Birthday treat

Poor little Ben is suffering with the chicken pox- it's keping him awake (which in turn is kee[ing us awake...)

On the bright side, he has a birthday treat to look forward to as I'm taking the family to Disneyland Paris just before his birthday. I've timed it so that we should catch the start of the Christmas festivities. Yey!

I do feel a bit guilty about doing Florida and Paris in the same year (and if we count the Lake District then that's three holidays) but they're only young once and I really want to see their reactions to Disney at Christmas!

Last time we went we caught the winter ice show, which was great (see below) so we know what they're capable of!

Poor ickle fella

Aw, my little Ben has got chicken pox, poor ickle fella!

He was supposed to start at playschool on Monday, now he'll probably have to miss the whole week, and I'll have to work from home a couple of days to look after him.

Everytime we check him he has more spots and none of them are scabbing over yet. Here's a yucky picture to give an idea what his back might look very like soon! I can't take his picture right now because he's asleep.

picture source: http://www.midizone.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/chicken-pox.jpg

Mediaeval me

Last bank holiday monday (30th August) we went to Pensthorpe.
If you've seen Springwatch on BBC you'll probably know about Pensthorpe. For those of you who haven't heard about it, Pensthorpe is a nature reserve "set in 500 acres of beautiful countryside with meadows, woodland and lakes." Basically there are lots of waterfowl, and other birds, plus other animals such as red squirrels.

This weekend there was also a "mediaeval spectacular" with people dressed in ye olde garb, knights on horseback, archery, crossbow shooting etc.

I did try my hand at using a simple crossbow (pretty  successfully too). I did fancy having a go at archery (I've done it once before and really enjoyed it) but they only had a kiddies version, so I opted against it.

I also got roped into trying on a knight's helmet - here's a couple of pictures.

They encouraged Sir Chatalot (aka Luke) to wallop me over the head with a sword, demanding more pocket money!

Oh, and here's a bonus picture I found whilst uploading these. It's me again at Pensthorpe showing off my archery skills a few months ago.

Overall, it was a good day at Pensthorpe. the only bad things was the pesky wasps!

Sods Law - part 2

Yep. As predicted on Tuesday, Wednesday (yesterday) was warm and sunny, so packing the pool away was presumptious. A point brought home by the joyful noises of my neighbours' kids as they frolicked in their pool.

Sods law in action

8 weeks ago we put an easy-up pole (10ft wide, great for the kids) in the garden. 8 weeks later and I can count the number of times we've been in the pool on one hand (with a couple of fingers to spare.)

I've spent hours every week fighting a losing battle to keep the darned thing clean, in the hope that perhaps the sun would put his hat on and we'd be saying "hip hip hooray" and doing other mad dogs and Englishmen type stuff. But, oooooooh no, Mr Sun was not in the mood to play. This summer has been very autumnal, and at times somewhat winterish.

So, this weekend I decided it was time for the pool to go. It's supposed to be easy to empty. I say "supposed" but things are never what they are "supposed" to be. After 3 elapsed days, hundred of buckets tossed on to saturated grass(it was raining whilst I did some of this) and some wet clothes I finally finished emptying the pool this evening. I pondered the near hilarious situation of the "law of sod" coming in to play as today has been the sunniest day we've had for weeks. Okay, there was a bit of a chill in the air because it's been quite windy so we wouldn't have gone in the pool. But, what's the betting it is an absolute scorcher tomorrow or for the rest of this week?

Well, the weatherman says sunny and clear 20C tomorrow and Friday with overcast days either side, so I'm okay 'cos these guys are ALWAYS RIGHT. Right? WRONG!

I'm might take a picture of the wonderful momento the pool has left - A 10ft wide brown circle on my previously perfect lawn.

JCB Song

Now, I've posted some really great tunes below, and, yes, here's another.

I consider this a missed opportunity. For many people it rightly reminds of their Dad, especially those who have passed away. For me, I meant to play it to Luke when he was 5. Watch it to find out why (and enjoy the other videos too.)



Okay. That's it for memory lane for now. I'll get back to the rants, observations etcetera on my next post. Honest.

While I'm at it....

Lets have some Darling Buds too from the same year (1990)



...and The Belltower from 1991 (might need to turn the volume up on this one.)



Ok. One last one. This is just Dean and Britta, who I have literally discovered (thanks YouTube) -Britta was in The Belltower - wow. Good stuff.

The one and only Betty Boo

Guess who is sentimental about youth today and has been browsing YouTube again.

Here's a couple of classic tunes from 1990 from brillian Betty Boo (live on Top of the Pops.)





I checked Wiki and Betty only turned 40 this year. Recent videos confirm she still looks great!

YouTube does turn up some gems like these, but you can find some rubbish too. I also found a more recent artist trying to use Betty Boo's name. As the Shamen said, "Naughty, naughty. Very naughty!" - not really a problem though because the imposters video was rubbish (so bad that I won't post it here!)

Heavy head

A couple of weeks ago we were on holiday in the English Lake District. For the majority of the time Ben was on my back in a "backpack thing" or on my shoulders.

One time when carrying him on my shoulders he started to nuzzle his head on the top of my head, trying to get comfortable, chatting away as usual. Then it went quiet and the weight on my head seemed heavier. I caught a glimpse of him in a car window - Ben was asleep. This was reaffirmed a moment later when his head slipped a little and he started snoring in my ear!

I had to chuckle, but not much in case I woke him up! Walking back to the apartment was a tricky balancing act because it was up a very steep path, which is hard enough without a precious little snorer on your head!

Cheryl Cole will be pleased

At last. The kit maker has finally sorted the spelling mistake on the back of Ashley Cole's shirt!

Perhaps he should text this picture to girls instead of pictures of his little winky.

Good luck to Arsenal and Man Utd in the Premiership title race this season.
Lets hope Chelski and Man Sheki fail - they've ruined football and their obscene spending must be stopped.

Laugh? Yep

One of the funniest posts I've read in recent times was on "hyperbole and a half" blog.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

Material that I can relate to makes it funnier, for sure!

A friend of a friend of a ....you get the picture

Occasionally I'll hit the "next blog" button on blogger and see where it takes me. Other times I'll go to a friends blog, randomly choose one of their blog links and see what's of interest.

On this occasion I went to my friend Kerry's blog (http://windmillwatching.blogspot.com/) then went to her friend Kate's page (http://world-of-kate.blogspot.com/ -Kate also happens to be from the UK. Wolverhampton to be precise - here's hoping she prefers the stripey [and, ahem, baggier] side of the Black Country football derby! aye aye boing boing!)
From there I ended up somehow "C Jane enjoy it" (http://blog.cjanerun.com/) which then led me to Reagan's blob (http://www.reagansblob.com/) where I dwelled for a while. If you've ever read it you'll know why I spent a fair bit of time at Reagan's blob and why I was moved to write this post despite it being past midnight on a school night ( and I've got an all day workshop tomorrow...!)

Like most blokes I'm hard to move. Bambi and E.T. tried their best to no avail. But kids, well that's something different.

Read all the blogs above. They are all great people with great ways of telling their life stories. But promise me you'll stop by Reagan's and smile at the joy Piper brings to her and Jake's lives.

New look

Following on from the makeover at MaJaTo Scribes I've decided to freshen things up here at Original MaJaTo.

The force moves in mysterious ways

Disney. Star Wars. Florida. 3 things I like a lot.

Put them together and you get Star Tours and the Jedi Training Academy at Disney Hollywood Studios ( still prefer the old moniker of MGM Studios) and every year they have Star Wars weekends too (normally around May/June time.)

A few months ago Luke got to fight Darth Maul at the Training Academy (bad idea- he now thinks he's a trained Jedi!!!!). Unfortunately Ben was too young, which was a shame because he was desperate to fight Darth Vader!!!

Whilst playing around on YouTube for Star Wars related footage I found some of the characters from a Star Wars weekend involved in a bizarre dance-off which someone shot a couple of years ago. I thought I'd post it on here for y'all to enjoy!

Wake up call

6.30am is actually quite late to be woken up by either/both of my boys.

This morning I woke up to find Ben sat next to my head, just below my pillow.

Aw, what a nice way to wake up. That is until I realise he has no pull-ups on. No pull-ups means they've been removed....by him. He has a habit of doing this in the morning, most often after he's done a poo.

On realising this I jumped ot of bed and lifted the somewhat bemused Ben out of bed to reveal a nice "streak" on the bed sheets, just inches from where my head had been!

I dashed through to the bathroom still holding the toddler (he's still only 2) only to find poo smeared on the toilet seat lid and the carpet.

Ok. I'm now wide awake. Thanks Ben.