More later

A perfect day

Childish

And whilst I'm bored, I know what's going on with North Korea now is really serious but I can't help but think of this clip from the film Team America every time I hear about Kim Jong Il.

I know it's childish, I know it's wrong and I know the language is extremely choice (be warned) but it really tickles me... Don't know how to embed youtube videos on here so click the link below if you want to be childishly entertained and possibly offended at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0hk9vaqWUg

Love Kate xxxx

Boredom

So as Carl is unfortunately stuck in the Middle East at the moment I find myself a bit bored of an evening.  True I was out last night and I'm going out tomorrow night and then away for Kieran's wedding all weekend (hurrah!) but as lovely as she is, Saffy isn't much of a conversationalist.  

For example, on the Sunday and Monday of the Bank Holiday weekend, the only people I actually spoke to were the girl in H&M when I returned a belt I didn't want, another girl on the street who I asked the time as I didn't have my watch on, and a couple of hellos from random walkers whilst out walking the dog.  And so I find myself interacting more online - I am on Twitter posting tweets, on Facebook playing Scrabble and chatting on MSN a lot more than I would normally be, and it's funny how I use all those things more when Carl's away.  I use them an awful lot during work times (hope the boss isn't reading this) but don't generally go online in the evening that much as I don't really find it relaxing.  But thought I'd have a little ramble on here to keep myself occupied :)

So, whilst I'm online I thought I'd put some new piccies up and say JUST how much I'm looking forward to Kieran and Alice's wedding this weekend :)  I am very excited about spending time with my lovely family and celebrating a wonderful day.  I also hope to pick up lots of tips for my wedding in November (Guys, I will be shameless in stealing all your good ideas!)  Hot on the heels of this wedding is one of my best friend's, Alyson's, wedding the following weekend, at which I am a bridesmaid and will very happily be wearing a size 12 dress after some mega dieting and lots of running and lifting horrid weights at the gym.

And on that note, here are some pics of Al's hen weekend.  We went to the Gower in West Wales, which isn't quite as far West as Pembrokeshire where Brian's cottage is.  Sadly we didn't get the nice sun we've just had over the Bank Holiday weekend but still braved the sea for a bit of body boarding!  We then went out in the evening dressed as some of the many different countries Alyson has been to as an extensive traveller and also super aid worker and saver of humanity in her work for Save The Children.  Unfortunately it was the same night as the Eurovision Song Contest so everyone thought we had gone out in honour of that....(not that Eurovision isn't a fine event of course, Boo!)

First night at Fennel Cottage - a mixture of Llantwit girls, Uni friends and various friends and relations

Al's friend Jae is both South African and a marvellous cook (not sure they're related) but made us these brilliant willy cakes - very fitting for a hen do!

The few brave enough to take a dip in the sea - the hen is third from the right

Post dip and supping a deserved G&T in a can (how good is it you can buy G&T in a can?!)

The hen (who didn't choose her own outfit funnily enough) who was the personification of Wales for the evening

Out dressed as many different countries - I am Morrocco (believe it or not - outfit had gone a bit awry by this point), then there's Greece, Africa, the sheep is New Zealand, Alyson is Wales, India is in the silver, next to her is England which you can't really see and Pakistan is the far left!

Love Kate xxxx

Stalking cat

This is one well trained cat.

Further bride horrors

Check out this
Just remember that whatever goes wrong next week that won't be one of them. Mind you, I am dissappointed that you won't be wearing the woolen condom dress - suppose it's more of a winter thing. Kate could wear it!
x

An Amusingly Awful Discovery

Hellooo!

With weddings on the brain (someone help me!!) and use of Google images being so tempting, I thought I would Google something topical. Needless to say, from looking at the pictures below, I Googled "hideous wedding dresses" and oh what laughter has occurred, and I wanted to share it...

This one comes with the footnote "great for an out-door wedding" - Which I suppose I understand...
This one's a bit odd... who would this suit?! The model looks miserable...

But this one is my winner... there are no words... I think it's knitted!

I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone on the 30th. Here ends my carter blog hijack. More anon! xxxx

Big Weekend

This year Radio 1 decided to hold their annual free festival (which replaced the Roadshows of yesteryear) at Lydiard Park in Swindon. Cue much excitement and me applying for tickets in the ballot they hold in order to give all the tickets away. It's all done randomly but is weighted in favour of people who live in the locality and happily we got two tickets :)

It was held last weekend and was really the ideal festival - we walked there, the weather was

lovely, we saw lots of good acts, bumped into lots of people we know who also got tickets and then got a cab home and could have a nice hot shower and sleep in our own beds. This beats the normal festival experience of returning to a wet tent rammed in with thousands of other tents too close together and having to queue for stinky portaloos at the end of the day! It was quite odd being in a field with 10,000 other people when quite frequently on a Saturday afternoon we take Saffy for a walk there and there's just the 3 of us in the same field.

The best acts we saw were The Wombats and Dizzee Rascal and really, for free, it was an excellent event and the BBC should take a lot of credit for putting it all on. Although programmes did cost £6 which we thought was quite steep.

And this was also a nice day out for Carl and I as last Monday he was sent to the Middle East for an indefinite amount of time and will sadly miss Kieran and Alice's wedding, as well as two other weddings we have to go to in the next few weeks. It was all very last minute and very disrupting so the RAF are not my favourite people at the moment needless to say :(

Here's Carl with one of the very over-priced programmes.

Me looking suitably excited before we went in :)

The main stage.

Kasabian playing the main stage who were unfortunately a bit disappointing live.

Love Kate xxxx

You can rely on the film critics

Whilst idly looking through the Sunday Times TV review for this week I happened to see the following brief review of Back to the Future Part 3 (showing today on ITV2):

"Marty is transported back in time to the Wild West, where he tries to save his scientist friend from a villain. Disappointing"

Didn't think too much about that until I reached next Saturday, and lo and behold, Back to the Future Part 3 is on again (still ITV2), but the review is now:

"Marty McFly is transported back to the Wild West, where he tries to save Doc Brown from being killed by a villain. Superb"

Clearly it improves with more viewing....................

Memories

Mike has tapped some of Peggy's memories but can't remember how to blog.
Here they are:
Peggy was talking about their time as teenagers. When she was 19 and our mother was about 16, things were tight. They and their Mother (Little Granny) were living in one room over the hairdressing salon which LG operated. They all three shared it during the day, there was a kitchenette alcove of sorts and a sit up bathtub behind a curtain (a loo wasn't mentioned. LG slept in the salon downstairs and the two girls slept in this room.
The main entertainment was the Saturday night dance at the town hall at which the girls all sat in a row and the males all hovered round the entrance. Periodically one would get up the courage to go over and ask a girl for a dance. Peggy said she was quite popular as she was a good dancer, but had to persuade her suitors to have a dance with her younger sister because she was a bit of a wllflower. Peggy said it was because she was only 16.

Also our Ma went to boarding school in Morecombe Bay for a number of years.

Curioser and curioser

.

We have just spent a weekend in York making the most of the city before Erin graduates We wined and dined and had an excellent experience. But we had many a surreal happening during our stay.
The first thing we were determined to do was have tea at Betty's which we have been meaning to do for some time. We were prepared to queue, that's how determined we were! Success and cakes and lovely tea were ours

As we were drinking our tea I pointed out two men on the street who looked as if they had been beamed up from the 1950s. One looked a bit like Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter or Inspector Gadget. The other looked like a french man in a film wearing a beret.
(OK that is a dog in a beret that I thought looked cute on Google images)
Anyway, the two of them came into Betty's too. We thought no more of it until dinner at the restaurant that evening when the Inspector Gadget one walked past us about two times. Also a team of young men with bleached blond hair also passed our restaurant several times. They were from all over the globe Asian, Afro Caribbean, Sub Continental European - but all with blond hair! Erin seemed quite calm about this explaining that they were part of the war of the roses!
On Saturday we went to Castle Howard, which is very lovely and I have always meant to go to having seen Brideshead Revisited. When we were touring the house who appeared again but Inspector Gadget and Monsieur Beret! Now it was getting a bit spooky. We determined that we would try to photograph them by one of us standing in front of something attractive but actually take a shot of them - but it was not to be. However, when we went to tea in the stable courtyard an identical pair of twins dressed exactly the same who were in their 50s appeared. Really, it was all getting rather Don't Look Now.
On the Sunday as we walked into town we came across City dignitaries processing thought the street for no apparent reason. Then after lunch we found religous people with crosses processing through the street for no apparent reason. All quite bizarre and to top it off as we left the city a brass band was playing the Monty Python theme tune.

Brian on the move

Brian is getting a different house at College. As he is in a 3 bedroom house and the kids are all grown up he doesn't really need 3 rooms, so he is moving to an old cottage. However to enable them to renovate his house - which hasn't been renovated for decades and really needs it - they want him out by 1 june. This is a bit tricky as we aren't going to be here then, we are going to be in Northumberland on holiday.

Clearing the college house out was always on the cards before he retires next year as he has to reduce the amount of stuff he has in 2 houses down to 1 house, but we were expecting a bit more time to start the thinning process. However from the airing cupboard alone we have 5 bags of stuff going to the Dog's Trust for dog bedding, and 3 bags of stuff going to the `charity shop. He has already done a trip to the skip and the rubbish piles are growing.

There are some things that won't fit into the new house - a couch, bed etc, but the question is what to do with with pianos. In the cottage he has a small modern upright. In the college house he has a boudoir grand (v small grand piano). I have a very old (very out of tune) old upright which Kate is supposed to be having sometime. So what we have to do now - in the next couple of weeks - is measure the boudoir grand to see if we can fit it into the cottage. If we can then that will be moved down there and the little upright moved to the college house. The when he retires next year Kate will have to take the old upright so that the little upright can move to my house. This doesn't sound too bad, unless you have tried to move a piano. They are VERY HEAVY!!!. They are also very awkward to get round corners etc, and you can't drop them because although they are very big, they are also fairly delicate.

The other thing I find very amusing is the address. It is called North Lodge, it is in West Drive, and lots of places still call the county South Glamorgan. If Brian changes his name to East then he'd have all the points of the compass in his address.

A month in Spain???

A passing question

We (the Spanish/Canadian Carters) are heading to Canada for the summer. The girls and I from June, and Xavier from Aug 7th-ish till we all come back around the 6th of Sept.

We are trying to figure out what to do with the dog, and I am wondering if any dog-lovers over there would like to come and live for free outside of BCN for a month in exchange for dog-sitting.

Would anyone be interested?

We are not sure if this is the way we will go, we would like to take him over with us, but if this would be of interest to anyone, please let us know.

Cheers

The Spanadians.

A and K's romp in London

Alice and Kieran here, yesterday we headed to London to see Laura's (Alice's sister) art on display at the R.K. Burt and Co gallery. Sadly, when we arrived...It was shut! Not only that, but there were shutters over the window, so we couldn't even peek at it! Not ones to be deterred, we decided to go for a lunch at tas, where Alice attempted to get a picture of me looking natural
With mixed results... Still, the food was good, and fun was had. Next we headed to Hamley's, a world of wonder, to which Alice had never been before! Determined to cure this woeful gap in her childhood, I proceeded to lead her around the entire shop, although I had some difficulty getting her away from the teddy bear section...


Hamley's is a marvelous place, although not cheap- you can get replica wands from Harry Potter! I was quite tempted by Lord Voldemort's wand, but managed to resist (mainly because it wasn't particularly cheap!). I could also have bought the one ring from LOTR, clearly I missed a trick with the engagement ring!

Disturbingly the teddy bear section was not immune to these bizzare excesses, boasting as it did a teddy bear with diamond eyes! It was horrifying, yet strangely alluring.

Alice decided that we could not leave Hamley's without having bought something, so we decided to purchase some wind up toys to race. I chose a mouse, and alice chose a tortoise. Mine was clearly more stylish, as you can see



Sadly, the results of our race were... less than impressive, as we had failed to test our items properly in the store:



Having fully explored Hamleys, Alice, ever full of energy, decided we should go to the rather more serene St Paul's Cathedral, as her grandpa used to have offices which overlooked it.



With that explored (no photos taken inside, of course, for we were banned) briefly (we were kicked out at 6), we headed home, satisfied with a full day, even if we had failed to do what we had actually come to London for! There was one final pleasure upon arriving home, as Alice had also decided to purchase bopit! Footage of her valiantly... bopping... below.