i love youtube...six thousand buckets

Been under the weather somewhat last couple of weeks with the heaviest flu ever. Just caught the end of a Harold Pinter tribute on BBC4 the other night, and whilst curled up with duvet and lemsip treated myself to some youtube time and found the tribute online. Here is one of my highlights with the fantastic Douglas Hodge who Clive and I saw a couple of years ago in 'A Matter of Life and Death' at the National. Thought you guys may enjoy this snippet of Douglas reading from Pinters memoirs of his time as a jobbing actor...

Miss one, Get one

Although we felt that a trip to Ryde Lions 40 years celebration dinner at the Bembridge Sailing Club was a long way to go for a feast, we happily joined our Banbury Catenians for a super evening at the Littlewell Hotel in Bicester, last night.
Everyone is such fun and treated Mum right royaly. We set out at about 5pm as it started to get dark and I wasn't sure exactly where the hotel is situated.
We went to evening service at church and afterwards to the hotel where we all had drinkies. At 8pm we all sat down to a hot buffet and Mum duly tucked in while drinking a few glasses of red wine. There was a great choice of food and we both cleared our plates, until I decided I had better not have any more to drink as I did not want any more speeding tickets, so we bid farewell to our fellow guests and were soon home. Next ordeal was getting Mum ready for bed as she is not accustomed to too much red wine and she slept in the car, but we soon got her ready and she slept like the proverbial top. G'nght

Painting of the Ventoux from Flassan,

I think this is just marvellous, Julian. I often thought that the view of Le Geant de Provence is as good as it gets, viewed from Flassan. Love from Da

Dad and'The lions'!!

I'm sorry to here you can't go to the do I would think that you would enjoy that! Are you still snowed in!! Love Cathy

Happy Birthday Ruth.

I hope you are having a lovely day filled with treats and love, Lots of love Cathy xxxxx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ROOF

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, RUTH ON 21st January! Doesn't seem a month since
Pete's birthday, but it is! Love from Les Merrows

Eddie Newland's son Darren

Eddie suggested I look at the Fishing report in the Portsmouth Local Newspaper

A total of 168 anglers fished in the 12-round championship, averaging 80 a match – the highest average in the 12-year history of the league.

This is a members-only competition and top of the table for 2009 was Darren Newlands from Newport on the Isle of Wight.

Darren finished on 37 points with a total weight of 45lb 3oz 12dm, collecting a total of £940 along the way.

More funds for the IOW, well done Darren

Not only Snow - but---

As you know, our washing machine is in the garage and water comes from a valve in the house loft (just above the bathroom) On Monday night I could hear water surging up the mains inlet pipe, but as it was cold, I did not go up into the loft in my Jamas to investigate, Good job too as when I got up and opened the Conservatory door, water was pouring along the ground from the overhead pipe, along the passage between the house and the garage into our soakaway and there was nearly an inch of water waiting to enter the soakaway drain. I gently opened the garage side door only to see water gushing out of the fractured pipe entering near the garage ceiling and soaking the bed and the settee, also with an inch of water on the garage floor. I straight away went into the house and shut off the mains supply in the bathroom, stopping all water coming into the house and exiting to the garage. Steve was on his way to London, so I looked up the plumbers in the 01295 area and struck lucky as my second call was answered by a chap (called Steve) who promised to come out straight away. Half an hour he arrived with his son Steve and fitted a new long handled valve in the loft to replace the plastic valve which had corroded. I spent an hour or two drying out the garage and the bedding and set about getting some lunch. I left the electric fires on to speed up the drying out and have just turned them off (Thursday 14th) The dear plumber charged me just £35 so the cost of electricity was not too bad.
He has promised to return to re-connect the water supply to the garage, so I am waiting for him to phone me as we are in the middle of a thaw and we should not get any more pipe bursts. - I hope! In the meantime, I will accept our Steve's offer to use his washing machine. Love from a knackered Dad (and Mum)

Cinders and Biggles race for the Fetch

Cinders loves to tease

Dance

A little dance between mother and son!

untouched-up

CAM_0577
Originally uploaded by ezappy.

Dear All,

We are having lovely weather here, breezing and warm. I have managed to get some photos into iphoto, so inspired by Cathy's valiant efforts I'm now going to try to load some up. Next will be flicker I suppose.

Nice to have spoken to you all over Christmas and New Year, don't be shy to call us once in a while on the home phone.

Snowy Provence

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOHN

Just remembered that it is your birthday, today, John. We all hope you have a good day with all your family around you. See you soon, we hope Love from Hugh, Margaret and Steve, (who has just got back from the North East on his weekly lorry trip.)

A trip to Avebury

Clive and I shudder at the thought of going round the shops for the sales so decided to venture outside into the countryside and took the car over to Avebury. The deal was sweetened as the village is partly inside the outer stone circle and there is a pub, so how could we resist the idea of a bracing walk followed by a pint in the Red Lion!






and happy new year to everyone!

11.30 a.m. Christmas Morning

Kate's excitement on opening her Christmas present!!

Nice end to the year...

We've been pretty quiet this last fortnight but have had some great fun in that time. Board games, especially Cluedo, with just the five of us and a nice wholesome family Christmas burning wood, listening to Rocky Mountain Christmas and just being ourselves. Between Christmas and the new year we had a visit from Rolf Provan, over from the Kentucky, and Kev Laxton came round too with Ann, his golf partner cum travelling companion and the apple of his eye. We had a game of Cluedo, as you do, and then went off to Aston Rowant to drink a beer with Kev's dad Eddy. A fun evening was had reminding ourselves of how old we've got!

Last night we went over to Pam and Steve's in Wantage and stayed up to the wee hours playing charades. Today we are back home again and are entertaining a friend from Spain who is visiting the UK with his daugther Lara, an old friend of Amy's. Looking forward to having a nice walk down the lane in the January sunshine and getting some of the old cobwebs out of the system.

Happy new year to you all. Good ol' John Denver can bring a tear to your eye at this time of year. Missing you all and hoping that 2010 will be a great year for all of us.

love Pete and Jan

Ps; Thanks for the Cherry chocs Cathy and John! Just the ticket.

Happy New Year!!

To all my far flung family, I hope 2010 is good to us all!!!
Here in Wales the old year went out with something of a roar....three days of wild winds, taking glass out of the greenhouse and slates off the roof, but as the full moon rose over Craig y Foelallt on the last day of the year it settled down to a clear bright frosty night with some sort of partial eclipse ....or a bit of funny cloud!!!! John, Tom and I visited the our local where the new year was being brought in by a mature but rhinestones couple with a Yamaha organ and some Neil Diamond, it was just like the last 35 years hadn't happened perhaps not in a good way!! Then there was the once a year hugging and kiss fellow villages and home to wish Kate and Edmund 'A Happy New Year', after that it gets a bit hazy!!! This morning the new year is greeted by crisp sunshine and a cold cold white frosted landscape and little whorls of smoke rising up from white washed welsh cottages it all looks beautiful.

EPPY NOO YAR

Mum and I would like to wish all our readers an EPPY NOO YAR with elf and eppiness throughout the year.
The year started well for us as we each received some cash from Lloyds Banking Group for not taking up some shares. Can't be bad! We will not have to take up some more. Love to you all from Mum and Dad