For those of you who are regular visitors to our site, so not many people, this site will be quiet for a few days. Mark and I are ducking over to a little island called Ireland for a week, driving around to see the beautiful Erin countryside.
We have our fingers crossed for a bit of sunshine but the forecast is for rain, rain, hail and gale force winds. Hummmm, so we may come back with lots of pictures of Irish pubs or rather the inside of them if it gets too gloomy. However, I have been told its just as beautiful even if its rainy!!
We shall see - cannot wait!!!
Friday, September 29, 2006
Harry's Here...
Big hugs and kisses to dear Av & Steve on the safe arrival of little Harry Willam McGregor, who arrived on Friday 22nd September at 5.38pm weighing in at 7lb6oz. I don't know much in the way of details as yet, but I do have pictures of the new and very happy family.
Best wishes to you both - we cannot wait to meet him!!!
Harry with his Mum & Dad
Baby Harry
Best wishes to you both - we cannot wait to meet him!!!
Harry with his Mum & Dad
Baby Harry
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Twins!! Samuel & Chloe Siebert
A big congratulations to Rebecca and Tim on the arrival of their instant family. Very exciting. Their little ones, well they got an early start in life, very early, and shocked their mum and dad by arriving naturally at 30 weeks, much earlier than planned on 30th August.
Little Sam was a tiny 3lb4oz and he beat his sister Chloe (at 2lb2oz) into the world by 15 minutes. But Rebecca has been sending through lots of information and tells me that they are both (and mum too) doing really well and now will be home in around 4 weeks. They look gorgeous too and sooo tiny.
I have put a couple of pictures on too....
Tim with Sam
Bec with Chloe
Little Sam was a tiny 3lb4oz and he beat his sister Chloe (at 2lb2oz) into the world by 15 minutes. But Rebecca has been sending through lots of information and tells me that they are both (and mum too) doing really well and now will be home in around 4 weeks. They look gorgeous too and sooo tiny.
I have put a couple of pictures on too....
Tim with Sam
Bec with Chloe
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Saturday Lovely Saturday
Mark and I are quite lazy, I only say this because our "lets make the most of the autumn sunshine" began at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. Well thats what time we dragged ourselves out of the house. Though to be fair a good 3 hours prior to that was spent on the phone to lovely people back home.
Our excursion began on a SouthWest train down to Hampton Court via Surbition, so past all the lovely burbs of London, or Sussex really when you get that far (only 15 min on the train really). Oh so pretty if only I were wealthy, humm sigh.
Ohh but the part I really liked, still in London was the bit between Clapham Junction and Wimbledon, because you can see all the terraced houses and they are on a bit of a slope, so all the houses and rows, upon rows, of chimmney tops makes it look straight out of Mary Poppins.
Anyway so we got there and wandered around before we had a little pub lunch (where I got my text from Av telling me about the birth of her tiny precious new baby Harry William - how exciting), before we went over the the glorious Hampton Court Palace for a bit of a Sunday arvo history lesson. It was lovely and pictures are below - enjoy!
Our excursion began on a SouthWest train down to Hampton Court via Surbition, so past all the lovely burbs of London, or Sussex really when you get that far (only 15 min on the train really). Oh so pretty if only I were wealthy, humm sigh.
Ohh but the part I really liked, still in London was the bit between Clapham Junction and Wimbledon, because you can see all the terraced houses and they are on a bit of a slope, so all the houses and rows, upon rows, of chimmney tops makes it look straight out of Mary Poppins.
Anyway so we got there and wandered around before we had a little pub lunch (where I got my text from Av telling me about the birth of her tiny precious new baby Harry William - how exciting), before we went over the the glorious Hampton Court Palace for a bit of a Sunday arvo history lesson. It was lovely and pictures are below - enjoy!
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Robbie In Pictures
Robbie Arriving in his helicopter...
The Milton Keynes Bowl, its huge!
Basement Jaxx
And Robbie....lots of Robbie as close as I could get
Ant and Dec with Robbie
More Robbie
And this is not my pic (thanks to Milton Keynes website) but its how close I would have loved to have been :-(
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Roooobbbbbbbbbbiiieeeeeee
Last night Mark and I went out to Milton Keynes which is about 30 minutes to 1hour (depending on which train you take) out of London (towards Manchester), so that I could fulfill my dream of seeing Robbie Williams live in concert and be able to go "hahahahahha" to you at home who won't get to see him.
This dream, however, was dulled, almost shattered, when he announced Adelaide on his Australian tour - doh! Ah, but alas he won't be doing 5 sell out shows in Adelaide with 65,000 people at each. Thus if you are going at home, you won't get to experience the highs....getting closer to the stage than about 50,000 other people and the lows..... being behind 15,000 people and trying to escape at the end of the to the train station with said 50,000 people to get home prior to 1am!!!
The day was quite long for us as we had to get out there quite early to pick up our tickets, pre-ordering in Australia does not allow for mailing out! Ok so that leaves us there at about 3.30pm in the afternoon, after the train and 20min walk!!! What then? Well there was already a huge, very lively crowd, some with Robbie tops - loads of merchandise - and some with cowboy hats on. The hats were everywhere, selling for £5 and mainly in popular pastel pink, even for the boys - so Robbie's sexual preference eludes us still especially with those blokes there.
So we got some drinks found a possie and sat down...hummm. It actually ended up going quite quickly and we were entertained from 6.00pm onwards, first with the crowd doing the Mexican Wave, then with Robbie arriving in his helicopter, a band called Orson were on (don't know them but they were ok), and then Basement Jaxx were next. They were great - lots of crowd involvement, bright colours, costumes, great music - really really entertaining.
Finally at 8.30pm Robbie was on, with a bang! There was a countdown and loads of fireworks. Quite cool. We were not too far away from the stage, but not really close. The best spot to have been would have been with the special "Golden Circle" tickets which is like the main section right at the front - probably about 10,000 people in there, but at least at the back of that section you are still really quite close to the stage. Will definitely get those tickets next time I go to a concert there, well if I can get tickets.
Robbie was sweating as soon as he started, but insisted on wearing a scarf for a lot of the show...weird. The show felt like it was over before it started as that an hour and a half just flew by. He talked quite a bit and mentioned how Take That asked him back - ha, as if he had just sold 3 million tickets on this tour, but as a nice gesture he did sing Want you Back for good.
He did Feel, come undone, RockDJ, Monsoon, Advertising space, Sin Sin Sin and more, but most entertaining was when Ant & Dec (English comedy twosome) along with Johnny Wilks another (English) singer all got up together and did routine involving the audience as to who was the best English duo. As a play off they and the audience did a big karoke version of Strong. Finally for the encore Robbie sang Angels, Let me Entertain you and the new one (which is pretty rubbish) Rude box.
I had a fun night, Robbie is not Marks cup of tea, but it was definitely an experience, what with the huge crowds and great atmosphere. I have put the pictures on the flicker site, as for some reason this site has a tissy fit everytime I attempt to put pics on.
This dream, however, was dulled, almost shattered, when he announced Adelaide on his Australian tour - doh! Ah, but alas he won't be doing 5 sell out shows in Adelaide with 65,000 people at each. Thus if you are going at home, you won't get to experience the highs....getting closer to the stage than about 50,000 other people and the lows..... being behind 15,000 people and trying to escape at the end of the to the train station with said 50,000 people to get home prior to 1am!!!
The day was quite long for us as we had to get out there quite early to pick up our tickets, pre-ordering in Australia does not allow for mailing out! Ok so that leaves us there at about 3.30pm in the afternoon, after the train and 20min walk!!! What then? Well there was already a huge, very lively crowd, some with Robbie tops - loads of merchandise - and some with cowboy hats on. The hats were everywhere, selling for £5 and mainly in popular pastel pink, even for the boys - so Robbie's sexual preference eludes us still especially with those blokes there.
So we got some drinks found a possie and sat down...hummm. It actually ended up going quite quickly and we were entertained from 6.00pm onwards, first with the crowd doing the Mexican Wave, then with Robbie arriving in his helicopter, a band called Orson were on (don't know them but they were ok), and then Basement Jaxx were next. They were great - lots of crowd involvement, bright colours, costumes, great music - really really entertaining.
Finally at 8.30pm Robbie was on, with a bang! There was a countdown and loads of fireworks. Quite cool. We were not too far away from the stage, but not really close. The best spot to have been would have been with the special "Golden Circle" tickets which is like the main section right at the front - probably about 10,000 people in there, but at least at the back of that section you are still really quite close to the stage. Will definitely get those tickets next time I go to a concert there, well if I can get tickets.
Robbie was sweating as soon as he started, but insisted on wearing a scarf for a lot of the show...weird. The show felt like it was over before it started as that an hour and a half just flew by. He talked quite a bit and mentioned how Take That asked him back - ha, as if he had just sold 3 million tickets on this tour, but as a nice gesture he did sing Want you Back for good.
He did Feel, come undone, RockDJ, Monsoon, Advertising space, Sin Sin Sin and more, but most entertaining was when Ant & Dec (English comedy twosome) along with Johnny Wilks another (English) singer all got up together and did routine involving the audience as to who was the best English duo. As a play off they and the audience did a big karoke version of Strong. Finally for the encore Robbie sang Angels, Let me Entertain you and the new one (which is pretty rubbish) Rude box.
I had a fun night, Robbie is not Marks cup of tea, but it was definitely an experience, what with the huge crowds and great atmosphere. I have put the pictures on the flicker site, as for some reason this site has a tissy fit everytime I attempt to put pics on.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Dealing with English people at work
What I find intriguing about working and dealing with Londoners, well English people really, as generally Londoners are young foreign people...like ourselves...
1. The love their tea...and I mean love it. There is one person here who has a kettle at their desk!! Really. Plus it needs to be hot, and very hot. Its not enough to use the Zip hot water machine....noooo one must use said hot water put into a kettle and boiled yet again. To get it hotter - seriously water gets to 100 degrees and that's it - but they don't seem to get this.
2. Still on the tea thing, they love to get each other cups of tea. BUT beware you must return this favour if asked, which is hard when you only have one or two cups a day, as there becomes no opportunity to return this favour. If you don't do this you become black banned and no one asks you anymore no matter how many times you offer if to them from then on after. I didn't work out the timing on my being banned but I believe it was a couple of months.
3. No one takes responsibility for anything, no one wants to do anything and they then they still complain about what they do actually do - nuf said on this. (But I will add that this is because I am exhausted from being on the phone to customs where I spoke to 5 people in 5 different offices before someone could help me with a package that I had coming over and note I added up the phone call time and it was nearing on 3 hours in total!!!)
4. They whinge a lot, but never to whom it actually matters. I.e. you ask one person to do something they don't like or something they don't like is happening and they complain no end to someone else. Not to me, not to the person whom they have the problem with - but to anyone else who will listen.
We have a perfect example of how this is the case. Mark had the sardine issue with his 8.30am train, ok so they replied and said not enough carriage ra ra etc etc. Then the next week and since then the 8.35 train (the longer train) has been coming at 8.30am so that he no longer has the issue of being a sardine on the train and everyone who previously squished up can now get on.
So if you complain to the right people (i.e. not the neighbours, cat or your uncle) things actually get done. This is proof, so we just need to announce this to all the people who whine about the tube now.
My newest tactic when I get an earful of a complaint is to say "did you complain to whomever (the person, government office etc) in question" - if I get a negative response, well I go "well no wonder nothing happens". The general response to this is "oh it won't matter if I do" - but they never try so how do they know!!!
5. They hate change.
6. They won't recycle - office recycling is retarded here, I just don't bother because; no one double sides anything, all the printers are colour, the paper is the glossiest ever, and they think nothing of printing a report that is a ream long only to find an error and do it again.
I have already refused to provide our client with a hardcopy of a report because it was 500 pages long, and they were not happy about this even when I gave them the file electronically. The office kitchens for recycling, well don't get me on that. Plastic cups, plastic spoons, sugar in sachets...... need I say more. The greening the office team from Santos would be staging riots and picketing in the hallways I tell you.
7. No one wants to work long hours, they are in at 9.30am if your lucky and well out the door by 5pm - I was writing this at 6pm and the office was empty, even some contractors I have won't work longer hours and they get paid by the hour!!
8. They hold grudges and play silly games - one guy from our client cannot get us a report we need because his boss won't talk to him. This guy is a pain but and I refuse to deal with him because he is verbally abusive - he is leaving so I am relieved.
9. People love to talk about doing things.....but don't actually do things.
10. And finally....since I am running out of things to say...is that my favourite people in the office are the Aussies, there are 4 of us and we get things done god damn it!!!
1. The love their tea...and I mean love it. There is one person here who has a kettle at their desk!! Really. Plus it needs to be hot, and very hot. Its not enough to use the Zip hot water machine....noooo one must use said hot water put into a kettle and boiled yet again. To get it hotter - seriously water gets to 100 degrees and that's it - but they don't seem to get this.
2. Still on the tea thing, they love to get each other cups of tea. BUT beware you must return this favour if asked, which is hard when you only have one or two cups a day, as there becomes no opportunity to return this favour. If you don't do this you become black banned and no one asks you anymore no matter how many times you offer if to them from then on after. I didn't work out the timing on my being banned but I believe it was a couple of months.
3. No one takes responsibility for anything, no one wants to do anything and they then they still complain about what they do actually do - nuf said on this. (But I will add that this is because I am exhausted from being on the phone to customs where I spoke to 5 people in 5 different offices before someone could help me with a package that I had coming over and note I added up the phone call time and it was nearing on 3 hours in total!!!)
4. They whinge a lot, but never to whom it actually matters. I.e. you ask one person to do something they don't like or something they don't like is happening and they complain no end to someone else. Not to me, not to the person whom they have the problem with - but to anyone else who will listen.
We have a perfect example of how this is the case. Mark had the sardine issue with his 8.30am train, ok so they replied and said not enough carriage ra ra etc etc. Then the next week and since then the 8.35 train (the longer train) has been coming at 8.30am so that he no longer has the issue of being a sardine on the train and everyone who previously squished up can now get on.
So if you complain to the right people (i.e. not the neighbours, cat or your uncle) things actually get done. This is proof, so we just need to announce this to all the people who whine about the tube now.
My newest tactic when I get an earful of a complaint is to say "did you complain to whomever (the person, government office etc) in question" - if I get a negative response, well I go "well no wonder nothing happens". The general response to this is "oh it won't matter if I do" - but they never try so how do they know!!!
5. They hate change.
6. They won't recycle - office recycling is retarded here, I just don't bother because; no one double sides anything, all the printers are colour, the paper is the glossiest ever, and they think nothing of printing a report that is a ream long only to find an error and do it again.
I have already refused to provide our client with a hardcopy of a report because it was 500 pages long, and they were not happy about this even when I gave them the file electronically. The office kitchens for recycling, well don't get me on that. Plastic cups, plastic spoons, sugar in sachets...... need I say more. The greening the office team from Santos would be staging riots and picketing in the hallways I tell you.
7. No one wants to work long hours, they are in at 9.30am if your lucky and well out the door by 5pm - I was writing this at 6pm and the office was empty, even some contractors I have won't work longer hours and they get paid by the hour!!
8. They hold grudges and play silly games - one guy from our client cannot get us a report we need because his boss won't talk to him. This guy is a pain but and I refuse to deal with him because he is verbally abusive - he is leaving so I am relieved.
9. People love to talk about doing things.....but don't actually do things.
10. And finally....since I am running out of things to say...is that my favourite people in the office are the Aussies, there are 4 of us and we get things done god damn it!!!
Friday, September 15, 2006
Rolling down the hill
Just this weekend Mark turned 30, as was covered in the previous blog. No he did not sprout two heads on Saturday morning, but he did have a uncontrollable urge to roll down a hill in a blow up ball. Maybe to rekindle some weird childhood thing, who knows.
So off down to Dorset we went to go Zorbing!! For those of you not familiar with Zorbing it was on the Amazing Race (which I am devastated that they do not show on TV over here).
It was invented in NZ and is basically a blow up ball about 8ft across with a smaller ball suspended inside it. You run up and dive into the small ball via a very small hole (there is a knack to this which neither of us managed) and this clearly would have been a sight especially me half in with legs flailing everywhere!!
We did the Hydro Zorb so our trip down the hillside in the ball was with 2 buckets of warm water. It is just like being tossed around in a washing machine - not that I have tried that - but is much fun.
Well that was about 10 minutes of our weekend, so for the rest of it (since we had hired a car from Gatwick and driven all the way down to Dorchester) we did some country sight seeing. The weather was sunny and warm, so we were making the most of it.
We stayed in a tiny little hamlet called Cerne Abbas (after ringing around about 10 different B&B's), where the man is carved right onto the chalk hillside. The Abbey there is quite lovely. Our B&B was nothing special, but the family were nice enough and had lots of adorable rabbits - we do miss Jasper at home lots. We visited a little town called Stratton, where I think, my family on my granddad's side possibly would have come from originally.
Portland Castle, the Tank museum (snore) and Lulworth Castle (by accident as I had forgotten about it) were our destinations. We also saw the man on the horse carved into the hillside in chalk. Though I have no proof of this as my SLR camera is currently on strike!!
Our visiting involved driving around on little B roads and lanes (only having to reverse back for another car once). Though Mark soon got fed up with this, only to find our way back to A roads and backed up traffic!!
The traffic on the way back to London (well Gatwick but the road was towards London) was quite horrendous and not for any reason either, it was weird we'd just crawl along and then all of a sudden the traffic was free flowing and you could do 70 mile an hour, then without warning we came to another grinding halt. It was especially bad along the journey across from the A31 back to the M3 - 6km in 20 minutes is not my idea of country touring! After that we switched to another A road and zoomed along after that.
Was a nice weekend but alas yet again Monday came and we had to drag our butts out of bed to go to work again. :-)
So off down to Dorset we went to go Zorbing!! For those of you not familiar with Zorbing it was on the Amazing Race (which I am devastated that they do not show on TV over here).
It was invented in NZ and is basically a blow up ball about 8ft across with a smaller ball suspended inside it. You run up and dive into the small ball via a very small hole (there is a knack to this which neither of us managed) and this clearly would have been a sight especially me half in with legs flailing everywhere!!
We did the Hydro Zorb so our trip down the hillside in the ball was with 2 buckets of warm water. It is just like being tossed around in a washing machine - not that I have tried that - but is much fun.
Well that was about 10 minutes of our weekend, so for the rest of it (since we had hired a car from Gatwick and driven all the way down to Dorchester) we did some country sight seeing. The weather was sunny and warm, so we were making the most of it.
We stayed in a tiny little hamlet called Cerne Abbas (after ringing around about 10 different B&B's), where the man is carved right onto the chalk hillside. The Abbey there is quite lovely. Our B&B was nothing special, but the family were nice enough and had lots of adorable rabbits - we do miss Jasper at home lots. We visited a little town called Stratton, where I think, my family on my granddad's side possibly would have come from originally.
Portland Castle, the Tank museum (snore) and Lulworth Castle (by accident as I had forgotten about it) were our destinations. We also saw the man on the horse carved into the hillside in chalk. Though I have no proof of this as my SLR camera is currently on strike!!
Our visiting involved driving around on little B roads and lanes (only having to reverse back for another car once). Though Mark soon got fed up with this, only to find our way back to A roads and backed up traffic!!
The traffic on the way back to London (well Gatwick but the road was towards London) was quite horrendous and not for any reason either, it was weird we'd just crawl along and then all of a sudden the traffic was free flowing and you could do 70 mile an hour, then without warning we came to another grinding halt. It was especially bad along the journey across from the A31 back to the M3 - 6km in 20 minutes is not my idea of country touring! After that we switched to another A road and zoomed along after that.
Was a nice weekend but alas yet again Monday came and we had to drag our butts out of bed to go to work again. :-)
Dorset
Mark driving the hire car
The lovely countryside
Cerne Abbas Abbey
Cerne Abbas Giant Inn, its the town where there is the man carved into the chalk in the hillside
Little Hamlet town of Stratton...maybe where the rellies were from ?? (Stratton is my maiden name)
Bunnies at the B&B...sooo cute
Tank Museum..a wee tank and a tank that makes its own bridge
Me at Lulworth Castle
Inside the entrance of the castle, its just a shell it was burnt down
View from Lulworth towards the sea
Lulworth Castle afternoon tea..mmmm!
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Party Party Party....Mark turns 30!
On Friday night a few of us went out to celebrate Marks... well his getting older!! We had a great night out at the Bar & Grill near Smithfield markets, near Marks work.
Mark and Carissa
Lisa and Carissa
Michael, Sean, Mark, Emily, Carissa, Danni, Charlie & Lisa
Michael, Laura, Sean, Mark, Emily, Carissa, Danni, & Charlie
Lisa & Danni
Michael & Charlie
Carissa & Emily with Mark
Carissa & Emily
Michael & Lisa with Danni and her tongue!
Laura, Mark, Michael, Lisa and Danni
Lisa & Danni again!
Mark and Carissa
Lisa and Carissa
Michael, Sean, Mark, Emily, Carissa, Danni, Charlie & Lisa
Michael, Laura, Sean, Mark, Emily, Carissa, Danni, & Charlie
Lisa & Danni
Michael & Charlie
Carissa & Emily with Mark
Carissa & Emily
Michael & Lisa with Danni and her tongue!
Laura, Mark, Michael, Lisa and Danni 
Lisa & Danni again!Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Whats new?
Well not much really, just a bit of work and....wait for it ....warmer weather (26 &27 degrees).....lovely. Very sad to hear about Steve Urwin too, as much as the man was annoying he was a great asset to our country, I'd much prefer him for Prime Minister... Crikey! (yes, its his fault I do actually say that on occasion).
Just writing to say that I have so much more blogging that I have missed out on here, there are a few trips that have not made it to the site yet...
1 - Goring By Sea, just 2 weeks ago
2 - Wimbledon, gee that was ages ago (we have put in for the ballot for tickets next year, fingers crossed), but I still haven't added any pictures.
3 - Isle of Wight, that was just lovely
4 - Trip to Leeds Castle for the jousting
5 - Boat Race - Cambridge vs Oxford (now this really was ages ago, I believe it was still winter!)
6 - Notting Hill Portobello Road market pictures
7 - Mark playing Touch Rugby
8 - Various other things....
Just writing to say that I have so much more blogging that I have missed out on here, there are a few trips that have not made it to the site yet...
1 - Goring By Sea, just 2 weeks ago
2 - Wimbledon, gee that was ages ago (we have put in for the ballot for tickets next year, fingers crossed), but I still haven't added any pictures.
3 - Isle of Wight, that was just lovely
4 - Trip to Leeds Castle for the jousting
5 - Boat Race - Cambridge vs Oxford (now this really was ages ago, I believe it was still winter!)
6 - Notting Hill Portobello Road market pictures
7 - Mark playing Touch Rugby
8 - Various other things....
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Farnborough Air Show...
Just a couple of pictures from the Farnborough Air Show which we went to in July.
The Red Arrows
A giant A380 airbus landing
An F15
A Chinook Helicopter - doing the twist!
A Lancaster Bomber
Spitfire...
Me with an American Fighter pilot - mum if only you were there!
An F18
And I lastly .... I couldn't resist, was too cute this little boy on his Dad's shoulders flying his little plane.. :-)
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