my ear is still REALLY hurting. hopefully the antibiotics should be starting to take effect now (48 hours after i took my first one). should be fine by the time i’m back at work. kezia keeps pointing at the cotton wool in my ear and laughing. which is nice. no sleep last night. oh well.
here we are by some giant (but actually not that giant) redwoods.
here we are walking to the shop for our crois-ers.
the girls have been locked out of the toy shop:
but they were allowed in the supermarket:
jane and i went to the poshest restaurant last night. was very good. here is jane by candlelight
in the toilet was some bodylotion. i never understand what us blokes are meant to do with that ? strip down to our underpants and lard it on ? i think not …
read the update here
here is a nice night view of the swimming place. jane and i had our first night out (of two) last night. italian followed by a walk around a lake. very nice (but a bit chilly – the weather not the food).
today, the girls are very tired (all of them). My ear is massively painful like someone pushing a red hot needle down it all the time. a coprox cocktail will get me through our meal out tonight.
much misery this afternoon as esther lost her cycling mojo 🙁 hopefully we’ll get it back tomorrow. she’s ok on the flat, but after her dramatic exit whilst in motion yesterday she’s not keen to go downt he hill to the lake. ho hum
risking the pain barrier we went cycling today. esther fell off, but got back on again so that was ok.
my antibotics are called Amix. coproxamol is good too.
longleat is quite near stonehenge. i posted photos from the journey down previously.
here is a view of stonehenge out of the window as we drove to center parcs
more stonehenge updates here
gprs is cool – although it only works if i sit in the forest outside our chalet.
i have an ear infection. excellent timing !
girls are having great time.
winnie the poo, black rebel motorcycle and beck kept us all amused on route.
possibility of ‘real’ internet access this evening using laptop so can update you with pictures, medical info etc then.
the story of my evening with a load of men:
exciting day spent doing tax returns. i agree with taxes generally. i’ve certainly got value out of the national health service over the last few years and the UK is generally a good place for public services (even if they aren’t world class). Doesn’t make filling in the forms any more exciting though. ho hum.
ahoy there
i totally forgot it was talk like a pirate day. i was happily reminded by a message on the office ladies guest blog.
i’m out singing tonight with 55 men so i may adopt a pirate stance. they don’t know me and i don’t know them. i’ll just be ‘that chap who turned up one week and spoke like a pirate’
yar.
i woke up at 6.30 this morning rather than 6am, so had to run out the door almost as soon as i was awake (vital duties duly dutied). therefore i’ve lost 30 minutes of today and have been running to catch up.
as if to serve me right, my train was delayed 15 minutes on route, thus increasing total delays to 45 minutes.
during the 15 minutes stoppage i looked out of the window and watched this squirrel eating an acorn. he hopped right up next to the train, had a nibble then jumped to another rail etc. i looked around the carriage to catch a fellow commuter’s eye so we could share the moment, but everyone was either asleep or reading their papers.
as a result of the site of the squirrel i now have the White Stripes song Little Acorns in my mind. which makes a change from You Make Me Feel Like Dancing by Leo Sayer which i have had stuck in my mind for the last 7 or 8 years.
i noticed yesterday that there is a trend for very thin high heels. i noticed this when someone nearly got stuck on an escalator and someone else did get stuck going in to an office building in a little great (great little?).
it got me thinking back to physics lessons at school and how pressure is related to weight and area. a quick google search revealed a number of essays on this subject. one such is here:
Pressure Under High Heels.
Bear in mind that as high heels become smaller, the pressure exerted will tend to infinity. and that’s a lot of pressure.
i’ve a stinking cold today. as everyone knows a stinking cold is an ideal opportunity to try a spot of amateur pharmacoooticalling.
i have decided that a combination of squeezed orange juice, fresh cranberry juice, coproxamol, crisps (plain), carrot sticks and rice cakes will make me feel great again. so far so bad.
we bought a map yesterday at the Henley Show. We used it today to go for a walk near Grey’s Court (which itself was shut). According to the map it is an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (ONB).
i discovered waitrose quick check today. scanning your own food is fantastic ! of course esther is an expert on this already as jane usually scans when she goes round in the week. but it was my first time and i loved it.
here are two girls in a trolley:
we went to the henley show today. it was excellent. very hot (i burnt my head).
highlights were the larmaaaas. i don’t know where llamas have come from but there are all of a sudden loads of them at country fairs. The Henley Show even had special showing classes for them. They do look quite cute though. their popularity has also boosted sales of labcoats. Poor animals probably expect to be experimented on.
This being Henley, land of the posh, we were delighted to see some truely exceptional picnic-ers. we sat on a rug and ate chips. others had bought luxury tables and chairs with champagne flutes and even flowers for their tables. the world was a live with the sound of popping champagne corks
Another highlight was the motorbike display team. we sat behind their starting positions so we got to see (and smell) a lot of waiting bikes whilst being helpfully shielded from the real action by the bikes themselves. what we could see was good though.
summary: Total entry fee was £17 and we paid the same again for food, so quite expensive. we were there for 5 hours though so good value I think.
it’s herve’s last day in the office. people are dropping like mouches. he’s not leaving the company. just his desk.
herve has been trying to increase his ‘française’ influence, particularly with regard to fashion, specifically related to my jumper, more exactly relating to how i wear it.
here is my first attempt as wearing my jumper “the french way”
i hate standing in dog hound poo. i stood in some this morning. i’m sure the extra weight of my laptop in my backpack which squashed me down in to it.
i was then faced with the dilema of stopping and scrapping (but with what) or taking a more grassy, puddly route to wipe it off as I went.
it was this second option i chose which involved dragging my feet down gutters (of the road, not houses) and standing in every puddle and pile of workman’s sand available.
however, all this really did was to increase the level of soilage on my shoe and make people think I was practicing for a role in the Hunchback of Notradam.
in the end i cleaned it off with toilet paper when i got to work.
apologies to anyone reading this whilst eating.
