NYC Christmas photos

Thanks to the rather frustrating photo handling on blogger, these are going to be in a rather random order...

Fairy lights galore. Pretty trees near the Plaza Hotel

The stunning Met Christmas trees

We were almost trampled half to death getting this shot!
Radio City Music Hall - home of the Rockettes

With The Rock in the background

The Rock

Stephen wrapped up against the cold in Times Sq

Me and Gracy in the bar

The Bladerunner shot...
Times Sq in the rain from the 8th floor bar of the Marquiss

My first Starbucks of the trip!

The fabulous tree at the Rockefeller Centre

Our first night. Stephen and the tree.

The lights of Times Square

The Christmas Lights Sculpture on 6th Ave

And the Christmas Baubles

The skating at Bryant Park, just before we were party to the proposal!

The Shops set up in Bryant Park

Bryant Park

A snowy 5th Avenue

Breakfast at the friendly diner

Not quite his name in lights...but Stephen in front of the lights!

Stephen in Times Sq - well wrapped up! It was freezing!!

Big Yellow Taxi

Another one of Bryant Park

The partially iced up fountain in Bryant Park

The Russian Tea Rooms
Beautiful stained glass ceiling, art deco glass mirror walls and a beautiful golden tree decorated with illuminated eggs

Freezing in Central Park on Christmas day

Me again!

Stephen standing in the Literary Walk in Central Park.
The other Scots found there included Rabbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

The heaving crowds on 5th Ave

The Russian Tea Rooms again

At first I thought the glass bear was filled with vodka, but it was actualy filled with fish

The Bethesda fountain in Central Park

The hoardes on Times Square

Lots of shots of a snowy Central Park coming up...

Fairytale of New York

We're back home after a lovely, manic, exhausting few days in New York.


The flight out was fine. After consuming a few glasses of champers in the lounge, we then got a couple of glasses on the flight as Stephen has a gold card. YAY for the gold card! We were off the flight and through immigration really quickly, then had to wait 1 1/2 hours for the bags to come off. There was a "problem with the system" which meant that about 10 bags from our flight came off then that was it for 1 1/2 hours. The ground crew were getting dogs abuse when, after 1 hour, bags from a different flight appeared on our carousel! I could sympathise with the woman who practically had this guy by the throat demanding that our bags should be given priority as we had been waiting much longer...we were all getting tired and fractious!


The blast of cold air when we walked to the taxi rank was a shock! How quickly we forget!! Even with a heavy coat on the wind was biting. We were relieved that there was a very tiny line at the taxi rank and we were soon ensconced in the warmth of the rear seat of a yellow cab en route to Manhattan. I sat there and thought: its as though we've never left. It was a slightly strange feeling...


We got to the hotel, dropped off the bags and headed out for a wander about Times Square before heading into "Johns" for a superb wood-fired pizza. Its something of a tradition of ours to go there, and have recommended it to everyone I know who is visiting NYC...which probably explains the enormous throng of people waiting for a table! After dinner we walked up to see the tree at the Rockefeller Center which was as lovely as it looked on TV. They use 5 miles of lights to decorate it. Can you imagine how long it would take to untangle that lot??!!


It was exceedingly festive around the Rock. Saks 5th Avenue have giant snowflake lights on the side of the building and they were synchronised to music, and there was an avenue of angels leading from 5th Avenue to the skating rink. It was exceedingly festive and exceedingly busy!


Thanks to a combination of Stephen forgetting to switch off his mobile and his brother texting at 6am there was no snoozing on for me, although Stephen managed it! We had breakfast in a deli, and it was very much NY style! OJ, endless coffee and 3 eggs, bacon, breakfast potatoes and toast...enough to keep you fuelled up for a few hours! Mind you, the weather was so cold you certainly burnt off the calories! We decided to do the Christmassy things first and after a walk around Times Sq we headed off to Bryant Park where there were shops set up alongside the skating rink... We were snapping away when a couple skated up and asked us to take a photo. I passed camera duty over to Stephen and as the chap handed over the camera he whispered something in Stephen's ear. Ah-ha, somethings up I thought! Stephen played his part really well. He was all "oh, I need to take another one, stay there" as the chap reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a ring box and dropped onto one knee...and got a resounding yes from his lovely girlfriend. I was all teary. It was very romantic! Proposing on the ice rink at Bryant Park on Christmas Eve, whilst having the presence of mind to ask someone to take photos is very romantic indeed and beats the heck out of when Stephen proposed to me!! (Even he will admit that it wasn't terrifically romantic!)


We jumped a cab down to Canal Street for some designer fake shopping. It was the first time we'd really done more that pass through it and it was quite fun! I was bag shopping (of course) and was lead down though this arcade of shops, further and further back to the bowels of the building. When we stopped at the room with the curtain across the door and the chain barring the way I was checking that Stephen was following and thinking "what the hell...", but the lady pulled back the curtain, lifted the chain, switched on the light and invited me into handbag heaven! I got a beautiful bag...it is the softest leather and the stitching and the detail is exceptionally fine. If it wasn't for the price tag, you'd swear it was authentic. Stephen got a watch - $160,000 in the shops, $110 on Canal St...and it hasn't even turned his wrist green yet!

Dinner was at Ruths Chris steakhouse - another favourite. We had a G&T sitting at the bar...or rather we had a G sitting at the bar. I don't think I could taste any T in it at all!! It went straight to my legs! We were too full of steak and gin to do much more than stagger back to the hotel and into bed...well we did try one bar, but they were closing up for Christmas and sensibly we called it quits.

Christmas morning was grey and cold. We pulled on a suitable amount of clothing and headed out. Our hotel was just off Times Square and we commented on how quiet it was as we crossed it en-route to breakfast. We had our Christmas breakfast in the Stage deli, served by possibly the rudest waitress in the world! She wasn't overly rude to us, but some of the other tables - wow! It was staggering! One British family were getting the full treatment and you could tell that Dad was not happy...you could sense that special Christmas day feeling was in danger of being spoiled as she kept on about their son's order (he'd ordered sides and she was pointing out repeatedly that they cost extra, and Dad was pointing out that he could order what he wanted as the $3 for the side wasn't going to break the bank). I did feel like pulling her away and saying "In the UK its a tradition that you can do and eat pretty much what you want on Christmas Day". My God, kids back home would have consumed about 5 chocolate bars before their breakfast, so the fact that the kid wanted a side of bacon was really no big deal!

We walked up to Central Park and wandered through the park along the snowy paths. I had my sensible, warm boots on and I was walking across the snow and ice with the confidence and agility of a mountain goat. Its a shame they weren't actually comfy, supportive or waterproof! After several miles of wandering my feet were wet and broken! My jeans were also wet to the knees and crusted with grit - lovely! We walked back to the hotel and passed back through Times Sq which was now significantly busier than it was at 9am...

After a shoe change we walked along 6th Avenue and joined the throng admiring the sculptures of Christmas Lights and Baubles, along to the plaza at the Rock which was absolutely heaving with folks taking photos of the tree. After a spot of lunch we walked down 5th Avenue to have a look at some of the department store window displays. Not that we managed to see much of them! It was absolutely heaving with people! After being rammed up the back of the legs with a buggy several times we gave up and went in search of a Starbucks which was open and not thronged with people. We failed! I was keen to sit down by this point, so we ended up on a couple of little chairs in Times Sq - just us and the millions of other people with the same idea!

Booking the Russian Tea Rooms for Christmas Day dinner proved to be an inspired choice. What a fabulous place! It was possibly THE most gorgeous decorated restaurant that I have ever eaten in! We were whisked upstairs with Stephen making grumbling noises (downstairs also looked fab and he was worried that we were being led off to some crap upstairs room reserved for tourists). As the lift doors opened we could see that wasn't the case! The room sparkled from the lights of many chandeliers and the walls of art deco stained glass positively glistened. It was gorgeous!!! The food was also very special, the service was good and we managed to spot a rather delicious wine which was patently mis-priced on the menu! They did come out with the lesser wine from the same vineyard (which was more expensive), but Stephen held firm and sent the waiter back to get the correct bottle.

We walked back through the throngs of people back to the hotel. When we passed the guys selling stuff on Times Sq it became apparent that I'd been mis-hearing them on the first night, and now things finally became clear. The guys would stand at the side of the pavement saying "Horlicks, Horlicks, Horlicks" which confused me. Why would they think that I'd need a malted nightime beverage?? My this time I fully had my ear tuned in and I realised that they were saying "Rolex, Rolex, Rolex"....

Stephen's brother continued his excellent early morning alarm call service and for the third day on the trot I was woken early by the beep of a text message arriving. On this day I wasn't too grumpy as it was Shopping Day!!YAY!!! We grabbed a Starbucks and headed down to the Worlds Largest Department Store - Macy's on Herald Square. OMG! It was INSANE!! We started in the gents department, found a complete bargain - a cashmere jumper reduced to $35! We picked one up and headed up to the gents casualwear in search of shirts. It was as we were paying that I realised that we'd been totally and utterly stoopid! Cashmere jumpers for $35 and we only bought ONE.... We headed back down the stairs and back to the stand to pick up a couple more. It was totally packed out on the ground floor and the lines for the tills weren't really moving. Whichever till I picked it was guaranteed that the person at the front would begin negotiations to buy the store. I stood at one line and didn't move for 10 minutes before stropping off in search of a queue that was actually moving. I released Stephen to do more fun stuff and I headed up and began shopping for me. I was laden down when I headed into the fitting rooms, and only marginally less so when I headed for the till!

Getting back down from the 7th floor was interesting! I have a down escalator phobia so the only way down to the ground was by elevator. Easier said than done I have to say! Despite the fact I was on the second from top floor, every elevator that came along was stuffed to overflowing. Eventually after about 10 minutes I just made it into a lift. The only way I could get in with the enormous bag of shopping was to stand facing into the elevator with the bag in the gap between legs. I was horrified when the door opened on the next floor down and a moderately elderly lady said in a singsong voice "Oh, there's room for little me", shoved me in the back and launched herself into the lift. I was completely off balance and nose to nose with the person behind me, mouthing "sorry" to her. I was exceedingly relieved to make it out of the craziness of the store. Not so relived when I realised it was still absolutely pelting down with rain...thank goodness they put a plastic bag inside the paper bag, coz the paper bag disintegrated within about 15 minutes!!

After walking along to 5th and tackling Lord & Taylors gents department my feet were broken! They took a pounding on Christmas Day and they were making their presence felt. Stephen wanted to look round Best Buy, then walk to the Apple Store so I took one for the team and offered to take the bags back to the hotel. What an idiot!! They weighed a tonne!! And trying to juggle handbag, shopping bags (some hand carry, some shoulder carry) and an umbrella all the way back through the crowds to the hotel was no mean feat (or feet haha!). After dumping that load of shopping I headed back out to do the all-important Sephora make-up shop. I was buying some things for a friend as well, so was walking round the store happily filling up two shopping baskets as I went. I won't divulge how much I spent, but I got an e-mail today from them to say I'm now a VIP shopper!!!!

We had made arrangements to meet up with Gracy for a drink at the hotel, and it was lovely to catch up and have a good gossip! She had been at the holiday party with the folks from the old office a few weeks before, so it was good to hear how Dawn and Tim et al were. It was lovely to see her!

We hadn't booked anywhere for dinner on Saturday as we'd been hoping to catch a show. As it turned out we couldn't get tickets for the shows we fancied so we just headed off in search of a restaurant. Stephen fancied BBQ, but the hotel recommendation had a 45 minute wait for a table so we trudged on through the pouring rain. Eventually we came to Famous Dave's BBQ where we were overwhelmed with food. We ordered potato skins expecting maybe three to come out. There were 6 1/2 potatoes topped with cheese, onion and BBQ pulled chicken on the plate. Enough for 6 to share! The mains were equally enormous and overwhelming! Stephen decided on ribs and the waitress actually talked him down from a half rack to 4 ribs. (How refreshing to be talked down!) Even so, he could only manage 3. Mind you, these must have been bigger pigs than we're been used to eating - they were not babyback!

As I was once again wearing jeans which were soaked to the knees we stopped by the hotel before braving the lake that was Times Sq and heading to the 8th floor bar of the Marriott Marquis - our favourite cool spot to watch the craziness of Times Sq! It wasn't actually so very crazy by this time as it was just SO wet that people had thinned out to a few hardy souls. It was nice to sit with a drink and relax for a bit as we'd barely stopped to draw breath since we arrived!!

I couldn't believe our final day had arrived. We got up and threw a few things in the case, and realised that we'd need another bag to take our shopping from the day before! We headed out to grab a coffee and headed off down to take a few photos. We found a suitable bag and I got the pleasure of carrying it back...I am still the pack horse!! After packing we checked out and left our multitude of cases and coats with the bellhop before heading to the Met. We were determined to tick off another few corners as it is totally vast and we'd barely scratched the surface up to now. I'm not sure we scratched much below this time either!! We were both absolutely bone weary and walking was bearable, but standing still was excruciating!! We did get round a fair bit - we say the beautiful Christmas tree, the new American wing, the Armour, numerous Old Masters and the photography exhibit along with the Greek and Roman wing. By that time we were pooped, so we jumped a cab down to the shops on 5th. Traffic was slow and I was so tired I actually nodded off in the cab!! 5th Avenue was insanely busy so we decided to head over a block and go down 6th. This strategy worked well for a few blocks, then we got to the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall....just at the time when one show was coming out, another was about to go in and everyone else in New York State was there to see the Christmas Lights and Baubles statues. It was packed solid! I haven't been in such a crowd since Edinburgh during the Millennium Celebrations. Not only were the pavements gridlocked, the roads were too. We had a little panic about missing the flight and decided to get back to the hotel and jump a cab to the airport. We were allowing loads of time to get through security at JFK as we'd heard of big delays in the UK due to the extra checks being carried out after the terrorist attempt on Christmas Day. The driver had thought that it was likely to take 1 1/2 hours to get to the airport...in the end, the traffic melted away and he was dropping us at the terminal 45 minutes later!! Security was no worse than normal and so we spent simply hours in the Lounge!!

Snow!

We have had complete travel chaos here in the UK this week. We've had a few inches of snow across some of the country (NOT Malvern!) and everything ground to a halt. Can you imagine if we'd had the 2ft of snow they had in Virginia and DC?? Mind you Washington DC ground to a halt too, but they maybe had a better excuse!! We had training running at Farnborough this week and I had lots of calls and e-mails to say it had taken 10 hours to go 10 miles on Monday night. This was not good news as we were driving to Fleet to meet former-POQI and the family for dinner en-route to our Heathrow airport hotel! Everyone was telling us we'd be insane to even attempt going near Fleet, but Paul phoned and reassured us that the main roads were clear, we didn't need to detour around half the country and to basically not be wimps!!

So, we're now sitting in the Lounge at Heathrow airport, drinking champagne by the bucket, listening to Christmas songs and looking forward to our trip to New York. One of the girls serving here is just back from there yesterday and said it was magical and exceedingly Christmassy after all the snow. Just what the Doctor ordered as I seem to have had a Christmas Spirit Bypass this year!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Climate Change

Stephen has been getting annoyed and doing a lot of ranting recently. With the Copenhagen summit on climate change going on there has been an increased focus on climate change...a subject dear to his heart. There was major ranting going on when he found out that all the data comes from one source. The UK Met Office has by far the largest data set on climate change in the world. This is analysed by ONE group at the University of East Anglia, and there has been some controversy recently as they have been "sexing up" the language they have been using.... This is continued by the UK media who are using increasingly emotive terms - for example, the glaciers aren't melting - they are dying. Grrrrr....

There have also been many programmes on what we can do to prevent Global Warming...

We can switch all our light bulbs to the energy saving variety. And whilst energy saving bulbs are environmentally friendly (apart from the mercury they contain, but we won't go there) they take a long while to get up to brightness, not that bright is a word I'd use. Its maybe better to say they take a long while to get to a decent level of dimness... You soon won't even have the choice as to whether you go with the "mole burrow" lighting scheme - and its the lack of choice which annoys me! You can't buy 100w bulbs in the UK any longer and 60w bulbs are set to disappear too.

We can all drive Electric Cars. Erm....I don't want to be the one to point out the flaw in this logic....but where does electricity come from? Surely its generated by enormous power plants which pump out tonnes of nasty pollution (not to mention consume tonnes of fossil fuels) in order to generate the electricity to power these "clean cars"?? In the UK you are looked on as some evil planet murderer if you drive an SUV or a "luxury car" with a big engine. Before we moved to the US Stephen had a BMW with a 4.5l petrol engine and I had a Ford with a 1.6l petrol engine. You would imagine that the 4.5l engine would produce much more CO2 than my little dinky Ford engine right? Wrong! My Ford only produced around 20 CO2s less. So therefore its the millions of Fords which are the problem..! We are both now frowned upon planet murderers...the crops in the fields apparently wither and die as we drive past!

We can stop eating beef. Farting cows produce a lot of methane and we should therefore stop eating beef and switch to eating more environmentally friendly meat such as lamb, or even better, become vegetarian. You can imagine how much the steak-chowing, vegetable-hating one appreciated that suggestion!!

Following this through logically, there is one major item they didn't think to mention, and possibly a serious danger to the environment. They need to ban Indian restaurants. We all went for a curry last night (it was de-lic-ious!) but there are side-effects!!!! I'm pretty sure if scientists look, there will now be a hole in the ozone layer over Leigh Sinton, coz I'm pretty sure we punched a hole in it last night!!

A Panda's plea....

I spotted in the paper that Tai Shan, the panda born in Washington DC zoo a few years ago, is to be sent to China. Can you imagine the conversation going on in the panda pen?

"OH. MY. GOD! Are you kidding me? Seriously, are you freakin' kidding me?? China? You're deporting me to China? I'm an American, man... Look at my passport...not the photo, it wasn't my best day - my mascara ran, I've got panda-eyes...Look at it, look at it, it says United States of America on the cover... Call the State Department! In fact, forget Hillary. Call the President! They can't expect me to leave my lovely life here in DC and go to China. Look at all these people out there... they love me... they're here to see ME! You can't disappoint my fans and send me to China! I'M A CELEBRITY! I don't care if it was part of my parents contract. BREAK IT! Get me a lawyer now! Phone Rob. I hear he's excellent... And what happens about the food? I mean, I get tons of the very finest bamboo shoots delivered by room service every day and I'd have to, what, like, FORAGE? in China. I DON'T THINK SO! This is so totally not going to happen. I'm like, totally, not going to go...Where is China anyway?"

O! Christmas Tree..How (huge and) Evergreen your branches...

All trussed up it didn't look very big....

But then we unleashed the branches and stood back!

Champagne is essential when tree decorating!

The finished article


The fancy no-flash shot. Stephen, very bravely, did point out when I'd finished that there were more lights on the bottom than the top.

Well OF COURSE I couldn't wait until morning to decorate the tree!! We pulled the furniture out the way, dragged the tree in from the garage and wrestled it into the tree stand. Then we cut off the netting and stood back as it filled the sitting room with branches. How come it didn't look that huge when we were looking at it at the Farm?

We had to get our US decorations from the garage and our UK decorations down from the loft. Which was something of a minor trauma as I don't do ladders...Stephen climbed up to get the boxes out, then tried to drop them down to me, which meant that I had to climb up the ladder to get them. Okay, so it was only a couple of rungs, but I REALLY don't do ladders, so my knees were knocking! Then, having got everything I needed, I had to untangle the giant ball of fairly lights and put it all on the tree. Three hours and a noticeable denuding of enthusiasm later I was done. It looks lovely!

O! Christmas Tree...

It was time for the Christmas trees to go up on site this week. With the imminent visit of our CEO and all the preparation that it took, my friend in the building next to mine sent up the distress flares. "I'm running around like a mad thing, they've given me a student to help put the tree up but he hasn't a clue, can you please help?" As I had bought the decorations and the tree back in the day when I was the Ops Manager for that building I am obviously an expert at their tree assembly! Time for the "Creative Director, Christmas Trees" to take charge. I soon got Tom licked into shape and we got the tree assembled and the lights on in record time. I don't think I traumatised him too much (I can apparently be a real stickler when it comes to decoration - but I don't believe I'm that bad!!), but he was pretty quick to disappear when it was time to release him back into the wild!! I left the tree in the ladies hands safe in the knowledge that with the stunning silver colour scheme we had picked out years before, it would look stunning.

I went back to my desk and asked if our building was putting up their tree. I was told that the PA who now has responsibility for putting it up had said that she didn't have time to take it down, no-one offers to help, so she wasn't going to put it up. What?? No tree, because taking it down was a problem? Bloody hell - Bah Humbug indeed!! What was I to do? I volunteered of course!

When I saw the decorations I actually wished I hadn't bothered! There were multicoloured lights and a pitiful handful of red and gold decorations. Unfortunately they were mostly pretty new, so I felt compelled to use them. I discarded the tatty tinsel and the even tattier fairy and Gill and I did our best with what was left. Unfortunately half of the pitifully small amount of decorations were SO naff that they were relegated to the back of the tree. We kept explaining to people that we were "doing our best with what we had". It looked truly pathetic!!!

Stephen and I were laughing this morning...we thought it would be hysterical to go into work this weekend and swap the two trees over!! We could have the gorgeous tree and they could have the eyesore... However, I came up with a simpler solution....I went to Homebase and bought three giant tubs of silver and gold baubles. I am going to strip the tree and begin again with something more tasteful! Unfortunately we're stuck with the multi-coloured lights as it was really expensive to get new ones, and there is no work budget for this. I bought the baubles out of my own pocket as my reputation as an ace tree decorator was going down the toilet!!!

We've just been along to the local Christmas Tree farm to get our tree for home. This is the place that supplied the Downing Street Christmas Tree last year, and is owned by our neighbours family. He actually drove us along in his van to pick it up so we didn't get needles all over the car. What a wee star he is! Its currently sitting in the garage as I need to clear a space in the sitting room to fit it in. I'll be doing decorating magic tomorrow morning...YAY!

We're lost!

We were invited round to Steve and Graham's for dinner last week as they wanted to show off their new pad as well as their culinary skills. I'd asked for directions and was told that google map directions got you there with no problems. If only that were the case! They might if it was daylight, but it was dark, it was pouring with rain and the car kept misting up. Oh, and did I mention that their house is down little country lanes with precious few road signs? Consequently we couldn't find it! After a few miles of driving about with no sign of it we called them. Stephen and Steve came up with the quite brilliant idea of using the GPS feature on our blackberries to find them. Stephen duly typed in the postcode and we set off...

After a couple of passes through Dymock (which I knew wasn't right), with Stephen getting grumpier and grumpier we tried again. It told us to take a right which we did...at this point I was getting worried for the suspension as we bounced down a farm track. Stephen was convinced it had to be right...until the GPS said we had to take a left...through the electric fence and into a field! This was definitely wrong! Of course there was no place to turn around until we got to the farm house. I was fully expecting a farmer to appear with a shotgun and tell us to "Get orf my laand"!!! We trundled slowly back down the track to the main road, pulled over at the Dymock Golf Club and fired off the distress flare!! I was practically hysterical with laughter when I called and said "come find us!".

Thankfully it didn't take Speedy Steve to find us and lead us back home and we were soon tucking into glasses of fizz. Just as well they hadn't made anything that would spoil as we were nearly an hour late at this point!!! Their new house is lovely! It has beams and everything, plus a kitchen to envy and a huge conservatory. I approve! Dinner was superb. I need to raise my game when they come to us...beans on toast won't cut it!!

We played a couple of games of Buzz on the playstation which was absolutely THE best fun! Stephen is now allowed to buy one!! I got to be Vampira and we could give the opposition a "virtual" cream pie in the face...or as I managed, you could give yourself a cream pie in the face... I have the reflexes of a sloth!!

Graham sparked out relatively early on, so it was just the three of us sitting watching music videos and chatting to the wee small hours. We took up residence in the spare room in the West Wing and soon collapsed into unconsciousness. I woke a couple of hours later needing a wee. The bed was against the wall and I was at the back. Stephen didn't respond well to my pleas to at least sit up so I could crawl out.."Climb over zzzzzzzzz". I was muttering nasty words as I was left with no choice but to do that. When I got back he was lying in the middle of the bed with the duvet tightly wrapped around him. More nasty words were muttered!!! I ended up sleeping under a towel clinging to the edge of the bed whilst he snored away oblivious to my discomfort. He was entirely oblivious actually! The young kitty was mewing and pawing the door at about 7:30, then coz I can't have closed the door properly on the catch, a few seconds later there was a thump as the cat landed on the bed and walked up and all over Stephen's chest. He didn't stir! As he's allergic to some cats (but not this one as it turns out!) I got up and shooed the little kitty out the door. Kitty was SO not speaking to me at breakfast!!! I think he was hoping I would feed him!

On the way home, with directions this time, it turned out we were within 100 yards of the house before we detoured to Dymock. D'oh!

Sleep deprivation

Our new CEO was visiting our site on Wednesday and Stephen was invited to a breakfast meeting with him, along with some of the other Fellows and graduates. It began at 08:30 sharp (our new CEO cannot abide unpunctuality and who wants to be the person to test that?!) so we were planning to be in at 8am. This meant a re-setting our our alarm clocks the night before....

S: "Right. We need to be up by 7:30 so I'll set mine for 7:20"
K: Thinks - no way! It takes me an hour to get ready. I'll set mine for 7:00...
S: "Hmm - maybe 7:20 is too late. I'll set mine for 7:00"
K: "Better allow some snooze time. I'll set mine for 6:45"
S: "You're right, I'll set mine for ..."
And so this went on until we were practically setting our alarms to go off 2 hours before we went to sleep!!! I think this had a knock-on effect...

I read my book for a bit as I wasn't particularly tired and switched the light out at 11:30. I woke up - wide awake, feeling refreshed and convinced that it was morning. I checked the clock. It said 12:35. I didn't believe it. I checked my watch and was convinced that it said 7am. I checked the clock on the blackberry. It also said 12:35 and I still didn't believe it!! It was only when Stephen grumped at me to stop fidgeting and go back to sleep that I began to realise that it really was only 12:35 and I'd only been asleep for an hour!!!

Fantastico!

We have watched it avidly for the past three weeks and finally its at an end. Gino has been crowned King of the Jungle in "I'm a Celebrity, Get me out of here". His final Bushtucker trial was genuinely retch-inducing, so he's a deserved winner!

I'm just glad that we can finally get on with having a life!! We've had little choice but to watch it recently...we've been getting home late and by the time we have dinner and clear up its just coming on the telly, so we're pretty much forced to watch it! Then its time for bed. So...our weekday lives consist of work, dinner, I'm a Celebrity and sleep.... no wonder we're dull boys and girls right now!!

The A4 goes off to the Car Hospital

I'm really impressed with the service you get from insurance companies these days. The hire car was delivered today by a charming and professional young man. The paperwork was sorted out very quickly and he left me with a brand new BMW 3-series Sport in my possession. I was fully expecting my hire car to be a Fiat Punto or something similar! He did explain that they always try to provide a car of a similar standard, and I applaud that!!

Shortly after that a lovely, chatty retired teacher came with his tow truck and took my damaged baby away to the Car Hospital. The very jovial Car Doctor has just phoned and the good news is there was no hidden damage - the bumper took all the impact. He's ordered the parts and I should have my baby back around Wednesday next week. After that Stephen is not going to be allowed to drive it!!!!!

I don't belieeeeeve it!!

Stephen was heading down to Bristol for a meeting today and took my car. He was in stop-go traffic on the M4 when someone ran into him from behind. My lovely A4 has a hole and the indentation of the other cars number plate in its bumper. He phoned to let me know and I then spent time on the phone to my insurance company sorting the mess out. They were really good (and should be for the price!) and with three phone calls they had arranged to have my baby collected tomorrow and taken into the car hospital and to have a hire car delivered.

Potential wardrobe malfunctions

Monday was exceedingly windy here which begs the question: why would a habitual trouser wearer choose to wear a full skirt to work? I don't know! I didn't look out the window when I got dressed! I was having severe problems walking across the open area from my office to the canteen. The wind was funnelling through the buildings...and my skirt was doing its very best to raise itself above my head Marilyn style. Not wanting to flash my butt at the office occupants I grabbed a large handful of material at one side and tried to maintain my dignity. Not easy when you're bent over like you've got a dowager hump, clutching your skirt!!

Tuesday was wet and windy - but I was in trousers - YAY! The wet portion of the weather was the problem... I got my heel stuck in between the brick paving and walked out of my shoe onto the wet pavement. YUCK!!

On Wednesday I wore a lovely wraparound blouse. I own a few of these, some of which require the addition of a camisole in order to contain the Twins. I didn't think this particular blouse was one of those, but a quick glance down revealed an expanse of boobage. Thankfully I was fully on top of this particular situation! I'd got as far as the kitchen door when I realised so I made a dash back upstairs to do a bit of rapid Twin containment!! After the knicker incident on Sunday you would have thought I'd had my share of wardrobe malfunctions...but there were a couple of very close calls!!

Oh Knickers!

We popped into the grocery store today and after about 10 minutes I was desperate to hit the checkouts and get the hell out of the store...and yet gormless Stephen was wandering about on his own in the slowest possible way, looking for 3D glasses. He even at one point looked directly at me, then turned down the condiments aisle...did he not see me? I went off in pursuit, but was hampered from doing so with any speed by the fact that my underwear had begun a rapid descent and I now had a roll of knicker nestling just under my butt cheeks. Thank God I was wearing trousers or they would have been round my knees! So, you can see why I was keen to get back to somewhere where I could try and retrieve them.

I eventually tracked him down and explained for the 10th time that the easiest way to find 3D glasses would be to ASK someone! And that we needed to leave the store NOW!

He asked the lovely girl on checkout. They had run out of the 3D glasses days before. All that searching for nothing - except an opportunity for me to say "I told you so"! He did get revenge though....I was sitting in the car taking a drink from a bottle of soda when he reversed the car rapidly and then slammed on the anchors. Oh, there was a lot of shouting! I had coke all over my scarf, jacket, decolletage and chin....is it renowned for its anti-ageing or spot fighting properties when applied externally I wonder? I mean, you can use it to clean toilets so it does have some non-drinking applications....

My name is....

Oh what a nothingy day this has turned out to be! We were at a bit of a loss as to what to do today so we took a run into Worcester with the intention of mooching around and having a coffee. Of course we'd forgotten that Christmas shopping is in full swing and after failing to get a parking spot in 3 car parks we gave up and went to Malvern instead.

We took shelter from the pouring rain in the coffee shop and I grabbed a table whilst Stephen stood in line for the coffee. The table next to me son filled with a couple and their brood of children. Daddy went off to buy coffee whilst Mummy failed to keep the kids under control. One child (about age 7) in particular was being delightful..fighting with his sibling whilst lying on the banquette, kicking out and gradually inching his way towards me. Not fancying having his flailing feet make contact with me (or my handbag!) I shot his mother a look which was meant to convey "I have patience, but he's getting a little close now" but which (thanks to my rather crapulous day) may have come across more like "If he kicks me I will rip his arms off and beat you with them"...anyway, she began to attempt to get them to stop. There was no visible effect, so Daddy lends his voice from the queue...
"Max...."
"Maxim...."
"Maximus.....stop that now".

Ahh....now I understand! You quite simply cannot call your child Maximus and NOT expect them to misbehave!!! Did they name him after watching Gladiator? Did she have a thing for the buff and oiled up Russell Crowe? Did he??!!

I have to say that I am not a fan of people inflicting names such as Apple, Kai, Beauregard, Satchell and Muffin on their little bundles of joy. A name is for life, not just for the birthday cake!!

Picture perfect Priory

I had yet another facial yesterday as those pesky zits are still hanging on in there. Time to electrocute them again...and this time we turned the machine up to 11! Zena thinks they're on the way out - about time too I say! I've spent a fortune on spot cream in the past few weeks! Aside from the one which burned my skin off, I've bought creams with salicylic acid, creams with a percentage of tea tree oil and finally I just bought the full-strength undiluted tea tree oil. I've also got about 4 kinds of exfoliators - masks, scrubs, pads....there is not a preparation available in Boots that I've not tried!!!

Afterwards I picked up a couple of coffees and met up with Stephen (I did think about only buying one for me, but I figured that would be a little bit mean!) and we headed back into Worcester for the second time that day. Stephen has decided that I need a better camera as my Canon didn't compare with his Nikon when we looked at the end results which meant that he would disregard my photos as barely worth looking at, despite a grudging admission that sometimes I would get the better shot. (And believe me, it was a grudging admission!!) Our second trip in was to get the camera he's spent weeks reading up on so I have time to play with it fully before we head to NYC at Christmas. It was also to stop him spending a tenner a week on "What Camera Shall I Buy" magazines....honestly, he'd be able to afford a whole photographic studio if he didn't buy all the magazines for 6 months!!

We popped along to Malvern Priory this afternoon for a little photography shoot. It was a dodging the showers afternoon. Every time we ventured outside it rained. Every time we were inside it was fair. On the way back home in the car there was blue sky and little puffy clouds...d'oh! The Priory is a lovely building. Building began in 1085 and there were some 15th century additions to the original Norman church. There is also some gorgeous stained glass. One window was a gift from Henry VII, another from Richard III and there is some really remarkable modern stained glass which was installed in 2004. We weren't the only ones in taking photos...there was a veritable paparazzi pack in there! All you could hear was the click of shutters!!

I smiled at one of the notices on the tiny rear exit of the Priory which said that CS Lewis (who had gone to school in Malvern) may have been inspired to write the Chronicles of Narnia after emerging from the wardrobe-like exit and seeing the gas lamps amongst the trees in the churchyard. However, having just looked up Wiki it seems that he became atheist whilst at Malvern College, so perhaps they're a little wide of the mark! I was smiling because half of Malvern has previously claimed the honour of being the inspiration! Further Wiki investigation tells of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein coming out of a pub in the winter , seeing a gas lamp shining through the falling snowflakes and Tolkein saying "that would make a great opening for a book"....Soooo, on two counts it would seem that the Priory may be a little wide of the mark as I didn't see a bar in there...unless they were hitting the communion wine!!!

Can you tell whose is whose??

The beautiful Priory (taken by S)

The Priory graveyard (taken by me with some photoshop jiggery-pokery by S)

Another of mine!

Funny moment of today

Making further note to self not to wear the bracelet I had on today with this cardigan. It catches....

I was chatting with someone in the kitchen when I swept my hand across the back of my cardi and skirt in a smoothing/sweeping motion and ended up with the bracelet attached to the cardi about the region of my nether regions! I can only say they were a good friend and unhooked me as I couldn't see to unhook myself! Goodness knows what the person who walked in and walked right back out again thought....we probably presented an intriguing sight, with my rescuer bent over, peering closely at my bottom!!!

Grumpy cow

I have been many of Snow Whites housemates over the past few days. I've been Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy and undoubtedly Dozey, but primarily I have been Grumpy...

Things which have grumped me out in the past few days have included:

The two cyclists who seemed to be under the impression that the Tour de France runs through Malvern. I was driving to my hair appointment and had to wait for HOURS (well, a good few minutes) for them to peddle up the steep incline of Church Street SIDE BY SIDE. Its not wide enough for the parked cars, the side-by-side cyclists and my car. If they had gone line astern then no problem, but no....they HAD to hold me up!!

The kid acting out in the line at Waitrose. He was running around so much, and his dad wasn't able to control him at all, that they shoved their empty trolley into our side of the checkout which rather hindered Stephen and I being able to get in to pack up our groceries. Unfortunately I couldn't move it back over without squishing the kid into the side of the conveyor....although I was SORELY tempted to!!!

The utterly crap latte I got in Worcester which consisted of a couple of mouthfuls of coffee topped off by 4 inches of solid foam so thick that you could actually cut it in half with the wooden stick things that pass for spoons. (I'm not exaggerating here!)

Today. Almost in its entirely. I have been mildly grumpy, increasing to pretty darn grumpy by the end of the day. It started when our neighbour leaped out (is he stalking us?!) as we were backing out the garage to ask if S wanted to go for a drink tonight. Then I discovered that the trousers I had on were conspiring with my blouse to flash my belly roll. Note to self: don't wear these trousers without a belt to keep them up! Then I found out that I was supposed to be able to give Stephen's location at any given point in the day to a shouted enquiry from the other side of the office... I am NOT his keeper or his diary secretary. And...why not walk and ask me/phone and ask me/IM and ask me - anything but yell across the office from 30 ft away and ask me!! Even better - why not phone and ask HIM!!!!! Then the neighbour turned up 10 minutes early to collect S to go to the pub. As we'd only got home at 7pm and had been home 20 minutes we were still finishing up the hastily prepared supper. Indigestion city!!

I am now de-grumping by watching Stephen Fry's Tour of America - which we missed when it was on first time round as we were in America! He's in Washington DC....ahhh, how lovely it looks!

Our Saturday

Saturday was a very pleasant day. I had my hair cut and de-grayed and it was nice enough weather-wise that I managed to get the top down on my convertible driving home. Of course, it rained about 20 minutes after I got home, but hey, I'd had my fun by then. It was a tad chilly I do have to admit, but the clever car immediately whacks up the temperature when you press the hood down button, plus I had my lovely new scarf - 12ft of fluffy, sparkly loveliness hand-knitted by Justine's mum. It was much admired by the staff of the salon too.

We decided to stay in and cook dinner last night (woo-hoo!). We did a quick run around Waitrose and came back and opened a bottle of champagne (just because) and prepared a feast of chicken breast stuffed with boursin and wrapped in pancetta. We polished that off and were sitting enjoying cheese and biscuits and a glass of port when Stephen decided that drinking the port via his mouth was much too boring and that filtering it through his jumper was much the best way to go. He missed his mouth altogether! He thought he'd caught it on his chin until he saw my horrified look....his bargain silk/cashmere jumper from Banana Republic was now acid green with a huge dark red mark.

I haven't moved so fast in a long while! I had the jumper wrestled off him and into the sink in the blink of an eye. Then began the frantic run through of the stain removal techniques. I even remembered that in a cupboard somewhere I had "wine off"...it didn't seem to make any difference! Soap seemed to do best and YAY the stain is no longer!!!

We sat down to watch Knowing which was a great movie, but verging on a bit scary for me (nothing more scary than Bambi remember!). One of the female characters said something and Stephen said "that's what you sound like all the time"....which made me laugh! I sit with the legal team in work. The head of the section doesn't speak to me very often, other than to reply to my Good Morning, but when he does its invariably to ask me if I'm doing something for July 4th, or Thanksgiving. I was beginning to suspect that he knew I had worked in the Inc, realised that I had an accent of some kind, but not realised that it was a Scottish one. Perhaps I'm being hard on him...perhaps I still have enough American in there to be genuinely confusing for him!!

Reminiscing

We were out on Thursday with Steve and Graham for dinner. This was a birthday celebration for both Graham and me as it fell somewhere between our two birthdays. We went to Pepper & Oz which was lovely but rather eye-wateringly expensive! Probably not down to the food to be honest...it was 1.50 each for the tonic in the gin!! The food was lovely though, as was the company. We were getting advice for planning our NZ trip. Graham lived there for 11 years and is a great resource for planning!!

We were talking about how its possible to love being where you are, but also to miss somewhere so much. I had a big burst of homesickness for Old Town last weekend. Halloween was such a big thing on Lee St (people came from literally miles around to trick or treat on Lee St!) and it was a huge non-event here! I really felt I should be carving pumpkins (and y'all know I didn't really enjoy doing that!) and handing out candy...but there aren't many kids near us in the village and we didn't get one single knock on the door.

Who ya gonna call...

Thank Crunchie its Saturday! Its been another busy week at work. Fun times! My boss has been giving briefing sessions which I've been lining up. Poor bloke must be reciting them in his sleep by now! We've been going since mid-September. I've booked up nearly 500 folks onto sessions which is no mean feat given that a) no-one particularly wants to do it and b) once they've booked, they invariably want to change dates/times. Its like nailing jelly to the wall! It was well and truly fun times on Thursday though. The Boss called me just after 9am to say he had been stuck in traffic for 1 1/2 hours and had only just made it onto the M4. There was no way that he was going to make the first training session!! I had to leap into action and phone everyone to re-arrange. It certainly got me revved up and raring to go pretty quickly. I barely needed the usual caffeine kick...

Since The Boss has been doing the sessions I seem to be the new telephone hotline - thanks to his mantra of "If you're not sure - ask" . As he uses a paging service to take his calls and Gracy is 5 hours behind us it does rather seem that I'm No 1 on the calling circle!! "Who ya gonna call? Call Kerry!"

Most folks are absolutely lovely and very grateful for a little bit of advice and handholding. There is one woman who is just a git though. As I said to Gracy - all this woman does is phone to chew my ears off... "why can't I do this/surely its your job to do that/bitch moan bitch" (this translates as "I haven't done my job, so I'm going to blame you"). Inevitably I get a 10 minute tirade whenever she calls (and yet I still pick up the phone when she rings!) What can I say? My ears are obviously tasty morsels! And yet there is stony silence whenever we pull the rabbit out the hat for her...never a word of thanks. No salve for my abused ears!!

Its just as well that she is the absolute minority....and that she hasn't phoned before the vital cup of I-can't-deal-with-people-first-thing Liquid Will to Live!!!

Changing the clocks

We changed the clocks last weekend and I have to admit to being really fed up this week because of it. I absolutely hate that its dark at 5pm. Its quite depressing! Who wants to sit in work and watch it get dark? I really feel like winter is upon us (despite the fact that the weather has been unseasonably warm this week) and I think that's purely down to it getting dark early. It seems like we don't really see a lot of daylight at this time of year.

My body still seems to have clock-change jetlag too. I've been hungry early all week - I'm starving by 11:30am, so when lunchtime comes round I'm so far past hungry that my body doesn't seem to register that I've fed it (but that might also say something about the nutritional content of the canteen sandwiches!). One of my co-workers has a winter hibernation theory - long, dark nights means your body needs lots of food and lots of sleep. Judging on my experience I'd say he's got that right! Now....where are the biscuits??

Oink?

It would appear that someone in our open plan office MAY have swine flu. He said he wasn't feeling well on Monday and left early, then yesterday (Friday) someone from the cleaning company came and sprayed his desk, chair, phone and the door handles into the office with disinfecting spray. No-one has informed us he has it (or may have it), but the spraying is consistent with policy....Although perhaps a tad late methinks! I know the flu germ can live on hard surfaces for a while...but 4 days? Lets face it, if we've picked it up from the door handle to the office we'd have picked it up before Friday!

Catch up

We had a lovely night out with Richard and Justine last week. There is (another) new Indian restaurant opened up in Malvern so we decided to give it a try and I'm very glad we did! Stephen and I were very excited when we saw the menu. We think the chef may have worked in Scotland as there were the twin delicacies of spicy red onions with the poppadoms and vegetable pakora - practically the only starter available in Scotland it is so popular! The food was delicious and exceptional value. Richard had a lamb shank which was fall off the bone tender and, despite giving each of us big hunks of it, he still had to get a doggy bag for the leftovers!

We had a moment of enforced romanticism at the end of the meal when the restaurant (and a part of Malvern) was plunged into darkness thanks to a power cut. They brought extra candles along with a dish of mints, bird seed and what tasted like minty Edinburgh Rock. Delish!

Saturday had been quite a good day all told. I had a facial to try and get rid of the ever-present spots (we tried electrocuting them this time), then bare-faced and spotty we went shopping in Worcester. I got a couple of nice skirts, a nice jumper and cardigan and a pair of adorable ballet slippers in lilac suede with pink suede buckles from Office. As an added bonus they matched the cardigan, but that was pure co-incidence. I would have bought them anyway!!!

Sunday was less fun. I was doing the laundry, and it began to rain so I couldn't hang it out. I spent hours constantly on the go hanging things over radiators and screens. It really was resembling a laundry! I am now desperately trying to work out where we can fit a tumble dryer as I really cannot function without one. I wonder if you can get the American style stacked numbers over here. I could maybe move the fridge/freezer..... Hmmmm. One to think about.

We're really thinking about how we use the rooms as there are some we barely go into. The dining room is a bone of contention....only ever used for family gatherings as we have a dining kitchen anyway. Stephen wants to turn it onto a home cinema and I...well I'm not sure! Perhaps if he agreed to move the giant TV out of the sitting room so at least one room downstairs wasn't visually dominated at the end of the process!

Whoa...what happened to singing in tune??

Oh my goodness. I'm sitting here watching a replay of the X Factor. I've missed a few acts - perhaps the good ones who can sing were on at the beginning - but the acts I've seen are pretty bad! Does no-one care about singing in tune??

Admittedly the first act I saw tonight was the twins - who came out and sang Britney's "Oops I did it again". Blokes in red PVC suits singing Brit and trying to dance along with 10 clones of the woman in leathers and biker helmet from the Zovirax advert - hilarious in a "car crash TV" kind of way, but not a Great Talent in the Making!!!

Stacey sang "At Last" which worked - mostly. But I had to smile when she speaks as she turns into a character from the Catherine Tate show. Amibovvered? Hysterical!

And what's going on with the judges?? They were nice!!!! Perhaps I'm looking back at American Idol with slightly rose-tinted spectacles, but I'm sure if a contestant came out and didn't hit the notes even Paula would have had something to say about their tuning. And there were a lot of tuning issues in the bit I saw!!!

STOP PRESS: Just watching the round up - and YAY! Simon was critical of someone's tuning! I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with my hearing!!!!

Dancing with the X Factor

I'm loving Saturday night, coz its Strictly Come Dancing night. The spray tan, the sequins, the tiny costumes, the bosoms (and that's just the blokes!)...I LOVE it! Last night was great - we had some ropey jives, some good Viennese Waltzes and some super-sarky comments from the judges. I'm wondering if Les and Bruno were feeling the jet-lag this week! I'm still not sure that I've seen a performance to match Mark Ramprakash's salsa or Argentine Tango yet, but I'm hopeful!

Last night saw the end of boxer Joe Calzaghe's run on the show. To be honest, he lasted several weeks longer than I expected! He's a big guy, but you might think a boxer would be light on his feet....sadly no! I tell you, these huge line backers that they have on the US show could show him a thing or two when it comes to twinkling their toes!!

We missed the X Factor last night, but are sitting down watching the results show. I missed Cheryl Cole singing, but did catch Whitney Houston...having some minor tuning problems and a minor wardrobe malfunction but looking fabulous compared to a year or two ago!

Sniffle, sniffle....

I've had a stinky cold for the past few days. Not good as I had to cancel our trip to see my new niece as I didn't want anyone else to catch it.

On the plus side, being at home today with nothing to do apart from watch bad TV, has meant that I had time to book Christmas dinner in NYC. We're going to the Russian Tea Rooms which should be fabulous!

The Big Yin

Too funny!! I just caught the last few minutes of a Billy Connolly show...and I fear that the archetypal Glaswegian has Americanised his accent!

Don't get me wrong - he still sounds like a Glaswegian (as Stephen did), but he's definitely prouncing things in the American way. I'd seen this show years ago and hadn't noticed...but he is definitely swallowing his T's!! He said "Whats the madder" rather than matter...all those years going thirsty in California for lack of wadder are taking their toll!

Corn and Oil

We had another superb meal the other night. The Ambassadors at The House have given some superb recommendations. They sent us to Cariba on Thursday. Its a Caribbean restaurant just down from The Cliff, run by the chef formerly at Sandy Lane (who was originally from Yorkshire!). The food was divine, the staff were great and the drinks were lovingly mixed from scratch. We had a superb rum punch and after dinner a rather good drink called Corn and Oil. I'm not sure what went into it apart from lime juice and lots of rum (of course!), but it slipped down a treat I can tell you!!

I did wake with a marginal hangover the next day, but not enough to dent my enthusiasm for the champagne breakfast!!

Breakfast here was a little chaotic this morning. Normally it runs like a well oiled machine. You sit, the Ambassador takes a note of whether you want tea/coffee/toast/champagne etc then you help yourself to fruit/cereal etc and order your eggs at the egg station whilst helping yourself to bacon etc. This morning they switched to doing a la carte eggs and it took 45 minutes for ours to appear from the kitchen, and I think we were the lucky ones!! Still, it has been the only hiccup so far....and aside from making Stephen a bit grumpy no harm was done!

I'm currently sitting on the lovely white sofas watching the sun set. David Bailey is off taking photos. Be warned anyone who asks to see the holiday photos. There are around 300 just of the setting sun.... Still I'm quite relaxed now. I just had my complimentary massage which was definitely a pleasure and pain thing! Sharon showed no mercy to my tightly knotted muscles. The deep breathing isn't for relaxation, more for pain relief!! It has done wonders though!