1 week

This time next week we'll be getting ready to party. Doesn't it roll round quick! I hope you are all feeling Festive - surely even Richard is getting Christmassy by now! Paul is home (and his mess and bikes! but not his washing) after a hectic term at Warwick, both he and Matt have a lot of studying to do over Christmas, but I think we'll give them a few hours off. See you all soon,
Dx

Nice Picture

Nick took this while out shopping (I've trained him well).

Other supermarkets are available...

India and Nepal

Well I am just back after two fantastic weeks away in India and Nepal.

The trip included all kinds of things including conventional tourist visits to the Taj Mahal and Varanasi. Also the slightly less conventional, including our party crashing 3 weddings, visiting a couple of villages in India and a school in Nepal (where we taught the children "heads, shoulders knees and toes" as part of an impromptu English lesson)...

I need to try and write some kind of diary about it at some stage... however in the meantime, please follow the links below for some photos...

http://tiny.cc/SA9Wa

http://tiny.cc/Yx1Tk

Erin has made it

Dear all,

Very good news, Erin is now a fully qualified Guide Dog. Her owner is a lady in Sittingbourne Kent.

Time of year

Hey up. New picture to reflect what's going to happen in less than a month. Anyone who hasn't issued their Christmas lists might like to do so or I will choose something :)

I still exist!

Sorry, it's been a long time since I looked at the blog. I've been catching up on Guide paperwork since having 2 weeks at Guide camps and 2 weeks in Wales during the summer. I've also had another BP weekend since then. Guiding is very busy at the moment with all the planning and paperwork for our Centenary events. We launched the Centenary with a grand party for the whole County at Cardinal Newman school at the beginning of September. You'll get to see my photos 'eventually' when printed! No, I don't want a digital camera for Christmas! Speaking of Christmas - who has written their list yet? And you're all invited to us for dinner on Monday 28th December, for a 5pm meal - it'll be a sit down dinner - I might be asking people to bring chairs! Love Dx

Fleetwood Mac in Manchester

There I was hoping to get some super pictures of Stevie Nicks but all went wrong. We had purchased seats with a great view, what a waste.

Who would have thought that we would have stopped at the gates of the MEN Arena! First Gill was stopped for taking in a drink, what a very naughty girl, and then worst of all they did not like the look of my camera, it looked like a professional one they said. So we were taken off to deposit my camera into the manager's office for safe keeping during the concert. What a wonderful start we thought as we were paraded around the arena, what a long way! We think Joan had something to do with it as she is not a great fan of Stevie, now known as Stephanie (as Mick Fleetwood introduced her). The pictures on our mobiles are too embarrassing to show so I have added another person's shot for you all to admire. Who would have thought that she is older than me, 61.

By the way the concert was wonderful, did I see Gill sobbing during Landslide! I thought I was at a Grand Prix at one point. They can still rock, I'm almost tempted to buy their new Greatest Hits album, yes another one.

Richard

Not too folky!! Moseley Folk Festival

The year of festivals and probably ours was the smallest but still excellent.

Lots of good acts, from the very folky via the very obscure to the very rocky. You might recognise some the people/ bands in the photos.

Gill and I went on Sunday only but Jonathan and Lorna went for the 3 days, I'm not sure if they have taken their hands away from their ears yet!

The weather turned out fine although rain threatened throughout the day.

We also enjoyed the special food and drink. We also had fancy dress and 2 stages.

Roll on next year.

It is 35 years since Gill and I last saw Jethro Tull, we must have been young, and they are still excellent. I think they must have arrived by bus!

Bestival!

Tim and I went to this on the Isle of Wight and what a fantastic weekend, the weather was sunny so it was t-shirts until 11 at night. I should've taken a camera I know but I got a couple on the phone. Kraftwerk were amazing, second time I've seen them and it was far better as it was so loud. Other bands included MGMT, Soulwax, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Michael Nyman, Seasick Steve, Lily Allen, Klaxons, Fleet Foxes (good but a bit too folky maybe for me), Bjorn Again and others no-one has heard of. It's a great festival, relaxed (despite 40,000 I think!), no throwing stuff and reasonably priced food and drink. We were in B&B 2 miles away so used the £2 buses with the cooked breakfast keeping us going for most of the day.
















We loved the flags, so well done.
















We had one muck-up, stayed until 2AM for Future Sound of London, they were an hour late and it was over an ISDN link (which was fine) but technical problems stopped the gig after about 20 minutes. They had 2 giant projected heads which had moving eyes and weird images. Shame.

Some excellent DJs between acts or in their own right, some had created video montages to go with the music.
















The fancy dress theme of space made sitting around or trogging to the next act fun as there was loads to look at. I'm assuming this is Buzz Lightyear and Buzz Aldrin. The winner was Bender from Futurama who wins a lifetime Bestival ticket, a great prize.

Still not sure if I'd go again, this one was so good I'd worry it wouldn't be as good again; the weather was perfect and the acts were worth seeing - especially Kraftwerk.

Birthday thanks

Thankyou to everyone who came to our party and for our birthday gifts. Dannie and I really enjoyed it and we hope you did too.

Here's to the next one, by the way whose is it?

Lots of love
Suzanne and Dannie xx

Birthday Thanks

Thanks everyone for the cards and presents, I'm currently listening to one of the Prokofiev symphonies - they are going to take some listening effort but with the nights drawing in... Money went on some new cycling shoes and pedals.

We had a great holiday and I'm sure Paul has 100s of photos somewhere. Boys are back from Reading and whacked out and smoky. Radiohead were every bit as good as they hoped. Hardly any rain but actually the dry weather created a menace of dust which got everywhere! I went to pick them up, where are they and Paul's phone is dead? They stroll over after about 15 mins - they were asleep at the other end of the carpark!

Looking forward to my festival Bestival on the IoW in 2 weeks but Tim and me are B&Bing. So I won't see you at Suzanne's party I'm afraid.

Cowes Week

Well I think it has been a while since I have made an entry here... so thought I ahould put something down for the Sailing Trip I went on over the weekend.

Since going to the Isle of Wight just after Cowes week - years ago I have always wanted to go and have a look, so when this trip I came up, I jumped at the opportunity.

The total group was about 25 people over 3 yachts. Each day meeting up with the other boats a few times.

I was on Nerdvana I (yeah some of the boats do have strange names...) After a get together meal on the first night, we spent our first night aboard the boat at it's normal mooring in Hamble (nr Southampton).

Then we went sailing on Friday morning... after a bit of a practice we sailed to Osborne Bay just off the Isle of Wight, where we moored up for a little bit. After some more sailing in the afternoon -We had some wind albeit not great wind for sailing but the sun more than made up for it - we headed towards Cowes to take our spot for the Fireworks that evening.

We then had a nice surprise as not only was there an air display from a couple of jets while the Oriana sailed out of Southampton, but before we knew what was happening the Red Arrows arrived for a display above the Solent too - fantastic!

The fireworks did not come over quite so well in the photos as I was taking them from the boat. We had quite an amazing trip back to Hamble on the mainland at the end of the fireworks as we were among the hundreds of boats that had been watching them from the Solent and it was a bit of a ratrace as everyone travelled back to their respective ports in the dark.

The next day we took part in a inter-boat race... I don't think it was all down to the fact that our skipper may have given us a spot more help than the others teams got... Anyhow the other teams called the race off, because they knew they could not catch up with us. This was a bit of a shame really as we were doing so well...

However we had been promised a night out that evening and our skipper's managed to get us in to eat at a nice pub not too far inland from Cowes (we still could not get a mooring at Cowes due to it being so busy). We enjoyed our evening out with good food at the pub and some live music later on. You are encouraged to dance on the tables at the pub which made for an interesting evening although I declined to do that on health and safety grounds... ie the ceiling was not very high...

After a lively evening, we had a slowish start the next morning, but luckily we were early enough to get to see the start of one of the main groups in the fastnet race. The BT boat on the right went on to win the race, which involves sailing round a small rock just south of Ireland before heading to the finish in Plymouth. It took nearly 3 days for them to complete the race.

After that it was a bit of a wind down as we had to head back to Hamble for the end of the trip, but we managed to catch a bit more wind and sail a bit more on our trip back into Hamble.

I don't think this will be the last of my Solent adventures.

I hope that everyone is well!

Tim

Holiday in the North East

It is supposed to be the forgotten part of the country, well we had an excellent holiday with very good weather
We have added some photos,we will let you guess where they are. A packet of shortbread, purchased in the borders, to the first correct response.

We look forward to seeing other holiday photos.

Richard and Gill

I have a mount cutter

Strange title I suppose but if anyone needs any mounts cut for those pictures or needlework you want to framed I can help. The mount board is not at all expensive, for £6 you can get almost A0 size! Of course not as easy to use as you'd think but with a little practice it's impressive.

Here is a Yes album I mounted for Nick to celebrate his BA (Hons) in Philosophy. It was framed by Tim's art shop in Hitchin.

And Suzanne has signed up for the autumn painting class I went to so we can expect plenty of stuff worthy of mounting in the near future!

Glastonbury

Hello everyone. Thought I'd post a few pictures from Glastonbury.

This was the view from our tent. Very handy for the Pyramid stage, although did mean we woke up to Bjorn Again on Friday morning and Status Quo on Sunday morning...

A man from Oxfam touched us with his blue hands

Us (and Noah and the Whale)

Waiting for the boss.

The night life.

Hope everyone's well, and look forward to catching up soon. Jonathan

Canoes, cows and kites

Hi everyone.

I thought i'd update you with what i've been up to recently. In April me and Lorna stayed in Ross-on-Wye and went canoing for the day near Symonds Yat.

We've also been doing a lot of kite flying recently. Unexpectedly I was given two kites at Christmas.

I quite like looking at these pictures and ignoring the kite.

Directing traffic.

Pleading to the heavens.

I was also given a little kite which requires less maintenance.

You can keen one hand in your pocket...

You can text...

or even ignore it completely.

In fact the cow was paying more attention.

We also went to this strange mini hill range in Shropshire called The Lawleys which is a like a giant spine.

It was quite windy too.

Nice to see everyone last weekend. Bye for now.

Jonathan

Message to the blog manager!

I like our blog but our blog manager may not have noticed but the swallows have arrived.

I have attached a picture of our recent trip to the woods, yes the blue bells are here too!

For those who have not yet had the pleasure to meet him, the animal in the picture is Rocky, our little 10 month old guide dog.

Thank you

I am very sorry for the delay but I would like to say thank you for the many good wishes and presents for my recent birthday.

I cannot remember the number, I am in denial, but it was very big, the good news is that I do not feel my age most of the time.

What a great present I received, Wii Fit. The bad news is that I am still not fit but my bowling has improved. As least Dannie will not have to worry at the moment that I will break his best time for the marathon.

I now look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 30th May at Wychwood.

Richard

Freefalling

Hi Everyone,

Rachel jumped at last! She completed her tandem parachute jump from 12,000ft at South Cerney air base last Sunday (1st March)

Spring

Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where those birdies is,
The little birds is on the wing,
Now aint that absurd,
The little wings is on the birds.

The only poem I can remember from school! The snowdrops at Putteridge Bury are a beautiful carpet of white and my 'Christmas Present Crocuses' (Crocii ?) at home are just coming through. It'll soon be time for picnics and summer outings!

Me & S had a good day out to Ham House in Richmond, but we need to go back another time to do it justice. I have had a weekend at Haverings with the Guides and am busy getting ready for another County weekend in April and our summer camp. P will be home in 2 weeks time, for 5 weeks - I think we'll be feeding him up and getting him to rest as he is still quite under the weather. We'll have to get together with diaries soon, Dx

Erin likes snow too!

Erin likes snow a lot but we think she prefers carrots!

I Love Snow!

The view from my office either side.
Also a night-time home shot that worked well, camera stuck on a post with self-timer.

Keighlan's Birthday

Hello everyone! :)

Thank you very much everyone for my money, vouchers or presents. I have put all the money in my bank account.
On saturday I went to aerial extreme on willen lake, it was wicked! After that I went to gourmet burger in milton keynes and had a triple bacon burger with a chocolate milkshake!

Thanks again,

Keighlan xx :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. Thank you very much for all my birthday presents and cards. I had a great time in Devon for a few days. Me and Lorna stayed in Exeter for one night and then on to Dartmouth where this pic was taken. 

Before Christmas we had a big course do in a pub in Birmingham. It's tradition for the second years to perform on the evening so I wrote a short play. Reviews were generally good-

"It was less serious than last year- more like a pantomine". So ends my brief career as a playwright. Here are some pics from the evening.

 

Stupidly they briefly left the bar unattended

While I had carefully casted my own play leaving me no role, I was unfortunately roped in at the last minute to play Simon Cowell in another sketch....

My trousers were pulled 

up really high...

Here are some pics from New Year's Eve and day.

It wouldn't be a Martin blog without..... a puppy picture.