Composure

Patience definitely is a virtue!

Today I had to go to the Home Office to pick up my and Josh's passports. This, in itself, is a nightmare 'cos it usually means waiting around for about 4 hours in a sterile government building with no music, heating (at least it's still warm over here) or smiling, just the occasional "ticket number A154 to counter number 29 please"!

But today was worse! I left home around 9.20am. Catching the tube was fine. I got to Victoria Station only to discover a 45 - 55 minute delay on all trains due to a thoughtless jumper at Clapham Junction. Why do people jump in front of high-speed trains at peak times? Can't they be more thoughtful to the rest of the world and do it in the middle of the night or something? After all, the Gatwick Express runs almost 24 hours a day!

Anyway, we pull out of the station 45 minutes later than expected on what should have been a 16 minute train ride to East Croydon (where the aforementioned Home Office is situated) only to stop just outside Clapham Junction station.

At first I assumed that it something to do with the insensitive jumper, but when the driver announced that we had to disembark, I started to get a little suspicious. The front 2 coaches were unloaded onto the platform first, then the back 2 (where I was sitting) were told to get off onto the tracks once the power was cut. When they told us to leave all bags on the train, I knew that something definitely was wrong! We started to make our way to the rear of the train and when I was about 6 feet from the door, the driver announced the all clear!

We then waited for them to power up the tracks and train again, move fully into the station and get everyone back onto the train before setting off once again.

Apparently some (even more inconsiderate, thoughtless, selfish) plank had climbed onto the train at Victoria with his suitcase and then got off again, forgetting the case on the train. This was duly reported to the driver who called ahead for the bomb squad!

An hour and a half later, I arrived in Croydon. Luckily I am a very patient person because another two and a half hour wait lay ahead for me at the Home Office!

I finally got back to London at 4pm, passports in hand!

I can't wait for my holiday next week...

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Foto Friday

In honour of this weekend's Notting Hill Carnival, I thought I would post a photo from my first ever Carnival experience - August 1993!

If any of you are interested, I will have my webcam on for this year's Carnival. The cam will run on Sunday and Monday from midday until whatever time (GMT of course!).

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Detox

Well, 7 days into the detox programme and I'm still in one piece. The headaches are gone and so is some of the weight. I'm very proud to say that I lost 2.5kg and 2cm off the waist just by cutting out the junk food!

The 'detox'/diet food that we ate this past week would have filled an elephant there was so much! I loved the cabbage rolls (sorta like lasagne) and I even got to eat a lamb steak and drink most of a bottle of red on Friday night!

Must clearly state though that I didn't care much for the tofu pasta on Sunday. That went straight out the window!!

Week 2 continues...

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Mountain Bike Video

For those of you that are interested, I have put the helmet cam video of our ride last Tuesday onto the net. Fall and all!

The video is on my video blog or you can see it at Vimeo.com

Chat soon,
Del

Foto Friday

It's Photo Friday time again.

This photo was taken in Wales in the town of Tenby. The 'island' is known as St Catherine's and is only an island at high tide. There is a fort on the island which was built to protect Wales from invasion by France. If you want to know more, click here.

The photo was taken in September 2002.

Chat soon,
Del

'New' Blogger

For those of you who don't read Blogger's own blog, our favourite Blogspot is getting a face-lift! It's still only in Beta, so you can't convert your 'old' blog just yet, but you can sign up for a new one (yeah right!).

Some of Blogger's new tricks include: adding labels to your posts and choosing who can and can't read your blog!

If you want to read more, check out the link Blogger Beta


Chat soon,
Del

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Detox & falls

Detox & falls

Today is day 3 of my detox - and it's going pretty well! No junk food, no beer, no added sugar! I feel great except that I keep getting headaches 'cos I've also given up caffeine! Anyway, I'm going to stick with it and see how we go. I'll keep you up to date right here!

I also went for a bike ride yesterday. I felt like a kid again, racing through the forest on my mountain bike. We were the oldest kids about on bikes (it's summer holidays over here), but the others were a lot more daring than us. They were launching themselves into orbit off the jumps that they had built. I, on the other hand, managed to fall after hitting a jump that was about 1 foot in height! Scraped my knee and tore my trouser leg! Even caught the fall on video (which I will post at a later date).

Boys will be boys...



Chat soon,
Del

Foto Friday

It's been a long week without much happening in my world. I'm glad I'm not flying anywhere 'cos the airports over here are in absolute chaos!! Let's hope that everything settles down in the near future.

This Friday's photo was taken on Wednesday night. Three guesses who this is!! If you want to read more about what he's been up to, check out his blog.

Chat soon,
Del

Foto Friday

It's photo time again...

This week's photo was taken in January in the south of France in a small fishing town called Sete. It was sunset and we were walking back to our car via the marina.

Chat soon,
Del

Slogging away

Today is my 4th double shift in a row. I've taken a few hours off this afternoon to catch up on some Zzzzzzzs before tonight's toil again.

It's not all bad though. Yesterday a mate of mine came to the pub so we sat outside in the sun for 4 hours, drank too much beer and caught a nice tan! These are my kind of shifts! Needless to say, I kept dozing off during the evening when I was meant to be doing my paperwork!!

Chat soon,
Del

PS: The London/UK heatwave continues! It was supposed to rain yesterday, but no sign of a cloud in the sky!