sister (in law) binky prepared a range of hot drinks for our boxing day walk (i'm a bit late with some of these pictures aren't i ?).

she started by arranging the cups in a nice line. hot drink picnics always work best if someone has taken care of the estheticeness.

it was such a cold day that our drinks were very welcome.

click for big

here is a gratuitous shot of my lovely, photo suffering, wife jane.

here is our nephew thomas on his maiden voyage on his christmas bike.

the grown ups were a lot more worried than he was. he was quite happy to throw himself on and off it at will.

this nail shop seems to have the same nail sign designer as this other one. stuck in the 80s.

i've never really thought about ponchos. perhaps i should have.

i quite liked these matching ponchos which esther and kezia received from their grandma on christmas day. kezia misheard what they were called and ran around telling everyone she had a 'puncture'.

our neice sarah had been wearing a poncho the day before which prompted kezia to shout out "baby sarah's got a puncture hasn't she ?" rather randomly during a meal !

and here is baby sarah (photo taken by esther):

my mum sells christmas decorations to garden centres to sell to people like you and I.

she said yesterday "i need to remember there's more in life than Christmas decorations". which i thought was a good quote.

these people who live outside Reading might want to take my mum's advice !

click for big version
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mmm. i'm enjoying my last few days of confectionary eating fun.

my mum came to visit yesterday so we went bowling. esther won (by a long shot).

kezia loved looking down the hole at the side of the lanes so she could see the balls whizzing back. As soon as she'd pushed her ball off she'd throw herself on the floor to see down the gap (and jane would chase after her as seen here)

a sign showing doggie corporal punishment for doggie fouling.

with a nice heart drawn round it.

here is esther putting on her new christmas make-up.

her little mirror was a bit wonky so she ended up with a slightly strange shaped face in the reflection !

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brother kev wore a coordinated shirt for every type of drink he served.

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it's brother (in law) kev and a big kid sign.

this building must have been revolutionary when it was plopped in this park in cottingham near hull.

but now it looks slightly out of date. but still strangely futuristic.

great use of colour:

unfortunately uncleanable:

just look at the size of this dog sign near Nottingham. it's huge.

i saw it a few weeks ago and made it my business to return to take a photo.

i decided that it needed a person in the shot so you can appreciate its size. so here i am 'modelling' the sign.

what does the 'check your dog' bit mean ? it's also interesting to note that someone has ringed the penalty fee - £1000.

it's freezing in the UK at the moment. here is a trolley trapped in a frozen lake.

sprouts and broccoli are not a young person's vegetable. but they are obligatory at christmas.

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what a come-down.

what does this mean ? where is Mark ? did he ask to be detected in this manner ?

or is it a Biblical reference ? As a christian it helps to read the old testament with your new testament glasses on. mark is a new testament book.

so perhaps it's a street based reminder that God had a plan for the world right from the start.

God does indeed speak in mysterious ways

bit like this one:

hehe. i won for the 4th day running. the fact that jane and kezia didn't get any sleep last night because of my hat rustling during the night was totally worth it.

kevin looks very depressed doesn't he !

esther wrote me a letter to congratulate me on my win.

perhaps this isn't an advert for the future, but a reminder of a fantastic karaoke disco back in december 2000 ?

click to inspect

an empty cathedral notice board.

there may have only been a couple of flakes, but enough for us to definately declare it was a white christmas !

here's our 2004 christmas card.

previous years are here

happy christmas to you all !

click pictures to inspect in detail (regular readers will have seen these photos before!)

kezia with a heap of presents

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here's a photo i've been saving since july. it's my christmas gift to you dear reader.

this couple very kindly let me take their photo in a scottish shopping centre. i suspect they might get asked this a lot as they instantly struck up this catalogue model pose.

they belong to the Clan Colquhoun (i wrote this down so i wouldn't forget) and were totally lovely people !

they made me smile and i hope they do the same to you on this jolliest of days.

click for big

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can you believe i haven't posted this sign ? it's a very common one and very similar to this (although the arms is at a different angle)

a bit like this one, but with a longer tail.

my brother in law and i went to do some last minute shopping on christmas eve for our wives (we've one each). we were sent to buy skewers.

if we were after a turkey, it would have been too late ...

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a pile of chocolateless advent calendars

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you may remember a two and half months back i gave up chocolate bars. well it's all been going very well and i'm very pleased with myself.

to celebrate the fact i'm now on holiday for nearly two weeks i decided i will allow myself chocolate over the Xmas period.

so, how would i break myself back in to chocolate ? i couldn't go straight back to my king sized mars bars. this seemed like a nice compromise. and so it was.

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the one on the right turned out to be esther's so i had to go back out in to the street and retrieve it (luckily it wasn't too far from our house)

here are the latest consignment on glove photos from brother (in law) kev.

here is a small shoe:

and here is his nephew with a glove:

and here are some other gloves taken with his camera phone:

it was a sunny morning and the light reflecting off the building on the other side of the road produced this spotty effect on this church.

look at this one. three categories in one - cleaning, a door and a slippery sign.

this sign is very much like this one, but if you look carefully there are a few small differences

i met a friend for lunch yesterday in the british museum and we had a look at the exhibition of badges which were there.

it's a very small exhibition, but i enjoyed it.

esther likes to write little letters before she gets up in the morning. she often writes little stories in her 5 year old's writing and spelling.

last night i spotted this in our room and thought it was very sweet.

it says:

Every day is a busy day ! why does bedtime always come. we all need sleep to get us ready for tomorrow

trollies can be keen adversaries. but turn them ups-way-down and they become useless.

here are a number of incapacitated trollies in the back of a lorry.

we love our fairy. usually there's a big fight to be the nominated individual who that year will get to place the pivotal decoration on it's alloted place.

this year jane lifted it out the box and plonked it straight on to avoid all the hassle.

i have no clue when it comes to astheticism (i don't know how to spell it either). i thought astheticism was something which puts you to sleep in a hospital. luckily jane supervised the tree decorating and did a terrific job.

anyway, here are esther and kezia looking very pleased with themselves in the dark by the tree (take my word for it)

this never happens so was totally worth a photo. it's a chap at church using a cracker toy to mend a hallogen light !

crackers, bringing light to the world. official.

here's a funny old thing. it's a wicker chair next to a street person's cardboard bed.

somewhere for him to sit and read his book before retiring to bed

and what about just this a street away. it's a street person's mantel piece where he can rest his beer and cigs.

now it has nothing to say

here's a sad thing. my friend, the pedometer, died on friday. the cheap plastic hinge hinged its last.

since i commenced my measuring in february this year i've walked around 2957km. It's not an exact science of course but this equates to over 3.6 million steps.

If the hinge had lasted another week it probably would have broke the 3,000km mark. but it didn't.

jane's letting me borrow her pedometer this week until i get a replacement so i can continue measuring.

here is the chart of my travels:

the average cost of my doc marten boots is now just over 2pence/km and i average 64.3km/week (around 80,000 steps per week).

here is an elastic band in the shape of a heart.

we went to visit brother edd and jacqui this afternoon. here is edd's alien. it was knitted by our aunt apparently.

there's a tradition of aliens being knitted. the clangers are the most obvious example.

here is my colleague liz at our office christmas lunch. she's a vegetarian which is well accepted in most restaurants in these modern days. however, the restaurant we went to obviously wasn't so sure, so to be safe they just gave her a plate of rice instead.

when i got in to the office yesterday morning just after 7.30am i discovered the fridge door was open.

i just thought i'd share that with you.

surely one of the best ways to travel ? i love how you reach the other end and just get out on the slippery concrete place right next to the sea.

if you could park your car there it would be incredibly convenient

my train company changed the timings of all its trains this week. they did it so they could 'have more seat and better punctionality'.

so far, nearly every train i've been on had been late and has been full to bursting with people standing.

but my new 6.08am train seems quite good, even if it does mean i have to get up an hour earlier.

so how can such a company ever make it up to their customers ? answer: by giving them a mince pie.

i had a suspicion they were poisoned so they could kill off a few commuters and free up some seats.

i thought i'd seen the last of the numbered train signs at Paddington, but this morning i spotted page 6 !

do you see what i've done here ? i've made it look like that crane in the distance is lifting the christmas tree.

i surprise myself sometimes.

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esther invited jane and me to take her to a pantomime. we went out for a meal before (see here) and then went to the theatre.

i'm still too traumatised to talk about it. so won't.

if you don't know what a pantomime is, go here. Bonnie Langford was in it.

this massive star is hanging up in the Oracle shopping centre in Reading. i was most impressed by it.

this is a sign on a train i sometimes get. it worries me.

shouldn't it be the driver's responsibility to make sure he parks the train up properly so people don't drop to the ground when they get out of the door ?

this was like distruction art.

as i walked past it at 7 this morning, bits of merry christmas were falling off the window.

eeeeeeel looking a bit dead on a pavement. gor blimey govnor

i rarely pick up stuff i find in the street, but i couldn't resist this abandoned red rose.

there'll definately be some story behind its abandonment. and we'll never know.

in order to find a train which still has spare seats i got the 6.08 train from my local station this morning. this meant my walk across london was slightly less crowded than usual

what a vain world we live in. terry thomas lookalikes have to use the back door to avoid upsetting the beautiful people at the front.

(see by day here)

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here's that church i took a picture of last week in Belgium.

i took this photo when i visited at the beginning of September.

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how do you please a bin ? are they happier full or empty ? or is it simply a matter of individual taste.

either way, this message seems quite aggressive

here is the pub sign from the bag'o'nails

i was waiting to cross a road yesterday and 6 sideless offices went by. no-one was working late so they were quite empty except for their electrity sockets on the walls.

do you ever have mental time travel moments ? they happen quite a lot in london. you see something and think "if i'd been standing in this spot hundreds of years ago i probably would have seen this exact same thing'

here is one such vision. i suspect the metal riot railings might be slightly contemporary.

invisible mending always strikes me as a strange concept. how do you prove the work has been done ?

and is deluxe invisible mending even more invisible than normal invisible mending ?

selling such mending on a wholesale basis is even stranger. are their shelves lined with brown boxes containing nothing but invisible mendings ?

it all seems a bit emperor's new clothes to me.

i used to have a bike a bit like this. i called it moon bike.

it had huge planks of wood attached in the shape of flames to it to make it look great. but it was heavy and liable to lift up when accelerating (or even sitting down).

i took it to the Reading Festival once and parked it under the bungie jumps.

i then met jane (my wife) and she had a car so i gave the bike back to the chap who did the customising for me. we were both happy with that arrangement.

i loved moon bike. i wonder where he is now ...

hat:

two gloves:

i like taking wonky photos, but for these two objects (which were near each other on the same pavement) i didn't even need to tilt my camera.

i don't like tomatoes. but i'm surprised they don't feature more in christmas festivities.

they look a bit like baubles and are red. so they should be an ideal decoration. but they seem to have been snubbed in favour of berries.

here is someone's tomato soup going round in the microwave at work

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do people anywhere else in the world have christmas crackers or are they just a peculiarly British tradition ?

i thought i'd best take you through the whole cracker concept. If you know all this already, just bear with me.

the 'cracker', seen here, usually comes pre-positioned on the Christmas table, allocated on a strictly one per person basis:

at the appropriate point in the meal, pulling commences. Depending on your local tradition this may happen at the start, end or middle of your meal and may involve a single unilateral pull, or multiple bilateral arrangements.

the unilateral single pull requires arms to be crossed thus pulling to the right with your left hand and vice-versa:

bilateral pulling is more adhoc. some fancy people can run a couple of bilateral pulls simultaneously:

pulling the cracker often requires some force. The cracker itself contains a small incendury device which makes a small 'bang' when pulled.

some people choose to grab the inner 'tongue' of the cracker which connects to the cracker bang to ensure a satisfactory explosion. Others simply grab a fist full and pull like mad things:

After the explosion comes the exploration. participants then search all over the table for the contents of their cracker which will usually consist of four things:
1) a paper hat
2) a naff toy
3) a very bad joke written on a piece of paper
4) a piece of thin cardboard used to hold the cracker shape.

here are my jokes and my present. you can read the joke for yourself (don't laugh too much). the present was a 'poppin eye ball':

It's obligatory to wear your hat throughout the rest of the meal:

and for the rest of the afternoon in my case:

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i looked out of my office window and spotted this sofa and chair. they looked quite luxurious and plush from a distance, and were even better up close.

look at those little tassles shielding our eyes from having to see anything so vulgar as sofa legs.

note the proximity to the secret door ...

and from this angle you can see my office window (negativised for fun - doesn't the sofa look nice like this)

numbered birdboxed in a forest. how else will the bird postman know where to take its deliveries ?

it was our church carol service this evening. here is what i could see from where i was sitting:

and here is the famous crib viewed through mic stands:

why is the crib famous you ask ? because it ranks quite highly [on the second page] when you do a search for nativity in google images (which lots of people do at this time of year)
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big eye is always thankful whenever he appears on the funkypancake blog.

i'm always thankful he's happy with the pictures i post !

here he is looking very smart:

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click picture on the left to inspect the quality of the signs

office christmas parties are always interesting occasions. i've been at my present employ (how posh am i!) for 4 years now so i knew lots of people there and had a jolly good time.

here is our leader (the big cheese) giving his annual christmas address to the company:

here is telco-walter having a cigar:

and here is one of my current desk-neighbours called Simon. they are moving to a different floor next week, so perhaps i'll get another photo of him and his chums in a few days time:

it was my work's christmas party last night and we decided to drive across london to the venue.

i still find it amazing you can just drive in to the centre of london and look out of your car window at all the sights. it's a bit like a safari trip.

anyway, it took us longer to get across london than it did to reach london to begin with, and when we got nearly there we found a fantastic free street parking place (we'd been expecting a £20 car park).

but how would we remember which street we'd parked the car in ? well, by looking for this handy monument we parked under.

neither of my daughters would pose with this trolley making it feel even sadder than it already was

i took the girls to the post office to post some letters. we were given a pile of stamps and had to sit on the floor and lick'n'stick them on the letters.

it was all very complicated and panicy but we managed.

a smart dog dressed in mulberry. every dog should have a coat and matching cap.

two trollies. one was hiding. but i spotted him.

ever had to make someone redundant ? lacked the necessary technical equipment ?

you need a fire phone

available at a street corner near you soon.

there was a model train museum on the Isle of Wight which claimed to be the biggest in the UK or something.

i quite fancied going until i saw this sign. then i went right off it.

sometimes a sign tells you more about the person behind the sign than the instructions themselves.

i feared for my children and mobile if we went in. so we didn't.

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it's seems ages ago since we had our isle of wight holiday. probably because it was.

i tend to walk a bit faster than other people, especially on the way to or from the station.

in the morning there's usually not many people about but in the evening i sometime verge on the edge of pavement rage when i get stuck behind a group of wide-walkers with big bags (especially when i've timed my 38 minutes walk to get a specific train).

this evening i got stuck behind a pirate. but instead of getting angry i decided to ask if i could take a photo. so here it is.

there's a moral here (somewhere). And it's good to know pirates aren't as scary as they used to be.

i think they've been on a government pirate integration program.

and yes, i did miss my train.

another one for davescollections. or is it ?

it was sent to me by the notorious Boy 34. He claims this time it'd real, but can we be sure ?

I'm inclined to agree this time as i think the strange holes in this photo are beyond a prankster's experience. but i could be wrong.

whether it's real or fake, it's still fantastic !

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(spotted by matt, the website landlord, in Osborn Street, London)

here is another mr robot picture.

mr robot emailed me last week to say that his new www.mr-robot.co.uk website is live .

so you can go there and see some more robots if you like (as usual, i'm not responsible for content on external sites)

i've never walked past westminster cathedral cathedral before despite having been to this area of town dozens of times in the last few years. i guess i've just never walked past that bit of the road.

i love how you can work in london for over 7 years and still completely miss a famous landmark !

these spikes and barbed wire keep people out of the queen's back garden in the middle of london.

but what if they are actually to stop the queen escaping ? perhaps she's sick of being the monarch and hankers after a quiet life in a suburban terrace house somewhere ?

these protection measures are there to keep her, and therefore the empire, from disappearing.

more nail advertising. this time with a sign suggesting the bus lane goes through the front window. that'll be good for custom.

there was no flash photography in this art gallery so i ended up with this quite attractive Silhouette of a lady looking at a black and white painting

click for big

remeber elegant ? he's found two new friends

this place is called Drug Opera. Surely the worst combination of things ever ?

i went in to this church last time i was in brussels and saw this fantastic statue stuck up by a window. my attempts to photograph it failed last time, so i tried especially hard this time.

here is jesus' mum on a boat calming the storm. just as well the grown up jesus had his mum there to do all the miracles for him. she's got jesus in one arm and a pepper grinder in the other !

read the actual story here

i found a passport photo this morning near my hotel in brussels.

i'll add to davescollections in due course.

here are some cakes i spotted through a window when i was walking down a street in brussels.

it's hard to describe the feeling when i find a dog sign which i haven't seen before. look at this one !

lion fountain holding beer can.

not only did i find the best bar in the world ever this evening, but i also went to a very nice restaurant called the Falfaff or something.

i sat next to a chatty Dutch chap who is in the sugar business. it makes all the difference if someone is happy to conversate with you when you are dining alone.

he kindly took this rear portrait of me. my head is very bald:

here is the bar from the outside:

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if you are in brussels and want to go to a bar which is just completely bohemium (don't like the word, but there's no other way to describe it) go here. it's just a few second walk from the grand-place and is so completely laid back.

go up to the first or second floor if you want to sit on a seriously beat up sofa and daydream the night away in the glooming junk-shop interior

enticing enough for you ?

pity i only found it on my last night here

just the box.

How good is heaven going to be ? i fully expect it to be totally brilliant. like the best thing ever.

i may start eating chocolate bars again when i get there (or their celestial equivalent).

meanwhile, here on earth, we have to make do with giant chocolate vicars.

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click photo to see the word on the street:

photo taking in front of brussels' lucky statue is very popular:

see how it's been worn to a shiny smoothness:

just before i saw the glove i took a proper tourist picture. i like the bear bulb effect.

i suspect this isn't actually the original celtic pub. chances are that was in Ireland or somewhere.

note the authentic Irish entertainment on their telly.

what is it with pubs in the Irish theme around the world ?

i saw this dog last time i came to belgium, but he's a good 'un, so here he is again.

it's a load of lads dressed up as santa:

here they are singing: Download teeny weeny video clip(80KB)

brussel's always seems to have something exciting going on in their grand-place when i come a visiting.

the whole of this month it's done up like a winter wonderland with some very eeery music and fancy light show.

here a dark little video containing the scarey soundtrack of kids giggling:
Download movie (480KB)

there was a life sized stable with real sheep in the middle of the square too:

how much comfort do i need ? it's only me in this little hotel room.

i've so many cushions i feel like lying them all over the floor and play a random jumping game like the kids do at home.

but i suspect the person in the room downstairs from me won't be too impressed !

where did dr evil from austin powers get his mini-me from ? this shop probably.

what a way to celebrate the 200th glove ! it's one resting on the railings with the mannequin pis in the background.

i was so excited to see it i went off and bought myself some fingerless gloves from the glove seller round the corner.

hoorah for glove collecting and significant milestones.

click to admire !

my boots were very dirty. so i phoned the hotel reception and got them to clean them (a rare complementary service in the pay-for-everything hotel).

they've done a great job !

i got up at 6 this morning (which is 5 UK time) to go for a walk before breakfast. it was very dark but i did see this nice tree with church behind.

click to inspect

poor man's jenga was played at length on our recent holiday to the isle of wight.

kezia is particularly daring when she lunges for her piece. but she knows this and enjoys the danger !

To celebrate the successful removal of each piece she gave it a quick kiss. We thought it so funny we've incorporated it in to our house rules for future games

i used to love that 'maxell, break the sound barrier' ad. the modern version doesn't have the same ring to it does it ?

click for big

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had it not been for the eurostar disaster i wouldn't have seen this glove on the other side of Lille.

i'm staying in a right posh hotel in brussels whilst i'm at a conference. the whole idea of the place is to sell you more things whilst simultaneously providing every reason not to leave the hotel.

here are my very own slippers, dressing gown, iron and ironing board.

it's also full of fantastic little things like this door chain thing which i spent ages whizzing back and forward.
Download Movie

i asked at reception if there were any good restaurant nearby the hotel i'm staying in. the receptionist said what sort, and i said "i dunno, mcdonalds or something".

she looked me in the eyes and said accusingly "are you american ?".

anyway, i ended up going to a nice restaurant as you can see from the food i got.

it seems it's the custom in Belgian for late comers to restaurants to say hello to people who are already in the restaurant eating.

but it seems it's NOT the custom to shout goodbye to people as they leave from your table.

look at this fantastic biscuit box and the lovely profitable-tolls.

i'm in brussels for the next couple of days and i had an absolutely disaster of a journey. All went well until we got to Lille when they decided to terminate the train due to someone being splatted on the tracks ahead of us.

In the UK they would have called this a 'fatality'. But, since we were in france, they called it a 'suidide'.

anyway, they chucked us out and told us to go to a different train station, but didn't tell us where it was. so hundreds of people were walking all over Lille looking very lost with big suitcases.

things went downhill from there, but i won't bore you on how i had to sit on a train floor for an hour and a half on a squashy train.

but at least i got to see some new and interesting train stations en route.

gas can be a problem for some people. it's usually something to do with their diet.

if things get really bad, you know who to go to.

they use old tube trains as their main trains on the isle of wight

after hair dressers' shops, fish and chips shops have the best names.

this little plastic chap was about 2cms long and was next to our car in a car park. very interesting.

it's a parking meter with a nice pink scarf.

kezia is a very amusing small person. today she went off during lunch and returned a few moments later wearing this christmas hat which none of us knew we had !

she was very pleased with the reaction she got and wore it for the rest of the meal.

hoorah for kids play parks and 4-way see-saws

we had a practice with our young people's band in church today for the christmas services. when we arranged it we didn't realise this morning was also a day for people to do gardening in the church yard.

so whilst we practiced and made loud noises, various friends would pop their heads up at the window and stare in.

here is one such person. our old friend 'big eye tony'. he looks like he's about to sneeze on this picture. perhaps this was his special window-cleaning technique ?

click for bigness

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what a bargain. who would be foolish enough to buy one bag for 99 pences when you can buy 2 for 1 pound ?

i'm not stupid. i bought three.

when i come back from work the girls often hide and i have to try and find them. if it's dinner time they are usually under the table.

but if it's bed time then they could be anywhere. esther hid brilliant this evening and i failed to find her.

can you see where she is (i've helped by narrowing the whole house down to this small area)

i've been thinking about 'family' today in anticipation of this post and it occured to me that i have various different families:

1) my nuclear family
2) my extended family (up and down the family tree)
3) our immediate church family
4) christians anywhere in the world
5) the blogging family (where you probably know me better than i know you but we're still a kind of family).

i was going to take a picture of our vicar this evening (as he and his wife invited us round for a lovely meal), but i forgot, so here are esther and kezia playing piano this morning instead.

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i've posted pictures of the street signs on Little Britain before, but i thought this one looked particularly nice tucked behind a dead plant.

the program is great too.

more examples of the word London written large in London

these leaves must have fallen off a tree a few days ago. they've been run over so many times they are now part of the road

i suspect this is what is commonly known as a 'road tattoo'.

click for big

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click for a big zoom

after seeing numerous mattresses it was refreshing to see a bed today.

here is a waiter man in a bar.

we challenged him to a three way game of paper, scissors, stone. Although we didn't realise at the time.

his prize for winning was letting him use my camera to take this photo of my work colleagues. note the appearance of long lost sara (once known as lady with cakes):

this is not a chocolate cookie. it's a very nice wheat and raisin one. but i wanted a chocolate one so i sent it back.

but then the electricity went off which resulted in: no music, no money (as it was trapped in the electronic tills), no water in the toilet (???) and no ability to cook me a proper cookie.

oh well.

it's always very difficult for posh people to know where to park their cars.

in theory, even today, the very wealthy are legally entitled to park their cars wherever they like. but of course this aggrevates the working classes who end up with nowhere to park their horse and carts.

Sometimes people have become so annoyed they have literally spoken to each other about it.

Obviously something had to be done. which is why some parking spaces have been reserved for specific types of vehicle. like this BMW.

Unfortunately the sign seems to have been written by someone of a lesser education, with the result that the M is missing.

hehe. nearly christmas. wooohoo ! 7 more days to go ...

i was thinking the other day that whilst in London you rarely see the word London.

except i was wrong. and i shall prove it to you.

here is my first picture. it's the word London on a post-it stuck on a pavement. probably just in case someone lost the town.

there's all sorts of strange buildings, secret doors and random chimneys on the streets of london. here is one on Regents Street.

this coat hanger was dangling in front of a white wall.

beautiful.

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competition in hardware shops has increased significantly recently. they used to be able to attract customers to their shops by hanging ladders outside their front doors and putting hammers and screwdrivers in their windows.

but i've noticed another trend. specialist shops concentrating on the fundamentals of Do It Yourself and home improvement. shops which specialise in selling nails.

of course this fledgling industry is still searching for its identity. which is why these two nail shops have approached their window display in different ways.

neon or 80s fashion ? you decide which hardware shop to shop at.

i guess this is no different from Staples which too specialises in one of the smallest, inconsequential stationary elements. they don't even sell staplers apparently.

it's the first of december today which of course means it's only about a week until christmas (though it always seems much longer).

last night we had a band practice for the christmas services at church. everyone was in good spirits, primarily because Ian had raised the floor 5 centimetres. It took him 8 hours to raise it 5 cms, so it's just as well it didn't need to go any higher.

anyroadupdown, here is alan playing my bass and linda with a flute plunged through her heart

it was also the first outing for jane's new guitar:

of course, being christmas, there's quite a few twinkly carols which don't need musical accompaniament. such as this one which sounds nices because i wasn't playing (or singing) in it !

Watch movie (896KB)