Category: News

Good morning to you all on this marvellous Sunday morning – mild if grey and somewhat overcast. At least it’s a change from the gale force winds we enjoyed earlier in the week.

We’ve got quite a big day ahead of us so I will have to be brief, I’m afraid. It’s Pen’s mum’s birthday today and grand celebrations are scheduled to commence in a few hours’ time. I have a number of responsibilities in preparation for this afternoon’s festivities, the most important of which is to stay out of Penny’s way. Continue reading “8 January 2012”

Good morning to you all and a splendidly splendid Happy New Year. Once again, we saw the new year in by slumbering peacefully as the clock struck midnight. As usual, we didn’t make it much past midnight in Cape Town, Sofia, Athens, Tallinn, Helsinki, Bucharest, Johannesburg, Istanbul, Kyiv, Harare, Cairo, Ankara, Jerusalem, Beirut or Amman (to mention but a few). In days gone by we could also have celebrated midnight in Minsk and Moscow but you may remember that those wacky Russians decided to extend daylight savings time throughout the whole year so those places are now permanently one hour ahead of where the sun suggests they should be and, in the summer, two hours. I am sure in these difficult times they can do with all the extra daylight they are saving. Continue reading “1 January 2012”

Good morning to you all and our very best wishes for a splendidly splendid Christmas. I’m sure Santa will have visited you all as you’re bound to have been very nice and only occasionally naughty during 2011 (apart from brother Steph, obviously). We’re off to Nick and Lucy’s later to share the festivities and we’ll take Pen’s folks along for the ride. I’m looking forward to a staggeringly splendid feast and am sure I won’t be disappointed. Continue reading “25 December 2011”

Good morning to you all.

Friday brought us our first snow of the year. We had been expecting it and, indeed, the weather forecasters ensured we anticipated its arrival all week as they told us every night on the evening news of the huge, low pressure system which was trundelling its way across the Atlantic. It certainly brought very high, gale force winds particularly to Scotland and the northwest and was predicted to dump horrific quantities of snow on everyone. You will be surprised to learn that the apocalyptic predictions turned out to be somewhat wide of the mark, especially in our region. We got what, in old measurements, would be called a “smattering” – the amount of snow which is too small to measure but which you know is there because the green of the grass has a slight white tinge to it in the morning.

Continue reading “18 December 2011”

Good morning to you all. My goodness we’ve had some weather this week – howling, hurricane-force winds (especially in Scotland), bitingly cold with the occasional downpour of horizontal freezing (and stinging) rain. Snow in the highlands although we’ve not seen any yet, thank goodness.

We had an incident at the beginning of the week which got me to wondering. I guess there are two kinds of drivers – those who fill up their petrol tank at the first opportunity once the gauge gets a bit low and, in contrast, those who wait until the last possible moment, when the car is gasping and running on fumes. I am of the former propensity, Penelope is of the latter. Continue reading “11 December 2011”

Good morning to you all. Only 21 days until Christmas!

With December comes the end of my Movember initiative raising money for research into prostate cancer, of course, and although I hope I’ve mailed everyone I did want to thank again all those who contributed so generously. Amazingly, I raised more than the £15 which had been my original expectation; indeed folks kindly donated more than £1000 and I am very grateful. I am also grateful for the many kind words of support which were posted on my Movember space (http://mobro.co/GregStragnell) and in the many personal messages I received. If you missed the photos of the “goat’s” development, you can catch a few photos there as well. Continue reading “4 December 2011”

Thirty-nine years ago last Friday two fresh-faced youngsters with very little sense gathered with some friends and a couple of relations and made some crazy comments and absurd commitments. What were we thinking!!? And who would have thought that it would still be working all these years later! Continue reading “27 November 2011”

Good morning to you all.

It’s been a busy, busy week and that’s without any grand parenting duties – I actually had to do a bit of proper work. Yes, believe it or not, I actually had to go out into a couple of schools and work with teaching staff, administrative staff, headteachers and senior management teams helping them keep up with their Learning Platform. Every single day of the week! (Apart from Friday, of course). Continue reading “20 November 2011”

Well, we’ve had a good week – I hope yours has been similarly pleasant.

We had Nick, Lucy and Annabelle here for the night on Monday as they were in the midst of moving into their new home. The movers had packed up their old house and were going to deliver all their possessions to the new house on Tuesday so they came over for the evening and spent the night. Naturally, Annabelle was a dream and I was even able to introduce her to some of the finer elements of American football.

Continue reading “13 November 2011”

Good morning to you all.

Some/many of you will remember that one of my “pet peeves” is the lunacy which we insist on going through twice a year when we change our clocks in the interest of saving daylight. The whole concept is absurd, of course, based on the premise that changing the hands on the face of the clock somehow affects the hours of daylight which we have available to us. Continue reading “6 November 2011”