Happy Christmas (and New Year)

Had a great time on Christmas Day at Elayne and Alan's. As you can see below some sport was even pleayed!

(Well that is if Air Hockey counts as a sport)....
















More snow and one of Christmas morning...

Can I come in now please?

We had some snow yesterday. One week later and it would be a White Christmas!
Oscar was a little surprised at the change in the garden, but seemed to enjoy running around in the snow.













He does look like he has had enough in this picture though!......

Nearly Christmas!

Well it has been a bit of a long gap since my last entry. It is surprising how the weeks pass so fast at this time of year.
The children finish school tomorrow, and have come down with varying degrees of coughs and sneezes. I think that they will enjoy the break to chill out for a few days before Christmas.
After last years giant inflatable snowmen, I walked down Carnaby Street the other day with hopes for another slightly different set of decorations. The giant inlflatable love hearts and pink reindeer weren't quite as good as last year in my opinion.
But good nonetheless....

The Royal Albert Hall!

The children all took part in the Schools Prom this year at the Royal Albert Hall. They were in the choir. Hannah was quite worried about the whole thing and found the rehearsals difficult, but did very well in the end. Mummy and daddy were very proud of all three of them!

Edinburgh and Sunshine!

We had a couple of hours spare this morning and wandered along Edinburgh's Royal Mile. The castle is certainly in a prominent position. Apparently on top of an extinct volcanoe!.......
















The architecture of the cathedral
on the Royal Mile is pretty Gothic.....

Edinburgh

I have come up to Edinburgh to see my brother Mark (Cliff) who is in hospital with pneumonia and a few complications. He clearly isn't well, but is better than I expected.
Here is a photo of the lovely view on the way up.....
















I am staying in Mark's flat that with Sue and Matthew. Here is Matthew......

Camera Download

I was looking for some other pictures on my camera and I found this one of Zoe.......

The beach in late October!

We went over to see mum and dad yesterday. As it was a sunny afternoon we drove to the beach at Tankerton.........

























Dad made a sand dog with the children....

00:51:06

The 10km run went well. I managed to complete it in 51 minutes and 6 seconds, so was pretty pleased. Although it must be said, that the uphill finish also meant that I was completely exhausted.

A first at Legoland!

Hannah and Daniel had a school inset day on a friday a couple of weeks back. We went to Legoland for the day, and Lynda and Zoe came after school.
Daniel and Lynda had their first ride on the Jungle Coaster. Hannah is the one with her arms up all of the way round!.............

Back to School!

Well, everybody went back to school a couple of weeks ago. Zoe seems to be really enjoying her new school. When Zoe and her friends go back to the Junior school to meet siblings and parents, they do suddenly look very grown up.
Zoe is getting to be as tall as Lynda.........















I have had another birthday and am feeling very middle-aged. There is a lot to be happy about though. I am still fairly healthy, as are the rest of the family. In a fit of denial, I have even entered a 10km run next month!
By the power of positive thinking, I still have plenty of active years ahead of me. Lots of people remain active into their seventies. So that gives me 25 years or so before I will feel "old".
That sounds like ages. In fact when you think of it like that, it is 25 years since I was in my early twenties.
Trouble is, that only feels like yesterday!

Fascinating!

I went to a session at the IBC Conference about the latest developments in IPTV (it is something that I need to keep up to date with). A speaker put up a slide which she had titled "Impacts of Streaming Media Usage on Channel Congestion". I forget what it actually displayed, I was mesmerised by the title!

I still haven't found a way to upload photos from this PC. I can probably email them as separate posts.
Note: now fixed. See below.... :-)

Don't forget to change Oscar's water! xxx

Single Room!

Well, I booked a single room (I checked). There certainly isn't room for any more than one person. I took a photo, but the computer in the hotel (I didn't bring my laptop) doesn't have a card reader.

I also have some pictures of some elephants on display in the park near the Van Gogh Museum. Apparently there is an annual elephant parade in Amsterdam, and the models are left over from that. They are auctioned off at some point. I am not sure that they would look so good in our garden though!

Ponies, Ponies, Ponies!

We had a great weekend camping near Fordingbridge in the New Forest last weekend. A fun site where Bill, the owner, gets the children to help with feeding the chickens and grooming Toby his elderly pony. The children used to be able to ride Toby around the paddock, but unfortunately he is a little too old for that these days.


Bill also has a dog called Daisy who was very popular (and spoiled by the children). Daisy also answers to the name of "Doggo"!

LegoLand

I offered the children a day to do what they wanted,
but they weren't allowed to stay at home, and Hannah suggested Legoland. As we hadn't been yet this year, this sounded like a good idea. We got there for 10:00AM when it opened, and headed straight for the Viking River Splash. The queue was pretty small, and we were on in about 10 minutes. Great fun.
It is funny how getting wet is an aim in itself when you are younger. Some of the photos came out quite well...

Camping in Wales

We had an enjoyable week camping near St. Davids in Wales last week. Although it must be said, the weather could have been better. I had to deploy the extra storm guy ropes as it was blowing a gale as well as raining, but we managed to keep all of the important places dry. On reflection (actually on about the second day) a week camping in the UK is possiby a little optimistic we feel. When it was nice it was very nice, but when it wasn't .....

Still, we got some body boarding in. Hannah seems to really enjoy this, although she would no doubt enjoy it a lot more in warmer waters. Being quite light in weight, I think that she rides the waves pretty easily.

We all managed walk along the coastal path to St. Davids Head which was quite dramatic, if a little windy. Coastal paths do make for an interesting walk. It seems that around every headland is another stunning viewpoint. We saw a seagull (or seabird of some description) diving into the sea trying to catch fish. It was too far away to see if it was successful or not, but Zoe seemed quite intrigued.

Pembroke Castle is well worth a visit, if you like that sort of thing.

On the whole I found the South West of Wales a pretty good alternative to Devon and Cornwall. The waves were good, if a little cold. Although we don't know if the water in Devon was any warmer last week. Travel was certainly less busy, with no major hold-ups either way, and the beaches, restaurants and car park were all less busy, and in the case of the car parking noticeably less expensive.

School Milestone

A bit behind, as the 22 July was the end of term. I typed this on my laptop on the way to work (train :-)) but have only just got around to posting it.....
It is Zoe's last day at Junior school today. Yesterday we went along to the "Leaver's Assembly" where the whole of Year 6 performed a few acts and read a poem or two. Zoe took part in the "Disturbia Dance" which she had performed in a local competition on stage with the school.

It is strange because I can remember fairly clearly my last day at Junior School. I am not sure that we treated it quite so seriously as a significant step back then. Which was probably fine for children who are confident and looking forward to Secondary School, but I doubt that it was so good for those who were anxious or worried. I definitely prefer the method used today.

Zoe is looking forward to Secondary School, which is really good to see. I hope that she enjoys it as much as she hopes to. I know that it is probably the biggest cliche of parenthood, but she is certainly growing up fast. It will be a little strange for Hannah and Daniel to walk to school without Zoe, and not see her around the school during the day.

There is no reason to make it feel a really sad occasion though. I quite envy the opportunities that she has in front of her.

A Great Week

Well Zoe certainly seemed to enjoy herself. Whenever we asked her did you do ....(enter any particular activity here). She would look into the distance, smile and say "Oh yes! We did......... it was really fun/great!" etc...etc.
Here is Zoe after crawling through a muddy tunnel....



















And half way up (or down) the climbing wall....



































And all the bags waiting to come home...

No Zoe for a whole week!

Zoe is away on school trip this week to an adventure centre. She was really looking forward to it, so I hope that she enjoys it.
She will be doing caving, climbing, archery and other activities.

It is a bit of a weird situation though as she is away for four nights, and we aren't in contact with her. She can't even update this blog!
We have heard via somebody at the school that all the girls on the trip are fine.

We are thinking about her though. This morning Hannah said at breakfast that it was feeling strange without Zoe around.
xxx

Michael Jackson RIP

Michael Jackson died last week. It seems of a heart attack. There are various "conspiracy" stories circulating, but I suspect that he was an understood soul who died in rather sad and lonely circumstances.
The only reason that I mention it here is to include Hannah's perspective when she saw the story on the news.
She said... "Well he was 50, that is quite old. Not many people live to be 50".
Very reassuring. I am 47!

Oscar in the Garden!

We now let Oscar out into the garden for a little while every day. He is quite happy chasing anything that moves. Although Hannah finds it quite worrying. I think that she is worried that he will jump over the fence and out of her life!
Here are some photos and video clips.......

The Forest of Dean

We all had our first camping trip of the year over three nights at Whitemead in the Forest of Dean. Great weather meant that avoiding sunburn was a nice problem to have. We also find that now that the children are bigger means that there are more hands to help out with the jobs, which makes for a much easier trip all round. Although I am sure that I washed up more times than anybody else!
The children all get to sleep without any problems as well, which is a big improvement on trips when they were all much younger.

The campsite has a big tree in it, one of the branches of which makes for a good swing that the children use. I wasn't too happy with this at first as it looks a bit harsh on the poor tree, but the branch is worn smooth by the number of bottoms that have sat on it. So I thought that a few more wouldn't do much more harm. Here is a video clip of Hannah on the branch....



We had a good walk at a place called Symonds Yat. I am not sure about the linguistic history that the name comes from, but the place itself is a very deep ravine with the river Wye at the bottom of it. It looks very spectacular from the top.





























We walked down and got the passenger ferry across the river.




















The walk was about 3.5 miles, but this didn't take into account the steep climb down and subsequently back up again. This was quite long drag, but again everybody seemed to cope without too much complaint.

All in all a great trip.

Lingmoor Fell

Sunday 7th June:
The second day we went for a walk over Lingmoor Fell and back via the Langdale valley. Good weather and not too strenuous a route made for a good day.
Also Dave got to fly his kite! Here are a few photos...