Karen and I didn't have a summer holiday last year due to my period of unemployment, so we've both been looking forward to going on holiday this year. We decided a while back that we'd like to go to Kefalonia, a nice and quiet relaxing holiday similar to what we had in Turkey the other year. We were then invited to a wedding in Malta and since it's quite expensive to get there, we decided to go for a week and have a second holiday.
So yesterday afternoon I was on the phone to my bank and booked both holidays through their travel service and saved us 10% off each of them (sometimes it pays to be a Royal Bank customer). So I'm now totally excited about the prospect of two holidays this year, which will be fantastic.
We've even started discussing next years holiday, this is because we are now at a point in our relationship where things might start to happen. If these things happen, then some of the places we'd like to visit would be off the cards for thirty years or so. Bearing this in mind, we've decided to go to the one place we both really, really want to go, Borneo.
There are many reason for this, luscious white sand, cool turquoise water and Orang Utan's. We are both so determined to go we've even been to the travel agents to see how much it would cost and the prices ranged from around £3,400 to £4,700. The highest quote did include a night in a sea villa in some totally amazing five star resort and lasted for 27 nights. We were both so excited it felt like we'd book the holiday already and we haven't even been on this years yet!
I've been having some right nasty dreams the last few nights, I don't know what it is, but a few of them seem to be recurring. Saturday night's was really bizarre and was a multi-part nightmare that ended up with me and a few other people being trapped in a building by a huge killer grizzly bear. It was so bad that once I woke up and need to go to the loo I was afraid to get out of bed even though I knew there was no chance of there being a bear in my upstairs corridor.
Last nights dream was equally bizarre and this one I've definitely had before. Myself and a collection of other people were being forced to climb this huge white ladder structure that disappeared into the blueness of the sky. Quite a way up we were confronted by a mantle that we all had to clamber onto. Once on the mantle we had to traverse a small girder to a wall on the other side of an infinite drop, all the time being pestered by a robot type machine.
I woke up at that point, but I was none too happy as it wasn't the pleasantest of dreams. I'm not really sure why I've been getting all these dreams lately, but I wish they weren't all so disquieting.
I finally downloaded the weekend's email this evening and found one from my brother. It seems that my Mum, Sister and Brother went curling with my Uncle and one of my cousin's. Evidently they were all having a good time until my Mum fell and broke her collarbone, so she's now at home and supposed to be resting. So I thought that I'd better phone home and find out how she was etc and as we were talking she mentioned that my brother had shown her my website. Or in her words she'd "read the drivel on my website", so there you go, my blog is officially drivel.
I watched the Scotland versus Ireland Six Nations rugby match this afternoon. I wish I hadn't bothered. What a dismal display of ineptitude by the Scottish side that couldn't seem to hold onto the ball for any length of time. At one point they had a 6 to 2 overlap and still managed to throw the ball into touch. They're really going to have to pull their socks up if they don't want to get the wooden spoon this year.
We had a bit of as dinner party last night and had Bov, Chrissie, Tim and Jo round for tea. Jo is a bit of an animal lover and is regularly used as a surrogate mother by one of the local animal shelters. She's been on the front cover of the paper after hand rearing a squirrel and then releasing it back into the wild. So it was no surprise when they pitched up at the house with two tiny little bunny rabbits in an aquarium. Totally the cutest little things you have ever seen.
I fancied some decent beer last night, so when I was out during my lunch break picking up some food for the meal I Was cooking I stopped off at the Jug &l Firkin. Normally I would be drooling all over the foreign beers, but this year I found myself drinking more British beers, so I plumped for a City of Cambridge Multi-pack. The pack consists of two bottles each of Boathouse Bitter, Hobson's Choice and Atom Splitter.
I've been a fan of the City of Cambridge brewery for some time now and really like the majority of their beers. Boathouse Bitter (used to be called True Blue) is a lovely refreshing light session bitter that is perfect for a balmy summers evening. Hobson's Choice has slightly more body to it and is slightly stronger, but as equally gorgeous and quaffable. Finally Atom Splitter is a stronger darker coloured best bitter and my least favourite of the three, it just doesn't taste as good.
Overall though the multi-pack is well worth it as all three beers are bottle conditioned and very drinkable. It's certainly something I'll be buying again.
We ran into the nightmare scenario this morning of running out of bottled gas. This means we now have no hot water, no central heating and no gas to cook on. It turns out that when the chap last delivered us some gas, he forgot to switch the regulator back, so it never indicated that it had run two of the four tanks dry. I’ve ordered some more, but we probably wont get it until Thursday, we are not amused.
Had quite a bit of fun this afternoon as we had hired one of those small diggers you see at road works. Our lane floods whenever there's a bit of rain, so one of our neighbours and myself hired a digger to do something about the drainage ditches that are supposed to stop the lane from flooding. I also needed to clear out or soak away as it was impeding the septic tank from doing its job. So there I was for a few hours driving this thing around and generally making a right mess. It was great fun.
Karen and I went to see the Body Worlds exhibition in London earlier today, which meant we had to get up early to catch a train. When we got to the underground at Kings Cross we found that the Hammersmith and City line was closed for maintenance, which meant we had to take an indirect route to get to the right station. We got there in the end and found the venue with out any trouble, we then settle down for a bit of a wait.
The queue was moving along at a steady pace and it was 25 minutes before we made it into the building. We both thought that was it, but then there was a similar sized queue inside that you couldn't see from the outside so we ended up queuing for around an hour. They only allow 800 people in the exhibition at anyone time, so you have to wait until some people leave before you can actually get in.
The initial part of the exhibition was mobbed as everyone tried to crowd round and see the exhibits. IF we had made it last Saturday it might have been a bit quieter due to the snow and since it was the second last day, it we were both expecting it to be busy. It was just a bit of a pain trying to fit 20 people round a glass cabinet where there was only room for ten.
We moved on through the exhibition and up onto the main floor where all the bigger exhibits were and slowly started to make our way round it. I was quite freaky to realise that at some point the things we were looking at were alive and kicking. They almost didn't look real due to the way they have been preserved and then cut open.
Personally I think that the parts I enjoyed the most were the small items in the glass cabinets, like hearts, lungs, kidneys etc. They were all laid out showing healthy specimens through to diseased and malformed specimens, it was all quite revealing. What I wasn't so sure about was the way that some of the bodies have been presented.
On the whole they were very well done, but some of them, like a chap who a hat on, I felt were pushing it a bit as I didn't feel it added anything. I certainly didn't think it was art, I thought it was more of an instructional exhibition on what the human body is composed of. To that end I felt that some of the bodies that were on show were trivialising the life of the person who had donated their body.
The third part of the exhibition deals with foetuses, babies and pregnant women. This bit really unsettled both Karen and I and we both didn't really look to closely at some of the exhibits. I must admit to being quite fascinated by the some of the foetuses, as it's not something that you get to see in the normal course of things. However, it got me wondering just how they had got hold of these specimens, especially some of the more developed ones.
The most unsettling thing for me had to be the reclining mother with 8 month old baby still in the womb. How had this woman died? Why couldn't they have saved the baby? These were question going through my mind and I must admit I only gave that particular exhibit a cursory glance before shivering and walking away. It really didn't leave me feeling anything other than cold.
The other thing that left me feeling a bit cold was the selection of deformed babies. While it was very revealing and instructional, it just felt like a fair ground freak show and I didn't feel too comfortable looking at them. After that we headed out for a breath of fresh air and a quiet moment to contemplate what we had seen.
Over all I think it was well worth going to see, I certainly came away with more knowledge of the human body that I had when I went in. I would also say that if you get the chance, then go and see it, make up your own mind about what you see.
Karen and I were in town this afternoon to spend some vouchers in Robert Sale, which is part of the John Lewis Empire. We wandered up to the bedroom section, as we wanted to choose a new set of bed linen. As we were walking past one of the tills, I noticed someone who looked vaguely familiar, although I couldn't quite place her. Moments later Karen pulled me to one side and asked me if I'd seen Jamie Oliver's wife, Jools. Upon a further inspection, it was indeed Jools Oliver, plus baby Poppy and A. N. Other woman, maybe even Jamie's Mum, who knows. Amazing the people you bump into.
There's a lot I want to write about at the moment, the shuttle disaster, emotions, stubbornness and relationship dynamics to name just a few. But I just can't be arsed. I'm feeling a bit on the empty side today, there's no substance left inside me that is able to keep coherent thought going for any length of time. Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly.
