Looking back on it, it was quite a successful weekend, although it started a little badly. Being the wrong side of 45, I now wake up early every day. Lie-ins may not be a thing of the past, but if I wake up after 7:00am, I consider that I�ve slept late. So, on getting up early on Saturday morning, I turned on my PC for my (now seemingly almost hourly) UNRV fix, and Internet Explorer 8 informed me that it was unable to make contact with the site. A quick sanity check confirmed I had spelled U � N � R � V correctly, and a second check didn�t change that fact. An experimental viewing of the BBC website proved my broadband link was up and running, so the fault must lie with UNRV. How unfortunate I was that one of UNRV�s genial hosts was up and around, and logged into Facebook. Unfortunate, because, following a quick Facebook message, I discovered to my embarrassment that it was working perfectly.

However, all went well thereafter. Not of any interest to UNRV forum members is that my hawthorn hedge has now been stripped of its summer growth and is a uniform 1.8m high along its length, and that Mrs OfClayton refused to let me climb to the top of my Eucalyptus tree to trim it back, probably saving my life in the process. Of slightly more interest is that I won three Marcus Didius Falco audiobooks on eBay:

� Shadows in Bronze

� Venus in Copper

� The Iron Hand of Mars

I have decided to launch myself into Marcus Didius Falco. Sadly, I was outbid on the first one, �The Silver pigs�, so I downloaded it from the iTunes store for a princely �7.99.

My next (and slightly connected) success came on Sunday. I need to set the scene, though. A few weeks ago, my previous car had to be consigned to Auto Elysium (which translates from Latin to English as "webuyanycar.com"). Basically, it had become such a wreck that the mechanic at my local garage refused to work on it any more, (and he stood to benefit financially from me keeping it). So, now that he's no longer able to drive, my Dad sold me his Honda Civic. To my horror, I discovered that it had no CD player in it! Just a cassette payer. How was I going to play all those lovely Marcus Didius Falco audiobooks now? Worse, do you know how much of a Honda Civic you have to disassemble to get the radio out? Much, much more than you might think. Anyway, to cut a long story short, with the help of a YouTube video and a neighbour who knows more about cars than I do, we managed to change the stereo. I now have a CD player and Bluetooth (for playing Audiobooks from the iPod!) I�m planning on starting "The Silver Pigs" this week.

Lastly, on Sunday afternoon Mrs OfClayton left me alone with a monster ironing pile. Most people would sigh at the thought, but not me. I see ironing as a wonderful opportunity for a skive. Let's face it, it involves little more effort than moving my arm and standing in the same spot, I can have a pot of coffee on the go, and most importantly, I can get "I, Claudius" on the DVD player. I managed to watch episodes 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 whilst ironing, and still gain kudos from Mrs OfClayton on her return.

What IS all the fuss about ironing?