Back to earth

Blimey, 10 days without blogging, you must be getting withdrawal symptoms. I've been a very busy Womble over the 'holiday period', and not had much Internet access. So here's a pracy of what I've been up to:

I had three wonderful days with Bungle, Zippy, Lurch and Mandy in Oxford, and managed to get over to see Spike for an hour on Christmas day. The poor bugger had to work all day, so I took him a turkey butty and a mince pie.

On Boxing Day, Lurch and I went into the centre of Oxford to have a look at the bikes from the Vintage Motorcycle Club and I saw the most gorgeous Beezer I have ever seen. I did manage to resist the urge to throw my leg over it, and risk getting thumped, but I did linger there for quite some time, drooling at it.

We then went off to a pub in Fyfield and paid an extortionate £6 for a sandwich before having a brief look at the classic trial at Bessels Leigh Copse.

On my way home from Oxford, I called in to see Hairy Stores at Milton Keynes for a brew or three and then battled my way up the M1 and M6 in really shitty conditions. Some stupid git tried to kill me on the M6 at Birmingham and the visibility was crap because my visor was covered in mud spray and so was my headlamp which, by the time I got home, was showing very little light at all cos of the baked-on shite. I was bloody frozen and jumped in the shower to thaw out. When the bloody did eventually return to my feet, it was agonisingly itchy and I was getting a bit worried about it.

The following day, I was chatting to Cooldrums on't'internet and saying how bored I was, and he suggested I spend New Year up in Scotland with him and his family, so I thought 'stuff it', and did just that.

I spent four days up there in some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen. Cooldrums really is a lucky bastard having this sort of landscape right on his doorstep. If I'd stayed sober long enough, I could have seen more of it.

You probably can't even see it, but there's actually a buzzard in the middle of this pic. Every time I managed to get a good shot lined up, the bloody thing flew off to a different tree.

Still, it was nice to see. I had planned to take my good camera up there, but didn't bother cos the weather forecast was crap and I didn't think I'd get any good pics. I'm regretting that decision now, cos the telephoto lens would have been perfect. Ho hum, we live and learn.

I didn't really want to come home from Scotland, cos I was enjoying it so much, although the blow of the impending return to work was softened somewhat by a coffee with the Phantom Hammond Wrangler.

I got in work at 08.20 today and was faced with a huge pile of paperwork on my desk, which I never did manage to get to the bottom of. My whole office is a tip and I have no idea where to start on it. The shredder was my favourite piece of office equipment today.