November is cold and dark :-(

but at least not tooooo wet 🙂

Feels like Christmas is just around the corner now – Vicky been arranging a Christmas Party for some school parents – kind of frames it – Christmas IS just around the corner….

Daddy spent a few days in London working this week, so mummy had the joys on her own for a few days.  Oliver can be a real handful and this week he has been right on top form it seems.  Interestingly enough, he got a pretty good review from his school parents evening on Tuesday (daddy missed it 🙁 ) although school were not committing to state he is intelligent 🙁 We know he is a little smart ass, but whether that makes it through to academic skills is still not proving consistent it seems.

Winter is most certainly upon us though, with coats, scarves and hats being the name of the day for most outdoors based activity.  Walking down and back again to Alicia’s Birthday Party last night was testament to the nip in the air.  The boys definitely needed the blanket in the stroller to keep them warm during both journeys.

This week, our friends Rich, Clare and their boys Alex and Ben are heading back to sunny Northern California for a long term stay.  They are heading to Almaden to live and have managed to secure the same cars that we had when we were there, from Clint.  They scored a cracking deal as well which just makes it all work nicely 🙂  I guess we are a little jealous as their lifestyle is about to change (in our opinion positively) for a long stretch – just hope that the distance between themselves and family etc works out OK – as we know that first 3 to 6 months is HARD – and given that Christmas is just around the corner, that will only add to the initial pain.  Good luck guys 🙂

Mountain biking in Sherwood Forest

Yesterday, Simon Tim, James, Lee and Sam head down to Sherwood Pines for a pootle around the red route on the cycle path.

Thankfully it did not rain BUT clearly it HAD rained a lot – VERY muddy on a significant portion of the route.

We generally had a great time although poor james needed to stop 50 yards from the end of the route (Kitchener Trail Red Route total is 10 miles) for a swift TV (Tactical Vomit).  The silly sod also didn’t bother with cycling short so he is gonna have a sore ass today and tomorrow…. 🙁

We have already booked ourselves to head over to Llandegla in North Wales on the 1st December.

This morning we have seen the first frost of the winter season thus far – ice on the car windscreens (those that are outside) 🙁

Tina left ForkHall earlier this week – Simon has decided to enlist the help of the guy who he bought her from – more likely to secure a sale from a well known specialist dealer of these types of vehicle.  Hopefully a sale will be upcoming in the next few days / weeks…