Day 2922 & 2923 (30 & 31/12/2017)

Golly its nearly the end of the year.

Doing some work on Saturday, so hopefully the first newsletter for work will be going out early in the New Year; although admittedly I am having to remove the Christmas images I put on the one I started last month as I never got round to finishing it.

Lee came back Saturday and i made some nice meatballs & spaghetti.

On the Sunday we had breakfast at my Mum & Dad';s then went over to Gary & Elaine's in the evening to see in the New Year with a very nice buffet and a cheese & pineapple hedgehog :-)

 

Day 2921 (29/12/2017)

Basically a repeat of yesterday.

Day 2920 (28/12/2017)

I took some nighttime cough medicine overnight, which meant I had a much better sleep but didn't wake up until about 10am and then took a while to get into work mode.

Cleared a few reports at work, so not to busy.

Day 2919 (27/12/2017)

And all to soon Christmas is over and we are back to work but I had to do all of the recycling, so got my car washed.

My wife got me some of the new walnutless walnut whips, which are just wrong :-(

It's taken me a couple of weeks but I eventually got my blog up to date :-)

Day 2918 (26/12/2017)

Boxing Day was a relaxed day, well we were still exhausted from Christmas.

We went to my Mum & Dad's in the afternoon & evening, which was nice.

Sad that Lee had to go back to Rottingdean for work but we will see them in a week.

Day 2917 (25/12/2017)

Christmas day and we are just about ready.

We had some nice festive crumpets for breakfast and then opened a few presents.

Then we just got ready for dinner.

  

 

 

 

 

Still stuffed we just had an enjoyable evening, chatting and playing Christine's annual Christmas Quiz, which me and Elaine (well mostly Elaine if I'm truthful) won.

Day 2915 & 2916 (23 & 24/12/2017)

I had some work to do first thing Saturday but the rest of the day was fairly relaxed, I even had time to make a subtle repair the giant gnome Santa's and put them out for Christmas.

Then we made time to go to Bridgwater to make Kim's grave a bit festive, with a new little Christmas tree and fresh flowers. My wife always makes it looks nice for our friend.

On the way back we stopped off to warm up with a hot drink and a cake.

In the evening Lee joined us and we had some pizza's to make life a bit easier.

Sunday we had breakfast at my Mum & Dad's, which is in full festive swing.

 
In the afternoon we went up to Bristol to see Mary with all of Leah's family.

Then we went into Ashton to drop off some presents but as we had a slow puncture we pulled into a Sainsbury’s garage to put air in our tyres but the machine wasn’t working, so we drove off, just as someone ran into the garage, and we went up the road to another garage and used their machine instead.

Whilst putting the air into the tyres I was aware of a couple of police cars with two's & blues driving down the road but thought nothing more of it.

After dropping off the presents we went for some food at Nando's. The food was alright but it was really nice to all be together enjoying ourselves.

Then we drove of home but as we got into Taunton we were followed by a police car, which followed us in to Galmington and eventually stopped us with lights flashing, and were joined by more police cars and armed officers as apparently we had driven thru the Sainsbury's garage at the same time as an armed robbery took place and our vehicle had been circulated as being involved.

They even had to check the kids in the back weren't holding us at gun point.

The officers were OK and I think soon realised it was just a coincidence, so eventually we were free to go.

Day 2914 (22/12/2017)

Still full of a cold and felling slightly down about work but it might be nice to take a step back and have more time for my family and myself from next year.

Still not really ready for Christmas but I'm sure it will all be fine.

Day 2913 (21/12/2017)

I had meant to get up early to do some shopping but I had a bit of a lie-in, still suffering from a cold.

Then I went out to do my usual (but a bit later than normal) trip on behalf of the local food bank and saw my wife in the shop.

I couldn't do as much as usual as the trolley was fully loaded and heavy to try and manoeuvre but they were very pleased to receive the donation.

We should all try to help people less fortunate than ourselves.

I got back to work and had a bit of a bust-up come very strong disagreement with my business partner, so it could be a tense Christmas for the business. 

I spoke to a solicitor in the afternoon about an issue over my pension from 1996. I would have loved to take the police on, especially as it could have been worth a lot of money but I took his advice and will leave this one alone.

Hopefully the house will start to look a little bit more Christmasy this evening as we have eventually got the decorations down from the loft.

Day 2912 (20/12/2017)

Woke up full of a cold :-(

Lots of emails and post still to go thru but slowly catching up.

Day 2911 (19/12/2017)

It was lovely to have a sleep in my own bed but it was a bit of an earlier start than I would have wished as I had an appointment in Bristol to talk about a charity cycle ride we might be doing next year with an old friend who did the same journey this year. 

Our meeting gave us lots to think about but it was telling that this reasonably fit man hadn't been able to get back on his bike after finishing the journey 6 months ago.

Then back to the office for a mountain of emails and post to go thru (which is one of the reasons I hate going away).

Day 2910 (18/12/2017)

I was up after two hours sleep, in time for yet another shower to help wake me up before catching the 4:00am shuttle back to the airport. Luckily the flight went off with too many issues and in no time I was back in a chilly Bristol and then got home just before 8:00am.

I had a little sleep but woke up, still struggling with the time difference.

In the afternoon I made a nice beef stew :-)

 

Day 2908 & 2909 (16 & 17/12/2017)

The last day of the course started with another breakfast at the hotel.

And some tempura conga ell and a nearby restaurant, which was quite nice.

In the evening I had a bit of a walk around and ended up having a steak in a grill place.

 

Then back to the hotel to sleep and have an early night as I had to be up at about 6:30am as my taxi was booked for 7am as the airport I'm booked back on is about 2hrs away from the hotel.

I got to see some more of the city on the taxi journey.

 

  

Then at the airport I was able to relax and have some croissants, french toast and waffles with an orange juice, rather than the spicy Japanese food and loads of alcohol that was on offer.

 

 

Then on to the plane and back into business class but not really able to drink as I have to drive my car later.

 

 

 

 

 

After the nice roast beef dinner, I had a few hours kip and then mote food, this time roast lamb.

At Paris I had to sit in the departures lounge for several hours before I could check my bag in, by which time my plane was showing as being delayed 2 1/2 hrs, then it got more and more delayed due to issues with landing equipment at Bristol Airport.

They handed out voucher cards, so I bought some food just as they said our 9:25pm flight was now going to be a 6:00am flight. 

So we had to check-out of the airport with our bags and then they arranged a hotel for everyone which obviously took ages, so it was about 1am before I got into my room and was able to remove my compression socks and have a nice shower.   

Then time just for a couple of hours sleep before I an due to be picked up and taken back to the airport.