Emma was pretty tired after our day out but, as I had to go in to Winchester anyway to pick up Christine’s cousin, we decided to offer her the opportunity to go and see the torch lit parade and bonfire in Winchester, safe in the knowledge that, in the half hour between the lighting of the bonfire and the start of the fireworks, we could return home and avoid a repeat of Thursday night. Having checked that bonfires don’t go bang, Emma said that she would like to go.
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Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Bonfires don’t go bang
Saturday, November 7th, 2009Long Lepe
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
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Firework Flop
Friday, November 6th, 2009Yesterday night we headed along to the firework display at our local school (Hiltingbury). The buggy board we had ordered also arrived earlier in the day. Emma was so excited – she rode on the buggy board the whole way there shouting “We’re going to the fireworks” to anyone who would listen. Christine and I were in a slightly less ecstatic mood having failed to find Christine’s wallet, hoping that she had left it in the post office earlier in the day. We had a bit of a wait before the action started and Emma amused herself with a glo-stick. Emma was up on my shoulders when the fireworks started and the reaction was immediate: sheer terror. She started screaming that she wanted to go home and had to be carried away from the school. Last year, having seen a few fireworks out the bathroom window, Emma kept asking about them for weeks afterwards but it would seem that she’s just not ready for the loud bangs.
First orienteering for Duncan
Saturday, October 17th, 2009At two weeks old we thought it was about time Duncan experienced some orienteering so we all headed along to SOC’s local event at Avon Tyrrell today. “Local” is a relative term as, being on the far side of the New Forest, it’s nearly 30 miles each way for us to get there. Christine took Duncan and Emma round the white course whilst I did the score event. Simon Whipple had planned an imaginative course to make the most of a small area. There were two sets of master maps, one at each end of the area with half the controls on each. My brain wasn’t entirely switched on having spent an hour or so up with Duncan in the middle of the night and hence trying to track which of 34 controls I had been to proved taxing. Also, despite having been told that one control had the wrong code on it I still ran around like a headless chicken for a couple of minutes when I came to it. It would also have been helpful if there had actually been a feature on the map in the middle of each control circle!
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Emma the Builder
Thursday, October 15th, 2009Duncan Christopher Currie
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
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Test Success
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
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Escape to Chilworth
Saturday, August 29th, 2009Partly in preparation for the impending birth, and partly to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary next week, we left Emma in the hands of her grandparents last night and decamped to a nearby hotel. Chilworth Manor is not the most luxurious of places (it used to be the University’s conference venue) but it served our purpose and the new leisure facilities provided for a very nice swim in the morning. We did, however, make the mistake of walking to the nearby Chilworth Arms for dinner. The walk itself was fine – we even stumbled in to the Chilworth Conservation Area whilst strolling around the grounds of the manor. The service once there was pretty poor: we were given someone else’s starter, the table next to us were brought the bill when they hadn’t asked for it, and the man on the table behind had asked whether a sauce was gluten free when ordering but it was brought to the table without anyone having checked. The food was also pretty variable. The “rustic bread” starter tasted pretty foul and had been drowned in olive oil. Christine enjoyed her salmon but my chicken, mushroom and leek pie mysteriously came with no pastry or other topping. Even the waiter commented that he thought this a little odd for a pie. As with our last visit a few years ago when Christine received a burnt starter, we didn’t pay for the entire meal as Christine found a piece of broken plastic container in her dessert. I think it’ll be a while before we eat there again…
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