I HAVE had a hectic couple of weeks since returning to the office from holiday. It's always quite tough to get back into it but I have found it particularly hard this time - and I don't know the reason!
I have been quite tired but that is usual. I have had a couple of busy weekends in between with wedding list shopping, seeing old friends, a 25th birthday party etc - so I think it is just the recovery time from these that make the working week harder.
Last week, my normal working day was disrupted by meetings, courses and plumbers. On Wednesday I attended a meeting about our successful Crawley Business Awards and how we can move it forward (watch this space) and in the afternoon I attended the launch of the Crawley Green Business Awards. It was a good event and both times I got free food. Result!
Thursday I had to remortgage the house to pay the plumber and then on Friday (after a late night taking my parents to Gatwick Airport) I had to drive myself and Karen to Portsmouth for a law refresher.
But now I am back in the office and hopefully I am going to have a normal week - oh, there is Business Matters to do - scrap the idea of a normal week then!!

I HAVE been on holiday for a week where I had my best cricketing weekend of the season, saw my beautiful niece, decorated the kitchen and saw other family members.
But the craziest time of all was the weekend just gone where I was at the Goodwood Revival Festival.
I have never attended this event before and I was their supporting a sister newspaper - doing personalised front pages for them.
On the Saturday, the lovely Mandi assisted me taken the photos and names of people. We did about 60 and we thought that was busy. But yesterday (Sunday) I had to do it by myself and at the final count, we did approximately 130 front pages! It was intense to say the least.
I had to jump up, take a photo, take the names down, then upload the photos, layout the frontpage then print it. All I can say is that the time passed VERY quickly.
There was the odd diifficult customer - especially a certain European family. First of all the mum had her sunglasses on, then she realised she didn't want them on. Then in the second picture, she had her eyes closed.
Then one of the kids were not xmiling. I had to take the hpto three diferent times. The dad of the family said to me in slightly broken English: "Are you married?" I said: "No, but I am getting married next year." He replied: "Don't do it!" And I could see what he meant!
It was amazing though the amount of people who took the event very seriously. You are supposed to dress up in 1930s-1960s gear and the majority of people did. It was pleasure taking pictures of everyone - but next time, I would prefer to have less dead foxes staring at me from around ladies' necks!

SO, here I am back at my desk after a lovely week off. And once again I managed to pick the right week.
After a summer of rain, I, just like last year, picked the first real week of hot weather for my holiday - and it was great.
After playing cricket on the Saturday, myself and the lovely Mandi had acouple of days relaxing in the garden and pottering around Crawley. Then we went down to Brighton to look for wedding rings and chill on the pier and beach. Having freshly shaved my head with a number one, I needed to keep drenching it in suntan lotion - yes, it was that hot!
Then after another day of relaxing, we went to London to mark the anniversary of when we met.
I booked a hotel room for the night and we took in some sights, went up the London Eye and saw Billy Elliot - The Musical.
Mandi is a musical nut and her obsession is slowly rubbing off on me. I had never seen the film Billy Elliot so did not really know what to expect.
But I really enjoyed it and came out humming the tunes. It was funny though because the theatre was filled with Americans and Canadians and myself and Mandi found ourselves the only ones laughing at Wayne Sleep jokes!
We then headed back to Crawley on Friday before travelling to Eastbourne for cricket again on Saturday (after two draws, we are still top of the East Sussex League division four).
Then on Sunday, we invited both parents out for lunch to discuss all things weddings and here I am now writing for you lot!
It was hard work getting up this morning but now I am raring to go, well I have to be because Karen is off for two weeks!! I will be lonely on the subs desk.

THE time has finally come, my first week of holiday since the beginning of April, and I can't wait.
Although I haven't really got anything planned, I am looking forward to it.
Tow days are planned though.It's the anniversary of when my missus and I met so I am taking her for a night out in London. May take in a show, go up the London Eye etc. So that will be fun.
Otherwise it will be very relaxing - especially now we have a new bed - which is simply the most comfortable thing I have ever slept on.
Anyway, recently at work has been verybusy but very fun. We have started getting a few videos on the website and I had my first crack at filming football.
It was fun but difficult. It's all about anticipation and I now have all the respect in the world for our snappers.
But what you can't hear on the little highlights package I put together for Three Bridges v Crawley Town game was my fiancee Mandi's attempt at commentary (the bumblebees v the smurfs anyone??!). Bless her!
We are really embracing the video side of things now and I hope you all keep logging on to see them. At the moment, the football highlights and Dominic the Human Beat Box are very popular.
But as I come to the end of my final week before the holidays, I am hoping to get things all tied up so I can fully relax on my holiday. Although I have a lovely trip to Portsmouth to look forward to tomorrow to tackle a new system. Lovely stuff. Speak to you after my holidays.

THE time has finally come, my first week of holiday since the beginning of April, and I can't wait.
Although I haven't really got anything planned, I am looking forward to it.
Tow days are planned though.It's the anniversary of when my missus and I met so I am taking her for a night out in London. May take in a show, go up the London Eye etc. So that will be fun.
Otherwise it will be very relaxing - especially now we have a new bed - which is simply the most comfortable thing I have ever slept on.
Anyway, recently at work has been verybusy but very fun. We have started getting a few videos on the website and I had my first crack at filming football.
It was fun but difficult. It's all about anticipation and I now have all the respect in the world for our snappers.
But what you can't hear on the little highlights package I put together for Three Bridges v Crawley Town game was my fiancee Mandi's attempt at commentary (the bumblebees v the smurfs anyone??!). Bless her!
We are really embracing the video side of things now and I hope you all keep logging on to see them. At the moment, the football highlights and Dominic the Human Beat Box are very popular.
But as I come to the end of my final week before the holidays, I am hoping to get things all tied up so I can fully relax on my holiday. Although I have a lovely trip to Portsmouth to look forward to tomorrow to tackle a new system. Lovely stuff. Speak to you after my holidays.

THE time has finally come, my first week of holiday since the beginning of April, and I can't wait.
Although I haven't really got anything planned, I am looking forward to it.
Tow days are planned though.It's the anniversary of when my missus and I met so I am taking her for a night out in London. May take in a show, go up the London Eye etc. So that will be fun.
Otherwise it will be very relaxing - especially now we have a new bed - which is simply the most comfortable thing I have ever slept on.
Anyway, recently at work has been verybusy but very fun. We have started getting a few videos on the website and I had my first crack at filming football.
It was fun but difficult. It's all about anticipation and I now have all the respect in the world for our snappers.
But what you can't hear on the little highlights package I put together for Three Bridges v Crawley Town game was my fiancee Mandi's attempt at commentary (the bumblebees v the smurfs anyone??!). Bless her!
We are really embracing the video side of things now and I hope you all keep logging on to see them. At the moment, the football highlights and Dominic the Human Beat Box are very popular.
But as I come to the end of my final week before the holidays, I am hoping to get things all tied up so I can fully relax on my holiday. Although I have a lovely trip to Portsmouth to look forward to tomorrow to tackle a new system. Lovely stuff. Speak to you after my holidays.

SO, have you seen our videos yet?!
I think it is a great achievement from everyone at the Observer to get such great quality videos on the net.
Everyone has taken to filming so well and Karen and myself have become the Thelma Schoonmakers of Obby Towers.
The Paul Ince interview has been a big hit but if you want to check out what Tulley's Farm's maze looks like from the air, or see an eyewitness' account of another Metrobus crash in Northgate, or even why all the postmen were on strike again on Friday, visit www.crawleyobserver.co.uk and look at the videos.
It has been a huge learning curve for myself and I honestly thought I would never have to use maths again when I left school but it certainly came in handy when I was editing the other day - well, Karen actually did most of the maths!!
So hopefully as the weeks go on, the more efficient we will get and more and more videos will appear on the site.
Otherwise, it was a hectic seven days last week and it culminated with the first ever Crawley Business Awards.
It was a great event and it was interesting to hear about Tom Avery's expeditions to the North and South Poles. And there were some very cute pictures of huskys too!
But it got even better on Saturday when I was involved in one of the best victories I have ever played in at cricket - and it was certainly the best victory I have had as skipper.
Playing Ditchling, we were 125-9 when Giles Adams, batting number 11, came in and smashed 61no from 47 balls to take us to 205. Then we bowled them out for just 120 with Giles taking five wickets and yours truly pitching in with the final wicket.
It was a great victory and one that saw us leap to a 17-point lead at the top of the table. Seaford away this week. That should be nice!

SO here I am stuck in a hotel room in Northampton (not Norwich). I am on a course learning about the internet etc but unfortunately I am now chilling out in my soulless room, writing a blog. I may have a go at taking apart my Corby trouser press later, but don't worry, the TV controls don't cofuse me!
I am learning about developing our internet site and it has come at the perfect time really because we have just started putting video onto our website.
Our first effort went up yesterday (you can see it by clicking here) and you can see Ed 'One Take' Sexton in action.
Our slideshows are also looking very good thanks to Karen. She has put together two great slideshows of Furngate Sixes and the Folk Festival.
It was a tough start to the week having to put our great supplement for the Furngate Sixes together. Then we had to edit the video for the net and nolow I am in Northampton. I have met a couple of nice people though and am looking forward to nice meal and a couple of drinks later before tackling the M25 tomorrow afternoon.