Am never promising to do a public update again - every time I fall behind with the nonefiltered stuff and say I'll give folks a catch up, my life falls apart.

Huge thanks to everyone for the concern / messages etc. Massive thanks to people who've helped me with lifts to the hospitals for getting there before visiting time is over etc. I promise to let you all know my mom & brothers condition just as soon as I get chance to do a public update.... D'OH

Apologies for my worse than normal response on AIM/MSN/Yahoo lately.

I popped back to Brum today and discovered I'd left my PC turned on the last two weeks and it seems at random points during the conversation your messages would go to Brum so I just assumed you'd gone quiet and then you'd suddenly come back again on my PDA which is what I've been using down in London or when working on the boat.

So yeah, when did MSN start allowing multiple location logins ?

Talking of chat progs, another reminder that I lost my contacts so Mon-Fri I can't start a conversation (looking at Crystal here *g*) so TonyMorel at hotmail dot com (EDIT as I seemed to have typed whoremail.com erm... not sure where that came from!)

Oh, and I've almost finished a proper update, so that should get posted tomorrow. It's gone from five pages down to two paragraphs, so maybe I've over edited it... will work on it on the train tonight

Now I gather that one or two people on my friends list are fans off Joss Whedon
If that includes you, and you like the idea of NASA naming the Space Stations new hub Serenity then you need to head over here and vote!

I've gone and lost all my MSN Messenger contacts. If you think I've been ignoring you on there then can you please re-add me on TonyMorel@hotmail.com

Have I mentioned I'm in London now? Or the kayak accident? Or anything lately? Hmmmmm maybe I need to do an update, but it wont be for a few weeks - I'll explain why in a few weeks *g*

this message has been deleted by "prompt 2.4" a very useful add-on that stops me from making drunken posts

On Sunday I decided to have a few friends over for dinner, so Julia, James and Vivek were invited over for a nice roast chicken.
Saturday saw James asking if he could bring Paolo (a mutual friend) with him as he was staying at his house and it seemed a bit rude for him not to come along - the only problem was a) I didn't have enough matching plates b) he's a vegetarian.

I jump in the car and pop out to buy some more matching plates and the ingredients to make a nice veggie option of Mushroom, Brie & Cranberry Wellington

Unfortunately, the journey killed my cars engine (must have hit a stone or something as there was a nice hole in the sump and no oil).

The time lost coping with this (pushing the car somewhere safe to leave, and taxi's home etc) meant didn't get housework done that I wanted so the place wasn't at it's best.

The next day the problems kept coming...

Veggie-safe cheese when used in cauliflower cheese doesn't really taste very nice

Oven died just as was putting chicken into it requiring use of old clunky tabletop oven that I couldn't judge cooking time on so roast potatoes were overdone

Dropped bowl with batter mix which also tipped veggies over so lost all the yorkshires and most of the peas / carrots / parsnips / broccoli.

The lightbulb in the dining room blew

I forgot to serve the stuffing

Apart from that, it went ok... Oh and Paolo - the reason all the disasters started, he couldn't make it in the end !

To cheer ourselves up we went to the local pub and entered the quiz. We came joint last, the only reason we weren't dead last on our own was because I accidentally listened in on one of the rival teams answer to the final question.

All in all a rubbish day (and no, I don't think the guests really saw the funny side *g*)

So, catchup time... Starting with Christmas and New Years. First off there was WAY too much turkey and roast potatoes as I'd planned for Bridget to be there - but that's ok as I luuurve turkey and roast potato sandwiches :) The rest of Christmas was actually pretty good. Nice and quiet, just me mom and Simon but it was good to get away from the madness !

Boxing Day was Dave (son of Ian Morrison who runs Jodrell Bank radio telescopes) birthday, so me, Neal and Neals girlfriend Amanda all went out to celebrate. Dave unfortunately had a massive hangover and couldn't actually join us ;)

New Years Eve was going to be a big CouchSurfing event, with everyone out for a huge party, but by 6pm everyone had cancelled apart from Julia and her sister.
I'd never met her sister, and as J had said she wanted to let her hair down and go wild, I had visions of sitting in the corner of a club on my own while the two sisters went crazy and so I was about to phone her and cancel myself when I got a text saying she was already on her way into town.

When I got to The Wellington it was just Julia - her sister had cancelled too - and 'nando, a new member to CouchSurfing.
The Welly is a quiet real ale bar. The average age of people there is 97.4 they all have beards (including the women) and they have really cute barmaids that dance with the customers when they cheesy music comes on the jukebox.
We had dinner at the Thai Orchid and then went back to The Wellington to see the new year in. It may sound like a dull evening and in a way it was but I REALLY enjoyed it.

New Years Day was the same as most New Years Day's, The Disorganised Walk around Sutton Park with a great bunch of people I only ever see once a year, and then a big carvery with Lin/Leo/Steph and Neal/Amanda

So we picked up a yummy tub of icecream for us to eat tonight and guess what, it WASN'T icecream.

Yup, sit down after a hard days shopping only to discover it's actually sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, soya free, organic & low in cholesterol icecream substitute...

Why the hell would a shop sell something like that ????? WHY

Awwww. It looks like Ben Fogle has taken a turn for the worse.
I admit, most of his shows are a load of pap, but even so he seemed a damn fine guy on the couple of occasions when I've met him.

He developed a rather nasty flesh eating bug after he was bitten by a sand fly while filming in the Peruvian jungle.
This is a guy who has rowed across the Atlantic and when I last met him he was training for his upcoming race across the Antarctic to the South Pole. Today he was filmed struggling and needing help to walk across the hospital car park :(

Wooohooo - Bridget is coming back :) YAY
But it's only for one night :( BOOOO
But that happens to be the night when the Christmas markets start with lots of mulled wine and chocolate pancakes :) YAY