I love the Boat Race (actually raceS, as the women's race goes first). As a kid, I cheered for Oxford, for the childish reason that I preferred dark blue to light blue. Children are fickle :D Then as an adult, I had a boyfriend who lived in Cambridge so I was obliged to cheer for the light blues. Now I'm pretty neutral but I'd like Cambridge to win this year, Oxford have had a good run in recent years.

What I really love about the Boat Race, though, is the views of the Thames. Gosh, I love that river and today, the sun is shining and the sky is blue, so we'll see it at its best.

C'mon Cambridge!

ETA: Cambridge Women had a disaster, their boat was practically underwater for the last third of the race but they finished the course, somehow, but well behind Oxford. The Cambridge Men spanked Oxford by about 2.5 lengths, it was a great row in horrid, choppy conditions.

Still keep forgetting to post here. And to read. *sigh*

So have some pictures! I had a busy weekend 18/19th July, with Battle Proms on the Saturday and Folk by The Oak festival on the Sunday. Admittedly, I only went to FbtO for about 3 hours, most of which was spent snoozing happily in the glorious sunshine. However, thanks to cunning planning, I was able to get a spot at the front of the stage for Mary Chapin Carpenter's set, which was the whole reason I went :D

Pics behind a cut because there's lots of them!

( Battle Proms, Hatfield House, 18th July 2015 )

( Mary Chapin Carpenter, Folk by the Oak, Hatfield House, 19th July 2015 )

I took Monday off work - there was epic napping :D

Had a lovely few hours at the above today, at Knebworth House. Spent a fortune, of course, but that's why I went to the cash machine beforehand. When the cash was gone, I stopped buying, even if the stall took cards :) I have learned from experience how to control my spending at these things :D

It was a lovely day but seriously windy. The stall holders inside the big tents must have been thanking their lucky stars! I perused everything, bought some meat and cheeses and watched a cookery demonstration by Matt Tebbutt. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon :)

And tonight it's the last night of the Masters! Eee! *happy is*

Here are some pics from the festival. The owl is a Barn Owl, one of my favourites :) The lone smoked sausage above the pack is a pork sausage with goats cheese. Nyom :D

Or happy chocolate egg day, whichever you celebrate :D

(I haven't bought an Easter Egg this year. I may remedy this when they're selling them at half price on Tuesday :D)

Yesterday I went back to the Wellington for lunch, to scout the place out. Verdict - lovely place to sit and have a pot of tea of an afternoon, but very pricey food-wise for what is largely pub grub, albeit very nice pub grub. I had whitebait to start and posh ham, egg and chips for main, both of which were good, but with coffee and a diet coke, the bill came to just under £20, which isn't cheap for a pub. Still, as I said, nice place to loaf and have afternoon tea :)

Today I went to the football where Stevenage managed to claw back for a 2-2 draw with Tranmere. We looked a bit ragged but our injury list meant that we didn't have any strikers available so there was an air of make-shift about the team. We didn't play particularly well so I was actually relieved we got out with a draw. The playoffs are still within reach but we need to start winning, not drawing.

Went to the kitchen earlier to cook pasta for tea, got the water on, it was nearly boiling and....I realised I was out of pasta. *facepalms* This is such an unusual event in my house that it never occurred to me to check if I had any! So there was an emergency store run where I discovered that apparently a Good Friday 2 hours before the store closes is a pretty good time to shop. The "OMG WE MUST SELL THIS NOW LEST YE DIIIEEE!" counter was stuffed to overflowing and I scored a tuna steak for 19p, some fresh mozzarella for the same, and several snack packs of apple slices and grapes for 25p each :D And I scored at the Hot Deli counter too, where I got 5 stout coated chicken thighs for 50p and 4 large pork sausages for 80p :) The mozzarella and a couple of the chicken thighs were lovely with the pasta I was eventually able to cook. *grins*

That database that was going to be turned off on 31st March? Turned off 3pm today. We got 4 hours warning that only certain users would have access after today. I'm not one of them.

This lot couldn't hit water if they fell out of a fucking boat.

It is fortunate for humanity that I should be able to get access next week by devious means. Also that I have cider waiting for me at home. By such tiny margins is humanity spared.

Make tea and curl up on a warm, comfy sofa
Cook food (lamb chops with jacket spud will soon be miiiiine!)
Have good TV to watch (SHIELD and NCIS:New Orleans!)

I'm loving NCIS:NO, really like the characters. Some of the early eps were a bit ropey but have developed nicely as time has gone on. It's already been renewed for Season 2, so huzzah :D

I do have one confession though. I adore Lucas Black but I cannot take the accent seriously. I KNOW it's his real accent and is as genuine as it can be but there's something about it that just makes it sound fake to me. I suspect I've been too badly influenced by comic Southern characters in the past *hangs head*

* nothing serious, I suspect PMS :D

Spotted while I was out and about this afternoon. And I was happy to see, further down the road, that the council has planted many new cherry tree saplings. At least I think they're cherry trees, I'll go have a closer look next time I'm out :) When they're full grown, that whole stretch of road is going to be jaw droppingly gorgeous in Spring.

Still no sign of a replacement system for the one that is supposed to be switched off at the end of this month. There are mutterings that money might have to be found to extend the licence for a month. Our opinion is we're talking longer than that to get something up and running - our cynicism in our IT departments is well founded on bitter experience :P

As every resident in Hertfordshire is entitled to a Home Fire Safety Check and free smoke alarms, we get 1000's of requests. I say "we", but in fact I never see the regular requests as they get filtered to the third party company responsible for carrying them out, Medequip. However, we no longer have the funds to pay them so the contract ends 1st April. The current wizard scheme is to bring the operation in house. Supposedly, 3 or 4 people, including an admin person, are transferring from Medequip to HCC. The admin person will become part of support, and will continue to sort out all the referrals my guys don't do. There'll be 2 or 3 fitters that'll be managed by the same line manager who managers my guys and in the short term, they'll carry on doing what they did at Medequip except working for HCC and we'll carry on doing what we do.

Of course, it's not going to be that easy. Management weren't told about this until 27th February, so there's been less than a month to try and get something in place for 1st April. Even more hysterically, we don't have anywhere to store all of Medequip's equipment, so lord knows where that's going to go. And there's no guarantee the people will want to transfer - I have no idea where Medequip is based (I think it's North London) so I have no idea if schlepping up to WGC is even feasible. And this will coincide with when the database gets turned off (maybe) so it's entirely possible an incomplete team will turn up on April 1st and be totally unable to do anything.

Forward planning, people, forward frickin' planning. It shouldn't be rocket science :P

Apparently there is pressure to merge the two halves of the system together but that's going to have to wait until everyone gets a handle on how much work is actually involved for the ex-Medequip side of things. It could mean my job changing to encompass a wider role but that's a ways down the line, fortunately. What is clear is it's going to be a interesting few months until we get things sorted out and settled down. In the Chinese curse sense of the word :P

Off out tonight to see the fabulous FA up in Northampton. Meeting a colleague from work who is driving us up there and getting fed by his partner before we go. Should be a great evening :)

In other news, I have finally had a mug of tea - the first since the Afternoon Tea yesterday. Wow, I really was all tea'd out :D

Rugby today but I'll have to tape it as I won't be able to watch. But that'll give me lots to watch tomorrow or later tonight, if I can stay up long enough :D

In work related news, I belatedly checked my bank account Wednesday night...and discovered that my salary for February was about 1.5 times more than normal. o.0 So I rang HR on Thursday and apparently Inland Revenue finally agreed that I'm paying far too much tax, put me on a more sensible tax code and instructed HCC to reimburse me tax paid in excess! Woo hoo!!! That's a relief, it should mean I get a slightly bigger chunk of my salary each month which will make a huge difference. *does victory boogie* *carefully squirrels a sum aside for the planned trip to Raleigh in October* *cackles*