...trying to get data off a failing hard drive. Every time I boot the machine another part of the drive appears unreadable...its a race against time and my strong inclination to hit the machine until it starts working¹.

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1. Not well known as a sucessful strategy, but very satisfying.

Yay, went to Aikido last night and was very good indeed! The normal Sensei was ill, so his instructor took the class - who is the national head of the organisation and 5th dan. Still a dan-grade shy of my old sensei, who was 6th, but still bloody, bloody good.

I also found the dojo idiot - a grumpy young lad who was arrogant and a bit of a bully. He's going to get a shock when I get some ability back.. I don't have the skill again yet to make his life unpleasant, but knowledge is coming back, as another senior student found last night, when one technique went flawlessly and I bounced him through the mat... unfortunately that was more by accident than design though..

I still feel very thick-headed though - I *know* the techniques, but I've been out of practice so long that its like groping for them through a fog. I can't make my body do what I know it should do! And with Aikido things should flow naturally, so the more you try, the less effective things are... with the technique that went well, it was a fast attack and the technique just..happened..and the other guy was on the mat with a "ooof!!".

It would appear that what I used to practice (as I suspected at the time) was a combination of Aikido (the nice art) and Aiki-jitsu (the lethal art¹) - as well as Aiki-ken (sword) and Aiki-jo. My old sensei used to have to keep remembering he wasn't teaching aiki-jitsu, and as his favourite victim I got to learn a lot of stuff that I really shouldn't have been learning. The guy teaching last night was the same. Much fun!

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1. e.g. Aikido: You unbalance the opponent, and guide their body gently to the floor with your hand on the side of their neck. Aiki-jitsu, you unbalance the opponent, then the other hand grabs their throat rather than their neck, moves round to gouge their eyes, and as you throw them to the floor you step forward and break their neck over your knee...².

2. This is why we don't have competitions...

Concrete gets poured in half an hour - we have a big lorry parked outside the house...!

**bounce**

Builders are madly shovelling - the trench fell in AGAIN last night...

The building inspector came around today and required the trench to be dug six inches lower.

Whilst the builders were doing exactly that the whole side of it fell in. They are not happy...

Long day today. Down at the client for 8.30 which meant leaving the house at 7.00am. However a good day, and the rest of the week looks relaxing, however I'm going to be working away until February at the earliest.

Climbing good tonight. Still had nowhere near recovered from Sunday, so things went south fast, especially after I tried (and failed) to do a 7a+ thing that actually wasn't that evil but I just had no strength left. A good night nonetheless and Lady Blue was climbing well, and we have chicken casserole coming in a few mins! **YAY**. And I have a new project!! **bounce**

Various bits an pieces...

1) Work on the kitchen foundations proceeds apace. Builders are down to about five feet below the ground and have found the existing foundations¹. The top of the back garden now looks like a swamp... well, a mess at any rate...

http://www.littleteapot.org.uk/wah/Housey/KitchenExt/Photoswc16Nov/IMG_6890.JPG
http://www.littleteapot.org.uk/wah/Housey/KitchenExt/Photoswc16Nov/IMG_6880.JPG
http://www.littleteapot.org.uk/wah/Housey/KitchenExt/Photoswc16Nov/IMG_6887.JPG

2) We have a lot of Gigs to go to! In the next two weeks we are off to New Model Army, Mesh, Cruxshadows, Alice Cooper and Placebo... We have also booked tickets for Swan lake in Feb. This week also brings dinner out with Janet, Melanie, Barbara, Tom, Owen, etc.

3) Good climbing yesterday. Went off to Redpoint with the SMC lot and did quite well. A few easy routes to start with then 6a+, 6a+, 6c, 6c+, 6c+, 6b and 6b, plus a few easy ones to warm down. All good... Got totally spanked by a 7b+ though..

1. Edit. . They thought they had found the existing foudations. It looks like they just found the bit where the wall got even wider about 6 foot under the ground. The builders don't know how deep they are going to need to go, but I don't think they expected the foundations to be so deep...actually they still haven't found the foundations...

On the good side, its looking like the cellar conversion might be a lot easier than I had thought...

We went to see Eddie Izzard last night along with the world plus dog. (Kirsty (natch), Janet, Owen, Stu, Kirsty (another one), Barbara, Tom, Lula, Rob, Tink, Chris, Helen & Colin.).

Lovely to see all and sundry, but I'll admit me and Eddie Izzard didn't get on. Homour is a little personal and he just didn't hit the mark for me - however some of the interval twitters were hilarious! **grins**.

Well, the work on the kitchen started today....with the garden being dug up for the new retaining wall, and the old patio wall being destroyed.

Basically the delay is all because of the builder's previous job, which has gone wrong in a big way. Nothing to do with the builder, but the neighbours of his current client waited until the work started and then have decided to get very nasty in a legal way about their new extension.

Hence, while all is tied in legal knots there, the builder has started on our place rather than having folk sitting on their hands waiting for respective solicitors to sort it all out. He'll go back and finish that job when things get sorted.

In the meantime, Mahala at the weekend bought her decent camera around and took piccies of the house, results under the cut... (All with an extreme wide-angle lens).

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We are having a very lazy weekend, in the company of Aidan and Mahala and their rough collie (lassie-a-like) and their bernese mountain dog.

A&M were off to the classic car show at the NEC today so left woofs with us, so they "helped" us in the garden ("woof!") in a howling gale and rain before doing the sensible thing and performing hearthrug impressions in front of the fire.

Back inside I spent the afternoon lounging in front of said fire fussing dogs and/or falling asleep and then being given the "Nobody loves me" treatment from large brown eyes as soon as I stopped giving fuss...

Eventually the room descended into John snores and two sets of doggie snores...

**bliss**

I miss having a woof in the house....

Never, ever, ever choose DX secure delivery (for e.g. tickets) unless you are without doubt going to be in and hovering at the door to get the mail.

Otherwise, they will push a paper through your door. They may not even knock (they didn't). This may have the correct name on it, it may not (it didn't). The tracking number included on the bit of paper may be recognised by the website, it may not (it wasn't). You then ring them up. They will then agree to deliver it anywhere where the person concerned has your ID (passport). Of course, YOU generally have your passport, and you are at work. So you then have to ferry said passport several hundred miles to someone who you'd better bloody hope is in when they call.

PLan B is they redirect the parcel to a collection point. There are about 20 collection points in the UK, none in a decent easy-to-get-to locations. If you are really lucky when you turn up at the collection point, they have your parcel. If you are unluckly they have not (they didn't) and you've just made a two hour round trip for nothing (I had).

If you want a specified morning or afternoon delivery then they will charge you, the recipient, £25 for the privilege.

Don't do it. They are crap. Royal Mail is the way.

On the good side, DX have a separate number for complaints (one does not wonder why they need it) and the staff there are more than willing to sort matters out that the rest of the company have screwed up. However the hair-pulling bit before this (DX secure is for important stuff, generally if you don't get the stuff you are stressed) is not worth the satisfaction in knowing that a courier and a call centre agent are about to get royally kicked.

By the way, in a related manner, we now have the Rammstein Tickets.