Saturday was not Simons “Stag Do”.

Simon didn’t want a Stag Do. Julie was having her Hen-Night (What is a Stagess? Not a hen, I know that much), but Simon said he didn’t want anything like that.

So he came over and a group of us had a little wander around town, sampling ales, Chinese meal, then a few of us fell down drunk and watered their neighbours gardens.

By the time Colin and I got to the Meeting Pub, Simons friends who I had not met before were already a fair few pints in front of us. They had been there around lunch time, and we met at 19:00.

We were introduced, and Colin and I tried our best friendly smiles, while they looked on at us with heavy glazed eyes.

Mark and Dave arrived at 20:00 and we all moved on to the next pub. Dave and Col seemed determined to catch up with Simons other friends, either that or their tolerance for alchohol isn’t what they claim ;O)

After a few more drinks we ended up in the chinese restaurant, with Simons friends alternately chatting up or making fun of the staff, and Dave “subtly” picking up on anything dumb Simons friends said (ie. laughing his head off and pointing).

Colin got a little carried away with himself and started asking personal questions and betting Simon £1 that Simon and Julie would have kids first.

Not wanting to hang around to see what the conclusion of the night would be, I called Clare and she picked me up. I found out later that Dave had had to practically carry Colin home

As birthdays go this was ok, kind of.

It started at five past midnight, when we got home from wednesday quiznight. I was looking through my pressies and was about to open one when Clare shouted at me. I couldn’t really argue – I make Clare wait until her Birthday too.

So I waited until 7:00am to start opening them.

Damian bought me an alien foetus, I can’t decide if it is really really sick or really quite cool ;O)

When I had opened all my cards and looked through my stuff I had just enough time to get ready and get to work. Clare was complaining of not being well, which got me worrying. I told her to call in sick, which she ignored as usual.

Bosses kindly bought us all lunch. I am guessing we will have to stop doing this, I feel guilty enough when there are six of us, if the company expands any more it will start getting even more expensive. Talking about bosses, hi Jason {wave}. I am going to have to start filtering out your IP Address ;O)

They bought me a birthday card that said “Loveable old slapper”, with a message that it’s 2/3 true …

Clare got sent home from work sick, so I spent the rest of the day worried as hell. Turns out, when she finally saw a GP, she has an infection.

So, rather than going to see Star Wars again as planned, Clare and her mum swiftly organised a BBQ.

Apart from being worried sick all day, I guess my Birthday was ok.

I think I might be growing up.

For a start, shockingly, I have successfully defeated my addiction to the computer. While my PC has been set up now for *ages*, the last time before now I used it was to produce those “comedy” t-shirts with DaveO for Cols birthday[1].

Secondly, I have started going outside and *enjoying it*! I actually *sunbathed* while on holiday!

Does this mean I am still a geek or not?

Well, I’m not sure.

While I was away, I didn’t read or buy a single computer or scifi magazine, and I could have visited a cyber cafe, but I didn’t. Having said that I did read five fantasy books, which isn’t the most geeky thing I could do, but it’s up there.

Maybe now Adam should stop making jokes about me being “Un-Cool Chris” (“Uncle Chris”, gettit? Ho. Ho.)

…

What’s the title all about then?

Well, as is traditional for the clan Garrett, when it is someones birthday or whatever we tend to get together and eat, drink and verbally abuse oneanother.

Jasons birthday turned out a little more eventful than usual.

While eating our nosh out in the garden, soaking up rays, and drinking cool canned lager, my Dad suddenly jumped up, shouting “You little shits! Come here you bastards” and the like.

Slightly suprised by this, Jason and I ran to see what the bother was, and was comfronted by the sight of my Dad leaping the garden wall into a gang of around 12 lads, continuing his tirade of colourful language.

The cause of his annoyance was evident in the destroyed plants he was holding, which had been torn out of the garden and discarded down the street.

My Brother and I leaped over the wall after, and fell in either side of my Dad. For a moment the three of us stood in the street, staring at the lads, my brother doing his best “big” impression he could, looking like he was holding an invisible carpet under each arm.

After a short delay the lads who just seconds ago had been saying “Come on then, think you can take us on Grandad?”, thought better of it and ran down the road, with my Dad following them, shouting “You spineless shits, come on then!”.

If that wasn’t comical enough, Jason, who had obviously been thinking of something intimidating to say, uttered words which will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Come on!, who’s hard then?”

Maybe it is what he said, maybe it is the way he said it, maybe it was the fact *he* said it, but I had to stifle a laugh. Not an easy thing, to look angry and amused at the same time.

Next time we get into an argument that line will be wipped out and used against him quicker than Clares credit card at the January sales.

…

[1] Colin had his th Birthday the other week. Because he hadn’t arranged anything more exciting than the usual pub crawl, we decided to create custom t-shirts with “hilarious” Nerdy-Colin designs to wear. We laughed.

…

Clare and I will have been married a year the weekend after next. What a year. Those who know me well will know what sort of a year it has been for us, and what we have been through. It hasn’t all been fun, I can tell you, but at least we are together stronger than ever and we know now who we can rely on and who our friends are.

For the people who I count as friends, thanks.

And to the rest ..

Whatever you give away today

or think or say or do

will multiply about tenfold

and then return to you.

Whatever you feel about another,

be it love or hate or passion,

will surely bounce right back to you

in some clear or secret fashion.

If you speak about some person,

a word of praise of two,

soon tons of other people

will speak kind words to you.

Our thoughts are broadcasts of the soul,

not secrets of the brain.

Kind ones bring us happiness,

petty ones, untold pain.

Giving works as surely as

reflections in a mirror.

If hate you send, hate you’ll get back,

but loving brings love nearer.

Remember, as you start this day,

and duty crowds your mind,

that kindness comes so quickly back,

to those who first are kind!

Let that thought and this one

Direct you through each day….

The only things we ever keep

are the things we give away.

Wow, it has been a while since I did this!

Why have I been away so long?

It took longer to settle into our new house than expected, then work got *extremely* stressed with deadlines and workload. When we finally got a phone line installed I just didn’t have the energy or inclination to even look at a computer in my spare time.

As well as our home situtation, reaction to this journal has been a little … odd ..

This has made me have good long hard think about my web site. Todays journal entry will be the last in this incarnation, in future I will be merging the thoughts, news on the front page and my journal into one section, fulfilling those functions (kind of). Passwords may also be used, so I can restrict who gets to see what.

Expect some changes to chrisg.com, but not too soon! :O)

My computer is out of its box, so I guess we have officially moved in.

We don’t have a telephone connection, so I am still having to borrow internet access for the time being.

I had a strange feeling unpacking my pc, kind of like on Blue Peter (sad kids tv show) when they would get the tortoise out of hybernation :O)

The cats seem very pleased to be out of the cattery. As we are living on a building site, they are not allowed out of the house, but at present they don’t seem to mind.

While 90% of our belongings have been transferred to our new home, I haven’t really spent much time there. I am hoping pretty soon my work panic will subside and I will be able to start working my normal hours.

My experiments with getting chrisg.com to the top of the search engine results is not proving very successful. If you do a search for “Chris Garrett” my site appears between 7th placing and no placing at all. Ok, so it’s not that important, but I am supposed to be able to do this stuff! I put it down partly to the shabby QuickDomains web forwarding frameset, but none of the other Chris Garretts sites do anything fancy (other than say “Chris Garrett” repeatedly). The top placed site doesn’t even have keywords and description tags. Humph.

For anyone who remembers the 80s fondly, we watched an excellent tv show tonight – Hunting Venus. It was a feature length comedy, featuring Martin Clunes and Neil Morrissey of Men Behaving Badly fame. Excellent stuff, I am sure it will be shown in other countries and repeated here, so don’t miss it.

We haven’t been bowling or been to the cinema in ages. I don’t even know if there is any films out worth watching. I am too tired to go to the quiz night. What a sad state of affairs. Damian and I used to go every sunday without fail. Now it is more like once every six months. Moving closer to our friends and family should *improve* our social life!

My fitness level has been bothering me of late, inevitably my thoughts turned to going swimming with Col. There are obvious benefits, swimming is excellent for all-round health and fitness, and guaranteed weekly bath , but also it would be a change, something out of the ordinary. It may seem a very ordinary thing to do to anyone else, but the only time I swim is on holiday. Yes, Kung Fu is excellent exercise, but swimming seems more of a leisure activity – not as much hard work.

Looking at my logfile today, I started wondering where all my visitors are coming from. Anyone who has looked in detail at my site will see I record “referrer” information, that is the site that a visitor linked from, but not all hits register a referrer, and sometimes the referrer was someones mailbox. My list of jokes seems a popular page, which I guess is an obvious draw, but many people seem to view my homepage, about and some pictures, then surf on.

If you have a spare couple of seconds, could you please sign my guestbook or drop me a message to say how you found me? Ta :O)

Today was moving day, and what a moving day it was!

From 8:00am to 11:pm we were shifting boxes and bags. I can’t believe how much stuff we have got. Our possessions are now spread between

– 1 dining room

– 1 conservatory

– 2 garages

– 4 bedrooms

It’s a miracle we got it done. Between six of us we had to make three trips in the van, use three cars, and to make things just that little bit more difficult, we had to do all this in a foot of snow, hale, rain or whatever else it could throw at us.

But we moved.

And we have to do it all again in two weeks time when our house is finished.

I nearly forgot Red Dwarf was on tonight, just shows how busy we are! Got in and the video set up just in time.

Things are getting pretty scary on the house front. We have to move out and our keys have to be in the estate agents letter box by midnight Tuesday the 9th at the latest. So as of next tuesday we are pretty much homeless, I hope our new house doesn’t fall through.

My latest magazine article is out. It has been pretty well received if my email inbox is anything to go by. People *really* seem to enjoy Internet Works.

I would like to do more articles, but the editor says he has loads of articles already, so I am kinda on standby. Although there is nothing to stop me taking my ideas elsewhere ..