Jamie as Marilyn Monroe
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Yo yo
We've finally had a run of good weather which has lasted more than a day - all week it has been decent, but with some blustery winds earlier in the week. Today it was simply sunny and very hot. On Monday I went for a gentle 25 km bike ride and this afternoon for a jog to and on the beach. Carmen and Anja have been for a few long walks, in fact they're out at the moment.
Jamie had a concert yesterday with her music school, she sang a little song and then played the piano while the rest of her group played other instruments. She did a good job, a couple of little slip-ups but nothing too drastic. She's always so funny on stage, tossing her locks like Miss Piggy and doing unscheduled pirouettes, we all kept having to look the other way ;o)
Despite having doggedly stuck to the same hole in my belt, reality has caught up with me and it's time to do something about my weight. I've been avoiding the scales for months, now it turns out I've put 12 kg on since last July - gulp. So the exercise regime is being cranked up and the Atkins books dusted down. I started the diet today, and Jane and I have already agreed to compete to see who can lose 10% of their body weight first. Just remember, Jane, Swingball. I always win. *Evil cackle*
103.5 kg this morning, watch this space.
Jamie had a concert yesterday with her music school, she sang a little song and then played the piano while the rest of her group played other instruments. She did a good job, a couple of little slip-ups but nothing too drastic. She's always so funny on stage, tossing her locks like Miss Piggy and doing unscheduled pirouettes, we all kept having to look the other way ;o)
Despite having doggedly stuck to the same hole in my belt, reality has caught up with me and it's time to do something about my weight. I've been avoiding the scales for months, now it turns out I've put 12 kg on since last July - gulp. So the exercise regime is being cranked up and the Atkins books dusted down. I started the diet today, and Jane and I have already agreed to compete to see who can lose 10% of their body weight first. Just remember, Jane, Swingball. I always win. *Evil cackle*
103.5 kg this morning, watch this space.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Bird fight
I went out for a bike ride this morning with Rodolfo and Carlos, and just outside the village I looked up and saw a crow chasing and harrassing a kite more than twice its size. It kept following the kite for at least 1 km before I lost sight of it, diving and pecking all the time. I can only guess the kite came too close to the crow's nest. It was an unusual sight to say the least.
All of us went down the park later in the morning, with Anja; Jamie was able to go skating for the first time in ages, and Danny rode his motorbike. We met up with R & M and their kids for drinks, and watched the start of the grand prix together. Fernando Alonso won his historic third GP in a row, which of course has the locals going wild, considering he is from Asturias, the next province along, the border of which is only 15 km away.
All of us went down the park later in the morning, with Anja; Jamie was able to go skating for the first time in ages, and Danny rode his motorbike. We met up with R & M and their kids for drinks, and watched the start of the grand prix together. Fernando Alonso won his historic third GP in a row, which of course has the locals going wild, considering he is from Asturias, the next province along, the border of which is only 15 km away.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Backlog
Oh dear, lagging behind on the blog again… the usual excuses, too busy with work, not much else happening… I'm sure nobody's interested in hearing about the fascinating translations I've been doing about Dutch inheritance law, online gambling or terms and conditions of delivery (and don't get your hopes up, the online gambling text was even less interesting than the inheritance law one).
The weather in the past two weeks has conspired against us as well - in my case, the day I had to work the longest hours and couldn't get away was the only day of the past week with any sunshine. Sod's law. A couple of weekends ago I got out for a pleasant bike ride with Rodolfo, and this time we were joined by Carlos, the butcher from Lupa supermarket. The weekend before last was La Folia, so we didn't get out for a bike ride then, and last weekend it was 'orrible weather so we had to cancel again. I did get out for a 5 mile jog last week and was planning to have gone again by now but the same combo of weather and work have conspired against it.
One thing I have been managing to do while stuck at my desk is burning DVDs. I'm still getting a frustratingly high failure rate, although lower than at the start. It doesn't seem to matter if I use DVD Decrypter first or just use DVD Shrink from the start. Also I'm not sure how much has to do with the blanks I'm using, Princo 4x - after I'd bought them I spotted several negative comments on the web about how they have an above-average failure rate. Other people say they've burned hundreds of them without a single problem. Luckily they were very cheap! Packages are currently in the post to Kev and Jason, so I'll be interested to hear if they work ok on their machines. So far they haven't worked on friends' machines here or on Brian's machine or computer :\ but work fine on our machine.
The kids are doing nicely. Both of them had a great time on the fairground rides at La Folia (the weekend before last), as you can see from the photos. On Sunday we met up with a Dutch/Spanish family who live near Llanes and they came round in the afternoon and the two little girls played with our two, then after they left we went to watch the last bit of the procession, then popped into Rodolfo and Magdalena's, where the kids played together. Funnily enough they were both a bit tired by the end of that day… Rodolfo and I then went to the pub to watch Real Madrid v Barcelona, which was one of the best matches I've seen so far this season.
Jamie is playing her piano a lot more than she was when she first got it. She mainly plays around with the various sounds and beats, and should really be practicing her exercises more, but we're just pleased she's using it at the moment. She has another private music lesson this afternoon. She's as happy as ever playing with her brother and her friends.
Danny is also his usual cheerful self, and he has some interesting Dennis the Menace moments in between. Horrible half hours, shall we say. Thankfully he's not broken anything too expensive yet, although he managed to destroy our new cordless, ball-less mouse apparently just by clicking on the button. Doesn't know his own strength… His vocabulary keeps growing in 3 languages, and he's stringing together bigger sentences. Most of these are still of the two or three word variety though.
With Anja here, Carmen has been getting out more for walks in the mornings and afternoons, when the weather's permitted. Magdalena has also been along a couple of times, which has been nice. Hopefully that will continue when Anja is not here. A&C have also been off shopping to Santander a few times - if there's one type of shopping I hate it's helping women choose clothes, so they've had each other to help out there, to my great relief.
I am in the middle of baking a steak and Guinness pie, and I need to get back to it now. I'll let you know how it turns out.
PIE UPDATE: It was delicious, miles better than I was expecting. I got the recipe
here, off Jamie Oliver's website. Couldn't get hold of any parsnips so winged it with two small potatoes, an extra carrot and a large squirt of honey ;o)
The weather in the past two weeks has conspired against us as well - in my case, the day I had to work the longest hours and couldn't get away was the only day of the past week with any sunshine. Sod's law. A couple of weekends ago I got out for a pleasant bike ride with Rodolfo, and this time we were joined by Carlos, the butcher from Lupa supermarket. The weekend before last was La Folia, so we didn't get out for a bike ride then, and last weekend it was 'orrible weather so we had to cancel again. I did get out for a 5 mile jog last week and was planning to have gone again by now but the same combo of weather and work have conspired against it.
One thing I have been managing to do while stuck at my desk is burning DVDs. I'm still getting a frustratingly high failure rate, although lower than at the start. It doesn't seem to matter if I use DVD Decrypter first or just use DVD Shrink from the start. Also I'm not sure how much has to do with the blanks I'm using, Princo 4x - after I'd bought them I spotted several negative comments on the web about how they have an above-average failure rate. Other people say they've burned hundreds of them without a single problem. Luckily they were very cheap! Packages are currently in the post to Kev and Jason, so I'll be interested to hear if they work ok on their machines. So far they haven't worked on friends' machines here or on Brian's machine or computer :\ but work fine on our machine.
The kids are doing nicely. Both of them had a great time on the fairground rides at La Folia (the weekend before last), as you can see from the photos. On Sunday we met up with a Dutch/Spanish family who live near Llanes and they came round in the afternoon and the two little girls played with our two, then after they left we went to watch the last bit of the procession, then popped into Rodolfo and Magdalena's, where the kids played together. Funnily enough they were both a bit tired by the end of that day… Rodolfo and I then went to the pub to watch Real Madrid v Barcelona, which was one of the best matches I've seen so far this season.
Jamie is playing her piano a lot more than she was when she first got it. She mainly plays around with the various sounds and beats, and should really be practicing her exercises more, but we're just pleased she's using it at the moment. She has another private music lesson this afternoon. She's as happy as ever playing with her brother and her friends.
Danny is also his usual cheerful self, and he has some interesting Dennis the Menace moments in between. Horrible half hours, shall we say. Thankfully he's not broken anything too expensive yet, although he managed to destroy our new cordless, ball-less mouse apparently just by clicking on the button. Doesn't know his own strength… His vocabulary keeps growing in 3 languages, and he's stringing together bigger sentences. Most of these are still of the two or three word variety though.
With Anja here, Carmen has been getting out more for walks in the mornings and afternoons, when the weather's permitted. Magdalena has also been along a couple of times, which has been nice. Hopefully that will continue when Anja is not here. A&C have also been off shopping to Santander a few times - if there's one type of shopping I hate it's helping women choose clothes, so they've had each other to help out there, to my great relief.
I am in the middle of baking a steak and Guinness pie, and I need to get back to it now. I'll let you know how it turns out.
PIE UPDATE: It was delicious, miles better than I was expecting. I got the recipe
here, off Jamie Oliver's website. Couldn't get hold of any parsnips so winged it with two small potatoes, an extra carrot and a large squirt of honey ;o)
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Saturday, April 09, 2005
LTNB
Long time no blog, sorry. Well hopefully the photos in between have made up for it. Proper update to follow, this is just to let you know that I've scanned a bunch of old Sheffield photos and uploaded them to the Sheffnet site (click here). Some from 1983-87 and some from the Parkside barbecue in 2002.
We bought a DVD burner the other day, so from now on home videos will be on DVD, no more tape to taping... I will be sending out copied dvds in due course to make sure they work on your machines. And if not you'll just have to put a new cheapo DVD player on your present list for next birthday / xmas ;o)
It's La Folia weekend, but for the second year running it's horrible weather, blustery winds, showers, we even had hail earlier this morning. The forecast for the big day tomorrow is not good, unfortunately. Fingers crossed we get a window of a few hours for the procession and the boats.
(Explanation of La Foila nicked from another website:
San Vicente de la Barquera (Cantabria) - The statue of the Virgen de la Barquera is said to have arrived at San Vincente in a boat with no sails, oars or crew. Once a year, it is put in a fishing boat decorated with flags and flowers, which sails at the head of a procession to bless the sea. Groups of young girls, called picayos, stand on the shore singing traditional songs of the region in honour of the Virgin. La Folía usually falls at the end of April, but its date is dependent on the local tides.)
More later!
We bought a DVD burner the other day, so from now on home videos will be on DVD, no more tape to taping... I will be sending out copied dvds in due course to make sure they work on your machines. And if not you'll just have to put a new cheapo DVD player on your present list for next birthday / xmas ;o)
It's La Folia weekend, but for the second year running it's horrible weather, blustery winds, showers, we even had hail earlier this morning. The forecast for the big day tomorrow is not good, unfortunately. Fingers crossed we get a window of a few hours for the procession and the boats.
(Explanation of La Foila nicked from another website:
San Vicente de la Barquera (Cantabria) - The statue of the Virgen de la Barquera is said to have arrived at San Vincente in a boat with no sails, oars or crew. Once a year, it is put in a fishing boat decorated with flags and flowers, which sails at the head of a procession to bless the sea. Groups of young girls, called picayos, stand on the shore singing traditional songs of the region in honour of the Virgin. La Folía usually falls at the end of April, but its date is dependent on the local tides.)
More later!
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005
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