Two more friends have left work today, (Wednesday!) and this presents me with a) fewer people to have lunch with and b) two more destinations to visit: Poole, Dorset and Shanghai, China. This adds to a growing list stretching from Australia via Sri Lanka and Germany. Makes me wonder if I should move away…

It was an achingly beautiful day in Oxford, paticularly next to the meadow, with the river winding it’s way between the trees whose leaves were showing the first signs of autumn, and the majestic walls of Christchurch College towering behind us. We might have stepped back hundreds of years, if you ignored the Mr Whippy van hiding around the corner.

…by rechargeable batteries. And this guy has lots of use for rechargeable batteries.

I’ve decided that CDs are not the future. I know, I’m a bit behind the times on this one. It has always bugged me that they are often broken when they arrive in the post, and they are a bit small in the cover department, plus I’ve run out of space to store them. My innovative solution is instead to try and buy music on vinyl from now on unless it is stupidly expensive compared to download or CD. The decks are now up and running again, and I’m currently working my way through the four Beatles albums I bought at a car boot for a tenner – in total, not each. Bring on the old school technology.
Related top tip: don’t throw out your VCR, Co-op are flogging videos for 50p from the charity shelf.

I’ve been working on a site called http://www.avonandme.co.uk for Katie which is designed to collect people’s stories about Avon Cosmetics. Do you have an Avon story? If so, head on down to www.avonandme.co.uk and put it in. Or, if you use twitter, just put avonandme in the post, and it will magically appear on the site.

Life has now returned to normal after the Moseley Folk Festival. It made a nice change to go to a festival where no camping was nessesary, devoid of mud, rain and aggression. Oh yes, and the music was great. Jethro Tull put on a great show, and I’ve been listening to Focus, Rick Wakeman since on the stereo. Ade Edmonson combined the funniest on-stage banter (he basically /is/ his character from Bottom) with furious mandolin playing. The discovery of the weekend for me was Wolf People, combing Jack Bruce vocals with a updated prog/psych sound. I’m just a sucker for twin-guitar solos.

So, a good weekend in which we managed to do tiling, church, and a three day music festival.

Steve’s mum has got Sam the dog well trained. He bounded down the garden with a note… ‘tea please’ in his mouth. #steve

Well then, off to the #moseleyfolk festival.

Have An Avon Summer