“When two events happen simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must always pay strict attention.”

– Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

I had a scary moment of the holiday period. I started becoming ill on Boxing day, just the usual trivial stuff – nose and throat, and by New Years Eve it had settled in good and proper. Now, I’m not someone who subscribes to Manflu and I tend to handle illness relatively well. However, by New Years Day it was well and truly getting on my proverbials…

New Years Eve had been a late night, going to bed about 4am, and then New Years Day involved going out for a walk. So by 9.30pm I was well and truly knackered – soaked in the bath and early night.

I woke at about 2am to the smell of some kind of burning. It wasn’t the smell that had woken me, it was just there. As I woke I noticed that the whole room was misty/smokey. I jumped out of bed and rushed into the kids room. I checked all the rooms upstairs – everything ok apart from the smoke.

My rationale at the moment of time was that I didn’t think there was a big roaring fire, just some kind of small simmering type fire, or more likely, something bigger outside that was filtering in through the windows.

Anyway, I rushed downstairs and systematically checked all the rooms – everything ok – except for the smoke. I looked outside, but there was nothing obvious. By the time I returned to the kitchen Victoria was there wondering what was up. She wasn’t at all panicked by some smoke, more likely by my irrational behaviour.

[Paraphrasing a strange conversation that followed...]

“What’s up?”
“The whole house is filled with smoke or mist or something,” I said.
“Go and look in the mirror,”

I looked in the mirror, and my eyes were filled with yuk! A few minutes of vigorous washing later, and everything had returned to normal.

So the smoke turned out to be my cold coming out of my eyes, or a possible reaction to the bubble bath!

The smell – Victoria had lit an incense thingy when we’d got in on New Years Day to attempt to remove the smell of the stale house.

I didn’t sleep anymore that night…

Needless to say, Victoria bought extra smoke alarms and stuff over the weekend…

I just installed an HP OfficeJet Pro L7600 Series printer on my laptop… why oh why is the MINIMUM install 234mb? Surely all I should need for a MINIMUM install is the driver? Everything else should be optional.

Just been away on a family holiday in Lanzarote. We stayed at the Sands Beach Resort in Costa Teguise for a week.

I must start with the usual disclaimer before I hurl headlong into bitching about the place…
ie: We had a really good holiday. Victoria and I had some good relaxation in the sun and the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves too.

Now, too the bitching… I’ve purposely avoided the Costa’s etc all my life, for all the reasons that I hated Lanzarote.

The place we stayed at was nice enough. The complex has 6 pools surrounded by apartments. The apartments are nice, clean, and functional, and the fact that they sit on one of the poolsides means you don’t have to fight for pool space and the kids could pretty much come and go as they please. In fact we were able to sit on your terrace in the sun and watch the kids play. There was never a real need to do anything other than stay in the sun round the pool, and on that basis we could have been anywhere in the world… that is anywhere with a warm climate!

The problem comes when you leave the apartment and venture around the good for nothing volcanic rock that is Lanzarote. It seems that someone many many years ago realised that the place was a complete waste of space that could contribute anything at all to the world. Having failed to grow any vegetation on it they decided to build some swimming pools, some white hotels, and egg and chips resteraunts, and the brits would come… and come they did.

The place is all about white socks and Jesus sandles, egg and chips, english breakfasts, fat blokes in too short shorts with burnt bellies, football kits, sports bars and pubs showing eastenders and corrie. There are about 5 style of shops all selling the same thing. The restaurants are unable to offer anything that anyone else isn’t offering which is obviously what the brits want… so they all sell the same starters, pizza’s, burgers, full english, egg and chips etc, the same pasta, and on and on. This doesn’t matter what style of eatery it is either!

I know it’s a little early to be doing end of the year retrospectives, but I noticed myself in the mirror this morning and it appears that the hamster cheeks have come back! Now I don’t even need to think about weighing myself because I know that that means that I’ve put all the weight back on that I lost over the first 2 thirds of the year! So, all that hard work ( exercise ) for nothing….!

I was feeling a little introspective as it was, now I’m thinking that most of this year was for nowt!

On a not entirely unrelated note; The Krispy Kreme doughnut store has just opened near work… there are currently 3 boxes of 12 doughnuts that a colleague of mine has brought in, sat on the desk behind me!

Why do people muck around with food? I used to eat Tesco’s Maple and Pecan Crisp for breakfast… last month a box turned up with the shopping that was “Newly Improved”. I don’t like it anymore!

Victoria eats some Oaty Crunch thing.. this month, “Newly Improved”. She doesn’t like it anymore!

Why mess with things…?

I suspect costs; they’ve change the makeup to reduce the costs. But now it tastes shit!