Tonya's Moved!

For everyone who follows Tonya's blog, it can now be found here. Please update your links!

Remembering Friends!

At some point every year in December/January, we have the "calendar saga". This is not as long and drawn out as the "diary saga" (a story for another day!), but is nevertheless quite arduous. The problem arises because Clare is looking for the "calendar of her dreams" and unsurprisingly 99.9% of shops do not stock this.

Unfortunately, her criteria for a calendar are quite specific in terms of size, layout, content, pictures and so on. This coupled with the fact that she will automatically ignore the first 758 calendars she sees (or the calendars in the first 98 shops she goes into...which ever comes first) tests my normally patient attitude to its full.

Luckily this year, having casually rejected a number of perfectly decent candidates, Clare stumbled upon a brilliant idea....we would make our own! Andy had an initial stab at producing something mediocre in Publisher before deferring to Photobox for a more professional finish.

All we needed now were some photos and it turns out our little America trip produced more than enough suitable ones.

So February is devoted to some of our good friends who we got to know even better whilst in Monroe. Here's the finished article!

(working left to right we have: Tonya and Knoah greeting us upon our arrival; Clare and I with Jennifer, Cat and Owen; and the best of all...Knoah demonstrating "monster baby!")

An excellent way to remember all our good friends and the amazing time we had with them!

Clare's a star!

...well, in the making...

But first, apologies for taking so long to return to the blog world. It's because of excuse* and also because I've been very busy with excuse* and excuse*.

Anyway, last night Clare auditioned for an amateur production of a show called "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and has got the leading role of Millie! The show started life as a frankly horrendous film (in my opinion) starring Julie Andrews but has been recently converted to a much more professional stage version. She will be performing at the New Wolsey Theatre during the first week of July. I'm not sure that they have satellite link-up facilities at the Wolsey but if friends want to come and stay with us so that they can see the show, you are most welcome.

People further afield may not realise Clare's rich stage heritage but this picture is of her playing Sally in "Me and my girl" in 2006.



She got quite a good write up which you can read here. Also you can check out more pictures of her on Appeal Theatre Group's website.

Anyway I'm very proud of her and looking forward to becoming a theatre widower again! It sounds harsh but it means I get to play loads more loud guitar when she's out!

Ok, that's our news done but I promise that I will try and come back more regularly from now on!

* Insert your favourite explanations for why you've not done something when the reality is you're just lazy!