Bits and Bobs

Here's a few pics we found lying around of things we've been up to over summer (if you could call it that). Enjoy.


Here we are at the Abinger Hammer Cricket Club having a picnic, sunglasses on, waiting for the game to begin.
Yes, the town is called Abinger Hammer and the town clock has a bloke with a hammer banging on a bell (not sure why, but it looks very symbolic).


Still waiting for the game to start, but thumbs up for a nice lunch


The players made it out just in time for Lucy to take control of the camera


Here's Lucy winning the 20m dash at her school sports day. Actually I think there was more to it than just running 20m, but she is definitely showing some speed here.....


.... not to mention a cheesy grin for first place!


we are happy to announce that Caiti's toilet training is coming along very nicely..... this is the sort of photo that appears at 21st's


And here we are enjoying the lake at Frensham Great Pond. It's a man-made lake (or pond), dug up in the 14th century (or thereabouts). Nice for a sunbake and a sail... the swimming is a bit dodgy though.

Brighton is right on!

Firstly.... yes, I know my blog title is like a bad tabloid headline, but it's late and I'm out of practice with this blogging caper - but that is soon to change as I plan to post lots and lots of snaps in the near future.

Anyway, we drove down to Brighton the other week to check out what goes on there - apparently lots does. It seemed like a nice warm day and we had visions of swimming and lying in the sun. The sun was out most of the time, but the chilly wind meant that it wasn't much of a day for swimming and sunbaking.

We checked out the pier, the rides and the shops before heading down to the pebbly beach. The pebbles are a bit hard on the feet, but surprising nice to lie on - a bit like a full-body masseur sandal, and by strategically placing ourselves between the pier and the prevailing sou'-westerly breeze, we managed to get out of the wind and did in the end have a nice lie on the beach - which is something we hadn't done in a long time!


No points for guessing, but here we are at Brighton Pier...


... and from another angle.


We didn't use the towels for swimming, but they did come in handy on the windward side of the pier


Go Brighton!


There's lots of rides on The Pier, even a kids dodgems. Jo was fascinated by the "Super Dooper" where punters pay £8 to get hurled through the air like a trainee astronaut. Sadly, she didn't have a go herself.


The leeward side of the pier was nice


There's lots of 1920's throwback diversions...


...and rides for the kids.


Relaxing on the beach (with ice creams quickly melting)


At least you don't have to worry about getting sand off the kids, aren't we happy about that?...


.... the seaweed of course is another matter.


Artistic watery shot


The girls were getting a bit tired by the time we visited the Royal Pavilion


The locals seem to love it though.

Dodgy mobile phone pics

Oh dear... we have been tardy... Blame it on the new camera and it's ability to hold hundreds of photos without the need to download, blame it on the rain (aka British summer), blame it on being busy, blame it on the quality documentaries on BBC 2, blame it on the boogie... however you look at it, it's been over a month since our last update.

Don't worry, we do have lots of pics from the new camera showing the fun places we have visitied and how our two little darlings have grown. In the meatime, our apologies to you our loyal blogging friends. Hopefully this collection from Keezee's work phone will partially make up for it. The Manchster pics are because he's been working in Manchester - interesting place, friendly people with funny accents, rains a lot!



The view out the window of Keezee's hotel room in Manchester... did I mention it rains a lot in Manchester?


Here we are at the dogs in Manchester.. Belle Vue is the name of the track, and suprise, it's raining again.



The dogs didn't mind though. Neither did Keezee... he won £40 on the Trio (a.k.a Trifecta)



This is the entrance to a bar is called The Temple, and you enter it down some stairs in the middle of the street... it's an old public toilet, so it's commonly known as The Toilet Bar... surprisingly trendy though. We like it! [Note the rain]




The tickets for Elton John said no photography allowed!



The concert was held at Mercedes Benz World in Brooklands, near our place... Note the Mercedes badge on top of the building.



Elton's still got it... he played for 2hrs without a break and was very, very good... albeit a bit small from this distance.



Speaking of bad seats... here we are at the Manchester Utd v Juventus pre-season friendly at Old Trafford. I've never been a fan of Man U and now I know why.



More of the most boring game ever... 0-0 was the final score with one shot on goal. It's hard to see from this shot, but it was raining. The highlight of the evening was the rowdy songs sung on the tram back home... wouldn't want to be a Liverpool fan on that tram.

Chartwell House

Here's some pics from the day we stumbled upon Chartwell House - Winston Churchill's old house - after getting slightly lost driving around the Surrey-Kent border with Nanny Dawn. We were on our way back from a spot of shopping at Royal Tunbridge Wells (which, in case you didn't know, is pronounced "Royal Tunbridge Wells Daaaarling").

We saw the trusty National Trust tourist attraction sign by the side of the road, so thought we'd take a side trip and pop in for a look. It was actually quite interesting, and has a very lovely garden. Wouldn't be a bad place to live actually so long as you don't mind hundreds of visitors wandering through your place everyday.

Here's the pics....


The sign


The girls and the house


The girls and the garden


The girls, the house and the roses


The happy couple in front of the croquet lawn - we're thinking of putting in a croquet lawn at home!


Sometimes we just can't keep the smile off Lucy's face


Caiti found a nice spot to sit


The girls and the green hills


Caiti's new top and Keezee's old one.