Days of our lives

I’m pleased to report that Jase has recovered from his brush with swine flu.  He was in quarantine all of last week but after starting Tamiflu made a speedy recovery.

We’ve had the opportunity to deal with approximately 30 years of photographs over the last two weekends as part of our packing and sorting.  We found an excellent company on the internet who take all your old photos and scan them into digital copies.

We sent them approximately 2000 photos from 30 years (unfortunately excluding ones already in photo albums as I had packed these already) and within three days they had scanned them and returned them to us with the photos on a DVD.  Through this method, we were able to save these precious photos from further degradation in quality.

I am so pleased with the result!  We looked through the photos and it brought back so many memories, but frustratingly we also realised how much we’d already forgotten.  I’m hoping these memories will come back when we look at the photos again.

We have begun to build our photo archive here on Flickr.  I will need to get Jase to dig out some of his baby photos the next time we are in York.

Ruby Wedding celebration

Four weekends ago, we headed up to York to celebrate my in-law’s Ruby Wedding anniversary.  Suzanne and Peter had invited their close friends and wider family to help them celebrate the occasion.  My parents headed down from Edinburgh for the weekend as they were invited too.

We were a little worried on the way up as the weather hadn’t been all that great and the forecast was for a cold and grey day.  I hurriedly unpacked all the summer clothes that I had originally packed and repacked for a colder day before leaving London.

We arrived close to midnight on the Thursday night, so went straight to bed on arrival.  The following day, we helped Suzanne and Peter get ready for the big day by preparing food and doing odd jobs.

On the Friday evening, a large marquee was erected in the back garden.  We were amazed at the speed with which it went up considering at that time the heavens opened and it was pouring with rain.

On Saturday, Suzanne’s family started to arrive.  It was lovely to meet them for the first time and get to know them a bit.  My parents also arrived that afternoon, so we spent a lovely evening as an extended family out at a local Chinese restaurant called Maxi’s.

This is Suzanne with two of her sisters.  Jase also got to meet one of his cousins for the first time.

The girls are enjoying hugs with their other grandparents in this photo.

The girls can be a bit fussy at times about their food when we go out to eat but fortunately they were both on best behaviour.  They both enjoyed their noodles and had some crispy duck and stir fried beef.  I thought both girls looked lovely in their little party dresses.

This photo is of Jocey giving Aunty Madge a cuddle – I thought it was really lovely!

The day of the anniversary party turned out thankfully to be dry.  The finishing touches were added to the marquee making it look fantastic.

The guests started to arrive, including Suzanne’s brother and another sister that we had not met before.  It was fabulous seeing these long-lost siblings reunited at such a happy occasion.  Here they are at one of the family tables.

Everyone helped themselves to drinks and before long a real party atmosphere was underway!  This is the magnificent marquee in their back garden.

Lauren and Jocey also got to meet all their second cousins.  They played really well together (maybe because they were all girls!) and had a fantastic time.  Lauren especially loved playing with Alice, who is a similar age.  Here’s Lauren with Georgina (aged eight) and Alice (aged four), the children of Oliver (Jason’s cousin) and Caroline.  This was taken after they had finished playing balloon tennis with me in the living room.

Little Lara (aged two) was also there with her parents Janet (Jason’s cousin) and David.  She was too little to join in the more boisterous play of the older girls but seemed to enjoy herself nevertheless.

We all sat down to eat the fabulous hog roast before long.  The food was wonderful as the hog was done to perfection.  My only regret is that the caterers took away all the leftover hog roast, including an awful lot of excellent crackling.  When Jase went to get me seconds, he omitted to get any crackling for me and when I next looked, the hog had been packed away.  What a missed opportunity!!

We sat with Jase’s cousins Janet, Claire, Oliver, Jo and their partners.  There was a lot of talk about babies and children at our table.  We all had a great time  catching up; I especially enjoyed chatting with Caroline about our lives with two children.

The girls all had a little table to themselves adjacent to ours.  Initially, this was only meant for the three older girls but Jocey soon decided that she was not going to sit with Mummy and Daddy and would rather sit with Lauren, Georgina and Alice.  Extra chairs were quickly produced!

Lauren and Georgina then began to look after the younger children, looking after them and being Mummy to them.  Lauren was feeding Jocey and Lara chocolate cake in this photo.  Good sharing!

Both Peter and Suzanne had the opportunity to speak and talk about their time together and their happiness that they had their family and friends all around them to help them celebrate their special day. 

The girls enjoyed themselves immensely and were very well behaved.  We were so proud of them.  As they got on so well with their second cousins, we promised Caroline and Oliver that we would make every effort to see them and their girls again in the near future.

The grown ups were pretty tired out by the end after a day of entertaining the children but it had been a truly memorable day.  Here’s Dad catching forty winks on the sofa with Jocey and Octpu.

All Peter and Suzanne’s hard work in organising the event led to everyone having an absolutely fantastic time, as well as raising a sizable sum for one of the local children’s hospices.  I am certain that everyone there will remember it fondly in the years to come.  Most importantly, they themselves were relaxed and had a wonderful time, despite all the work they had to put in behind the scenes!

The family photos from the day can be found here.

Moving to Richmond

At the end of last week, we finally exchanged contracts on our house and have set a date for moving out!  We were absolutely thrilled to have sold our house in 7 weeks despite the current housing market and additionally to get what we asked for the house.  Our estate agents worked their socks off for us, so all credit to them.

We have had several weekends of sorting and packing, thus the lack of updates online.  We finally finished clearing out the loft this weekend, including all the old carpets that had been stacked up there from the year dot.  Worryingly, some of them had become a good hiding place for moths so they were quickly taken to the tip.  The loft is now gloriously empty; just a shame it wasn’t that way when we moved in ourselves.

It has been really cathartic; we have taken 5 car loads of stuff to the tip and at least 3 car loads to the charity shop.  I couldn’t believe some of the stuff that Jase had hoarded over the years in our loft (we’ve only been in this house since the end of 2004 but there was hoarding going on even before that).

The house is chaos as you can imagine; boxes and stuff everywhere, either waiting for packing or having been packed.

I find it a bit difficult to relax in the house at the moment because of this and can’t wait for the move to be all over.  However, to be fair, we have done a lot of packing and there isn’t much more to do.

My job for today has been to find a company to clean our house before we hand it over to the new owners.  Now I know that some people will wonder why we are bothering but I feel that it should be part of moving out and is a courtesy to your buyer.  Our buyers seemed to be really nice people when I met them and have done everything they can to make the exchange a smooth process, which is all the more reason.

Of course, there are also personal reasons for this.  This was our very first house together in Bonaly, Edinburgh which Jase and I bought in our final year of university.  It didn’t always look this lovely though.  This picture was taken when we were preparing to sell it back in 2003.

We moved into the house in February 1997.  It had been a really cold and grey day and by the time the move was done it was dark.  The previous owner had left the house dirty, had taken everything including the loo roll holders, towel rails and shelves off the walls and left each room with just one 40 watt light bulb (even in the rooms with more than one light fitting).  There was also a pile of discarded odds and ends in the garage which she had not bothered to remove.

I remember sitting in the dark front room at the end of that day feeling exhausted and disappointed because it hadn’t been anything like the home I’d expected to move into.  Contrast this experience with our move into our current house, where the previous owner left us a bottle of champagne and a friendly note explaining how everything worked.  The house had been left tidy, and whilst not super clean, it was still a huge improvement on our experience in Edinburgh.

We take possession of our rental flat in Richmond tomorrow.  I was thrilled when I found it as it is just right for our family’s needs at this time.  It is right in the heart of Richmond so everywhere is within walking distance and it’s a good size being a post-war flat.  I am looking forward to spending Tuesdays and weekends exploring Richmond and Kew; Jase and I are both hoping that it will be less pressured and less hassle than West London, where we’ve been living up to now.  Of course, being closer to work and nursery (it’s about 5 minutes drive from our new flat) will be fantastic too.

We can’t wait!

Glorious summer

The weather has been absolutely glorious for days.  At the weekend, we spent a lot of time at the park with the girls as the whole family took advantage of the fabulous weather.  Our garden is looking wonderful but is needing a lot of watering as the sun is so fierce during the day.  There has been very little rain lately, so it looks like we could have the very hot summer that we’ve been promised by the weathermen.

June is a busy month for all of us.  My brother Jase and Charlotte celebrate their second wedding anniversary today.  My in-laws celebrate their Ruby wedding anniversary this weekend.  We celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary in 3 weekends’ time; that same weekend, my cousin Jeff will be getting married in Toronto.  We are really sorry that we won’t be there to help Jeff and Leanne celebrate their special day.

So this weekend, we are all going to York for Suzanne and Peter’s Ruby wedding anniversary.  There is a big event planned for Sunday with family and friends, with a hog roast being the centrepiece of the festivities.  We are all really looking forward to it and having a long weekend out of London.

Next week, I am going to view some rental accommodation in Richmond for the family, as our house sale appears to be reaching the final stages.  We are really pleased to have got here so quickly and can’t wait for everything to be finalised.  Moving to Richmond will get us closer to the nursery and make our lives a lot easier as commuting will be less.

Once we are safely settled in Richmond, we intend to kick back and enjoy the glorious summer ahead!

Happy Birthday to Grandma!

May is a month of birthdays – we had PoPo’s (Grandma Maggie’s) birthday at the beginning of the month and Grandma Suzanne’s birthday today at the end of the month.  So just for our two Grandmas, here’s a special rendition of the Birthday Song!

Happy birthday!

James & Sally’s Wedding Photos

The photos that Jason, Julian and I took are uploading to Jase’s Flickr account as I type.

They will end up here.

We have sent James & Sally a disk with them all on today.

Feel free to share the link around.

String Legacy

My musical career really began aged 6 or 7 when I first encountered the violin.  I remember quite vividly my first Skylark violin; it made quite a squeaky noise and its quality was no doubt the catalyst for many parents prohibiting their offspring from taking their instrumental career any further.

Luckily for me though, my parents persevered with the questionable sound and my string playing eventually led me to playing both violin and viola with orchestras and quartets at school and outside of school.  However, as my singing career became more dominant, my chances of playing became less and less and eventually I stopped playing both instruments and concentrated on the singing.

Recently I brought my instruments (which I’ve had for about 20 odd years) down to London as I wanted the opportunity to pick things back up and show the girls what fun stringed instruments were.  Lauren in particular was fascinated.  However, after a few attempts at playing the instruments, I realised that all those years in storage had affected both the bow and the instrument as the sound didn’t ring quite true.

Last Tuesday, I accidentally found a violin shop in Ealing whilst on a quest to get some sushi.  Sadly, the sushi shop was just closing as I got there so I decided to investigate the violin shop instead.  After a conversation with one of the staff members, I decided to bring my instruments back to the shop this week for examination, a valuation and an overhaul if necessary.

Luckily for me, the owner was on the premises when I got there and he examined my violin and viola with the kind of attention to detail and knowledge that marked him out to be a real pro.  After playing strings for many years, I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about violins and violas, but my knowledge was trivia compared to his depth of knowledge.  He makes and restores instruments and actually knew the man who had made my viola, which impressed me no end.

I had been right in thinking that both instruments and bows need a little bit of work to get them back to a good standard, but he reassured me that these were not overly complex as the instruments were in very good condition and structurally sound.

However, when he gave me a rough valuation for my instruments I nearly fainted.  They were worth much more than I had expected, even taking into consideration that I have owned them for 20 years.

Once restored, I will definitely be taking better care of my instruments and playing them more.  After all, despite having to leave it to one side once the demands of my working life took off, I can definitely say that my musical career brought me a lot of joy and happiness.  The instruments will also be a fantastic legacy for the girls, especially if they decide to follow in Mummy’s footsteps and play strings.