Surnames

The post arrived today and we got lots of Christmas cards... and interestingly they were all addressed somewhat differently... I suspect this is all my fault for not being a straightforward Mrs Geer (although as you will see I am called this... which is fine btw) ... I find it all quite amusing, but hope the seeming ambiguity of our names does not cause anyone too much distress...

• Mr and Mrs A. Geer: This would be the traditional approach...
• Auntie Sarah Telford-Geer: Our niece is very developed for a 2 month old and can write envelopes... genius child!
  
• Mr and Mrs Telfy Geer: Nice twist on our names...
• Telford Geer: Like it... no faffing around with mr/mrs/ms etc...
• Tony and Sarah: Nice and simple... avoids any embarrassment over what we may or may not like to be called...
  
• The Family Fowler: mmm well I believe they lived here before us...
  

Snow...

In slight contrast to the last photo on this blog.
Our garden looked like this this last week.
My advent calendar for Anthony...
Spot our house? Ant had his first flying lesson in over a year and flew over the house and managed to get in a bit of areal photography too.

Sunday Sunshine, Sweet Salone

Perfect.
No more words needed.

House owners for 1 year

Nice how the estate agents remembered... perhaps they want to remind us they are there and ready to sell our house should we wish to upgrade.
Looking back we have done a lot to this house in the last year... still not finished but it is looking better - I think :)

Crafts

The arrival of Freya Grace - niece numero uno - has been an excuse for various crafts! I never seem to have enough time to do these things... but was inspired by some of Ant's friends to create a "taggy blanket"... the idea being that the baby has fun rubbing the different bits of ribbon around the edge, something that small babies can do before they develop bigger hands/ grabbing abilities. It was really easy to make, and I was pleased how it turned out!
I also made one for Sophie with some different bits of ribbon given to me by my groosome (grannie). Hopefully she will also be able to enjoy the different textures.




The Geer joined me in the 2nd craft activity. Creation of a nappy cake for Freya. Nappy cakes seem to me to be a random idea, but Hils and I got roped into making one for a friend at work, and they are quite entertaining to make, so we thought we would make one for the new niece. The whole thing is very amereeeekan, and a rather alien concept to us Brits. I was amused by a colleague from across the pond who said they made "great baby shower centre pieces". I don't think baby showers have totally caught on here... and having "centre pieces" for such things seems slightly OTT to say the least... I guess the whole idea is all a bit too over consumeristic for my liking.
Anyway, I shall explain "nappy cakes" for those who have not experienced such wonders: You put some nice baby lotion/ bubbles in the middle of a board and then role up lots of nappies (fastening with elastic bands) and arrange them around the central bottles, pulling them tightly together with some pretty ribbon. You then tuck in different gifts like bibs, rattles, taggy blankets, colour changing bath ducks, and of course, the obligatory "I love Ware Bib" - a must for every Ware-ish baby. Not sure how much Freya will enjoy wearing it, but Anthony is amused that it matches his "I love Ware" t-shirt... and I am just generally amused by his love for his home-town! So a fun thing to make... but only really useful if you are not using washable nappies.

PS - Freya is of course very lovely, very cute and very small, but she isn't an online baby... so no photos :O(

books

I love books... and I have quite a few, although alas there is never enough time to read them all! Indeed I have a small library when compared to my husband, who basically seems to own a few FACT books, a couple of novels, quite a few books relating to learning how to fly, and more bibles than me (and he's the atheist round here). However, it should be noted that I have considerably fewer books than some people in my family - Clari that would be you... and the rest of your family too :)

So our books have been sitting on the floor in the lounge for about 6 months... since we moved them out of the spare bedroom so my auntie and cousin could sleep in it in the summer. The pile looked like this... and was becoming more precarious by the day
A couple of weeks ago we ordered some wood from a timber yard (an enlightening experience... they knew their wood... and their page 3 girls). We took delivery on Friday, so we now have a garage full of wood for a dining table that we plan to make at some point... and the shelves. So on Sunday, whilst Ant set to in constructing these shelves (clearly a manly job), I got to work on a cupboard to go under the shelves.

Small aside about the cupboard:
We live near an "Age" (formally known as "age concern") furniture warehouse. We go there reasonably often in search of a great bargain. Normally we fail to find anything remotely nice. We do however have some friends that seem to have stylishly furnished most of their house from there... clearly they have more luck than us. Anyway we needed to go and see these friends so thought perhaps if we went to Age before hand we would get lucky... and we did to a certain extent... the pine cupboard below cost £40 which I think is a leeetle overpriced, but then you can't really bargain with a charity for grannies... it would just be wrong. Note the space above the cupboard... all ready for Ant's shelves.

So yes... after a weekend of shelf putting up and cupboard renovating we came up with 4 nice shelves and a cupboard that with a few coats of paint and some cheap wooden Homebase handles looks really quite nice (I am of course biased on this one).


I was happy dappy dooo da. Ant was slightly distressed, because we were left with a reasonable pile of books that don't fit on the shelves - even with optimal stacking of books in piles and putting them on the shelves 2 deep (some would say this is a crime in itself... it was a big concession on my part - particularly as it makes access to the Anne of Green Gables series difficult... and who knows when I might need to refer to what Anne and Gilbert did in Avonlea?) Such was his distress that he uttered terrible, sacrilegious words - "you have to get rid of some books". How could he say such a thing about my lovely lovely books? I was in shock... and refused point blank to get rid of any... and called him illiterate several times... which is possibly an over statement... but is reflective of my strength of feeling about my books. Anyway all is not lost as we have the wood to construct more shelves on the other side of the chimney so all will be well and I am sure I will be able to add to the collection. Disobedient wife that I am - I have been given a moratorium on all amazon purchases until I can say I have read every single book I own.

No room on the shelves for these books... and bizarrely a gong. nice. Please note that their location close to the fire does not in any way indicate that they shall be burnt.

holiday...

Crab trails, Langkawi, Malaysia

Will write more soon xxx

Coast to Coast

On Bank Holiday weekend Ant and I poodled off to Whitehaven to start our Coast to Coast minibreak. We cycled from Whitehaven to Sunderland (or that was the plan... more about the finish later)...

Ant at the start of the ride. Apparently you should dip your back tyre in the water at the start and finish... so we did... risking slipping down the slimy slip way and into the water!A nice picnic stop... first day was very gentle uphill to Keswick

Lovely lakes... and sunshine!

This was taken slightly before the "great abandonment". Ant normally waits for me at the top of big hills (seeing as he is not what a helpful welsh man once told me as I huffed up a big hill "the weaker sex"). Anyway, when I reached the top of this particular hill he was no where to be seen... at the bottom of the hill he was no where to be seen either. This seemed out of character and lacking mobile phone coverage I sat and waited for about 30min thinking somehow I had missed him amongst a big group of cyclists at the top. As time passed I started to become slightly worried... perhaps he had fallen off into a ditch or something terrible and dramatic... cyclists were passing me and no one had seen "the man in the red t-shirt". It was about this time when thinking I might have to go back up the hill scouring the ditches that I discovered I had a puncture and Mr Geer had the repair kit.
This made me slightly more worried. Eeeek. Fortunately more cyclists passed and they offered to lend me their repair kit. Just as I was taking off the wheel Ant returned... having been spotted as the man in the red t-shirt, despite wearing a grey fleece, as he waited on a log up the road, smugly thinking he had got 30min on me going up the hill!
Arrived in Keswick in time to visit the Pencil Museum... we have been to Keswick several times and always thought this place sounded like a joke... but we finally succumbed and visited this time... and it was actually surprisingly interesting... considering it is a museum about pencils.

Turns out Ant was off the pencil measuring scale. Clearly a height-ist institution... or possibly just designed for children bored on rainy days in Keswick. Day 2 turned out to be wet and extremely hilly (nice combination) ... so I didn't really take many photos, except for this one at the top of a huge hill (Hartside), which fortunately had a tea room at the top. From there we could watch all the other cyclists huffing up the hill. Mostly men... mostly carrying their own stuff, although there were quite a few people who had hired vans (driven by women), which followed them around with all their gear/ spare bikes/ warm clothes etc. I think that would make the hills quite a bit easier!
The tea room on Hartside was #2 of the day... after this one: http://organicmill.co.uk/ which was amazing... and definitely worth returning to!

Just outside of Nenthead... where we stayed at a mad B&B

At the highest point of the ride... beautiful moors stretching out behind us!

Calm before the storm... about 2 min after I took this photo the black clouds reached us. They contained hail and the winds were +20mph coming from the side... and we were on a moor = exposed.
hmmm so basically for the 5min it took to get down the hill and off the moor we were battered by hail (no exaggeration - I even got micro hail sized bruises on my leg to prove it) and wind. It was almost impossible to stay on the correct side of the road. We had to really lean over the front of our bikes to keep in control.
Fortunately at the bottom of the hill was a tea room where we could dry off. (Do you notice the theme?)This was a steep assent. Quite rocky, and I ended up walking most of it.

Lovely heather clad moor

The Geer was in his element... in his most favourite eating place... McDonald's. This was my 1st trip in some many years, and Ant enjoyed himself bombarding me with McDonald FACTS... which I told him were probably out of date given its +10 yrs now since he worked there.
Apparently it is bad I didn't know exactly what a Big Mac was until he showed me his. As such I had to watch "you tube" video showing how they are made!

Art. Outside Consett.

The end... or so we thought. Nice sculpture at Roker, Sunderland.

We decided to dip our whole bikes in the water, rather than just the back tyres.
Ant.

Telfy (Geer)

Gorging ourselves on fish and chips. mmmmmmmm

That was supposed to be the end... we were supposed to get a train to Newcastle, and then London and then home. But alas the ticket lady had mis-sold us tickets on the Metro from Sunderland to Newcastle and when we tried to get on we were kicked off. Bikes are NOT allowed. This left us with just under an hour to get to our pre booked train in Newcastle. According to Ant's i-phone we could cycle the 10.8 miles and board the train in that time. So off we toodled at top speeds (not particularly high given the fish and chips settling nice and heavily in our tummies!) All was going okish, esp. after The Geer took one for the team and took my panier too, so I could go faster... that is until we hit a dual carriageway. Ant hadn't mentioned that his route would take us down a dual carriageway and he didn't seem too distressed, indeed I was told on several occasions it was the "only way" we would catch the train.
Fortunately most people who drive along dual carriageways have their windows closed. This means that they probably didn't hear me raging and screaming and ranting at the Geer... the road was exceedingly scary... especially the bit where we had to change lanes to avoid exiting onto the motorway... and when my chain slipped off on a large roundabout... and when there were random road works narrowing the road to the extent that no one could pass us, so they just all stacked up behind - nothing like the pressure of a long queue of potentially angry drivers to inspire a bit of speed!
Anyway... in the end... we made it... the train was 5 min late which helped somewhat too!
I sulked the whole way home. Of course.

All in all was a great minibreak :O)

something sharp...

We have bought some new knives. They have revolutionised the way we chop... indeed the things we had before were probably too blunt to even be considered knives. Here they are in all their glory.

... and here they are again... getting some action with Char and Dizeee... we had a lovely afternoon chopping (see pan), which resulted in a very fine batch or 2 of chutney!
Domestic bliss

Its been too long!

It has been a long time since I blogged... since I was in hot hot Senegal... and it was the World Cup. Probably less said about that the better (being English and all that)... Anyway, lots has happened since then. Here is the evidence.

This year, including our own, we have so far "done" 6 weddings... and the year is not over yet.

With the uni ladeeees at Tush's Sandhurst wedding... disaster struck when my wedding gift (which, amongst other things, involved a large quantity of M&S Percy Pigs) was stolen from her sister's car after the wedding. May the nasty robber suffer tooth rot and expensive dental bills.A rose between... 2 gingers

Pete and Rachel's St Andrews wedding was lovely jublee....

... they even had a birth (almost) AND tourists... amusingly tourists who loudly sang "here comes the bride" as the Rachel walked into the church... leaving the guests wondering if they had scrimped on "music" and opted for some strange sing a long wedding march....

... with some bubbly in the quad.

... taking a break from the festivities in Boots... where we purchased drinks with "Scottish money"

... we also ate money too... ... and visited Tescos (that well known St Andrew's tourist hotspot)... where Mr Geer became distressed at not being able to buy a bottle of Whiskey at 22.04 (if only he was 4 min earlier all would have been well, think he had to settle for a slab of Cheddar cheese, mature of course). Hils and I were entertained by the man wearing a kilt in Tescos, and so arranged to photograph him on the sly... hence Hils is in the foreground.After several hours of highly energetic highland dancing we were in charge of taking the flowers home... Spearsy is looking rather dishevelled at this point.
Before the wedding we dodged Americans on the famous golf course. We couldn't be bothered to queue up and have our photo taken on THE bridge (apparently its famous and Tiger Woods has stood on it and EVERYTHING)... so we took this charming photo of us in front of THE bridge. Magic.Wedding #6 was in a very frufru church in Krakow, Poland. It also had tourists. One didn't seem to realise it was a wedding and was ambling down the aisle taking photos of the fancy ceiling as the guests were being entertained by a string quartet and waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle. I think she must have worked it out in the end and cleared off in time!
The wedding also involved a castle with a canon... which was fired before diner.
There were edible place settings - as demonstrated by Mr Geer... and quite stunning floral table decorations... alas I didn't manage to photograph the food... a 4 course feast, followed by the largest, poshest buffet ever (cold meats, fine fish, cheesy cheese mmmm), a huge table of cakes and gateaux... and then a BBQ at 11pm. Not knowing too many guests and being in such close proximity to so much food did result in some over eating on my part. Oh yes and I almost forgot... the vodka. Lots of vodka. I made up for the girls who faltered. Their delicate throats not able to cope with icy cold shots. I on the other hand, having been trained in the ways of vodka drinking by Mongols was more than able :O)
After the wedding we went on a "communist tour" and got to stand on this little plastic car outside a HUGE steel works (now owned by the Indians). The little car was slightly scary to be driven around in, given the ease with which I am sure it would disintegrate upon the slightest impact.
MK festival was fun
Strange people in glowing pods playing random music accompanied by fireworks in front of a huge metal tree.
Even stranger hairstyles (we didn't have a go)Barbie hair-dooo?
An inflatable tent which wasn't a bouncy castle... but was very relaxing
Riding weird animals on the "magical menargie" who would have thought there could be so much culture in MK?
Then there was the visit of only cousin in the whole world - JACK and only auntie in the whole world - Auntie Alison.
For those present at Jack's 1st birthday... he has aged somewhat. He is now 11 and doesn't like to be reminded how CUTE he was... but oh yes he was... such a cute baby!

Perhaps not so cute now?

Took him Karting. 3 mini space men?Storming round... and then...
...write off. Fortunately only cousin in the whole world was unharmed and seemed to quite enjoy the whole crash experience... and was soon armed with a new car and went back on the track!

We biked down the canal to Bletchley and got the train back. A good 13miles...

Red Hot World Buffet does a good line in sweets.

After that we needed to maintain the sugar high by making some quadrupole chocolate ice cream

Traumatising the staff in John Lewis with some not so discrete hat trying on. We were in hysterics and have many many photos of ourselves in various stunning hats! None were purchased... of course! Anthony had disappeared by this point... in extreme embarrassment.Weather was hot hot. So mucho ice cream was required. Ant is of course considerably more refined than us Wooldridge descendants.

Groo's 80th Birthday Tea at Fortnum's. Divine. There was a direct correlation between age and consumption. We made sure none was wasted tho and we all took home posh doggy boxes with the left over yummys. We also had time to peruse the aisles downstairs in the shop. Somehow resisted that £1,000 bottle of champers. Crazy prices!

He just loves hugs

Ant took to hairstyling. The Mohawk was a big sucess!

After all that excitement we did a "car boot" sale (behind Super Sausage). We made £140 profit... selling our unwanted tat to a range of customers: the ghanans who were buying up shoes for £5 a pair to sell in Acra (I have no idea where the profit in that is), the serial tat collectors (often overweight), the serial car booters (already been to one at the MK bowl first thing in the morning) etc etc.That's all for now xxx