Saturday, August 31

Well that template didnt last long now did it. Another 24 hours another template, I promise I will stop tinkering with the code and start to actually blog now.

Friday, August 30

I think I have spent far to long doing this but as you may have noticed I have been fiddling with my template once again. Maybe I should have remembered the old saying, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. But I was getting bored with it so a change was due. Now I will have to rush around like a blue arsed fly so that when Maria comes home tonight and asks "What have you been up to today" I can reply with something a little more impressive that "Ohh I just messed around with my templates again". Anyway let me know what you think, even if you only want to moan about it, by the time I have hunted you down I will have calmed down anyway.

On a different note it is time to wish my no longer so little sis bon voyage. Tomorrow she will be starting her year abroad as part of her uni course in Switzerland. Feels a bit strange really, when I left for Sweden in a way I always thought everything would be just where I left it, and that included little sisters. But what really gets my goat is that she will be met at the airport by someone holding one of those " Im here to meet someone very important" signs. Now I know at least half of those people are not really important at all and have only had a taxi sent out to collect them, but that doesnt alter the fact that I would like to pretend to be important at the airport sometime.

Thursday, August 29

10 tin men, 15 Santa Claus, and 12 teenagers dressed in over sized nappies have just gone down the road singing at the top of their voices. The best explanation I can come up with this that it is the start of the school year. That and the fact that Swedes can be a bit strange at times. How else do you explain my new co-workers pizza order last night “I will have a cheese and tomato pizza please, but without the cheese”

Wednesday, August 28

We are having a few teething problems with our new computer. Nothing serious, just enough to get you irritated and close to pulling your hair out. Which in itself would be fine, expect Maria has decided that it is any nose hair of mine that dares to show itself that is for the yanking. So with a heart felt, or is that nose felt, plea I ask for your help. We are trying to connect the dvd player in our computer to our tv set. We have a scart adapter coming out the back of the television connecting the audio and vhs leads to the back of the tower. The dvd player we are using is IntervideoWinDVD but we also have windows media player available. Any ideas gratefully received.

Tuesday, August 27

My postcard is on its way to Cyndi now in its mission to save Isabella's Teddy. Not that I think it will help much, I still prefer the option of sending in the ninja bears under the cover of darkness. Mind you my idea might be just another crazy one like karens idea to make everyone cry, the bears still missing and half of Europe ended up getting flooded. If you have no idea what I am on about have a peak here.

Work is still as crazy as ever, the forklift was broken in the night so we had to rush around like fools trying to borrow and steal forklifts from other parts of the factory. I am not one to point fingers but (and this is one of those buts which mean ignore everything i said before the but buts) our nameless friend worked his first nightshift last night.
I think I might just apply to Fortnum and Masons for one of their advertised posts, being paid 35,000 to travel the world buying chocolate doesnt sound too bad at all to me. I am such a good employee I would even cut back on my travel expenses account and buy it from my local supermarket if they so wished...

Sunday, August 25

I know I am a long way behind the bandwagon on this one but I now have a guest map. It can be found towards the bottom on the left hand side. Feel free to leave your little flag.

Saturday, August 24

Well as I said in my last little post it has been a while since I have blogged due to not having a network card in our new computer. We now have it and our new machine is working like a treat. Our new toy arrived from the uk with the help of the good folks at royal mail with no problems, but I would like to talk issue with the parcel peeps in Sweden who saw fit to just leave it outside our door all day. That could have become interesting if someone had decided to take it for a walk.

Work has been hectic, mainly due to our old friend lazy incompetent fool. I do my best to ignore him but it’s not easy. Especially when he takes it on himself to have a go driving the forklift truck. After bouncing around in a manner that would have suited a dodge’em ride better he comes to a stop knocking the fire extinguisher off the wall breaking the hose off. Surprisingly he decided to fix his mess rather than try and pretend it wasn’t him. Less surprisingly while attending to the damage he managed to remove the safety catch and spraying the powder all over the place. At least I don’t have to work with him for at least 2 more weeks. Thankfully someone has retuned the radio into another station so we no longer have to listen to the same 20 songs all day long. Golden oldies from the world of rock and roll are now the order of the day, including Christmas songs. It must be the Swedish sense of humour or something

Friday, August 23

Im back. Posts will start to follow again shortly. A change of computers has meant no access to the internet. Thats all changed now and no doubt as my waffle starts to flow you will begin to wish it had not.

Sunday, August 18

It has been a relaxing weekend, taking it easy and switching over from a night shift mentality to a daytime one. Thankfully my run of night shifts is over and I can have a slightly more normal life again. We went for a spot of fishing on Saturday evening and Maria is feeling rather pleased with herself I think. 3 little fishes is our best catch yet. While I like the sitting by the lake side I don’t think I make the best fisherman. I enjoy the experience right up to the point where something is caught, then I feel sorry for the small fellas. Oh well it doesn’t matter because I never get any bites anyway. Current score Maria 5 little fishes James 1 little fish, go feed her smugness and leave her a fishy congrats comment.

Today I took myself of on a bike ride around a lake on the edge of town. It filled all the requirements for a good tour, cracking weather, The sound of water lapping at the lake shore, and at least one wrong turn. If you ask where I went I probably couldn’t tell you, but I think I found myself in a set from the wide west at one point or other. Old wooden barns, a trickle of a stream that you would expect to see someone panning for gold in, horses tied up out the back and pipes made out of barrels. Either that or the sun was getting to me. Photos add under local views link to the right.

Other than that not alot has been happening, 5 new ”not a 100” things have been added at Paul’s request and our new computer is on its way yippee,

Friday, August 16

Time magazine reported this week the story of a pet tortoise injured in a slum shoot-out in Rio de Janeiro. The 20-year-old pet caught a bullet in its shell paralysing its hind legs. As if that wasn’t bad enough the vet had a bright idea of how to save the tortoise, the wheels from a tv stand. You know, the kind that require a sledgehammer to install, usually at a strange angle, roll like a hopeless shopping trolley before falling off at the least opportune moment. Who could blame the little fella if he was to head back to the slum and ask them to finish him off.

Wednesday, August 14

Just as a quick follow up to yesterdays post on frisbee golf I thought i had better clear up any confussion that people might have. When I said it was just like regular golf except with a frisbee I had assumed no one would think the frisbee was power by a twack from a golf club. It is of course thrown but thank you to the person that gave me my best giggle in ages.

Monday, August 12

I thought it was a rumour, like the lock Ness monster. A few pieces of questionable evidence but no firm sightings. I have seen what were described as course but they just have easily have been an art installation or a series experimental rubbish bins. For over a year I was not convinced, but no I am a believer, frisbee golf exists. From what I can work out it is played in the same way as regular golf expect instead of disappearing into a hole in the ground the frisbee has to get caught in a chain bucket. This guys are serious as well, with their little caddie bags complete with 4 or 5 frisbees and the all-important cloth to dry their sweaty little hands. At one point as I watched on in bemusement I thought they might come over and charge me an admission fee. It was all very strange, there are still many things about this country I just dont get.

Friday, August 9

Its time again. The miserable looking men will no longer be trailing around the supermarkets on a Saturday afternoon any longer. The football season is back and we will be back hoping our tribe will be better than all the other blokes’ tribes. That they wont let us down and that maybe just maybe everything will work out all right. If my team win then life will be some much better, right? Mood swings are bound to come. If I write a moody post, or don’t bother to write anything at all for a while don’t worry. It wont be a family crisis or an accident at the factory. It will be more likely something much worse than that, a 1 nil defeat at the hands of Walsall.

Being in Sweden does make the following of the game a little harder. It’s not just a case of popping down the ticket office. Luckily with the interment I can get match commentary. But this is more likely to put more stress lines on my brow than anything else is. Every attack from the opposition sounds ten times worse and the crowd are always 5 seconds ahead of the commentators so the mind is free to invent all sorts of terrible things happening on the pitch.

Talking about the games at work happens a lot more than you might think. Swedes are very well informed about the English game. Sometimes embarrassingly so, I hadn’t heard that will be a phrase that I expect to repeat many times over the coming months. Anyway I just want to say bare with me, I will be back to my old self again in 9 months time.

Wednesday, August 7

What a busy week or so it has been! Now its time to go back to work and relax a little. Our new computer is now on order and it's a relief to have that finally sorted. Just deciding what to have and from whom was hard enough on the brain cells but trying to find out how to ship it across was what finally finished me off. It should be worth it in the end though.

The trip down to Gothenburg to see a friend currently holidaying in Sweden was good fun. It was more of a train tour of Sweden more than anything else was. While the trains usually run smoothly sometimes they can challenge British Rail in the hopelessness stakes. Having a trainful of passengers rushing over to another platform to catch a connecting train just in time to watch it depart from the platform next to the one we started on isn’t my idea of fun. I don’t think it helped when the babyfaced reply was ”ohhh opps”. At least the trains were running. Last winter several of the new order trains didn’t run, as they couldn’t cope with the Swedish winter and according to the local paper the wheel were turning square!

The concert was worth seeing but I think it was more of a Swedish thing. There were a few occasions where I thought I must have been missing the point of this. And yes Karen I did clap along with a couple of songs though I did have to keep starting again as the other 6000 people couldn’t keep time with me for some reason.

Having watched bargain hunt with our cornflakes a few time we were inspired to visit a couple of auctions. Most of the items were from house clearances. As such most of it was to put it nicely a bit of old tat but it was still go fun. Maria would start to bid for something and her mum and me would look at each other and roll our eyes. To be fair to Maria she did mainly stick to bidding for the lots she had looked at beforehand and did come away with some very nicely embroidered tablecloths. I think we have found a new way to depart with our money.

Monday, August 5

Buying a good value new computer shouldn’t be too hard should it? I didn’t think so anyway. Not until I put a Swedish slant onto things that is. I have been pulling my hair out. They have special offers here but what they call special is laughable at times. Not put off I turned to the UK market. Easy, so I would have to pay more in delivery costs but in the long run it would be worth it.

Forget it. Every mail order company I have looked at has turned around and said sorry UK delivery only. Maybe I could fly over with it. BA don’t want to know and Ryan air, while in some cases allowing larger items won’t promise not to break it up into more manage sizes on route. What about the courier companies, TNT, UPS, FedEx? Seems that large bulky items they charge by ”volume weight” so while no mountain is high enough for DHL neither is the price they will charge at the end of the day.

There has to be a way. I have a lovely deal just waiting to be snapped up if only I could get it across the borders. None of my family members seem to be biting up hand of at the chance of a cruise either. Okay so a 26-hour trip from Newcastle to Gothenburg on a choppy North Sea might not have the glamour of the Caribbean but I am sure it would be nice. I would throw in a sick bag for you.