Pieces of a Man

Think it. Do it. Be it. Embellish.

2003:
2004:
2005:
2006:
2007:
2008:

91.92.93.94.95.96
97.98.99.00.01.02
07.08.09.10.11.12
01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12
01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12
01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12
01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.10.11.12
01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08

15.6.08

Fathers' Day

The first activity from my new book, 'Things to do with Dad', was building a teepee.

Labels: Louis, Oscar, Yani

5.11.07

Remember, remember

Labels: Louis, Mum, Oscar, Yani

12.10.07

Boogie Wonderland

Yani getting ready for the school disco.

Labels: Yani

26.9.07

Man City 1 Norwich 0

Watch Slideshow

Pretty grim up north last night. Man city had a weakend side out, but so did we, and we held them comfortably for most of the game. They didn't create much, although Samaras - who IS as crap as everyone says - missed an easy header just before half time.

We basically lost concentration in the last minute - already thinking about a replay, the same as us in the crowd - and a pass split us open. Amazingly, Samaras scored. Was fun up till that point. Oh, well, when it rains it pours.

P.S. Read today that we just broke even this year, but that next year we won't have the £7 million parachute payments any more. Hard times ahead.

Labels: Mum, NCFC, Oscar, Yani

22.9.07

Yani's 8th Birthday

Watch Slideshow

Yani took a bunch of friends out last night for a big Friday night outing on her 8th birthday. We started at MacDonalds - which went from full to empty in about 10 minutes flat as the kids ran amok - and then went rollerblading nearby to work off some of the fat and sugar.

Labels: Jo, Oscar, Yani

16.9.07

Monsters in Manchester

Yesterday we went to the Dr Who exhibition in Manchester. View Flickr Slideshow

It consists of a display of real BBC props from the filming of the show - including the large, moving mechanical model of the Empress of Rachnoss from the 'Runaway Bride' episode last Xmas - but the real highlight was the actors wandering around amongst the crowd dressed as Dr Who creatures.

The 6ft Sycorax Warrior was quite imposing, but the creepy scarecrows from the 'Family of Blood' episode were the most memorable since they were the first ones we saw, unexpectedly coming round a corner at us just as we got there. The kids hid behind me like little 3 year-olds again. Well funny.

After the exhibition we walked into the town centre for lunch at Macdonalds and then ice creams in Piccadilly Gardens, giving Jo some extra time to catch up on sleep. We got home just in time for the football results and the day just got better and better - United won, Norwich won and Ipswich got hammered 4-0. The perfect day?

Labels: Louis, Miles, Oscar, Yani

13.9.07

Northumberland

Pictures from the August bank holiday week, which we spent caravanning in Northumberland. I've wanted to go there for ages and it didn't disappoint. Every beach seems to have a castle and the views along the whole coast near Lindisfarne are breathtaking.

Labels: Family, Jo, Louis, Miles, Oscar, Yani

10.9.07

Summer in Norfolk

Here are some pictures from our trip to Norfolk in August, which culminated in watching City squeak three points against Southampton at Fortress Carrow Road. Funny to see Oscar and Nathan celebrating together, like me and Dave a quarter of a century ago.

Labels: Family, Jo, Louis, Miles, Oscar, Yani

11.8.07

Chatsworth House

A few pictures from our day out at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire in August.

Labels: Family, Jo, Louis, Miles, Oscar, Yani

30.7.07

Tempus Fugit

On the phone to my rugby mad friend, Chris, in New Zealand the other day I was staggered to realise that England's World Cup win with Johnny Wilkinson's last minute kick was FOUR years ago. It feels like two at most. It's just scary the way time flies. To the left - on the beach in Devon that same summer.

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

23.6.07

Marple

Kids atop a rotten tree stump this morning in Marple during the Saturday morning constitutional. We had chips afterwards to balance the ying and the yang of all that fresh air.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

10.6.07

Oscar's Day Out

Yesterday we all took off to the Crocky Trail near Chester for a day out on Oscar's 6th birthday. There's lots more camcorder footage when I get round to it, but for the moment here are some phone pix.

Labels: Jon, Louisa, Miles, Mum, Nina, Oscar, Tom, Yani

21.4.07

Les Fleurs

Here's some video from our Easter weekend in Norfolk with Mum, Dad, Nick and Jo.

It's been a long old slog since I got the camcorder at Xmas to make all the bits talk to each other - I've had to install and uninstall numerous bits of video editing software, upgrade the operating system on the laptop, find a compatible sound card and buy a bigger pen drive ("We're gonna need a bigger boat...") - but it feels worth it. Enjoy.

Labels: Dad, JoF, Mum, Nick, Oscar, Yani

18.4.07

Crazy Horses

Here are the kids having a day of riding lessons in Middlesborough recently.

Fortunately there was no repeat of what I suffered when I tried horseriding at Yani's age - being thrown from the enraged stallion, landing underneath amidst flying hooves and narrowly escaping with my life (as I recall).

Labels: Oscar, Yani

13.1.07

Mo' Better Marloes

Some great Wales Christmas pictures from Nick. I can't believe these were all taken with a phone.

Labels: Anna, Christos, Dad, Jo, Jon, Miles, Mum, Nick, Nina, Oscar, Tom, Yani

29.12.06

Xmas in Wales

Just uploaded to Flickr, a few snaps of Xmas Day at Marloes Sands. We've hired the youth hostel there for the last 3 years; it's a farmhouse in a fantastic location about 100m from the cliff top on the very last bit of south-west Wales. More footage to come when I've worked out how to upload from my new camcorder, an amazing birthday present from my family.

Labels: Anna, Christos, Dad, Jo, Jon, Miles, Mum, Nick, Nina, Oscar, Tom, Yani

20.11.06

Disco 2000

More great stuff from Nick...

just managed to dig some old video footage off old computer (millennium eve & yani in the snow for first time). Enjoy

Labels: Yani

24.9.06

Derwent Valley Reservoir

Here are the kids pottering by Derwent Valley Reservoir, apparently the place where they practiced dropping the Dambusters' bouncing bombs. The mist lifted on a beautiful blue sky right after we arrived and we had a picnic by the water without seeing another soul the whole time.

In the afternoon we went over to Sheffield for a bit of a drive and neighbourhood recce. We've pretty much decided to move there next year. Brincliffe is out - too posh. Greystones is out - too suburban. Nether Edge is a possibility.

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

23.9.06

Yani's 7th Birthday

At home this year for a cake-decorating and make-over party with the girls.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

12.9.06

Sunday in Prestatyn

A day on the beach, watching the tide go out at Prestatyn on a late summer Sunday.

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

1.9.06

Norfolk Bank Holiday

Piccies from our last trip down to Norfolk on August Bank Holiday.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

19.8.06

Bright Lights, Big City

Now showing - pictures from our long weekend in London last week.

The first day was a bit ambitious and the walking round the sights of central London got to Jo and the kids a bit. Sunday was much better, with everything happening at the Natural History Museum, where we met up with Tom'n'Anna and Christos. After larking about in South Kensington all afternoon we went for a great Turkish on Green Lanes. Monday was London Zoo. It was different to how I remember it - smaller and more laid back - and that made for a very relaxing day.

Thanks for the flat, Nick and Jo! (I think the cat is still there; it was wise enough to stay under the bed the whole time and not waste any of its nine lives.)

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

20.7.06

Camping in Buxton

Pictures from last weekend, when we somehow managed to summon up some strength on a Friday evening, chucked all the camping stuff in the car, and headed out into the Peaks for some camping in Buxton.

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

4.6.06

Knights and Princesses

Piccies from 'Knights and Princesses' day at Chirk Castle near Wrexham;

Labels: Oscar, Yani

23.4.06

Easter in Norfolk

We've just spent a few days down in Norfolk. Here are the kids escaping the oncoming waves on Sheringham beach;

The beach is one we used to play on all the time when we were kids. Not sure how easy it would be these days. Check out a selection of the warning signs, all in a 100 metre stretch;

Wells was a bit more chilled. The weather got out nicely in the late afternoon, and with the tide out as well, it was beautiful;

Thursday morning we headed out to Holt Country Park early on. Here we are making a den on the Holt Lows;

Labels: Oscar, Yani

12.4.06

Prestatyn

Yani and Oscar drying off at the beach in Prestatyn;

Labels: Oscar, Yani

27.1.06

Nickr

On the Beach - one of the pictures from Nick's collection at Flickr. It's a shot from our day out in Formby last week when Nick, Jo and Tom came up from London. Nick's slideshow has also got some family shots from the 70s. Be ready for denim and flares.

Labels: Anna, Jo, JoF, Jon, Louisa, Miles, Mum, Nick, Nina, Oscar, Tom, Yani

26.11.05

Water Babies

Yani and Oti showing off their 5 metre swimming badges. They go to a class once a week on Thursdays after school.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

13.11.05

St James

Didsbury
Oti and Yani play in the graveyard of St James church in Didsbury, next to Fletcher Moss park. I like the evening shadows.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

25.9.05

Party Time

I think Yani's had her last birthday party chez nous. All her little friends came round yesterday and it was two hours of absolute mayhem.

First of all were the tantrums during the dressing-up game. There were more princesses than there were princess costumes and it started to turn ugly. Oscar was also sugared out of his head early on and a few of the little girlies felt the wrath of his cold pirate steel.

They had fun with the writing on the wall and everything was going well with the musical chairs until it got down to the last few chairs. Then certain little angels refused to lose and gripped onto the chairs for dear life, refusing all bribes and inducements to bow out gracefully. When the parents started to arrive to pick up their kids, I felt the same joy they must have experienced at the relief of the Siege of Mafeking.

Last night we cancelled plans to go to the cinema and instead just lay down in a darkened room.

Labels: Yani

24.9.05

Happy 6th

Yani was 6 on Wednesday and here she is with her ice cream, meringue and cream birthday cake. We had a party today for all her little friends in the neighbourhood. Well, it was three mini-parties, really; girls in the front room playing make-up games, boys in the middle room with trucks and superheroes, mums out back with tea and cakes.

Labels: Yani

First Day

Picture from a couple of weeks ago of the kids all dressed up on the first day of term, Oti wearing his uniform for the first time. A fortnight on and he seems to be settling in well, behaving nicely in class and even doing PE, which was something he had to avoid last year. Early days, but it looks promising. He seems to have grown up into a little boy over the summer.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

10.9.05

Red Lolly Yellow Lolly

Yani on the beach in Mallorca in 2002 and again last week in France;

Labels: Yani

3.7.05

Splash

Yani messing about with the hosepipe on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Not a quality image but it captures her perfectly.

Labels: Yani

28.6.05

Harvest

Yani picks one of the first strawberries to ripen in our new fruit and vegetable patch. There will never be enough to fill a punnet, since they are getting picked as soon as they're ready and individually divided up between the four of us in our special little harvest festival. The raspberries are also starting to go pink, and a tomato has even appeared on one of the three plants, albeit a 5 millimetre green tomato. It's all rather exciting. I must be middle-aged if gardening can be this much fun; last time I felt horticultural stirrings at all was many years ago and it was an altogether stranger fruit;

In countless spare rooms, attics and garages, hundreds of thousands of leafy plants are being lovingly tended, their roots fed by nutrient-rich water, their leaves bathed by hot lamps 24 hours a day. And if the neighbours have a room with the windows blacked out from which emanates a rich, earthy smell, they are probably growing something far more potent than tomatoes.

Labels: Yani

1.5.05

Robin Hood's Bay

Spent the day on the beach with Alison and Colin. It was grey and cold and rainy, but it got out later and we managed to pack in the whole British seaside seaside experience while the sun was out; fish'n'chips, ice cream and hunting down crabs. Highlight of the day for Oscar was finding a picture of Robin Hood on the side of the ice cream van. It doesn't take much to make him happy.

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

2.4.05

Shropshire

It was a camping trip of two halves. We got all the way to the campsite in the Long Mynd when the car gave up the ghost by the local post office. Given the Countryside Alliance posters on view they probably thought the gypsies had moved in as we sat there stranded in the car park, kids in the back seat tearing a frozen banoffee pie to pieces like hyenas.

We left the breakdown recovery till the following day and got one of the locals to tow us to the campsite behind a tractor. (Oscar most impressed.) Unable to go for provisions, though, dinner was steak fried in butter on the bleuet and served with bread and ketchup, followed by a dessert of rice crispies. Real survivalist stuff!

Saturday was a vast improvement. The sun was shining the next morning and we had a great time playing pirates and princesses by the river in our fantastic wooden adventure boat before heading off to The Crown for a fat lunch of roast beast and chips.
If only all breakdowns could leave you stranded near a pub…

Labels: Oscar, Yani

27.3.05

Easter Sunday

Gave the kids one choccie egg each before the sugar police woke up. You've got to push the boat out occasionally. Yan scoffed her whole egg and the little packet of mini ones immediately and was complaining of a tummy ache equally quickly. Oti showed remarkable restraint and was still finishing off the buttons a good hour later. I thought they must have gone off or something.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

19.3.05

On the Beach

A day out in Formby with Mum and the kids while the sun peeked out for a moment. Lunch was a picnic in the deserted pines woods, freshly chopped logs for seating and climbing frame for Oscar once the chicken and chocolate eclairs were stuffed into his cheeks like a gerbil.

The biting wind from the Irish Sea was absent this time and the kids played on the sand while not harassing the poor creatures that were above the high water mark. Oscar's quote of the day; "It's a starfish. Let's kill it!"

Labels: Oscar, Yani

1.3.05

Snowman

We went for a day in the Peaks today, going to Buxton and Bakewell. The park in Buxton has an ideal design for handling Oscar - a long enough stretch to roam about, but a river alongside separating it from the road. Ideal, and despite gloveless, freezing hands, we managed to make our snowman, complete with everything but a carrot.

Later on we went down to Bakewell to see what the tarts and the house prices are like. The numbers seemed reassuringly reasonable, but the tarts were a bit of a dissapointment. I'd heard they were something special and different to the exported variety there, but the reality was rather dry and lacking in substance. We still ate five of them, though.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

14.2.05

Rhyl in Winter

The skies looked bright inland so we decided to head out to North Wales and revisit the scene of a lovely day on the beach last year. What a different place in winter. Everything shut. Freezing cold. Biting wind. Tide in. Still, we didn't have to stay long, preferring to cut the losses on the beach after Oscar threw a beach pebble and caught Yani on the back of the head. Happy Valentine's.

Labels: Family, Oscar, Yani

25.12.04

Xmas in Wales

Heading to the beach
Teeth gritted, everyone heading off to the beach on Christmas Eve, just before the heavens openend.

Overlooking Skokolm Island
Boxing Day, setting off for a walk up the cliffs. Waves pretty big.

Let the games begin
Tom taking a senak preivew of the questions in the background before taking on the kids at Triv.

Beach
Strange rock formations on the beach near the farmhouse.

Paddling
Oscar playing on the beach on Christmas Day. Chucked it down with hail right after.

Jogger
Yani on Christmas Day heading back from a climb on the rocks.

Boules
The Xmas Day tournament, early stages. Jon and Tom run out winners.

Nana
Yani helping Mum reorganise her wind defences.

Labels: Anna, Jo, Jon, Miles, Mum, Nick, Nina, Oscar, Tom, Yani

31.10.04

Tasty

Oscar can't resist having a few bites of the pumpkin.

Craftswoman
Yani in the early stages of a model of St Paul's Cathedral.

Witches
All ready to go out and trick or treat.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

21.9.04

Yani's 5th Birthday

Yani's 5th Birthday
Yani was lucky enough to have a birthday on a Tuesday and a party on a Saturday this year - 2 cakes!

Labels: Oscar, Yani

5.9.04

Arthur

Day trip with the Reddish Mum's group to Camelot, the one just near Bolton. Kids loved it, especially Oscar who got to see lots of knights, jousting and met this hero King Arthur.

Labels: Oscar, Yani

8.3.04

Platt Fields