Personally I use it for light internet browsing and some games as well as some reading on the aeroplane. However my nieces (ages 2,4,5 and 7) loved it. In fact I was amazed at how quickly they picked it up and were finding all the apps they wanted and multi-tasking like pros in a few minutes. Some of the games they needed help with, especially in the later levels, but two of the most used apps were the Scrapbook and the camera. Well, these are the two that have pictures I can stick in this blog.

Scrapbook

Most of these don’t make sense, but I’m sure there might be some sort of story between them. Sorry for putting so many in, clicking them opens the full image. [Keep scrolling down, there's more stuff below this multitude of images]

Camera

My niece Romilly (6yo) loved the camera the most (maybe the only one who used it), but here are some self portraits:

And some videos… [Warning: dodgy camera work]
Sorry I spent ages trying to embed it without success, they can however be found here

Since I had just got back and had no food in the house I had to go to my local ASDA supermarket. The checkout people don’t normally say much to me (and vice versa) but Holly just didn’t stop talking (or asking questions). I’m sure she didn’t talk to anyone else as much and the people behind me were probably annoyed. Here’s how the conversation went:

Holly: Hi, Sorry about the wait [There was 1 person ahead of me in the queue]
Me: That’s fine
H: Do you need any help with packing?
Me: I’ll probably be fine
H: You could probably do with some bags though
Me: Would help [Smile]
H: So how was your day? [This is one step beyond any normal customer/checkout girl conversation]
Me: Not bad. First day back after a couple of weeks off
H: That’s always bad, and now you have to do your shopping. Got any plans for this evening?
Me: Nope, just the shopping… and catching up from jetlag
H: Ooh, jetlag. Where did you go to?
Me: America.
H: Ooh, that’s exciting. Whereabouts?
Me: Philadelphia.
H: Ooh, very nice. How long were you there for?
Me: Just two weeks.
H: Did you get the full six weeks holiday?
Me: Er no, just the two weeks.
H: Oh right… That’s £33.
Me: Ok [I put my card in the machine]
H: Would you like cash back?
Me: No thanks
H: What’s your postcode [This was for some sort of ASDA survey]
Me: It’s CF23…
[I enter my pin number]
[Pin number is accepted but nothing is happening. Awkward moment]
[After about 30 seconds:]
H: It doesn’t normally take this long
[More awkwardness]
[After another 15 seconds, my card is finally accepted]
H: That’s great. Have a nice evening.
Me: Thanks, bye

So it didn’t really have a huge amount to do with my holiday, but I liked this story anyway.

I hadn’t seen many of the people though since leaving school so it was strange to see people again after so long. Most people hadn’t changed much and although I didn’t remember everyone at first I soon did.

Somehow though it all felt a bit disappointing. Here are a few possible reasons:

• People hadn’t changed as much as I had expected them too
• The £10 entry fee which wasn’t worth it for the one free drink and the limited buffet
• The lack of a number of key people, there were about 40 people from a year of 160
• Most people only cared if you had studied politics or economics / worked for one of the big graduate employeers / lived/worked in London [None of which are me]

Maybe its just that I’ve grown up and school was a long way in the past, after all it was almost a fifth of my life ago.

It could be worse though, my older brother reminded me that its ten years since he finished university.

Twitter
First off, hello to the 4 people who have found my blog after reading about it on Twitter.
This week saw the new season of The Apprentice start on BBC TV and I tweeted about it and this got retweeted by the @bbcapprentice team which made me a momentary minor celebrity (in my eyes at least).

In related news, Twitter is great for Apprentice news/discussion during the show.

Foursquare
On Foursquare this week I became mayor of my local gym and also my local Halfords store. I was mayor of the gym before until someone stole it off me. Hopefully I can retain it now.

Facebook
Nothing much happening here, I’m continuing to lose friends at a rate of 3 every fortnight. I’m not too worried though, most of them are people I’ve not spoken to in years.

And it got me thinking.

I spent this money on four years at university and the ability to put the letters ”MEng(Hons)” after my name, but what else could I have spent it on? I had a quick look.

• A second-hand armour plated jaguar (From £25k+VAT). I would love one purely to say that I owned a bullet-proof car. In fact, I might get this one anyway.




• A meeting with Nick Clegg (£25k/year). This one I will pass on, and not just because it’s an annual fee.




• A 1 bed house in Manchester (£25k). It’s already been reduced by £22k, but it’s quite possibly the ugliest house I’ve seen. (Does it have any windows?)




• A lock of Justin Bieber’s hair (£25k). Too late for this one, it was sold last month and no doubt it’ll cost more when it’s back  on the market.

What have I missed? What would/could you have spent this money on?

Today I fully intended to go Christmas shopping. However this is the view I have outside my window:

Therefore Christmas shopping will not be happening and no one will be getting any presents.

Thanks for understanding.

Lots of love,

Adrian

It happened about a mile away from my house. At first I wasn’t sure what had happened but then the noise/shaking got worse and so did the steering. I wasn’t sure if it was going to make it all the way home, but I did (just).

My housemate and I tried to fix it, but the bolts were too tight so I had to call out the breakdown people (for the second time in [Edit:] two three weeks).

I do however now need to buy a replacement tyre since my spare is rusty and apparently its not a good idea to drive a mile on a flat tyre (destroying my old one). The question is: Do I buy just one tyre, or a whole set of four (at about £25 each)? Any thoughts?

I was going to go for a cycle on the Saturday, but instead I decided to make it into a walk. Here are some snow photos I took:

My original intention for my walk was to follow the Rhymney Trail, unfortunately I didn’t cross a bridge that I had to and walked down the wrong side of the river before getting trapped and having to turn back. Anyway here’s some fancy GPS stuff I did on my phone:
[See post to watch Flash video]

However, as I was speeding (legally) along the motorway, my car (a 15 year old Ford Fiesta) decided to make a strange grinding noise. Odd. The noise was of variable length and at random intervals. First guess was the tape player, I hadn’t used it before as I had only picked some up at my Cheltenham stop-off. Nope, with the player turned off and the tape ejected, the noise continued. Was it when I accelerated? Nope. Braked? Nope. Turned a corner? Nope.

This probably can’t be good. Should I keep driving? Pull over straight away? I decided to stop at the next services if the noise went on. The noise stopped.

About 2 miles from the services, I was preparing to carry on past and then gnnrrrr. Time to stop. At the services I phoned up the insurance company who arranged for a breakdown vehicle to come and visit. About 30 minutes later, a man arrived. I explained the situation and he said that he would have to take it for a spin. We drove off and everything was going OK, OK in that the car wasn’t making a noise. “It’s definately not the brakes or the wheel bearings”. That’s fine, but still no noise. Fortunately the noise kicked in a couple of minutes down the road and the man had an idea of what it could be.

Back at the services, he had a look under the car. He came to the conclusion that the heat-shielding around the exhaust had come loose and was flapping about in the high winds. I wondered why this hadn’t happened earlier, in the actual high winds, but I guessed that it might have just come looser later on. I wasn’t driving differently to what the car had experienced before.

I was safe to drive on though and did so. The noise wasn’t quite so bad after that either.

On the way back, the noise was still gone. Strangely when I got to roughly the same location, the noise started again. And when I got to the point at which it first started, the noise stopped again. I have no idea why this section of road was different to any of the rest of it. There was a slight rumbling at times later but it seems to have gone again.

It’s like my car is just allergic to the M42.