Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
750Christine’s parents and my brother are down for the weekend and yesterday we decided to head out to Hillier Gardens. We enjoyed a picnic lunch outside in the sun before heading in to the gardens, making the use of some of the 6 free guest passes that come with our joint membership. We’d managed to time our visit for another first: the first day of this year’s Art in the Garden season (the 10th year it has run). This provided additional entertainment for children and photographers alike! Sadly, when Michael and I popped over the road to look at the rhodies (whilst the others checked out the tree house again), we discovered that most were already past their best. Anyway, a selection of my photos are on Flickr.
Posted in Arts, Family, Photography | Comments Off on Sculpture season starts
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
747It was pay back time this weekend as we spent both days helping out at various events. On Saturday we went along to the SOC event at Hut Wood. We walked there and got soaked as a result when the heavens opened. Thankfully the sun came out as we arrived and the rain didn’t return until later in the day. The downpour didn’t seem to have discouraged attendees either with over 60 participants. I went round with a group of juniors from nearby Halterworth Harriers running club. Not wishing to be stereotypical but the two lads did all of the work whilst the older girls discussed boys, films, TV etc. I’d originally only planned to shadow them for the first few controls but when they started heading off in the wrong direction to number three then I thought I’d best stick with them. Who knows – perhaps they’d have paid more attention if I hadn’t been there as the safety net? I think even Emma on the yellow course with Christine may have averaged faster minutes per km…
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Posted in Family, Friends, Orienteering, Running | Comments Off on Weekend Helping
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
Christine’s laptop has been slowly grinding to a halt over the past few weeks and, as the university support services were proposing to take it away, I thought I’d take a look. I was initially sidetracked by an issue with a SQL Server 2005 Express update which Windows Update was repeatedly trying to install. In the end, it turned out she had the same issue with the IDE Channel transfer mode that I’ve experienced before. The Windows Update was just one of the many disk intensive operations where things got really bad. Just for good measure I uninstalled some apps I’d put on her machine and ran CCleaner and JKDefrag. Hopefully Christine will come home from work in a better mood tomorrow!
Posted in Family, Technology | Comments Off on Amateur IT support
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
739We headed down to Cornwall over the Easter period to visit my brother-in-law and his wife at Falmouth. In a very cosy arrangement their landlord let us stay in one of the other barn conversions where they live. These were previously holiday lets and are still fully fitted out. This meant we had our own space but were still nice and handy. We started our journey down on Thursday, stopping at the Tumbling Weir Hotel for the night. This was nice enough all mealtimes were a bit child unfriendly: dinner service starts at 7pm and breakfast isn’t until 8:30am. Trying to find somewhere else in Ottery St Mary to have dinner didn’t prove too easy either. The suspicion is that the hotel makes most of its money from weddings.
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Posted in Family, Travel | Comments Off on Cornish Holiday
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
733We decided to avoid the potential holiday crowds in the New Forest today and went over to Hillier Gardens to make the most of the sunshine. I’m not sure when we last went but there have been a few changes in the intervening months: the wicker man in the children’s garden has been replaced by a giant spider, there are some pigs rooting around in the area adjacent to Ampfield Woods and, most excitingly for Emma, there is a new tree house replete with slide, scramble net and climbing wall – a definite hit. Sadly the early flowering rhododendrums and the magnolias were already past their best. I’ve put a few photos up on Flickr.
Posted in Family, Photography | Comments Off on Changes at Hilliers
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
730Christine and I are pleased to announce that we’re expecting another child. We had the initial scan last week and with the blood test results also coming through clear we’re now spreading the word. Due date is 1 October although Christine’s adamant that’s a week early. When asked whether she’d like a little brother or sister, Emma is very consistent in her answer: ‘No’!
Posted in Family | 7 Comments »
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
736Looking for something to do today we decided to pedal over to Lakeside Country Park in Eastleigh. There’s a pleasant enough cycle path most of the way from our house and we could take a look at that endangered species, the Eastleigh golfer (the course at Fleming Park is due to close at the end of the month). What we hadn’t bargained on was the Spring Gala for the miniature railway with 10+ locomotives in full steam. Christine seemed to think it was my duty to take Emma for a ride. Emma wasn’t entirely impressed by all of the smoke and noise and wanted to get off the train before we had even started. She survived the 1.25 mile round trip including the tunnel although I’m not sure she (nor I) will be in a rush to have another go!
Posted in Family | Comments Off on Full Steam Ahead
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
724From Ludlow we move to the Peak District for a short break. The location was mainly chosen so that we could make a day trip to visit Christine’s cousin Cath’s new baby. We’d made a last minute booking at a cottage in Tideswell. The cottage was homely enough but could do with a bit of touching up here and there. It did have an excellent collection of children’s books which kept Emma happy for the week. She might have enjoyed the videos as well but I could only get the DVD player to work!
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Posted in Family, Travel | Comments Off on Week in the Peaks
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