One man and his dog

One man and his dog
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Happy New Year from Uncle Curmudgeon

MANY THANKS FROM HOME

After a mixup on the rail, we were met by Pete, Jan and Amy at St Pancras and were rushed home to K/S where we were soon tucked up in bed after a stressful day.
Thank you both for making our holiday such a delight. From visits to the Anglo ex-pats in the snow, a regular visit to Les Isles Sur le Sorgue market, where you bought those lovely dining chairs and fire irons, we also had a lovely meal; journeys to Avignon sud, and later to Les Halles where we enjoyed seeing all the Seasonal fare on show. Another visit to Ex-pats on Boxing day, (our enjoyable 56th wedding Anniversary) where we enjoyed champagne and caviar, and meeting your friends from Amsterdam, Mick and Asdis, with their two delightful children. Cuddly Clara and cheeky Qing. We were sorry to leave you on Monday and we hope your visitors enjoyed their visit to Bedoin market.
Thanks again for your attention to Margaret (and to me) and for experiencing Kelly's magic massage!
once more we enjoyed your lovely home and now we will have to be content to savour Julian's daily paintings from a cold England. Look forward to your book, Ruth and to Expressions from the paintings from Provence, in the bound edition.
hugs from your loving Mum and Dad.

hmmmm

just to put things in perspective when you're, for example, on that high speed train..

Returning to England

I hope all goes well with the journey. There is a gale blowing here in Wales and it's trying to snow but the wind is much to strong for it. Lots of love Cathy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KATE

Sorry to have missed blogging your birthday yesterday, Kate but we were thinking of you, entering your 15th year as we toasted your birthday with champagne.
We are getting ready to go to Avignon to catch out TGV train back to Paris and then on to London, where we hope Uncle Peter will be there to meet us and take us back to his house. Best of luck to you next year and we hope to see you soon in the new year. Love from G&G

And finaly

Happy Birthday Kate! Fourteen today, Gosh it was very cold snowy and icy fourteen years ago today, we love you best beloved

Happy anniversery for yesterday.Mum and Dad!!

56 years that is some an achievement. What lucky children we are!

Christmas greetings

Happy belated Christmas greetings to everyone.
I hope everyone had a lovely day, full of joy and contentment.

December 1953

* December 1 - Hugh Hefner publishes the first issue of Playboy Magazine
* December 2 – The United Kingdom and Iran reform diplomatic relations (again?! Do we never learn?)
* December 6 – With the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Arturo Toscanini performs what he claims is his favorite Beethoven symphony, Eroica, for the last time. The live performance is broadcast nationwide on radio, and later released on records and CD.
* December 7 - A Visit to Iran by American Vice President Richard Nixon sparks several days of riots. Three students are shot dead by police in Tehran. This event would become an annual commemoration.
* December 8 – U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his Atoms for Peace address to the UN General Assembly in New York City.
* December 10 – Albert Schweitzer is given the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.
* December 17 – The Federal Communications Commission approves color television.
* December 23 – The Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrenti Beria has been executed.
* December 24 – Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand, sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River; 151 are killed.
* December 25 – Amami Islands are returned to Japan after 8 years of United States Military occupation.
* December 26 - Hugh Merrow-Smith marries Margaret Morgan in Oxford.
* December 30 – The first color television sets go on sale in the US for about $1,175 (American dollars).

Hey, what a month!

Happy anniversary

Cut the Cake

Cut the Cake
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

56 years ago today.. medals all round

christmas at les couguieux

HAPPY CHRISTMAS ALL YE MERROW SMITHS!!!!





christmas cracker making art therapy, then food.











the snow melted, it pissed with rain but nothing stopped the gourmet julian on his quest to have the most yummy christmas. so to les halles we went, hugh and margaret, our friends asdis and mick and their two adopted kids (clara, 8, from uk and qing, 4, from china). margaret joined in the making of crackers, qing cleaned the car and laid out the linen , hugh blew up balloons and julian...well,, of course julian cooked! margaret ate an oyster. we ate many. now they are all warching the oldie morecambe and wise sketched. we are sleeping in ths studio away from it all! very nice!

Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas In Hawaii)

A card from Steve

Oy Oy Merrow-Smith.Org,

to see this Jacquie Lawson electronic greeting card

please click on the picture.

Card Card!

Look look its me and Damian Lewis...

in the same photo (just about) caught by the paparazzi! See me in the grey wool coat on the left with a massive smile. That's my pen he's using!!

love Gem xx

(Panty Pants Panter)

HappyBirthday_Peter
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

look there's a cheeky monkey

Happy Birthday

Peter

Spotify

are we all using the new way to access music over the telephone t'internet?
"Imagine a music app with instant access to any song you wanted to hear. Imagine creating a playlist from those songs and quickly, easily sharing it with friends. Such an app does exist, it's called Spotify, and it could change music forever."
LifeHacker article
..a free account sponsored by ads is
available here
or £9.99 a month gives you a whole lot more or a day pass for 99p!


After the Royal Variety Show where appeared the Johann Strauss Orchestra I've gone all Viennese!



Separately in the Daily Grail an article about The Benefits of Singing on Alzheimers sufferers and others with little access to speech, with a ps "Most people with neurological conditions will remember carols, so that’s a thought for Christmas time, and a CD of favourite tunes makes a wonderful present."

all's well at les couguieux

all is well at les couguieux.

hugh and margaret arrived safely on the eurostar (after julian's haircut and our office lunch - 'julian and his secretary' - at chez l'ami jean') and we got upgraded to first class on the tgv. now we are home and, though it is minus seven, all is snuggly at home thanks to julian's cooking and his hand made log fire, and bach and rachmaninov. tomorrow we are off to friends' to sing carols. right now they are all going through steve's flickr album, and havin a laff, and i'm off to bed!

The Aged P's say "Goodbye"

Christmas and Laurel and Hardy hmm?
brilliant, so Granddad and Grandma are in Provence (I hope..) put them on the Eurostar at St Pancreas 12.30 yesterday Bon Voyagee!
love Steve

Watch A Perfect Day including"Goodbyee!"  |  View More Veoh.com

At last one in each bed!

At last one in each bed!
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Biggles and Cinders

Biggles and Cinders
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Biggles' breeder and trainer has offered me a deal on a 2 year old labrador, choice of two.. Jazz or Cinders.
I get the dog already partly trained as my own free of charge, with the proviso that the breeder gets her back for 2 litters of pups.

More Photos

And...

I remember seeing Mum & Dad carrying William from the front door to the car so they could go shopping for new shoes, as the only other shoes he had were his slippers!

A Geordie Tale!

All this tahk aboot the north East reminds me of the time when I was stationed in Trincomalee in the north east part of the (then) island of Ceylon. We had a couple of North Easterners in our mess. Both we called Jordies, I suppose, because of their North Eastern lingo although we had to admit that Middlesborough was not Geordie, but Yorkshire. One was from Middlesborough and one from Sooth Sheels (Is that in Yorkshire or Co. Durham - Geordie-land to us Southerners)
One of them (from Sooth Sheels, taught me the Winkle Song which I used to sing ad infinitum at all our Southern Music Nights as it was vaguely ‘Cockney’
When I was in the Sandown Amateur Musical Society, I opened my act with “Tonight my partner and I had planned to sing The Famous Duet from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers”. Pleasant applause from the audience, Then I had to apologise as my partner was sick and had not turned up (Sad OOOOOOHs) but as my wife had just written an Opera Called The Winkle Pickers, I would sing the opening chorus, and started to sing my Winkle Song mainly to the tune of “Knees-up Mother Brown”, or thereabouts. Delighted cheers from the audience!! Oh happy days.
Reading of the town of Yarm reminded me of one of our Geordies who wrote to the local Geordie weekly press asking for pen-pals for a group of love torn sailors in the Far East who wanted news from home. We didn’t mention that we were a sex starved group of lads in the Flag Officer Far East’s staff and had never been to sea, except our journey on one aircraft carrier from Tilbury to Colombo. A number of Geordie lasses answered our plea and when these letters were dished out mine was from a pretty girl in Yarm Lane somewhere. Foreign territory to me - where the hell is Yarm ? From the picture on our blog it looks just like Thame, where I spent many years in Lloyds Bank.

Auntie Val says

Just thought I’d share something with you
Mac Steele, Dad & Grandad would have been 90 today.

Just curious to hear any stories - hopefully happy or funny ones, you may have in memory of the old B****d.
Some tales perhaps for the generation of family who never met him.

A real one-off
Val

Observe 1 minute silence at pub opening time or over your next beer!
So I said

Funny you should say but..
my lorry route on a Sunday night now goes to TNT@ Teeside Airport!!
Roadworks on A1 lead me last weekend through
Yarm High Street















and at midnight it was all lit up, complete with Christmas tree and nobody about (at all ya'kna!)
Any road.. I was reminded
Yarm circa 1984, so Will is 4 years old and we have just been to Preston Park, Eaglescliff to see the penguins and to have a go on the roundabouts.










Maybe I (Daddy aka PapaSteve) got a bit carried away with the 'faster-daddy' cries etc
Upshot was that on the way home, in Yarm High Street Will threw up in the back of the car.
..all over his shoes.
Needless to say it was all my fault from the passenger seat etc ..fair play,

but after a quick mop up we headed off back to LHR
(110 Learnhouse Rerd Thornabulary)
Grandad Mac wanted to hear all about it and while retelling the story we realised the afore-mentioned shoes were missing.
Horror of horrors YoursTruly must have placed them outside the car in Yarm and driven off..
('Clarkes they were- ', 'are you mad Steve?' plus 'What do'y think you're doin?' and 'get back there' etc)

So back I went and the shoes were still there on the cobbles and still covered in sick..
but..
somehow William, in re-telling the story and putting forward the idea that new shoes may now be required due to the soiling, inadvertently and accidentally convinced Mac that the old shoes were U/S (unservicable) and came out to the kitchen with the news that Granddad had put his shoes on the fire!!!!!!!!!

I was clearly off the hook now as far as male incompetence was concerned - Mac was fully in the frame!
Victor Meldrew style "I don't believe it" from Barbara and Dot "What d'you do that for?" hahaha lol
He had a wry smile reserved for surreal occasions.. last seen at Trevor's wedding when the bride plus mother and sisters all steamed into port (the pub) under full sail in matching size 18 full length purple frocks and "Snowman" styled white wide brimmed hats as he turned to me and muttered 'Chryste'!
This time, speech was clearly uncalled for, so out came the wry smile with token pipe pointing and a gentle chuckle... eh lad!

1984?
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Them wert days

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DANIEL ON TUESDAY

To our dear Daniel,
We are sitting here in a very cold England, wishing we could be with you in a warm Singapore.
Daddy says you have all had bad colds and we hope you are feeling better.
It is Saturday today and we have missed the post, so that is why I am writing to you on our blogger mail. Aren't we lucky to be able to talk to you like this,.
Enjoy your Pokemon - I cannot play so you would beat me easily.

Grandma and I are looking forward to visiting Uncle Julian and Auntie Ruth in their house in France in two weeks time. We are travelling by train (Eurostar) under the sea, I hope we don't get wet!!
We hope Uncle Julian has not forgotten how to cook!! I expect we will have a glass of wine to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Love to you all in Emerald Hill Road from us in England. Cheers for England in the World Cup. Your loving Grandad and Grandma XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Congratulations Mr President

Well done Nic for arranging your conference and getting such a welcome feed-back from your members. Love from Dad and Mum

what lovely paintings JULIAN

As you know. I follow your daily paintings each morning and have been thrilled to see your latest PFP, particularly today's wine supper. Fabulous. The little roses and the orange flowers and the local views are also breathtaking . . Save us a copy of your Christmas edition.
See you soon on the Gare Du Nord!
Love to you both from Mum and Me Dad

We had a day out

We had arranged to meet Birdie and Dave Powell at the Chinnor Indian restaurant yesterday
The weather was very cold and we had to scrape off the Ice from the car.
I suddenly thought why scrape when all I needed to do was to drive the car over the road where the early morning sun was shining and presto the sun cleared away all the ice leaving all windows clean. We set off for Chinnor and duly met our friends at the Restaurant (The old CTC club). We had a lovely meal and a good chat, left their bungalow at 3-20 and we were home for tea. A good day out. Love from G&G