A football-less weekend (more or less)

We haven't seen any "live" football this weekend!

Belper Town were away at Clitheroe in the FA Trophy. They drew 1-1 by the way - with a perfectly good goal disallowed and two certain penalties denied according to reports. (Link to Belper Town website on the right - you know the drill by now!)

We decided a 150 mile round trip was a bit much on a cold, windy afternoon and so stayed at home. In any case, we had some "family stuff" to sort out and it seemed the perfect opportunity to do that.

With the first team not an option, we'd normally go to see the Reserve side but decided we could give that a miss for once. They won 8 - 0 and could have scored 20 apparently! (Pictures from both games can be found on the Belper Forum - link to the Belper Town website - click on Forum etc etc.)

On Sunday - the winds had calmed and so I decided to get the back garden grass cut for, hopefully, the last time this season. After a good 3.1/2 hours (including a change of blade on the lawnmower), I got the camera out (withdrawal symptons were setting in - I hadn't snapped anything in nearly a week!) and took some pics of the flowers. It's October and we still have roses in bloom!

(but some bad "blackspot on the one above!!)

And the hydrangeas (The Duchess's pride and joy!) are colourful and full of flower.

The final "act" in the garden was to set the squirrel trap again and yes, we managed to catch another one of the little varmints this morning so a run out to Ringinglow was called for this evening after we'd eaten. The Duchess has seen at least 2 more in the trees at the end of the garden so I'll be setting the trap again in the not too distant future.

Nothing much else to add - work carries on as work does - a glimmer of hope that the order load might be improving is rapidly followed by a kick in the wotsits when you realise it isn't - well - not as dramatically as when the backside fell out of it about 12 months ago. But we struggle on and try to get through this year with the hatches battened as tightly as possible.

In the next few weeks, I have to do my 2010 Sales Forecast. All of our budgets and profit margin projections are generally based on this document and it is never an easy exercise to undertake. This year I reckon it's going to be tougher than ever. There's always a certain amount of guesswork involved but with the current instability - I think I'll be basing most of my assumptions on the toss of a coin (which I honestly believe is the practice adopted by those two lame-brains at 10 and 11 Downing Street anyway.)

Tomorrow is the FA Trophy replay - at Belper this time of course. Don't know yet if I'm going. The Duchess has a Junior Football Meeting and it all probably depends on whether my mate Joey Winson wants to go. If Joey would like to go - I'll take him but I don't know if I can be arsed to go on my own..... besides - the weather forecast isn't great. Another consideration of course is that cup games aren't covered by my season ticket so I'd have to pay to get in!!!

We'll see