Merry Xmas from the Joneses

Here's a lovely picture of Alex in the snow....

Tuscany

We're just back from a simply wonderful couple of days in Tuscany. We went as guests of a work customer celebrating a trading anniversary. Staying at this lovely hotel in the rolling Tuscan hills (I'll do a seperate review of it on my hotel blog). We lunched at this traditional Italian guesthouse in Montopoli in Val d'Arno, which was exquisite and accompanied with beautiful views. We also visited this medieval castle and tasted the local desert wine with almond biscuits. The highlight of the couple of days was going to the Fattoria di Corsignano vineyard. This is a working vineyard run by Mario Bartoli and his lovel wife Elena Gallo. Set in the Tuscan hills, we spent a wonderful day there learning how to cook Tuscan cuisine, drinking the wonderful Chianti Classico (which Mario makes) and then eating everything that we prepared on long tables, set under a pergola with breathtaking views of the countryside. What made this day so great is that the Mario and Elena were such lovely people, everyone who went didn't want to leave and I'd recommend anyone travelling to Tuscany to go and visit them, we'll go back for sure. Finally, we visited Siena. You may recall Siena from the opening scene of the James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. It's where the horse race is set. It's a stunning City, steeped in Italian history, sitting on top of a large clay mountain. Dinner was at Taverna San Giuseppe restaurant with typical Tuscan cuisine, washed down with further bottles of the local Chianti Classico, I'd recommend you to eat here if you ever go, but make sure you book. We packed a lot into two days, it was however, really worth it.

Classic Car Night

Had an awesome night last night. As part of a 25th anniversary celebration of a trading relationship we took some people to this place. Basically its a warehouse/garage in E1, London stuffed full of classic (and future classic cars). You can look at all the cars, then you get to pick eight of them and take them out for a spin around a pre-determined circuit of the City. The cars I drove were a Ferrari 360 Modena F1, Mercedes ML450 (like Bobby Ewing used to drive in Dallas, a London Taxi, Volvo P1800S (think Simon Templar in the Saint), Bentley Arnage Red Label (which I absolutely loved, huge beast of a car but so easy to drive), Mercedes SL350, BMW Z1, Jaguar E-Type (one of the best looking cars ever made but not that brilliant to drive). My favourite was a toss up between the Ferrari and the Bentley. Two very different cars to drive. The Ferrari (that's the actual car in the picture), tonnes of speed and an exhaust note that you could hear coming a block away. The Bentley simply to wonder at the amount of torque the car had relative to its size, the smoothness of the ride and comfort. I'm lucky to have a job where I can do such great things. Classic night in every way.

Post Holiday Blog

We've had our holidays. We ended up in Lindos, Rhodes this time round. We had a thorougly good time, weather was warm, sea was stunning, warm and transparent. Resort didn't have many kids in, so Alex didn't meet any solid mates this time round, it wasn't through lack of effort! G is getting very close to here driving test, road confidence has really improved so hopefully Freddy the Fiat will soon have a fully qualified driver. Caroline is doing really well on her diet and losing loads of weight, she looks good for it. I'm really getting into road cycling and have invested in a super new bike (see picture) to give me added motivation to get out and crunch the miles. I'm doing a 100mile charity bike ride on September the 4th, so am busy training for that too (hoping to lose a bit of weight in the process). I've started a new blog to chart my progress and talk all things bike, you can view it here. Angus our Scottie nearly met his maker the other day, he has a aversion to doing barrel rolls in cat pooh and did his party trick whilst out on a field the other day, he whiffed from about six feet away, little bleeder.

Manchester to Blackpool Bike Ride

I completed the 100KM bike ride from outside Old Trafford football ground to the promenade at Blackpool on Sunday. Took me 5hrs and 15mins to cover the distance along with the other 8000 riders. First 65km miles was pretty easy, balance was much harder. Last 10km was really difficult with a strong headwind, I was very pleased to see the finish line and really euphoric at covering the distance. Raised £3500 for Christies Cancer Hospital, which was a simply stunning result. Piccie is of me setting off at 8.35am.

The Cake

Worthy of its own blog post. The G handbag cake. What's amazing about this, is that the pattern on the cake is made up of hundreds of smaller letter "G"''s". It's tasty as hell and we're (well Alex and I) stuffing our faces, nom nom nom!!

Georgina is 18

Identity in hand, G is now officially 18. This lovely photo (taken over lunch in Harvey Nicholls) is G swigging a champagne cocktail, in true WAG style. Gifts include a new car, an i-Pod, a new TV, a bracelet, a necklace (thanks nanny Viv), the girl has done well.

Caroline had a caketastic cake made. A designer handbag with a big G on it. It was as big as a real handbag and we're still eating the cake now. Happy days. I'll post a separate picture. G is off to Magalauf on Monday for her first ever holiday with the girls. Police are on standby!

Manchester to Liverpool Bike Ride

I did it! 3 hours and 10 minutes for the 39 mile round trip from Mancheser to Liverpool. I'm pretty pleased with the time, I wanted to average a steady pace of over 10mph for the whole ride which I achieved (my target was to do it in 3hrs 30 mins). It was a great ride, weather was hot - which made the going hard at times - however the scenery was lovely. Felt great to ride into Liverpool with everyone clapping. It's a good stake in the ground for the Manchester to Blackpool (62 miler) which I'm doing on the 12th July. Here's a piccie of me setting off (excuse the white legs, should have placed an ad in the paper to warn everyone!). Hardest bit of the ride was a monster hill at the 36 mile point, it was a killer! However, benefit was the last two miles were downhill. Overall, a great experience and I'm looking forward to pushing myself on the next one.

Nice picture of Alex and Angus....

Nice picture of Alex and Angus which I took yesterday. The dogs tongue is hanging out as he had been busy chasing the ball in the background for the last ten minutes..

G's new car.....

We gave G the surprise of her life on Sunday. Here it is, a new car for her 18th (the car of her dreams), a Fiat 500. She is one happy girl....

See what I mean...

Here's a photo I took of Alex earlier....

Alex has got a double...

We found this picture on Debenhams website and looked twice, he's the double of Alex! Same haircut, same complexion, same figure.

She's no Dragon

Thought I'd balance of the last posting with a picture of Deborah Meaden and I. I know she has a fearsome reputation as one of the TV Dragons, and rightly so, she's built a successful career on the back of it.

Both Caroline and I though she was such a nice person and great company, we thought she wasn't such a Dragon after all!

Mrs Jones, would you like an upgrade?

Caroline and I are just back from The Red Nose Ball, held last night in London, organised by Theo Pathitis and his team from Ryman the Stationers. We had a really great time. All the dragons were there and I bid for Caroline and I to have our starters sat with Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden.

Carolines always had a bit of a thing for Peter, handsome, debonair, intelligent and totally loaded, we've a lot in common (well three out of the four). My assistant at work had it right when she said, "one of the major benefits of Caroline running off with Peter is that she wouldn't need to change her surname", thanks for that.

Both Peter and Deborah were great company, very attentive and a pleasure to spend some time with. All of the Dragons were auctioned for the various parts of the meal, we by far and away had the best value of the night. Lots of other people were there you might recognise, Des O' Connor, Bobby Davro, Sinitta, Tony Hadley and Max Clifford to name but a few. Caroline was busy with the camera, it was a top night and it raised a stack load of money for Comic Relief.

I've put some more photos on flickr, you can see them by clicking here.

Valet Parking at Manchester Airport

Rather than park your car, wait in the cold for a car park bus and then have to lug all your cases to the terminal, why don't you use valet parking? It's miles cheaper and much more convenient. You just book it, ring 10 mins before you arrive, someone is there to meet you, you unload your cases and off you go, they do the rest. Coming back, just ring them when you have your luggage and the car is outside. I've used a number of different companies, I like these the best:- Click Here.

Right, I'm going to use Twitter to update the blog moving forward and will then put additional blogs in for the bits I miss or for further explanations. See the feed above to see what we're up to.

Catch Up

So, latest from the household: -

• G has had all of her University offers in now, so she's pleased. We're going to go to Manchester Met next Saturday and have a nosy round.
• Caroline is back behind the wheel of her car, but has been told to take it easy.
• We've been to see Gran Turismo (Clint Eastwood) at the cinema, we really liked it.
• Alex has been religiously going to a Yu-gi-Oh tournament every Saturday morning and is loving taking on the older boys.
• I'm watching Series 1 of 24 with Kiefer Sutherland. I've managed to balance Alex's portable DVD player on the treadmill at home, ace series, I'm going to buy Series 2 on e-bay.
• In London this week, Tuesday night for a dinner with work.
• My mum is recovering from an operation on her thumb.
• We've booked our annual holiday, going to Lindos, Greece.
• I'm addicted to the Six Nations Rugby, prefer it to football now.
• My favourite little website at the moment is Boffer, does cheap line end deals. They've just sold off a load of stock from Woolies, view it here.

A bit behind...

With a heavy workload at work recently, weekends have been busy and mostly consumed with catching up with work stuff, so I'm a bit behind with family news. Here's the update: -

• G has now had 30 driving lessons, no sign of a test yet, all her mates have passed so she's pushing on to get nearer to taking a test, come on G.
• Caroline is recovering, still feeling uncomfortable at times, but still not able to drive.
• Alex has had a parents evening, he's doing exceptionally well and is about a year ahead of where he needs to be. He got a £5 pocket money bonus.
• Angus has been to the dog groomers and is skipping round the place like little lord boufont.
• We went to the Halle on Saturday night (valentines) and had a lovely time. Went to the casino afterwards and came home later than we expected, today we're knackered.
• I'm loving the six Nations Rugby and am watching it all avidly. I did some sponsorship on the perimeter boards, which turned out OK, hope you all saw the Brother ads during the game.
• I'm nearly finished with series one of The Sopranos and have upped my Lovefilm subscription to keep unseen DVD's coming quicker as I'm enjoying it so much.
• Buy of the week has to be a knife sharpener which has made things much easier in the kitchen at home.
• G has been flogging stuff like mad on e-bay as she is liquidising her assets so she can go out.
• I've been ill. Got a nasty throat infection, took me out the game for about five days (looks like I've passed it on to Caroline - whoops).

So, plenty still going on.

New Land Speed Taxi Record

I arrived in Frankfurt today, I'm typing this while I wait for my e-mail to sync. I'm lucky to be here really, my taxi driver hit 203km/h on the autobahn from the airport (126mph is the conversion in UK measurement), adrenaline is brown so they say......

It's quite common for these sorts of speeds to be achieved whilst taxing on the continent, Brussels I think was the most hairy I've ever done, as it was a similar speed with zig zagging on top!

One thing I will say is that the taxi's here are immaculate. No rusty old heaps which make worrying noises when you drive, drivers in fleecy track suit bottom/combo tops and cars which stink of cigarettes. Some of the cabs in Warrington couldn't hit 50mph, let alone 126mph.

So, the efficient Germans win the taxi war 1-0.

Weekly update...

What credit crunch? We went shopping on Saturday and everywhere was busy, apart from mobile phone shops, jewellers and TV shops. Gaming shops were packed, big money passing hands as kids buy new games for their Xmas systems. Alex handed over £25 of his hard earned on a new game, he's cash rich, still hoarding plenty from Xmas and he's had a tooth out, so he's coining it in.

Family are all OK. Caz is still on the mend, she is still feeling some discomfort as everything settles down and thanks everyone for their phone calls, cards and good wishes. G has got university offers arriving now and will be doing her A levels shortly, she's miffed as the place where she works has cut her shifts back (impact of credit crunch), so she's not bringing the same wages home and Alex is outspending her.....

We'll be thinking of a holiday soon, with the £ as it is, everywhere will be expensive, so may have to look outside of the Eurozone this year, I'm not sure where, but so long as beer isn't five quid a pint, the beach is nice, the sea warm and the weather hot. Not sure what the options are, so hours of research ahead.

We went to see Bedtime stories at the cinema today. It's a kiddy film, but it was pretty funny and I enjoyed it more than Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

I've packed all my hi-fi separates away this weekend, held a small private ceremony before they were put to rest in the loft. Got a USB turntable with an amp attached and that's it, can listen via the PC now and have a kicking set of new speakers for the PC, courtesy of my sister. Got the daunting task of converting loads of vinyl to MP3 over the coming year, but determined to give it a go.

Just also installed one of the new printers we've launched at work. What a bit of kit. Does absolutely everything including printing your pictures off of your mobile via bluetooth. No I'm not just saying it's good, it really is. Everyone likes its glossy black look, so it's been approved by those that matter.

On a final note, if you're planning to buy anything. Check out this site. It houses just about every promotional code you'll need. Make sure you stay with the big boys as a lot of the fringe internet players are under real pressure right now. Empire Direct went down last week, I was looking at a TV deal on their site only the week before, so shop carefully.

A busy week....

Phew, that was a busy week. Caroline is on the road to recovery, still experiencing pain, however feeling brighter in herself. Georgina has had a couple of offers from university, so she's relieved (just got to get some decent grades now). Alex is delighted, as we've upgraded our PC at home and he can now play his Spore game on it. I'm happy as the PC is much better specced than our last one and everyone can stop complaining now!

Thoughts are already turning to summer holidays. Georgina has her eye on a break with the girls once her exams are done. All was going well until they checked out their potential hotel on Tripadvisor and learnt that it was a total dump. They're back to the drawing board. We're having a think too, with the weak pound at the moment, everywhere is going to be expensive.

As an example, I was in Amsterdam this week, a pint of guinness worked out at around six quid a pint. The rip-off moment came when I was charged five and a half euros for a small bottle of Evian out of the mini-bar in the hotel, robbing so and so's. Worst is, I'd drunk two before I realised. More fool me.

We went to the cinema today to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Alex had spotted it in the trailers when we saw another movie recently. Definitely one for the kids, probably more for girls than boys. Don't go and see it unless you've got kids with you, honestly.

Week ahead is really busy, life just seems to be flying by at the moment, are you keeping pace?

The patient returns home...

Just to say Caroline is now home, took nearly four hours of waiting to get her discharged. Operational control of the house has now officially been taken back over, even though physically she's not really able to cope, the new command and control structure has been re-instated and the washing machine has sensed that it's rest is over.

They reckon it will take six weeks to recover, Caroline can't drive atall during that period, so that's going to be interesting, the taxi firms are on high alert and booking summer holidays on the strength of it. Whether my wallet can take it, is another matter.

The Discs are out....

Caz has had her op. I've been to see her today and she's groggy but in good spirits. I've taken in the essentials, a mobile phone charger, a box of After Eights and some J2O's, that should get her going.

After four hours getting her checked in yesterday, I was ready to do a complete process review with the hospital CEO, there is so much waiting about to do in hospitals, it's organised chaos. Everyone knows what needs to be done, it's just getting it done. The bottom line is that many of the processes - in my view - could be triage based, done by experienced nurses, rather than waiting for an available SHO or registrar to become available. Anyway, let me put my box away or I'll be blogging for hours.

Back to family. G has a cold, she's off college. I'm steering clear and have a date with my Soprano's DVD when I get back from the hospital later tonight. My mum has fallen over whilst on holiday in Oz visiting my brother and I got a flat tyre on the way home from the hospital last night.

If I spot any magpies, I'm looking the other way! Will give a further update shortly.

Hospital here we come

Caroline is in hospital for an op tomorrow, to get the discs in her neck sorted out. They've been causing her pain for about six months now, so we're pleased that they are going to get sorted at last.

I'm on house arrest for three days, keeping the place ticking over, so watch this space. I'll have a spreadsheet knocked up in an hour with everything timed to military precision, the place will be running like a well oiled machine.

I went to a dinner at Man City last night, Mark Hughes and a few of the players were there and they participated in a Q&A session hosted by Fred Eyre. I thought they were all really lacklustre and lacking personality, what an opportunity missed. I was a bit miffed as Mark Hughes had the same suit, shirt and tie combo on as me, he could have checked with me beforehand, it would only have taken a quick text or call, still if you're a man with his problems.....

I signed up for the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride today, it's about sixty miles and is held in July, so I'm going to get in training on my bike. I like having something to aim for. I went out on the bike last weekend and did about ten miles, my backside ached like billio for three days, so I'll work on my John Wayne walk in the meantime.

Hoping that 2009 is everything that you thought it would be a week ago!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all our friends and family from The Joneses.