Short Week

Well bloggers, what's been going on in my world since I last spoke to you all.

To be honest not a lot really. Tuesday unfortunately was spent in the office. Luckily I was able to get my teeth into some SQL script and batch file writing so it was quite enjoyable, but still work. At the end of the day, the work pays off my bills so it's something I have to put up with.

Wednesday was a day off for a number of reasons. It was my wife's birthday so we were able to spend some time together.

Also, I've been having a bit of a problem with my car. It's a 2.2 litre Diesel Toyota Avensis estate. Should be quite a speedy car, and it used to be. Recently it hasn't been powerful enough to pull the skin of a custard. I've also noticed a few puffs of smoke when I dropped a gear. I theefore had it booked into the garage and my wife followed me there. On arriving, she told me that it was churning out lots of smoke every time I changed gear. So a good thing to get it sorted out.

We then went for our French lessons. I don't think I've mentioned these before, but we have a dream to own our own place in France within the next few years. Now we could buy something now and maybe be sorted but our knowledge of the language is very sketchy. We could ask for a beer in the bar, but asking a builder how long he'll be putting the new roof tiles on and such like isn't really possible.

So two or three years ago we attended an adult learning class at a local school. The teacher we had was very good and we made good progress during the 20 weeks. We then signed up for the 10 week extension, but unfortunately our teacher was unable to continue. We therefore made private contact and began visiting on our own. We have now progressed to a point we the teacher things that we are at AS level, and are better than some of her school aged students. We put that down to a bit of life experience and being able to pick out some words we know and then making sense of the statements we've heard.

We've also both had birthday's recently and not knowing what to get for each other, we decided to treat ourselves to a weather station. Unfortunately FedEx tried to deliver while we were out, so we went to get that on Wednesday as well.

Whilst collecting the weather station, I spoke to the garage who advised me that I had a faulty EGR valve in the Turbo and that they wouldn't have one until the next day. Would it be OK to leave the car with them. Well it wasn't much use to me in the state it was in so I agreed. Now, I'd have to decide what to do on Thursday without a car.

Did I mention my wife works in local schools and it was now school holidays. Excellent, I could borrow her new car. But then we both commented on the muppets at my place of work who will hit your car then deny all knowledge. I therefore decided to work from home on Thursday.

Well Thursday was a different matter. Started off OK. I was working in the dining room and my wife was preparing her material to be able to teach in a couple of weeks time. She then called me out to the office. Here eldest sister (2 years older) had sent the most hateful email I could possibly imagine.

I can't think of why she would bother but then she's not the nicest of people around. She has always had a problem with us (we think probably jelousy) but there was no need to write the email. She has made a number of lies and assumptions, and once we calmed down we found it quite funny that she was so concerned.

The best part of yesterday was the weather. During the morning we'd set up some of the weather station so we were getting temperature reading all day yesterday. The maximum reached was 30.1 degrees. Admittedly the external sensor is in full sun, but it's a pretty true reading. Quite a change from last nights low of 1.3 degrees.

Anyway, back to the lovely weather. As we were both home, we went to collect my car at lunchtime and then decided that it would be a good time to sit in a pub garden and take in a nice cold beer. It was great sitting out there taking the sun in.

After the pub, we both went back to work. Isn't it funny though. With all the possible distractions that are around, I seem to work longer and harder than if I was actually in the office.

Anyway, time to get back to my proper job now so enjoy the weather and don't get to sun-burnt.