Luke Sheldrick’s Blog

Christmas 2008, is all but over now, just NYE to go, which reminds me I still haven’t planned anything. This year I joined the extended family in Norfolk. My brother (Paul), Sister-in-law (to be / Sally) and Sally’s folks (Carole and Roy) stayed in a wood lodge in the woods, which was pretty nice. Well once we’d worked out the heating. The rest all stayed else where, but usually visited in the evenings. The lodge below reminded me of something from a horror film.

The view however was pretty nice to wake up to;

The drive up there and back wasn’t too bad, I did have my iPhone tracking it, just for the hell of it, but haven’t found a way to show the route on here yet. This was where we were staying however;



Interestingly the tracker had a spazm when I first set it up, but still registers I go everywhere at 14658 mph… if only.

Christmas day we had lunch at the local restaurant, which was nice… still can’t ever beat a home cooked roast though, and I really missed the Turkey sandwiches for days after
The place was near to Cromer, where a lot of the extended family live. Didn’t actually get to see much of the scenery, but am sure will go back soon enough.

Had to come home on Saturday, as first day back in the office on Sunday, which was rather difficult. Having almost 6 weeks off, then coming back to work…ekk! The worst was yesterday, having to get up at 5am again… yuck. Still only one more day shift in the week (Friday) then back on night shifts… which are usually quiet.

Finally got my flickr account slightly more up to date. I was trying to do it whilst I was away, but my 3G card had no signal, along with my iPhone (actually nobody had any signal), there was no wifi around. With the exception of the local pub where it was £6 an hour, and ran at silly speeds, still didn’t stop my brother and I paying for our occasional fix.

The eee 701 being my laptop I take everywhere, the HP my brothers. Essential Diet Cokes

Also found a cool plugin from tantannoodles which integrates my flickr account with my blog. Had to hack most of the css, so it sort of looks like the rest of the blog.

Some of the Christmas photo’s can be seen below, or the album here.

Having just got back home from my Christmas week away at my brothers, had a wicked time though.

Lost remote access to my house on Saturday, which kinda sucked, and having got my house mates to reboot a few things, without restoring it, thought I would check it out when I got back.

Turns out we had a power cut the other day, and when the power came back on (after a few hours), the hardware firewall I am using (Netgear FVS124G) had lost the majority of it’s settings. What was interesting, is it some, but not all. Surely if the memory had wiped, it would have lost them all.

After a quick restore all was ok, but what a load of rubbish.

The Christmas break was cool, spent it with my Brother and his girlfriend Sally for the majority of it.

Did a range of things, Christmas eve we all went for some drinks and a chinese, Christmas day we spent at Sally’s sister’s house, Charlotte. That was cool, we go most years, and it’s a bit of a running joke, as I only see them once a year. Boxing day I spent at Mum’s.

Then I had to go back to work for a couple of days, which was bizarly busy concidering the fact most places were still off work.

Friday we went to the Comedy Store, which was really good. I personally didn’t think it was as funny as Jongleurs, however was still a good show. Then we went for a gamble at the Empire Casino.

Saturday saw us going for a chinese again, this time for Charlotte’s birthday, then in the evening, Paul, Rupert and I went to a poker contest, hosted by Craig of BubblePoker. Was only supposed to be 30ish players, but around 80 turned up, so we went out quite quickly. Then we ventured back to the Empire casino, I lost a bit, then won a bit, and overall I think I had a free night out.

Today had a bit of a lay in, then Paul and I ventured to M&S to get some stuff for the roast, had a gorgeous Chicken Roasty, then I came home, in the monster truck..

Think that’s about it.

oh, and I had a really weird dream about a friend Drew last night, about him keep hanging up on a conference call, and when I saw him (in the dream) he was deaf, so I was signing to him. When I spoke to him today, he told me how he’d had trouble over the last couple of days with his hearing as he had a horrible fit of man flu, which has blocked him all up. WEIRD!!

Came home for the first time since Friday tonight, to find a stack of letters. One quite interesting, it was from eBay, not someone on eBay, but them themselves.

The Box:

The inside, I thought was a Christmas card..

..but nope, it’s a chain of eBay fairy lights, usb powered.

I’ve asked a few fellow eBayers, and no-one else seems to have got one, maybe I was just lucky?