• a visit to Durham in January,
• Edinburgh in February to see Dave and Wendy,
• the community garden and the coast in March,
• and finally in April, some gardening and a walk to Tynemouth with some Front street resurfacing shots!

The first BBQ of the season is lit, hear it roar!

It turns out a jet washer is the key to cleaning off 6 month old grease and ash…

We’re back from our Spanish holiday with Shona and Simon.

We only got home at 2am this morning so are still recovering… big thanks to Simon’s parents for letting us stay at their Villa and to Shona and Simon for inviting us along.

Pictures are up here.

Here is a screenshot of the weather for part of our time their… it was hot.

Well, after a shameful amount of time has past, we have sorted thought the pics from New Zealand.  They are mostly of Holly trying to stuff things in her mouth.

I have been ill most of the week and Andrea is now coming down with something  so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to sort through all the photos.  We have done very little work on the house in the last week or so with illness and, last weekend, birthdays of Andrea and Ryan getting in the way. We did manage to plant the mighty punga today. We just hope it survives the Geordie winter.

The double glazing is being fitted in a week and the builder has started his work too, so it is beginning to take shape.  We’re still responding with “before Christmas” when people ask when we will be moving in.

Thursday to tonight (Saturday) saw that wonderful spectacle that rears but once a year hit the local area… the Tynemouth beer festival.  Unfortunately, illness has robbed us of all three evenings of real ale pleasure so I will have to rely on reviews from Graham on this years brews.

John and Andrea.

Well we landed back home early on Monday, just in time to pick up the keys to our new house!

The pics from New York start here.

Full post to come at some point…

Now, should I start stripping wallpaper or sort through the New Zealand pictures?…

Two new and exciting galleries up…

There are a bunch of Holly pictures up showcasing Watson and Arnies little girl.

We were at our prospective house this morning sorting a few things out and we took some pictures… before shots anyone?!  I even had a notepad with me this time, Ryan was very impressed.

Hope everyone is well and happy…

We’ve had a busy and enjoyable holidays so far!  Photos up for the month start with the Christmas party up at Powburn.  This year I volunteered Andrea and myself to cook the feast…

One Jamie Oliver DVD later and a 9.4kg Turkey in the boot we headed up a good 7 hours before everyone else were due to arrive and had a great time!  The food was well received and the night went well, Andrea was not sick for the first Christmas in ages and outlasted me by a long way.

Christmas day was quiet with Dave, Mary and Laura all being in different stages of illness.  We had a nice chilled out day and I did some of the cooking to compliment a Turkey crown and lump of Beef cooked by Dave!

On the 27th we headed off to the Lakes with Graham and Beth.  Two nights in Ambleside have been well spent with much beer, merriment and walking.  Our first evening we were entertained by the one and only (I do hope so…) “Julio Geordio”.  He played a great mix of old classics and modern anthems.  Looking at the 200 dark and blurry photo’s we took I’d say we really enjoyed ourselves.

Those big on geography will know Windemere town is not 3 miles from Ambleside.  We were blissfully ignorant of this fact after seeing a misleading sign and attempted to walk it.  About 2 and a half hours and 4-5 miles later we realised something was wrong and called a cab from a pub… no point in wearing ourselves out before dinner.

Thinking of the family back in NZ as they remember Catherine one year on.

New pics from May are up in the gallery starting here.

We had a BBQ at the Udberg senior household while they were in Rhodes which was nice.  In attendance were us, Graham, Beth, Jen and Ryan.  Unfortunately that night was the start of what turned out to be over a week of illness for me with a virus.  I’d definately cooked those burgers properly though!  The weather has been great for large parts of May, we had another barbie just last week at Graham and Beths.

We visited Beamish earlier in the month on a pre-school trip visit.  The sweet shop was a highlight.  Luckily for the kiddies the weather was alot better for the school trip than it was for us.

Grandma turned 83 this month and there are some pictures of that Sunday with the family.

Finally, last weekend we walked some of the ‘Waggonways’ (old paths that were used by wagons in ye olde days) and through Briardene, a park in Whitley Bay / Seaton Sluice.

Andrea has been on half term this week, recharging before the final push.  7 weeks to go before the end of the school year.  Which also means 7 weeks until the arrival of the Grayburns!

We voyaged North and West to Glasgow last weekend to meet up with Shona, Simon and her family in Glasgow.

Shona’s mam and dad were over from New Zealand and our base was her step brothers house (Graeme) on the outskirts of glasgow.  We drove up on Saturday for a surprise that evening.  Graeme and his family had organised dinner in a private function room in a hotel close by.

The balloons were out and deep fried haggis was on the menu!  We then had further merriment back at Graemes house (well, Andrea and everyone else did, I had a headache and lay down for an hour).

The next day was activity filled!  Go karting was the main attraction.  A great indoor track and a competition structure with multiple heats added to the thrill of the speed!  We then had a quick rest, dinner and on to bowling.

It was a great weekend and we then drove back down on the bank holiday in glorious sunshine…

Photos start here.

.. as Blur say.

We spent last weekend house sitting with Graham and Beth up near Alnwick.  It is Beth’s friends house and it was impressively grand and luxurious!

We also had a little friend, ‘Suki’ the Beagle.  She was very friendly and fun, although a little on the thick side.  She didn’t even appear to know her own name.  Makes it hard to communicate.

We had the open fire roaring both nights we were there and went out to Alnmouth on the saturday night for questionable fish and chips in a local eatery before retiring back to the house and fire.

We all really enjoyed it out there in the peaceful open greemery of hte countryside.  The cooked breakfasts I made were pretty darn good too.

We’re both off now for half term and looking forward to the break