Animation

We have a budding film-maker in the family. This is Jake's Olympic Opening Ceremony animation video made at school. Pretty cool, isn't it !!!

This is the life

OK, it's Sunday, the sun is shining and I'm laid in the hammock in the
garden tapping away on the iPad. This is officially "the Life". The
only downside being the sense of nervous anticipation about a certain
football game this afternoon. Why couldn't we manage to come top in
our group? Then we would have had Ghana in the second round followed
by Uruguay in the quarters, but now thanks to a late goal by the USA
resulting in them winning the group ( and, truth be told, more as a
result of us drawing our first two games) we now have to face Germany
in the second round, and if we get through it, then most likely
Argentina in the quarter finals - not that these two are bogey teams
for us or anything. Please no penalties, please no sendings off!

Last night we had Steve and Abbey over for a BBQ, which was lovely.
Jake was his in-company-grown-up self, and enjoyed challenging Steve
to a game of Fifa 10, which Steve was a good sport about. The funniest
was when I played against Steve - no goals but I think we both
finished the match with about seven players left. Amazingly, despite
being with my current employer for over 15 years I think that this was
the first time we'd had colleagues over for a meal - poor form indeed.

Jake and Nicky are just back from swimming (I was at church this
morning playing for Mark's baptism) and I think that there might be a
plan to go carpet shopping in a while. May be a bit of a challenge to
drag me out of the hammock. Still, so long as we are home in time for
kick off ...

T minus 50

We're at the end of another week, and a sunny one at that. Amazingly, it looks like carrying on with the nice weather over the weekend (no mud baths at Glastonbury this year). Fingers crossed it stays that way well into next week - I'm at the Oval for the England v Australia ODI on Wednesday and then Nicky and I are off to Wimbledon on Thursday.

Today is a milestone day - and I'm not referring to the anniversary of Michael Jackson's death - it is 50 days until we go on our cruise around the Med. Marking 50 days could well turn into a bit of a blog tradition, although having said that I seemed to miss it for California, but did at least get it for our last Florida trip, as in this post.

Our ports of call are a little different from when we went on a similar cruise on Legend in 2006, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind if we went to all the same places again. I'm definitely looking forward to going back to Rome.

Today was a slow journey to work - apparently due to cattle on the M25 (!), so as I was sat going nowhere on the M26 I had a quick look at twitter and noticed a tweet from AllEars about a new residential development at WDW called Golden Oak. It brings to mind the excitement around the initial development of Celebration, but it looks like Disney have decided to tweak the model somewhat compared to what they did then.

Back when Celebration was first announced it was all about building a community, and I think that even for the folks at Disney they've found that to be a rather challenging enterprise. So, with Golden Oak it looks like they've decided to go with a more "resort living" approach rather than a community development project. So, a small number of houses plus a hotel and clubhouse facilities, tucked away in a gated community, and no mention of schools, hospitals, community centres and so on.

Oh yes - one other thing - the price: ranging from $1.5million to $8million.

Might need to have a whip round!

The Long(est) Day Closes

No star is o'er the lake
Its pale watch keeping
The moon is half awake
Through grey mist creeping
The last red leaves fall
Round the porch of roses
The clock has ceas'd to sound
The long day closes.

Go to thy dreamless bed
Where grief reposes
Thy book of toil is read
The long day closes.

Night night all.

A Jake Decade

Somehow, amazingly, Jake is reaching the grand old age of 10 tomorrow. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun! To mark the occasion, I've dug out some photos from Jake's first ten years to post here (in chronological order)!

Waiting for Blurb

Sunday morning, so guess where I am ... !

Uploaded the California photo book to Blurb overnight. Don't know how long it took but it had finished fine by the time I got up this morning. So have ordered a copy to be printed and it shoud be with us in 10 days or so. Excited about seeing the finished product and hoping that it looks as good on the page as it does on the screen.

Sunny Saturday

What a glorious day! Nicky is out at the garden centre, Jake is playing football outside, and I've just come in to cool down for a little while. No doubt the dog would like to go out to join in the fun, but I think she's quite enjoying laying on the cool tiles in the hall, having had a bath a little while ago.

This week was driveway time at our house, and we now have a lovely bricked front drive / garden when we can easily fit both cars. So the front of the house is looking rather different to a couple of months ago - not just the drive but the fence, front door and garage door as well - and we've had the rotten wood on the balcony replaced. We've nearly run out of things to do now - just need to get some new carpet for stairs and landings.

The hammock is out so that we can appreciate the warm weather properly. To prove it, here's Jake and Barley enjoying a turn together. And to prove that some things never change, here's the same photo from last year and the year before as well!