(Out for a) duck

WREN, as her name suggests, loves birds. So at the weekend we drove down to the Slimbridge Wildlife Park in Gloucestershire to see what they had to offer (no Alan Partridge jokes please, Withers).
It was all good fun with plenty of swans, ducks, geese, cranes and even pink flamingoes to admire. There was even an exhibition of frogs - and grabbing particular attention was the aptly named Mr Custard, a huge yellow amphibian that we both thought was a plastic toy until we got close up. Eeew! Guess he was some kind of albino frog or something.
At the end of our little day out Wren decided to buy a fluffy toy cygnet from the gift shop. Quite a cute little thing, even if I say so myself. Then we had to come up with a name.
Well, she's already got a fluffy owl at home called Owzat! so I thought we should keep up the cricketing theme. Then it struck me... of course!
The cygnet is now called Graham after the Nottinghamshire spin bowler who has played a handful of games for England: Graham Swan.
On Saturday we met with Wren's auntie, who had come all the way from Canada, and her husband Roger and had an enjoyable, but rather pricey, meal at our future wedding venue The Avon Gorge Hotel in Bristol. It was a beautiful day - hope its the same conditions come next May. Later that day we went to the Bristol Harbourside festival but, typically, the drunks were out in style by the time we got there and the seething mass of humanity was a bit too much to bare... even for the firework display (which I don't give a monkeys for, anyway).
Winding our way home we looked for the old Bristol nightclub I used to frequent - The Dug Out - but failed to recall where it used to be. Instead we popped into the White Hart for a quick drink before going home via the curry house.

On Friday we had to say goodbye to Bad Manners. She has been a great colleague, a hard worker and forever reliable. It's a crying shame that she has to go but her contract to cover for Captain Mainwaring's maternity leave is up and that's that. Still, hopefully we will send her off in good style at a leaving do this Friday.

Have you ever been attacked by your kitchen? Happened to me the other day. Admittedly I was extremely hungover, but I just kept dropping things, or banging my head on cupboard doors and the like.
It all came to a conclusion when I reached to get something out of the cupboard, a plastic container fell out, landed on a plate that then catapulted a fork towards my stockinged feet. Jumping quickly to prevent serious injury I forgot to let go of the cupboard door and pulled it out of its socket. It took some explaining to Scooby the landlord, I can tell you!
Reminded me of that old board game Mousetrap, where a chain reaction ended up trapping a plastic rodent in an oversized washing-up basket.