Christmas 2006

This year Ang and I spent Christmas in our lovely new home in Linton. We hosted Christmas lunch with my parents and brother Phil attending. It was a lovely day and Ang cooked some great food. We finished the day by playing the Really Nasty Horse Raising game! Click on the link below for some pics.

Christmas 2006

5th Wedding Anniversary in Ireland (Oct 2006)

In October this year, Ang and I went to Ireland for our 5th wedding anniversary. We hired a car (a nice Alfa) and drove from Dublin to Killarney where we stayed in a lovely hotel for a couple of days. While there we drove around the Ring of Kerry, had a couple of lovely meals in a traditional Irish pub and got very excited by a fantastic castle near Cork. We had a fantastic time and took some photos which you can see by clicking on the link below:

5th Wedding Anniversary Ireland

Photos of Our Visit to Plymouth & Eden Project (Sept 2006)

Earlier this year, in September, Ang and I went to a friends wedding down in Plymouth. The weather was fantastic and we enjoyed the day. On the Sunday we went to the Eden Project and walked around the amazing domes. As we tried to leave, our car (the Vectra) finally gave up and we had to come home in a very small Corsa! The two links below take you through to the photos that I took while down in Cornwall.

Plymouth Visit

Eden Project in Cornwall

Brazil Holiday Photos

Ang and I had a wonderful holiday in Brazil earlier this year - click on the link below to see some of the photos that I took.

Brazil Holiday 2006

Broadband Has Landed

Well, after many many many moons, I have finally got connected to the interweb via broadband at home! Talk Talk are officially rubbish (after 5 months they still hadn't placed a wholesale order with BT), and BT are slightly better - but they still took one and a half months to get me connected. The problem that the engineer resolved this morning was a wiring problem in the exchange - DOH! Well, now that I'm online you can expect to see much more of me. So whats changed in the past 7 months? Whats all this YouTube all about? I'm off surfing...

50 Ways to Train A Cat...

... was the title of the book that Ang was reading on Sunday morning. Why? Because 'little' Josh and 'big fat' Toby (our cats) had been attacking our Christmas tree all weekend and we'd just about had enough with them. Yes it was fun to start with when Josh jumped up and whacked a bauble halfway across the carpet, but after the 23rd bauble had dissapeared under the sofa it was time for some drastic training... unfortunately, despite our best efforts, no training succeeded and I'll probably go home to a toppled Christmas tree tonight. At least we tried.

While I'm on the topic of Josh and Toby, Saturday afternoon saw Josh clinging on to the top of the curtains in our living room!

WHY ON EARTH HAVE YOU CLIMED THE CURTAIN?

Nothing but a little meeow from Josh to explain his actions.

For the rest of the day both J & T sat on the table, peacefully looking up at the curtains but despite a "man look" I couldn't find what or why they were so interested. As I had my little goodnight chat with Toby about 11pm I thought I'd sit and stare at the curtains with him - if he'd managed to stare at the curtains all evening then the least I could do was to spend 5 minutes bonding with him and share the experience. After a few minutes I heard some rustling coming from the top of the curtains, and this time it wasn't Josh. Pulling the curtains back I couldn't see anything... but wait, that looks like a tail... hold on, ... A MOUSE! It had managed to hide between the curtain and the lining! Crazy thing.

Well, the next part of the story isn't quite as exciting but it involved Ang and I in our PJs with a broom each chasing the mouse out of the house as it ran from corner to corner and magically jumping 12 inches in the air!

Testing 1 - 2 - 3

Just testing to see if my blogg still works! Hopefully getting broadband this week (6 months after moving in) so I'll be online much more!

Bad Bad Talk Talk

Well - where have I been these past few months? Waiting for broadband at our lovely new home. Unfortunately, we tried to sign up for free broadband with Talk Talk (Carphone Warehouse) and have got absolutely nowhere! Despite signing up at the end of May, it is now November and we are still broadbandless. So we've cancelled everything with them and will see if BT can do a better job. Watch this space!

We're In!

Just a quick post to say that we have finally moved house this past weekend. We're now living in Linton in a lovely 4-bedroom terraced/flat right in the centre of the village just off the high street. I'll post a few pics in the next week and let you know more about our wonderful pair of kittens!

Admin Errors

Well, almost 9 months after putting in an offer on the house in Linton, and a year after we'd decided it was time to move, we are almost there. Hopefully (fingers crossed) by the end of this week we will have exchanged contracts and received the keys to our new house in the centre of Linon... but it still amazes me how things can go wrong! Here is just a sample of the last two weeks...

After my 6-monthly haircut in Linton I decided to go and have a look at the house as I wanted to see where the evening sun would fall in the courtyard. Arriving at the house I noticed that the postbox had been blocked up (because it had been re-possessed) and the posty had been leaving the mail in a little alcove. Being the nosey so-and-so that I am, I had a quick flick through only to find that some of the mail had been addressed to us. Opening one of the letters it took me a few seconds to digest what I was reading.... Summons for Non-Payment of Council Tax.

What? Why? What for? ... I then realised that the council were trying to claim that we'd owed them over £400 because we'd been living there since the 10th of December. Err No! I don't think so. We haven't even bought the place yet! Needless to say I contacted the council the next day who accepted that they were wrong, and I was right! I asked where they'd received the information from and the lady tried to quote the Data Protection Act on me... I soon corrected her saying that seeing as they held info on me, I had the right to know where it came from! She soon gave in and it turns out the previous occupiers had informed them we'd moved in in December! They were still living there in January.... crazy!

Onto the next hiccup... we received our mortgage approval last week!! HOORAY... but wait a minute, it was for the wrong amount?! How? We'd even received a PDF and email from them confirming all the details back in April, but they'd still managed to give us the wrong amount. I really don't understand that one! Anyway, after a bit of a stressful evening, and a phonecall the Nationwide who described it as an Admin Error the mortgage has now been approved for the correct amount and we are full steam ahead! Watch this space...

Stag Sumo

This weekend was a very busy one including a day spent with Dave Horton on his stagg doo. The afternoon started with some fantastic sumo wrestling. The suits were massive and took all my energy just to get on. I won all 4 of my warm up fights, but lost in the first round of the main knockout!! Gutted. It was a fun day and ended with Dave dressing up in a wet suit, stripy socks, knickers, braces and a silly hat.

Sydney Pictures

Nearly two years after visiting Sydney as part of our Singapore and Australia trip I have finally completed uploading the pictures!! Now all I need to do is finish the Queensland pics and start on the Brazil holiday!! Crazy. Click here if you want to see the Sydney pictures... go on, there not that bad!!

Ben & Becky's USA Travels

Ben and Becky, two friends from Cambridge are currently in the US traveling around California and the Grand Canyon area going to the amazing places that Ang and I went to on our holiday to the US in 2000. When we made the same trip it was our best holiday EVER!! The contrast of scenery was something very special - for example, one morning we left Yosemite national park with snow capped mountain and by the evenin we were below sea level in the middle of the desert with temperatures pushing towards 50C! I am sure Ben and Becky will have a fantastic time - if you want to follow their journey you can have a look at their blogg here.

If you want to see some of the photos of our holiday in the USA then click on this link to be taken to our main webpage.

Counting Chickens

After nearly 10 months of searching for a house we think we've finally found one! We're not counting our chickens yet, but the house we were originally going to buy in Linton is back on the market and we've had an offer accepted. All we need to do now is sort out a mortgage and check all the paperwork. If all goes well we'll be moving into the house sometime at the end of May. Can't wait!!

Tim & Deb's Travels

Some of our good friends from Cambridge (Tim & Debs) have taken 4 months off from work to go travelling around the globe. They are currently in the south of France working for a conservation charity... counting flowers!! If you want to follow how they are getting on have a look at their blog here.

New Offices

After just over a year working for ESco we have finally moved into our new purpose-built building over this bank holiday weekend. It is so exciting to move out of the converted piggery where we've been squashed in every day after navigating past the chickens in the car park!! The building is fantastic and certainly launches ESco into what will hopefully be a prosperous future.

This weekend has been very busy, starting on Friday afternoon when I turned off the broadband connection in the old office before racing up to the new building with router and firewall in-hand to test that the new connection would work! Only having one of everything, it has meant that we have had to move all the equipment (desks, chairs, computers, network switches etc) from the old building to the new, so it has been a very hectic couple of days shifting crates around and then crawling around under desks connecting computer bits together. I don't think I want to PING again for weeks! I'm feeling very tired now (three 12 hour days in a row doesn't help!) but hopefull everything will be working happily tomorrow so that we don't have any downtime. Fingers crossed!!

Sunbeams

While at university I used to go on walks around the hills at the back of campus and took my camera with me. This is one of my favourite photos that I took and is completely un-edited. I love the way its not just the main cloud that has a silver lining, but the little ones behind it!

Watch Out, Sat Nav's About

I'm a big fan of my of TomTom sat nav, but I am the first to admit that it doesn't always get it right. Like the time when it tried to take me up the "Police Access Only" junction onto the M11, 5 miles from junction I was supposed to use! Now it turns out there are people in this world who are trusting their sat nav more than their two little eyes...

"In the most recent case, drivers passing through the village of Luckington have found themselves landing in the River Avon, by following a GPS-recommended route that pointed to a bridge that has been closed for a week. Despite warning signs on both sides of the road, and nothing but water straight ahead, local villagers have found themselves pulling an average of two cars a day out of the river for the past week. "When you ask what happened, they say, ‘My sat-nav told me it was this way,'" one resident told The Times. Meanwhile, the village of Crackpot (yes, that's really its name) has had to deal with drivers whose navigation systems have directed them to the edge of a cliff with a hundred-foot drop. So far, there have been no serious injuries, but drivers have found themselves stranded on a rocky path. "It's only a matter of time before something happens," said one resident." Link to Story

Arty? Moi?

This is another picture that I found the other day while looking back through my archive. Its of a sunset over Lancaster taken in 1997 and edited using a very old version of Photoshop. Although it looks pretty basic now, I was very pleased with it at the time... almost thought of myself as arty!! not me.

Old Photos

I was going through some of my old photos the other day and came across this picture of Faye. I haven't seen Faye for a long time but still really like this photo! The first time I met Faye was at Soul Survivor after being a pen pal for nearly a whole year! I knew who she was because she was wearing a feather in her hat!

A Parting Gift

Unfortunately, one of the things we brought back from Brazil was Salmonella poisoning! About 24hrs after landing in the UK (during our first morning back at work) both Ang and I experienced a very dodgy tummy. Over our moving out weekend we both continued with stomach cramps and multiple trips to the loo and after about a week Ang was still experiencing a bit of pain. After a visit to the doctor it turns out we both had Salmonella! Although we didn't have it too bad it was still an unfortunate memory to have of our time in Brazil.

Freezing for Fun!

Back in the middle of March I helped to supervise a sleepover with the church youth group at a park near Cambridge. Each group of youth were given a blue tarpaulin and some rope and were asked to go and make a shelter. During the evening the youth collected firewood and started a fire, roasted marshmallows, cooked their own stew and flirted with each other! Although it was the middle of March it actually lightly snowed during the evening and the temperatures hovered just above freezing. Although I was wearing two pairs of trousers, and numerous jumpers I was still freezing when I finally tried to get to sleep.

The Last to Go

This weekend it was great to see Pete H get married. At uni, he was one of 4 that hung around together (me, Pete, Ginger Rob, and Big Jon) and he was the last one to tie the knot! Louisa was the lucky girl and the wedding day was brilliant. Pete is a music teacher and had arranged musical entertainment for the whole day including a funky 16 piece big band for the evening reception!! Great fun.

Memories at the Ashton Memorial

While in Lancaster for Pete's wedding we went up to the Ashton Memorial, the building that Ang and I had our own wedding reception in. It is a grand building on top of the hill that over looks Lancaster, Morecambe Bay and the Lake District. It is always a special time to visit the Ashton and it brings back some great memories.

Beauty on the Doorstep

This weekend we popped up to Lancaster to see one of my best mates from Uni (Pete Hamborg) get married. By the time we got past the Manchester ship canal on the M6 the road was jam packed and warning of major delays ahead. Having a trusty old Sat Nav with us (Jane) we headed cross country to make the most of the scenery in the north west. We went to Dunsop Bridge, one of Angela's childhood memories. The scenery in the area was absolutely stunning! Driving back through the trough of Bowland it was like we were in the highlands of Scotland!! Its crazy thinking that I lived only 30 minutes away from this area but never managed to explore it because I didn't have a car!!

Been there done that.

Well, it seems like such a long time ago now, but the memories we have of Brazil will last forever! We had such a fantastic time and were blessed so much with the breathtaking location. Although the flights were a bit long, we think it was more than worth it to make the trip out a beautiful place called Natal. Would we go there again? Probably not, we're "been there done that" kind of people, but we'd certainly recommend it to anyone who is tempted by the wonderful undeveloped beaches.

FOOD!

One of my favorite parts of Brazil was the food. The specialties on the menu were seafood and steak! It cost about £10 each for a full MASSIVE meal like the one above which included a starter, chips, rice, salad and a plate full of steak.

Brazilian Beach Buggies

One of my favorite days out was a trip on the beach buggies where we were taken cross country inland to swim in a freshwater lagoon before being treated to a race along the massive sand dunes that line the coast of Natal. It was so much fun! The drivers were absolutely crazy which helped with the enjoyment!!

Brazilian Wildlife

The wildlife we bumped into in Brazil was quite stunning too. Monkeys, lizards (above), birds and even dolphins.

Fruit, Everywhere!

On another day trip we stopped off at a fruit market. Again, it was great to see such a variety and a lot of the fruit reminded me of the fruit I grew up with in the Philippines.

Brazilian Flowers

One the way back from one of our day trips we stopped off at a botantical garden - it was fantastic to see the variety of flowers. A lot of the fruit reminded me of the fruit I grew up with in the Philippines.

Catching Crabs

While in Brazil we went on a few day trips that we really enjoyed. One day we went on a Mangrove Mysteries trip where among other things we saw some locals catching crabs by putting their arms all the way in the mud. It took them about 3/4 minutes to pull up a crab - but it was very impressive!

Bye Bye Little Thetford

This weekend we said our sad goodbye's to our house in Little Thetford which we left in preparation for our move towards my job in Essex. It was an emotional weekend as we reluctantly left what had been a wonderful first home. We will miss the beautiful garden, large living room and semi-successful DIY projects! We look forward to the future where we will hopefully be in Saffron Walden, but until then we have moved temporarily to a room in Cambridge with our belongings in storage! Watch this space for more news.