Midsomer Murders in Marlow

I very nearly bumped into John Nettles yesterday. If I'd gone to Marlow library earlier than lunchtime, I'd have been in the middle of filming for a new episode of Midsomer Murders - Marlow library was standing in for Causton library. I couldn't help but mention this to the librarian and she said I'd just missed them, and they'd gone to lunch. Oh well, it's another reason to sit in front of the TV on a Sunday night next year. We enjoy watching this programme and seeing if we recognise the locations, it's all shot round here.

Anniversary Meal

We went for a Chinese at the Jasmine Peking restaurant in Marlow after work yesterday, it was lovely. We treated ourselves to a bottle of Moet, Olga was pleased she could drink more than one glass - last year she's was limited by her pregnancy. It was nice and quiet when we first sat down just after 6, and Lara was well behaved, just playing in the car seat next to the table, being entertained by the waitresses who liked to smile and wave at her. By the time the main course arrived a large group of diners from an office had arrived, and Lara was more restless, she we took turns to hold her and eat, which with chopsticks is no mean feat. The owner stopped by to see how the meal was, and he offered to hold Lara while we finished our meal, and she entertained the other diners, even being photographed by one of them.

After that we went to Chris & Cara's place, they were having friends over for a barbie, so we changed and fed Lara and she dropped off in the car seat in the garden, well wrapped up. It turned into a bit of a late one, we took a taxi home (Marlow Express Cars, 01628 487722 - very reasonable prices!) just after midnight. This upset Lara's routine and she had a restless night, as did the rest of us. It's only once a year, though :-)

Here are a couple of photos I found while I was digging around on my phone, from this weekend. Lara hasn't quite grasped the rules of pool in the Wendover pub, from Sunday evening:

Here we are about to trawl round Asda first thing on Saturday morning, Lara's first trip in this kind of trolley, we've only had her in the big car-seat-carrying ones before. She seemed to enjoy being able to look round, and did try to grab a few things off shelves that weren't on Dad's list:

Happy Anniversary - 2 years and still going strong

It's our Wedding Anniversary today, I didn't forget! We had hoped to go to the Bird In Hand this evening, where we had the wedding reception. We would like to eat in the restaurant rather than the bar, to make it more special and rekindle those memories, but it doesn't open until 7pm in the evenings and we don't want to subject Lara to a couple of hours in the car seat on the floor next to the table when she wants to be in bed. So I think we'll go to a restaurant in Marlow or Wycombe after I finish work, then we can go to the Bird for a meal during a weekend.

To mark the special occasion, I'll release some previously unseen photos; unseen because they were taken on my film camera rather than the digital and it took us sometime to get the film developed!

A Very Happy Birthday

It was my 34th birthday yesterday, and I had a great time. I was allowed a lie-in, and Olga had even arranged a day with very nice weather.
The morning was spent getting the place tidied up before our friends arrived at lunchtime. We'd not seen Rob & Lizz and their daughter, Juliet, since our wedding 2 years ago, so it was lovely to catch up with them, and see how Juliet had grown. We had a barbeque and a couple of drinks, just relaxing on the decking in the sunshine; of course there were a couple of photographs taken:


Rob & Lizz left just after 3, and at 4.30 Chris & Cara popped by on their way back from a camping weekend, returning our tent undamaged (I've not checked, yet, Chris!! :-) ) We just restarted the barbie, and went for a stroll down to the Wendover pub at the bottom of our road to see what it's like now it's been refurbished; it gets the thumbs up!

Lara had been very good all day, almost showing off to visitors how good she can be at eating in her high chair - she's not always so cooperative when it's just Olga & me!

It was still nice and warm outside after Olga got Lara off to sleep, so we relaxed on the decking with the fire burning, and I had a couple of glasses of the Lagavulin Single Malt Olga had bought me.

If I have to get a year older, it was a very nice way to do it!