Bodmacity

Apologies to Lovefilm. Apparently the ‘duplicate’ film they sent me had a bonus disc so it was sent separately. On the site you can select single discs but when a bonus disc is available it is selected by default. I’ll send that guy back today. We started watching ‘The Orphanage’ yesterday. From what I have seen so far it is going to be really scary. In the last scene we watched there was a sinister child in a mask made from an old sack with sewn-on eyes and a hole for the mouth. Very disturbing.

Another entry. I’ve just received my latest offerings from Lovefilm. They have ballsed up the order by sending me ‘Tell No One’, which they sent me last month. They have also sent me ‘The Orphanage’, which I am looking forward to very much.

The weather is still variable, it has been raining on and off but today it was fine. I have been training for my cycle ride to Bedfont. To improve my pace I have been choosing a nice stretch of road and then going all out until I simply have no puff left. This will build up my stamina and get those thigh muscles bulging.

We had a bit of a shock on Tuesday night. I woke after hearing a huge bang. At first I thought my bike had fallen down in the hallway. I looked out of the bedroom window and saw that the poor pokey focey had been involved in a hit-and-run. The drivers side door has been stoved in and the near-side wheel has been damaged. The force of the impact actually pushed the car onto the pavement. The upshot of all this is that I have lost 2 years no claims bonus and have to pay £150 excess because the other driver did a runner :-(.

Jake gave me a nice big hug when I got in and a nice kiss. We sat on the sofa and he cuddled up next to me to watch his new Thomas DVD. I am a little irritated by the American dubbing but Jake enjoys it.

I decided against my better judgement to cycle today. It was already raining when I left home and within 10 minutes was bucketing it down. I had to dispense with my glasses because I couldn’t see where I was going. I arrived at Waterloo a sorry-looking soggy mess. The water had seeped through the zip on my Nevis jacket and the whole front of my top was wet. The worse thing is the wet feet. It was not pleasant at all to trudge to the office going squelch, squidge, squerch.

Good job I packed some spare socks. I’ve packed the shoes with tissue and newspaper, so they should dry a little bit.

Well the sun shone all right. It is warm very warm today. Blue skies and a slight breeze made it perfect cycling weather. When Jake had gone to sleep I decided to go for a little ride. I ducked down to Greenwich to take a few photos. I was having so much fun that I decided to extend my ride. I headed up towards Charlton and ten minutes later I decided to take a detour. I was a little worried because I was riding towards the Blackwall tunnel. However just as I was about to arrive at North Greenwich and the O2, I saw a sign for LCN Route 1. I followed this and initially it was very urban and derelict. I came across a wrecked car park by a disused dock with an old barge that had been adorned with a variety of graffitti. Further on though, the cycle path was better maintained and soon I was riding parallel to the river. I spooned around the Grrenwich Peninsula and then headed up towards the Thames Barrier. Here I decided to turn towards the Woolwich Road and LCN route 13.

A good fun ride. I’ll have to take Ames and Jake when/if we next have a nice weekend.

I move offices in January so I have been seriously thinking about commuting the whole way by bicycle. I’ve planned an initial route and it stacks up at around 24 miles. Is this doable I ask myself? The route shown in Google Earth is shown below.

I just popped into Jake’s room to see if he was okay. One of his legs was hanging off the bed and his cover had fallen down. I popped his leg back onto the bed and put the cover over him. When I did this he moved about and I could hear him reaching for his radish. Then he said in his sleep. “Thank you daddy” and “night night”. I just wanted to give him big squeezies. I wish Ames was here :-(.

I had planned to take Jake to the London Aquarium today. We left at around 10:30am and took the train to Waterloo East from Ladywell station. It was grey and overcast, the usual British summers day 😉 but at least it wasn’t raining. Jake was very excited on the train. He took delight in informing the whole train carriage that he had seen a train, or a house or some track!

When we arrived I bought a cappuccino and some frothed milk for Jake, along with some granola bars to chomp on. We walked over to the London Eye and I took the opportunity to take a photosynth. This is a new service from Microsoft. In essence it allows you to view a panorama in 3D space. As well as stitching together separate images it works out the depth and angle of each image in relation to the others. To make a synth you install and run the photosynth application on your computer, add all the photos(the more the merrier) and once synthed the result is uploaded to the Microsoft photosynth server to be viewed. At present there is a 20Gb limit, which is very nice! There is an example of one of my synths here.

Anyway I have digressed slightly, when we got the aquarium I found that the queue was stretching almost the whole length of County Hall. I explained to Jake that it would take a long time to wait and that we could go for a boat ride instead. Fortunately he seemed happy with this idea. I did feel bad though :-(. On the way to the jetty we sat and listen to a busker playing slide guitar. I took a few photos while Jake gave him some money. Jake then discovered the ‘popping water’ fountain next to the Haywards Gallery. He took great delight in running up to the jets and then stopping before running back down.

We walked across Hungerford Bridge where I photosynthed the whole vista. While waiting for the Thames Clipper at Embankment Pier we had a nice lunch and just chilled out. The ferry was good fun. It turned around at the London Eye so we got some nice views of it from the river. We then cruised to London Bridge. This took about 20 minutes and was well worth the £2.50 I paid for the trip.

I have just got back indoors and Jake is now tucked up in bed for his afternoon nap. It’s 2.30pm so I will have to wake him in an hour or so. This will give me time to synth my photos that I took today.

I ordered some photos of our last holiday. They arrived today and I called Jake over to sit next to me on the sofa. He thought the photos were ‘stories’ and when he saw one he liked he would say “my want see that story!”. He went into a bit of a decline at bedtime. He wanted to go downstairs to get some raisins and not even the prospect of lying in his bed with his radish would placate him. In the end after a lot of wailing and flapping I capitulated and we went downstairs to get a few raisins. I told him that he was naughty and that he would only have one story at bedtime. I think he was overtired because he just said yes to the one story. Usually he has two. He enjoyed his story. It’s called “Back to Earth” and is about a boy who gets stranded on the moon and meets a martian. Together they find a way to get off the moon and go back to their respective homes.

Amy is off the the states tomorrow. I have taken two days off to look after Jake. C&C are coming to look after him for the remaining time. Tomorrow I am going to take Jake to the London aquarium which I think he will enjoy immensely :-).

At the weekend we took Jake to Hilly Fields. He went on the dodgems, dragon ride, steam train and thomas the tank engine.

My god, it seems to have been raining every day this month. At least the garden is getting nicely watered. I have harvested my lettuce, rocket and purple runner beans. The rocket has gone to seed and is a little too spicy now. The carrots are going great. I’ll harvest them in a couple of weeks.

We had a party last weekend. We had Sheena and her partner and son. Tricia and her children. Sally and Roy, Trudi and Chand. The wine was flowing and the stubbies were going down well 🙂 which is aways a good sign.

The forecast was torrential rain but the weather gods smiled on us and although it was a little grey it didn’t rain at all. Everyone gravitated towards the end of the garden. I really need to sort out that area as it looks very unslightly.

Our plan for the back is to have an office pod there so the landscaping can wait until the foundation has been built and the pod has been erected.

Last Sunday we went to for a day out with Thomas at Ropley in Hampshire. Jake was SO excited with the prospect even though he was tired after only an hours nap. We went for a ride on Henry and Daisy and then had a picnic. The sky was looking threatening all day but luckily it only rained a little. Jake enjoyed his prawns and kept getting up off the blanket whenever he saw Thomas pulling up.

Jake has started to walk properly up the stairs using alternate legs for the very first time!! He was doing this while walking up the bridge over the train track. He has been such a poppet recently.

During the train ride he was getting very tired so I gave him his radish and he snuggled up in his bears arms :-).