Welcome Back

It's been a while.

Exams and the revision they required, plus a Financial Year-end at work, have meant that blogging has been cast aside.But with the exams out of the way, the rickety Blog Bandwagon can restart its one manpower engine and chug gently into the summer.


What Exams?

My final stage CIMA exams. Business strategy papers. Masters-level. Four exams, each of three hours, over the course of two days. 100+ A4 pages of hand-writing. Highly stressful and a real test of time management. Of the four exams, I'm hopeful of passing two of them, but have little confidence in the others. With baby due in September, and retakes scheduled for November, I really need to have passed at least half of them, as revising with a newborn in the house will not be easy.

Results come out at the end of July. Keep your fingers and toes crossed.


Baby

We had the 20 week scan. Everything checked out normal. All the boxes were ticked. We came away with a freaky scan photo, a copy of which is sat on my desk at work. You can see the lenses in baby's eye sockets.

Vic is showing quite nicely now. She's suffering a little discomfort -- from the stretching -- and complaining of a lack of fitting trousers.


Dates

I turned 32. Vic turned 29. We had our 2nd wedding anniversary.


Jacob

Had his eyes tested. He was worried beforehand as he thought the doctors were going to take his eyes out in order to test them.
After the doctors explained that they wre only going to ask him to look at things to make sure he could see OK, Jacob said:

"It's OK... Mummy cut my hair last week and I can see fine now!"


Events

We went to Oxford's hot air "Balloon Festival". It was too windy. As a result, no balloons. Scott rechristened it the great Balloon Fiasco. We saw the world-famous Oxford Inbred Terrier Racing Display Team instead. Seeing those little pups jump through rings of fire made up for the zero balloons. I kept expecting to see a black van pull up... with armed RSPCA SWAT team guys leaping out.

We went to Brighton for Emma's 30th birthday. A cracking weekend. Brighton is great. Unlike most English seaside towns, it's a nice place to visit. I'd expected a nasty cross between Blackpool and Margate, but discovered a clean, trendy and beautiful seaside town, with super shops and a cafe culture. Remove the traffic and it's a place I'd like to live.

"Oh we do like to be beside the seaside..."


Greyhounds

My work sports and social club are off the the greyhounds tonight. Using this as an excuse, I've put trap numbers -- in authentic greyhound colours -- on each of the cubicle doors in the gents toilet.

They look great and offer a saucy gambling opportunity: I just need to install a web cam in there and I could make $millions from gambling internet punters.

"Who will finish first?! Bet now!"