Late

Remember that scene from the beginning of Four Weddings? I'm thinking of the one where Hugh Grant and the lovely Charlotte Coleman realise that they're late and run around the house shouting a certain four letter word. Well, that was me this morning. I'd set the alarm for six, thinking that would give me time for a snooze or two before getting up and and out in time for an 8.30 meeting in the office. Unfortunately it seems like I enjoyed one snooze too many, and after three my alarm clock gives up trying. Nicky woke me at ten past seven and was rather taken aback when I rolled over, looked at the clock and started saying rude words.

After a quick dash around the house followed by a dash along the motorways I made it at 8.45 with not too much damage done. No danger of a repeat performance tomorrow - I'm going to work from home.

Nicky phoned our friendly travel agent today to investigate the alternatives for flights to Orlando at Christmas. Being the festive season we were given choices between: expensive if we go via Washington, very expensive if we go direct with Virgin in economy, or very very expensive if we go premium economy. We went for the middle option. Must remember to set up another holiday countdown on here soon.

We got a great letter from the people at Guide Dogs today. Apparently the puppy that we've been sponsoring is no longer in training, as she has become too wary of new people, and so our sponsorship has been transferred to another dog called Tweedie.

Nice to know Barley isn't the only wuss then!

Winning and losing

Jake was off out this morning with his friend Owen to go to a birthday party. Despite all of the party-goers being from Jake's local school, the party was in Canterbury, but Owen's Mum had kindly offered to be a taxi service. Unfortunately this meant that Jake and Owen missed their football match today, and it turned out that the team won 6-0. No doubt they will hear all about it at training tomorrow.

Nicky did roast chicken for lunch, followed by a rhubarb creation from Jamie's 30 minute book. A little panic seemed to set in as dishing up time approached, but both courses were top notch.

Jake and Granddad went off to the ice hockey this evening, where apparently their team gave up a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2. Seems to have summed up a bit of a rough sporting day - Murray losing the Australian Open final, England losing the one day series, and Spurs crashing out of the Cup. I'll just have to start supporting Crawley Town!

Big Brother

Today was the Christmas Fayre at Jake's school! Due to circumstances beyond their control, namely a foot or more of snow, the original date just didn't work out, and so it had to be postponed. But, the show clearly had to go on, eventually, and so today was the day. Someone on the organising committee had at least managed to come up with a new name for it, so, whilst there were still lucky dips wrapped up in Christmas paper and such like, it was now to be known as the Winter Fayre.

It was on from 10-12 this morning, and we managed to sneak in during the last half an hour. For Jake and me, mornings are not really our strong point! We came home with assorted sweets from some of the children's stalls, a selection of cakes, a bottle of wine (Jake picked the right bottle on the stall meaning we won wine rather than water), and Jake's prize from the tombola turned out to be a whoopee cushion.

This afternoon Jake has been doing a fine job of entertaining his friends. They, and their Mum and Dad, are having a rough time at the moment, so they are round here for a bit of light relief, along with comfort food for Saturday tea - toad in the hole, mash, peas and gravy followed by ice cream creations.

This morning I finished reading Orwell's 1984, inspired by a mention of Winston on Kate's blog (*). Pretty scary stuff! I'm still trying to decide what to make of it all. In some ways, like other books written about the future in the past, there are some bits that make you chuckle (work arriving on your desk in paper bundles by pneumatic tube - but I suppose we can forgive Orwell for not predicting the advent of PC's and email), but then there are others which seem alarmingly accurate and on the money. Clearly written as a warning as much as anything else, it reminds us that we must cherish our freedom and fight to hang on to it.

Having been reading a lot more of what we might call popular fiction in recent years, I had a vague hope going into the last third of the book that somehow Winston might manage some sort of happy ending, or at least some remnant of hope would survive, but I couldn't really find much there. They broke him. Doubleplussungood.

(*) - we are told that today was the last edition of Kate's blog. I am going to be lost without it - was the first site I looked at each day.

Run Forrest Run

Good news - Bubba Gump's have opened in Orlando. Having enjoyed them in both LA and Monterey, I now know where we will be dining one evening when we go to Orlando in the summer.

Run Forrest Run.

Grand slam

This evening for dinner we had a potato rosti with anchovies, with poached eggs and bacon. All very yummy and all very healthy too, at least I assume it was given the ingredients used and the recipe book that was followed. In my continuing praise of the new food mixer, I can confirm that the rosti was home made, using one of the many blades to grate the potato and onion.

When we go the US, we always track down a Denny's and make sure we stop in for breakfast at least once whilst we are there. Hash browns feature heavily on the breakfast menu, and at Denny's (and no doubt lots of other establishments) they turn out to be fried grated potato, not what I would have thought of previously as hash browns at all.

Denny's also feature a variety of "slams" on their menu, including a Grand Slam breakfast and various "slam-wiches". May be a bit of a bad pun, but I can forgive the menu-writers at Denny's a great deal - after all they did come up with "Moons over my hammy" which I have been known to order before simply because it makes me laugh.

Thinking of grand slams, the Australian Open is getting interesting. Murray is two games away from his first grand slam tournament title, and both Nadal and Federer are out. Chances like this don't come along too often. Come on Andy!

6p

January can be a long month for several reasons: work is busy, the weather is miserable, Christmas seems like a distant memory, and whilst it was nice to get paid early in December, the wait for payday to come around again does seem like a rather long one.

Still, it turns out that financial salvation is at hand, in the form of a letter received today from my credit card company, which read:

"It has come to our attention that due to the manner in which certain Paypal transactions were submitted, your account had currency conversion fees applied in error.

After a thorough review of your account, we have identified all the relevant Paypal purchases and have determined that you are due a refund of £0.06."

Phew - that's going to make all the difference!

By the way, today's smoothie recipe: orange juice, natural yogurt and a handful of frozen summer fruits. Very tasty, but headache-inducingly cold.

Smoothie

On my way back from London on the Ebbsfleet express having been to a meeting with a potential new client. If things were a little less hectic at the moment I might have worked from home for the rest of the day, but as things are I will be collecting the car and heading for the office.

When I arrive at the office I will no doubt be greeted with the usual hilarious hello stranger comments. Guess what though - back to Brighton again tomorrow (day trip only).

Picked up sarnie and grapes at the station to munch on the train. Impressively (very impressively by my usual standards) the grapes will count as my third fruit portion of the day. The reason being that today (insert fanfare here) I got the new food mixer into service for the first time as a smoothie blender. Knocks spots off the old Magic Bullet. It comes with a big smoothie jug with built in blade and after a false start caused by packing the bottom of the jug with banana (stopping the mixture from getting to the blades at first) it did a great job. A properly smooth smoothie with no more of the slimy banana lumps that the bullet used to leave.

Today's recipe, which generously served two, was two bananas, two packs of fresh raspberries, a tub and a bit of yoghurt (about 300g), four ice cubes and a splash of OJ.

Bins

The lovely people at the council (or no doubt the private contractors employed by them) have decided that we needed another bin. Three clearly just wasn't enough. Already we had one for garden rubbish, one for recycling, and one for everything else. As of today we have a 4th, this time for food waste. (actually, we have a 5th as well, to go in the kitchen to collect the food waste in before taking it out, but someone decreed "if you think that grey plastic thing is going on my worktop ..."!)

It's a good job we have some space down the side of the house to hide all these bins away. As for when they get emptied, who knows. We'll probably put them all out, or wait and see what the rest of the street does each Sunday evening!

Haven't got a Farthing

Playing the piano at church this morning, and the first hymn was All Things Bright and Beautiful. Should therefore have guessed that it would be a baptism. Still, wasn't all bad: turned out to be the great grand-daughter of the lady who used to play the organ at church about 20 years ago, so it was nice to say hello to her. My playing seemed to pass muster.

Out for lunch today at a restaurant on Rochester High Street. Many years ago it used to be called Farthings, and I remember having occasional family meals out there. Not sure where the name came from - no doubt there was a Dickensian link of some sort, like everything else along there, but I do remember that the owner was trying to spell our the word Farthings in old farthing coins on the wall. I don't think that he got very far when we were there, and I doubt that he ever finished, as it stopped being Farthings quite some time ago.

Now it is called Atrium, and they do a decent Sunday lunch. I had pate followed by Steak pie followed by chocolate torte.

The healthy eating will start soon - promise!

Look to the Day

I've been a fan of the music of John Rutter since before I knew who he was. Aged seven, I joined my local church choir, and in amongst the anthems and carols that we sang were a fair number of Rutter pieces. His name featured on the cover of our Carols for Choirs books (green for book one, orange for book two, blue for book three and so on).

Well, long after my chorister days were over, in March 2008, an opportunity came along to go to a music day with the man himself. It was a brilliant day - I got to spend the day singing with Dad, him doing the tenor parts properly, me moving my mouth in time to the music!

One of the pieces that we sang was an anthem called "Look to the day", which Mr Rutter explained to us had been written following an invitation by Cancer Research UK, and which had received its first performance at a special service a few months previously. We were the second group to get the opportunity to sing it.

I fell in love with it, and bought a copy of the sheet music, which in true groupie style, I got signed! Afterwards, keen to hear the anthem again, I scoured the internet for a recording, but to no avail, so I was left with playing through it badly on the piano.

Periodically I kept an eye on the search engines for signs of a recording, but nothing appeared. I must have slacked off recently, because it turns out that a new album came out last September, and Margaret, who was at another of his singing days just before Christmas, found it and bought me a copy. One of the best Christmas presents ever.

A quick bit of research reveals that John Rutter now has a You Tube channel, and has released a video showing some scenes of when the album was recorded. As luck would have it, the track selected for the video is Look to the day.

Below are the words and the video. Well worth a read and a listen.

Look to the day when the world seems new again:

Morning so fresh you could touch the sky;

The earth smells sweet and every flower looks bright,

Shining in a dewy light as you wander by.

Taking the time to enjoy each moment;

Tasting the fruits spread along your way,

Knowing there's time to spare,

Dreams you can dream and share,

Look to the day, look to the day.

Look to the day when the earth is green again:

Promise of spring after winter's sleep.

The sounds of life returning fill the air,

Music that's forever there for your heart to keep.

Deep in the earth lay the seed of life renewed,

Quiet and strong till the time of spring:

Life in each bud and shoot,

Life in each flower and fruit,

Look to that day when earth shall sing.

Look to the light that will drive out darkness;

Look to the hope that will conquer fear.

God's strength uphold us till the fight is won,

Till we see our task is done when the day is here.

Look for that day when there shall be no more pain;

Sorrow and sighing shall pass away.

Pray for the day to come,

Trust that the day will come,

Look to that day, look to the day.

Lord we give thanks for the gifts of life and health;

Plant a new seed in our hearts, we pray:

Help us to see, O Lord,

How it could be, O Lord;

Look to the day, look to the day.

Disappointing

High hopes for Friday being POETS day, but no such luck. An issue emerged at work today, keeping us there considerably longer than planned. By the time I got in the car to come home, the ten o'clock news was just starting, and I have just arrived home.

Disappointing.

Still, at least it's the weekend, and this time no plans to go back to work until Monday.

Hat-trick

A quick reminder of what my home and my family look like yesterday evening, and then back to Brighton today and back to my regular hotel. Fingers crossed for an early finish tomorrow.

Had Yo Sushi this evening. Steve and I made a decent sized stack of dishes between us whilst putting the world to rights.

At the hotel I have completed the hat-trick. I was on the first (pink rooms) floor for my first stay, the second (orange rooms) floor last time, but now, having made a special request, I have made Otto the top. I am on the third floor in a green room.

One Day

Picking up where I left off, having blogged last night I settled in with my book, "One Day" which Heather had kindly bought me for Christmas from my wish list. As often happens with me, I found myself in the final third of the book, and basically was beyond the point of no return and had to finish it off.

The book was fantastic. The only problem was that, having read the last page at about half past one, and finding myself in the unfortunate situation of both being all alone in a hotel room, and rather tired and emotional, I needed to speak to Nicky (or more accurately I needed to be spoken to by Nicky). So, after an emergency text home, we had a quick chat.

Nicky did a great job of not being mad at me and was able to say all the right things as always.

I could blog a great deal about the book, but don't want to for fear of giving away the story to people who might read it at some point.

By the way, if you're reading this and have read it, give me a shout - would love to talk to someone about it.

Today, I left Brighton at lunchtime to head back to my own office for the afternoon. On my way back to the car I stopped in at a second hand bookshop to pick up a book to read - inspired by something in a recent Shrewsday post.

21 years

Hopefully this will be my last night away from home. I'll be packing up and checking out in the morning and all being well will get away from work at a decent time so that I can go home to my family, who I've been missing very much indeed.

Nicky sent me a text earlier reminding me that according to legend it was on around this day 21 years ago that we started going out together. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun!

11 months

Back to hotel, chicken katsu and duck gyoza takeaway in hand, in time to catch the second half of Horizon. Fairly heavy duty in an accessible way as always. Particularly have a soft spot for the programme as some time back, I watched one all about the guy who solved Fermat's Last Theorem, and Nan sent off for a transcript of the show for me. A quick Google search reveals why I particularly remember that. It was first broadcast in 1996,

Anyway, today it was on the topic of Reality, and a couple of mind bending ideas were that maybe reality as we perceive it is all a cosmic hologram, or, that reality is actually a "mathematical structure". Go figure!

In all honesty, the main reason I homed in on BBC2 was to catch the second Episodes. Still good!

Today is 11 months until we go to Florida at Christmas. Why is this important? Well, it is all to do with booking windows for DVC resorts. So I phoned Celebration (where the DVC guys are) and had a long chat with a chap from the UK who lives there now. Fellow Spurs fan so we discussed yesterday's game. Ended up not booking anything yet. Advice was to wait until the 7 month window.

May do that, may insist on getting a protective booking in earlier. We'll see.

Deja vu

Another Sunday evening, and back in my hotel room in Brighton looking forward to another busy week.

I'm going up in the world. Last week, I was in a room on the first floor, where the colour scheme is mostly pink. Now I have been promoted to the second floor, and it turns out that the rooms up here are orange. Lovely!

Sunday started with Jake's football game, which we didn't have to take him to thanks to Owen's parents. A 2-0 loss this week, but considered a success as they suffered a heavier defeat last time they played.

Jake had a full up sporting day. We had a kick about after lunch, he was pleased that Spurs only managed a point against Man U, so are now 1 point behind Chelsea, and this evening he went to watch his ice hockey team win with Granddad.

Saturday at home

A lie in this morning, which was very welcome. Nicky went off to work, and I got up slowly, and was just about ready to go and get Jake from Nanny and Granddad's at about midday. Jake was pleased to see me, and first order of proceedings was to have a quick kick around outside whilst he impressed me with how good he had been while I'd been away, and that he'd already done all of his homework.

As promised, this meant a treat for Jake, which ended up being a little bit bigger than planned due to guilty feelings about disappearing off again tomorrow for a few nights. Jake now has the new Need For Speed game for his PS3, which he's just had a quick play of before bed.

Once Jake and I got back home Nicky had finished teaching so we went for a quick, blustery walk with the dog, had some lunch and headed over to Bluewater. It was busier than expected - I wondered whether everyone's post Christmas credit card bills would have arrived by now and kept them away from the shops this month, but it apparently not.

Jake got his new game from Game, Nicky got some new tops, and I got a new pair of Jeans from Gap as my current ones are getting rather tatty and now have a hole at near on of the knees.

Tea at Zizzi's and now that we're home I think that early nights are in order - need to be up at a decent time tomorrow as Jake has an earlier football game than last week.

Butterflies

So, slight change of plan this evening and I was able to check out of the hotel earlier than expected and so have made it back home tonight. This is the good news. The bad news is that we finished earlier than planned because it became clear that we weren't going to finish today, so we will be back at it next week.

Nicky has been trying out her new food mixer this week, and as per my request, a batch of butterfly cakes has been made. Just had one and they are truly yummy.

My wife gives me butterflies.

And now I even get cakes as well.

Plugging away

So, we're still here in the office, long after all of the client staff have gone home. Security may well start looking to kick us out at about midnight, so we may not be here too much longer. I'm looking forward to seeing my family at the weekend. Can't really imagine how people get by if they work away every week. It's not much fun. Highlight of the day today (at least in a not directly related to work sense) other than speaking to Nicky briefly on the phone, was finishing the Times crossword for the second day in a row. Before anyone gets impressed, I did request a little bit of help from the rest of the team. Oh yes, and it's T2, not the cryptic one!

Double dinner

Still at the office, taking a quick break to put in a brief post. The team, after much debate, has just been fed. There was a split decision between getting pizza and getting chinese, and so the compromise was both! Neither order seemed to get reduced to allow for the fact that we were getting two separate selections, and so we are all rather full up now. Probably be here for another hour or so, but have been trying to reassure the team that whilst we are likely to have pretty long days today and tomorrow, we should be aiming to be wrapping up at a decent time on Friday so that we can go out for a meal and kick off the weekend well.

Not sure if they believe me!

11111

Today is 11 January, for another half an hour or so. And today is one of those numerically notable dates in that it can be written with just one digit - 11/1/11. Sometimes days like these (or similar ones like 12/11/10) appear all the time, and sometimes they take ages to come round again. For example, the last time that we had a single digit day was on New Year's Day, and we'll get a couple more in November, but then they won't come around again for another 11 years.

It was a red letter day at home today, thanks to a couple of deliveries. Jake's game arrived. He'd remembered playing a game when Paul visited a couple of years ago and brought his Xbox, but Jake couldn't remember what it was called. Thankfully we tracked a copy down at the weekend and ordered it online. The other delivery was Nicky's food mixer, so I am looking forward to cakes at the weekend.

By the way, thanks to Kate for the comment. If I knew how to comment on comments then I would (although might be a challenge from the iPad). Wasn't meant to be a poem, just a short and sweet blog, but glad you liked it!

My day

Up at seven thanks to an alarm call from home.
Showered and out, five minute walk to the office.
Porridge and coffee for breakfast at desk.
Long day in the office, sandwich lunch at desk.
Talk to home to hear what (and who) I'm missing.
Walk back in rain, picking up burger en route.
Dinner in room, read Kate's entertaining blog.
Watch episode one of Episodes - looks promising.
Off to bed with book.

Same again tomorrow.

Famous family

My week in Brighton has begun, and I am safely installed in my hotel (or rather Myhotel) enjoying the benefits of the wifi on my iPad.

The day kicked off with Jake's first football match in quite some time. In the sunshine, it really wasn't too cold - our touchline was in the shade. I was extremely pleased to have the fleecy, lined jacket that Nicky bought me for Christmas. Jake's team did really well, and only lost narrowly 2-1. It was a cup game, and the silver lining was that all of the teams that go out at this stage will get put into another cup, so they will have another chance.

Next week's game is an away one, and I think it is on the playing field of my old junior school. Should be entertaining to go along to - will no doubt bring back a few memories.

After football it was back to Nanny and Granddad's for roast dinner, before heading home to pack a bag for Brighton.

Packing was delayed for a while to watch Songs of Praise from Winchester Cathedral. Not only were they singing some of my favorite hymns, but I can now officially say that I have a famous Father. He was on screen a good six or seven times, and was on the right hand side of the nave, about ten rows back from the front, in the middle of his row. Check it out on iPlayer - I've just watched it again after arriving at the hotel.

My particular favorite was Dear Lord and Father. The words are fantastic, Parry's Repton is truly beautiful, but it is special to me because we sang it on a very special day, one of the best of my life, just before Christmas in 1996 .

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess,
The beauty of Thy peace.

Show-boating

So, today was Jake and my outing to the London Boat Show (just like we did a couple of years ago as per this post). We were up and out for 9am, and after a brief wrong turn, we were at the Excel car park just after ten o'clock. The queue for the car park tickets was one of the longest we found all day, but once everyone had managed to feed notes and credit cards into the machine, we were on our way. I'd booked and printed tickets at home, so we were able to go straight in.

Unsurprisingly, we headed straight for the large motorboat stands, and spent a lot of time admiring the Fairlines, Princesses and Sunseekers. The people on the Fairline and Sunseeker stands were very friendly, but we found the Sunseeker staff rather snobbish, making it fairly clear that they didn't really want to be wasting time with riff raff like us. Still, undeterred we stuck at it, and made sure that we had a jolly good look around the largest boats that they had on display.

I think that the Princess boats won it for us, so here are a few photos taken on their stand, and yes, the first few really are taken on board a boat!

We also discovered a few nice cars whilst we were at the show. Jake is keen to find out when the Motor Show is on (although a quick Google on the topic seems to indicate that the last one was in 2008 and that whilst they are supposed to be every two years, the 2010 one got cancelled due to the industry downturn. Maybe they'll be back next year).

We bagged a good selection of brochures to droll over (even though the staff were snooty, Sunseeker came up trumps with a big hardback book of a brochure) as well as picking up some Greek sailing holiday brochures - will have to show them to Bec and Mark!

Numbers game

Everyone who knows me will know that I love number puzzles. Everyone who knows Jake knows that he loves his maths. A dangerous combination!

When I was probably a little older than Jake is now, I was introduced to a number puzzle that I still remember, so, when Jake asked me the other day "Give me a maths question", as he does on a regular basis, I explained this number puzzle to him.

The challenge is to use the digits 1 to 4, combined with available mathematical operations, to produce every number from 1 to 100. Jake had a pretty good go at it, and we got into the 30s or 40s fairly quickly together.

However, when we moved on to something different, I carried on mulling it over, and seeing if I could work them all out.

The rules are that you can only use the digits 1 to 4 once (but it is not necessary to use all of them) and the following operations can be used: add, subtract, multiply, divide, powers and factorials.

A factorial is calculated by multiplying a given number by all numbers less than it down to 1, and it is written by putting an exclamation mark after the number. So, for example, 4 factorial is written 4! and 4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24. This is very useful in the puzzle.

So, to give an example, let’s think about how we can find an answer to the puzzle for the number 15.

Well, 15 = (4+1) x 3.

There are lots of other ways we could come up with an answer for 15. For example:

15 = 4! - 3^2

15 = 4^2 - 1

15 = 3! + (4 x 2) +1

15 = (4 x 3) + 2 + 1

15 = (4! / 2) + 3 and so on.

(By the way, apologies for the lack of proper notation. As per computer speak, I am using / for division, and the ^ sign to indicate raising to a power.)

So, how am I getting on. Well, I have six numbers left to do to complete the 1 to 100 set. 57 was bugging me for a while, until I came up with:

57 = ((4 + 1)! / 2) - 3

Now, the lowest of the unsolved numbers is 76.

Any comments with a solution for it gratefully received.

Ashes

So, the last day of the final test will be starting shortly, and haven't the Ashes been fantastic this winter. For the first time, thanks to the wonders of Sky Sports, I've been watching a fair amount of the coverage, and I've been really glad that I have.

It's amazing to think that at the last Ashes test in Sydney, we were losing for the fifth time in a row to end up on the wrong end of a 5-0 whitewash by the Aussies. Mind you, we were facing a side jam-packed with world class players: Warne, McGrath, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer, Hussey and Lee. Not many of those guys left now, and Ponting has had a rough time, both as captain and with the bat. Mr Cricket is still a class act, and as the commentators pointed out yesterday, he is probably the one Australian who would make a combined best XI from the two squads.

The records have been tumbling for England as the series has progressed: nine centuries in the series, scored by six different batsmen, over 500 in an innings four times in the same series, and our highest ever score in an innings Down Under (644). Whilst we've really played as a team, and there have been some great performances, our Man of the Series must surely go to Alastair Cook who has scored a mammoth 766 in the series, including a 235 not out, passing 5,000 test runs in the process.

Coverage has just told us that the last time that England retained the Ashes, the song at the top of the charts was Starship's Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now. Love it!

Right, play under way - just three more wickets needed.

Twelfth Night

And so that was Christmas.
I hope you had fun.
Another year over.
And a new one just begun.

A quick bit of research last night revealed that tonight is twelfth night. We can never remember whether it's the 5th or 6th, but apparently the key thing is that, way back when such things were determined, day followed night rather than night following day. So, whilst tomorrow is twelfth day, tonight is twelfth night. There, clear as mud.

Anyway, all this means that when I went to work today we had a lovely, decorated, twinkly-lit Christmas tree in the lounge, and when I got home it had disappeared, and whilst the lounge seems bigger again, it also seems a little bare. Still, only another 11 months until we get to do it all again.

When we were young

Can't remember what got us onto the subject, but when we were at Bec's for Dad's birthday, Nicky was mentioning a particular photo taken on our trip to Mallorca with Mum and Dad in the summer of 1995.

Nicky's observations were that there was a distinct lack of grey hair in the picture (although you could say that I was cheating thanks to a rather lurid baseball cap that I'd won at Chessington!), and that we rather looked like we were on a school trip!

Holiday plans

Well, that was the Christmas holidays then. Jake is being ushered towards bed, in the vague hope that if we get him off to sleep at a decent time this evening, then getting up for school will be a little bit easier in the morning. Based on experience, this is unlikely, but we can but hope. Not that I can talk - can't say I'm particularly relishing getting up and off to the office tomorrow.

For the last day of holidays, we decided that we would brave Bluewater and have a last look at the sales. Nicky is in the market for a food processor, and we were using the flimsy excuse of the VAT rise tomorrow to justify having a look at some today, not that we usually need much of an excuse to head to the shops. However, it was not to be, as we joined a slow moving queue on the slip road off the A2, and after spending 10 minutes getting from there to the roundabout, we decided to cut our losses and turn left away from the crowds.

Headed back to Maidstone, and tried the Pippin for lunch, but they told us that they had given up on serving food as it was too busy. So, we went to the Aylesford retail park, with the plan of popping into the BHS coffee shop for a sarnie and then having a look at the Currys next door to see if they had a decent selection of food mixers. Well, the gannets had been through BHS ahead of us and cleaned them out, so lunch was a bag of crisps and a chocolate slice! Things didn't improve much in Currys and so we gave up and came home.

Anyway, now that the Christmas break is at an end, thoughts are turning towards 2011 holiday plans. Here's how things are shaping up so far:

1) Easter break - we may have a week away during the week after Easter. This is the week with the Royal Wedding in it, so for the cost of three days of holiday from work, I can be off from Good Friday through to the day after the May Day bank holiday. Unfortunately, schools are back in for those three days, but we are contemplating being cheeky and taking Jake out. The jury is well and truly out as to where we could go. We have a three way split along these lines: Nicky wants to go somewhere hot and sunny, and keeps mentioning Dubai, Jake isn't sure about Dubai and is pointing out a selection of all inclusive resorts in the Med which have huge swimming pools (from a brochure that we picked up the other day), and I'd quite fancy a week in the Lake District!

2) May half term - Boys On Tour! Plan A had been to hire a retro camper van on the Isle of Wight, but it looks like they are all booked up. Determined to have our boys holiday, Jake and I are now looking at some of the delightful hotel options on the Island. Will probably work out better (and may well be cheaper) due to our liking for hot and cold running water, proper mattresses, telly, and cooked breakfasts. The plan is to head off on the bank holiday Monday, spend the week playing in the arcades, eating ice cream, playing crazy golf and so on, and then (if it is available) meet Nicky at Mrs Cook's caravan for the weekend.

3) Summer holidays - Orlando. Jake will be bringing Owen along, and we will be staying in Bay Lake Towers and the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Jake is very excited about having a friend along, and apparently Owen is a bit of a coaster fiend, so I will definitely have someone to keep me company on the fast rides. Will be interesting to see if Jake tries out some new rides as well! Hopefully we will get to Universal and visit the Harry Potter part of IOA. The three of us will be picking up Annual Passes for Disney because ...

4) Christmas - back to Disney. In accordance with the alternating Christmas rule, we will be heading back to the sunshine state for the festive season. Not sure where we will be staying just yet. My vote is currently going for Old Key West, but I think that the villas at the Wilderness Lodge may be running in a close second place. We will have to book our "home" resorts 11 months out (in a couple of weeks time) but then can try to swap when we get to 7 months.

Well, that's as far as the planning has got so far!

"Mini's" Bay

Today we took a trip to the coast with Barley so that she could have a run on the beach. We headed for Minnis Bay (or Mini's Bay as it was always known when I was younger, in honour of our first dog - full name Mini Mo Poplar Hall!). As is tradition, I forgot how far down the coast it was, and started looking for it at about Whitstable, when actually it is pretty much all the way to Margate.

Barley had a lovely time dashing around on the beach, taking particular delight in wading into a pool of seawater, and then laying down in it. Along with this, and there being a load of other dogs around to play with, Barley was pretty much in heaven.

We took a flask of soup with us, and had a lunch break part way through the beach fun to warm up. Fortified, we braved the cold for a little longer before heading homewards.

Job number one when we got home was to get the dog in the bath. As always, she wasn't overly keen on being shepherded into the bathroom and lifted into the tub, but then put up stoically with having a good wash.

Then we all headed off to Nanny and Granddad's for roast pork (dog included), and Barley is now thoroughly worn out, happy, and asleep on her blanket on the sofa. Lovely jubbly.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

To prove that we continue to be productive over the festive period, here's one we finished earlier. I'd said that it would be complete in 2010, but the pesky sky kept us going until this year!