From the Four Corners

Meghan and Richard get Engaged in California

2008-05-25T16:41:00.011+01:00

I dont have the right thousand words, so here it is in pictures. It was a magical weekend on all fronts, the girls were in magnificent form, and Meghan had no idea it was coming. Awesome all around ! Thank you to everyone in MA and CA who helped make it happen !

The First Friend To Marry

2008-05-02T21:04:00.008+01:00

As it's been a while I though I'd better add a few photos. Last month, Hannah and I went to the wedding of Alfie, one of my uni housemates to Jo, another good friend. They are the first friends of ours to get married so we were really looking forward to it. It was also only the third wedding i'd been to, the last one being Suzie and Ryans and the first one..... er, the first one.... I can't really remember...

Alfie and Jo just after the ceremony.

It was great to catch up with everyone from uni. Some of them I hadn't seen since we graduated three years ago. Here I am with the guys I lived with in Wolverhampton - G-Fresh, Alfie, BadAd and Nige.

We all got stupidly drunk at the reception as you can tell from our dance moves.

Han and I had a few dances together too.
Although the hangovers lasted a little too long it was a fantastic weekend in the midlands. It was lovely to see everyone again and we're going to make a real effort to see them more often.

Do A Little Dance!

2008-03-22T11:06:00.003Z

2008-02-24T20:28:00.000Z

This should be a little film but I don't always get this right, so here's hoping!!!!

Marmalade

2008-01-24T10:12:00.000Z

Eventually Dad found Seville oranges so that I could make marmalade.
As usual I used my maternal grandmother's recipe and have added whisky.
Last year we couldn't find any, so no marmalade was made and I did miss making it.

2008-01-08T16:59:00.000Z

Now I have discovered how to do this here is Bob the Builder with his helper Wendy.
I don't know if Bob is in USA but in UK his helper is called Wendy.
When Bob and Wendy finished they had built a house in the garage which Bob insisted had a fruitbowl in it with apples and grapes in the bowl. We found the apple yesterday when Dad cleaned out the garage, in perfect condition I may add as it is so cold here.

2008-01-08T16:46:00.000Z

This was taken on 27th December 2007.
I sincerely hope that it works this time.

2008-01-05T21:51:00.000Z

Charlotte

2007-12-13T18:20:00.000Z

This is Charlotte singing I hope!!!

2007-11-07T21:12:00.000Z

Dad and his map!!

The longest waterfall in Cyprus
The hotel pool.
I have no idea how to match the words to the photographs

2007-10-19T13:25:00.000+01:00

7 am and we are making a special cheesecake for the party

We were allowed to eat in the sitting room because it was Grandma Lally's party

Family photo

2007-10-19T13:21:00.000+01:00

The family at the 90th. Sadly Callum and Charlotte were in bed by the time we actually got round to taking this!!

2007-10-19T13:17:00.000+01:00

Lally at the family 90th party.
Saturday 13th October

Trying again to post a video

2007-09-09T15:26:00.000+01:00

I am hoping that I have managed to upload the video of Lally in Aberdour yesterday morning. The video does take forever to upload, I am sure there must be a quicker way, however, I shall be happy if this works as I have been trying for ages to sort this out..
It looks as if I have..yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2007-09-06T10:44:00.000+01:00

I am hoping this is a little video of our garden taken this morning at 09.00.

Burj Dubai Part II

2007-09-05T17:44:00.000+01:00

To answer Victoria's questions..........

Adam - A response!

2007-09-03T21:56:00.000+01:00

So, I guess as the older brother, I should probably take the high ground and not react to such a direct insult to my beloved Tottenham Hotspur. However, this is football and there is no high ground - so watch out, Martin Jol is gonna get ya!!!

This one's for Dan...

2007-09-02T19:53:00.000+01:00

The plum tree

2007-09-02T11:36:00.000+01:00

Not too sure I should have put me on this blog however it does show the plum tree which is laden with fruit. Shame none of you are here to enjoy them.

Venice Beach as viewed from Scotland

2007-08-28T09:43:00.000+01:00

Bleue and Saige in Venice Beach last December. As no-one has added their photograph, I as their proud Grandma, have decicded to do so.

Only in Dubai!

2007-08-14T19:16:00.000+01:00

The 'Burj Dubai' is hoping to be the tallest building in the world when finished, and as you can see above.... it is pretty huge at the moment! Its basically like seeing 5 tower blocks on top of one another and they're still building!

3 weeks ago we moved into or new training facility which has spectacular views over Dubai creek, the Creek Golf Club and the Emirates Towers in the distance (Matching buildings behind the red roof which look like toblerone chocolate bars!!)

Unfortunately I'm not very good at this 'blogging' thing, and cant seem to get the pics to provide the panoramic shot I expected. Not a bad club house though!!

Slightly hazy day, but gives you an idea of the 'sand pit' I call home!

I wandered lonely as a cloud.....

2007-08-07T17:31:00.000+01:00

So on Friday (which is our weekend) I was woken by a phone call which went something like this....

(Josh) "Tess, you need to get up. Danny is not coming so we have an extra place for ski-diving.."

(Tess) "Huh?"

(Josh) "We'll be at your in 5 minutes"

(Tess) "Huh?"

(Josh) "Your jumping, see you outside in 5 mins"

(Tess) "Huh?...Ok!"

So we went to Umm Al Quwaim Aero club where 8 of us then selected an envelope which would decide our jumping order...And you've guessed it...I pulled "Congratulations, you get to jump 1st!!"

I wont lie and say that sky-diving has always been on my list of things to do, but it was worth it just for the scenery!

And when it came time to move to the door sill at 9,500ft, I was strangely eager to jump...

The free-falling was an amazing experience which I will never forget...not very glamourous though!

Bonus..the parachutte opened!

And back to basics...the ground!

My webcam

2007-07-27T18:51:00.000+01:00

This is taken with my new webcam, a birthday present from Chris and my mother as it is a state of the art one!!! I thought you should see that I am upholding the champagne tradition............ no surprise there then!!!!!
Even though the throat is stinky, champagne does help to deaden the jags!!!
I am jolly happy that I have managed to do this.

Meet Jeremy....

2007-07-27T06:45:00.001+01:00

In the Summer Time, when the .................

2007-07-20T20:39:00.000+01:00

..........rain falls and falls and falls!

Man, we had some rain today. What a summer we are having - Rubbish!

Meet Jake...

2007-07-14T06:15:00.000+01:00

Jake is my 9 year old step-son; he is brilliant!

Of course, we're all convinced that our children are brilliant, because, well - aren't we?!

Jacob was doing fine until his Grandmother sent him "The Dangerous Book For Boys"...

...strange things started to happen...

...the horns, the tail, and honestly - no post production in Photoshop!

Just goes to show....

..it's a "Devil" of a job raising children!

Welcome to Aliénor Maisie

2007-06-28T12:45:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to Tara and Jan on the arrival of Aliénor Maisie born at 1.00am on 28th June. Such a beautiful little girl and gorgeous names.

Robbie Graduates High School...

2007-06-25T16:51:00.000+01:00

Having graduated from High School, Robbie will be moving from Visalia to live with us in Los Angeles while he goes to college. So - no major change to our lives then!!!

America is just big, I forget that sometimes, but when just one of the schools in town can fill an entire stadium with High School grads - ..well - you get the idea...

Greeting the faculty...

Dusk falls and the crowd goes wild...

Robbie and Wendi - very proud Mum! (or Mom as it is spelled here)

Robbie's Dad, Bob.

Jeremy (10), Jake (9) and Katie (5) (Robbie's sister) don't seem to be too impressed

Favorite Robbie football photo

"So, what are you going to do over the summer Rob?"

Yep - he's going to have his cake and eat it!! Robbie with Keila - looks like a great summer ahead.

Many thanks to Dan for setting the blog up - love to you all,

Andrew

2007-06-24T12:50:00.000+01:00

Four generations of "ladies" taken four minutes ago. time now 12.48pm.

Great grandma (Lally) reading Callum his bedtime story.

2007-06-20T21:22:00.000+01:00

This is my second shot at trying to get this on the blog, so I am not going to type in any more words just in case it doesn't work again.

A birthday weekend in Luxembourg

2007-06-14T14:59:00.000+01:00

Thought some of you out there might like to see some pics of our surprise birthday weekend in Luxembourg. It was dad's 70th birthday and as a surprise we managed to get 6 of his 7 grandchildren together. We had Stephen's kids Flora and George over from the UK; Kenneth's daughter Lisa, and her brother Michael, made the trip from Germany; and my three Kaylen, Lia and Rafael joined in the fun here at home in Luxembourg. And if you're wondering, yes, Lia is indeed sporting a colourful cast, having just broken her wrist in a rollerskating incident...

Happy Birthday Papi/Tati! Kaylen is holding a photo of Alex, the only missing grandchild. Hopefully next time, we'll manage to get them all!

Obviously the excitement was too much for one 70 year old man!

Afternoon activities included some ping pong in the garden...

...and a rainy visit to the Celtic Festival in town, where we caught up with Obelix (the rain meant that we had to wrap Lia's cast in a plastic bag so that it wouldn't get wet).

We then went out for a lovely big family dinner:

And one last photo of us in the garden the next morning (minus Andrés, Lisa and Michael):

And one very last one, just because:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TATI!

The Arran week-end.

2007-06-06T18:21:00.000+01:00

I thought I should post one of the two photographs that I took whilst on my 10 mile walk up The Saddle, last Saturday on the island of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. On the walk there is a rock climb up the The Chimney and I can tell you that it is just that, a chimney (but no roof). The whole group had to use their hands and feet, not just me, to scramble up rocks. My arm muscles took 3 days to recover!!! I am glad that I did it though. As you can see, it was extremely misty, not unusual weather conditions for Arran, and we climbed up between the two rocks that can be seen.

The King Is Alive!

2007-04-27T23:15:00.001+01:00

Aunty Rita emailed me to say that she saw this on American Idol and thought we'd all love to see it, especially Dan.
I must say it is very impressive. Enjoy!

A North London Easter

2007-04-21T06:10:00.000+01:00

I've decided it's about time we kick started this blog! For those of you who don't know, I am currently living in North London with my girlfriend Hannah, my best mate Tom and my good friend Sylvia, one of Hannahs oldest friends. We have all been living together in Manor House for 9 months now and last weekend we celebrated Easter. Ok it was a week late but any excuse for good food, lots of beer and a couple of very late nights! Here you can see the four of us in Finsbury Park.

My college and travelling friend Tom Rayner also joined us for the weekend but things started badly when we woke up on the Saturday to see he'd been clamped.....

Once the clamp had been removed we were off to Sainsburys to pick up supplies. We then cooked a fantastic meal with us all sharing the cooking. Sylvia made an incredible asparagus starter....

Tom and I then made Salmon and Caper fishcakes....

....and we finished with a Lime cheesecake made by Hannah. No pictures of that as it was devoured so quickly!
We spent the afternoon in Finsbury Park enjoying the fantastic weather.....

.....before reurning to the flat and getting completely hammered!

It has been a pleasure being the first to post - let's keep the ball rolling! Who's next?!

Come on, don't be shy.

2007-03-05T22:17:00.000Z

Here's an idea. Why don't we all contribute to this blog with photos and stories about what has been happening in our particular part of the world. Don't be shy, we're all family!

You can all edit and publish your own posts and of course leave comments on everyone else's!! And if you think of anyone else in the family who would like to join in then invite them too.

Who wants to go first???