John and Andrea Udberg

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

First pics from January are up.

We are back into the swing of work again… and looking forward to the next break

We both have the half term holiday off so we’ll get away for a quick break at some point, the location depending very much on funds available.  Barbados has already been struck from the list.

We were up at Barrasford, near Hexham last weekend for Scout camp.  Much fun had by all but the late card nights have taken their toll on sleep patterns!  On Saturday we took a walk up to the site of Baden Powell’s first camp.  Thrilling stuff.  Fortunately the local pub didn’t have Setanta (it didn’t even have a TV come to that…) so we missed the match against Man U.  Hopefully things will be very different soon thanks to Mr Keegan, he may not be a master tactician but he certainly does get the hairs standing on end when he speaks.

My weekly 5 a-side match has resumed and we have even been to the gym!  Apparently you need to go more than once to see the benefit though…

Photographs from December are now up in the gallery.

Events in New Zealand have made this a very subdued holiday though.  Our thoughts go out to all of the family and especially to Arnie and her whanau.

Catherine’s friends and family have set up a facebook group in her honour.  A Tribute to Catherine (Kells) The Great!!!!!

Turn the sound up!

We made the treck down to Birmingham last Friday afternoon/night…  After a prompt leaving time we still didn’t arrive at Shona and Simons until nearly 8pm thanks to the Friday traffic.  We were considering putting off the drive until the morning as Andrea was feeling pretty ill but once there with a beer (juice for Andrea) and some chinese food, the long trip was soon forgotten (or at least blocked from memory).

The German markets have just started for the year and they were just as fun as last time we were there in ’04.  We had a great weekend, caught up with Tash, Christian, Meika and Mark and had a great Curry

Pics up here.