3^rd January 1999

Happy new year everyone.  Our new year was quiet but enjoyable.  Angela and Scott came down from Cambridge on New Years Eve.  We went to see Rent the musical in the evening.  On a whole, I think it was well put together but personally I think it was let down by rather bland music.  Afterwards we made our way towards Trafalgar square with what seemed like thousands of others.  As we got close to the square, the streets were just a mass of packed people shuffling slowly past the mounted police towards Nelsons Column.  We decided not to follow and instead find a pub... find a pub that would let us in.  Most pubs had either closed their doors or were having private functions.  As time wore on we thought we weren't going to find anywhere.  Louise suggested we try around Green Park where she is familiar with as it is close to Lucas Varity.  This again drew a bit of a blank until we stumbled into Shepards Market and found one single tiny pub called O'Neals open at 11.40pm.  It was busy but not packed so we were able to see in the New Year and have a quick couple of drinks before we got kicked out at 1am.  When we got home via the only free tube ride we are bound to see for the next year we broke open the NZ Milo which my sister sent me and shared out some NZ chocolate that Mike and Chris sent us.  Heaven!

We slept in next day, crawled out of bed and visited the Museum of Science and Technology.   Now this museum did it for me.  Too much to see so we'll have to go back.   It  houses some of Charles Babbage's machines which I learnt about at University when we did a software engineering assignment on Polynomial Evaluation Using the Method of Differences - one of Babbage's machines, a Difference Engine, was built for the sole purpose of doing just this.  The quality of the engineering of this mechanical machine looked extraordinary for the time.

Finally at the end of the day we were all museumed out, came home for some more Milo and Scott and Angela returned to Cambridge.

Since then Louise and I have spent the remainder of our time catching up on our accounts for our companies and sorting through the stack of paperwork in the in tray that has gathered over the last six months.  At last we are nearly there.

So, it's back to work tomorrow - yee ha (not!).  Only four weeks till my contract expires then on to something more challenging I hope.  I have to study for an exam in five weeks so we will both be busy.  Hopefully we can make a holiday to Europe in May - something to work towards.

So, until L8R, take care......

15^th January 1999

It was our fourth (Fruit) wedding anniversary on the 7^th.  How did I know it was the 7^th?   Louise wrote it on the calendar.  Just as well because I would probably been one week late!  I knew it was somewhere around the 7^th or the 14^th!   How did I know it was our fourth anniversary?  Mum hand embroiders us a card every year with the anniversary on it.  Lucky I have two good ladies in my life to remind me of these things.  We haven't even been out to celebrate yet.  Why?    Read on if you enjoy a bit of graphic detail or if you don't, skip the paragraph...

I've had the worst cold since the third of January.  I didn't think it was going to amount to much but on the 7^th it really set in.  I stayed in bed all weekend and went to work on Monday and Tuesday before giving in with aches, a terrible   cough and the usual bunged up nose.   I have never coughed up stuff like this in my life.  If you remember the days of Green Slime in a bucket, you'll probably get the picture!  I would have filled ten of them.  I had such a coughing fit on Wednesday night that I threw up as well.  Louise managed to raise her head off the pillow and say "are you all right Rich?" before falling unconscious again three seconds later.  Lucky it wasn't serious!  Odd thing about throwing up was the carrots.  I hadn't eaten carrots in ages...  eeeeuuuugggghhh!!!   I'm just starting to feel kind of right today so by the end of this weekend I hope I'm back to normal.

Louise went out on Monday night with Kathy   to meet Wendy Leong who she hadn't seen for about 9 years.  They went to a wine bar in Covent Garden? and judging by the next morning the wine must have been flowing pretty freely. She woke up with what I think must be her first hangover ever.  She wasn't alone it later transpired!  We had no Panadol in the house because I'd gobbled it all for my aches!  I was quite amused.

We bought a scanner last week.  It's an Agfa Snapscan 310S.  This scanner is selling in the High Street shops for �110 pounds for a parallel port version so this was a serious bargain for �58 because it has a SCSI connection (faster) and also came with a SCSI card.  It has been worth its weight in gold already as a photocopier because we have been able to deal with business documents immediately and send them out rather than using works photocopier the next day etc etc (of course we pay for the copies at work!)

Apart from that, life has been seriously boring in the last couple of weeks.  So, as King of the Hill is just coming on TV I will sign off.  Take care.

Rich and Weez.