Insomnia

1 am on the Bank Holiday and I can't sleep. I pretty much struggle to sleep the night before work. Whether its thought of work the next morning or the consumption of beer combined with a lack of activity I'm not sure but I've had this problem for about 6 years. It could also be stress related to the impending move, which is now less than 3 weeks away.

Jo has now been there a week and started work on Monday but I haven't had chance to speak with her to see how it all went. She is also trying to find a flat for to rent. Apparently there are a shortage of one bedroom, furnished flats in Wellington.

I have another road trip this week, well train trip really, to Southampton. Last week was spent in Great Yarmouth and Cambridge, with a detour to Stamford and a final chance to see the woks! Piggy had managed to make a dash for it but was swiftly recaptured and returned to the makeshift run. Not a bad week as I also managed to find a Basking Shark off the Lincolnshire coast as well as add a couple of birds to my British list.

Now, if I could only get some sleep...................

Bye Bye

Jo left today. As did Piggy and Panda (the guinea pigs). Unfortunately I wasn't around for the handover of the woks, as they are affectionately known, but i did drop off Jo at the airport. We had to take about several kgs of clothes, toiletries and books out of her two bags before they would let the bags onto the plane.

Sore heads!

It was the leaving party last night! About 70 friends and family gathered at Ashton cricket club to wish us well. Thank you coming. Hopefully we'll catch up with the rest of you who couldn't make it before we leave. There was even a competition to see who could turn up fashionably late. Nick, Jean and Lizbob thought they had won it with their appearance at 10 pm, however, Rob Clark, an old lacrosse friend turned up at 11.30pm!! He had to back in London for 10am.

Thanks are also due to Joan and Ian (Jo parents), Alan and Linda (my parents) and Ian Heginbotham for being the DJ.

The post party party took place at the home of my parental units (thanks Ross, still using this) and ended at about 5.30 when woolly and Vicky Raymer crashed on the sofa after discussing the intricacies of the drinking game 'I have never'. Vicky, who went to Loughboro, played the game in a slightly different way to the rest of the population so I can only surmise that Loughboro have their own special rules. Makes you wonder what else they have their own special rules for? Anyone reading this who has played university sport in the UK will appreciate where I'm coming from.

So, as you can imagine there were a few sore heads this morning amongst the chaos and debris! Vicky Badger was up bright and early though. She is also heading out to NZ and is on the same flight schedule as Jo but leaves a day later! Not sure why these two didn't discuss this prior to booking tickets. Jo and Vicky were at medical school together and she is going to be working in the Hawkes Bay region of North Island. Jo is also annoyed that she can only take one suitcase of 20kgs whereas I can take two of 23kgs due to the fact that I'm travelling through the USA whereas Jo is travelling through Dubai. So at the moment she has two and bit suitcases worth of clothes to whittle down!!

No doubt another sore head awaits.

We also have a full week of dining out!!

The other good news is that my friend Dom Gill has finished his epic journey from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Tierre del Fuego on a tandem picking up strangers along the way. We quickly rang him and he sounded great and hopefully I'll see him before I head out. Fantastic, as its been over two years since I last saw him.

Meet the parents

We moved out of our house last week, Friday lunchtime think and the tenant was in by Friday tea time. The door mat wasn't even cold!

So we have moved me with my parents. So far so good, no argument (had to watch the spelling there but more on that later) although my dad has tried to exert his authority by making sure he tells us what to do and how things should be done like not leaving the wash house open, closing windows and asking who's food we are eating (I bought our own food last week although we are sharing some bits and pieces such as vegetables).

Digressing slightly, there was an article on the BBC website about how a university professor thinks that schools and universities should ignore certain spelling mistakes, his arguement (!) was that the way students are spelling the words in question (argument is one of them) its doesn't make much difference so why bother. Well..................

Personally its a slippery slope. Saying that, I was having a conversation about grammar the other day with a friend in the pub (where else). Basically my grammar is rubbish and he suggested I read a book called "Eats, shoots and leaves" i think.

So what else is new? The guinea pigs have finally had a taste of grass. Panda seemed to enjoy it as she munched away but Piggy seemed less keen and soon jumped back into the hutch.

We also went to the second Heginbotham wedding of the year at which I was filming yet again, so I now have two wedding videos to edit - joy!

Jo leaves in 7 days!!