More Chilli (+squirrel) news

After a problematic start I think we are now on our way with our chilli plant. As shown in the picture on the left, we now have a few flowers and we are hoping they will turn into chillis soon. I was advised not to shake the plant to fertilise it, so I’ve given the flowers a tickle with a feather… not that I think it makes much difference but what the hey.

Also showing promising signs is the Amaryllis that Jessica’s Granddad gave us for Christmas. He challenged all his grandchildren to see who could get the most flowers on their plant. I think we have a good chance with the three heads we are soon to see flower.

Finally, after a whole year of spending on my Sony card I have finally got enough points for a camcorder. On Saturday morning we were awoken by the sound of something hitting the bars outside our window. On investigation we found a squirrel had located our bird feeder and was intent on liberating its contents. I used my newly acquired video camera to capture the footage below. Apologies for the voice-over – I had just woken up and I have a bit of a cold.

Video: Squirrel outside our window

Merry Christmas

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

Kingswood Christmas Casino

Jessica kindly organised a Christmas party for the club at work – a good time was had by everyone who came which was fantastic as the majority of the people at work were miserable and declared humbug. I donned a (borrowed) dinner jacket and bow-tie and staffed one of the two black jack tables with other games including Roulette and Wii bowling.

The aim of the night was to accumulate more (chocolate) coins than anyone else by gambling on the casino games. Everyone then cashed in their winnings and the top gamblers won a box of chocolates each. The banked casino currency could then be eaten but due to the sheer amount available a lot was taken home too 🙂

Thank you again to Jessica for organising such a great evening.

Chilli Crisis!

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?!

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

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.

Happy birthday to me!

Thanks to everyone who has wished my a happy birthday today… I had a good day despite having to go to work. A few members of the team in which I work at the BBC were lucky enough to be recognised at today’s innovation forum and I got the hefty chunk of glass pictured left (it’s one of those clever laser bubbled things).

Me and Jessica have just returned from a lovely Thai meal at Mae Ping. I had the “Crying Tiger” which was steak with an exotic sauce! The special sauce made you go oooh and then aaaagh as the chillis hit. Jessica tried a piece and had exactly the same reaction so I was reassured that I had not found the only chilli bit on the plate. A nice chocolate cake to finish of the day now… 🙂

Halloween

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

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

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.