Reverse blog

Well, it’s halfway through the first day of the working week and I’ve cleared all of the urgent items from my to do list so I can start to think about some of the longer term development things now. I’m having a break first though, with a glass of chilled water and an apple, and listening to my friend Rachel being interviewed on the radio – hurrah!

Before that Alicia got in from her maths exam, and told us that she’d managed to leave a folder full of her slightly embarrassing self penned slash fiction in a charity shop on the way home. She rang the shop and they’ve found it, but hopefully they won’t be tempted to read it too much of it ... Do normal parents have to worry about things like this? I also had a worrying letter from the Child Benefit people saying that she wasn’t due any money from September after I’d sent them back the forms saying she was going to college to do A levels. A quick phone call sorted it out, and it turned out that it was an automatic letter that had crossed in the post with the forms. Hmmm, typical administrative snafu, I suspect.

This morning, I waved my mum and dad off after a weekend’s visit, after not having seen them for quite a long time. It’s been quite a relaxing weekend all told, sitting out in the summer sunshine and nattering. I also got stuck in traffic this morning after I’d dropped Alicia off at school. I avoided one hold up where some temporary traffic lights at some roadworks had failed, and then ended up in another huge queue of traffic going through Hillsborough where a road was closed somewhere in the system and the traffic lights there were out of phase. I made a snap decision and drove out along Middlewood Road, ending up back in Oughtibridge where I would have been if I’d braved the original holdup, wasting half an hour in the process.

Still, at least I managed to listen to some more of the book I am reading at the moment Children of Men by P.D.James. Very interesting and thought provoking, but not at all what I was expecting from having seen the trailers from the film version that come out last year. I think I’ll polish it off tomorrow on the way down to Birmingham and then get started on Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age.

Yesterday we all went out for Sunday lunch at the Crown and Cushion, perfectly succulent roast beef and Yorkshire puds followed by treacle tart and custard, washed down with two pints of beer. I wasn’t fit for much more than a snooze after that, but I woke up refreshed and ready to plant out some tomato plants and water the beds which were looking a little parched. The clematis has perked up a little and has started flowering, so I might have to take some pictures of that later.

Saturday night was the splendidly scary Doctor Who, which made me jump out of my skin several times and left Jamie in tears not wanting to go up to bed on his own and Alicia a bit worried too. To give them a chance to gather their shredded nerves we all watched ‘The Seven Ages of Rock’ feature on the history of heavy metal from the seventies onwards. Great fun, but we might need to get Guitar Hero set up again so that we can RAWK.

Saturday daytime was the usual fencing workshop. I mostly spent the first half working with newbie Ed who made some good progress in a short time. The afternoon was given over to cutlass work, reviewing and refining some of the techniques from the last time that we picked it up, and finishing with a marvellously nasty envelopment and stab that is a little like running into a brick wall before getting twenty four inches of cold steel in the face. Yum.

Friday night was pizza night with my Mum and Dad, watching the excellent ‘You Can Choose Your Friends’ written by and starring Richard Herring. He is not in any danger of being typecast as the nerdy, immature and borderline obsessive Ian Snell and any one who says he is, is lying! The rest of the cast were top notch, particular Anton Rogers as the father of the family and Julia Mackenzie as his slightly harassed and tidiness obsessed wife. Fingers crossed that it gets the green light for a series.

And that’s about it, I think ... I’m going to upload the recordings of Rachel to my googlepage if anybody would like to listen to it.