Phil's Catch Up

 First of all a few pictures from the last day of our holiday.  We had such a good time the previous day on Lido Island and Sue and Ian didn't manage to get there, we all decided to spend our last day in Venice back there again.  Its so peaceful and chilling compared to the main island.

We found a place on the beach that served their drinks in huge glasses.  Claire almost drowned drinking hers.

 On the way back we stopped for a bottle of Prosecco outside the main Casino for our last drink before catching the bus back to our hotel.

Next thing we know we are home and at the caravan with John and Marie before they go to La Manga for the next 6 months.  Sue and Ian stopped at their caravan next door and we all played cards.  Claire was losing so she spilt her glass of red wine all over the carpet.  Incidentally, Sue has just bought another caravan at Overstone that has central heating and double glazing so they can live in it.  It has a lake view and is near the club house but I haven't seen it yet so photo's next time.

 Next stop Melv’s 60th Birthday in Loughborough.  Melv has gone down hill fast in the last few years since he was made redundant from the Brush where Steve and I used to work as well.

He seemed to be enjoying his party though.

 Here we all are in the day.  I haven't changed at all!

We went down to stay at Ian’s bungalow with Ian and Sue for the weekend in Southampton.  We had great weather and a great time.

 Claire tried to leave some chicken out for the birds and squirrels.

But it attracted Mr Fox.  I thought that he must be a regular visitor to Ian’s garden but he says that this was the first time he had come.  He made himself at home chewing on one of Claire’s shoes.

Next stop LSE in London for Georgina’s graduation.  She didn’t get her results until 5pm the night before so it was a bit tight.  She got a 2:1 which is great.

Here she is with her boyfriend Alex who got a first and his parents live in Great Brickhill.

Here she is with her friend Nushka who has already flown to Canada.  She is staying there to get her Canadian citizenship.  Georgina shared her flat with her and Beth for the last two years.  They have just secured another flat and Georgina will be sharing with Beth from last year and Nushkaz’s friend from Indonesia.  Its just off the Edgeware Road near Little Venice.  I went down to help her clear her old flat out and bring her stuff back.  She has been working in Shrewsbury again for 3 weeks.  She has a week away with Alex in Bruges than starts work in early August as a Civil Servant.  She will have 3 weeks training in Coventry then move to the London office.

Georgina has managed to get a new car through her mum’s work scheme.  It great, less than £90 a month for this car and it includes, road tax, insurance and MOT.  Not that it needs an MOT because they change it for a new one as soon as it has done 7500 miles.

This weekend it was Steve’s 60th Birthday so we went with Jim and Shirley and Ian and Sue.

They did a this is your life type intro with Steve’s ex-friend Philip presenting it.  He may have gone a little far.

We all enjoyed it and the food was lovely.  It was nice to catch up with their kids, Charlotte and Dan.  Dan is finishing his PHd in about 6 weeks and will move to Frankfurt with his girlfriend.

Its a shame that the other Wednesday night boys didn't manage to make it on the night.  We will be keeping our eye out for written excuses from their Mum’s this Wednesday.

I also got my degree certificate from the OU and my ceremony is in September.  I haven't done enough third level courses to get my honors degree but I have enough second level’s for about three Open degree’s.

Once I agreed to accept a degree, the OU started emailing me post graduate stuff and I got interested in an MSc run from Cranfield University that you can do part time so I applied.  They have a great library.  I think I blogged about going to their Open day.

It looks like they also have a pub with a beer garden.  No better place to study.  Rexam have agreed to keep me on for at least the next year part time so I can study there.  The course starts at the end of September so I need to get my finger out.

Wednesday night has changed again.  We have stopped going to the Nags Head because since Dan left the service has gone right down hill.  They keep forgetting to reserve us a table, the toilets have been broken for weeks so you have to go the the one in the bar.  We thought we would try the Marle Inn opposite the Black Horse.  Its such a lovely setting and Alfi liked it.

I think this is the only picture we have of all of us together.  Dr George is second to right who did a reference for me for Cranfield.  Cheers George it must have been a corker because they emailed me to say that I had been accepted 30 minutes after they received it.  All I have to do is the hard work now.