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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
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.
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....................
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Lists! I love them and when they are lists compiled by experts listing the top 10 of whatever their chosen field is I love them even more. Largely, so I can be outraged by them and feel myself to be morally and intelectually superior. This week all the children's laureate's listed what they considered to be the top five children's books. I can see that JK Rowling and Philip Pullman haven't been round long enough to see how they age. I am very surprised that Roald Dahl isn't included and I would seriously question whether Oliver Twist is suitable for children at all! However on the whole these books reflect the authors' favourite books from their childhoods. So after some thought I have decided to list my favourite books from my childhood( I think - I might change my mind) The land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley Jennie by Paul Galico Black Beauty Anna Sewell The horse and his boy by C.S Lewis The House at Pooh corner A.A. Milne
Hello. We have just returned from an excellent weekend in Southampton visiting Kieran and Alice. The weather was good and the company excellent. We went for a walk around Southampton Common and Southampton Old Cemetry. This is huge and has been left to grow quite wild in parts. I think deliberately to encourage wild life. It is very atmospheric and would make a fantastic location for film or TV. Some of the grave have trees growing up from them.
While we were walking round it we saw the grave of somebody who had been struck by lightening. Kieran instructed us on what to do if you were caught in an electric storm. He then instructed us on how to survive a Zombie attack. I'm hoping that I never have to put either of these instructions to the test In the hotel room a little later, Trev made a cup of tea and we decided to eat some complimentary biscuits. Trev read out what the choice was - Chocolate chip, shortbread or Tennessee Ginger biscuit. Well, I had never heard of the latter and opted for them at the same time thinking that it seemed unlikely that ginger was cultivated in tennessee. As we ate them I said "Arent't these supposed to be ginger?" "I thought so," said Trev."What does it say on the packet." I looked again and they were in fact Viennese Finger biscuits. Ah well they were nice. Last night we had a lovely meal at a restaurant called Dock of the Bay. Here is a picture of Kieran and Alice sitting in the dock of the bay. Ho Ho Ho (Seriously, I'm sure nobody has thought of that before.) An excellent weekend with a lot of lovely food, entertaining board games and brilliant company
Well, OK maybe that's overstating it a bit but it is annoying. The hotel in the village where Kieran's wedding is taking place is hosting another wedding that day. Anyway, Alice's aunt and her family had booked three rooms there last year before the hotel had booked the wedding. But now the hotel has booted Alice's family out! How rude! So much for verbal agreements, eh?
This morning, great joy, I worked from home. This allowed me the pleasure of walking to the local shop to buy a paper with my lovely wife. On the way we saw a man, with a black cat following him. As we passed, it sort of paused and gave us a look. We tittered, "it looks like that man is taking it for a walk - arf arf". Then we heard the man say "come on Boris"! So he was. So was that a man who wanted a dog, could only get a cat, but had trained it like a dog? Or was the look the cat gave us saying "he might think he's taking me for a walk, but I just decided to humour him again"?
Two of my best chums are teachers and during the holidays I book a day's holiday and we have a little tripette. Usually it is somewhere that will provide a nice lunch and have some historic buildings which we can saunter around and then somewhere else we can have a nice tea. I have just returend from Wisbech which is in north Cambridge deep in the fens. Ann and I had both seen the film Dean Spanley which was largely filmed there and decided it would be an interesting place for a day out. It certainly is a handsome town with a wealth of Georgian housing as you can see from the pictures. But, my, it is in need of some tlc. It was obviously very wealthy in the 18th and 19th centuries when the port was thriving and it had two railway stations and a tramway. Indeed the Rev Audrey was inspired to write the Thomas the Tank engine books from the town. But now the railway and tramway are gone and the port is hardly vital. It has a marina but it doesn't seem to be bringing in much cash. It's full of pound shops and charity shops and virtually no chain stores or restaraunt. The roads to it are rubbish and it's not near any major conurbation. Many of the buildings are looking a bit sorry for themselves and I don't know how a town like that can recover. Mind you I should have known what to expect as a colleague called it Wisbekistan and a friend describe it as an armit. That said we had a very nice day out. Peckover house and Octavia Hill's birthplace are very interesting and it is worth a visit in the unlikely event that you are ever in that partof the fens
Here are some photos and a video(if it ever finishes loading) of Adam's birthday lunch, which - despite the weather forecast - was a beautiful day (which is why we were eating in the garden)
Kate has said I can blog this, so we have a date booked for Kate and Carl's wedding.
It is going to be on 21 November at Court Colman Hotel which is north of Bridgend. I'm not sure when the invitations will be going out, that will be when they have finalised the guest list, which is currently too long - they always are at the beginning probably, but there are always also limitations on space and (even more crucially) budget. There is an award winning Indian restaurant attached to the house so they are going to have an Indian buffet for the dinner which is both different and also something which has Carl who is a real foodie and loves Indian food really excited.
At the moment I am in love with this art Bascially, the artists puts these tiny installations all over London and photographs them then leaves them to their fate.
At the moment I have a cough. It's not so bad really but it is keeping me awake at night and it is in the middle of the night that any sense of proportion departs. The other night I must have had a temperature because one minute I was freezing and then the next I was boiling. At the same time any chance of dozing off was remote because I kept coughing. So in the small hours of the morning my imagination got the better of me and I decided that I must have malaria. A laboratory on the same floor as the library is working on malarial mosquitos and I decided that one of them must have escaped the biocontainment and bitten me. There could be no other explanation. Eventually, with the help of olbas oil I went to sleep and in the morning I realised what a silly moo I had been. Strange how different things can seem in the middle of the night
One of Erin's friends just showed me this on You Tube. I suspect there is much cleverness involved but I still love it. Oh yes and a fascinator is a bunch of feathers stuck on an Alice Band
I was flummoxed by the idea of finding an outfit for Kieran's wedding. I know what to wear at work or home or an evening out but really posh is a foreign country to me. Then I heard from Helen about John Lewis's personal shopping service -which is free! I decided to give it a go bringing Erin along to keep me in touch with reality. It was really excellent. Jan, our fashion advisor, took us to this fairly large room with armchairs and a changing area. She took down my detail and asked me what colours I liked and what was the occasion (as well as imparting a good deal about her own home life). Then we followed her around the fashion floor as she picked up things that I wouldn't even have tried on. We had two hours of her time and I settled on a nice dress and jacket. I knew it was going to go well when very early on I found the perfect shoes. However I am glad that I brought Erin as she dissuaded me from a dress that Jan liked a lot more than I did and I think I would have been too weak to say no on my own. Also when I tried on a fascinator Erin's tittering reminded me of the fact that Andy's reaction would have been tittering times 10! Though to be honest I don't think I would have gone down the fascinator route it did look a bit silly. All three of us agreed that the hat was a bad idea. All in all an excellent service. I would recommend it although, of course, I went way over budget which is probably the idea!
Here we are in the pub, after the lovely tea at Fortum and Mason. Here we are in Fortum and Mason having our tea Here we are in Green Park on our way to tea We had a great day. As Kate said - we packed an amazing amount into 1 day. Selfridges, Cabinet War rooms, Tea and a meeting in the pub, then home to cheese, wine and a film. And we lost an hour's sleep!
Great though - I really want to do it again next year.
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
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. 
