Prefect George

George has been made a prefect. This is very good, as from each form, only five boys get selected to be a prefect. The letter of congratulations we received told us that it was a "real achievement", that "he has demonstrated the qualities and potential which....will enable him to be an excellent role-model as well as acting as an ambassador for Verulam School on more formal occasions". Being a prefect "should be seen as a real achievement which will open the door to many character-building responsibilities and opportunities." This means George be helping to organise and manage various activities, like the ECCO club (sorry, I don't know what that is).

In return George gets certain privileges: he can sit on the balcony for assemblies and wear a prefect tie (ok, both good for status) but he also gets to enter the canteen without having to queue, which if George's school is anything like mine was, is a HUGE advantage, saving at least 10 mins, on average, per day.

To celebrate, here is George in his (new) school uniform a couple of years when he started at Verulam.

Remembering Dad

Dad died two years ago today. Here are all the posts about him since then. Amongst them you will see the photo below. But I like it, and it is one of the last photos, if not the last picture, taken of him so I am going to re-post it.

Christian's Birthday

This year it seemed that my birthday coincided with the first really chilly day of Autumn. I mention this as I spent most of the day outside.

After a gentle birthday jog around Clarence Park I took Charlie to his match for St. Albans City U8 vs Panshanger. It was only his second ever match, and the first I had seen. He looks rather good in the strip.

Charlie's team won easily and Charlie played really well. Well done Charlie.

After lunch the boys and I went to see the men's St. Albans team in the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup vs Beckenham Town. There couldn't have been more than a few hundred people watching, and most of them were old boys who have probably going for decades. It was a nice atmosphere; more swearing from the pitch than the spectators, the ability to wonder all around the pitch, a sweet little family sized merchandise shop and 'Andy's Snack's serving a decent cup of tea and a plate of chips from Andy's van.

In the evening we went to see 'Laughs in the Park', a big outdoor, and very chilly, comedy event in Verulamium Park. Overall, it was a very good show. Dylan Moran kicked off. He was good, but the material was a little predictable - men vs women, getting older and not understanding the younger generation, etc. Second up was Reginald D. Hunter, who left few stones unturned as he took on race, racists, class, women, Jews, and Tiger Wood's detractors with equal gusto. It was good stuff. Top of the bill was Eddie Izzard. Though he only occasionally hit truly amazing, you could see how his mind works as he took us through a premise, Noah's Ark being a true story for example, before going on a series of brilliantly entertaining and increasingly surreal sidebar stories, as though he was distracting himself, and always turning back to the main thread, whilst keeping the audience following along. And when he was good, he was exceptional. The highlight was the exploration of The Ten Commandments, in particular the one about not coveting a neighbour's ox, which ended with him concluding it was a typo. Why would you want to covet your neighbour's ox? It must have been 'cover' instead of covet, he claimed. Which led to an brilliantly surreal image of all the townsfolk hiding their oxen under duvets. Izzard also questions the wisdom of the Hebrews, whilst Moses was receiving The Ten Commandments, to smelt a golden calf. Izzard's suggested they should have had better things to be preoccupied with, like getting out of the desert.  Wonderful stuff. 

Grandpa and Grandsons

Found this pic of Dad with boys on the steps of Douglas Rd, Chappaqua. It is a good pic.

Ollie's Manor Adventure

Ollie was away last week, at his school's Manor Adventure. He had a great time. I am now waiting for him to write a post about his week, as he has said he would. But I fear he won't. So in the meantime, here is a card that he sent us.

Ollie Jumps

On the bounce-alene (as Ollie used to call it), earlier in the summer when the sky was blue!

ps I like the X-large photo size. Up until now, I had been using medium.

Joan and Wilf's Golden Wedding

On 14th August, it was Joan and Wilf's - Jill's parents - golden wedding. There was a meal to celebrate at The Grange in Bookham. Jill was asked to propose the toast, and did so with this super poem;

We had an excellent meal and the family thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Here is Joan, Jill, Sally and Wilf:

And here are the grandchildren having fun:

George, Charlie, Ollie, Sophie, Tom, and Katie.

After lunch we retired to Joan and Wilf's house where we played swingball and ate another hearty meal for supper. Mighty congratulations to Joan and Wilf

ps the reason why this has taken so long is because I couldn't work out how to post such a long movie. I couldn't upload it directly to blogger. The workaround was to upload to youtube and then embed the code which given that Google own both blogger and youtube seems a little strange to me.

Jill's Birthday

It was Jill's birthday in the week, but on the actual day, the Wednesday, I was in Manchester (5am start, not back until gone 10.30pm) so we had our celebration last Saturday, after the Indian with Ade.

We came back home and opened presents - a super expensive chocolate dippingfeist, chosen by the boys that had white and milk chocolate with a variety of sweet things like fudge, marshmallows and chocolate pieces to dunk into heated chocolate that the boys chose, see below (I bought the strawberries on health grounds) -

and we bought an apple tree (though we haven't actually bought it yet, if you know what I mean), a book (Blair's autobiography, which I have picked up and had a passing look at), and a load of excellent stuff from Poundworld, including the socks below, which George chose.

Adrian Visits

Ade visited last Saturday - 11th Sept - for a furious afternoon of activity. We had a round robin tennis competition followed by a kick about (George and I vs Ade, Ollie and Charlie) which was a close run thing. Inspite of Ollie turning in a man of the match performance, George and I sneaked a 7-6 victory after being 6-2 down. We went off and ate a very good Indian meal at the Chilli Raj, and Ade paid. Thanks Ade it was great to see you.

My Best Week (by Charlie)

Friday

At school every week theirs an achievement award for who’s been good at school. And guess who got it Charlie Barnett and Faazah Afzal. That very day I was special person.


Saturday

I am in a team this year. I played a game on the 11th September 2010 in the 1st mach I did not play but in the 2nd mach I did play. We beat those 11-1 and 1st mach we won, 2-1. I scored the 4th goal.

We didn't have a picture of Charlie from the week in question, unfortunately. So I have inserted this picture from the narrow boat holiday instead. For all pictures from holiday, click here