Casino Kir Royale

Got an invite round to Matt's place in Southampton as his twin sister was in town visiting from South Africa! Geez they like to drink and gamble! What an influence... luckily we were only playing for matches and by the time we ran out of booze the offy was closed so we had to just finish the wine and JD and call it a night...

Sarah was alarmingly competitive... I was far too careless

Smug might seem to sum this one up... LOOK AT THAT PILE OF MATCHES! :) Grr! Was fun though and nice to meet Matt's sister.

Sadly after many years of hard service accross several continents my camera has gone to the electronics graveyard.... kaput... blammo... nada... weird purple pictures... byebye

Two days of summer (at least)

I managed to combine a trip to pick up an Ebay win (the chair I am sitting on to type this very message) with one of the best days of the year down here and be about 5 mins away from a lovely bit of the coast! Bournemouth is only 30 mins drive and contrary to popular opinions it is quite spectacular, mainly unspoilt area. Shame I was not around to enjoy it more but this was quite a good start.

As you can see these were the twilight years for my camera which started to improvise colours of its own choosing intermittently. Added to my decidedly dodgy camera skills at the best of times this was not a good combination...

Bev and Jose's Wedding

Hello well here are some pictures that I have managed to gather from Bev and Jose's wedding that I attended in Mijas near Fuengirola. It was such a brilliant trip and I got to catch up with loads of friends that I have not seen for nearly 10 years... from my amazing "Manchester days"

L-R, Bev's brother, Bev, Jose and Jose's mother.

Carl and Bev

Bev and her half-sister Kate

Jose and Bev just after the ceremony

Nicky in his couture Dior... not sure I could get away with that

The gang back together

Riding away from the church in their horse drawn carriage.. it was the talk of the town!

Our villa was lovely... the pool and private gardens were amazing and well used throughout the week!

Our entrance courtyard

These pictures are a funny colour as the other camera I had was a crappy disposable carboard rubbish thing. Tesco's decided in their wisdom that they would make up their own colours for my photos and charge me £15 for 4o prints to boot... hey ho...

Google Webalbum of this happy even is here!

May Away Days

Snappy girl about town

Maud learns that eating ice cream in a force 5 gale is not easy...

Even for adults with over a hundred years of collective ice cream eating experience! Shelter round the corner was required... and some help from Poppa I think.

Ah... sitting on the balconio is much nicer with a sky like that... where's the G&T Sarah?

Reading and playtime with Grandma! Yay!

Aunty Sarah's Birthday

Back in May we were all at home to celebrate Aunty Sarah's birthday, and of course there was CAKE!

Maud's face was of course priceless poor thing as everyone around the table gets their piece of cake...

But then Grandma swoops down with the bib and ...

...then the cake finally arrives! Better late than never Maud!

OCD Indulgence Day

I am up with Mum in Manchester for the Bank Holiday weekend. This is a jubilant time as there is Chinese chips to be had on Friday night followed by a relaxing weekend of not too much to do... well apart from a gazzillion and one tasks in preparation for the arrival of Sarah, Matt, Silje and Maud in less than 2 weeks time ... Aaaaggghh! Don't PANIC! OK, we're not panicking but there is much to do. The buying, constructing and preparation of essential items; arrangements with necessary third parties; and my favourite : tidying and cleaning ! My particular forte has become the decluttering of the garage following its usual accumulation of boxes, leaves and plastic bags since my last visit, and my new stomping grounds of the gardens. Today saw an array of new skills being utilised including grass cutting, edge trimming, garden vacuuming (I really have to control my obsessions in this department as aiming to collect every leaf from the garden is simply not achievable in one sitting) and a new treat : pressure washing!

The great feeling of blasting away all those years of grime is fantastic... better than any therapy I can imagine.

Wideshot of the battleground with grime...

Cleaning is a dirty business...

An oasis of clean in the corner of the garden... this test patch has only fuelled my OCD more... must destroy all grime!

First night

The rest of Saturday involved moving the final important bits and pieces. Beds, cots, food, clothes and all other required pieces of kit required to live in the new place and not required to show at the old apartment viewings were transported in one of the many runs.

Whaddaya mean this isn't a proper parking space officer? Luckily there don't seem to be many parking enforcement officers... especially at the weekend... in fact I don't recall ever seeing a parking pig in Oslo? Do they even exist?

This is a first night snapshop panoramic shot... tell me what you think

First Sunday morning. Maud feeling better I think, but was a little bit uncertain of her new unfamiliar surroundings. Still very cute though.

Yes Maud, the kitchen bin is in the middle of the living room floor... don't worry, normal service will be restored soon!

Park Playtime Pitstop

Saturday: Maud had been spectacularly ill overnight so Matt and Silje had been up for hours dealing with the fallout from all that drama. Uncle Tim was blissfully unaware of any of this until breakfast time the next day, despite being only metres away! Sorry :) So really the last thing on their minds was getting on with moving house.. but the jobs were stacking up and there was no putting them off any longer! So a hearty breakfast later and we were off to move more stuff in the amazing Fat Wagon.

A few ticks on the list later and we stopped for a well earned break to meet the girls down at the playground.

Maud was happy to show off her brand new summer shoes...

...scoff buns....

...gossip with the girls...

... and share a few deep and meaningful thoughts with Kristiana.... probably about shoes by the looks of it :)

The Move

Last weekend saw my latest jetsetting adventure, this time back to Oslo for a "working holiday" to help Matt, Silje and Maud in their moving house plans.

This was also the first time I have flown with Sterling.com, and was pleasantly surprised by their service. The flight cost £77 including baggage, which is well under half the usual cost of SAS. Incidentally they have recently advertised fares where I could get there and back for a total of £38 including taxes! Just unbelievable! Gatwick is also a much nicer/easier airport to fly from so they are onto a winner with me! The only unfortunate thing is their schedule which is only every other day and at funny times... I arrived at Matt and Siljes flat at midnight and went straight to bed in preparation for the hard days work ahead.

Dont know what is wrong with these pictures but my camera is old and clunky now... on its last legs. First stop on our list was at the garage for important tyre business! Its great for me to get to see all these places that have only existed on the I&I and TFW blogs... it really is an Alladins cave of treasure down there and completely how I expected it to be: clean enough organised chaos. After that was quickly sorted there was a bit list of jobs to do to get the move done.

The Fat Wagon proved to be an amazing workhorse over the course of the weekend. Transporting with ease the enormous fridge ...

... and then the washer and tumble drier both still in their packaging in one go... with room to spare... its just a dream when things are this easy...

Here we see the final resting place of the luxury washer and dryer combination... top of the range laundry experience all at the touch of a button ... and all under the one roof! Bliss... The only problem was getting the correct fittings... Matt took me to the hardware shops but as DIY plumbing is not strictly allowed there is not a massive choice of specialist bits... needless to say the proper plumbing shop does NOT open late on Fridays and will not even reopen until Monday! Ugg!

Lovely view from the balconio. Right down to the water and lots of trees and birds and peace and quiet.