..... And a Happy New 'Ear

Today's blog title is thanks to Caitlin, taken from her recent rousing renditions of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

So a happy new 'ear to everyone. We hope 2010 is good to you all.

These occasions give us an excuse to post photos from the "unclassifiable" folder, or in other words, let you see a few of the things we've been up to here and there in Blighty. Hope you enjoy.


First day at school. Caiti looked pretty excited (before leaving home at least).


But she didn't seem so cheerful once we arrived at school itself and took a couple of family shots....


.....if looks could kill - is she trying to tell us something here?


Here we are at Winkworth Arboretum. We've been here before in early spring, but it's also a spectacular place to visit in autumn when the trees turn very colourful.




Lots of reds and yellows.


The vista from the hill.


Ready for trick or treating on Halloween.
In our old street the local urchins used to knock on the door all evening, but we were wondering why we didn't have any visitors at our new place. After we ventured out into the street ourselves, it soon became apparent that you need to have a pumpkin (preferably hollowed out with a candle) on your doorstep if you're offering "sweeties" for trick or treaters. We'll try and remember that for next time.


A spot of baking


Less talking more mixing


Yummo!



Lucy at Tonbridge Castle, in Tonbridge (funnily enough), which is in Kent. A nice town, but a bit of a drive to be honest.


OK, everyone say "cheese"


Tonbridge shops can be very Tudor


Tonbridge Pizza Express - Jo loves Pizza Express. She took the photo.


And here's the gang at Lucy's 7th birthday party. We had an afternoon tea with a few friends.
Note it's dark outside at 4.30pm - you gotta love winter.

Out and About with a Few Visitors

Before we download all our recent pics from the camera - and there's lots, so here's hoping Keezee gets the motivation to post them all - we have some more from Nana's camera that we hadn't shared yet. So here goes...

By the way, we get asked quite a bit what the weather's like where we are, so we posted a little widget on the right of the page so you can see for yourselves - Woking is just down the road. But please don't brag!



Here's Chriso and Alainya making their first blog appearance on Guildford High Street with Nana & co.


Lucy and Nana went to see The Lion King while Nana was visiting. This was their second visit to the West End - you may remember The Sound of Music. The other Keezee's haven't been to a proper London show yet (school nativities, aside) and are starting to get a bit jealous!


Before the show. If Caiti was jealous, she didn't show it.


Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth..... Caiti posing outside everyone's favourite pub, The Anchor


Keezee, & Nana, enjoying the nice late summer weather (and a drink), outside The Anchor


Atmosphere shot


Atmosphere shot, in the other direction. All of those long boats were full of punters visiting the pub.


The obligatory family shot, but worth posting to show you how happy the staff were that day - what's going on there?


Caiti getting ready for her modest (but surprisingly noisy) birthday celebrations, back in August.


The girls on their slip n slide in the garden. This is a nice photo to look at, if only because there's snow settled on the lawn as I look out the window today - oh how the seasons change so quickly!

Caiti's started school! (or 'sool' as she calls it)

We can't believe it either, but Caiti's started at school. All good so far - learning, making friends, doing her homework, blitzing computer studies (applying her advanced internet gaming skills) and finishing at midday each day, cause she's a "summer born".

Anyway, there's a big demand to see some photos, so here's some Nanna Julie took when she was here. Caiti started a few days after Lucy, and Nanna actually left the weekend before Caiti's first day, so we did a special dress up for the cameras in our new backyard!









And here's Lucy on her first day back at school - all fired up for another big year!

Goodbye West Byfleet.... Hello Woodham

Well it's been a while - we hope everyone's well. Our only excuse is that we've moved house and it's taken a while for the broadband to get reconnected. Still, we haven't been idle... apart from the nightmare that is moving house, we have managed to squeeze in a holiday to Norfolk and get out and about and enjoy summer - which has been surprisingly acceptable this year. Plenty of photos taken, so stay tuned as usual.

The new house is in Woodham, which is about two streets away from where we used to live even though it's another village and in another borough. The two places are separated by the famous (or infamous for some) Basingstoke Canal - now we have to cross the canal to get to school, work, shops, etc. So now there's even more chance of spotting a long boat in our travels.

With this blog being on the internet and all, we haven't really advertised exactly where we live, and as a result we never posted a very cute video of Lucy taking us on a tour of our old house, which was actually filmed not long after we first moved in. [The girls have changed so much since then!] Anyway, since we don't live there anymore, we thought "why not?". So here for your enjoyment is 'little' Lucy's fabulous house tour... watch out for the last room, it's great!

Caitlin's Graduation

As you may have heard, Caiti's off to big school in September (no we can't believe it either) and today she had a special graduation ceremony at her nursery/pre-school. The photos were so cute we had to show them....

Out and about with Lucy

Today we have a special posting updating all of Lucy's friends and fans on what she's been up to lately.

We begin with a bit of indoor tennis: The Brits are starting to take this Wimbledon thing seriously and now all school children learn tennis for 3 hours every day. It seems like a good plan, but I get the feeling there's something missing - a tennis ball and court perhaps:


Not sure what's going on in this next one. Looks as if it must have been "frog hat" day at school:


Here she is as The Wicked Witch of the West (Byfleet) - scary eh?:


Striking a pose at ballet class:



All that ballet training paid off at the school summer BBQ (which was an absolute screamer, by the way) when she and her ballet class danced in front of a huge crowd. We captured some of the performance on (low quality) video for your enjoyment:

A Snowy Tour of West Byfleet

For those of you who've never had the unique pleasure of visiting West Byfleet, we offer to you today, a pictorial tour of the village.

Or, in other words, we took a whole stack of photos when it was snowing and were wondering what to do with them.


The church.



The parking lot outside Waitrose supermarket: the geographic and cultural centre of the village.



Waitrose again.



The train station: an important link to civilisation.



The Basingstoke Canal: home of ducks and longboats, and former link to civilisation before the roads and trains came apparently.



The not-very-green village green.



One of the village pubs.



Village shops.



More village shops.



The snowy traffic lights and the bank.



More village shops.



Lucy's school - school was closed for two days to let the kids (and teachers) enjoy the snow.



This is the church at nearby Pyrford. It dates from 1140 we understand and was worth a photo in the snow.



The Saddlers Arms pub at nearby Send Marsh (a better option than the West Byfleet pubs, just quietly).



The church at West Clandon (another proud "Westie" village) also worth a photo in the snow.