Where my blood has gone

 My blood popped over to Bristol last week then ended up down in Portsmouth.  It was in Bristol to get tested then went to Portsmouth Hospital to help people out.  That was donation 69.  Ooh er misses.

Trees go down

 Next door plus one had a couple of trees pollarded yesterday so there was a couple of guys up the trees at the back of the house with chainsaws

Trees go up

 I popped out to get a couple of Christmas trees yesterday.  They need a little trimming and straightening up but I think they're good ones.  We're going to decorated them tonight when the kids get back from school.  And by decorate I mean get attacked by a tinsel shotgun.

I had to go to 3 places in the end.  The usual one we go to was shut, the second didn't have 8ft trees, in the end I went to one that we passed driving to Rye last weekend.  Near disaster though, the trees nearly came off the roof when I was driving home.  One of the bungies had slipped and one of the trees started listing over the edge.  A chap in his white van pulled alongside me on the duel carriageway and let me know.  Eek.

Penultimate Cthulhu session

 Our GM reckons we only have one session left to finish our Call of Cthulhu session.  I thought i'd use my Cthulhu dice bag.

Weight Loss

 My weight is still continuing to drop, each month i'm getting lighter.  December might be an issue, but am sure i'll be fine.  Last December I had one of my biggest weight loss months, 4.9.kg, but that was more me being ill over Christmas (17th Dec - 8th Jan).  I'd rather not have one of those episodes again, but i'd be super slim!

Today's walk

7.22km walk 

Favour

 One of the other families at school was going to be late coming back from an event last night so called to see if I could pick his kids up from school.  It's hard work with 4 but we all survived.

Yesterday's lunchtime walk with the hound

 I did 25,575 steps yesterday.  Not bad.

It's race time

 Arthur enjoys playing with his Hot Wheels, here's his long track that we can stick to the patio windows

Longest dog in the world

 The animals assuming their positions whilst we eat our Sunday lunch.  Technically Arwen is in her bed, or at least that's what she claims.

Anniversary night away

We were originally supposed to head away a couple of weeks ago but due to a couple of reasons, one of which me having a home rugby game to play we, eventually had a night away in Rye.  We stayed above a cafe very close to a fish and chips shop we used last year with a couple of other families.  April found the venue and it was perfect.  We've now been married for 14 years.  Here's some stats about what has happened since...

• We've moved house
• We now have 2 kids
• We've lost 2 cats but have a new one
• We now have a dog
• We've each moved companies several times (job wise)

First stop was a winery that had only just opened.  Luckily it had a Devil 4000 to warm us up

Some wine, that April bored me talking about, my only concern was that it came in a 500ml bottle.  Pretty sure we paid for a full 750..

We also did a tasting, which I think was for free

We had a lovely meal at the Union.  We were both surprised with the meal being almost £100 less than we thought it would be.  That's despite April ordering a £70 bottle of wine.

 

Saturday lunch

 I made roast pork before we headed off to our anniversary.  It turned out well.

Beers a-go-go

 Nigel Owen dinner at the rugby club, good value, you can tell he's done the talk before.  Funny though.  a couple of points where he may have miss read the room but very funny and I had a very good ime with the lads.

Pub crawl

 We only ended up going to 5 pubs in the end, but had quite a few in each!  I feel fine this morning but am a little tired.

Snowing in Tonbridge

 I popped out to do an hour of work in one of the local coffee shops and it's bloody snowing now.  It won't last, but I didn't bring a brolly so will have to stay a little longer.  Brrr.

Flexible working

 I had a meeting with my boss and HR yesterday to discuss a more flexible working arrangement at work.  I'm contracted to be in the office 3 days a week, and it's been raised that i've not been meeting this.  My boss doesn't care, he just gets the message from HR telling him i'm missing target.  Apparently this could impact my bonus in April.  When I found this out I needed to see what I could do to change my contract.  They're legally obliged to listen to any request so I thought i'd give it a go.

I've asked to go in 1 day a week instead citing, childcare, health, the fact that when I do go in all of my meetings are in teams anyway so kind of defeats the object and the fact that it will not impact my work or the team or company in anyway.

I think it went well so we will see.  I'm due a response in a week or so.  Fingers crossed. 

The return of afternoon o'booze

 I've got the afternoon off today and heading into London to meet up with 3 friends for a mini pub crawl around the West End.  If all goes to plan i'll get myself a cheeky Chinese in China Town before heading back.  I'm working from home this morning so the return train ticket is only £13 rather than the usual £34.30.  Not bad.  Although will barely touch the sides on the additional price of a pint of beer / glass of wine in central London

Wish me luck...

U6 coaching

 April took a few photos of the training session on Sunday.

Trying to teach u5s and u6s 2vs1

Flo helping out

Tag!

Wintry dog walk

 Although not quite winter it was certainly cold enough.  Tonbridge dropped to -1 last night.  It was beautiful though.

And managed to catch this.  2 swans showing their cygnets how to fly!

Sunday dinner

 A friend did a pork butchery course in London on Saturday, and got to take home some of their handy work.  He cooked this 10kg monster for a bunch of us on Sunday for dinner.  Lovely.

 Most of the younger age groups were at a joint training session over in Tunbridge Wells.  My usual pitches were a little wet (see the corner just at the end of the platform) so I used the u7s pitches.  Mine should be pristine next week after a little rest.

Impromptu costume

 April was invited to a friend's birthday party last night, but only found out an hour before that it was a murder mystery themed party set in a fantasy setting an hour before. She knocked this up in 30 mins!

New coach to the rescue

 We had two rugby coaches call off sick at late notice yesterday morning so I enlisted a new helper.  I think the kids would have loved it!

The price of having reactions like a cat

 I was putting back some soy source in the cupboard having made the ramen, but it began to fall so I reacted to catch it but at the same time headbutted the corner of the cupboard door.  Ouchy.  I may have swore.  The bottle of soy was saved though!

Saturday cooking

 I made a beef ramen on Saturday for lunch, it was a good one.

The base

Eggs

The set up

The steak

The money shot

Ready to go

The finished ramen

The aftermath

Foggy in Tonbridge on Saturday morning

 Here's Tonbridge School athletics track after dropping Flo off at her dance class.

Volbeat, supported by Bush

 

2 pint pints!

All 6 of us