Truck Festival

When telling my friends I was spending last weekend at Truck festival they all said they never thought I was in to trucks, truth is I am not in to trucks as Truck festival has little to do with trucks!

The first festival was in 1998, almost a year after I moved to Oxford and I think I remember hearing something on the radio. 10 years on and I finally get round to attending! Truck festival is held just outside Didcot, not far from us yet we have never got round to going. So this year before we even had time to figure out what we were doing with our life Joe was offered tickets. Sadly Truck was called off in July due to the terrible flooding the area suffered. The festival was rescheduled for last weekend so we finally got to go.

Truck is a great festival just the correct size so you do not feel like you are camping on top of each other and you will never find your friends but big enough to have 5 stages. Most the bands are local or ones I have never heard of but the highlights for me were:
Schla la las
Foy Vance
Skylarkin
Tommy Traux

So we had a great weekend and I would certainly go again, thankfully the rain stayed off - mostly. The only thing that bugs me is that whilst camping on Sunday morning I got woken up by a bunch of youths in the tents next door. I was certain Pete and Heidi's kids would be the first in there but oh no it was a bunch of 17 year olds that were the early risers - grrrr.

Drat and double drat

This week has been a week of calamities - and it is only Tuesday!!

On Sunday I had to pop in to town for a quick lunch and do a mystery shopper job. I left Joe in town and went to get the car to go to work. I promptly drove in to a brick wall and burst the tyre. I must add it was a very small brick wall that I could not see and did no further damage to the car or myself. So I phoned my husband to come and rescue me. We got the spare wheel from under the car and proceeded to get the flat wheel off. Got the wheel nuts undone no trouble but the wheel would not come off the car. We pulled with all our might - got some very nice, polite and strong me from the Old Parsonage Hotel but still it would not budge. I thought as time was getting on I had better get a taxi to work and leave Joe to it. A quick phone call to a friend - thanks Nick and the wonders of google they found the secret to releasing a wheel off a Ford Fiesta and Joe was able to collect me from work later. It has something to do with putting on the wheel nuts loosely and wiggling the steering 'till it releases.

So after recovering from my car troubles and spending yesterday in a garage having a new tyre fitted today I get a phone call from Satis House, a very nice hotel and Malaysian restaurant in Suffolk where we were planning on spending our anniversary is closing so we cannot stay there. Gutted. Now we need to find an alternative, any ideas? Nice Hotel and Restaurnt in the Suffolk area?

Book review: Venus as a boy

This book was bought for me by Rich and Clare for my birthday - thanks. They got it off me wishlist, I put it there because it was one of those 'people who read this also read this'. So I thought I would give it a try. It took a little while to get in too but you found yourself getting to attached to the main character. A lad who grows up in Orkney and has a troubled childhood, moves to the bright lights of London and works as a prostitute. Maybe not my usual reading subject but pretty good all the same. Written as if it is Desiree himself was speaking who could never get over his first love. It is very raw but touching and very well written.

Cameroon movie

I have meaning for some time to make a film about our life in Cameroon, so here it is. A snapshot of life in Cameroon. Music by Tata Kingue our pop star friend. the film ends with a snippet of an interview with our best friend Didimus.

This is my first attempt at film making and it was fun once I got a hang of the software.

Enjoy

For Sale

Our house is now on the market, it has been for about a month now. We decided while we were in Cameroon as part of our new 'perfect life' we would move to a similar house but in a nicer area.

This house has served its purpose, we were first time buyers desperate to get on the ever increasing market and went for what we could get meaning location was not important to us.

However after lots of inconsiderate neighbours parking their car in front of our drive and keeping us awake at night we have decided it is time to move up the ladder a bit on to pastures new. There is no better time for us to do it as we have only half unpacked our stuff and it is all in boxes in the loft.

I thought selling up and moving on would be a nice task for me to get my stuck teeth in to after Cameroon. So I got the house ready and on the market. I have enjoyed collecting particulars of houses and now I am just getting fed up. Nice houses come and go and we are still waiting. Estate agents talk the talk and say how sellable our house it - large rooms, next to the canal but still no offers. I am finding it difficult to look at houses now thinking we will lose one I love.