was only after he went to work that I managed to work out which bits go where. I'm not saying his departure had anything to do with the breakthrough...

A blackout stopped me in my tracks with the drilling process so I adjourned to the park with Sport Boy to kick the footy. That ended in a bit of a drama, prompting SB to descibe it as the 3rd worst day of his life! I'm sworn to secrecy re. the details.

Hopefully tomorrow I will manage to reassemble the doors and door frame and get them secured. After that will come the roof, and as soon after that as possible, we'll pour a concrete floor in and make the whole thing permanent!

Meanwhile, Mrs Holt-Press spent the day weilding pruning shears and a tree lopping saw and performed radical surgery on the trees and bushes down the side of the house, marvelling over the size of the branches she cut down and dragged off the roof!

Tomorrow is Favourite Daughter's 19th birthday so the day won't be devoted entirely to shed building. The plan is to go for a picnic somewhere, perhaps Meelup. We need to pick up Fashion Boy from Dunsborough where he's been staying at a friends place for a couple of days anyway so Meelup makes sense.

Resurrection

He is Risen!

Jesus is Alive!!

Happy Easter.

Good Friday

Not many people read the Bible, but if they did and they happened to open up to Isaiah 52-53 in the Old Testament, this is what they'd find:

52:13 Behold, my servant shall prosper,he shall be exalted and lifted up,and shall be very high.
52:14 As many were astonished at him his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men
52:15 so shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand.
53:1 Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
53:2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,and no beauty that we should desire him.
53:3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
53:4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.
53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
53:8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
53:9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
53:10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand;
53:11 he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities.
53:12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

There are many remarkable things about this passage but most striking to me is that it was written 700 years before Jesus lived. It is the most famous Messianic propjecy in the Bible and even those not familiar with the Bible can't help but recognise the person of Jesus Christ descibed in its words.

For this, and many other reasons, I am a follower of Jesus and today quietly acknowledge again the irony of this day, Good Friday.

The Cats Start Well

The Footy's back! And the Cats won, beating Port Adelaide in the Grand Final rematch at Football Park. Yeehaa!

And Tottenham came from behind three times to draw 4-4 with Chelsea last night.

It's also the Easter holiday break, 5 days off work, woohoo!

Gotta be happy with all that.

Skipper, Sister

I passed my skipper's ticket practical test this arvo, much to my amazement. I can now legally take the boat out, if I can work out how to get it started that is! And I clear all the junk out of it!

The day's good news was overshadowed by the bad news though. My sister Vicki was recently diagnosed with Cushing's Disease. Blood tests today confirmed that the cause is a tumour on her pituitary gland. Although it's probably not cancerous, it will require a 3 hour operation and on-going treatment.

The pituitary controls hormone production in the body so surgery and/or chemotherapy can have a significant impact on it's functioning. There are more tests to be done before a treatment is prescribed but it's pretty serious and concerning for all the family.

Vicki drew the shortest of short straws when it came to health problems in our original family. Mum and Dad have been healthy all their lives and Alan Bruce and I have had almost no sickness or illness problems at all while Vicki has suffered a long list of problems dating back many years. She is pretty tough and is not about to take this lying down. Hopefully the doctors will be able to treat it effectively. I'll be praying for her, and them.

Strange Economy

I went to Hardly Normals this arvo to get a couple of ink cartridges for the printer. They would have cost me $100!!!!

I then had a look at the range of printers on sale and discovered I could buy several different, newer, better, complete printers for around the same price!!!!!

I'd been thinking about getting a laser printer anyway so I had a look at the range and guess what I found?

A Hewlett-Packard laser colour printer, normal price $499, reduced to to $396 on sale, AND with a $200 cash-back offer from HP!!!!! Making the final price $196!!!!

A new laser printer for the same price as 4 ink cartridges for the old one!!!

I bought it.


I drove some kids to Dunsborough for another excursion today and while I was there called into the Tu Art Gallery to see what Tony thought of the paintings I dropped off there last week. She's decided to put all 4 on sale in the gallery, just in time for Easter. Woohoo!


Tonight was my first Scrabble Club for the year, I struggled in the first game but won the next two. At one stage my rack looked like this: IIIEEOT, I was plagued by an over supply of vowels most of the night, three A's, three I's, two U's etc etc.

I'm taking the practical test for my skippers license tomorrow arvo, that will be a challenge seeing as I've never taken a boat out before!!!

Two days until Easter and a 5 day break, woohoo! Hopefully I will get the shed erected over Easter, it being the season of resurrections!

Sculptures by the Sea 2008

For those of you who weren't able to get to Cottesloe to sea this year's exhibition, here it is.

Party Party

We're home again after a good weekend in Perth.
The CFFL draft went well, I was late so I missed all the votes not to change the rules! but was there in time to pick my team. I paid $20,000 for Johnathon Brown and got to keep Gary Ablett as my franchise player, not a bad result.

With Sally and Warren we went to see the Sculptures by the Sea at Cottesloe, with a little more time to appreciate them than I had on Thursday. While the rest of the familie(s) had Mad Lilly's Burgers for tea I took Fashion Boy over to Ballajura for Jarred's 21st. I stayed for a couple of hours and saw one of the simplest but most touching speeches ever from Jarred's older brother Ryan as he expressed his love and appreciation for his family, it was very moving and Ryan's weren't the only tears.

This morning we ventured out to the swap meet at Belmont. I didn't buy much, just a couple of toys for my office, and the bargain of the day, a pair of floral Doc Martins for Mrs Holt-Press, the right size and all, for $5!!!!!!

We spent the afternoon at Alex's 40th birthday party which was really good, catching up with some old friends and people we haven't seen in a long time. Al also made a very touching speech.
Unfortunately Fashion Boy pushed me into the pool while I had my mobile phone in my pocket! Bye bye mobile!!!
I had a bad headache so Mrs HP drove as far as Bunbury where we stopped for noodles for dinner then I was well enough to drive the rest of the way.

Friday Night

It was a long slow night in the taxi, my worst night for quite a while dollar wise. The first customer was a mother with three young kids whose first word to them in the cab was the F word and further abuse followed.
The second lot continued the stream of bad language .
The 3rd were some quiet girls who I dropped at a party and picked up again several hours later and were very pleasant.
The fourth customer was a woman with the worst B.O. I've smelt in a long long time who took a return trip to the pub to buy $100 worth of booze for the group of young men back at the house!

Not an auspicious start to the night but thankfully it got better after that.

I got a surprise when I arrived home, Fashion Boy was sitting at the kitchen bench reading a book! He'd woken up hungry, ate some food and couldn't sleep.

I'm hoping to get some reasonable sleep now because we're headed up to Perth tomorrow afternoon. The CFFL draft is on, then we'll be at Sal and Warren's for the night. Sunday is Alex's 40th birthday and Nathan and Clare's wedding.

Chocolate, Drama and Sculptures

I've been the bus driver on 2 excursions this week, on Tuesday to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory (mmmm!) and Dairy Company and today to Perth with a drama class to see a play called "Caucasian Chalk Circle" by Bertold Brecht. It was very good with some excellent young actors. After the play we took a quick trip to Cottesloe Beach to see the "Sculptures by the Sea" exhibition. The weather was a little ordinary but the sculptures were fabulous. I hope we'll get a chance to go back for a better look on the weekend, we're all going up for Alex's 40th birthday and a wedding.

PC Doc

I couldn't blog last night because my computer was at the doctor's.

It has been feeling poorly for some time and needing some attention but things got serious when Fashion Boy tried loading some (legal) software for his digital camera (a cheapie I won at a quiz night) and warning lights and bells started going off all over the monitor.
We aborted the upload but by then the damage was done and the PC had spat the dummy, refusing to recognise the external hard drive (where all the music is stored) or the external DVD drive (which is required for me to play Scrabble). It was at that point I knew I had to act!

An overnight trip to the Doc has fixed those problems, but was not able to deliver the virus demon adware pop-up that has plagued it for a long time. (I've tried online fixes and advice, various cleaning agents, protection and detection programs etc but nothing has moved the little %#*&%@!

I had a look at Hardly Normals this arvo, contemplating whether it's time to put this one out to pasture. Typically, I can buy something 5 times more powerful for half what I paid for this, but should I? That's the question.
I'd like to get a laptop but don't want to let the kids use it so I've at least got half a chance of keeping it safe from all the nasties.

Then I thought about the recent interest rate rises and the fact that our mortgage repayments have gone up by $100 a fortnight in the last 6 months, and decided to persevere with this one for a while longer!

I'm driving a bus load of drama students to Perth tomorrow to go to a play and have an early start, so I'm off to bed.

SMS Mystery

I like texting.

I'm not a text-head with flying thumbs like every teenager I know, but I do send sms's fairly often, almost always to people I know.
Al sends me random wordy messages affirming me and my family for loving him, or offering scriptural admonition or encouragement but
Mrs Holt-Press is my number one recipient (and sender).

Our messages are usually administrative or functional, "What time will you be home?" "Can you pick up the kids?" etc I spell words out fully, I use punctuation, I choose my words carefully, I craft my messages so that they communicate effectively.

Yesterday however I received this message from name unknown and a number I don't recognise.

"If you were a placenta you would be a hot one".

I did not know how to reply!
I didn't know if a reply was expected.

How do you reply to being called a hot placenta?
Do you just accept the compliment graciously?
Is it a compliment?
I don't know.

Smashing Birthday

The kids and I combined to buy Mrs Holt-Press a coffee maker for her birthday. She is quite partial to coffee. I've never had a cup in my life but The Heir and Favourite Daughter seemed to know what to look for and we chose a Sunbeam, in the lower end of the price range! They started at $150 and went up to $3000!!!!!
Come Saturday morning they decided to make her first cup of espresso on the whiz-bang cafe crema.
Sadly, things did not go to plan!
The filter handle would not rotate fully into place no matter how hard they tried. Thinking perhaps that was as far as it was meant to go, The Heir turned it on and next thing there was a loud noise followed by a crashing noise followed by a breaking noise followed by a swearing noise!
The pressure had blown the filter off, breaking the pottery mug underneath, and cutting The Heir's thumb in the process!
Coffee grounds splattered all over the kitchen.
Hardly an impressive or satisfactory beginning to their barista careers!

After cleaning up all the mess, and failing all attempts to get the filter handle into the correct position, we packed it all up and took it back to Hardly Normal's. They exchanged it without fuss but we did get the new one out of the box and check that it worked properly before accepting it.

Further hassles were encountered with the steam attachment for frothing the milk but we managed to solve them without another trip into town and finally, some three hours after receiving her birthday present, Mrs HP got to have a cup of coffee.

She said it was good.

Beach Carnival Sausage Sizzle

Some of the students who volunteered to help run the sausage sizzle at the beach carnival on Friday. Sadly we didn't sell enough to cover costs! Hopefully a second go at school this week will get us into the black.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Mrs Holt Press.

Beach Carnival

Today was the school's beach carnival, usually one of the best days of the school year.

It rained!

Not torrentially but just enough to take the edge off the day. It was grey and overcast throughout, except for one 30 second period when inexplicably the sun broke through, only to be just as quickly swallowed up and not seen again.

I had the job of running the sausage sizzle, theoretically as a fund-raiser for the chaplaincy.
I say theoretically because I didn't even break even, because we didn't sell enough snags or cans of drink. The crowd we gathered were more interested in getting some warmth from the BBQs than buying what was cooking on top.
On the positive side I still have about a dozen packs of sausages and several dozen cans of soft drink, which can be sold at a later date, but for now, we're in the red which is a shame considering the amount of work and effort involved in the exercise.

The day was marred by an ugly fight between a group of girls which attracted a large crowd of students caught up in one of the uglier characteristics of human beings, "the mob mentality".
I spent nearly half an hour on crowd control, turning spectators away and sending them back to the beach while other staff and eventually the police dealt with the antagonists.

For a change, I spent Friday night at home, the taxi company having rostered me on on Saturday night instead. That's not all that convenient seeing as tomorrow is Mrs Holt Presses' birthday but it did mean we could stay home and watch a movie. Despite my best efforts scouring the shelves at the video store I ended up with a dud. If you're ever tempted to watch a film called "Evening" starring Clare Danes, don't do it, it's not worth the effort, or the money.

Skipper

You may remember about 12 months ago we were given a boat.
Some friends thought it would be a good idea.
At the time so did I.
We do live on beautiful, and tranquil, Geographe Bay and a boat didn't sound like a bad idea.

However, I've never been much of a boat person and even owning one hasn't altered that.

The boat is sitting in our carport, exactly where it has been since we got it.
The only time its been wet is when the reticulation is on and there's an easterly blowing (which is a whole other story for a whole other time).

Its only useful purpose to date has been as a storage facility. Things we don't know where to put end up in the boat.
The kids have given up asking me when we're going to take the boat out.

In my defence, quite apart from being a dedicated landlubber, I have also been prevented from taking my maiden voyage by the absence of a Recreational Skipper's Ticket which is now a legal requirement for all boat users in this state.

However, I'm pleased to announce that despite the second-guessing doubts and reverse psychology so much a part of taking a multiple choice exam, tonight I passed the theoretical component of my Skipper's Ticket!!!

All I need now is to pass the practical test!!!

Considering I've never taken a boat out before that may not be so easy....

I'll keep you posted.

On the Road

I've been on the road throughout the SW today, firstly with an appointment in Margaret River this afternoon, and tonight I went to Bunbury for a meeting about a program called "Choose Respect".
It was created by a friend and colleague Gary Butcher as an initiative to build stronger communities, starting in schools. The presentation was excellent and there was a very big turn-out of interested people. The local MLA John Castrilli is keen to see Bunbury embrace the initiative and become the first Choose Respect city in Australia. It was both impressive and inspiring to hear Gary outline the concept and then to hear from two school principals who have introduced it to their schools, from where it has spread to their towns/communities.
I hope I may be able to get him to Busselton and get our schools and community leaders to catch the vision.

After the meeting I had a coffee with Dave and Nicole and Lisa who were all at the meeting, then I went to see "No Country For Old Men". It's a disturbing film, tracing the homicidal spree of a psychopath and a drug deal gone wrong. It's not the sort of film you "enjoy" but I could appreciate the skill with which it was made. Whether I'd agree it deserved the Best Picture Oscar I'm not sure.

Scenes from the Weekend

"Red M" my latest painting. Sorry about the reflection, it's difficult to photograph pictures with glass, indoors the flash interferes and outdoors the reflections do the same. It's in a really nice silver frame I bought at a garage sale; it had a print in it so I cut and prepared a board to fit and painted on that. I'm really happy with it and the art teacher at school also commented very positively, even mistaking it for a Sally Morgan!! Further good news came today when the owner of a gallery in Dunsborough rang to tell me she sold a painting I had down there, for $450, my highest price yet! I've been quite productive lately so I've got a few new ones to choose from to replace it with at the gallery.

Sport Boy in action on the BUZ climbing wall at Nannup on Sunday. He did very well, not giving up when it got difficult and with a bit of coaching managed to make it to the top and ring the siren. Steve from BUZ had been telling me the other day about their new climbing wall and I was very impressed seeing it live. It's got an automated belay system meaning the operator doesn't have to manually belay every climber, and is transported on a single trailer and raised and lowered pneumatically. Very cool, I can see us utilising it at the high school.

I was pretty amused when I spotted all the leaflets littering the area around the "Friends of the Earth" stall at Nannup. To his credit, the bloke from Sea Shepherd left his whale saving duties to go and clean up the mess for them.

While we were away in Victoria last year staying at Auntie Ev's place Sport Boy scored a jar of her quince jelly to bring home. It ran out recently and he was keen for a replacement so while we were at Mum's they went and picked some quinces from Mona's place and set about making a batch for him. I was too late to capture the moment where Mum realised that the bowl full of quince juice she'd collected was too big to remove from it's resting place without tipping it sideways! By the time I got back she'd ladelled the juice out and extricated the bowl. We had a lovely relaxing weekend away. The only disappointment was finding that the local shire have indeed removed the old wooden ship from the boat park which has been the setting for many many enjoyable family games of boat soccer squash! They're both victims of risk management, duty of care and the threat of litigation! Very sad.

Bridgetown Blogger

We're in Bridgetown at Mum and Walter's place for the night. Enroute we stopped at Nannup for a look around. The Nannup Music Festival was on so there was a bit more activity than usual. Sport Boy climbed the BUZ climbing wall and we looked at the range of stalls in the market, mostly run by hippies and counter-culture types. The music playing from the stage area was just a little too "country" for our liking though I did pick up a bit of a bargain for Dad, he's got a birthday soon.



Sport Boy got a jar of quince jelly and Mrs Holt Press got a dress. I got a skull badge from the Sea Shepherd stand, the people trying to disrupt the Japanese whalers recently.



Since we got here we've eaten and talked and watched Australia lose the cricket and then played a very awkward game of Yahtzee with only 4 dice. I don't recommend it, and that's not just because I came last!!!



Sport Boy felt ill quite suddenly after dinner (I'm sure there was no connection cause we all ate the same thing and the rest of us were fine) but he fell asleep quickly once I put him to bed and we haven't heard from since.

What a Difference a Week Makes!

A week is a long time in football!

Last weekend Spurs beat high-flying Chelsea at Wembley to win the Carling Cup.

Today they are losing 4-0 to lowly Birmingham City!!!!

Dave's move went well, he'd done most of it so by the time I got there it was just the big stuff. His new place is great, way better than the old one.

Everyone's been out most of the day and night, I just took it easy and tonight played scrabble against my nemesis, Maven. I won a couple of games, he won a couple, helped on his way by such commonly used words as OLEIN, EMETIN, WANION, FRESHT, UREDIAL, CYSTEIN and AZO!!
Many of them are scientific or medical terms. Beating an opponent with that sort of vocabulary is especially sweet!

Good news: Spurs have got one back, bad news, there's only three minutes left!!!

I cornered the market in blueberry bagels in preparation for our visit to Bridgetown tomorrow, Mum is very partial to them.