funkypancake: December 2008 Archives

geocaching

we finally felt well enough to go geocaching yesterday which marked a significant stage in our recovery. here are the girls singing and dancing to a cache.

signing the log. possibly this one

the route

and another log with two of our little stickers stuck together in a jaunty way.

the browns and yellows of winter

sunset on a wood. unfortunately we were in it and it soon got dark. but it's ok we survived

the late afternoon sunset really set the trees ablaze (not literally thankfully)

underfoot it was a bit muddy - slightly frozen on top, but the kind of soggy chilliness underneath which could easily soak a man's foot

and deers in a nearby field

berkshire sunset

colours went a bit spacey but i quite like the effect.

gaming old and new style

on the day after boxing day our family got the horrible winter vomitting bug. whilst jane and esther lay in their death beds upstairs our hosts let kezia and me wander around their house.

we'd had to abandon the sky part of this jigsaw the night before as we'd run out of time, but the extra half day meant kezia and i could spend a few hours putting a few hundred identical blue pieces together

meanwhile kevin and thomas played some proper games

and sarah (who popped in the last piece on jigsaw above) played with her Dora head. she said "it's brilliant because i love and dora and i love heads". surely a winning combo.

christmas day

a few days after the event i can show you our christmas day. a great scoff of food

but it was too much for james who fell asleep standing up leaning against his chair

james' dad also feel asleep, but in a more comfortable location

binky cleaned up

whilst others played cards (racing demons) on the hallway floor

and here's some cake. a very jolly occasion

a walk in the park

james loved chucking leaves

thomas loved taking pictures

everyone loved posing for a group photo

here's kevin's parents

here are thomas and kezia dangling

and here's kevin trying to make jane and esther sick (oh the irony)

and when the kids still weren't worn out we put them on this training wheel where they could run round in circles without going anywhere (thus preparing them for later life)

hassock of the week

promenading the turkey

a northern british tradition is to 'walk' the turkey before eating. after hours of cooking, this process allows the bird to 'breath' (it's last).

in some towns, if you go for a walk in the early afternoon on Xmas day you'll see dozens of people out promenading their birds

(it's me pushing)

happy openings !

christmas - what it's really about

i took this pictures back in 2003 and they still make me chuckle

the nativity is of course back out at church this year. tomorrow's blog will consist entirely of some of the characters within it. and of course the wise men on their way

mary and joseph
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where's the baby ?

wise men battling through pine branches and baubles

mary

shepherd

joseph

soggy lighter

no change there

red and white

i've often wondered about the pink background on this sign and i recently realised it's probably run off the red on the top left. which probably isn't a great advert for a laundrette as you'd hope they would be quite good on keeping colours separate. oh well.

window instructions

i like the word 'sorry' at the top of this sign. makes it a bit less desperate than 'please'

a fancy door

glamorous welsh ladies in windows

gary the glove snowman

another blog offering from esther. it's garry the glove snowman

happy christmas !

worth clicking on the picture to enjoy the googly eyes holy family experience !

yellow glove

st paul's

just one

dora

green jackets

happy christmas !

the three wise men

esther let me share this picture with you. she was keen to tell me she drew it over a year ago, and i actually fished it out of her dustbin to take the photo.

you might think the wise man on the left is heading in the wrong direction, but he's actually hurrying along his camel. we can only see the head of the camel as esther wasn't able to draw camels at that stage.

so now we know.

frosty bench handles

i've walked past this bench numerous times without noticing the fantastic bench handle ends. the frost brought them to life !

the mystery thing was ...

it was our spookily attractive angel viewed from underneath (she's the one on the left). she's got no body so we were looking up her neck hole.

the funkypancake christmas performance
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esther and kezia made up a special christmas show which they were happy for me to share with you. so here it is:

and a second (repeat) performance viewed from a slightly different angle:

frosty leaves

young musicians

like headless turkeys

we went to the supermarket for a french stick at lunchtime yesterday. big mistake. very busy

windowsill decorations

treat vouchers

UPDATE: pdf download here

here's what i wrote last year. an ideal last minute present, and perhaps even better this year as we're all creditally challenged ?

We've made some 'treat vouchers' for our girls for christmas, and it struck me these are a brilliant last minute or additional christmas present for a friend or family member. Best of all, they are individual and needn't cost you any real money if you don't want !

essentially you print off the voucher, cut them out and staple to produce a cheque book of lovely treats, such as:

A trip to the fun park
A day out with just mummy or daddy (your choice)
A free room tidy
Stay up 30 minutes late
Use mummy's nail varnish
Trip to feed the ducks
Free bag of sweets from the supermarket
Cook dinner for a week

If you want to download my template, i've put it in my flickr account here . it's a 2MB download, which you can get to via the 'all sizes' then 'original' above the image here

There are 5 on a sheet - we've made cheque books of 10 vouchers, so that's 2 pages (for those who are mathematically challenged)

Let me know how you get on and the kinds of things you put on the treat vouchers.

UPDATE (after last christmas): just to let you know, jane says it was her bestest friend julie who gave her the idea of the vouchers, so credit to her excellent self is due. And the vouchers themselves went down a treat and esther says they are amongst her best present ! huzzah.

chilly leaves

guess the thing
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hassock of the week

a nice festive one this week. i'm a bit low on hassock stocks, so unless i find a church with a rich seam, hassock of the week might have to retire mid 2009 !

catching the christmas tree

so, yesterday morning, the girls and i went to cut down a tree at the local tree chopping place. it was twice as expensive to chop a tree down than to chop your own, but it's a tradition now so we have to go through with it

unfortunately the stock of trees seems to be reducing each year so it took us quite a while to find one we wanted. we also did more checking for dead branches after last year's 'dead stick' look.

here's kezia at work with the saw

eventually the beast was felled

and then it was back home to get it decorated before it had realised it had even been dug up.

and this year, just to prove we're especially holy, we've got three angels (that's a triangle)

lots of christmas songs all at the same time
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ever wonder what happens when you sing 11 christmas songs all at the same time in a fish restaurant ? here's the (noisy) answer.

a cold a frosty morning

bike on railings
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i walked my old route to my old office yesterday and it was great to pass the old ways and see the things that used to inspire my pictures. like low sunlight through railings.

dive

i wasn't sure whether this was pointing at a particularly poor nightclub, or whether i was meant to jump down a drain. so i did neither and went about my business.

xmas lunch

i had my last work christmas lunch yesterday. here it is

guess the present

this building has been wrapped up for christmas, but it's quite obvious what's inside. they've used obvious national health service wrapping. d'oh.

man between pillars

foggy eye

duck down

grabby london eye thing
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a tiny loo

i went for a windowless room in my most recent stay in an easyhotel. i think i'll go back to the windowed option next time though. it was just a bit too much like a cleaning cupboard. but brilliant nevertheless (and for 40 squids in central london, you can't complain)

brad
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i had lunch with long time blog reader and international singing superstar Brad. he was over in london for work. We had a really great lunch and it was great to meet in real life after like 3 years or something. i think he's in this video if you want to see him in action

great west road art deco buildings
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there are so many cool art deco buildings around london (list here).

and there's quite a few on the road near my office on the outskirts of london

one morning this week i walked to work just as the sun was coming up so managed to grab some shots with blue sky in the background

the bright thing is a street light, not the sun which wasn't yet above the horizon

here's another building.

i'm going to make it my duty to take more pictures of these fantastic buildings which are all over the place according to the link above

merry christmas
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classic british christmas lights display.

follow the black or white arrow ?

civil service time

no wonder we have problems with public projects in the UK. it's because civil service time is completely wrong (i took this photo just after 1pm)

glove

notice saying things will be removed without notice

frosty comb

gloves

cheese on sticks

mince pies as examples of sizes

i've no idea what this was about, but it was at the back of our church on sunday

broken glasses
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i walked past this run over glasses case on the way to a meeting. i wondered if it had some glasses in, but didn't pick it up to have a look (for fear of being run over myself)

on the way back from my meeting it had been moved and was now resting on a bollard and the (broken) contents could clearly be seen

here's mark in the background being a witness

the arrival of my tweetcret santa

my secret santa present arrived at work this morning

it was well wrapped in a jiffy bag then countless (err 2) layers of bubble wrap

so at 6am this morning i was in a dark office on my own on the outskirts of london opening a suspicious package from an unknown stranger (i know plenty of strangers, but this was an unknown one)

first thing i came to was this lovely red reusable guerilla carrier bag

i unravelled it a bit and there was something inside

so i reached inside and there were two more bubble wrapped items

inside the bubble wrap was tissue paper

and finally, the contents were revealed

two fantastic and lovely egg cups

so hoorah. a real success from mr or mrs tweetcret santa

you can view photos of other tweetcret santa gifts on the flickr pool here

the mystery thing was ...

a hideous santa light stuck on a wall

carnaby street

the scary giant snowmen of carnaby street

octopuses will be poked with a stick

numbers

fancy a snog ?

great name for a shop/brand/thingy

nigel planer
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it's nigel planer who kindly let me take his photo as he went about his business. he's better known as his alter ego neil on the young ones who of course sang 'hole in my shoe'. My favourite bit ever is around 40 seconds in to this . the timeless wonder of it: we sow the seed, nature grows the seed etc. A quick youtube search for 'nigel planer' reveals how many fantastic comedies he's been involved with.

too many messages

aaargh. too much to remember. just as well "don't panic" isn't on the list

underlined advert
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if you sent your CV in for this job you'd want to make sure you underlined in the important bits in red. you've got to speak their language back to them

party party party
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i had three xmas meals last week. and a non-xmas lunch. and a 50th birthday party. all excellent stuff

street ambassador

i took this photo a few weeks back before it got really cold. i particularly like how he'd organised himself with his shoes neatly lined up and even a bed side table with tray and drink. lovely stuff

guess the festive thing
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fun table centre piece hat filled with novelties

click to admire the novelties

follow the star

little bit of decoration that was on the floor at work

happy birthday (someone)

turkey and sprouts (and cranberry jelly)

hassock of the week
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patient's crossing ahead
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i applaud the use of an apostrophe here. it would have worked without it, or if they'd put it at the end instead. so they were on to safe thing before they started

no exceptions

fantastic font usage. and there are no exceptions. the 'no' is probably why we call these things 'no'tices.

absent drinkers

this is admiral tony blair's local pub. he wasn't in.

me in a cupboard

tighten your money belts

i like the idea of a waist money belt.

coffee cup collection

core (urban apple)

brutally honest

these signs are so sad

descendants
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holy spirit

alcohol on railing was one of my very first funkypancake categories. if you want to start a blog like funkypancake then starting with abandoned beer cans and bottles in london is a great place to start

makeup (a) list

mannequin adventure

balloon reindeer

horse advent calendars
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with windows big enough to get a hoof behind

xmas trees and holy wreat

it's nice that people remember the religious side of christmas. this sign proclaims holy wreat. bless

pudding lane
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where's the fire ?

grubby old menu
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a nice advert outside a pub

sunset over bracknell
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knitted icecream

block headed family

a fine selection of artex ceilings

i promised i'd tell you about our horrendous holiday house in wales, but i'm not going to after all. instead i'll show you lots of pictures of the various ceiling designs. they really were the work of a master crafts man. pity not all the light fittings had light fittings in. and those that did didn't have many working bulbs. but hey ho.

slow portrait 3 - rascle
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it's interesting to see how different people approach doing their slow portraits. rascle went for a moment of uncontrolled giggling after a few seconds before going back to usual seriousness.

scarecrows
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bird mews

if a bird mews, it's probably a cat in a cunning disguise

spooling misatke

classic spelling mistake above. i thought it might be the name of a book, but the sign on the wall opposite showed it was just a typo

taken away

women's library
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net generation

hassock of the week
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the wise men begin their journey

hidden forest
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can you see the hidden forest ?

tiny locked fire exit

where's the edge
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paupers graves

mouse on the path
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paint blob mouse made by twisting the pavement

giant leaves shadows

these leaf shadows were about a metre across. quite amazing

cottingham windmill
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well done to shorely for being first to fathom the windmill mystery. it was of course the sails of a windmill

they were laid out around the windmill for the winter

it's quite strange to see it so naked

without it arms waving

but it's probably for the best

here's the back propeller

and here's some advice

community notices

frosty lighter

classic sweet shop sign

richard

richard was our weekend host with the most

multicultural christmas

jane spotted this nativity in a shop window. the cow looked very angry, but it's only once i got home and looked at the photo that i realised the wise men look a bit bonkers too

it looks even better seen in it's wider context with the santa and buddha

a chilly walk

we went on a fantastic fresh walk on saturday (just got round to sorting the pictures). fantastic weather and company. even a geocache (and a jolly dog)

guess the thing
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mr rascle should probably be excluded from guessing this thing as he's probably been there. but anyone else care to guess what this frost covered thing is ?

christmas in cottingham

to get you in the christmas mood, i say "welcome to cottingham lights"

(note the drunk snowman in the background)

sleton quick bite