Dried Apricots**

On Tuesday night, Spanky's Heroes (Dave's band) played at the final for Marrow Dundee's Battle of the Bands. Marrow Dundee is a local charity that works to recruit people for the global bone marrow donor register. Anyway, Spanky's Heroes beat out 16 other bands to win the competition! Needless to say I was really proud of them. Anyone who's interested in hearing their music can check them out at myspace.com/spankysheroes. Their CD "Out of the Depths" is also available on iTunes.

In other news, I'm going to have my first publication credit in the next few weeks! The abstract for the swimmers' study that I mentioned in my last entry is being submitted for publication and I'm listed as one of the authors.

Sharaya and I are planning a trip to London for a long weekend in April and I booked the tickets on Thursday. Managed to get a sweet deal - return flights for £29 ($53). So now we're having fun planning what to do while we're down there. The Wilkies (Dave's family have been friendly with them for ages) are putting us up so that's accommodation sorted out.

We finally replaced our microwave this week. I never realised how much I use it until I didn't have it. It's our 3rd microwave in 2 1/2 years. They always seem to break just after the warranty expires and it's cheaper to replace than repair.

I went to see "The Young Victoria" this afternoon and Dave's grandmother came along with me. I've always enjoyed historical films and thought this one was really good. After the film I went back to Granny Anderson's flat for tea and cakes. While I was there, she showed me a family tree of the royal family that her husband's father had researched. It went back to a few generations before Queen Victoria and showed dates of birth and death and marriage dates. Dave's great-grandfather died in 1951 so the last entries were the births Prince Charles and Princess Anne. It was amazing how much time and effort it would have taken for him to put it all together, and seemed strange that today I take for granted that I can type "British Royal Family Tree" into Google and I have all the information instantly.

No plans so far for the rest of the weekend. Off to have dinner......

**DISCLAIMER: The title has nothing to do with the actual content of today's blog, and instead refers to the food I've been munching on while writing.