Mothers Day, Vipers v Derby, Rotovating, Murdoch Mysteries

Well, who’s a Naughty Boy? Nat’s a naughty boy that’s who. It was Mothers Day today and Nat had said that he’d be buying his Mum a card and a present whilst he was in town on Saturday. I forgot to mention yesterday that after we’d collected Hannah from ballet and gotten home she immediately started pestering me to take her to ASDA so that she could buy Deb a Mother’s Day present. This we did and after we’d ridden there on our bikes, parked up and walked in still wearing our helmets that’s what she did. Luckily I realised we were still wearing out helmets just after we’d entered so I took hers and headed back to the bikes to lock them on. When I rejoined her in the jewellery isle she’d already picked out a rather pretty turquoise necklace for Deb and a gift box to put it in. Come Sunday morning Han, as usual, could hardly contain herself and desperate for Deb to open hers cards (these Han had made herself) and her present. Nat then handed over his card sans present; Deb didn’t say a word but you could see from her face that she was quite upset that he hadn’t gotten her anything at all. She wasn’t concerned about the valve of any present just that he thought enough about her to go to the effort of buying something. It was obvious that the penny wasn’t dropping and I resolved to have a word with nat at the first opportunity.
Anyway, there was no time to do anything right then as there was a rugby match to get to; Vipers were playing at home against a team from Derby. What a great match this turned out to be as the teams were fairly evenly matched although Derby were short handed so we gave them three of our guys. That in itself was a change from previous seasons when we were always the ones with too few players who had to borrow from our opponents. Derby got a couple of early scores but soon the tide began to reverse and gradually Vipers started to establish dominance. Nat had a walkover in the scrum against their hooker who was obviously inexperienced so he won virtually every ball including those against the head (where the other team puts the ball into the scrum). For once instead of getting walked all over during the first half and then staging an often too late come back in the second Vipers played at their best from the start and the difference was certainly noticeable. After they WINNERS had been lauded by their trainers we finally left and headed for our allotment where “The Ploughman” was due to be rotovating it and who was expecting us to be there to pay him his £20. When we arrived Deb realised she’s left the gatre keys at home and so we were concerned that if we went in to look for him we might find ourselves locked in. Luckily this was Sunday and whilst it wasn’t by any means a hive of activity there were more than enough people on site that the gates were being kept open. At first we couldn’t find him but it was apparent that he’d done the job and our plot for the first time in three years actually looked pretty decent (just need to get what we’re not going to use covered over next week before the weeds and suchlike have a chance to grab a hold again). Eventually he put in an appearance and we paid him and thanked him profusely for his fine work; always be nice to the guy with the mechanised sit on plough and rotovator is a good rule of thumb. I wish I’d taken his photo because to say he was a little dishevelled would be a masterful understatement. He was obviously a “son of the soil” and he and soap had little more than a casual nodding acquaintance. Anyway this is what our allotment now looks like:


When we got home I had a word with Nat about his Mom’s disappointment and so she drove him to ASDA where thoughtfully bought her a pair of earrings that matched the necklace Han had bought her. It’s a little unfortunate that Deb’s letting her pieced ears heal but she told him she’s intended to get them re-pieced anyway so no harm done. We had cakes after dinner in honour of MD but I can’t recall whether I actually had one. Deb was allowed to choose our TV viewing again a MD treat so we sat and watch about 4 episodes of Murdoch Mysteries back to back. I’m just glad I’ve come to like this series. That’s about it for Sunday.

Yesterday Was Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I think Deb enjoyed it, she had better after the shopping nightmare I've previously reported. She opened the gifts from the kids before we went to Rugby. Nat got her a pendant and Hannah some earrings. Between them they got her some Thornton's Chocs and a bottle of non-alcoholic wine for lunch (white grape and elderflower - it was beautiful, as are the flowers).



The kids spent the afternoon selflessly checking that the chocolates they had bought for their Mum tasted OK.


Didn't do a great deal else that I can remember, quite a nice day all told.

So sad poor old Jade passed away this morning.

Shopping For Mothers Day - Oh God - Never Again!!!

Never again!

Never take an 11 yr old boy and an 8 yr old girl shopping, for Mothers Day presents, in Salisbury's, on a Friday afternoon it's a nightmare!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there aren't enough !'s in the world to express how ! an experience that was. I may elaborate later, but most probably won't as I'm actively trying to suppress the memory (which makes writing about it a bit odd!).

Met Deb at Borders,they've changed the layout again, where she'd been having a relaxing coffee, in the Starbucks there,



whilst I had been tearing my hair out and wondering if a court would accepted a plea of diminished responsibility when I finally......



A cup of chocolate for Hannah, a slice of cake for Nat and a peruse of the books for me! Oh the calming powers of a book shop - who needs drugs (well actually I do but that's another matter - see below) when you can lose yourself amongst the shelves.

Home, Pizza, watched Grow your own Drugs (see above) and don't recall what else.
Fell asleep on the Settee about 22:30, I've just woken up.

03:25 - Off To Bed.

What's happened Today?

Google pulls some street images

As if I'm going to spend my time seeing if I can find embarrassing pictures of strangers, for feck sake, see the thing for what it is, a brilliant navigation aid NOT an invasion of privacy!!!!!!!

Major leap for faster computers

I wrote an essay on Quantum Computing summer of 2006, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out, if it does, it'll revolutionise the computer industry! For a deeper understanding see here but only if you are at your ease when reading about nonlinear optical spectroscopy of single excitonic states!

Mothering Sunday at The Chequers...300 Meals at Lunch

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It turned out that that first day did prove to be a baptism of fire; I'd not worked behind this bar before, didn't know what beers we served, the prices or where anything was. We served 300 meals and didn't close until 5:00pm when we cleaned up, Barbara prepared everyone something to eat, steak in my case, and we prepared to open for the evening. I've never, before or since, ever worked in a busier bar that that one that afternoon; it was brilliant  I loved it! I started there at 11:00 am and we didn't finish closing up and clearing up until gone midnight!
I worked there for almost a year and gradually gained the confidence of the landlady. I took over the control of the stock and managed to end the petty pilfering that was going occurring. I stayed until they left and new tenants took over. I didn't really get on with them, by then I'd got use to virtually running the pub, as being relegated back to the position or A.N. Other barman made the job awful. Got drunk there one night, drove home, met the police, lost my driving license and that was that! I'll never know why I didn't knock on Andy's door and kip there...oh yeah it was because I was totally arseholed and coherent forward planning insn't something you do in that state.