there is a house not too far from us which has gone way overboardon the decorations. it’s appeared in a few national papers because their neighbours aren’t very happy. the house in question is down a very exclusive private driveway where most of the houses are valued at around £1million.
this one houseowner likes to decorate their house rather madly. the photos don’t really do it justice. it’s truely mad. completely.
and most of all, it’s simply not british.
kezia loves the plastic santa. so much so that it has now become one of her inner circle of favourite toys. she calls it christmas (kind of in a cute way). here she is asleep with her little baby and christmas.
it was our church carol service this evening. i think it all went very well. the thing i got from the service was how christmas is all about life (ie jesus coming to earth as a baby), but is actually more about the important question of what happens when you die.
here is tony who made all the mulled wine. or was that the mule-ed wine. or the mull(et) wine ?
day forteen of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s a christmas tree.
here are today’s photos:
my guitar draped with coloured wires making it look like a christmas tree (thanks to esther the roadie for the wire draping)
broccoli – which everyone knows are just tiny trees (thanks to Tony Big-Eye for cooking these)
our home christmas tree which is as bad as it looks on the photo in real life. we’ll put up our proper one next week, but for now this mini-monstrosity is enough to keep me and the children happy
inside the church christmas tree (i put my camera in to the foliage and hoped for the best)
day thirteen of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s a cracker.
a tricky one today. if you say someone is ‘crackers’ in english it means you think they (or the idea they’ve just had) is completely mad.
we watched Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory this afternoon and that is completely crackers. Especially the Oompa Loompas.
here are the oompa loompas doing a little dance
and here are the final pictures of the day:
esther’s home made cracker from her pre-school and an egg which fell on the floor (2 unrelated activities):
we finally have our own nativity
here is kezia playing with it:
she appears in this photo (in the same way as santa in this photo):
click for big version
here is esther in her new princess dress. the head dangling thing is from a birthday party and was a prize she won in the musical statues competition.
today we went to see my mum in her ‘office’. she works for a company which sells Christmas decorations and they are busy setting up their showroom for Christmas 2004 which kicks off right at the beginning of January 2004 for those in the trade.
It’s great going to her showroom – esther and kezia love it. it’s decorated floor to ceiling in every type of decoration imaginable (and some not so imaginable).
here is esther helping my mum put out some decorations:
and here is esther, mum and kezia (kezia has her eye on some cakes to the left of the photo):
day twelve of the advent calendar picture challenge – from the shape of the plastic thing we can just about tell it was a christmas present. again, someone had stolen it before i got there …
and here is the photo of a present:
these are my presents to my colleagues which i shall allow them to eat when i have my grand office opening at 4pm today. (i’ve catered for 6, which allows for a bag of crisps, a fruit drink and two clementines each. the red bull is for an emergency)
i’ve never had my own office before, and i suspect i won’t have for much longer after this. they can take away my office but they can’t take away the memories !
here it is from the inside:
and here is a from the outside.
opening party at 4pm. be there or be elsewhere …
update:
walter getting ready and the main door opening ceremony:
the opening of my office and harry’s office:
my nickname at university for no particular reason was ‘spoon chicken’. therefore i was delighted to be able to go to a restaurant called Spoon+. I went along with a VIP type and it came recommended by ‘the ladies of the office’. It is simply excellent, and definately worth a trip !
here is a picture of the table after we’d eaten our meal. i highly recommend the pigeon.
esther’s wise words: “this table is as big as a table when it’s been made”
laura was concerned that you might all still be worried about her thumb after the incident on wednesday.
the good news is she is still alive, the bad news is the thumb has turned a different colour
apparently laura went to the cinema last night and removed the plaster so she could enjoy an unimpeded cinematic experience. unfortunately this may have been a little premature and the open wound, in conjunction with a bag of salted popcorn proved a little painful.
she was very keen to point out that she does wash her hands and that the grit and grime on her thumb is probably gangreen or something.
pete , the first aid bloke, was unavailable for comment.
it’s desk moving day today so it’s good bye to my old desk:
and it’s good bye to ash, sara and sally:
it’s a day or so late, but here is a nativity picture i took at church this evening. can you spot my little friend hiding in the picture ? click on the photo to see a big version to see if you are right !
click for big version
day eleven of the advent calendar picture challenge – from the shape of the plastic thing we can just about tell it was wise man.
unfortunately someone stole the chocolate before i opened the door, so no chocolate picture today. unfortunately it’s you the reader who loses out as a result of this jape (i’m not too bothered myself as the chocolate in the calendar doesn’t taste too great !)
so, here are my wise men photos from today:
firstly, wise men from the church nativity set. they do a really funny thing in our church as the wise men slowly move round the church in the weeks up to christmas so they arrive at the stable just after Christmas. it must really freak out the kids, but i like to think of what the journey must be like for those little wise men. what an adventure they have !
it’s also great that the guy at the front is kneeling down, so in fact he’s shuffling along to meet the new born king.
We were at church this evening for a music practice for our Carol Service on Sunday night. Playing guitar is a chap called Mark. he’s a doctor which means he was the wisest man there (i checked with the other blokes and they were in agreement, so hopefully i didn’t upset anyone else).
just because he’s a doctor doesn’t make him wise of course. to prove his wisdom, he’s standing in front of the 10 commandments playing a fender guitar through a marshall amp. you can’t get wiser than that (unless you prefer gibsons).
what we british people do best is ‘mad people’. this week whilst on my way to meetings i’ve seen lots of mad people. it used to be they would walk down the street quietly chatting to themselves, but now they shout out as loud as they can and wave their arms about so they don’t get confused for hands free mobile phone users.
we do ‘excentrics’ quite well too. here is one particularly good one. Wilf Lunn. check out his inventions – you’ve got to love a man like this !
here is a cushion in the street. perhaps this is a ‘fainting blackspot’ and the council have taken protective action.
