Andrew's diary

Thursday, 28 February 2002

Decided that as I'm desperately behind on the diary, I'd just give up and start again. Unfortunately, not a lot happened today except Mel getting home early with a stomach bug and me arriving home late with a stomach ache.

Tuesday, 26 February 2002

David home.

Saturday, 23 February 2002

Got the mortgage offer.

Friday, 22 February 2002

Got the survey back on the house: mostly what we expected but a few other bits and bobs (like the possibility of asbestos <gulp/>)

Thursday, 21 February 2002

Linux group demo day at work, I had the joy of showing off Lotus Notes running under Wine and running Linux and PicoGUI on my Psion.

Monday, 18 February 2002

Yay! Me going on holiday means people can go behind my back more easily. Fun. Phil's started his own diary - must remember to read it ;-)

Sunday, 17 February 2002

Decided to buy flegg.org for family and Fleggs around the world. At the moment, just got it set up with immediate family mail forwarding, but should be up to more in the near future.

Friday, 15 February 2002

Back from Rome; delayed due to the police searching the plane before we boarded.

Thursday, 14 February 2002

Valentine's Day in Rome. How sweet :-)

Wednesday, 13 February 2002

More Rome: the drivers here are lethal - a red light doesn't mean stop, it means keep going until someone gets in your way, and even then...

Dad's birthday.

Tuesday, 12 February 2002

Up early to get to Heathrow for our 08:30 flight. Nice clean run up the motorway; managing to get to the Park & Fly with plenty of time to spare. 20 mins on the bus to Terminal 1 when we realise that weI left the phone in the car. As it was getting close to the recommended check-in time, I had to hot-foot it back in a taxi. Nice view of the perimeter road, though :-)

The Airbus A320 landed in Rome at about the right time (which was fortunate, considering we took off late due to an engineer having to be called out to repair the door). Dragging the suitcase behind us, we set off to the hotel (about ½ a mile).

After checking into the hotel (with my phrasebook Italian failing convincingly) we wandered back out to explore Rome. We walked out past the Piazza del Quirinale and the Fountain d'Trouve, then on to the Pantheon - by now it was getting dark so we headed off to find something to eat. After good food & drink, we headed back: past the "Wedding Cake", Imperial Forum and Coloseum before collapsing back in the hotel.

Monday, 11 February 2002

Day off work before holiday: sent a couple of work related emails in the morning and caught up on the backlog at home. Got a mail from someone who misread a comment in the diary. It's probably worth stressing that each entry is a snapshot of my feelings at that time and, of course, on any one day I could feel ill through migraine which - especially in combination with the proprananol - can really mess with your brain chemistry.

Mel out all evening on the second day of her course so I watched Enterprise and Dark Angel alone. Both were good, but Dark Angel wasn't great as an episode but did have lots of little bits which were worthwhile.

Saturday, 09 February 2002

Sorted various bits and bobs for our trip to Rome and then rented Jurassic Park 3 and watched it before Enemy of the State. Robert was right: not as good as the first one (not that surprising really) but it did have a couple of good bits.

Friday, 08 February 2002

Helped run an activity for "able and talented" children from various deprived areas. The day went well, and was a testament to the organising team and, as they used some of Young Visions' activities in public for the first time, it was a promising dress rehearsal for YV. One small problem, though: some of the hormonal 14 year-old girls seemed more interested in the hosts than the activities :-(

Thursday, 07 February 2002

The amount of sponsored-hype for Monsters Inc. is beginning to really irritate me: McDonald's, Fairy liquid and PowerGen are just some of the companies hoping to cash in on the popularity of the film (before it's been released!) and Disney must hope that having the same clips of the film used on every single advert in a break will encourage people to go and see it. It's really a shame, as now I don't want to see it, even though I've read reviews which say it's as good as the Toy Storys.

Tuesday, 05 February 2002

Mum's birthday. I'm not sure whether the day at work was utterly boring or slightly interesting.

After dinner, Mel watched two of last night's programmes and then we watched the majority of Smallpox 2002 which, if nothing else, was a very valiant attempt at scare-mongering.

Monday, 04 February 2002

Mel's first evening class on "Introduction to Programming using Java". She seemed to enjoy it, but has now got a backlog of telly to watch (Coronation Street, Enterprise and Dark Angel).

Saturday, 02 February 2002

Mum, Dad and Robert arrived and, after lunch, we went in to Winchester for Robert to buy Mum's birthday present, pick up our holiday tickets and then went in to a couple of the museums at the top of town. Saw the Round Table in the Great Hall and looked over Winchester from the top of the West Gate. Fun for all the family at the bargain basement price of £0 per head.

Then went to Basingstoke to show off the house - mostly positive but raised a few issues which need to be sorted. A lick of paint and a bit of gardenning and it'll all turn out alright. We've also got a choice of broadband: ADSL, Tele2 (wireless) or ntl (cable).

After dinner we watch Three Kings on DVD: good film.

Friday, 01 February 2002

New telly was delivered at 7.30 am which was, to say the least, a lot earlier than I was expecting. But it did allow it to be setup before I left for work. Watched Friends on E4 before They Think It's All Over and Frasier as Buffy and Angel conflicted with it yesterday.