Horses

Most Saturdays we go to visit Trev's mum in her nursing home and on those Saturdays we watch horse racing on her TV (It is Newmarket). We are now almost experts on matters equine and maybe we will earn a living becoming the new Dick Francis. When we have made a fortune obviously we will have to buy a horse with the many millions of pounds we make. What amuses us is to imagine the name of the horse. In the UK a horse's name can have 18 characters but if it is all 18 characters there can't be any spaces. There are some very silly names out there. We have toyed with the idea of calling our future horse A Whisker so then the rider who came second to our horse could say they were beaten by a whisker. Similary we could call it by a nose or a short head. However our favourite choice is Neck and Neck Thus giving the commentator the chance to say it's Neck and Neck neck and neck with Red Rum........
Better get writing that novel!

Fancy dress party

My friend from university Lucy turned 30 at the weekend and had a party in Devon, where she lives, to celebrate. The genius theme of the fancy dress party was that everyone had to come dressed as a song title, which I thought was brilliant as there's a huge amount of scope to be quite creative. I ended up going as 'Purple Rain' by Prince, mainly because I had a new purple dress I wanted to wear so needed to theme my outfit around that. However I did get quite creative with the cardboard and the sellotape to create the rain element of my ensemble (that's a cloud on my head by the way...just in case you were wondering...)
There were some really brilliant costumes though, my favourite being a guy who came in full Arab regalia and had a long string around his neck with a rattle tied one end and a bread roll tied to the other - so he was 'Shake, Rattle and Roll' (or more accurately, 'Sheikh, Rattle and Roll'). Loved it. Below are some of the other girls including Cath (far left - 'Killer Queen'), Emilie (middle - 'Moulin Rouge') and Lucy the birthday girl (far right - 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds') who had the pleasure of living with me for 3 years at Aston. So was a fun party and a great excuse for a bit of a reunion. Love Kate xxxx

It'll be lonely this Christmas...

...well, it won't really be that lonely as I'll be going to mum's, but Carl won't be here to join in the festivities as the RAF in their infinite wisdom have chosen to send him to the Middle East for Yule. Booooo. However, he's out of harms way and apparently gets some form of Christmas present from the Queen - how exciting!

And of course I've got Saffy to keep me company too. Now once upon a time when Saffy lived at mum's, she was used to living under a tough regime, ruled by mum's iron fist. In this world she spent lonely nights sleeping in the kitchen and had to perch on the floor whilst the family watched TV. However, now she lives in clover at our house - sitting on sofas, sleeping on beds and all sorts. And spoilt pooch that she is, mum has now relaxed the fist of iron when Saffy goes to hers and has turned into a form of spoiling grandmother! Saff now gets loads of biccies (thanks Brian) gets bought huge bones (thanks Nicky) and even gets to sit on the sofa (gasp!). And when she came back recently she even had a new collar that mum had bought for her. So here are some pics of her modelling said collar in festive red - apparently Saff wasn't being very decisive in the pet shop between a blue one or a red one so mum had to make the ultimate decision :) Suits her don't you think?

Love Kate xxxx

P.S You can really tell how much Saffy loves having her photo taken.