Fish Supper!

Mum and Jimmy are having their kitchen done so there is no cooker in the house. This is how they cooked our dinner tonight of Lemon Sole. Three different camp stoves were used on the dining room table to prepare this delicious feast!

My Grandma is a Hero!

I went to see my Grandma the other day and she showed me a letter. It was from her local member of parliament, inviting her down to a tea party at the House of Commons. He has nominated her for the MP heroes awards. These awards celebrate the achievements of older volunteers and due to my Grandma's work with the local Alzheimers Society and Relatives Support Groups (amongst numerous other things) he thought she was the obvious choice. Grandma seemed quite chuffed, as am I. I hope I am able to get involved with as many things as she is when I am her age.

Howzat!?

On Thursday night I spent the night in the bed of an Ashes winning England cricketer. Don't worry, she plays for the women's team. Oh yeah, and she wasn't actually in the bed! or the country for that matter. She's in India playing cricket for England. The reason I was in said bed was because I went to stay with my step brother at Loughborough University. It was a lovely evening but at some point I made a strange decision to agree to go for a run with him at 0730hrs the next day. What I should point out is that Tom is a very good triathlete who is hoping to become professional soon. To him it was to be an 'easy hour'. To me it turned out to be an hour, but not easy.
I was hurting at around 25 minutes but by the time we were coming downhill at about 50 minutes I was feeling quite good and impressed with myself for keeping up. It was obvious to me that we just had to jog down to the bottom of the hill and we'd be home. Tom had different ideas since he had calculated that if we had done this we would have been home in less than an hour. Apparently he doesn't like to finish early. So, he turned left into a street that went up another hill. I think Tom says it best when he said that my '...running style dramatically changed. It looked like someone had just broken your legs'. I was in a lot of pain by the end of the run but I did enjoy it (and I ran all the way) and to my great surprise I can still walk the next day. So, I'll be out for my last run on English soil for some time tomorrow morning (the 'some time' refers to the period that I will be out of the UK not how long I will run for).

I should point out that when I left Tom to go and get fed another delicious meal by my Grandma, he was going for a two hour bike ride followed by a session in the pool.

Custard Slice!

A Custard Slice is probably my favourite delicacy from an English bakery. I couldn't leave the country without having one but it has been quite a challenge to find a bakery that sells them. Today in Salisbury, we found some. I bought four so that we could all have one, except for me who could have two! They were fantastic except for the jam. I'm not sure jam should be allowed but beggars can't be choosers when they are as scarce as they seem to be these days. Despite the fact that they are amazing they do have one major design flaw which is demonstrated here by my Step Father. The pastry is stronger than the custard so when you bite in the custard just squirts out the sides. Perhaps that has been their downfall.

Not quite Barry

Last week we got 6 inches of snow while I was staying with my Grandma in Buckingham. While I was making these snowmen the man over the street asked if I was making them for myself or for the kids! I told him they were for me and nobody had ever told me I had to grow up. He replied 'you're right not to!' So, while the rest of the country ground to a pathetic halt over a little snow I was having a great time!

Look what I found!

Whilst packing to move back to the states I found this. It was taken approximately 12,000 ft above Lake Taupo in New Zealand back in 2000. You can also see a very excited Alice in the background (And Steph should be back there somewhere too). Also on that day I tried a hole in one competition on the lake where you hit golf balls towards a floating green. We also bumped into some girls that I had gone to Fraser island with. Later on in the evening there was an earthquake (although at the time Alice thought it had just been the large man we were playing pool with jumping up and down on the floor!). A very exciting day indeed.

One size fits...?

I thought this was amusing. It is the label inside a cap I was wearing to play golf earlier this week. I wonder when people started using 'one size fits most' instead of 'one size fits all'. I've never seen this before but I guess it is more accurate.

It's a hard life

being a cat! Just look at the strenuous lifestyle ours are leading today.

Ellie

Ben


Teddy (snoring)

The next chapter is almost here

It all begins on 19th Feb 2007. The next chapter in Dr Uncle Phil's life, 'San Diego or bust'. As a prelude I'll have 8 days of Rebecca, beef and guns and then on Tuesday 27th I move to my knew home town and start paying tax to Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Yee-haw Y'all