Today, Denis went in for his scheduled NHS stop-over that included a two stents and the rather tongue-twisty rotablation procedure. All being well, he’ll be discharged on Christmas Eve, and so we’ll go to his for Christmas Day, having prepared him a full Christmas Lunch wrapped in foil!
Christmas Carol Concert 2014 – The Citadel
Christmas is getting closer! After last night’s excellent Christmas meal courtesy of Trish and John, tonight, we exercised our lungs by attending the Salvation Army’s local Carol Concert at the Citadel (as we do every year). David and Valerie were there, and so were Jo, Janet and Helen. Val managed to reserve us a couple …
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Day Two – 30th Anniversary Holiday (Anniversary Day)
ANCIENT HISTORYWell, today is THE day, when, back on the 14th December 1984, we first got together as a couple. We disguised the fact by separately attending one of my staff’s leaving ‘do’. I say ‘disguised’, but I think most of our friends knew what was really going on – and that was in the …
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Day One – 30th Anniversary Holiday
We were both awake at 7am local time (creatures of habit!), and after peeking through the curtains, it looks as though it’ll be bright and sunny. First stop was somewhere for breakfast. The town was quite deserted and we spotted a McDonald’s, and so, for a hassle-free and predictable experience, we dropped-in. It was all …
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Arrival – 30th Anniversary
It’s super-silly o’clock and we’re off to Birmingham Airport, and onwards to Malta for a long weekend. We flew with Ryanair and managed to secure return tickets for the both us for around £90 – and that included bagging those leg-friendly seats up the front too! At just after 11am local time, following a short …
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Christmas Begins
For me, Christmas begins when the Festive editions of the TV Times and Radio Times are out. Most years, it’s pretty easy to secure both at the same time, but bizarrely, this year, on Saturday, there were plenty of RTs everywhere, but no TVTs. After a bit of shopping around, I tracked down the TV …
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Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
As 7pm approached, and as temperatures plummeted around here, the only thing colder than outside was Ann’s humungous great trifle, liberated from the our fridge in good time. It was our contribution to our annual get-together round at Tom and Julie’s to celebrate Julie’s birthday and our neighbour Paul’s – although Paul and Karen were …
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Tech Alert No. 1379
Twenty months is a long time in the world of technology – especially when it comes to Tablets. Back in February 2014, I spent a King’s Ransom on the (then) all-singing-all-dancing Asus Transformer – a sort of Tablet/Laptop hybrid running on Android. Fast forward to now and this shiny bit of tech is being donated …
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Bicester Act
After last night’s takeaway, we kept the Chinese theme going by heading off first thing to Bicester, with David and Valerie – apparently, Bicester is the third most visited UK location by Chinese tourists, after Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London. I’m not sure if I believe this factoid, but looking at the gazillions …
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Eat-for-a-£1-a-Day (2014) – How did we do?
The Ingredients (minus the Tea-bag!) The Result – Spicy Meatballs & Pasta Bake Well, David and I have just finished our last meal at the end of our seven day: Eat-for-a-£1-a-Day Challenge. Actually, we’re quite pleased with ourselves – we had more-or-less the right amount of food. I say ‘more-or-less’ because we ended up with …
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Chilli with a Chance of Sausage!
The Table Awaits…In what my be considered by some to be an example of poor planning, we hosted a dinner party tonight for Jo, Janet, Valerie and David – whilst David and I were on Day 2 of our Eat-for-£1-a-Day-Challenge! Talk about temptation!!!!! Whilst the girls tucked into Nachos & Dips, followed by my homemade …
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£1-a-Day (2014)
Whilst we are lucky enough to have a very comfy standard of living, many don’t – and with that in mind, David, my neighbour, and I, decided that we would try and live on just £1 a day for food, for the next seven days – starting tomorrow – with the money we’re ‘saving’ going …
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Film: The Imitation Game
I thought it was a really good film, and Lee and Ann felt the same. Possibly the best film of the year for me! A truly impressive performance by Benedict Cumberbatch with a great supporting cast really carried it, and I was glued from start to finish. Before we went in, I was wondering why …
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And the Beet Goes On!
We travelled to Heckington today to see Denis – probably our last visit before we see him again on Christmas Day. We took a slightly different route via the nearby villages to try and locate a suitable nearby Pub for lunch. We decided we wouldn’t go to the Fortescue Arms in Billingborough (our normal haunt …
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Wine, Fine, Dine, Mine!
An unusual evening tonight – but it did include our three favourite subjects: wine, food and chocolate!! Gill and Chris’s daughter, Francesca, is off to Tanzania in the new year for three months (as you do!) to work with some of the poorest communities there. The deal is that in return for her travel and …
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Film: Mr Turner
– for Timothy Spall– for optimism If you’re a fan of Painter, Turner’s life and work, or equally a fan of Timothy Spall, this is a good film to go and see. It’s a bit of both with us, so what’s not to like? You certainly have to give Timothy Spall credit for his …
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Doctor Who – Series 8, Episode 12: Death in Heaven (Series Finale)
Excellent! Just how a series finale should be! – action, humour, sadness, death, old faces, new faces, familiar faces, hidden faces, old mysteries resolved, new mysteries begun. Phew! what a ride!!!! Bit of a bleak ending though – get the Kleenex ready!
Short Fat Hairy Legs!
As part of their UK tour, we saw ‘Eric and Little Ern’ at The Royal Theatre in Northampton. Almost a full-house – and what a performance! The physical, visual and aural similarities to this iconic comedy duo were amazing – almost bordering on creepy. They had the all the mannerisms, the ad-libs and the rapport …
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John Lewis Christmas Advert (2014)
For many, this will signal the start of Christmas – the John Lewis Christmas TV Ad. This year, the star is Monty the Penguin, and like last year’s, comprehensively stirs up the emotions ! Kleenex at the ready then… #MontyThePenguin
Car Roots
The rather odd-looking XJR – not sure about the colour either! That’s more like it! – a rather sexy looking XFRSNeil stayed over last night, as today, we’re heading for the spiritual home of many Jaguars – Castle Bromwich, home the XE, the XJ and of course my fave, the XK. The Spitfire and Lancaster …
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Doctor Who Series 8, Episode 11: Dark Water
So, here we are – the penultimate episode of Peter Capaldi’s first foray as ‘The Doctor’. This episode, entitled ‘Dark Water’ was a two-parter and brought back the Cybermen to a contemporary London. Being a two-parter, the pace of the story was a lot slower, but typically for a Steven Moffat script, it was tight, …
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Weekend with Ralph and Karen
We set of for Matlock quite early for a Saturday – 7.30am. Hopefully that would give us a good journey and get us there for 9.30. We’re staying over until Sunday when we have to get back for the Plumber! (I seem to have single-headedly destroyed the flushing mechanism in the wet-room loo!) We had …
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Doctor Who – Series 8, Episode 10: In the Forest of the Night
A very unusual episode this one – think of the main ‘Who Premise’ (saving the Earth from invading monsters) …and turn it on its head! – and although it did feel like an episode aimed at CBBC rather than mainstream BBC One, there was a certainly a lot going on for kids and adults alike! …
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Holiday – Germany (Day 8) – Final Day
It’s our final day of our holiday in Germany today. We’re travelling to Lübeck – another old town, as well as the home to some massive marzipan manufacture! The weather is the worst we’ve had so far – absolutely chucking it down, and VERY cold too – with the forecast for the rest of the …
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Holiday – Germany (Day 7)
Today’s adventure takes us to the ancient (and we do mean ancient, it was first mentioned in 994 AD!) town of Stade. We’re not sure what to expect, but it looked very nice in the photographs. After another quick breakfast with what seemed like the rest of Germany in the Holiday Inn Express, we took …
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Holiday – Germany (Day 6)
We both enjoyed a good night’s sleep at our new home for the next three days – The Holiday Inn Express, Hamburg. Breakfast was continental or continental – and that suited us fine – although the traffic-light system posted in the lifts for regulating the flow to-and-from breakfast, seemed to have imploded, as it seemed …
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Holiday – Germany (Day 5)
Today, we said goodbye to Berlin and took the train to our next destination – Hamburg. It was the perfect day to leave as the weather was truly atrocious – rain, rain and more rain. If we stayed in Berlin, I’m not sure how we would have spent the day! Getting soaked I reckon!!!! The …
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Holiday – Germany (Day 4)
It’s our last full day here today, before we take the two-hour train journey tomorrow, to Hamburg. The weather forecast is cloudy but at least dry, and we’ve got a few cultural places to visit, so we’ll probably spend most of the day inside. As the day turned out, the weather held, and we did …
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Doctor Who – Series 8, Episode 9: Flatline
Another one of those very creepy episodes, on par with ‘Listen’, earlier in the series. Once again, some fine acting from all concerned, with the twist that Clara and The Doctor swapped roles. But was it any good? Well, I enjoyed it, although I suspect that the internet will probably be buzzing more about the …
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Holiday – Germany (Day 3)
Today’s Blog is brought to you by the colour grey and dark grey! The weather forecast says: cloudy this morning and rain this afternoon – and with that in mind, we decided to explore Berlin on the inside wherever possible. As soon as ventured outside, it looked like it was about to p*** it down …
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