Jon Jolly

Never try to remodel your kitchen while studying for a degree, moving jobs and helping organise a national conference. It gets a bit messy!

Kirsty’s new monkey!

Originally uploaded by bobweasel.

After reading Dave and Rosie’s blog posts on the new range of PG Tips monkeys that are available, Kirsty has just run down to Sainsbury’s to get her own mini-monkey!

It’s pretty cute and is a welcome addition to our monkey collection, but we now have a lot of tea to get through…

Why is it that sometimes, simple tasks become such a burden that you find yourself doing anything else except what you need to? I usually find writing assignments, tidying the house, or doing the banking fall into this category. Right now I need to finish the 11-14’s teaching notes for Spring Harvest. They were due in last week. It’s not that they’re difficult or taxing, I just seem to keep drifting off. Still, there’s always tomorrow…

Kitchen disaster

Originally uploaded by bobweasel.

This is how my kitchen looked at 3pm today. When we decided to buy a new kitchen I should have really thought about how much effort these things take…

In order to put in the kitchen, I first have to put the new floor down but I can’t do that until the walls are rendered, which I can’t do till the wiring is finished which I can’t do till I fit the new spotlights. AND I couldn’t do the spotights until I took down the original ceiling, rewired and put the plasterboard up!

So far I’ve only managed to rip the old ceiling down. It’s been there for 80 years and accumulated a lot of interesting articles like spare pipes, tools, clothing, dust, rat droppings (don’t even get me started on the dead rat smell under the house), toys, electric cables, etc, etc. Needless to say it’s a long and dirty process.

Still, I should have the new ceiling and lights up by Monday!

I’ve been trying to think back over 2006 and sum up my thoughts of the year. All in all it’s been quite an emotional ride and I’ve taken on a lot of responsibilities; buying a house, working towards my DipHE Level 2, staff changes at work, etc. So I thought I’d be fun to take a look at my best of 2006!

• Best Movie: Casino Royale
• Best Books I read: Theology: The Basics, Whose Religion Is Christianity, The Time Traveller’s Wife
• Best Albums: Eyes Open by Snow Patrol, Twelve Stops And Home by The Feeling, Songs From The Deep Forest by Duke Special, The Eraser by Thom Yorke, Alright, Still by Lily Allen, Inside In/Inside Out by The Kooks. Worthy mentions include Pink, Lupe Fiasco and Gnarls Barkley
• Best Websites: Google Reader, Linerider, Flickr

So that was my year. Now here’s the challenge: Kirsty, Ben, Sam, Dan, Ruth, Dave, Pete, Mumf, Sim: You’ve been tagged! Let’s see your “Best of 2006″ lists online!

It’s been a busy few weeks and I’ve not had much time to post my thoughts here, but I just had to say thank you to all the people who made my Birthday so special earlier this week (27 if you’re wondering).

I was working all day and Kirsty had to work late so I had nothing special planned and wasn’t able to catch up with any family or friends, in fact it was going to be just like any other day which isn’t really a bad thing. However, it turned out to be pretty cool because my phone was buzzing the whole day with people sending me Birthday messages! I’m not kidding, I got around 20 texts, many from people I didn’t think even knew my Birthday. It really made my day to know that people were thinking of me and cared enough to send a message. Thank you all.

On top of all this good will, the big surprises of the day were the two international calls. First was Jason Carter phoning all the way from South Africa to wish me Happy Birthday. It was great to hear his voice again and have a quick catch up. It’s been ten years since we first met! Wow! Second was my Mexican ’sister’ Katy calling from her new home in California. We last saw Katy when she was over in the summer and it’s good to know she’s settling into school there.

After work, the wonderful Bellamy family took me in and prepared an amazing roast chicken followed by Lucy’s homemade cheesecake! I couldn’t have asked for more. Then to cap off the day, I was invited to join Stuart Bellamy, Phil Atherton and Clive Price for drinks and conversation down the pub. Not being my usual social circle, it was an amazingly different experience for me and my thanks go to to them all for allowing me to tag along.

Here’s to next year!