Rest stops

At the moment I am typing this in shorts t shirt and walking boots. I have just aquired some new boots and I have two weeks to ascertain that they are perfect for my awkard feet therefore I need to wear them inside.
The reason that I need new boots is that we are going on a holiday in the Lake District later this year and although what I have now is OK for Essex I think I need something more supportive and comfy for hillier terrain.
Trev and I are toying with the idea of climbing Scar Fell Pike (for those who don't know it is the highest mountain in England). My friend Sally, who has climbed it and with whom I often go walking so she knows my fitness levels, reckons that if we are feeling uninjured at the time and after we have had a week of getting hill fit it is doable. BUT the thing that always puts me off on these long wild walks is going where to wee. There are no conveniences and there are precious few trees on these fells and there is a surprising amount of people on popular walks like this. It is OK for men they can just go against a rock but for ladies it involves squatting and I inevitably get it on my shoes and the chances are if it's quiet when I start a coach load of boy scouts will appear before I finish. I think when we we climbed the Old Man of Consiton (3rd highest) I just didn't go. Maybe the effort meant I reabsorbed.
Am I the only member of the family who worries about things like this? Probably. Hey Ho (ooh by the way, Helen, we're not expecting you to do this walk)

More holiday photos - Scotland this time

http://picasaweb.google.com/Cariadelen/Scotland2009#

Here are some more holiday photos - this time of Scotland. We stayed with Louise on the Moray Firth in Forres, for 3 days. The beaches are fantastic, though a little bit breezy and we didn't venture into the water. Lossiemouth was enlivened by the osprey and some jets from either Kinloss or Lossiemouth, 2 RAF bases up there. There are loads of houses with turrets on them, even relatively small bungalows have turrets which is extraordinary.

After that we drove down to Fort William, heading home, going the full length of Loch Ness, and had some lovely walks round there.

The scenery is stunning, the roads are mostly quiet, and what they call single track roads with passing places would, in Wales, be reckoned wide enough for 2 cars most of the time. It is really beautiful.

Holiday pics

I've uploaded a lot of pictures of my holidays in Northumberland onto Picassa, but have totally forgotten how to create a link to it (again) (I'm not sure why I have such a blank spot about this, I can do far more complicated things without a problem!)

http://picasaweb.google.com/Cariadelen/
However this will take you in the right direction.

Here is (actually it isn't because Blogger was taking too long and I want to go to bed so I've cancelled it, and will try again tomorrow) a little video of a deer which was by a loch where we thought we might have lunch. She just came along and stayed there for ages, so I got some brilliant pictures of her. While we were doing this the midges and mosquitos had Brian for lunch and some of them had me as a little added extra. It was the only place which was a) so very midgy and b) we presented a standing target. Ho hum.

We had a brilliant holiday. we sight saw in Northumberland and saw all the things on the list - Durham Cathedral, Alnwick Castle and gardens, Lindisfarne, Bamburgh Castle, the beaches, Hadrian's Wall. Then we went up to Scotland and had a few days with Louise and had some lazing on beautiful sandy beaches, then to Fort William which was brilliant for going walking. So we did sightseeing, lazing and walking. Excellent. The weather was great, only 1 day when we got a bit wet, and not bad then really. The roads were all devoid of traffic jams ( even the M6) and the Scottish roads were remarkably devoid of traffic actually.

(Blogger is taking forever to upload the video which as it is only a minute long is frustrating)

We got back on Sunday and Brian began unpacking as AC had moved his belongings in our absence, so I went over to help and we got the computer set up, the tv and lots of kitchen stuff unpacked. He did lots more the last couple of days and the kitchen is mostly done, and his clothes are but the books etc .... He has fled to Pembs to get away from it all.

The weeds have done very well in our absence, so, weather permitting, I will be spending the weeking dealing firmly with them. Hopefully (unlike my sister and brother in law) I won't destroy anyone's tv reception.

Work has come as a nasty shock though. But I had a meeting in Llandrindod Wells today so had a nice drive over the Beacons and up the mountains in Powys which is breathtakingly beautiful, and the meeting was well worth while too actually,

Handy gardener

You may have noticed that Trev and I are not keen gardeners. On Sunday we felt that our jungle was getting out of control so we had a blitz. I attacked the bindweed in the back with weed killer and Trev hacked at the knot weed and elder in the front. As he was doing his imitation of the prince in Sleeping Beauty he did notice that the undergrowth was invading the junction box of our cabling. However, engineer that he is he had saved us from disconnection!
However, I just got in from work and our neighbour informed us that we had managed to disconnect them instead! Whoops! Luckily we get on well with our neighbours. We offered to pay but apparently the engineer didn't charge to reconnect them. We must really keep our jungle under control!

Photos

Here are some links to some photos I have gathered together. Hopefully you should all have access to the others.

Alice's family's photos

My friend Robin Stone's photos

My friend Rich Hill's photos

Alice's friend Kat Reekie's photos

My friend Ben Garfitt's photos

Both our friend's Peter's photos (these are amazing quality)

My friend Fred's photos

Third person

I have been out of the trying to get a job thing for a while now. However my boss recently retired and they are about to interview 3 candidates for her post. We were allowed to see the CVs and I was amazed to see that on one of them the resume bit was written in the third person. It was bizarre - almost like Facebook. Is that how CVs are written now?
Anyway Andrew, my colleague, and I amused ourselves by talking about ourselves in the third person all morning.

The wedding

Well it is all over. The glasses and the suits have been returned, the Bride and Groom are in Prague and everyone is back at work (apart from me and Trev who decided to take a day off)
It couldn't have gone better really. The only down was the photographer but if the photos come out well he will be forgiven. There was one casuality but that was one of Kieran's school friends who forgot that he left school many moons ago and fell off some play equipment and injured his ankle. His father had to collect him and take him to hospital to check it out and greeted him apparently with "You Prat!". All of his former schoolfriend were most amused by his predicament and one has posted up a picture of him on Face book rolling around in agony and you can see from the shadows that instead of attending him they are taking a photo of him. Boys eh!
The church service was beautiful and made me well up. The setting for the photos was lovely. The village looked pretty and the cricket match even made it more idyllic. I think the caterers did us proud and the ceilidh was an insprired choice by Alice.
Alice and the bridesmaids looked lovely and Kieran looked handsome
I don't think it could have gone better. It was a very special day. You can look at pictures here

and here