Well this is a bonus … living in Manchester means that we can now pay a visit to Hay-on-Wye over a single day!  Ann, Wendy, Jim and myself left Manchester at 9am this morning and arrived in Hay-on-Wye around abut 12:30 after taking a leisurely drive off the motorways.

The little bit of a downer on the day came when we realized that the £1 book shop had been taken over by new management and that it was now a “£1, £2 or £3 book shop”

Still, I did manage to find 3 of the books that were on my, admittedly, short list of wanted books and altogether I got 14 books so that should keep me going for a few weeks   Ann really surprised me this time as she almost bought as many books as I did!  And Jim even managed to spend £4 on 3 books (thereby blowing his book budget for the next couple of years at least).

All in all it was a very pleasant day out for us all.

The day is finally here … the house is sold and we’re off to “sunny” Manchester to live.  So after 32 years I am finally “returning home” (who’d of thunk it?).

We expected that it would take the four removal men about 90 minutes to load up the house contents as it was all boxed up and stacked in the room nearest to the front door (except for the beds and sofas), but no, it actually took almost 5 hours!

As of today I am once again seeking work, having finished at Canterbury.  The budgets all spent and they now have to fend for themselves.

Today, we had the absolutely awful task of saying our final goodbye to Daisy, our pet dog. We had had her for 16 years and 3 months and, I am sure you can imagine, this has left a very large whole in our lives. She will be sorely missed by all of the family and many of our friends.

Daisy was the runt of the only litter from Siouxsie (our previous dog, that died while in labour). We were given very poor odd’s by the vet for Dasiy surviving the first 24 hours but she was a real little fighter and proved us all very wrong.

Here are a just a few of my favourite photos of daisy:

Just been asked today if I will stay working for CCC for another 4 weeks   ‘course I agreed as there really is not anything available on the job market at the moment.

I have just started a new job working for Canterbury City Council. This is a temporary job for 2 months filling in for a person off on long term sick.

The pay is poor in comparison to working for the banks but at least it’s a job!

Well Christmas has come and gone and we all had a really nice time.  Well by all I mean Ann and I, Gemma Ian and Ryan,, Mary and Alan, Sheila and Chris and Dave and Michelle!  We bought a turkey that was sized like an emu so I am still eating my way through it (it’s a good job that I really like turkey)…

And just because I can here are the latest pics of my grandkids

Well as of today I am no longer “in work”.  Today was my last day with GS … so if anyone is paying attention and knows of any jobs I could do…. in the words of Yosser Hughes “Gissa’ Job!”

Puddled Ryan

This is one picture I just have to share with everyone… yesterday we received this picture of Ryan out with mum and dad just after he’d found a nice big puddle.

Oh, how I wish I’d been there

Kylie @ O2 dome

I am just on the train heading back home after going to see Kylie in concert at the O2 dome. This was Rachael’s Christmas present to me and was well worth the wait.

We met up at the dome … we being Rachael, Rachael’s sister-in-law Helen, Rachael’s friend Sally(?) Bex and I. We all went for a pre-show meal and were in and seated in the dome approx 15 minutes before the concert started.

Kylie was very good (as I expected her to be) and sang over 20 songs. The only slight negative of the evening was that, to me at least, some of her singing was a tad drowned out by the volume of the music. There again I could just be getting old!

My ticket from seeing Kylie at the O2

The finale of her encore was the best song of the evening … she sang “I should be so lucky” and for what ever reason it was the easiest to hear her singing on. I guess someone turned the music down a touch

This was my first concert at the O2 dome and I was surprised at how large the arena actually is. I had been to the dome previously and at that time couldn’t make my mind up if I thought it was very big or not (the dome not just the arena)!