Cardiff tomorrow

 I'm off to Cardiff early tomorrow for a friend's stag do.  It's not really a stag, just a mini pub crawl followed by a curry.  Nearly 5 hours on the train!  I'll have to make sure all my devices are fully charged and I bring along my power bank.

Not sure what happened to me yesterday

 I came down with something at about 6pm and missed the games night.  April still went along and had a good time though.  I slept on the sofa from 7 till around half 8 then had a restless sleep all night.  Maybe the 4 antihistamines I took throughout the day had something to do with it.

 

More or less feel fine now.

Watching the final

 Not the greatest result for Liverpool on Sunday bit was good fun seeing everyone.

Shield guardian upgrade

 The model of my shield guardian in ou latest d&d campaign had an accident and his arm fell off.  One of our group has upgraded him...  Now to work this into the campaign.

Board game night

 Board game tonight round some friends tonight.  Should be fun!

Dog walk

 With the weather being nice these last few days I met up with one of the mums from the school for a dog walk.  8.8k round Lamberhurst.

You can't keep me out of the Chequers

Introducing Arlo

1 Million page views!

 Who would have thought my blog would get more than 1 million views in its lifetime?

Sunday roast

 The Market House now does Sunday Roasts.  And very good they were too!  In fact it was free as April was given a £100 voucher for holding her party there last week and they made a fortune on all the booze we bought on the night...

Dinner party

 We were round a friends house for a dinner party on Saturday, it was our turn to make the starters so we made potato croquettes with manchego,chorizo and thyme.  Very nice.

Current state of board games

 Not as many as I used to have, and am hardly playing at the minute but we do get them out occasionally. 

Arthur made himself a wand at forest school on Friday

 

He was very chuffed

Still no work

 Nearly 2.5 months not working at the minute.  It's pretty depressing.  After not getting the 3 roles I applied for last week it's been fairly quiet.  I've applied for a role at the last company I worked for but it's a little more senior.  A consultancy i've been dealing with and have been pretty unimpressed with over the last 2 roles they've suggested have been in touch, but i'm very conscious that I don't want to waist any of my time.  I want to be working but i'm not desperate.

Yeah that will do, an update from last week's photo

No one will notice, I even did a colour match with the grass.

 

Sir Quacksalot has been painted!

 And he's now part of our party.

Beat my record on the cross trainer

 7.61 miles in a little over 30mins.  The previous record was 7.5 miles.

No swimming records this week as i'm giving my shoulder another rest.

Birthday lunch

 After rugby we went to the Ivy in Tunbridge Wells for April's Birthday.  Highlight for April was a couple sitting next to told us that the kids were the best behaved children she'd ever seen.  Must be great parenting...

Rugby training

 The u7s were away at a rugby festival on Sunday but Flo and Seb stayed at home to help coach the u5s and u6s.  I think they had fun..

TJs 2's champions

 TJs only amature side won a hard fought game against Sittingbourne on Saturday so a bunch of us went to the club to watch.  The first team was on afterwards and they lost only their second of the season.

BBQ

 The weather on Saturday was glorious so we had another bbq.  This was for lunch rather than tea so was able to sit outside and not shiver.

Flo had a sneeze mishap.

20 years in the UK

 On Friday we had a party to celebrate April being in the UK for 20 years (it was also her birthday on Sunday)  One of her old band mates came down with his band to play music for us too.  In all there were 50-60 of our friends there which was a great turnout. April even got up to since 3 songs.

New Chef

 New Chef at the Chequers so thought we would try it on Friday lunch.  

• I had an enormous chicken burger.  Huge, but not much flavour.
• April had the seafood linguine.  Not much flavour.
• We also had cheese burger spring rolls to start as we were curious.  Not great.  Mince in a spring roll, couldn't taste the cheese.

Verdict:  2.5/5 

Hmm...

3.5 years wait

 I originally backed these 3.5 years ago on kickstarter, after much delay they finally arrived!

Best feature (text to speech)

First 100 or so rolls

First dice i've ever had that comes with it's very own user manual

Not the greatest straight line

 I was out walking the dog last week and spotted some freshly painted lines on one of the rugby pitches.

Rack of lamb

 I've been avoiding lamb recently as the price has been off putting, it seems to have gone up so much over the past few years.  Whilst shopping in Waitrose I spotted a discounted rack so jumped at the chance.  On disappointment was we didn't have any mint sauce in the fridge.

World book day

 It was world book day last Thursday so as usual the kids get to dress up as their favourite characters from a book

Flo obviously choose Sharon the Party Crow

Arthur chose a more sensible Postmouse