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Family get together
Meggie was at her friends ‘Build a bear’ birthday party today. She loves the Build a bear parties as she gets to choose, stuff and dress a good sized soft toy. We had one for her sixth birthday and to be honest it really is excellent value for money.
All round Jen’s today for a family Christmas get together with Nick, Gill, Sofia, Emily, Jen and Beth (we decided to take Molly and Poppy as well to boost numbers). Jen had fallen over on the ice earlier that day and when we got there you could see why. Her street was like a death trap – covered in black ice. We all had to hold onto the fences as we walked from the car to her house – must have looked like some Everest expedition (Do they have fences on Everest?).
Jen lay on a good spread of the usual culprits (sausage rolls, sausages, crisps, cakes etc) although I was a little disappointed there was no cheese and pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks 
The girls all received some early Christmas pressies from Santa (Jen) .
Before going home we popped by this guys house round the corner. Sadly a few years ago his wife had died in a car crash and ever since then he decorates his house with an immense amount of lights to raise money for charity. The Kids absolutely loved it.
Trip to the flicks
Went to see a good ol’ British Christmas film at the cinema today called Nativity. This is a comedy starring Martin Freeman (of office fame), Ashley Jenson (from Extras) and Alan Carr. Issy and Ellie had gone to their Nan and Grandads wedding (they were re-taking their vows – very sweet) so it was Just Ally, Meggie and me.
The Plot (don’t read if you don’t want to know the ending)
Mr Maddens (Martin Freeman) is a “frustrated, under-achieving primary school teacher”. Every year Maddens’ school competes with a local private school to see who can produce the best nativity play, Maddens’ school always coming second to Gordon Shakespeare’s (Jason Watkins) private school.
Maddens lies to Shakespeare about how a Hollywood producer, his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lore (Ashley Jensen), will be turning his production into a Hollywood film starring his pupils. As the film progresses he goes to America to persuade his ex-girlfriend to visit (and learns she is a receptionist and not a film producer) and is unsuccessful in his Hollywood aim.
After some trouble, the nativity is released, the hollywood producer visits it and Mr. Maddens and Jennifer are reunited.
The film was a typical British comedy/romance really enjoyable and very funny throughout.
Weather: Clear, Tempterature: -2 °C, Wind: WSW (240°) at 5mphSnow
Well after all of the heavy snow and gale force wind warnings we got about 1 inch of snow with drifts of maybe 2 inches. Bah humbug!
Ally is feeling really rough today with no sleep so I got Meggie ready for school (her last day today). Before school Meggie had a quick play in the snow whilst I de-snowed the car. Got Meggie to school without a problem – 2 miles down the road and there really wasn’t any snow at all.
Weather: scattered clouds, Tempterature: 1 °C, Wind: E (80°) at 16mphFather Christmas Video
Was given an excellent link to a site where you enter the name and details of your child and upload a photo. They then produce a video staring them. Brilliant and it was free. The site is called Portable North Pole.
Our video for Megan can be seen here but I’m not sure how long they keep it there for.
Weather: broken clouds, Tempterature: 3 °C, Wind: N (360°) at 31mphWeather Station
I’ve always been fascinated by the weather and a couple of years ago I bought myself a semi-pro weather station (geeky I know). Whilst this had been installed I only had the display panels on the wall showing me the data so today I installed the weather logging software from Ambient. This logs and Analise’s all of the collected data and shows it on your PC using various dials and gauges. I also installed the trial version of Weather Flash which posts the data onto a web page. You can see my live weather data here.
Weather: few clouds, Tempterature: 1 °C, Wind: W (260°) at 8mphSuccessful rug purchase
After finding out the brand of rug we had bought on Sunday I found a retailer online that sold the same one in the same colour only bigger – hoorah! As I was phoning Nasons to get a refund, I found out that they also sold the bigger version – yea! I guess it was a case I’d third time lucky.
Backing up a blog
I was scanning the Internet for a way to back up my blog and came across a product called Site Vault. My blog is a self hosted version of word press so all of the files, images and database is held on my webspace. Site Vault allows you to connect to your web space and backup the Word Press files as well as allowing you to back up the MySQL database. On top of backing up all of my blogs data it also allows you to schedule backups so you can let your PC earn its keep and back up your stuff in the background whilst you get on with important stuff like work.
This is just what I needed for peace of mind and its only $19 from www.site-vault.com. Just to let you know, I am in no way affiliated with Site Vault, just thought I would pass on my findings
It may look cute but …
My God this puppy stinks! You can be happily sitting there with Poppy on your lap when out of nowhere this rotten smell appears. Its her – she lets of these silent yet very violent pockets of nastyness.
How can something so small and so cute smell sooooo bad?
Weather: Scattered clouds, Tempterature: 2 °C, Wind: E (100°) at 5mphTree – Done
Well it was just too bold and by the morning that damm rug had shed so much it was making the main carpet turn red – it had to go. Packed it up, shoved it in the back of the car and took it back. Got a new rug in Nasons, this time a shag pile and in warm browns. Much much nicer plus the shag pile hides dirt.
Got back and decorated the tree with the girls. Now, we don’t go down the symmetrical neat and tidy look for our trees. Instead we prefer the random look. It has all sorts of decorations that the girls have made over the years including some painted dough stars that Issy and Ellie made years ago. Before they go on they have to be dried out as they go soggy in the loft (I’m sure there’s a health and safety issue there somewhere). Once the tree was completed up went the other various decorations such as dangling Father Christmas lights with their arms bent into different errrm poses.
Megan and Ally made paper chains whilst I strung lights over one of our tress in the garden. Normally we put a second Christmas tree up but this year we thought we would decorate the garden trees instead. Had enough lights to do one of them, will get some more tomorrow.
Put the new rug down and would you believe it, it was too small! Right colour just too small. Now that one has to go back.
Weather: scattered clouds, Tempterature: 5 °C, Wind: ENE (60°) at 8mphChristmas Tree
In an attempt to regain some fitness I took Molly for a walk up the woods this morning, it had rained but now the sun had come out (flipping cold though). Unlike last weekend I managed the walk without half killing myself.
Holly in the woods
Got back and had a quick lunch before going out to get some bits for Christmas. First stop was the garden centre. Each year we get a new tree decoration and for the last few years Megan has been allowed to choose it. This year was no exception and she picked a big red sparkly heart. Not the most Christmassy looking decoration – next year I think we will have to suggest a little harder.
2009 Christmas decoration
Next stop was the carpet shop. Since the cats had peed on our old rug and cushions we have had to throw them out – there was no way we could clean them so we needed a new rug and cushions. We found a nice deep pile rug which was pretty bold (red, orange and brown sqaures) together with some matching cushions. On the way home we popped in to our local garden centre and picked our Christmas tree.
Once home we put up the tree but didn’t decorate it as Ellie wanted to help and she wasn’t back until tomorrow. Put down the rug and the first thought was – Ouch that’s bold! Several hours later and it was shedding like a thing that sheds a lot and it showed every speck of dirt that landed on it. This had to go!
Weather: Sun and clouds, Tempterature: 8 °C, Wind: NE (50°) at 17mph « go back — keep looking »-
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Hello, my name's Paul and im a Dad of one daughter,Step Dad of two Step Daughters, Husband of one Wife, owner / carer of three cats,
onetwo dogs and several fish ...
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Whitstable Kent, England United KingdomSeptember 4, 2010, 11:45
Partly sunny18°Creal feel: 17°Ccurrent pressure: 1022 mbhumidity: 72%wind speed: 11 mph ESEwind gusts: 9 mphsunrise: 6:13sunset: 19:35Forecast September 5, 2010day
Mostly sunny18°Cnight
Intermittent clouds14°C
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