This weekend I drove down to Exeter with Becky and Dave for Roz’s fireworks night and birthday meal. We arrived on Saturday evening just in time for fireworks and sparklers at Damo’s house. More often than not the rockets went over the house so it was difficult to see them. I was a little worried that we would get back to the car to find one of the wooden rods from the rockets imbedded into the bonet of my car.

Roz served us home made parkin and chocolate brownies which were both very nice. I gave Roz some soaps and things from Lush while Becky and Dave gave her the board game Scrabble.

After the fireworks were over we headed into the city centre for dinner at Tyepyedong. I had the chicken yakisoba which was very nice.

Photos are on my gallery.

Was watching tv on Tuesday night and happened to see this sketch from Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball:

YouTube video of the sketch

Very highly amusing, especially when Ms Imbruglia joined in at the end.

Last night Rosie came round to watch the third episode of Torchwood which was being repeated on BBC2.

I created the most amazing cottage pie I have ever made. It really was the best. I used my standard cottage pie recipe but for some reason it just worked better than ever before. It really was the best. I even added diced carrots to the mixture and the mash was all cheesy and crispy on top. Tesco had a special offer on 800g punnets of mince so even after having fed both Rosie and myself I still had enough to freeze that will last me four more meals.

For desert we had Gü Chocolate and Vanilla cheesecakes.

I love cottage pie, hadn’t made it for months.

You may recall that back in August I was involved in a car accident. The third party, a canadian driving a rental car, drove into the back of my car. The back of my car was bent inward and eventually written-off by my insurance company.

My insurance company appointed an uninsured loss recovery company to help me claim back my policy excess. The ULR company contacted the rental company that the third party was using to make a claim. The rental car company contacted my ULR company yesterday to say:

“We do not accept liability for the accident since it was Mr Durrans who drove into the back of our vehicle”

Sounds like someone has got their wires crossed. Especially since it was my vehicle that has the rear damage, not theirs.

Looks like I might not be getting my policy excess back any time soon.