My mother passed away on Thursday 17th January 2008, after a short illness. 

On Sunday we spent a very enjoyable 60 minutes learning all about Ladybirds at our local nature reserve. During the summer months they organise several events for kids to introduce them to local nature - and to encourage usage of this great local resource.

Charlotte spent most of the time eating the blackberries she found growing everywhere - but we did manage to answer all 10 questions on our little clipboard - although to be honest the answers were all printed on various cards they'd placed around the reserve!

However we did totally fail to find a single ladybird anywhere!

For the first time in over 30 years, last weekend I went to Blackpool - which was a whole new experience for Alexa and Charlotte.

We went up Friday afternoon - by train - and got there just before 3pm, just in time to see all the Stag and Hen weekend outings arrive in town!
Spent a very enjoyable weekend there and returned home on a much less busy Monday afternoon.

Just signed up for a years subscription to Bandwagon - it's a service which will allow me to backup all my iTunes data to either my Amazon S3 account, or to any space I may have on a FTP server somewhere.

My combined iTunes library is running at several Gigs, so backing up in any conventional way (CDs, DVDs, etc) is very clumbersome - So I'm curious how well this will work for me. I'm guessing once the (large) initial upload is out of the way, it should be pretty easy going.

If you want to find out more, you can check them out at ridethebandwagon.com 

We can now hold our heads up high, and proudly join the Chiswick social network that is the "Two Sofa Family"

Over the weekend, we added a sofa to our recently completed extension - creating a "Family Room" at the rear of our house, and providing an alternative seating location for various members of the family.

Although both Charlotte and Max seem to think it's their own private space - it will hopefully get used by the family as a whole - and in the meantime it provides an excellent place for me to escape to while Alexa's watching "CSI:Wherever"

Why is it that while the builder was doing the work - and we enquired when something would be done - the typical answer that we heard was "We have a busy schedule, and we'll be around to do it just as soon as we can".

However, now that we're in the final stages of settling the builder's last bill - which involves moving money from a US bank account and having to physically visit a UK bank to arrange a bank transfer - we endure regular daily phone calls enquiring as to it's progress - during which,  the explanation that "We also have a busy schedule, and we'll be able to do it just as soon as we can" - never seems to be acceptable.

Maybe I should mention to him that there's now a £200 extra charge that we have to bill him for due to the distance that we have to walk to the bank!

The problem with browsing and buying on a lazy Sunday afternoon is that you arrive home with a variety of bags full of some stuff you just don't remember buying.

As an example, here's a selection of items which I've just emptied out of carrier bags this evening;
1) A solar powered shed light
2) Suction cup based clips for the fridge
3) A water jug with a built-in ice holder inside
4) A roll of PTFE tape
5) A selection of self-adhesive felt pads
6) A bag of M4 nuts and bolts

Some of these will be used immediately, some will be put aside for upcoming projects, others however may find a home in a cupboard somewhere.

Well today didn't start out that great - got up and prepared ourselves for church, rushed out the door, got to the church - then discovered it was the wrong church! This is not quite as comical as it sounds, as during the summer months the Sunday service alternatives between two churches due to lower attendance numbers. And today we forgot to check!

So once we go over that, the rest of the day went surprisingly well.
Brunch  at Giraffe, Charlotte spending her pocket money in Woolworth's, feeding the ducks at Chiswick Business Park, and then a few beers to end the day at The Swan.

Back to work tomorrow!

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Always happy to hear from anyone.