Guernsey and beyond
Score about 2 out of 5 so far! Weight is coming down nicely, couple of pounds a week and weekly alcohol consumption is down a bit, chocolate consumption down a lot! Have earmarked a modest amount of family time and me time for February together with a trip to a trade show to get some ideas for the next big thing!
January 22nd, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | 
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Goodbye and Good Riddance to 2009! Our personal annus horribilus - from the trivial (Newcastle United’s perpetual self destruct) to the tough (hard year to run a retail business) and the tragic (loss of two very special, and much missed people, Dad and Aunty Mary) there has not been a lot to smile about. There have seemed to be some positive signs in the last quarter so the New Year is time to put last year behind us and look forward with optimism. Newcastle are currently top, business is looking up, and we have been reminded of the need for family time.
I’m hopeless at sticking to resolutions but I’ll make some anyway:-
That’s probably enough resolutions - let’s see how I’m doing in a month!
Phil
January 3rd, 2010 | Tags: resolutions | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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I have added some more photos to the Picasa page here. There is now a permanent reminder visible from the kitchen window with a Camellia.
September 20th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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Well, tempus fugit! The kids are back at school, the nights are drawing in, the temperatures are creeping lower! It all seems to have passed quickly, although the school holiday was an unreasonable 7 weeks and one day long!!! We did get away, centreparcs, sunparks and a bit of a European tour saw us take in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and (fleetingly) Luxembourg. We stopped at Passendale and Ypres, to see the war memorials and graves, still very moving after all this time. A day in Paris, the Louvre, Musee D’Orsay, a certain tower and the Batoux Mouche provided a very full day. Swimming seemed to be the major activity of the holiday with Alex & Dominic enjoying pools and water-slides and wave machines. Dad’s legs have just about recovered. A couple of weeks of work and the holiday hardly seems to have happened!
Toodle Pip!
Phil
September 14th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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Dad died on the evening of 11March, but due to the difficulty in getting the far flung family together, it was only this week we finally got to scatter the ashes. It was a private affair with just immediate family present, as we visited his favourite area at Derwent Resevoir and chose a tranquil area with simply beatiful views.It is a very special place and a fitting location for a very special man. I’d like to think if he had been able to choose for himself, this is the final resting place he would have chosen.
August 20th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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Its that time of year when the dreaded little books come home to tell of progress during the year. Happily, Alex and Dominic both have glowing reports speaking of progress and effort that is scarcely believable. Well done to both of them. A for effort!
July 15th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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It is commonplace now to watch an unseemly scrum at checking as people are charged excess baggage often more than the airfare was. We all know it is a money making ruse to catch out the unwary, but have you ever wondered how accurate the scales are? If retailers charge by weight or volume, their measures are subject to scrutiny and are generally checked regularly. Does this apply to airport scales? I think we should be told when they were last checked. If you are in doubt, ask for your bag to be weighed on a different scale. New personal luggage scales seem to be this years boom product - given how much you could save, it might be a wise investment. They will be coming soon to Ecomundi
July 15th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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That first school trip to far off places is almost a right of passage, isn’t it? Alex has had sleepovers, and scout camps, but this was the first overseas trip without parents there to fuss and be overprotective! Short but packed, 3 days including Jersey Zoo, Ice Skating in St Malo, shopping (she seems to have got the hang of that, strangely enough!) and goodness knows what else. Meanwhile, back home Dominic and Muffin were pining away. No doubt I’ll hear all about it tonight.
June 12th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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Herrm is a tiny island just three miles from Guernsey. Alex and I went for a short break last week, and really you could be in another country, on another continent even. A small sample of pictures are here that show its almost tropical nature. What is hard to capture but delightful to experience is its peace and tranquility. Cars are banned. Only a few tractors and working quad bikes to transport materials around the island disturb the quiet occasionally. A pub, a hotel, a campsite, a bit of self catering and some fantastic beaches make this a truly special place. Several of our friends in Guernsey make a point of spending a week there every year. If you make it to Guernsey, make sure this is on your agenda.
April 21st, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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Whenever I think of my Grandad, the first thing I think of is his laughter. Perhaps it’s best to lay down some ground rules straight away. To me, he was always Grandad. He will never be Sid or even my grandfather. He was simply Grandad, and that is that. His laughter would start with a pop, a strange wheezy hiss like gas rushing out of a champagne bottle before exploding into a rich, bounteous series of bursts of generous hilarity. Whatever else my Grandad might have become, or might have been, I still remember that wonderful noise that was his universal response to the antics of his grandchildren or to the foibles of life.
As I sit writing this, I am aware of a strange effect. The words that normally come to me so easily, so rightly, so cheaply, don’t come so fast now. Not when you’re writing something real, about someone important. The words that frame my moods so easily are fighting me. What follows is as close as I can get to saying what I want to say about Grandad. But then, whoever was ever able to say exactly what they wanted to say?
It was a great shock to me, the time I visited my Grandad and realised that I was taller than him. He was at the home and was starting to fade. The body and the spirit are bound to each other in life, and when one starts to leave the other must follow. He was already thinner than I remembered, particularly in his face, and the light that had twinkled for my entire life had now dulled.
It is a tribute to the Grandad, to the man he was, that its disappearance should hurt so much, should leave such a void, for real pain is caused only by the loss of something precious. I remember at my last visit examining Grandad’s hands. How small they looked! Were they the same hands that used to throw me up and down in the air, gurgling in delight, or hold me upside by the ankle?
Grandad was not a gentleman, possessed of condescending self-assurance and shining with the polish of refined mannerisms. He was something far more precious and rare, a gentle man. He was someone who was always approachable and who would always listen to you, who amiably took the world in his stride.
He also possessed a vast and impressive repertoire of engaging tricks or jokes. One of my favourites was the way he could stick his finger in his cheek to make a popping noise. It never failed to raise a smile and I spent ages trying to do it myself, although my successes were unreliable at best. Grandad could skim stones with the best and always beat me at checkers and I loved him for it and congratulated myself on my good fortune that I had such a clever Grandad.
And when I think of Grandad in years to come, it will not be of the confused, dull figure that made me want to cry as I realised what we had lost. It will not be of the stranger that other people called Sid, giving him an unfamiliar name when he needed none. It will be his laughter, his wheezy, loud and joyful laughter that I will remember.
Sam Ottewill-Soulsby
March 23rd, 2009 | Tags: Grandad | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post
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