Every year, me and a group of my closest friends get together for a weekend away. The purpose of these weekends is to have a chat and a catch-up, drink some beer and participate in dangerous, testosterone-fuelled activities, without any interference from our pesky womenfolk. It's like a stag weekend, but without the stag.

This year, we hired a cottage in the village of Lower Quinton, on the Warwickshire/Cotswold border. On Friday evening, we had a fantastic meal in The College Arms. Then, on Saturday morning, we went karting at the Mr Karting circuit at Bishop's Tachbrook, Leamington Spa. The karting was fun, but the circuit was quite small and there were no stretches long enough to overtake. This meant that we were essentially competing on lap times rather than finishing position. My friend Jason won by over half a second.

After the karting, we had two games of bowling at the nearby Tenpin bowling centre. With hindsight, this wasn't such a great idea - our arms were tired after the exertions of the karting, so all our aims were completely off, resulting in some pretty low scores. Well, that's our excuse and we're sticking to it.

In the afternoon, we went into Stratford-upon-Avon for a late lunch and a browse around the shops before heading back to the cottage for dinner, beers and some hardcore gaming, courtesy of my Xbox 360.

Whilst in Stratford, I spotted this canal boat down at the marina. I couldn't help but have my photo taken next to it. It's rare to see my name anywhere, so I have to take my chances when I find them!

My wife Claire has just started a new job which involves being away from home quite a bit. We decided that it would be a good idea if she bought herself a laptop so that she could browse the web and check emails while she's away.

Portability was an important consideration; the laptop had to be small enough to fit comfortably inside a small suitcase (screen size of less than 14") and also light. On a recent shopping trip to Leamington Spa, we called into the Sony Shop and saw some ultra-portable laptops from the VAIO range. They were truly gorgeous and more than satisfied all the criteria.

After some shopping around and a bit of further research, she decided to purchase the Sony VAIO VGN-TZ31. It is a compact laptop with a durable carbon fibre chassis and weighs just a little over 1.2kg. Although it is nowhere near as thin as say, the MacBook Air, it still manages to pack quite a bit into its 22mm thick case. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive and a DVD+/-RW drive - something which many ultra-portable laptops don't have. It also boasts an 11.1" inch screen, with a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and built-in webcam. All in all, a remarkable achievement for a laptop of this size. For more information, check out the Sony online store here.

I am, of course, completely envious and have decided that I must have something better. But what? It's hard to find laptops that are both small and yet powerful enough to use as a development machine.

If you have any advice or recommendations, let me know.