The weekend worked out not too bad in the end. OK so we couldn't go out anywhere as Joan was still in reasonable amounts of pain half the time (and is also now sacred of being "spotted" now she is on sick leave) but we were together and that's what counts in my book.

Saturday was a very relaxed day. I popped in to town in the morning to deliver her Sicknote and pick up some shopping etc. They all seemed to be genuinely concerend in Argos and not just annoyed because they are 1 pair (v capable) hands down but I could be mis-reading the signs there. And I was very good and didn't buy any DVDs!

In the afternoon we had a bit of a games session. Joan tried to teach me some card games (and perhaps with a few more years practice I might get the hang of them) while I recorded some music off the PC and then it was time for a few more levels of Tomb Raiding. Not sure about the method they used for number two of making it harder by including lots more people to shoot as that can just get frustrating when you keep dying, but all the other improvments over the first one are doing their magic on us. Especially the way the background music has been tweaked to fit the locations more. Very atmospheric it has to be said.

And then Casualty was back for a new series. And yes, they did live slightly up to my expectations by glossing over one of the two cliff-hanger endings to the last series, but overall a thumbs-up experience.

Yesterday was more of the same really - relaxing, music and ironing. The music I have been recording has been stuff obtained from the internet. Legally mind you, only tracks that the artists in question have put up themselves for public consumption. In this case the artists are Machinae Supremacy who do pretty good Heavy Metal with a twist (as well as guitars and so forth they also have a Commodore 64 in use) and Diffusion who does lots of dancey stuff and also remixes TV theme tunes to comic effect. Two Minidiscs full with another Diffusion one to do soon and two MS tracks leftover - hopefully they will release some more in the coming months to allow a second disc too. OK, so I cheat slightly by downloading the MP3 files from work which is strictly speaking against the rules, but no bugger has complained yet and it is so much quicker than the modem at home. Also got up to level 34 on Gridrunner++ so perhaps I will get to see the end one day.

And today I am back in the office with Joan at home. The day started very well though. I finished reading The Light Of Other Days over breakfast (absolutely superb book overall, they must have had some real fun writing it and deciding which bits of history to play with) and as I was debating what to start next the postman provided me with the answer via a package from America. So the next book will be The Rise And Fall Of Shimmerism by James Kracht, who is also known as dtj on the Llamasoft forum. DTJ stands for Distance To Jupiter, under which name he has also recorded 153 tracks over 8 cds, which were also included in the package (as MP3 files on 1 disc, before you start thinking about postage costs). The book is Sci-Fi and deals with religions among other topics - looks very interesting and a thumping good read (even if it will put the fiction/non-fiction sequence out!), while the music seems to be mainly ambient electronic stuff. I like what I've listened to so far. Will put it all on minidisc eventually to make listening easier.

Workwise things are building up to a frenzy about all the gyratory stuff. We are waiting mainly for timetables still to get the books finished, but I also need to sort out my Park & Ride leaflets. So that is what I shall have a crack at now.