500 hours

 Just passed 500 hours on the latest Football Manager.  The previous version I totalled 700+.  There's at least 5 months till the next one comes out so i'm on track.

Birthday / final day of the fantasy football competition

 It was our friend's birthday party on Sunday and it also coincided with our annual meet up for the fantasy football group we're in.

Here's the trophy, won this year by Stuart Penney

Watching the Liverpool game

My friend's had a bar fitted into his house.  Awesome!

Arthur trying to get served at the bar

Who's going to win

 We went on a family walk on Sunday morning with the kids and the dog.  Arthur's getting much better but we still have to carry him for much of the way.

Vapour trail.  Not sure what the plane was doing to cause this.

Race!  I know who my money's on...

Arthur's birthday

 It was Arthur's 2nd birthday on Saturday and we hired a local hall for him and some of his closest friends from the nursery to enjoy the fun.

Flo blew up 30 odd balloons herself

Inflatables

Cake!

The birthday boy!

He, he!

Arthur's two tomorrow!

 It's Arthur's 2nd birthday tomorrow.  We've got a big party planned at a local venue where we've got an indoor bouncy castle set to arrive.  He will never remember this but April will and that's what it's all about...

He's got 6 or 7 friends and their families from his nursery coming plus a bunch of our local friends to help out.  It should be fun.  We're all piling round back to ours afterwards so that should be fun too.

A lot has to due to the pandemic, but a lot of my friends have never met him or maybe never will, which is sad but I guess people drift away and it can't always be the same as when you were 15.

Interesting social media interactions...

 I'm off most social media these days, mostly because I feel the bad sides of it out weigh the things I enjoy.  

In order to post videos to this blog I tend to upload them to YouTube rather than save them locally then upload.  Lazy on my behalf but what can you do?  By putting them on YouTube it makes them publicly available and some get quite a few views.

What interests me is the amount of likes some of the videos get, or more specifically the amount of dislikes.  The highest views i've had for one of my videos is approximately 2.5k, but the ones that seem to get the most traction sit at around the 1k mark. I generally get 80% likes ratio which on the face of it sounds good, but when I really think about it, it's pretty shit.  Not many of my friends (who know I have a blog) actually bother clicking on the videos anyway as I can see quite a few only have 1 or two views or on some even 0.  Ignoring that, my point is who would actually bother moving their mouse to the dislike button?  95% of my videos are about my dog or my children.  Fair enough, you might not be interested in my dog or my children but to actively make the effort to dislike it???  I think there's something wrong with you.  I'm glad I don't use social media and i'm glad i'm not you

Not many out dog walking this afternoon

 

A bit damp

Although not amazing excited about heading out Arwen soon got into the swing of things

Stupid cat!  Josie is sitting on Arwen's towel so I can't even dry her. 

Last night was fun

We ended up killing the giant beholder Xanathar and one!

Next week we're making characters for Vampire the Masquerade. Should be fun too.

 

This morning's walk

 I forgot to bring Flo's school back with us this morning so I had to go home and pick that up which means i've now done 17k steps before work.  Here are some photos

Swan

Photo bomb

Some red flower

Buttercup

Field left to fallow

Rugby posts coming down for the summer months

 Not sure why they bother as they'll only have to put them back again in August / September.  Maybe it's to give the ground a bit of a rest from supporting the weight.

Steps

 I managed to download my step counter data from Samsung Health but it was in a pretty poor state to easily manipulate and make sense of.  I'm sure it all makes sense to proper developers but I didn't have the time or inclination to sort it out.  In the end I went old school and typed out the data.

I'm not that fussed about daily data, more interested in trends so just copied out the monthly data for steps and distance going back to September 2016.  That must be when I first started using Samsungs.

Any way here are the highlights...

Here's average daily steps per month.  Below is the same but with each year split by month.

I've been really upping my game this year.  It coincides with me being consistently the lightest i've been for 10+ years.  If I walk the dog and take Flo to school in the morning i've already done 12k steps before work.  I've then got to pick up Flo or Arthur in the evening which is another 3k minimum.  If April's in town and getting back late / staying over i've got to do a second dog walk and pick up another child.

Weekends are low as we struggle taking the dog out as much as we'd like as it's tough sometimes juggling two kids at the same time but once they're a bit older and easier to manage things will improve.

Interesting stats

Last year I stepped  4.6m times

Mid way through May i've already done more than a million steps more than at the same point last year.

Last year I recorded 3,490 km

I'm currently averaging 12.9km per day in 2022, it was 6.2km in 2016

Ice cream defence

 April was in town today and was picking up Arthur later that usual.  As a special treat I took Flo to the posher ice cream shop on the way home.  Here she is defending her ice cream.

Pleased walk home

What a mess

Anyone else get one of these?

I received this in the post this morning. A special bag from John Lewis to celebrate the jubilee. How strange.

Call to the sea

 Flo does ballet at her school on Fridays, I was shown a glimpse of one her new moves "Call to the Sea".  The dog was very close to getting trodden on.

Nothing better than a bbq in the rain

 Steve's family popped over for a bbq on Sunday.  Despite the forecast for the rain to be gone by late morning it persisted all day.  Grr...  Not to worry, we still went on with it.  Afterwards we took the dogs out for a walk and also had a go on the model trains.

Sunday morning means smoothie

Flo enjoys helping.

Arthur aka Cheese Face

Tuna tortillas

I've bought Tom Kerridge's BBQ cook book so thought I'd make one of his recipes. BBQ tuna tortillas.

Didn't dare

We went to see Stewart Lee at the Assembly Hall in Tunbridge Wells last night.  He was excellent!

Here's a picture of the sell out performance during the interval.  I wouldn't dare during his actual show.
 

Drastic improvements from yesterday

 Arthur on is way to nursery this morning.  So much faster.

Well done Arthur.  Now to work on the steering.

Making crop circles

There's a news article in the BBC this morning looking at a new book on crop circles

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61332202

I have my own theory

 

Tuesday's session

 I've missed the odd session recently as the game has clashed with Liverpool playing but made it this week.  We've completely derailed the plot of Dragon Heist and next session we've got to fight an enlarged beholder, think Godzilla size (brought upon by our secretly evil artificer setting off a home made nuclear bomb), through the streets of Waterdeep whilst wearing giant statues, think Pacific Rim.  Should be fun.  We're up to level 6 too. 

Cat in a bath

 I don't post many cat photos these days.  Poor Josie doesn't get much attention.  So here's a photo of her in the bath for all those fans out there.

Scoot scoot!

 Flo went to school on her scooter this morning, Arthur decided to do the same.  He took a bit longer.

Today's walk photo

We do live in a beautiful part of the world

Here's a photo of the River Medway on the way to Haysden Park

 

Having a wonderful time

 Arwen on her walk this morning.  She's having the best time searching for something.  Not sure what, but she's absolutely loving it.

Breakfast

 That cannot be comfortable for the lamb's mother.  I took Arwen to see the sheep this morning on her walk.  She didn't seem that bothered.  12k steps 9.7km before 9am

Florence leading the orchestra

 April took Flo to a woodwind concert on Saturday and they asked for volunteers

Of course Florence volunteered 

Flo's going to learn the hard way

 I think Flo's blown this balloon up a little too far.  Any more and I think it would have popped

Green party quiz antics

 It was the Green party's annual quiz on Friday night so the core of the Tonbridge Massive turned out en force to show them all that we meant business.  Not the business of quizzing mind, we came 5th out of 10, we of course meant the business of drinking wine, we we finished very drunk.

Jono getting ready

Born rule breakers

Lesley had the misfortune of sitting next to numb nuts yours truly

The stain came out in the end