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....

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!

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:

Let it snow, let it snow....

Coloumbus, Ohio, has had the biggest snow fall since 1910 this weekend. Guess where I fly to tomorrow?

Can this much introspection be good for you?

So, according to a personality quiz on blogthings, this is me:

You Are An ISFJ

The Nurturer You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal. A good listener, you excel at helping others in practical ways. In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music. You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for. In love, you express your emotions through actions. Taking care of someone is how you love them. And you do it well! At work, you do well in a structured environment. You complete tasks well and on time. You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist. How you see yourself: Competent, dependable, and detail oriented When other people don't get you, they see you as: Boring, dominant, and stuck in a rut

What's Your Personality Type?

***************************************************************************

Right now I am at this Hotel. I am on leadership training (!), and there have been a few of those "what style of ???? are you?" type tests. Apparently, I avoid conflict. I knew that. I didn't need to come here to find that out!

Also, I forgot to bring my little camera that was purchased for the express purpose of taking photos on my (frequent) trips away. So I can't show you that I have a seaview from my room.

Blogging on the go......

Or blogging at a complete standstill. I am at Leeds Bradford airport, where my flight to Amsterdam is delayed by 1 hour 40 minutes. For a flight that takes less than an hour flight time how does that work? And why did they only tell us 20 minutes before boarding? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.....very frustrated. Can you tell? At least I don't have a connection to make. Imagine how mad I'd be then!

All work and no play

<

...makes Jack a bad tempered old witch, if he is anything like me.

I just checked back in the blog, and I don't appear to have mentioned that I got a new job. Now, that's not as radical or life changing as it might sound. I still work for the same organisation that I have worked for since 1996.....I just got offered (and accepted) a different role in the organisation. Actually...that should read "additional" role. As is typical with my employer I am actually doing two jobs, same money, same hours, etc etc etc! (stay with me...there's a point to this...) So, as well as a management role in Sales, I am now a Product Manager. It's actually a great job, but involves a lot more travelling. So, below, courtesy of the new, tiny (and gloriously pink) camera Peter got me for christmas, are pictures from my travels in January:



This is the train station at Frankfurt airport.


This is to show that I did actually get outside the convention center in Philadelphia.

And this is a view of Chicago, in the snow, from the plane, as I head off to visit the mothership in Ohio.

And, yes, this was all in January. I have convinced myself that laura doesn't suffer from all this travelling I do. She doesn't *appear* to care, so long as she gets a present. My sanity on the other hand.......well, that's another post!

Just exactly how rubbish am I?

And that is a rhetorical question, btw.

So, further catching up is required.

Christmas was good. As it was to be the first year in the new house, with a room big enough to have a really big tree we stayed home and made peope come to us. We tried to make Tom come to us, but to get out of Christmas in the mad house he gave himself kidney stones and ended up in hospital over Christmas. Actually, he spent spent christmas in bed, drugged to his eyeballs, with people tending to his every need! (Note to self for next year.......!!) But seriously, it was a worrying couple of days for all concerned, and no picnic for Tom, either. But, he is 100% better now, and we will be celebrating a belated christmas in a couple of weekends, at the his mum's house...i.e. the first Mrs Robinson. (For those who don't know, Tom is my stepson)

Laura missed Tom very much, but still enjoyed christmas as only a four year old can, i.e. pointing out which presents Santa neglected to bring! No - she was an angel, loved having visitors, loved opening presents with people, etc.

We managed to entice Vronni and family up to the frozen north, which was lovely. They stayed till just after new year, and we were joined by jenny & richard on New Year's Eve...and we all stayed up pastt midnight. Amazing at our age.

Catch up 2007

So, where was I? K & J came to stay. We got a new fireplace. We got Margaret the lovely, ironing cleaner, who comes on a Friday morning....which means we have a clean and tidy house till almost Saturday morning.

Then it was December....oh, and I was in Munich...and it was very christmassy. Then, actually it got to be December, and Laura was in her Christmas Concert. It was all of key stage 1, and she was a star.

Rubbish

That's me, that is. But...not as rubbish as Primeval, which Peter ha sjust made me sit through for the first....and frankly the last....time. And I watched it while drinking an extremely strong margerita...and it was still utter crap.

Yoo hoo....I'm back

I didn't fall off the edge of the world....just moved house. Actually, we moved in about 6 weeks ago. Oh...just checked the calendar, and it 7 weeks, or in fact 8 weeks on Tuesday. The house is great: lovely and BIG. The dining room is no longer yellow. Laura's bedroom is now two shades of pink. We have had our first dinner / stayed over guests, who got to christen the new guest bed...Katie & Jonathan. And, becuase I've waited so long to blog about it, we're starting to have *work* done. This coming Friday we have our new fireplace fitted.

But the biggest news of all is that I finally bit the bullet, and the cleaner comes for the first time on Friday. Yay! And she does ironing. Double yay!

Note to self: must do better

In this instance "must do better" with Laura's religious education. While not being full on, i have tried to bring her up in a vaguely christian...specifically catholic environment..and thought I was doing OK. Till we had this little exchange in bed this morning:

Me: So, what special time do we celebrate Jesus being born?

Laura: (thinks for a minute) At assembly?

Me: No...think again...a special time when we remember that Jesus was born?

Laura: (Again, thinking hard) World Book Day?

Me: (Sigh) No darling, at Christmas. We'll talk about this again.

10 days and counting

till we move to the new house. At least, I think it is. We were supposed to exchange contracts last Friday, but I haven't heard anything. We are frantically packing, but there is always the possiblity that it will all go t*ts up.......

The most important day in my daughter's life so far....

And before I started blogging I still had to check the calendar to remind myself of the date. No so important after all then?

Anyway, Monday 17th September was Laura's first day at school. She started at 10am, and got to have her special friend with her most of the day. I was pretty amazed that only one of us cried, and it wasn't me for a change.

Here she is in her

uniform, little poppet. She started full time straight away, and she is in Mrs Britton's class.

And so, we are about to start week 4. For the first two weeks we had tears every morning, but on the Monday of week three, she proudly announced that she hadn't cried at all that day, and so it continued all week. Whenever we ask her what she did at school she says "can't remember", but this seems to be a common affliction amongst receptioners.

The local paper publishes pictures of all new starters so if you go here and look for St Roberts you might be able to spot her.

Penderff 2007

Another lovely summer holiday in Brittany. A selection of highlights above: we spent lots of time with The Woodwards et al, Camilla joined us for a few days, we went to Jeremy & Judith's 25th Wedding Anniversary party, I lusted after Judith's car, we went to the dinosaur park, and we eat lots and lots of lovely stuff! The full holiday can be viewed here . Be warned - it is 171 pictures. (Well, we were there for two weeks!)

Summer party 2007

A massive summer catch up is required. Let's start with a (almost) wonderful weekend in Christchurch, at a summer party thrown by the hostest with mostest....vronni. This was the weekend after the major floods, and and it took us 12 hours to get from Harrogate to Christchurch. Thank God for the portable DVD player we bought. That, and regular naps, kept Laura (and me) surprisingly calm.

As is always the case on the Dorset coast the weather was lovely for the party. A selection of photos above, and see all of them here. Now then, there is a famous person in some of these photos. Actually, I embarassed myself when introduced, by saying "oh, I'm so excited to meet you" (well...I was!). See if you can spot who it is!

Princess Laura

So, my girl was four years old a fortnight ago. What can I tell you about our little princess as we start to count down her last few weeks as a pre-schooler?

Well, sometimes it is a bit like having a four year old teenager in the house, but I guess that is mostly our fault for not being consistent enough in our discipline....but hey....(almost) anything for an easy life.

Laura loves pink and purple, in that order. She is mad about Wizard of Oz, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (both screen versions), Disney Princesses (I think Sleeping Beauty is her favourite, but that might have changed), Scooby Doo and Tom & Jerry.

She has bright pink crocs, and has worn them everyday for the last 16 days.

Her best friend is Hattie, and she is very fond of Chelsea (friend not FC). Her boyfriend is Jack Packwood, although I'd prefer it if it was Jack Geen.

She doesn't yet have a favourite soft toy, although she is pretty partial to a Panda I bought back from Schipol Airport a few weeks back. Those who know me well enough will understand the significance of that!

She sucks her thumb. Those who know me well enough will also understand the significance of that! Her thumbs have names. She has her sucker thumb, and her stroker thumb. You can guess what she does with the first. The second strokes her nose while she sucks the other.

She is my princess and I cannot imagine my life without her.

Birthday number 4

 

Laura had her birthday party at Winkies last saturday. Winkies is one of those indoor play centres. It is Laura's favourite because it has trampolines and a ball pool. I think they are a brilliant invention. We turn up on the day with the child, the birthday cake and the chequebook, and they do everything else. Wonderful.

SSTC

Quick catch up in order - it's been a busy week.

The couple who were due to view the house on Sunday morning (see previous post) made an offer! All systems go. Bizarrely, the chap is even more impatient than I am, and has already contacted the Estate Agents this week to see if we can get the process moving a bit faster.

Our agents must be breathing a sigh of relief that I am now off their backs. Unfortunately, nobody warned the solicitor what a control freak I am. She'll probably guess when she gets to work on Monday and sees that I was enailing her at 7.30am on saturday morning.

Don't blink, you'll miss it.

I've been meaning to blog about our plans to move house. When I can't sleep, and I'm bored of mentally redecorating the new place, I have written several blog entries in my head. But the situation kept changing so quickly. Things have slowed down ( a little too much for my liking), so here are the ups and downs of the past few weeks.

On 9th June we viewed a house I'd spotted in the paper a week before. We loved it and decided to try to sell ours and secure the new one. On 12th June the valuer came to see us, and pointed out a few jobs we had to do before putting it on the market. On 20th June it went on the market. On 29th June we got an offer, accepted it, had the offer accepted on the one we wanted to buy. On 1st July our "buyers" withdrew their offer.

Toady we had one lady view for the second time. At the moment we also have a couple who want to view on Sunday.....the stress may have finished me off by then.