Oh it's been a jolly fun week.

Last Saturday, possibly a little worse for ware after sampling Oswestry's finest brews the previous night, I decided to have seven days free of all the nasty, horrible things that so-called experts warn you against on a daily basis.

First on the list would be alcohol. I've been rather fond of a pint ever since I discovered the pub, a year or so before I legally should have.

I'm not saying I drink too much - but I certainly felt it would do my insides good to give them a time away from any booze.

I then added chocolate, crisps, cakes and biscuits to the list - all things I eat a little bit too much of.

What can I say? Maybe I have a sweet tooth.

Currently I'm on day six and while I thought I would be gagging for a pint of London Pride, a bag of cheese and onion and a Yorkie, I actually feel fine.

Fantastic even.

I have more energy - I'm certainly happier - have been sleeping better and heck, I'm hoping to hop on the scales tomorrow and see some kind of loss.

I'm even going to the gym on Sunday morning. Yep. Sunday. Morning.

So you can forget your bugers, chips, chocolate hob nobs and McCoys, because I'm feeling rather smug and happy with my tangerine thank you.

Or at least until Saturday night.

I've just been to the bookies where I spotted a horse at astronmical odds of 500/1.

Noticing that it had finished 344 in the last three runs it's had, I decided a 50p e/w bet would be fitting.

Upon returning to the office, I have now realised that in those three races the amount of runners were 344.

And in all the races my horse's offical distance behind it's nearest rival was 'dist' - or distance. Meaning 30 lengths or more.

I still held out hope though - it once finished 10th out of 11 runners! Until that is I realised the only horse that finished behind it was left stuck in the stalls.

I'll let you know if I'm rich later, but don't bank on it.

Last Friday I visited a lovely lady in Llandrindod Wells called Suzanne Vane, who regressed me to a past life for a future article in the paper.

It was amazing. Without spoling the feature I will be writing about it, I will say that I would go again, and I will never doubt anything like this again.

Whereas I was aware of my surroundings, my brain was working overtime in another life. It was brilliant.

***

Wrexham finally got a win on Saturday. While I didn't go, I have been assured that it was a major improvement on any other performance this season.

About bloody time really, Brian Carey is not impressing me thus far - he seems tactically inept and I question whether he has the respect of the dressing room.

Two games in four days follow now, and two wins there would boost us to a mid-table position. Come on BC, prove me wrong.

***

Me and Gav nearly died coming to work last week. A white van man who looked about 90 was driving on the other side of the road and overtook on a blind bend, missing us by inches.

When will the idiots who drive on the A483 realise that it is an extremely dangerous road with very few safe overtaking points?

We seem to report on a road death almost every week at the CT, with the vast majority of these happening on the A483. When will people learn?

***

County Times columnist Big Mouth had a rant about tractors clogging up our roads last week at www.countytimes.co.uk

Big Mouth's dead right. Every day when I come in and go home from work I end up stuck behind some kind of agricultural vehicle doing about 25 miles per hour.

The Highway Code states: "145: Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass."

So why do hardly any of these tractor drivers ever pull in? They seem to think it's great fun to go out at 8.30am am and 4.55pm and drive the entire way between Welshpool and Newtown just to p*** workers off.

They should be banned from all public roads between 8am and 8pm.

***

I am not a fan of Frankie Dettori. But I'm even less of a fan of Jamie Spencer.

That's why I piled on Ramonti in the QEII stakes on Saturday and was handsomely rewarded when he romped it at 5/1. Thank you, Lanfranco.

Mr Spencer, as always, decided to ride from the back, leaving Excellent Art with way too much to do on soft ground. It was just like the old days, costing himself and Ballydoyle another Group 1 success.

***

Babyshambles new album is out today! Can't wait to get it.

One night in and I'm already realising how hard it can be to look after a baby on your own. Especially one that seemed to crave her mum all night.

Looking after Sky for the first evening on my own since Sarah went back to work was meant to be great fun. It was actually bloody hard work.

Never did I think the evening would end up with me lying on the floor, uncomfortable, but too scared to move in case I woke her up. I was even too far from the remote and had to watch Eastenders and Coronation Street, which Sarah 'kindly' keyed into the planner for me.

I'm not saying it was all bad, we had some great fun - she even broke my mobile phone - but it was hard. Still, she will get used to her new routine, I'm sure, and things will improve.

Something else to get me thinking this week has been the erection by Powys County Council of those bright yellow THINK BIKE signs up and down the A483.

Surely they should read BIKERS: THINK. They are the most inconsiderate, reckless group of road users I have ever witnessed (well, except tractor drivers, but I'll get to them in a seperate blog later this week).

I'm sure  there are motorcyclists who drive safely and treat other road users with respect - just not in Mid Wales.

Earlier this week Gavin, Mark and I ventured down to the local bookmakers to have a wacky wager on the mid-week Carling Cup matches.

While I opted for a small bet on Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Peterborough and Doncaster (god knows why, they all lost), Mark and Gav decided to go through the entire card of matches.

They were both quoted odds of around 1,000,000 - 1, and on the way home from work me and Gav were talking about what we would do if we won a massive amount of cash.

Oh wouldn't it be lovely.

Gavin decided he would start an amatuer football club and build the Grosvenor Arena, while I decided I would erect a wrestlnig ring in a new custom-built mansion. Now that would be fun.

I'd also buy a racehorse and name it something cool. I really like horses names that are numerous words together but without a space.

Like Youresothrilling and Henrythenavigator. Quality names.

But unsurprisingly, neither of my colleagues won the million, so we're back to reality.

I'm going to start aweekend football tips column now anyway to go along with my daily horse tip, which will be published on a Thursday evening/Friday, so look out for it and fill your boots!

I'm feeling quite excited at the moment, as Sarah goes back to work next week having finished her six-months maternity leave.

That's not the reason I'm exited you see, as she'll be working evenings and I will see far less of her than I do now, but it does mean that I will have plenty of daddy and daughter time. I can't wait!

The plan at the moment will see me arriving home from work at 5.30pm and taking on my fatherly duties instantly until 10pm, when Sarah finishes.

I can't wait to spend more and more time with Sky, as although I do get the odd hour here and there with her when Sarah has driving lessons, I never have much one-to-one time.

I think we already share quite a bond though, probably because she knows I let her misbehave (can she actually do that at six months?!) a bit more than her mum.

I've lost count of the amount of times she has slapped Sarah, maybe even pulled her hair, and has then turned to me and given me a little cheeky grin. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help but laugh.

She also likes watching the football with me. She laughs away as I scream at the television and bite my nails to Ceefax. She even screamed with laughter when I sung Hot Shot Tottenham at her once.

The bad thing is, however, I think she's a Middlesbrough fan.

Twice I have been watching Goals on Sunday, and twice she has mysteriously just sat up and watched when Boro have been on. I don't know where she gets it from.

Confirming my suspicions, she tried ripping my Sunderland shirt and eating a figure of Yakubu. Wierd.

So come this time next week, it will be just me and Sky for nights of football, singing and sadly, nappies.

I can't wait.

I've had a terrible couple of days.

It all started on Sunday when I was awoken by a smash of glass and shouting at 6am. Cetain that my house was being broken into, I leapt out of bed in a fit of rage, armed with a knife.

Looking out of a window that overlooks the kitchen, I thought I would be able to see what was going on, before tackling them, but to my anger, saw next door's little lad smashing glasses and throwing boxes and bags of rubbish around their garden.

He's about 10. Why on earth was he out at that time? Let alone wrestling with the rubbish.

I'm the kind of person who struggles to get back to sleep anyway, let alone after something like that, so I got up.

Thinking I would take advantage of the early start, I headed to the supermarket, where I planned on being in and out before anybody else was even awake.

Of course, I didn't even think that the shop opens at 10am on a Sunday, not the usual 8am.

All was well again in the Morris household, until I noticed water running down the kitchen wall. Pretendning I hadn't noticed it, I went to bed.

Waking up this morning, I was again left deflated by the sight of puddles on my kitchen floor. The wall was soaked. The door was swollen. I was fuming.

Kissing the girls goodbye, I left them with an instruction to get the plumber in, but having been at the office no longer than an hour, I received a call to say the sitaution had worsened and the microwave was exploding.

So I rushed back to check it out, but the plumber had beaten me to it, and told me that the pipes had gone and the timber had been soaked for ages, with it now deciding to come through.

Calming down now that the experts were in, I went to get a glass of milk, only to discover the plug sockets were fizzing and bubbling. Realising that that is never a good thing, the electrician was next on our list.

As he took the front of the plug socket off water gushed out of it. I'm sure that is not meant to happen. I'm vey sure that is very dangerous.

I believe there's teams of men working in my house right now to put it back to how it should be.

I hope they're done by 5.35pm. I can't miss Neighbours.

It's back to work again this morning after a weekend in Manchester, where I went to see the Arctic Monkeys play at Lancashire County Cricket Ground.

The Arctics were good. Brilliant if I'm honest. They ripped through almost every song they've ever released, bursting with energy. Al even looked like he was enjoying it, telling the crowd: "It's a good idea this, in't it."

But while the AM's were brilliant, the organisers need a good kick up the backside before they ever host a concert of this scale again. The organisation was the pits.

80,000 people and no transport from the city centre to the cricket ground (a 40-minute walk, and only about four taxis willing to take gig-goers back and forth), made a lot of people angry.

But it was nothing compared to what was waiting for them.

There was only three counters selling beer. Frothy, over-priced beer.

80,000 people. Three beer windows. That's about one for every 27,000 people. I queued for two hours and missed Amy Winehouse completely.

After that there were 60-minute lines for the loos, similar ones for over-priced, soggy food, and the sound system was shocking.

As Turner and Co began playing Balaclava, the PA system cut out, meaning we couldn't hear them. Sadly, they could here their feedback speakers, and didn't realise, leaving half the crowd chanting 'You're not singing anymore'.

What hacked me off most though was the amount of people who were only there to get off their heads on coke and booze and start fights (no doubt further encouraged by the queues), of which there were plenty. Never have the lines 'Just 'cos he's had a couple of cans, he thinks it's alright to act like a dickhead' been so apt.

It really ruined what was otherwise a top-class effort from Sheffield's finest.

After the gig, we spilled onto the streets, only to be informed by members of the Greater Manchester Constabulary that there was no public transport back to the city centre.

21st century Britain is brilliant isn't it. That a city the size of Mancland can't put on a few shuttle bus services takes the Michael out of every tax payer thast was there.

When we finally managed to get into the thick of things (via something called a Disco Bus, which really needs to be investigated by health and safety, but more of that in another blog) we ended up in Manchester's finest nightclub, 42nd Street. That place cheered me up no end, playing tunes by The Libertines, Klaxons, Reverand and The Makers, and some golden oldies too.

But my smile lasted no longer than a couple of hours, as some girl took a look at my wristband from the gig and accused me of being electonically tagged.

And sneaking in my own cans of beer.

They were on sale at the bar you dozey cow.

On second thoughts, I don't think I'll go back for a while. It's not good for the blood pressure.