Come-on Truro!

Anna joined the Hockey club down here a couple of weeks ago, played for them the first time last week and they won 12-0, with Anna scoring one of the goals.

This week they were off to Dartmouth for her second game, so Sam and I went along to support, and then visit Mary (my sister) and Leon in their new house in Plymouth, stay over, and back home on Sunday via lunch with Anthony (my brother) and wife Lisa, plus Holly and Mary, Sam's cousins.

But back to the Hockey, what can I say: Dartmouth won their last game about 8-1 apparently so it looked like a real top of the table clash. Dartmouth scored first but Truro pulled it back to 1-1 during the first half. Rosie the dog also helped out by joining in with the game for a while when we got out of the car, but we managed to get her back under control before I got into too much trouble!

In the second half Truro really began to get into their stride, scoring two more for a relatively comfortable 3-1 win. Anna was voted 'man of the match' by her team, mainly for her multiple interceptions I thought, she seemed to be always the one turning over the ball from the other team and getting Truro back on to the offensive, and was a regular occupant of the most frenetic part of the action, at either end of the pitch. The Darmouth club very sportingly invited us back for lunch after the game and fed us well with jacket potatoes and chilli-con-carne, and Sam thrilled the girls with his rendition of 'Cmon Twuwo' at the top of his voice - at least once he conquered his initial shyness.

Anyway here is a typical bit of action from the game - Anna in the purple intercepting again: enjoy!

Sam's second birthday.

I feel its time for another gratuitous 'proud parents' patch, and let you know about Sam's second birthday (7th January 2005!), which occurred on Sunday. We had a real party and Anna made a very popular 'Choo choo train' cake, mainly from chocolate swiss rolls, and with real railway tracks!

We had a get together of family and friends with a great crew of other children, apart from Sam there were cousins Holly and Mary, and Louis, Henry, James, Meg, Basil and Wilf.

Holly and Mary were the only two to take up Auntie Mary's beautiful face-painting; Holly's cat-look perfectly camouflaged her against the sitting-room curtains.

Thanks everyone for Sam's lovely presents, he has been spoilt rotten and after this 11 months without presents will take much getting used to!

Our final picture is possibly the ultimate piece of clothing - Yes Sam now has a JCB digger shirt!

This week we were also lucky to catch up with our great friends from New Zealand - Nina (Sam's Godmum) and Jason, their little daughter Gracie, and her father John and partner Kate. Jason has had to fly back to NZ at the weekend leaving Nina and Gracie here for a few more days, but it was great to catch up with them, and we hope we get visits from a few more NZ friends over the coming months.

Affluenza!

This article tickled my fancy at lunch today, so much that I thought I'd share it with my friends.

The premise is that Affluenza is a virus which affects most of us in the western world, and leads to most of life's problems, including stress, depression, substance abuse, etc. etc. Please enjoy this entertaining and 'rather too true' article.

The link is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2007/01/09/haffluenza109.xml

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Christmas in the UK. We've just had our first Christmas in England for 5 years, with my family visiting us in Cornwall, we had my mother (Granny), Auntie Lizzy, Richard, brother Arthur, and his wife Trudy (picture below). With Sam being nearly 2 it was a very exciting event. He now owns the largest fleet of trucks, diggers, and trains in Cornwall, including this mammoth digger from Granny, Auntie Lizzy and Richard. With only a few days to go before his birthday Sam now thinks you get presents every day.

We had some great walks, including Godrevie Head on Boxing day, where we saw seals, dolphins, and ponies all in a few minutes. Also had lunch at the Pandora, one of Cornwall's oldest water-side pubs, on Christmas Eve; very nice.

Yesterday Sam was very busy feeding Rosie the Jack Russell Terrier her dog biscuits by hand (we always called him 'Dog Boy' when he could bark before he could talk). As he gave Rosie each biscuit he would say "There you go Rosie", and when she had had enough he just started feeing the rest to himself. When his Mum caught him and tried to stop him the rest got stuffed quickly down his throat! I don't know where this reprehensible behaviour can have come from but its certainly nothing to do with his father!

New Year was down in Penryn with Anna's old friend Ben Lumby and a great group of people. We had one of those Murder mystery evenings, and ended up pouring some rather dodgy liqueur down out throats, an regretting it in the traditional fashion yesterday! Anyway all our best wishes to our mates in New Zealand, we hope to talk to you properly soon.