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Wednesday 1st February 2012
Is not two hours at Ikea enough?
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Well, I say that, but two hours before closing time on a Tuesday evening is very different to two hours in the daytime in the middle of the weekend. As closing time approached it dawned on us that we still had a load of cardboard cuboids to pick up from the 'self-service warehouse area'. All but one of these cuboids are now propped up in the hallway, creaking to themselves every time someone walks past as if to say, "Aren't you going to assemble us soon? We don't assemble ourselves, you know." So yeah . . . and we managed to come back with no candles, no plants, no energy-efficient light bulbs and hardly any rubbish from the kitchen area (and nothing from the food shop).
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Sunday 22nd January 2012
Leighton Moss
     
I like this place. You kind of wander around, camera and binoculars at hand, making a vague attempt at looking for interesting looking flying things and you walk past all these people in their 40's, 50's and 60's with some seriously expensive kit handing around their necks and shoulders. But what the hell - it's just got a nice, calm, peaceful atmosphere and several of these hides where you can do more impatient bird watching (the boys don't really have the patience, you see) and that's about it. Simple. Oh, and there's the requisite café at the end, of course.
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Saturday 21st January 2012
Lakes Aquarium
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A day out at the south end of Windermere, mainly visiting the Lakes Aquarium. No doubt we had lunch at the Swan (Newby Bridge); that seems to be our regular haunt when in that part of the world.
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Thursday 19th January 2012
Preparations
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Preparations for the wedding continues apace (?! Is that the expression? Looks kind of weird when you write it down like that . . . type it down, I mean) . . . erm . . . kind of. Mel's doing most of it, as I'm at work during the day-time. Hey, that's my excuse. But secretly I think she really enjoys it, all that planning. Here's a good tip for anyone planning a wedding though: don't buy a wedding magazine. Why? Well, perhaps all those original ideas you thought you had don't suddenly seem all that original and then you start to question free will, the subconscious, creativity, determinism, mortality, death, the universe, the Large Hadron Collider, low-energy nuclear reactions, life boats (which should always be placed so as to catch the captain should he fall off the ship during an emergency) and . . . no, I think I'm thinking of something else here . . . but yeah. The song remains the same (what?! Lep Zeppelin?!): why have I just wasted £4.99 on this? (this being the wedding magazine, held aloft and in disgust between thumb and index finger)
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Tuesday 17th January 2012
Engage!
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I had been trying to capture the gist of a conversation that took place on New Year's Eve (possibly New Year's Day) but I couldn't quite capture the essence. Basically I proposed to Mel that we get married in 2012 and she accepted said proposal. At the time, the proposal was deliberately left very vague (some time in 2012) with the intention to pin-point a date before announcing it to friends and family. Working slightly backwards, we then committed ourselves to getting Mel an engagement ring. This really isn't going to be a normal wedding. Anyway . . . we've managed to narrow it down to 16th June 2012. That's the date.
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Sunday 15th January 2012
Over Wyresdale Parish Hall
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This is another of those more-for-my-benefit-than-anyone-else's kinds of entries. These are pictures of the interior of Over Wyresdale Parish Hall. We wanted to get a feel for the place, work out where everything would go, what kind of facilities it had, the dimensions, all of that stuff. The pictures also serve to give a sense of scale, i.e. Mel standing against one of the walls.
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So yeah . . . Over Wyresdale Parish Hall was in the morning. Later on that day we went for a walk . . . somewhere. Fairy Steps, which would be somewhere around Silverdale. Oh, I remember - we went for lunch at The Wheatsheaf and then we went for our walk.
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Saturday 14th January 2012
Operation Gustavus failed before the agents managed to achieve any results
    
Here we are somewhere around Bolton-le-Sands, walking along the canal. I have a far more derogatory name for this canal, based on dogs and their waste products, which seem in great profusion along this stretch of the canal. Dogs or the waste products? The latter. So yeah . . . it gets a bit tiresome being on constant vigilance having to watch where the boys are going, but hey . . . all part of the fun and games.
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Saturday 7th January 2012
In the past Ganymede may have passed through one or more Laplace-like resonances
Sometime in the afternoon, I thought I would try to get to the bottom of our leaking bathroom radiator (it's a towel radiator, about 2m tall). The copper inlet pipe was leaking slowly, at the point where said copper pipe enters a valve controlling flow of water through radiator. There are two valves (surely only one's needed, you would think), one for the water coming in and one for the water coming out. Anyway, the valves themselves looked fine. So . . . there I am, with recently purchased adjustable wrench from B&Q. I try to tighten the nut surrounding the copper pipe, but it's as tight as it can go. It will loosen, but what's the point in that? So how about this other nut, the one above the valve (a picture would help here).
I loosen the nut, some water comes out, so maybe not a good idea. Then I'm not sure what happens but I mess around with the valve again and all of a sudden I've got a torrent of water coming out of previously loosened nut. I try to tighten this nut as water is going everywhere and I'm starting to panic. So, it's a closed system and the taps controlling access to the water mains are fully closed anyway, so what do you do?
 
Why, you turn the water mains off of course. So I run into the kitchen, turn the water mains off, run back up again, water still gushing everywhere, but I guess pressure has decreased somewhat. I manage to tighten the nut up and stop the water. In retrospect, it dawns on me that all that water was from the radiator itself. Oooops.
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So yeah . . . later on, I'm queueing up to get a drink at The Sun. The guy in front of me, at the bar itself, gets his drinks and wanders off. I'm about to fill the void and place myself at the bar when a man someone leaps in front of me and gets his order. Cheeky b******! So I kind of think to myself, "Okay, fine, keep calm . . . wait your turn, get your drink, it's all fine." Queue-pusher gets his drinks and wanders off. So, again, I try to manoeuvre myself to the bar. A blur of movement and a young, slim, blonde girl has barged in front of me, placed herself at the bar and is being asked by the bar-man (ooo, surprise, he's a man!) what drinks she would like. So, I manage to get myself to the bar and just talk over the top of her, "Can I have a pint of Guinness and a pint of Amstel, please." The barman's like,
"Erm . . . who's first?" So I was like, "Well, I was here first, but this girl pushed in." The girl doesn't say much so the barman's like, "Okay, I'll serve you both then." I'm still in a rage when the girl says something about, "You know, it's very rude to . . . " but I didn't really catch what she was saying. I turned to her and said, "Well, you know, I think it's very rude to barge in front of people like that, and push your way through to the bar. Don't you?" All the time I was saying this, looking at her, she just looked straight ahead and wouldn't answer. I stared at her for a while, puzzling over her fake eyelashes and industrial quantities of make-up. I waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. What's that about, eh? I don't know why I let these kind of encounters get me so riled up. Clearly some action is required, but I often find myself reacting almost on anger-fuelled autopilot. That can't be right. The encounter made me question myself and how I react in these situations so at least I have that to thank her for.
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Friday 6th January 2012
Geoff
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Saturday 31st December 2011
New Year's Eve
This is the only picture I have from tonight. Maybe there were more once, but they were probably all blurry and showed the subjects in bad light. I like this picture as everything looks fairly calm and sedate and there's no evidence of mess or craziness. As Alex put it the following day, "Mum, if me and Rory had left the lounge like that, we would be in so much trouble."
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Thursday 29th December 2011
Arnside Knott
 
Anyone know what on earth the 'knott' refers to? Anyone care? I thought it had something to do with a tree, or the roots of a tree, they being all knotted up or something. I tried to Google the answer but didn't get very far. Anyway, it was bitterly cold today and when we got to the top of the 'knott', the wind really got yeah, as it was all exposed. A dry stone wall and a cute little den provided some welcome shelter.
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Wednesday 28th December 2011
Somewhere in Ambleside?
 
I think today (or was it the day before?) we popped over to Ambleside for the day. This was for a kind of *****-family get-together. I only seem to have these two pictures, though.
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Monday 26th December 2011
Boxing Day
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Sunday 25th December 2011
Hurray! It's Jesus's's's Birthday!
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Oh, that's a bit confusing. I made this entry not realising I had already done that, with the entry containing links to the videos. Ah well. Not to worry. These all are the pictures from today anyway. Yes, some of them are blurry, some could probably do with deleting. I don't really have the time or inclination.
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The Christmas Day Play
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I got the resolution a bit wrong here . . . I seem to be in high definition mode, which was a bit overkill and also resulted in massive files. Anyway . . . there's
this and
this, Alex and Rory's take on the traditional story of the three little piggies.
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February 2012
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