Blue Christmas

Surely this isn't what Elvis was referring to when he sang 'Blue Christmas'?

NB: Apologies for poor photo quality but I had to take this picture in secret. :o)

My Nephews 1st Birthday

This weekend my nephew celebrated his 1st birthday and his Christening.

Christenings normally reduce children to tears, but Harry is such a happy chappie and took the whole thing in his stride. He sat on his mothers lap and paid attention to the vicar the whole way through the service. He didn't make a sound and looked genuinely interested in what was being said. When he was taken to the font and had water thrown on his face he still didn't cry. In fact he just wanted to put his hand in the water and swish it around. He truly was a very well behaved little boy.

Me & Harry

After the Christening everyone went to a hall where we had a party to celebrate Harry's 1st Birthday. Harry had had a 2 hour nap earlier in the day so he was well rested and full of energy. His parents had hired a bouncy castle for the older children to play on, but Harry was desperate to have a go.

My brother and his family

It was a very nice afternoon, but I was exhausted by the end of it. I spent a lot of the afternoon running around after a very energetic Harry. Charlotte also had a great time and spent most of the time with her friends, in fact I hardly saw her all afternoon. I occasionally saw a shock of blonde hair run past me.

Some of the family

I can't believe Harry is 1 already, and Charlotte will turn 4 next week. Time goes by way too fast for my liking.

Harry with his Mum & Dad

25 Most Played

I was having a moment of boredom so I thought I would listen to some music on my iPod. Here are my top 25 most listened to songs.

1) Piece of Mind - Boston

2) Fireball - Deep Purple

3) Now or Never - AG Silver

4) Dream On - Aerosmith

5) Please Don't Let It Go - HIM

6) Stone Cold Sober - Paloma Faith

7) Salt In Our Wounds - HIM

8) Wuthering Heights - Angra

9) Kick A Hole - Imperial Vipers

10) Say You Don't Want It - One Night Only

11) English Country Garden - The Darkness

12) The Funeral - Band of Horses

13) Lost - Coldplay

14) Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors - The Editors

15) Midlife Crisis - Faith No More

16) On A Day Like Today - Keane

17) Man In The Rain - Mike Oldfield

18) Vampire - People In Planes

19) Hurting Kind - Robert Plant

20) Caught By The Fuzz - Supergrass

21) Animal Nitrate - Suede

22) Union of the Snake - Duran Duran

23) Take It On The Run - REO Speedwagon

24) Need Your Love So Bad - Fleetwood Mac

25) Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas

I haven't listened to some of these songs in a very long time so I'm really not sure where my iPod conjured this list up from. However, I I am now going to make a point of listening to all of these. There are some great tracks here! I would also like to point out that England (actually the UK because one of them is Welsh) can lay claim to 16 of these great bands.

England may be a fairly dire country to live in, but we've made some great music.

:o)

When Harry met Saffy

This is a tale of unrequited love between a young boy and a golden retriever. Harry loves nothing more than to crawl around after Saffy, and Saffy loves nothing more than to run away from him as fast as she can (she's 13 so she can't run that fast these days). The already fragile relationship took a turn for the worse today when young Harry pulled a rather large clump of fur out of Saffys tail. Harry loves hair pulling. He's only 9 months old so there's nothing vicious about it, he just can't help himself.

Saffy is actually really good with him. She plays hard to get, but I can tell that she is secretly very fond of him. She tantalises Harry by walking past him swooshing her tail.

Harry has gone home now and I think Saffy might be a teensy bit relieved. She no longer has her tail hidden between her legs so that Harry can't grab it, and she is finally able to go to sleep without fear of being poked in the eye or having her ear tugged.

:o)

The Cutest Thing

My sister and I were on our way home from work yesterday when we saw the cutest thing. We were stuck in traffic (a regular occurrence in England) and noticed that cars were swerving in the road. I was expecting to find that people were swerving around road kill (also a regular occurrence), but as we got closer we saw this:

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to take a photo, but what I saw looked very much like this. Mummy duck and her fluffy ducklings were strolling along the gutter by the side of the road, blissfully unaware of the chaos they were causing. I counted 7 duckings, but there may have been more. I'm so disappointed that I didn't get a picture.

It was such a lovely sight, and it made my day!

My VERY Cute Nephew

The title says it all, this is my incredibly cute nephew. He is 8 months old and a real bruiser.

He is very well travelled. In fact he has just come back from Florida where he learnt how to crawl (I'm fairly sure he would have learnt how to crawl even if he hadn't been to Florida, but you know what I mean).

He almost never cries.

He laughs A LOT.

He has beautiful blonde curls in his hair.

He is sporting 2 brand new front teeth (he has 4 in total now - 2 up, 2 down).

He loves pulling your hair out.

He likes to pull Granddads glasses off his face.

He loves to dance, and has great rhythm.

There is so much more I could say about him, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I turn 34. I would love to give some inspirational speech about how it doesn't matter how old you are, it's what you do with your life that counts, but I don't buy in to all that.

I actually don't feel too bad about my birthday this year, 34 is a nothing age. I think next year will be tougher. I'm not looking forward to that one!

Anyway, for now I would just like to wish a big Happy Birthday to anyone who happens to share my birth date. Like Bono and (when he was alive) Sid Vicious, and apparently Homer Simpson! Who wouldn't want to share their birthday with Homer Simpson?

:o)