London - Bank Holiday Weekend

Daytime....

We escaped the crowds of the "great unwashed" during Reading Festival which took place on the August bank holiday weekend.

We made plans to meet my school friend Jennifer at the Nags Head a Convent Garden at lunchtime, we had made really good time to get into London so had a bit of a wander around before hand. As we came out of Piccadilly Tube station I saw the most amazing thing (well ok not THE most but pretty damn good anyway!) an umbrella vending machine!! How much of a good idea is that? I even made Tony do the tourist thing and take a photo of me standing next to it - you can check this out on our photos page.

we also had time to stroll around Leicester Square & Covent Garden and watch some of the street performers. It was a glorious day of sunshine so we took full advantage and drank our beers outside the Nags Head.

We decided on the crooked surgeon in Soho for lunch which turned out must be targeted for the Australian travellers, as not only was our waitress Australian most of the advertising was aimed for moving back home to Oz! We had a really nice lunch and catch up together with some nice wine (or in my case lots!)

del.icio.us Tags: London , Pubs , Travel , Friends

While the kids are away..

The adults will play! As most of you will know Tony I have have been left childfree for 3 weeks as Kayla was taken away on holidays to Australia with my dad and Georgie was on holidays with her mum in Europe.

The house has been so quiet and we have had so much time to ourselves in the evenings as I walk home from work so I’m in the door at 5.15 each night. We also have only had to worry about feeding ourselves and not having to follow the usual routine of family life (eg getting baths ready, packing bags and lunches for the following day etc)

We have taken advantage, as much as we could due to finances, of being able to have adult time together.

During the first week Tony met me after work and we headed along to Santa Fe with some of my work friends to have dinner and drinks we had a really good time and I was only hung-over a little bit in the morning! We were able to go to our friends Mike & Ann for dinner one night (rather than them having to come to us like usual). The dinner was lovely, a home cooked curry, even if it did involve an emergency run home to get some antiseptic cream for burnt hands! I managed to consume a bottle & a half of wine so I was talking a lot with my hands – you can see this in the “dinner party” photos – and Tony had to help me stumble up the road at 3am!

We also caught up with Mike & Ann on the Thursday night before Reading Festival. Their band Joey Ultra were playing at the Walkabout, the amount of times I have been in the “aussie pub” after saying I wouldn’t spend the time I have in the UK in them!!, so along we went to show our support and like usual have a few drinks. After the walkabout we stopped in at The Great Expectations pub, which is on the way home, where Ann and I must have been really hungry as we spoke most of the time about great food! Because of this we had a mandatory stop at the servo further up the road and I was apparently quite drunkenly forceful telling Ann she “HAD” to get the cheeseburger in pastry that was on the hot shelf! We also even got a chance to go on a date to the cinema which we haven't done in ages!

del.icio.us Tags: alcohol, child-free, gigs, dinner party, pubs

Smoking Ban Rant

From July 1^st 2007 England introduced a total smoking ban. I can understand why this has come about, even as frustrating as it is (it would appear that the outside tables at pubs where you can smoke fill up really quickly!) what has really been annoying me with it is it would appear that smokers are being associated with a total lack of common sense.

Every workplace under the new law must be a no smoking environment, when this came into effect every work place building, eg offices & shops, paid for and put on display a no smoking sign with the words it is illegal to smoke in these premises. Now I’m sure some of these places it goes with out saying that there is no smoking - the chemist and doctors surgeries for example. What annoyed me even further was our workplace received an evaluation visit from a member of the local council to ensure that we were following the guidelines of the smoking ban and that a procedure has been put in place if someone attempts to smoke in the building (yes it is - could you please extinguish that cigarette as it is illegal to smoke in these premises!!). Now if every work place in Reading will be receiving these visits surely this will end up costing us tax payers additional money! 

del.icio.us Tags: Smoking Ban, workplace, tax

Words from the Tone

Hello All

I thought I should write something on here as its meant to be a family site and so far Nikki has done most of the blogging. My excuses is that I have a couple of other blogs and web sites that I have to keep up to date (not washing huh ?) Ok So I am lazy. when it comes to blogging and don't really write much unless I have something to say. As most of you know Kayla  run off and left us for 3 weeks for Glorious Australia (grrr she so lucky) also Georgina has buggered off as well to Spain so that leave Nikki and I child free for 3 weeks Whooooyoooo you might think but actually waking up this morning was very strange there was so sound coming for the girls bedroom, No Kayla Voice going Can you here me as she trying to talk to Iain on MSN or no really crap music from the Sim's computer game, No TV switch on in the lounge it was like a ghost town. Must strange I can tell you. Its amazing how quickly these sounds become part of your every day life. No Door bell ring as Kayla is picked up by the child minder. I am sure in the next three weeks that will become the norm and it will be a shock to the system when the children do return, So I think we should enjoy it while it lasts.

Hopefully enjoying it while it last will not be as bad for my health as it seems to have started out to be, This morning about 5 am Nikki decided to hit me in the face Why I am not sure we was both asleep !!!, You know I don't mind a slap when I have done something wrong but Not even I can get in trouble in my sleep (or can I)  the think is when she did it she woke up apologies and everything next morning hardly remembered a thing so tonight I am wear a crash helmet to bed.

Other new in brief

I have a cold so you should all feel sorry for me ok

If your going to Heathrow on a Sunday night leave 5 hours to do so its a bloody nightmare but if you leaving Heathrow you only need 10 min's

 and Final Congrats to Darren he knows why ha ha mail him if you want to know

Family Visits

Thursday morning we loaded the car up again and started our journey towards Cheadle Hulme (just outside Manchester) to visit my dad Kenny and stepmum Sheila.  We spent the afternoon at the local park catching up.  Tony was able to sort out some little computer problems in the evening for them both. 

As we had planned to have a birthday party for Kayla on the Friday, we had to leave Cheadle first thing in the morning.  We were making good time on the motorways heading South.  that was until a last minute toilet stop was required! the services were 20 miles away and judging by the tears we could not hold off that long!  We came off the motorway onto an A road and pulled off as soon as we could.  Unfortunately we came off at a car wash, and after Kayla relieved herself behind a billboard we had to figure out how to get back on the road without going through the car wash.  We watched an elderly woman try the same by driving the wrong way down the exit and back on but we decided we weren't going to be that stupid especially as there is a £500 insurance deposit held on the hire car!  Tony ended up navigating us home back roads.  We had to stop at the supermarket and pick up party food and the way home as well as the all important cake.  We made it in the door got the food out on the table and managed to finished getting changed just as the doorbell rang as the kids arrived.  We then had 2 1/2 hours to entertain some 8 & 9 year old girls!

Saturday morning we had to get ready to visit the other set of UK grandparents.  Tony's parents were having a BBQ for us all to spend some time together and celebrate Kayla's birthday (the 2nd of 3 birthday celebrations she is having this year!)  Tony's sister and her family also joined us - so all the kids had great fun spending time together.  By the time we left there last night driving the 1 1/2 hour trip home I finally reached the point of being fed up with driving! the novelty has worn off!

del.icio.us Tags: Manchester, Motorway, Computer, Birthday, BBQ

Big Day Out

After a fairly quiet day on Tuesday, we upped the ante on Wednesday and headed over to Bracknell to take full advantage of all the sports complexes there. We spent the afternoon at Coral Reef which is a swimming complex. We joined the long queue for the "fastest" waterslide - the Boa Constrictor. we all managed to sustain some kind of injury while flying down the flume (mostly skin off the elbows!) and each of us managed to come to a dead stop a few metres before the end and had to try and slide our way out of the flume before someone else came flying down behind us! The next time we lined up for a waterslide we opted for the family one - the python - this was a much nicer slide (does this mean that we are turning into old parents???).

We then spent the evening ice-skating. Kayla and I had been the previous week with her childminder and had a great time. So this week Kayla was straight out on the ice skating around very well. It was Georgie's first time skating so after a few times going around holding on to the rails and a couple of falls she then built up confidence to try little stretches without holding on. The first fall of the evening was by Tony, who hadn't ice skated for about 20 years! however he only became unstable whenever I came near him!!

It turns out, however, that doing 2 big things in one day was probably not the best idea as we had 2 little tired and irritable girls in the car on the way home - the key factors towards little arguments! But they certainly slept well that night!

del.icio.us Tags: Ice-Skating, swimming, Bracknell

Seaside Roadtrip

On Monday we decided to take advantage of the summer weather and drove down to Bournemouth for the day.  Although the weekend had been & gone the beach was still jam-packed.  We could have guessed this would be the case as we drove around and around to try and find somewhere to park (the one stress we don't normally have to deal with).The girls swam in the freezing English Channel but had a great time.  Tony & I watched from the warm beach not even game to stick a toe in. After the beach we stopped for the mandatory ice cream in the park - never far from a disaster we managed to lose one flake out of an ice cream cone before leaving the ice cream van!

We decided to take the country drive back towards the motorway driving through New Forest.  On the way we pulled over to take a wander to find wild ponies.  We watched some from a distance and saw a foal with it's heavily pregnant mother.  They seemed to be quite curious of us and came up close for further inspection.  The girls were in awe at being so close to nature and talked about it for the next 2 hours on the way home!

In between hearing how great the ponies were we stopped at a country pub for dinner, we all had a really nice meal which turned out to only be £1 more expensive than the Wimpy we had for lunch at the services on the way down!!

 

del.icio.us Tags: Bournemouth, English Channel, Beach, Ice-cream, Ponies

Summer Holidays Part 1

On Friday 3rd August our family holiday began.  Tony's parents were very generous and hired us a car for 10 days. After picking up the car - which incidentally I have fallen in love with and want to keep! - i decided to take Kayla to a park that i had seen on the internet. I was very organised and had printed off directions to get there and back and according to Google it would take about 20 minutes to get there.  So after 40 minutes of driving and running out of familiar towns on road signs it seemed that my lack of sense of direction remains intact!

Turning around and heading back towards Reading Kayla was in desperate need for a toilet break, we stumbled across a petrol station and went in to use the facilities.  we were then informed that they did not have any but we could try the California Country Park up the road - yes this was the park we had been driving for an hour at that stage to find!

We have so far been blessed with fantastic hot weather since Friday (considering there had been very few signs of summer up until this point someone must be smiling down on us for the week that we had booked off to be so nice!)

Today (Sunday) the four of us drove over to Alexandra Gardens in Windsor and played mini golf.  At some point I took over the score cards and managed to mess up a couple, but we think Tony managed to rectify the point tally.  The final scores were Georgie at 3rd place with 57, Tony & Kayla tied 2nd place with 50 and I won with a score of 41!

We have a jam packed week coming up so fingers crossed the sun stays shining and we have a fantastic time.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Summer, Park, Mini-golf, Car Hire

Night Out in London

After quite a long time of seeing each other, Susanne, Rach and I finally set a date to meet up to spend a day together. The idea was to have lunch – perhaps a few cheeky drinks – and go our separate ways in the evening. The easiest place to meet was the The Hog in the Pound at Bond Street which was close to where we thought we would have lunch. So sitting at a pub catching up meant one thing – why not have a couple of drinks first! The sun was finally shining and the coronas were going down very nicely. By 3pm we still hadn’t left the pub. Talking about ideas of what to do, Susanne innocently suggests “why not go to a karaoke bar” and not so innocently says “as it happens I have the details here” as she pulls out a business card for a karaoke bar in Soho. So a quick phone call was made and a room booked for 4pm. We legged it over to Soho and arrive just in time for our hour’s room booking. We then belted out some favourite sing alongs for an hour standing on the couches in the little room – thank god no-one else was there to see!

Our stomachs soon reminded us that we still hadn’t had any food , we passed a Chinese buffet in Chinatown and decided on that rather than spending more time looking around for something else. After piling my plate high with lots of food I worriedly kept glancing at the warning sign on our table that stated any food wastage would be charged – anyone that knows me might know that no matter how much food in on my plate be it a large or small portion I never ever finish it! This was then the time that I was to head home. Susanne was meeting up with a school friend who I had gone to primary school with so I thought I’d go along to the pub in Covent Garden and meet up for a little while THEN head home! After lots of chatting and a few bottles of wine it was soon apparent that I would not be able to go anywhere on my own. Susanne had to call my wonderful husband who agreed it was probably best I stayed at hers that night. After waking in the morning, feeling the effects of all the alcohol the night before – I managed to head back to Reading to spend the rest of the day in bed! It was a great night though!!

del.icio.us Tags: karaoke, Pubs, Friends, London

Easter

The Easter weekend began coming home from work and discovering our lounge room looked very similar to a computer warehouse. Darren & Megan had come over to spend Easter with us and Darren & Tony had gone out shopping for a new computer for Darren. It turned out it was going to be a better deal to buy all the components and tony build the machine from scratch. Darren has also brought with him his old computer to be turned into one for Megan and another old machine that Tony could use as a (third!!!) server. So the floor could barely be seen with all the machines & components everywhere.
On Good Friday we took Kayla & Megan to the local park although I think Darren & myself got more enjoyment from some of the playground structures! We decided to all go on a swing type thing with four “seats” that swings around in a big circle, the kids got a great laugh at seeing the ‘oldies’ trying to have a turn – check it out in the Easter Album on the photos page.
Later in the day/evening we were joined by Charlie & Debbie and spent a great night in with good company & plenty of drinks and lots of fun playing trivial pursuit family & music edition which I won!!! It turns out I know far too much information about boy bands!!
Georgie came over to ours on Saturday, so the kids had another great day all playing together and we got a day to veg out
Tony’s parents also popped over to see us – which was really good coz we scored a Cadbury’s crème egg Easter egg from them hehe!
That night, after more drinks and a bit of a smoke and quite a lot of laughs we have ended up with another website – not really a “family” one so to speak more like a place for silly ideas - www.stonedideas.co.uk will be up & running soon!
The Easter bunny paid us a visit, so Sunday morning nice & early all three girls had an Easter eggs hunt through the flat. Later in the day we took them to the park next door to burn some energy, again I think the adults had more fun at the park by playing Frisbee.
On Monday we went to Silchester which is an old Roman Town not far from where we live. Most of the roman wall is still standing which we spent a lot of time walking around, it was quite interesting and even the girls seemed to enjoy the “historic excursion” the day was finished off with a nice pub lunch and a nap when we got home – such the life!

del.icio.us Tags: Easter, Chocolate, Friends, Board Games

Addictions

Due to certain situations, mostly weather & finances, we have been spending an awful lot of time at home. This isn’t such a bad thing as we enjoy each others company a lot, it has however highlighted my bad habits – watching lots of TV, snacking and computer games!
Ok so the TV watching isn’t so bad, except Tony would disagree for the fact that I will sit and watch terrible English soaps (hollyoaks) and any “countdown show” that’s on, he also got a little concerned when I wanted to mark the calendar when the new season of house was returning…anyway this bad habit is most certainly the cause of the next one – snacking!! Now apart from the little bit of weight gain due to this I wasn’t overly concerned, or perhaps just lack of will power to cut down, UNTIL a visit to the dentist yesterday! Kayla & I have fallen under the curse of British teeth (no offence) and need a root canal treatment (me) and 2 (!!) extractions (Kayla) poor girl. The worst part for Kayla was after realizing what extractions meant was the thought of Easter a week away, and with tears streaming down her cheeks she asked is she still getting any Easter eggs
I have been introduced to a computer game, which was originally intended for the girls to play, called Zoo Tycoon where you have to build a zoo hire staff etc and make money. I was helping the girls with setting one up and became so engrossed I ended up spending 3 hours the other night setting up MY zoo! Since then I’ve started another zoo its very addictive so much so that I ended up burning the dinner last night coz I was playing the game.
So anyway, as I sit here with a can of softdrink and a chocolate bar wondering if I can fit in some time to build more exhibits in my zoo in between dinner and NCIS & CSI tonight, I will leave it to next week to cut back some of my addictions

del.icio.us Tags: TV, Computer Games, Dental

White Christmas - The Theatre

We had arranged with Tony’s parents to see a show at Southampton on the 6th Jan, as Tony’s mum’s godson Farrick (following?? Hehe) was part of the cast. So the four of us went along and met up with Tony’s sister, husband and their 2 children and some other friends of the family.
It turns out what we were there to see was a musical, White Christmas based on the movie and the lead was none other than Aussie Craig McLachlan - ie Henry in Neighbours 20 odd years ago!
The show was actually really good, and after a year of debating with tony about the quality of Craig’s singing voice I had to admit that he was very good on stage! (we have had a friendly argument in which tony has tried to convince me many times that Craig McLachlan is actually a really good singer and if you ignore the 80’s Mona song the rest are really good and, being me, without actually listening I have disagreed)
Kayla, Georgie and their 2 cousins Gemma & Sophie seemed to really enjoy it, and Every time Farrick appeared on stage Tony’s mum was very excitedly pointing him out – I think she was very proud and rightly so

After the show Tony’s mum had to meet Farrick at the stage door to exchange some Christmas presents and he asked the girls if they would like to meet Craig. Craig came out in the freezing cold half undressed and signed autographs and had pictures taken, he seemed really nice & down to earth and after chatting with everyone for a little while went back inside as I quote “he nipples were about to fall off” from the cold.
After the show we had a nice meal in church that has been converted into a restaurant – such a nice setting. Ricky (Farrick) had organised for everyone to meet up there and as we were shown to our tables he stated that he wasn’t going to eat coz it was too expensive hehe

del.icio.us Tags: Theatre, Craig McLachlan, Southampton

Christmas & New Year 2006/2007

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!!!
This year we had 2 Christmas days (alright for some huh?!?)
On 25th December we had a Christmas day with Kayla and Charlie also spent the day with us. Tony slaved away in the kitchen to provide us with a roast dinner and the rest of the day was spent playing with his new present “guitar hero – for PS2” – we are all getting quite good at that
On Boxing Day we had our second Christmas as Georgie arrived from her mum’s house, Tony’s parents also came over and Charlie was still staying with us.
There were lots of presents to open on that day and again Tony cooked a lovely traditional roast dinner.
The girls had a great time over the holiday and I’m sure played with every new thing that they got. We played quite a lot of games; monopoly a few times (in which one game Tony’s mum won for the first time ever), a few versions of trivial pursuit (which in one game I won for the first time ever – however it was the Disney DVD version! I must watch too many children’s movies!) and we treated ourselves to Buzz for PS2. The only version we could get was the Who wants to be a Millionaire which we now play with the sound turned down as Chris Tarrant’s (the host of UK who want to be...) drives us all up the wall!!!
We welcomed 2007 quietly & almost sober - a nice change – we had promised the girls at midnight we would go outside pop some bottles of bubbly and sing Auld Lang Syne. So from about 6pm they were asking every hour when it was going to be midnight until about 11pm when it was every 10 mins. They got dressed up in some new party dresses (oh the excitement!) shoes & jackets on and watched the clock until 11.59 we all (Tony, Charlie, Kayla, Georgie & myself) then ran outside and saw all the fireworks around, the adults popped a bottle of bubbly each (ok – I tried to and couldn’t so Tony opened mine for me!) and as Tony & Charlie were spraying each other with booze unfortunately in the dark Georgie fell over and hurt herself :( so after 6 hours of waiting and 5 mins of excitement we all trundled back inside where Kayla mentions that we didn’t sing the song they learned (Auld Lang Syne) Kids – gotta love ‘em!!

del.icio.us Tags: Christmas, New Year, PS2, Board Games