Happy birthday Oscar

Imagine three voices:

Happy birthday to you ...
happppy birthday tooo yooou..
haaaappy birthdaaay deear Ozzieee...
haappy birrthdaay tooo yoou!!

Lots of love from London.
xxxooo

Elementary, my dear Watson!

We "Northerners" (well, temporary) had a sunny, if cold, day today, the first in weeks if not months. Perfect weather, in fact, for an early morning walk 'round Regent's Park, so I was up and out the door shortly after breakfast. I must admit, I felt bad for the birds swimming in the near-frozen lake but they didn't seem to mind.

Dee and I have put together a list of 101 things to do in London before we leave, and so yesterday (Saturday) we had a "Sherlock Holmes"-themed day out. We tubed to Baker Street from London Bridge, then walked along the street until we found number 221b - Sherlock's address, although apparently when (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the mystery stories Baker Street only went up to 100! These days it is a tiny museum (and gift shop) to the fictional detective; I even had a chance to sit with Dr. Watson himself!

Afterwards we headed to an "indy" cinema on Baker Street for the new Sherlock Holmes movie (starring the inimitable Robert Downey Jr., who I'm quite sure I saw shopping in a little specialist food market in North London last year). Not the greatest cinema, as it turned out, but appropriately located nevertheless - and they served wine and popcorn, so by the time the movie was over I was feeling rather jolly indeed. We stopped briefly at The Globe - the pub rather than the Shakespearean theatre, because I've been past it a bunch of times but never entered - before walking through Soho to meet Dayna and Bruce for dinner at Wagamama.

After some so-so Japanese food (not bad, but not something to write home about - oh, sorry, guess I shouldn't have mentioned it then) we went searching for London's last and only street lamp that is powered by burning sewer gas. We eventually found the "poppy lamp" in a little laneway off The Strand, and were disappointed to find that it had been converted to electricity after a hapless motorist knocked the original over with his car!

So disappointed by this were we that we had to retire to the local "Coal House" for commiserations over a glass of bubbly. Our spirit suitably lightened, we walked along The Strand, over Waterloo Bridge, and towards home.

We are very much looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

Cold Christmas (#2) in Scotland

Well we're back in London today, after a 7 hour (!!) train ride last night - we were delayed for over two hours, 30 minutes out of London, so by the time we'd caught our bus back home it was almost midnight.

Luckily we'd prepared: in Glasgow we bought dinner for on the train, and upgraded our "cattle class" seats to first-class for the princely sum of £15 a pop. So we sat in relative comfort in the (actually too-warm) cabin, snug and safe from the ice and snow outside, and eventually we rolled into Euston Station.





It's been a fun couple of days. We arrived in Irvine (on the Scottish coast, with views of the Isle of Arran) late Thursday night, and Andy and his dad "Rab" (Robert) met us at the station. A short but treacherous walk along icy streets - Dee took a tumble just metres from the door - and we were in the Melrose apartment.

Robert and Dorothy, Andy's parents, looked after us like we were family - delicious food, silly conversations (the "craic") and plenty of the ol' Christmas cheer. We had scallops, Christmas roast, "square sausage" & IRN BRU and even found time for a traditional British curry at an old Scottish pub somewhere in town. We got presents! "A selection for the wains," said Rabbie, handing us each a Cadbury's selection box. "The wains always get a selection box." (I have no idea if that's how you spell it!)





We had a couple of walks while we were there - down to the frozen beach front, past a pub that is older than white settlers in Australia, and into a shopping plaza nearby - but mostly stayed inside (too cold!). We watched a lot of football! (Soccer to us antipodeans.) They really are the nicest people, and of course we invited them to come visit us in Australia...

This weekend is Christmas #3 - now the pressies for Dayna and Bruce have arrived!

There are a couple more photos on Flickr, and I finally got 'round to uploading some of Dee's birthday celebrations, too! Finally, here's a funny IRN BRU ad (it's a Scottish softdrink).

The beach in winter

We've just been for a walk along the beach in Cromer. It's a seaside town in Norfolk (East English coast). As you can see in the picture, we had to wrap up warmly before we went out - it's less than 10 degrees out. :-)

I'm staying with Bruce's family for the week. There's Bruce's folks - John & Gwen, his Grandad & Bruce and I. We're staying in a listed building (built in 1800s) which was super cold when we arrived but has warmed up after leaving the heating on all night. It's a strange house with three stories - kitchen & a family room on ground floor; two bathrooms, a lounge & a bedroom on first floor; and three bedrooms on second floor. I'll keep fit running up and down the stairs. :-)

We're just about to go and have lunch. *big hugz* thinking of everyone.

Happy Chrimbo, fam!

Merry Christmas from Scotland, dear family! We arrived in Irvine late last night, and after a long lie in, followed by a walk along the snowy beach, we're back in a warm house playing carpet quoits and watching Christmas telly!

Hope everyone is having a good day, we miss you and can't wait to see you soon.

Happy festive season from London

I think I've got the hang of my new gadget enough to send an update. :-) I've got a new phone - pay as you go with internet and unlimited texts if you topup each month. It's one of the things I'm doing to save money.
I've just finished my 14th day working at IOP headquarters. well, 13th and a half. today was super-quiet - most people have been on holiday this week. Unfortunately I only have enough leave to cover the compulsory days between Christmas and New Year, so I had to work Christmas Eve.
I guess this is part of why it doesn't feel like the festive season for me. We have a tree up at home but none of us will be there for Christmas, so there are only a couple of sad little presents underneath. We were going to have a family celebration last Sunday but Royal Mail was slow so we didn't do pressies, just had a Sunday roast. Tasty, but not Christmassy!
I'm currently eating lunch at the train station, waiting to head to Wolverhampton for Christmas with Bruce & his fam. It's my first English Christmas so I'm hoping it snows! I made mini puds & yummy slice last night - without copha cos I couldn't find the english equivalent. So the slice didn't cut very well but it should still be tasty. ;-)
I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow. Thinking of everyone!
Lots of love n hugz,
-d-

Happy birthday Lisa (sorry it's a bit late)

Hope you had a lovely relaxing day!

Happy birthday to you...
Happy birthday toooo yoooooooooouuuuuuuu...
Happy biiiiiiiirthdaaaaaay deeear Liissaaaaaaaaaa...
Happy biirthdaay toooo yooooooooooooooooouuu!

Happy birthday Carolynn

Hope you've had a splendid day!!

Sweet 16. Oooh. ;-)

Happy birthday tooo youuuuuuu

Haaaaappy biirthdaay tooo yoooouuu

Haaaaapppy biiiirthdaaaay deaaar Caaarolynnnnnn

Haappy biirthdaaay too youuuuuuuuu

*big hugz* from an almost snowy London (we've had a few flakes, but nothing much so far)

Formal

There is more on facebook and I'm getting all my friends to put their pics up too.
It was a great night, we won belle and beau of the ball, "belle and male belle" is what they called it.

day two

lovely day to walk to work. clear blue sky and a crisp cold morning. no clouds - a nice change from Manchester. wonder how long it'll last. :)

london morning

beautiful clear day

Better than a photo with Santa

New Header

Okay, it's taken me many hours over the last few weeks, but I've finally finished the new Bandwagon Header. I wanted to update it with the new members of our extended family, so I figured why not just update everyone as well.

I hope you all like it.

Just for you Mum I've got a tee on RedBubble (with zero markup, the cheapest I can make it). I've changed the design a bit to make it more tee friendly. You can see it here http://www.redbubble.com/people/damienmason/t-shirts/4124819-1-family

I'll also separate out all the different people so you can grab yourself or reorder or remix them.. My plan is to do it now but it'll depend on how Ossie goes, I've just put him to bed for a nap :)

So what do you think of the new header?

Edit: Okay, here are the files.

If you want to remix the header, grab these ones. They're all transparent PNGs with a background the exact size as the header bg and everything placed as it is in the header.. so you should be able to stack the pngs in layers in a photoshop file and then work with each person independently.
Adam
Carolynn
Chez
Dad
Me and Oscar
Daria
Dayna
Dee
Glenn
Jared
Lisa
Mum
Nana
Trinity

I've also put together massive (1000x1500) transparent pngs for each person, in case you just wanted yourself (for avatars etc) which are here

Adam
Carolynn
Chez
Dad
Me and Oscar
Daria
Dayna
Dee
Glenn
Jared
Lisa
Mum
Nana
Trinity

And finally I thought if you wanted to do a calendar rather than using the long horizontal version you might like the more compact tee version, so I've made a big (2880x2100) white background jpg of that for you. It doesn't have the text the tee has.

Calendar pic

Hopefully that's enough to keep you all going for a while :)

Exams again

Yes, I'm at that exciting stage of the year again...Exam time. Our exams go for a week but over two weeks (yes it's strange to put the weekend in the middle of them). I'm not looking forward to exams but im definatly looking forward to the formal. Its on the 2nd of December, I already have my dress (I made it) and all my friends and I can't stop talking about it.

Popcorn for dinner

I finally got around to uploading some photos today; you can find them on Flickr (with a couple retroactively added to our last post). I've also got a new phone (an Android phone, whee, it's "wik" (wicked, good) for all you non-geeks, nyah-nyah) and so have a few ... creative ... digital-filtered photos from around London.

One filter makes photos look like a polaroid,
and gives me a manly, straggly beard

So we had the beer festival in Norwich (Norfolk) the other weekend: a massive, Hogwart's-like hallway under a vaunted, cathedral ceiling filled with barrels and barrels of delicious beers. Traditional ales, lagers, stouts, ciders; there was something for everyone (well, everyone who likes beer I guess), and all paid for with little paper tokens we bought when we arrived.

You'll be a pinball-wizard, Harry

With too many different types to possibly try all of, I tended to base my decisions on the name of the brewery and/or the beer itself. So after a Red Dragon ale I had a Jack The Ripper, a Hobgoblin, a Pirate, a Neverwinter Nights (confession: I'm making them up). We stayed in a local hotel, had breakfast downstairs and headed back to London with Chris and Tina.

We also saw an amateur production of Jack The Ripper (The Musical) -- yes, the same one I was in so many years ago (ours was better :-D). It was in a tiny little theatre built under London Bridge (literally under -- in a gloomy tomb, very appropriate for the show and probably more spooky than the acting).

Another filter: "toy camera".

Yesterday we visited "Befnal Green", our old 'hood in the East End. Took the bus into Liverpool Street, walked through Spitalfields (Jack The Ripper again!) and up Brick Lane; street markets and food stalls and crowds of too-cool hipsters scared us into the straightest bar with the campest name: The Birdcage. We sat with a bunch of old rummies and watched Arsenal play Wolverton ... then finished our drinks (I had a Fosters!! Tee hee!) and ran away to watch some fireworks.

The number of people were intense! After 30 minutes of the fireworks we thought we could beat the crowds, and so ran away to the nearest bus-stop. Unfortunately, no bus came and eventually we were walking along with the herd looking for another way home. Turned out to be another bus stop, then a late night taxi back here -- our planned early night after a few nice fireworks turned into a gruelling trek across the urban jungle towards the safety of our temporary nest!



The punchline: we got home, ordered some dinner from a local curry house (yes, lazy, but nothing in the 'fridge because we've been so darn busy) and then settled in with a tasty glass of Australian red. Waited for food, waited some more, waited, waited, waited. Eventually we got through to the curry-house who informed us that a power-cut had shutdown their kitchen, so it was no dinner for us. We searched through the cupboards, and ended up with popcorn for dinner...

How rock and roll is that!!? :-D