2007 Holiday Update.

Oh yes, we booked a holiday to Goa, flying on New Years Eve 2007. So our New Year celebration willl be during the flight and we will arrive on new years day. That means that technically it’s a holiday in 2008.

This year so far,

January – Torremolinos
March – Torremolinos again 😉
March/April – Time booked off work but not booked holiday yet, so far looking at Dominican Republic
September – Not definite, depends on holiday days left but a week in Greece would be nice
November – Time booked off work but not booked holiday yet, hopefully Thailand

I’ll revist this later in the year and see how we’ve done.

Arm-a-dinner-jad.

In almost unbelievable, extra-ordinary news, I used the name of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in conversation last Thursday.

I know! and I even pronounced it correctly thanks to that nice lady from the BBC pronounciations department.
When I heard her saying it recently on some radio show or other, I thought, “oh! thats good, bet I never need to say that in conversation.”

I was wrong of course, because sooner or later you’re going to have a drunken conversation about the worlds scariest places to live.

Iran is #2, not sure I can remember the full list now, I can’t even remember what was #1.

Oh no, wait.

It was Wales 😉

Get Your Dibber Out!

Its very early, I know, but I’ve taken a chance on planting a few seeds. I’m hoping for a head start and that we wont have to cold a Spring this year.

The tomatoes I grew last year were really good and I’m hoping for more this year. I’ve also got some different varieties to try this year.

I’m using these great little peat pellet propagators thingys, a top bargain in fact as I picked them up in Poundland, even better they were reduced to 50p! You just water the little discs of peat and they swell into small seed carriers. You pop your seeds in and then place the propagator somewhere warm and wait for the seeds to germinate. With Toms and Cumbers you want to keep them good and warm so I’m starting off in the airing cuboard for a few day. When they grow, I’ll be able to pot them on in the pellet as the outer sack breaks down. Yay, no more broken seedlings while trying to plant them out 🙂

I put them in yesterday and they are now in the airing cupboard and we’ll see if they germinate. I’ve put in 2 Moneymaker Tomato, 1 Cherry Plum Tomato, 1 Tumbling Tom and 2 Cucumbers. This year I’m all about the succesional sowing so I’ve just put a few in and I’ll do more in a couple of weeks. I hope the Cherry Plums germinate, I actually harvested the seed from a supermarket Tomato following the instructions here.

The Tumbling Tom is a hanging basket variety and I’m really looking forward to seeing how that looks/works. I’ve not done cucumbers before so that will be interesting, wonder how they’ll do?

I also did a layer of mixed mustard and cress. I’d saved a punnet from some shop bought cress and used that. When I looked this morning, most of the seed had already germinated, how quick is that? I’m really pleased with this especially as the mustard seeds are ones I dried myself last year, I let a batch go to seed and got about a million seeds. I know! Like, for free 🙂

Oh, and I got some seed potatoes too, I have to do something called chitting before I can do anything with them though. I’m planning to do 2 early potatoe plants started of inside and then grown on in big pots, one to a pot. That will good if it works.

I’m going to get one of those small plastic greenhouses this year too, I’ve just got to convince Paul about where I want to put it!

Pie And Peas Are Sure To Please

My version of a pie floater, a la Harry’s cafe de wheels.

PiePeasGravy 006 Originally uploaded by Andy2Boyz.

Last nights dinner, Steak Pie and Mushy Peas with Gravy and Ketchup, helped down with a glass of ice cold lager.

I love mushy peas, I do.

I can totally confirm that it was delicious. And, unusually for me I ate all of the pastry*

Ooohh, and get the Branston Tomato Ketchup! I know! Me! I’m all about the Heinz but after trying Branston Baked Beans my faith has been shaken. Sharon had heard the tale about that and gave me a bottle of Branston Ketchup for Christmas. I’m converted, I admit it, I say “bring out the Branston” 🙂

* I took a Ranitidine before eating 🙂

Big Brother special edition

So, I notice there has been a bit of fuss about celebrity Big Brother. I missed most of the footage because it happened while we were in Spain last week. We were aware of the row of course, people in the hotel were buying UK papers and we had Sky News in the room. However, without the race row, this years CBB was set to be the most rubbish ever. Apart from going on holiday, we were already planning to stop watching on our return. I never actually believed it but Paul actually has been able to stop tuning in! Well done him 🙂

Anyway, I was thinking how to spice up and revive the whole BB franchise. And, take note Endemol, I’ve got it.

I present to you, >>>>>>> Big Brother Tramps.

Oh, yeah, thats right baby, Tramps!

After nationwide auditions of homeless alcoholics , we get 13 weeks of dirty Tramps constantly fighting and/or drinking cider. If they try to sleep they shock them with some high voltage stun gun things. Can you imagine? I know!

The shoppping list will consist of cigarettes, cider and pot noodle. If things get boring, BB either takes away half the booze and chaos ensues or BB throws more booze in and chaos ensues.

I promise you, its gonna be great 🙂

Passporto’97

Andy Passport photo 1997
Originally uploaded by Andy2Boyz.

I have to get a new passport this month. How can I ever hope improve on this lovely picture? (Unless I was in prison!)

The worst thing is that you are stuck witha Passort photo for 10 whole years.

I’m going to a photo-booth this morning.

Wish me luck?

Later ……….

I had it done this morning, and not great photos but I’ve posted it and thats that!

The pics are actually pretty rubbish, not sure if the booth was working properly? You cant even make out my eye colour properly.

AndyPass07
Originally uploaded by Andy2Boyz.

My advice? Dont use the photo booth in Morrisons off the Sheffield Parkway 🙂

Road Trip

On the motorway the other day we passed and were passed by lots of builders vans. Isnt it funny that all the passengers are always asleep? No matter the time of day or the number of passengers, they are all asleep, except the driver of course.

On the coach the other day we were laughing at the sleeping builders, as you would, some sleeping with heads back, some heads forward. Some with head against windows even some with tongues out.

The show-stopper though was the lad in the white works transit, I’ll not mention the name of the company on the vehicles side. Feet up on the dashboard, beefy arms crossed over his chest and wearing a pair of grubby Reebok trackies. Nothing too extra-ordinary so far, however, the bit that realy got us giggling was that he was very obviously having a “happy” dream 😉

The driver of the van may as well have been pimping his mate! He keep overtaking, then we overtook and then he gained on us again, plenty of time for all of us to have a good look. Sharon spotted the toilet roll on the dashboard, “what’s that for!!” she tried to say, whilst laughing so hard I though she’d choke.

I wonder if the drivers of all those vans get to sleep when they drop off the others to go on site to build things??

I do hope so. I also wonder what they dream about 🙂

Blue-truth

Apart from being the name of a the King of Denmark @1066, I’m sure you know that Bluetooth is also a top mobile connectivity thingy-mi-bob.

At last weeks Abbey Christmas party*, I tried to send a picture to Trace and my phone came up with this list of Bluetooth names.

Phone
Phone
Phone
Phone
Phone < Not very original. Obviously.
the banker! < arent you!
Mini Minx
SGH-E900
Your Mum < I love this one!
vickys phone
Sazzle < ? I first read this as spazzle
Spank my inner C < hild?
Lyn
Lou
Mel
a c j
K750i
Pam
Nokia 6230 Rocks! < does it rock?
Jo
Pacha is sxc! 4eva < ??
Trace < found her 🙂
Mikey!
Little Miss Devils..
Top Dolla
Nokia N80 < thats my Paul

Btw my bluetooth is simply "Andy"

What's yours? Leave a comment and let us know 🙂

* We decided to try having it after Christmas for some reason

Convention pt2

What a journey!

We set off on time at 5am, the driver announced that to get to Olympia on time we wouldn’t be stopping along the way, what with the coach having toilets and tea and coffee facilities available.

Safe in this knowledge, I went straight to sleep.

Things started to go wrong when we approached Northampton Services and I’m woken by the driver announcing we will stop after all. As we were making such good time, we could afford a 1/2 hour coffee and loo stop. I’ve been here before and know that the traffic may be flowing freely so far but the closer to London the worse its gonna get. Add to this that its been snowing on the journey and its settling, that’s sure to start upsetting the flow pretty soon.

Sure enough, as soon as we set off we start to hit traffic and shortly afterward we’re crawling along. Cue lots of texts and calls to senior management informing them of the delays.

I’ll spare you the more boring details, we arrived around 10:30, an hour and a half later than planned and half an hour after the convention was due to start. Others had been delayed so the start had been put back accordingly.

I’ll also spare you the messages that we were exposed to during the convention. The end of the event was around 14:30 and after each grabbing the provided packed lunch, we were back on the bus quickly, with everyone keen to get home.

The traffic on the way back was probably worse than in the morning. More snow coupled with the darkness drawing in made conditions worse and we crawled past several crashes and cars stuck in the overtaking lane after sliding into the central barrier.

We eventually got back to Sheffield around 18:30, 13.5hours after setting off. The only thing that kept me sane was Sharon sitting behind us and keeping us laughing.
Sharon On The Bus Hopefully you can play this file, it opens in Quicktime for me.
Thanks Sharon 🙂 I know you’re gonna kill me for this but I could’nt resist.

Convention

Oh, what fun, we are off to the big smoke tomorrow for a convention. Sounds good, doesnt it?

Except, registration is at 9am and the convention at 10am. About 2500 Managers from around the company are going and the 40 or so from the different depts in Sheffield are all on a coach leaving at 5am.

Uhhhhgg, that means getting up at 4am, an hour usually only glimpsed before climbing aboard a flight to sunnier climes. Oh well, I should get some sleep on the coach. I’m pretty lucky like that, I can sleep pretty much anyware, I’ve been known to fall asleep in the car during the 10 drive home from work!

The venue is Olympia which I’ve not been to before so that will be interesting. There are some panoramic views on the website and it looks like a fab building.

The event is actually set to last only 3 hours and then its back on the road home again 🙂 and more sleep for me.

By my reckoning, thats 3 hours “work” and lots of sleeping, not bad for a days pay!