And relax...

The 2008 birthday marathon is now over with a well earned break now until October when it will be my niece's ninth birthday.

It's been a busy month as always, but everyone seems really happy with the presents I selected this year: a Japanese puzzle box, an omnitrix, an ice candle, a robin tattoo and finally, an autographed photo of Brian May.

As a bonus, I've enjoyed having the family here for the best part of the last week and although we didn't travel very far, we all put the Wii through it's paces, which in turn provided the excuse to turn a blind eye to any thoughts of diet as we waded through plates of roast dinner, pizza, chicken curry and a barbecue, finishing this morning with our traditional cooked breakfast to set them up for the journey home.

It always takes me a while to wind down from the frenetic activity of playing host, so I did my best Taz impression for the rest of today and tore through the house but being still full from breakfast, opted to clean everything within reach as opposed to eating it.

I hope that decision makes a difference when I hop back on the bathroom scales tomorrow...

Open all hours...

To be honest, today could have got away to a better start.

I was awake bright and [ridiculously] early so I decided to take advantage, getting some fresh bread under way and preparing a few bits for our roast turkey dinner tonight. Inevitably there were a couple of things I'd overlooked when shopping yesterday, but as we have a couple of 24 hours supermarkets nearby I didn't think it would be a problem. I could nip out early, miss the crowds and be back home in plenty of time before the family arrives later this morning

That was until I discovered they aren't actually open 24 hours. I realise they have restricted opening hours on Sundays, although I still fail to understand why we are subjected to such commercial censorship. If it is important to you to reserve Sunday as a day of rest then fine, please yourself, but there is no shortage of people prepared to work Sundays and anyone who ventures to the shops on Sunday will testify to the lack of conscientious objectors from a consumer perspective.

Truth to tell, it is too politically sensitive for anyone to make the controversial decision of overruling the current hours so I guess we're stuck with them. But why were they not open early this morning? Apparently because it was a Bank Holiday yesterday? What difference is that supposed to make?

Would I work a Bank Holiday? Well like millions of others, I don't get any option as I am contractually obliged to do so and the only reason I didn't work yesterday is that I booked the whole week as annual leave. Oh and don't get me started on the public holidays we get compared to my European colleagues.

Rant over. Have a nice day...

Holiday fun...

You would think that people would have better things to do on a Bank Holiday afternoon than going food shopping, but apparently not - Tesco was packed to the rafters today.

My excuse was that from tomorrow I'll be catering for anywhere between five and seven rather than just little ol' me for a few days and I doubt my meagre provisions would have sufficed.

Anyway, everything's bought and packed away now so I intend to do a little as I can get away with for the rest of the day (although I suspect that Wii will play a part at some point).

In the meantime, there's an interesting looking film on the TV full of nuns, children and goats. If I'd known it was going to be on TV, I wouldn't have bothered going to the cinema to watch it all those years ago...

I love it when a plan comes together...

Hannibal would have been proud of yesterday- everything went to plan and we had an excellent day.

The biggest highlight had to be getting the birthday present for Mum who is now the worlds coolest (nearly) 70 year old with a newly tattooed arm. I was really proud as she sat there without a flinch for an hour and a half while Stewart worked his magic and produced a wonderfully detailed picture of a robin on her upper arm. I'll post a picture of it on here once it's fully healed.

It also came in well under budget, so we hopped into a cab, went to pick up Dad from my house where he'd been working on some of my fence panels and popped down to our local for lunch. The Farmhouse didn't disappoint again with a delicious luxury fisherman's pie, pannecotta with blueberries for pud, all washed down with a cracking pint of Black Sheep.

We left there to return home where I could change into something smarter for the evening, but spotted a bus approaching. The realisation hit me that with the money I'd save by taking the bus instead of a taxi (given that Mum & Dad travel for free), I could pick a new shirt in town, so Primark obliged accordingly.

Out to the Tap for tea where we met up with Faith and John for another superb meal, after which we returned to the bar where a whole host of other friends came to join us for an excellent night out. Liquid refreshment was largely in the form of a very tasty Raspberry Wheat Beer from Millstone Brewery, which despite checking in at 5.6%, left me feeling a lot brighter this morning than I would usually of expected.

I wonder if I could count those pints towards my five a day...

Let the fun begin...

I finished work today a little early, but a lot relieved that for the next week I'll not be setting foot in the place.

Regular visitors will probably be puzzled as to why then I am still sat at home on a Friday night tippety tapping on the PC instead of swilling ale as though someone was trying to take it away from me.

Well the simple truth is, tomorrow sees the start of Mum's 70th birthday celebrations. On her strict instructions there is to be no party but I have a really cool present lined up, Little Sis & family are on their way up next week and although it's not a party as such, we should be meeting up with a few friends tomorrow night where after a quiet meal we will no doubt have a drink or two.

I'd just like to mention for the record that today, before the festivities begin tomorrow, I am only one pound short of reaching my two and a half stone weight loss milestone. Now there's a challenge - I wonder how much of it I can put back on by next weekend...

What other day could it be...

I'm pleased to say I don't get nightmares often but something had obviously decided I was due one last night and it was a corker. It had everything any horror film would wish for - war, nasty things happening to the family, loads of gory violence, demonic possession, Westlife playing in the Tap. OK, I made the last one up but the rest were all too vivid and even though I realised I was dreaming, I couldn't wake myself up. Although of course I did eventually.

That pretty much set the tone for the day. Despite my efforts with diet and exercise, the scales refuse to budge (even with new battery) and keep moving in the wrong direction, I seemed to be scraping the last of everything to put a breakfast together, it took at least three attempts to leave the house because I kept forgetting things and I saw more near misses this morning due to maniacal driving than I can ever recall in one journey to work. The day in the office goes without further elaboration on my part - one of the usual.

I know I have my superstitious hangups and after all, today's date is only a number. I did some research on the net and it suggested I go and have a pint with my old neighbour - try ask Dec for a beer, or something like that. For the record ('cos I know he'll read this), I say "old" in reference to the fact that I don't live there any more rather than his age.

Well as the old saying goes, all bad things must come to an end. They don't say that? Well they did come to an end and despite it taking me three attempts to get home tonight being called away twice, I'm pleased to say that one of those distractions was to collect my Wii Fit Balance Board.

I can definitely see what all the fuss is about, I've had a whale of a time on there this evening, yoga, jogging, skiing, hula-hooping, ski-jumping, tightrope walking, step class and probably plenty of others I've not mentioned as well as loads of new activities which can only be unlocked through continued playing on there.

I've taken the opening tests and aside from being accused of having a Wii fitness age of 53 (cheeky blighters), my little Wii character has been redrawn to remind me that over two stone down or not, I'm apparently still a fat bastard with a lot of hard work ahead of me so there's a good chance I may never see beer or daylight again.

OK, we all know how likely that is but I can seriously see that at least I'm going to have some fun trying to work off the next few pounds...

Weekend in brief...

Wow - did you see that fantastic weather?

There's clearly something out of the ordinary going on when I'm out working in the garden in shorts and tee shirt instead if sitting inside at the PC telling you all about the things I should have been doing instead of going to the pub...

Panic buying...

It's been a predictably quiet bank holiday today after helping Little Em celebrate her 30th birthday last night. It had all of the ingredients of a great party - a good crowd of friends and family, delicious buffet, an abundance of fine ale and a disco playing music that we were more than happy to sing along with. After some persuasion from Amy I also got the chance to remind everyone what a crap dancer I am.

The journey home is a bit of a blur, but I clearly stumbled across an establishment with kebabs for sale at some point which provided a hearty breakfast this morning.

So, with little else to do today I decided to continue my quest for a Nintendo Wii Fit. I should have followed my initial instincts really and pre-ordered one before it was launched a couple of weeks ago because rather like the consoles a couple of months ago, the latest Wii must-have is as rare as the proverbial rocking horse droppings.

I've been using a stock checker site and could hardly believe my eyes when it told me that Dixons had just got some more in stock. I followed the link to the site and sure enough, it confirmed that they had some in stock so I wasted no time in hitting the buy now button. Then of course they wanted me to register with them so they needed my name, address, contact details, a password, etc., which was all taking rather too long for my liking.

Finally I reached the payment page and unwittingly selected a credit card I'd not used previously for online purchase which meant they also needed me to supply names, date of birth, card dates, new passwords, etc. It might seem that I was fretting unnecessarily, but I'd already been caught out once this weekend having tried to reserve my little nephew's birthday present on the Argos website only to find someone had narrowly beaten me to the last one. But the good news is that little nephew will be getting his new toy this month and in a few days time, so will I.

Oh and in case you are looking for one, Dixons are out of stock again already...

I'm feeling lucky...

Vanity is restored in the Seany household this evening.

I was chatting on the phone with Andy this evening who has just acquired a new laptop and had wireless broadband internet installed, but was struggling to find my blog. It seems his machine came with Yahoo as the preferred search engine and having looked on there myself this evening, it took me two or three attempts to track myself down as it were.

I recommended he try Google as I usually feature on the first page of results when searching for "Seany" although I had shuffled down the rankings somewhat since the arrival of the similarly named Big Brother contestant last summer.

It's been a while since I checked my Google rankings so I carried out the above search and was delighted to find I'm back in the top spot (although quite honestly, I'm not entirely sure how or why). The bonus of being the first result means I can now refer people to Google, to type the word Seany and then hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button which will bring them straight here.

Of course, if they are really lucky, they may also find something here worth reading...