Dec joins us for breakfast

Oh god my head. All we managed to do was drag ourselves out of bed at mid day for lunch at 'Annies' next door. Dec of 'Ant and Dec' fame was sat next to us outside and surprisingly the wee lad looked pretty rough himself, so that made me feel better. First time we've seen him without Ant. Maybe they hate each other now?

Notting Hill Carnival 2007 video

Some shaky footage of the Carnival - loud and busy. I won't bother uploading the 'hip-hop' stylee dance face off because even though it drew a huge crowd until dispersed by the police, it was hilariously bad - like only white English girls could do.

Notice that with all this going on, Nick is still watching the football!

Notting Hill Carnival 2007

Well, frankly I'm not sure where to start.. It was the carnival that kept on giving! Met a load of Nicks friends and Vals (his house mate) nicely mental colleagues. Nick cooked a load of stuff for us, then we closed all the shutters and went a-wondering to find Norman J's party bus. This meant forcing our way through a mile or more of jam packed, sweaty and sticky streets in a random fashion until we found it. Actually, I think the gravity well caused by the 100 people per square metre density pulled us in of its own accord. After getting back to his house without having anything stolen or getting shot, we got hammered and enjoyed the rest of the carnival from his window. There were street fights, RUN DMC style dance fight-offs.. The lot! Val and Holly (From New York and Alabama) were very funny.. When trashy, chavster girls would walk by they'd shout 'Everybody say Hoe!!'. The chav girls would swivel round, not sure if they'd been offended or if the nice American girls were just shouting 'hello!'. Each time Helen would hit the floor though, just in case!

Jon, Jules, and Inlaws all in a day. Don't drink Magners kids

Drove up to Bushy to go to the gym (cher-ching.. Moral high ground for the weekend sir?) then sped over to meet Jon, Jules, Emelie and the other one* for lunch. Very nice to see the guys as always, and we got in some lovely open topped driving - really nice weather for a change. I had my first bottle of Magners - great at first, but after a few I went a bit odd in the head - a bit spacey. H drove us back to Chiswick where her sister, Niece, and parents met us to go out for dinner. I was feeling even odder and Helen started scowling at me (perhaps I shouldn't of had another bottle). We had a lovely dinner (apart from the scowling!) over the A4 at the 'Hole in the Wall' as they've got nice food, a big beer garden, and a friendly attitude to kids. Talked about cars and big engines with Helens dad, ace. We had balloons in the house which never seem to loose their novelty for Lara. For me, Magners has lost its novelty - I'll never drink the freaky, mood changing demon juice again.
* Only joking!! I know her name really..

Summer Festival

H and I had been discussing which Festival to do this summer - maybe Glastonbury (if Moz and Mel ever invite us), maybe Reading. In the end we thought we'd get 'mash ooop' down at the Festival of Quilts at the Birmingham NEC... Crazy days. Mum was there, selling and signing her books like an A-lister and picking up many, many awards for her artwork - she's sooo obviously the UKs best quilter! Some of the works were really complex (mums of course) and some were, well piss poor frankly. I almost got lynched for trying to touch one of the pieces - a very big taboo in the exceptionally competitive quilting world apparently. We had a quick chat and a drink with the folks, then headed back to London village. This is a pic of my mums winning work.. The pic doesn't do it justice, it's incredibly intricate and tactile - you need to touch it really!

The Saturday night before heading to the NEC, we thought we'd stay in the Malmaison in Birmingham - maybe have a deep tissue massage, get some shopping in, possibly a few drinky-poos and a posh meal. The Malmaison is lovely, and there's a Harvey-Nicks and an Armani right next door - both of which are almost always empty for some reason. We went to 'Lazeez Signature' at the back of the Mailbox for a 'contemporary curry' which was top drawer food - really really nice. When I was at the Champagne bar in Selfridges waiting for H, I picked up this tasty bit of fluff.

Laras birthday

It was Laras 3rd birthday (our Niece) on Saturday and she wanted a big party with all her small friends. Instead of going paintballing as I suggested (I thought for once I'd have the upper hand), we had to go to an 'Open Farm' where children can play in a 'safe environment' - pah. Cue hundreds of screaming kids and frowning mums, scurrying around trying to locate their bloodline. Lots of stroking rabbits / sliding down death slides / peeing over the eating area etc... Actually, I don't suppose it's much different from one of our student parties in the old days. Lara and her friends seemed to really enjoy it a lot - not as much as they'll enjoy paintballing next year.

Kim and Claire come over to play

Kim and Claire came over to Chiswick on Saturday to go out with us. They'd been shopping during the day in Selfridges and the like (groan). They'd dumped the kids at the parents, so of course we all went out and got plastered. Out of all the pics and videos I took during the evening, it turns out these two awful pics are the best. We went to Balans restaurant where it must have been gay evening - I kid you not. I felt quite out of place with sleeves on my T-Shirt. We had a lovely, relaxed evening with the guys - really good fun. Kimbal got so drunk, he went home and bought a quad-bike. Hell, it beats Berocca.

Fruitstock 2008

Me and H went with Moz and Mel to Fruitstock (innocent festival) at Regents park yesterday. Not as good music as last year when 'Fink' played, but the whole day was really rather good fun. Lots and lots of drinking, sitting in the sun and admiring the scenery. I have a sneaky suspicion we all drank too much - all the signs are there.. The pictures on the wall in our house are at odd angles where I've blundered into them coming up the stairs, there seem to be things round the house we don't even own, oh and there are half drank bottles of wine on various tables / chairs / baths! Can't wait until Fruitstock 2008!

H and her drunken mates cause massage havoc

Helen here. This Saturday me and the girls all escaped the real world of work and kids for a spar in Silverstone for some much needed pampering. Once we'd all had some treatments we gathered in the large spa area and proceeded to giggle our way through all the different foot spas, cold showers, dry sauna's, wet sauna's, sunariams, ice rooms etc. What a brilliant way to spend an afternoon!
In the evening we had supper in a room large enough for thousands although I think they must have seen us coming as they positioned us in the far corner and yes we managed to giggle and talk each other death as only true friends can.
What a blissful way to spend a day...Carrie, please can we go again next year?

Hide the 944!!!

Well surprise surprise, after all those pennies to have Helens Boxster fixed, it started to play up again. You couldn't select second gear without it crunching, meaning everyone would look round and laugh at the girl in the Porsche who couldn't use the clutch properly. H spent the journey to work pointing towards the floorpan shouting 'it's not me, it's the gearbox!'. We took it back to Jaz and he apologised profusely but said it was going to take another week or more to fix.
"Courtesy car?"
"Er... No". Then one look at Helens face "er.. Well, actually you can have my 944". Oh joy.
Here it is then Steve's 944 in all its glory. I thought I'd take it to work one day - oh my god it's AWFUL!! Truly horrible! Don't get me wrong, for some reason I love the design of the car and the interior is great with its stubby 'Atari joystick' gear lever nestling in your hand and the faux aluminium two piece stereo system - it's everything else that RUINS the experience. A) Performance. It's the one car I've driven where I feel personally worthless knowing that chavster in his Halfords covered Vauxhall Nova would be able to beat me at the lights. B) Handling. This car doesn't just list round each corner like cheap Citroën 2CV, it also dips violently when you brake and jolts upward when you accelerate! The first time I pulled off, all I could see was the sky!!! Rubbish!

Taipei 101

I found this picture on my phone - I took it while on business in Taiwan. This building is ‘Taipei 101’, the tallest building in the world. Some chump paid the authorities around £50,000 to display "Marry Me? Diana" on each side of the building for a week. All the girls around were going 'awwww!', all the boys were going 'uurrrrgh'.

Mum sent me a copy of her new book

It's even on Amazon… Hmm, discounted though I see. Damn Amazon.. how dare they cheapen my mummy!!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handmade-Embroidered-Purses-Jenny-Rolfe/dp/1844481743