It'sThe End of the (School) Year as we Know It...Already! No Spondoolies, Lucy Lawless, Spartacus, Edgy Photo, New PAYG Three Android Smartphone, Doit4Real, Cumbria, The Lake District, Castle Head, Ghyll Scrambling.

After what seems like only a few weeks there Nat has reached the end of his first year at Brockington College and Hannah now has only two years left at Millfield. OMG they will be adults before you know it, Nat acts as if he is already and Han has been for years, but that's just like all girls isn't it? Spent the night with a sore throat (contracted from Deborah) that has been getting worse rather than better all day. I had to run for the kitchen tap in the middle of the night because I woke feeling as if I were choking. I can confirm, without hesitation, that waking that way is very very unpleasant and most distressing! What I hadn't realised was that today is the 16/07 and that I paid yesterday. I "asked" Deborah whether she's paid my "allowance" into my account and if not could she do so before she left for work. This simple question and request somehow turned into a "knockdown and drag out" fight between us before she left...without her having, of course, transferred the spondoolies! Bang went my idea of "perhaps" popping into the local pub for a lunch time pint prior to my being stuck with the kids for the rest of the summer.
I've got six unseen episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sand on the Virgin+ box which I must get round to watching because I've just found out on the Inter-Web that Lucy Lawless, yes Xena Warrior Princess, gets her Norks out in a number of them and, apparently, they are very nice Norks indeed. On top of her lovely Norks, or to be more anatomically accurate below her lovely norks, she also wears her very own Merkin! Well that's one night of severe wrist ache pencilled in; probably best to pencil that in now... while I still can! I think that's more than enough lawless lusting for today, wouldn't you say?

Is this what you call "Living on the Edge"?

It seems that Android smart phones are becoming more and more affordable. My favourite carrier (my only carrier since 2006 when I got my first smart phone - Nokia N73) Three have just announced a sub £100 Android phone called the ZTE Racer. An Android (with resistive touch screen) smart phone, running firmware 2.1 and with both Wifi and GPS for under £100 on Pay As You GO is astonishing...and very very tempting!

It looks pretty decent too:

Nat's Doit4Real course got sorted out yesterday. It seems that Deb's conversation of the previous evening had not been entered into the record hence the phone call. Nat missed his "extreme activities" courses but has ended up with one that he should enjoy greatly. It's in the lake district at Castle Head Field Centre,Grange over Sands, Cumbria and it's pretty nifty. The course doesn't included paint balling and the like but it does include activities such as hill walking; camping; ghyll scrambling; rock climbing; caving; canoeing and rafting. This should be more than enough to keep and adventurous twelve year old boy happy. we didn't actually know what ghyll scrambling was so we Googled it and it turns out to be, walking, running, sliding, diving and generally navigating your way down Cumbrian rivers. It looks like a darn fine way of passing the time and building moral fibre as this terrific video from the BBC's "Country File" demonstrates.

The centre itself (Castle Head) is very attractive; it lies between the fells of the Lake District and the shores of Morecambe Bay, in a secluded corner of north west England. The Centre includes an impressive Georgian house which is enhanced by a Victorian verandah and is surrounded by 20 hectares of grounds.