princess
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.
mum’s grotto
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):
advent day 12
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)
my new office
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:
spoon+
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.
how big is this table ?
esther’s wise words: “this table is as big as a table when it’s been made”
a big thumbs up
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.
out with the old …
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:
nativity
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
advent day 11
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).
best of british
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 !
why did the pillow slip ?
here is a cushion in the street. perhaps this is a ‘fainting blackspot’ and the council have taken protective action.
emergency – finger cut
rarely a day goes by in the modern office without some minor disaster of some sort. despite insolating ourselves in cotton wool as per the health and safety rules and regulation we occasionally manage to injure ourselves.
today, it was the turn of receptionist Laura to become mangled by the paper shredder. upon hearing of her injury i instantly put the first aid procedure in to place and phoned our first aid warden called Pete.
He ran up the stairs, inspected the damage and then applied a plaster to the very small paper cut.
pete had a very good bedside manner and returned to check on laura 5 minutes later.
luckily everything turned out fine, but i shudder to think what could have happened if i hadn’t been there to phone pete …
office
i’m moving office on friday and today is the last day on the 3rd floor. on friday i descend to the 1st floor. i’ll miss the height of the 3rd floor, but i’m sure the vertically challenged 1st floor has a lot to offer.
here is the current office – i sit in the far left hand corner.
digital beta tape
here is a tape i found. i left it there in case it contained something bad. and i haven’t got a video tape player (my betamax video player only plays analogue beta tapes).
nice building
here is a building people like to complain about. i think it’s quite good. click the photo to see the whole thing. there’s safety in monotony.
click for big version
advent day 10
day ten of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s father christmas aka santa claus aka saint nic.
and here are some more photos from last january when i had my plastic santa in london in the snow:
the bottom right hand photo is me with the santa outside the entrance to Downing Street. the sign says ‘passes must be shown’.
i interpreted the sign as ‘santas must be shown’ and therefore was refused entry to this particular government building
here is a santa in the window of hamley’s this morning. it’s made out of funny plastic bits which aren’t lego (the photos are a bit duff because of the reflection in the window):
down the drain
there’s a whole nother world underneath the streets of london. sometimes you catch a glimpse of it in every day life. the occasional open door at a train station revealing hidden passageways or funny funnel shaped buildings in random parts of the town acting as air vents for underground activities.
this evening i saw an open manhole cover with a little railing round it. i learnt over and took this photo down the hole. i zoomed in 3x and it still looked a long way down !
you can’t quite see because of the scale of the photo, but just above the water level is a passeway leading left to right across the picture where the workman had obviously gone down.
i did think about going down and having a look, but wasn’t sure if that was a great idea.