that was the week..22nd March 2010

Welcome to the week that was 23-28 March 2010.

Day off today, things to do people to see. The house alarm company turned up first thing on Tuesday. Basically a component had burnt out on the board inside the alarm panel possibly the charger circuit however the charger still works. So he replaced the battery and checked everything plus gave me a discount for cash as well. We even took out a maintenance contract with them and they are a local family business. I'm all for supporting local trades. didn't really get the chance to mow the lawns, That chore will have to wait until the weekend.

I was amazed at the amount of people bringing their recalled cars back to the Toyota garage when I was up there in the afternoon. The Service manager told me they have modified over 700 cars at that dealer alone. phew! Anyway the car is now fixed and my credit card took another hammering!

Thursday night is Valley Park Radio night. If you are unfortunate enough to be in Darent Valley Hospital on this day you can listen to me & my fellow presenters Mark, Neil & Mike playing great music and talking waffle in between! We have a weekly feature, Cake of The Week (COW for short) so each week I will feature the COW on here. This weeks is pictured above...

It is Neil's turn next week so no doubt we will look forward to another Co-op special! Got drenched walking from the car park to the hospital entrance, my umbrella having been destroyed a few weeks earlier at the same location.

Friday night and our monthly trip down to Woodchurch for the Ashford Astronomical Society meeting. The society has been going 3 years now and has 70 members. Quite an acheivement when you think that myself and Sarah were member numbers 20 and 21 when we joined in September 2008. It was a great evening only marred by the clouds rolling in when we went outside to do some observing! There were great presentations from Dave, who's talk on Saturn was actually quite informative. And Mark, the chairman's 9 year old son who gave an excellent description of how he photographed the moon through his Bresser Newtonian Telescope. The society prides itself in promoting astronomy not only for adults, but children as well, and our commitee spend a lot of time and effort visiting clubs and societies in and around Ashford giving great astronomy presentations.

Australian GP qualifying first thing...V+ was made for events like this. It meant I could forward through the boring chatter and get to the nitty gritty. Went into town Saturday morning on the big red taxi. Sarah was at the RSPCA cat re-homing centre in town where she helps looking after the cats. After a swift cappucino and a long queue in the bank I walked down to the RSPCA to meet up and head for home. As we turned into our road we noticed that the sheltered housing at the entrance to our close had a bring & buy sale. Always a sucker for a bargain we had a quick look round and came away with a Michael Parkinson Autobiography, a DVD of Dante's Peak and a poor imitation ladies Tag Heuer watch. (I own a couple of real Tags so I can spot a moody one a mile off). Well we only paid 20p for the watch and a couple of quid for the other things, the money being raised so they can buy furniture for their communal den. Afternoon we took advantage of an offer from Argos and bought a Netbook. We will both find it useful, Me every thursday when I go to VPR and Sarah when she goes into hospital in May, plus when we go to Birmingham to visit the family.

Sunday morning I even remembered to hit the BST button on my clock radio so got up at the right time. Watched the Australian GP (V+ is my friend). Well done Jenson Button, a much more exciting race than Bahrain. The weather can't quite make up its mind. We decide to second guess the cloudy weather and go for a walk through Kings wood, Challock. What is interesting is they have installed sculptures along the trail so suddenly you come across a gaint bronze horn (like on a wind-up gramaphone) up in the trees. 3.5 miles later and we come out of the woods down the road from the car park. Oh well took a wrong turn somewhere. Back home for a bit of gardening, fire up the lawnmower for the first time this year, started on the third pull as well. Now its dinner time...Belly pork and Cauli Cheese tonight....that walk has given me an appetite!