Crisis averted

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Our spare set of keys, the one with keys for all the house and shed doors, has been AWOL for the past 48 hours. This was somewhat disconcerting and we’ve been tearing the house upside-down looking for them.  It was just continuing the trend that started earlier in the week.

I was >< this close to calling a locksmith and having all the locks changed, but happily the wayward keys have been found, locked in the small shed. I had to use my bolt cutters to get past the padlock, but that's a small price to pay compared to a locksmith's fees.

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Anniversary weekend redux

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It was our anniversary last weekend and Katy, the Bean and I went to Leicester. The plan, originally, a long time ago, was for us to leave Bean with the oldies and go down to London for one night to have a nice meal and some R&R time. This, unfortunately, was tossed out of the window on several occasions when the oldies got their hospital appointments mixed up, sorted out, and then mixed up again. In the end, we stayed in Leicester but tried to sneak out as often as possible. Even this was pooh-pooed though, with snarky comments about costs and eating plans. Poo on the oldies, I say!

Still, we had some good moments. Katy and I had tickets to go see the live telecast of the 25th anniversary performance of the Phantom of the Opera at the Showcase cinema. The male lead wasn’t as good as Colm Wilkinson, but the female lead was excellent. We also went to Twycross Zoo, where we saw lots of amnimals and debated leaving Bean in a monkey enclosure. Bean rode on a train and saw some Lennies, and then went on a ride with Mel, but didn’t seem too keen on it.

We also went to a farm not too far away from Leicester, where Bean was almost eaten by a sheep (which provided much mirth to his parents), got covered head-to-toe in loose straw and rode on several tractors (including a live one, though this time it was in a haybale ride).

We decided to leave a bit early on Wednesday to go see the Christmas display at Scottsdales. That was cool, and provided some good ideas for the huuuuuuuuuuuuuge Christmas display I’m planning to make in the office this year. I do have to admit that I’m going a bit mad with the planning of it, but I can’t seem to help myself ebaying more stuff to get for it :) Watch this space!!!

Pics online: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/leics_oct_2011

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Tae-kwan-dodo drummers

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Katy and I went to see the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers at the Cambridge Corn Exchange last week. It’s something that I organised through the EBI Staff Association and it was a really good show. We had to rush a bit getting there, because Bean was a handful to get to bed, but even though we got there a few minutes after the show started, it wasn’t a problem to get to our seats and we were really up-close and personal with the action (a bit too close at times, because one of the drummers freaked Katy out with his demented-drummer face).

I’m really happy to have seen the show. It was really powerful at times and most excellent. The technique and the movement is beautiful to watch, and they had the choreography spot on. It was fun because, even though they’re very dedicated to their craft, they don’t seem to take it too seriously (as demonstrated by a man built like a brick shit-house playing a teeny-tiny percussion bowl).

It really makes me want to see the Kodo Drummers even more now, and hopefully they’re going to come to the UK next year.

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That just made my day

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[15:50:07] Joe Foster: Gillian has washed my passport again, I won’t be in on monday I need to go to Peterborough to get a new one in time to travel with Juanan to Utrecht.
[15:50:10] Joe Foster: huzzah
[15:50:24] Richard Cote: ROFL
[15:51:12] Richard Cote: Why do you insist in keeping your passport in your pants?
[15:51:24] Richard Cote: you’d think you’d know better by now :)
[15:51:28] Joe Foster: because I dont carry a hand bag like a woman
[15:51:53] Richard Cote: at the price of emergency passport replacement, you might want to invest in a man-purse :)
[15:52:24] Joe Foster: and destroy my million pound street cred?!!?
[15:52:35] Richard Cote: what street cred?
[15:52:44] Richard Cote: you’re as white bread as they come
[15:53:19] Richard Cote: hell, I’m old and fat and have more street cred than you do :)
[15:53:27] Joe Foster: sure…sure…
[15:53:38] Richard Cote: tattoos count for something :)
[15:54:30] Joe Foster: So does being in a band, and being a champion drinker.
[15:55:49] Richard Cote: I will grant you the band thing is cool
[15:56:01] Richard Cote: but is unfortunately cancelled out by your magic geekery
[15:56:33] Richard Cote: Comic-book-guy has no street cred.
[15:56:44] Joe Foster: I agree the magic counts against me, but it’s more than outweighed by my partying skills and general banter.
[15:57:31] Richard Cote: true, you’re not completely white bread. You can call yourself Hovis 50/50
[15:57:46] Joe Foster: I can accept that, granary is for noobs.
[15:57:56] Richard Cote: I shall henceforth refer to you as BOB
[15:58:23] Joe Foster: gah you sound like my parents
[15:58:31] Joe Foster: they never call me joe, always bob.
[15:58:45] Richard Cote: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
[15:58:58] Richard Cote: your parents rule :)
[15:59:08] Joe Foster: they kinda do.

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Some impressive, yet frigntening, statistics

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My personal website is an ever-growing beast. Here are some of its stats:

28,558 files (2,054 of those are for the wordpress infrastructure)
1.5 GB disk usage
7,095 images (more or less)
Oldest file timestamp: Dec 31 1998

232,830 average monthly hits
4.3 GB average monthly network traffic

For reasons that aren’t really clear, the most consistently used search strings to appear in the logs are:

train cake
monopoly spaces
dilbert
garfield
bizarro
gay midget

I can understand most of those but, gay midget, wtf??

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What bean did in his summer vacation

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I’m a very bad blogger :(

My mom came for a 10-day visit a couple of weeks ago and I’m just coming ’round to blogging about it now. Her flight came in on time and Katy picked her up from Heathrow. We spent the first day around the house, but the next few days were quite busy indeed.

We went to see visit Audley End (finally, after 3 years of living in Saffron Walden) but bean was feeling under the weather so we only saw the garden, stable yard and part of the service yard. We ditched the house tour because Bean was running a bit of a fever. Turns out he had tonsilitis, but you could’ve fooled us by his still-high energy levels… The horses there were huuuuge, but very friendly.

We went to Lakeside, where my mom spoiled Bean rotten with new coats and a scarf and hat from Next. He also got a big green tractor like pop has (bonus for him that it makes noise!). We also stopped at Ikea, where Bean had meatballs and my mom treated us to a few goodies of our own.

We went on a mad framing rampage. We’ve had stuff that has been needing framing lying around for years. We got some frames from Ikea and we also took most of the stuff to be custom-framed at a local shop in Shire Hill. Hopefully those will come back soon. We had about a dozen pieces to be mounted and framed and I’m really looking forward to seeing the results.

We took my mom and Bean to Wimpole Hall, where we were so enthused by the farm that we bought a membership to the National Trust on the spot because we figured we’d be going there so often in the future (it’ll probably be a rotation between the farm and Scottsdales). Katy and Bean have been there again since, and Bean’s already gotten to chase some piglets and turn on a milking machine. It’s a really nice place to spend an autumn day and we got a really perfect day for it.

The gardens were beautiful (not something you’ll hear me say often) and I know that Mel will be proud that Bean scrumped his first apple (even if it was with the consent of one of the gardeners).

Mel, Pam and Stu came over for a day and we all went for lunch at Scottsdales.

Katy and I had a chance to have some alone time because my mom threw us out of the house twice. The first day, we went into Cambridge to shop a bit for things for Bean, Gaby and Antoine. We spent waaay too much money on children’s books and we had a really nice lunch at a french Bistro called Cote, on Bridge Street: herb chicken, steak frite, moules, calamari and wine :)

We’d planned on going to the Spanish mafia’s pub quiz that night, but I inadvertently poisoned Katy with some raw onions during the day and she didn’t feel up to going. I did get dispensation to go on my own though, and my contributions (Zara Philips and Chutzpah) were well received, even if we didn’t win. I got accosted by the rather elderly and inebriated sister of the pub landlord, a fellow expat, who spent a rather long amount of time telling me that life was great and the world was small. David won’t let me forget that moment. Bastard.

The second day, we went shopping for Bean’s bicycle. We’d been saying for months before my mom came that Nana would be buying Bean a bike, so we got him a little scooter and a proper bike with training wheels. He’s already gotten the scooter and will get his bike for his birthday. We also discovered that I can safely eat at Subway :)

My mom said that she ate very well, which makes me happy. I’d made gumbo one night, fajitas on another and we also discovered an italian take-away restaurant in Saffron Walden that can cater to my allergies! Shocking, I know!! My mom also had fish&chips, and had a few bites for my dad (who was, btw, seriously missing my mom)

All in all, I hope that my mom had a good trip. I know I enjoyed seeing Audley End and Wimpole. I think they’d be nice alternatives to our sunday plans.

Pictures online: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/mom_trip_sep_2011

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