Merry Christmas!!!

...lots more pics later to catch up with the last week (or so) that I have been off the grid, in the meantime, have a *very* merry Christmas day, and enjoy a picture of Thomas playing with his brand new kitchen (which took almost as long to put together as our *actual* kitchen when we fitted that)! Well worth it though, he's barely looked at anything else all morning!

Enjoy your Christmas lunches and snoozes this afternoon...we'll be heading off to my folks house fairly shortly! Excited! ;)

Giant Tabasco sauce bottle

Wow, what a surprise! Came in this morning to find a giant bottle of Tabasco pepper sauce had been deposited on my desk! Just over the last few weeks I've been cooking up a roast free range chicken on a Sunday lunchtime, disecting it into handy portions and bringing it in as cold cuts to enjoy for my lunch, everyone around me has been heartily amused at the amount of Tabasco I get through while I eat it (roughly a small 57ml bottle per week, which I suppose is actually quite a lot when you stop to think about it)...

So Alan from the maths bit of the display advertising department, while he was in Costco over the weekend, spotted this giant one, got one for himself (for home) and one for me (as an early birthday present - he *says* - although rumour has it he has been spotted helping himself to nips from my little bottle from time to time, so I suspect it's as much a present for him as it is for me, and I can share)... ;)

Looking on the back of the box, it's quite clear that bottles of this size are aimed at a completely different audience to the little ones, quoting, as it does, how many teaspoons of the stuff you should add to 30-egg scrambles or gallons of thick soup, or in substitution of a heaped teaspoon of black pepper for the required level of heat...so just for reference, one teaspoon of Tabasco is roughly equal to half a teaspoon of fresh cayenne pepper...so now you know... ;)

Thanks Alan! :)

Christmas 2006 update!

Sorry, been getting really behind with all this, Oblivion (the game) seems to have become my new life! ;) Anyway, back to Christmas eve quickly, after zooming around in Colin (who was being very badly behaved and not starting when we wanted him to) dropping off the last few pressies (mostly in and around Dorking) we went to see the Christingle service at St Martins church -

- then back to Flyingpops' folks house for double duck dinner -

- (which was delicious) and then a few drinks (only one more sleep to go!)...the morning arrived with a bump almost before I knew it and we tore open our stockings and drank hot tea in bed, then downstairs before the hour of eight to open all the rest of the gifts (pics for those involved on flickr), then back into Colin for the drive to my folks for lunch where preperations were already well advanced -

- for a feast of roast goose with all the trimmings -

- followed by Christmas pudding, then on to the *second* haul of presents of the day!

- Full and happy we settled down to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening watching TV, DVDs, listening to gramaphone records -

- and then at about half eleven we all piled out to Colin, put the stereo on far too loud with all the subs pumping and managed to break the back seat...hehe...great day! ;)

We slept over at my folks on Christmas day night, then the next morning helped little Alexander (who can now say "No" and "Ta") to open his presents, then drove to Flyingpops' grandpops' place for some cold cuts, drinks -

- and to watch little Emily open *her* presents (and baby Oliver dribble disinterestedly at his), play "pass the parcel" and then finally back home for some well deserved rest (but not before drifting off at Flyingpops' folks when I collapsed into the chair), kids can be such hard work...! ;)

So yesterday we popped down to Worthing with Colin to drop off the last Christmas pressie -

- (after spending most of the morning trying to get him started, and failing miserably, first time he *really* hadn't wanted to start), finally called the AA out and the guy adjusted the tick over (up a bit) discovered that the distributor cap had somehow been installed back to front(!), the battery was half the power required to start our size of engine and one of the HT leads wasn't connected to the spark plug...He said it was frankly amazing poor Colin ever managed to start at all! He showed us a trick with the leasure battery where we could jump start him without another car and set us on our way, and with all the cylinders now firing, and not all firing back to front you can imagine that the engine now sounds rather a *lot* better... ;)

We bought some industrial jump leads and a 96 Heavy duty battery to replace the 44 that was in there, but Colin is staying at home for New Years as we really don't have time to re-wire him now...

Today, we are setting off for Cornwall (5-ish day break, see how it goes), back to Hedley Wood for their New Year celebration, almost certainly no Internet access, so this may well be the last you hear from me until 2007! :(

If so, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! :)

A very merry birthday... ;)

Had lots of the family round last night for a lovely meal (half curry/half Chinese and one McDonalds for good measure) and drinks...got an excellent haul of gifts (including) -

- some beer from Harrods -

- a restaurant quality roasting pan (woo hoo!) -

- an extra life (might come in handy!) -

- and an XBOX 360!!!!!!!! Premium pack too, so the hard disk and wireless controller etc. were in the box! Awesome!!! So spent *all* of the rest of yesterday playing Gears of War (amazing graphics!) and Oblivion (incredible game!)...also got some *excellent* books, the new Jamie and Hugh efforts, a really nice shirt and tie (be perfect for the upcoming wedding), a Dalek shower gel, a Viz subscription for next year (cool!) and loads more...

...and...Christmas is tomorrow!! We're just loading all the pressies into Colin now...hope he doesn't break down! ;)

Mystery Birthday Present

Okay, so here is what my work colleagues bought me for my birthday gift...(this is what came inside the jiffy bag) -

...and this is the contents of the blue box -

- (with give-away sticker obscured)...Looking closer at the object itself, it takes a single AA cell for power, has just one switch (with two settings), a small red light and what looks like a small microphone on the top -

I twigged what it was rather quickly... ;)

So, can anyone guess what it is? Answers on an IP packet... ;)

(Obviously those already in the know, please refrain from commenting!)