A Simple Life of Luxury

Morgans largest birthday present was a bouncy castle complete with ball pit. The castle itself is a little too large for indoor use, but the ball pit just about fits in the spare room. We now have around 500 balls and Morgan seems to enjoy himself in it. Of course, he is just as happy playing in the box in which the balls came!

I can’t wait for the summer when we invite all his friends and their parents around for a BBQ and a play in the bouncy castle / ball pit.

Last week while my parents were here we decided to get a bird table! We had been meaning to do so for a while as Morgan likes to watch the birds out of the window, and we quite like it too.

Most were too expensive, but thanks to ‘cheap charlies’ we found one in our price range and have installed it in the garden. So far though it hasn’t had a single visitor.. Are the birds around here snobs? Do they only go to expensive bird tables!

Actually, it has been one of those weeks really. I’ve been suffering all week with yet another flu type bug so I haven’t managed to get much work done resulting not only in a bit of a back-log but also little income. On top of which I had to buy a new computer (Dual Core 2Ghz G5 Powermac) which wasn’t exactly cheap. That is at least all set up and running now which was actually pretty easy, but these things always get me a little stressed for some reason.

I then had a meeting in Brecon on Friday so with out any work on in the morning and still feeling under the weather I headed off with plenty of time to spare. I hadn’t had any breakfast so intended to get to Brecon early and have a nice lunch and hot chocolate in Brecon so as to be nice and fresh for my meeting. This wasn’t to be. About 5 miles from Brecon my van started making the unmistakable sounds of its exhaust falling off, so my first task once in Brecon was to drive around all the garages tryng to find one that would be able to fit a new one (at yet more expense). Eventually I found a garage that could help, miles from where I was supposed to be of course so the rest of my ‘lunch-break’ was spent walking through Brecon in the rain. Not helped by the fact that whilst looking for a garage a lorry had reversed into my van leaving it nicely dented and then just driven off.

At least the meeting went OK and when I got back to the garage all was fixed and I was able to drive home. A little later than expected but, better late than never. The following day we had a family trip into town, stopped for lunch, stopped for some shopping, stopped for some more shopping and then got in the van to drive home and it wouldn’t start. Intitial thoughts were problems with the starting motor that had been replaced last week, but after calling out a recovery vehicle from a local garage it turned out to be a faulty alternator and no charge in the battery… Anna’s car is in for an MOT, my van isn’t starting and will hopefully be in for repair tomorrow, when will it end!

Strangely, to add to the fun the mole on my back that I was supposed to be having surgically removed in a couple of weeks decided to just fall off whilst in bed the other night leaving a nice pool of blood on the sheets and me with some explaining to do at the doctors!!

Definitely one of those weeks… I wonder what this week has in store for us.

If it doesn’t make me sound too old, I’ve now been windsurfing for over 20 years, but believe it or not, in all that time I have never indulged in my passion outside of the UK. All that is about to change as I am in the process of organising a windsurfing holiday to Dahab in Egypt.

The reason I haven’t been before is usually financial. For the cost of a holiday I could buy myself a complete new set of windsurfing kit enabling me to get out more in this country so I just never took the plunge. But not long ago someone approached me asking if they could promote their Holiday Villa in Dahab on my UK windsurfing and Kitesurfing website. Part of the deal included a free weeks accommodation so I would have been a fool to turn it down. I’ve now booked the flights and intend to head out to Egypt at the end of April for a week. I only hope there is wind when we get there.

Once again I’ve had to call on my mechanic brother, Brad to help me out. All my education and yet it still seems to be me calling on him for help and advice more often than him calling on me. I always new there would be little call for my training as a carbonate sedimentologist and even less call for it within my own family, so it just goes to show that mechanics, plumbers, electricians etc. are much more useful than those of us with degrees and other such bits of paper.

First my van wouldn’t start so I called Brad to find out what to do. He told me which bit to ‘whack’ (quite literally) and sure enough it did the trick, the van started and I was able to get home. It didn’t work the next time, but at least it was now broken outside my house rather than several miles away and now Brad is planning on a trip here at the weekend armed with his tools and a new starting motor so that I’ll once again be a happy trucker… Hooray for mechanics!

Mind you, I did recently get to repay him a little by setting up a website for him and his fiancee and by encouraging him to drive up here for some fun in the snow, so it isn’t all one-sided!

Really I guess that title should say, Mother, Wife and Mother-in-Law are always right! They’ve been nagging at me for a while to go to the doctors for a general check-up as my family history doesn’t make great reading: High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart attacks and cancer all feature highly in the medical history of my Aunts and Uncles, so after much nagging and as part of my Mid-Life Crisis off I went to the doctors.

The first and second blood pressure tests showed that I did have high blood pressure, but the third test was OK so they are just going to keep an eye on that. My blood test revealed that I also have high cholesterol levels, so it now looks as though I shall be on tablets for the foreseeable future in order to keep the cholesterol levels down… Not what I was anticipating, but I guess it is best to get on top of it now before it becomes an issue.. OK, Mum, Anna and Pat, you were right I should have gone earlier!

I now have to make an appointment at the opticians to check for Glaucoma.. My Mid-Life Crisis contines! I guess I’ll have to cut down on the burgers too, not that I have THAT much of an unhealthy diet.

OK, OK, I know it has been around for ages, but it hasn’t been available for the Mac OS 10.3 Operating System for long, so I have only recently got my hands on it. All I can say is AMAZING! Now I just have to find a use for it other than simply browsing at places I already know!

It is a great way to waste yet more time in front of the computer though. Maybe I should just bin it and spend some more time with my family! Google Earth that is not my computer… Although there are times when binning that seems like a good idea too.

Eloise & Brad have a new website! Brad is my brother and he will soon be getting married to Eloise, so I have just set them up with a nice new website very much like this one, that will allow them to publish details of their wedding plans and any other news and views they wish to put on the web.

I’ve just spent the last four days snowboarding here in West Wales, and what an excellent four days it was. It is times like these that our chosen lifestyle really pays dividends, as I was able to put work on hold for a few days (or do some work at night) and enjoy the spectacular Welsh scenery.

Lots of nice fresh snow, lots of scenery, lots of friends and lots of nice steep hills.. Quite a few bumps and bruises too of course and every muscle in my body aches! As well as plain old snowboarding we spent a fair bit of time snow-kiting and had some fun hurtling down the hills on boogie-boards.

I think everyone now wants to head off to a proper ski-resort to really get the hang of snow-boarding… Who knows, maybe next year (or the year after that) once Morgan is old enough. Although, there is still some snow up there now, so I may end up having another go this afternoon!

Grrrrr….. My nice shiny 15″ 1.5Ghz Apple Powerbook has blown up… It is less than 2 years old, cost me close to £2,000 and has been treated very gently, but the logic board is fried and it looks as though a repair is going to cost as much as buying a new machine.. I’m not happy.

Apple themselves have been completely and utterly unhelpful, they won’t even let me talk to ‘customer relations’ without first paying them £37 on my credit card over the phone… How they can call that customer relations I don’t know. I’ve been an Apple customer for over 10 years, this is the first time I’ve had to contact them and that is how I get treated… Not Good!

The company I bought the machine from haven’t been too helpful either, but trading standards have, and apparently the Sale of Goods Act states that items sold should be fit for their purpose and these statuatory rights are over and above that of any manufacturers warranty and last up to 6 years depending on the item. I think a £2,000 laptop should last more than 20 months so I am persuing this with the reseller and the credit card company via trading standards… Lets hope it results in a free repair or replacement as I can’t afford to simply bin a £2,000 Apple laptop after just 20 months.