Chessington Again!

So, what have we been up to?

I've been on a course in London again, this time on Coldfusion programming. It was easier than the last course and far better taught (the two may be related!). It was a much easier journey this time as well. I can always get a seat on the tube on the way in, as I get on at Morden which is the beginning of the line, but this time I always got a seat on the way back as well. This gave me over 90 minutes reading time each day, which was very welcome. The place was in a pretty crappy part of town, though.

Jessica has been on half-term and yesterday we went to Chessington again. This time was a far better experience. Saffron and Anise came with us, but Chris didn't. As we still had our free tickets we bought an Express Pass for £6 each which gives you a pre-allocated timeslot on each of the top 6 rides and you get to skip basically all the queue. This proved to be a wise buy and it was very satisfying skipping past all the people who had queued for an hour!

We did Vampire first and then the Bubbleworks. Then Jess and I went onto Tomb Blaster and it broke down whilst we were on it, which was interesting. We had to climb out the car and along the walkway and out the fire exit when they couldn't fix it. They gave us an Exit Pass though, which means you can go back to the ride later on when it's fixed and skip ALL the queues, even the Express Pass queues (which are only about 5 minutes anyway), by walking up the exit and getting straight on. I sneakily got a pass for 4 when we left, so even though Ele & Saff weren't on it, they could go straight on as well. We then did a couple of rides for the babies (although Anise seems to not like any ride at all!) then went to Dragon Falls which is the log ride. We were just queuing to get on, about 10 people from the front, when this one broke down too! A log had come off the rails and jammed, so again we got an Exit Pass to come back later. I'm glad we weren't on this one when it broke, as there were logs jammed all around the ride! Anyway we went back on later (Well, Jess and I did) and Jess had a third go on Tomb Blaster, as after we had done it, Ele and Saff went to do it and a guy came up to us with about 8 kids and he had an exit pass for 10 people and his wife didn't want to go again, so he asked if Jess would want to go again. She also had a second ride on Dragon Fury (which is INSANE!) because Saff didn't want to go on, so she went on again by herself.

Whenever we go again we'll definately buy these passes. The last time we went we only did 3 of the major rides because each one took an hour to queue, and one or two of them only Jess and I did. With these passes we were able to do all the big rides, and then have some spare time to do other rides. Still not enough time to do everything though as there's just so much to do.

Last weekend Saffron, Vicky, Joe, Anise and I went to the Sodbury Sortout which is a kind of gigantic car-boot sale for Land Rover stuff. We met up with Liz & Martin there who are friends of Saff and Vickys, and who we've met several times before as well. We had a good tramp around in the mud; the pushchair wheels were so covered that at one point they weren't even actually turning!

It's Joe's birthday next week, and his party next weekend! Lots of people are coming - 50 or so invited, and a few declined (thank goodness!).

Oh, and the car has to go in again next Wednesday because the battery keeps going flat and the airbag warning light is on....

-Neil

Busy week

This week we visited another couple of schools. Glenthorne we weren't so keen on really, despite it's convenient location, but Cheam High was very good, but it's much harder to get to. So now the choice comes between Greenshaw and Cheam High. Greenshaw has the advantage of being very close (literally a walk in the park to get there), and both schools have very similar results, but Cheam High just felt a bit nicer. Plus Greenshaw probably has some intake from the council estate which can't be good. We need to scope out bus routes for Cheam High to see if it's feasible or not. But then we might not get offered a place there anyway. Argh it's difficult!

On Sunday we went to see Ele's aunt Sandra and her cousins, one of which recently had a baby (the reason for the visit). We had a great journey up, and a delicious lunch and lots of chat and coo-ing over the baba, but then a nightmare coming home again.

Chris & Arthur left about ten or fifteen minutes before us. We (me, Ele, Jess, Joe, Saff & Anise) then all piled into our car (which whizzed us all along in comfort, and the DVD kept Joe amused!) to set off.

Saff had a headache so we stopped off at the first services to grab some paracetamol, some coffee and some petrol. We then carried on down the M1, but there were signs up saying there was delays before the roadworks. Given that the roadworks are enforced at 40mph and go on for miles (and have those annoying SPECS cameras that calculate your average speed) they are a real slow-down, and to have a jam before that as well, I decided to cut across to join the M40.

Whilst going across we heard no the radio there were also delays on the M40 and that the A3 was shut at the bit we needed to go on as well. Saff was feeling a bit nauseous at this point so we stopped briefly at a service station near the Cherwell services by the M40. We then carried on down the M40, hitting a bit of traffic en-route but nothing too bad until we got near High Wycombe. Here there was tons of traffic, so I jumped off the motorway again and headed across to the M4, which was thankfully clear.

Obviously we couldn't do our usual route of going up the A3 at J10 to get home, so I was going to go down the A217 at J8, but there was tons of traffic so I left at J9, thinking I'd go past my work and home that way, but that road was closed as well so we went via Epsom. Saffron remarked it was like that bit of the Truman Show where Jim Carrey tries to leave the island but every road he goes down is suddenly blocked off. She was right!

Anyway we eventually get back towards home and as we turn onto the Mad Mile part of the A217, we realise we have just pulled out behind Chris & Arthur! What a coincidence! A few seconds either way and we wouldn't have even seen them. They went down the M1 and got stuck in the roadworks contraflow because of an accident. And there was me wishing we'd stayed on the M1!

So, we got home later than anticipated but it was a good day nonetheless.

-Neil

Got our car back!

Well we finally got our car back! There's still a couple of things wrong with it (the electric mirrors don't work and there is a pssshhhht noise at about 4000 rpm) but we're happy to have it back. I've got to take it in to the dealer again on Wednesday for them to do the above things, though.

I don't think I mentioned our visit to Chessington the other week. On the 28th of September Jessi had a a parent-teacher consultation day at school, and as we had free Chessingon tickets I took the day off work and we went, thinking it'd be a nice day to go as the kids were at school.

So, we had the consultation in the morning (all good), and then went to Chessington. The car park was promisingly empty, but when we got to the ticket place there were a few people milling around looking like they didn't know what to do. One of them told me that all the rides were closed for the day, and only the zoo was open!

Eventually the manager came down to explain and she said that they only open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays because there's no demand during term time (why open Fridays then? Kids are at school then, too!). A couple of other families were like us and had free tickets and had taken days off and one of them suggested that they give us free entry to Thorpe Park instead as it's all the same group. The manager went off and came back and said she could give us entry for £10 to Thorpe, so we were saving £18 per ticket. I pointed out that we were therefore spending £18 rather than nothing, so weren't saving anything at all. Besides, Thorpe Park isn't as suitable for Jess as Chessington is as she is too small for a lot of the rides.

Anyway they plainly couldn't open the rides for us, so I asked if we could keep our free tickets and have complimentary entry to the zoo so that the kids had something to do. She kindly agreed to that so we went into the zoo, which was actually quite good. So we've still got our free tickets to use up before the end of the month! Not sure when we'll go though, maybe in half term.

We had lunch at my mums on Saturday instead of Sunday and then on Sunday we had a very nice home-made curry at Ele's mums for Vickys birthday.

And I had a letter printed in the Daily Express! I sent an email letter in about how this business of charging for rubbish by the weight was daft because it's the lack of space that's the problem, not the weight of it all and it got printed!

Form a queue for autographs, please...

-Neil

High Schools

We've started visiting high schools for Jess. There must be some mistake, as she's far to young! We've been to Greenshaw and Overton Grange thus far. Overton Grange is a very new school and so looks all nice and bright and modern with wide corridors. The main corridor looked like a shopping mall. I was expecting a branch of Next and a Boots in there. It has nicer school uniforms (i.e. blazers) but overall we didn't think that much of it really. The headmaster tried to tell too many jokes and stuff in his speech, which isn't really what you want a headmaster for.

Greenshaw was better. It was the school I was going to go to if I didn't get into a grammar school. It's a bit older and feels a bit wonderfully chaotic, in that there are classrooms spread around a bit, as it's been extended over the years, and the corridors are narrower. It feels more like a proper school than Overton, which was more like a hospital. The staff were friendlier too, and always greeted you as you walked in and were happy to have a chat with you. The headmaster was really boring, and far more like you'd expect a headmaster to be. Rather than trying a motivational-type speech like the Overton guy, he just laid out the facts and explained their policies. Much better, if more sleep-inducing. Greenshaw admit a portion of selective (i.e. have to pass an exam) students as well, so their standards are quite high. Plus of course it's literally a walk in the park for Jess to get there in the mornings which is a big plus. She won't have to cross a single road. They are now a "Computing and Maths" speciality school, which I was hoping would mean all kids study Computer Science, but it seems to mean that they might study a bit of programming at A-Level, if they want to. They don't even do Computer Science GCSE's or A-Levels anymore.

We STILL don't have the car, or a firm date of when they'll get the part. So we're stuck with the Stupid Zafira. They were going to change it to a Focus, as the Stupid Zafira was too expensive to hire (tip - FIX OUR BLOODY CAR QUICKER!) but then the hire company said that because the Stupid Zafira was on such a long-term hire the price would be the same as a Focus anyway, so we kept it.

Not much apart from that. Vicky is arriving tonight to come and live, so I'm running to Heathrow to get him.

Joe is still staggering around occasionally. He's done about 10 steps now, and at the weekend actually managed to walk from Ele to me, but stop at his toybox en route, grab a book from it and then carry on to me.

-Neil