Dad Dad Dad look Dad!

Knife Rack

Enjoy Italy - Julian and Ruth.

We are tying to imagine you both in the Mini, heading east and south down to the sunshine of southern Italy. Have a lovely rest and go easy on the pasts.
Unfortunately for us the bed did not arrive and after moving the futon into the bedroom, where Steve had laid our new carpet, we spent another night on it. Not too bad, but as we had removed the door for the bed deliverers to get the bed easily into the room, we slept "alfresco" on the futon. Easy enough to fall into but more difficult to get out of, for a heavywight like me. We have been promised delivery of the bed on 1st November (tomorrow). I hope they do not let us down!
After walking about on the kitchen and bathroom tiles in the colder mornings we are seriously considering the idea of wooden strip flooring for the dining room, so we will be doing some measuring, and getting some 'howtodoit' leaflets.
We are going to Brackley this morning to buy a few things as we are beginning to miss some of the important things we left behind in Wootton, like the magnetic strip for the kitchen tools for one. We send you our love for All Saints day and we hope you young'uns in Wales and Spain will get a successful 'trick or treat'. We will have to heat up some pennies!! Everyone seems to be getting very excited for Saturday night's fireworks and bonfires, at least in Kings Sutton. Enjoy, all of you. Love from Mum and Dad

bye.jpg

Off to Italy in the Mini Cooper, hope we don't leave all the sunshine behind... how's the bed? Peter I've sent you an email to your gmail. Lots of love J

Waiiting for the bed man

Up early,having slept well on the futon and I have been trying to update this Mac for 15mins with no joy - all I get is the barbers pole scroll so I have put it to one side for the moment.

WE LIVE IN A BEAUTIFUL AREA

Today we left South Northanptonshire, then drove across the road to North Oxfordshire, then to South Warwickshire, back down the B4100 to Banbury, along the A22 and home again. We were unlucky to arrive at Broughton Castle when the gounds were closed to cars, so no walkees; had a lovely roast pork Sunday lunch at Swalcliffe, the prettiest of villages, just like a Cornish village with horseback riders, cyclists, two young bull calves outside the pub drinking beer (One a Herefordshire and the other a Welsh Black) a pint of Brakspears for me and a cinzano and lemonade for Mum. On through Sibford Ferris and Sibford Gower through the pretty little Shipston on Stour, although we didn't see the river, past the Civil War battleground of Edge Hill and villages of Kineton and Gaydon and into Banbury to visit Homebase, where we liked the idea of the strip wooden floor and vowed to look again as it was 3.45pm and the shops all close at 4pm on Sundays. When w arrived home we got down to dismantling the pine wooden bed as we have a new one coming tomorrow. Mum carried the mattresses into the dining room and into the conservatorie, with my help, as tonight we are kipping on the fold-down futon, in the lounge. Tonight we are going to watch a free DVD thanks to the Mail on Sunday. So there you have it - what a lovely area of the country is Banbury!!

Not mush-room round 'ere (sorry)

My friend Jackie who works at Open University offices in Boars Hill, took these pics on her lunchtime walk on a damp autumnal lunch break this week. Lovely eh?

Happy Birthday Uncle Nic

Love from Gem Will & Clive

Happy Burfday Nic

From all at les Couguieux... no running water in the kitchen yet :-((

Message for Pete and Jan

We have had a card from Lorna.
She thinks you have moved to Kings Sutton and not us. I have corrected that. She returned home from Shanghai last week, where the family moved to from Beijing in August. Son, Ian (19) is at Manchester Uni. Ian and wife are expecting twins in May 07, Lorna's address is 7, Bainton Road, Oxford OX2 7AF. Write and say howdee

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NIC

It was lovely to talk to you the other day and now is the time to wish you MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY.
We hope you all have a lovely day and BEST WISHES FOR A HOLE IN ONE. Love from Mum and Dad. Love also to Jen Hui, to Claire and to demolition Dan

Happy Birthday Nic

Let's go fishing!

Happy Birthday Nic

LOL










Hope the midnight shifts are over now.. have a good day!

Benidorm

We are lookng forward to seeing the girls in February. We last saw Johnny Vegas as Krook in Bleak House. He is a funny fat man without being a star turn, who is often seen in comedy shows. We remember Tony, who lives near you, with the big car and his Show in Benidorm. Nice guy. We are settling down here quite well, although what we would have done without Steve, I dread to think. A wonderful guy with lots of good ideas. We are busy turning the 'small bedroon' into a dining room, as we could not bear to throw away all our dining furniture and there is little other room to put it. I have been papering and painting it (the room, not the furniture!) and Steve has ideas of tiling the floor with a fifty or so floor tiles we found in our garden shed. We already have some in the conservatory and they are quite warm to the foot. We are busy looking round tile shops as they are out of production. I think they were made in Spain, so if you see any, put a stamp on them and we will use them. They are called Azteca,- type Himalaya and colour Nepal. Lovely looking flooring. Only kidding as they weigh quite heavy.
We were scheduled to visit Julian and Ruth tomorrow but Julian would sooner wait until the kitchen is ready.. We have not yet tried the train from here, ( Eurostar to Avignon) nor the free buses, but hopefully there will be time. There are a number of airfields within striking distance - Luton, Coventry, East Midlands and even Stansfield, or Southampton are not too far, So we hope that Alicante is not impossible to visit.
P.S Janine Duvitski always reminded me of Jean Weller!

Extra, extra, read all about it...

We're just back from the set of our fledgling actresses' new show 'Benidorm' in which the three stooges play along side the likes of Janine Duvitski (from 'Waiting for God') and the infamous Johnny Vegas (whom I had never heard of despite the fact he is the 'man of the moment' as far as UK TV ratings are concerned). Today's humour centred around an unidentified floating object in the pool, which tells you something about the sophistication of the humour employed in this 'quality' ITV sitcom to be aired next February about life on a 6 day package holiday to our wonderful local resort! The girls have spent hours in the pool over the last three days, with the end result that today Amy learnt to swim without arm bands! So, what with this success and the fame that is sure to follow their first TV appearance, who's complaining about being paid to miss school...not the girls, that's for sure.

Sorry about the blurred shot but with all the stars milling around it was hard to get a shot without including someone more famous than our three.



ps. the big guy in the picture below is not Johnny Vegas, but Tony Haye, a local club circuit singer who is also being an extra. You know him, don't you Mum and Dad? He's the lovely chap you met who set up the Benidorm Palace 'Children in Need Show' that you came to see where Jess and Beth danced in their first big stage production!

oo la la

(Pattern repeat illustration)

















Cathy, Edmund, Thomas and Kate
are very honoured to have dined
in the new Garden Room.

'What fun!' as W.H.Day Esq. used to say!

The tiles Dad needs are HIM3A Spanish made Porcelain Floor-Tiles. They were made by Azteca and the range is 'Himalaya' and the colour is 'Nepal'.
There are 22 large square tiles (333x333x9.5mm) in the shed which is enough for the room.
We already have 8 (502x333x9.5mm) large oblong tiles, and we need about 20 (so 2 packs of 6) @ £23.75
We have only 1 small oblong tile (333x165x9.5mm) and we need 36 (so that's 2 packs of 18) @ £26.55
We have 8 small square tiles (165x165x9.5mm) and we need 36 (which is only 1 pack) @ £26.55
Total £127.15 for the tiles.

Message to Nic

We have found enough tiles in the garden shed to half tile our garden room. they are Johnson's Azteca Himalya style and I wondered if you have any knowledge of them. Perhaps you know of someone with a large stock??

Went into Banbury to do some business

Successful visit so did some shopping in Somfiields in Castle Quay. before walking back to the car, Bought some goodies as Cathy was turning up for lunch. Decided to try and see if Topps Tiles had any spare tiles to match, but no luck as they were out of production. The man suggested I ring Midland Tiles who often have spares, so I will ring tomorrow. Got home and rang up Cathy on her mobile - she was just through Cheltenham with all three children on board. - Edmund was the map reader, and I was able to track them right up to their entry into the village, where I lost them. Lovely to see them all and decided to try out our new dining room, which I was in the middle of decorating - just right for six seating - a good Christening, with Mum's famous leek and potato soup, followed by chicken thighs, roast potatoes and carrotts. Lovely to see them all and Cathy was suitably impressed with no.31. Ice-cream and chocs for pudding and then sat down to laugh at Seinfeld, which we all enjoyed. Sorry to see them all leave but we had a very enjoyable day. Tomorrow we have to visit Brackley Health Centre for Blood Tests so we will probably lunch out. We enjoyed our visit to the Great Western Tavern in Aynho, yesterday - thanks to Steve for lunch. Getting to be a habit - drinking in the lunch hour!! Hope you had a good day, Steve! Love to you all from Dad

Cut off

Dad we've just been cut off I hope your not still talking! I've redialed twice but perhaps your doing the same, I will try again in ten minutes, have a nice lunch. love Cathy xxxxx

The baby's arrived and Poskie likes it very much

... But he's a boy...

≈

Moving Pictures

(Today's effort uploaded v quick ie a few seconds!) ..this was a video shot on my little canon by mistake hence the brevity!
I'm at the back next to Dad talking to Alec. He has the honour of being Mum and Dad's neighbour and is married to Lill with the black and white dress front left. Clive's Dad Steve is on my left.

Ma'ma looked very dapper as usual, and very trim and made an excellent job of her lunch. Ma'ma likes good cooking so finds lashed up meals difficult to finish and has gone down to a size 8.. but we are determined she should not lose any more weight!

current state of the kitchen!

10th Cousin Once removed

I've been on Genes Reunited for an hour or two and have found Sue, Rob, Audrey's Sarah, R Will, R Mandy have already started their family trees. Also Nana's10th Cousin(tenth cousin) once removed.. Peter Spencer has been in touch too.

family tree contact

I think I've had a contact from Dad's Cousin Audrey's daughter -Sarah Alexander

'From : Sarah
Subject : Re - Patricia Martha Arnell
Hi Stephen
Patricia Arnell was my great aunt, sister to my grandmother Dorthy Charlotte Arnell. What is your connection?'
.....I think I'm going to have to register with genesreunited.
So to my generation, Sarah is our 2nd Cousin and to Will and Gemma she is 2nd Cousin once removed! To Dad June and Lenny, Sarah is a 1st Cousin once removed because we have to go back to Nana's and Auntie Dorey(Dolly)"s Mother to get the relationship.

I've also had an email from Robert and Sandy Fincher after I ventured the idea of a bash for 29th March next year.

'Steve
We'd love to come along. Yes, I do shift work, but that makes it easier for me. It's more awkward for Sandy (weekends are better for her), but given enough notice we should be okay.
Still persisting with that dot mac account I see. Mine was due for renewal last month but I didn't bother this time around. I've just bought a new iMac as well. Certainly is a bit faster than my 7 year old 350 G3!
Rob'
(We have another Mac user in the family!)






Where shall we go folks? We might be a rather large party.... heyhey!

Harry Potter

We saw Hermione Granger on the way home from work this afternoon, otherwise known as Oxford born actress Emma Watson from Harry Potter films. She's tiny.

Thanks everyone for such a lovely meal & afternoon yesterday at The Dashwood. After our discussion yesterday about Joe Lyons Cornerhouses see websites for confirmation about the Morton at Oxford Circus:

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/oxford/Oxford.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Lyons_and_Co.

Can't find anything abut the one in Oxford City though.

gem x

HRHMarge.JPG

HRHMarge.JPG
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Thanks to Lil and Alex for chauffeuring Ma'ma and Pa'pa to the Dashwood 'Otel.. in the style to which they wouldn't mind getting used to.

October Birthdays

Today we celebrate (again), Steve's 52, then in two weeks (27th) it is the turn of Nic in Singapore, Closely followed by Jamie on the 28th. Getting ready for Halloween!!

HughMargieRyde

HughMargieRyde
Originally uploaded by hewsappy.

Happy memories of a lovely meal in Ryde. This was the last time we were able to visit this particular restaurant as it was bought as a house and closed as a restaurant in the following week. Pity!!

Tiny Child playing the Drums in Oxford

Hurrah! We can now blog video via Google.

Although I've deleted the footage I first posted because making it auto-start slows down the page loading, try Hamster's Dragster Crash and have a look at a busking band I saw in Cornmarket.(Click here) video google.

Happy Birthday young Steve

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Stephen,
Happy Birthday to you.
I hope you are doing something fun today! And somebody is cooking you bangers and mash and making them into cow pie for you!
I'm sorry that we won't be able to see you for your birthday bash, as you know Jenny(Johns big sister) will be 60 on Sunday and has been planning a grown ups only do for months, whilst trying to decide whether to retire form her rather tough job as a probation officer, so we won't be able to be in both Banbury and Lewisham at the same time. Our friend Jaani is looking after the kids. But I am so jealous of you all getting together again, have a lovely time.
Yesterday it was LLanddewi school's harvest festival. Kate impressed us by standing up in the church and playing the flute solo with not a trace of nerves, she gave us a lovely rendition of Amazing Grace, 'eat your heart out' James Gallway'. I took the camera, but I was unable to overcome my upbringing and so didn't take a photo of her as star of the show(to us anyway).
Lots and lots of love and kisses Cathy

Audio Dad

CLICK:-)NameThatTune.mov

Thankyou for my birthday messages and cards.. (sniff) and I love you all!

happybirthday
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

I'm 52 you know!

To Steve

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR WONDERFUL, SUPER, ELDEST SON. FROM HIS WONDERFUL SUPER OLDEST PARENTS!!
We look forward to a wonderful time at the DASHWOOD on Sunday.

Happy Birthday!

Just a quick note before getting ready for work! Happy Birthday Dad - very much looking forward to the do on Sunday!!

love Gem & Clive
xxx

Sunday next

dashwood
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

I called the DASHWOOD with the extra numbers this morning .. all fine yes indeed until I said that last time we all went out for my birthday was at the Manoir...." Ooo right.. I better tell Marcel!" LOL

360 degree view of The Dashwood locale

Waybackwhen

Waybackwhen
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

look what I found..when was this? and who took the photo?

Did anyone

mezeboat.jpg
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

did anyone get a butchers at these shenanigans?

get to bed

get to bed
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Auntie Val has some holiday photos we haven't seen yet so I've invited her onto the blog. The comic idea seems to be going down well so here's one at Georgina's expense, except that I was a witness at this little confrontation so that's me giggling!

Two more for luch, Steve

Alex and Lil will be thrilled to come and they will be brining us in their big car from our house at 11.30 for 12 noon.
We went to the Doctor's this morning and he will contact the podiatrist for Mum. After that we headed up th A361 towards Daventry and stopped for lunch at The Griffin in Chipping Warden, where we had a disappointing meal, having stopped there because it was pouring with rain. Not one but two jackets covered in shrimps, plus a salad, which I consumed but it was too much for Mum. The best thing was Banks's bitter.
We walked around Daventry, about the same size as Bicester, but with Mum's favourite Waitrose in place of Tesco's. We bought some breakfast cereals and got home at about 4.30, stopping to get some vanilla ice-cream at the co-op.

dashwood

dashwood
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

The DASHWOOD Hotel and Restaurant.
Anyone who'd like to drop in for lunch (INTERACTIVE MultiMap)
or just to say hello, on Sunday when I'll be getting the drinks in
Kirtlington
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Isn't that Mandy Donnelly on the bottom row?

I cannot see Cathy, but Mandy worked at Lloyds Bank when I was First Cashier. Hewsappy

a message from Friends Reunited

Hi Steve
It was good to see a pic of Cathy.. havn't been in touch or seen her since Lord Bills days!!
Please give her my regards
Denise Manger (Vickers)

ezappy says 'She's not amongst this lot is she?'



















Top Left-Dawn Roper I remember played a very aggressive form of hockey (my shins)
Bottom row Second from the left Annabel Overton I remember from the choir,
and top row third from the left is Carolyn Horton who did my makeup for the Mikado.. big brown eyes!
Anyway.. latest news from Denise is that she split up from Adi Manger after 25 years and is living in Thame.
Annabel is in charge of organising the 2009 400th anniversary of LWGS celebration choir, for which Howard Goodall has been commissioned to write a musical piece which Robin Nelson will conduct. Mum remembers Richard Meyrick who spent his lunch hours banging away on the school joanna.. he is often found performing around Oxford and Wallingford.

Still befuzzled..

Funny this, I can look at old posts of mine and see everything in preview just as it should be, but I've been through the process I always use and it just isn't letting me see the new images. My published posts have little squares beside them which you can hit to see the image. I thought at first I had exported them too large but I've tried different sizes and frankly can't be bothered to devote more time to trying to get it working. If anyone knows if I have a setting wrong somewhere, just post a comment to this post. Ta muchly, Pete.

AmyJo

AmyJo
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

what a poppet in Daddy's Panama

Roy Orbison?

Roy Orbison-731643
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

here we are..

Anything at all....

Turmoil
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Amy

Nope, blogger just isn't working for me at the minute. I can put images onto the post but when I preview them they're not there. I don't like posting something I can't even look at first, but maybe I'll try it and see if the picture appears on the blog even though it isn't on my own preview of the post....

Who, when and why...

Hey Steve, nice idea. Dad was born in 27, by the way, weren't you dad!?. As for all the other Merrow dates that I have, they are all in one of those 'boxes under the stairs' affairs. It's all bagged up and put away under the house, but I dare say I could fetch it out if nobody else has anything!

I've played with Comic Life but don't seem to be able to load the finished product onto the blogger. When I browse for the file and click upload it tells me it has been done instantly but that's a proky pie...it isn't there. Any tips from the masters of comic relief?

Steve, Who Do You Think You Are?

it said in my gmail account .. a link from Friends Re-United called Genes Reunited.
















It's a way of building an online family tree!
I tapped in Leonard Smith from Merrow and up came a search that Linda and Susan had got started with it.
I put MY name in and it turns out Will (off the telly) has also begun his family tree too.
What is needed now though is a few details of dates/places of birth of grandparents/great aunts and so on. I know Josie started a Morgan family tree and that Bro Peter has done some searching too.
So folks send in the dates you know using the button by the calendar and I'll cough up the tenner required to have the use for a year. Perhaps others might to join in?
Here's what I've got so far...
tree.pdf... so I need you all to send in to correct any howlers!















Click THE PICTURE or this link for a bigger version.

A day in the life.........

After we had persuaded Steve to help us dispose of a large chest of drawers and we had delivered the carcass to Hertford Street, we went off to High Wycombe, junction 4 to visit Asda and John Lewis. The first was a visit to the massive Asda shop and after tiring ourselves out went into John Lewis's shop to THE PLACE TO EAT and gorged our selves on a lovely bowl of sup and a crispy roll. Too full to consider eating a full meal after the soup we looked around the top shelf with its videos, its HD tellys etc etc and finally went into the furniture store ( Have I said all this before?) to look for wall hanging furniture as we are short of floor space and we need something off the ground for all our nicknax. After deciding to call it a day and look nearer home (Home!) we set off along the M40 and encounterd some very heavy rain just past the junction 8 (Thame) and for the remainder of the trip to junction 11 at Banbury we splashed our way home.Yesterday we went to Homesave and there was some furniture which I could live with, and I bought some shelving for my little office (the front indoor porch ) when Steve came to my aid (again) and helped me to create an office for my Emac out of the old table I had in the garage at 92, having already helped to get me on-line with BT and now I have a small (10footx3'4") workspace with two , or3 phones and one or two computers, my big one and a laptop, also. What a super guy he is, he seems to be indefatigable, not like his old dad who works by the clock!! Enough of this chatter. We went church on Sunday in the church with the loveliest church spire in the County, which shares its beauty with CE and RC congregations. I suppose there must have been about 60 of us at 9am
Monday we started to pull off wallpaper from our little room and today we decided to go to Brackley (about 6 miles away) to get some tablets from Boots and to apply for our local bus passes. We once more went into a pub for soup and a roll plus a pinta Bombardier and found that we could catch a bus to Milton Keynes or to Oxford free and on the ratepayers of South Northamptonshire. I don't know much about our new County, but it looks well worth exploring later on. We tore off some more wallpaper and George from Wiltshire Farms brought us the next two weeks frozen meals for our freezer. It is not at all bad. Yesterday evening we watched the Phantom of the Opera on DVD film, Which we both enjoyed. Today we pulled off some more wallpaper, and now I am going to sit down and watch Autumn Watch with Bill Oddy and Kate Humble. Cheers G&G

Just saw Will on telly

...walking across Magdalen Bridge on background shot. It was a Channel 5 programme about Pevsner's book of Oxford architecture (ya di ya) and there goes Will across the bridge towards town.

Well odd first day at new job (Thanks very much for the card Grandma & Grandad) but hopefully better tomorrow although can't argue with the office location (Wellington Square). Ventured into the Examination School for the first time to pick up some dissertations, walked past a film crew at the Sheldonian (Inspector Morse spin-off 'Lewis' is filming in the city at the moment). Walked home with Clive, just had comfort food of bangers & mash but now we are all upset as there is steam coming off the hot water tap & the central heating/radiators have stopped working for no apparent reason. Plus we both have colds...oh and my startup disk says its full but it won't let me move anything to the other volume - do i have to delete some stuff/applications off it? Might be time to open my leaving present of Lindt choc reindeer (no idea why they gave me reindeer).

Sigh

G

meanwhile back in '73

I did think that all three, Larry, Ralph Gielgud and were in the production I saw when LWGS went up to The Old Vic one evening in December 1973, but it seems I was mistaken. No mention on the OT site.

Raisin News

raisin the subject um raisin the titanic raisin the tone?

oh their name is on the tip of me tongue...

Richard Ayoade

Tom Goodman-Hill

Damian Lewis

Me & me Dad went up to NFT, South Bank to see a fantastic film called 'Keane' with one of favourite actors (Damian Lewis - been in lots of great stuff but best known for Capt Winters in 'Band of Brothers') and while we had a drink in the NFT bar before the film we saw two chaps off of stage/the telly. After a days deliberation have now figured out who they are...Tom Goodman-Hill & Richard Ayoade. Clive & I saw Tom play Peter Cook in a play off the west end earlier this year and he is due to be one of the knights in stage version of 'Monty Python's Holy Grail' but what we know him from is 'The Office'. Richard is very cool and is in lots of Channel 4 comedy stuff (ex-Cambridge Footlights). If only could recall the name of the actress who talked to me in the queue for the ladies (it's not Frances Barber or Lesley Ann Warren or Gemma Jones but that age/style) and the woman who was sat across from us at the bar....

Dad that play you saw on that school trip to the Old Vic as far as I can find a play at the Old Vic with Gielgud & Richardson both in it - was it either David Storey's Home or Harold Pinter's No Man's Land?