(Un)Crowded House

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening* folks...

... let me just get this out of my system. ENGLAND!!!!!! WOOOT!!!!!!

Ahem! There, that's enough of that. Apart from the obvious, what else happened this weekend. Well after being totally annoyed by my camera the last time I tried to use it (long story short, the battery lasts about 30 secs) I spotted a reasonably good deal on a camera, while shopping on Saturday. Never been one to resist, I promptly loitered around the shop until i'd convinced myself it was a worthwhile purchase and then bought it. I'm determined to get some use out of this camera so I thought what better way to start then to take some pictures of my house to show you guys.

I've actually lived in the house for over a year, but I know most of you haven't actually seen it, so here's your chance...

This is obviously the front of my house (the one on the left). As you can see the front lawn slopes away in 2 directions from the front door. It causes me no end of problems to cut so i'm going to turn it into a tiered garden instead as soon as I decide on the how.

This is the back garden. Yes the grass is turning yellow, but i hope to revive it soon. Again, the garden slopes down from the back door (that's the kitchen as well). Now you know where this blog get's it's name. Let's go inside...

This is the front room. I was playing about with the camera's indoor setting and hadn't quite got the hang of it by this point. And finally...

The kitchen. Not alot to see here. I'm actually stood in a vast empty corner of the kitchen tot ake this photo. Eventually I'll put a table and chairs in here so that it can double as a dining area. But with it just being me here at the moment, I've had no real need for a table. So as you can see it's a reasonably sized 2 up, 2 down (although you'll have to take my work on the 2 up part). It was a bit untidy upstairs so you'll have to wait until i show you that.

For me living here for over a year has taken some getting used to. Having lived with my parents for a year before moving out again it was a bit of a shock on having to do everything again. It's especially hard to find time to get everything that I would like to so around the house done. So that's my house, hopefully someday you guys will be able to see it in the "brick" as it were.

*ignore as appropriate.

Hmmm, The Force is Strong With This One.

I have now been doing T'ai Chi for a month know and last week I finally managed to meet the head instructor last week. He was VERY impressive. Not in the way that Arnold Schwhateverhis nameis in his action movie days. No, this guy is definately impressive in the Yoda mould. It doesn't help that he physically resembles Yoda a little. He's short with thining hair and definately speaks in riddles.

And last week he demonstrated the use of life energy or 'Chi' as it is a fundamental part of Daoist T'ai Chi, which is the type of T'ai Chi. Up until now everything we have been doing has been to "improve our health and wellbeing" which is also to improve the flow of 'Chi' around the body. The demonstration was how you can use your Chi as part of the arts. This included the demonstration of 4 huge guys (2 on each arm) attempting to bend his arms, while he tried to prevent them. That is to bend them at the elbow (not actually to bend his arm in places it ain't meant to).

If he tensed his muscles, they managed to bend his arms. Buth then he decided to use his Chi instead. This time they couldn't bend his arm at all. He could even still wiggle his fingers to indicate that his arm was relaxed. That wasn't the most astonishing bit. He stood about 3 metres away from an opponent and managed to unbalance them, without actually touching them. Even when they were prepared for it. I half expected to turn round and see him standing on his head balancing rocks.

Of course, I can't do any of that stuff yet, but it makes you wonder if sometimes were too quick to dismiss somthing without seeing it in action first.

Not much else has gone on over the last week. Except that a decision has been over the front garden. I'm going to dog it up, level it out into tiers and plant some plants and shrubs along each tier. I just need to decide what's going on each tier...

...decisions, decisions.

Thought for the Day: You can be loved by many, but can you only love one in return?

The Fugitive!

... we interupt your usual programming to bring you this breaking news!

Sorry folks my blog of the weekend has been pushed to one side. For those of you interested it consisted of lots of football and lots of cheesecake. What more can a guy want?

Today, or specifically this evening has been much more interesting. After getting back from work I wanted to go out for a walk, but it was way too hot. So I decided to make dinner and then go out when it was cooler. I made a real hash of tea. Not the edible kind either. I started making pasta sauce, before realising I had no Pasta, so i substituted noodles. Then he lid came off the salt as i was cooking the noodles. I thought I managed to catch most of it, but I was wrong. The tomato noodles just tasted of salt in the end and i was basically just left with the salad on my plate.

I should have known it wasn't going to be my evening and stayed indoors after that.

Instead I knew I had a letter to post so I decided a walk to the postbox was in order, followed by a quick walk around the public footpaths through the fields that circle the village. As I walked to the post box i noticed a helicopter circling the estate. As it went overhead I noticed it was a police helicopter. As I walked through the village I noticed it circled a couple more times then disappeared.

That wasn't the last time I would see it!

I walked through the village to the fields and noticed a sign for a path I had't noticed before. Curious, I walked down he public footpath only to realise it ended at a fence and didn't seem to go anywhere. As I walked back across the field the helicopter appeared overhead again. As I walked back through the village I noticed it appeared to be circling again.

Not that I'm paranoid, but it wasn't long before I realised it was circling me! So it came as no surprise when a policecar suddenly pulled to a halt in front of me a couple of minutes later. IT turns out they were looking for someone and after seeing me walking across the fields they thought I looked very suspicious.

After a few questions everything was straightened out, but I felt pretty embarrassed about it all. But hat could I have done. I'm out for a walk and end up being mistaken for leeds most wanted.

I half expect to see my face on a wanted poster attatched to a lampost. Underneath is the phrase "Dead or Alice".

Thought for the Day: True faith must be earned. Hope however, should always be there.

Parlez vous anglais?

I'm back.

Yep that's right, I've managed to survive my sojurn to the French heartland. I flew from Leeds to Paris to rendezvous (not quite out of french mode yet) with an Engineer who was driving down from Belgium. As you would expect it takes an Englishman and a Belgian to sort out problems of French making. The drive from Paris to Niort (a town about 50Km east from La Rochelle) took us about 5 hours. We then discovred that our hotel wasn't in the town, but in a village about 15 minutes outside the town.

The village was called Coulon and basically consisted of restaurants and hotels. There are so many restaurants taht they all open on different days of the week so as to gaina decent amount of trade on an evening. I can imagine the village is heaving in the middle of summer. The hotel was right by the riverfront and as such we were treated to the local wildlife most mornings/evenings. Oh and the local wildlife appeared as speciallities in the local restaurants.

I managed to resist the temptation to try frogs and eels all week. I don't know how!

Overall the place was very nice and the job wasn't too difficult. I only had 7 people (and a limb) to cremate over the 3 days, so in between testing the machine and cremating there wasn't really much to except sit outside in the sunshine and read. It was a successful and fairly enjoyable trip, up until the Friday.

I was due to fly back to Leeds from Paris at 2pm on Friday. Unfortuantely the French were indulging in there favourite pasttime of striking that day. This time it was the Paris metro workers. This forced a lot more traffic onto the already overused ring road system. It took us 4 hours to get to Paris and another 2 - 2 1/2 hours to make our way around it! I was knackered and I hadn't even got on the aircraft.

I managed to make it home in Leeds by 4pm. Having managed to survive the rigours of French drivers and french food and yet to face the ultimate chalange for the week. Getting up the energy to unpack my cases and then repack for the weekend...

...to be continued.

Observation of the week. In all my travelling France over the week I only ever so 1 field of cows and 1 field of sheep!