Happy Christmas!

Feliz Navidad, Felic Nadal and Meeeeerry Christmas to you all!!!

From Me Alex and Pads!

Ho ho ho!

Christmas time

Well this year was hectic, to say the least. With the help of Sonia's fiancee Mark a few months ago we began the work on renovating the kitchen and this took several weekends, during which we lived in an obstacle course. Then Alex put down a new floor, I helped but he did it really. Then we got a man in to tile the one end and finally we treated the walls and wallpapered the other end as well as sorting the extension out. On Christmas eve we put together the dining table and on Christmas morning we put up the new blinds. Finally, after a few months, we had a dining room!
Ha sido un navidad muy estresante pero muy feliz. despues de meses trabajando en terminar la cocina y la extension tenemos, finalmente, un comedor! Era la manana de Navidad cuando Alex lo termino, poniendo persianas al ultimo momento.

We were very excited because this meant that our invited guests had somewhere to sit!

On Christmas Eve I met up with Lisa Danielle and Eve, some of my loveliest friends, for dinner at Old Orleans in Coventry. It was great to catch up with them, all of us had lots to tell! Then I scooted back down the motorway for Christmas eve service at midnight, after which me and Jess kissed the Reverend ("Anything to embarass the vicar" - he blushed!) and got home for 1am. I made the custard for the trifle then me and Alex went to bed and all too soon it was morning and time to start cooking!
Noche buena por la tarde estuve con mis amigas de muchos anos Eve Lisa y Danielle en un restaurante al centro de Coventry. Fue una noche muy agradable de cotilleo y noticias, y me encanto estar todos juntos - aunque Coventry esta cerca a Birmingham Y Solihull donde trabajo aun mas cerca no nos hemos visto lo suficiente este ano... asi es la vida, no?















We had ordered a MASSIVE goose from Stan the butcher in Kings Heath - he was great and gave me endless tips on goose fat and cooking the goose - and me and Al cooked up a bit of a feat even if I do say so myself. Alex's parents Fran and Les and his 92 year old gran Dos arrived at 11.30 and my parents about an hour later and we began opening presents and drinking wine. It was good fun and very Christmassy.
Habiamos pedido hace un mes una oca ENORME - tan enorme que en llevarlo a casa hizo dano a mi espalda! El carnicero fue estupendo dando sugerencias de como cocerlo y tal, gracias Stan! Los padres de Alex y su abuela de 92 anos Dos llegaron y una hora mas tarde llegaron mis padres, y con esto empezamos a abrir los regalos al lado del arbol, fue muy 'Christmassy'!

Here are some pics from the Christmas 'do' - enjoy!

Aqui hay algunas fotos del dia que pasamos juntos - que disfrutes!

Mini road trip

Two weeks before Christmas I visited Hannah and saw Jack and Rossa and then, next day, took Hannah and we drove to Abingdon, Oxford to see Sarah.














Hannah Sarah Susie and Emily and I shared the flat in Griffin in the first year of university. We got on well all year round, despite living in close quarters so I decided we'd got on as well as could be expected of 5 people and got a house with 2 other girls in the secoond year. As it happened Sarah Susie Hannah and Emily were one of the few houses of girls that I knew from uni that are still good friends, since many seem to have suffered from tantrums, falling for each others' boyfriends and general house sharing gripes.
Ever since the day I left Griffin I wish I'd stayed with them, but it probably worked out best for them at it would have meant them finding a bigger house and a new flatmate for my third and their final year, while I was in Spain for my year abroad.
Anyway they are lovely girls and I'm chuffed to bits we all stay in touch. Sarah'd moved from her parents house in London to a new life in Oxford with boyfriend John and it was great to see her house and go out in Oxford. We drank mulled wine and visited a few really nice old pubs in the centre before moving on to a converted church that is a nightclub. They played good music, mostly sixties stuff and it was the first time for ages I'd had a dance! Me and Hannah even had to ask the dj what music he was playing when he played some young whippersnapper band. Apparently it was The Killers. How embarrassing! A good time was had by all, even though I was in pain from my new shoes - thanks for the offer of a piggy back Susie!

Cheeky boy

Back again with Hannah and Rossa, it's lovely to catch up and Jack is in a good mood this morning so it's even lovelier. I just wanted to share this beautiful photo with you of Jack from their holiday together, the proud parents have it on their desktop and I think it's beautiful.

tee hee hee

Al's going to kill me...
Here's a picture of the darling and his football team, he is second from the right at the bottom. Go Moseley Town FC!

PS, well done to Crouch - I have a soft spot for the love and he scored his first goal for Liverpool after much unfair haranging!

mad world

I'd just like you to note, it's saturday night, midnight to be precise, and I'm finishing off the cold pizza after having just finished painting the extension for the day...
Ah, life is a banquet!

Pads is contributing to this particular blog entry by stepping onto the computer keyboard, sitting on the mouse and generally getting in the way! When she finally stopped trying to walk all over the keyboard she went and stole Nathan's seat! tee hee hee!

Nathan and Al are having a male bonding night of playstation and beer. It seems this is necessary on a weekly basis to keep them happily adjusted, otherwise they assure me there's a chance they might keel over and die. I'm just working out how to hijack the launch of playstation 3 next year - Lord preserve us! Laura had the good sense to stay at hers and watch Breakfast at Tiffany's...

We're going out for Leon's birthday tomorrow night, Sunday night is a school night though so I'm planning to make it a snappy, alcohol free event. Then next weekend I'm rather excited because me and Hannah are off to visit our 1st year Griffin flatmates Sarah Emily and Susie in Sarah's new Oxford flat - not Cambridge as I'd somehow convinced myself it was..! It's Sarah's birthday too; goodness how many birthdays have there been recently?!
Ah, memories of Griffin... those cramped little flats were such fun that year! It flooded three times, the flats were unhygienic, and the only pleasant smell was Pete downstairs who'd bake his own bread - I'll never forget how good that smelt! And the Soash! And the boy's parties downstairs. Oh dear I'm getting nostalgic.
I'm off to wash out the paint from underneath my fingernails...

Social life

You could be forgiven for thinking that we do nothing other than work and diy, so I thought I'd run through our recent social events...

One thing that stood out was my visit with Leon and Danielle to see a Madeleine Peyroux gig (I hate the word gig! but concert gives the impression that there were hundreds of screaming people or a stern-faced classical affair. It was neither, just a really great time) Madeleine is like a mix of Billie Holiday and Bob Dillon, if you can imagine it! Part smouldering blues, part hippy, but still very much of our time. She's also got a great mythology attributed to her, for instance it's said that she was meant to play a gig in paris and disappeared for a few months, then just turned up one day and started playing! I don't know if it's true, but I can imagine it to be!
Have a look/listen at http://www.madeleinepeyroux.com/

Another little thing I got up to was while Nathan and Laura's neice Leah was staying with them, she's learning to play cello and some years ago so too did I. We both got a lot out of one of her practice sessions, I think I helped her and she entertained me no end. She asked me questions that were very hard to answer, about why this and why that:
Q. why does it matter how many beats there are in a bar?
A. Erm, well it helps you stay in tune
Q. but how?
A. If you count regularly then you know how to split the music up.
Q. Well I don't need to, I just know.
A. Right.
Hard work!
But anyway Anna, the vicar's wife, offered to give her a lesson and it turns out she thinks that she's a very talented young lady; so you heard it here first folks, Leah Collins will be a virtuoso cellist.

Other than that, we have been to a few birthday nights out and had a few people over, the lovely Daniel Cawte came to visit from Ireland, and Milly and Rob came from Bristol, so it's not all been boring diy!
This last photos are lovely, I thought I'd post one of Al Nathan and Emma and one of the happy family playing with Pads in our hallway - aaah!

Let it snow...

It's the end of november, I'm getting all christmassy, and right on queue it snows!

Me and Laura were in Ikea yesterday, which is half way between Wolverhampton and Birmingham and when you are inside you are hidden away in Ikea-land, unaware of the outside. Well we went to the cafeteria and turned around and then realised that in the 2 hours we'd been choosing a sofa bed and dining table that the car park had turned into a winter wonderland. More like a blizzard actually!

We carried on to Wolverhampton to see Hannah and smily boy Jack and the journey home was horrendous! Apparently Wolverhampton hasn't heard of gritting. You know when you are sat in awful traffic and then the radio traffic alerts start coming in warning not to go down the road you are on because it is at a standstill? Me and Laura were saying, yes thankyou, we have realised through gritted teeth! The journey took 3 hours and it's only 15 miles!!! Poor Emma is only 5 months old and was not happy with us at all, not to metion Laura had to change her nappy in the back - stinky poos!

Anyway here are some lovely photos from our visit, Jack's gorgeous, (although not at all happy to be woken up after his nap!) and they were both a bit amazed at the sudden appearance of the white stuff.

DIY resume

Well I've been recapping what this year has been all about, and three little letters sums it up quite neatly: DIY.

We have just finnished a major bit of work on the house, although we did need help from a carpenter and tiling man but we've done an awful lot of jobs ourselves. We walpapered the bedroom and Al put down the floor, built the furniture etc, painted virtually the whole house, walls dado rails etc, got a new aerial, got tree surgeons to fell our huge trees at the back, put pubbles down in the front and back gardens, built so much flat pack furniture, put up curtains and shelves etc, cut and finally did the kitchen.
Here's a before and after picture:
















This job seems to have taken over our lives for the last couple of months but we're into the final stretch, wallpapering, so that the dining room can be ready for christmas. We've invited Al's parents and nan and my parents over for christmas and I'm getting very christmassy!
The second picture was of Al cooking steak and Ale pie, he's a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen. He makes the best italian meat balls ever, yummy!

Technical problems

Well, officially the old gemandalinbrum.blogspot.com is dead. Long live gemandalex.blogspot.com...

For those of you that didn't visit the old one, shame on you! But welcome to the new and improved (and shortened name, just for you Lau!) blog. We'll add photos and news and even make the odd concerted effort to be bilingual. And I'd appreciate you all logging on and adding comments cause it's a lonely business if you don't hear from people, ok? Deal.

The old blog left off due to technical problems. I haven't been able to post a diary entry since the summer. I left my NEC job, was looking for a new one and life then was very different. It was all about summer bbq's, our god daughter Emma was born, our cat was mad and a bit less used to us and Alex had broken his wrist during a football game.

Since then I joined a company called Bright, Al's wrist is mended, the cat's still mad but just more naughty, and the little people in our lives, Jack and Emma will insist on getting bigger and delighting us with their foibles. 'Oh look, she's giggling... oh look she's sleeping... oh wow she's blowing raspberries'! Ah, time flies when you're having fun.

The Bright website is: http://www.bright-consultancy.co.uk so you can see what a load of friendly nuttters I work with
I also go to church, and it being quite a friendly modern-thinking church it too has a website: http://www.kingsnorton.org.uk/
Alex's football team is Moseley Town FC and their home ground is Billesley Common, so if you fancy seeing them they always appreciate a bit of home ground support! I'm planning to post their Birmingham Mail coverage as well so keep looking out for that!

Right well I'll try posting this, and saving any further technical problems it'll be on with the show! xxx