Wed, Apr 30th

Yes, you guessed it. I was working on that damn spreadsheet today again. However, by the end of the day I had completed what I needed to do and emailed it to our database guy and said see you next week.

In between Dawn and I headed into town and popped into a few shops and visited the library before trying out a restaurant for lunch that we had been dying to try since we moved to Hertford - Baan Thitiya. It does Thai food and it was excellent. We will definitely be going back there again when we fancy a nice dinner out.

Later tonight, after I had watched the Chelsea-Liverpool match on television, Dawn's sister called her to pass on some bad news. She had been to the doctors and had got some bad blood test results. After coming off the phone Dawn called Brady to pass on the news to her. Now we have to wait and see what the specialist says.

Tues, Apr 29th

Again I was at working on the spreadsheet and exchanging emails. Just a couple of hours today, though. Most of the day I spent in the spare room removing the wallpaper. We knew that there was a kind of dark purple paint underneath. However, we had no idea how bad it would look. By the time I called it quits for the day, I was left with cleaning glue that was left on the wall before I start dealing with filling the holes and painting. That's for another day though.

Dawn spent a fair amount of time dealing with storing lots of ornaments that we needed to put away until we complete the spare room.

Mon, Apr 28th

Our first REAL day on vacation. Yet, I was still working on the spreadsheet and sending and receiving emails from work. Oh well.

However, we did move the bookcases down to the hall way as we completed phase one of decorating the spare room - getting all the stuff out of the room. We then caught the train to Stevenage so I could look for some jeans. The only pair that I had that fits had a tear in the knee. Thankfully I found a couple of cheap pairs at M&S. Dawn bought herself some new trainers and we stopped at Aroma, an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant. Let's just say we won't be going back there again.

Sun, Apr 27th

Despite the two of us now being on holiday, it did not stop either of us doing work-related stuff. I spent several hours analysing data in a spreadsheet that was needed at work for the new EMP Manager database. Something that no one else at work would have been able to do.

Dawn worked all day on two reports for City. One was for a green business award that was up for grabs with Islington Council and the other was for a recent seminar Dawn attended. But, it did take all day. However, the good news is that by the end of Sunday Dawn had emailed the two documents and could concentrate on the rest of her vacation. Unlike me who still had quite a bit to do.

Sat, Apr 26th

We did the usual Saturday morning errands. First we drove over to Morrisons in Welwyn Garden City, and then after a brief time with Tiny popped into town so that I could pick up my blood pressure pills and a few other odds and ends.

We then caught the train up to Finsbury Park and walked the rest of the way to see Dad and George.

On the journey back from Morrisons this morning we stopped and took a few photos of the incredible fields full of rape. The picture above gives you an idea how yellow these fields looked.

Fri, Apr 25th

Finally we made it. After several long, hard and laborious weeks, we made it to our week off. And how did we celebrate it? We both made the train that arrived at Enfield Chase at 16:54 and then picked up some fish and chips from Carley's Fish Bar in Sele Farm, Hertford. As I have a tendency to have stomach problems after fried fish, I was apprehensive as to how I would fair. To my delight, no aftereffects this time. Although, I don't need to be eating fish and chips every night either.

Wed, Apr 23rd

I just wanted to let everyone know that St George's Day did not go unnoticed in the White household. When I woke up this morning Dawn presented me with a nice card that also told me how pleased she was to be living in England.

Mon, Apr 21st

Dawn had a rough day at work and it didn't end when she left the office. I was walking through Enfield town on the way to Enfield Chase station when I got a call from Dawn on my cell phone to tell me there were more disruptions to our trains. Sadly, this time it was due to a fatality at Bowes Park. So First Capital Connect had canceled all trains between Alexandra Palace and Gordon Hill. As I was virtually at Enfield Chase, it meant that taking the Hertford East route was not an option. So Dawn caught a train to Welwyn Garden City and left it up to me to work out the rest. At Enfield Chase a station employee advised me that I could get a bus to Gordon Hill outside. That journey took forever thanks to a filter light near Chase Farm. Thankfully when I got to Gordon Hill a train arrived to take me to Hertford North within a couple of minutes. Once there I walked back to the car and drove over to Welwyn to pick up Dawn and finally go home.

Two thoughts that crossed my mind as I drove to meet Dawn were that although this was an inconvenience to us, somewhere so unfortunate family would be mourning a lost one this evening, and that how lucky we are to live in a country that has a wonderful public transport system.

Sun, Apr 20th

A typical Sunday in the White house. Dawn did the laundry, ironing and vacuuming, while I cooked a large pot of my best ever chili. However, the main effort of the day was moving some more stuff that we boxed in the spare room out. Dawn helped me move a nine square book shelf out to the shed at the bottom of the garden after I had moved some boxes into the attic. We have several boxes of paperwork from our business, Just Sentimental, that we need to keep for seven years and they were just getting in the way. We also moved a large box of our bears there, too. As well as bringing down a dustbin liner full of an old bee or wasp nest that had been affixed to the roof. Thankfully there were no wasps or bees!

One other thing worth mentioning, although it was just a token effort in all fairness, was that I finally got back to writing our story. I spent the best part of an hour writing half a page. Admittedly, I wrote the same paragraph five times at least.

Sat, Apr 19th

Today was my daughter Hayley's 23rd birthday. I still can't believe she is 23. It only seems like a dozen or so years since she was a tiny baby in the special care baby unit at the Whittington Hospital. She certainly has come a long way since then. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to spend any time with her over the weekend. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to catch up with her before too long.

Instead, Dawn and I did our usual grocery shopping at Morrisons. We gave Dad a miss this weekend as Dawn did not want to endure a platform full of football fans at Finsbury Park station like two weeks ago. We'll pop up and see him next weekend instead.

After popping home with the groceries and spending some time with Tiny, we had a drive up to Watton-at-Stone for lunch. We enjoyed some wonderful freshly prepared food, and a roaring fire at the George and Dragon before continuing on to Stevenage to pick up some boxes from Staples. We will definitely take Brady and Jim to the G&D when they come over in December.

Fri, Apr 18th

Thankfully the week ended on a better note after our adventure on Wednesday. We both caught the early train back to Hertford North and were home by five thirty. However, I think the two of us really had a difficult week. Dawn had to present her 'Travel Plan' to the sustainability committee at work and then had to deal with the draw to pick a winner from everyone who bothered to complete Dawn's travel survey. To Dawn's delight, the committee loved her plan, and even better was that the draw went to plan with an unknown (to Dawn) work colleague winning the weekend for two in Paris and a round trip on Eurostar to get them there and back.

As for me, I finally got the bought ledger up to date, completed paying employee expenses (previously done by another colleague of mine), review EMP Manager for its launch in a couple of weeks, and countless other tasks. All I know is that I have just another week to go to get everything sorted so that I can have a week off work without coming back to a nightmare.

Wed, Apr 16th

So much for my comments yesterday. This afternoon I got a text from Dawn to tell me that she had checked the First Capital Connect website and that our trains were running about 45 minutes late because a vehicle had hit a bridge at Finsbury Park. Knowing that 45 minutes could easily become an hour, or even 90 minutes late, we decided to look for an alternative route home. Which was no bad thing as we always need to have an alternative plan in an emergency. Anyway, after several text messages, emails, and eventually a phone call we decided to head to Hertford East instead. Dawn would have to walk to Liverpool Street station (twice the distance she normally walks to Old Street station) and catch a train to Cheshunt that stopped at Southbury. My walk was a lot less than my normal trek to Enfield Chase, as I made it to Southbury in around 5 to 7 minutes.

I waited on the platform for the train to arrive with Dawn and we then traveled together Cheshunt were we waited ten minutes or so for another train to take us to Hertford East. Once we arrived there we had to get across town to the other side of the Hertford North station so we could get our car which we had parked earlier in the morning. Eventually we arrived home around 6:30pm. So much for the last two days.

However, I did laugh when Dawn mentioned all the unsavoury characters that boarded the Liverpool Street line that called at London Fields, Hackney Downs, Rectory Road, Stoke Newington and all the way up past White Hart Lane. They just weren't the same as the regulars she sees traveling to Crews Hill, Gordon Hill or Cuffley. Thankfully she'll only have to use this route in an emergency.

Tues, Apr 15th

Following all the traveling Dawn did at the end of last week, it was nice for us to be able to start the week a little less stressful. Dawn was even able to get the earlier Stevenage train that calls at Enfield Chase at 16:54 instead of her normal Hertford North train that arrives there at 17:09. However, that also meant that I had to cover the two miles distance from work the to Enfield Chase station by alternating walking and jogging. Even with my imagination, I couldn't stretch the description to running, although I did arrive there pretty breathless. The effort was definitely worth it as it meant that we made it home by half past five and had dinner on the table by six.

Sun, Apr 13th

We certainly made the most of the weekend by taking it as easy as we could. Yesterday we popped into town to pickup a few bits, including a weekly season ticket for each of us from the station, and then onto Morrisons to do our weekly grocery shopping. Then it was home for the next two days. That is except for walk this morning to pick up a couple of Sunday newspapers from the local newsagent.

We did of course do stuff around the house while we were here. Dawn did several washloads and the ironing and some vacuuming. She also had her weekend video call with her mother as well. Our biggest project was sorting out the spare room so we can tackle decorating it when we're off work in a couple of weeks. By moving some stuff to Tiny's box room, and bagging up a couple bags of books to take to Oxfam, we were able to free up a complete shelf unit. That's now downstairs in the old dining area next to the computer. Hopefully by next weekend we'll be able to free up the second one and then we'll only have to worry about two full sized bookcases. One, as everyone will already know, is full of photo albums.

Fri, Apr 11th

As expected, Dawn left the house this morning still feeling tired from her trip to Birmingham yesterday. Today we caught our regular train at 7:04 into London. I got off at Enfield Chase as normal, only this time Dawn got off the train at Highbury & Islington and caught the tube to Victoria and walked to St James where she had a "Travel Planning" course. Given the opportunity, Dawn would have given the course a miss following her trip yesterday. However, as always, she went ahead and attended anyway. Unfortunately, most of the subject matter related to car commuting (which very few within CU do), so it wasn't really ideal for her needs. Again, Dawn was able to get out a little early. I guessed that this may be the case and raced back to Enfield Chase just in case. It proved a good idea as Dawn was on the 16:54 instead of our usual 17:09 so we were able to get home a little earlier than normal. Something Dawn needed after the last couple of days. One highlight of the day. Dawn was able to get a nice rooftop photo of Central London from the rooftop of her workshop venue (at St James tube station).

Thur, Apr 10th

We had a long day today. Although, I reckon Dawn had the longer one. The alarm woke us at 3.30am so I could drop Dawn off at Hertford North to catch the 5:12 to Kings Cross and walk to Euston to catch another train to Birmingham where she caught a third train to the University. There she attended a Business Continuity seminar that City University had organised. When her schedule was originally set up, Dawn was due to arrive back at Hertford North at 8.00pm. However, thanks to the seminar ending earlier than planned, she was able to get home an hour and a half earlier than she feared. She was of course exhausted regardless. Worse still was that Dawn had a second day out planned for Friday.

Mon, Apr 7th

Sorry, but British Summer Time hasn't arrived yet even if the clocks have gone forward. Again we woke up to a blanket of snow out back. It wasn't as thick as yesterday morning when we woke up, and at least it had stopped falling. However, we did not expect that I would have to wipe a two inch layer of frozen snow off the car this morning.

Fortunately, the snow had melted on the roads and pavements (sidewalks). So it wasn't too bad to walk on. I was even able to get some more photos on my journey to the office, too. Which reminds me. Don't forget to check out our Flickr photo website to view a selection of photos from the last few days.

Oh yea, we received an email at the weekend from a stranger who had looked at our photos and asked permission to include a photo we'd taken of Tiny with her pet passport. We of course agreed without hesitation.

Sun, Apr 6th

Okay, what happened to British Summer Time? I was woken this morning by Dawn pulling back the bedroom curtains and telling me, "Look at this." Dreary-eyed, I pulled myself up and looked out the back to see a blanket of snow everywhere. And it was still falling. I tried to get back under the covers, but that didn't work. So I got up, got dressed and jumped in the car to drive around a bit and take some nice photos of Hertford's WINTER WONDERLAND in APRIL!!!

Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day at home. Chores followed, and Dawn's video call to Brady as usual. I also made a large pot of my Best Ever Chili. Then, would you believe it? The sun came out and by tea time the snow had all dispersed and there was a glorious blue sky above. That's one thing I love about being home - the seasons. I just don't expect them all in one day.

Sat, Apr 5th

The weekends roll around pretty quickly when you're having so much fun at work. The only problem is that they race past too fast when they arrive. Today we ran our usual errands, both weekly grocery shopping at Morrisons and picking up a few things in town, before stopping at the Six Templars for a spot of lunch before catching a train to Finsbury Park to go and see Dad. I know we weren't overly impressed last weekend with the Six Templars. Unfortunately the Woolpack didn't serve food until noon and we needed an early lunch.

We enjoyed spending time with Dad as always. But the journey home was a nightmare for Dawn. We arrived back at Finsbury Park station as thousands of Arsenal fans descended on the station after their football match at the Emirates Stadium with Liverpool. The platform was choc-a-bloc, not to mention we were re-routed the long way around to get to our platform. Dawn was not a happy camper. All I could hear ringing in my ears were the words, "We are not going to your Dad's when Arsenal are playing on a Saturday ever again!"

Thu, Apr 3rd

Hurrah!! The summer is here at last. I didn't have to wear my rain coat, scarf or gloves to work today. In fact, in addition to my usual work attire, I only had a wind jacket on. Dawn was even more pleased that it was the warmest day of the year. She had begun to get a little fed up with the 2007/8 winter. It's felt like it's been here for over 6 months now. As I now commute by train, and walk over four miles a day to and from work, I do have a little sympathy with her view. I never really appreciated the winter as much when I just had a five minute drive to and from the office when I was working in Hertford.

We celebrated this evening by watching back to back shows on television. First we watched The Apprentice (the British version with Alan Sugar which is so much better than the American version with Donald Trump). That was followed by The Apprentice: You're Fired. Here the contestant who is shown the door gets a chance to air their opinions while a panel dissects the funniest parts of the show and the audience gets a chance to either support Sir Alan's decision or air their disapproval. Before calling it a night we then watched American Idol. We've been watching it since the very first season won by Kelly Clarkson, so were pleased to know that the series is being broadcast over here on ITV2.

Tues, Apr 1st

Tiny decided that she didn't want us to sleep when we went to bed last night. Or what I should say is that she woke us up after about an hour's sleep. About 11.30pm she climbed on my belly and laid there in the sphinx position before pestering Dawn. Who knows what gets into her mind on nights like this, but there was no way she was going to allow us to ignore her and get a good night's sleep. Instead, I threw on my dressing gown and took her downstairs. She immediately settled down in the middle of the floor before eventually moving to her large brown comfy chair. That was all the encouragement I needed for to decide to head back to bed. By which time it was now gone 2am in the morning.

The day didn't get much better. I had to leave work early for a change as I had a dentist appointment. That meant a two and a half mile walk to Winchmore Hill to see her as we'd kept the same dentist that we joined in Winchmore Hill after we returned to England two years ago. Thankfully the routine checkup went fine and I don't have to go back for another six months. Best of all the visit only cost £16.20. And that's £1.05 up on the regular fee. Eat your hearts out all you Americans who criticise universal health care. Like it or lump it, the NHS is one of the best institutions we have.