and today’s cheerful news is that we’ve had a wonderfully long on-screen/visual chat … with our daughter … she’s been working away, Brussels this time… and out of contact for a few days.
It’s always a relief when she’s safely back home.
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In Brussels, I think gastronomy is the biggest danger. Our new doctor’s from there and he’s obese!
Mind you, his defence is that he lives in France and the local produce is superb…!
I also spent quite some time in Brussels and the killer me was, on top of some great food, the myriad of beers and sublime chocolates 
think I just gained a couple of kilos thinking about that Fond memories of being in a cosy bar in Grand Place in Winter with a roaring fire.
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In Northumberland visiting friends we’ve not seen for a couple of years, and their Alsatian. Lovely to be greeted by the dog with a great deal of affection - wheeling round and round, squealing, licking, the full works.
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Both my sisters put father’s day messages to our dad who died in 2017, on facebook yesterday. The number of people who responded with love was huge and on checking them out, they were friends of my sisters as well as family members I have not seen for years. Shows he was loved by all and it made me feel very humble to have had such a lovely dad.
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Fibre connected today, life has now moved to the fast lane.
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Andy Murray playing at Queens today.
I hope he wins, but these younger players are very good.
Remember all those times saying “come on Andy”.
I took advantage of my 40 euro discount voucher and couldn’t believe how relatively quite ikea was. Maybe they’re giving out vouchers to try and drive more business, as opposed to rewarding past customers, as certainly wouldn’t qualify as a regular there. And while in Montpellier I had my first experience of 5g and wow, what a difference - the speed was amazing. Now wondering how long until 5g’s rolled out more widely.
Family went to the Montpellier IKEA a few weeks back and were very unimpressed by what was on offer, the lack of much by way of new stuff and other items. Its a 1.5h drive each way so luckily they were having a day out and just called in there on the off-chance. I used to frequent the store in Brest ever since it opened, often going for lunch and shopping it was a huge store and I do actually miss it and the meatballs!
I actually thought there was quite alot of innovative ‘stuff’, but that’s probably because I haven’t visited very often. All the stuff I took away was pretty mundane functional, but they did have a pneumatic adjustable height table that I was going to buy, but when I got to the warehousey bit the cupboard was bare 
but the cheerful news is I just purchased a manually adjustable one for half the price, so everything continues to happen for a good reason super table as allows standing for laptop, tablet:+1:
Two local DIY stores in different chains have recently gone over to the IKEA walk-thru and see everything format and as a result twelve years of laboriously acquired DIY store lay-out knowledge is now redundant and it takes several times as long to find anything.
I don’t go into a DIY store to browse!
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I don’t go into any shop to browse. I’m a bloke.
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Delighted to have just found a book I’ve been looking for over the past weeks, as really didn’t want to pay the unreasonable postage and probably other charges from the Uk. The book’s called Survive the Savage Sea and it’s a fascinating true story about a family going on an exciting adventure. The father wrote the book, then the son subsequently wrote another book recounting his tale which is called The Last Voyage of the Lucette, so that’ll probably be the next one 
Managed to find it secondhand in France 
Very pleased!
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Had a glorious time at the school… chatting to the youngsters through the gate… as I lobbed the footballs I’d retrieved from the chemin… into the playground…
Allez les bleus… I bellowed as the boys and girls showed off their footie skills…
Phew… I think I was smiling all the way back down the street…
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In the spirit of cheerful news, maybe members will enjoy reading this article on the ever changing joys of English language, particularly as we slog through the dubious experience of another Genny-lec
Reading the nasty Fartage creature may have shot himself in the foot regarding remarks made about invasion of Ukraine and cosying upto Puteen. One relative is a rabit brexiteer and Re**rm party bootlicker, makes me cringe and I don’t engage in any conversation with him any more.
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Well done. You have to stand up to these people.
I am hoping that we are not seeing the repeat of 1933.
Playing a gig with a friend at Preston on stour village fete this afternoon. Eventually. Pretty village, warm sunshine, happy relaxed people. The guitarist on at the moment has just finished Waterloo Sunset.
And now we’ve got Hey Jude. 
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“take a sad song… and make it better…” that’s how I go through life, or try to 
How did the gig go, @Ancient_Mariner ?
Crowd joining in with the Nah-nah-nah-na-na-na-nahs?