So Sunday was a lovely Roast beef dinner with Mum, Dad, William, & Eleanor, followed by a trip to the park. More pictures available in the gallery, and on flickr.

So after checking with Rob that he was available for baby sitting duties and swearing him to secrecy, I ordered two tickets to “The Moscow State Circus” which is currently showing at the Anvil Theatre in Basingstoke.

Saturday arrived and Katrina arrived at the agreed time, still none the wiser to what I had planned. Well, after torturing her all week, I gave in a laid out the plans for the evening, starting with dinner at the local harvester, an old family favourite.

We arrived and grabbed a drink, before being seated. It didn’t take either of us long to figure out what we wanted, as we always order the same thing, and reading the menu is more part of the routine than to actually select something different. We grabbed some salad from the salad cart, one of the best bits, and usually enough to keep us from snatching the food from other peoples plates. We didn’t have to wait to long for our food to arrive, and we were both so hungry we more or less inhaled it. It was a nice change for both of us to have someone else prepare dinner, and better still for Katrina as she was able to eat her’s without having to look after the children first.

After dinner we drove into town and parked at the train station. We walked down to the Anvil and collected the tickets from the box office and purchased a couple of show programmes. We had timed it just right and within 5 minutes were asked to take our seats.

It was a great show with some amazing acts. Most of them seemed so young, but at the same time so strong, and agile. It’s really hard to describe what we saw, so I would recommend that if you get a chance to go and see it for yourself. They are currently touring the UK and the show dates and locations can be found here.

After the show we returned home and chatted over the evening over a beer, yawning until neither of us could stay awake any longer. A fantastic evening!

It wasn’t particularly warm but I did enjoy the walk. One of the problems with commuting every day is that I don”t really have the energy or time to get any real exercise, and this time of year only really see daylight out of the office window. I had a couple of PodCasts to catch up on so wrapped up warm and plugged into my iPhone

After a spot of lunch Mum dropped by as I had agreed to go TV shopping with her. She had seen my new Samsung and set her heart on one. So we headed up to Curry”s only to find that they didn’t have any in stock but said they could order one for delivery, but there would be a delivery charge. I asked if they could order it in and we would collect it but they said they couldn’t, if it was ordered it had to be delivered. Mum had really set her heart on walking away with the TV, so we headed over to Comet. They also didn’t have any in stock, but said they could order one and have it delivered Sunday with no delivery charge. It wasn’t walking away with one, but at least she would get one before the weekend was out. Mum then dropped my back at the garage to pick up my car. I drove home not noticing the software update they had performed to the Engine Management System, as they said I probably wouldn’t.

Saturday I got on with the normal chores and started to make a list of the job”s that need doing around the house. This weekend was supposed to be the weekend I started getting people round to quote for some of the bigger jobs, but after a crappy couple of weeks, I just wasn’t in the mood, so settled on writing lists. Saturday evening I was sad and ironed while watching TV.

Sunday I headed round to Mum and Dad”s to setup the TV on the promise of a roast dinner. The TV was delivered around midday and I was set straight to work setting it up. Now I believed that it had a Free View receiver built in, but quickly found that it didn’t. I then spent several hours trying to get it to work with there existing Thomson Free View box. In the end I was pretty sure it was the ariel but Mum came up with the idea of trying the portable ariel that she uses in the dinning room. This quickly proved it was the ariel and once we had swapped out the ariel cable, the setup was a breeze. We tided up and I connected the TV to their home network and showed them the Internet interaction, and then connected up the DVD player and tested that out by watching the BBC”s Earth Series.

Today I enjoyed a nice long lay in and then popped round to Mum & Dad”s as Mum looks after Eleanor on Mondays, and I hadn”t seen her or Katrina for a couple of weeks. Returning home I did the last few chores before plonking myself on the sofa where I spent the rest of the day.

Even though I had a chest infection (read Man Flu) I still had to take my turn having invisible cups of tea and falling down when shot with either a machine gun or a ray gun. All in all it was great fun and watching the kids open there presents was priceless. They really didn”t know what to play with first. Mum and Dad, as always, were excellent hosts and ensured we all had everything we could possibly want.

All the photo”s I took are now available in the Photo Gallery and on Flickr.

You can find the full set of photo’s either in the Photo Gallery or over on my Flickr page.

Lisa had brought William a sports day set, that included bean bags (for balancing on your head), ties (three legged race), sacks (sack race), and plastic eggs and spoons (for the breakfast race). Well, William wouldn’t let us sit still and we all had to play, of course there was only one rule, William had to win. This wasn’t a problem however as we had all had a drink or two. I caught the whole thing on the HandyCam so keep your eye’s peeled over the next week.

Dad did a wonderful BBQ and Mum ensured all the trimmings were available and everybody had a fantastic time, but by the end of the day I think we were all totally shattered and a little red from the sun. Monday I joined Mum, Dad, Lisa, Andy, and Sam for a roast dinner. It was another hot day but it’s the first roast dinner I have had in a while and I wasn’t going to turn it down. It didn’t disappoint!

I didn’t take an awful lot of photo’s (70 odd) as I have been trying to play with the HandyCam more, the one’s I did take can be found over on Flickr.

So last weekend was Easter and a four day weekend to-boot. The sun didn’t show up until Monday but it was a good chance to get things done. Friday I caught up with house stuff and personal paperwork. It was nice to get that all out of the way and still feel like there was a weekend ahead. Saturday I met up with Dad for a spot of lunch and a catch up and bumped into a very pregnant Anna and Dave. Both fed up of waiting for Baby Birkett to show up. We had a good chat and caught up with all the gossip, and made some up when we had run out of people to pick on. Sunday we all ventured down to Katrina & Rob’s for a lovely Sunday roast and to wind the kids up to the point they exploded! (Pictures Here) Monday was another catchup day, but I chose to spend it playing around with the computer and scanning in more of the old family pictures (Pictures Here).

Last week was fairly mixed. It was a little manic mainly due to the fact it was a short week, but Thursday and Friday were slow, a sign that some of the projects haven’t really kicked off, and an indicator maybe that it’s going to get really busy soon! I had an all day senior managers meeting on Wednesday which further shortened the week. It wasn’t really my kind of thing, but it was a good opportunity to catch up with the other senior managers who I tend to speak to on a regular basis, but not really interact with in any other way other than work.

Yesterday was another catch up day at home, not that I really got much done. Today looks like going the same way. I did pop round to Mum & Dad’s this morning and install some power line network extenders to try and boost there wireless signal downstairs, however I think I am going to chill out for the rest of the day.

The weekend didn”t fail to disappoint! Saturday was wonderful and I sacrificed getting completely hammered Friday night (called it a day after three glasses of wine) on the promise of sunshine. The boy did good! I didn”t rush up, but awoke leisurely at 09:00 ish, burbled around, and then headed out. I had most of my to-do list done by 11:00 and then took the car for a run. I do like a drive to nowhere session when it”s sunny and you can turn the music up and wind the window”s down. I popped by Mum and Dad”s to say hello and even jet washed the car (Not doing it again — that”s a rant). I am not quite sure where the rest of the day went but all I know is I didn”t stop until about 19:00. Saturday night I decided to chill in front of the TV but a million sky channels (another rant) and I still couldn”t sit still or find anything worth watching. So even though I said to myself I wouldn”t I ended up in front of the computer. I decided I still need to do *something* useful so I set about scanning more of the old family photos. I decided to concentrate on some of the ones that Mum had shown me, and as “Mothers Day” was on the horizon I couldn”t say no. It was actually quite cool as these were old black and white photo”s of my Nan and Grandads family, so as well as being interesting they gave me a chance to play as most of them were very faded and some were damaged.

Sunday morning I was awake with the birds, I did the few job”s that I had and then headed to Mum & Dad”s. I hadn”t been their long and Lisa and Andy turned up, closely followed by Katrina, Rob, and the kids. Coffee was the first order of the day and a good catchup. It wasn”t long and we started on the vino and hops. We sat around, chatted, and generally caught up. It was a very pleasant day but a little chilly and we moved between the garden and the lounge. We all enjoyed a fantastic roast beef dinner, cooked by Mum (Guilt) and sat around chewing the fat, before finally conceding to the real world and heading home to ready ourselves for work on Monday morning. Dam these weekends get shorter!

You can find the Photo”s here.

Well, doesn’t time fly I mean 2009 already. Looking back 2008 was a busy year for me, but generally good. What 2009 has in store I have no idea but I have quite a few plans and goals, so no doubt it will be just as busy.

This year I spent New Year’s Eve with my family at my sisters house. It was pretty quite, but good fun. It was also nice to spend more time with my Niece and Nephew. We all had a really nice dinner and then got into the drinking. We all got up New Year’s Day a little misty and tired, but a good old fashioned cooked breakfast sorted out everything but the tiredness.

The last few day’s have been spend catching up with stuff at home and generally resting before going back to work tomorrow. I’m kind of used to laying in until 10:00 now and getting up and 06:00 doesn’t appeal to me in anyway, shape, or form. Add to that the fact that it’s so cold at the moment there is a permanent covering of ice on the car, and it just becomes depressing.