Our family life

Hi everybody, what a fab idea about having a family blog, i'm not sure that i've got anything to add just now - my mind has gone a blank (typical).

emma xxx

When I returned from Valerie and Brain's wedding anniversary celebrations I met with Ping in Angle. We went to a really nice coffee shop for a desperately needed cuppa. Experience it yourself below.

Next to the coffee shop was a art exhibition of new artists. We wondered through the works admiring and disadmiring the many works. We stop on a display of rather beautiful illustrations. While we were admiring the works the friendly artist who was standing right next to us started to talk to Ping. Ping and Jasmin (the illustrator) engaged in deep conversation about her works and all the issues surrounding a struggling artists attempts to get recognized. See an example of her work here.

After the exhibitions we walked to the canal then on to a restaurant for a quick bit. We had decided that we would take in a haunted walk of London, but we only had 30 minutes to go from Angle to Monument. So in true Challenge Anika style we jumped on and off buses, ran down streets, pestered passers-by and annoyed bus drivers, until we reached the Monument, just in time.

The walk lasted for about 90 minutes and took us from Monument, to the river, up through many church yards and ended at the Guildhall.

This weekend Valerie and Brain celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with the family at a hotel in Swindon.

I have just return from 7 fantastic days in Madrid and Rapallo, Itally. The weather was really warm. It was between 25 and 30 degrees. I took the opportunity to enjoy the food and practice my Spanish. On the Friday I flew from Madrid to Malin and then across country to a lovely little seaside village called Rapallo. My friends Fritz and Renata were getting married. I met Fritz in London when we worked together. Fritz is from Germany and Renata is from Macedonia. Rapallo is an incredibly beautiful place located on the west coast of Itally. You can view the photos from Itally here.

Over the weekend something really exciting happened - a new shed appeared in Mitham Lane. Fr the last 30 years we have used the old outside loo (suitably modified,of course) as our garden shed. But next year we are planning to do a minor extension which means the loo must go. So in an amazing fit of planning I have put up a new shed at the bottom of the garden. I say 'I', but I means 'we' and David a friend from school came and helped, well, I made the tea.

It was a bit tricky as the garden slopes at the bottom, so we needed to build a base by constructing a one brick wall. Also we (like everyone else) have a plague of foxes in the garden and where the shed is placed is exactly where they have been tunneling under the fences (we discovered a tunnel more than a foot in diameter), so I worried that I might have been making a nice little warm house for them to live under. So we paved the area under the shed to stop them tunneling up - poor foxes. This weekend I plan to put up the shelves and put in fixings for the garden tools.

I have a photo of this great erection below.

Martin

Next year I will be leaving sunny Brittian for the busy and noisy streets of Madrid to study Spanish for 6 months. I will study Spanish in the Don Quijote language school located in the center of the city. I have booked the course and accommodation and I leave on 2 March 2008. I can't wait. I have a blog set up oneyearinmadrid.blog.co.uk so you can check the progress of my adventure.

I resisted as long as possible, but I could do so no longer. I succumbed to this fad last month and I am now actively engaged in stalking everyone I have ever known through facebook. If you want to join Facebook and become a stalker you can do so by visiting the site by clicking here.

In May this year myself, Rosie and mum went to Poppy cottage for one week. We had many adventures including a trip to a farm, an otter sanctuary and the beach.