Easy Money

Craig's shiny new driving licence arrived yesterday along with his insurance documents. The fools know not what they have done by letting him loose on the roads.

I spent most of the day swatting up on PHP, mainly rereading the exam answers with the occasional visit to PHP.net. Our next door neighbours absconded with Phoebe and Freya later on in the morning, and dragged them off to the beach. Rhiannon disappeared off with her friend Georgia and was absent for most of the day. This left Imogen on her own. Di took her off to the beach allegedly to meet up with the littluns, but failed to find them. Apparently the surf was rather good, and the only problem was the small fin protruding out of the surf. It wasn't a very big one, maybe the shark was a metre long, but it was enough to cause a minor but prompt shore bound exodus.

I was texted at 6:30 demanding I pick Madam up at 7:30. She might hate me, but I have uses, apparently. Later I pounded my way into and round the Mount, returning home just as it was getting dark and it was starting to spit with rain. I cooled down sitting outside drinking iced water in the rain watching the stars appear.

Today, lazy bones that I am, it was nearly 10 by the time I was rudely awakened by the plonking of a cup of rosie next to my slumbering head. Di took the kids into the Mount and fed them Burger King. Rhiannon arrived back a couple of hours later on her own. Apparently there had been some sort of disagreement which resulted in her parting company with the rest. Maybe it was Freya finding $10 on the floor and buying everyone ice creams.

By this time I'd completed mock exam no. 5, passing everything with flying colours except for the "design" section, which I tanked. Again. I'm far from convinced that the questions are accurate - there are at least two that are plain wrong, some of the others are more opinion than fact and when you factor in some of the really criminal spelling (not just American spelling either) it makes you wonder how rigorous the whole exercise really is. The exam was rudely interrupted by boy wonder discovering his 'onda had an alarm, which he proceeded to set and reset at 30 second intervals until I asked him where the stupid noise was coming from. He denied all knowledge, but strangely it stopped thereafter.

When the rest of the tribe turned up again, they immediately wandered off to the beach and made use of the decent surf. Apparently although the waves were great, there was a lot of detritus in the water, looking like the remnants of a storm was washing ashore. This was a stark (shark?) contrast to yesterday, when the water was crystal clear and fish could be seen swimming around and jumping out of the water. This was probably what attracted the shark. I'd had enough by this point and packed it in in favour of a little guitar practice. VillaLobos' Prelude No. 1 is the piece I am now forcing my way through. I have just about figured out the first section before the change to E major. It's not as horrendous as I'd thought.

Di had decided she and Vicky were going to the hot pools, but Vicky seemed to be incommunicado, so I went instead. We soaked for over an hour, and on the way back stopped off at Latitude 37 for a beer before heading home.