I spent a lovely weekend doing countryside things, specifically, seeing my dad and my sister on board her houseboat, currently moored near Bath. She had invited us up for a barbeque, and what a barbeque it was! We had burgers, bratwurst sausages (the best kind), and three types of kebab, not forgetting corn on the cob and a lovely salad (healthy options so we didn't feel so bad about wolfing all that meat down!). Just when we thought we had finished, we had to try and make room for toasted marshmallows, which I managed to do quite successfully, even if I do say so myself.

Hearing some of the 'landlubbers' comments as they walked past was quite funny, "Ooooh look, they're having a barbeque on that one!" Yes, we can hear you! My sister told us about a time when a family looked into the boat and one said to another "Wow, they've even got bread and butter!" Woooooow. It's amazing that people treat the boaties as if they are unable to hear anything that is said on land, even worse, that they could well be an entirely new species, albeit one that 'even eats bread and butter'! Ah well, they don't know what they are missing!

I was still thinking about this when we drove through Putney later that night on the way back to the ghetto. Some young cretin and his mates were spraying graffiti on a brick wall, using a rather dull orange colour (which barely showed up, by the way) at only 8:30pm, still daylight at the time of year, with barely a care in the world. You would have thought that they would have chosen a contrasting colour, dull orange really doesn't get the job done, and if they got caught (which they wouldn't as no one seemed to be taking a blind bit of notice) would it all really have been worth it?

Looking forward to getting out of the city for good....

I'll start off with the bad, because it's always best to get that out of the way first isn't it? Is the whole world going mad or is it just me? (Some of you don't need to answer that).

The British Police are in hot water over three separate incidents: pushing an innocent man over during the G20 protests, who later died of a heart attack; a PC who died when he crashed into a house whilst calling the station to say he be late to a meeting; and the other one who was speeding with no lights or sirens and killed a beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her....the list goes on.

Meanwhile Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister, is rapidly taking Prince Philip's place as pronouncer of stupid and inappropriate remarks, when he reportedly told the 17,000 made homeless by the recent earthquake to look on sleeping in tents as a 'camping weekend'. Sometimes I just wish people would take a look at the REAL lives people lead sometimes, instead of looking out from their ivory towers and making stupid flippant remarks.

In the US, a mentally ill and severely depressed mother shoots her son dead and then kills herself in a shooting range. Shocking and so sad.

So what's the good then? Well, it seems more local and personal. Friends getting married, friends having babies, Romalidays coming up, new friends and old, going for walks with the dog and smelling the new green things growing in the woods, sunny and warm days, not getting home in the dark. You take it where you can find, it don't you!

And the ugly? That's just me. I need more sleep and I'm definitely planning to get it over the long weekend!

Oh my God. What a bloody awful day I had yesterday. It was such an annoying day that I'm still feeling annoyed today, thereby ruining my entire weekend. I'm sure you'll be aware of the saying "bad things come in threes"? Read on...

Scenario #1 - Washing machine delivery
We'd ordered a washing machine that was due to be delivered between 9am and 12noon. We'd been assured that they would call us to make sure we were in before they came round. Well, they didn't and of course they came round early rather than late, so there we were, scrambling out of bed and trying to make room for the delivery. So far, so not yet annoyed. It transpired, however, during the 'installation' process that the new washing machine only needed one inlet pipe, whereas the old washing machine used two. But one of the pipes wouldn't stop leaking. (Cue enormous pool of water on my kitchen floor). "Not our problem mate," said the delivery chumps, "You'd better get a plumber in, luv." And they promptly disappeared, leaving us with two washing machines in our not very big kitchen. Luckily a nearby plumber owed me a favour, so I called him round and he came and capped the pipe off and we plumbed in the new machine. No problem. Scenario #1 dealt with satisfactorily. By the way, for those of you who are wondering what we did with the old one - yes we took it outside and it had been 'recycled' within the hour.

Scenario #2 - dog locked in sitting room
Meanwhile, to let the delivery chumps and the plumber get on with things, I had shut the dog in the sitting room, since she likes to meet new people in quite an energetic way. Despite moaning at Y not to shut the sitting room door for the past week as I'd removed the door handle to test the width of space for delivery of the new sofas, I of course shut it without a second thought. It wasn't until I came to let her out again that I realised the door wasn't going to open. After having a five minute panic some logical thought came into my head that I should unscrew the bedroom door handle, screw it onto the sitting room door and lo and behold, scenario #2 satisfactorily resolved. All door handles now screwed back on to prevent similar catastrophe. Thank god the tool box wasn't shut in the sitting room too. I can take comfort from these small pieces of luck.

Scenario #3 - broken down car in middle of busy junction
In the evening we were looking forward to catching up with friends. I decided to drive since I haven't for ages, and I just got my car fixed up again. We only got about 20 minutes into the journey before the sodding thing stopped slap bang in the middle of Clapham and wouldn't start again. After waiting for an hour in the freezing cold, and enduring much pointing and staring at my poor car by passers-by, we got picked up by a recovery truck and taken home. No chance of tasty homecooked food for me. By that point I was so hacked off with the entire day we just got takeaway and drank some beers. Which was ok I suppose. Now I have a car that still won't start. No idea of what is wrong and no chance of getting it to a garage to sort it out for a while. It's steeled my resolve to sell the blasted thing though, and get something boring and sensible like a Fiesta or something.

It was a pretty bad day, all in all. Thought i could have been worse, when compared to another one of my 'bad things come in threes' days, which cost me £400 and gave me a scar on my leg which I've still got.

Quite frankly I can't wait to get back to work.