It's been another couple of very busy weeks for me hence the lack of postings. Work is very hectic at the moment. There is a lot to learn in terms of the mechanics of the contract, my team is quite large (22 people and set to rise) and we are entering the budgeting round for next year which means that I am wrestling with lots of spreadsheets. Lots of balls to juggle and not a lot of time to try and turn the site round in terms of performance. Still, it keeps me interested!

Apologies to those people who have e-mailed me who I have not responded to. I now have a Blackberry which is helping me keep on top of my emails much more effectively - if you receive a semi-literate response to an e-mail with no formatting then chances are that I have written to you on my new toy.

I am getting used to the drive to work - it now takes me about an hour to get home rather than an hour and a half. I think I have finally cracked the Sydney road jungle.

Zoe has already posted the highlights of last week. I enjoyed the commedian we saw. The Turkish restaurant was very authentic (the lamb tasted very similar to the lamb I ate in Antalya). Unfortunately we had to rush our main courses as we were running a bit late for the show.

Yesterday we went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant 2 minutes down the road from us. The lobster was absolutely fantastic. I may go back tomorrow and have the crab. All the seafood is cooked from live and brought out in a bag before cooking for your approval. Excellent. We had the lobster with a ginger and shallot sauce. Very tasty.

Today we stayed in and played the new game we have bought: Runebound. Its a bit like Talisman only much better. Zoe adores Talisman and she really likes Runebound. Personally I would rather play backgammon but Runebound is still fun.

On the subject of backgammon I feel I have to reply to Zoe's post. I do not study the game for hours. I don't have the time any more. I am just naturally gifted! OK - I study the game as much as I can but that is a lot less than I used to be able to. At least now some of the study is paying off in results. 10 -2, 10 -2, 10-2, 10-2, 10-2 ,10-2, 10-2 (to be sung repeatedly to Zoe to the tune of Amazing Grace). And I have a 100% win record in our games of Runequest. Not that I'm competitive or anything.

I promised to post some backgammon positions from our time out here - here are a couple of early cube decisions taken from our 19-point match.

The score (after 0 games) is: Zoe 0, Sean 1 (match to 19 points)
Sean (Blue) on roll, cube decision?

Pip counts: Zoe 142, Sean 110

I doubled Zoe took.

The score (after 0 games) is: Zoe 0, Sean 2 (match to 19 points)
Zoe on roll (White), cube decision?

Pip counts: Zoe 119, Sean 151

Zoe doubled I took.

Apologies if you are not interested in backgammon. I can only suggest that you take it up!

Please keep posting comments to the blog and e-mailing Zoe and I. It is really great to hear from you all.

Sean