In town at the weekend...

At least, that is the plan.

Wez; I should pop over with your Propagandhi tickets (getting them today) at some point. Other than that we may be around of an evening for some drinkies, once we've got familial duties out of the way.

So, stuff thats been happening

We've been partying (check the pics out on Andy's flickr, link a few posts down), going out, not doing the garden and writing thank you cards. Now some people that promised a present on what to give haven't actually sent it, so do we send them a card or do we put a list of stuff we haven't received that was promised, or if we haven't got it, do we send them a card? TBH I may just phone these people up and say 'where's our prezzie'? :)

In the news, I see North Korea's nuclear test went well.
On one hand Kim wants to protect his country from being invaded, and George wants to go the diplomatic route this time. So if you wrote a list of the countries in the 'axis of evil' and then marked off the ones that had no WMD, possibly had some WMD and then proved to have WMD, which one should you invade?
Thats right, the one with oil. It reminds of the secretary joke. Two women apply, ones got a degree in english and maths, the other types over 100 words a minute. Which ydo you employ? The one with big tits.

Finally, I see Madonna's got a brown baby as well to fit in with the rest of the mums on the estate.

Winter fun

Well, I went snowboarding for the first time in four months yesterday; and I'm paying for it today in stiff joints and minor bruises. Pleasingly I could still ride, though some of the amplitude has gone; it'll take a couple more trips to 'Fax to get back up to the size of airs I was doing back in France this last winter. Did manage a simple new trick though - a double grab (I believe known as the 'Truckdriver') Basically both hands on the frontside edge of the board at once - or touching my toes as Sue slightly dismissively put it; yeah, but I was flying through the air at the time!

In other news, looks like I'm organising (or at least promoting) a snowboarding trip to Slovakia, so if anyone fancies going riding 24-31 March 2007 (probably costing £400 ALL IN - barring £60 for beer money; 30p pints apparently), you know where to find me...

Update: that's now THREE trips I've got laid on this winter; not quite the season yet (still in the pipeline though) but looking pretty good! Bulgaria, France and Slovakia in quick succession...

More taxes

After having received yet more demands for money, fines, and threats of interest and collections, I rang the tax office up to try and sort thing out once and for all.
(that 88pence was starting to loom over me).
The fines for 100quid turned out to be downgraded to 88pence too, as they did agree that it was a bit daft to send a fine to someone for 100 quid over 88pence, and they're not allowed to fine more than the actual amount owed.
Then, going through the numbers/quoted references and the last couple of years (it was alot of forms to fill in), it ended up that they actually owe me 329.67

They said they'd mailed it to me 3 weeks ago.

/sigh

Shutting down

So, seeing as these 3months away, 1 month back isn't exaclty working out as initially planned (certain day in September 2001 changed my location somewhat), thought it's about time to sort the house out. Made sense if I was coming back, but the poor things been empty 2 years apart from a week and a half at chrimbo. So, flogging, selling up, moving out.
Feels wierd that a safety net is disappearing as I always had home to come back to. But it's going well over here, and paying a small fortune for renting with a house in Blighty seemed daft. Mum's been living in it the last month or so to make it look lived in, got people interested, stuffs been signed, fingers crossed the exchange rate is as silly when I sell it as it is now. Thing is, though food/drink/flights/clothes/stuff's cheap over here, a place to live is ridiculous. Doesn't help living on an island I guess. So from a 3 bedroom with a garden and a shed, to a small box, its got me thinking about the value we put on a square inch of land. Well, not even a square inch, more cubed. I tell you, if you put the Freemo flats in the middle of Miami, you'd be getting 1.5million dollars a hovel.
Back in blighty when the house sells to empty the place, sign papers, see family. Take it easy peeps.