Stables, Simpson and Frosts.

I've spent the week at the local stables - the same place I was at last year. It's a It was good fun again, the people there are all lovely, and the horses are all so laid back and relaxed that it's a joy to work with them. We also had visits from the vet and farrier, so I tagged along with them while they were there, spending the rest of my time doing the standard vet student tasks of mucking out, grooming and tacking up. 11 weeks done now - just 1 week of farm experience to do!

In other news, I went to the cinema on Wednesday to see The Simpson's movie. I went with Hannah and Mum and Dad - it was a nice family evening out. The film is good, very funny, just like a modern Simpsons episode by 83 minutes long. The entire storyline does focus on the family which means some of the other characters are forgotten about, but I suppose they had to do that. It is the only movie they've made, and it is called "The Simpsons". However, I think the telly program always benifited from the many well known characters. Still a very good film though! We went on a Wednesday, which meant we got one ticket free (text "film" to 241), but it meant the queue in the Rotunda was huge - stretching out almost to Pizza Express! Rahul said he was going to be in the cinema at the same time (we drew 3-3 at snooker that very day), but I didn't see him. I did see Jfro though, which was cool - haven't seen him properly for ages - we'll have to arrange a drink. Fancy it Jamie?

Christmas time doobidoobidoo.

Happy Christmas everybody! Hope you all had a fantastic day! I’m actually writing this on the 1st of January as I’ve been lazy over Xmas and hadn’t updated the blog - but, here we are now!

For the first time in living memory my sister had to be woken up on Christmas morning. I was also woken up as I had most definitely not spent the last hour reading as I was too excited to sleep. Oh no.
We were very civilised and had a fried breakfast before the crazy present opening began. I got some really cool presents including a Pierre Cardin shirt from my aunt, the new killer bunnies expansion pack from my Nan, a WD passport external hard drive from my parents (finally my computer will move faster than the athlete full of lead that it has been lately… so much potential!), a webcam (eek!), a really cool stubby Storm pen from Uncle Mike, some piggy cuff links from my sister and a tin car pencil case (complete with car-shaped chocolates inside) from my parents. I love Christmas – people always get me such cool (and useful) stuff!

In the afternoon we went down the pub to see our family friends in the local area. Frank and Greg were there, and I nattered to them for a bit (and was bought a pint by Frank who had to wait about 20 minutes to get served after the last-orders bell. If only you could have seen the panic on his face. Hehe), as well as seeing Dad’s friend Brian who probably hasn’t seen me since I was 14. He got a shock!

We ate at about 5.30pm; Chicken, Chipollatas, AMAZING cranberry and chestnut stuffing, peas, roasties and gravy. Mmmmmmmmmm. Pudding was of course Christmas pudding* - my favourite – especially swimming in cream. Mmm. How do you think I keep such a trim figure!? Cream!

*not just Christmas pudding, M&S Christmas pudding.

Cotwolds

Not long been back from the Cotswolds where we went on holiday for a few days. We drove up via Oxford and had a quick wander round the town before we got to the hotel. Admittedly, it is a very nice town, but, in my highly biased opinion, it's not quite Cambridge. It's much more open, which in some ways is nice, but in other ways loses the close-knit feeling of Cambridge. It was also nowhere near as clean, and the buildings are built of an extremely crumbly stone (they look like Wensleydale cheese). That was very critical, and there's no reason why Oxford should be compared to Cambridge, but.. well. It was nice, but not NICE.

The hotel was amazing - amazing rooms, each with their own front door on to a little courtyard, and the food was incredible. Small portions, but they tasted amazing. Plus breakfast with Terry Wogan, an experience in itself.

The next day we drove to Bourton on the Water, a cute little village, but the journey to it turned out to be the most eventful thing to happen. We drove about 50miles to make to 25 mile journey.. I enclose a map of our journey - including phantom section. The bit of road we never went down.(NB: on the map it says "to bourton on the water" - the actuall village is further along the A40... if you care! Just didn't want the Bourton village council onto me for deformation of location :))

It was a very quaint village with a model village (including a model of the model village in the model village), loads of tea shops and gift shops, the cute little Windrush river. We spent ages just wandering around looking at stuff.

Unfortunately my Dad managed to break a tooth (he'd been to the dentist before we went away but he'd failed to spot it), and so we had to leave early the following day to get him to the dentist. He came home a little less wise than he did before!
map taken from www.streetmap.co.uk, edited by me

Family!

The family came down to visit yesterday, and stayed over night. It's the first time they've done that ever, so it was really nice to be able to do stuff at a more relaxed pace than usual. We went punting for an hour and a half, stopping off for a small picnic inbetween - I punted us from the Mill Pond up to Jesus Green and back again - it was nackering, but good fun, and I only lost the pole once this time ;) Unfortunately the Clare punt was out, so we had to hire one from Scudamore's (£12 an hour! Rip-off! The poor tourists have to pay £16 at weekends - they really do pay through the teeth).

Mum was unfortunately a bit ill in the evening, so didn't really enjoy dinner or get to walk with us up to the vet-school and back, but luckily was much better the next morning, so we hopped in the car and drove the few miles to Granchester. It's a lovely little village consisting of many thatched cottages, about 3 pubs, two tea places, and (weirdly) a Hyundai show-room. We stopped off in the orchard for a drink after a wander down by the river via a field of cows. We had to leave reasonably early for them to be able to get home before the Friday night traffic started around London, and still it took them 3 hours to get back. grr M25.

Hannah made cake, I ate cake, twas good. They might send me some photos (hint hint ;) ) that I can put up.

Famillllllllllllllly

Family came to visit! Yay! We went to the Eagle, and we went to the Fitz museum, and I bought a new fleece, and Hannah is scared of Goblins, and we had tea and Dad got amazing amazing ginger cake, and we saw a climbing ginko, and Mum brought me lambing clothes, and Hannah is scared of Goblins, and we saw the Eagle's weird WW1 ceiling, and dad resisted meat off the market, and Hannah is scared of Goblins, and we looked at big scary swords (oooo), and Hannah is scared of Goblins, and Hannah is scared of Goblins, and Hannah is scared of Goblins.

Fab day :)