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!

Photos from the sunny Island of Barbados

These are going to be a bit randomly ordered as blogger is being a bit challenging, but bear with me.....

Kerry, aged 40 with her Happy Birthday choccies

The very beautiful St John' s Church

The view of the east coast from Cherry Tree Hill

What a monkey!

The spectacular puffy cloud sunset

And again...

Just like a travel magazine....on the beach at The House

Here's the pool

The bar formerly known as Cocomo's

The view from our table at the Round House in Bathsheba

The beaches of the rugged and wild East Coast

For makin' da rum....

St Nicholas Abbey - an old plantation house

Me, at North Point

North Point WITH the sun in the right place

Told you this was a random order! My cards on display in Barbados.

Another lovely sunset

And me opening my cards at Gatwick

In the bar at Cariba enjoying a superb rum punch

Stephen sailing off to Sandy Lane

Me typing up the blog on the deck

In Scarlett's with the funky decor

Look! Its raining inside!!! Tipping the water off the awning at Spago's

Swimsuits

As soon as we booked the holiday (August? September?) I rushed out to buy a couple of new swimsuits before they disappeared from the shops. There wasn't a lot of choice so I'm here with:

1: The Special K swimsuit. Its red, its cross over and plunging and when you lie down the hidden bra bit is no longer hidden as it stays in place and the outer fabric moves. Not a terrifically attractive look! So, obviously designed for poncing about in and swaggering about the beach which (not having the Special K body to match the swimsuit) I don't do...

2. The Speed Bump swimsuit. It stays in place, but forces the Twins together so they become conjoined twins. Who on earth thinks a woman wants her boobs to resemble a speed bump????

Thankfully both are an improvement on the knitted cozzie that I took to Florida a few years ago. I began to emerge from the pool and began to realise that I was pouring water from my costume and the gusset was hanging down to my knees! This thing had absorbed half the pool and was now depositing it back in the most humiliating way!! It was not worn twice I can tell you!!!

Bajan Tours

A little more Island touring was planned for yesterday, so we were up, showered, dressed and breakfasted for the crack of 10 o’clock…. Early starts on holiday were never really a strong point! Besides we are both sleeping like babies here. I can barely keep my eyes open past 10pm and we’re sleeping right through to 7:30. I guess that we need to catch up and, more importantly, r.e.l.a.x....something that Stephen is having difficulty with (as ever!).

We headed up to North Point (again) for some more photos of the rugged splendour. Its where the calm Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic and there are usually some thundering breakers pounding the cliffs. Even on pretty calm days its something special. We had gone a slightly different route than the previous day (in other words we didn't get lost going!) and were treated to the spectacle of Bajan car collision. Everyone was standing about laughing and chatting, waiting for the police to arrive. Its a law that you have to leave your vehicles in position until they do, which gave us time to wonder as we squeezed our baby jeep past, how a car managed to have a low speed (there was no damage), head on collision with a BUS!

On the way from North Point to our next destination Stephen schreeched to a halt yelling "quick get the camera". I hastened to obey, wondering what he was so excited about...there were 3 Green Monkeys darting across the road into the trees. I was fully expecting them to scamper off when I rolled down the window, but they quite happily sat on the branches and posed for me!

From there we did a tour of the East coast: St Nicholas Abbey, Cherry Tree Hill (where you get a fantastic view of miles of coast line), Bathsheba and St Johns Church (truly a place where you feel it might be possible to believe in the whole closer to God thing. It is the most beautiful setting - on a hill with a commanding view of the coastline, with palm trees and tropical gardens. Stunning!

From there we got slightly lost coming back. They don't have meaningful road signs in the more rural areas, and although the roads on the map might be graded A, B or C its difficult to tel the difference when you're actually driving on them! They go from decent tarmac to bouncing along broken up tarmac in the blink of an eye. It makes navigating quite challenging!! We were actually navigating by the sun at one point!!!!

We stopped by Cocomo's for sundowners, although the sunsets haven't been that spectacular (aside from one or two nights). Its so hot and humid at the moment that we tend t get showers popping up just about the time the sun goes down. Saying that, it rained about 30 minutes ago and I'm sitting here on the deck watching the clouds light up in the most fantastic colours - even if the beautiful lit up clouds are obscuring the sun setting...

Dinner was in a little place right across the road from the hotel, called Scarlett's. Very funky! Its entirely red (who'd have guessed that from the name!) and has Warhol prints of Marilyn Monroe down one wall and Jackie Kennedy down the other. Very Funky! And OMG! the food was divine! I had a noodle and chicken salad and the flavours....wow!!

Today we drove down to Crane Beach and the Gap, then up to Earthworks Pottery for a look around and some lunch, before heading to Holetown to buys hats (we forgot to pack any and it has been so hot that I've been known to stick ice cubes into my hair to cool my head down!). We spent the afternoon on the beach (not the pool - a first!) and quickly realised why I prefer a deck to lay upon.... SAND! It gets everywhere!!! Still, I suppose its a good exfoliator....

Touring the Island

We hired a car for 3 days (S has ants in his pants and can't sit still!), so on Tuesday we headed off around lunchtime and headed off to Holetown for a quick bite to eat before setting off to tour the east coast. Of course, there were shops with beautiful shiny things in them...so it took us a couple of hours to have something to eat in between trying on watches (him) and necklaces (me). My birthday present was procured too. I love the necklace and Stephen is thanking his lucky stars that I didn't pick something more expensive!!

We got to North Point fairly late in the afternoon, so "the sun was in the wrong place" as usually happens with us! We got some okay shots, but decided to call it a day and come back in the morning. As usual we had a petite difficulty with the extensive road network.... "which way? Left or right?" "I don't know where we are! Was that single track road an A road??" (Thankfully its not a big island and sooner or later you hit a coast!). We were involved in a minor Road Traffic Accident though... we'd stopped behind a car behind a bus and the car behind us decided to overtake us all, and knocked our wing mirror with an almighty thunk as he did so! He stopped and apologised profusely, but actually no damage was done. These little Suzuki Jimny's are made of solid stuff!!

On the way home we stopped in at a bar/restaurant called Zuccio's in Holetown for a few drinks. As mentioned before we had seen Martin Taylor in concert on Friday and he'd played a tune that (as he explained) was a calypso song inspired by his nights drinking in a bar called Cocomo's on Barbados. Of course, we had to go there! It was under new ownership...and called Zuccio's, but still a fun place to hang out for a while.

Being indulged and indulgent at The House

We spent Monday lounging. The staff at The House are absolutely fantastic and we're feeling very pampered. After a champagne breakfast we headed to the pool deck where over the course of the day we had an ice bucket of bottled water, cold towels and ice cream delivered to us. After a spot of afternoon tea we asked for dinner recommendations and were booked into Spago's and packed into a taxi at the appropriate hour.

Spago's was fantastic! It had a tiny deck and a fairly intimate inside space. S was huffing a little as we'd been seated inside, but I was happy. We were by the shutters and by the window which meant a cross-breeze...perfect as it was about 30-odd degrees and 90% humidity. Even more perfect when, a few minutes later, it began to rain. And I don't mean pitty-patty rain... This was monsoon-like rain and had everyone on the deck charging inside as it was raining somewhat sideways (Scottish rain!) and the awning was sagging under the volume of water.... Even we were getting rained on and we were INSIDE the restaurant!!

Happy birthday to me. The big 40 dawns...

After frantic, rather disorganised packing, we drove to Gatwick on Saturday evening. We dumped the bags and the car and had a surprisingly nice buffet dinner, then a couple of drinks before hitting the hay.

We were up at 6am (yuk!) on Sunday and got checked in before heading to the V-lounge (as the Upper Class lounge was closed). We had a spot of breakfast and a glass of champagne whilst I opened my cards (thanks everyone!). Of course, it goes without saying that Stephen was too disorganised to actually buy me one, and his frantic searches at Gatwick airport came to nothing. It also goes without saying that his lapse will cost him dear when it comes to the present.....! I was well looked after when he was off searching (for that read "topped up by the bar staff")

The flight was fine. Apart from the minor problem of them running out of (edible) food when they got to Stephen... I had chosen a macaroni mornay and he was left with seafood linguine...he had a mild "I'm a gold card holder doncha know" tantrum which resulted in him getting one of the staff meals...which looked a whole lot tastier than the flaccid pasta and spinach thing that i had!!

The poor stewardess was having a mare...aside from Sparky and the no-food thing, she managed to knock a glass of red wine all over the guy in front of us, then about half an hour later knocked a glass of white wine over his wife. Oopsie!!

The House is just as fabulous as I remember it. There is even one member of staff from last time we were here, and it was he who greeted us as we arrived. We got unpacked and freshened up and headed next door for my birthday dinner at Daphnes restaurant. It was delicious food, although we were both a bit too knackered to fully enjoy it! I think we'd gone past the being hungry stage! I got a really lovely "Happy Birthday" piped in chocolate onto a plate of chocolates and strawberries after dessert. And it really was a happy birthday!

Kerry - the Cowell connection

I found out yesterday that I am almost exactly 10 years younger than Simon Cowell (there are 3 days between our birthdays). So that set me to wondering if there are any similarities between us... Obviously we both have a fine pair of boobs and slightly dodgy hair cuts (but thank goodness mine isn't square!), we both have Scottish ancestry and we both like Barbados (did I mention we're going there tomorrow?!), but I'm now wondering if there isn't something in the nasty/nice thing.

I seem to have a "tough" reputation (my boss has been telling his training sessions that they need to obey the rules or risk getting a severe tongue-lashing from me!!). I don't know why as I'm a big softy really....although pre-coffee I might be a bit fierce I suppose!! And we all know that Simon is a big softie really! Maybe we bring a no-nonsense approach to work...so we CAN be grizzly bears but scratch the surface and we're just fluffy teddy-bears underneath!!

Packing Hell!

We've finally finished the packing. God, it was hard going! We looked out clothes the other night - but I'd seemed to manage to pull out items, not outfits. I'm still not sure that I've packed the right stuff...but the holiday clothes are spread across the house and I'm not sure where they all are. It was easier to holiday pack when it was just hanging in one place!

It didn't look like a lot when it was sitting on the bed, but we've filled our big case, the suit carrier and a small case which is full of shoes. We've also put the cameras into the overnight case to make them easier to transport. We are totally laden with luggage and we're only going for a week!!!!

Maestro Martin

We went to see jazz guitarist Martin Taylor in concert at Huntington Hall last night. Its a beautiful venue - a converted Countess of Huntington Chapel (co-incidentally, so is our house!) in the heart of Worcester. I booked the tickets way back in May and got great seats. We were right at the very front and in the middle...quite literally inches from the stage. We had neck ache and a clear view of Martin's nasal hair (thankfully he'd trimmed and blown!).

We've seen him countless times over the years. The first time was probably in about 1993 in the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow - when he had long hair and a beard. Now the hair is short, the beard has gone and the double chin has arrived...and that's just me I'm talking about!

It was a stunning performance - just a man and his guitar. I guess age might give you a wee tummy, but it also means you've had a bit more practise and he gave a superb performance. It was funny, being so very close to the front, to see that he hums and mouths the words and has other little ticks. I had always thought it was just Stephen who pulled faces when playing!

Is that healthy?

It Environmental Awareness week this week, and its being promoted quite hard this week by our site Health & Safety team. If you car share, walk or cycle into work you get a token for a bacon or sausage bap (which is environmentally sound, but not very healthy!!). As we've driven in together a few times this week we've enjoyed our share of cholesterol soaked breakfast rolls.

A free breakfast is great...but worth cheating for?? We were driving up towards the gate when I spotted someone we know parking their car in the street and walking the last 100 yards onto site! As he lives barely a mile from site and does triathlons I really thought it was a poor show to not actually just walk all the way!! Maybe he needs the bacon butty to build up for the next Iron Man tournament or something....