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who is tony ?

following the classic who is brother edd ? entry of a few days back, here is a Who Is Tony ? entry.
Tony often leaves comments. He’s not Big Eye Tony. That’s a different one.
This Tony comes round to our house with his family and looks a bit like Bill Gates. tony is a man and is married to his wife and has two girls aged the same as our two. so that’s four things we have in common (note – i am married to my wife not his).
Here he is playing jane’s guitar whilst listening to The Strokes’ debut album. he hadn’t heard their music (or album) before and so what he played did not resemble the music he heard. it was in the right key however.
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this tony also plays jenga (actually our poor copy version from a high street store, but some concept)
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this tony is also a very good friend. to celebrate this friendship we give each other (the same) ballerina pen holder each birthday/christmas.
so there we have it. a very quick summary of tony.

hair cat update

day 5 of the amazing hair growing cat
once again, incremental growth is small, but significant.
tony inspects the cat:
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and here’s the latest big picture (click for detail)

gloves

ebony and ivory. live together in perfect harmony.
two gloves, one nature reserve. one black, one white. one rubber, one leather. both lost in a strange world.
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(this should prove very popular with those who like to look at damp gloves – in particular those people who end up at this site by doing a search for ‘glove wet look problem’ in google.)

save it for a rainy day

we had high hopes for today. we were going to walk around Windsor Great Park whilst Esther cycled and it was going to be great.
unfortunately it chucked it down with rain instead so we stayed in all morning. here is jane’s reaction:
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in the afternoon we braved the drizzle to go to Dinton Pastures, our local nature reserve, where esther was able to cycle through muddy puddles chased by jane.
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kezia and i trundled along after with the pushchair giving a nice rear view of the proceedings
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family portrait

this is a good time of year for family photography. here is a photo i took without flash (and long exposure) in a fisheye mirror near these christmas lights. i think the effect is quite good
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more christmas lights

these are the last few days to catch the christmas lights. here are some in the village where we go to church. it’s just white lights which is tasteful, and all the animal shapes move which is slightly eery.
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esther and kezia on a wooden horse

we went to see some friends today we haven’t seen for a number of years. we both have children that the others have never seen and those we did know as little babies are now approaching teenage years.
it was their daughter’s birthday and jane told esther it was her 9th birthday party. “oh”, said Esther, “but how old is she ?”
here is esther and kezia on a wooden rocking horse. note how kezia is standing on a beeny horse. i’m sure this is signifcant, but don’t know why.
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the games of the fathers

we had a lovely time round some friends house this morning. they have children (two boys) the same age as our girls.
esther and adam loved playing on adam’s junior scaletric as the two fathers looked on, quietly itching to have a go themselves.
instead we were assigned roles of mechanics and car-replacers. a demanding job when the cars are driven by two 4 year olds who don’t understand about slowing down for corners
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the amazing hair growing cat soap

here’s a present i got from Brother Edd. It’s an amazing hair-growing cat soap.
you take it out of its packet, leave it on a plate and within 12 hours it starts to grow fur, increasing in thickness over a number of days.
here it was when i opened it last night and after 12 hours:
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i’ll keep you updated as the fur grows. are you interested in where you can buy such an item ? do a google search

family xmas fun

here’s a nice game you can play over the festive period. it works on the principle that when families get together there are a lot of underlying ‘issues’ which need to be dealt with.
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Rules of Play:

Read More »family xmas fun

christmas day

here’s our christmas:
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we went to church first thing:
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Mr Party plans an explosion and Kevin wears his hat well
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puddings and pie (extinguished) and kezia with fairy wings
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a little wooden train
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our family. me with tanktop on left.
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a christmas treat

after lunch with friends (the ones who were there, not the ones who weren’t) we went to the Crib service at church. jane was one of the leaders and played a mean guitar.
After that Jane went off to our sister church to do a repeat of service whilst i took the girls to the chip shop ! The chip shop wasn’t open so i did what any father would do and let the kids play in a deep bubbly bath for half an hour until it was open. we went back later with the girls in their pyjamas.
After a chips and chocolate supper, we brought esther’s duvet down and snuggled down to watched Chicken Run on the telly.
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yeah for families and christmas !

absent friends

we have some friends who seem to cancel at the last minute everytime we go to visit them. they have some good excuses, but i suspect they simply just don’t like us.
in order to break the cycle of not seeing them, they invited themselves to some other friends’ house so we could all meet up near where we live. unfortunately they cancelled (surprise surprise) but it was ok because we could eat more of the fantastic lunch provided by our host Tanya.
esther and catherine with the shepherds pie and profitable rolls
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It was also the first opportunity to have some crackers. Tony bought them because they were half price. they were also unwrippable causing much mirth and merriment

advent day 24

day twenty four of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s another wise man
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here is the third and final wise man. it’s Alan who plays the Organ at church. he also works for a university which must make him very wise. and to prove the point he’s wearing a golden crown.
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