Norman Ralph

It has been ages since the group has eaten at the Llama, a few weeks probably, so today I tried to organise a minor gathering for s spot of lunch. In the end it was just Kara and I who graced the Llama with our presence. In Kara’s words, a lovely romantic meal for two! It was actually quite nice to be back in the old haunt, pound-a-pint John Smiths and 2-4-1 meals just cannot be beaten!

Ended up in DEC10 again after lunch, messing about on computers whilst Si and Dan do some project or other and Kara does something to her laptop. I really am going to have to pay more attention to what people say.

Managed to get round to doing a spot of gardening this morning, trimmed the hedge and sorted out the front yard. Then headed down Kirkstall Road to see if I could find a cheap car wash, ended up using the jet wash at Morrison’s – 35p a minute and you can use whatever combination of programmes you like!! It wa s bargain, so £3.50 later I had a lovely washed, shampooed and waxed car.

Off to cinema later with the gang to catch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film.

As some of you will know and the rest of you are about to find out, I have spent the last few days visiting Sarann at her home in Wigton, Cumbria. I had a really great time and enjoyed the fact that I didn’t go near a computer and barely touched my mobile apart from the odd occasion.

I received a text from Sarann at the weekend just gone asking if I wanted to pop over to Wigton for a few days to visit and then drive her back to Leeds afterwards. After some shuffling and a few telephone calls me and Kat decided we would go up on Tuesday and stay over until Thursday so that we could get some stuff in and be back in time for me to get to Barenaked Ladies .

After picking Kat up on Tuesday lunchtime, we headed over the moors to Cumbria to see Sarann. The thought of free homecooked food keeping us from getting too bored on the three hour trip! Wigton is a fairly small town in Cumbria, about 20 miles from Penrith and the same from the coast. There didn’t seem much there to be honest and the off licence even ID’d Kat for wine! Bear in mind that Kat is 22 going on 23 and doesn’t look like a 15 year old!

We spent the afternoon at the beach, playing in the sand, skimming stones and generally larking about. We also had homemade ice cream from a little local shop, it was delcious! We then stopped by Sarann’s dad’s house to feed the cat and get some ideas for stuff to do on the Wednesday. For dinner that night we had the most amazing Cumberland sausage casserole, one of my all time favourite dishes. A few glasses of wine and a few rounds of Marry, Date or Dump and a failed attempt to watch Moulin Rouge rounded off a very enjoyable day.

Wednesday was spent being touristy in The Lake District. We drove down to Thirlmere, parked up and wandered the 4 or so miles to Grasmere. It was a lovely little walk, if a little tricky in places and the weather managed to stay nice for us until we got to a pub for some lunch. After a ridiculously expensive round of drinks we completed our walk into Grasmere, had a look round some great little shops – including Croft’s Bakery, which sells the finest flapjack I have ever tasted. We then caught the bus back up the car then drove home via Dove Cottage, the home of William Wordsworth.

After a dinner of pizza and pasta and a long philosophical debate we finally got drunk! Which took some doing – eight bottle of wine to be honest. The night (or rather morning) ended with us heading to bed following some more in depth conversations on topics as diverse as abortion, rape, sperm banks and contraception!

Thursday was a lie in, we headed back to Leeds about 3pm and I dropped the girls off and headed home to get ready for my gig.

Thanks to Sarann and her Mum for looking after us and making us feel so welcome!

I just fit an A0 (thats 32 times the size of A4!!) drawing board into the back of the Izzy’s VW Polo. This is impressive a) due to the sheer size of the drawing board, complete with fully adjustable stand and legs, b) because I currently have no access to my tools, so I did the whole job with my car ratchet set and a cheap Wooly’s adjustable spanner and c) a VW Polo is a small car, it is the second smallest class of car!

If you are looking for a small, cheap city hatch and you value reliability, value for money and the ability to carry both passengers – the Polo fits 4 passengers + driver in quite nicely for small to medium journeys – and cargo then I would say look no further than that Mk4 Polo, the one with the square headlights (approx M reg – T reg).

Those of you that know me will be aware I am slightly biased as I do in fact drive a car that fits the description above, but I can truthfully say that I don’t think I would change it. It does the best part of 50mpg, top speed of about 100mph, fast enough for what I will use it for and fits into most parking spaces. I could be tempted to get the 5 door version in the future, but i would lose out on re-sale value and door size – I am a big fella I like big front doors!

All in all, it was a very rewarding experience. I am quite looking forward to the three hour journey to The Lakes this afternoon.

I have recently been introduced to a boyband from Iceland called Sigur Ros. I have to admit that I am not normally a fan of Scandinavian pop music, even Abba never really did anything for me! This band, however, are different.

Many of you will be aware of one of their tracks, even though you may not know it.  Hoppipolla, from the album Takk, is the theme tune to the critically acclaimed, massively popular BBC documentary, Planet Earth. It is indicative of the album in general, a mix of haunting melody and youthful vocal style. I don’t speak Icelandic, so I do not understand the lyrics, but the mood of the music is one of hope. A masked joy. I definitely recommend this band if you like Bjork, or modern popular classical music at all.

Thanks to Kat for the introduction, I will have to go and buy the CD for myself now as I think this is definitely car music, especially useful for those rush hour moments when you need to relax and calm down. This music would also make excellent dinner music.

All in all, I would give Takk a good 4/5.