This Easter bank holiday...

This Easter bank holiday Ant and I found ourselves locked in Tetbury Chruch in the Cotswold's. It could have been rather tragic... but fortunately we escaped without too much pain. Even so it amuses me...

Whilst in Tetbury we decided to look inside the lovely Georgian church. It really is pretty. At the back of the church there was a small stand selling postcards and books and such. It was unmanned - there was an honesty box. Whilst looking round the stall a slightly dodgy looking man came into the church and proceeded to ask us if we had managed to "nick anything". Wasn't quite sure how to respond to that one. Obviously steeling from churches is a major past time of mine.
Anyway we sort of wandered off, and the bloke left the building (offended by our lack of thieving perhaps?!). On his way out he bolted the door locked from the outside. The bolt was at the top of the door, so it couldn't be done accidentally.

Hmm so there we are locked in a strange church... fortunately when we went over to the windows we saw some people tending a grave, and so then managed to open the window and shout for help... all was well... even so I did wonder how long we could have been left in there if no one was about... but I suppose we could have summonsed help with a mobile phone or something?!

What I have been doing of late...

Rachel and I had a posh rendez-vous at Malmaison in Birmingham... Actually to be honest Rachel was the most glamorous with her posh bag... I still haven't lost the student rucksack look...
MalMaison is located in the 'Mailbox'... it has a small spa with massage chairs and a Jacuzzi pool and sauna etc. I felt I was re-living some of my expat life in the UK... but at a rather greater financial cost than in Asia ;o)
Hils and I were spotted in a public toilet in Stony Stratford... reason: very exciting public toilet with an electric loo role dispensing machine (just 2 pieces of paper per press of the loo role dispensing button)... there is also a count down timer and a ladies voice that tells you how many minutes in the loo you have remaining (out of a possible 15) before the electric doors open and expose you to the world... all this excitement cost just 20p... incredible.

We paid a visitation to Esther-Joy, who is very cute. Here she is propped up like a princess surveying her minions...Hils then made E-J's hair stand on its fluffy ends as she introduced her to Santa (admittedly rather unseasonable in February).
It snowed... very very exciting... although it didn't stay on the ground for more than 10min I did get to cycle to work in it... which made me wish I had some ski goggles on! Here is Kert all ready to ride, getting snowed on whilst I jump up and down with snow excitement and take photos of the 10 min of flakes...
Snow on the cycle path... the redways become white ways (temporarily)
The Holiday Inn Express takes on the look of a Swiss Ski Chalet (or is that stretching ones imagination slightly too much?)I acquire new landlords (well they will be at the end of the month). Spearsy and Arth (note matching landlord/ property tycoon beards) feature with the classy desk, and most glorious fake flowers the previous owner of their new abode left behind when she moved (how kind).

The Nadj, old gal extraordinaire left for the Philippines for 6 long long months of schmoozing around for the FCO... very sad day it is to see her go.
However this occasion seemed to call for us to try on some of her many sunglasses... Here is Ed, me (and my red coat which seems to be the thing that I am wearing most often in photos on this blog) and Laurence.

Cousins

After reading my last blog it was brought to my attention by my mother and Clari that Clari isn't actually my 2nd cousin once removed, but actually my 2nd cousin - pure no removeds about it... wikipedia the source of all knowledge provided me with a handy diagram that illustrates this clearly. As a result I deduced that I have a small family comprised of:

• 1 first Cousin (the most fabulous JackJack),
  
• 5 first cousins once removed, (+ possibly 2 more random geordie cousins of my dad),
  
• 10 second cousins, (+ however many children the random geordie cousins of my dad have),
  
• 7 second cousins once removed, (+ however many grandchildren the random geordie cousins of my dad have).
  

As for the rest... first cousins twice removed, third cousins... third cousins twice removed I have not the foggiest.