Today I've mostly bin...

[MBH]

I got a pair of inline skates for my 40-something birthday. Since I can ice skate I should be fine on them (was the theory). Theory met reality very quickly and my tuck and roll over the concrete garden planter is still talked about

I'm sure I could get the hang of them BUT I need a safe environment.....

Well I plan to practise in our school assembly hall until I get my skate legs back again.

.... that would be good Pity I can't come and join you.

The sad fact is that the skate parks that are around are thought of as being for the youngsters - and in the sad world we live in, a guy of my age stumbling around may well attrac the wrong sort of attention from the locals

One day........ (like so many other things).

[Redfraggle]

I tried in line skates and nearly fractured my skull - due to the fact that I was in the street and let Leah pull me along on her bike. She went too fast and I had to let go. Not a good look. The neighbours loved it though!

[Bunnylump]

Last time I tried them, I did it in Gadebridge Park (not the skate park). The park has concrete paths within the grass, so that wasn't too bad. But I was so useless at it I decided to give in gracefully.

[LAT]

I've never tried inline skates, only the old-fashioned type with 4 wheels at 4 corners of the foot as it were.

[giraffe]

Your feet have corners? Do you struggle to buy shoes?

[LAT]

Yes, dreadful trouble.
I've never managed to buy up-to-the-minute fashionable shoes and always looked a bit square.

[Wulfruna]

Goes with the square car...

[LAT]

there was me thinking my car was the latest must-have model.

[Redfraggle]

I got my rollerboots today and tried them out in the school assembly hall - my legs are aching. It was a lot harder than i expected but on about the 10th time around the hall i started to get the hang of it. The girl I work with is getting a pair now too. She tried mine on today and went skating past the principal's office. The principal had a visitor with her I went out into the corridor to find June hanging on to the pipes

[LAT]

I'd love to know what the visitor thought!

[Redfraggle]

The visitor looked completely bewildered - it was a man in his 70's. He was even more bewildered when the boss asked June to skate back down the corridor and then 'helped' by giving her a push from behind We were in stitches - these are going to be good fun.

[giraffe]

F had his second Latin literature paper this afternoon. This is the other one that they had been taught the wrong texts on. I am so proud of him. He worked so hard the last 36 hours (he had two other exams on Monday, so couldn't start until then) and came out of the exam and said that with the exception of one question , where they didn't have the background knowledge to answer it, he felt it had been a good paper, but not brilliant. He had a little wobble on Monday, when I think the task ahead of him looked insurmountable, but since then has just got on and learned it. We are hoping that he will have done significantly better than the one last week when they discovered in the exam that they had been taught the old syllabus texts, and that the board will look on it favourably as a sign that he deserves a reasonable mark. He only has one more exam, and that isn't for a week, so at long last there is an end in sight to his exams. Apart from the initial catastrophic blunder I cannot fault the way the school have handled the problem. They have been updating us every couple of days on the correspondence between the school and the board. The head phoned all the parents involved and accepted full responsibility, without trying to blame the latin department or anyone else.

[chazzie]

Oh good news - looks like he deserves a good evening away from all that hard work......

[strep98]

.......hopefully buying a house.

[eirian]

glad the exam went well - he deserves a lot of credit for not letting it all put him off.

..... getting my laptop fixed! You'll remember I had a problem with my Dell, but not being Bunny, didn't have the courage to phone Dell up and shout at them. Instead we got a nice chap out who listened to us and realised that it's all because the wrong drivers were installed - Dell is apparently notoriously bad when the hard drive goes, as it loses all the drivers and they are a pain to reinstall. I'd attempted it myself, but because I didn't really know which drivers I was looking for I failed. This chap came out, realised the problem and fixed it in about 30 mins. Of course, there's plenty of time for it to reoccur, but at the moment, everything is looking back to normal

[eirian]

whee! Strep, that's such good news after all the problems you had last time. I do hope everything goes smoothly this time...

[strep98]

me too, put the offer in. Now waiting for the rest of it all to fall in place.

[giraffe]

Fingers crossed strep!

[LAT]

My fingers are crossed for you too strep. I hope it all falls into place.

And for Fernando as well, hoping all his hard work pays off, he certainly deserves it.

[gill216]

Fingers crossed for you both.

I'm feeling pretty good today. Last night we went to a football/barbecue/party and as most of you know I hate football with a passion so I offered to be house slave and refill the glasses, cook food, provide snacks etc. I did have another football hater to keep me company but she broke her foot 4 weeks ago and she's in a Madge mobile so I had to fetch and carry for her too. Doesn't leave a lot of time for drinking and I seem to have gone off alcohol anyway so as I watched everyone become more and more inebriated I decided I'd not bother having a drink and be the taxi lady instead. There was no hangover, I didn't appear in any of the embarrassing photos and I can tell them all exactly what they did or didn't do last night