Weekend

We have been in a friends cottage in the Lake District for the weekend. We had a very lovely time. And its only 90 minutes away.

This is Holker Hall, Matt and I went into a Motor Museum there.
Not sure what animal this is (or what it's doing)

Lake Windermere


Matt and Heather outside the cottage. (Thanks L&M)

Sometimes I am liking the pictures

Family Elliott at leisure

This is what happens in our house when we are all tired and need to relax. Al is on ebay (aspirational, although he now has a job), Heath is doing facebook (selling out/sorting her dad out), Kev is doing proper blogging.

It took a few goes to get the picture right.Sorry about the picture Heath.

Lessons in the obvious

Today Al (my son) has discovered all sorts of new things:

Knifes are sharp (he has cut himself twice today at work in a kitchen)

Ovens are hot (he has burnt himself in aforementioned kitchen)

To add to this, on the news today, kebabs are fattening. He wanted to stop on they way home and buy one, but we didn't.

Christmas 9

Happy Christmas everyone.

I have been trying to get the killer shot today, which is Grandad playing Guitar Hero on the Nintendo Wii.

London

We have been in London this week, staying with our lovely relatives (here). There are things I like and about London and things I dislike. I feel a list coming on:


Likes:
1. Museums and art galleries (we have been to most over the last few days)
2. Public transport is relatively cheap. (if you buy the special cards etc)
3. Its good to go on holiday to.
4. You're never far from a coffee shop
5. Surreptitious celeb. spotting (no pointing or shouting (no looking actually, you are only allowed one glance), I think I saw a few today but not too sure)

Dislikes:
1. Getting anywhere in a car is virtually impossible and or intensely annoying.
2. Once you get somewhere it is impossible to park your car.
3. Sometimes there are too many people on the pavements. It is difficult for them to walk down the road without bumping into you.
4. Everybody apart from me seems to know where they are going.
5. Buses and bus drivers.
6. Everyone in the free newspapers seems to be moaning about Boris, (they voted for him, so shut up)

Perhaps I shouldn't have started ...

I don't know if any of you have been in this situation.

Scene: Kitchen, teatime. Alistair (son), Heather (wife) and myself present.

My friend Jason rang Alistair today, and Alistair has been relaying the conversation to Heather and I. Jason studied near Liverpool and we playing in the SA Band together for a couple of years.

Heather: It's good to here from Jason.

Kevin: Yes, I remember when we used to play Christmas Carols in Church Street. We used to place ourselves opposite Miss Selfridge so we could (trailing off as he realizes where this is going)

Heather: Perhaps you shouldn't have started that sentence ...

SuperLambBanana day

Saturday was SuperLambBanana day. Jeanette, Glyn, Heather, Jim, me and 4 small children went on a tour of Liverpool which included catching all the SuperLambBananas in the centre of Liverpool and a history man to give us interesting information.

Here are some pictures:















Matthew decided to kiss every LambBanana he met.
















The smartest looking LambBanana





















The people of Liverpool where so impressed with Ringo Starr's contribution to the launching the Capital of Culture year, they had him painted yellow, stuffed and mounted in front of the Beatles museum at the Albert Dock.




















Despite being married for nearly 23 years Heather and I are still being stalked by her Dad.

I know what he does during the year!

Heather and I have decided to "redo" our living room, decorate, carpets etc. With this in mind we went to B&Q, Homebase etc to look at new fireplaces. There was plenty of choice bit nobody who could really help and advise us. So we went to a small shop in Birkdale, Southport which just sells Fireplaces called "Blazes".

We walked into the shop and had a look round. A small man with a beard sat at a desk asked if he could help. So we explained that we where looking at changing our fireplace.

"Where do you live?" he asked

"Ormskirk" we replied

"Where abouts in Ormskirk"

"On the corner of Burscough Street and County Road"

"Oh yes I know the type of house"

He then went on to describe the type of flue that we possess and a pretty accurate description of our fireplace. He then on to tell us what we had to do to get a modern looking fireplace.

We where very impressed.

But after telling Jason, at work, about this man we have to ask the following questions. Who knows a lot about fireplaces? When I walked into the shop was there a slight whiff of reindeer droppings? (how do I know what reindeer droppings smell like) Did he laugh with a bit of a Ho Ho Ho!?

I bet its him!!!

Sorry about your weight

I may have blogged about this before, but I enjoy listening out for corporate speak. McDonalds are typical. Before they had a partnership with Coke, they had their own cola drink. It was obviously policy for all the restaurant staff to correct customers if they asked for a Coke to say "McDonalds Cola?". I would always pause and say "Oh I'll have an orange, please" (Ha Ha).

It now seems policy for staff to say "Sorry about your wait" when the food is more than a couple of minutes in coming. There are several things about this quote, firstly the staff delivery the line with as much feeling as "Can help you" in the first place. So they are obviously not sorry themselves. As it seems to be customer policy to apologize for the food to take some time, perhaps it McDonalds corporate who are showing sorrow. Now we all know this isn't possible, so perhaps they think we will all think McDonalds is a wonderful company if they staff show remorse for late cold food and we will all spend more money there.

So I have decided they they are not apologising for the late food but for selling fattening food, hence "Sorry about your weight". I have decided to join Heather on her diet, thus spending less time in McDonalds more time eating vegetables.

Having said all this we had breakfast there last Saturday.

Grandma 1906 -2008

My Grandma died last week. But it was a happy event for our family. She was 101 and was ready to go to heaven.

About 1906
Roosevelt was the American President
The Prime Minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman (In fact he was the first Prime Minister)
Sadly Liverpool won the first division title
More happily Everton won the FA Cup
The first radio broadcast in 1906
Cornflakes where invented in 1906

Of course the main world event of 1906 was the San Fancisco earthquake.

Grandma was 6 when the First World War started
She was 33 when the Second World War started

Grandma left school and went to work in the cotton mills of Burnley when she was only young.

She went to the Salvation Army Training College, her flag was removed from the main assembly hall recently to make way for newer flags.

There is a small book that she wrote with the help of my mum, of her life which is really interesting.

Grandma shared her birth and death year with Albert Hofman, the man who invented LSD??!!

Roots 08 weekend I

Well, Roots 08 has been and gone. And I sit here thinking about all the work that went in, and all the new people I met and the worry etc. (I have run the stewarding team (with Heather) for the last four years). We had more than 70 stewards this year which manned 8 different locations with 21 different time slots more than 650 stewarding events.

I can't think what my highlight was. Overall I think it was a relieve that everything went OK and people where kept save. The Big Top didn't burn down. Nobody pinched half of the resource zone. Everyone worked really hard to make sure it was a success.

I took Tuesday off on holiday and normally I would go back to Southport and see the Big Top in different states of decommissioning. This year I didn't because it was Grandmas funeral at our Salvation Army. We had a good band and almost a full Songsters. A lot of my family came down from Aberdeen to the funeral and it was really great to see them. I wish we could have spent longer together as I have not seen them for some time and some I have not met at all yet.

I must get to Aberdeen soon.

I'll post some pictures when I get them.

Alistairs birthday

Alistair is 18 on Friday. We had a surprisen birthday party for him on Saturday night. He really had no idea, he was totally surprised. Despite following one of his friends from school into the Salvation Army car park!!?? Heather and I both took Friday off to prepare food and get the place in shape. All his cousins, uncles and aunties where there and Deb and Will came from London.

I'll post the picturs on my new Flickr account.

Matthew

Matthew's views are influenced by telly and games:

He wants to work in a nuclear power plant, because he likes the food. He likes doughnuts just like Homer Simpson.

He said in the car today that if cats could talk they would all have Spanish accents. Just like Puss in Boots in Shrek.

So there it went ... Merry Christmas

My Christmas highlights
1. Liverpool Nativity.
Loads of rehearsals for just a few seconds on telly. But, what I enjoyed was the experience of getting the show together. We spent a long time down at the new Liverpool Liner Terminal and got to know some of the production crew quite well. Doing "live" telly was exciting, especially just as the Ferry came into dock, some water washed over the landing stage and immediately froze (it was very cold, probably about -3). We did our live performance on a bid of an ice rink.

2. Carolling at the hall.
We did a lot of carolling mostly in Liverpool or in different supermarkets. But carolling round the hall to invite people for coffee and mince pies was good. And a load of people came back to the church.

3. Christmas night in with Will, Deb and Friends
Enough said.

4. Doctor Who on Christmas Day
Laughing at the Queen in her rollers.

5. New Years Eve Party
Loads of people at our house, including Howard, Helen and the girls. Peter and Howard got far to competitive at the quiz.

6. Neils enrolment as a adherent
Enough said

7. Playing on Murrays Wii with Heather and the boys.

Advent #14 - 18th December: Christmas advice

I took the day off work last Friday because Matthew wasn't feeling too good. So I was watching a bit of morning television when an item came on about men who don't know what to buy for their wives. At last I thought some help from daytime television.



But it appears that Selfridges are offering a service to blokes who are not sure what underwear to buy their wifes. They obviously help them choose tasteful stuff and the right size. One shop assistant was interviewed. Apparently, a gent came into the store and when he was asked about the possible size of his wife he was able to show the assistant a picture of his wife on the phone in the buff.



Today as my advent picture I have included......
























A picture of a Nativity scene at my mum and dads house.



What??

Sarahs Birthday

Its my nieces birthday tomorrow. She will be one. We had her birthday party tonight at Petes house. She was a star.

Advent #5 - 8th December:

It's approaching the time of year when I enter into "negotiation" with Heather about the Christmas decorations. I tend to have an aversion to filling the house with Christmas tat and Heather enjoys the process. Heather also wants to buy Christmas lights every year, but I don't see the problem of using the same ones as last year.

Anyway here is a picture of the latest Father Christmas for the Father Christmas shelf (please save me!)

Grandma

I was thinking the other day on the way to work about Grandma. She is 101 years old now, she has given up jogging and the local rugby club has stopped asking her if she can turn out for the second team, but she still managers to get to most of the meetings at the corps.

She is starting to get more and more confused. It was her birthday the other day and it was great to see her surprise everytime she noticed the same box of Uncle Joes Mint Balls we had bought her. She kept on forgetting that we had bought it for her and she would put it back in the same place and then pick it up several minutes later "Ooh are these mine", "Yes Grandma they are for your birthday. You are 101 today". "No, I'm not that old". Mum caught her later on doing the sum on the back of a piece of paper "1906 - 2007".

Grandma was in her 40s when Hilary and Tensing climbed Everest. Television wasn't available until she was in her 20s. She was in her 50s when the first motorway was built. She has lived through 2 World Wars. She left school when she was young to work in the local mill and she entered the Salvation Army Training College, I the first or second session at Denmark Hill.

She is pictured here with her latest great grand child who was born 100 years after she was.

Happy Birthday Grandma

We went to Grandmas 101st birthday party on Monday. Heather and I had considered what to buy for her but struggled. What do you buy somebody who has everything they need in their flat and perhaps wouldn't remember what it was anyway.

Its only recently Grandma has started to forget things, but she seemed to have such good time on her birthday. All her daughters and son's in law where there, Mary (my mum), Ruth and Alice. She loves sweets and cakes and she had a lot.

We decided to buy her some Lancashire stuff (because she was born in Burnley). We got her Lancashire Tea (like Yorkshire Tea but not as famous), Eccles cakes and Uncle Joes Mint Balls.