Away with the Martins

Karen's family and friends rates got us a good deal at the Hanbury Manor hotel. Lovely old Manor House turned into a 5* hotel.

We took Alfie for his 'holiday' to East Dean Dog Kennels at Headcorn. Clara returned very distraught that she had left Alfie in a 'cell'!!

We met the Martins at 10:30 to travel to Hertfordshire and arrived in time for lunch at the hotel. 

After lunch we were going to go for a walk and thought that Lea Valley country park might be a nice place to go to. We drove 12 miles and couldn't find it. We found a place called Myddelton House in Enfield with gardens designed by EA Bowles instead.

There wasn't much there to see but there were some bushes in the car park that Cam and Dan was jumping over. Cam wondered if they would hold his weight - "yes" we said. "try it". So he did...

Secret Santa

Some retail therapy in the morning; Clara and Kaylee had some Christmas vouchers to spend. Then over to Detling for the annual secret Santa event. More nice presents for the 'kiddies' followed by secret Santa - 2 wrapped in the Telegraph from today and SIX in the Guardian from the 17th December!!  We played some games; pictionary, higher or lower and guess the musician. Really good fun this year. 

Happy Christmas

Started with a Christmas parkrun - Alfie was wearing his Christmas outfit

Followed by Eggs Benedict and Buck's Fizz then it was present time. 

After presents Graham came over, Jon went with Andy, Dan and Paul to the chequers for a 'quick' drink then dinner - turkey and all the trimmings. 

We watched Dr Who then did some

Lego building until bed. What a lovely day. 

Merry Christmas Eve

We went to see Grandad to exchange gifts this morning. Gareth and Naomi turned up with Rose, who'd been to work with Pat, then Lol and Emma followed by Pat. Nice cup of coffee with some biscuits served by Rose. 

After lunch and a walk with Alfie we met the 'families' in the village at 3:30 ready to get the best seats at church for the family service (is this our 9th year!?). Rev Chris's last service before he's off to Hull - what will next year's service be like?  Over to the pub for a quick drink before Anna and Paul left the party. We saw our old neighbours, Gary and Claire, there - nice suprise and hopefully we can catch up with them in the new year. 

The evening was topped off by a meal at the North Pole - service not up to its usual standard as they were really busy but nice to catch up with everyone. Home to see an episode of Sherlock before bed. 

Happy Christmas Eve one and all. 

Thai night

Vaneda is a Thai lady married to Paul: She is an excellent cook and cooked a Thai meal for Ronnie, Joe, David and me.

Lovely food. 

Duke of Edinburgh presentation night

Cam, along with about 400 other students, was invited to Invicta to receive his certificate for his bronze award.

Happy birthday Grandpa John

Tea at Grandma's in order to celebrate John's 81st birthday.  Happy birthdayGrandpa. 

With Sara, James and Max,  Harriet and Matthew,  Abby and Rex were there too with Jo, Diccon and Celeste. 

O Christmas tree...

The chritmas tree is up and everything decorated for Christmas. Alfie hasn't used it as an indoor toilet or chewed any of the Christmas teddies on the stairs...yet.

He did however have a munch on a chritmas fairy. 

Turkey Run

Cam and I have just got back from the Turkey Run. Good fun 10k through muddy puddles. 

Clara becomes a teenager

Clara had fun bowling with Grace, Sophie, Kiera, Kaylee and Megan before having MacDonalds for tea on Saturday

Grace came back for a sweet fest and sleepover and had a cooked breakfast with us for Clara's 13th birthday breakfast.

Clara opened her presents before going off to football in Folkestone!

In the afternoon we went to Auntie Jo's for a birthday tea with Grandma and Grandpa, Sarah, James and Max, Hatty and Matthew and Grandad and Auntie Pat. Trish and Mike were also there as it's Trish's birthday too. 

Happy 13th birthday Clara xxx

Happy 16th birthday

Cameron is 16 today. He woke to a very blustery day which became a very rainy day. After a rendition of Happy Birthday quickly learned on the piano from Clara. It was time for breakfast and presents. 

A busy day for Cam as there were two performances of Dick Whittington to manage the spot light for. 

During the interval the cast had a cake and cars ready for Cam (queue red face and slight embarrassment). Then it was back to Grandma's for tea and more cake. With presents from Auntie Jo, Uncle Diccon and Celeste as well as Doreen and David and Grandma and Grandpa of course. 

The final performance of the panto was finished with a further singing of Happy Birthday by the audience, lead by Dick who announced af the end that it was a "very special person's 16th birthday today!!"

More embarrassment but he couldn't escape from the top of his tower.  

Happy birthday to a wonderful sonand brother and an amazing person. 🎂 

Irene's 75th birthday party

PPAuntie Irene was 75 this week and had a birthday party to celebrate. 

Auntie Vie brought a picture of Grandad with Dad and Auntie Vie just after they moved to No 8 King George Street. 

Dick Whittington

Clara has several parts in the Deing Players panto this year: Fang, evil King Rats henchman, posh lady and the baker. This involves lots of running round the audience with the other rattlings, buying "toilet pepper" and "not" selling bread to Dick Whittington. 

Cam was in charge of the spot light; a responsibility he fulfilled very capably from the top of a tall tower at the back of the hall.

While enacting "that" scene from titanic, or was not something from the Messiah?!

Both did really well. More than I can say for

Most of the rest of the cast - this was a usual, local amateur pantomime. Great scenery and props, great fun, dubious acting, much forgetting of lines. Apparently Friday evening was the night to watch due to the large audience (over 100 people) who all got involved with the "he's behind you"s). Making a great atmosphere. Even the Prompt got a curtain call as she had as many lines as the cast!

Halloween

Halloween parkrun. 

Followed by trick or treating

and Nick and Lisa's annual party.

 

SPECTRE

While Clara went to Keira's for a sleepover, mum, dad and Cam went to see the new James Bond film 'Spectre'. It was awesome. Daniel Craig was well worth the £39 million he will earn; £25.6 million for acting and the rest for endorsements and the like. Wow. 

Half term

Clara has an extra week for half term. She had a day at the sea side with dad, grand dad and Alfie. It was REALLY cold. Then she had a day shopping with grandma. 

The 2nd week saw Cam n mum joining Clara at home with Alfie. Lots of walks as the weather was nice. Although the river was really high and we got very wet feet on one occasion and Alfie had a paddle. 

Cam had lots of revision to do as he has his mock GCSEs when he goes back to school. 

Autumn walk

Lovely autumn walk with Alfie

Half term

Clara has an extra week for half term. She had a day at the sea side with dad, grand dad and Alfie. It was REALLY cold. Then she had a day shopping with grandma. 

The 2nd week saw Cam n mum joining Clara at home with Alfie. Lots of walks as the weather was nice. Although the river was really high and we got very wet feet on one occasion and Alfie had a paddle. 

Cam had lots of revision to do as he has his mock GCSEs when he goes back to school. 

R...Alfie

We've got a dog!!!

We collected Ralf from Clara's friend Kiera today. He didn't get on with their other dog, Digby, and was going to have to go to a rescue centre so we offered to take him.

He is a dachshund x Labrador cross and he's as cute as. 

We don't like the name Ralf so, as they called him Ralfie for short we are going to call him Alfie.

Michael McIntrye

Lovely evening with the Martins at the O2 to see Michael McIntyre. 

Karen booked the tickets for us and we met at the O2 at about 4:30. Had an early tea before going into O2 priority lounge for a drink until 6:30 and time to find our seats. Much laughter later we left, and due to Jon's clever choice of a parking space, managed to be out of the car park and home by about 11:30.

Latkfield ladies under 14s

Clara played against Perts Wood away today. They lost 9:0 against a team with an academy level player who scored 8 of their goals!

Clara played the best she has played in a match and won opposition player of the match 

Tough mudder

Jon left in a state of excitement and nervousness this morning to go to Winchester to take part in London South Tough Mudder event.

Before

And after!  They don't call it tough MUDder for nothing.

Really hard but what an achievement - a BIG well done to the team.

Ultra White Collar Boxing

jon went to watch Jim boxing at Priestfields.  Jim won on a technical knock out in the 2nd round - great effort.

Cam, Clara and I went to watch The Scorch Trials at Rochester Cineworld. Good film, nothing like the book it's based on though.

Demelza 10k.

Jon and I did the Demelza 10k at Leeds Castle today.  Really warm day, lovely and sunny. What a beautiful venue too. Jon played football yesterday so his back was sore and his Calf muscles were tight but we took it easy and managed to get round the, quite hilly, course in 1:08:45 

Pleased with that 😀

Rubbish selfie tho 😂😂

Work Experience

After a VERY disappointing experience at Gullands, mail room assistant was not quite what Cam was looking forward to, Auntie Jo stepped up and arranged a morning with her colleague Justin where Cam sat in on client interviews and an afternoon at court. Cam thought his time with Justin very interesting and enjoyed it immensely.

Family cook night

Pancakes for pudding

Cucumber

Clara has invited Grace for a sleep-over tonight. Cam and I walked to the allotment and picked the BIGGEST cucumber grown yet. 

He picked a 2nd cucumber to eat on the way home. When we got home he decided to use what was left of it as a straw!

Tower Bridge

Today we went to London by train. We walked from St Pancras station to Tower Bridge, via Costa.

Cam was tired, it's hard getting up in the

morning when you've got out of the habit. So he ordered an espresso to help wake himself up!

Tower Bridge now has a glass walk way so you can see the road below and the river. It's lovely

Tower Bridge is a Bascule bridge (has bits that lift up like a draw bridge). It took 8 years to build and was opened in 1894.

It was needed as prior to this there was only one bridge over the Thames in London, London Bridge.

We also got to see the original engines used to lift the bridge.

Lovely views across London from the walkways

Hayfever

We went to Boughton Monchelsea to see this year's Changeling Theatre's production of Hay Fever.

Really funny, quite cold, beautiful setting.