Life of Wiley

1st of November and Starbucks have already started playing Jingle Bells:(

We had a lovely time in Cardiff last weekend. It was particularly good to meet up with old university friends whom we’d not seen for nearly 10 years.

We stayed in the renovated or newly built bay area which seemed to be tastefully done with plenty of restaurants and bars to satisfy all tastes. The new Wales Millennium Centre is especially spectacular. The open space outside it would make an excellent outdoor ice rink in winter and “beach” in summer.

We splashed out and ate at Tides Grill at the St. Davids Hotel. It was very nice sat, as we were, overlooking the bay itself. As is often the case I had meat and Louise chose fish making wine a bit of problem so we opted for a half-bottle of red for me and half-bottle of white for Louise! A shame really as it didn’t give us much choice to try something unusual as their wine list is quite extensive.

Whilst Tides Grill was very nice, Woods Brasserie was fab. We ate at the “pre-Opera” sitting that has a limited but still good menu. I’d definitely want to go back to choose from the full menu.

The concert we went to was Four Seasons by Candlelight at St. David’s Hall, given by the Mozart Festival Orchestra. I was looking forward to this as it also featured quite a lot of trumpet literature including one of my favourites, Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Trumpets. To top it off the main trumpet soloist was none other than Crispian Steele-Perkins the best proponent of the natural trumpet (though he didn’t play any on the night), and the chap who recorded the theme tune to the Antiques Roadshow. I was able to have a little chat to him during the interval and he was gracious enough to sign a copy of his CD for me.

Amongst all this I also managed to fit in a trumpet lesson with Roddy Lewis to reinforce some of the things he’d instructed me in before, and Louise managed to spend her birthday money.

All in all we had a great time and it sounded like the kids had had a great time with their Nanny and Granddad, though I suspect the latter were glad to get back home:)

We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of our close friend Peter Cannon early on Saturday morning. He will be deeply missed by many, many people whose lives were regularly touched by his caring generosity and hard work.

Peter was a very prominent member of the Methodist community in Watford as well as amongst other denominations and faiths through the churches inter-faith partnerships. Peter was a very hard working Circuit Steward overseeing the work of the churches and their ministers in and around Watford, as well as being a trustees of the Scouts based at Trinity and an active leader in the church’s Junior Church.

It has been very upsetting for us as not only was Peter one of the first people we knew when we first arrived in Watford 13 years ago but he was also like a true uncle to Euan and Eva. It’s been hard talking to Euan about his death as it happened all too quickly.

Peter was one of those very few people who never ever had a bad word to say about anyone he will be deeply missed but never forgotten.

If you’re politically inclined and like to know that the MP voted for in your consistuency are doing a good job representing you in Parliament then you can now track them using a RSS feed at They Work For You. Just enter your post code and the site gives you the low-down on your MP; their voting history, their expenses and their contributions to debates.

My MP, Claire Ward, is known for being a “Blair Babe” but I see that she’s prone to the odd rebellion now and again.

Yesterday marked the beginning of One World Week. I encourage you to take a look at their list of 40 promises (PDF) and promise yourself that you’ll do at least one of them.

I used this in the service that I preached (PDF) yesterday at Kings Langley Methodist Church.

Please can ask for your thoughts and/or prayers for a dear friend of ours, Peter Cannon, who has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumour.

He’s currently in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery Hospital in London receiving excellent care and he is in very good spirits.

I’d seen 43things in the past but hadn’t really spent any time checking it out, but as a result of a post by rutty I’ve started to put somethings on their. Whether it will make a difference to what I actually achieve we’ll have to wait and see.

I was chatting to a friend of mine after our brass ensemble rehearsal last week and he was telling me about a new device that he’s recently bought for his home sound system. It’s a Slimdevices Squeezebox (no, it’s not one of these).

You plug this into your hi-fi and, assuming wireless here, you install the slimserver software onto the PC containing your music files and the two will communicate across the wireless network, with the PC streaming audio to the squeezebox.

You can test how it would work in your home environment by installing the slimserver software and then use iTunes or some other media player that allows you to open a stream URL. It worked great at home across our wireless network to my laptop with only the occassional blip which I should be able to resolve by procuring a 100Mb switch to connect the PC and wireless access point together, rather than the 10Mb hub I’ve got at present.

The latest incarnation of the Squeezebox incorporates a RSS feed reader so you can have news, weather, scrolling across the display too if you’re into that sort of thing, personally I’d prefer to keep that to the PC or laptop.

It’s my niece’s 4th birthday today. You can e-mail your birthday greetings to nalini at wileysworld dot org; I’m sure she’d be thrilled (once her dad’s printed them all off!)

We all went up to my brother’s house yesterday to celebrate Nalini’s birthday and had a great time. Eva particularly loved playing with Nalini’s toys as she seems to be surrounded by Euan’s toys at home. Let’s hope Santa brings a dolly and a pushchair.

Oh dear, I’m in bother with my mother over my blogging, or lack thereof!

I hadn’t realised my mum had been eagerly anticipating my next post until she had a go at me yesterday whilst I was sorting my brother’s computer out.

So, just for you mum, here are some new posts…:)