Jingle bells...

Well, again I haven't posted in a while, so a lot has happened in the meantime. JJ is contracting in Birmingham at the moment so he is away during the week and so christmas was a bit chaotic this year, I was reduced to wrapping the last of the presents on christmas morning!

Christmas Eve was nice - we went early evening to my Aunty's to see my cousin Glen, his wife Emma and their ADORABLE twins Darcy and Pheobe. Even JJ got sucked into playing with them, they were so sweet. We had intended to be there an hour, actually turned out to be about 2 1/2 hours, but we had fun so then headed home ot have our traditional German christmas. JJ had chosen to have cotlette this year, with cheesy mash and, as we no longer have a proper dining table, we used our cafe table which was quickly abandoned for the little tables on the sofa as the cafe table wobbles somewhat precariously. Then after the meal, we came to the important part - PRESENTS!!!!!

I got my camera (FINALLY!) and I am over the moon! The instruction manual is ridonkulously long and I have yet to download any piccies from it, but I think I am already part way to annoying JJ by Photographing EVERYTHING, regardless of interest or beauty.

The First Photo on the new camera

Only problem is, whenever I put it down for 2 seconds, JJ has it in his hands... I also got the most adorable Polar Bear money box - I had been eyeing this enviously in Sainsburys since they first appeared and had debated buying one before christmas in case I didn't get one. We also gave the doggies a water fountain with which they were spectacularly unimpressed with, though Sherb enjoyed the box.

As we were a bit later than we we had intended, by this time we were pretty tired and so I only managed to read a tiny amount of the instruction manual and took a bunch of bad photos. I think that JJ liked his pressie - a membership to the UK Wolf Conservation Trust and a photography day, plus a couple of small bits.

Christmas morning was a little fraught, trying to get out of the door when the presents weren't wrapped and the dog cage was buried under 6 ton of crud and the dogs sixth sense told them they were going on a trip about 3 hours before we left so that they dashed around in excited mania. However we finally got to my Mum's and were able to relax. The turkey had gone on a little late so veggies were still being prepared.

We opened our stockings (in a plastic bag this year as I had forgotten to take the stockings over at any point) and including a "wonderball" which was the weirdest thing I've seen - a ball of green crepe paper about 3 inches across which you slowly unrolled, revealing little presents, like a plastic lizard and luck tokens. We came to the conclusion that it was possibly oriental in origin, a lot of the presents had oriental characters or an oriental flavor. Sherb enjoyed the paper...

We had a glorious christmas meal - prepared by Kris and Dad, Turkey, two types of roast pots, parsnips, broccoli, peas, carrots, sprouts, broad beans in white sauce, cranberry jam, bread sauce and gravy. We then rolled away from the table without pudding as there was no way it was fitting in and then we finished opening presents, handed out by whoever was wearing the penguin hat of power.

After a somwhat vindictive Boppit session...

...we then watched the Mock the Week DVD, causing much hilarity, until Kristy and Thai dozed off on the sofa, Kristy blaming Thai's majical sleep inducing aura, which then spread to John.

and finally headed to bed. Unfortunately, we didn't pump up the mattress enough so JJ slept pressed up against me and stole the sleeping bag, so one side was frozen, the other side par-boiled. Ad in the fact that JJ forgot his nasal spray and was doing his bet impersonation of a congested rhino and I didn't sleep.

Next day, we eventually dragged ourselves together, hopped in the car and headed to JJ's Mum's. The traffic wasn't too bad except when we were in sight of the toll booths they shut the tunnel for a bit.

We happened to be stuck just over from a flatbed that must have contained Father Christmas making some last minute deliveries.

We had another christmas dinner at Paulines - delicious as ever with the Xmas pud and then, after a short sit down, we started to construct Tina's present from Father Christmas - a trampoline. It was past dark when we finished but we all had a go, Tina staying out on it for AGES.

We then headed in where Pauline plyed us with more sinful food and fixed the computer and laptop and showed Tina how to put songs on her mp3 player.

John Realises how bad the computer problems are...

...And tries to explain the problem to Pauline.


John snored on the sofa for a bit so I bought him home and he snored some more on the way home. We snuggled up on the sofa and watched a little telly before we headed to a contented bed.

A Challenge

So, in the light of the soon to be new camera, I have been mulling over a challenge to myself. I think I am going to try taking at least one photo a day for a year. Doesn't have to be a artistic photo, it could be just a family snap, but at least one photo a day and post the best ones on my blog. The more I think of this, the more I like the idea and I am now so excited by it I have decided to start today with my automatic camera, so I can compare the experience, before and after. So, below are my first few pictures...

This was one of the first pictures that I took and the one I am most happy with, particularly as it was taken on tip toes with my arms out at their utmost extent.

John now wants his laptop back so the rest will have to wait (selfish git!)

JJ proves his fathering skills...

Having had a rotten morning, JJ finally emerged from the bedroom about 10am. He had a headache (after yesterdays health problems I am convinced he is going down with something yucky) but after he had painkillers I reminded him he had phone calls to make to try and find the camera for my Christmas present.



We called Currys first and they said that, despite the fact that their TV ad features the camera and it was still "available" on the website, there weren't any of the cameras available in the whole country. I was somewhat annoyed as it was the cheapest price we had found (PC World was over double the price). We then tried Jessops. Their website said it was £50 more expensive so we rang to check that that was not the case and was assured that the lower price was right. We then asked them to pop it aside and we headed over to get it.

When we got there it turned out they had got it wrong but after some toing and froing they said they would match the price. We also got a couple of UV lens filters to protect the filters and I was over the moon! This is when John's burgeoning fathering skills cut in and he stated to taunt me with the camera, every time I teased him, threatening to take it back and, MOST annoyingly, insisting that I couldn'y have it until christmas! The man is EEEEEVVVVIIIIIILLLLLL!!!!

He spent most of the afternoon asleep, feeling rotton but perked up towards the late evening so hopefully whatever was making him suffering is fading.

Sleep, interrupted

I woke this morning just before 6, boiling hot, uncomfortable, with stomach acid and a awful "concord landing" sound assaulting my ears. It quickly becomes apparent that, the reason I am uncomfortable, hot and being assaulted is, JJ is sleeping on his back in the middle of our bed. I got up and went to the loo and got a glass of milk and a zantac. Feeling better, I went back to bed, and doing so disturbed JJ a bit and , to the tune of the hallelujah chorus trumpeting in my head, he rolled to his side of the bed. I laid down, got comfy and warm... and promptly needed the loo again. Getting back up disturbed the dogs downstairs and they started to move around so I realised that sleep was not my friend today and headed downstairs to watch Penguin Adventure and update this.

While doing so I saw a couple of amusing Christmas ads, the most gorgeous ad for Marks and Sparks, which was just adoreable, not least because the delicious Antonio Banderas is in it and the very amusing Oxfam Unwrapped, which made I smile.

A Useful Day Trip

JJ and I had a plan.


It was a good plan.


We decided to take a whole day, get the dog visitor in to see the monsters and go to Lakeside shopping center and do ALL of our christmas shopping in the one day. Every last present, all bought and then we would wrap them the next day and voila, we would be well on the way to being ready for christmas. We also wanted to get JJ a new suit for his new job and have a look at cameras for my christmas present. At the absolute very least, we HAD to have got presents for Paul and Lauraine as we are seeing them next weekend.

We were very excited not only by the plan, but also with a full day of wandering round shops, something we don't do often to avoid spending too much money. As a result, we aimed leave at 7.30, drive round the M25, have a Maccyd's breakfast (we go to the best places) and then be ready to go when the shops open at 9.00. We left a little late (and as you can see below, less than happy about the time - JJ isn't asleep in that secnd piccy but I think he may have rathered that he was) but were soon on our way and the Maccyd's was devine but the hot chocolate was rough. While eating, we looked at the store plan and worked out a plan of attack, deciding to work all the way along the ground floor then back along the top floor.

So, off we headed to battle and glory. We decide that, as we were obviously going to be SWAMPED with ideas, we will make notes of ideas in JJ's new phone (see below) and then will come back once we go round once and buy the best suggestion for each person. The first place we find a place selling cameras (Jessops) we find the two cameras we were interested in and, to our joy, the one that I really like is not only cheaper than we found it online, but also has a spare lens included! Jessops are apparently in financial trouble at the moment so that probably explains it.

Once we get to the other end of the store and realise we have very little ideas and none that I would actually buy, we decide to just buy stuff as we go along is we deem it good enough. We DO buy some bits for the van and all of the christmas cards that we need, except for Mums as all of the mother cards are rubbish this year. But other than that, we don't find much inspiration. In fact, despite the fact that we are enjoying wandering round the shops and having a great time giggling and mucking around, we are both a bit disappointed by the sheet amount of teacky tat that seems to constitute Christmas gift ideas this year. I think we are both getting old and just don't find edible posing pouches or shddily made keepsake boxes covered in rhinestones particularly festive. Youth today... :D

We stopped at the Wii store and had a quick go at the golf game which JJ did quite well in, but I have already bought him his main birthday pressie (which I am really excited about) so he will have to whistle for it.

Around this time we stop for a hot chocolate and JJ's glands on the right side of his jaw come up quite uncomfortably. He broke a tooth on that side the other day and it has been fine up to now, just a bit sensitive to hot and cold, but now decided to act up. We headed to Boots to get painkillers and luckily he has an appointment to sort it out next week anyway. We then headed back to Boots as JJ's eyes were in need of drops and stuff. He headed to the loo to pop them in and I sat by the Wii stall and admired the gigantic camp chandaliers that were strewn around the place.

We looked for suits in almost every shop that sold them and, despite looking at suits that were up to £350 we couldn't find out that John liked and fitted. Finally we found one, only to find that the only jacket that they had had marks on the front so we carried on looking until, much to my delight we found a suit that looked great and fit him AND was only £99, we mere fraction of what I was expecting to pay.

We then finish going round the center and head to get something to eat. The Christmas tree outside Ikea was huge, impressive but slightly spoiled by the green metal fence around the bottom, made of the type of fencing used to screen off building sites. Having said that, the photos don't really do it justice as, what you can't see, is that random bulbs would flare up and then fade, giving a gorgeous twinkling effect.

We head to Currys to look at cameras but they don't have the dual lense version so head to ILVA. We are quite looking forward to this as we have been told that it is a more classy version of IKEA and we both like IKEA as it is interesting products that you don't really see elsewhere, with an interesting style and, if nothing else, they have lovely swedish food! What we found was a cold, sterile furniture store which, unlike IKEA (which we went to later) was almost empty, with nice furniture, but nothing you couldn't get anywhere else, not any higher quality than IKEA but VERY expensive. For example, one thing we saw that we liked was a flexible tray thingy that moulded itself to the sofa arm, something that I have seen elsewhere, but NEVER at £85! What is more, the few christmas decorations for sale around the place for sale were HIDEOUS. The Pier was a bit better, but I have never really understood the need for ornaments that don't mean anything to you, like something that you buy while on holiday as a souvenir (for example, we have four pictures on the wall in the lounge - a giant aboriginal style painting done by a friend to thank JJ for designing their website, and two framed posters one for Chicago, which we saw while in New York and is signed by the cast members and the other for Mamma Mia!, which was my surprise birthday trip a while ago and a second picture of New York which we bought while we were there). To add insult to injury, in Ilva poor John developed an acid stomach (the man is falling apart) so we bought our one perchase in Ilva, as milkshake to try and settle it, which, thank goodness, eventually worked.

We headed on to some other stores, looking at cameras but no where actually seemed to actually have any in stock! We then headed to Asda to look for a new rug, ages ago we bought a really cheap one from there for our lounge and it is great as it doesn't matter if the dogs ruin it and, when they make it really dirty I just shove it in the washing machine. They only had 2 types of rugs left and they weren't suitable. We tried various other places to no avail so, finally, after a lot of prompting on my part, headed to Ikea. Unlike ILVA, even at 6.30pm, IKEA was very busy. We, as usual, enjoyed looking round, JJ taking every opportunity to "try out" sofas and chairs and each time getting him out of them became just a leeetle bit harder. We found a couple of things - a jug to replace the jug I melted to the hob earlier this year, a couple of pastic boxes for holding individual sarnies so I don't keep on having to use plastic bags for JJ's packed lunch and some more ice trays.

It was now just after 8 and we were on our last legs so we headed home. JJ was very tired but wouldn't let me drive but unfortunately didn't watch the petrol guage and we were nearly out of fuel. We turned off at Maidenhead and looked for a petrol station, while I swore at JJ's new phone as I couldn't make it work properly. We then headed back home, via Sainsburys and collapsed on the sofa with a pair of very silly dogs.

Our mission was only a partial sucess, we got a suit but only a few pressies and not the one that we really HAD to get, Pauls christmas present. Ahhhh, well...

The geese are getting fat...

I am told that I am quite bleeding akward to buy pressies for so, for those of you in need, please find attached some ideas:

My two amazon wishlists can be found at:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=2OLR1Q96EQPGH
and
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/002-1864160-1076008?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=191Q3L70X7B41 (this is the US site so postage will probably be higher but contains some items that can't be got on the UK site).

John's is here : http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=1T143MATEW2TC

You do not have to buy it through Amazon, but please let me know what you bought for John and let John know what you bought for me so we can avoid buying the same thing! And now you guys have no excuse for whinging about what to get us for christmas!

And Mum, UPDATE YOUR LIST! It is currently waaaay out of date...

Phone fun

JJ has been mucking about with his phone in every waking moment that he hasn't been eating or sleeping and he took this little movie of my girlywhirl who was trying to show how hard she is:

As usual, she failed and ended up just looking like a cutie.

THE HAMPTON COURT SWIMMING MURDERER

JJ went to work this morning at the normal time (ridonkulously early) but after a while I got a call to say he was coming home as the police had the whole area cordoned off and he couldn't get into the building. Once home he rang in every half hour until someone picked up the phone and then he headed back to go in. Getting there he found that the reason that the area was cordoned of waws MURDER! (Note the last word must be read in a scottish burr).

Apparently a body was found under a speed boat parked in the drive of a house opposite the office and a man was seen running off down one of the alleyways.

The guys were only let into the office once they had given their names and addresses to the police. I have been getting sporadic updates via Yahoo from JJ ever since :

jj: apparently, if you look out of the downstairs window, you can see a leg sticking out from under the boat
lyonesseuk: ewwwww
jj: Neil, one of the IT guys found some evidence!
jj: he was walking down one of the alleys on his way in this morning and found an abandoned, and very clean, bag with swimming gear in it!
jj: IT WAS THE SWIMMING POOL MURDERER OF HAMPTON COURT I TELL 'YA!
lyonesseuk: ARGH! NOOO NOT THE SWIMMING POOL MURDERER OF HAMPTON COURT!
lyonesseuk: I'll never swim again

As you can see we are highly sympathetic for the poor guy who died this morning. What is more I had a case of percieved danger outweighing actual danger and anxiously told John not to work late tonight, because OBVIOUSLY with the area ringed with police and on the look out of a murderer he would return to attack JJ.

Update 11:30 : JJ and another guy at work were discussing the morality and ethics of taking pictures of the crime scene then, in his words, they thought "sod it, lets do it". I am disgusted but strangely eager to see the photos! Apparently a forensics tent has been erected around the body.

Can you tell that I am bored today? I am editting a wedding video for a couple that largely chose music by Kenny G - it is torture!

Another Update 12:30: The tent and body are gone and there are fewer coppers around. John found this on the BBC website and this.

A hilarious night out

Well it is Halloween and I can't find a pumpkin anywhere :( Instead I had bought a green plastic skull full of lollies to give to kids in their halloween bags so I popped a candle in that instead. I have made about 20 bags up with various bits in it. I ran out of bags last year so this year made my own from orange paper bags which I then drew piccies on.

Anyway, Mum, Dad andKris finally turned up and, after a quick tea of fisha nd chips, we headed to the theatre to see the splendiferous Russell Howard. He was Hys-ter-i-cule!!! We literally laughed until we we have tears running down our faces. He was slightly frantic in style, with one story startings, then another, then going back to the first and starting a third and it was so funny. The only slightly disturbing bit was when he was decribing how some people wake up and are angry with their partners because of something their partner has done in their dreams and both my sister and JJ, who were sat either side of me, turned to me and almost in chorus said "That's YOU!"
A good indication of a great night had by all was that we laughed all the way home and, once we got to ours and I shoved them out into the night to go home, I could hear Mum, Dad and Kris giggling all the way down the road...

Ryans Visit

Well, we have Ryan visiting for a long weekend as it is half term. Wednesday I left home around 1.30 and went to pick up himself. I didn't get there until almost 3.30 (I needed to LEAVE Pauline's at 4 to get to Flomerics to pick up John). So we got to Johns a half an hour late and then headed home which took FOREVER in rush hour traffic.


We decided on the way home that on the way home we would go try and get booked in for ten-pin bowling. I wasn't too keen as I am completely RUBBISH when it comes to anything involving hand-eye coordination but, to my surprise, I bowled quite well, when Ryan and John, normally quite good bowlers (John in particular) bowled really badly so, much to my joy, I won both games! We then headed to pizza hut and Ryan and I shared a cheesy bites pizza.


Finally, we packed him off to bed and, phew, went to bed ourselves.

Thursday, we had a quick planning session with Kristy and agreed to go to Marwell Zoo on Friday so just to decide what to do with our day. After some mulling it over, we decided to go to the IMAX theatre to see the 3d Sea monsters movie. I booked the tickets online and then we headed to the station. Once we were there, we found it easily and, once we picked up our tickets, we had a little time so ate a sandwich each and then wandered along the south bank a little bit where Ryan, having whinged about how freeeEEEEeeeezing he was, demanded that he have an icecream.



We then headed to the cinema and saw the film - it was fantastic and we both flinched and reached out to touch things at times, only Ryan laughed at the little kids for doing it, while still surreptitiously doing it himself. The film was very good but the little kid across the aisle from us screamed about 2 minutes in and then watched the rest with his glasses off.

We then headed to the Science Museum as Ryan wanted to go. On the way the whinging about his sore legs started... When we got there we realised there was a 3d motion simulator on the 4th floor and we bought tickets for that and walked up to see it. There was a short queue and Ryan then escalated the whinging further, including the fact that he was too hot this time instead of too cold like earlier.



He then whined that the Motion simulator was interesting but he was annoyed that they didn't make roller coasters like the ones in the simulator. He had insisted that he wanted to go to the science museum, but then would not actually look at anything. The only thing he enjoyed was the plastics exhibition, where they had hung wide strips of plastic from the ceiling to mark off the various areas of the exhibit which kids were having great fun in walking through them instead of around. He didn't stop to look at the exhibits.



We headed home. When we finally got home, and had popped the monsters stuff down etc, we gave him the choice of our DVD's to watch and he chose, much to Johns disgust, "Over the hedge",with the great lines "I likea cookie" and "I CAN BURP MY ABC's". We then followed with a film much more to Johns liking, Galaxy Quest, which, after some doubt, Ryan enjoyed too.



On friday, Kristy appeared around 10ish and we set off for Marwell Zoo. As is always the way, Kristy and I immediately started talking and didn't stop until we completely ran out of breath. We tried to include Ryan but he doesn't talk much even if you ask him direct questions. When we got there and were getting out of the car, Kristy asked him if he regretted going anyway with the two of us and he said, "Well you are very giggly", which made us laugh until we got to the gates! The Zoo is a small one so not very exciting (we took Tina to Longleat last time she visited and she complained all the way round but obviously impressed Ryan enough that I think he was disappointed in Marwell). We all liked the Maras and they became even more adored when we realised that, when threatened, they jump straight upwards and go "PRONK!" How can you not like an animal that does that? We wandered around at my pace (which is considerable slower than most) and looked at most of the animals and stopped for a while by the giraffes which were gorgeous. It was really only the last 1/2 hour that Ryan started to get bored and annoying so he did quite well. On leaving, we stopped and bought some tombola tickets and Ryan won a little snow leopard. Then, once we were practically back to the car, Ryan, having been asked five minutes earlier, declared that he needed a wee and we had to go all the way back to use the loo before setting off for home.

We got home quite tired and, having rung JJ to see if he was gonna need to eat when he came home, we had something and then booked tickets for Ratatoullie. The film was great and even JJ liked it and he normally hates animated films, but we all agreed that it was aimed at a more adult market than previous disneys. Once we got home, Kristy headed for home and we headed for bed as soon as the dogs had digested their meals.

Saturday, JJ is home so I am decidedly more happy today. We have booked to go to the London Dungeons today and have to be there by 10.30 so, once the new dog visitor has come and met the dogs, we hop on the train for London. We reached the queue to get in around 10ish and then stayed in the queue for almost 2 hours! It took another 1 1/2 to get round and you couldn't stop to read the educational bits, telling you about the dungeon and so on, because for hallow they had basically covered all those bits up and just left in the jumpy out bits. Having said that, despite me being terrified before we went in (I am the biggest woose when it comes to these things) it wasn't too scary and the only bit I didn't like was the boat ride as there were only four to a boat and John sat behind Ryan and I and kept tickling my ears and neck and making me jumpy. I shut my eyes all the way through just in case. I think in the unlikely event of zombie attack, I will be completely useless and will be one of the first to go.

For some reason PicassaWeb won't let me rotate this pictures - I will have another go another time).

Once we were done there, we got something to eat and Ryan and I snuck away and bought some doughnuts from Krispy Kreme and then we got on one ofthe tour buses (mostly to stop Ryan whining about his feet!). We ate the doughtnuts on the bus while listening to the comentary. Though we were quite disappointed as the seats were I was sat had a commentary panel that didn't work so I nicked JJ's and he said he wasn't interested. Eventually some other moved and I took their seat and we all had earphones that worked then but of course by the Ryan was bored and wouldn't use his.



Ryan had been moaning all day about wanting to go to Canary Wharf so, as it was only 2 more stops on the tube, we took him along. He was quite disappointed as he wouldn't listen when we told him it was mostly offices.



We then headed homewards and Ryan and John went to blockbuster and chose the Fantastic Four, which was better than I had expected, and picked up chinese. Ryan headed to bed, all the while proclaiming he wasn't tired, and we weren't long after him.



Sunday. The clocks went back an hour over night so we had an extra hour in bed and the not-tired ryan slept through until about 10-ish. I woke earlier than the other two and went downstairs to watch childrens tv and eat toast. When the other two finally emerged we started the process of getting Ryan to pack his things and have a shower - both of which were harder than they should be but never mind. We told Ryan we were going to drop him back at Pauline's, but actually we had booked a Go Karting session for that afternoon and were going there first. We told him that we were taking a detour due to traffic and then that we were lost and would have to stop at the handy karting track for directions. He was inside before he realised and when we told him was pleased but, in true teen-ryan style, was not particularly excited.

They were booked in for two 1/4 hour sessions. For the first there were about 8 drivers and Ryan did really well, recording the fastest laptime overall. This was like red rag to a bull for JJ and he went full on the next session and this time beat Ryan. However, they both were beated by the little boy who was the only other driver for that session and who obviously drove regularly and had a VERY pushy Dad.

We were going to eat before dropping him off, but after some dispute we got himself a burger and headed to JJ's Mum's to drop off Ryan. She insisted we stay for a cup of tea, which would normally be fine but we were starving and looking forward to a proper sit-down meal, somewhere like TFI's. By the time we left, the dogs had been left for too long on their own so we had to go home. I was particularly miffed as we don't actually get to eat out often and I was ready to eat anything that would stay still for long enough as I had only had a slice of toast all day. We got home and settled on pizza. Again.

For John

Death-defying Plummetations

John has some time off at the moment as he waits for his new contract to start next week. So, yesterday, we decided to go to Thorpe Park. To a certain extent we enjoyed our day but it was spoilt by disappointment. When we got there we found that the best rollercoaster, Colosus, Slammer and Quantum were all shut. Then Stealth was shut for the majority of the day, the ice cream and waffle stand, which we really fancied was shut, the pirates 3d was at first only to be shown in 2d and but actually never showed at all. To add insult to injury, when we bought donuts they were undercooked and had raw dough in the middle. Really couldn't have been more damn annoying if they tried.

We did the water rides last (except the Rumba Rapids) as JJ doesn't like to get wet. He drove home with no trousers on, it was not a pretty sight!

Having said all that we still had a fairly good time - as the pictures show...

Today we had a new front door fitted to replace our old leaky one and JJ made a new speaker panel for the van.

I shall take piccies but I can't download them at the moment as I need to install a card reader into my new PC.