costa del essex sailing trip

not going to lie - can't exactly blog from a boat in the middle of a river... but we've just come back from a fab weekend sailing with dad, mark and marie in essex.

thankfully we had THE best weather of the summer so far: beautiful blue skies, warm sunshine, may be even too hot at some point. Might have wanted slightly more wind but heh, rather that than grey skies, a howler and rain.

as their first sailing trip, i think M&M were completely over-awed and had great fun sailing with DH. we simply sat at the front, soaking up the rays, keeping out of the way.

spent the night in levington marina with some great food at the local pub, with a leisurely motor to ipswich and then a sail back up the orwell to titchmarsh on sunday.

bank holiday in essex was finished off in traditional style with a visit to the kirby le soken village fete on monday.... almost like i'd never left.....

gone to the dogs

stacey's leaving do: a night at nottingham dog racing on a bargin £10 ticket.
don't manage to win anything but it was good fun, and i may have enjoyed the pie and chips more than i'm supposed to!

enjoying beeston

getting rid of records P1: simon got up v early this morning to go car booting at bottesford with some of his records. don't think it was very successful but a good learning experience.
then met up with skip and stacey at the last post for a few late sunday arvo glasses of wine -nice!

enjoying nottingham

met up with heather for a few drinks after work last night.... unfortunately turned into more than a few. simon came and joined us and then we had pizza at zizzi's. don't normally do that sort of thing, but it was great fun!

a bbq with chris and rach

almost felt like summer today, with an evening bbq with chris & rach in derbyshire; sat outside and everything. baby bump coming along fine...
very much the odd ones out with no baby on its way - oh well

keeping up with the jones'

saw mrs jones last night: she's looking really well. and i heard all about her new job 'head of information architecture'! Wow! how important is that?

big chill 2007 - going home

its the morning after the 3 days before... but we are not in too bad a shape. a gentle breakfast and we slowly pack away our tented village. goodbyes to linds, ness and rhian - thank you all for a fab festi! thanks also to dave and sam and all the randoms! it is then the tough drive back home, unload and head straight to the best pub in the world.

more pix on our flickr pages; more tales next time you see us!

big chill 2007 - day 3

its the final day of the festival and its another hot one. early showers then its back to being horizontal as we recover from the excess of saturday. we eventually make it into the festival for the end of the skatalites and enjoy the rest of the evening mooching between the various arenas. giles peterson and danny rampling all contributing to a great day.

big chill 2007 - day 2

a little more over cast today - probably a good thing after all the sunshine from yesterday, lots of sunburnt people! rhian returns eventually and shows us how it is done! we manage to make it into the festival a lot earlier today and have fun relaxing on the main field listening to bands such as the go team! and djs.

a quick refresh back at camp then its back to the festival for more great acts for the evening. we seemed to spend most of our time at the soco fat tuesday arena - great house music!

big chill 2007 - day 1

its a beautiful morning in herefordshire so we get into the vibe with a relaxed breakfast and some sun-baking. more relaxing in the afternoon and we eventually make it into the festival site. manage to catch loads of bands/djs... highlights are cinematic orchestra, kruder and dorfmeister and a monster set from ashley beedle.

to the big chill

after almost doing some work during the day, we escape the office early and hit the road to the big chill. straight away we hit the traffic, but eventually get there, meet up with linds, ness and rhian, and find our selves a nice place to camp.