Diet's Day Off

Been to Birmingham for a 4pm meeting, so with a slow exit from Brum and a food stop I didn't get back until 21:30. Decided I wanted hot food rather than another sandwich, so parked the diet and went to the Chippy. Mind you, having lost 11 pounds in 3 weeks I can probably afford the treat!

Insanely windy today, Mega cross winds making driving hairy and knackering my usual 49mpg down to 45mpg

A strange visitor at breakfast

My i30 blew a bulb and Hyundai in all its wisdom designed a car where you have to remove the entire assembly to get at the bulbs. Happily its 3 bolts and a couple of push connectors so easy to do.

I bought Osram super bright bulbs in October and one has gone already - the lesson here is that these high power bulbs never last. So I won't buy any more!

Nor can I get my sidelights out! Supposed to pull straight out of the holder, but even a few tugs with pliers won't shift them....

Ooh blimey, a blog post!

Okay so my "lets blog daily" blog has kind of not happened for the best part of a week. Lots of things I could have taken photos of but didn't, so never mind.

Since last post a quietish weekend. Trip to Rochdale Sunday which would have been Saturday except for the foot of snow which came down over there on Friday night and promptly melted. We're sending Daniel's cheap Android tablet back because the battery has died after a month. And I'm off to Birmingham for a 4pm summit meeting tomorrow for a make or break final negotiation with customer F.

Photos - the big Church in the centre of Stockton, and a big crane which appeared randomly at work this morning

Power cut!

Okay so it was only for 5 minutes or so, but according to the tinterweb it knocked power out for 134 separate post codes! So today's pictures are Daniel eating tea, yet more Quorn (Steak Strips stir fry), and some candles. And a sticklebrick engine....

Work work and work

Not a lot to report. Snow still not melting much. Work. Resurrecting the shunting plank. Working from home tomorrow

A quiet weekend

Snow melted a touch overnight but still cold and a lot more forecast for tonight. So we stayed in!
What to report for today? The BBC made a news story of itself again this morning, when watching Cbeebies we saw a Tweenies show where Max dressed up as Jimmy Saville. I thought it was funny, but its made a big fuss in the press.
Other than that we're still eating the free Quorn provided by work as our weight loss challenge. So see our tea - pasta, chopped tomatoes, sweetcorn, extra mature cheddar and Quorn Pieces. Devoured by both Cara and Daniel quite happily.

More snow!

Had a meeting in Scunthorpe yesterday, then took the non motorway route home through Thorne, Knottingley, Tadcaster and Northallerton.

Took a brief diversion to Ferrybridge to take some photos of the old bridge across the Aire and the power station.

Waiting up for Mummy

Sonia went out, Cara decided to wake up and wouldn't be put back down, so here she is slumped on the sofa.
This is about as far as I can push the camera on my Galaxy S2 - night mode, converted to monochrome then fiddled with brightness and contrast

A winter roam

Meeting in Knowsley this morning followed by a trip back to Stokesley via IKEA at Warrington (yes again!) to get a few bits, then various Spar stores allowing a quick diversion to Hollingworth Lake before an A58 all the way run to Wetherby.
Car still doing 49mpg so playing fuel light bingo - showing a range of 36 miles when I got back with a run to the office and back planned tomorrow before filling up.
Still very very cold, had yesterday's snow still on the roof this morning, snow all over the pennines, then another pile still on the ground at Stokesley. More forecast for the weekend!

Laughing myself Horse

In my line of business I shouldn't laugh at contaminants in food, it can happen to any of us. But the story overnight is that DalePak have managed to slip up to 27% Horse meat into Tesco Value burgers.

With the amount of traffic on Twitter this morning and it leading on BBC breakfast this could be the last straw for this thoroughbred of meat processors.....

Snow!

Didn't post yesterday in disappointment at the lack of snow. Took Patrick to school and there was more snow in Rotherham than at home. Today it snowed hard overnight and there have been several downpours so far this morning. Off to Liverpool later - hopefully

A quiet weekend

And I mean didn't get dressed on Saturday quiet. Very cold with yellow snow warning for Sunday now bumped (at 22:28 Sunday night) to an Amber warning for tomorrow. Getting Patrick to school tomorrow - or me to work afterwards could be fun.

Anyway, pictures are Risotto cooking Saturday and no-snow skies Sunday.

A grey day in Bilsdale

Needed to go out to see stores and to pick up Patrick, so left the office before 2 and went the cross country route to York via Bilsdale and Helmsley.
Gone very cold, with a yellow warning if snow for Saturday afternoon through Sunday. Let's hope not. But at least Patrick has declared a lazy weekend is needed. That suggests a low cash weekend which is needed!

#photoaday x2 - playing catch up

Forgot to post yesterday, so will put yesterday's photo on here later.

Two busy days in the office. Its going cold so deiced both mornings. Have bought a Bluetooth dongle to connect to the car, which reads fuel economy and so on. Still getting to grips with the various readouts but sure it will help push economy even higher.
Also got LED sidelights for the Citroen through the post (yesterday's picture) - what a shame I couldn't get mine out of the holders on the Hyundai as they look great!

We did a finance audit yesterday and as part of our healthier eating push are trying to cut the food bill by not buying all the crap we used to do. Have switched onto eating low sugar cereals like Corn Flakes- can have a huge bowl to fill me up.
Another thing to go is Sky - can't justify the £31 a month for Sky 1, Watch and Sky Atlantic. So I'm doing maintenance on the media centre PC I resurrected before Christmas which means a clean reinstall of Windows, and the plan is to buy a Freesat card to shove in the back.

A trip to that London

Off for a meeting in Harrow, so on an empty 08:25 off Darlington to Kings Cross. Need some exercise so had a wander around my old haunts in Kings Cross, then got the train to Harrow & Wealdstone before walking across town to Harrow on the Hill.
On the way back switched across to West Hampsted Thameslink (any other town have 3 completely separate stations within half a mile on the same road?) for a run to Elephant and Castle then back to Kings Cross and home on another empty HST.
Photos:
1. HST arrived in Platform Zero which is tucked under the offices at Kings Cross
2. My old bedsit on Grays Inn Road. 1st floor window on right
3. Macmillan Building on Crinan Street where I used to work
4. Bull sculpture on Regents Canal behind The Guardian office on York Way
5&6 Elephant and Castle - what a shithole!
7. Home again. Bomb's gone off

Bath Monster

Long day in the office with non stop spreadsheet goodness and rain outside the window, so little to report!

MPGathon

Just got back from Essex in the family fun bus. 250 miles each way plus a bit of running around there. Considering that I had cruise control set for 70mph for decent chunks of the trip down I don't think this total MPG is too shabby when we had a boot full and load 4.....

Another trip to Njarnia

Left the kids with Mary and went to IKEA with Sonia at Thurrock. It was rammed!
One game in IKEA is to find the funniest products/product names. This time I found some floor mats named after the Mayor of London, and some Chewbacca cushions

A Travelcard day out

Laindon to Barking to Gospel Oak to Clapham Junction to Shadwell to Woolwich Arsenal. Then Thames Clipper to Bankside, a walk past St Pauls to City Thameslink. Then to East Croydon then Clapham Junction again and into Waterloo. Then Jubilee line to Canning Town, DLR to Stratford International and back to West Ham for the leap back to Laindon.

Lunchy Lunchy

This is the life of the busy sales manager - lunch is a nondescript butty sat in the car at half one in a Tesco car park in North Lincolnshire....

Secret Santa ran late

Got into the office this morning and on my desk was this! As nothing had turned up in the Secret Santa before Christmas it was a nice surprise (bottle of Bailey's)

#photoaday 2nd January - back to work

It felt and looked like the middle of the night when the alarm went off at 7am. But there was some light still at 4pm which had us in the office saying "wow".

Then back home for a quick play with Daniel and Cara. Wore the boy out....

#photoaday - Day 1

Its 2013 and I have taken up a new challenge to take a photo every day of something. I'm writing this on the 2nd and its already been a challenge!

Anyway, the idea is to take pictures of something happening each day on my Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, tweet it, then Blog it. I didn't blog yesterday so pretend today is 1st January!

Today (yesterday) I took Patrick home after lunch then came back again. Yawn.....