Ahem, yes, sorry, we are back.

Didn’t realise how slack I’d been on updating the blog; my apologies to everyone.

Had a very relaxing time in Egypt, nasty 2 hour delay on the way back which meant we arrived at Gatwick at 2am.

What have I missed? We had the London Marathon a few weeks ago, which we watched for a little while as it passes a few hundred yards from the flat.

We also went to Mez, a restaurant just round the corner on Manchester Road for dinner one night. It’s a Mediterranean-style place so lots of Middle Eastern dishes, all very good and excellent value. They even have a (very good) belly-dancer, although that can distracting if you’re trying to have a conversation and there’s a shapely lady jiggling all sorts of bits in your face. Not that I’m complaining or anything. Definitely recommend the place.

Work rolls along, causing me to work quite a few late nights recently. I’ve also volunteered to help out with the server maintenance on Urban75 in my spare time. That’s proving interesting as its using FreeBSD which I haven’t used much previously. So far we’ve upgraded the database, PHP and web server, but there’s a lot more to do besides.

I’ve picked up a few server bits from eBay, and from Mark at Exonetric in order to build a potential replacement for the ageing Sun Netra X1 that currently hosts this site. Still a way to go before I’ll have a complete system, but it gives me some new hardware to fiddle with.

I’ve also updated my MySpace page which I joined ages ago and never really did anything with. I found loads of bands and people on there from my past, and found out about a few re-issues of long, almost-forgotten tracks. I’m not sure I really like the way MySpace works or the really nasty layouts that people use on there but I can see how it’s fun and useful. Had a few “Friend Adds” from people who I’ve never heard of but, hey, I’m not fussy.

Getting quite excited about the forthcoming Glastonbury Festival, but need to sort out a new tent (old one has a broken zip which will cost almost as much to replace as a new tent), and want to pick up a trolley so that Vic doesn’t have to carry anything on her bad back. Vic’s also booked us into a lovely looking pub quite close to the site so we can get in there nice on early on the Wednesday morning.

More news when I can think of what to write :)