I’m not going to say what they were of, but it was fairly hard going. It’s a case of ‘learn this’, it’s my job, so I did. Simple as.

Still suffering a bit of a cold, I blame Jamie for that, so had to take a few breaks.

New switch arrived. Replaced in place of old one, works perfect. Can’t find where the hell I got the original one from, so will probably just offer it to Zen and see if they can make use of it.

Hopefully perk up tomorrow.

So this morning started far too early with taking the dog to daycare. Then it started again at about 10AM. DLM hadn’t kicked in on the Zen line and it was still shit, although email was getting through. I decided to do a bit more investigation. I set a netbook up with a Dreytek in the lounge, then chopped the external cable and mounted a master socket and filter through the existing wall cable. Magically it synced at over 7mbps. Okay, so dodgy cable, bad master socket or filter I thought. So reconnected it all back upstairs, back to 4mbps. Changed the master socket and then the filter, still the same. I was about to try the alternate pair in the cable but before that I decided just to power stuff off around it in case it made a difference. Killing the phones and the work PC made no difference. Disconnecting the PABX, again nothing. Then I killed the filter side of the UPS, magically the sync jumped right up. So it was a case of eliminating each plug one at a time. It turned out to be the Netgear 16 port switch. As soon as I disconnected it the sync shot up, as soon as it was connected it lost sync. It apparently has a life time warranty but it’s years old and the receipt has been filed long ago. I’ve ordered a new one off Amazon prime and it will be here tomorrow. That’s goodbye to a hundred quid for the sake of a hardware failure. That’s the second switch that has failed in the past couple of years. Still at least that’s got to the bottom of it, the line is now stable at around 7mbps. I’m sure the margin will increase again to 9db, but it should settle at 6mbps.

The rest of the day I did a bit of systems work I was asked to do. Then finally got round to playing with my new toy. It’s very good.

Started off this morning by calling the doctors as I ran out of pills last week. Managed to get an appointment first thing. I arrived and was subjected to the usual bought of screaming and unruly kids. Thankfully appointment was only ten minutes late. Doctor I think has come to the conclusion that he’ll keep me on a repeat for six months with enough for two months at a time so I’m not tempted to O.D. Then waited about half hour in the chemist while they chatted about what they got up to over the weekend.

Got home, fired up work computer, took meds, got spaced out for a couple of hours. I’m now working on something interesting, actually not working as I spent most of the day downloading docs and SDK’s. I decided to speak to Zen about the falling line stats. after going through all the usual hoops they did a dslam reset which has now buggered it up completely on a 3db margin and syncing at 4mbps. Which is all fine in theory except it’s clocking up about a thousand CRC’s a second. No matter how many times I resynced DLM didn’t want to kick in so now looks shafted. This means I’ll need to run a new master from the incoming cable and test it there to make sure the new wiring isn’t up the swanny, then when it isn’t I need to log a call with Zen who can log a call with OpenReach to go and hit the exchange frame with a large hammer. A real pain in the ass, but needs to be done.

Didn’t venture out today as it rained constantly, so caught up on quite a lot of telly. Trying to get an early night as I’m still getting tired. Taking dog to daycare at 6:30.

Got up very late, to be honest I think it was the last of the jet-lag, as last night was very weird being asleep at eleven and then wide awake again at midnight. No sexual activity this morning, although Jamie did have the most amazing pair of baggy pants on. Went he went downstairs to get breakfast he came back into the bedroom carrying two bowls with them almost round his knees.

Anyway we got up, I had lunch. He buggered off to his anaemic beanpole blue friend’s, still there now, obviously stocked up on tissues. I decided that the dinning room wasn’t going to sand itself and the weather was a bit crap so got on with it. Did about an hour then took a break to walk the dog. Came back and did another few hours. As it’s fairly quiet I put the TV on in the background and caught up with a couple of bits. The coving along the front room wall is now all sanded and so is the arch. I’ve had to add a few bits of filler but one more going over should complete it.

Took the Dyson out to the garage and blasted it out with the compressor. Also washed the filters.

Done three more Tripadvisor reviews, still a lot more to come. Right as it’s a bank holiday I think I’ll have bath and a glass of wine before I have salad and then get ready for the joys of work tomorrow. At least it’s a short week I guess.

So started this morning without peeing every hour, so that’s the diabetes subsided. I had breakfast and fed the dog. I was feeling rather horny so tried to get Jamie in the mood, I would have more sexual feedback from an oven glove. I ended up fapping away to which I was told, “Don’t spooge on the duvet it was only changed yesterday”. So I didn’t, I shot all over a pair of his pants, he probably wouldn’t have minded too much but he was wearing them at the time.

I got up and mowed the back and front gardens and ran the strimmer round. I was going to do a bit more gardening but wasn’t in the mood. Had lunch. Then decided it was about time I got out on one of the bikes, so I pumped the tyres up and took the mountain bike out for a short spin. I visited dad at Woodlands, he didn’t say much, but then again he always hated bank holidays.

Came back and washed the car. Then started on the BBQ. This was a BBQ for three as everyone we had invited had better plans already, and one of those was the dog (that’s one of the three, not the dog having better plans, although she probably did). So I started doing the manly shit and got it all going. It took about an hour to get glowing nicely. I decided this would be a good opportunity to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, so put that on loud in the background. BBQ was nice, good choice of burgers and sausages. We then collapsed on the sofa and watched the scoring then watched the Monaco Grand Prix. For some reason we are now both completely knackered. So I’m going to have a shower and then go to bed I think. See what the weather does tomorrow, but it’s probably back to sanding.

So started off this morning with the alarm going off at 8AM, so we got up at 8:30 and finished off the packing. I had the last of my cereal from what can only be described as a large crisp packet. We finished everything up and had a large pile of rubbish in the corner (which also included two pairs of shoes, more on this later….).

Check out was the usual Japanese breeze and we made it to the Narita express in good time. Hour and a half on the train then into the airport. We used the self service check-in and I paid about £300 for an upgrade to ‘Economy Comfort’, a good decision.

The flight back was considerably more comfortable than the one going, the seats were the same but we had a lot more leg room and they reclined a good sixty degrees. I had a collection of pillows and was pretty comfortable the whole journey. Started with a beer, then had wine, followed by cognac, followed by another two bottles of wine, a beer and a cup of tea. File wise, watched the new Hobbit film (okay, but far far too long), watched Les Mis again (good film but Russell Crowe is still a cock). Then watched another film called ‘Mamma’, which was a bit like ‘The Women in black’, it was a sort of horror, yeah it was okay. Then watched two American comedies, first one can’t remember, second one was about a guy bringing up a baby as his ex-wife was a serial killer, funny stuff.

We then ended up at Schiphol airport. Which as far as airports go it’s one of the better ones to be stuck at for three hours waiting for your transfer. We found an Irish pub and had fish and chips. Oddly we were then late for the gate, but there were others who were later. That journey was uneventful, which isn’t surprising as Amsterdam to Bristol is about seven minutes, I’ve had longer bowel movements.

Got our luggage back without any issues, mother was waiting outside the arrivals. We got in the car and she started driving. I’ve just done way over seven thousand miles in a steel tube five miles in the air with 350 people I probably didn’t like but this was a real thrill a minute. I’d forgotten just how ‘interesting’ my mothers driving is at night, when she doesn’t know where she’s going. Okay, I was half tired having been up for twenty odd hours but travelling down Winterstoke Road I felt that ‘bomb alley’ in Baghdad may have been a safer bet. We made it home, I had aged.

I had a quick shower and then went to bed by about 11PM. It was a very long day, I was glad it was all over and we’d both made it back safely. We were back to shitty normality, Bradley Stoke, Tesco’s, my mysterious job, Jamie’s dull one. Got back into a nice familiar bed, full of dog hair. Still at least we get to pick Sasha up tomorrow, so not all bad.

So it was our last day in Tokyo. We had a lot of finishing off to do and a lot of shopping to catch up on. We started doing the culture thing though and visited another temple. We then dived off on to the train and visited basically about every Anime shop in Tokyo. We grabbed a quick bite at the end of some train line, then hit a few more shops. I bought a couple of extra bits of tat, Jamie bought most of Tokyo.

I must admit I don’t really understand Anime, it’s all strangely drawn characters which cost about 3000 Yen. I bought another Pokemon t-shirt, enough said.

We made it back to the hotel for about 8PM and packed. It’s quite sad really, but I never got through half of my t-shirts, never wore that second pair of shorts or jeans. I had a shower then we headed out for the final weird experience of the holiday. We visited the ‘Capcom’ bar which is at the ass end of Shinjuku. Now one point I will state here, what the fuck is it with Shinjuku, black guys and trying to intimidate people? Sorry not being racist here, but that’s twice now we’ve been approached by black guys giving us shit in this area, I don’t want to be your friend, I don’t want to shake hands with you, I don’t want to buy your drugs or go to your ‘titty bars’, I just want you to fuck off and leave me alone. You are a fucking disgrace and the sooner the Japanese locals can wipe you out of this area the better for them.

Anyway, back at the Capcom bar, which we found sort of tucked away at the coner of a lobby. We entered by almost a secret door and were cheered in. It was a rather strange experience, all the food was themed and most of it tasted pretty good as well. It was yet another experience that was unique to Japan. A great night out and it didn’t really break the bank either.

So what am I going to take back from Japan? Well it isn’t as expensive as it used to be by a long way, compared to London I’d now say it was bloody cheap. I really need to get into J-Pop boy bands, not that I like the music, just in which order I should bang them.

Tokyo I will miss you, for the griminess of Soho, yet the service of Harrods.

So we started off slightly later than planned, but nothing really unusual. So we headed to Tokyo, then got on the shinkansen to Fuji, oddly the Fuji station was in the ass end of nowhere, so we ended up going to the end of the line. Then we turned round nd came back. So basically we spent two hours going nowhere. I did ask about a train to view Fuji better and it was like four hours.

So basically we spent the day (and over a hundred quid) going absolutely nowhere.

Still, we got out the hotel. Everyone is very sleepy, Jamie has yet another cold. I had a bath. I fell asleep in it twice. We went out to dinner and ate in a Korean place, although we had no idea of that at the time. The food was very nice and made a nice change. We then walked through the gay district again, sorry but it was just way too sleezy, we made it back to our bar. Drank beer. The guy there is as gay as fuck anyway.

So tomorrow is our last day, I’m sure we’ll make the most of it. It’s been fun.