Goodbye 2006

It's almost the end of another year and what an eventful year 2006 has been for us.

We celebrated our first new year in our new house. Our family grew to include the dogs Lucy, Lollypop & Sasha, the cats Misty, Toddy & Eric, not forgetting Fudge the rabbit. Sadly we just couldn't cope and now we just have Lucy with us and she's here to stay.

On the technology front, we moved from BT to Talk Talk and back again, got a BT Home Hub and just recently a laptop.

The garden has been cleared, two lawns have been grown and the greenhouse is gone. The living room and dining room have been laminated and the stairs have been knocked down and rebuilt.

We swapped the Toyota Corrolla T-Sport for a Toyota Yaris diesel car which is much cheaper to run and bags of fun to drive.

The extention roof started leaking and we had to have the roof covered in rubber, yep, the bathroom is now being protected by the worlds largest condom!

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary, time sure has flown this year, it doesn't seem that long since we walked out of the church as a married couple, we've been together now for 6 years!

The biggest event this year has been the dramatic weight loss, I've lost over 2 stone, Debbie has lost over 5 stone and is still going strong! Debbie has been faced with every womens dream over the last few months, having to buy new clothes every other week because they're going from fitting perfectly to falling off her in a matter of weeks!

We're hoping that next year won't be so busy and we can have more days out which we missed out on a little this year. There are still the stairs and the laminating to finish off though, two rooms to decorate and a patio to build!

Just one more thing, can we please have some snow!

Paul

Boxing Day & Beyond

We were up quite late on Boxing Day, it's so chuffin hectic over Christmas and the pace wasn't about to slow today. We headed off to Dad's and then on to a local pub for a meal and a pint or too. The food was great and and the shots of whisky were quite nice too, bet you can't tell from the picture who was driving lol.

Back at the ranch, we were exhausted once again and struggled to stay awake for the evenings festive TV viewing.

I went back to work for the day on Wednesday while Debbie spent the day at home with Lucy, then yesterday the pace picked up yet again. We were at the opticians first thing in the morning to try out contact lenses. I've got some to try but they've had to order some special ones as I've got an astigmatism in one eye, the result is that I can't see a bloody thing close up with these I've got at the moment.

Then it was off to the hospital for Debbie's check up, everyone there from the nurse to the professor is chuffed at how well she's doing, 5 stone 4 pounds or 74 pounds in 6 months and 2 weeks!

Back then to the opticians, Debbie got a new pair of glasses and is booked back in for 'teaching' before she can have her contact lenses, I should be able to pick my new ones up at the same time.

We were hoping to go to Woburn Safari Park today for a break from the festive frolics but the awful weather has put paid to that, it's dark wild and wet out there, not ideal for tracking lions across the plains of Bedfordshire.

Paul.

Christmas Day

We were up bright and early on Christmas morning, Lucy got the ball rolling by tearing into her presents.

This was the last we saw of Lucy for a while, she disappeared with a shoe from one of her stockings for the rest of the morning lol.

Debbie cracked on with preparing a feast fit for a King while I ferried bowl after bowl of food to the table.

As the last of the food went out, I poured us both a well deserved drink and before we could take a sip, Debbie's family arrived and off we went again.

We had a great afternoon, the food was fantastic and the booze flowed nicely, a little too nicely for Debbie's Nice who spent half the afternoon depositing champagne down the kitchen sink!

As we waved goodbye, we managed to sit down for half an hour before Dad and little Bro arrived for more yuletide present exchanging and a few more glasses of festive cheer.

By the end of the night, well, mid evening really, we were knackered and despite trying to stay awake to watch the end of the Vicar of Dibley, the eye's wouldn't take it so we left that one to sky plus and headed of to bed.

Paul.

Merry Christmas

May we wish you all a

Merry Christmas

Paul, Debbie & Lucy

It's Official - It's Christmas!

Debbie finished at work yesterday for Chritsmas so now we're both at home for the feastive holidays, we can relax, chill out and let the Christmas spirit wash over us...

Well after one final push this morning, up at 5am to beat the crowds at the supermarket and into town for a trolley full of frozen goodies.

Debbie's full of cold at the moment and is currently chilling out on the sofa, somthing she's been dreaming about all week, not having had a break since the Summer. The plan for the rest of the afternoon is nothing, zilch, didly squat, we're on strike and aint moving until tomorrow!

Paul.

A Very Cold Old Moor

Yesterday I popped down to Old Moor, our local RSPB reserve, it was bloody freezing! Parts of the main lake were still fozen even thought it was late afternoon and much of the grass was still white with frost.

It was a beautiful afternoon with the golden brown colours in the low winter sunshine. Here's a few snaps I got while I was down there, including Mr & Mrs Mallard doing their Torvil & Dean impression...

As ever, there's many more pictures on our Flickr page.


Paul.

Frosty Start

I finished work for the Christmas break on Monday, I've been doing a few jobs arround the house, getting everything in order for the propper holiday when Debbie finishes work on Thursday.

Thankfully all that wet n windy weather has gone away and has been replaced by much more seasonal frosty mornings and clear blue skies.

I'm just having a surf around at the moment, just waiting for the temperature to get above 5 degrees before venturing outside to fix the bird table that was blown over last week. I'll also put that fork away that I prised of the tree trunk!

Paul.

Cotton Wedding Anniversary

We were married two years ago yesterday!

The adventure starts again for another year as we walk hand in hand into 2007!

Paul.

Mystery Of The Peacock Inn

My Auntie and Uncle had organised a Christmas meal for the family for last weekend, sadly Grandma was unable to attend as she's not feeling too cleaver at the moment. I think that might have been a blessing though as a simple meal tunred into the magical mystery tour of Chesterfield.

We drove throught the Cutthope countryside and rolled into the Peacock Inn car park. We were imediatley surprised to find that the only three cars in the car park were ours! It's got quite a good reputation this place and was booked solid through Christmas and New Year.

The place was utterly deserted with piles of unopened post behind one of the glass doors yet some of beer pump type stuff could be heard through a single open window in the toilets. We spent a good few minutes scratching heads, this had been booked back in November and now we had to find somewhere else, not easy a week before Christmas.

We went up hills, down hills, round hairpin bends, to the middle of nowhere and back again. Pulling up at every pub and resteraunt on route only find there was no room at the inn, spooky!

We did find somewhere eventualy and we had the promised Christmas meal, just a little bit later than we'd planned lol.

Paul.

Christmas Radio Times

We've been out tonight and picked up the Christmas edition of Radio Times as we always do.

Debbie's been having a flick through, reading the soap section, trying to find out what's going to happen to Pauline Fowler. Unfortunatley whoever has written the piece must have just finished reading a Dickens novel as it's full of references to Scrooge and ghosts but not much to do with Albert Square.

Chuffed, Debbie is not, the ghost of Christmas yet to come can see another TV guide being bought.... one written in chuffin English!

Paul.

Christmas Decorating

Well, it took the whole weekend to get there, but the Christmas decorations are all in place! It probably didn't help us both starting with the dreaded lurgie, we soldiered on though armed with cough mixture and lemsips lol. The tree looks fantastic, the picture doesn't really do it justice, it just seems to be a right pain to photograph properly.

It'll be more or less flat out here now until the day itself, it still amazes me how we managed to fit our wedding at Christmas time just under two years ago!

We've found that the expensive all singing all dancing cameras we got a little while ago are hopeless in the dark with the flash off, instead we used the mobile!

Paul.

Tickle Me Elmo

We've been having right laugh here with Tickle Me Elmo which Debbie bought yesterday!



This is the first video we've ever loaded, I think I might try holding the camera the right way up next time lmao!

Paul.

Sod's Law Strikes Again

Having risked life an limb last year putting up Chtristmas lights on our roof, I left them up there to save going through it all again.

There they've stayed all year round, until the day we want to switch them on again and the flippin' wind has blown them off!


Paul.

Finding The Right Tree

It's been a busy weekend once again, we were out almost all day on Saturday, shopping for clothes and one or two Christmas presents, one of them for us, a laptop!

Just like when we first got the BT Home Hub, connecting the laptop to it wasn't plain sailing, it took about 6 hours and two calls to BT support but we got there in the end. Now we can both surf at the same time, so there no more handbags at dawn when one of wants to use the computer lol.

Today we've been touring garden centres and diy shops looking for a new Christmas tree, we hardly saw anything we liked and would you believe it, we came home with exactly the same tree that we bought last time. It was the only white tree that looked the part, we wern't going for something we didn't like just to get something different. We'll be putting the tree up next weekend along with the other decorations.

We've also got some new lights for the tree outside, I think that's going to look fantastic when it's done. Before we can get started, I'll have to go rooting about in the loft for all the tree decorations and all the lights that we'll be spending a week untangeling lol.

We've just collapsed on the sofa and we're starting to relax, shame it's almost chuffin Monday again!

Paul.

Christmas Shopping

We made a start on this years Christmas shopping over the weekend and I think everyone else in the area had the same idea. I'm glad we got to the retail park half an hour before the shops opened because after only 5 minutes there was almost an accident in the car park and a few minutes later two drivers almost came to blows!

With the bulk of the shopping out of the way now, there's just a few bits and pieces to pick up when we can find the time over the next couple of weeks. Next on the agenda is a new Christmas tree, the old one is looking a little bit weathered having being stored out side when we moved her last year. I'm not sure what we'll go for this year, Debbie would like another white one while I quite fancy going back to traditional green but we both quite like the idea of having a real tree this year.

We can't believe it's December on Friday, it's still so mild here, we'll be pumping those Christmas tunes out to get us into the festive mood while we have a few glasses of Christmas Spirit.

Paul.

Dracula For Christmas

News has been filtering though about the Christmas TV schedules this year and one thing that's caught my eye already is a BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

We've both love anything about the Prince Of Darkness, it's a story you can really sink your teeth into.... sorry!

Paul.

Good Old Saturday Morning Telly

It looks like Chris Tarrant is going to be getting the gang together next year for a Tiswas special, I'd love to see this as being a follower of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on Saturday mornings, I never got to see the mayhem on the other side. Look out for the Phantom Flan Flinger!

Swap Shop will be back first though as Noel Edmunds is returning this Christmas with a 2 hour long edition... top banana!

Paul.

Lucy's In A Trance Again

Lucy mesmerised by something ...

It's that little yellow bear called Pudsey we bought for Children In Need.

He's been driving her to distraction ever since we put him up there lol.

Paul.

Party Time

After a night in watching Terry Wogan and Co. on Friday, we headed out for a 40th birthday party on Saturday. Debbie looked fantastic in her new outfit, the only problem is, her new trousers only just stayed up and I think we might be looking at another new wardrobe before Christmas!

We had a great time at the party, most people had gone in Hollywood themed fancy dress and some of the costumers were great, one that stood out was Darth Vader (and it should have at £600 lol).

Debbie drove us there so stuck to soda water while I downed pints of John Smiths like it was going out of fashion, I paid the price later though when half of it came back up!

We're both having a think about what and how much we drink at the weekend, having lost all this weight, we just can't consume the number of tipples in an evening like we used to and not feel completely hung over in the morning.

Paul.