Last week Damian and I took a short weeks holiday in Kent, staying in Hever just down the road from the famous castle where Anne Boleyn the wife of Henry VIII lived. Finding the hotel set the overall theme for the holiday - getting lost! Damian did a fantastic job map reading and always got us where we wanted to go but the road signs in Kent are just plain rubbish. The condition of the roads.... other than the few main roads to / from London the rest are a mess. You think the rural roads here in Norfolk are bad, you won't believe just how many potholes there are in the roads in Kent.

Our hotel was the quaint old dairy farm for the castle, our room number 21 was originally a pig sty!

Over the five days we visited 7 pubs *, 3 castles, 2 museums, 1 brewery, looked up 1 old friend, got lost about 10 times, oh and and 1 three level Nuclear Bomb shelter.

* That would be seven pubs where we drunk. On Monday lunchtime it felt like we'd woken up on one of those insane dry states in the USA. We walked the entire town centre of Tonbridge and didn't find a single pub that could serve lunch - nuts. Other than that we had some really gorgeous beer even if we distressingly ended up in far too many Green King pubs and had to have their guess beers! Drive a hundred odd miles..... ^_~

The climax of beer tasting was on Thursday when we visited the Shepherd Neame brewery. I didn't realise they had such a diverse brewing portfolio, they actually brew six lagers...

The whole week was wonderful but if I had to pick a favourite day it would be the day we visited Leeds Castle.

The grounds of the castle are beautiful, we almost had them to ourselves it was so quiet.

At there are also lots of birds to see at the duckery and avery

Also a pretty cool maze with an interesting twist in the middle

Some photos from inside the castle

After visiting the castle we went to Bluewater, mainly just out of curiosity as I've seen the signs for it so many time and wondered what the hype was about... Outside it looks huge, but inside, initially I thought wow big, but after we'd walked around it it seemed a bit small. Still an Apple store and a Lego store, very cool! I oh so nearly came away with a new MacBook. I really don't like the new aluminum ones so £200 off one of the last white plastic ones was very tempting.

I think I said we had good food and great beer. That evening we had an amazing starter. It was stacked in a tower, piccalilli at the bottom with black pudding deep fried with a ginger coating, next a poached egg and then topped with a few salad leaves and a good dash of balsamic. OMFG, can't remember the last time I had something so good as that.

The most bizarre day easily has to be the return journey. Damian noticed signs for Kelvedon Hatch nuclear bunker on the way down, so we stopped off on the way back. For a start its still hard to find, when you drive to it, you basically drive in a long dirt track around a farmers field. We got there as soon as it opened and were the first people there. It was spookily deserted. The place outside looked quite rundown, really starting to make me worried that it was run by skin head, military nut, thugs...

A sign on the entrance said to take an audio tour and pay when you leave but if you want to take photos to go to the canteen and purchase a license. So we followed the path to the canteen which came to what looked like an overgrown hobbit hole. They'd actually cut a hole through the wall of the bunker to make and extra entrance. Anyway we got inside and still no one about... So we headed back to the entrance got an audio tour and went around... Inside its really well documented, very interesting and really doesn't beat around the bush pointing out that was a futile act of desperation building it.

If another two people hadn't come in just after we entered the bunker we wouldn't have seen anyone else until we came to leave. The people who run the place were just as odd when we left. They didn't speak to us, make eye contact, anything... We even paid by putting money into a honesty box. Very odd place.

Possibly really foolishly (given all the weather warnings) we took a trip to the coast yesterday. It was bloody freezing. So cold that my hands, jammed firmly in my pockets were aching. Anyway some photos I look, including the strange tower on the church in Little Snoring that isn't attached to the church. Is it me or would it look better more in place on the set of Van Helsing?

How small is this house? One room one up, one down!

My car seems to be made of fail. It feels like its wobbling when I hit 60 mph. When I took it in for a service a few months ago I got them to check it over and they said the tracking and tires are fine... I think its getting worse. I worked until six* so I didn't end up in all the rush hour traffic but it felt so much worse that I ended up pulling off the bypass and driving on the slowest roads through city home :-/

I need to get this sorted asap. Damian has managed to get a week off work so we are going on holiday (queue three weeks of attempting to spend no money until we go). Not too far, just the other side of London into Kent, about 3 to 3 1/2 hours drive from here but there are reasonably quick roads in between. So Saturday its over to my parents so my dad can have a look and its it serious back into the garage next week.

* Still this is helping me get ahead with work. The manager for my current project is panicking about the amount of time left before we go into test. I'm going have all the work done in time, this is positive luxury I've got 7 weeks until testing starts. But what she doesn't know is that I have that week off as holiday, 3 days on an SSIS training course and 2 day out the office on a work event all in February. My plan is to get everything completed within the next three weeks before I go on holiday.

Interesting use of RFID
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/14/review_rfid_kit_violet_mirro/

Damian cooked this tasty but odd "lasagna" yesterday. The recipe he followed was strange, it sort of was this weird hybrid of ratatouille and lasagna. Strictly following the recipe it only had one layer of lasagne sheets but also had layers of aubergine. The cheese sauce only went on top and that was the oddest of all. Evidently the author didn't believe in roux, you know its like so medieval, with a cheese and a little milk as it involved mustard and eggs. The sauce was impossible to save, the pan of it is still sitting on the stove 24 hours later its only just vaguely gelatinous - each time I prod it I expect blood to float to the surface ^_~

We were lying in bed sunday morning having a bit of a random conversation. To cut a long story I was wondering if you could buy pants with Fleur-de-lis on them which naturally took us to trying to work out other instantly recognisable symbols that define a country. You know Fleur-de-lis for France. A dragon or daffodil or leek for Wales. Thistle or tartan for Scotland. That sort of thing. What we couldn't decide on was a symbol for England. We came up with a few but they all seemed to new or not recognisable enough or just borrowed from somewhere else. St Georges Cross but that just a cross... Dragon and unicorn but that's a bit obscure. Oak leaf? An old phonebox or London bus but they seem a bit too new. Ideas?

Finally after all the struggling I've moved! I got they keys after lunch Friday and spent the rest of the day moving boxes out of my brothers garage, across the road via sack barrow and into my new house. All under Sesame's watchful eye. She was darting from window to window in my brothers house tracking my progress ^_^

I'm a good way moved in and unpacked now. Mainly thanks to Damian for being so sweet and helping me all day Sunday. Especially for unpacking and putting my books in alphabetical order and then jokingly putting my herbs and spices in alphabetical order. I'm really not that bad!

This weekend I should get all the major things finished like putting up the blinds in the kitchen and bead curtain on the patio doors. Then I need to start getting the few bits out of my parents garage and boxes in the loft. And all the rest... ^_~

Moving home and divorce - too most stressful things you can do, thank god I can't get married! I really wish I could shift time forward 16 days.

The house move stuff seems to be going ok now. (I think) I've finally done everything major I need to do (other than packing and paying). There was a bit of a panic last week, when it seemed that the deeds for my house had vanished, nope I'd had them all the time and hadn't realised.

My old house is now up online for sale:
http://www.propertyfinder.com/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=504167146&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=®ionid=&tb=&c=89725480&tm=1224534439

Starting to get people coming around to view it which is a pain whilst I'm trying to pack / move stuff to my brothers garage. I really should have hovered my bedroom and done the washing up for the woman that's coming to view it tomorrow, just too tired - didn't finally sit down this evening until 8pm. I think she's going to be a problem, already she's had a bit of a moan via the estate agent that I won't be at home at 2pm to show her around...

The car problem with the cabin filling with fumes is getting worse. It was in the garage last week, but they couldn't find what was wrong with it so its going back in this week which is going to put a bit of a dent in my packing and moving.

I'm currently planning to move out the weekend before I exchange if my sofa will fit in the back of my dad's car. It will mean four or nights roughing it in a sleeping bag on a floor somewhere but when I complete I won't be frantically trying to get everything packed at the last minute. Right now I'm so stressed I could really do with an uneventful completion.

Me being stressed and all the changes are unsetting Sesame. She keeps following me around screaming her lungs out at me for getting home so late. With my mind constantly reviewing everything and her at night she's taken to knocking / attacking the boxes my insomnia is getting full reign.

Work isn't helping stress wise. Laptops I need for a training course finally turned up over a week late, something is wrong with them so the software won't install, just can't get some Lotus Notes automation code I'm working on to work - I've come to the opinion that IBM don't produce a single useful product.

Anyway, <emo />

Sort of said GO! To the house saleswoman this morning. Should have a bunch of estate agents want to visit this week to value my house... if they offer me a decent price for a part exchange she said she would aim to have me moved by the start of November at the latest..!

Still not sure if its the best idea I've ever had, but it makes sense from a certain point of view. Can't find any photo's online and the best I can do for floor plans, is this view of the downstairs:


The upstairs is the master bedroom plus en suite and bathroom over the kitchen / dining room and the two other bedrooms over the sitting room.

Down sides, other than the increased mortgage is little "safe" space for Sesame to play, currently zero mobile phone reception, its rather close to a school and I'm going to end up using my car a hell of a lot :-/

My bike is now totally christened. As it was badly windy (my normal route is really exposed) I decided to explore around the lake next to the Uni this morning. It was like being 12 again bombing down muddy paths in the rain getting thoroughly sprayed with mud ^_^ My shins are still a little tender from all the stinging nettles I clipped. Still muddy even after washing. Totally worth it. New route:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108567020628611005565.0004553b79e468da9fb9a&ll=52.606748,1.240253&spn=0.064529,0.144024&t=h&z=13

My bathroom sink always gets blocked. The problem is that the water picks up no speed leaving the sink and sits in the pipe.

A couple of years ago I got so fucked off with it one Sunday I decided to re do all of the plumbing. Problems started there. The monkeys that built my house ran the waste pipe around just under the lip of the bath, ie no drop so no gravity to speed up the water. The waste pipe also goes UP..! To cap it all my bath doesn't have a bath panel, its tongue and groove wood panels that have been GLUED, NAILED AND FUCKING SCREWED into a frame that holds the metal enamel bath. I ever want to re do the plumbing I have to smash the bastard to pieces. Oh yeah and my bath is larger than standard sized so I can't just pick up a replacement bath panel in the DIY store...

Sink blocked on Tuesday, I just couldn't clear the block. I decided to take apart and clean the pipes I could get to and adjust it so the water doesn't flow up. The whole sink is a joke. Can't get a bucket underneath without taking the whole sink off the wall (some crazy arsed design). So I cut up aluminium serving platters to create a chute for the water whilst I took each section out at a time... Oh Gods, the smell. I've never been sick due to the smell of something. That was seriously tested today. The pipes were like smokers arteries, couldn't see through them. Can't quite get the feeling of that sludge out of my head. Washed my hands so many times, I'm really hungry but I just can't face eating anything that these hands touch *shudder*.

It's a serious amount of rain that's falling tonight... walls of rain. It does sound really cool, five floors up at James's place listening to it lash the building. One of the most peaceful noises, if I can hear rain on water running I'm guaranteed to sleep really well.

Once it got dark we had a play around with, lets call it a red light marker, out the window to see how far it would shine. He was tell me the distance, I couldn't believe how far it shines. Was cool watching the way the rain caused a flickering red beam show up.

Out for my regular Sunday morning bike ride this morning. I've finally settled on a route I like and which Google tells me is just short of nine miles, though it felt a lot more with the wind today.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108567020628611005565.000453938b279c73102a9&ll=52.593246,1.237593&spn=0.053391,0.11055&z=13
(I've been playing with Personal Google Maps so hopefully this is viewable)

I found this quirky little footbridge over the Norwich Southern Bypass on Monday which I've been using a lot to get out of the city by bike avoiding all the major roads. Its great, even has this little green ramp bit you can push your bike up its stepped up / down. I love that its at the end of one of the roads around here that got just cut in half to build the bypass - you have to weave around this metal closed road gate and then cycle down this totally overgrown road. There's this big old oak that I really must stop and climb. The way its branches have grown it looks like it could be pretty comfortable. Plus I think part of its hollow - which has got me remembering Enid Blyton's The Hollow Treehouse ^_^

I was cycling the return stretch and I could see this small black thing suspended between two posts in a corn field. Trying to fit the shape to something in my head. I kept thinking its a dead bird. But you know who would do that these days... and it is. A dead crow or raven strung up, wings out and pulled into some twisted faux taxidermy scary position - grim.

My car is in the garage at the moment and I've got the garage loan car. Damn its poor as. Its the most basic Fiat Panda you can get - high sided with a tiny wheel base so the slightest wind makes it bounce around the road. Its got the illusion of speed until you need it, then its as gutless as fuck... For such a small useless car it manages to guzzle petrol at an astonishing rate. My C2 cost me £50 every six weeks to fill up with diesel, in the same time period I'd end up spending £90 filling up this Fiat with petrol. I don't like my C2 but driving this Fiat makes me appreciate it even if I should have spent my money a little more wisely on something that carries a couple less people and goes a lot quicker.

Unfortunately my two weeks off work comes to an end in a few hours :( After two weeks of socialising, xboxing and book buying, going back in is going to be a struggle. I'm not sure I fancy being in a non air conditioned office tomorrow with this heat.

Still its been a good couple of weeks and I have a lot of cool new books, some very good birthday loot ones from John. FutureWorld is brilliant, it links science fiction to science fact and gives the roots of the ideas. Johannes Kepler, wow amazing, especially for his time.

Hmm other good things, Army of Two, not as good as Halo, but one of the best games I've played in a long time. The ability to pimp your guns is so ridiculous its good.

Also...

	New Bike This is my shiny new bike. Its really good fun to have two wheeled transport again and surprisingly quick. I can nip from my house to James's in 20 minutes which I guess is about three miles.
	Best Way To Clean Optics James demonstrating the best way to clean optics.

LMAO. Just scared myself something silly by working out how much I spent on an international call. Totally forgot to divide by 100 to get the answer in pounds. £800 rather than the £8 I guessed at the time. I just need to remember my math is made of fail ^_~

Still, in my frantic searching of the BT website I did discover that for an extra £1 a month you can knock call charges to 1/4 of normal...

cross post test 7

Just setup a friends PS3 / their wireless network. Whilst I was doing the wireless settings on the PS3 I was having some trouble, my brain kept telling me the button I was using to select / confirm / ok was wrong.



Took me a second to work it out, its the "select" button, its just wrong. Maybe its only in the west but what symbol means no / wrong / cancel etc more than an X? Its not like its even green. Why aren't the cross and the triangle buttons the other way around? I have this image in my head of the original Play Station designers sitting in a meeting room arguing that the X button can't be green as it would confuse people.... ;)

Yoinked from mz_pink

Book meme
"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see." *
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them
5) Make a different colour those books where you've seen the film/cartoon/tv series (I don't care that it's not relevant to the meme).
6) Strikethrough those books you have absolutely no intention of ever reading unless you're marooned and even then may still consider using it as toilet paper as opposed to not going insane thru boredom.

* Now having gone through the list below I am a little surprised at how many of them I have actually read, even if I don't like them. TBH I expected them to be all very much the type of novel I've no interest in reading. I do wonder if that sat has less relevance on LJ as opposed to MySpace for example. Also, honestly who put this list together 33 and 36... *sighs*

( Book list )

Is every one starting to go tea crazy at the moment? Loads of people seem to have picked up a special tea. Not that I'm complaining. I picked up some Assam from the Tesco finest range - going for the posh tea of course ;) - its a little off, the tea bags seem to be made of something like nylon. I really don't know if it makes a better brew but I can't help but think I'm making tea in a pair of pants...


Angie and Mike have just got back from holiday and Greece. I am now the owner of some traditional Greek slippers, look they are blue! *^_~*



They are also so comfortable, a bit like those ninja split toe / bit toe shoes!