marc.vic.max.elliot

?  We got our appointment for our 20 week scan today so that’s something to look forward to   Everyone is asking if we are going to find out the sex of the baby and the topic is still under discussion.  My mother begged me not to find out on the phone this morning but this will, of course, have little effect on our decision   One option is to find out and not tell people unless the specifically ask.  The problem with this of course is that if I find out there is no way that I’ll be able to stop calling it him or her!

?  This story made me laugh……. New Zealand have just had elections and although this woman went through the selection process and got elected as a Member of Parliament no-one figured out that she wasn’t a New Zealand citizen!

? ?During the tri-nations match between SA nd NZ in the weekend a South African supporter ran onto the pitch and tackled the referee.  The ref suffered a dislocated shoulder and the “fan” has been charged with assault and trespass. Sure, there were dodgy decisions in the match as there are in almost all sporting endeavours but they were, IMO, pretty evenly spread in this match. Just because you feel aggrieved that is NO excuse to attack and official.

Given this I was amazed to read the The Citizen newspaper in Pretoria, South Africa had

branded the “fan” a martyr!! (NZ Herald story link) in it’s editorial.  Now I have no idea what type of paper this is (couldn’t find a web presence) so it may be that this is the type of stance it takes on a lot of things – who knows. One thing I do know is that articles like this don’t do anything to dispel the idea of South Africans as being arrogant and bullish.  Most of the South Africans that I have met have been very nice people and I count them amongst my friends but stories like this just play up to the stereotype that much of the world has.  What do my SA friends think?

This was a bit of a laugh. This is how I scored with various personality disorders – I’m so boring!

Via Bekah

I’m at home working and have just sat through one of the best thunderstorms of my life

We’ve had at least half an hour of almost continuous thunder with some real belters that shook the windows.

Way cool :vbg:

I haven’t run for 7 days now 🙁

I feel really bad until I look down and see the suppurating wound where once there was heel skin………

I went out on Monday wearing these teva sandals that I got the last time I was back in NZ.  I’ve worn them about 20 times and they always give me trouble – but it was so friggin’ hot and I wasn’t walking far so I thought “what the hell”

Of course as soon as I thought this, life conspired against me and I ended up walking waaaaay further than I had planned 🙁   After a while my heel started to hurt so I bought some sticking plasters to protect it.  Being a hot sticky day of course they didn’t stick and the constant rubbing just made it worse.

After a while it started to really sting. I looked……. it had gone from sore, through blistered, through skin ripped off and into the bleeding open wound stage.

Ouch 🙁

It’s taking a while to heal as well bugger it!

The first three days of the week have passed and have made very little impression on my life……

The weather was v.hot then OK then pissing down.  Typical English summer really.

Well, another weekend and yet again no entry until Monday!  This weekend was so busy!

On Saturday I travelled to Brighton, on the south coast, to spend a day with the people from my camera club taking photos.  The day was forecast to be overcast in the morning but quite warm which it did indeed turned out to be and the cloud cleared later to turn into a great afternoon.  I met my friends Nic and Adele (the ones I did the wedding photos for) at London Bridge at 08:30 and off we went…….

For this trip I really wanted to slow myself down so all I took was my Bronica ETRSi with three lenses (I rented a 150mm for the weekend), two film backs, filters, light meter and tripod. This camera does nothing for you – for every shot you have to use a handheld meter and make sure that the aperture and shutter speed are set correctly.  I screwed up a few shots by metering but then forgetting to change the shutter speed, d’oh! 

I was in Brighton from 10:00 until 19:30 and took 30 photos! (two rolls of 120 film) Yep, 9? hours and 30 frames of film exposed!  All you users of digicams out there (me included) will understand what a miniscule number of shots this is   I’m taking the film in today to be developed and might get a couple of shots I like.

I got home just before 22:00 sunburned (ouch!) and absolutely knackered.  A nice shower, into bed and then up just in time to go to Colin and Gill’s (Vic’s Uncle and Aunt) for a BBQ in Colchester.  The temp was about 30?C/86?F with a gentle breeze to take the edge off.  It was nice to see everyone but before long we were in the car for the trip home.  Got home, went to bed and all of a sudden it’s Monday morning.

My weekend – so busy and it disappeared so quickly! 🙁

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The RMT went on strike today and brought the entire Undergound network to a halt.  Vic’s trip to work usually take 45 mins.  I just called her and she is a third of the way home after one and a half hours!

I don’t want my newly pregnant wife to be stressed out, over heated and standing up all bloody afternoon.  Bastard union f*ckers! – Not happy!

Here’s some tube facts……

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I had a bit of a laugh whilst flicking through the channels today

I came upon an old episode of Beyond 2000 which is an Australian magazine style science show.

The cutting edge news was a portable MP3 player (32MB I think) and some new software that would be released soon for helping to search for ET life – SETI@Home

The world changes so rapidly………

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