Well, we made up for our pathetic performance at the evening meal on the first night by getting through all SIX courses last night AND asking for an extra bowl of the Chef’s EXCELLENT pumpkin soup (see below). We both agreed, the lamb was the best we’ve ever tasted. It was truly melt-in-the-mouth! After breakfast, …
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Holiday Blog – Day 2
Well, we didn’t quite manage the full six courses last night. We blew out just before the home-made Crème Brulé with Rum dessert and the glass of Port. Off to ‘Giants Castle’ today, a ginormous nature reserve, which took us about an hour to get to by car. The road varied a great deal from …
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Holiday Blog – Day 1
Landed on time at Johannesburg after a very relaxing 10 hour flight. Now the tricky bit, finding the Avis car-hire desk. It should be obvious, but clearly, the locals don’t think any signage is necessary! Found it eventually. The car is not bad, a cherry red 2 litre automatic Ford Focus. It’s a four-door saloon, …
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Holiday Blog – Travel Day supplemental
Business Class on this SwissAir AirBus is great! Our destination is 8426 kilometres ahead of us. We’ve already been offered champagne!
Holiday Blog – Travel Day (South Africa)
Left home at 15.30ish heading for Birmingham Airport. We’re flying to Zurich on the 18.30, and from there onto Johannesburg arriving at 9.40 on the 14th (local time)
Hairy Blog
My last ever haircut with Sharon – who I’ve been going to for years for my ‘trims’. She and her husband Vinny are emigrating to Australia at the end of the month. Good luck to both of you!
Busy Blog!
OK, deep breath… Haircut, Peterborough, 8am. Facial, Kettering, 10am. Meet Nick and Celina, Stamford, 12ish. See King Kong, Kettering, 4pm. Jo and Janet were due to join us for a healthy supper, but Janet was unwell The Movie ‘King Kong’ was breathtaking!
Late Christmas Lunch
Met up with Ian and Mags in Stratford upon Avon for our belated Christmas lunch at Vintner’s. We had all been so busy, it had been impossible to sort out an earlier date! Excellent food and service!!
New Year’s Eve Blog
Off to Loch Fyne in Elton with Jo, Janet and Carol for a slap-up meal. excellent food. Saw the new year in with Karen and Paul (next door), at theirs with Deb and Stefan, Rosi and David and, Neil and Sarah, who have returned from their teaching posts in the Shetlands
Harry Potter Blog
Saw ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ with Jo and Janet (Carol was ‘snowed in’ and Ann didn’t fancy it) The darkest and S-C-A-R-I-E-S-T Harry Potter yet!
Roger’s new house
Visited Roger, Jane and Oliver in their new home. Lovely place, but plenty of work to do in it to get it how they’d like it. Dropped off Oliver’s Christmas pressy (a fire engine!) too and dropped Mum home. A long journey back due to the weather and volume of traffic…
Boxing Day Blog 2005
Off to Denis and Mae’s for a slap up Boxing Day lunch. Simon and Beverley popped in…
Christmas Blog 2005
From AnnZip up cardigan (blue)Brown short top-coatBook – Whose Who’sBook – The Uxbridge English DictionaryBook – Ducks in a RowBook – Mother TongueBook – Talk to the HandElectronic Weather Station From MumLoads of gift vouchersFrom Roger, Jane and OliverBook – Underground London DVD – Kung Fu Hustle From Lee and HumbertoNothing this year, as they …
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Narnia Blog
Mum, Ann and I joined Jo and Janet at the local Odeon to see ‘The Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe. An excellent film with good acting and superb CGI special effects. 10/10 Brilliant!
Mum for Christmas Blog
Picked up Mum for Christmas. it gave me chance to test out the Road Angel over a long journey – excellent!
Angel Blog
Ralph and I popped down to Halfords to pick up a Road Angel 2. It’s considered to be one of the best speed camera detectors on the market. We tried it out on the way to the restaurant in Keyston – The Pheasant. Perfect! it gave plenty of warning about the cameras on the journey …
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Ralph and Karen – here for the weekend
Ralph and Karen joined us for the weekend. Ralph seems to be responding exceptionally well to his radiotherapy.
Speedy Blog
Welcome to Northamptonshire! The natural habitat of ‘camerus speedius’. More speed cameras in this county than anywhere else I think !!! In amongst the Christmas Cards was a surprise pressy from Northamptonshire Police reminding me that I was caught by a mobile speed camera on Tuesday, 13th doing 41 in a 30mph zone. Bugger!! Actually, …
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Car Blog
Returned to the Jaguar dealership in Coventry today to get the power steering pump replaced (it was leaking!). Also picked up the refurbished alloy after damaging it a few weeks back
Anniversary Blog
We celebrated 21 years together today. A nice Indian takeaway and watched a good (ish) film ‘Bridget Jones 2 – The Edge of Reason’ on the SkyPlus box Got some nice pressys including ‘War of the Worlds’ 2 DVD set – excellent!
Car Blog 2
I returned to Grantham today to ‘Paintshield‘. They specialise in fitting adhesive film to the front of cars to protect the paintwork from stone chips and other debris. Needed to have some minor adjustments made to the original film application; plus, I decided to have the film applied to the headlamps too! Have you seen …
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Decorating Blog
We’ve almost finished decorating the downstairs office. Just waiting for the furniture to turn up from John Lewis. Then, I’ll install the PC with a wireless link to the network upstairs
Christmas N.O.S.E.B.A.G
Off to ‘Ichiban’, the local chinese restaurant for the Christmas N.O.S.E.B.A.G event. Paul, Karen, Rosi, David, Stefan, Debbie, Jo, Janet and us to were there Super meal! The place has only been open about 10 months – it’s got about 50 seats and the staff and food are both excellent! The chef won ‘Oriental Chef …
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School Blog
Visited my old school today for an OCA Committee meeting. It’s funny, I don’t ever recall the surrounding area ever being quite so ‘built up’.
Decorating Blog
We started work on decorating the small office downstairs
Car Blog
I took a short drive up to Grantham today to a company called ‘Paintshield‘. They specialise in fitting adhesive film to the front of cars to protect the paintwork from stone chips and other debris.
Senior Citizen Blog
I was really chuffed to be invited to Eric Austin’s celebratory lunch today. He’s 91 (one the eldest OCA members) and I helped him pull together a short book recently that reflected on his life. It was his way of saying thank you. I also met his daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law Rod. Ann was unable …
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Mondeo Blog 2
After some intensive care at Paul’s garage, after Tuesday’s fiasco, it seems that the alternator was at fault. A shiny new one has been installed on the car and we’ll see how we get on…
Restaurant Blog
Took one of my top clients (Julia B) to a nice Italian restaurant in Kensington. The Ark. Very understated, but the food was EXCELLENT. Giggles (and slight embarassment) all round when I ordered a bottle of Chardonnay costing 120 pounds!
Mondeo Blog
Well, the trusty Mondeo broke down on Ann today – miles away in Andover. Seems to be the same problem again, a flat battery, that caught me out a few weeks back. Fortunately, we got it recovered back to Paul’s and they’ll spend a few days looking it over.