Nine days to go

Another week over, another mince pie eaten . . .

Work has been steady as she goes, with some frantic activity followed by more sedate moments.  This has allowed me to get some training done, on my chosen subject (which is Cloud, if you have not been paying attention).

We had a great weekend at Brad and Angelina's.  Having become of late a G&T lover, I was able to avail myself of B&A's fairly extensive gin collection.  In the words of LO, I "do not have a sophisticated palate".  I think that is fair enough.  Put simply, I did not like the newer brands, with their botanics and, undoubtedly, their beards and leather satchels and wotnot.  Instead, I preferred the London Gin, the most ordinary of the batch.  Oh well, if you like it, stick with it.

On the music front, I now have something like 8 tracks out there, in the wild.  It was a productive summer for me, having so many tracks taken up for release.  On Monday I had contact from a South American label, wanting to re-release a 3-track EP released last year, and asking for more tracks, so I am working on those as we speak, with a plan to send them something over the break.

It is the last day of school for the Maggots, with Maggot 1 finishing at lunchtime (and then off to play football with his mates), and Maggot 2 finishing normal time, but bringing home his best friend G, who is also the goalie in his football team.  G is staying for a sleepover, and we are taking him to football tomorrow, from where his mum will collect him at the end of the game.  It will be fun for them both, and he is a good lad who is a pleasure to host.  Also, Maggot 2 has, for the very first time (we were able to deduce this from the loud shouting), won entry to the weekend FUT FIFA 16 championship.  This is, apparently, where the creme de la creme of FIFA players meet to wage batter over forty games, starting Friday and ending Sunday, with prizes for those able to win twenty games or more.  To say that Maggot 1 was, is, excited, is to say that Santa will be pretty busy over the next week.  This will, undoubtedly, keep them both busy for the whole time they are awake - hopefully not too late, since they have an hour's training followed by a friendly match tomorrow morning.

Since I have next Thursday off - and with a recent management announcement that we can all take Thursday afternoon off to start our holiday early - I will probably actually look to finish on Wednesday lunchtime, so I will not blog again until the new year.

Therefore, all that remains for me to say is to wish you a Happy Christmas, a Merry New Year, and plenty of mince pies in between.

Sixteen days to go

Christmas is coming folks.  Many of you may not realise that, since there are hardly any adverts on the TV selling you a dream or a product.

Aside from that, life goes on at a pace.  We are very much sorted for Christmas, which is nice, especially since the period leading up to the end of any term is always busy, and the one leading up to Christmas doubly so.

We are away this weekend, so we have football and tennis on Saturday, but nothing on Sunday.

We had our winter logs delivered today.  They are piled up on the drive and will need moving round to the woodstore, which means I will have a very physical lunch time, me and my wheelbarrow.

Nothing else to report, so I will sign off and wish you a great weekend.  Speak next week.

Pinch, punch, first of the month

As I am writing this, two little doors on the advent calendars (for sure, there is more than one) have been opened, and the temperature is dropping like a stone.  This means a bit of window scraping for most.  For us, being able to park both cars on our drive means that they are partially protected from the worst of the weather, so that there is usually only the need to scrape the rear window of the rear car, and that can be done with the window heater if we have time.  The big car has heated front and rear windows, something that is, without doubt, about as good as it gets this time of year.

Anyhow, enough about cars.  At home, things are the same as always.  LO is away tonight at her Christmas do, so us lads have packet pizzas and a quiet night in.

We have football at the weekend.  Last week we had two matches, a replay on Saturday and our regular game on Sunday, against the two best teams in our league.  The positive we can take from the games are that neither team are anything to fear; the negative is that we did not play our best.  The first half of the Saturday game was as good as they can play, and we can in at half time 2-0.  However, in the second half we reverted somewhat to the panicky kick and hope game that typifies the worst or our team performances.  It is all part of the learning process, and I guess it is good for the boys to experience defeat, crushing unecessary defeat, since that will then set them up for a lifetime following the England team.

The Sunday game started poorly, and remained so.

We also went to watch Pompey play, which was a great afternoon out, but a disappointment since, once again, the team lost.  There was an incident in the dressing room at half time where two of the better players got in to a fight, blood may or may not have been spilt, and neither play returned to the pitch for the second half.  To be fair, their replacements did a fine job too, but we cannot help feeling that such a disruption half way through a game would not be improving the concentration of the team.  It's a funny old game.

On other news, we have LO's family over tonight for a Strictly evening, sausages in baps for tea I believe.

That is all from me.  Have a great weekend, and speak next week.