Obligatory holiday blog

Ok, so here is the obligatory Christmas/New Year blog. It's not very exciting, but nevertheless, here it is:

We both finished work on the 21st December, so we had something like 16 days off. Unfortunately, Ele was very ill for much of it.

Christmas Eve was spent doing less than normal, as we weren't doing a Christmas dinner the next day. We had a traditional take-away pizza and as we had already wrapped everything, had a fairly stress-free evening.

Christmas Day was quite hectic. Jess was too excited to sleep so came and lay on the end of our bed at some point. Ele then stretched her feet out and kicked her off onto the floor. When Joe woke up they all got to work on presents, and everyone had a wonderful time and liked what they got. I didn't have any suprise presents to give out this year, like last year's Wii, which of course we no longer have... After we finished we went to Ele's parents' house to do more presents, and then over to my parents' house to do even more and to have Christmas dinner. It's the first time we've been to my parents for Christmas in a few years, so I think they quite appreciated it.

Boxing Day didn't go according to plan. The plan was that Ele's mum and dad would drive to Peterborough to visit relatives in their car, as they were staying up there for a few days. I would drive up in our car carrying the four of us, plus Saff, Anise and Mick, as we were only visiting for the day. It started badly, then got worse. To begin with I didn't pay any attention to the route as I would have driven it, and just blindly followed the sat nav. This was not good as it took us up the M1 which had a) Roadworks and b) Accidents. Just as we cleared the last of the accidents, Anise piped up that she needed the loo. Of course, because of the stupid SPECS cameras I couldn't go above 50 for fear of points on my license, so I had to dwadle along until the roadworks came to an end. Then I could put my foot down a bit and get to Toddington services. Whilst we were there the phone rang, and it turns out Arthur & Chris had broken down at South Mimms services. And by broken down I mean the head-gasket had gone so they were going nowhere. So we drove back down to the M25 and went across to South Mimms to pick up Chris. Arthur had gone back with his car. We finally made it to Peterborough with 8 people in the car and had a nice afternoon. Saff and Anise decided to stay, so Mick did too, and then Jess also decided she wanted to stay. We weren't too keen on it as it was for a few days and we would have liked her home but she insisted so we relented. In the event, I think she got a bit bored after a couple of days! So after taking 8 people up, we came home just 3 of us.

The 27th we ended up driving to Peterborough again to drop Arthur off and bring Mick back home. And to take clothes for Saff, Anise & Jess. This didn't go too well either, as the M25 was completely solid all the way around and it took us ages.

For the next couple of days, Ele was ill and we didn't really do anything. On the 30th Mick went up to Peterborough again and brought back Chris, Saff, Anise and Jess. Arthur and the rest of the Peterborough contingent came on the 31st, and stayed with them for a few more days.

New Year's Eve we all went to a party at Ele's parents. My parents came too. It was a fun evening, although Ele still wasn't very well.

On New Year's Day we went into Sutton in the afternoon, and it was completely deserted. About half the shops were open but I've never seen it so empty. Since then we went into Sutton again, Croydon, Kingston and Bluewater. We've spent a fortune on car parks (and a fortune in the shops).

And now we're back at work. Boo. Because Arthur's car is so broken he's had to borrow mine for a while and we're having to juggle things around with me dropping Ele off at work, and him picking her up and so on.

On burglary related news, Ele has found some new rings to replace her stolen engagement and wedding ones. She went for a completely different design in the end, and it will never be the same as the original ones, but they are very nice and we both like them. We should get them within a week or so. The rest of the companies dealing with replacement goods (Jessops and PowerPlay) have not been in touch at all. Well, Jessops called on Christmas Eve then within about 10 seconds realised he had to get authorisation and hasn't been heard from since. Powerplay have not so much as made a phone call. Extremely poor service. I have asked the Loss Adjusters to chase them up but I don't know if they have or not. LMG (who were in charge of valuing and replacing the rings) were superb and sent a card through to cover the items within about 3 days. I'll chase the Loss Adjusters again tommorow, as the woman dealing with our claim wasn't available today. I want them to hurry up (Jessops especially) as I know they are giving us vouchers or some kind of store credit and I want to take advantage of the sale!

Burgled :(

I don't think I've ever been this angry.

On Friday, Jess came home from school to discover the house in a state. She called Ele in a panic, and Ele told her to leave the house immediately and get on a bus to her office. Ele then called me at work and I rushed home.

When I got home, sure enough, we'd been burgled. The kitchen window had been forced open and all sorts of stuff had been taken. Our PS3, Wii, PSP, DS, Laptop, Video Camera (with the dvd of Joe's 2nd birthday in it), Jessica's savings (about £200), Ele's engagement and wedding rings (which is the most upsetting of the things), Jess's Ipod for Xmas and so on...

I called the police and they came round fairly quickly. A crime-scene investigation officer went round and dusted for fingerprints but didn't come up with anything. The plain-clothes Sergeant knocked on our neighbours doors but they were all out at that time (and annoyingly usually they are in) so didn't see anything.

I had to call out a glazier to look at the window, and the whole locking mechanism was broken and he couldn't get one over the weekend, so the window is kind of secured and tied into place with wood and string and stuff until he can get the part.

Jess was very scared by it all and wouldn't come back for 2 days. Ele still doesn't want to stay in the house by herself.

So now it's in the hands of the insurers. Due to the amount of the claim (a rough estimate is £4000-£4500 of stuff gone) they have had to appoint a firm of loss adjusters to deal with it. They have given me permission to replace Jess's Ipod immediately though as it was a Xmas present.

On top of all that, Joe has been really ill and we even had to take him to A&E on Thursday night as he wasn't breathing properly. He's running a really high temperature (up to 41C at one point) and is very poorly. And I've been sick as well which hasn't helped matters.

So this has put a dampner on Xmas for us all. At least it looks like Jess's Ipod was the only Xmas present taken and there was no actual damage to the house or our other things, other than mud traipsed all over the floors.

Friends and family have been incredibly supportive. My mum lent me some cash to pay for the glaziers as we're a bit low on cash after buying Xmas presents, and our neighbour came round with some mince pies she had baked and a Christmas card for Jess with £10 in it to start her savings again which was really thoughtful of her.

Joe turns 2!

Well, Joe is now 2! Can you believe it? Where does the time go.

I took Friday off work to spend with him, as did Ele. He was quite excited as he knows what presents are, and now associates birthday parties with cake and candles. We opened his presents in the morning and he loved them all. Jess then had to go to school unfortunately, but Ele & I took him to Godstone Farm to look at the animals. We went there once before and he enojoyed it then, and he loved it even more now. In the evening we came back and Ele's family came over and we did the whole "happy birthday" thing and had cake. He liked that a lot!

The next day was his party, so we were up late getting the house ready and finishing his cake (Ele had made him a snake cake that looked really good. She was very proud!) and so on. We still had tons to do in the morning as well cleaning, getting food ready, decorating etc. We had a jungle themed party and bought a load of stuff from a website called www.partypieces.co.uk (I think) who managed to deliver the next day (it all arrived on Friday) which makes a change from a lot of companies... the stuff was all really good quality, too. Highly recommended site.

There wasn't loads of people coming, as we'd sent out invitations very late. That was a good thing though, as our house wouldn't have coped with much more. He had a great time with more presents, his snake cake, lots of people to play with and so on. He did have to go for a nap in the middle of it though as he was tired out!

After the party we decided to goto the fireworks display in Carshalton. We hadn't been planning to go so it was a bit last minute and we didn't have tickets. So we met up with my parents at their house (which is about as close as you can park to the park) and we all walked from there. I think there were 16 of us in total. We had to queue and buy tickets so we missed the first few minutes, but the beginning isn't anything special anyway. When we got in they were waiting for us right at the back near the gates. We've never stood there before and actually had a great view. I'd bought my camera and tripod and remote shutter release and managed to get some good shots of the fireworks. Joe loved it though he said afterwards it was "a bit scary". Then we waited for them to light the big bonfire and he liked that, too. He fell asleep in his pushchair on the way home - he had an exhausting and exciting day!

On Sunday we did our usual Tesco shop in the morning, then had to buy Jess some school shoes as hers had fallen apart after 6 weeks. That's what you get for being cheap and only spending £10 I suppose. She knew what she wanted (£50 but you get what you pay for I hope!). We went to Sutton but they didn't have her size, so we went to Croydon. Whilst Ele & Jess were in a shop, I was outside with Joe, rummaging through his bag to find a wipe to wipe his hands with, as he had just finished a banana. Suddenly, something white, bright and smoking landed about a foot to our right. I looked around to see what it was and then a green one landed to our left. I looked up and there was a stupid yob holding a firework tube over the edge of the multi-story carpark in front of us (one of those ones that shoots up red, green and white lights about 30-feet into the air) and aiming at the crowded high street below. A pink one shot out and just missed Jess who was coming out of the shop. I grabbed Joe and pushed him (he was in his pushchair) out of the way of any more. What a complete idiot! I mean, seriously, how stupid do you have to be to think that firing fireworks into a crowded high street full of people, and children and babies, is a fun thing to do? It's lucky nobody was hurt.

Still, overall it was a brilliant weekend and Joe loved every minute of it, which is the main thing.

Still here

Hmm, it appears to have been a little while since I blogged. This is because I've been busy. Such is life. Here is a quick recap of important events in the past few weeks:

Jess has gone away for a week to Bude in Cornwall on an adventure week with her school during half-term. She left on Saturday at 9:15, so at 9:00 we got in the car, drove to the school and found nobody there. Brief panic set in... what if it was 8:15 and she'd missed the coach? So we drove home again and read the letter again and found out she left on Sunday, not Saturday. Whoops. Still, better a day early than a day late!

I've bought a Playstation 3 and it's brilliant. And I'm ordering a new HD TV to go with it tommorow. We're selling our current one to a co-worker of Ele's. She didn't want to sell it (neither did I), but realistically there's nowhere to put it in our house, so selling it was the sensible thing. It cost us about £3000 when we bought it 3 years ago, and we're getting £350 for it which is initially a depressing thought. But then the new one is only costing £700 (how much they've dropped in price is astonishing) so after the £350 we're getting for the old one it's only costing £350 for the new one, which makes it all very cheap. At least, that's how I've justified it.

Joe will soon be 2. I really can't believe that. On one hand it seems that we've not had him long enough for him to be 2, and on the other hand I can't really remember life without him. I think the point here is that kids addle your brain. We're having a party for him but it looks like hardly anyone can come, largely because we only sent out invitations about 2 weeks before the date. Still, makes the party cheaper for us to throw.

Work is a bit rubbish. I'm working on some reasonably interesting things, but having to access everything from another office and it's so s-l-o-w to get anything done. It's really frustrating and unproductive when everything you change then requires a 10 minute wait to see if it worked or not. Plus there's hardly anyone left now which makes it a bit depressing. Still, we're having a lunchtime curry next week. Always a good thing!

-Neil

Obligatory holiday blog

Well, it's time for the obligatory holiday blog and then to fill in about Joe (he's not been a well boy).

The first week off work was our holiday. Me, Ele, Jess & Joe were accompanied by Saffron (Ele's sister) and Anise, Saffron's (2.5yr old) daughter.

Saturday we loaded up the car and hit the open road. We made amazing progress round the M25 and M40, reaching the M6 in just under 2 hours, even with a quick toilet-stop for Anise. After that, though, we hit a major queue coming off the M54 to the A5, which was just the queue for the roundabout, and then several more also caused by roundabouts, and then one that was caused by cars wanting to turn right into a Costcutter shop, but being unable to because the carpark was full! We eventually got past all these and headed to Bala Lake to meet Jess, who had been staying with her actual dad for the past week. As he lives in Liverpool, it made sense to meet somewhere in North Wales rather than for him to bring her all the way back to London. We collected Jess and headed off to our cottage, which was fairly remote - about 8 miles from Caernarfon. We let ourselves in, unloaded the car and headed out to Caernarfon to goto the Tesco that I remembered there. We ran around buying food as it was about to shut, then decided that it was too late for cooking and headed to a McDonalds over the road before heading back to the cottage.

Sunday we spent in Caernarfon. We had a look around the castle, and did some crab-fishing, with absolutely no success at all. A nice, relaxing day.

Monday Jess & I climbed Snowdon. Ele dropped us off in Llanberis and we followed the Llanberis path up, on the basis that it's the easiest (wouldn't want Jess to struggle, ahem). We made it up in 3 hours, 15 minutes and even though it was a cloudy day, when we got to the top it cleared briefly so we had some great views. What was most bizarre was finding a building site at the top. They are rebuilding the train station at the top, so there were diggers and all sorts up there. Actually what was even more bizarre was the guy on the unicycle, hopping up the cairn that marks the summit. He then proceeded to ride off back down the mountain. No word of a lie. We wandered down again and stopped at the Halfway House cafe for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. The cafe wasn't there the last time we did it, and it's a very welcome addition. Ele & Saff took Joe & Anise to some farm-place whilst we were doing this, but I don't know much about that.

Tuesday we went to Llandudno, partly just to goto a cafe/restaurant place called Tiffany's that Ele and I fondly remembered from our honeymoon. It was still there and still served very nice food. We then caught the cable car up the Great Orme (Joe loved this bit), had a rubbish cup of tea in a rubbish cafe and came down again, again on the cable car. We decided to buy the kids some dinner in a restaurant as it was quite late and ended up eating there ourselves as well. It was Ok. I went out to buy a packed of cigarettes and walked for about 2 miles before I found a place that was a) open, and b) sold them. On the way back to car, turning right out of the restaurant instead of left, I passed 3 shops selling them in the space of 100 yards.

Wednesday was Jess's 11th birthday. Her actual dad wanted to take her out for the day, so we dropped her off to meet him at Penrhyn Castle, and then we went on to Greenwood Country Park, which was actually quite good. Plenty for the kids to do. Her dad then came to meet us there, and we all went to a nice-looking Chinese place we had driven past a couple of times near Bangor. It turned out to be very nice (and even had a nice Engrish-esque "Sliced Beef in O.K sauce" on the menu). Joe made a complete mess, but if the waitress will put rice on a plate in front of him, she should expect it to be redistributed around. There were ten of us - me, Ele, Jess, Joe, Saff, Anise, Steve (Jess's dad), Tessa (his wife), Amy and Neve (their kids/Jess's half-sisters) altogether. After dinner the kids had a run-around the nice big garden they had there, and then we went home.

Thursday we went to Rhyl to goto the Sun Center. This is a water-park with slides and things, and it was absolutely packed (and quite expensive). I didn't think much of it, even though it'd been my idea, but the kids had fun. Joe was so tired he fell asleep in Ele's arms as we walked back to the car. We then went off into the town to find some lunch. We found one place advertising itself as a restaurant, but in my opinion restaurants should not have red plastic chairs bolted to nasty white plastic tables as their main form of seating. We did find a nice place though and had a very nice lunch. We walked further down and came across a fun-fair. It looked like it was built in the thirties and not repainted since. I got pursuaded to go on a rollercoaster with a loop-the-loop in it and Jess went on another couple of things, but it was £2 each for a ride so a bit expensive really. Saffron amused herself by taking pictures of the dilapidated rides, finishing off with a picture of a woman in a neck-brace. Rhyl is generally not very nice - lots of boarded up buildings and so on. Avoid. Thursday was also supposed to be the day that Ele & Saff climbed Snowdon, but the weather forecast was not good - predicting rain - so they decided to postpone it and might come back in the spring for a long weekend to do it.

Friday we went to to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Ok, I Googled the spelling) for lack of anything else to do that was cheap, fairly close, and easy to do. We shopped in the big shop there, ate lunch and came home to start packing.

Saturday we loaded the car and came home. Overall it was a good holiday. Relaxing and fun in equal measure. The kids behaved themselves and the cottage was very nice.


The next week, though, was The Week When Joe Was Ill. He'd picked up a bit of a cold that we put down to the swimming in Rhyl, and having nothing to dry his hair with properly. Nothing bad, just a bit of a runny nose. On Sunday, Ele went into London with her cousin, and Jess & Saff. I took Joe to my parents' house for lunch. He was very tired when we got there, which I put down to the fact that he'd only slept an hour earlier, when 2 hours is normal. He was so tired that I put him on the sofa for a nap. He woke up an hour or so later and had a biscuit and seemed Ok. Then I sat him on a chair in the dining room and gave him a bit of hot cross bun to eat. A minute later he dropped it, and then looked like he was going to fall off the chair. My dad and I both grabbed him, and could instantly see he wasn't right. He then started shaking and having convulsions. We thought he was choking so I passed him to my mum (who teaches First Aid) and she tried to get it up, but quickly realised he wasn't choking. He then collapsed onto the floor breathing funny and unable to focus on anything, his eyes rolling back. We rang 999 and the paramedics arrived very quickly, the 999 operator staying on the line with my dad, informing him of the location of the ambulance as it was on its way. They realised his temperature was high (40C) and gave him Calpol and oxygen and then we took him to hospital. My parents drove my car back to my house then came to the hospital as well (the hopsital is 5 minutes walk from my house). Joe had fallen asleep but woke up shortly after. They examined him, and said it was a Febrile Convulsion brought on by his high temperature. We took him home and twenty minutes or so later, Ele arrived, having been called by my mum whilst she was still in London.

The next day, his temperature was still up so we gave him Calpol all day. He wasn't eating or drinking either - a small amount of breakfast and nothing at all to drink. On Tuesday when he woke up he was screaming and nothing we could do would calm him down. He eventually fell asleep again, so we made a doctors appointment for 9:30. We had to take Jess off to her first day at high school so Chris popped over to watch Joe whilst we went. He woke up and screamed again for a while and then fell asleep again, then woke up and screamed again so we decided to take him straight to A&E. This pattern of waking up screaming (really flinging himself all over the place) until he fell asleep again continued all day. They diagnosed a viral infection in the throat and ears and sent him home with some throat spray and the advice to keep giving Calpol and to also give Nurofen. By the evening, he finally woke up and didn't immediately start screaming. He even had a little bit to eat and drink. For the next few days he still wasn't right - sleeping twice per day instead of once, not eating as much as usual, and just not being his usual happy self. Finally yesterday he seemed to be more back to normal. He ate his lunch, only had one nap and was smiling and playing a lot more. Hopefully he's almost back to normal now. To make it worse, Ele was also sick (possibly the same thing, we're not sure).

So our second week off was rubbish. As I mentioned, Jess started High School and is enjoying it. She walks with a friend to school every day, and comes home either by herself or with a friend. No more school run! At least, until Joe starts...

Harry Potter and the bloody big cinema screen

This weekend we took Jess up to the Imax theatre at Waterloo to watch the new Harry Potter movie on the giant screen. It was very good indeed, especially as the last 20 minutes were in 3D.

Tonight sees (possibly) Jess's television debut, sort of, as she is an extra in Little Devil which is on tonight on ITV. Whether she made it through the editing process or not remains to be seen.

Next week she is off to her dad's for a week, and then after that we're off on holiday. We're going to Snowdonia, so as her dad lives in Liverpewl, we're going to pick her up in North Wales to save him driving her all the way home again.

Oh, and We Will Rock You was brilliant!

The seven seas of Rye

That title is clever for two reasons: First, we went to the beach Camber at the weekend, which is next to Rye, and second, it's the title of a Queen song, and me and Ele are going to watch We Will Rock You up in the West End on Wednesday.

Back to the weekend... Summer has arrived! And we've been making the most of it. Friday evening we went to a thing called Abbeyfest and Merton Abbey Mills. This was basically a free event where you turn up with some chairs and watch a band and drink lots of beer. We all went (me, Ele, Jess, Joe, Chris, Arthur, Saff, Anise, and their neighbour, Maz, and her kids Hakeem and Tyrese). Was very good, the band were fantastic.

Saturday we attacked the lawn with the lawnmower, did some shopping and then went to Maz's for a BBQ in the evening and drank more beer.

Sunday we all (as above) went to the beach at Camber Sands. It took a long time to get there, as there was a 2 mile queue for the car park. Then it was a short hike along a sandy path, and up a sand-dune to get to the beach. If you'd have recorded us stumbling along with all of our beach paraphernalia and then sped it up it would have looked good accompanied by a Benny Hill soundtrack. Getting up the sand-dune was hard work because Joe and Anise couldn't walk up it.

When we reached the top though, we could see the beach, and it was HUGE! The sea was literally half a mile away - maybe even more - and the beach wasn't even that full, so we had loads of space. We setup and took Joe down to the sea. This took about thirty minutes, because it was so far away, and because Joe kept stopping to pick up sand from the wet bits. He was loving it. When we got to the sea, he had great fun standing in it (and falling over a couple of times). The tide was coming in really fast, though. We had gone in about ten feet or so (it was very flat and shallow - and very warm, too) and a few minutes later we turned around and the beach was now a good fifty or sixty feet away. We walked back to the shore and there were a bunch of guys who had dumped their stuff about twenty feet from the water's edge. I thought about mentioning to them that in about 2 minutes their stuff was going to be underwater, but decided the entertainment factor lay in not saying anything. Sure enough, the one guy who was remaining completely failed to notice the encroaching water until it was actually upon him. Very amusing.

By about 4pm the tide had reached up to where we had setup camp (I bought a beach-tent whilst we were there!) so we had to move back a bit, then shortly afterwards decided to leave. We never really saw Jess and Hakeem the whole day, they went off swimming for hours! All the kids had a fantastic time.

We packed up and struggled back to the car, and then disaster struck. Arthur had been topping up the coolant in his radiator, and accidentally knocked the radiator cap into the engine. We couldn't see it, or get to it, no matter what we tried. So we had to call Green Flag! They came within an hour and got it out. Whilst we were waiting everyone had dinner from the take-away stall in the car park and the kids watched a DVD in our car (that roof-mounted DVD player is the best thing in the world), apart from Joe & Anise who fell asleep within moments.

The drive back took ages as there was tons of traffic, so it was about 9:30pm before we got home. Then we still had to bath Joe who was covered in sand.

Exhausting weekend but good fun. And expensive. The car-park at Camber cost £7 for up to 6 hours, and drinks were 90p per can. And the place to buy them was miles away. Next time I'll buy a small fridge and a diesel generator and hire a man to carry them. It'll still work out cheaper.