Thur, Apr 26th

Newsflash. Once again Dad nearly had a heart attack tonight. Well, that was his response to seeing my neice Denise and her boyfriend, Ed, on his front door today. The two dropped in unannounced on a quick trip from Dublin. Denise had told him that she had hoped to be in London for a few days in May, but preferred to drop in and surprise him instead.

Dad called me to give me the news, and Denise called an hour or so later to say hi. Denise and Ed plan to go to the London Zoo, Madame Tussuad's, Mum's grave, and of course plans to spend as much time as she can with Dad, too.

I asked how my brother David was doing and he appears to be progressing well with his physiotherapy, following his heart surgery a few months back. Rita, my sister in law (or Happy Feet, as they call her) is still waiting for her foot surgery. And my nephew David is planning to travel to California later this year with his girlfriend. So he too seems to be doing well despite his lung problems.

Wed, Apr 25th

A busy week for the two of us at work so far. However, Dawn had a little respite today when she met some ex-work colleagues from Schiller at Caprini's near the the school campus in Waterloo Road for lunch.

Dawn meets up with Mavis and Margaret every few months so they can all catch up on how life has treated them. M&M, who are both retired, usually go out travelling every week to see somewhere new. Which is why one day they decided, as usual on the spur of the moment, to jump on a bus and have a ride to the Homerton Hospital in Hackney. Their opinion of the well-known local landmark: 'There was quite an odd assortment of characters there.' Yes, that would be the place.

As for me, I came home to spend my lunch with Tiny and had my usual ham sandwich.

Tonight I called Dad to see how his week was going. Again, he had been to the Whittington for his weekly blood test. On Monday, he went out with George and picked up the St George first day cover.

Sun, Apr 22nd

Today we had a ride up to Holloway and took Dad and George out for lunch at The Landseer, a pub a short walk from their flats, where Dad and George have lived at number 14 for 45 years, and within the same block (I was born at number 24) for over 50 years.

We all had a roast meal. Dad, being the odd one out, choosing the pork instead of the beef. The food was okay, but we really went for the company. Dawn always says that you get the best roast dinners at home. Although they did have some sad news. George's neighbour friend, Sue, died yesterday from some kind of kidney renal failure at the age of 40 years old and leaving behind an 8 year old child. It came as a real shock to us. Sue had been a great help to George when Dad was in hospital earlier this year.

Then we went to the butcher of Chapel Market. We popped into Supercuts and got a scalping. Dawn went first and got the shortest haircut of her life. The guy cutting her hair didn't seem to understand what she meant by a dry cut. As for me, it was worse. I asked for the same style with about 3/4 inch off. Instead he did my whole head the same and left me with less than 3/4 inch on my head. This means that my scalp is now my overpowering feature as it shines through the thinly covering strands of loose hair.

Sat, Apr 21st

Things did not go too well today. We got up early so we could run some errands, get our haircut, do the grocery shopping, and do a whole string of things at home.

Well, we were in Hertford town by 9am. We dropped into Boots for much needed dental stuff, popped into WH Smith to pick up a couple of maps, looked unsuccessfully in Woolworths for a cooler, bought some cards in Clinton's, and also got some cash from the ATM at the Halifax. All by 10.15am in time to get our haircut at A Head of Time. However, this is where things started to go wrong. Our hairdresser, Kelly, called in sick so she couldn't cut our hair. And just for good measure, the other hairdresser was fully booked so we couldn't get her to do it for us either. Rescheduling was not an option as we already have plans the next two Saturdays and would have to wait 3 weeks before they could fit us in. The answer was Supercuts. But I'll come to that next time.

We did the grocery shopping in Welwyn Garden City as usual, and then headed home for lunch. Dawn then got busy doing stuff around the house (including three wash loads), while I watched Spurs grab a very late equaliser against Arsenal in the 5th minute of injury time.

Fri, Apr 20th

Well, I'm glad this week is over. Tonight was my office night out on the town. We'd decided to have a drink at a local pub in Hertford, but I cried off because I had too much to do. On the way home Dawn and I picked up a Chinese take-away to save on cleaning, too.

As for work, I had a another weird week. I did several reports using SQL, which made my labour analysis reporting for the managers meeting a lot easier. However, the training I had set up for the ADEO system was cancelled when Atlantic Global contacted me to tell me their trainer was sick. Instead, I find out that we have a fifth piece of software called MOA that we should consider using as an all singing, dancing package. Not only did I not know about this stuff, but I didn't know that we were using it along side ADEO, PSI, EMP and AMP!

And, for the record, Dawn too was happy to close out another week.

Tues, Apr 17th

Guess what? I checked the desktop's network settings this morning, changed one option in the IP filtering screen, and presto we had Internet access again. However, this was just as Dawn was going out the door to work. So, she didn't have a chance to do her morning email to Brady. At least we're back on track again.

Mon, Apr 16th

Well today was no better than yesterday. I got to work, and now my email was down at work which meant that I couldn't receive time sheets I needed. Last week, I received all but a couple by the end of the first day's work. This week, I was left needing about 40% still. And, as for the router problem at home, it was still not resolved.

So, when Dawn and I got home from work, I set about trying to solve the problem again. Once again I called BT and ended up talking to a call centre in India. After about three quarters of an hour, of which 30 minutes I was telling the so-called expert what needed to be done, I was finally put through to someone who knew what they were talking about. We spent over half an hour checking and changing settings and finally my laptop could access the Internet. Unfortunately, the desktop couldn't. At this point BT said "Well, your router's okay now. You need to get a computer expert in to look at the desktop." I could have screamed. However, according to Dawn, I had already been shouting!!! Give me strength.

One other footnote. I finished reading Skelling by David Almond. That brings my total to books finished reading this year to 25!

Sun, Apr 15th

A very traumatic day to say the least. It started well, but by tea time I was ready to pull my hair out. First thing I did after we'd had breakfast and a shower was set up a small wireless network so I could transfer data between the two PCs and hopefully use the new backup device and printer connected to the desktop. I copied a month's worth of photos to my laptop, and felt pretty good. By the way, I will be updating the Yahoo site with some new photos in a few days.

After lunch, I watched the Wigan-Spurs game on Sky Sports and this was when it all started to go wrong. I know we did well to get a draw out of the game after falling behind three times. But, we need to be beating these types of teams if we want to challenge for trophies, etc. Dawn in the meantime had her weekly video call with Brady.

Then things turned sour. For some odd reason, probably because of what I had done earlier in the day, we could no longer access the Internet or receive or send emails. I spent what must have been about 2 hours trying to change settings to solve the problem before spending another hour and a half on the phone to a BT call centre somewhere in India. Their solution at the end of the call was to turn the router off for eight hours and check it again in the morning.

Sat, Apr 14th

We left the house early today to have a ride over to PC World in Harlow to get the techies to look at a problem I had with my laptop battery. While there we did our grocery shopping at the local Tesco for a change.

Back at the house, we spent several hours cleaning and moving odds and ends around. Dawn got our bookcase filled with our ornaments and stuff, while I moved the furniture around in the spare room and put our photo albums on the bookcase in there. All the while Tiny kept me company sitting on her wicker chair watching what was going on.

We both felt exhausted from all the hassle, but the place looked a lot better by the time we finished. Unfortunately, we're not even into one tenth of what needs to be done around the house.

Fri, Apr 13th

Dawn had another work at home day as she had to visit our local hospital in Welwyn Garden City for her recent examination results. The good news is that they came back all okay. She can also contact the hospital again within the year if she has a problem, and then after the 12 months will need to contact her GP for a referral. In addition (not best of all, because Dawn's health was best of all), her half a dozen visits to the doctor and hospital over the last three months for consultations and exams did not cost us one penny. Who says that socialised health care sucks?

As for me, I had my best day at my new job since I started. I practised using SQL all day and by the time I left for the day I had resolved a bug in a report that our credit controller was using, and generated a new report that will speed up one of my tasks, too.

One other note is that I finished reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. That means that I have now read all 6 in the series this year and can now be one of the many millions eagerly awaiting the finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Thur, Apr 12th

Today was a red letter day for me at work. Jackson, who is not really our IT guy, finally gave me full access to our time and management database called ADEO. This means that I can now start to do my job. Up until now, I have not been able to review or investigate much of the information in the system as the few reports that are there don't really help me. The down side is that I need to learn SQL so that I can start writing reports of my own. But, I've been here before, so it's not going to be a big problem.

Tues, Apr 10th

Today Dawn stayed at home while it was the turn of the painter to work on our living room ceiling. By the time I returned home from the office at lunch, the work was complete and we could start getting back to normal. Our ceiling looked 100% better with the flat ceiling, than the previous artex one.

Tonight we spent a good couple of hours moving furniture around and organising our stuff again. I moved the desktop computer down into the dining area, now that we had moved the table into the living room. We moved a bookcase up to the spare room, and a second next to the television. It really opened the rooms up and made better use of the living room. Now we just need to get our photo albums and ornaments back on the shelves.

Mon, Apr 9th

My last day of my long weekend, and I had to make a special trip to the local Kwik-Fit shop to get a new tyre and have all four wheels' tracking and balance checked. That was over one hundred pounds that we didn't budget for, and didn't really want to have to fork out. At least it's done now, so we can feel somewhat happier that they'll be okay when we head north on our long drive to Scotland in a few weeks.

Back at the house we just took it easy and relaxed. I'm now onto book six in the Harry Potter series. So no doubt I will be one of those eager readers awaiting the release of the final episode when it's released in July. Dawn has been reading a couple of John Grisham books, although at the moment she is reading a biography I bought her for Christmas on Bono.

Sun, Apr 8th

Today I drove over to Dad's in Holloway to pick him and George up and bring him back to our house for dinner. Being as we're still on our South Beach Diet, we had to be creative to avoid piling on the carbs. We did it by having some sweet potato mash, greens and steamed cauliflower with a roast leg of lamb. We did, however, pile on some sugar when we had some chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert.

While Dad was here, I spent a good few hours helping him set up his new laptop. Best of all, I was able to scan in a photo of Mum using his new all-in-one printer, then set it up as his desktop background. The biggest surprise of the day was when he showed me a family tree that my daughter Hayley had done for him a couple of years ago. It seems that my great-great grandparents were married at a local church around the corner from us in Hertingfordbury. We pass St. Mary's church every time we do our weekly grocery shopping and can't wait to check it out now.

The downside of the day was that we got a flat tyre as we arrived back at Dad's flat. Luckily we had a spare one in the boot. However, it now means that we have to get this replaced pretty damn soon.

Fri, Apr 6th

Good Friday and no work for us today. However, it didn't mean that we could spend the whole day in bed. No, I had to be traditional and have hot cross buns for breakfast. And for me, tradition means going to a local bakers and buying some extra fresh buns. Dawn, although she likes hot cross buns, preferred something closer to her original home for breakfast. Yes, she had a nice hot bowl of cheese grits. Plus one of my hot cross buns heated in the oven with a knob of butter.

We then popped upstairs to our spare room and looked at some Scottish cottages on the Internet. Dawn had done all the hard work yesterday doing hours of research on where we can stay when we visit the Highlands later this month to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. It didn't take long for us to agree on a three bedroom cottage with a view of Loch Linnhe. We checked to make sure they would accept Tiny and then emailed confirmation of our booking.

Thur, Apr 5th

Dawn has been spending the last three days enjoying some time away from the office, while I have been slaving away at my desk. However, it hasn't been all fun. On Tuesday she went to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Welwyn Garden City for an ultrasound. It appears to have gone well, but she'll know more next Friday when she goes back for the results.

Then on Wednesday she stayed at home while a couple of builders took down the damaged ceiling boards in the living room and put some new ones up. On Thursday she waited in while a plasterer called by to plaster the whole ceiling. However, we'll have to wait until next week before it's painted.

Sun, Apr 1st

After an uneventful day, we are exhausted after a busy Sunday. Dawn started the day by reading the Sunday Times before completing a couple of emails to her mother and sister. I in the meantime got stuck into reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'd finished two books last week, making this my 23rd of the year.

Anyway, Dawn then did a load of laundry and hung it up to dry outside (see photo). Then we moved all our photo albums, books, etc and the computer and printer upstairs to the spare room, because we have plasterers coming this week to repair our damaged living room ceiling. Then, if that wasn't enough, I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen making some chili, chocolate- covered strawberries, jelly with celery and pecans, and baking some 'Monster' muffins. Then, when I'd done that, I had to clean the mess on the dining table. That was a task in itself. I'd already chopped up the Christmas tree out back, and moved our damaged fence from the back gate - Don't ask!

Anyway, Dawn then had a video call with Brady with Tiny flying back and forth behind her trying to grab some attention. Once Dawn had finished with Brady, she did another washing load and did the vacuuming. By which time I was ready to crash and settled down in front of the television to watch Spurs versus Reading on Skysports.