Category Archives: Uncategorized

Merry Christmas

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To the left is a picture of Jessica crafting on Christmas morning. What you probably can’t spot is the tiny radio controlled helicopter that is hovering nearby – I have highlighted it in the picture on the right. Jessica has been very understanding whilst I learn to fly my new toy.

Below is a short video of it in action – I apologise if Microsoft insist on making you watch an ad first.

This year was our first Christmas as hosts and I am pleased to say that everything went well on the big day. Jessica’s roast dinner was delicious and she obeyed the Christmas traditions of supplying far too much food for us to eat. Thank you to everyone who sent a present or card I hope you enjoyed your presents too.

We are currently enjoying a few quiet days before it all kicks off again when we host a New Years eve bash. Thankfully we still have some Champagne left over from the wedding so we’ll be able to see the New Year in with style.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Video: Tiny RC copter

Chilli Crisis!

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The developing chilli that I showed a day ago has dropped off the plant 🙁 Fortunately there are at least 4 others starting so I am hopeful that we will get some fruit. After a long rehash of 3rd year Biology we have decided the best way to fertilise the flowers will be to shake the plant a bit.

Chilli?!

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We have been nurturing a pair of chilli plants since around August when Steve generously gave them to us. Today we think we finally spotted evidence of a chilli!

We’ll continue to monitor the progress and hope it grows into a decent fruit that we can use in a Thai curry or similar 🙂 If it ripens before Christmas then Dad is going to be upset as he will have to eat it… such is his confidence that our chilli will fail or take a long time to mature.

Relaxing weekend

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Although me and Jessica had a great time in Rome we didn’t feel that we had enough time to truly relax. My sister and her boyfriend offered to buy us an ‘experience’ for a wedding present so we gratefully accepted their offer and spent a night at the Nutfield priory. The hotel and spa is very expensive and somewhat exceeded Cara’s gift expectations so we threw some extra money into the pot.

We had a lovely time… on arrival we had light lunch and then went to check out the pool in the fitness centre (leaving time for food to settle). After sampling the sauna, steam room and jacuzzi we retired to our room to do a spot of reading. The evening meal was very nice and we could tell the food was expensive as the were all sorts of words we didn’t understand on the menu 🙂 We took coffee in the library and Jessica beat me at Scrabble.

The morning after, I had a fantastic full-English breakfast and then we had to go and pack our things. That wasn’t the end of the relaxing though – we left our bag at reception and went across to the spa to get a massage. I’ve never had a massage before but I can now recommend it to everyone. We felt strangely tired after the massage (60 min. full body) and before we knew it, 2 hours had passed and there was time to grab some lunch before an afternoon facial. The facial turned out to be a face, neck and shoulders massage with a variety of different products from Clarins. Feeling very relaxed with all our treatments over we returned to the hotel for a cream tea.

After the tea we had to return home 🙁 Strangely I felt the large amount of money we spent on the weekend was totally worth it. I expected to feel a little let down but I really enjoyed myself (as did Jessica) and I can only hope that I get a chance to do something similar again. Highly recommended.

Halloween

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There are some new pictures in the gallery showing my first attempt at pumpkin carving. Jessica really likes Halloween and usually organises a party… as we have been so busy she had to make do with just me this year. It gave me a good excuse to do some long exposure photography 🙂 The picture shows my PC as I promised Dan I’d show him the blue LEDs.

I think we have received all the wedding photos that we are going to, so if you’ve been holding off ordering prints I think now is the time to do it – don’t forget the new user offer for Photobox.

Thanks to everyone who has sent their pictures to us – they have been fantastic.

Hyper fidget

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Just a quick post to let you know that there are now even more photos in the wedding selection – over one hundred now… There are still a few more to collect but that is going to take a week or so. In the meantime, enjoy some footage of Fidget on a night when she was going particularly fast.

Video: Hyper fidget

Wedding pictures

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We have uploaded some of the pictures from the wedding and you can find them in the picture library. We have put high resolution copies with the nice people at photobox if you would like to get prints. If you are not yet a photobox member let us know and we can get you 30 free prints. At the moment I advise you to wait until we get a few more photos in from our friends before you choose which ones you want.

Click here for the picture library or here for photobox.

Buon Giorno

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Hi, we are now back from our honeymoon in Rome. We had an excellent time and there are loads of photos so we’ll add some to the photo section soon. I’ll do a separate post on the holiday when I get a chance.

Whilst the wedding day may be over there are still loads of admin tasks and bits to tidy up. Thanks to everyone who made their way to Kingswood to celebrate the day with us – we’d really like to get an original copy of any image/video files you acquired on the day. The intention is to select the best to share with everyone, both on the site and in print (probably using photobox). You can burn them onto a CD/DVD and mail them or catch me when I walk by with a USB memory stick.

I was really pleased with how the day turned out, the reception went well and the ceremony exceeded all my expectations by having a really fantastic atmosphere. I again extend my thanks to everyone who helped us both before and after the event… we couldn’t have done it without you.

So what’s next for me and Jessica? A rest I think! Then we’ll have to find a house :-/

Staaaaag!

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Yesterday me and twelve other brave souls went out on my stag do. To celebrate one of my last days as a single man I decided that we should go karting, drinking and eating (in that order).

The karting venue was an unknown quantity but thankfully it was a nice little track and the majority of the karts were in good shape. We all got a practice run and then a number of heats to decide the starting line-up in the two semi-finals. The top three from each semi made it through to the final round.

The track staff had a fairly relaxed attitude to safety which meant I was able to wear the ‘attachment’ Steve had built for my crash helmet. Performance varied from kart to kart so everyone got a chance to do a bit of overtaking in at least one of their heats. In the final were me, Jeff, Duncan, Andy, Matt and Richard B. I fell back to last as I exited the first corner due to a game of chicken with Jeff in which neither of us yielded. I battled my way up to third with a bit of off-roading but was unable to catch Duncan and Andy in front of me. Andy’s prize for winning? A trophy and a bottle of Charlemagne! Andy – you seem to have left the Charlemagne at my flat… I’ll save it for when I next see you!

For our evening meal we went to the excellent Banana Leaf (pictures soon) before heading off to the pub. Avoiding the first pub which had some ‘Croydon street theatre’ outside, we ended up in the Oval Tavern.

Thanks to everyone that was able to make it – I had a really good day. Sorry that James couldn’t make it – get well soon James.

I edited some of the footage together… here it is in pixelated youTube glory.