Disappearing George

A couple of weeks ago I posted about our new cat, George. Well, he's becoming a bit of a handful.  One day last week we lost him. He wasn't around when we got up, didn't come to be fed all day, didn't use his litter tray. Three of us searched the house from top to bottom, twice. Looked under every bed, in cupboards, behind sofas, nothing. So, we decided he must have got out somehow. Stu and Luke went into the garden and searched that, but nothing. A few minutes later, there he was on the kitchen stairs, just wanting to be fed. So, he'd been inside all the time. No idea where. Yesterday morning we lost him again, this time he'd got out of the cat flap, which I'd unlocked. So, we searched the garden, our neighbours' gardens, the surrounding streets, nothing. He still hadn't appeared by midnight, and we knew he hadn't eaten so we were worried. At 1am I went searching again, nothing. Woke at 5.30 so tried again. This time - success - he was in our neighbour's garden, and came when I called him.

Picked him, up, gave him a cuddle, brought him inside fed him, and locked the cat flap. That last bit is important!  Went back to bed. Got up a few hours later - and he's gone again. This time we know he's inside. But where?? It's now 6pm and we haven't seen him for over 12 hours - he hasn't appeared, made a noise, or eaten. Where the hell is he??? He's HUGE, and we live in a small house - where on earth can a cat of this size hide, and why?

Edit:

So there we were eating our Christmas Eve meal, when we saw him in the garden, and he calmly came through the cat flap (which was only locked one way, which we now know was important....)
he ate, was fussed, and tried to get out again. Which was when we realised he was getting though the locked cat flap by getting his paw under it and pulling it towards him. Clever cat!

Santa Cruise

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a Santa Cruise. A one hour trip down the Sheffield canal from Victoria Quays in a beautifully decorated boat, where everyone gets in the Christmas spirit and even the driver sports a reindeer hat.



We usually go in a large group of assorted kids, grandkids, friends and their kids and grandchildren. Yesterday there were 16 of us, and the little ones love being at the front of the boat waiting for Santa.




Of course, Santa arrives



and everyone gets a present from his sack. The adults get a couple of glasses of mulled wine and a mince pie. There's biscuits, juice and colouring things for the kids and we all have a great time. The weather was great, cold but sunny, and there was the added bonus of ice on the canal for the boat to break through. There's even a bar if the mulled wine isn't enough. Lots of opportunity to have a chat with Santa and have your photo taken.



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Introducing George

When my beloved Rocco died earlier on this year, I didn't want to replace him straight away, and we had a few holidays and trips away booked so it didn't seem fair to get another one if we weren't going to be there. But, last week I decided it was time. So I went to the cat shelter, but they only had kittens, adult cats who needed to be adopted in pairs, or cats who they didn't want to rehome with other cats. A bit disappointing, so I sent an email to a rescue charity, and within 24 hours they had a match! Someone had an adult male and they were moving into rented accommodation and couldn't take him with them. they sent me a photo of what looked like a largish long haired tabby and I was hooked.

So, drove with Luke to Dinnington to pick him up, with my cat carrier, which is not huge. It was only when I got there I realised how big he was!  It took two of us to get him into the carrier, and he cried all the way back. But, with lots of TLC he has soon settled in.

Here I am struggling to hold him just after we'd got him home - not a brilliant picture of me - I instinctively shut my eyes when a flash goes off!

He is HUGE!  Lovely silky long fur, a mane and tufty ears. There's been a suggestion that he has some Maine Coon in his background.

A lovely temperament, but still a bit shy. Our other cat, Ruby is not sure what to make of him and has retreated to our bedroom, but I'm sure they'll get along just fine. I've had to lock the cat flap to keep him in, and she is loving the fact that there's a litter tray so she doesn't have to go out in the cold. This morning I let her out into the garden where she ran round for about half an hour, then came in and crapped in the litter tray....

In the last day or two he's socailising a lot more, and sitting with us. Here is in front of our Christmas tree. He's like a baby lion...

Pantomine Chatsworth

Quick trip to Chatsworth yesterday to see the house decorated for Christmas - this year the theme is pantomime, so we had Puss in Boots

 and all the old favourites. As usual, the House looked beautiful. Different trees and displays in all of the rooms. There was even a beanstalk growing into the roof

The chapel has recently had a Damian Hirst sculpture installed, which I really don't like, so I was pleased to see it partly hidden!

There was a snow queen scene in the library

But as usual my favourite room was the dining room, which this time was set up to look like a scene from Hansel and Gretel, the gingerbread cottage.

And no trip out there would be complete without a visit to the farm shop at Christmas, where I spend far too much money on lovely food!

Elemental Force

I love Chatsworth House, and we have friends season tickets so can go whenever we want. A couple of weeks ago we got invited to a free event for friends - something called Elemental Force.  Tickets were limited and went very quickly. So, we turned up at 6pm, and were directed on to the lawn which had been transformed by fire sculptures

All powered by gas, they were quite  impressive. Then the main show started. The house was lit up,

music played, and then the story of the Industrial Revolution was projected on the house. It was spectacular.

and made really good use of pyrotechnics. at one point (virtual) chimneys rose out of the ground and when they reached the top of the house smoke and fire came out of them. A crane lowered a huge wheel which had an acrobat in who spun dizzily round, and the whole thing finished with a great firework display.

Go and see it if you get a chance. Details of where else its happening are here

Christmas Tree!

Decorated gardens for Christmas this weekend. Always leave the lights at the front up, so it's just a case of turning them on and seeing if they work. This year they did.

So Christmassy! I'd still got some lights up in the back garden from Stuart's birthday, but managed to get some more up, including some lanterns from my mum and dad which they aren't using anymore. think I'm going to leave them up for summer BBQs. So, that's five sets of lights up at the front, and five at the back.

Still working on getting icicle lights all along the roof of our terrace of 10 houses.....

Also this weekend was the Magical Christmas Tree Concert. My friend Andrea and I occasionally become concert promoters for the night for friends, and this time we used Nether Edge Bowling Club (a great venue) for Pete Morton, Chris Parkinson and Maggie Boyle and their magical Christmas Tree. A great night was had by all, and i'm pleased to say that after some initial panic, we broke even on the night!

Girls weekend

Just got back from our traditional girls weekend away - think we've been doing it for 15 years now. A weekend in a cosy cottage, somewhere nice, usually close to a pub. Plenty of eating, drinking and walking. Slightly less of the latter now.

This year we went to Giggleswick, in a cottage we've stayed in 3 times before. Lovely jasmine and something red round the door (Cotoneaster?).

Went on the train, got there lunchtime, lunch in the Black Horse which is all of 20 yards from the cottage, and the landlord always recognises us.  Then a short walk into Settle, a look round the shops, and some supermarket shopping for our provisions for the weekend.

Back to the cottage, light the real fire (my job!), and sausage and mash for tea. Later we walked to the other pub, which is a bit further, about 50 yards. Quite exciing - we saw a fight. Tables turned over and everything. Soon calmed down by the landlady though.

Next morning a short walk, and got a bit lost at one point - could see the path below us, but no way down, so we climbed.

Usual coffee stop, my flask has been photographed in many locations.

A dash of artificial sweetner from the hip flask sets the coffee off nicely. Lovely view of Giggleswick School as we came over the top.

Then lunch in Settle, a quick drink, a walk round half of the town trail, and off to the station to meet one of our friends who was arriving. back to the cottage, more fire, more drink, and Christmas lunch. Chicken pheasant and all the trimmings. Even the pudding had a sparkler on it.

Then to the pub again where we played dominos. Not sure why. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And we got thrown out at the end of the night by the landlord who asked us politely if we had a home to go to.

Next day another walk, where we saw this amusing weather station.

Walked by the canal for a while which was lovely.

Ended at the craft centre where we managed to get some retail therapy and Christmas shopping in. Lunch in Settle again, and the rest of the town trail. In the evening we ate out at the Black Horse again, but didn't get thrown out this time.

Up and away fairly early on Sunday as there were no trains running due to engineering works and we had to get a bus to Keigthly which wasn't too pleasant with a slight hangover. Then a train to Leeds where we had lunch, and then home. Great weekend as always.

More things to do in Denver when you're not dead

I always try and get out of the city when we're at Educause in the little spare time we get, and this time a group of us hired a couple of cars for a short drove out into the Rocky mountains. Denver sits at the edge of a very flat, very barren desert area, but nestles at the bottom of the Rockies, and you can see their snow covered tops from most of the city.

We aimed for Georgetown, a small, old ( by US standards) settlement which has been preserved. Lovely old houses, most decorated for Halloween.






And a lovely old main street where we had enormous burritos for lunch in a Mexican cafe.



Seem stunning views of the mountains as we drove over a very high pass, went rises to nearly 12,000 feet above sea level and the effects of the altitude were felt by many of us.



We were lucky ( I think) that we were in the US on the day of the presidential election. TV adverts were more boring than usual in the run up to it as the two parties continually criticised each other, but being there for the vote was great fun. We headed down to a bar about 6pm, and got a Brit table, and watched it on the giant flat TV screens. We had a map to colour in as states were called - not declared, that's done much later. The calling is done by the media as results come in based on estimates. We were watching different states being called by different media organisations, and it was also odd to us that results were coming in from the Esat Coast before the West Coast had finished voting. Not long after Ohio was called for the democrats, the media declared Obama the winner and we saw the famous "four more years" tweet. Much cheering in the bar, from us and the democrats who seemed to make up the majority of the customers, and it was over. We stayed in the bar to celebrate, the Americans went home. And we all made the 8am session the next day!


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Things to do in Denver....

Am in Denver at the moment for a conference. The journey over was fairly uneventful - a little long, but at least the 10 hour flight was direct. It was late when we landed, but a group of us met up in the evening and had a couple of drinks and went out for a meal to try and beat the jet lag. It's a very long day - you get an extra six hours, and I'm sure an extra couple of meals!

The following day we went for a walk around LoDo (Lower Downtown), an old warehouse district which has been done up. There's a beautiful station, which is shut at the moment, but we managed to get in and take some photos of the interior, which we are sure has been used for some films, but we couldn't remember which.

We called in at Coors Field, the basketball stadium, and at Wynkoops, our favourite microbrewery pub for lunch.

I was thrilled to find we could get another Segway ride in whilst here. Those who know me or read this will know how much I love them, and we went on a 2 hour tour of Denver. There were 3 on the trip who'd never done it before and I was pleased to find they enjoyed it just as much as I did. The UK is one of the strictest places in the world for being able to ride them in public - you can in most of the States and Europe. Bonkers really.

We travelled about 8 miles on the tour and saw most of Denver, including the performing arts district, and the civic centre. It's a beautiful city, on one side a desert, and the other the rocky mountains which are topped with snow at the time of year.  As we were in the mile high city, had to sit on the step of the State Capitol which is exactly a mile above sea level. Give or take a couple. Apparently it keeps changing.

End of the holiday

The last few days of the holiday were very, very lazy. Apart from Stuart who got several swims in a day. We spent most of our time lounging by the pool

and drinking cocktails in one of the cabanas if we could get one.

On the Saturday it was our tenth wedding anniversary, which was the reason we'd gone, and we had a lovely day.

As the resort had in effect closed and wasn't accepting any mor guests, the numbers went down everyday, until there were only about 30 of us on the resort. They moved us all into one area, and opened one pool, one bar and one restaurant for us. it was a real party atmosphere!

Finally it was time to go home, and we had one last walk round the resort, looking at how much of the damage they had cleared up - it was very impressive - they even had bulldozers on the beach!

We survived Sandy...

...but some of the resort didn't.

Thursday morning we got up to really see what the hurricane had done. This was the view from our balcony to what had been our lovely private pool:



And from the rear of the villa all we could see was crashed trees and vegetation. One villa had a tree through its roof:



And one of the main routes through the resort was completely blocked by a huge tree


Loads of people were out trying to clear up with rakes, chain saws, machetes. We were really impressed that by 11am one of the main pools was open:



When we got to the beach side of the resort, we saw what a mess it had made there:



With more large trees resting on villas



But some of the main damage was on the beach, which was completely unusable. All of the piers and restaurants were very badly damaged and will have to be rebuilt. This is one we intended to eat in:



Again, we were impressed that one of the pools had been emptied, cleaned and refilled by 12, so there was nothing for it but to have a cocktail, this is a Bishops Special which consists mainly of different kinds of rum:



And Stu got his daily swim in. The manager of the resort gave a briefing, thanking the staff, many of whom hadn't been home since Monday, and had worked really hard. Some had been to repair the damage in their own homes, before coming back to work here. The hurricane had been much stronger than expected, and had done a lot of damage. 500 trees had been lost on the resort. The damage has been so bad they were not accepting any new arrivals for about 10 days - I assume they were trying to fit people in their other resorts, and would only be running very limited facilities for those of us who stayed. In light of that, we were all getting a credit for the total cost of our holiday, to be spent within the next 12 months in any of their resorts. I must admit, I didn't expect this, and wouldn't have asked for any sort of refund as the hurricane was clearly not their fault. But, great customer service.
And on the way back we saw a humming bird. Never seen one before. Picture not brilliant, but they move very fast!



In the evening we ate overlooking the sea and what was left of the resort. I had one of my favourite meals, surf and turf, fillet steak and lobster, then watched a live Jamaican band playing some great reggae. We even had a dance!

Today we spent the day by the main pool, reading, swimming, drinking cocktails. Today's favourite was a dirty banana. I think it was a whole banana whizzed up with rum. One of my 5 a day obviously.

Saw lots of mongooses on way back (mongeese?), scampering around. Evening in the pavilion for a buffet and some entertainment which ncluding a fire eater. In a marquee! So wrong.

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