Three months, two punctures and a poking from the NHS

...is it normal to forget your age, then finally realise how old you will be this year?....

Anyway Greetings one and all (and even Andy Preece (Marvin, Marv, Marvy, Tracy etc), I know its been a while since I blogged but theres been too much on the telly and I can't be bothered to record anything!

I'll start just after I finished off last time, and the snow was still really bad on the Friday, but never fear, it was the highlight of the year so far, yep it was Staff Development Day, woohoo! Normally, this involves every member of staff being taught the same thing as last time, Customer 'Bleeding' Service, but theres always free food and drink, so everyone has to turn up to get their fill! This time, however, it was slightly different as the Governors were in, so management decided to involve some 'speakers' *sigh*. The speaker in the morning raised my murderous side. In the first sentence, he used more 'management speak' than I'd ever heard in my entire life, and made up some more that infuriated the hell out of everyone. I've got absolutely no time for people who think by making up clever 'buzz' words, will win over people and rouse the senses. If it were up to me, I'd happily round them all up, and send them all to a volcanic island, along with westlife and half the associated press!

The chap in the afternoon session wasn't too bad, mainly because he broke the OHP, and had to finish 2 hours early because the snow had almost covered the exits! So we all got home for 3pm and were glad of it!

Talking of snow, I promised you pictures last time, so here they are!.........



Now, under here is the remnants of a TV makeover we had done about 5 years ago!













..and this is the view from my bedroom, which is very nice, especially as the field at the back has been fought over by every developer and resident under the sun for the last 25 years, and we eventually won a morotanium on the whole village a couple of years ago, which means no new large scale housing will be built in the area till 2015, which is always a nice little victory for common sense!


Saturday was a bit of a quiet one, apart from Villa playing well but losing 2.0 to Reading, which was a bad result but a good performance, so thats always a bonus. The evening was spent watching 'Roman Holiday', starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. I'm making it a promise to myself to acquaint myself with as many of the 'proper' Hollywood stars, and their films as I can (you know, when Hollywood made really good films, and blew huge budgets on guaranteed hits, not rolling out sequel after sequel, or a stupid remake that doesn't make any sense (The Italian Job, Slither, Godzilla, to name but a few). Now, having seen 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', and having put it in my top 10 films of all time (I'm not gay, but instead can make an informed choice about films, and music, thus my love for both rock music and classical), was really looking forward to it, and bearing in mind the film was made in the 50's, it was an excellent film. A real blockbuster, and Gregory Peck was a superb actor. The film was actually Audrey Hepburn's first big film, and she was great in it too.

On Sunday, we had a test run to Kidderminster Hospital, where I will be having my operation, and its not a bad journey really, just skirting past the centre of Kidderminster town centre, then we went back, had a big sunday lunch and went home.

Last week, my manager was off on her hollibobs, so it was up to me to run the department, which was great coz we got so much work done, and solved almost every problem that my manager had/caused!

Thursday night was a slight variation on the norm. Myself and Gareth met up and went to the Drawbridge to catch up with Donna as we hadn't seen her for ages....then left about an hour afterwards because there was a Pub Quiz about to start, so we made a sharp exit and decided to go to the Reservoir in Earlswood....somewhat slightly too sharp for one member of our gang, who decided to pick a fight with a parked volvo by falling over a flowerbed and hitting it on the way down in a fit of giggles! Suffice to say all that were damaged was her pride and not his bonnet!

Now, as I had very little petrol, we had to make a slight detour to the garage, Donna had put on her fave CD on in the car, and, as I had paid for my petrol, and there was no one else on the forecourt, I decided to do a funky little dance for a laugh (oh yeah, FUNKY!), all went well, Gareth was bopping along in the car at the same time, and the two blokes in the garage shop were enjoying it too, apart from Donna that is, who was way too busy looking for another track on the CD! Oh well, Donna, I'm sure Texaco will let you have the CCTV tapes for a small fee so you don't miss the action! Anyway we had a couple of drinks in the Reservoir and ended up going to the Pack Horse, where we met up with some more friends, before hitting the sack.

Saturday was a good one, we went into the Jewellry Quarter to pick up Mom's engagement ring that she had given in to be cleaned, and to have a clasp tightened, so while we were there we had a good look round, and I must say its a fantastic place for jewellry (the title may have given it away!) We managed to find the most expensive diamond ring in the area, a wedding ring that cost over £20,000, that they would show us in the window, but i'm sure they have more 'bling' round the back of the shop!

So to Monday and what a wonderful sight that greeted me when I walked out my house. Another tyre had a 7 inch nail embedded in it. I'll be glad when Dickens Heath has finished being built because I think I have half the materials on or in my car! Thats 2 punctures in 3 months of ownership, that can't be good! So up we went to Wythall Tyre place, who did us a good deal on changing the tyre, so we were back on the road within the day, which was good. A plus point is that I haven't had a fine pop through my door yet for getting flashed back in December, but i'll keep my fingers crossed for another few months!

So to this weeks big event. Tomorrow I am being admitted to Kidderminster Hospital's Urology unit where I will be having an Internal Urethrotomy. For those of a non-nervous disposition, or for those who are just too nosy and wanna know what one of those is and what exactly happens, click here. I'm actually feeling ok about it at the moment, especially now I know what they're gonna do when I have been knocked out, and boy am I glad to be knocked out!

NEWS UPDATE: Got a call from Christies the other day to say that the catalogue for the upcoming auction is going to print this week, so hopefully by the end of next week, all the football programmes will be in the public domain and then its the big countdown to the auction, woohoo!

I shall leave you with something I found simply hilarious on a blog the other day. I think I may think about this when I have my operation tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz_83QDfzlc