Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas yesterday - we certainly did. The annoying week leading up was soon forgotten about as we had a lovely day. R&M arrived safe and well on the 24th having found Dublin airport not too busy. It seems that most of the thousands extra they were expecting arrived the previous day. They arrived to a real fire lit in the lounge (this one intended and under control in the fire place) and the rest of the house ready.

S woke up stupidly early and kept asking if it was time to open stockings. At 7 I suggested she go make tea so that I could get a bit more sleep. She came back having done just that and got the table ready for breakfast. We opened out stockings on our own, then had a nice full Irish with R&M. Stuffed and put the turkey on then went off to church where I tromboned and puppeted and S was persuaded to sing. Was back home by 12. D&T turned up at 1 to a table full of starters and the fire going. We opened pressies while eating. S and I popped out from time to time to poke the turkey, start the ham and do the veg. The meal turned out lovely - thanks Delia for the tips on how best to cook a turkey of that size. The thing was enormouse! Tip: dont ask the butcher how big a turkey you need as they will sell you one that would feed most of the street. There's still loads left after eating a fair bit today!

The day was very pleasant all round. Today, St Stephens Day, 4 of us got up late and 2 got up early to go for a walk on Dun Laoghaire pier. I was woken up at 5am by an almighty crash and thought the house was falling down. I heard someone else get up to investigate so couldnt quite be bothered to get out of my nice bed. Although I didn't sleep much after that so I should have made myself get up. Bs old mirror which we have hung up downstairs decided to fall off the wall and dent the skirting board before hitting the banisters. It survived unscathed which was remarkable. We all went round to Ss aunt after lunch for an hour or so then R,M,D&T went off to D&Ts while S and I came back here.

This is probably my last posting of 2004 as we are off to the UK tomorrow to see family and friends over new year. We are just about packed although I have been spending the last 3 hours doing work on call... The money will buy a new amp at least!

Today this week turned from annoying into complete sh*te. Earlier problems in the week have given way to a small explosion and mini fireball from the surround amp in the cinema. That was preceded by my boss asking me not to attend this evenings dinner with a supplier to keep costs down. That really grates my cheese is that the supplier was short of cash for tonight as they paid for some of our department Christmas do as my employer was too tight to pay. Given the profits they are enjoying, that is pretty poor. The next employee survey will not show an improvement in satisfaction! I was invited to join the diners for drinks after, but frankly could not be bothered to go into town to meet a load of semi drunk well fed people after being asked not to go. Plus said explosion somewhat disrupted any plans we had.

I am now in need of a new amp. Unfortunately I have no idea where in Ireland to get one without being charged twice what it would cost in the UK. Convenient that we're going to the UK soon during the sales. Off to Richersounds for me. Although that's where the last one came from.

So we were watching Terminator in the cinema. The projector was on top of the amp as it had been for the last few months when the amp started turning itself off. I turned it on again which worked for a few mins then it would go again. I gave up, assuming something to be wrong - probably overheated although why it picked 20 mins into a film to do that and not 2.5 hours during the previous few months I don't know. We rearranged everything so that it could sit on its own, then when I plugged it in then turned it on there were loud/big sparks and a small fireball popped out the bottom. Very fortunate that the nearby curtains and the wooden wardrobe that it was sat on did not catch light.

We promptly went out and bought a fire extinguisher and fire blanket! The amp is also outside in the rain.

2 days into my week off and things are proving difficult! The chimney sweeping people are meant to call me back to say if they can fit us in this week (looks like that's a no). The broadband provider called to cancel the install _again_ stating that they "have run out of equipment". Fantastic, only been waiting since end of Sept. Then the lock smith turned up to try and get into our beuro only to fail and clear off again... Luckily he didn't charge us the 70euro call out fee. Then today I had to find 3 An Post sorting offices to work out where parcels get taken when we're not in. That wouldn't have been so bad if I'd just turned up at a random one only to find it wrong, but I called one which told me to go to the 2nd, only when I got there they said it was another one... At least I know where it is now!

Anyway enough ranting. I have managed to clear/tidy and clean the office, so pretty much the whole house is ready for Christmas. Need to put up some pictures tomorrow.

We are staying up to go shopping later (about midnight) when hopefully Dunnes wont be too manic full. If it's too busy will have to give up and try early in the morning.

It was the Crinken Carols by candlelight service tonight - which went very well. I and several others were playing. The place was full which was nice. It was strange to think that it was only a year ago we started to go regularly.

The weekend is pretty much over - and I don't have to go to work tomorrow!! However I most probably will get up at normal time (after making S get up first) so as to get on with the long list of things I have to do this week. If I don't start the list tomorrow it will probably never happen.

While I am pleased with the appointment of 'arry to SFC and think he will keep us up, I am very unimpressed listening to this 5-1 loss away to Spuds. Teach me to tell J that Keane wont score as the little git puts in the 5th. Just as well its tight enough down the bottom although around and after Christmas it will start to get bad if we don't pick up points. I still think Harry will do it though and results will pick up in Jan.

We are going out to the TNT Christmas meal this evening. Our contribution is the desert. S and I (mainly S to be fair) have spent half the afternoon making a chocolate roulade and chocolate truffles and have managed to OD on chocolate in the process. The roulade looks amazing and the truffles taste fantastic.

Speaking of fantastic, final whistle 5-1. Total sh*te. Worse than Wiglys worst effort, although that was against a lower division team. Time to go find food that's not chocolate.

I've been slack at this posting lark again recently. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly I don't have proper internet access at home (STILL!) and am relying on running up a large bill using 3G data and secondly work has been stupidly busy recently running up to the "development freeze". Both points deserving their own rants which I will probably get round to shortly. However firstly to catch up on other things.

One reader pointed out that I didn't mention my recent band (the Bray Concert Band) concert - I'm sure I did back at the end of October, but cant be bothered to find the post now. However we have just done another concert, last week in the Mermaid theatre in Bray. The concert went very well. Once again the audience was full which was nice. We had a young boys school choir singing bits between our sections, which this time was very sweet. Some of the boys sang very heartily while others barely bothered to open their mouths. They sang in a lovely Irish accent too. The band played well and I managed not to arse anything up. The band then spent 5 hours playing Christmas music in Bray Main St on Saturday. The weather held off so that meant almost constant playing bar an hours lunch break. We must have made quite a bit of cash though. Except there was nearly a turf war for collecting when the ambulance collectors decided to stand near the band with their collection buckets which I thought very rude given we were nothing to do with them and were doing it for our own collection. One of the band members politely told them to clear off, which they kindly refused. After a while they did agree it was rude to moved slightly down the road.

I have the day off today to recover from a suppliers Christmas Party last night. It was good fun and a reasonable amount was consumed(free bar all night), but I am surprisingly not hungover. Possibly aided by staying in bed until 11:30 this morning having got to bed at 3. I had the day off yesterday too for Broadband install, which failed due to high winds. I am waiting for that to be rearranged which they have shown no sign of doing so far. I am hungry so am going to leave my rant about work and the freeze for another time...

Just remembered the other thing I wrote about in the post that got eaten. The previous week was spent in wonderful Newbury. It really is a boring place, with one dodgy pub showing football on a Monday and another nicer pub with no one at all in it before we went in. I was there for work but took the opportunity to volunteer to drive a hire car to save taxi fares from the airport and to the office, which meant I could drive and see M&D one night and J another. Had a lovely time with them, even though it was weird to go from work to family and back. A very busy week with solid working days from 8/8:30 until 6/6:30. Then Ireland calling during any breaks I had to ensure very little free time.

(spell checker has died _again_)

Wrote a really long post last Thursday catching up since the last post but the work proxy died before I had a chance to publish, then the browser got in a strop and lost the post. Really couldn't be bothered to retype at the time and really cant remember what I did type now! Oh yes, all about how S and I let a service a couple of weeks ago. Scary stuff!

This last weekend was the Crinken Youth Group weekend away (yes, we are too old to be yoof, but went as leaders). It was fantastic! Although I have to say I NEVER want to see skittles put in custard ever again. Getting them out using your gob was far more gross than I ever imagined possible. We stayed in Avoca Manor which is in the middle of County Wicklow (near Avoca funnily enough). It has lots of activites inc a high death slide (which you are strapped in a harness around your bum, so can swing whatever way up you like - and to Ss surprise I had a go), out side assult courses (which we did a group excersise to get everyone round without touching the ground with 2 plants and 6 poles to slot in and place the planks on. I stupidly ended up at the back of our group so had to get off the plank then pick it up and pass it on...) and a big sports hall. We took 22 teenagers and being the oldest male leader, I was responsible for making sure they actually went to sleep. At least that they didn't keep anyone else awake! I managed 4 hours sleep on sat night, being kept awake by talking until 3. The supid thing was the teenagers were asleep long before, but the leaders were chatting... So I was somewhat tired today.

Got back to work to find most of the team had cleared off on various training courses and loads of things I knew nothing about had to be done by yesterday so was running round like an idiot for most of the day. So am rather nackered now!