Well I'm sitting down to watch the Manure v Spurs match in the FA Cup (Tainio and Thud in defence? *shitting self smiley* ) so I thought I'd quickly do this.

I was born and grew up in a small-ish Midlands town with a posh name and posher pretensions. A quarter of the population live in buildings like this:

Or this:



I, however, grew up in this:



(Only without the driveway and new windows. As a child most of the front was a curious combination of scrawny grass and moss which it was my pleasure to mow every single weekend. Uh-huh. Plus the old windows were magic - if you left them closed they produced enough condensation to irrigate the Gobi desert, but if you opened them they appeared to be a portal to a strange (and very windy) Arctic waste. Even in summer.)

Growing up in a bungalow (because my mother was/is disabled) and being the only male in the household resulted in two major things a) I ran up every flight of stairs I came across until I was 18 because I wasn't used to them and they didn't seem right and b) I used up three lifetimes of patience before I was ten.

Strangely enough, this period of my life was where I appear to have developed my distrust of women and my dislike of Christmas and confrontation (often the same thing ;-) ).

Oh my god. Spurs just scored at Old Trafford and are one-up! :-D

I'm going to watch that now, ha ha :)

[Later Edit:]

We lost 3-1 :(

Ah well, enough wallowing in the past! While I'm here though here's a couple of pics. One of satisfied niece1 with her Warm Cuddles monkey :)

And finally, I never fail to be amazed by how Floyd can re-arrange the furniture to make a sun-trap!