Author: graybo

other news:
ill: spent much of Sunday night and yesterday being ill, probably due to food poisoning. will spare you the details, but suffice to say that it’s probably a great aid to weight loss.
gas man: engineer came yesterday and serviced my boiler (no problems) and fixed the dysfunctional radiator in the bedroom (by tapping it with a hammer!). all this took about 25 minutes for which I paid £65. hmm.
windows: nice man from TRP Glazing came to measure up the windows yesterday and will be sending a quote through soon. I expect around £1500 – £2000 for new Georgian style PVCU double glazing, plus the cost of planning permission.
ex-girlfriend e-mail: having consulted widely on this matter (especially with Andrea), I’ve decided to send a friendly-but-not-too-friendly reply. more bulletins as events warrant.
weather: Dave has posted a link to some images showing what will happen if the Antarctic ice sheets melt. Actually, with the amount of rain now falling on Sussex, we could reach that scenario fairly soon. Work has started on the new emergency flood relief channel for Chichester, which will save W2 and Kev’s house from flooding, but will probably lead to Pagham being flooded instead.
shopping: tonight is a special evening for account holders at Waitrose – I predict much fine food purchasing.

OMIGOD – Sam Brown has a new album – may be forced to rush out and buy it NOW!

blogger seemed to be dysfuctional yesterday, so apologies for lack of postings.
concert review: Kev splendidly purchased tickets and transported us to Shepherd’s Bush to see the SAS Band. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I didn’t feel like death warmed up – however, it was pretty good, highlight of the night being the fantastic Leo Sayer (yes, THAT Leo Sayer), who was simply awesome. Some of the others were pretty good too – wish I could remember the name of the woman from New York who had an amazing voice.
It has to be said that the music on offer was not the sort that I’d rush out and buy (except the song “Just Good Friends” that Fish did, but I only bought that because he did it originally with Sam Brown), but it was pretty enjoyable nonetheless.

update….well, plenty has occured since my last blog entry:
exam: went ok – much better than the one on Monday, which was hell on toast in retrospective…one of those occasions where the more you think about it, the more you realise that you really did a bad job. But Friday’s exam was ok – I was much less stressed, and able to focus more, and wrote nicely structured answers (no “stream of consciousness” responses). Have to wait until the end of February for my results, but will post them here.
Andrea’s birthday: still hungover. Friday morning, being a little stressed about my exam, I was awake bright and early, so was able to give her the presents before she left for work – and they fitted, which was nice (I’ll leave you to guess what they were!). And the flowers arrived at her work fine too, which was good.
In the evening, we went for dinner (I met up with the posse after my post-exam drinks session with a couple of the girls from college (Hev and Leigh), so was fairly warmed up by then!). The meal was superb, and we got thoroughly debauched. There are photos, so I’ll try and get one or two from Andrea and scan them to add in here someplace.
Saturday morning, after a little lie in, we went shopping, met my mum for coffee, and then went on to Ian’s in the evening for a games night. Everyone was a little subdued after the previous night’s proceedings, but it was a pretty good laugh. We got in around 2am this morning, but the rest were carrying on when we left.
Today, we went for dinner with Andrea’s parents at the Baillifscourt Hotel at Clymping (I’ll find a link somewhen), which was very good. Food was lovely, although I’m just beginning to get that serious you-have-overdone-it feeling in my liver and kidneys!
Tonight we are scooting up to London to see the SAS Band at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Report tomorrow.
Other news:
SJP is looking better after collapsing at work on Tuesday. She’s got to go for tests tomorrow, but hopefully she’ll be fine. Fingers crossed.
My friend who was diagnosed with cancer has been told by the doctors that he doesn’t need surgery or radiotherapy or anything – so having gone from doom-and-gloom, things now seem fine. You wonder sometimes if doctors do this sort of thing just to wind up the patients?!
Ex-girlfriend: I’ve received an email from an ex-girlfriend, completely out of the blue. I always feel a bit awkward about these things – I was really cut up when we broke up (about three and a half years ago), but life has moved on, there is much water that has flowed under the bridge and times have changed. I know from other sources that life hasn’t been entirely a bed of roses for her in the meantime, whereas I’m really very content at the moment (ok, I’d like more money and more free time, but who wouldn’t?). It’s basically just a cut’n’paste forwarded thing with a “how are you? are things ok?” note on the bottom. So, how should I respond? Ignore it? Send back an innocuous chit-chatty thing? Or send back something else? You decide.

oh, by the way, thanks to everyone who has voted nicely at bloghop and boosted my rating – you’re lovely, and if anyone says you’re not, you can show them this blog and prove them wrong.
if you haven’t yet voted at bloghop, click on the little coloured squares in the navbar on the right of this page (preferably on the green ones – thanks)

Man hammers nail into lover’s head – these Romanians are getting (more) scary.

Man chops off wife’s fingers for nagging – be warned: nagging can be harmful to your health

Woman, 63, accused of trying to seduce son, 26 – more (scarily) mad Romanians.

Ryder truck that transported Palm beach ballots for sale – only in America

tomorrow is also Andrea’s birthday. I’m not going to nauseate you all by eulogising about my girlfriend – regular readers will know that I think she is the greatest human being ever born. Happy birthday Andrea!