About two weeks ago, the minivan got crushed. It really wasn't my fault. really. It was parked in a car park near a construction site. A lorry carrying a bunch of steel girders was using the car park to turn around and didn't clear the van. Crushed the rear left hand pillar and shattered the rear windscreen. Drug the van about 2 meters. Then he drove into the construction site as though nothing had happened. Fortunately, the gardener at work saw the whole thing and wrote the drivers plates down. When I pointed out what had happened, he didn't deny it and gave over his insurance information. He claims he didn't know he'd hit the van. How could you not notice that you just crushed and drug a minivan 2 meters? Whatever.
Of course this was all a rental, so I could care less. National replaced the van and I was off and scaring the crap out of the UK drivers again. I suck at driving by the way.
Two weekends ago was a holiday weekend. We spent most of it moving into our new digs, but we did go to
Bolsover castle on Monday. It was great! They were having a sort of renaissance fair for the weekend and we watched knights jousting and roman soldiers re-enacting a battle. The castle is about 17th century, so not very old. It was built on top of the ruins of a Norman castle as a sort of vacation cottage for a noble man who was trying to climb in rank. He would throw lavish and sordid parties for greater nobility in an attempt to gain more title. It didn't work. The castle has been very beautifully restored in parts and you can imagine what it must have looked like when it was new.Last
weekend, it rained a 
lot. Finally. It has been raining fairly steadily all week in fact. I guess the April showers are running a month late. None the less, on Sunday we went for a short walk in the moors. It was very windy. The Boy was the first to spot the slugs. Then, we couldn't help but notice them. About every 30' or so, we'd see another slug. Cute, aren't they?Amanda has said she's willing to try one of my greatest fantasies. She said she would be up for backpacking! (What did you think I was going to write, my mom reads this blog.) The whole family backpacking! I've been perusing the catalog for Decathlon (which is like REI quality in a Sports Authority warehouse) looking at tents, backpacks, and sleeping bags. Tonight I went for a walk in Eccelsall Wood with the kids to see how they would do. They each wore backpacks, but only very lightly loaded. They did about 2 miles before getting cold. The Girl was getting worn out, but The Boy was still strong. I think with practice The Girl could do 3 miles, each lunch, and then do 2 miles. We'll work up to it.
Tuesday I went gym climbing with a mate from work. I was on lead even! My first time leading since we left St. Louis. I sucked. I was managing 5+ on lead O.K., but not great. On top rope I did a 6a fairly clean, and a 6b on a slab with a few falls at the crux (but I did finally figure it out). I'm anxious to get back out to the peaks some weekend.
Tomorrow I'm off for a bit of cycling near Hope.
I also got my new power supply for my Xbox, so I'll be installing that. I fried the 110V one messing around with 220. Really, it was stupid (Amanda warned me). I blew three fuses, one in the transformer, one in the outlet adapter, and one in the Xbox as well as blowing up a capacitor on the Xbox power supply. As any electrical engineer will tell you, when you let the magic smoke out, the circuit stops working. It looks like the damage was contained to stuff before the PS transformer, so no MB damage likely.The replacement power supply is dual voltage. Bummer. I was hoping that it would be a 220V supply only. Then I'd have an excuse to just get a 360 when I get home. But the new supply will work in the states too.
I plan on getting a Flickr or Shutterfly or something account this weekend so that I can start uploading lots of pictures. When I get that set up, I'll post a link.
Cheers to all. It's good to be back on line from home!
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