Festive squatters

There are three days to go until we leave our flat and I have sold or given away most of the furniture.
To brighten the place up we have all of our presents around the 'mother in laws' tongue' plant and our coffee table and tv stand are cardboard boxes covered in wrapping paper.
My office is quite low to the ground now and our bed is also at floor level.
The strange thing is it is all rather lovely and all that we need.
Daz is inspired by the whole thing and thinks that we will never need proper furniture again.  Good for the budget too!

New additions to the family

Just doing a quick update as we have two newish family members, who are both about three months old.
Max is Darren's third cousin we think, as he is Lauren's son and Lauren is Darren's cousin's daughter. Does that make sense?
The next one is far more straightforward forward, as my sister Elaine has got a kitten called Monty.
Very disappointingly, I find I did not take a photo of him, but instead took one of Elaine's home made yule log.

Daz wins awards at his own leaving do

Great night last night. Went to Anne's for a get together with the squash girls with mulled wine and mince pies. They gave me a lovely card that was hand made by Julie.
Then it was straight on to the Bunkers Hill where Daz was having his leaving do, complete with a performance by Gareth's band.
Patrick presented him with a fantastic card that contained a few surprises!
I didn't even know that Wiggle had nominated him as their best browser during working hours, but he is also a 'cake expert' and even more astonishing 'never actually at work'.
Not quite true yet, but it will be after next Friday.

Happy birthday to me for yesterday

Had a good night out last night with Elaine and Mark at Debsch Persian restaurant.
We arrived at about 8pm and the chef seemed to be on his own. He told us he had cooked 30 portions of food today and it was all already accounted for. However, as we had been before he said he could put something together for us for both starter and main courses.
Not sure what it all was, or where he found it, but it was fantastic! Very lamb and aubergenie.
I think choosing your own food is over-rated now.
Ps, 51 and a day today - how time flies.

Wish I had a car today

Cycled up to Trentpac to collect some bubble wrap for our forthcoming move.
I knew they only sold it in bulk, but I had no idea how much bulk that would involve!
The idea was that I would tie it with the string on to my luggage rack and cycle the four miles home.
In reality, I managed to tie it to my bike, but there was no room for me so I had to push it, and every time I went round a corner it tried to fall off.
Oh well, it could have been worse, it could have started pouring with rain about five minutes after I took this photo.
Oh, it did!

Mixed Masters Notts Badminton Tournament

Having a lovely time this afternoon at the Albert Hall watching the great Nottinghamshire badminton stars, along with other England players, past and present.
Don't know how we managed it but we have front row seats and a fantastic view.
Nathan Robertson, Anthony Clark, Chris Adcock and Peter Mills played first and then Anthony played with Donna Kellogg.
Had a chat with her afterwards and I told her how i always copy her warm up routine after watching her years ago at the All England.
She seemed impressed but Daz rolled about laughing and said i am the laziest warmer upper he has ever seen, so maybe it's not that similar.