halva

Today I received an email invitation from my 82 year old grandparents to their Boxing Day family party.

You are invited to Boxing Night Dinner at *address snipped* 7pm.

This year, to bring it up to date with 'young person's practice' it
has:

A THEME

You are asked to think of a metaphorical expression used in every
day conversation, which taken literally does not make sense, and
illustrate it either by full fancy dress or fancy appendage.

Example: "I don't know if I'm on my head or my heels"
Fancy appendage: Head dress with 2 heels. Back of shoes - picture of a
head.

See, quite simple.

Incentive: A small prize for the best
RSVP by December 12th 2008 to *email snipped*

They never cease to amaze me. I need to think seriously about a decent costume. :)

Even though scarfell and I were knackered on Friday after work, we shoved some clothes in a bag, jumped in the Bongo and drove to Anglesey. We try to make it there at least once a year but because of the wedding we hadn't been at all this year and figured that we should go before it gets to cold to be camping. We arrived at around 10pm, had a cup of tea and went to bed in the roof.

We camped with my mum and dad in Newborough at a site that hasn't changed at all since the 80s. I have some fantastic childhood memories - but today the site is in need of a facelift and we all spent the weekend fantasising about what we could do with the place - if we had the money.

On Saturday, after a large cooked brekkie, we walked out to Llanddwyn Island, which isn't truly an island and only gets cut off at very high tides. We looked around the pilots' cottages and lazed on the beach for an hour or so before walking to a relatively secluded cove. I've not swum off Anglesey since 2000, so I decided to brave the water, followed by mum and dad, while scarfell probably quite sensibly paddled. It wasn't the coldest I've ever experienced but it wasn't particularly warm either!

On the walk home, we came across a mussel bed and met a couple of brummie guys in a bright pink sea kayak, collecting mussels for their tea. I got all Ray Mears and collected a few, which we then made into the smallest ever moule marinere for dinner. It was very nice but quite gritty, even after cleaning the mussels carefully. Mum and dad barbecued some Moroccan lamb and sausages and I fell asleep while the others watched Casablanca after demolishing 3/4 of a bottle of red wine.

Today we had a look around Beaumaris and walked along the pier where lots of families were catching crabs. It was raining and a bit cold so in true British style we had icecream. There were a lot of very harried-looking seagull parents being followed around by their extremely large, very well fed, almost-fledged chicks. My parents made pithy comments about understanding how they felt.

The drive back was dreadful but it was worth it. I'm glad we got to go before the end of summer.

I have just realised that the 'thumpy thumpy dance music' I can hear outside is not the neighbours but Creamfields festival going on 3 miles away. Damn, it's loud.

Just been killed by the "pale bulbous eyes". Earlier I got stuck in a loop where I escaped the goblin's dungeon only to be recaptured, again and again. Evidently I am no better at adventure games than when I was seven.

Also, my walkthrough has an error!

So very wrong in so many ways. Someone sent me a link to the Cake Wrecks site today. I can't decide whether my personal favourite is the James Bond wedding cake or the creepy dead baby cake. Works of genius!

I have a poorly guinea pig. Poor Amber has not been her usual perky hyperactive self so I took her to the vets, suspecting she had a UTI (urinary tract infection). Turns out she may have had that but she's also got some kidney stones poor thing. An x-ray today confirmed this. Luckily they're small enough to pass but... ouch. So I have some pain medication and instructions to make sure she always has enough water. She's already had a week of antibiotics and is a bit more active but seeing as this is my into-everything-plotting-to-take-over-the-world pig, then I'm still not so happy with how she's looking or behaving.

Here are some piccies taken with my new Canon EOS 400D. They're not fantastic as I've not figured out how to take good pics without the flash inside.

( Cut for space )

Work is better-ish, although I have had an old project landed back on me, just when I thought I'd managed to escape. Boo. Hopefully it will only be for a couple of weeks though.

Very cool. Some guy has attached a camera to his cat's collar. The pictures are here.

I've always wondered exactly what Menolly gets up to when she's out and about!

I am looking at broken links checkers. Does anyone have any experience with these? What makes a good one? Ideally, I'm looking for a piece of software, rather than an online one, though if people have any recommendations of good online ones I'm happy to check those out too.

I wish I knew more about this stuff. My web knowledge dates back to writing very basic sites as a student circa 1998.

The car valeting place next door to the office are playing Shakin Stevens loudly. That coupled with the theme tune to The High Life currently playing in my head is making my morning quite surreal.

*swoosh*

That would be me on my shiny new wireless internet. I'm not even remotely guilty that I've just spent most of my day off playing on it. I love working flexitime.

( Cut for speedtest picture )

Faster than my old NTL connection. More expensive but Zen are supposed to be a reliable ISP so I'm not complaining too much. Plus they're in Rochdale, so I can always go and burn their offices down if they annoy me.

Since last posting, scarfell and I have finally moved into our new house after literally a couple of weeks of cleaning. The place had not been left in a particularly good state. The couple who rented it before us smoked and the husband was a butcher. We reckon they did about 55,923 roasts in the oven without cleaning it and didn't clean it when they left. We had to soak the shelves in the bath. And the fridge shelves and when I cleaned the paintwork, nicotine and tar ran down the walls. Mmmm.

We've got most of the cigarette smell out but for some reason the bathroom carpet reeks. Do people smoke in their bathrooms?? I am leaning towards throwing the entire thing out because when you turn the shower on and it gets all steamy, you get this interesting miasma of old cigarettes, which is really unpleasant.

Other than those setbacks, it really is a lovely place. We had a housewarming barbecue last weekend and it's starting to feel a lot more like home. The internet connection goes a long way towards this - when did we all get so dependent?!

The guinea pigs have moved in too. They're currently snoozing in their shoeboxes next to me while I type. Every now and then they'll pop out, swear at me to bring them food, realise that I'm not a sucker and then settle down again. I may give in and get them cucumber in a minute.

TV-wise, I'm currently addicted to the new series "Heroes". Thank goodness I found it because we'd just finished Battlestar Galactica and were starting to get withdrawal symptoms. I admit to being quite partial to the young Indian lead character.

I feel the need for another cup of tea.

astalavista or dasleben might be able to help me here. I'm looking for information on recycling in German. What is the most common term for recycling bin? I looked up Papierkorb on Wikipedia and got a fabulously detailed page on litter bins. My life is now complete. Is it Wiederverwertung Behälter?

Bah, my German sucks after all these years.

Ho hum, I feel so lucky to have such a varied and interesting job!