Tia's world... a busy place....

Thursday 3rd March 2011

2012-01-04T22:25:00.003Z

This evening Batty and I went to Jose and Maria's for chinese. It was a lovely evening, as always. I love chinese but I can't eat the quantity that everyone else seems to manage. I was ok this time but generally I end up hungry before I go to bed. I took along a couple of cheesecakes and Maria had cooked an apple dessert too so we had lots of pud. Enrique was cute asking for his mash potato out of the freezer as he said he hadn't had dinner despite having had MacDonalds! He didn't get his mash anyway. He was playing “Super Nintendo Entertainment System” on the laptop. It kept him out of mischief for hours. Jose and Batty fixed (hopefully) Batty's laptop and watched TV while Maria and I put the world to rights and exchanged information. No, it wasn't gossip!!

Wednesday 2nd March 2011

2012-01-04T22:16:00.002Z

As I can't get to bowling next Monday, we rescheduled our game for this evening. It was fun. We managed a 6-2 win. This is the last game of this season. We needed to win. Shame it wasn't 8-0 but we can both be blamed for not getting there. It was very close. We lost the game that I got the lowest score in. I think I got a 198 on one of the games. I didn't get any games over 200 on this season. The standard of bowling has gone up considerably with our 3 new teams. It will be interesting to see how next season plays out. Whatever happens on this final game, we will finish in the top 3. Jose and Sara are due to play the team that is in 1st place on Sunday. No pressure but we need them to draw or win so that we can be 1st. The team that is currently in 3rd place can't catch up with us as they are 4 behind us.

Tuesday 1st March 2011

2011-12-31T12:23:00.001Z

This evening, being the first of the month, we met elsewhere. We watched a Next Generation episode, Disaster. It's the one when Picard gets to take 4 kids on a tour of the ship as a prize for winning, and they get stuck in a lift together while everyone else on the ship in different areas thinks that they are the only ones alive. Deanna Troi gets to be captain and Worf delivers Keiko's baby. I still can't take Worf seriously. He might well be saying “prepare for battle” or something equally heroic but I hear “I am Weasel”.

Monday 28th February 2011

2011-12-28T22:57:00.002Z

Another busy end of month. I did nearly 50 invoices. I have been asked why I leave them all to the last day as there are our regular monthly ones that just need to be duplicated with a few details amended. If only I had time to do them earlier!! I seem to be permanently busy. I used to have a relatively quiet last day of the month as it wasn't necessary to send anything out as if it wasn't delivered in the same month it didn't count in that month's sales. Now the Sales guys carry spare software packs to leave with the customers. I think at 4 pm this afternoon, one of the guys was off on a 4 hour journey just to make sure it was delivered today.

I said “bye, see ya later” to Buffy this morning. It is sad that she isn't here now even though she was noisy and a big distraction.

At bowling this evening, we were surprised that we won 6-2. We were playing the team that we were joint 2nd with. If I had been playing better, we could have won the middle game too. Batty wasn't bowling well on the 3rd game but I got 198 and we won by 8 pins.

Saturday 26th February 2011 – Tower of London

2011-12-28T20:48:00.003Z

Another soggy day. After a full English breakfast at the Kiln, we met up with Matt at Ashford Station, we set off to London for the boy's birthday trip. It was my first trip on the fast train. We headed straight for the Tower. With our train tickets we were able to get two of us in for the price of one. This makes it so much more affordable. Having been round the towers, we then queued to get in to see the Crown Jewels. We were herded like sheep through the ropes and through the tower to look at the jewels and royal memorabilia. A few hours later, having seen all we needed to see, we contacted Terry who had found us a pub, a nearby Wetherspoons. We settled in here for a few hours with dinner and a pint. It was good to catch up with Terry. We got on the bus to Covent Garden, one of Matt's favourite haunts. We said our farewells to Terry. The boys had ice cream from the shop that sells breast milk ice cream though I doubt that's what they had. It definitely wouldn't appeal to me! We then went on a hike around the side streets, following Dave while he tried to remember where a certain pub was. We abandoned the search eventually and made our way back to St Pancras station.
Link to today's photo album on Facebook

Wednesday 23rd February 2011 – Wingham Wildlife Park

2011-12-28T19:12:00.003Z

We slept in until gone 9.30. I was so tired. As I knew I didn't have to get up early, I was up until 2am catching up on stuff on the Sky+. Checking out the window, rain. Not good for our plans. We could either stay in and sulk about it or carry on as if it were dry. After all, we're not going to dissolve. So we set off for Wingham Wildlife Park. Getting through Canterbury was relatively painless. We followed the instructions on Dave's sat nav and found it relatively easily, although the sat nav tried to direct us off a side road but the main entrance was off the main road. After parking, we had to cross that road to get to the Park. After getting our tickets, the first stop was the tropical house. There were lots of birds flying around in here. There were no butterflies to see as it was too cold. The hornbills were very noisy and were hopping about on their branches. We also saw lots of bats through the windows of a very dark room. They were quite a lot bigger than the ones that we see out in the country. The highlight of the place for me were the penguins. We were able to be there for feeding time and the keeper gave us a talk too about the penguins. We were able to buy a tub of wiggly things to feed the meerkats too which was lovely. I think originally this was a bird park only as this still seems to be the main feature. Despite getting wet, it was a good day. Can't wait to go back soon.
Link to my album on Facebook

Monday 21st February 2011 - Happy birthday Dave

2011-11-25T09:40:00.002Z

As soon as I got up, I dug out Dave's birthday cards and presents so that I could see him opening them, before getting ready for work. As much as he wanted the Sky Trillium book that I'd bought apparently it is the 3rd of 3 and not the 1st. Oops! I was able to order Black and Blood Trillium later.

At work, our Manager told us of another panic on Thursday evening after the flooded kitchen. She was still working at 6.30 and the fire alarm went off. She went downstairs to go out and found that there wasn't a fire at all. The cleaners had opened the hoover under a smoke detector. It was so bad that it was like a fog! She didn't know how stop the alarm going off and the fire brigade turned up before she had chance to find out. Several of the key holders were also called and one of them came in to help. Tania thanked everyone who helped with the clean up and the call out today. She said that she was proud to work with such a great team of people.

Another colleague noticed all the tool bars had disappeared from the program that she was in. She thought it was something that she'd clicked on that had caused it. She has done this before. After we had decided that it wasn't something that she had done, we checked ours. They had disappeared too. It meant that we'd have to use short cut keys until it was fixed. The IT guy didn't know what had happened either. The server was restarted at lunch and that didn't fix it. A call was put through to the helpline. They were able to tell our IT guy what to do to fix it. Some dll files got corrupted.... apparently!!?! All fixed now. With these problems and covering the phone line today, I was late finishing and not ready for when then City Link driver arrived to collect. After work I had to go to the City Link offices to drop off 3 more and also drop the post off at the post box. Trying to get the big bag into the box was a bit of a struggle. I got it to drop in properly eventually.

Off to Asda next with the plan to get us something good for dinner but due to me not having my mobile connected to the ear piece, Dave didn't hear me properly and told me that he wasn't hungry and would be OK with just a sandwich. I bought some ham so that I could have ham, egg and chips and he could have a ham sandwich. I found the Monty Python films on DVD which were on Dave's present wish list.

Once home, and Dave realised that I didn't say that I was going bowling and not cooking, we were quite disappointed. We both had ham, egg and chips which was good anyway, followed by trifle. We watched “The Life of Brian”. Apparently I had seen it before but we think it could have been as long as 25 years ago when we lived in Folkestone. There were a couple of sayings I knew but didn't realise that they were from this film like “My name's Brian and so's my wife”.

Sunday 20th February - Folkestone

2011-10-26T21:44:00.002+01:00

I had planned to spend the morning in front of my computer doing more blog stuff or photos but I soon ran out of time. We got the call that Chippy would be here in half an hour. So I made moves to get ready. I ended up having more time to play with my hair and make up as Dave disappeared to the market with Dan so I let Chippy know and he went for petrol first.

We set off before midday and headed for Folkestone. After a quick cuppa, we wandered down to the Wetherspoons in Folkestone for their lovely roast dinner. £5.99 for a roast including a drink. Today they had the double stout. We have now found out that you don't have to make your mind up straight away and order the dessert at the same time as your dinner. You can go back and show your receipt. Dave and Kat braved the dessert. I was restrained and didn't get a bowl of profiteroles. Dave very kindly sacrificed one for me.

From here we wandered down to the harbour and along the sea front to the coastal park. Kat so wanted to go on the zip line but was afraid of getting a dirty bum. Still a kid at heart but grown up enough to know she didn't want to be dirty. The original plan was to walk back towards the car park and take the lift up but we ventured up the zig zag path. I have taken loads of photos.

Then we headed towards Chambers but apparently they are not open on Sundays. So it was down to The Pullman for the next drink. I had Ruby Mild. It was good but not as good as the stout I had earlier. From here we wandered back via Tescos, laughing at Dave getting stuck on the railings and having to be helped off. After coffee and cake we set off back to Ashford in time for me to get ready to go bowling.

We were asked if we wanted to play our game tonight as Mark in the opposing team can't make it tomorrow. I'm feeling slightly cheated. They wouldn't oil the lanes for us. Apparently it's not cost effective to oil just two lanes! I was assured in the morning that they would be done. After much sulking my Mark, he opted to come back tomorrow morning to bowl when they would oil it for him! We bowled our game with Terry. Terry did OK. Batty did really badly at least 20 below his average. I had two bad games but my last one was OK. Mark will now bowl tomorrow just enough for them to win all 3 games. We are currently just 2 points above them at the top of the league. Now they will win and we end up in 3rd place! Grrr!!! The only advantage I guess is that I can be home tomorrow night for Dave's birthday.

Saturday 19th February – Hair cut & Deal

2011-10-19T22:14:00.002+01:00

I arrived at Stone's on time at quarter to 11. I was met by Alex from Cheeky Discounts and Colin, the photographer. Sam soon whisked me away to talk hair styles and decide what we wanted to do. We made a decision and she disappeared. Someone came to put the cape, etc on me. Then we went to take the “before” photos so the cape had to come off so that I'd be wearing the same for the end photos. I felt awkward having my photo taken so much with people I'd only just met and was regretting not bringing someone along for moral support. Colin was very good though. Front and side shots were taken. It was then back to my chair where some strange colour stuff was applied to my hair and bits were put into foils. Whatever was left outside the foils was then covered with something that was a strange gold colour. I was then given half an hour for it to develop. I was given a cup of coffee, which we ended up taking to the make up room. The coffee went cold as it was very difficult to drink and have make up done. Two girls painted me with bronze stuff and make up. Alex and Colin came along too and more photos were taken. The girls said that it's not usual to have make up done while wearing foils and hair dye. This was to save time. It was soon after midday that I was taken to the sinks to be rinsed off. Josephine did a brilliant job and made me feel very relaxed. While waiting for Sam to come back afterwards, I got chance to drink my lovely filter coffee. I couldn't play with my phone as the battery was going flat again. Sam then set to work cutting lots of hair off and styling with the dryer and the straighteners. She did a wonderful job. It is cut shorter at the back than the front. She showed me how to blow dry it to give it lift before using the straighteners. The colour is really great too. When we had finished, there were more photos to be done for the “after” look. I saw a few of them on the camera. I hope Colin is going to send them on to me.

I left there before 1 and headed home. We set off out straight away to get to Deal to join Terry and Irene for the afternoon. The weather was awful. When we arrived it very wet so I retrieved the umbrella from the car. Normally I wouldn't bother but with all the work that had been done, I wanted to protect it a little. Terry and Irene had been there since before midday with their friend, Emma and her lovely little girl, Dulcie, who is 5 months old. She is very sweet and not just because she let me have a cuddle straight away! Chippy, Ginette and Emily arrived. Both little girls were angels. Unfortunately, we were too late to get something to eat. After a half of the Cornish stout, I stopped feeling hungry anyway. I switched to the pretend lager after, Becks Blue. It was definitely not as good as the Stout but better than drinking lemonade. We had a lovely afternoon and stayed for ages, even after Dulcie had gone to her Dad. There was just 5 of us left. We had a few more drinks. We talked about going to get Chinese and taking it back to Emma's. We ended up going to an Indian restaurant that was within walking distance. Chilli's. It was down a dark alley and we'd never have found it without Emma.

In the restaurant, Dave gave the waiter a quick lesson on how to make chicken with the napkins. The older waiter was very difficult to understand. We worked out that he was offering us the meal deal of £10.95. This included a starter, a main, a side dish and a rice, where needed. This sounded like the best deal so I had some bhaji's. They were very good. I ordered Lamb Gosht for my main. It sounded really good as it was lamb, mint and ginger and chilli. It was rated as a “medium” so I thought it would be OK but it was a bit hotter than I like. It was tasty but I couldn't manage it all with the chilli in it. The rice was good too. We felt that they were quite small portions which suits me. We're not sure if that is because we were on the “meal deal” or that is standard. Unfortunately, the drinks bill came to nearly as much as the cost of the food. Maybe we'll go for “takeaway” next time!!

New Boiler

2011-09-21T21:35:00.003+01:00

Thursday 17th February

I was struggling to get my City Link stuff packed at 10 to 5, and Deano had arrived to collect too. Barry got called away as there the downstairs kitchen was flooded. The water heater had leaked somehow. Not sure how though. Do they split? There was so much water it flooded out of the door into the carpeted hall way. We don't think any damage has been done to the partition walls as they have an aluminium strip along the bottom. I've been given the job of ordering a new heater tomorrow.

Friday 18th February

I ordered the new boiler first thing when I got to work and was told that it would be delivered today. As there was no sign of it at 3 o'clock I phoned to chase it up. I was assured that it would arrive but it might not be until after 5. I said that I would wait. It turned up at 5 to 5 in the end. It is a really smart one with a little screen too that shows how warm the water is and how much litres have been used. The filter needs to be changed every 4000 litres.

Saturday 12th February 2011 – To Sittingbourne, and other shopping

2011-08-21T22:42:00.003+01:00

Today, we went out soon between 10 and half past. Off to Sittingbourne and the telescope shop again. The sat nav got switched off in disgust when I listened to it and not the proper navigator! When I go up to Sittingbourne for meetings, I also go up the motorway so I was sort of on auto pilot. I had remembered most of Luiji's instructions that he gave us at the astronomy club the other week. If the traffic lights hadn't stopped us in front of the NAG building, I would have missed the left turn to the Industrial Park. I recognised the NAG offices from our last visit. We arrived there without any hiccups. Luiji had the bits that Dave wanted to get, apart from a special cable that's not essential until you need to upgrade the software.

On our way home, back towards Faversham, Dave mentioned that there used to a tropical fish shop along there somewhere, and soon afterwards I noticed a sign for fish and reptiles. We turned round and went back to investigate. We went to the reptile shop first, Lost World Reptile. They had some lovely beasties in there. We checked out the leopard geckoes for Kat. They didn't have the strange colours like the ones we looked at near Canterbury the other week. They were £40 there and you could get a starter set up. Although the guy was recommending buying a plastic box to start with. Not sure about this idea. We'll have to see. We then went to the Little Fish Shop. They had lots of choice and good prices too. They had a massive tank near the entrance to the shop with a big cat fish thing like Stig at Swallow Aquatics. There was also another big fish. The info said that he was rescued and was recovering. His previous owners had tried to kill him by putting bleach in the tank. How can some people be so evil! Out the back of the shop, they had rabbits and birds, including ducks and chickens. Didn't see any guinea pigs though.

Back in Ashford, we went for a look around Bybrook Barn Garden Centre. Checking out their parrot type birds, they have a beautiful Macaw in there, Jacob. The sign said “I do like a stroke but it is at your own risk as I also bite”. I know what these beaked types are like, I wasn't going to take any chances! Moving on through the rest of the shop, I bought a desk calendar that was reduced to a couple of pounds and we checked out the jigsaws which they have moved yet again. On to the American Diner, Dave had the 10 piece breakfast again. I had a ham and cheese toastie with chips. It was lovely. I decided against having a dessert but must go back and try their cream soda and vanilla ice cream float one day. Then on to Jays Pets where I did a spectacular trip up the step without touching the floor or getting hurt. Unfortunately it was noted by the guys in the shop. They have some even smaller leopard geckoes for £35 and their tank set up works out at £110. They are cheaper than anywhere else we have seen and almost on our door step. We had a wander round Hopeless (aka Homeplus). For all that the building is rough, run down and has a leaky roof, they have some very expensive furniture. It is very good quality stuff, but all too big for our house.

Back home, I cleared out some old paper work from a cupboard while Dave did the ironing. Then we parked ourselves in front of the TV to watch an old Steptoe and Son film which was mildly entertaining. At Chris's later we watched “Inception” and “Cats and Dogs”.

Friday 11th February 2011 – Dress Down Day

2011-08-21T22:03:00.002+01:00

With Fridays being our company's dress down day, I have just been reading an article on line on this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12418046

I love to see a man in a suit. It looks smart and sexy for most. I prefer to wear a suit to work although suits have never been compulsory at our work place apart from when meeting customers. The tie was a requirement for the boys but this has been dropped over the past few years. After all who wants to wake up and put a noose around their neck! With it being winter, I have found my suits to be too cold to wear. I have been wearing smart suit type trousers with jumper or shirt with an additional jacket/cardigan. I find it harder to find something to wear on dress down day. There's an onus on girls to wear something different like not going to a party wearing the same outfit twice. It is difficult to dress smart casual and not look scruffy.

This evening, I cooked chicken rogan josh and rice, and we watched Alice in Wonderland. I then watched two episodes of Bones.

Sunday 6th February 2011

2011-08-20T17:45:00.002+01:00

After being awake most of the night, I knew I shouldn't have drunk that coca cola at Chris's. I think I was hoping that the amount of beer drunk during the day would have cancelled it out. I don't think I went fully unconscious once. Just slept just under the surface, if you know what I mean. The tea that I drink late at night from Whittards causes very vivid dreams but at least I wake up knowing that I've slept and the world could have been stolen from round me, just as long as the duvet was left over me! At the moment, I'm on the Mulled Wine one. I did wonder if it was just the Dreamtime doing what it says, but this one provokes the same dreams too.

We called into Maplins in Folkestone. After a wander round we asked the young staff if they had any power packs suitable for powering a telescope. I explained that if you're out at night you need something to power your tracking, etc. After consideration, one of the guys helpfully said “Have you thought about one of the solar powered ones”!! We didn't laugh... much. He soon realised what a silly comment he'd made.

Saturday 5th February 2011 – Dover Beer Festival

2011-08-18T23:06:00.002+01:00

It was an early start. I had to get up earlier than I would on a work day. One time saver was that we didn't need breakfast as that was why we were leaving at 8.15. It was our first visit to the Kiln Cafe. The plan was to be there for 8.45 but we got there in 15 minutes and had a little wait for Chippy. Luckily Dave had already let him know that we were on our way so he was early too. It took me back to the days of the Corner Cafe that Mum and Dad had in Hastings. I had the smaller of the two breakfasts at £4.50. I had bacon, sausage, egg, tomatoes, toast, door step bread and mug of tea. As it was too early when we'd eaten to go to the station, we had another mug of tea/coffee there. At just 50p, we decided that this was the cheaper option that getting to the station early and buying one there.

When we arrived at the station, Dave queued in the self service machine queue and I joined the other as both were busy. He got there first. We didn't have too long to wait for the train.

We met up with Steve at the door. We got our tickets and glasses and grabbed a large round table. We didn't think there would be enough of us to fill it but one of Matt's friend's and a mate joined us.

Much beer was consumed, after several hours and some bad singing, we decided to move on to Blakes, where we played with beer coasters and the ambassador chatted to some guys from Luxembourg. From here we staggered to the Wetherspoons for another one or two. Then it was decided to get some beer soakage. We found a chip shop. I had sausage and chips. Then found our way back to Ashford on the train.

We walked from the station to Chris's. They had already started watching CSI while they waited. Once that finished, we watched the Sorceror's Apprentice. I love Nicholas Cage films and he didn't disappoint in this one either. There was a touch of Gone in Sixty Seconds with a short fast car scene.

Thursday 3rd February 2011

2011-07-29T23:28:00.002+01:00

I had such a good day at work that I was able to leave at 5 o'clock. This was good as I was off out with just 15 minutes at home to get ready. Off to Wetherspoons with the occasion sort of being that it's Steve's 40th in two weeks time, with the added bonus of it being curry night. We arrived soon after 6 and joined Steve and Chippy for a drink. We waited for Martin before ordering dinner. Not many places that you can get a pint and a curry for £4.99. I had lamb Rogan Josh. It was very good. It came with a couple of poppadoms with mango dip and a naan bread. I also ordered some profiteroles as that is my weakness. Somehow two bowls were ordered. I ate 6 of the 8. They were good too. To drink, I stuck to SOS. Well, I think I did! I might have swapped with Martin's Ruddles at some stage but the curry tainted my taste buds and I wasn't sure if I was still drinking mine or Martin's after Batty had demonstrated how you didn't need opposable thumbs to hold 3 beer glasses!

Wednesday 2nd February 2011

2011-07-25T23:21:00.002+01:00

After work this evening, I stopped off at Farmfoods to stock up on a few freezer bits. When I was putting the bags in the car I found a book in there that I was supposed to take back to the shop just after Christmas. I bought it for a present for Martin but it was that good a choice that he already had it. I went straight to the Outlet. I went to the wrong shop first! Ooops. I had forgotten that there were two book shops there now. I found the right shop but they couldn't give a refund as I didn't have the receipt. How difficult can it be to spend about £8? I was there for ages. I very quickly found an Astronomy book that will make a good raffle prize for the club. They also had paperback books that were 2 for £3 so I thought I would get a couple for me and a couple for Dave. I shouldn't really buy any books for myself as I have over 110 of them to read already. Looking forward to the summer when I get chance to read more. I asked the shop assistant if they had any science fiction books. She said that all they had was one Star Trek book. What a strange shop! I managed to find Dave a Michael Moorcock book and a Tolkien book. Hope he likes them. She did try to show me the Warhammer books. I know someone who might be interested but I don't think it's Dave's choice.

Then home to cook dinner. Pasta bake tonight. It wasn't as good as usual as I put it in too early and I think I had the oven too hot. It wasn't that bad though.

Tuesday 1st February 2011

2011-07-24T22:25:00.002+01:00

My bookmark collection has outgrown the tin they were in. I had a plan to put them in an empty biscuit box from Christmas. Unfortunately that is not long enough. I found a shoe box to use. I had a count up. There are nearly 240. I have 5 that are the same. Must have been from various visits to English Heritage places. Even when we bought the last one, I still thought it looked cool and I didn't already have it!

This evening we went to Chris's for our “away” meeting. Only 4 of us turned up. We put the world to rights before watching Heroes. It's not what I thought it would be. I'm not sure that I like it. I thought with a name like Heroes it would be more like Superman or something but it's hard to know the good guys from the bad guys. I mentioned to Chris that I might like to borrow the Vampyre Diaries as we had started watching them on Saturday nights. I didn't realise that an episode is only about 350 MB so that they can be copied on to a USB key. Well that's what I've learnt today then!

Monday 31st January 2011

2011-07-24T21:53:00.003+01:00

Today was fairly easy and organised for the last day of the month, although I didn't get the final 12 orders until 4.30. I was packed up by quarter past 5 but then had to wait for the City Link driver. I phoned their office twice and was assured that he was on his way. I waited in the car in the end and he turned out about 20 to 6! For dinner tonight, I cooked chilli and rice. It was yummy.

At bowling this evening, we managed to win 6-2. We only lost the middle game by 14 so if I had been playing better we may have won that one too as I only got 107. Then on the final game I got 180. So we stay just two points ahead of the team behind us as they also got 6-2.

Friday 28th January 2011

2011-07-14T21:40:00.004+01:00

The end of another week at work and nearly the end of another month. I can't believe it's the end of January already. It was another very busy day at work with the system not working correctly again. Hopefully it will now be working OK next week. They think they tracked it down to possibly missing quote marks in a new script!

I was late home from work. So late that I only just caught the last post collection. The van was pulling up just as I left. I didn't have time to eat properly. Just about had time to cook pizza quick and had a couple of bits before setting off for astronomy club. We got there about 7.30. The car park was full again and we spent the start of the meeting standing up until some more chairs appeared. After the news of the week, one of the Steve's did a talk on telescopes. It was very interesting. As with most hobbies, all the individual parts soon add up to an expensive hobby. After the talk, I escaped to the kitchen to help with the washing up. It wasn't clear enough to get outside and look at the real thing so Drew gave us a tour with Stellarium. He also told us about the correct 13 star signs. According to this I am not a Leo, but Cancer. I prefer Leo! I think it suits me better. The 13th sign of the Zodiac is Ophiuchus represented by a man wrestling a serpent and was discarded by the Babylonians because they only wanted 12 constellations.

When we got home, I found a two part series called “Alice” based on Alice in Wonderland. It was very strange but I carried on watching it. It was made in 2009. Using the classic Lewis Carroll books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as a place to begin, writer/director Nick Willing (director of Syfy's Tin Man) has created the modern-day story of Alice Hamilton (Caterina Scorsone), a fiercely independent twenty-something who suddenly finds herself on the other side of a looking glass. She is a stranger in an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of the deliciously devilish Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates) who's not very happy about Alice's arrival.

In the course of her adventure, Alice enlists the help of an array of characters including the resistance fighter Hatter (Andrew-Lee Potts), resistance leader Dodo (Tim Curry) and the White Knight (Matt Frewer). Rounding out the cast are Colm Meaney as the King of Hearts, Harry Dean Stanton as Caterpillar, Alessandro Juliani as 9 of Clubs, Timothy Webber as Carpenter, Alex Diakun as Ratcatcher, and Eugene Lipinski as Doctors Dee and Dum.

It was good to see Colm Meaney in something again and of course Matt Frewer for the second time this week. I didn't set it to record as I had missed the first 8 minutes. I have now found the next showing of it to record so that Dave can watch it. Part two is also set to record next week.

Wednesday 26th January 2011 - Marmalade & Ironbridge Gorge Museum

2011-06-26T10:27:00.007+01:00

Today is father in law's 75th birthday. Happy birthday, Dad.

According to a Daily Mail article I've read from the other day, apparently Marmalade sales have dropped. Compared to 2009, 2.5 million less jars were sold in 2010. That's a lot of jars! Apparently sales of oranges and pectin have gone up meaning that instead of marmalade losing out to stuff like chocolate spread and peanut butter people must be making their own. Paddington will be pleased. I think we made marmalade a few times years ago but when you can get a cheap jar for less than 30p why go through the hassle.

At archaeology club, I was given the job of selling the squares for the draw. It's very awkward as I still don't know everyone's name even though I probably email most of them regularly! I think we made £14 profit on the draw. The winner was a newcomer who bought his square at the last minute.

Young Anthony did a talk on his trip to Ironbridge Gorge Museums. He started by putting on his dark glasses which most people assumed were “cool” sunglasses. They were the type of glasses that help him to see the words better. I noticed that his notes were printed in colour too. Gold star to him for having a go. He was obviously still struggling. Many of the adult members wouldn't have the courage to give a talk. Anthony comes along with his Grandma and is the youngest member by about 30 years. This is somewhere that we have decided that we will visit one day. There is also Stokesey Castle nearby to visit, and it's English Heritage!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1349604/Paddington-Bears-favourite-safe-home-cooks-help-preserve-marmalades-future.html

Tuesday 25th January 2011

2011-06-25T18:44:00.001+01:00

The post franking machine is out of action. Even through we are paying our monthly bill by Direct Debit, when it came to run an upgrade on the machine, we were told that we couldn't as the agreement over our new company name hadn't been sorted out yet. Our receptionist had to go and get stamps from the Post Office. How quaint! The company who lend us the franking machine sent their account manager in. Luckily I didn't have to get involved. She was in our office for a little while. I couldn't tell you what she looked like but she smelt interesting, if you like strong perfume! Not sure what it was. Christine and I decided that it was a good thing that we liked it but Glynis said she didn't. Tony didn't comment!

Buffy was very naughty when we were eating our dinner this evening. She wandered across the table to attack our plates. Guess she was searching for chips again. We have found that she loves chips. No such luck tonight as we had chops, mash and peas.

We had a break from Heroes tonight as Chris was working late and wasn't joining us. Dave dug out a Star Trek, Next Generation episode to watch. It was another good one that I'd probably only seen once before. Matter of Time. It has Matt Frewer in it. He is Jim Taggart in Eureka.

Monday 24th January - Patron Saint of Accountants

2011-06-20T18:35:00.002+01:00

Our manager had been watching a quiz show recently and mentioned that there is a patron saint of accountants. I looked this up:

"The patron saint of accountants, bankers, bookkeepers, security guards and tax collectors is Saint Matthew of Apostle fame, and he also was the author of one of the Gospels. Before becoming an Apostle, however, he started out as a Jewish tax collector at Capernaum. Little is known about him, outside the seven references he has in the Gospels. In medieval art, Saint Matthew is represented under the symbol of a winged man, carrying in his hand a lance as a characteristic emblem - his artistic calling card if you will. He is one of the originals in the pantheon of patron saints."

I've been checking out patron saints on Wikipedia. I never knew there was one for almost every eventuality. Here's one that we're interested in, Dominic – astronomers & scientists. Or how about, Isidore of Seville - computer scientists, computer programmers, computer technicians, computer users, schoolchildren, students.

(Pic from: http://www.drstandley.com/images/saints/St_Matthew.jpg)

Sunday 23rd January - Walk in Herne Bay

2011-06-17T22:10:00.003+01:00

The plan was to be up soon after 8. Apparently I slept through my alarm. I woke up when Dave's went off. I still remember reaching to switch mine off even though it had shut up about 10 minutes before. Bat arrived at quarter past 9 as planned and we went over to MacDonalds for breakfast, collecting Chippy on the way. I had been Mac-lied to. They no longer do Mac-fruit toast. I had a cheese, egg and bacon bagel and a coffee. We left MacDonalds, by luck, at 10 as originally planned.

On the way there, we were threatening to change the “Cars Bought For Cash” to “Cars Bought for Chickens” and discussion ensued with what else we could change the sign to. This is the general sort of rubbish that we find to chat about when travelling.

We found a pay-and-display car park on the sea front. We later found safe parking spaces that we wouldn't have had to pay for but at least the car was safe. We'll know to try the other spaces first in future. We wandered along past the pier, taking photos and choosing what houses we would like on the way. Also checking out the state of the 400 beach huts. Some of them look new and some look like they have seen better days. One was just a lock up box with a surf board padlocked to the outside. They reminded me of the episode of “Keeping Up Appearances” when Hyacinth hires a boat and gets excited when she sees them but it turns out she's got an old wreck. Wouldn't you be disappointed if you walked past all of the lovely ones only to find the one that you bought or rented wasn't.

After about 45 minutes we went up some steps and came back along the road for more nosing at houses and gardens, picking up the beach again near the rocks. I went to take a photo of a statue in the park and there was a moving statue water feature that shouldn't have been there! Oh dear.

We went to The Saxon Shore, Weatherspoons pub, for dinner. For £5.99 we had a pint and a roast dinner. I had Red Castle Cream (Newman's brewery, Caerphilly) with roast beef. We had another drink there before moving on to the ice cream parlour. As I didn't want an ice cream, I had a lovely hot chocolate. We're planning a trip back to the ice cream parlour too for their fish and chips. If you spend £20 or more on fish and chips, you get a free bottle of wine. That would need 3 of you to share as the cod and chips were £7.95.

Saturday 22nd January

2011-06-17T21:49:00.002+01:00

After Dave had gone to work, I was then woken again by a call from my friend's mum. She was worried that she'd missed our silver wedding anniversary. I assured her that it wasn't until October and we had a long chat about “stuff”. I then got up with the intention of doing some housework. The bathroom got cleaned but I mostly spent a lazy morning watching Time Team and Top Gear. Kat came home about midday, and found Martin struggling down the road with an enormous box containing his new bicycle that he'd bought in the sale in the town. How he'd managed to get it this far was amazing but he would have been quite happy to carry it the rest of the way home but we insisted that he wait for Dave to come home to help. Then Chippy came round to take some photos of Buffy. We picked Sofia up and brought the girls back home before Dave and I went into the town. We met up with Martin again and went together to The Gorge. I had Lasagne and chips which was very good. You get some strange people in the Gorge, including us! The guy at the next table dozed off nearly falling into his ice cream. Then a lady sat behind me and was talking very loudly on the phone about how much her magazine and book cost and how she could only afford to buy a plate of chips now and how she would have liked to have had something else on the menu and then proceeded to read out the prices to the poor person on the other end of the phone. Then on with the shopping. Dave is looking for a zip up top that's not boring plain colour. It is not easy to find one at all let alone one with more than one X before the L.

Friday 21st January 2011 - Zarin's

2011-06-17T21:39:00.002+01:00

I was invited to join the support team for their night out. Clive came home with me from work so that we could leave my car there and then get a taxi into town. He chatted to Buffy for a bit while I got ready. We were first to arrive at The County. We went for Caledonian as we hadn't heard of that one. It was drinkable but it was a bit watery. I had a second half of this. About 7.30 we wandered round to Zarin's. I had one of the house specialities: Lamb Kaliyan - Thinly sliced pieces of tender lamb, marinated in aromatic spices and tossed with onions, tomato and peppers. It was really tasty. After dinner we had another round of drinks. The new dessert is to ask for “larrrrr gerrrrr”. A great evening was had by all.

Thursday 20th January 2011

2011-06-04T13:26:00.002+01:00

For some reason at work this morning, my manager was recounting her story of drunk sheep in the orchard from eating the fermenting apples. Apparently they made a terrible racket. Guess it was either from being in pain or singing their sailor songs. It reminded me of a recent news story that had similar scenes to those in Flash Forward with the dead crows. After investigation the birds were found to have been intoxicated from pinching fruit that had been fermenting. They died of alcohol poisoning.

One of the young guys at work was asking about sick leave as he has signed up for some testing to be done on his central nervous system for scientific research. Everyone at work thinks he is mad to want to do this. £1000 is nothing compared to what you could lose if these experiments cause side effects.

I checked my blog statistics today as I hadn't checked them for a while. Interesting to see that as well as US and Canada, I have had visitors from India (New Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta Raya) and Mexico. Welcome to all visitors new and old.

Tuesday 18th January 2011

2011-06-04T12:20:00.004+01:00

In the evening I went to a Partylite training meeting. Only 4 of us turned up. Glad we did. For getting bonus in November I will get a £10 gift certificate from Karen and I chose a Mercury tealight holder. We got to cuddle the pups too. They are so very sweet. It's a good thing that they are already sold.

Thursday 13th January 2011

2011-05-18T21:50:00.003+01:00

Getting ready for work this morning and I heard a thud outside, and then a child crying. It took me a while to work out what had happened as there was a bus and a car that had stopped though they didn't appear to have touched each other. One of the neighbour's kids had been getting into his/her Mum's car on the passenger side and got hit with the passing car's wing mirror as he tucked in to avoid the bus. Another good reason for not parking against the traffic. The kids then have to go into the road to get into the car. I wonder if she will think not to park that way in future. I hope the little person is OK though. I should think it would have bruised even if the wing mirror did fold/spring in as it hit.

I was doing some research on line as to what happened this day in history. There was a king that died on this day - Charles the Fat died in 888. What a cool name. I thought having a King Charles the Fat was cool. Find him here. There was also a Charles the Bald whose nickname was used ironically and not descriptively; i.e. that he was not in fact bald, but rather that he was extremely hairy.

Wednesday 12th January 2011

2011-05-18T21:46:00.002+01:00

I opened a bag of crisps in the evening and Buffy got really excited. So much so that she flew off her cage over to me. She wasn't quite brave enough to come to me and ask for a crisp and went back again. Probably just as well as the third ingredient on these Walkers crisps is salt and that's not good for parrots.

Sunday 9th January - Whitstable

2011-05-18T00:15:00.003+01:00

Today we went for a walk in Whitstable with Batty, Chippy and Emily. We parked up along the parade and walked to the East Quay Restaurant. It was a lovely fresh day and not too windy. Emily did very well with the distance she walked. On the way back she was up on the wall with the other big kids.

I spotted Whitstable Castle which I don't think I had really noticed before. Apparently it is possible to visit the castle now if you arrange a Group visit or attend one of their “events”. The Tea Rooms and Gardens are open most days. Another one to add to my list.

Saturday 8th January 2011 – Stargazing Live

2011-05-13T23:36:00.003+01:00

I didn't wake up until 10.30 even though Dave had to go out early to meet up with Jason for the stuff for the astronomy club, he obviously didn't disturb me. When I did eventually crawl out of my pit, Dave was back downstairs studying Jason's presentation on the Life of Stars in preparation for the evening's entertainment. I had a pretty lazy day switching between my laptop, the PC that I'm sorting out upstairs for Dave to borrow for backing up his photo albums and my own PC upstairs that has pictures that I have been trying to put into a Picasa album to use on the blog.

It was soon time to get ready to go to the astronomy club. I remembered to take Dave's food but I forgot the tea towels. Disaster averted as someone happened to have one in the boot of his car. We thought we were late arriving but when we got there the talks hadn't started and there were lots of other people still arriving. At least another 5 rows of seats were added to the back of the hall and there were still people standing. More people carried on drifting in throughout the evening. Some even missed Drew's brilliant introduction completely and turned up when we were outside. Drew started his talks getting the kids involved holding up the sun and then planets at relative distances away. Neptune is so far from the sun that they had to walk round the hall as the hall wasn't long enough. Steve got volunteered to be the nearest star. He was asked to start walking to Germany. It was cold outside but well worth wandering around the various telescopes. I saw the moon, Jupiter, M42 which is the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades and other things.

Then on to Chris's where we watched “How to Train your Dragon”. I enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing it again sometime.

Friday 7th January 2011

2011-05-13T23:10:00.003+01:00

This evening after work I decided to go to Matalan. They were advertising their sale on the radio. I got lots of bargains:

Blue and white shirt Was £14, £3.50
Khaki casual trousers Was £12, £3 they should have been half price but they priced it incorrectly.
Khaki top to match the trousers, not in the sale but still a brilliant price at £3.50
Summer dress, was £16, £4
Blue coat, was £20, £5
Bra, was £7, £3.50
Black and silver party dress, was £25, £6.25
Pyjama top, was £6, £3
Black ankle boots, was £16, £8
Canvas shoes for Dave, was £8, £2

Original Price total £127.50, for £41.75
So all in all, worth going today.

Tonight, we had more turkey. I bought a turkey and red wine casserole pack from Asda yesterday. I added the remainder of yesterday's carrot sticks. It took about an hour and a half to cook so we were quite late eating again which is not good but still about the same time that we would eat if Dave was on a late shift. It was really tasty. Will definitely buy it again, even when it's back to it's normal price of £3. It is now at an introductory special price of £2.50.

Thursday 6th January 2011

2011-05-13T22:26:00.003+01:00

This evening I went to Asda after work armed with my Low Fat Feast's Good Food cook book. I couldn't decide what to have so I just looked at what was a good price and what wouldn't take long to cook. I found some turkey for stir fry so I chose to make a variation of the Chinese Chicken with Pineapple that we have had when we are camping. It is one of my favourite recipes but I'd not tried it with turkey before.

Here's what you need for 4 people (I sort of halved the recipe for the 2 of us).
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 garlic glove, finely chopped
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces (or cheat with pre-cut packs)
227g can pineapple chunks in natural juice
2 carrots, cut into think sticks (I cheated and bought a bag of carrot batons)
1 tbsp cornflour
Juice of 1 lemon (I cheated again and bought lemon juice)
2 tbsp tomato purée
3 tbsp light soy sauce
bunch of spring onions, trimmed and halved lengthways
rice or noodles, to serve (I bought noodles for a change)

1 Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan. Add the garlic, stir briefly, then add the chicken. Cook, stirring, for 10 minutes.
2 Drain the pineapple chunks (save the juice). Add them to the pan with the carrots. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes.
3 Add water to the reserved pineapple juice to make 200ml/7 fl oz. Mix the cornflour with the lemon juice, then stir in the purée, soy sauce and the diluted pineapple juice. Pour over the chicken and add the spring onions. Cook for 2 minutes more, stirring. Serve immediately with rice or noodles.

The book says it should take about 25 minutes.

I recommend this as a quick and easy low fat recipe that can be cooked when camping too, it's cheap to do and can be multiplied to feed lots of people.

Buffy update: Dave was able to stroke her for a while and he had trouble drawing himself away to get to bed. I stroked her for a while when he was there but as soon as he went to bed, she didn't want to play any more. I'm calling her a tart now as she definitely favours men!!

Wednesday 5th January 2011

2011-05-13T21:50:00.005+01:00

We managed to break our printer again today in the office. This time we decided not to call in the repair man again, and a new one is being ordered for about £700. The other one has been with me for many years at work. Hope the new one doesn't take long to arrive as the other two printers in our office are not up to the same standard. I think we are getting another HP one as I requested, instead of the Dell ones.

Buffy has been comical again today. She is very cute eating a biscuit. She holds it in the span of her claw and munches it. She is definitely favouring Dan now. She has been copying what he says. She was watching him while he was in the kitchen and when he had cooked his dinner, and sat down to eat, she climbed down her cage to the floor and walked across to see him. She had a wander around trying to work up the confidence to climb on him.

I have been watching a lot of Quantum Leap on ITV4. After the ad breaks they always say.... “Tetley's Sponsors real men's TV”. Who says this is real men's TV? I like Quantum Leap more than Dave does.

Tuesday 4th January 2011 – Buffy's Arrival

2011-05-13T21:42:00.002+01:00

It's a good thing that I didn't make any new year's resolutions this year. I think I would have broken them all today. Couldn't get out of bed before 7.30, had sugar in my tea, didn't get my post done before 4, and didn't get out of work before nearly 6. I had a weigh in this morning, and scared myself. I am the heaviest I've ever been at 9st 4, so I guess I now I do need to make more of an effort to lose some weight.

This evening, Buffy the parrot arrived. She is an African Grey. Her tail feathers are a beautiful red colour. Her large cage doesn't fit where the Christmas tree was like we had hoped but just for a couple of months we can work around her. We would have struggled to get her cage up into Dan's room as was originally planned. She does a very good, if annoying, impression of a smoke alarm when it's running out of battery.

At Matt's tonight, we started watching Black Books. I've only seen the odd few before so it was good to see it from the beginning. Two episodes watched.... several more to go.

3rd January 2011 - Rochester

2011-05-13T21:24:00.003+01:00

The original plan was to go to Lullingstone Roman Villa. Despite checking on the website to confirm that they would be open, it was very closed! When we arrived there were lots of people parking up outside of the car park. I wonder how many of them had turned up because they thought it would be open. We then thought we would try Lullingstone Castle up the road as it was close but that was also closed. We consulted our booklets yet again and decided that we would go to Rochester Castle which was about half an hour away. So we set the sat nav and off we went. When we got near Bluewater there were massive queues to go into there. We were glad that we could get passed the queuing traffic eventually.

At the castle, we didn't take the audio tour this time. We just wandered round reading the information boards, and took lots of photos. I took so many that my battery ran out. Simon kindly lent me his spare one so that I could carry on taking photos when we went over to the cathedral. There was some seriously smelly and smoky incense being burnt. It made me feel ill. It is also a beautiful building.

This evening I watched Police Academy 2, Austin Powers 2 and 13 Going on 30.

2nd January 2011 - Sutton Valence Castle

2011-05-13T20:59:00.003+01:00

My day started late again. Must stop sleeping in. By the time I'd had breakfast, and spent my usual messing about on Facebook, it was nearly one o'clock before I was ready to go out. I made an executive quick decision that we would go to find Sutton Valence Castle as it was fairly close on the English Heritage map. I have driven through Sutton Valence a few times and even knowing it was there, we had trouble finding it. There was just a small English Heritage brown tourist sign. We drove up the hill and drove straight past it. We found a dog walker to ask. She seemed quite surprised that we'd want to find it and warned us that it was just a ruin. We found it almost driving past it again, I caught sight of it in the mirror. We had to park down the road and walk up the narrow road. There wasn't a lot of the castle as it is only the ruins of the stone keep that remains. It was thought to have been built in the 12th century. Dave says it is possibly the lamest castle ever, and wants to cancel the Direct Debit for the English Heritage membership. If we only go to Dover castle one more time and one other place, then we have saved money by getting the membership.

We stopped off in Headcorn on the way home to get some dinner from Sainsburys and a quick look in The Factory Shop next door where Dave found some large casual trousers with lots of pockets. We then argued with the sat nav on the way home.

At bowling this evening I didn't do very well but better than some days, 121, 121 and another score, finished off with an average of 125. José played well and beat me on all 3 games, even if it was by just 4 pins on the first one.

I started watching Warehouse 13 from the start. I'll let you know if I like it.

1st January 2011 - Happy New Year

2011-05-13T20:39:00.003+01:00

After the brilliant party at Jose and Maria's last night, this morning we had a lay in. I was hoping not to have a headache but justice is done and the headache soon started. I deserved it having drunk a bottle of red wine myself, and a glass of rosé. Once up, I sorted out the photos taken at Mum's birthday party and from last night's party. They have now been added to Facebook. We went over to PC World with the intention of getting a massive external hard drive. We couldn't see a terrabyte one for less that £65 so I suggested that we rig up one of the old PCs for back up purposes. I was looking at the Advent printers that they have in the store for £24.99. I asked about the price of the ink cartridges. They are £11.99 for the black and £17.99 for the colour. Although these were quite reasonable, they can only be purchased from PC World or Currys as they are new to the market and specific to this chain. The girl asked if I had considered a Kodak printer. The printer itself is a little more expensive but the print cartridges are even cheaper at £6.99 for the black and £11.99 for the colour. Might be worth considering.

Once home, Dave realised that we didn't have the cables and stuff to set this up so he went back to PC World where they were really helpful for a change. I stayed at home this time and tidied up and fixed my printer. I changed all of the colour cartridges. I have now printed out photos to send to Mum and Dad.

Dad called in for a visit to collect my spare Nokia charger. He was impressed with Dave's home brew, Wrecked Rudolf, and likened it to Mackeson's which is his favourite.

After dinner, I got on with the puzzle. It is now finished. That's the quickest I've ever done a puzzle. I hurt myself sitting on the floor for so long the other day so I now have the board on the dining table. That was a fun one to do. Wonder what one and when I will start the next one?

Boxing Day – In Folkestone

2011-04-24T00:44:00.003+01:00

Another change in the norm for us. We went to Folkestone as we had been invited to spend the day with Steve and Trudy. We called in to pick up Daddies Little Angel and the Rear Admiral first. As soon as we arrived food was ready. The table was heaving with buffet food all looking wonderful. Once we had chatted, scoffed ourselves full and exchanged presents. We played games. A quick game of Elefun (or something like it) which didn't keep us entertained for long, then the Trivial Pursuit came out. As there were 6 of us, we did teams of 2. The all girls team won. Trudy is very good at this. It was close though. Afterwards we played Who Am I and Charades. It was a great day.

Hooray, Christmas holidays start here

2011-04-16T14:13:00.002+01:00

On 23rd, I finished off the Christmas shopping and most of the wrapping. Christmas Eve, Dan and I went to Hastings to visit the family. We spent some time with my mum and dad first, then delivered some parcels to Julie and Mike's. Then up to see my Siobhan. We joined in their celebrations as Shah has proposed. We had pizza and home made cakes for dinner. When we left there, Dan was well on his way to being drunk.

When we got home, Dave and I went to a Steve and Sarah's house for drinks and snacks. We had a lovely relaxing evening, chatting and listening to music.

On Christmas Day, we opened our presents from each other. It was a novelty not having to rush to get ready and go out straight afterwards. Dinner was cooked for just 3 of us. We opened the bottle of Chapel Down wine that we had been saving for a special occasion as it was quite expensive. It was rough! Think we'll stick to the cheaper stuff in future. After dinner, we got out the Ker Plunk game. It's a bit of a tradition at Christmas to play games. Another tradition is for Dave to fall asleep after dinner. Dan joined him, until it was time to get ready to go and find his mates.

Kat joined us with her fella and we opened more presents. We had prawn cocktails and cold meats and pickles. It was soon time for the Dr Who Christmas Special. Then Blokus was played. The kids went round to see Brian and Rachel. I had to give in and go to bed early as I wasn't feeling well.

Wednesday 22nd December – Work's Christmas Celebration

2011-04-15T14:10:00.004+01:00

Our last working day was 22nd December, and to celebrate we had our work's night out. We were able to leave early so that we could get ready. There was a split in the company this year. Half of them went to the main party which was at the Detling showground. One of these big party tent arrangements. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it but none of my department wanted to go to this and I felt that I should be with them, especially as it may be Glynis's last Christmas with us as she is considering retiring. We went to Eastwell Manor. It was a lovely, civilised evening. I was collected from home by Tony and we were first to arrive. Tania soon joined us and we went through to the lounge for a drink. Once Christine and Glynis had arrived and settled, we served with these posh aperitifs very neatly arranged. They were different and tasty. There were 4 of these little wrapped parcels each.

We were shown through to the dining room. As I knew the portions are never huge here, I opted for all three courses. Being in the Accounts department, the owner of the purse strings, we went for the best option which was £25 each for the three. All were very good, served with silver service. Most people I know would have probably gone home hungry but this was plenty enough for me. I didn't feel so full that I couldn't move afterwards which is usual when eating out. After dinner, we went back to the fireside in a lounge and had another drink. An enjoyable evening was had by all.

19th December – Walk to Bybrook Barn

2011-04-14T15:24:00.004+01:00

We set off in the morning in the snow, wrapped up well, for our hike over to Kennington. It was so pretty. A good excuse to take lots of photos again. It was quite a fun walk and not too cold.

At Bybrook Barn, Robbie and I didn't go into the Grotto. We had a wander over the bridge to the look at the frozen, snowy lake. Once the happy Eden and co had come out of the Grotto, we walked up to the top of the gardens where she got to have a go on the tea cup ride. The whole place seemed empty. We hardly saw another person that wasn't staff. Dave and I watched while Brian and Rachel took the kids on the train ride.

Then we went inside to look at the lovely Christmas displays. They always do a good display there of fairy stories, etc. We thought that we would stop in the restaurant before going back home. I suggested that we went to the American diner outside. It was great. I had cheesy chips and they were smothered in cheese. Very yum. Must go back again some time.

18th December – Christmas Party at our house

2011-04-14T14:00:00.009+01:00

As it was snowing again, we walked up to the town for a bit of Christmas shopping. We went to the Gorge with Martin. I took lots of photos on our way. When we were on our way home we had a bit of entertainment watching the buses slide up Bank Street. The paths were mostly OK. The dodgy bit for me was crossing the road when I fell on my bum. When I got home, I checked the champagne flutes that I'd bought for a present and found that there was one broken. I thought I'd done this falling over but then I noticed that the missing bit wasn't in the box or the bag. So they can go back.

To save money, we decided to have our group Christmas party at our house. We arranged for everyone to bring along something different. There was far too much food in the end. Best to have too much than not enough. I prepared a quiz of 4 rounds. Round 1 was “Acronyms”, round 2 was “Mr and Mrs” with questions like “Just the one Mrs ….., from “On the Up”, round 3 was Disney film and round 4 was Random questions taken from the 90's quiz book. It made a change for Dave and Jose not to win!!

We had our usual secret Santa pressie swap. The budget for this year being £5. Some people did really well including me with a towel cake with scented candles and foam bath.

We were chatting with Brian and Rachel about taking Eden to see Santa and we've decided to walk to Bybrook Barn tomorrow. It will be much easier than trying to get to Maidstone.

Sunday 12th December – Family party

2011-04-07T23:02:00.003+01:00

On the way to Hastings, we stopped off in Tenterden for a drink. Matt and Nicky like to invite all their family and friend's over to their home for Christmas celebrations. It's not always convenient for everyone to get together at Christmas and the house isn't big enough to accommodate everyone now that the family is getting bigger so this year they had the idea to meet up on Nicky's birthday at Wishing Tree Community Hall. Roy introduced me to “shove ha'penny” game. Would like to play it again sometime even though I wasn't very good.

There was pass the parcel game with chocolate bars or tubes of sweets in the layers. I think everyone got at least one. Afterwards, Matt disappeared and Santa appeared with a present for everyone. There was lots of food and drink and a very good time was had by all.

On the way home we stopped off at the White Horse in Newenden. They had a lovely fire going and we sat as close as we could. Sort of in the chimney. It was very relaxing looking into the flames.

Saturday 11th December – Children's Christmas Party, Hythe

2011-04-02T10:05:00.002+01:00

As we were down in Folkestone, I dropped Dave off with Jose and went to Capel to swap out the Partylite special offers that customers were not happy with from my recent party. I can't say I blame them. The deal was £25 of goods for £5. I had seen mainly Christmas related items on previous weeks. What they were sent was a barrel jar candle and some body cream. I hope I was able to appease everyone.

Dave had been asked to be Santa for the Autistic Society's children's Christmas party. We went down with Jose and hid Dave in the toilet. I joined in Maria and Enrique as they watched the puppet show. Enrique thought it a bit strange that I was there but not too worried about it. After the show, most of the children went downstairs as it was food time. Enrique decided that he wanted his face painted first. Scary Enrique Monster appeared. The person doing the make up was brilliant with all the kids.

We managed to persuade Scary Enrique Monster to join the rest of the children downstairs. Santa was smuggled out of the toilet. Any children that saw him appear, we had to tell them that he had to come up the plumbing as there were no chimneys. All of the children were extremely well behaved and waited their turn to get their present from Santa. One young lad, dressed in combats, was particularly keen. He sat up the front near to Santa to wait his turn. Later he was most impressed when he caught sight of Dave's combat trousers under the Santa suit. Dave had to tell him that it is extremely cold at the North Pole and he needs to wear trousers under the suit. Dave also strung them some story about living next door to drunken polar bears, or something like that!

We went back to Jose and Maria's for tea and we watched Eclipse film. As we were already in Folkestone, we went to visit Kat. I had been promised a cuddle with the piggles too.

Saturday 4th December – BKF Christmas Party

2011-03-24T23:25:00.004Z

With Dave off to work, I continued with sorting out my Partylite boxes. I've re-packed and checked which pieces I have and put them up in Kat's old room. Leaving downstairs the Christmas bits which I have put out and the bits that are in the next year's catalogue and the sale stuff. I still have the wax to sort through and my own sale boxes. It is quite scary the amount of blue boxes that I have accumulated. Love it all!

Once Dave was home from work and Kat had got to Ashford, we went out to dinner at the Hooden on the Hill in Great Chart. The roads were now clear but the footpaths were thick with ice and very slippery. They only had two beers on but they were both ones that we hadn't tried before. I had half of the Yule Tide, Teignmouth brewery. It was really good. The other one was Samphire bitter. I didn't try that one but I have it on good authority that it would have been better to have the Samphire one first. For dinner, I had a lovely mushroom and cheese omelette with chips. They did Kat a special prawn cocktail for her main course which she finished off. From here we went via Lidl's for beer and to get a few bits for the present game for the evening. Once we had also been to find a working cash machine and the Off Licence, we only had an hour to get ready once we got home. Dave wrapped the presents while Kat and I wrote some Christmas cards. Kat was looking really lovely in her new dress and I was very tempted to dress up like she had but the feeling of cold won. I know what these Scout halls can be like and opted to be warm rather than look pretty.

We left at about 5 with some discussion about whether it would take 1 hour 45 to get there, as per the printed sheet that Dave had got, or 1 hour 15 as per the sat nav. Playing silly games on the way.... I Spy and we went shopping and we bought.... Alka Seltzer, double ended dildo, Smarties, Bisto gravy granules, Vaseline, butt plug, a cuddly toy, a jacket for the cuddly toy, Jupiter, Beetlejuice, We got to Clacket Lane services about quarter to 6. Then Dave had a panic and decided to check if it started at 6 or 7 o'clock. It was 6, and he thought it was 7! Panic time, with coffees in hand, we rushed the best we could in the ice and slush back to the car to get there as quick as we could. The game from here was picking a topic and then working around the car with the next letter of the alphabet. It got silly! We got to birds.... I got the giggles when after saying Magpie, Kat then said “nother Magpie” !! So we arrived with tears streaming down my face. Although we were late, we weren't the last to arrive. Those that lived closest were the last to arrive but then they thought the start time was 7.30! It was also new baby Wakefield, Florence's, first outing. She is so tiny and very cute, and well behaved too.

Once everyone had arrived, we were fed. With soup and lots of other stuff, and yummy desserts too. We also had a snowman colouring competition. There was the pass the parcel game too with prizes or forfeits in each layer. Then we played the gift game which can get very evil, especially in a big group like this. Then there was the never ending raffle. Even though there were lots of prizes anyway, it would have ended sooner if some people had just donated some money to the kite group rather than buy raffle tickets if they are never going to take the prizes. It was soon time to say our goodbyes and set off home.

We hadn't got far when the Bat mobile lost power. Then we managed to limp to the petrol station. The engine was left running while enough fuel was put in it to get home. It's always too expensive to fill up at motorway petrol stations. On the M25, we had hardly got a mile down the road before the car died again. We then spent half an hour searching the glove compartments, phoning friends and phoning home to see if the car was covered by any sort of breakdown cover. We found that my bank one couldn't as it was for my car only. Luckily, the Rear Admiral had a better cover with his bank and a breakdown truck was despatched to us. We were visited by the Highways Agency guys who were brilliant. We couldn't get on to the hard shoulder as it was knee deep with snow. They put cones behind the car and stayed with us for a while. Kat got a tin foil blanket wrap as she was coldest. The breakdown truck arrived fairly soon and loaded us all. It was a bit scary in the big truck getting back to the Batfarm down the narrow lanes near Leeds Castle and near Smarden. Once home and unloaded, Bat borrowed another car and we got home about 2 am. I decided that we can blame Kat for this as the last couple of times when she's left the county, she's had transport trouble, and they usually happen in threes! A couple of weeks ago when she went to London and got stuck on the train for over 3 hours and when she went to Lakeside on a snowy day and took 7 hours to get home.

Thursday 2nd December - More snow

2011-03-22T00:12:00.002Z

I had trouble uncovering my car this morning. I took a spade to the car parked round the corner. I got my bag and stuff into the car, then closed the door, lifted the spade to try and move the snow off the roof, then suddenly my keys were no longer jingling in my hand! After checking near my feet where they should have fallen, they had disappeared. I then had to dig through the snow. It took me 20 minutes to find them! So I was very late for work. At least I got there. Lots of my colleagues didn't.

Wednesday 1st December 2010

2011-03-21T00:02:00.003Z

Today it snowed again for the second day here. We cancelled the Tuesday night meeting last night to save everyone from coming out in the cold. It was -3 when I got into the car this morning and this evening, and it snowed lightly for most of the day.

I went to Farm Foods after work to get a few bits. Pushing a trolley in the snow was interesting. Not done that before. While eating our pie and mash dinner, we watched some Time Team.

I went outside again later to check the white stuff. It is snowing harder now and we may have problems moving in the morning. The road and paths have disappeared again and the cars are covered up again.

I remembered to start my advent calendar this morning. I have a Peppa Pig one. I also have an advent candle.

Saturday 27th November – Batfarm and Murder Mystery Evening

2011-03-16T23:12:00.002Z

In the morning, I joined Chippy and Emily in visiting the Batfarm. It was an excuse for me to see the beasties again and take lots of photos. It was really cold.

In the evening, we went to Andy and Heather's for a murder mystery evening. I should say instead we went to Blackwater Manor for a cocktail party. Andy with assistance from Glenn and Stephen, had written a brilliant story that made us all feel that we were the murderer. It was very good. I was Miss Jennifer Blue. I had bought a new blue sparkly dress and new blue shoes for the occasion. The rest of the cast for the evening were as follows:

Dave - Reverend Rose
Heather – Dr Plum
Stephen L – Major Strangely-Brown
Rachel – Miss Grey
Janice – Lady Blackwater
Brian – Col. Mustard
Donna – Miss Scarlett
Glenn – Mr Green
Andy – The butler and “Latrine” - the French Maid

I was glad that it was mostly scripted and guided as I'm hopeless at proper “role play”. Wonder how Andy will follow up on this successful evening?

Thursday 25th November – November Extravaganza

2011-03-12T14:01:00.002Z

I should try to remember not to have coffee at archaeology club. I didn't sleep properly. I felt conscious nearly all night. I was only partially asleep. The alarm went off at 6.30, so I was up, showered and ready to go in the car at 7.30 as planned. I got to Maidstone easy enough, passing through a brief snow flurry. Then I couldn't remember which road on the estate was Bethan's. I thought I would recognise it when I got there. I got the postcode from Karen but then I couldn't get the sat nav to find the GPS signal. So I waited somewhere that I would see Karen come past so that I could follow. The 3 of us set off at about 10 past 8. We had a good run. We got through the Dartford Crossing really quickly not having to stop and queue at all. As the girls were hungry, we stopped at South Mimms services. I had a hot chocolate and warm chocolate bread which was really good. On arrival we bought a raffle prize. I got another Sabor Isleno Melts Warmer. I love the one that I take out in my kit. We were soon seated for our day to commence with door prize draws, recognition, new product and training talks. Lunch was good if a bit of strange mix. There was battered fish or chilli and rice, with various salads and other cold rice. For dessert there was fruit in juice and/or cake which was apparently a bit boozy. The afternoon was much the same as the morning and we finished on time taking with us a goodie bag of new products worth over £30 with a new catalogue and some useful flyers. The journey home was much busier. The sat nav originally said that we would be back at Maidstone at 10 to 6 and we got back about 20 past 6. I then had to go to Tesco to get petrol as I didn't have enough to get home. While I was there I went to get something for dinner. As cauliflowers were on special offer, I decided that we would have cauliflower cheese with some gammon. It worked well.

Wednesday 24th November 2011

2011-03-12T00:02:00.001Z

This morning at work we had a big company meeting at 9.30, with orange juice and pastries. Apparently 110 pastries cost about £50+ from Sainsburys. The vice president praised us for all our hard work. We all got a bottle of wine at the end of the meeting. This breakfast meeting and the wine is much appreciated.

In the evening it was off to the monthly archaeology meeting. This evening's talk was by Keith Parfitt on Roman villa at Folkestone. I had no idea that it was there, over at the warren. We must have even walked actually over it without realising. It was originally dug in 1924 and again in 1989 and last year. They have plans to go back again in 2011. When they go next time I'd like to go and have a look. When they filled it in 1957 to protect it, they used waste from a local furnace waste so they had to be very careful when they uncovered it next as it was like black coal dust.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfowaq_folkestone-roman-villa-dig_news

Wednesday 17th November 2011

2011-03-08T00:10:00.000Z

Kat wanted to be on the platform for the 8.30 train this morning. I sailed to work after getting her there, and got there early. Shame my boss wasn't there to notice! She had an appointment with the “mouse” man apparently. Other colleagues had problems getting to work. There were tales of an hour and a half from Folkestone and over half an hour for a journey that usually takes 10 minutes. Poor Kat. Her train was even worse. There was a fatality on the tracks at Petts Wood and she was stuck on the train for over 3 hours. Over 4 hours after she left me, she arrived at her destination.

This evening I called in to see Belinda to drop off her catalogues, etc for her party next week. Both her daughters were there and the 3 grand children. I forgot how noisy 3 children can be. Any longer there and I might have ended up with a headache. It was good to catch up with Belinda though.

When I got home I cooked a pasta bake. Once I'd started it and it was in the oven, I realised that I was out of cheese. As an alternative, I put a pack of bacon on the top at the half way through stage instead of the cheese. It worked quite well. I will definitely do this again.

We watched a Time Team Special, the Real Vikings. It was mainly based on a dig in York where they are finding evidence that the Vikings weren't all bad. They lived for many years peacefully trading with all countries.

Monday 15th November 2010

2011-03-05T00:37:00.000Z

There was a heavy frost this morning. The first time of the year that I've had to seriously clear the ice off the car. No sign of the auditors, so on with the work and the direct debits. I got in before 9 and left at 5, bonus. Cooked chicken legs for dinner coated with Benenden Sauce this evening, and we had them with chips. Yesterday, I used some Benenden Sauce on the roast potatoes, as I didn't have any vegetable oil. That worked OK too.

We won 8-0 at bowling which is really good as we were playing one of the new teams who are really good. We were on a mission to get 450 points each over the three games. Batty managed 150+ on each game but I didn't. I missed the 450 by 9 points. Dave wants to know why the other teams keep coming back as they always get their bums handed to them on a plate. We don't always win. We have lost 20 points this season.

Tuesday 9th November 2010 – Garden Centres and Rye

2011-03-04T23:58:00.000Z

As it was another wet and windy day, we decided to go down to the garden centre instead of the zoo. On the way through High Halden we stopped at The Snake Shed. It is usually closed when we drive past. They have some gorgeous snakes there, amongst other things. Just keep saying “no”.

We went on to Tenterden Garden Centre. Their Christmas display is no where near as good as Bybrook Barn's. I got a few more ideas for Christmas presents. Then we went on to the aquatics shop. Unfortunately the spa shop was closed. It is not open on Mondays and Tuesdays, and then only open 10 until 2.

We then went on to Rye, the scenic route. Our first stop was The Queen's Head which has been under new management since May. They had Dark Star Expresso. They also said they often have Crofters from the FILO. It's very rare to find anything from the FILO outside of their premises. They weren't serving dinner so we just had the one drink and moved on to the Union Inn. The food was lovely. Dave had a 3 cheese ploughman's and I had scampi and chips. I have a feeling that the food is better here than it would have been at the Queen's Head anyway.

Monday 8th November 2010 – Dover

2011-03-04T23:30:00.000Z

Today we had hoped to go to either Howletts or Port Lympne Zoo but it was evident that the rain and wind would have made it unbearable. I decided it would be a good day to go to Dover Museum as that would be inside and it is only my list of “things to do”. We set off about 11 and called into the new home brewing shop in over near Wickes. They have only been open since May. They have lots of interesting stuff there for making wines, beers or lagers. I hope they do well. The guy was very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. Dave bought a kit of Stout to try first. Sounds promising, and it could be ready as soon as 3 weeks. So time to try it and get another lot brewing for Christmas.

It was very scary driving down the motorway. I had to hold the steering wheel tightly as the wind was blowing the car about. I didn't think much to the rain either, especially when driving past lorries. Having parked up at Dover, Dave knew where he was going to I pulled my hood tight and followed. The museum was only £3 each to get in. The first floor had clearly labelled cabinets detailing each item, the second floor was a bit of guess work. There was every era covered of history in Dover through to war time. Dover did use to house the fattest man in England! 42 stone Thomas Longley was publican of The Star Inn in Church Street. Born in Snargate Street in 1848 & died in 1904. Buried at St Mary's cemetery. (I think this has probably been beat by now). I liked the big polar bear. I was surprised at how tall they are. The main feature of the museum is the Bronze Age boat. There was a talk about it at the archaeology club a couple of years ago by Keith Parfitt, the main archaeologist involved with it's excavation. It was found under medieval and roman stuff so when they discovered it they knew that it had to be older and of great importance. It is amazing how much of it they were able to retrieve and preserve. Pausing on our way out to buy the usual leather book mark for my collection, we made a short visit to what used to be the Dover Discovery Centre (http://www.dover-kent.co.uk/places/discovery_centre.htm). Posh name for a library! There were some ruins that could be seen out the back window but it wasn't clear what it was or where to go to see more “historical” stuff so we went out into the wet to find some lunch. KFC was nearby and we could eat in so we stopped there. Shame the staff there couldn't speak English so that Dave could understand. I had to translate for him!! After we had eaten we called into Blakes for a quick drink. They didn't have anything dark on so I settled for the same as Dave. I was going to try something different. I think it was Gadd's Rye but not sure. I was given a taster and decided that I didn't like it anyway. Leaving the pub, we ran back to the car through the rain and set off for Folkestone to go to the new Maplins. We managed not to find anything to buy. Then on to see Kat for a cuppa. She was in her pyjamas. These weren't any normal pjs, they are something known as a “onesie”. A one piece thing that looks like a babygro!

Bowling in the evening, we were officially playing against Team 10 which is our vacancy. We managed to get the 320+ needed for our 8 points. So we remain in 1st place for now.

Sunday 7th November 2010 – Parsnip Soup

2011-03-04T23:01:00.000Z

I mostly had a lazy day. Dave went to help Chippy, leaving me snoozing. I had breakfast and spent more time on my PC than I should have done, as usual. When Dave got home, I made him a sandwich, then Dan came home with French bread and meat. So Dave had lunch no. 2.

When the rain had stopped I took a walk to a deliver Partylite hostess pack to Sue who is local.

As I had lots of parsnip thought I'd make some soup. After checking on the internet, I found quite a few recipes for parsnip and apples. I would never have thought of putting those together. So using what I'd read as a guideline, I made parsnip and apple soup, sort of making it up as I went along. I hope I can recreate it one day. I peeled two large parsnips, and chopped one for roasting and one for the soup. Boiled for 15/20 minutes. Took out the parsnips for roasting and added 3 chopped apples (sweet ones) to the water. This was then boiled until soft with a couple of vegetable oxo cubes. When soft, this went in the blender with a splash of soy sauce to give it a bit of colour. Yum!

Later I watched Night at the Museum 2 (2009) that I recorded months ago. I don't think it's as good as the first one. I didn't realise that the girl in this, Amelia, is Giselle, the princess in Enchanted (2007).

(As it's November, one of my firework photos for today)

Saturday 30th October - Lenham Court Dig and Shadoxhurst

2011-02-27T23:41:00.000Z

After an early lunch, we packed our boots and digging buckets and set off for Lenham. Today's dig was at Lenham Court. The group had been invited to dig up their front lawn as they suspected there had been an earlier house on the site. Resistivity was promising so several test pits have been opened. It is looking good. We were given a hole to “play” in. Dave soon got bored and laid down for a nap. I think we found a round wall but the surrounding chalk and flints were hard to dig. I found a post hole too with a very defined shape. It can't have been that old though as it still had the wood rotting in it. The fragments have been kept in case they get chance to date it.

I had texts late from Katrina last night. Her trip to London had been called off. So she was free to come to Shadoxhurst with us. I went round to pick her up so that she was here with us when our lifts arrived. Back home, mulled wine made and introductions done, we set off for Shadoxhurst. We arrived quite early. There was lots of winning of plastic rubbish and cuddly toys from the stalls and the customary rabbit ears to be had. We also went to the BBQ stall where they sell burgers and hot dogs at very reasonable prices. Drinking our bottled beer and mulled wine by the fire while we waited for the fireworks to start. Katrina wasn't impressed with drinking beer. We were joined by friends from the astronomy club. The fireworks were good for a local display. We like the Shadoxhurst fireworks evening very much. This used to be the first one of the year that we'd go to but this year we'd already been to Eastbourne and Hastings.

When we got home, Katrina and I went over to the shop and she bought some bottles of Australian wine. Jose and Batty stayed too and us girls were drinking wine until very late. Jose and I took Katrina home when it was time to go. We'd had a lovely evening catching up and learning about life in Oz. Did you know they don't have wellington boots, they are known as gum boots, and Candy Floss is known as Fairy Floss.

Friday 29th October 2011

2011-02-27T22:25:00.000Z

Another busy end of month but less stressful than recent times. We have done a record number of sales this month. We haven't seen sales like this since before the recession. From Monday, it is the start of our new financial year and we are changing the company name again. I was helping out a customer the other day and he was concerned that we change our company name so often. He says he has never dealt with another company like it. It doesn't breed confidence in us. At least our branding is staying the same...... for now!

I had been looking forward to meeting up with my friend, Katrina after work for dinner. Unfortunately she was unwell and had to cancel. So I worked on until too late again and had a rush to grab something to eat and get round to Christine's for the card party. Christine had invited us too early but we had a drink and a chat while the lady set up and she was ready to start at 8. I know I have a lot of stuff when I do my candle parties but she seemed to have more! She gave a brief talk and gave us the catalogues. We made our selections and could look through the cards she had on the stands too. I've ordered another 10 for my card box and some Christmas cards. I love Phoenix cards. Some felt that the lady was a bit pushy. I hope I don't come over like that when I do my parties. What I also felt was wrong was that she had her shoes on. I always check with the hostess if they are a “shoes off” house, and Christine's definitely is. The orders that Christine got came to £275 and 10% of this will be donated to the Pilgrim's Hospice. There was also a raffle and a cake sale. Not sure how much that raised too. I might have to try a fund raising party.

Thursday 28th October 2011

2011-02-27T21:58:00.000Z

Another busy day at work. I was hoping that I would be able to meet up with my old friend, Katrina this evening. We are fast running out of time before she moves on to London on Saturday and then onto Europe before going back to Oz. We managed to chat this evening and have planned to meet up after work tomorrow for dinner, before I go to Christine's card party. Hopefully she will be able to come with me. I have wrestled some more with the new DVD player and found some strange arabic (?) news recorded on the hard drive which I have now deleted. I haven't quite worked out how to copy direct to the Hard Drive yet, but getting there slowly. I have now downloaded the 100 pages manual so this should help, hopefully. This evening, we watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Dave slept through the second part.

Wednesday 27th October – Archaeology Club

2011-02-25T00:14:00.000Z

After a busy day at work, I got home and cooked scrambled egg and beans on toast. We needed something quick as we were off to Lenham for Archaeology Club. Chippy picked us up and we arrived just in time for the start despite getting stuck in the traffic near Matalan again. After Lesley's introduction, Paula gave a talk on the dig up at Wychling church. I was interested even if the boys either side of me were falling asleep. We visited the Dew Pond and the site up at Wychling Church on one of our evening walks in the summer. The woods are very dense and it is very difficult to track what could have been an Iron Age settlement. Completely by chance this week too they have found a Roman road and they are very excited about that. I guess Tim's divining sticks have been there testing this out. I have spent more time wrestling with the new DVD recorder. I think I have it worked out a bit better now. I am now able to play back in widescreen.

Thursday 14th October - TV Day

2011-02-24T23:57:00.000Z

A day off work with nothing planned except maybe a bit of sorting out. Days off like this are perfect for wasting in front of the TV. I watched a bit of Queer Eye for a Straight Guy UK, then the film Hotel for Dogs, then the film Get Smart and found the classic Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Checking on IMDB doing a bit of where are they now? Are they still alive? The two young boys in the film only ever did the one film.

Saturday 9th October – Eastbourne

2011-02-21T22:13:00.000Z

First job of the day this morning was to replace the bathroom carpet with the left over bit from the lobby the other day. This went OK apart from a bit of squiffy cutting by my assistant but it won't notice now it's tucked close up to the bath.

Soon we were all ready to set off for Eastbourne for our annual trip for Corinne's birthday. We went in two cars. 5 up in Batty's car with Chippy and Emily following. Once parked up, we went to the pub first, The Buccaneer, for a quick drink. They always have a good beer selection there. It was soon time to wander over the road to the ice cream shop and meet up with everyone else. Their ice creams are really good and it is always difficult to choose one. Emily enjoyed her cup of ice cream. After ice creams, we had a slow wander down to the sea front to walk along to the pier. We had a play down at the water's edge. At the pier, we got chips. “Special” Dave was very embarrassing, having his photo taken with a special police officer and asking her if she wanted a chip several times, and a couple who were dressed up for the parade. We let Charlotte look after “special” Dave, if only she could finish giggling. Kat was having a “Kat-in-a-hat” day including 3 separate hats. Her Dad's hat in the ice cream shop, and when we found another pub, the very nice firework guys let her borrow more hats.

We walked down to the sea front to make sure that we got a good place to watch the procession and fireworks from. We took over two long benches right on the sea front moving them to the front of the path so that we could sit and the normal people couldn't stand in front of us. We were joined by couple of friends who live relatively local. The procession went along the path below and they were quite difficult to see. Jack Sparrow character was good though. The fireworks were excellent. We will be extending our annual ice cream birthday trip to include the fireworks every year.

Friday 8th October 2010

2011-02-15T23:22:00.000Z

After work, I went back to Matalan. Love that shop. Where else can you get pyjama top, and trousers, a top and 5 items of underwear for £22! Shame about the pyjama trousers though. I'd been careful to check the tag on the clothing matched the size on the hanger but I didn't think that they would be tagged wrong. The label inside says size 14. I'll have to go back again now. That'll be 3 times in a week. I don't go for ages and then go several times.

After dinner this evening, I found lots of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy UK to watch on the Sky+ box. There's one on each night at the moment that I have been recording. So I was up until 2am watching these.

Thursday 7th October 2010 - Scout Group AGM

2011-02-13T23:41:00.000Z

Yesterday, I went to the outlet after work. As well as bra shopping, I also did some research for Christmas shopping while I was there and bought one more present. That's 2 sorted out now. Today's picture is the beautiful sunset over the roof of the outlet.

This evening, I was originally going to be doing a Partylite show but as that was cancelled I went to the Scout Group AGM instead. It was good to see some old friends again. Not so good to find out how ill some of them are. It was quite a poor turn out and we only just have enough committee members now to cast votes. I have been voted in as secretary again. There's hardly any work involved as there are just two meetings a year and the only job I have to do is type up the minutes. Not a lot has changed. The hall electrics have all been replaced. Next job will be to replace the cooker and the kitchen. The hall is in need of a coat of paint and a bit of repair. Some of the parents have come volunteered already for this. Wonder if it will be done by the next meeting which is likely to be in 6 months time?

Tuesday 5th October 2010 - Hastings Pier Fire

2011-02-13T22:57:00.000Z

I was dragged out from under the duvet when the phone was ringing. I thought it was much too early for Tony who calls about 8.30. It was Matt asking if I'd heard/seen the news. Hastings Pier was on fire. I was more upset about this than the news about Norman Wisdom passing away yesterday. Hastings Pier is part of the Hastings heritage. Apparently it's been closed since 2006 and funds have been made available to renovate it. Now it's so badly damaged it will need more than renovation..... we'll see!! Two teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of arson. The amount of damage done I doubt that two youngsters could have done it alone.

At lunch time I went to Matalan with Kat. She got some jeans and a few other bits. I found some perfect jars for Chippy's new flat. It was quite embarrassing though when Kat dropped and smashed one on the floor while we were still shopping. It's much safer to get a trolley or basket!

Sunday 3rd October 2010

2011-02-13T22:33:00.000Z

Another lazy morning spent in front of the computer and the TV. Some might say “wasted” but that's their opinion! Dave had vanished early to help with moving furniture. I set myself up in the peace and quiet of the front room and watched Penelope film that I had recorded recently. Still love it and I've seen it about 3 times now. I've recorded it on to DVD to send to my niece, Fiona. I had also recorded Monsters Vs Aliens as one of our friends calls her “Ginormica” as she is getting very tall. She hadn't seen the film so I had recorded this on to disk and had enough room left to put another short film on.

When Dave got home, we had lunch and then went shopping in Wilkinsons. I think I will be going back there to do some Christmas shopping as I saw lots of good things. Just need to make a few decisions and not leave it until end of November and December like I have done the last few years, and not go with Dave. He's always keen to get in and out as quickly as possible. I mainly wanted somewhere that sold pens to write on to DVDs. Our shopping soon grew to a new bowl for the kitchen, some cleaning wipes, highlighter pens and some light bulbs. I don't think it's possible to go into Wilkinson's for just one item, unless you go there a lot.

At bowling this evening, we had arranged to pre-bowl with our opponents as I have a meeting tomorrow. It was good fun, and even better that we won 8-0. We deserved to win the first game but the other two games were not so good. The other team were also having similar bad luck. We really didn't expect such a victory as we were playing against the team that was in second place behind us. Now we have opened up our lead which is very good.

Saturday 2nd October 2010 – Moving boxes

2011-02-13T15:46:00.000Z

I was in bed before midnight last night which is highly unusual for me. I must be ill!! My throat feels very sore. Guess it was too much to ask for me to avoid all of the bugs going around at work. I spent the morning on my computer and getting a couple of loads of washing done. I've now got a few bits listed on Ebay. Still lots more to go.

When Dave came home from work, we had some lunch and went round to help Chippy moving to his new flat. We got most of the boxes and some of the furniture into the van and 4 cars. Sophie was wandering around wondering what was going on. I led the convoy to the new place. We didn't realise when we'd agreed to help that we had so many stairs to navigate. Even if it was 20 floors, we would still have been there. I suppose then there would have to be a lift. After about 5 trips we were all puffing. We soon had the cars emptied and the second van load of furniture done, with a minor accident with Kat getting a bump on the head from an errant table. We unpacked stuff to the kitchen with a cheer every time we emptied a box. Once we had finished there, Dave and I went to Farmfoods as we didn't have any eggs. Expensive eggs! Some £28 later.

After unpacking the shopping and getting in the wet washing off the line, I picked up a soggy Chippy to take back to his house. When I got back I cooked our mushroom omelettes. They worked much better this time. I think the trick is to get the oil very hot and fry the extras in the pan first and then pour on the eggs. It didn't end up like scrambled egg like it usually does.

At Chris's this evening, we watched The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger played the Joker in this Batman film. It was one of his final films. Such a great loss to the film world. He was such a talented actor. Christian Bale was the sexy Batman in this film. Then we watched the Tuxedo. One of my favourite Jackie Chan films.

Sunday 26th September – Sound Mirrors

2011-02-11T23:42:00.000Z

While Dave was out I was checking Facebook as usual while eating my breakfast and noticed an advert on the side about local walks run by the Romney Marsh Countryside Project. As we were looking for something to do later, I clicked on this and found information about a walk taking part today in Dungeness to the Sound Mirrors Walk at Lade Pit. Having seen the sound mirror further along the coast when we went for our walk in August, I was interested to find out more about these anyway. I phoned to check that it wasn't cancelled as the weather didn't look good. I was told that it takes a lot to stop the walks taking place.

When we arrived at the car park, it was blowing a gale and raining hard. We sat in the car for a while. Dave fell asleep. As more and more people arrived, I got out of the car to find out what was going on. I was given an information leaflet about the mirrors. Then I had to wake himself and persuade him to join in. He was very sceptical about the whole thing and was making sulky comments as we set out along the road. He soon cheered up if only to humour me When we got through the first gate, there was a talk by the guy leading the walk introducing us to the expert, Richard Newton Scarth. He is writer of a book – Echoes from the Sky. This book is very rare if you happen to find one or even have one. There are two currently available on Amazon for £59.99 and £99.99. The mirrors are on an island, connected by a locked swing bridge on a private gravel workings (owned by CEMEX). It took everyone ages to get through the single file bridge.

He took us round each of the mirrors and, from the top of a small step ladder to talk to everyone, he gave us details of each of them, starting with the smallest one at 20 feet, the next one at 30 feet and the biggest one at 200 feet. He was a very good speaker. We are hoping to go back again next year. I know there are others that would enjoy it too.

We took lots of pictures – mine can be seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228447&id=593756844

For full information, the best website I found is:
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/12/dillon.php

Saturday 25th September, Family Reunion

2011-02-06T11:55:00.000Z

Today we were meeting up at St Leonards Hotel, Ringwood. We had planned to leave at 8.30 but it was nearer 9 by the time we got away. When we left the mileage was showing as 102 miles to next fill up but we were still on 100 miles to go when we got to M25. I love my car. It averaged 45 mpg today.

We were the first to arrive so we set up in the bar area enjoying a local brew. Richard and Tony joined us. As the family were arriving, we played the usual game of who are you. We had been put on a table with Peter and his girl friend Leona, Tyra and James. Peter's little girl Amelia abandoned us to sit with her cousin, Ruby. Peter is Lionel and Mary's son.... and that's about as far as we got with remembering. Later doing introductions around a table there was Mary, Meryl, Maurine, Marion and Molly. Didn't realise that we had so many M's in the family! After dinner the boys were playing paper aeroplanes with everyone's place cards. One ended up in the rafters, as did one of the younger members of the family when he somehow climbed up to rescue a helium balloon.

The journey back was just as easy going, Dave was asleep before we got to the M27 and slept to Clacket Lane Services. The only slow bit was as soon as we left the M3 and joined the M25, we came to a stop. Luckily it soon started moving again.

I was back in time to go to Chris's. The films tonight were “In Bruges” and “Equilibrium”. Both were good films. Not sure if we worked out a loose connection like we usually do.

In Bruges is a 2008 British/Irish black comedy starring Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes. I think Dave would like it as it's not American.

Equilibrium is a 2002 American Science Fiction film that stars Christian Bale. In a futuristic world, they have eliminated war by suppressing emotions: books, art and music are strictly forbidden and feeling is a crime punishable by death. Cleric John Preston (Bale) is a top ranking government agent responsible for destroying those who resist the rules. When he misses a dose of the mind-altering drug that hinders emotion, Preston, who has been trained to enforce the strict laws of the new regime, suddenly becomes the only person capable of overthrowing it.

Sunday 19th September

2011-02-04T21:05:00.000Z

When we got up the boys had gone fishing and the acquired sign had disappeared back from where it came. Hopefully it wasn't missed. We had a quiet morning recovering from the night before.

We went for our Sunday visit to Lidl's and then on to the pond where the boys had been fishing earlier. I'd not been there before and we stopped off there while we were out for a drive. I scoffed a few blackberries on the way. We had a walk around the pond and Dave told me all about how it had been cleaned up and what might be a good idea to make it better for fishing. Making sure the herons don't come back might be a good idea to make the fishing better!

We went from there on to Orleston Woods for a walk. It's not very big to walk around, not like Kings Wood, but it is good for a short stroll. Last time we went we saw lots of butterflies. This time we found lizards. They were quite well camouflaged on a log. It would have been so easy to miss them. They didn't seem to bothered about us watching them as long as we didn't get too close.

Saturday 18th September - Martin's Birthday

2011-02-02T00:28:00.001Z

I spent the first part of the morning trying to decide what to do with my car. Dan said that he wouldn't be happy trying to fix it. If it was just the alternator belt, I thought it might be easy enough. I checked that I could get a replacement from Beaver Batteries. They assured me that I could. I then went out to check the car. Matt came past while I was checking. I think the belt was possibly still there, hanging off. One of the cogs had come loose and was chipped probably when it moved. I then phoned my favourite garage, D & D Autos. If I could get the car there before they shut, they would sort it out for me on Monday. I then had to phone the breakdown company again to get the car transferred the garage. This was also part of my breakdown policy via my bank. It was a massive American truck from Ashford Recovery that came this time. It was left hand drive and it was strange to sit on the right of such a huge vehicle. I left the car in their capable hands and Dave came to pick me up.

In the evening, we went to Martin's surprise birthday party at the Queens Head in Kingsnorth. We all arrived early to make sure that we could hide up without being seen. The boys managed to get him in through the front entrance so that he didn't see our cars. He was dragged there on the pretence of it being just the role playing gang going out for a drink. I guess he suspected something was up but not sure if he would have expected all of his friends to be there and all of his family. Martin's mum had done a brilliant job with the food. For the most of the evening it was very much the family on one side of the room and our lot on the other. Martin was very chuffed with his presents, especially the PS3. He was close to tears. Bless. There were lots of laughs when a few o our silly friends were swallowing the helium from the balloons and reciting poems, etc. We tried to mix up the two groups with a few games. I asked Matt to organise musical chairs, seeing as he did a brilliant job at the Christmas party at the Scout Hall some years ago. It was funny. Some people get so serious about it! It was soon time to go home. A great time was had by all. When we got home a sign from the pub advertising their curry nights and quiz nights was in our front room! Wonder how that got there!

Friday 17th September 2010 – Blue Bella and breaking down

2011-01-30T22:49:00.000Z

When I was checking Facebook at lunch time at work, I noticed a friend's comment about looking forward to a night with the girls. That's when I remembered that I had been invited to a Blue Bella lingerie party. So after work and shopping, and cooking fish and chips for dinner quickly, I set off for Maidstone. When I was near to Maidstone on the motorway the “Stop” light and the “battery” light came on. The car was still running OK, and I was determined to get there and have a good evening, so I kept going. The car soon lost the power steering but I kept going as I was nearly there. I'm glad to say that it was a fun evening and good to catch up with Dee again, and meet her lovely friends, and the crazy ones too! Blue Bella is a spin off from Ann Summers. I'm not sure that the quality is as good as Ann Summers, and it is is similar in price. The “toys” were OK, if a little scary!

When I left there, I had to get the car out on to the main road as a breakdown truck would not have been able to get into the car park. I stopped a little way down the road in a slip road and near a street light, and phoned the roadside assistance. They said they would be with me within an hour. I got a jumper and blanket out of the boot and got ready with my book to be patient. I wasn't really paying too much attention to the time but I would guess that I only waited about half an hour. The “very nice man” but the Ontime “very nice man” said that the alternator belt was missing. He hitched up the car and drove me home. We got Dave out to shift his car so that we could back mine into his parking space on the end. I think it was nearly 1by the time I got home.

Thursday 16th September - The Young Ones

2011-01-26T23:15:00.000Z

Today at work, our manager mentioned something she had been watching last night called The Young Ones. Not the comedy that we know and love but a new documentary. So this evening, I found it on iplayer and watched it while making dinner. It's the first time I've used iplayer and I'm very impressed, especially in the way that my laptop and wireless connection coped with it. It was just like having a TV in the kitchen. Not that we've ever had a TV in our kitchen! It didn't freeze and stop like it sometimes does when trying to watch You Tube. I really enjoyed the first episode so followed it up with the second one on iplayer and watched the 3rd one that I'd recorded this evening on Sky. It is about 6 well-known celebrities in their 70s and 80s spend a week living as though it were 1975, featuring Liz Smith, Dickie Bird, Lionel Blair, Derek Jameson, Kenneth Kendall, and Sylvia Sims. I didn't realise that there are now more people over 60 alive than there are under 16's.

It was cool at the end seeing Lionel Blair dance with Adam Garcia, who I recognised immediately from Coyote Ugly film. He is in a stage production called Tap Dogs.

(Today's picture from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/09/the-young-ones.shtml)

Wednesday 15th September 2010 - Peter Sallis

2011-01-23T17:22:00.000Z

This evening I cooked up meatballs again, but found yet another different taste to give it. Shopping in Sainsburys yesterday I had found chopped tomatoes with olives. They were good. Must get some more. We started to watch a film that Dave had recorded. It was a 1961 black and white, a classic apparently. Saturday Night and Sunday morning. We watched it for less than half an hour before deciding it was definitely as bad as I expected. Interesting to see Peter Sallis in something other than Last of the Summer Wine. I have just checked on IMDB, and he was born in 1921! He is uncredited in this film and is known as “Man in Suit”. In 1947 he was in his first film and he has been in 295 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine between 1973 and 2010. I didn't realise that there were that many episodes! The Holmfirth-based show was axed this year after 37 years and 31 series.

Tuesday 14th September 2010

2011-01-23T17:17:00.000Z

I went shopping with Kat after work to Pets At Home to get some guinea pig food and some bits for the cat. There is so much more stuff available for all pets now. I couldn't believe that you can get cat treats that help prevent fur balls. Whiskas anti-hairball! Tasty snack that reduces hairball build-up. Whatever next? I am assured that the cat likes them better than the fish flavoured ones.

Monday 13th September 2010 - Bowling

2011-01-23T17:10:00.000Z

I'm not aching as much as I expected and I'm surprised that we won at bowling this evening. We were playing against one of the new teams who are very good. Batty had to use a pre-bowl as moving the ducks yesterday he hurt his back. His pre-bowl scores weren't brilliant apart from the 3rd game of 156. Luckily for us, Martin on the other team was suffering from gout and was in a lot of pain with each bowl. He was trying to use a lighter house ball to make it less painful. About half way through his second game, he switched to using his own ball and his bowling improved but he still only got 1 more point than his first game, 112. On his 3rd game, he found his mark and then bowled 195! Fortunately his partner then had a not so good game. We are now at the top of the league, ahead by just 2 points. Guess we'll have to enjoy it while we can!
Today's picture from: http://adfedcharleston.com/2009/05/05/adfed-bowling-smackdown/

Sunday 12th September 2010 – Chilston Ponds Ice House Dig

2011-01-20T23:54:00.000Z

I woke up without an alarm at 7.30. I've been doing that a lot this week. Today I risked turning over and going back to sleep for half an hour. Luckily I woke at 8, so I got up on time. Not quite sure where the next hour or so went but it was gone 9 before I got out of the house. A quick trip to Tesco Express to get my favourite prawn pasta salad for lunch then round to collect Chippy. On arrival at Chilston, we were greeted by one of the park wardens, Mike. After a quick briefing we got down to scrapping the walls clean and digging a bit deeper to uncover more of the stone work. It was quite an easy site to dig. The ground was very sandy and we had a clear definition of where we were to dig. No guess work needed to try not to dig up a post hole or scrape the edge of ditch. Uncovering walls was so much easier. A lot of debris had been used to fill in the front in the 1960's. We had to be careful not to disturb too much of this. We dug until 12.30 and then stopped for lunch for about half an hour. It was a really good day and it was warm and not windy. Think I've got a few pink bits from the sun and I'll probably ache for a while.

At bowling this evening, I was having a bad first game, by frame 5 I'd only got 9 on each one so I played a new game of trying to only get 9. This worked up to frame 8. I managed a 3 strike finish.

4th and 5th September 2010 – Sumners Ponds

2011-01-19T23:21:00.000Z

We set off as early as we cold for our first camping trip to Sumners Ponds. Four of us plus our luggage, tents, etc for one night all packed into Dave's car. We had decided to travel light as there was just the few of us going for one night. We had an uneventful drive down to Horsham. We stopped at Tesco for BBQ food and breakfast stuff before going to the campsite.

Having set up our camp and said hello to everyone, it was soon time for our walk in search of a pub or two. Dave and Tracie were our guides. We set off to the footpaths and over the stile. I didn't have a good start. I fell over it and performed a hat trick, broke my favourite long nail, caught my hand on the barbed wire and hurt my ankle. Grr! I was more upset about my nail though. It takes ages to grow them and seconds to break them!! It was a lot further to walk there than we thought and it was quite a hot day. We soon got to Bax Castle where we had a lovely dinner. I passed on ice cream as I was enjoying my beer. A few hours and full tums later we set off back to the campsite. A few of us got left behind and took a different route, we were almost back to the campsite when we realised that we'd managed to miss the pub. We soon found everyone and enjoyed another beer or two in the Queens Head.

Back at the campsite, I tried to read but soon the heat and the walk made me sleepy so I had a doze for a while. Before it got dark there was some tent swapping to be done too. The second tent that we had brought with us was Kat's little pop up tent and it was very clear that this was not going to be big enough for two. So we borrowed a tent from Dave and Tracie which was much better. Sabrina and her cousin used the little one. They weren't going to stay originally.

The BBQ was soon lit and we cooked our food on a corner of the large grill. It took ages to cook and there was plenty to eat. Someone was cooking curry in a tin foil tray which looked very interesting. There were several of us looking after the food for each of our parties. Everyone brought their chairs over and we spent the evening drinking and chatting until late. A great evening with friends old and new.

On Sunday morning, the last thing we wanted was rain but unfortunately that's what we got. It was hard cooking in the rain but we soon got ourselves fed. We got the tents as dry as we could using towels and lots of kitchen towels. As we had got damp and there was no wind to fly kites, there wasn't a lot of point staying until the afternoon so we said our farewells and set off home.

Apart from the rain, it was a great couple of days. I guess we will go again next year but not travel so light.

Sunday 29th August – Day three of Batcamp

2011-01-12T20:40:00.000Z

After breakfast Molly pup enjoyed finishing off the pate. She had such a good time at her first camp. Lots of people to make a fuss of her and interesting things to eat and smell. Terry and I went shopping in Headcorn to stock up on a few things that we had run out of. While we were there we were asked to specifically get cream which we assumed was for “special” coffees.

Later I went up to see the fisher peoples. I got given a rod while Kat had a break. A fish caught my line and I pulled it out. I had to have it unhooked for me as I didn't want to touch it. Then I managed to get the hook caught in my finger. Fishing isn't for me.

Chris arrived in the afternoon for a visit and very kindly took Steve, Trudy and Molly home when he left.

Dinner this evening was fajitas cooked by Batty. They were very good and we all stuffed ourselves silly.

Before it got dark we went to see the ducks and put them to bed. They took a bit of herding but we soon managed to catch them. We were able to have a cuddle first before putting them away. They didn't mind too much.

When we got back to the camp, we had farm picked blackberry fool with cream.... so that's what the cream was for!

Later we sat around the camp fire again until it was time for bed. The fire was burning really well this evening as it was fuelled by the wind. Usually it needs assistance from the pyromaniacs amongst us pretending they are bellows.

Saturday 28th August – Day two of Batcamp

2011-01-07T22:50:00.000Z

After breakfast, we set Martin on “NOT taking down” the old hen house. Apparently it would be a terrible shame if the old hen house was dismantled. With serious red mist up with the axe, most of us stayed out of the way, except for Jose and Kat who also got a bit keen with another axe. With the wood stacked up ready for the fire later, we set up the targets and curtain so that we could do some archery. Chippy joined us too. There were a few seriously colourful bruises obtained by the archery virgins. They need to get their own arm protection that fits properly. Tina and Jason arrived and after lunch a few of us did some more archery with them.

I was on dinner duty today and started the preparations in the afternoon. I had decided on pork and apple braise and there was a lot to chop up. With everything prepared we waited for Steve and Trudy to arrive. With everyone settled in, we ate dinner which I think everyone enjoyed. The fire was built, and then it rained. Luckily it passed over and we could then all move from the tent to the campfire. Stevie made some banana and chocolates and wrapped them in foil to go in the fire. We had marshmallows to cook in the fire too. We passed around the usual port and other shared beverages, and chatted until late. The numbers dwindled slowly and it was soon time to get off to my sleeping bag.

Friday 27th August – Off to Batcamp

2011-01-03T01:21:00.000Z

I had to work on the Friday again as it clashes with our end of month busy time. With the car packed on Thursday night, I went straight out to the farm after work. I arrived at about the same time as Terry and Irene. They had been worried about where everyone had gone as they were unable to contact anyone in the bad signal area. With the cars unloaded, Terry and Irene, assisted by Jose, cooked us a wonderful curry for dinner. We spent the evening drinking and chatting in the tent until very late. It was the guinea pigs first night under canvas. They had been set up in a hutch that wasn't in use at the moment.

Monday 23rd August - Bowling high score

2011-01-02T23:36:00.000Z

Bowling this evening was fun but infuriating. On the first two games we couldn't get anything to go right. It didn't help when the balls were getting jammed in the ball return every other go. It then stopped playing up and we managed to redeem ourselves on the last game and bowled much better. I only missed 3 pins in total and finished on 182, beating my last week's high score of 170. This is just the second game in the current season. We are placed in 2nd place on pinfall but the 3 teams at the top have all won 14 points so it could be a close season.

Sunday 22nd August - Defrosting the freezer

2010-12-01T23:26:00.000Z

The day started slowly with us not getting up until 10.30. Dave soon went off fishing so I had the day to do some housework. When I went to the freezer to get some bread for breakfast, I found that the bottle of Shloer that I'd put in the freezer on Friday evening had pushed the lid off and there was pink ice on the shelf. I've been intending to defrost the freezer for ages. It was so bad that chicken that I'd put in the top shelf was sort of wedged in the ice. All the food went into the cool box and a big polystyrene box. Armed with two towels in front of it, I left it to melt. Coming back to it later, the carpet was soaked too so I had to wring out the towels again and again throughout the day. I was impressed that all of the food, apart from some chinese rolls, stayed frozen.

Another job that needed to be done was to sort out the shoe crates. We had made a mess searching for the boot sock things for Kat's wellies so it seemed like a good time to do it. I got permission from Dan to throw out all his old trainers. I filled 2 black sacks with old shoes. I didn't find the sock things or my kiting harness which should have been there. Hopefully my harness is with the other kiting stuff.

While doing both jobs, I also cooked a chicken roast dinner for when the soggy fishers came home.

Today's photo from: http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/09/photo-of-the-day-intense-freezer-burn.html

Saturday 21st August 2010 - Moving and Bewl Water

2010-11-28T10:40:00.000Z

I left home about 10.30 and went to help Matt and Lisa with their house moving. Not sure that I was much help. When we got to their house, Lisa was just leaving with the van. We left the car there and walked up to Matt's new flat. There wasn't anything we could really help with there. Dave and James helped with some heavy lifting. After having a cuppa, we then walked to the bank with Matt and then rushed back to their house to do a bit more. Kat did some hoovering, I cleaned the floor and the walls in the kitchen, while the boys dismantled the bed. It was soon time to stop for lunch. We drove up to Farmfoods to get some pizza and stuff. Then back to the flat to cook and find out that Matt can't have Sky there due to the big building opposite in the way. After dinner, we went home. I went via the petrol station as the low fuel warning light had just come on and I didn't want to be filling the car up while dressed up later.

In the evening we went to a Tudor event at Bewl Water for Drew's 40th birthday. The birthday boy and his family arrived in a horse drawn cart, looking very much the part of King Henry (albeit a slim one), his queen and his army chief and young Prince. After some photos, we went down to the lake and got on a boat. We had a tour around the lake while we had wine to drink, or soft drinks for the drivers. We were entertained during the whole evening by a jester/entertainer. We were back at the building for about 8.30 for dinner. He was very funny. He also played musical instruments from the period. Mostly we stayed with our friends from the astronomy club. Nearly everyone had dressed appropriately. The most original costumes being the row of houses which were very cool and had taken a few days to make. He also made us balloon animals, as long as we wanted dogs! We could have a giraffe too but that was just an upside down dog. He told us stories of the era too and after dinner he taught us some basic dancing of the era. He was very good. A brilliant evening was had by all.

19th August 2010

2010-11-25T23:01:00.000Z

My order from conference order arrived today along with £90 of goods that every attendee gets sent. All useful to start off the new season in September. We pay about £120 for conference and then get this “goodie bag” sent to us afterwards. Love it. Tonight we had meatballs and curry sauce for a change. It made a quick and easy meal.

I then went to an Ann Summers party at Gaynor's. It was good fun. Our first game was to make clothing out of a bin bag in teams of threes. We dressed Gaynor up. I was pleased that I wasn't the only one who wanted to sit out the sexual positions game. I would have been uncomfortable playing this with someone I had only just met. All in all we had a fun night. I wish I hadn't been driving though so that I could have had a drink. Maybe another time.

18th August 2010

2010-11-23T23:48:00.000Z

Today would have been Diane's birthday. It is now 5 years since she was taken from us. I had intended to phone Sean but didn't have chance. I should phone them and see them more often. Once or twice a year is not enough. I guess they are as busy as we are, or they'd be in touch more too.

This evening we just had pie and chips for dinner with a bottle of wine. We watched Almost Famous that I recorded. I didn't think I would like it. Dave didn't, he slept through most of it. I will look out for it in the cheap DVD sections. I would like to watch it again sometime.

Sunday 15th August 2010 – Steve took us on an Adventure

2010-11-17T23:33:00.000Z

We set off from Folkestone and headed off to Capel-le-ferne. Well, 5 of us went in the car, Dave and Steve went on the bus. When we arrived we waited for ages for them. Eventually we got out of the car to go searching for them. It transpired that they had sneaked into the pub for a crafty half.
Having regrouped we set off up the foot paths along the cliffs. It was quite a trek, past a something large that we later found out was a sound mirror We soon found the holes that we were looking for. They barely looked big enough for a rabbit to get through but somehow most of us managed to climb into the darkness underground. It was DARK. Taking photos with the flash camera was interesting as just for an instant you could see what was there. Time for the torches. I went down the first hole but I didn't venture down the second one. I still don't know how Dave and Steve managed it. We went on to search for another entrance down the front of the cliff. Well, Steve and Batty did. Kat and I stayed up the top and had kittens with the boys being so close the edge! Down the third hole, there was a long corridor leading away from the light into the darkness and round a corner to another long corridor. This one had two battery rooms off it.

There were also lots of spiders and their sacks of babies hanging from the ceiling that were quite fascinating. Some people we know might have been scared of them. When we were heading out of the holes, Steve thought he was the last one out but Batty was hiding in the darkness and scared the living daylights out of him. Oh, we did laugh!! Think Steve needed new pants!

We walked on and found another underground feature to investigate. It meant climbing down a ventilation shaft. The others went down but I couldn't navigate myself over the edge so I looked after the coats and bags. I need to go down there one day. It sounded really interesting and the pictures looked good too. We then had the trek home back to the Royal Oak pub at Capel-le-ferne for a well deserved drink. Dave and Steve got the bus back and we picked up Dave in Folkestone before heading back to Ashford.

Saturday 14th August 2010

2010-11-09T01:16:00.000Z

The intention for today was for a cycle ride to the Honest Miller in Brook. All of the weather forecasts said that there would be heavy rain by 1pm so we decided to find somewhere else to go. I did a Google search for “cheap pubs kent”. Somehow a pub in Iden came up, The Iden Bell. The menu looked good, plenty of choice for Kat and starting from reasonable prices too, so we amended our plans and set the sat nav for here. We arrived at 12.30 and met up with Heather who was already there with Michael happily snoozing in his pushchair. As soon as Batty arrived, we ordered our dinners. I had scampi and chips, Heather had burger and chips, the boys had steak and mushroom pie, Dave had a pork stuffed marrow special and I had scampi and chips. Four of us had puddings but not me. They were home made and looked lovely, but far too filling. The bill for 6 of us, with drinks, came to £105. Definitely another place to come back to. I had a lovely cuddle with Michael after he had finished his milk. We realised that this was his first trip outside Kent.

We left here with the intention of going to World of Water at Rolvenden but we changed our minds en route and went to Tenterden Garden Centre instead as there is more to see. They have beautiful fish tanks – marine, cold water and tropical - as well as the reptiles, etc and the massive catfish called The Stig. Dave bought some pond accessories. We wandered up to the new spa shop. I bought some crystals for Jose and Maria. We now know where we may be able to get them a present for Christmas.

Home again, and the boys went to the fishing tackle shop. I had to get ready to go to the quiz night in Hastings as we had to leave about 6.30. The venue for the quiz was at The Bullet which is a cafe in Robertson Street. We made our introductions, got our drinks and found seats downstairs. While standing outside with the smokers a little later, I found Dad who was looking even more lost than we were when we turned up earlier. We ate some food from the buffet before the quiz started. Dad joined our team. The quiz was in 2 rounds, 30 questions each round and worked very well. Well done to Jay for doing the questions. With our combined brain power, not mine, we managed to win. We gave the prize money back to the charity. There was a raffle too which Jose one the first prize which was a Blackberry. This went to Maria who is well happy with it.

Friday 13th August 2010

2010-11-09T01:02:00.000Z

This morning, I had not long since been up when I heard the fortnightly clinking of the blue box boys coming to collect. As usual, mine was still out the back garden. Having accumulated quite a few bottles from my birthday party, I thought I should rush out and drag a box full out the front. I nearly missed them. As I went out they had already started driving away. The driver saw me and reversed back a bit so that I could hand my box to the guy in the back doing the sorting. He asked me if they had woken me up. When I got back in, I realised why he said that. I checked the mirror. Not only had I run out in my pink pj's, my hair was even more of a mess than normal. Like I care!! At least, I got rid of some bottles. I guess they'll get used to me eventually!

On the way home from work today, I heard an advert on the radio. "Starburst, made to make your mouth water". Not quite the same as "Opal Fruits". It sounded so much better.

Thursday 12th August 2010

2010-11-09T00:54:00.000Z

We've been watching Man V Food showing on the Travel channel. The portions they serve at some of these place in the US would feed a family. Adam Richmond is a legend when it comes to eating. Surprisingly he's not very fat. We think he must have a week off after making one of these episodes. When Queer Eye for a Straight Guy was done in the US, it worked when they brought it to the UK. Super Nanny works when it goes to the US. Not sure that there is anywhere in the UK that can compete with the giant portions that the Americans can produce.

Wednesday 11th August 2010

2010-11-09T00:30:00.000Z

With the on-going road works at the Drovers roundabout and Junction 9 improvements, I saw one of the guys doing a job that I would never have thought of but obviously some poor person has to do it. He was cleaning the white reflective bits on the orange cones! I guess it's a never ending task!

This evening I tried a new recipe, Cod and cheese gratin. I think it worked out well and will definitely try it again one day.... when I can find the recipe! We watched the Twilight sequel, New Moon. As with most sequels, it was OK but not as good as the first one.

Monday 9th August 2010 - Packing up and Bowling Presentation

2010-11-07T23:34:00.000Z

Breakfast today was a lovely omelette. I just can't get them right at home but Batty knows how it's done. Packing before and after breakfast, we got done about 10.30 which was quite good going. I guess we got home about 11.30. Tony and I got unpacked before Dave and Martin got home from unloading most of the camping gear at the farm. Once I'd dropped Tony off, I decided to take my car for a clean while it was empty. My car being cleaned on the inside is a diary entry in itself, and it only cost £10 for a shiny clean and a thorough hoover out. They have also reduced the cost of the clean only to £3.50. As if it wasn't cheap enough before at £4.

Back home again, and on with the unpacking. We were originally planning to go shopping up to Camping International and a few other places but as Dave is off tomorrow and I didn't really need to go, we decided not to go today. I spent the afternoon sorting out the money, etc for our bowling presentation evening. Luckily I had done the certificates already but I decided to mark up the envelopes for the money with the breakdown of the prize money. It took longer than expected and I had to rush to get ready.

The evening was good, the food and company were too. Jose started the presentation and I did the awarding of the certificates and money.

Sunday 8th August 2010 - Conference Day 2

2010-11-07T23:13:00.000Z

In hindsight we should have got up earlier. We packed and got the bags to the car. Easier said than done. It was a nightmare waiting for the lift for ages. It took over half an hour to get from our floor to the car park. More people were giving up waiting and struggling down the stairs. I knew I wouldn't manage this so waited. We split up as there was limited room in the lifts and I was left waiting longer. We met up at the car and then went to breakfast together. We then had to queue to get in, then it was a bit of rush to get finished. We checked out and rushed to the hall where the conference had already started. I had won something in the door prize draw. Luckily someone had collected if for me. I've got another set of the large tealight holders. The first play of the day was the pantomime which is always very funny. Then we had the demonstrations of the new products. Lots of ooohs and ahhhhs! There was also more recognition/prize draws and inspirational talks. We had a full dinner and dessert today back in the same hall as last night. It was again good. It must be very difficult catering for such large numbers. We were back in the hall for more of the same and it was soon tea time, where we all drawled over the new catalogues.

We got away as quick as we could at the end of the day to get on the road leaving about 5.15. We had a good run back stopping off at the services to deliver Sam to her other half as they were staying with family in Nottingham for the night. We also grabbed a MacDonalds at the same time when we had found the right service station. We stopped at the wrong one to begin with. We had a toilet stop and used the shop which was very expensive. Karen got an unstable coffee that later ended up all over the car and herself. We won't be stopping there again! We had a much better journey back and got to Bethan's about quarter to 10.

Back to the campsite for a birthday drink with Gaynor and Mick. Everyone seemed to be really tired and I was wide awake. I was the last one up. I stood looking at the moon and stars in the clear sky for a while, listening to the kids in the park. It is much less scary there when there are more people staying over.

Saturday 7th August 2010 - Conference Day 1

2010-11-07T16:11:00.000Z

We joined the crowds in the conference shop after collecting our welcome packs. A lot of the conference shop items were out of stock already as it had been possible to order online a few days before. I re-wrote my order and posted it in the box and then joined another queue to get some more Partylite brand goodies. It was soon time to go into the hall for the start of the conference. We had reserved seating this year so it was less of a scrabble. The conference started with Sandra entertaning us with news of the company and introductions of the management team from the rival countries. There were training tips and awards for those that had done well. The afternoon soon passed and we set off to our rooms to get ready for the evening's dinner.

Karen and I had a drink while we were getting ready and soon got our party dresses on to go back to the conference hall. There was more recognition and prize giving. It seemed weird being in the conference hall in our posh frocks. It was soon time to move into the other hall for dinner. What a lovely job had been done of the plain hall. The ceiling was black material with lights looking like stars and looked really good. I enjoyed dinner, even if a member on our table didn't. She wasn't one of the team and was really an independent. I can see why! She spent most of the time moaning! She was an interesting character. I can't recall what we had to eat now only that I enjoyed it. Before dessert, we queued for the photo session. Various group shots were done. From Karen's team to the larger unit. After dinner was cleared away, there was a live band for the evening. It was good. Just like being down the Star. Guess they could have been the “Live n Kicking” of Harrogate. This finished about midnight and we made our way back to our rooms.

Friday 6th August 2010 – Off to Harrogate

2010-10-28T00:03:00.000+01:00

I was up at 20 past 8 and rushed off for a “potty emergency”. When I got back, I had a cup of tea and then made some coffee, the best way to make a slow start to the day. We had melon for starters and it was soon time to cook breakfast. After breakfast, I had to get ready to go. I then realised that I had lost my phone. Panic set in when I remembered the last time that I remembered having it was in the toilets. So I rushed there and no phone. Searched my bag and everywhere I could think of. I was fast running out of time. Then it was found by José in the pocket of the jumper I forgot I was wearing earlier. Panic over!

We got to Bethan's at 11 after the sat nav had taken us on a detour through Maidstone. Once we found out where Bethan's was, it would have been quicker to go down the motorway to the next junction than fight our way through the town. We set off by 11.30 and met every traffic jam possible. It took over an hour to get through the Dartford Tunnel so we had to make a stop at the Thurrock services, and at another one on the way. Well, we did have Sam with us who is 6+ months pregnant. We ate in the car to make up time. As there was an accident on the MI, Karen took charge with the road atlas and we ignored the sat nav and took the scenic route across country and through Loughborough. It took about 7 hours to get to Harrogate so it was officially a nightmare journey. When we set out, I think we were expecting 5 hours at the most.

Once we had booked in, unpacked and changed, we met up with the girls to go and find somewhere to eat. We found an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel. The waiters invited us in to look at the menu properly when they spotted us checking the menu outside. The choices looked good and the prices reasonable so we decided to stay. It turned out that there was the Partylite management team there already as well as another large Partylite group. It was a great evening, the waiters were funny, the food was good. I had a lasagne. Sandra (the Managing Director) came round to see us a few times, each time introducing us to another member of the management team as her boyfriend and her fiancé, and then her finally her husband. On the way back to the hotel, we called into the Tesco Express for wine and snacks. Later we had a small pyjama party in our room.

Thursday 5th August 2010 – Off to Teston

2010-10-20T22:04:00.000+01:00

I managed to get packed and round for Tony about 11 o'clock. We stopped at the Tesco Express near Maidstone Hospital to get lunch for everyone and anything else we may have forgotten. We were soon at Teston unpacked and ready to enjoy the afternoon. Over the afternoon, more friends and family arrived. The main excitement was when Dick's kite got stuck in the tree. It took 4 of us to shift it but with a bit of team work eventually it was free with no damage to the kite. As I was disappearing for most of the weekend, it was my turn to cook. Dinner was soon sorted and we enjoyed the evening celebrating birthdays again. When it was getting dark some of us went for a walk. We watched a couple of fishermen down at the lock. One of them caught quite a big fish. We also saw some glow worms.

2nd August 2010 - Happy birthday to me!

2010-10-19T23:56:00.000+01:00

I was woken with a cup of tea in bed which probably only happens once a year. I opened my cards and pressies before Dave went off to work. Dave bought me a lovely penguin kite which is as big as our duvet. I love penguins. It was a bit tricky to wrestle it back into the bag, especially when being half asleep still. Off to work, business as usual. I didn't take cakes in today, firstly as I didn't really have time to go and get them and secondly I knew that a colleague had also had a birthday over the weekend and would be taking cakes in today. He remembered and wished me happy birthday but he was one of the very few that did. Even my closest friends forgot!

At bowling this evening, Jim and Frances bought me a birthday drink making it special with a little cocktail umbrella. I think they also arranged the balloon too.

Sunday 1st August - Oh my poor head!

2010-10-18T23:52:00.000+01:00

We got up feeling fragile and were creeping around the house and garden thinking that Matt was still asleep in Kat's room. It was some time later that Matt phoned us from Hastings to thank us for a lovely time and to Dan for running him back home. We continued with the clearing. There were bottles everywhere. It seemed to take all morning to clear up but I was supposed to be elsewhere. Needless to say I was late! I took my candles and stuff to the Singleton Environment Centre for their Craft Day. As usual I spent more than I'd sold which was nothing again, and no firm leads. It was extremely quiet. I spent a lot of time chatting to Emma. I was also interested in possibly starting up Phoenix cards but the starting fee made me think twice. That's the joy of Partylite with it being free to be a consultant. I do love the Phoenix cards though and I stocked up those that I needed more urgently.

In the evening, instead of going bowling, Dave and I watched the Avatar film. I like it but I think a lot of the special effects really lend themselves to the 3D market and if could be removed for the standard viewing.

Saturday 31st July 2010 – Party Time

2010-10-17T23:36:00.000+01:00

We were up early so that we could get everything prepared for the party, the large umbrella arrived and the garden was set up in readiness for our visitors. The family were first to arrive. In total there were 39 of us, but not all at the same time. The oldest being Mum who came over with Nicky and Matt and the youngest being Michael with Heather and Andy. Paul travelled the furthest and got stuck in cooking on the BBQ doing such a wonderful job. It was great to see each and everyone and I believe a great time was had by all. Many of us drank too much. Dan and his mates took Matt up the pub and introduced him to cubans. Oh dear. Good thing Matt was staying over. Thank you to all who came to share my birthday and for the lovely cards and presents. To those that couldn't join us this year, maybe next time.

Friday 30th July 2010

2010-09-16T00:00:00.000+01:00

While cooking dinner this evening, Kat dyed my hair. It took a lot longer than intended and we were very late leaving for astronomy club. I had wanted it done for ages and especially before my birthday party so it had to be done! Looks good though.

We arrived at the hall in Woodchurch during the opening news, so we were still in time to listen to Dave and Tim telling everyone how easy it is to use the solar scope. So easy, even I can use it, but they weren't brave enough to say that in their presentation! It was soon time for the quiz. It was in the style of University Challenge with 2 teams of 4 up the front and we were the audience. The first few rounds were so specialised that even our resident experts on the panel were struggling and I'm sure none of the audience had a scooby either. I'd never heard of Messiers before, let alone know what constellations, etc they related to. Batting for Ashford there was Steve W, Dave, Steve J and the star of the team, Jonathan. He was amazing the way that he was working out some of the very technical questions and got the team into the lead at this stage. Then on the final rounds, astro-trivia, sci-fi and the astro-music, Steve, Steve and Dave took over from him. On this final round, they started out by playing a track from ELO. Dave and Steve's faces were a picture of happiness at the sound of this. (Today's pic, copied from Galex website, is Messier 83 (also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, M83 or NGC 5236).