Monday nights

Just killing time waiting for our sparky to arrive. Last night the power point which connects the hotwater heater and water pump to the wall came loose. When James touched it sparks came out so he turned it off to stop it sparking and causing a fire while we were out. Unfortunately, when we got home we couldn't turn it back on again - every time we tried, it tripped all the fuses in the flat. So we had to boil water in 3 saucepans and the kettle in order to have a hot bath. Excellent considering I've got a cold and if you've been watching the weather over here. We haven't actually had any snow so far in London but people were stranded yesterday in Gloucestershire because 5cm of snow in just a few hours and the roads weren't gritted properly. Joy, I'm off to a meeting in Bristol on Thursday - I wonder if it will be snowing when I get there?

And because of the recent cold snap, we've been tending to spend more time indoors and have discovered that there are some great programmes on TV on Monday nights (being the couch potatoes we are). Our newest discovery besides Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Have I Got News for You (which is what Good News Week in Australia was modelled off) is Broken News http://www.brokennews.co.uk/bbc_02.html

Of course, James favours more cerebral game shows like University Challenge and Mastermind. Guess what one of the questions was on UC last night? What is the name of Iceland's main airport, west of the captial Reikjavik? I was jumping up and down because I actually knew the answer as we'd flown through there on the way to New York just the other week.
(The answer by the way is Keflavik.)

Make me a million

Not sure if anyone has been following this programme on TV (http://www.channel4.com/4money/realdeal/makemeamillion/). Basically a bunch of people who saw themselves as entreprenures had to come up with an idea (or several) pitch it to one of 5 mentors and if they were successful, the mentors would work with them to set up a business and get their idea on the market and hopefully make them a million.

It's quite an interesting programme to watch actually and I find myself getting quite involved and yelling at the screen at one so called entreprenure mentor who has absolutely no people skills and is clearly not a team player. Two women with kids who had been friends for years had an idea for creating a children's shampoo that was based largely on natural products. One was a single mother who lived in Ireland, the other lived in England but in the country with her hubby and kid. So they started the business, but the woman who lived in Ireland was trying to work from home there and she only had one phone line with dial up Internet access. The other woman was lucky enough to be able to leave her kid with her hubby and move to London. The so called entreprenuer mentor offered this woman the flat above his office which they are using to run their new business while the woman in Ireland gets nothing. Then, the two working out of the London office start complaining that the one in Ireland isn't pulling her weight. But yet they aren't helping her do anything about it.

In the most recent episode, the woman from Ireland takes a loan from her Mum and moves to London to be closer to the business and puts her kid in day care. Still the other two have it in for her and after a few days they finally gang up on her one last time and sack her. Understandably, she was pretty upset.

I just can't believe this entreprenuer who supposedly is an experienced businessman didn't have the management skills to sort this problem out before it got to the stage where they felt they had to sack her. What kind of lesson is it sending? Surely if someone has to work from home, the business could pay for her to have broadband access so she could do something simple like use the phone and use the Internet at the same time? And couldn't he have made them have regular update calls rather than depending solely on face to face meetings or waiting for her to call in? Obviously she didn't have much experience working from home but there were so many common sense things that he, as their mentor, could have done to help them make the business a success for both partners.

OK rant over now :)

Some photos

Well, I'm on a bit of a roll tonight. I've found a selection of photos from past trips to liven up the site a bit. Enjoy!

Gaudi building in Barcelona

Snowy day outside our window

Vatican, Rome

That'll do for now...

Cumbria visit

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote something (yes, I've been slack). My parents came to visit just before we went to Greece. We drove up the M25 to Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. We stayed in a lovely B&B and visited my Mum's cousin, Christine (after exhaustive Google searching I found out she is my first cousin once removed and her children are my second cousins).

She took us off the beaten track around Cumbria, driving through loads of small lanes with dry stone walls on either side and just enough room to fit two cars through. We saw some great country side and ended up at Was Water (below).

After 3 days in Cumbria I drove my parents back to London and Christine took my Nana off to Newcastle. We then spent the rest of the week seeing the sites in London, including a couple of shows - Woman in White and Les Miserables.

You can see more of my parents' European adventures at http://thegriswolds.blogspot.com/

We'll be off to New York to do some shopping at the end of next week, so I promise I'll do another entry then!

Remember remember the 5th of November

This year marked the 400th anniversary of when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the House of Parliament so naturally the fireworks were out in force. We met up with Karen and Dom for drinks and dinner before setting off to see the fireworks at Blackheath. James and I had never been to the heath before but it looked massive from what we could tell (it was hard to get a sense of space because it was so dark). The fireworks were great and because we were on a hill, we could look 360 degrees around us and see other different fireworks displays going on in the distance. To me, Guy Fawkes night always marks the start of autumn - it's the first time we spend a significant period of time outdoors at night and it really makes you aware that it's getting cold now!

Docos

Watched another interesting documentary last night, this time about couples with a big age difference (at least 20 years). Interestingly it only featured couples where the man was younger. There was one couple with the man aged 31 and the woman was in her 80s which is quite a big age difference. Another couple met because the man (21) was one of the woman's (40s) daughter's friends. It was very sweet to see them all so happy and just saying that they didn't really think about how long they had left to spend together, they were just having fun and taking things day by day.

http://www.five.tv/programmes/hiddenlives/dirtyoldwomen/

Next week's doco is about a girl who is slowly being paralysed becasue her muscles are turning to bone. Freaky stuff.