I love living here :)

I went fishing yesterday, after taking advice from my doctor that I should try and use my shoulder as much as I can, I found it didn't actually tax my shoulder that much, as the river is only about 20 feet across at its widest so no back breaking casting to be done. and despite my injury I currently hold the record for biggest trout pulled from our river :)... OK it's not massive but from such a small river it's gargantuan, and yes that is my Nokia 6070 next to it for scale :)

(I've just been reliably informed by my (less of the) nerdy fishing friend Chris, that it's a sea trout not a brown trout, and apparently they travel in shoals !!! so I will be pulling the rest out hopefully over the next few weeks !! :¬) )

We cooked it that night, so from river to pan in about an hour or so, with a nice fresh salad picked from the garden ....you can't get fresher than that.... but in time honoured fashion during my fishing expedition..... I did injure myself, not on barbed wire whilst negotiating getting under/over/through it, or slipping on wet rocks, no it was far simpler than that, I was wearing canvas shoes and I was standing in the river fishing, and because the river was cold I couldn't feel my canvas shoes slowly eroding the back of my heels, so when I got out of the river and feeling returned I turned into an instant cripple, one of my heels was actually bleeding, and I wasn't looking forward to the 1/2 mile trudge up the track back to the house, but I got there.... eventually, got ZERO sympathy but they were impressed with my trout !! only thing now is I have to wait for my heel to get better before I can go fishing again (or in fact walking too far again)

We had some friends come down last night for a few hours after we had our barbeque which was nice, had a laugh and generally a good time, they left fairly late and we fell into bed quite tired after a hot sunny and busy day, I'm hoping to go back to work this week at some point, my shoulder still gives me jip but usually only when I lift my arm above shoulder height or rotate it too much.

Nothing much else to report, weather is brilliant (bit too hot for my liking), kids behaving etc, etc.

anyway I had to blog today to show off my whale of a fish ;¬)

I've been signed off work for two weeks .... :¬(

It's my right shoulder, apparently I have a rotor cuff tear see picture on left, it flared up after an Aikido training session, and I thought it had practically gone but it's come back, I went to the doctors and she said that by the sounds of it I had suffered a partial dislocation, judging by the type of pain I was suffering and where it hurt most and the lack of vertical movement, and apparently according to the doctor after I explained the rotation and movement used in the Aikido move we were practising at the time, there would have been a 90% chance of complete dislocation and it was only my tendons and muscles that actually kept the joint together, which have now of course been stretched :( so not a happy bunny at the moment :(....

So Andrea has to put up with me for two weeks, although I think she is secretly happy that I'm at home to be honest :) not much to report on the family life front, nothing untoward happening, no major fall outs, no beatings carried out, (well except "FlyerGate" but that's been sorted now)... just general family life. Freya has come out in an awful rash, we think it's down to a change of washing powder, we have switched back now so hopefully that will put an end to it, it really was awful seeing her skin all blotchy, but she is a trooper still smiling and laughing even though her skin must have been itchy, we've had her to the doctors and she is being slathered in aqueous cream head to toe every night, it seems to have lessened the eczema quite a bit :)

Hopefully she will be clear of it before we go camping in August to Shell Island

It's a truly massive place at 300 acres (see above) of sand dunes, grasslands, beaches and hopefully hot sunshine, I think we have the camping lark completely sussed now, all mod cons, well most mod cons, I simply refuse to take a chemical toilet, nothing wrong with the ones provided by the campsite and at least I don't have to empty them :) which is always a plus, the kids are in for a bit of a shock though, there is absolutely nothing to do except walk, climb massive sand dunes, take in the scenery, walk a bit more, maybe a bit of swimming in the clear waters surrounding the island and just generally relax and forget about the world for a week :) bliss.... they will be doing their own washing up was well which might come as a bit of a shock to them, no clean plate or cutlery then no lunch, dinner or tea :) (well they can but personally I wouldn't like my lunch placed over a dirty plate from the previous meal).... we are going up in the Jeep and the others are travelling up by train well most of the others, the shadow boy is travelling up with us but he will have his DS lite to keep him occupied (with headphones.....bliss again) and of course Freya, Chris is bringing his sea kayak and fishing gear (hopefully) so who knows we may well be eating sea bass at some point, it will be quite a camping extravaganza with 16 of us last count (I think), roll on the summer jollies, warm beer and good company :)

I'm off to Cardigan tonight for a farewell bash for my solicitors and good friends the Taylors, they are off to sunnier climes at last !! They are becoming fully paid up Lesbians (Colin included !!) and are moving to Lesbos to their retirement villa, (it's alright for some!!) we are sending them off with some bubbly and finishing off with a Chinese meal at the only Chinese restaurant in Cardigan, should be fun although I won't be drinking anything much because I have to drive home :(

Right I have stuff to do, like clean a kitchen and hoover and generally spruce the place up one handed before Mein Fuhrer comes back from Llanelli with my step daughter.....(now where is the Ipod with "I want to break free !!" by Queen) most fitting methinks :)

Being born yesterday...... etc

It seems my step daughter skived off school yesterday and the day before, her excuse being it's the last week of school and all her friends are skiving off school as well, needless to say Andrea went ballistic after she found out from school, and grounded her, and has told her any more nonsense and she will be grounded for weeks to come, plus it looks like she will tapping the boards outside the headmasters office today with a possible exclusion/suspension on the cards, which looking at it is precisely what she wants anyway, because it would mean not going to school.

I have a feeling she thinks she will be swanning off to town with her "mates" to enjoy her suspension/time off on the run up to the beginning of the school holidays...... wrongggggggg....

She even tried the leaving her school bag complete with dirty uniform in my car last night no doubt because come the morning she would be using the old chestnut "ohhh I can't go to school my uniform is dirty...excuse"..... alas Andrea recovered it and washed it and ironed it last night.... no excuse...all bases covered... hence the being born yesterday title, I knew when I picked her up from town after work that she hadn't been to school even before Andrea told me, because when I asked her how school was, she had all the tell tale signs of lying and she is VERY bad at it.

If she does get suspended, we both support any decision the school will make on her, and not to make it an easy ride all internet access will be turned off at home (on the kids PC and her linux box in her bedroom).... we are not going to make her possible suspension a pleasurable experience by any means, in fact she will soon realise being at home with nothing to do and bored out of her skull will make school seem like an exciting alternative.

I think half of the problem is the crowd she has got in with in town, which is precisely one of the reasons why we decided to live out in the sticks, but what can you do ? you can't curtail her social life with her friends (well you can if she doesn't toe the line at home) and you also can't choose her "friends" for her, they are all decisions she has to make good or bad (mostly bad it seems to me at the moment) but it's all a part of growing up...

it does make me laugh when teenage stunts and skives are pulled, both Andrea and I did them all before and more, they seem to think it's all ground breaking stuff and the grown ups couldn't possibly have a clue what is going on...yeah right :)

I know what my parents were saying now when I was a teenager "you will have to get up early to pull the wool over my eyes ...boy" never a truer word said ;¬) what goes around comes around eh ?

Karma it is.....Karma I tell you :)

The only other thing of note is Andrea finding that sanding my teeth this morning with some wet and dry P600 paper was weird... ? God doesn't everybody do that ? ;¬) Truth of the matter is, I had a filling and the dentist had left the front surface rough with residue white polymer (the stuff they use now instead of mercury based fillings).... it eventually wears down/off, but it's a one hell of a lot quicker if you sand it off ..... nice smooth finish now.... next stop a respray bright white with racing stripes ;¬)


addendum: Just had an update from Andrea she didn't get a suspension, she has to spend the entire day with the assistant headmaster......unlucky !!!