This weekend Clare and I popped along to a fundraising concert organised by Oxford Operatic Society, for an evening of Christmas songs ‘Around the Christmas Tree’. Some really great singing and performances by our friends in the society – we came away feeling very Christmassy!
Here are some photos I took from the evening. Well done to all – and Merry Christmas!
For the past five months, I feel like I’ve been married to Mrs Lovett (Clare), who was cast in the role of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”, performed by Oxford Operatic Society at the Oxford Playhouse all this week. Directed by our good friend, Edward Blagrove, the show tells a tale of a Demon Barber “Sweeney Todd” and his partner in crime, “Mrs Lovett” who runs the pie shop below the barbers. Todd slits his customers throats with a straight razor, before sending them to Mrs Lovett’s shop, where the bodies are chopped up and baked into her meat pies…
Last week Clare and I took a holiday to Mykonos, Greece and stayed at the Nissaki Boutique Hotel on Platys Gialos. On arrival, we were greeted with a glass of champagne and told we had been upgraded to the honeymoon suit – a great start to our holiday! We dumped our cases in the room and explored the hotel, which was incredible. Situated above Psarou Beach with views out to the ocean, the bay was dotted with millionaire yachts. With an infinity pool, outside Jacuzzi and ‘Sun Pods’ for making the most of the warm weather, we quickly settled in for the week…
This weekend Clare and I were invited to celebrate Hannah and Simon’s wedding with them, held in Wytham, Oxfordshire. Clare had been asked to sing during the ceremony with our friends – and so we all sat up on the balcony at the back of the church. They sang a lovely arrangement of ‘Make Our Garden Grow’.
After the ceremony we all made our way to the reception and enjoyed several glasses of champagne before the speeches, where our good friend Gerald the Gnome that our friends bought Hannah for her 30th birthday made an appearance!
Hannah and Simon had obviously put a great deal of thought into the day – lots of personal touches, which I think really makes the day ‘theirs’. One thing we all particularly enjoyed was the Ceilidh Dancing after dinner, which had us all spinning around the dance floor
This weekend Clare had booked a surprise trip away for my 30th Birthday, and sat me down on Thursday night to tell me that we’d be driving down to stay in Bath for the weekend – taking a narrow boat out on the canal for the day on the Saturday. So we set off Friday night to stay at Apsley House, a lovely little hotel situated on the hill overlooking the city. The hotel was superb – a four poster bed, roll top bath and great views out to the city. We then went to The Mint Room for a curry, which was fantastic!
Saturday morning, and we were off early to make the most of our day trip – the weather was perfect! It took a couple of attempts to park up first time – we had to negotiate two swing bridges that crossed the canal, not easy…
On Sunday we were invited to Noah’s Dedication at the Trinity Church in Abingdon that his parents, Libby and Dave had organised. The Dedication formed part of the Sunday morning service, so all of the church’s regulars were treated to Noah’s infectious little laugh! He was having a great time.
After the service we all headed back to Dave and Libby’s for the afternoon, where little baby Erin and Sophie could be found trying to keep out the sun. Noah meanwhile got stuck into the rice crispy cakes…
Last weekend, my family and I hired a little motor boat for the afternoon and sailed from Abingdon up to Sanford on Thames and back. Being a Saturday, the locks were quite busy – and as we were in one of the smallest boats on the Thames, we had to keep a watchful eye out for other vessels – the biggest being the Oxford ‘Party Boats’ that carry around 100 people with beats thumping on deck!
The locks weren’t too much trouble in our little six seater! We were instructed to hold back and let the larger yachts go first – and thank God we did, they were all over the place! We sailed up river to the pub at Sanford for some lunch, before heading back to Abingdon…
On what was probably the hottest day of the year, we all got together yesterday evening to celebrate Dave’s 40th – in the Cape of Good Hope in Oxford. The style of the evening was a ‘James Bond’ theme, with casino tables for us to play Black Jack and Roulette. A sensible decision not to have a poker table, our poker games go on for hours…
We’re just home from my brother Patrick’s Graduation Ceremony in Oxford where he gained an MSc in Computer Science. We were all very proud of him as he walked up to receive his certificate! My brother is the only one out of us three to complete university – let alone go on and do a Masters, so the day was quite new to all of us…
Most girls Lauren’s age are pretty shy, especially around cameras. Lauren, my God daughter, is quite the opposite! She loves having her photo taken – in fact, she’s a natural! She spent the afternoon in the garden finding the best spot/lighting and set herself up to be snapped…
Each year Clare and I drive down to Devon and Cornwall for a few days by the sea. It’s something we both did a lot with our families as kids and something I hope we’ll keep doing over the years. This year we stayed in Carbis Bay, just around the corner from St. Ives – and just up from a little train station on the St. Ives Bay Line that runs between St. Ives and St. Erth. There is also a coastal path that we walked to St. Ives on the Saturday morning, with great views out to sea. The weather was particularly stormy on the Friday when we arrived, but it soon cleared to give us a very sunny weekend…
Another one I’ve been meaning to post for a while – a group of us celebrated Stotty’s 40th birthday in a lovely house not far from Swansea in Wales last December. It was an amazing house, with a heated pool and a jacuzzi! On the Saturday evening, Stotty had organised a ‘Titanic’ evening, where we were given different characters to dress up as with different names. Most of them were far too rude to post on this blog…
This post is long overdue, but there are some cracking photos from our holiday to Spain with Ed, Cat, Tony and Amy. We flew out to Almeria, Spain – and then drove north about an hour to a golf resort in Desert Springs. Apparently, this place gets sun all year round and didn’t disappoint…
