Speed

I should be running again following a plan that will allow me to run a 10k race in April, but the leg is still painful. It's rather depressing. I need to get back on the road or I wont be fit enough for the 10k, but I have no choice but to rest and carry on taking the pills the doctor gave me.

It's been a dull week, but we are dog sitting for 4 days now. We have Max, who belongs to Pete's brother to look after. We spoil him a bit too much and expect his weight to increase 50% over the next 4 days!

Anyway... I thought the £75 I paid to attend the speed awareness course before Christmas (thereby avoiding points on my licence) was quite a lot of money, until I read this:

In Switzerland, speeding fines are means tested and it's proved very costly for one millionaire driver. Clocked at 100km/h (62mph) driving through a Swiss village, the Ferrari Testarossa driving millionaire has been punished with a 299,000 Swiss Francs fine - the equivalent of about £180,408.

Ouch!

Everybody needs good gaybours

On Saturday night, Pete and I went next door to our twentysomething neighbours for a meal. They cooked some really great food and the alcohol was flowing and flowing. We left at around 2.30am and Pete was completely plastered, I was drunk but not as much. The conversation was varied and they mentioned that a friend had asked about the people they live near to. Pete and I were obviously discussed and their friend said "oh, you have gaybours too". Yes, a new word is introduced into language - you have to laugh!

Since Pete was "poorly" on Sunday, we did very little. I mucked about on the 'net and watched some TV. I cooked roast lamb, which was fantastic - as Pete was struggling with solid food, I had his share.

Monday morning at 7.30am and the doorbell rang and it was a nice man delivering me a BMW. What a great way to start the week! I had expected him at midday, so I was a little shocked. Anyway, the Volvo has now gone and so has much of the tax I was paying. The new car drives really well (it had 2 miles on the clock when I first got into it), but the radio is not as powerful as the Volvo and rear wheel drive is very very scary on our currently icy road. I had better do some work to justify my company spending all this money... but first...

Via my friend Andrew, I found this great software called Tweetdeck which allows me to post the same status updates to Facebook and Twitter and sometimes to Linkedin as well. You can follow me on Twitter (look for sfchapman) and if you are clever, you can find me on Facebook and Linkedin if you look hard enough!

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Going Dutch

Pete, my friend Sonny and I travelled to Holland on Thursday night for a long weekend. We visited my friend Jan (pronounced Yarn) in Assen in the north of the country - it was he 40th birthday party.

We travelled on the overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook Of Holland - which was a much better experience than I had been expecting and then drove through the country to Assen in the morning (what did we do before Sat Navs?!). We arrived around midday on Friday and after a quick pee break and coffee we headed off to the Assen TT circuit to watch some practice and qualifying sessions for a number of races of various car types plus racing trucks. Here is a stunning short film I made at the track:


The hotel was in the middle of town, which was pumping at 3am - just what I needed. Assen is a clean and compact town, with loads of shops. We had a walk around on Saturday morning including cake stops for Pete. He likes the Dutch tradition of having coffee and cake.

On Saturday afternoon, there was a barbecue and plenty of beer and/or wine. While we were there, we reenacted a photograph that was taken about 20 years ago - a depressing thought, but we thought we would do it again in 20 years - before and after...

On Sunday we took it pretty easy and after seeing Jan's impressive summer house in the woods, we drove to Leiden which is south of Amsterdam. It's a really pretty town with canals everywhere. We stayed there overnight before getting the 2.30pm ferry on Monday afternoon - 7 hours later we were back in Harwich.

The Dutch people are so welcoming and the lifestyle is far more laid back than the UK. They seem to have the balance about right between work and play - few people commute by the sounds of it, a source of stress for so many people I know.

It was a fun, costly and tiring weekend - but well worth the effort.