I did finally buy some new shoes (well..technically boots) yesterday however, which I like. They are (generally) comfortable, however the higher back with solid leather is grating on my left foot a little, particuarly whilst driving, so I’ll have to hope I can break that in before too long.

My new boots from Next

 Sarah and I have both been enjoying playing Elder Scrolls: Skyrim quite a lot lately. It’s been a really enjoyable game and one of the best games I’ve played lately for overall experience. There are a huge number of side quests – so there is plenty to keep you occupied, there is an overall story arch which plays quite well, the game feels relatively immersive, and as a major extra boon to me – there a nice little extras you can do as a bit of a break from just battling – such as crafting things, smithing, enchanting, alchemy etc which just feels to make the story a lot more complete and life encompassing to me. I would highly recommend this game to anyone, however you’ll need a lot of time to fully complete it – which can only be a good thing for value.

Speaking of games we’ve been using a lot lately. Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 for the XBox kinect has been a wonderful work out/exercise game. It really gets me shattered after half an hour of continual work out and it really feels to push you (if you choose hard enough settings). I’m really glad we bought that ‘game’ as I’m hoping it will start to have real benefits to my health. We try to make use of it for at least half an hour two to three times a week.

Thank you to everyone for their kind gifts this Christmas. I hope I got a chance to meet you all in person over the Christmas period, and I had a wonderful time with those whom I did manage to meet.

I get the feeling that (online / computer parts wise) After Christmas Sales don’t really seem to be a thing any more as the couple of items that I was watching and planning to get after Christmas with any money I got don’t seem to have changed in price at all. In fact one item I was watching (a Kinect mount from amazon.co.uk) has actually gone up in price to the point where amazon.co.uk isn’t cheaper than other places. Play.com for instance stocks the exact same item for cheaper with free delivery. Any how, I think I’m going to wait for a while until the prices settle back down again. I get the feeling the shops expect the post christmas rush to the shops to buy things and that some places have actually started to inflate their prices just after Christmas. I can only apply this thought to computer/gaming things however as that’s all I’ve been looking at. Clothes shops may still want rid of their ‘last years’ stock, but I’m not really looking for any new clothes right now In the meantime I have pleanty of games that I’m really enjoying at the moment and are keeping me occupied most of the time Skyrim being my current time consumer. I played the previous Elder Scrolls (oblivion) and loved it and I have to confess they have done a wonderful job with Skyrim (in my opinion) keeping the enjoyable aspects of the game alive.

Unfortunately this year I didn’t have enough holiday time spare to remain in Yorkshire for my brothers’ birthdays. It would have been lovely to see them and celebrate it with them, but with needing to carry days over to next year (on my holiday allowance from work) to cover the wedding in 2012 I just couldn’t take any longer off, which meant I only managed to spend around 3 days in Yorkshire this year for Christmas, but we did manage to use the time very well and got to see both my brothers and my parents quite a bit with in that time scale. Unfortunately Andy was in the Isle of Wight to see his parents in law (not that I blame him) so we didn’t get chance to have a catch up, plus both my grandparents were at opposite ends of the country visiting family (Grandpa up in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and Grandma down in Milton Keynes area).

So now that Christmas is over and we’re starting 2012 plans will be back in motion for the wedding of the year. There are still a few things to do, but nothing too major at least. Andy has started making some noises about stag do plans, which is great as (to be honest) I had completely forgotten about that with everything else going on at the moment. We have the smaller details to look at now, table decorations, seating plans, flowers, etc. I collected our marriage licence from the registry office earlier in December so we now have our official papers for getting married

Then came the paperwork when I got back home. Filling in a patient report form for the son (who I checked out quite quickly, but aside from the muscle pains of potential whiplash and the shock did not have any other serious injuries and he was in a warm, seated environment to help with the shock), and another report form for the main driver and his multiple injuries. I can only report on as far as I was with the incident before handing over to the ambulance crew, however I believe that is sufficient for the paperwork. I will be going over it tonight with my unit leader however as I need to pop around to drop off the paperwork and to collect a few items for a duty tomorrow night with the hospice who will be lighting candle in the park in rememberance of loved ones who are no longer with people.

Sarah and I went to see Lacuna Coil in Birmingham at the HMV institute in early November which was great to see. I’ve never been to such an intimate gig before. I was probably only about 10 paces away from the stage, and I wasn’t even that close to the front. The front row were only just over an arms reach of a distance away. I put a few pictures of this online on the same evening (my new phone has a nice link in to let me upload almost as soon as I take the photo, if I choose to – which has proven very useful for whilst I was away in France on holiday and for a lot of other smallish events, allowing me to at least keep the photos section of my website very up to date).
St John’s is still going very well too. We’ve been a few more duties, one fireworks night in Rubery – Birmingham and I’ve also been to a Christmas Tree lighting in Bournville, which was pleasant. I’ve not had any significant incidents really happen whilst I’ve been on duty yet (and lets hope it stays that way for the patients sake). The busiest incidents I’ve had have been the Half Marathon through Birmingham where people were coming in with injured knees, which was mostly just a quick treatment with an ice pack and a compression bandage.

I’ve been growing facial hair during November – not for Movember this time, more for my own curiosity of how it might look and how it would grow on me – which has been coming along surprisingly well. I’m sure I wasn’t this hairy last year when I was doing Movember. Now I’m at the spot of trying to decide if I should keep it or get rid of it. I might keep it for a while to see how it plays out, but if it does start to irritate, annoy or itch me then it may have to go. Plus I’m not sure how it would play out with SJA duties as I would imagine it might become an infection control issue. I’m really not sure though as it would be washed with the face and being blond mine will never grow long.

Sarah has already bought our tickets to go to Download 2012 as the lineup has already started to be announced and they have some pretty big names going along. Steve from work is also going to the festival and are going 2 days before the gigs start (when the campsite opens) so we’ve made an agreement that if they can set up our tent for us, so we arent miles away from the arena, then in exchange they can use our tent for the first 2 days (before we arrive) and when we arrive we’ll bring resupplies of various things with us so they dont have to worry about keeping things cold or taking 5 days worth of stuff with them (although I would imagine they will have some emergency items incase anything were to prevent Sarah and I getting there). The risk with Download 2012 is how close it is to the wedding – being in early June.

Also Sarah and I have ordered our joint Christmas present for each other – I’m not going to spoil the surprise to …us… just yet (although we obviously already know). However we are going to collect the XBox from Sarah’s parents house later today, as we had it delivered there so someone could receive the delivery as these always happen during working hours when we are ..well…at work

I was toying with the idea of starting vlogging lately, but I think I might not bother as I can’t see myself having the time to edit all the video footage on a regular basis. I would like to get some recordings of something though to practice video editing on just out of interest and .. well.. fun I suppose

It’s also been a very baby filled time since coming back from France. We went across to see our friends Andy and Vicky who are expecting (I think the baby is due today in fact) to have a catch up dinner with them which was lovely. Its great to see them again as I don’t see them very often since Andy left Kalamazoo. Sarah and Greg also announced they were expecting recently, which was wonderful news, so we went across to see them for dinner to have a good catch up too. It would also be nice to have them over to ours sometime soon, as it has been quite a while now since we last had them over.

I’ve had a bit of a gaming marathon lately at home with the LAN parties. We usually have one weekend every few months when myself, Phil, Stuart and Sar all get together for a big gaming session, however we’ve been working through Borderlands (my second play through the game, but the first time for the group). Sarah decided not to join us for this as she has a lot of studying to do at the moment, so it was just myself, Stuart and Phil. But luckily this game scales itself very well for the idea of having 3 people instead of 4. So we’ve had 3 weekends in a row of gaming, which has been great fun. I really enjoy having the house bustling with people, even if it does mean I get a bit less sleep over the weekend than I was expecting This weekend however Sarah and I are heading back up north to see my family to celebrate my fathers birthday! I’m not really certain what the plans are for this weekend yet, it might be quite a quiet one, but we would still love to see my dad for his birthday rather than just send something through the post.

Mits has had his first episode with big fireworks. There were a few quite grand and loud fireworks going off quite close to home on Wednesday to celebrate Diwali. Whilst these were great to watch at the start, I suddenly wondered where Mits was in case he was out and worried about the noise, so I popped out to the garden to see Mits shoot out from under a bush at the back of the garden and dash behind the shed. As I tried to go get him there he lept over the fence before I could get especially close to the shed, and hid underneath my car on the drive on the otherside of the fence, so I managed to fish him out from underneath and spent a little while reassuring him back inside, and locked the cat flap for the rest of the night. Unfortunately all this meant that I missed the rest of the fireworks (even some very big ones – it sounded like anyway) but at least I managed to calm Mits down and get him purring again.

We also recently went out on duty with St John’s to cover the Birmingham Half Marathon. It was quite a nice relaxed event. We got a moderate number of people into our station, all with sore knees – as you might expect at a marathon, and we sorted pretty much all of them up with Ice Packs and bandages and a lot of them got back on their way quite soon after (one against suggestion, but then we can’t prevent them from continuing if they want to). Only 2 people had to drop out at our station – unfortunately for them. One due to a previous injury of a dislocated knee that was giving a lot of complaint again, and another person who was quite dehydrated as well as sore who took our suggestion to call an end to the non-competative marathon for themselves

We’ve been provided with quite a reasonable internet connection – which has been a major help in writing this post and uploading all the pictures on a daily basis. We’ve also got satellite television to some english channels, but the remotes are awkward to use and the channels which are english are so few and far between all the other channels that we haven’t really used the TV at all whilst we have been away. We have got quite a good selection of film which have been provided with the house however, so we always have those for evenings if there is nothing else to do, or we just fancy something on in the background.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the Thoures open air market in the morning and then visit Cholet in the afternoon. We have also booked for a nice meal out at a restaurant not too far from here which the owners of the cottage have recommended for us as a lovely restaurant with really great food for a bit of a special night out as a close for our holiday before the mammoth driving which lies ahead of us again on Saturday for our return to the UK

Mits will be going across to Sarah’s parents house to live with them for a week, as will Rosie. Mum and Dad are currently driving down from Yorkshire, however we don’t expect them for easily another hour yet. Then I might try to get a little bit of early sleep / napping done before my morning stint of driving (setting off at 2:30am heading for Dover to meet our ferry at 7:00). Hopefully all will go well – and I’m also hoping everyone will be sleeping a lot during the car journey. I’m packing lots of songs on to my phone to listen to via 1 headphone during the journey, and I’ve picked up a few cans of relentless just in case to keep me going

My leg still hurts a moderate amount. I went to the doctors again yesterday as there is now a second lump near it, which the doctor believes is an inflamed gland. This could indicate infection and so they’ve put me on quite a high dosage of penicillin for 7 days – so that’s all packed now in a quick access location (so I don’t have to dig through the bags when my next one is due). In the meantime I’m just sticking with regular painkillers and heat pads

All the best to you all, et au revoir.

Next celebration day was a quiet one on the Friday evening, when my people from my team at work came out for a curry at Yassers in Stirchley. We had a lovely meal (although the food seemed a little more rushed than usual at this meal) and some soft drinks and some laughter, before finishing quite early/respectably at 6:45pm – which worked out wonderful for us as we needed to head up north that evening, so we quickly headed home, picked up Mits and loaded the car with our bags before heading around to Sarah’s parents house to meet them and guide them up north. This was to be the first time Sarah’s parents came up north to meet my family (they had met my parents a few times before when they had been down in Birmingham however). The journey up was pretty unexceptional. As the sun set it became a little harder to tell which car behind me was John’s car, however we managed to keep together quite well for the journey and never got separated. When we got up north we had a few drinks before bed time. I was feeling quite shattered by this point after several days of poor sleep. John and Eileen had the spare room at parents house (which Sarah and I usually use) and Sarah and I slept downstairs on an airbed. I took the chance in the evening to check out some of the TVs I had been watching on eBuyer with a view to buying when I knew what money I had spare from my birthday – and rather typically, all the TVs I had been interested in had either sold out or their offer had ended that Friday and they had become prohibitively expensive again. However a new TV came on the offer boards that seemed very good however there was only 1 in stock. So I was aware on the Saturday morning that I would need to order it as soon as possible if I were to want to buy it. Saturday morning after opening all the cards and knowing what money I had to play with I quickly ordered the television set with free 5 working days delivery, only to receive an email that evening around 7pm to say ‘Happy Birthday from eBuyer’ and offer me free next day delivery (valid for 1 week only), so I quickly changed my order details to use this free next day delivery. The website lists the TV as due to arrive today – but we shall have to see since it doesnt list it as being posted yet, so it might not arrive until tomorrow.

Saturday was my actual birthday and I got to open all my cards and my present from Sarah’s parents. Sarah had given me a sneeky extra present on the Thursday night – a selection of bath bombs and creams from Lush These are currently in my trousers draw at home making everything smell nice. Sarah’s parents bought me a years membership to the MG Owners Club so we’re entitled to go on the rallys and special events that they hold for members. We also get access and discounts from the MGOC spares store – however most of the prices of items on there are much higher than other internet sources anyway – so unfortunately there is no real bonus there. I’m going to be looking through the members club website soon though to see what upcoming events there are and any Sarah and I might like to attend.

We went out for a meal with grandparents, both parents, and Andy and Gem on the Saturday evening at a pub called the Maypole in Warley. It was a lovely meal out and we had a great catch up with Andy and Gem, which was wonderful as we don’t get to see them very often, and a lot has been going on lately – particuarly in Andy’s life. Earlier on the Saturday before the meal we took advantage of the glorious sunny day and went out to Howarth and Skipton to have a look around the two towns with John and Eileen. I also passed the MGF keys across to mum and dad for the weekend to let them enjoy it whilst we were up. Sunday was a similar day with us heading across to Holmfirth to look around ‘The Last of the Summer Wine’ country, before heading home for the evening and a quick trip out to mum and dad’s regular Sunday night bar to finish the weekend.

We managed to get home just before midnight on the Sunday evening, and get straight to bed to try to catch up on a little bit of sleep – which seems to have worked a bit as I don’t feel too bad today. As to whether the new 32″ 1080p HD TV will arrive today or not remains to be seen.

I took choir rehearsal this Monday and conducted the choir for the whole evening as our musical director was on holiday. It was a great experience and enjoyable once I got going but I was quite worried about it beforehand. I’ve sung with choirs for years and have always been involved in music, but I’ve never had to conduct and carefully construct a piece with all voices before. I was mostly worried about identifying faults and picking out where they were coming from and how but that seemed to go quite well and I think we really made some great progress on the pieces we went over. I was working mostly on the dynamics and the small details of the pieces (like observing the rests correctly) with some of our music – and I really hope everyone sings it next week how they were doing at the end of this Monday as I think it sounds a lot better. I’ve also had a lot of positive feedback from the evening so I’m hoping the choir enjoyed my conducting also. I managed to take some recordings of myself to review later and see how things went from an observers point of view – however the battery would only last for 30 minutes of continual recording before powering off. So I only managed to get 2 x 30 min recordings (the first 30 mins of each half), but I hope that is enough to review.

Mits recently seems to have made friends with a hedgehog (we assume) as he came home with some quite large fleas – bigger than regular cat fleas. This wasn’t too bad in itself as it made them easy to spot, identify and even pick some out manually. However we picked up some household sprays, some cat shampoo, and some tablets for him and had a thorough flea removal evening. Mits actually did very well with the bath considering. He obviously didn’t like it, but he trusts us enough that he didn’t put up a massive fight about it, and even seemed to make a little bit of a game about being dried with the towel. The bath alone managed to wash off a few of the fleas and got rid of all the dirt and cases from his fur. The chemicals in the shampoo must have worked quite well too as all the fleas seemed to flee (no pun) to his face, which must have been itchy for him, but allowed us to pick them out very easily. We then gave him some 1 treatment flea tablets designed to kill all fleas on him within 24 hours, and gave him a spray down with some flea killer spray, before going over all the house with a household flea killer. The next morning Mits seemed a heck of a lot cleaner than usual, there were no signs of fleas any more, and he seems a lot more active and less lethargic than he was the day before. He got another dose of the flea tablets the day after to be certain they had all gone, however he seems to be fully in the clear now.

Now I have my birthday celebrations for the rest of this week to look forward to. I’m heading out for drinks with friends tomorrow night for the evening (although probably not making it a late one since its a working day the morning after), then on Friday I’m going for a curry with my team from work. Just a small, quick, quiet get together which will likely be finished by 7:00, then I’m heading up north that evening in convoy with Sarah’s parents who are joining us for the weekend. Followed by a meal out with family on the Saturday evening, and maybe even a small brothers get together on the Sunday if it can be arranged.

I’m hoping to put all my birthday money towards a Full HD 32″ TV for the office to act as a computer monitor, second TV for LAN party nights, and a good alternative television in the house for us or for guests when they come over to stay. However this is dependant upon how much extra I will have to put towards the TV as I still have a summer holiday coming up, a repair job I know needs doing to the car before its MOT in October, and retaxing of the car to be done at the end of the month. – It’s all go