Oooo the joy of driving in thick patchy fog tonight. Not pleasant but made it home safely, fortunately only a 15 minute drive.

22years is a hefty time to be away Tom so not surprised so much had changed. I do like looking at old photos of the town and seeing which bits are pretty much the same, which bits look similar and the areas that have changed dramatically. One part of the town centre was flattened last year and left as a fenced off wasteland, it does look strange seeing it being built on as it had always been a shopping area for as long as I can remember.

The area around where I currently work, cliche alert people, I do actually remember when it was just fields.............

And a warm welcome to our newest team member benjer172. Feel free to drop a post here to introduce yourself.

Good morning all - the heat wave continues at 35 C today. It's a good job that the irrigation is working better than ever (touch wood, cross fingers, kick the black cat etc.). I have just completed my weekly task of mowing the lawns. 2 litres of petrol @ 60p a litre. Four hours of wrestling with the tractor and then I have to gather up the cuttings. I did try to get a tractor with a grass collection box but there were none available. Thinking about your warm spell genhos - the lowest temperature that I have experienced in Santa Cruz was 9C. However I do know what cold means as I was stationed in Kazakhstan for seven and a half years and there we got down to -45C (without the wind chill!)

Just popped a Zika Diamond 5 in just before the end of the year. Well let's just say it's been an unusual past 12 months.

Wishing you all the best for the New Year, hope it's a good one.

Well done scol5913, I'm hoping to creep past 20yrs RT on tonights stats run, it'll be a close run thing!

And RTS, -45C is just a silly temperature. How does anything or anyone function at that termperature?

Morning All.

I was woken up this morning by the dulcet tones of rain hammering on the window. It's still raining now and due to for most of the daylight hours.

RTS - that needs to be some very special clothing for those temperatures and can't say I'm surprised that you could only work outside for short periods of time. Making feel cold just thinking about it. Brrrrrr. Glad I've a hot mug of coffee with me.

Fell a couple of days RT short of passing my 20yrs RT for WCG on the overnight update.

As for New Year Resolutions, I don't make them which also means I can't break them either.

Finally for now, this years will see the round pound coin being replaced by a 12 sided one so don't go hoarding the roundies RTS after your next visit here as they'll not be legal after October this year.