Hooray! I'm on nights.

Which means I have the joys of staying up late tonight. I don't really particularly enjoy it (staying up late, that is) but when faced with the fact I'm not going to be going to bed again until roughly 8am tuesday morning it kind of makes sense in a nonsensical way.

The police car fleet took a bit of a battering at work today. The vans engine caught fire whilst pootling round Hampstead Heath. One of the astras got hit in an accident by a VW who mistook his accelerator for his brake (!) and the final one got rammed by a disqualified driver who didn't particularly wish to have a nice calm chat about why he was driving a car.

Fortunately for me I wasn't in any of the cars above. Will be a bit of a problem tonight as we have 2 serviceable vehicles available for all 999 calls! Should be interesting.

Facebook is still the flavour of the day and we're both still spending too much time on it really!

Right I think that will have to do. I'm off to watch a DVD or something. Three days of getting up at 5am and not getting home before 8pm is kinda exhuasting, especially on a day like today where things are going a bit crazy.

I was really looking forward to next weekend. Not doing anything at all, and that was the whole point. It feels like ages since I've had a weekend at home with Bec doing nothing in particular, going out for a walk in the country or something. So next weekend that was the plan- to stay in, sleep in, not have anything major planned. Except of course I've now had the weekend cancelled- again- and I've now got to do some mincing extra friday night shift, which of course takes out most of the weekend. Hurrah.

Anyway. DVD. Not think about work. But to finish, here's the aftermath of a burning police van after the fire brigade put it out. About 30 seconds earlier, there was so much smoke you couldn't actually see the thing. The fire brigade station is about 30 seconds away from our police station and so they got there before it really got going, but the engine bay was a bit of a mess to say the least....

More internet lunacy

Right first it was Blogger, then myspace, and now facebook. Current excuse for not posting anything constructive on here is I'm too busy mincing with facebook trying to figure it out!

So there you go. If you're on facebook, find me (and Bec!) and poke us or whatever strange thing it is you do on there.

In the meantime, a couple of guys from work have recently bought pushbikes and are vowing to use them over the summer. I have also resolved to get back onto mine and have bought new bits and bobs (tyres, mostly) and have started riding again.

A prize (maybe) to any serving or ex-harpendenite who recognises the below: answers on a postcard or in the comments please!

This will be worth millions in years to come!

Never mind Turner, Constable or Van Gogh...one of the best things about being a teacher is having children give you pictures they've drawn of you! Most of them are brilliant and will make you smile everytime...others, you wonder whether they've meant to be that insulting! Fortunately, the picture chosen for the new school website is actually quite cool...

If anyone fancies checking out the school site you can view it before it's official release here. All the pictures of the staff were drawn by my children and some of them are brilliant...although as their teacher i'm quite bias in thinking their work is brilliant...they are only 5!

Anyway, I only hope their pictures will be this flattering in 30 years time...

Pics!

Rightyo as promised I did some housework and have found the camera. Spurred into action by the fact Paul has now updated his site, I figured I better get my butt into gear and post some too.

So.

We initially lounged about in Paul's Posh Peckham Pad for a bit, after a bit of a trek to find Bec (F) who had got off the bus a stop too late, but was conveniently located outside a garage with an off-licence. It was daft hot (in April?!) and the coolness of the flat was welcome (hence my bare feet just sticking out)

Nosh itself was (of course!) top quality. Paul wisely planned the fact I was coming into his "how much do I cook" mathematics and I think I finally cleared the main course after going back to the oven a third time.

Despite appearances, Matt did actually like the food too.

This below is the photo I was dying to get: Paul taking photos of his plate! I was impressed with the very rapid and quick manner in which it was taken- I think much practice there has been! (as Yoda might've said). The fruit pudding of which he is taking a photo of, is on his site (see sidebar). The pudding itself was Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice (as Borat might've said.)

Once lunch was munched and had settled down we set off for a "20 minute walk" (i.e. 45 minutes) to the Thames and south bank watering holes. We passed this sign on the way which I found suitably appropriate!

We settled on a bar just opposite HMS Belfast and managed to find a spare bench.

Bec JR's expression on the one above can attributed to the fact she is holding my drink, which has lime in it. Bec doesn't like lime.

Unfortunately, Bec and I had to leave fairly early because she was back to work the next day and still had prep to do. I understand the others slummed it a while longer even descending to the depths of cheesy chips!!! But all in all a top day to which Bec and I are most grateful to Paul for hosting. It shall be repeated again!

Lots of Food

Was eaten over this weekend, I tell you. Curry on friday, barbecue on saturday, Paul's on sunday. Will update this post when I can find what I did with the digital camera, which will happen when I can be bothered to actually get up and do some housework, which I am very good at avoiding!

Post 100

Indeed, the 100th post. Not that any of you lot out there would notice, seeing how hardly anyone looks here these days! Bah humbug. I'm on nights and staying up late, and I'm grumpy :-(

Anywaaaaaaaaay for those who do accidentally stumble across here lots has been going on in JR towers.

The hallway, which had some lovely flaky wallpaper all torn at the edges has been finally redone. It was a tad messy as the below may well evidence. The cat was quite bemused by all this.
Bec had a birthday and we went out for a Thai meal, in which between us we managed to take precisely zero decent pictures of any of us. So, have some of the bad ones! There was quite a bunch of us there, was good. Entertainment was mostly provided in the form of one of the dishes which had, if you weren't looking at what you were eating, chunks of a ferocious red chilli that if you eat it sent you gasping for the nearest pot of fluid and generally going red, and saying lots of things like "aaaaaaaaaaagh hot", "eeeeeeeeerrgh", generally accompanied with lots of flappy hand movements trying to calm fiery mouth down. Jon Taylor for some reason completely unfathomable to the rest of us decided he felt left out of the pain most others had experienced at one point or another and so deliberately sought out one of these chillies. Once we finished scratching our heads as to precisely why he did this we then spent the next 5 minutes laughing at the reaction it provided.
Bec's birthday happily coincided with Easter Holidays from school and so we went off for a couple of days to Lincoln- a popular place for us to go, seeing how it is the birthplace of Bec! Discovered this place on the internet, and we stayed there two nights. We had their posh nosh on the first night, and albeit on the expensive side (for us!) it really was rather fine. Bec still hasn't stopped talking about their Risotto.

Lincoln is a very interesting city, lots of history going back to roman times, and has lots of wonky buildings all over the place. The cathedral is simply enormous and warrants a visit every time. Along with the castle opposite it, it dates from William the Conquerors time.

We then spent Easter Weekend at Family Johnson over Colchester way, which was v cool, lots of walks and lots of good food. We returned to Hertfordshire with the car laden with chocolate, which is proving a real chore to get through. Really. That reminds me. Time for another mini egg.

I'm now back to work. Booooooooring. Monday was completely uneventful but Tuesday had a few interesting moments with people who didn't want to be arrested, people swinging iron bars around. Permanent Sergeant applications are out so I'm trying to get that paperwork sorted out inbetween all the usual nonsense London throws my way!

Right, I think its time for bed for me now. Goodnight all!