Any fool can buy cheap petrol

Any fool can buy cheap petrol, (we laugh at people in the UAE who pay £9.00 for 11 gallons of petrol, it's so last year, we could do that once, but we've moved on).

It now takes a very special fool to pay these kind of prices; the pump you see here was my bill on Friday evening after I filled up my car from the orange light to full, although I have had it just over £55 for a really full tank in the past. Diesel is around £1.17p a litre and the super go fast stuff is a penny less; there's talk that they will be going up again soon, which is comforting to know, so as you can see the £5.00 a gallon is with us and probably here to stay; coupled with sky high train fares and every utility company and council hiking up their prices its not cheap leaving in the UK. My very first gallon of petrol cost the equevelent of £0.225p (4 shillings and six pence in old money), OK it was in 1966.

A recent survey (Daily Mail) mentions that if you want a decent pay rise then just emigrate: it went on to say that the biggest winners were those living in the UAE and stated that quality of life was better, coupled with a lower cost of living and less stressful living being the three main reasons; an astonishing 99 per cent said they had made a good decision to emigrate (not just to the UAE) – it went on to say that over 90 per cent said they were happier, 80 per cent had a greater sense of well being, and the same number said their decision to move as excellent with all surveyed, the majority, more than 60 per cent, said they had no reason to return to the UK; and who can blame them!

Todays headlines: Saturday 29th March 2008, Drink driving. One gass of wine or a single pint of beer to put you over the limit, the proposed new limit (down from 80mg) will be 50mg alcohol per 100ml of blood - this is confusing and unfair, and would, in some way just be revenue making and not a deterient as it should be; a total zero ban which would compleately take away any doubt and drive the point home is the only way forward, after all there is a total ban on smoking in public places so why not a zero tollerence on drink driving. Its a no brainer Gordon. (or Gormless Gordon as the press now call him)

Petts Wood News: The driver (a woman aged 71) of a car that killed a pedestrian on Thursday evening at the (Threshers) roundabout near Crofton school, evidently shot over the roundabout at speed narrowly missing one car but hitting a second then mounted the pavement killing a young guy in his early 50’s who was on his way back from work having left early because he did not feel too well died at the scene, he was married with children.

And you must have heard about the fiasco at the opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow; roll on the Olympics: The Underground is at bursting point, you cant afford to drive, save me a camel I'm coming out.

Arthur the Hamster arrives

He's new, just 9 weeks old, with soft brown and white fur and bright black eyes, he's got quite an appetite for finger tips as well, the score so far is 3 nil to Arthur, with Dad receiving all three bites. Here's a tip Arthur, don't bite the hand that feeds you!

A host of Golden Daffodil's and white Narcissus

A carpet of Daffodil's and white Narcissus in Greenwich Park. You have to hand it to some of our parks, and Greenwich is no exception, as it always has good flower and flowering trees displays; for weeks this area was fenced off and as if by magic up the popped all the flowers, surprisingly all flowering at the same time, how do they do that! It took a couple of weeks to plant them out; it really is a quite spectacular show, Wordsworth would have been, well, lost for words! (wonder what Greenwich Council Rates are)?

Petts Wood in Bloom

Saturday morning, Spring finally shows her face, there's frog spawn in the pond the sun's out, its nice and warm with all makings of a very nice spring like day. The flowers are by the Library and they really brighten up the place,

I came home to find a nice white envelope on the mat with green writing - What else can it be at this time of year, it can only be the Bromley Council Rates letter - just a shade short of £2000pa; expensive flowers! Still there always next year.

The wraps are off

The new Pizza Express is taking shape but I think its behind schedule and its taken nearly 9 moths it get this far and they usually throw these buildings up quicker than that .

Thursday nights drive home

This was my drive home on Thursday night, (I was stationary at the lights) horrible wet weather, strong winds, trees down, lots of surface water and took ages to reach home.

THE GAZETTE AGM Edition

I’ve just spent a few moments flicking through this months edition of the gazette – it’s the AGM edition so packed full of loads of facts about the area and the good deeds done by the jolly folk of Petts Wood, - this edition is no different form the 11 that fall through the letterbox each month apart from the fact that tucked away on page 22 is the annual accounts looking for the world like a 9 year old has totted up the expenses, but very nicely done and good to see we're in profit.

There are the usual assorted objections to planning permission, the funniest of which is the objection to Fab Kabab's appeal to operate a hot food take away – that’s just what’s missing from Petts Wood, another a hot food take away.

Two whole pages are given over to Squirrels, several questions are posed from "Why are there so many Grey Squirrels" to "How can I encourage them in my garden" , not our garden as we already have them, "Do they cause problems" , "What can I feed them on" and "How can I get rid of them", each answer is priceless – Old Ed Grundy could learn a thing or two from the folks who live in Petts Wood - Borchester Echo eat your heart out..

We love our Dad

I'm enjoying this

You would never believe the mess this little princess got in to

I'm 3 today

Its my birthday and this is my new party frock

I do hope you like it

What Daylight

The Daylight Inn in foggy, cold and wet Petts Wood; it looks like a scene from a horror film but its just Station Square on February 20th at 8.35 in the morning, the fog hung around all day and it's very cold and wet

Dreaming of Africa

Free Giraffe

Most people pay good money to get this close to a Giraffe; not many things are free these days especially in London, but this little chap could be easily seen from the pavement out side London Zoo for free; his mate was next door scratching his neck, they both seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and quite oblivious of all the people looking at them.

Camera Canon G9 24x times digital zoom

Easy on Sunday morning

This Fox was in Mary's garden enjoying the sunshine, the shady parts of the Garden still has a coating of frost so it must be nice and warm for him in the sun, as careful as I could be when opening the window he still heard me, after I had taken this picture he curled his tail around him and fell asleep, he's still there some 25 minutes later. Ah bless...........

Picture details: Canon G9 - 24 x zoom hand held

One last Look

A little Oasis in Petts Wood - this may well be the last time that you see it, it looked good in the sunshine this morning, all the shadowy bits still had frost on them, the fish in the pond were deep down resting on the bottom, I gave them a few sticks of food, I might repatriate them to a bigger pond soon. glad I'm not a fish.

I'm first

Others are set to follow but this single little Daffodil is the first to flower in what was your garden, the rest will be out in a day or two, the garden looks good with lots of plants ready to burst into colour - whilst taking this shot I could hear some scratching on the other side of the fence - I kept quite thinking it might be a squirel or some other rodent and I was right, it was ...........Ron the nosy rat scratching around in the shade in the frost - it was cold not much above freezing ....poor old Ron perhaps I will give him some nice blue seeds to nibble on?

Flowers, Champagne and Candles

This is the tree in Southborough Lane that stopped the Mini on Sunday morning, as you can see its covered if flowers, at the base there are cards, photographs, loads of soft toys, candles, vases and surprisingly plenty of booze, there are cans of Stella, bottles of Champagne, Jack Daniels, bottles of Becks and more – one 21 year old man died, the other 6 occupants are in various stats of recovery with a 15 year old girl still on life support – it happened around 1.55 Sunday morning – 7 young people in a Mini !!

Morrisons the saviour

This one is for Ruth – if you turn the sound up you might just hear the purple rinses crashing into each other up and down the isles!!

Whats Happened this week

Well not much if this picture is anything to go by, we're told this is going to be a new Pizza Express with a dentist above (is this any reflection on the quality of the dough balls that they might be serving) no progress for about three weeks now perhaps they've run into problems? Watch this space!

A bonny bouncing baby

Nanny gets to grip with this bouncing lark

I've repacked

I’ve repacked this case a dozen times but it still weighs 37 kilos, I might have to leave out the tub of dead sea mud ?

Making Room

I'm sure I could get him in if I just make some room.

I promiss to be good dad! No crying honest! just dont put me in the case.

Butter wouldn’t melt

Three real cool kids

The three rascals'

Look he's off again, pointing a camera at us, I've had 5 years of this stuff, now its your turn!

"Yes I know, my mum and dad are just the same, it must run in the family; I even have my own blog site!!

"Oh look a camera, I do like a camera"

who said what?

My Auntie

This is your Auntie, she's holding you tight, we wonder how big you will be next time you see her

Princess

I myself would never be seen on a Camel, they are ugly and full of sand, and besides Brown clashes with my favourite colour, Pink!

Two Cousins

Two cousins discussing the merits of Camel riding: "Granddad says that if I tweak their ears they’ll run faster"!

Ah yes, but if you fall off they get the hump!

Brothers

Two Brothers with the newest edition, I've actually managed to capture them both smiling, this is a first!

Some of the family

In the begining

The purpose of this blog is to give some of our family who now live abroad the oportunity to keep up to date with whats happening back home, a sort of a visual diary you might say?