Christmas already!?

...not quite, but it will be on us in the blink of an eye!

Life is a changin', I have just finished my 4th week at my new job and I'm absolutely loving it!

I am now a cutler. I work for Pooley Sword who provide swords for the Ministry of Defence and other military establishments.

It turns out that we also made Prince William's sword for his wedding to Kate Middleton!

You can see the Prince's left hand resting on the bottom of the guard in the above picture.

We have also refurbished Prince Phillip's swords amongst other. Just finished a sword to be presented to Bernie Ecclestone too!

So, work is amazingly interesting and different every single day. I am in charge of stock and logistics and have already implemented a couple of ideas to make things work a little more smoothly, whilst I have also found ways of saving money too.

All the family is well, and we are looking forward to Christmas!

See you all soon!

:D

Santa visits Kingston Pre-school!

You'd never guess who came to town on Friday...

...only Santa!

Admittedly, I had some insight seeing as it was ME!

Last year I was asked if I was able to be Santa for the local Pre-school. It was something I jumped at, as I love kids and the pre-school is a fantastic place, in which Kane had a great few years at.

The problem was, that last year it snowed very heavily, so much in fact the pre-school was closed and my services were no longer needed, so instead of getting dressed up and seeing the kids... I dressed up and walked about in the snow in our garden and fed the chickens!

There are some photos of last years outfit here.

I said goodbye to Jo after getting changed, and off I set to the pre-school.

Santa de-icing the windows.

A surprised looking Santa!

One can only blame the mince pies!

When I arrived I gently knocked on the door and Claire, the lady in charge, gave me one minute while she got the kids sitting down and quiet - then it was my grand entrance. I rang a set of sleigh bells outside the door and Claire asked the children if they could here anything - I was amazed at how many kids shouted out;

"SANTA'S SLEIGH BELLS!"

So with the door now open I walked in and did my "HO HO HO!". Claire guided me to a chair and the kids sat in front, looking up at me with excited eyes, and big grins.

Luckily, I happen to know some of the kids as their older siblings go to Kane's school - and it was amazing to see their little faces light up when I spoke to them by name and gave them a present wrapped and given by their parents to the pre-school previously.

One of the highlights was a little tiny speck of a girl who came up to me and said;

"I put a carrot out for your reindeer last year"

to which I replied;

"yes I know, and it gave my reindeer extra power so I was able to put all the children's' presents under the trees"

She went away grinning from ear to ear!

It was time to go once I had given out all the presents, and I was thanked by one parent who was holding a tiny baby dressed in red, with a Santa hat on - so cute! (I did remember to ask him if he'd been a good boy this year!)

It was a great experience, and you know what was the icing on the cake?


..... I've already been booked in for next years event as well!!

A crazy year so far!

I seem to be posting about as often as we have blue moons!

It's one of those things - not intentional, I love blogging, but unfortunately life has been taking far too much time over virtual writings.

We had Christmas - that was very nice, we had Jo's parents over Christmas Eve, my parents round boxing day, and no-one at all round on the actual day itself - WONDERFUL!

Before the Christmas holidays, I was set to be Santa at Kane's old pre-school, but due to everything being closed due to the snow, I wasn't able to do it - nor was I able to do it on the second occasion, due to.... yes, you guessed it SNOW!

I didn't let that major disappointment get me down too much (although I've booked myself in for next year I hope!), because I wanted to see what sort of Santa I would have been - so I dressed up and went walkabout in the snow with Kane to get an idea of what I'd look like.



Even the Chickens got a visit!


Since it WAS snowing, I looked around to buy Kane a sledge, but there were none for sale ANYWHERE! It was one of those occasions when I should have pulled my finger out a LOT sooner, but not wishing to have my lad upset because he couldn't join in with the fun - I decided to make him one!

I'll spare you the technical details, but I would have bent the metal tube runners on my pipe bender I bought, but I didn't have any sand to put inside the tube to keep it round when I bent it - so it folded rather than bent round - still it worked VERY well!





During the snow we had a power cut for 32 hours. We're not on gas, so we had no way of cooking either!

Kane enjoyed sitting round some candles (especially his 'Meerkat shrine!), but Jo and Zak were less than impressed - it gave me the opportunity to become 'Super Stiggy' though, as I drove out and hired a gas heater and bought a little camping gas cooking stove.



Candles just ooze mystical don't they!



And that, as they say, is about it - I'm looking forward to blogging more this year, as I'm sure there are lots of adventures to be had and stories to be told...

..I guess we'll have to wait and see!

;)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!