New Disney Films

Exciting news from Disney today as they have announced their line up of film releases over the next few years, as spotted on the BBC website. Looks like we are going to be treated to some 3D fun, which will get us to the cinema rather than waiting for DVDs.

Lots of new material in there which sounds encouraging, but the one to look forward to most is undoubtedly Toy Story 3. We will be reminded of just how much we love the films and the characters by getting 3D re-releases of 1 and 2 at the end of next year and the start of 2010, and then in 2 years we will have number 3 to marvel over. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are back according to the report, so fingers crossed we should be in for a treat.

Les Mis

Nicky and I have just got back from our weekend in London, the main purpose of which was to go and see Les Miserables in the West End. This was my Mother's Day present for Nicky (thought of rather at the last minute as Mother's Day followed hot on the heels of Margaret's 60th birthday party).

We got the train from Chatham yesterday lunchtime, and got a cab from Victoria to our hotel, the Radisson Edwardian Hampshire on Leicester Square. We were able to check in straight away, and went up to our room - 205. It was at the back of the hotel, and as so often with rooms in London was rather small.

After a quick coffee it was back out for a recce, and having picked up a free map in Leicester Square we found that the Queens Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue was indeed only a couple of minutes away. Then we went for a stroll up Regents Street, avoiding the dual temptations of both Hamleys and the Apple Store, and along Oxford Street to Selfidges. The main reason for the trip to Selfridges was to see if we could get some of Willy's Wonky Chocolate (as seen on the Channel 4 programme). We hunted high and low in the food hall but couldn't find it anywhere. Eventually we decided to ask, and a member of staff told us that a delivery had come in on Friday, but that it had sold out within the day! Apparently there is a Selfridges hotline that you can call for delivery information!

Still, the trip to Selfridges wasn't entirely in vain - we bought a corn bread kit for Nicky to make with Jake this week, and stocked up on a couple of squeezy bottles of Smuckers Grape Jelly! Makes us think of Orlando!

Wandering back towards our hotel we decided to cut the corner between Oxford and Regent Streets, and finding ourselves outside the Porsche dealership on Berkeley Square, I pointed out to Nicky what a Cayman looks like. It met with approval, and I'm told that yes I am allowed one.

Further down in Dover Street Nicky noticed a diner called Automat, and this looked like an excellent place to have an early tea before the show. Nicky had macaroni (and) cheese, and I had a cheeseburger. We shared a piece of cheesecake with our coffees.

We were back to the hotel in time for a quick drink before going back out to the theatre. Turns out that we were in row A, right at the front of the stalls, so we were in the midst of the action. Nicky has been wanting to go and see Les Miserables for a very long time, and I think it's fair to say that she enjoyed it. I knew very little about the show or the story, and I have to say that I thought that it was absolutely fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it and want to listen to the music again, go to the show again some day, and who knows, maybe I'll feel brave enough to give Victor Hugo's book a try.

We returned to our hotel after the show, congratulating each other on how nice it was not to have to go back to a station and get on a train home with the crowds.

This morning we had breakfast at the hotel. We had the full works - cereal, pastries, juice, full English, coffee and toast - marvellous. Breakfast was definitely the best bit about the hotel. The restaurant manager gave Nicky a comment card about the hotel to fill in whilst we ate - so she did! I think that she gave them something of a tough time about the rooms being a little run down, and bringing into question the hotel deserving all of its five stars.

After breakfast we wandered down the road and had a pleasant time looking around the National Portrait Gallery. Then up Charing Cross Road for a look in the bookshops (although we spent most time in Borders - and its Starbucks!) before a final mooch around and then back to the hotel to collect our case.

We wandered down to Charing Cross, having realised that it was far easier to get to than Victoria, only to discover that there were no Chatham trains due to the engineering works, so we cabbed it to Victoria to get the train home.

Took the camera with us ... and took no photos at all!

In other news, our massage chair arrived on Friday. We've already both been in it since getting home - easing aching backs from a none too comfy hotel bed!

Scanning photos

I'm pretty much up to date now with uploading digital photos to Flickr, and so the project has turned to scanning in and uploading prints from the pre digital era.
I've made a start with the trip to Florida in December 2000, when Jake was just 6 months old. Here is a picture of Grandad and Jake watching the Tapestry of Nations parade at Epcot - I think we all know who's enjoying it more!

Ideal Home Show

Today I had a day off from work and Nicky and I went to the Ideal Home Show at Earls Court. We bought a few things, including:

• a peeler and a julienne cutter (free garlic peeler) - £15
• three curry sauces from The Curry Sauce Company - £10
• a Pureaire revitaliser (air purifier) with extra scent - £42
• some Method cleaning products (buy three get a free bag) - £10.

Oh yes, and one other thing, we finally succumbed and have ordered a massage chair, having tried out quite a few during the day! It is going to be delivered in 7-10 days, and we are going to have to reorganise the conservatory!

We also had lots of fun looking round and contemplating spending even more money on various pieces of furniture and gadgets. My particular favourite was the Games Room Company - put me down for a pool table, a hover hockey table, a pinball machine, a jukebox and a Coke vending machine (and a bigger house!).

Curry for tea tomorrow!

Sky Broadband

The good news is that Sky Broadband is now up and running, having installed the new router yesterday. As always I'm nervous about setting routers and wireless networks, because frankly I don't really understand them! However, there were only a few glitches along the way this time.
It seemed to take a while for the router to show a constant green light, meaning that it was connected properly to the broadband line, but got there in the end. I can't claim any meaningful input on that, other than turning the box off and on a few times.
Having got that far I had some trouble with getting the laptop to connect wirelessly, and got to the point of calling the support number. Whilst on hold I was looking at the access code, and thought "I wonder if that's an O rather than a 0, and sure enough connected up no problems with the change. I then had to explain to the person who'd come on the line whilst I was doing this that I'd solved my own problem!
The final challenge came with the desktop, as it transpires that my Vaio desktop, being 5 years old now, can't cope with the latest encryption methods which the router had as their default setting, so I had to lower the network security, reconnect the laptop, and then I could get the desktop to connect as well.
Still, all done now!
(Seems faster downloading, but per the status screen, the uploading speed looks slower than the one I previously had with Orange - will have to see how I get one next time I'm uploading photos.)

Rose Garden

Rose Garden
Originally uploaded by Miff73

Well I've been playing a bit more with the wonders of Blogger and Flickr and I seem to have successfully linked the two together!.
This means that I can choose a photo from within Flickr, click on the "blog this" button, and I can create a post for my website within Flickr and send the photo to my site all at the same time. Now that's clever!
The only slight drawback is that when I've been uploading photos to Flickr (over 4,800 at the latest count!) I've always selected the option to make the photos private, so that only friends and family can view them. But, if I want to blog directly from Flickr I have to make the photo public. Still, given that it wil effectively become public once it appears on the blog, this isn't really a problem.
By the way, the test photo chosen here is a picture of the Rose Garden at Castle Howard, taken on holiday last summer.

My first post

Well this is my very first post with blogger, and so I have no idea what it will turn out like when I hit the "publish" button! We've finally taken the plunge and set the ball rolling to change ISP from Orange to Sky. We get 8MB connection speed (rather than the current 1MB), a new wireless router, which is good news as the current on seems rather tempramental, and we save £13 per month. Seems like a good deal.
The only drawback is that Orange had some free tools with it that enabled me to publish my own website for free, and I don't think that Sky do the same thing. However, I have found Blogger, and it seems to be free, and it seems to be reputable (owned by Google) so let's give it a go.
As you can see, all I've worked out how to do is type so far, but no doubt there are lots of other possibilities. Hopefully I'll be able to link to my Flickr photos, add in the occasional bit of HTML and so on.
By the way, it's just started to snow!