The collection during the 1996 Procession raised in excess of £1,050 which figure was subsequently 'bumped up' by various donations from participants in the September sponsored walk.

A number of applications were received for assistance including one from the Braintree Opportunity Class.

Upon closer inspection this was found to be a small band of devoted adults providing a vital service to the benefit of the children they cater for as well as their parents.

Your contributions enabled us to provide the Group with over £1,150 for much needed equipment.

I thought I had worked it out this year. No more missed deadlines. No more last minute telephone calls from the chairman demanding a finished article. No more sleepless nights fretting over the subject matter. This year I was going to finish on time.

I sat down to write it just a week after last years Carnival. To be absolutely precise it was a week and one day as it was Fathers Day (I almost remembered to send a card as well). I was going to write something, I was going to be ahead of schedule, it was going to be good, I would have the population of Braintree rolling in their living rooms. Publishing giants would read the article and start offering me serious sums of money to write articles for their magazine / newspaper / journal / obituary. Jeffrey Archer would ring me up and ask me to ghost write his next best seller. Well, ok life wasn't going to be perfect.

To cap it all, I had my shiny new Computer to assist me. Great I thought, the article would take no time at all. Also, there would be all sorts of other items such as competitions, adverts, posters, signs, you name it I had it all worked out. Then there would be that novel I have always promised to write (as well as the one for Mr Archer). Letters to family and friends, get my accounts in order, basically it was going to change my life. Did it heck as like, all it has become is another distraction from tackling that 'things to do' list. However, this is now a hi-tech computerised 'things to do' list so there has been some progress.

On goes the machine but before starting the article I just have time to try that new CD ROM from the latest magazine. So I then spend two hours installing and trying a batch of completely useless software. Spend the next hour deleting the software from a rapidly filling hard disk.

However, although most of these software packages are completely useless, one or two have remained in place. Unfortunately, some of these could be termed what is commonly known in the IT (Information Technology) business as "games". Naturally, being an IT professional, I never play games but instead utilise my spare time in a far more productive manner. Obviously, I have to keep abreast of new developments so occasionally have to try out a wide range of software products for, a) to see what all the fuss is about b) to join in the talk at work and c) to shoot the cr*p (censored for the under 12 audience) out of a group of computer generated aliens.

Now it is slowly occurring to me that I may be losing some of you out there and if I carry on with the original idea for this ramble, could end up losing you all. Therefore, perhaps a glossary of terms used and about to be used is in order. So here goes: