Everything breaks at once

Hum.

Have had a spate of things breaking last few days. Vacuum cleaner went up in smoke (literally), home phone has died, my mobile phone apparently decides to work only when it isn't raining, and the car has gone sick this morning too.

BT made me laugh. I reported the fault, etc etc. When it is sorted out and I can use the phone again, I find a message on 1571 saying "this is BT, if your phone still isn't working, call us back". Er hello? The phone needs to be working to pick up the message you donkeys. Probably one of the more pointless messages I've known.

I'm all by myself for new years eve tonight (aaaaaaaaaah). Mainly because I have to get up at stupid am tomorrow (i.e. I need to be out of the house by 5am) and Bec has been quite sensible and returned to Colchester to spend new year with people with normal jobs. She was going to drive but then the car died. She went by train.

So I'm sat here with a cat who's gone off in a huff somewhere waiting for what will be a bedraggled mechanic (how minging is this weather?) to come round and probably tell me that the car needs to go to a main dealer. Still, at least the breakdown people will take the car there for free when it's booked in. I say for free, I'm paying £100 or so or year for the privilege of breakdown cover!

Oh yes- happy new year all! Watch out for me looking bored in Parliament Square tomorrow, apparently this New Years parade thing is on TV. Although I'd guess the cameras will be more interested in the imported american high school cheerleaders than some bleary eyed muppet in a yellow jacket and daft hat ;-)

Daft as a brush!

It's official- our cat truly is bonkers!

She has a new obsession....the sink! Well, plug holes actually...

She will quite happily sit in our bathroom for hours just staring them. Either that or she will try and 'catch' the drips as she thinks they're pieces of string! Daft mog...

She seems to have got the hint about the christmas tree being out of bounds though which is something to be grateful for...in fact, when she's not obsessing over our bathroom plumbing she seems quite content to just laze around and sleep...!

Kelv's on his last night shift tonight before we head over to colchester tomorrow to begin all the christmas festivities. The journey should be eventful if the weather's anything like it is now0 as you can't see more than a few metres in front of you through all the thick fog! However, it will be rather nice to spend our first christmas together as mr and mrs JR!

Have a wonderful christmas everyone and a very peaceful new year!

Nearly there

To christmas that is.

Sang in the carol service without getting anything horribly wrong, which is just as well as I had the bass section microphone right above me, so everyone would have known if I had got it wrong.

Had people round after for some nosh- proper roast beef that had spent 4 hours slowly cooking in the oven, along with some freshly baked bread, plus a selection of mince pies and sausage rolls cooked by the cooking machine that is my 91 year old Nan!

Was all in all a rather nice day. Saw people that we hadn't seen in what feels like ages. This working for a living laugh is tedious.

Is Bec's final day at school today, so I am expecting her to either bounce in the door in a highly excited manner that she finally has some time off, or more likely to fall in, stagger to the sofa and sleep until Saturday.

I'm on nights with my newbies tonight.... first night shifts since September so I should be in an interesting state tomorrow. Is freezing today too- literally, the frost hasn't gone off the back lawn all day. Will be thick socks tonight methinks. Talking of work, I ought to get myself ready for it and stop mincing on the internet. Hum.

Mog

Cat was in a touchy feely mood this morning. I sat at computer desk and I then got sat on. No, not on lap, but I got climbed on and either get a neck warmer:

or an arm weight.

Daft thing.

More christmassyness

Ha! Tree is up. Things feeling a touch more festive in Residence JR. Well, it's up for the moment. Cat is convinced that this whole new thing in the living room is designed exclusively for her pleasure, and I've lost count of how many baubles have already been batted across the floor. It is a question of when, not if, she takes a flying leap at one of the upper ones and the whole thing comes crashing down. Humph.

Anyway, trying to be artistic as one can with the camera, tree looks a bit like this:

Also have this rather cool candle bridge / nativity scene, which has taken pride of place in the centre of the bay window.

Sorry Mr Jon T, the pieces are fixed, you won't be able to rearrange them into poses of questionable intent when you visit, as I hear you have had a habit of doing in the past.......... (same goes to Paul & relatives!!! It seems quite a few people enjoy making nativity scenes into something that they really weren't intended to be!)

So. We have already polished off one box of mince pies courtesy my Nan, and we have a stock of sausage rolls in the freezer. I am going to need to widen the doorframes by New Year!

Is church carol service next week for which I am desperately trying to learn my parts- work has meant I've only been able to make two rehearsals, very rude. Should you be about these parts, shall hopefully see you there :-)

Christmassyness

I've managed to squeeze out of doing the BNP march at work, so I have saturday off again (hurrah)!

We are off to do christmassy things today- mainly, buy a tree and then decorating it! Currently scratching our heads as to exactly where we'll be putting it, but I'm sure some room will be found somewhere.

Once all christmassy things are done, the rest of the day will probably be spent tidying! Is becoming the usual weekend routine. The cat doesn't help- she's too much of a wuss to go outside (too cold or wet) and so uses the litter tray.

This is fine, I'd much rather her use that than behind the sofa. But the litter gets in her paws and she walks it all over the house. That and she is the worlds messiest eater. Whatever gets put in her bowl gets spread over an area of at least 5 square feet. Very annoying.

Anyway. Off to hunt down a christmas tree...... :-)

Busybusybusy

A brief update whilst dinner is cooking. I finally have a day off so can cook up something proper, not from a jar. Heh listen to me being the foodie! I merely stand in the shadow of Paulie's Foodieness though.

Anyway. I've been at work the last 7 days straight, the probationer crew I'm in charge of are turning out to be fairly decent. One or two need a little more patience than others but we'll get there in the end.

I am rapidly losing many other days off- got three phone calls today saying people are needed for this that and the other. Working new year's day now (which isn't so bad, at least it's double time) and I've lost next weekend now as the BNP have decided to have a march round bits of london and unsurprisingly we don't let them go round quite as they please.

Bec is as busy as always at work, for those who think a teachers day finishes at 3.15pm Bec finally got home at 6.10, and got straight into planning future work.

Rightyo beepers galore going time to go nosh!

Uncle K & Auntie R!

Official!

Tamsin has finally given birth to 8 1/2 pound of genuine Alaskan sprog! Had phone call confirming that at 3 am our time, 6pm Anchorage time. Which means she shares a birthday with the hairiest member of the J-R clan, Denski.

Last update is both are doing fine, albeit probably in need of a little sleep.

Jimbob has already pinged round a number of photos, which I hope he doesn't mind showing here........

Welcome to the world Lilian! I expect to see on the T-Birds Blog several more photos over the coming weeks, of her all wrapped up to twice her regular size. It is -18 deg over there after all.

Congratulations Jimbob and Tamsin :-)

Fleabrain furball

Rubbish blogger. As soon as it lets me change to the beta I will, for the last post was published three times, even though it told me it failed twice.

Anyway.

At request of people on the other side of the pond (who have probably needed distracting over the last few months!) pictures of halfwit cat for your pleasure.

She truly is a madam. A few weeks ago, whilst it was still warm and dry outside, she was keen to get outside and sniff around. However, she went out on Sunday after meowing at Bec. She went outside for all of 2 minutes before shooting back in, mewing incessantly at Bec until she dried her paws, as the grass was wet. What a lightweight cat!

Most of the rest of the time, she is a soppy floppy thing. She has got into the habit of getting on our bed just as we are planning on getting into it. This either means one of two things- she is in a fuss-me mood and will purr away whilst being stroked, or she's in a mad mood and any limb exposed is jumped on. Bec is quite annoyed as her hands have dozens of little scratches on where she's been attacked!

These are from the other night where it is quite evident she is in a lazy mood.....

Chinese Cheese

Second attempt at posting. Blogger died first time. Very annoying!

Paul I will try and switch to Beta some point, as soon as it let me. It says that only a select number were selected for trial to start with, so I'll have to put up with it being periodically rubbish for the time being.

Anyway: last weekend. Frans birthday! Myself, wife and 16 others piled into a chinese restaurant and generally had a good time and gave the waiter a headache, all in honour of Fran. The photo we have of her isn't particularly great (down to my camera work, not Fran) so wander over to her site to have a look at a much better photo!

Hairy Beast was there, and was living up to his moniker. He truly was a hairy beast. But anyway as ever: cue cheesy photos....

I have no idea what was going through their heads for this one

I somehow have myself a right desperate dan chin situation going on

A good time had by all. Weekends are so ridiculously short, I tell you. Was very tedious to be back on the A120 home again.

funky new tune thing!

Check it out on the sidebar. Playlist is up for debate!

Fireworks!

Fairly non-eventful week these parts of the world, excepting Bec having her class take the school assembly on friday, which was a source of much pre-event envisaging of every possible thing going wrong. However, it all passed off peacefully and everyone even remembered their lines. I spent the week also trying to think of everything that could go wrong with all the recruits and tutors arriving tomorrow, and trying to figure out what to do if it should!

I had my second game of rugby of this season on saturday. I lasted about 5 minutes before making (if I say so myself) a fine try saving tackle which also had the unintended consequence of my head making contact with his knee with both of us going full bore. I still have the echoes of a headache today.

However on the Saturday I did recover sufficiently enough to go off and see some fireworks for Guy Fawkes night (for any confused non-brits: see here). We were joined by the Cooke, who was back on these shores having temporarily foregone warm Italian autumn climes for chilly English Novemberness. She also persuaded Roberto the Italian Stallion (and indeed, the reason behind her ex-patriation to Rome) to come over.

It took about 5 attempts to get this photo. Trying to see un-illuminated little icons on a camera in pitch black is quite difficult I'll have you know.

Once the fireworks had whizzed and banged away the second traditional part to Guy Fawkes night commenced, which is the very untechnical but still somewhat satisfying damn great bonfire.

Despite there being enough heat to toast a small family pet, Bec still manages to look cold

Once we had had enough of our eyebrows being singed we went down our local boozer which also happens to do a fine line in top nosh that even Paulie wouldn't mind having a bit of. All in all, rather good night.

Next week will be its usual state of chaos.... all my newbies will finally arrive and I have to master the art of looking like I know what I'm doing! Heh I do really. Most of the time ;-)

Work!

Remember when at school half term always felt too short?

That doesn't change.

Especially if you have to work during it! I was supposed to have taken this week off so myself and Bec could have some time together, get some serious decorating done. But courtesy my job we just managed to get a couple of days in wales and a mad Saturday disassembling and reassembling furniture with some frantic paintwork inbetween.

And now Bec is back to school tomorrow! I have 5 more days to try and figure out exactly how I'm going to be running this next Street Duties course before 29 other PCs arrive at the station a week monday expecting me to tell them what to do. Not unlike Bec who has 30 5 year olds doing just that every school day!

I have already drawn the parallels......

Chris 30th- pictorial evidence

Bec is the only one to remember to keep her eyes open for photos

The birthday boy, At & Matt (who'd had a few.... can you tell?)

This photo just has to be displayed to a global audience

Matt wasn't the only one donning inflatable fat suits, although Dev is looking like he might well be trying to fill the fat suit by more natural means rather than the battery powered fan.... Hum I suppose Dev is quite used to exceedingly embarrasing photos, as anyone who was at a certain birthday party of his may well recall.....


The female contingent were not exempt.

Why no pictures of me? Well, we left at midnight, and these didn't come out until after then.... probably just as well, as I'm fairly certain I would've been pressed ganged into wearing one.

Chris B's 30th

Bit of an excuse to dress up posh like and have a good time!

When Blogger gets round to being half useful, I'll be able to post up some suitably embarrasing photos of people there. Several litres of cocktail, inflatable fat suits and a camera invariably mean trouble!

So watch this space, will put up a photo or two of Matt dressed as an overweight ballerina soon, or at least as soon as Blogger decides to let me.

Hum in the meantime photo slide show jobby has been updated with various pictures from past and present. Keep an eye out for yourself!

Funky new slideshow

Check out the new scrolling slideshow!! You can't miss it, its above. Unless you are on an ancient old dial up type internet connection, in which case it may well never load up. Apologies.

Credit where it's due, I nicked the idea off Paulie's MySpace page, and somehow managed to figure out how to embed it in this page.

Anyway, I can stick a load of photos on it with captions. Muchos coolos. I have stuck a load of the Wales ones on there at the moment, as we took a load. But I will update it with other photos as and when the time comes, so keep an eye out!

Unless of course people think it is too intrusive. I can mess it about a bit so it's at the bottom, but then it's a bit easy to be missed.

Waaaaaaales

A wonderful but depressingly brief time was had in Wales... we went up on Sunday, where it rained the whole way except for the last 15 minutes. And after that, not a drop.

We met up with the family Johnson (Peter, Mary, Gareth) and had a wander round a beach on Angelsey prior to an enormous pub dinner. The sun was going down and it was wonderfully miles away from London.

On Monday, the weather looked ominous when we stopped in Llanberis, to visit a cafe which does everything with chips in large portions, essential for pre-mountain walking. The view below is looking south towards Snowdon.

The mountain area we headed off to was Devil's Kitchen- those who have either been to Wales with myself or on school geography trips (a long, long time ago- but I bet Mr Paulie and Miss Cooke may remember those trips....) may recognise the area.

We marched up the mountain to panoramic views over the whole of Snowdonia. The one we went up was only 130m or so shorter than Snowdon, who was clearly visible across the Llanberis Pass, as was the Menai Strait to the North. The photo below is a pause for breath moment on the way, looking along the Nant Francon valley.

This is (obviously) on the way back down. The picture below can be compared to the one above of the lake- we are walking along the ridge at the top, round to the right hand side. We came back down towards the lake down the boulder scree, which was quite entertaining.

The sun was setting as we traipsed back to the car park, where we cleared out the small NT shop of all their remaining cornish pasties. Took this photo on the way down. Really was a very beautiful day

On Tuesday we went to Aber Falls, halfway between Conwy and Bangor. A pleasant gentle stroll (aching legs from the previous day!) led up to a fairly impressive waterfall. I'd like to come back in winter time, or at least after a lot of rain, as from the scouring on some of the rocks evidenced that when that waterfall gets going, it really gets going.

After that and a light lunch in Conwy, it was the joys (not) of the M6 all the way home.

Thanks to: Peter and Mary for the two days; Mother and Nan J-R for looking after the cat!

Name games

Right have decided to stop changing the title and leave it as it is, or at least how it will be once blogger stops being useless and lets me update it. This post may appear twice or not at all. Apologies if anyone has an RSS feed to this, I'm told changing the title can do funny things with the feed.

It's half term! Cue a happy Bec. Invited out for dinner tonight, which is always good. I've been informed that I'll be the driver tonight so somebody can have a glass of wine!

Alright Mr Borge

You want me to go cook something Mr Paulie?
Fine. Cue home-made bolognese.
Fresh parsley, very fresh bay leaf (as in taken off a tree about half an hour before), crushed garlic, beef stock, diced bacon, carrot, celery, chopped tomatoes, baby onion, red wine (with what didn't go in the pan providing an appropriate apertif) mince, and a couple of other things (I think) chucked in a large pan and simmered down for 40 minutes. Throw in some butter-fried leeks and a bed of tagliatelle and cue inability to move off the sofa for at least half an hour.
I know it's hardly Gordon Ramsay but hey one has to start somewhere. But not a jar of anything in sight. Now here's the difference between Paulie and I. He takes photos of it on his plate. Forget that for a laugh. I'm only interested in eating it when it gets on my plate. But just for you, have a photo of it cooking ;-)

In the meantime, who needs posh cat toys? I have just spent the last 30 minutes laughing a heck of a lot running around the flat holding a piece of string, with the latter being hotly pursued by a nutcase cat. Here, I have just tied the string round the doorknob and given it a twitch, and she's off. I have a feeling when she is let out we are going to have a frequent supply of small and possibly large captured creatures. She discovered a daddy long legs yesterday which was vigourously pursued around the living room. Crazy mog

School Report

The second half of Bec's parents evening went fine. Some of the parents even went and queued to see the head to say how pleased they were with her! Bec'll hate me for putting this on, but hey I'm proud of her :-D

I've taken a couple of days off, having been at work every day since last friday. Going off to wales on Sunday for a couple of days which will be soooooooooooo nice. Big thanks to Mr & Mrs Johnson for inviting us along :-)

Something completely different: I am looking forward to the day when we can let this four legged nutcase out of the house (blue cross recommend three weeks inside before letting her out).

She is litter tray trained.

But oh my life you know when she's used it. What an incredible pong.

Usual State of Mania

Things are their usual state of chaos @ JR- UK. Bec is a bit of a stress monkey because it's Parents Evening this week, which for the none UK visitors (of which I have some! Checked out the funky map thing on the sidebar?) is where all the parents get to grill her on the educational status of their offspring in a series of 10 minute slots. This being her first one and all she's been a bit freaked out.
All unnecessary of course as without exception so far they've all been very pleased...... second half of the parents turn up tomorrow.

In the meantime things have taken a bit of a turn at work for me- I have been hoiked off team to run the borough's street duties course. This, basically, is the initiation programme for recruits who have just fallen out of training school, to make sure that they can actually handle real situations, where their decisions have a bit more consequence than the role-play world they have inhabited the last 5 months.

I have done this before as a tutor. This time I'm running it and I'll be an official sergeant for it! Which should be interesting. Because of circumstances quite beyond my control (and the apparent lack of anything approaching organisational skills from the people who should've organised this roughly 4 months ago.... but thats another story...... grrrrrr) I've kind of been thrown right into it .There is less than three weeks till they arrive, in which I have to plan and prepare 10 weeks of instruction, and figure out the various discipline and inefficiency procedures which I hope I won't need to use. So yep I'm a bit of a stress monkey too.

In the meantime: Cat name update! The initial choice was Marbles, mostly because as a certain Alaskanite pointed out, the humour value of calling out to the neighbours "I've lost my marbles? Can you help find my marbles?" was irrestible.

In the end, Bec's class decided. The vote was overwhelming: 2 in favour of Pickles, 3 in favour of Marbles, but a big fat majority of 25 in favour of Aqaya. Aqaya it is.

Aqaya remains bonkers. I think she might be a manic-depressive, just without the depressive bit. Actually, she could be feline bi-polar: with one state being bonkers and running around sliding across the laminate flooring (very amusing), the other being, well, asleep.

Lazy night tonight, video with fruit pie and ice cream, and hopefully the furball in dozy mode.

Furball Fury

Well, I am now now outnumbered in the house. There are two females in the flat, both of whom run the place.

One of them most of you already know:

The other is the recent acquisition from Kimpton:

We have not yet decided on a name: The top three are Marbles, Pickles, and Aqaya (courtesy Jimbob: that is the right spelling, isn't it....?)

Whatever she will eventually be called, she is settling in quite nicely. The Blue Cross suggestion that she be kept in the same room for a few days has been usurped by a greased ball of furry lightning that shot out when the door opened. Having said that, the spare room is definitely her territory and you are game to be pounced on if you wiggle your toe in the right manner.

Unsurprisingly the spare bed has become hers- so much for the cat snuggle sleepy bed thing I got. It will be an interesting battle come the first visitor to the flat who wishes to sleep there. (Sorry Jon). When you walk past the room you get a inquisitive eye looking at you from the end of the bed.

Currently, all I can see of her is 3 inches of tail as she is sitting the other side of the curtains watching anyone who dares walk along the road.

In a nutshell, she seems completely bonkers.

About right for a cat in this family :-)

Two posts in a day?

Also, a brief apology for no updating. Things have been their usual level of ridiculous busyness. I worked last weekend on nights and it was completely bonkers, more so than usual. At some point over the weekend had to shut down primary roads, deal with drunk drivers, illegal immigrants, barrelloads of fighting drunk idiots, undesirables taking advantage of other drunken idiots and relieving them of their wallets, a whole can of worms to do with child welfare issues, people suspected of carrying guns, it just went on. There is a police myth that all hell breaks loose when there is a full moon. I am beginning to believe it, for as we crawled back to the station at something past 6 on saturday morning, the clouds parted to show a huge full moon languishing over Parliament Hill. In case people wondered, I can't really talk about stuff that I deal with at work on here, as that kind of gets me into trouble with the powers that be who don't like it for some reason. But thats another story.

On a lighter note, Bec and I managed to find time to go for a walk a while ago. Unfortunately the weather decided to get involved and it absolutely chucked it down. We drove around for a bit whilst still hammering down where I had fun driving through various enormous puddles on the back lanes. It just stopped when we got out of the car, but you can see the water sluicing down the road. Bec is possibly looking for fish.


We got about 200 metres before it hammered down again and nearest shelter was required.

After this we were prepared to give it up as a bad job but it actually stopped properly after that and we could wander round the damp meadows.

A post in the style of Paulie

The wifeski and I were in need of some fruity refreshment the other day. As simple and honest a glass of Robinsons may well be it was time for something a little more upmarket.
So cue a trip to the local fruiterie. (Sainsbury's).

So with some late season English strawberries, raspberries (next year, hopefully, we'll be able to go out in the garden and pick our own, as well as loganberries, seeing how I've just planted some), hand-peeled banana, coconut milk, with a dash of milk and a dollop of dairy vanilla, expertly (!) blended together and served in a crystal glass to make a refreshing and notably pink concoction that hit all the right spots.

Luvverly.

A third J-R on the way?

It's true!

No, that's not true.

What is true is we may be getting a cat!! Gandered along to the local Blue Cross rescue centre with the intention of seeing this little character.

Introductions went fine: you could tell she was still a little stressed from being in the rescue centre (probably not helped by the cat compound being next to the dog play area) and she wasn't completely relaxed..... but she was still happy to use me as a temporary climbing frame.

Having a conversation:

I have already trained her to check if my watch is still working

But more to the point I didn't get bitten or scratched which can only be a good thing.

And we have reserved her!

So this time a week tuesday the feline furball will be the latest addition to the JR family :-)

However...... we feel that she needs a new name as we're not particularly great fans of Tahlia.

Names suggested by myself and so far vetoed include:

Tequila, Tarmac, Fleabag, Furball........

So: suggestions please! Postcards to the usual address or just leave a comment.

Becphone

A random collection of photos that were on Bec's phone, which I've transferred onto the computer......

Cheesy grins galore in the trial run for the wedding hair

I-am-not-amused looks from me at the start of my stag do. Matt sent this picture to her phone from the pub to reassure her that I was not being treated too badly! I.e. I still had all my clothes on and was not chained to a south london lamp post....

There are some others to put on, but blogger has decided it doesn't want to upload any more photos so they'll have to wait!

Stange things on the internet.

Jon Taylor. Barking Mad. Has set up a blog dedicated to:

A shelf of lego.

Literally.

Don't believe me? See here.

Wedding de Stu

I know it's late! But things have been typically mad.

Anyway.... a week ago Saturday the Wife & I went to my ex-flatmate's wedding. The last year with Stew has had its fairly entertaining moments as we compared notes of how and what we were preparing!

We got there on time, despite the best efforts of London Underground shutting the Picaddily line access at Kings Cross.

Annoyingly, both of us had a bad day with the camera and we haven't got many good photos, but the better ones are here. Or at least they would be when blogger loads them up

The service was great. Here be the two walking back down the aisle:

Everybody was then invited round the back to have a sandwich or two. This enabled everybody to get a good photo of the new Mr & Mrs Martin and so everyone could participate in the cake cutting....

The now veteran wife (compared to Sarah!) and the Best Man.....

After this, it was a scramble round to Gunnersbury Park where the reception was. We were basically in a kind of conservatory for the food, which was another barbeque.... seems we've started a trend!

Prior to that, it was photo time. This lot are the Southampton Contingent as what was in the Big Gay Pink House for the stag do (as posted here)

And this is them doing strange things with Mr Martin. Glad to see Sarah getting stuck right in too.

Speeches were a genuine highlight. Persons who were there will appreciate the irony of that statement as the light was somewhat failing. People at their tables made impressive little furnaces with their table decorations to help illuminate dessert!

Stew bounced around a lot during his speech saying "fantastic!" several times. Jon The Best Man Lawn had actually spent a good deal of time preparing his speech, which then had to be mostly ignored as you can't read very well using only a tea light candle.

When the speeches had finished, someone found the light switch. Doh!

But all in all, a very good day. Some point roundabout now they'll be back off honeymoon and no doubt looking forward to several months of commuting!

Lack of updates

Apologies..........

Things have been a bit mad. Bec is just about snowed under with a million things to do with school. The first year of teaching is pretty much a 16hr a day occupation, with only 8 of them each day actually at the school.

Work things have been busy too for me. I discovered what the sight and sound of someone falling onto concrete from a fifth floor window was like yesterday, which was pleasant.

Happier things: some truly cheesy photos of Stew's wedding will shortly be uploaded and a general report about such things- some amusing moments indeed.

But as for me, I'm off to bed as it is truly an unearthly hour in the morning.

Bak 2 skool

Well not quite true as Bec was actually back at school last Friday. Tomorrow, Tuesday, will be quite different as an invading horde of small brown-and-yellow bedecked hyperactive lungs on legs will shatter any last remaining illusion that Bec has chosen a peaceful relaxing career.

Hence why I'm the one updating as Bec is immersed somewhere in last minute laminating and name printing and number cutting and a veritable raft of various craft bits. Its like living in a live blue peter show.

But anyway I've been tasked to actually do something useful on here so I better get on with it else I'll be in trouble ;-)

Norfolk

Last weekend, the Wife and I wandered off up to Norfolk to stay at her Nan's for a couple of days. A two fold purpose: firstly, a bit of relaxation after stresses of a years worth of lesson plans and trying to sort completely chaotic classrooms (and that's before the kids get there); and to unite with a sizeable faction of the Johnson family for Anne's 40th birthday. Bec apologises, she meant to do this update but never got the chance. I'm on nights tomorrow so am up late to break myself in........

Anyway, photos:

Cromer: When near the coast, it is rude not to visit a fish and chip shop, as evidenced by cousin Christina below

There are beaches (although forget going in the water, it is the north sea). Oh and there is no photo of the kite flying as we never quite persuaded it to......

Over in the Queens Back Garden (Nearly) on the Sandringham Estate, Kings Lynn, playing what could be roughly described as football. Thats "Soccer" to any confused Americanians.

Source of much entertainment was a trampoline in Anne & Chris's back garden, which kept a succession of kids small and not so small entertained for some time....

Stag!

Realised I never put on any pictures from my stag do.... blimey was ages ago now.

Anyway yes paintballing is great fun. Kind of.

It is less fun when you are the Stag and the final "game" is you run across the field while everyone fires as many paintballs as their trigger finger allows at you.

Thankfully, most people there weren't particularly good shots (mind you, I was not exactly standing still and presenting an easy target) and so I got off with only a few (dozen) bruises:

A nice little line down my back

And several all over the place on my front! The people on my right had the better aim it would seem. Still, I wasn't the only one with bruises. Enter Stew:

And as now seems to be tradition, Jon got hit in the neck. He needs to grow his beard even more next time to protect himself I reckon....