Unveiling the new car!

Our new car, yesterday.

We picked up the new Seat Altea on Saturday morning.

We enjoyed driving it home, Tim didn't enjoy the trip back to the garage an hour later.

Minor glitch. It should hopefully be in full working order within a matter of days...

Jo's birthday

At long last, we've uploaded all the photos from Jo's birthday, when Tim, Lucy, Poppy and Peter joined us at Verity and Mick's on one of the last sunny days of 2009. Click on the photo above to see the album.

Glaswegian advent calendar

Glaswegian Advent Calendar

Flat update...

We've accepted an offer on the flat!

Sausages and celebrities

You'd buy it, wouldn't you?

Having to leave the flat at 9am on Saturday (to make way for the estate agents) we had a great excuse to enjoy breakfast in St. Margarets. Eating alongside that bald bloke from The Gadget Show, Jo had a couple of pastries while Tim filled up for a day of Christmas shopping with scrambled eggs, bacon and chorizo. Yum!

The rain stayed away for most of the day, which slightly improved the shopping experience in Kingston, but that didn't stop some people from dragging muddy footprints round our lovely clean flat. Hope one of them makes an offer, to make up for it....

On Sunday, during a brief reprieve from house-cleaning, we visited the St Margarets Christmas Fair on Crown Road. Tim had his first mulled wine of the season, we both had warm mince pies and we braved the rain and snow-machine to sing (rocking) carols in the car park of The Tavern with Milton Jones providing comedy.

Breakfast with man in uber-trendy glasses, carols with man with odd hair...

After that, it was back home for Christmas card writing, and a double-bill of movies: Batman Begins on TV, and The Last King of Scotland on DVD (not the upbeat biopic of Willie Miller that Tim was expecting...). Now the estate agents have gone, Jo has been able to inflate the gym ball in an effort to find a comfortable sitting position for at least 5 minutes at a time.

Idi Amin - contributed nothing to Aberdeen's push for European football domination

Keeping our fingers crossed for some good news on Monday about the flat. Will keep you posted, as ever!

Poop poop!

Poop poop!

Just received a call to say that our new car is going to be ready for collection next week. Woohoo!

Jo can now do her driving practice with air-con and power steering, but it's curtains for the old Fiesta, thanks to the scrappage scheme. Most important of all, it has 5 doors and space for a little seat in the back!

Selling up

Our previous post was a celebration of having just completed our lease extension at 13 Godstone Road, so it is odd to find ourselve gearing up for an "Open Day" at the flat this Saturday.

Our enthusiastic agent from Chase Buchanan told us that the best way to sell in the current market is to get as many interested parties through the door on one day (with a bowl of choccies on the dining room table) and see what offers come in during the following few days. We have had a fair amount of interest since the property was listed on Wednesday evening, with 11 parties booked in. Please keep your fingers crossed for us this weekend!

Hats off to Jo for keeping the place in marketable condition over the last few weeks, and as we prepare for two viewings on Thursday afternoon and nine on Saturday.

Happy birthday, Barry. I hope you enjoyed Jo's carrot cake. Can you bring some back on Tuesday?!

Completion!

Scenes of celebration at Perry Hay & Co this afternoon

At long last, we're celebrating completion of our lease-extension at no.13.

We now have a substantially longer interest in the property and can now think about... selling it!

Off home now, to crack open a bottle of Appletize.

Eating with a lion

Tim is very excited!

He's going to have dinner on Wednesday night with Ian McGeechan!

For the benefit of all readers other than Tim's dad, Geech is a true legend of Scottish rugby and the British & Irish Lions. He was capped 32 times by Scotland and toured with the Lions as a player in 1974 and 1977. He was head coach for the Lions in 1989, 1993, the hugely successful 1997 tour to South Africa, and most recently the 2009 tour (again South Africa).

It's a charity dinner in aid of Wooden Spoon, and Toby's bank has taken two tables, with Tim firmly in the "potential client"/"hanger-on" category of guests. With any luck, as well as a free copy of Geech's new book "Pride Restored", Tim will be able to seek an audience with the big man and persuade him to join Quins as head coach before their season goes from bad to worse.

xxx

We celebrated our 1st anniversary on the 11th of October. So far so good!

We don't think we could have anticipated last year that by the time we returned to The Bingham a year (and a day) later, Jo would already be off the booze and goat's cheese. We had a lovely meal, taking advantage of a "two courses for £25" deal, which Tim ruined by ordering an expensive coffee and petit fours at the end of the meal. Yum. Great to see the place is as good as we remember from last year.

So, we made it to the Baby Show at Earl's Court, in spite of Jo having a horrid cold. Quite unexpectedly, we left with 20 nappies.

Maybe it was the great name, the idea of saving money or just how easy they looked (even to Tim), but we hope that we can stick with these and avoid disposable nappies as much as possible; although being around the messy bums of several nephews and nieces, we are under no illusions about how much hard work that involves! These things look pretty impressive, though: all-in-one and adjustable from birth to potty.

We really recommend going to see "Up", the latest Pixar Movie, which we saw last weekend. Visually stunning, colourful and great fun, and tinged with sadness too. The challenge is not to cry within the first 10 minutes - then you'll be alright!

We're planning a pub lunch in Richmond for a few friends on Sunday (few being the operative word, as so many now live outside London, have babies or are expecting babies in the next couple of weeks), and are keen to use up 8 more free guest passes for Kew Gardens before Tim's membership expires at the end of November.