Nice summery pictures

I'm fed with of the cold, wind, and rain; so here are a pics that I took during my travels around the land of OZ.

Cant remember where this one was taken, but I think I took it when we were camping in the Northern Territory

This one is from the Olga's which are moutains fairly close to Uluru (Ayers rock)

Here is one of Ayers rock. As nice as it looks at sundown, this view is noting compared to the view that you get whilst on the top of the rock at sun set.......

.............As you can see!

Don't you feel warmer now?!

How strange.

Bloody hell, the Sun!

It's been a while but it's bloody good to see you old friend!

Why don't you hang around for a while? You could do a job swap with the rain and give those drought ridden countries a break. Whilst you're here you could dry up all of our flood water and compensate us for your no-show last summer.

speaking of which - what happened to you in 2007? We really did miss you. After your early appearance in April we all thought we were in for a corker of a summer but noooo, you had other ideas. You left us a the mercy of that nasty wet stuff and gave us moaning Brits even more to moan about. As someone of the optimistic persuasion even I found it difficult not to succumb to the odd dreaded grumble.

What other nation on earth goes to such great lengths to bask in your glory? Every year we flock to the Costa Del Sol on our £1 Easy Jet flight just to catch up with you. We've enslaved Mediterranean towns into service, forcing them to serve us paella, washed down with cheap booze and Roy chubby Brown videos.

Sun tan lotion? Never heard of it. We're a nation of die hard sun worshipers and anything that stops us from absorbing your full effect is blasphemy.

Even our favourite newspaper (allegedly) is named after you.

So please please please stick around for a while longer!

The Demon Weed

why do I keep doing it?

I'm talking about smoking. I haven't smoked cigarettes for about 1 year and was getting along just fine without them, then all of a sudden I had a really big urge to buy a packet. Rather than use my will power I hastily found the nearest shop and bought a pack of 10.

It was as if being smoke free for the last 12 months had never happened. I'm now constantly looking for excuses to "nip outside". It's not as if cigarettes suddenly taste any better.

I could put it down to the stresses of parenthood but I don't really want to start blaming the little one for her Fathers weak will power.

Maybe I should try some of those patches this time.

I know the feeling well!

Turned out nice again.

All this miserable weather got me thinking.

Britain has always been a wet place. It rains most of the year. During the summer months we, the British people, get fed up with 20 degree heat and start praying for rain. Ive never been able to understand this as everyone I ever speak to states that they categorically hate the rain, wind, and cold; but come the mildest of heat waves they start moaning about prickly heat!

Our lush green fields are a result of good rainfall and gives the landscape a lovely green green colour that i haven't seen in any other country I've visited. Flying over Britain in an aeroplane is a truly majestic sight.

So why is it that we get shocked year after year at the amount of rain we get?

How come, after thousands of years, we still suffer from flooding on an almost biblical scale? It's not as if it has never happened before. Has no-one ever thought of doing anything about it. Maybe we get complacent thinking it will only be a one-off, or put it down to global warming and shrug our shoulders as if there is nothing we can do anyway.

Give us a week without rain and we will start blathering on about hose-pipe bans!

Would you like Bacon with your Latte sir?

In between torrential downpours we managed to take the little cherub out for a walk around the village. We set off for the paper shop and picked up one of the weekend newspapers. We then called in to get a take-away coffee from the local greasy spoon where we found thay the adage "you get what you pay for" has never been more accurate. Ive been to many a coffee shop but never had I had a coffee that had the aroma of bacon.

The "cafe", if you can call it that, would not looked out of place in the seventies with it's yellow walls and shag pile carpet. The Ladie's behind the counter wore striped pinnifores and spoke with a broad local accent. By that I'm mean that she didn't actually says any words when she spoke but just let out this noise that sounded similar to the required wording of the sentence.


for example: "dooyawansugarrwidthaluv?"

to which I replied "nahitullbereetaa"

"tharullbet'wnt'tpeethenluv"

"traa"

Give me Costa anyday.

There goes the weekend.

Ive just been informed that this rain is going to last all weekend.

oh goody goody gum drops.

I'm hoping we will be able to take little miss screamalot out for a trip to Costa at some point this weekend but if it carries on like this then it looks like it's nothing but the indoor life for us! I think that if we try to do normal stuff like normal people then it will help miss Sreamalot to get use to doing something else other than wailing for service.

World of the Stay at Home Dad

Returning to work after being off for four weeks is pretty difficult. I got used to being a "stay at home Dad" and find myself becoming increasingly jealous of those German fathers who can have up to 14 months off work. Having this amount of time off to tend to nipper would certainly have it's advantages.

When I got home last night I found my fair lady looking drained from all the feeding and burping that she had had to do through out the day without a break - admittedly the wee child had slept for a while but the missus being the missus decided to do housework during this quiet time instead of putting her feet up.

Now if I was at home I could have done the hoovering or dish washing and she could have watched Richard & Judy or the Jeremy Kyle show. By the time 18.30 came around she would have been feeling a bit more sprightly.

During my paternity leave last week we watched the Dart's on TV and I must say that we thoroughly enjoyed it! Having never watched televised Dart's, or had any inclination to do so previously, I was rather shocked at the compulsiveness with which we were watching it. Most of the time, Baby would be sleeping whilst it was on thus giving us a link to the outside world. This, some might say would not be the best link to have but it was a link nonetheless!

I was rather sad when it ended so I have decreed that we shall get a Dart board. I'm not sure exactly where we're going to put it or of the Health & Safety benefits it will bring to the house, but seeing as pub-time is (for the moment at least) a thing of the past it seems like the only option.