NickP’s World

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

Ryan

Violet

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)!

Today whilst Ann was in the shop, it being Farmers Market day in West Malling, I thought that I’d clear out the garage and the garden of all of the rubbish that needed to be taken to the tip.  I cleared a whole pile of stuff from the garage and loaded it up in the car and did the first run to the tip.

Back at home it just left a couple of old broken fence panels to take to the tip and then I’d be finished.  Unfortunately one of them was too big to fit in the car so I had to break it in half.  This involved snapping the four main battens on the fence panel, which were a little too large to break by hand.  I decided the best thing to do would be to place them over a block of wood and stamp on them.

I got a block out of the garage and gave it a go – the batten cracked but didn’t break … I guess because the block of wood I had used was just too small.  That’s when I had my great idea!

Back in to the garage I go and out I come with a 1 litre can of paint.  That had to be tall enough to break the battens.  I carefully placed the fence panel over the can of paint and stamped down on the wood …. perfect the batten broke.  I repositioned the panel and stamped again …. this is just so easy … second batten broken.

I repositioned the panel and stamped down again — and that’s when everything went wrong!  I had missed the wood and stamped instead on the can of paint…   So, anyone for magnolia decking?

The pot of paint

The newly decorated decking

Megan’s gone to Australia with her school, for a month long Netball Tournament.  Here’s hoping she has a good time and that her team wins

Spent the majority of today putting together the bookcases and setting up the new wool shop.  My knees are really hurting now (it’s not all fun getting older).  We still have to get Ann the desk/counter and a chair or stool but that’s the wost of it over and done with.

This evening Sheila and I went to Ikea at Lakeside to buy 8 bookcases to use to fit out Ann’s new (temporary) wool shop located at Abbey Arcade in West Malling.  All that in a VW Passat saloon!  It took the best part of an hour to figure out exactly how to fit it all in, and still leave room for me and Sheila

The seats were pushed as far forward as possible which left very little room to actually get in the car.  I drove home using my stomach to steer with and unable to straighten my leg (hence my knee now hurts).  My petrol light had came on on the way out to Ikea and I knew I had 26-30 miles worth of petrol at that point so, as we’d just passed the petrol station on the way, I decided to fill up on the way back.  Ha!

We come out of Ikea to find the slip road on to the southbound M25 was closed off and we were being dire cted on to the Northbound M25!  By the time we’d gone to the next junction and turned around and got on to the A2 we were running on fumes… and then we hit the traffic jam!  We were there for almost an hour and I really expected to run out at that point but we somehow managed to keep going and made it to the next petrol station.   Phew!

Ann and I went to see Ashley & his “new” family over in the States. We had a great time and managed to spend most of the week taking turns holding Violet She’s gorgeous!  When not holding Violet we were playing with Holly (the dog) or Dominic and Vanessa … or eating

The weather was almost too hot and humid for the first 3-4 days but then calmed down a little and became much more bearable.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn hotel whilst over there as Ash doesn’t have the room to put us up (which was great as we had air-con whereas Ashley’s place didn’t, and we didn’t have any crying babies to listen to overnight). The room and hotel was nice and the staff very friendly and helpful.

Boston is a really nice place …. somewhat “olde worlde” (especially when compared to all of Florida).  We’d like to go back out in the Autumn when I am sure it would be really picturesque.

We went down to Portsmouth today and went to See Kim, Julian, Megan and Molly. We arrived around 2pm and stayed for dinner. We could not believe our Molly, she has really shot up since we last saw her just after Christmas. She is well on the way to catching up with Megan.

Unfortunately we had to leave early (around 5pm) as we had others to visit and did not want to get back too late as Daisy was “home alone”.

Next on the Agenda was a quick surprise visit to see Mary and Alan. We parked up and Ann phoned to ask if “Mary could come out to play ” … but unfortunately Alan saw me passing the window which ruined the surprise a little. We stayed for a little over an hour before having to leave to drop some keys in to Rachael H… we said a quick hello to her mum and dad whilst there.

Then finally we stopped off to collect our friend “Bingo” Julie, who has come to stay for the week.