Obligatory holiday blog
Ok, so here is the obligatory Christmas/New Year blog. It's not very exciting, but nevertheless, here it is:
We both finished work on the 21st December, so we had something like 16 days off. Unfortunately, Ele was very ill for much of it.
Christmas Eve was spent doing less than normal, as we weren't doing a Christmas dinner the next day. We had a traditional take-away pizza and as we had already wrapped everything, had a fairly stress-free evening.
Christmas Day was quite hectic. Jess was too excited to sleep so came and lay on the end of our bed at some point. Ele then stretched her feet out and kicked her off onto the floor. When Joe woke up they all got to work on presents, and everyone had a wonderful time and liked what they got. I didn't have any suprise presents to give out this year, like last year's Wii, which of course we no longer have... After we finished we went to Ele's parents' house to do more presents, and then over to my parents' house to do even more and to have Christmas dinner. It's the first time we've been to my parents for Christmas in a few years, so I think they quite appreciated it.
Boxing Day didn't go according to plan. The plan was that Ele's mum and dad would drive to Peterborough to visit relatives in their car, as they were staying up there for a few days. I would drive up in our car carrying the four of us, plus Saff, Anise and Mick, as we were only visiting for the day. It started badly, then got worse. To begin with I didn't pay any attention to the route as I would have driven it, and just blindly followed the sat nav. This was not good as it took us up the M1 which had a) Roadworks and b) Accidents. Just as we cleared the last of the accidents, Anise piped up that she needed the loo. Of course, because of the stupid SPECS cameras I couldn't go above 50 for fear of points on my license, so I had to dwadle along until the roadworks came to an end. Then I could put my foot down a bit and get to Toddington services. Whilst we were there the phone rang, and it turns out Arthur & Chris had broken down at South Mimms services. And by broken down I mean the head-gasket had gone so they were going nowhere. So we drove back down to the M25 and went across to South Mimms to pick up Chris. Arthur had gone back with his car. We finally made it to Peterborough with 8 people in the car and had a nice afternoon. Saff and Anise decided to stay, so Mick did too, and then Jess also decided she wanted to stay. We weren't too keen on it as it was for a few days and we would have liked her home but she insisted so we relented. In the event, I think she got a bit bored after a couple of days! So after taking 8 people up, we came home just 3 of us.
The 27th we ended up driving to Peterborough again to drop Arthur off and bring Mick back home. And to take clothes for Saff, Anise & Jess. This didn't go too well either, as the M25 was completely solid all the way around and it took us ages.
For the next couple of days, Ele was ill and we didn't really do anything. On the 30th Mick went up to Peterborough again and brought back Chris, Saff, Anise and Jess. Arthur and the rest of the Peterborough contingent came on the 31st, and stayed with them for a few more days.
New Year's Eve we all went to a party at Ele's parents. My parents came too. It was a fun evening, although Ele still wasn't very well.
On New Year's Day we went into Sutton in the afternoon, and it was completely deserted. About half the shops were open but I've never seen it so empty. Since then we went into Sutton again, Croydon, Kingston and Bluewater. We've spent a fortune on car parks (and a fortune in the shops).
And now we're back at work. Boo. Because Arthur's car is so broken he's had to borrow mine for a while and we're having to juggle things around with me dropping Ele off at work, and him picking her up and so on.
On burglary related news, Ele has found some new rings to replace her stolen engagement and wedding ones. She went for a completely different design in the end, and it will never be the same as the original ones, but they are very nice and we both like them. We should get them within a week or so. The rest of the companies dealing with replacement goods (Jessops and PowerPlay) have not been in touch at all. Well, Jessops called on Christmas Eve then within about 10 seconds realised he had to get authorisation and hasn't been heard from since. Powerplay have not so much as made a phone call. Extremely poor service. I have asked the Loss Adjusters to chase them up but I don't know if they have or not. LMG (who were in charge of valuing and replacing the rings) were superb and sent a card through to cover the items within about 3 days. I'll chase the Loss Adjusters again tommorow, as the woman dealing with our claim wasn't available today. I want them to hurry up (Jessops especially) as I know they are giving us vouchers or some kind of store credit and I want to take advantage of the sale!
We both finished work on the 21st December, so we had something like 16 days off. Unfortunately, Ele was very ill for much of it.
Christmas Eve was spent doing less than normal, as we weren't doing a Christmas dinner the next day. We had a traditional take-away pizza and as we had already wrapped everything, had a fairly stress-free evening.
Christmas Day was quite hectic. Jess was too excited to sleep so came and lay on the end of our bed at some point. Ele then stretched her feet out and kicked her off onto the floor. When Joe woke up they all got to work on presents, and everyone had a wonderful time and liked what they got. I didn't have any suprise presents to give out this year, like last year's Wii, which of course we no longer have... After we finished we went to Ele's parents' house to do more presents, and then over to my parents' house to do even more and to have Christmas dinner. It's the first time we've been to my parents for Christmas in a few years, so I think they quite appreciated it.
Boxing Day didn't go according to plan. The plan was that Ele's mum and dad would drive to Peterborough to visit relatives in their car, as they were staying up there for a few days. I would drive up in our car carrying the four of us, plus Saff, Anise and Mick, as we were only visiting for the day. It started badly, then got worse. To begin with I didn't pay any attention to the route as I would have driven it, and just blindly followed the sat nav. This was not good as it took us up the M1 which had a) Roadworks and b) Accidents. Just as we cleared the last of the accidents, Anise piped up that she needed the loo. Of course, because of the stupid SPECS cameras I couldn't go above 50 for fear of points on my license, so I had to dwadle along until the roadworks came to an end. Then I could put my foot down a bit and get to Toddington services. Whilst we were there the phone rang, and it turns out Arthur & Chris had broken down at South Mimms services. And by broken down I mean the head-gasket had gone so they were going nowhere. So we drove back down to the M25 and went across to South Mimms to pick up Chris. Arthur had gone back with his car. We finally made it to Peterborough with 8 people in the car and had a nice afternoon. Saff and Anise decided to stay, so Mick did too, and then Jess also decided she wanted to stay. We weren't too keen on it as it was for a few days and we would have liked her home but she insisted so we relented. In the event, I think she got a bit bored after a couple of days! So after taking 8 people up, we came home just 3 of us.
The 27th we ended up driving to Peterborough again to drop Arthur off and bring Mick back home. And to take clothes for Saff, Anise & Jess. This didn't go too well either, as the M25 was completely solid all the way around and it took us ages.
For the next couple of days, Ele was ill and we didn't really do anything. On the 30th Mick went up to Peterborough again and brought back Chris, Saff, Anise and Jess. Arthur and the rest of the Peterborough contingent came on the 31st, and stayed with them for a few more days.
New Year's Eve we all went to a party at Ele's parents. My parents came too. It was a fun evening, although Ele still wasn't very well.
On New Year's Day we went into Sutton in the afternoon, and it was completely deserted. About half the shops were open but I've never seen it so empty. Since then we went into Sutton again, Croydon, Kingston and Bluewater. We've spent a fortune on car parks (and a fortune in the shops).
And now we're back at work. Boo. Because Arthur's car is so broken he's had to borrow mine for a while and we're having to juggle things around with me dropping Ele off at work, and him picking her up and so on.
On burglary related news, Ele has found some new rings to replace her stolen engagement and wedding ones. She went for a completely different design in the end, and it will never be the same as the original ones, but they are very nice and we both like them. We should get them within a week or so. The rest of the companies dealing with replacement goods (Jessops and PowerPlay) have not been in touch at all. Well, Jessops called on Christmas Eve then within about 10 seconds realised he had to get authorisation and hasn't been heard from since. Powerplay have not so much as made a phone call. Extremely poor service. I have asked the Loss Adjusters to chase them up but I don't know if they have or not. LMG (who were in charge of valuing and replacing the rings) were superb and sent a card through to cover the items within about 3 days. I'll chase the Loss Adjusters again tommorow, as the woman dealing with our claim wasn't available today. I want them to hurry up (Jessops especially) as I know they are giving us vouchers or some kind of store credit and I want to take advantage of the sale!
posted by Nej at
4:57 pm
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