Sarah and I discovered last week that we share a dark secret.

You know how when you’re young, you see and hear things and make your mind up then and there that you are not going to be like that when you grow up. Well it seems we failed on at least one front.

We had one of those ‘which of us is going to admit it first’ conversations which led us to the inevitable conclusion that, yes, despite what we witnessed in the 90s, we actually both like the ‘new’ Take That.

It’s the time of the year that husbands dread. We have to think of good things to buy the wife for Christmas, and worse than that, we have to field questions from family and friends about what she would like from them!

Sarah asked me what I’d like from other people, so I said CDs would be good and ran off a list of possibilities.

I later find out that she’s committed the ultimate act of betrayal. She had been adding to the list of possibilities herself, which wouldn’t normally be a bad thing, except that she has actually told people that I want the Take That album! There are some things that really should stay in the closet. People just shouldn’t know that kind of thing about a person!

The other reason I objected, was that I’d already bought it for her as a stocking filler…

That way, we both get to enjoy it, and it remains a skeleton in the cupboard, hidden from the world.

Today we drove back to Southampton for the afternoon to celebrate Amber, our niece’s 2nd birthday.

It’s amazing how they grow isn’t it?:

Honey, we blew up the baby!

Today my manager worked out how to make a sound play on someone else’s computer over the network, without any trace of the program playing it, and at regular intervals throughout the day he deemed it appropriate to treat me to the theme from the original ‘Casino Royale’ film.

I worked it out eventually, then treated another of my colleagues to clips from ‘The Life of Brian’ and ‘Team America’

Anyway, on to fun Monday hosted this time around by M is for Misanthrope 

‘Do you have a piece of jewelry or other item that holds great personal significance for you, and that you wear or keep with you every day?  Show us a photo of your talisman, and tell us why it is so important to you’

And so here is mine:

Obviously my wedding ring would be the first thing that should appear here, as a symbol of the most important thing in the world to me. But as that’s a given, I thought I’d show you the second place piece. It’s a silver pendant which I’ve only acquired very recently, but still means a lot. Not only does the fish represent what means most to me beyond the world (God) but it was made for me by a good friend of mine who happens to be a jeweller. Thanks Rob!

(His name is Rob too, I’m not thanking myself…)

EDIT: Sarah suggested I should show you my wedding ring anyway & point out the dent which you can just make out on the top front edge. This happened when I scaled an 8 foot wire fence to retrieve a frisbee during an office picnic. I flipped over the top & as i came down my ring got caught on some of the wire. I’m lucky it didn’t take my finger off!

I’d never have my ring repaired, because each mark bears a memory which I always want to keep hold of.

Tonight was our church quiz night.

Upon arrival, a group of us who usually lose everything got together. We thought if we were a team, it’d give everyone else a better chance of being on the winning team rather than dragging them down with us.

We only went and flippin’ won!

So Sarah and I are now a box of flake chocolates & a bottle of Shiraz better off.

Score!

Well I’m proud to say that I upheld the 2 minutes silence at 11 yesterday for rememberance day. I even went further and did a whole 90 minutes!

Ok, so at the time I wasn’t really thinking about those who gave their lives. And Ok, so the silence was largely due to the exam I was sitting. But I did pass the exam making me a

So Yay! I did think about our war heroes later in the day to make up for it.

It was also Sarah’s birthday, so I had the rest of the day off work and we did nice things.

We started with a light lunch then combined a little geocaching with some mountaineering. Terrain 1.5 my bum!

Well, ok. Maybe 1.5 was about right…

We did a total of 9 caches which got us really muddy up to our knees, but we had a great time.

We headed home and scrubbed up, then went off for a pub meal. We had intended to watch the new Indiana Jones DVD when we got home, but in the end we were so tired we just fell asleep!

I like days like this.

P.S. Thought for the day:

When you abduct a feline, what do you call it (I don’t mean like ‘Bob’, rather the act of abducting it). I think you’ll find ‘catnapping’ is already taken…