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The night before I usually dream of playing football. I take marks, kick the ball and play awesomely. It is great visualisation stuff and I always wake early and raring to go.

The time before I leave the house is taken up with collecting my gear, double checking I have everything in my bag and making sure I leave on time. I am always early. Today I arrived 3rd to the ground, taking Miranda with me. Its cold and there is a chilly wind blowing, though the sunshine is warm. I feel old, cold and very fragile at this point. Doubts swirl in my head about my ability to perform.

I get a ball into my hand and go and kick a few shots – barefoot. I make all but one of them so feel very happy about my ability to kick goals, though I probably will play in the back line.

Tune out if you don’t understand the title.

BTUB last night was lots of fun – catching up with many old friends and making new ones.

One of the special moments of the night was the latin dancing fever free lessons. @websinthe decided to dance his own special style – turned into a animated gif here at the request of many!

I took a bunch of photos – mostly of BTUB folk – but also a fair number of the latin dancing lessons. Some of the regular party goers got in front of the lens as well.

I have included a couple of the funniest / best/ weirdest photos below and the rest can be found on my flickr account.

BTUB photos

Latin Dancing Photos

I have been having some trouble with comment spam lately. We use Mollom, a great ser vice that works well with Drupal and stops most spam. However some spammers are getting more clever – and at the same time very stupid. They are putting more realistic comments in and getting past the text analysis – but as there are  no links allowed they are kind of stupid. The comment doesn't gain them anything – just fills my comments with rubbish.

So now all anonymous comments require approval – and I can bulk delete the time wasters spam. If you have a legitimate comment to make – and you are encouraged to do so – either log in to make it, or realise that it will go into my approval queue for checking.

So to all my legitimate readers and commenters – thanks for participating. And to all the spammers  go away – there's nothing for you here!

Thanks for reading.

We have had a number of deaths in our house lately.

First the assisted death of our pet dog Raz Soondari. She was 10 years old, suffering complications from a dislocated hip and also a thyroid problem with an associated skin condition. Her hip had re dislocated and we were looking at expensive surgery and the need for her to be confined afterward. She went away with our vet friend Audrey last week and went to sleep peacefully.

The same day we had to euthanise one of the longest living pet mice – suspected tumours and growths were making her very fat and she wasn’t eating. Gold was Erin’s mouse.

Today one of Miranda’s snakes King died. We are not sure why, but he was a very fussy eater and that may have contributed to his demise.

And finally today also our last central netted dragon Sleepy died. He was a dragon that had some birth defects, and couldn’t keep sand out of his eyes properly. He actually lived a very long life for a CND, lasting around 4 years. they live for 2-3 in the wild.

The kids have been upset by the deaths as can be expected, but we also hope that this will assist them to learn and understand the cycle of life, the grieving process and how to deal with loss.