all tomorrows parties photies

me drinking my becks through my new "bob the builder" straw...i could hear my nephew brian's little voice going "bob! bob!"

you can just see nick flying around on the paratrooper...my favourite was the sky master. lots of spinning upside down.

chris in one of his surf shirts and his ghost pajama pants looking quite hungover

davoud walking up the beach in minehead

my shoe in the back of the audi tt

all tomorrows parties photies

there was a message board at the venue and here's my contribution. i don't think nick realised what i was doing as he remarked 30 seconds later "i like that one about the moose"

the coolest dancing baby *ever* wearing kid headphones

the traditional timer shot - me, davoud, nick, val, harriet and chris

me and davoud

val digging into the birthday. i thought it would be a good idea to light the birthday candles, but as soon as i got out of the door, all of the candles blew out. bah.

second best weekend of 2007

...it was trumped by my dad's birthday weekend, don't think we can beat that one this year ;)

but this past weekend davoud, nick, val, harriet, chris and i all made our way down to minehead in somerset (down south) for the music festival all tomorrow's parties. it was held at a butlins resort, which is a extremely bizarre british summer resort for families that has a fun fair, waterworld, sports centre, go karts...*and* it's right by the sea. it was great to be amongst 6000 like minded people for the weekend and we lucked out by having a 6 berth chalet with very comfy beds, a toilet, hot shower and a kitchen. yes, only the grill in the oven worked - and badly at that - and the toaster was broken too, but we were still able to cook up some breakfast and heat up pizza.

oh yeah, there was also a pizza hut, burger king, fish and chips place and a stupid amount of bars on site. three indoor venues hosted a range of musical acts, which seemed like a bonus.

it was really the company, the sun, sitting on the grass in front of our chalet, frisbee, basketball (although i did slightly sprain my ankle), bottles of becks, in depth conversation and plenty of laughter, that really made it such a great weekend.

i think this might become an annual event because the accomodation, company *and* the music was excellent. i have to say my personal faves were spiritualized, yann tierrson and cat power.

oh yeah! and the wildlife. there were scrappy seagulls and several ducks and canadian geese who weren't afraid of anything. the goose would even come poke it's head in your window if it was open. one thing about british windows that i've noticed...no screens due to the lack of black flies and mosquitos.

spent today recovering, napping and cleaning the house, but i think that was the first official weekend of summer.

one-day weekend

in the name of a long weekend coming up and a trip down to the music festival all tomorrows parties (ATP) i only took saturday off this weekend. but it was a gooood day.

i woke up craving sushi, so davoud and i drove to the trafford centre, which is possibly the biggest mall this side of edmonton. there's a yo sushi in the selfridges there and japanese delicacies travel around on a mini conveyor belt and you just pick off the things you want to eat. very tasty, very healthy...but i did almost make myself sick.

there was a random german festival in wavertree park (it only really consisted of beer) so we met up with kel, lou, sam, jo, andrew and morgan for some pints in the grass. there was even a bit of oompa-oompa music, but sadly no polka.

prince charlie is in liverpool today for st. george's day. they're reopening st. george's hall after a major refurbishment so i'm going to attempt to see it one evening this week.

today's the day the teddy bears have their piiiiicnic

leasowe lighthouse in the background through some very detailed grass. looks like a pre-raphaelite painting!

the beverages. i'm sure davoud will have pictures of the food...

val looking happy in the sunshine wearing a t-shirt that appropriately matches frank

davoud setting up some pictures on the sea bed. that's one big buoy! i won't tell you the story about cleaning his feet. lesson 1 in going to the beach: bring sandals.

a lovely, lovely weekend

in some ways i think the first warm and summery weekend of the year is the best. it was sunny. it was warm. it was the first summery weekend of the year.

friday night we found ourselves back at wine club #2: chile. it was good fun as usual and we all got to check out kel & lou's new kitchen, which has the same backsplash and tiles as mine, but it's all about taking ideas from the stuff you like.

saturday i spent some time making slightly gourmet picnic food before davoud and i packed up the basket, got some cold beers and made our way over to the wirral. we went to leasowe lighthouse, which is really clost to moreton and has family ties for me. they even have their own webcam! you couldn't see us having a picnic, but once val arrived in frank you could at least pick out the cars in the parking lot.

before even getting there i think val and i had already decided that a little walk on the sand whilst the tide was out was in order. it was so lovely to feel sand squidging between my toes and even though the water was really cold, i got in there up to my knees.

sunday davoud and i went to the hope street farmers market and picked up some truly scrumptious goodies - the olive, feta, stuffed vine leaves stand was my fave - for snacking, before throwing the frisbee around a bit in sefton park.

after beginning season 7 of the west wing last weekend, davoud and i decided we could only really stretch it out one more weekend, so we had a glass of whisky during the last episode. it was definitely better than season 5, which stank more than my socks after a long haul flight, and even improved on season 6 for one main reason: it brought the funny.

did you forget to take your awkward pill?

the oddities

the lake at the cottage was still frozen in parts, but the warm weather at the time enabled us to drive down the driveway before we left...meaning that no one had to stagger up the hill with my luggage whilst feeling less than perky
the dancing chicken
one of my favourites...brian and olivia in the tub, i think i'm quite the hairstylist
and then two days before i came home, it snowed!
so i made a very small, but very cute snowman

the birthdays

my dad after he'd overcome the surprise taking out all the candles on the cake
yes abby, i think grandpa's excted about the whisky too ;)
auntie karen, grandpa ron, chloe and wendy (yes, you get used to auntie constantly being put in front of your name...or just being called loo-loo)
olivia is a *little* more interested in the birthday cake than brian who just seems to want to keep clapping
ian, olivia and brian - who both jut turned two! - mow down on some birthday cake

the rogue gallery

is that darryl, or mister potato head?
nana will do anything for the grandkids!
jack looks astonished as abby tries them on for size
yes chloe, that's your mummy wendy behind those eyebrows...who hopefully won't kill me for posting this photo ;)

back in liverpool with photos to upload

i've uploaded some photos from the trip back home as you can see. the past couple of days i'm been attempting to acclimatise myself to greenwich mean time. the flight was not the greatest for catching some zzz's, so i slept for a few hours when i got back home. we landed in perhaps the densest fog known to man, which was a bit weird to be honest...could hardly see the end of our own wing span.

i didn't quite classify as coherent on saturday, but davoud and i did manage a walk in the park and a beer outside on lark lane. as promised, the weather in liverpool was sunny and warm. so sunday, yet again, we were in the park with beers and frisbee in hand and were joined by sam, kel and lou for an hour or so.

my stomach is still not quite up to scratch so i haven't been eating or drinking too much. it's strange not to have much of an appetite with all this easter chocolate about. back to work tomorrow...wish me luck.

week 2

i can't wait to move back home whenever i'm here.

went to see my grandma and grandpa gould on tuesday and meet up with my dad and christine...then spent four blissful days at the cottage being totally spoiled. it's one of those things you don't really appreciate until you start doing the grocery shopping and planning the meals, but it was such a luxury not to have to think about what to make for lunch or dinner, having coffee in the morning, tea made after lunch, beers opened for you, floors cleaned...the list is endless! friday night we went out in style with some extremely tasty dinner, drool worthy wine, and great scotch. as our neighbour jimmy at the cottage said, "it's like drinking a campfire."

after a bit of a tumultuous drive, we met darryl on the road and parted ways - i went to peterborough with my hoser brother and my dad and christine headed to goderich via london, ont. so i've been hanging here for the past few days playing with my nephew brian when he hasn't been too fussy - a bit of a cold - and trying to help out melissa - who is due to give birth to amy on may 8th and has been struck by the flu.

back to markham for a couple nights and then onto to see my grandma goodwin for a few days. ever since i made her some potato soup when i was home in october, she's asked me to make some more to put in the freezer for dreary days.