New or updated Photo Albums
Bryony - Otis	Granddaughters	Amelia	Georgia-McDonalds	Georgia
Megan	Beacon Park		Bryony - Georgia	Packwood House
French Connection	Georgia - Otis	Lucy	Georgia's Birthday	Snow

It has been quite while since I have updated the front page of my web site. This has been mainly due to a very large computer project that I have been meaning to do for several months but required some alterations to my computer hardware. In the past I have managed to free up a considerable amount of space in our house by digitising various things such as photographs, my music collection and books. In the past a considerable amount of space was taken up with VHS tapes to keep our video recordings. This was later reduced by moving things onto CD/DVD and then disposing of the taped versions. However there have now been vast improvements in computer technology with larger capacity hard drives plus the increased speeds of wireless networking within a building. It has now become practical to move stuff from those CD/DVD discs onto hard drives and stream the content around the building. To do so however I had to upgrade various items of computer hardware some of which proved to be a challenge - mostly getting things to fit into the motherboard. This has now been completed.

The weather has been so mild this year that I had to give our lawn its first cut on 12 February - Quite surprising when the last cut was only in November.

On Thursday 25 February My Aunt Doreen (Whitehouse) was buried in Walsall Wood. There was a service at St Johns Church followed by a wake at King Street Progressive Club. I met up with several family members I had not seen for several years including my cousins Mark, Christopher and Tracey. It was quite surprising to see how Sandra and also Graham's families have now grown. My former next door neighbour Norma from Herbert Road was also in attendance.

On Monday 29 February having noticed that Millie was now panting much more than usual I took her to the Vets. Millie has now been put on heart medication.

On Friday 4 March the twins had "sleepover". The same day Faustine came over from France on a business trip and so Faustine also slept here from Friday through to Wednesday 9 March.

Congratulations to Christopher who has now been promoted to Sergeant and has began working at Coventry.Since my last update we have been on a Warners Holiday at Alvaston Hall, Cheshire. Please click here to see our photo album.
At the end of this mini break we visited a National Trust House - Little Moreton Hall. Please click here to see our photo albumOn Wednesday 25 March we visited another National Trust location - Calke Abbey. Please click here to see the album.I mentioned in my previous post that our fitted Freezer had been replaced with a dishwasher. As luck would have it we then found that our combined fridge/freezer unit also required replacement which has also been done.Keith and Alison now have another King Charles Spaniel. "Lady" is approx. 4 years of age and has already enjoyed a couple of sleep-overs with Otis and Millie! Here are some pictures of them together.My Forum software is driven by PHPBB3. The software was recently updated to PHPBB 3.1.3  bringing with it several new changes. One of which is called a "Pages" function. This has led to me altering various parts of my website to take advantage of this new function. Two examples are 'Gails Page' and 'Family Tree' - you will notice these pages integrate into the website much more smoothly especially the Family Tree. Whilst doing this work I discovered that the Family Tree software was out of date and so this has now been updated to webtrees 1.6.2. Also the software that provides the page you are now reading has also been updated to Serendipity 2.0.1. The version of PHP has also been updated to 5.4.27.  Our Virgin Media Superhub 1 has also been replaced with a superhub 2. Hopefully these changes should improve your viewing experience.

The main highlight of September was our trip to Ireland (Eire) with Shearings Holidays. Its title "Castles and Country Houses" aptly describes this holiday. Please click the photographs below to view each album:

Cashel and Cahir	Portumna and Birr	Roscrea Castle and Damer House	Russborough and Finnstown	To Roscrea

Following this Christopher, Gail and myself took the twins to Leamington Spa for a picnic.
The month ended on a sad note with the passing away of Vera Baldwin (Paul's Mother in law) and also our pet dog Lucy.

Several changes have been made to my Photo Album Pages which hopefully will make it easier to locate individual pictures. The front-page has been redesigned to show Just 5 categories 'Chronological' 'Individuals' 'Locations' 'Other Albums' and 'Weddings'.
I have also increased the number of albums under the category 'Locations' which again should make finding pictures easier.

The weather in March was quite exceptional for this time of the year and was mostly dry and sunny. This was also a very event filled month. We have re-decorated the front bedroom. We enjoyed a Monday to Friday mini Break at Warners "Lakeside" Holiday Camp in Hayling Island. A week later Gail, Christopher, Ali, Carl, Heather and all 3 granddaughters had a Monday to Friday mini break at the Center Parcs "Sherwood Forest" Holiday Camp. Steve celebrated his 60th Birthday with a family Meal at 'The Shenstone Carvery' with 26 family members in attendance. The lawn had its first cut of the year plus we have removed two conifer trees and purchased some new garden furniture. Chris, Gail Steve and the twins made a visit to Hatton Farm. Rebecca still has not given birth but it must be any time now!
Both Steve and Gail have changed their mobile phones to something more up to date. Steve has also began voluntary work on a Wednesday evening driving a group of Old Age Pensioners to and from the Wednesday night Bingo at the Community Centre using a Walsall Council minibus that carries 16 passengers.

Not all of the photographs are ready yet but here is a link to the March 2014 Photo collections.

It seems hard to believe but Christmas was an entire month ago! Continuing from where I left off last month, the new medication for Annie is working and she is back to normal. Our mini break at Weston Super Mare was OK when you take into account the low cost involved. The Hotel is listed on Trip Advisor with a rating of 54% Ranked #20 of 30. Our view was that they had overbooked for such an important event - i.e. New Years Celebrations. The Staff did not seem to appreciate that when you have a coach full of customers from a Community Centre, they will want to be together to let in the new year and not spread about the Hotel. On a positive note there was a huge fireworks display at the stroke of midnight. The display lasted 10 minutes and was better than any Local Authority Organized events I have previously attended.

The weather has been warmer than normal for this time of year and so far no snow. However there have been widespread floods throughout the Country. Christopher was victim of a flooded road near Meriden and is now waiting to see if his car is being written off by the Insurance Company for flood damage. On the subject of cars we noticed the tyres on our Ford Mondeo were badly worn and unlikely to make it to Spring. In view of this we brought forward the date intended to change our car and now have a 6 year old Vauxhall Zafira.

Needless to say that December is a busy month, lots of last minute shopping for presents plus a whole wad of Christmas related events. I mentioned in my November update that on Tuesday 3 December Gail, Nicola, Rebecca and myself made our usual trip to Porthcawl to see Mary. This was followed on Friday 6 December with our annual family get together. This year it took place at Shenstone Toby Carvery popularly called 'The Highwayman'. In total 18 family members attended our 3 course meal. Earlier that day I had my final visit to the dentist where I had a Gold Crown fitted plus a filling. This treatment had cleared up well before our family meal and I never gave it a thought.
The following day Gail, Paul, Zena and myself went with the Community Centre to The Blackpole Inn, Worcester for skittles and also a Christmas meal. On our last visit in October I had won a prize for highest scoring male, tonight however I narrowly avoided the lowest score by one skittle! Strangely the same thing occurred with the highest scoring female from October!
On Monday 9 December Gail, Christopher any myself took the twins to Stratford On Avon to get a present for Alison. This was the first time Gail and I had been into the town itself, previous visits had only been to the river near the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. What a delightful place and somewhere to go in the summer with my camera.
On Saturday 14 December Gail went to the Mecca Bingo Club in Kingstanding to meet her old 'Bingo Buddy' Rene. Gail no longer goes to these Bingo Halls other than the annual reunion near Christmas time. She had a period of excitement awaiting the outcome of the 'National Bingo Game' where all of the big clubs throughout the country play this one game. The person with the lowest number of calls nationwide wins a big prize of several thousand pounds - the night time game is often worth £100,000. The country is also split into regions and so if even if you didn't have the lowest number in the country you might have the lowest for your region and again win a prize of several thousands of pounds. Gail had called on 47 numbers. Unfortunately the winner of the National had called on 46 numbers, even more unfortunately that winner was also in the same region and so Gail only won the prize for that particular club.
Tuesday 17 December 2013 and our next event is the Christmas party at Old Oscot Working Mens Club.
Wednesday 18 December is the Christmas Bingo at the Community Centre.
Thursday 19 December is a Christmas Quiz at the Whitehouse.
Friday 20 December - 'Open the Box' at the Community Centre.
Saturday 21 December we visited Christopher and Ali so that we could all go round to the Village Green in Meriden where an outdoor carol singing event was taking place.
There then followed a few days of visiting friends and relatives to exchange Christmas presents before the big day itself.
Christmas Day began with Gail and myself opening our presents, then it was round to Paul and Zena, followed by a visit to Carl and Heather, Christine, then Nicola. Following this our Christmas Dinner was at the Shenstone Toby Carvery where we eat Christmas Dinner with Carol and John. This was followed by a drive over to Christopher and Alison at Meriden.
Boxing Day saw another Carvery - this time at 'The Parson and Clerk' Streetly.
Saturday 28 December and it was our turn to be hosts with Carl, Paul and Christopher plus their wives and families all visiting our house for an afternoon buffet.
On Sunday 29 December we had to take Annie to the Emergency Vets due to her stomach having swollen. The vet has given her some additional tablets to those she is already taking and confirmed it is related to her heart condition.
On Monday 30 December Paul, Zena, Gail and myself set out to Weston Super Mare with the Community Centre to let in the new year.

I am a bit late placing this onto my website due to the fact I just don't get much time now that I have retired!
This is not a myth but a fact which can be quickly worked out like this. I used to work a 30 hour week. Now that I have retired Gail and I have Bryony Wednesday and Thursdays - these are both equivalent to 2 x 8 hour shifts - 16 hours.
Now add on Fridays with the Twins starting at 7am and by the time we get back home it is 7pm - that's 12 hours. Total now 28 hours. I have previously mentioned we also have the twins round either Mondays or Tuesdays - OK Chris is also with them but that takes us well over the 30 hours I used to work. On top of all that I used to only go out to the Working Men's Club on Tuesdays, Community Centre on Wednesdays and the Quiz on Thursdays twice in a four week period, Now it is every week 4/4. It is easy to see already why I have less time than before to do things like managing this web site, Photography, reading and so on.

So What have I been doing with all this extra spare time (ha ha) - A quick check of my Calendar shows Various Dental appointments During November. I now have a Gold Crown in place of my upper left incisor, Gail has a new set of dentures.
Various trips to the Vets with Annie. She is now on heart tablets for life. Friday 15 November and we were at an 18th birthday party at the Community Centre. Saturday 23 November - Open the Box at the Community Centre. Saturday 30 November was a trip to Bath Christmas Market with the Community Centre. On our way we stopped off at a Carvery in Worcester for an 'All you can eat Breakfast'. That was absolutely fantastic - so much so that our organizer Niel immediately booked us in for another one as we go down to Weston Super Mare at the end of December for our mini break at a Hotel to let in the New Year. Just slightly touching December (I will summarize December next month) on Tuesday 3 December Gail, Nicola, Rebecca and myself made our usual trip to Porthcawl to see Mary. On top of all this Our First of Many Christmas meals was held at the Whitehouse on Thursday 28 November, Gail, Carol, John, Pete, Karen and myself.

Megan went from crawling to running in the space of a week, Basically just got up and walked across the room and within a few days you would have thought she had been walking for months. All 3 granddaughters are copying words and I don't think it will be long now before they are all talking. Rebecca has found out that her baby due in April will be a boy and has been busy preparing, decorating the 'nursery' and getting various items such as pushchairs, clothes and so on.