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I’m fascinated by pirates. I love pirate movies (yes I enjoyed all of the Pirates of the Caribbean - sad but true), I also loved the Disney ride “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

The latest news that an oil tanker holding about US$100M of oil has been captured off the coast of Somalia had me reading all about modern day pirates and their hijacking exploits.

Turns out it’s really common, there are almost 100 yachts and cargo ships, currently under pirate control in this area, undergoing ransom negotiations. The political unrest in Somalia means there is no real government to step in. These pirates are living a lavish life of wine, women and song on their profits too.

I do find it strange that the US military isn’t making a move to help out this tanker. It is a private ship, but it was headed to the US with it’s oil, you’d think they’d been keen to get hold of that eh?

The romantic idea isn’t making me want a change in career though…

The wife points out that as long as I’m missing some of my hearing, the exclamation “what?!?” should not be used to indicate surprise.  “My goodness gracious” or “oh my” will cause less confusion.

Although I suppose, I could substitute “why yes please, I’ll have a glass of wine” for either of those two phrases as well…

When friends drop by there are two things you can do. 1) Lock the doors or 2) let them in. I might have foolishly taken the wrong action when I let them in. Before we went to France Brad and Wolf graced us with their presence. It was a short but “entertaining” visit. I rented a car for a long weekend and we went places. As you know (or can see) neither Wolf nor Brad are light weights… until it comes to a few pints! I wanted to rent the smallest car I could (something like a Ford Ka) to travel around in just to see how “comfortable” an affordable economical car can be. I didn’t succumb to temptation though, so we were travelling in relative luxury in our Vauxhaul Vectra (Holden Vectra if you are from Australia and an Opel Vectra if you are from the rest of Europe).

So taking the fellas around we found some pubs…

We also found some sheep.  Wolf+Sheep = ??? photo of course!

 (he’s taking a photo with his iphone…)

More photos of entertaining things like pubs and the Royal Berkshire Show can be found here

The photo on our patio is of us having the beer that made them miss their train to Amsterdam.  Good times…

Bath is most commonly known as the site of the 2000 year old Roman baths.  There are also shops.  More than we get in Oxford.  So for Kate’s 28th birthday we headed to Bath for shops, food and of course a bath!  The thermal springs are tapped and fed into several baths for your pleasure.  My favourite was a roof-top “bath” which had views over Bath the town and the surrounding countryside.  It was a lovely place to sit back and relax in your toga.  Well, I didn’t have a toga, I would have worn one if I did have one though.  BTW bathing suits are mandatory, so no sitting around in your birthday suit, even if it is your birthday!

Kate also found a shop called “Long Tall Sally”.  Funnily enough, many of the clothes in this shop fitted her.  And so she shopped… and shopped… and shopped!  That’s what your birthday is about though isn’t it?  Doing what ever you feel like…

Bath is lovely.  I think we’ll head back, for the baths if nothing else!

some photos here

We headed up to York for a weekend.  The weather wasn’t too bad, so we went fossil hunting.  We found several thanks to Roger’s knowledge of where to look for them.  I’ve still not seen the inside of the Minster (supposedly England’s biggest and best church) but I like to leave something to do next time we are up there.  We did head to Whitby, a classic sea-side town.  We were right in time for a Goth festival!  Wow, those guys and gals know how to dress…

A few photos can be found here

So, in some personal news, I’ve just recently recovered from a pretty long cold.  I can’t recall ever having a cold linger that long before (a couple of weeks).  The lingering cold caused an ear infection which caused my eardrum to burst.

Ouch.

Apparently, there’s nothing grave about this — its not too uncommon for this to happen.  But the practical upshot is that I’m without hearing in one ear for a number of weeks.

I gotta tell you, its weird.  I have so much more respect for my hearing and I think I’ll really be thinking long and hard about iPods and other personal music players.  My sense of direction as far as sound is seriously compromised — its harder to tell where things are.  And conversations are really hard to follow with any background noise whatsoever.  I can definitely imagine that a conversation over a couple of beers in a bar would be similarly affected.

So, for the time being, if I seem to be ignoring you, I’m probably not.

Kalea Lydia Kelso was born shortly after noon on November 8th. After almost 24 hours of labor they had to go to C section, but both now are very heathy and happy. She’s 6lbs 14oz’s and 20 1/4 inches.

2D stay away from her.

Happy Birthday Kate!!

Kate is 28 - say it out loud, it rhymes!