It may only be May but in sunny Edenbridge it is Christmas! Very exciting!
For my sister last Christmas was a bit of a washout, due to her second child turning up on 22nd December in a rather traumatic way, therefore Christmas is taking place right now! Christmas music and the smell of turkey is filling the air.
Christmas Eve was spent in the pub, as is the tradition, although midnight mass didn't take place due to the vicar being rather unwilling to open up the church just for us. However, Santa did remember….
Jill has been busy with preparations: food, decorations, drink, she even managed to create a 'shed' for the nativity scene….
If you ever want to experience a fantastic singer/songwriter you can do a lot worse that attend a Frank Hamilton gig. Following on from #onesongaweek in 2012 that culminated in a sold out gig at London's The Borderline in Camden, Frank has followed it up with a UK tour…..
Tonight was the second night of the tour – held at a great little live music venue in Leicester, The Cookie Jar located in the basement of The Crumblin' Cookie. Frank was on top from, sharing his own brand of indie-folk-pop music and brilliant song writing skills. He is a very likeable fella, lyrics that express Frank's emotions and experiences, from travelling around, moving to a new city, through to finding and losing love.
It was a great set, including the fantastic, 'Things I do', 'Make Things Make Sense' and the splendid 'Flaws and Ceilings'. Frank manages to write about things that relate to everyone: a soundtrack for life. Who can't relate to this….
“I wonder what she's thinking when she lies in bed, coz when I wake up when she's in my head, and I'm thinking in few years time will I still be yours, will you still be mine”
If you get a chance go and see Frank Hamilton: you won't be disappointed.
Already a few days into the final week of the Easter holidays and you will not be surprised to hear that I haven't touched one iota of schoolwork. In fact I've done everything except schoolwork. It is amazing how much you can get done to avoid marking:
Sorted out garage – there is still absolutely no chance whatsoever of getting a car in there – but at least now there's a path through all the crap to get to the back.
Mowed the grass – a couple of dry days and some sunshine resulted in the first cut of the year.
Fixed fence – windy conditions resulted in a snapped post. So after digging up most of Lincolnshire I managed to finally remove a huge lump of concrete that had been used to hold up post. I am now slightly worried I have also dug up a big percentage of the foundations.
Made a visit to the tip household recycling centre – gone are the days when you reversed up to a massive hole and slung in all your crap – now you need a PhD – old Hoover? Appliances or small electrical? I glanced at 'small electrical' and could only see old car radios, so plumbed for 'appliances' – WRONG! Two seconds after placing it down…. “That doesn't go there mate!”
Went to running club training Tuesday AND Thursday – which is something that happens very rarely. Tuesday was 20 x 1 min fast/slow and Thursday was a very fast 2 mile time trial.
Watched 'Inception' – good film – although I am not about to try to explain it – I'm not entirely sure myself – was it all a dream or not?
Read 'Pigeon English' by Stephen Kelman – this book has been on my reading list for a while – it follows a young immigrant from Ghana as he grows up on an estate in South London – good book.
Just started reading 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' by Rachel Joyce – so far so good.
You'll also notice that this post severely lacking in pictures. This is because of the whole 'One Second Everyday' shenanigans. Although I have found a picture of a giant dog wearing a sombrero….
Mother and daughter caught cheating at egg and spoon race.
Yesterday at a National Trust organised Easter Egg Hunt in Chartwell a mother and daughter were found to have cheated in an egg and spoon race. Jill Lawrence, 36, and mother of two, was allegedly said to have sellotaped her daughters egg to the spoon. The much anticipated under 6s race, the highlight of the day, had begun in good spirits, but it wasn't until the race had started that eyebrows began to be raised.
Grace (18mths), clearly unaware of the scandal that is to follow
News of the scandal broke when a young lad noticed the shiny looking surface to the egg, when his father looked closer the Sellotape was clear for all to see. “My boy has inconsolable,” said the man, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, “my boy has been training for weeks and then some jumped up woman appears to try to claim the glory, it's disgusting!”
Sellotape is clear for all to see
Mr E Bunny, National Trust Easter Egg Hunt organiser, had this to say, “Following reports of alleged cheating we have suspended Mrs Lawrence and her family from attending any National Trust Heritage sites and events. We are also looking into claims that the same woman may have not completed the Egg Trail but still claimed the prize,” he went on to say that, “she is the lowest of the low, and to drag her innocent daughter into her web of deceit is unforgiving.”
The local Edenbridge Police Constabulary have put out this alert:
This is just the latest in a long line of strange and worrying behaviour that includes, amongst other things, forcing children to wear bizarre bunny ears and adorning her daughter with strange pagan symbols, these pictures have recently surfaced…
This woman should not be approached. If you do see her call 999 immediately.
'A feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen'
Now being born and bred in South London – which I am very proud of – travelling North is always a slightly worrying time. So when the time came to venture to Huddersfield for an 18th Birthday Party, it was with trepidation that we began.
Overall we had a great time, but I never thought it would be plain sailing….
We had previously booked a 'bargain' room in a pub just outside the city. We only paid £35 for a family room so didn't expect too much on arrival. Seemed pretty clean, a lovely little village pub and was perfect for what we wanted, even included a TV that was situated on top a rather rickety cupboard. The full extent of what we had done would be revealed later.
After doing a lap of the city centre in search of 'Rhubarb', the hippest, happening joint in Huddersfield, we still seemed lost. So we asked a local. In fact we asked three locals, before actually meeting one who had a reasonable idea of where he was and what century he was living in who was able to point us in the right direction.
We entered 'Rhubarb', the hippest, happening joint in Huddersfield. At this point I began to show my age. It was very loud. It was not only very loud, it was dance music. I have a serious issue with dance music – it all sounds the same. I'm pretty sure we listened to the same track for 4 hours. Hence the fact we didn't last too long in the throng of drunken teenagers.
The constant bang bang bang of dance music had done one thing – we were now desperate for food. Therefore a visit to a nondescript pizza takeaway place was on the cards. A ham pizza was ordered. I'm not sure if this is a northern thing, but instead of ham we got a light sprinkling of some sort of hard red substance – clearly they had noticed my southern accent and attempted to show me the way of the north.
And so we made it back to our room. Only now our room was above the loudest, hippest happening joint just outside the city centre. Our 'lovely little village pub' had turned into the devil itself. And the devil did not rest until 4am!
One other interesting point to make about the room is that the en suite did not have its own light, the light only came on when you switched the main room light on. Cue a ridiculous trip to the loo in the middle of the night with the light from my phone shining the way.
AND because I am in the midst of a 'One Second Everyday' project I have even managed a very short video of the events – minus the visit to the loo of course….
About a month ago my iPhone experienced a bit of a failure: the lock button decided to give up the ghost. So as the phone was still under warranty I rang Apple in an attempt to find out what to do. Cue a ridiculous conversation with an America lady that involved lots of tango-victor-bravo terminology. Now my NATO phonetic alphabet is maybe not up to scratch as at one stage I used the word octopus for 'o', had various spellings of my surname, Lengthan, Lengthern and Lengthon to name but a few, and finally managed to book an appointment at my not so local Apple store in Leicester (I did actually find out later that it was incredibly easy to book this appointment online).
So today I ventured to Leicester, not feeling particularly optimistic, to solve the problem…
I arrived at the Apple store with what seemed like every other Apple customer in England – it was very busy. I was greeted by a very nice man with an iPad who promptly booked me in and directed me to the rear of the store to the 'Genius Bar'. Arriving at the 'bar' – which did not serve any alcoholic beverages – another very nice man, again armed with an iPad, confirmed what the problem was and scooted round the back to get my replacement phone.
Within 5 mins I had logged into Apple on the new phone, been told that the next time I connect to my WiFi it will automatically update itself – I had the previous night backed up the phone to iCloud – and sent on my way.
And…low and behold he was absolutely right….on returning home within 30 mins the phone had downloaded various apps, photos, videos and music. Lovely jubbly!
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