My croaky voice has just about disappeared, which is good news on my part!

We went to the gym first thing. Nikki's nephew Josh was in there so we had a bit of a natter with him.

Again the weather was decent so we spent the afternoon in the garden which was nice nd peaceful until our neighbours decided to have a barbecue.

We had tea quite early, I did the finances and we watched some things we'd recorded. I also sent an email to Jean, the lady that we got Indie from as it's a year to the day that we went over to Scarborough to pick her up.

The weather was really nice today, Nikki wanted to get some plants so she could do the hanging baskets.

We went to Wilkinsons in Armley first and from there into Bradford to get a few bits and bobs. It was a bit of a day for bargains - Nikki didn't get charged correctly for the plants whe bought at Wilkinsons, we got some light bulbs for the kitchen light on special offer at Home Bargains and I found some tool boxes that would beideal for my camera gear on offer at B&Q - £15 instead of £40!

I repaired part of the garden fence while Nikki did the hanging baskets. I did a bit of experimenting with my camera taking quite a few photos of Indie.

It was the final of Britain's Got Talent this evening. I've got to say the standard of acts in the final this year was outstanding - but the overall winners, a street dance troupe called Diversity fully deserved it.

Talking of winners we too were winners - oh yes - the lottery no less, but it won't be changing our lives, well £10 doesn't go that far these days!

Well my voice hadn't magically got better overnight, but at least it hadn't got any worse!

Again I spent the day working on Plone, working through the list of 'problems' we'd highlighted in the meeting with Paul yesterday. I managed to solve one or two, but without some support I'm not going to be able to sort some of them. Thankfully I was able to post on the Plone forum about one of them and I did get an answer, however it was quite technical and so I need to do some more investigation.

It's amazing how many different name s people called me today with my 'husky' voice - it ranged through Barry White, Dalek, Darth Vader, Alan Sugar and Princes Leia

We spent the evening watching television - the last semi-final of Britain's Got Talent namely, which wasn't the best episode this week but still entertaining nevertheless!

I did quite a bit more Plone work today - trying to get the pages with the 'wow' factor, which I achieved to a certain extent.

Paul had called another meeting to discuss in further detail how things we going with Plone. Something that annoys me about Paul is that he expects me to have all the answers. At the end of the day there is only me working on it, I can't answer questions like "What's affecting the performance?" In other companies I can imagine there is a team of people working on Plone, not just one person. I think he thinks that because it;s Open Source software then it's only a noddy application when in fact it isn't, it's a fully featured content management system that is fully configurable.

Consequently after the meeting I had yet more points to try to find out about...

I know I had that cold thing last week, but I thought I'd got rid of it, however my voice started going today - it's incredibly croaky at the moment and I wouldn't be surprised if I lose it over the next day! My colleague Philip who was on holiday last week said he's had a similar thing and his voice went for three days!

Apart from the voice I don't feel particularly bad, so it didn't stop me going to the gym, which I did while Nikki went to keep fit.

My mum rang up just as we got back - it was quite hard work talking to her - but I managed. After tea Nikki rang her brother Keith as we haven't heard from him for a while.

It was the fourth semi-final of Britain's Got Talent and there were some pretty good acts on.

Paul was back from his paternity leave today and I had to give him a briefing on how far I'd got with Plone. He had quite a bit n his plate so I kept it brief!

Nick and I carried on with the single sign-on work and finally cracked it - it was a simple case of a missing ampersand in an XML file. That's the bulk of the work done, a bit of tidying up but at least we've got it working now and should be able to use it going forward.

Nick's off now for the next couple of days so I'll try to get some more Plone stuff out of the way. I need to set up a site for HR (Personnel to us old-schoolers!). I thought the discounts and offers section would be a good place to start - plenty of images and the like to go at. The current pages are all just Word and PDF documents si I'd like to make the section look quite flashy - you know give it the 'wow' factor to show them what it is possible too do with Plone.

Nikki and I haven't been to the gym since last Wednesday, but normal service was resumed this evening. That was once Indie had come in - she can be stubborn some times - no matter how hard we tried we couldn't coax her in, so we just had to wait until she came in of her own accord. Consequently we left the house half an hour later! The gym wasn't too busy at least.

After tea we watched a couple of things on televison and that was it.

It's half term this week so the traffic was nice and light.

Nick and I continued where we'd left off on Friday with trying to get single sign-on working properly. It was slow going, we came across a few hurdles and by yrh late afternoon we thought we'd cracked it. That was until we realised the authentication wasn't working as it should and entrance was being attained via the anonymous route, when we took that out it wouldn't allow access. I guess we've got some more investigation to do - there has to be some mismatch within teh Spring configuration.

The traffic was pretty light on the way home - which is always nice!

After tea we cleaned the bathrooms and then settled down to watch some television - can't miss the semi finals of Britain's Got Talent!

No snotty nose when I got up this morning, which was good!

First thing we took some garden rubbish to the tip and I needed some razor blades so we went to Morrisons to get those.

The weather was pretty good again but it did keep clouding over and threatening rain. Nikki continued with some gardening and I started photographing some of the things to put on eBay, but I decided to do it indoors, using my studio flash gear. I can't recall using it since I bought it so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Well blow me this flash photography lark isn't that easy, in fact it's quite tricky, it was a fine balance between too much light and not enough. Eventually I did manage to get everything photographed, but whether I needed to use the flash gear is debatable!

We watched some more television in the evening including the second semi-final of Britain's Got Talent, on which some of the acts were pretty poor.

The more observant of you will have noticed I haven't mentioned the gym - that's because we haven't been. However normal service will be resumed this week. It's just I haven't felt up to it wth my cold and Nikki's excuse, well you'll have to ask her!

Thankfully I didn't feel too bad this morning - the cold is finally on its way.

That said we did get woken at 9am up by some kids on the street - where is the respect? When we were kids there's no way we'd have been able to play out at that time on a Sunday morning...

The weather was glorious and Nikki did some more gardening, I had planned on photographing some bits for eBay and was going to do that outside, but instead I spent the day faffing!

In order to get the stuff photographed I first had to get all the things together. The camera that Nikki bought from work is going to have to go on, I was going to part-exchange it for my new camera, but I've already got that and Currys don't do part exchange . As there are some components like strap and charger missing and I don't think it's right to sell it incomplete I had to try to get hold of some. Thankfully eBay came up trumps!

By the time I'd gathered everything together, including packaging and then cleaned it up, the day was nearly over - so much for getting out into the sunshine! Looks like I know what I'll be doing tomorrow!

It was the first live final of Britain's Got Talent tonight so we watched that and predicted the two acts that would get through!

I found a way to get the wireless working on Nikki's laptop - switch the built-in wireless off, and then simply plug-in one a USB adaptor - it works a treat!

After feeling a bit better yesterday afternoon I didn't feel all that wonderful this morning.

We popped out to get the lottery and provisions from Morrisons, then in the afternoon Nikki did a bit out in the garden while I did a bit of stuff on the Mac upstairs

Later on another look at why the built-in wireless on Nikki's new laptop keeps dropping out, I even tried a different router - but getting it to work with Sky proved more hassle than it was worth. So for now she'll have to use the long ethernet wire.

I started feeling a bit better again towards the evening.

My mate Andy rang up - he'd been out in the afternoon to watch the rugby and was rather piddled! After I'd managed to get him off the phone we watched some bits on television.

I still wasn't feeling that bright this morning, but as the day wore on I did start feeling better.

Nick and I carried on with the single sign-on work from yesterday morning and actually managed to get it authenticating which was great! There is still a way to go yet, we've got to work out how to display a page once the user has been authenticated.

By mid afternoon Nikki's laptop hadn't arrived so I rang the Post Room at work to see if thy had it but they hadn't, however after a couple of minutes they rang back to say it had just been delivered!

I spent the evening getting it set up - installing Ubuntu wasn't a problem and everything seemed to work just fine but for some reason the wireless connection keeps dropping - even though the computer thinks it has a 100% signal. I've had some trouble with most wireless devices at one point or another part of me is now starting to think it is the router. Thankfully I have a spare one up in the loft, I may well dig that out and see if it makes any difference.

We managed to catch up on a few more television programmes so apart from nearly the full series of 24, the backlog is now quite small!

I had a bit of a break from Plone this morning and did a bit of Java work with Nick - we want to try to get single sign-on working via Spring using the project structure we've inherited from Thoughtworks. This is the only bit remaining in the old style structure so if we can get it working in the new structure it will be a major coop - especially if we can so it on our own!

We got so far, Spring wired in and nothing breaking so that's a start at least! Nick was on a course in the afternoon so I went back to doing some more Plone, but I didn't feel that well, so didn't do all that much, but I did get a bit more Python stuff done.

As I was feeling pretty lousy I didn't bother with the gym, Nikki gave keep-fit a miss too and we caught up on some television before having an early night.

The cold I thought I was starting with in Munich last week started coming out properly today - though it's not one of those snotty type colds, this is more of a head and chest cold - lots of phlegm - hmmm lovely!

I carried on with some Plone plug-ins and I even tried writing a portlet myself which wasn't too difficult, although trying to use Python within it was a bit tricky until I realised the syntax!

We went to the gym in the evening which was perhaps something of a mistake from my point of view - I didn't feel too great with my cold so it was pretty hard work!

I ordered a monopod and lens hood for my camera from Amazon - it was the cheapest place, which surprised me somewhat!

I continued with the new Plone instance today - porting content across from the 'live' version and installing some plug-ins which may be useful. I sent a couple of emails off to the people who'd written two of the plug-ins to ask them some questions and I got a quick and helpful response from both.

Laptops Direct rang up about my order - basically I think they wanted me to buy some anti-virus software and backup disks. When I told the girl that wouldn't be necessary as I wouldn't be running Windows on it - she was taken aback and didn't quite know what to say! I think I'd stopped her in her tracks because she didn't ask me any further questions and told me the laptop would be with me within four working days - so in time for the weekend all being well.

In the evening I went out with Nick and our old work colleague John Leonard. We haven't had a get together for a while and we'd usually go to Mo's in Guiseley, but unfortunately it closed down and is now and Indian, so we went to the Bella Italia instead. We were supposed to be meeting in the White Cross pub for a drink before hand but Indie did one of her disappearing tricks which meant we were late picking John up.

The Bella Italia used to be a really buzzing place, but it seemed to have lost something, the atmosphere was all gone and the staff just seemed to be going through the motions. The food was still very nice though.

From there we went back across to the White Cross for a couple of drinks. In one round John and Nick wanted a Drambuie but incredibly the girl serving me said she couldn't sell me Drambuie on its own because it wasn't on the till! I think almost everyone in the pub was taken aback! So they had to have Southern Comfort instead. Then when John went to the bar he got served by somebody different and was able to get two Drambuies!

So it was back to work for the pair of us today.

I had a better day of it than Nikki - the management stuff she'd having to do these days is getting her down - staff issues and the like.

One thing I did was to create a completely new Plone instance with a separate database and everything so that I'm not interfering with anyone using the other instance.

It's my brother-in-law Andrew's birthday today so I nipped out at lunchtime to give him his present - although he wasn't opening them until my sister Jacqueline came home from work later on.

We went to the gym in the evening and I spoke to my mum on the phone. We watched some television plus I ordered a laptop for Nikki from Laptops Direct - a Toshiba 17" with 2GB memory and a 250GB hard disk for £300, which I didn't think was too bad! Hopefully it will be here before the weekend.

We normally would go to the gym on a Sunday morning but gave it a miss as we had to go and pick Indie up from the cattery.

When we got there, she was asleep so we woke her up which didn't please her all that much! In fact she was reluctant to come out, but eventually we got her into her box and into the car. It usually takes her a little while to settle back in at home when she's been away.

We did a bit of shopping - naturally we had to got to Aldi to get some Spaten Munich beer!

I had a look on the internet later on at new laptops for Nikki and the lid on her Acer has cracked again and it's probably not worth repairing a second time. She only wants something quite cheap as it will only be used for a bit of work and accessing t'internet and email. I also had a look for monopods for my camera.

As there is quite a lot to catch up on that we'd recorded we spent the evening working through it.

Our flight wasn't until 3pm this afternoon and we didn't have to check out of the hotel until 12, so we had a bit of a lie-in before having breakfast and getting packed.

We left the bags in our room and went out of a bit of a walk to pass some time. We headed of in a direction we hadn't been and found yet more wonderful buildings and sites.

Overall we've both been extremely impressed with Munich, it's much bigger than we imagined plus there is just so much to see and some glorious buildings. There is no doubting that we shall be visiting again - hopefully the weather won't be quite as cloudy next time and we'll be able to see the Alps in the distance!

It was just before 12 when we got back to the hotel. We checked out and headed for the station to get the train back up to the airport.

The flight was a trouble free as it had been coming - I even had a glass of wine!

We didn't have to wait too long for our bags and managed to get on a bus to the Shuttle park straight away so we weren't waiting about long at all. We called in at Morrions on the way to get something for tea and got home about 6:30pm.

After unpacking and having tea we sat down to get through some bits we'd recorded while we were away.

We had breakfast in the room as we did yesterday (although the bread rolls had hardened up somewhat!) and then headed out.

I didn't feel too bright - I think I may be starting with a cold as I had a sore throat.

Today we concentrated on shopping - I had to get a 40th birthday present for my brother-in-law, Andrew. I wanted to get him a traditional beer stein - but I had to find one and at the right price.

We had a look in a number of stores but there are so many other things in Munich to see other than shops we did some more sightseeing as well - we kept finding streets we hadn't been up - unlike previous places we've visited we didn't keep ending up back in the same place!

One place we came across was the Asamkirche, which is so ornate inside it's obscene. It was quite dark inside and felt quite spooky. We weren't sure if we could take photos inside as nobody else was doing so, so we didn't bother. but if you take a look at the link you'll see what I mean about ornate!

It would be rude not to come to Munich and visit the Augustiner Bräuhaus and the Hofbräuhaus, so we had lunch in the Augustiner Bräuhaus and then a drink in the Hofbräuhaus - which was packed and very lively - no wonder when the beer is served in litre glasses - which meant both Nikki and I had to drink a litre each!

Nikki enjoying her litre of beer in the Hofbräuhaus

AD/DC are playing at the Olympic Stadium today so there we quite a number of them in town, some of them rather drunk - goodness knows what they'll be like later on.

I did manage to find a beer stein for Andrew at a shop not too far from the Hofbräuhaus which was rather convenient!

Again we were going to go the the Löwenbräu Keller for tea but when we got there it appeared there was some sort of do on. Thwarted again - oh well it looks like we'll have to leave it until next time. Instead we headed into town and went to the Bayerische Donisl which was very nice inside. The food was nice too although the service was a little slow which meant we were a bit late getting back to the hotel.

First thing of the day was to go to Aldi to get some provisions for breakfast - some bread rolls, cheese, ham and orange juice were order of the day.

Once we'd had breakfast we headed off for some sight-seeing - which basically meant seeing the sights of Munich without setting foot inside a shop!

The main reason for coming to Munich is to see Sasha, who is a German pop singer that Nikki quite likes after having heard him on the radio in Austria. I don't mind him either. He's playing at Circus Krone and we needed to know how far it was from the hotel so we set off to find it.

I think we must have taken the long way round but it didn't take too long to get there. The route we took incorporated a couple of breweries along the way - the Spaten and Löwenbräu as well as the Löwenbräu Keller, which looked a nice spot.

The Löwenbräu Keller

We then headed off down Maximillain Strasse towards the Maximilianeum building (which is rather grand) and then up the river towards the Englischer Garten, which as it's name suggests in very much an English style park - and massive! We had a drink at the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower) which is a famous landmark and so had to be done! There were a group of English speaking tourists on a bicycle tour sat not far away from us and when they got up to go a huge number of crows descended and finished off any scraps of food that they'd left - amazing!

A handful of the crows - notice the clean table and the cyclists not even departed - that's how quick they were!

On the way back we called in at the Frauenkirche which is beautiful inside - and huge!

We'd done quite a bit of walking so I had to have a bit of a nap when we got back to the hotel. We decided we'd have tea at the Löwenbräu Keller, but by the time we'd got up there we thought it was a bit late so we just headed across to Circus Krone and had a drink and something to eat (a sandwich!) there.

A circus might sound like a strange place for a concert but I have to say this place was fantastic - it's a permanent structure in the shape of a circus tent with a nice wooden ceiling - the acoustics where superb.

The support band we called Ruben Cossani, a three-piece band from Hamburg who were all very talented and very enjoyable to watch. They did about half an hour from 8pm.

Sasha came on about 9 and it has to be said put on a superb performance. The volume was just right - not too loud.

Afterwards we had a couple of drinks in the hotel bar.

We got up about 3:15 am in order to get to Manchester airport ready for our 7am flight to Munich.

The journey across the Pennines was just about an hour and we parked the car in the usual Shuttle Park. As we're only going for three nights we didn't have a huge amount of luggage and so didn't have to struggle on the bus with it as we normally do!

We flew with Lufthansa and it was a very pleasant and comfortable trip with no hassles.

When we arrived in Munich (which is a fantastic looking airport), Nikki's cousin Diane and her daughter, Emma were waiting for us. Although we're not staying with her, she said she'd meet us and we could go for lunch. We went back to her house in Marzling (which is just a stone's throw from the airport) and had a cuppa. We waited for James to come home from school and then headed off into Freising to meet up with Diane's husband Thomas for lunch at the Bräuhaus.

Nikki's cousin, Diane with children, James and Emma

Lunch was very nice, naturally it was washed down with a couple of German beers! Thomas had to get back to work, Diane gave us a tour around Freising which is a very nice town.

Inside Freising Cathedral - very ornate

She dropped us off to catch the train to Munich at about 3:30pm. It was about a half hour journey, our hotel, the Marriot Courtyard was on Schwanthaler Strasse, about a five minute walk from the station.

We got unpacked and then had a bit of a snooze before heading out a bit later on to get our bearings and to get something to eat.

Thankfully there is an Aldi supermarket just down the street where we can get some provisions for breakfast (well it beats paying €21 each for breakfast in the hotel!).

After wandering into town we found the Paulaner Im Tal restaurant for tea, which was very pleasant.

From there it was back to the hotel ready for sightseeing tomorrow.

We went to work in Nikki's car today as she needed to get some petrol as we'll be driving across to Manchester Airport at some ungodly hour in the morning for our flight to Munich.

I continued getting the development Plone environment set up and styled, including the A-Z links. We also had a meeting about the recruitment, there are six people coming tomorrow and the timetable is quite tight! It was to make sure everyone was clear about what role they have to play and how the candidates were going to be scored.

I spoke to my sister Denise, she's making a good recovery, so much so she's been doing a bit of driving. Though she did say she'd been to Asda the yesterday and found it really hard and painful lifting things and pushing the trolley, so much so that she had to ask for assistance in unloading her trolley at the checkout and then getting the shopping to the her car!

We packed our bags ready for Munich, we did plan on an early night because we'll be up at 3am - but it didn't quite work out!

I had a good day Ploning today, a bit more stuff documented plus I managed to get the A-Z Links plug-in installed and working that I've been trying to do for ages!

Basically it was a plug-in written for Plone 2 and needs a few tweaks to work on Plone 3. I had a break through and found a couple of Python scripts needed a line changing. Once I'd done that the plug-in installed quite nicely - now I can use it to create an A-Z directory.

I had a go at installing it on my laptop when we got home as there were a few other things I wanted to try.

We did the usual gym and keep fit. My iPod Shuffle needed reloading with songs but for some reason it didn't seem to want to do so. It was getting on and we hadn't had tea so I'll have to look at it later.

We watched the last disappointing episode of the disappointing series of Heroes and then Ashes to Ashes - which was amusing as always!

Unlike yesterday morning we were actually up for 9am and at the gym for half past! My mum was coming across later on and then we were heading off to Knaresborough to see Nikki's Uncle Dave and Auntie Brenda, who we haven't seen for ages - since my 40th in fact!

Mum was quite happy with the braces I'd got and she thought George would like them too! We set off in order to get to Knaresborough for 2pm and we just about managed.

It was great to see Dave and Brenda. We had a good old natter and a few drinks - in fact I was a tiny bit worse for wear when we left.

We watched some bits on the box, but nothing particularly of note.

We had quite a lie-in this morning - we didn't get up until 10am and that was when Postie knocked on the door! He'd brought the braces I'd bought on eBay on Thursday night.

After breakfast we popped into Pudsey, however this week, for the first time in ages we didn't have anything to pick up from the Post Office! Instead we had to go to the Halifax to pay another bit into the mortgage and to get some Euros. Normally we'd get them from the Co-op, but in January we'd used Thomas Cook and they had a slightly better rate. We decided to use them again but won't be doing so again! If I was to say they were disorganised would be an understatement.

From there we went into Bradford to get a few things. Nikki had an appointment at the hairdressers in the afternoon. I made a spot of lunch while she was out. Once we'd had lunch we then went to White Rose to get some other bits and bobs.

We watched a bit of normal television, then as we've caught up pretty much on everything that we've recorded except for 24 we watched the Pink Floyd file The Wall on DVD, which I've seen before and it was as strange then, it hasn't got any less strange over time either!

As is the norm for a Friday we set off a bit earlier than usual in order for Nikki to get to work for her Friday morning meeting.

I had quite a productive day, continuing with my Plone documentation, we also had to discuss and come up with yet another test. This time it's for the Java support role they're recruiting for. The only thing is interviews are on Wednesday which means we haven't got a great deal of time - typical of our departmemt really!

I'd emailed an old colleague Stuart Wallace, who's living down in London now to let him know that Nikki and I would be down there in June and to see if he'd like to meet up. In typical Stuart fashion he was well up for meeting up, he suggested Greenwich, which is incidentally where he lives. Neither of us have ever been to Greenwich before so I thought it was a good idea. So we've agreed to pop over on the Saturday when we arrive.

Nikki hadn't had a good day, I think some of the shirkers in her department are getting to her , so much so that she let her boss know she wasn't happy and it's not like Nikki to speak out like that unless she really feels it.

I did a couple of minor chores while Nikki went off to do the shopping, then after tea we put a new belt and filter in the vacuum cleaner, after which we settled down and watched a bit on the box including the first ever episode of The Lakes, which good but it wasn't quite how we remembered it.

We had to drop off a birthday card for Nikki's nephew Matty on the way to work this morning, but they only live around the corner so it wasn't much out of our way so we weren't delayed too much either.

Paul was meant to be working from home today but he rang up to say he wouldn't be getting as much work done as he'd hoped because his wife Gemma had just given birth to a baby daughter - Erin Kate. It was 9am when he rang up and Gemma had only just had the baby at 8am!

I managed to spend quite a bit of time on Plone today and got the LDAP plug-in documentation finished. we've been having a few issues with performance but I moved a couple of folders into another instance and it improved! Not sure what's going on but I've got some investigation to do...

At lunchtime I went to get some petrol and ended up taking a colleague, Phil Smith, to the music shop PMT on Kirkstall Road to get a guitar for his daughter for her birthday nest week. Well he was walking down to the car park at the same time as me so I thought I'd be kind and give him a lift. It took a while for him to get some service, but eventually he did and we came away with a red Epiphone SG. Not a guitar I would personally have chosen but he was happy with it and thinks his daughter will love it, which is all that matters.

My mum had left us a message on the answerphone - she doesn't half set me some challenges! She wondered whether I could find her some novelty trouser braces with a farming theme for her friend George. I could find some lovely ones with tractors on in America but only ones with cartoon cows, sheep or pigs on in this country. However while I was on the phone to let mum know this Nikki found some of the tractor ones on eBay - so I ordered two different pairs.

We did call in at the Post Office this morning and picked up, as expected the Python book I've been waiting for, plus a new filter and belt for the vacuum cleaner that Nikki had ordered.

The first part of the working day was to go over the answers for the Lotus Notes test I did yesterday to ascertain whether the questions were appropriate. Overall we decided they were okay, although a couple could do with a minor tweak.

I then had yet another test to sit - this time it was the Java one that Nick had set. Actually it wasn't too bad and I did quite well.

After that I concentrated my efforts on getting some of the Plone set-up documented. There have been a number of times this week where I've needed to do something and forgotten how to do so. At least with these processes documented I (and other people) will have a good reference point. Having the development instance is rather handy, because I can document things as I do them.

We both went to the gym in the early evening. After tea, Nikki went off to Asda to get some birthday cards and a some other bits. I watched The Apprentice - thank goodness Sralan has seen through that Geordie lad at last and got rid of him! I mean anyone that says "Business is the new rock 'n' roll and I'm Elvis Presley" deserves sacking! Amazingly the lad that came out with the other classic "Making money is better than sex" is still there, but I imagine it won't be long before he's for the chop either.

Back to work again after the bank holiday. The traffic was okay I suppose, we didn't bother stopping off at the Post Office, the book I'm expecting no doubt would still be on a van somewhere after the Bank Holiday. we'll try tomorrow.

I had my appraisal first thing which actually wasn't that bad. Two hours went pretty quickly. It was interesting to hear what people I've worked with over the past year had to say about me - most of it was very good, which surprised me!

Once that was over Paul wanted me to do a Lotus Notes test, not that I know anything about Lotus Notes, he just wanted a bench mark to make sure the test wasn't that easy. As it was I didn't understand most of the questions and got 11 out of 25, which wasn't too bad I suppose. We'll be having a look at the answers tomorrow.

I did some more work on Plone, for some reason we've been experiencing some performance issues of late so I got the technical services chaps to give the server a bit more oomph, but that didn't really do a great deal. Looking at it I think it's something to do with the way Plone has been installed. I've got the development instance now so I'll be able to do some comparisons.

In the evening we had a bit of an incident in the garden involving a magpie and some blackbirds. I seemed the magpie had attacked the blackbirds' nest and seriously injured one of the chicks. I brought the poor thing inside but it was in such a bad way that it unfortunately died. Then a bit later on there was another carry on and this time Indie had spotted a blackbird chick hiding behind one of the plants on the garden. Nikki and I went out to assist it and we promptly dive-bombed by its parents. We managed to get Indie inside and I picked it up and put it on the wall. It thankfully was in much better shape than the one from earlier so it should survive, if it can get back into the nest. I can't believe how cruel and nasty the magpie was.

We cleaned the bathrooms and then watched CSI and Ashes to Ashes from last night.

Thankfully I didn't feel half as bad this morning as I did yesterday, though we had a bit of a lie-in we still had time to go to the gym.

The weather wasn't great but we did manage to get the cars washed. Not a proper job by any means but at least they are both a bit cleaner!

I spoke to my mate Andy on the phone and then a bit later I had a call from John Leonard, a friend of both Nick and myself - we all used to work together. I haven't heard from him for a while so it was nice to do so.

Nikki and I caught on some more television in the evening and I sorted out the photos's I'd taken at the reunion on Saturday.

After the excesses of yesterday I really needed a lie-in so we didn't go to the gym. When I got up I didn't feel too bad - not 100% but I could have been worse I suppose! e
As Andrew and Christine were coming across later on we needed to get some bits for tea so we went down to Asda for those.

I had a little strum on my guitar in the afternoon before Andrew and Christine arrived about 4pm.

We had a bit of a natter, then had a stir fry for tea and then a bit more a natter afterwards and then a look at each others holiday nsaps. They hadn't planned to stay that late but it was nearly eleven when they left.

The first task of the day was to go into Pudsey to pick up yet another parcel, I was expecting it to be the Python book I'd ordered last week. As it was it wasn't back so we queued for nothing.

Nikki then dropped me at the station in Leeds as I was off to Skipton to meet up with some old boarding school chums from Ermysteds, where I was a border from 1978 - 1982. It is 20 years since the boarding house was closed and that was one of the reasons for the get together.

I met up with one lad - Mick Rooke, at Leeds station. We were picked up by another lad, who Mick knew but I didn't. Mick was staying over at the Travel Lodge and while we were on the way to drop his bag off we picked up another lad - Steve Wilmers, whom I did know. Once Mick had checked in we then went to the Tarn House hotel where the lad who was driving had booked into. It took us a little while to find it, but we did eventually, in fact it was on one of our old cross country routes! We had a couple of drinks in the hotel bar while we waited fro Mick's brother to turn up. He gave us a lift into Skipton before he headed off the check in at the Travel Lodge.

We were joining some others including the teacher, Dave Kelly who was going to take us round school, at The Narrowboat pub. After another couple of drinks it was off to school. I haven't been back since I left in 1982 so it was rather interesting. There are a number of new buildings as you'd probably expect when you consider the number of pupils has doubled since I was there!

Group photo outside School House

The first part of the tour was around the outside, incredibly the old portakabin where we used to have history was still there! There is a new gym and swimming pool, with the old swimming pool becoming what is now a music room! When we went into the main school, it was amazing to see how little had changed, the classrooms had all been updated but that was it - even the hall looked exactly the same!

In the chemistry lab which has barely changed!

From the main school we headed across towards School House which was the old boarding house) via the library, which has been extended into what was once the boarders' common room and is due to be further extended into the boarders' dining room.

I couldn't imagine how the old dormitories would work a classrooms and to be honest I'm not sure they do, however they are! The tour around the boarding house brought back some real memories. All of the paritions have been pulled down an some rooms aren't used but it's still all essentially the same.

Top dorm - now a classroom - Spiderman is a new addition!

I think the whole tour took about 2 hours and what a great two hours it was too! There wasn't just me that was amazed, all the lads in attendance felt the same.

Exactly 30 years ago my bed was where the brown cabinet is!

After the tour we headed off to get something to eat. Every pub we tried had stopped serving food so we ended up having some fish and chips stood out in the street. With something nicely lining our bellies we went across to the Black Bull for some more drinks, where we were joined by another lad, Nigel Lambert, the youngest of the three Lambert brothers who attended the school. The headmaster who joined the year that I left also made an appearance, which was nice, what a super chap he was.

I think it was just after 9pm when I headed (somewhat wobbly!) for the station to get the train and I managed to get the 9:30pm train. I gave Nikki a call and she picked me up from the station. I've got to say I did feel a bit worse for wear and headed straight for bed when we got in!

No lie-ins this morning - in fact we had to be up a bit earlier than normal as Nikki had her Friday morning meeting which started at 8:15am.

I had quite a productive morning. I went down to see the chaps in Technical Services and we managed to get the Plone installation upgraded, the internet access sorted and a new development instance created. Great stuff because now I can investigate an install plug-ins and upgrades etc.

In the afternoon we had yet another XTRANS estimating meeting, which again wasn't that productive in terms of estimating - the only managed to do one item on the list, the rest we found to be inestimable.

A couple of weeks ago I sent an email to Wayne who used to work with us, I heard back from him today. It would appear he's been extremely busy since he left us and doesn't have a great deal of time to himself.

Nikki also had a text from Christine who we met on holiday in January and they've arranged a get together for Sunday.

We caught up on some more bits we'd recorded on television including the last episode of Red Riding, which actually wasn't that bad, certainly better than the last episode we watched!