The ramblings of Keane Ingram

It's getting close to Glastonbury now, so starting to get slightly panicky about what we'll need to take, especially as we'll have Nicky with us this year, things are going to be pretty different! I find that the list at The Gorge is pretty comprehensive, so I usually base things around that and go from there. So far I've ordered some pee bags (because I hate waking up at 6, getting dressed and trudging to the toilets) and a rain suit for Nicky. I'm now looking at getting a messenger bag to carry around during the day, as I don't really like having a rucksack in crowds - I'm paranoid about people being able to get at it whilst I'm watching bands, plus it can knock people about. The past couple of times I've taken a smaller man bag but it's never really been big enough, and this year I'll have to carry stuff for Nicky too so it's time for an upgrade!

I played tennis again this week - I had a pretty shoddy first set, playing with James (ag…

I played tennis last night for the first time in about 10 years. Considering my lack of any sporting activity for about six months I think I did quite well - playing in doubles, I won the first set 6-1 but lost the second set 8-6 (after being 4-0 up!) I was definitely getting tired towards the end which didn't help my concentration, and I made a few sloppy shots. I was also guilty of hitting it long quite a few times - have to get used to not just hitting it as hard as possible like I do on the Wii!

It definitely helped not having to carry so much weight around - I weighed myself this morning and I'm down to 12 stone. This is a loss of about 3 stone since September, which has mostly come about from not eating bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast every morning, eating a healthier reduced-salt diet (because we eat what Nicky eats) and walking a lot more. I've got some printouts from the local Boots weighing machine which show my progress, I'll scan them and put them up…

I've finally almost cleared my 'to-do' list - for now, all that remains is 'do online tax return'. It's taken about three weeks but almost all of the necessary paperwork that comes with moving house is pretty much taken care of. I've also just registered with a local doctor, and yesterday I finally dropped off all the conveyancing information needed by our solicitors. I'm sure there will be more things that need adding as and when I think of them but I'm a bit happier that the vast majority is now sorted.

There's still plenty to do around the house and garden, so no chance of relaxation!

We watched Lost last night - I won't mention much to avoid spoilers but it seemed ridiculous to have an episode like that so close to the end that promised to reveal so much but actually revealed hardly anything and raised further questions. The last three and a half hours are going to have to be something special...

I've done some digging in the garden to make a vegetable patch - but my back is complaining about it :-( Things are getting there slowly though - not helped by Nicky trying to eat mud, stones and other things he finds in the garden!

Other than that, not much going on - I recently traded in some games at Game (£1.20 for Gears of War!) and was able to get Mass Effect 2 for about £2.65, I'm really enjoying it so far.

Oh yeah, there was an election last week. I voted Lib Dem, as I have done at the previous two general elections, and as before it made no difference as I always seem to live in constituencies that are safe for the incumbent. So the Tories won quite comprehensively here. Not really happy about the idea of the Lib Dems working with the Tories to form a government, whilst it'd be better than a purely Tory government I think it might backfire on the Lib Dems - I imagine they got a lot of votes purely because they're not the Tories, so to then go with the Tories i…

I'm sure one of the definitions for 'middle-aged' must involve something about willingly going to Ikea on a bank holiday, yet this is exactly what we did yesterday! To be fair we didn't exactly intend to go there, we set out early hoping to go to a local boot sale, but unfortunately most of them had been cancelled due to the wet weather. We did find a small one in Orsett but there wasn't much of interest there. As we were out and it was still early we decided to head for Ikea as we needed a few bits, and we could go to Costco too as they're close to each other.

Surprisingly it wasn't too painful - we got there just after it opened at 10am, and I think we timed everything right as it wasn't too busy going around the main shop, then we went for lunch at about 11.30am and it wasn't too hectic, which it had been at 10am.