Friday, April 18, 2008

Just for you, Kate!

And because I happen to have an hour or so to kill in the BUSINESS lounge at Atlanta Airport.

OK...so....I had to go to Central and South America for a couple of weeks. We have abunch of customers out there who are way overdue a visit. Plus, my new company has a division to manage the whle region, so we are working on some other stuff too.

Meeting in Costa Rica, then a 10+ day tour of Colombia. Got to admit, was not madly keen on the Colombia bit, but hey ho..it's a job...it pays the bills (just).

Anyway..I shoulda known it was going to be a bad trip when I split wine over myself at the beginning of an 11 hour flight. Then I managed to break my watch trying to adjust the time. When I finally arrived in Costa Rica my colleague was nowhere to be seen. My flight was an hour late...but even so....Turned out he had emailed me instructions, but as he has a Blackberry and I DON'T (that's another story) I was left at San Jose airport, not speaking the old lingo, and fending off eager taxi drivers to the best of my ability.

Anyway...eventually rolled up at the very nice Marriott San Jose. It's about 10.30pm by now. And then, about approximately 11pm, I trip over my laptop case, go down lack a sack o' potatoes....and an excrutiating pain in my knee. Who remembers my fateful pregnancy, and my dislocated knee at 6 months? Well, this is very similar! I am freaked, but realisingly it's not actually dislocated this time, I decide to go to bed (well, i'd been traveling for 24 hours plus at this stage), hoping it would all be fine in the morning.

What do you think? All better? No need to call the travel insurance company? WRONG!

And.....that's part 1, Kate. Tune in next week for more tales of our intrepid heroine as she intrepidly continues her travels against alal odds, and has to give herself injections...yes, injections...with a needle.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

A taster....

Soon to come...a tale of woe in Costa Rica....highlights include a critique of the Costa Rican health care system....experiences in a plaster cast.....and how to jump the queue at airport scurity!! Those of you who read my facebook page as well as my blog have a head start....

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

It's all in the genes!

As many of my friends know, my main passion is family history. Oh I can bore for hours on the in and outs of family history research. As I sit in my little study I have two shelves full of research material.

I have been doing research on Peter's family as well as my own, and his has been so much more interesting and exciting. (That's interesting and exciting for a family historian, not normal people, btw) He has a couple of bigamist's, one who ran off with his step-daughter, a reasonably famous sculptor, and a couple of family rifts.

But now I am thrilled to announce scandal in my family tree. One family of the Leeds Irish bunch who emigrated to Boston - three sons in prison at the same time, for different crimes.

We have Samuel imprisoned for assault with intent to maim and disfigure (nice). Edward was imprisoned for larceny of property. He only got 6 months....so maybe it wasn't terribly valuable property?

Then we have my personal favourite (says she, on her third glass of wine and it is only 8.15pm)- James - arrested twice in 1900 (and they are his second and third arrests respectively.) On April 30,1900, at age 20, he was sentenced to a 3 dollar fine for Drunkenness and released on May 7. He was sentenced again only 8 days after his release, May 15, again for Drunkenness. This time he was sentenced to 30 days and was released on June 13. I also believe he was back in prison in 1910, and I'm waiting for the lovely archivist in Boston to tell me about that!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Month end catch up - fully illustrated!

Well, it has been another busy month chez Robinson, or chez this particular Robinson. I spent a aweek in The Netherlands, a week in Dublin, Ohio and then a week in bed with tonsilitis. Any connection, d'ya think?

Dublin was snowy. In fact, they'd had the worst snowfall since 1910 the weekend before I arrived. Anyway, usual round of looong meetings, but lovely company in the evenings. First pic of a fantastic evening at Jennifer and Scott's home, complete with homemade Missisippi Mud Pie in honour of Jenny's (not Jennifer the hostess) b'day.



The week ended on a bit of a frustrating note......the short version includes the clocks changing in Ohio, but not in Colombia, a videoconference, changing flights and the equipment breaking down. End result - an extra night in Dublin, but a visit to a lovely french restaurant! Bet you're intrigued now! HOme, and the afore mentioned bout of illness, and then.....it was Easter.


Laura's hair is now long enough to scrape (!) in to the world's tiniest pony tail. This makes her very happy:




We had an indoor easter egg hunt this year ( and yes, she is wearing shoes with her nightie. We bought them the day before.)



Mummy got a very big egg for Easter:



And it snowed: