Leigh's Stork Party

Saturday 27th July at Leigh's mum's house ... here are some photos taken by Ally of the proceedings:

Ingrid and Sharon in middle front of picture - thanks for going through there guys!

Sharon and Ingrid - Mags in the background (with the pink blouse) 

Thanks Ally!

Ewans Birthday Presents Video

Here is Ewan's birthday video showing all the presents he got and him thanking everybody for his presents (the best bit is towards the end when I tries to thank everyone, oh and also him mesmerised by the sparkler on his cake).

Remember to click on the youtube so you get taken to youtube and watch it as big as you want and in hi-def(ish) if you want. Unfortunately the camera I am using isn't up to my usual high standards but I am sick and tired of capturing tapes off my fave Canon. It is a hell of a lot quicker to download video off a memory card.

I have a backlog of videos and will get them posted as soon as I can get them edited and uploaded.

Ewans Birthday Video:

Then their is also a short video of some of the floats from the street parade in Norwich a few weeks back.

Fritton Lake and other important news.

Hayzel, Kevin and the kids went out to Fritton Lake, near Great Yarmouth on Saturday to meet up with Toni, Tim and their boys for a day of fun in the sun and messing about in boats.   I didn't go along for this shindig as I a) had a load of work to do for Monday morning deadlines and b) Leigh was having her babyshower and I was watching that on Skype for a while.   Photos below are courtesy of Toni (as always click on photo to see larger image) ...

Another Birthday cake!  

Looks like I misseed a lovely day out (aw) ...

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Congratulations to Andrew for his promotion - what an achievement, dude, we are all so proud of you!
And Leigh, I hope you got loads of really great presents on your Stork Party on Saturday afternoon - looking forward to uploading the photos that Ally took on Monday morning.

A bit more painting
I developed my own 'pouring medium' today - although it's not going to dry glossy, I can still coat it with a gloss medium and it will be good to go.  Just did a couple of small canvasses this afternoon and they are busy drying outside:

Collateral damage ....

Decided to take the kids out to Tyrells Wood today because the weather is nice and didn't feel like going a long way, it's also nice and cool under the trees.  It was a good plan, I thought.  
To make me feel even more positive about the trip, when I visited the Woodland Trust website, I saw that they'd posted up three of my photos that I emailed to them a while ago, from the last trip out there, so I was quite pleased about that.

I packed some picnic lunchie type things into the cooler box; water for the dog; poop bags for the dog; camera; phone (just in case) and off we went. 

Of course, I didn't have GPS, so ended up going straight past the second sign for Wood Lane and drove for a while before realising that we were a bit wrong, turned around, realised that I should have turned left coming down the road into Wood Lane, so off we went back up the road.  Now remember these roads are barely wide enough to take a car, let alone trucks or buses.   I was going along very slowly because again I didn't want to miss the turn off, there was an Audi station wagon behind me also travelling quite slowly and in no rush.  As we turned one of the bends I saw a huge red construction truck hurtling down the road towards us, he was driving basically in the middle of the road and made no attempt to slow down or move over at all.  I slammed on brakes and by extension so did Audi behind me,  both of us steering into the deep grass verge on the side of the road.   There's a huge ditch there, so you can't drive too deep in, else you'll be in all sorts of problems.  If we hadn't veered off the road into the grass verge, I wouldn't be typing this thing now, the truck would have taken us out.   He didn't slow down at all and continued up the road at a rate of knots (I reckon he was going about 50mph).   Phew!  

I was a bit shaken up for a few seconds but nevertheless continued on.  The Audio driver behind me was shaking his head like crazy and looking back the way the truck was going, at one point I thought he was going to turn around and give chase.  

Anyway we eventually found the Wood Lane turn off and continued down the road.  There were no vehicles behind me now and I was still travelling slowly, so as not to miss the entrance to Tyrells Wood, which is hidden amongst trees and bushes.     We were almost at the entrance and here comes this chap in a white minivan, driving so fast that when he saw me and realised there was no space to get around, he slammed on breaks and left tyre marks on the road,  he was still doing abou 30mph when he screamed past me and very nicely smashed my wing mirror.   I stopped immediately.  He still drove on about four or five car lengths and only slowed down to a crawl, he wasn't actually going to stop!!  I got out of my car to look at the damage and to confront him, he didn't even bother to reverse to see what he'd done, nor did he even make the effort to get out of his car, which is a common decency in my book, oh no, he waited for me to walk up to his car.  He greets me and says 'You right?' and I said, 'Well er not really, my wing mirror is smashed.'   He just shrugs his shoulders.  So I say, 'Now what', he grins awkwardly, shrugs and says 'Tit for tat I suppose' and then drives off.  I didn't have time to take his registration.  What a bastard. 

Tyre marks on the road

Oh well, what can you do hey?

Took the kids into Tyrells and got eaten alive by huge Dinosaur sized mosquitos whilst we were having our picnic.   The mozzies aren't as evil as SAfrican ones, they just look nastier ... but they still leave nasty bumps (see below photos of Ewan's legs and arm).  We did a bit of off-roading ... i.e. trekking through the ferns and undergrowth to find a short cut ... pretty funny lugging the cooler box over fallen-down trees (not).  Anyway it was an okay couple of hours, now I'm bushed, bruised, covered in insect bites, scratches and nettle stings ... ah, the joys of the English countryside!

Babes in the Wood

Where's my bone?

Random shots

 Just a few random shots that I took with the cellphone over the past few days. 


Faye carrying her Robot home from school this week. 

A very happy Birthday Boy

Tree Fu Tom

Off to school on his scooter - 30 degrees midday ... phew!

Missy out with me for a treat on her first day of School Holidays.

Happy Birthday Ewan!

Graphic by David ... :)

I don't know what time it was that he started looking at his presents but it was early!   What a lucky boy ...  he also received cards and money from his Great Aunties and Uncle in Wales, which was a very nice surprise for him opening letters addressed to 'Master Ewan Meyer'!  Thank you guys again.

Here's some photos from this morning.   (Faye is on holiday now, Ewan starts his holidays tomorrow).

Wheels at last

Bike and Scooter

Missy setting up the Hot Wheels game that she chose for him

 OCTONAUTS!
He's a Octonauts nut, so was thrilled with his OctoPod from Granny, Grandpa, Uncle David and Auntie Sharon ...

The additional Octonaut characters were from his Uncle David and Auntie Mags. 

 The Giraffe in the Scarf book from Oma - the illustrator lives in Long Stratton and we bought the book from her at the Pamper evening last Friday night - she has a lot of published books under her belt.

Tree Fu Tom Super Holopax and Scooter were from his Nana.  Tree Fu Tom Outfit from his Auntie Ally

Tree Fu Super Holopax

Stunning bike, with helmet, knee and elbow pads from Mummy and Daddy.

Lego set and carry case from Uncle Andrew and Auntie Leigh


Pirate Door Hanger from Granddad .. aaarr

A couple of dodgy videos ...