January

I haven't posted anything for a couple of weeks now....just been too busy. 

Let me see.

30 Dec we went down to Lyme Regis to meet up with my Mother, brother and his family and my sister. My sister left in the evening and my brother and his family left after dinner but we stayed the night with my mother. 

31 Dec we came home via Sainsbury's in Farlington and a quick visit to the Indian restaurant for a takeaway meal. We then spent a couple of hours getting the food ready for tomorrow. Our neighbours Mark and Sharon came round for drinks at about 10 pm. The lads up the street set off fireworks at midnight, so we all went outside to watch both their display and the ones around us.

1 Jan we had Maria's parents, sister, niece and sister's boyfriend to visit for lunch and tea. We served them Chili con Carne.

2 Jan we spent at home

3 Jan Caroline and Tom went to football again

4 Jan we took the kids to the airport using two cars. The queues were terrible to get into the car parks, we got separated of course and Maria and Caroline went in via "Arrivals" rather than "Departures". The kids made the flight though. Then we dropped off the hire car and drove home. On the way we hit a spot of black ice on the roundabout where the A331 meets the M3. The car span round 180 degrees but didn't hit anything! I rang the council to report it, they said they already knew about it but it was too cold for them to grit the road!

5 Jan Maria went back to work and I had to "sign on". I spoke to my other sister about Mum's birthday present. We decided on a photo frame. I have also been organising the accommodation for the guests.

6 Jan Some pictures arrived for scanning from Ann. The frame should arrive by the end of the week. Found a B&B but Maria is worried about the fact that it is home to 10 cats!

Kew Bridge

I went to sunny Kew today - for an interview.

That was the plan: however there were train problems. An "electrical fault at Witley" meant that all London-bound trains were terminated at Haslemere and replaced with buses. I'd planned the trip to leave time to relax at Kew before the interview, then had to change things when I heard on the radio about the problems. I rang the agency to warn them I may be late and then decided to stick to my plan anyway rather than try to go to another station. A quick check showed there were delays at Bentley too anyway. I'd have to get a taxi to Guildford which seemed madness.

I went to the station anyway: walking to the bus stop for the rail-link. I forgot my signing on book so I had to dart back for that, but then had a few minutes wait for the rail-link bus. It didn't seem good after I was warned by the bus driver about long queues at Haslemere for the replacement coaches to Guildford. Then when we got to the station, while I was buying my ticket I was told that the power was now back on and there was a good chance my train would run through to London.

The 10:09 arrived at 10:21, so I knew that I'd missed my connection at Clapham Junction, but the trains to Kew Bridge from there are every 15 minutes so that didn't matter. I got to the office for my 12 noon interview at 11:55! If I'd left earlier I would probably still be sitting on a bus trying to get to Guildford.

Loads of stress and hassle, probably because someone wanted to steal some cables from the track to sell the copper as scrap.

I left the office soon after 1pm and grabbed this pic at the station. Then back to Clapham Junction, and down to Liphook again. This time the connections worked like a dream. I got the bus back to Bordon to sign on at the Jobcentre and then walked home from there.