Blogger Beta...

...I was a bit daft and I migrated my blog to Sunshine's profile...so all my posts seem to be posted by Sunshine...This is a bit frustrating!!Finally I managed to add myself as an admin so it seems now that I can post as myself...

The new features seem to be quite good...if only I hadn't been so daft in the migration, I mean fancy letting Sunshine be in control of my blog! Well, I suppose she might actually post more than me!

Late Autumn Break

We spent the last 10 days at the villa in Portugal...A lovely relaxing family break. Sunshine was brilliant...she slept on the plane going out which meant that she was full of beans when we arrived. It was a little cloudy when we arrived and we had some fun and games with Hertz and the car seats...that's a whole long saga...Anyway, the sun soon came out and we had a few hot days over the first weekend...and then the heavens opened! A couple of days of storminess was fine - it was worse overnight and the pool certainly benefited....any more and it would turn into an infinity pool!

Our visits to Portugal are a bit of a lazy affair, so there is not much to say...we ate chicken piri-piri, pastais de natas, empada da galinha...Peter drank lots of bicas (short expresso)...lots of Port and plenty of Esplanada (a rather lovely regional wine)!
Sunshine seems to enjoy eating everything, although we didn't give her any piri-piri!!
We took Peter's mum with us and so we took the opportunity to go to our favourite restaurant once Sunshine had gone to bed. It was lovely to walk down to the village in the balmy evening, enjoy a lovely meal and a couple of Drambui's (in honour of Sunshine). Lucky for us Sunshine had been sleeping very well and didn't even seem to notice..!
The plane home wasn't quite as easy as going out, but BA did benefit from a bit of panel 'decorating', and Sunshine decided to go to sleep just as we were landing, which was a bit frustrating! Still she is a star most of the time!
Sunshine has posted some photos and if you are a Flickr friend or family there are some more here...

And just to even things up a bit....

Preserving Photos

Sunshine has taken to demanding to see Peter's school photos whenever
we go to his Mum's house, so it was decided that we should make some
copies to preserve the originals....I think we can see where Sunshine
gets some of her looks from....

On the Schmap

A little while ago Jonny got Schmapped for Manchester....I've been Schmapped now too! For Plymouth....although the fish (and Peter and Sunshine) are the real stars!

You can see the selected photos here...or by downloading the guide...the photos selected werre a couple I took in the Aquarium!

Sweden

The last couple of weeks have been a bit mad for me and even more so for Peter....I have spent the bulk of the fortnight in Uppsala, Sweden for work. This means of course that Peter has had to resume the role of primary care giver for Sunshine! Fortunately I was home for her birthday...it just wouldn't do to miss her first one after all!

The first week was providing some training and the second in project workshops. This last week was livened up by the presence of collegues from the UK and some guys from the US...One of whom enjoyed riding around Uppsala in the middle of the night meeting the locals!

Uppsala is a lovely city and has a huge cathedral and loads of places to eat...we had Indian, Thai, Greek and on Thursday evening made a train trip into Stockholm...This was definately a GREAT idea! The train took around 40 minutes adnd after a temn minute walk we arrived at Mårten Trotzig. I don;t think I have enough words in my vocabulary to descrie he food but it was fan-bloody-tastic!! A little out of my normal price range, but absolutely fab! I had a salad to start and then the Reindeer....it was soooooooo tender that it melted on your tongue!

It was hard not to gobble it down in one go! The portion size was perfect...and wow! (I was hoping to post a picture...perhaps if I get the promised mailing....) If you are ever in Stockholm...GO THERE! :) I think that this has to be my highlight of the trip!

After dinner we went to the Glenfiddich Warehouse where not being a single malt kinda gal, I had a rather lovely cognac Gronstedt I think it was...I didn't have very much as it was charged for by the cl...! downtown Stockholm is not the cheapest place to be drinking single malts or cognac!! There are some pictures here...

Apparently it has been unseasonably warm in Sweden this month which was lucky as I can't quite get to my winter clothes at the moment - although this will need to change in the next couple of weeks!!

After months of quietness with work, it was lovely to have something to get my teeth into...nice to get out of the house and see the world, but even better to get home to Peter and Sunshine again!