It's still been a while........

A quick update for you all. Sharon, Emily & Hannah are all ok....colds, sniffles and Hannah's little chest problem aside.

I've never looked forward to getting home as much as I do now....halfway there now and broken the back outof this detachment.

If I don't get the chance to get online again before Christmas, have a good one and stop worrying about if you have everything ready for it; remember that it's a certain baby's birthday - a time of joy - not worry.

It's been a while...

Hi folks. I know I've not been blogging a lot lately & goingaround my favourite bloggers. Sorry!
Normal services will resume soon (hopefully!)

Just a quick update on what's going on....Sharon's doing fine raising Emily & Hannah whilst I'm stuck in sunnier climes. Hannah gave us a bit of a scare with a respiratory infection, but she's slowly on the mend now. Emily is very much into her ballet now. I'm missing all three of them like crazy but I'm almost halfway through my tour now.

Looking forward to gettng back to blogging again. Catch you all soon

London Zoo

Following on our tour of London days out for families, we went to London Zoo which is located in Regents Park. Regents Park itself is a great place and the zoo is like a Brucie Bonus.

Another bonus (considering we're talking about London) is that it has a fair sized car park. We were actually able to drive in! A first for us, and a blessed relief from that cursed Jubilee Underground line (It's closed more for maintenance than it's open for business)

So here we were in this beautiful zoo with all manner of weird & wonderful animals. What did Emily want to do??

....Yep..on the fairground rides!

She soon got into the swing when she started exploring all these whacky animals....

.....& use dad & mum as the duty kid carrier!

In all honesty, Sharon & I enjoyed it as much as the kids.

It obviously tired them both out.....especially Hannah!!!

F1 Highs & Lows

Over the past fortnight, the best and worst of F1 has to offer. After the debacle of the Belgian GP, I was ready to think that, perhaps, my love of the sport was slightly misplaced. The race itself was great, and if the stewards hadn't been so blatently Ferrari biased, it would have stood up as a damned fine race.

Then Monza. What a race! What a weekend! Vettel did well and deservedly won a tough race. He's going to be one to watch in the future.

What was the greatest thing about Monza though, was the actual racing that was taking place all along the grid. There were some very brave drives in arduous conditions.......

......perhaps all is well with F1....perhaps if they can drive out the corrupt and professionally inept and let the teams and drivers do their job

Odds Farm Park

We took the kids to Odds Farm Park in Wooburn, Bucks for a day out. Luckily, the weather was with us as it's wholly an outside adventure where you can see & feed a myriad of farm animals.
This was a keep that held rabbits. The idea is that you can get in and stroke them. They didn't count on the squeals of Emily....hence..the swift exit of all bunnies!!

......I did manage to show her one that was in a cage!!!

We got some animal feed thinking that Emily would like to feed the goats & sheep. Unfortunately, she was a little scared & decided to run about like a crazy girl!

......saying that, Sharon enjoyed feeding the animals!!!

The farm park also has loads of actvities for kids.

All in all, it's not a bad day out. It cost a total of about £16 for a two adults (children under 2 go free) and a small bag of animal feed. I think it was good value for money considering it's a full day out in the fresh air in a child friendly environment.

It certainly tired out Emily....guess who ended up carrying her back to the car?!

A great poem

On my wanders around blog, I came across a really beautiful poem about a soldiers lot in life. Please go & visit at anndi's blog.

I'll not reintroduce it here. Visit her blog. It's really worth it.

A day out in Battersea Park

We'd been to Battersea park before; when Sharon was pregnant with Emily in 2006, but that was a seriously cold day and we just strolled around chatting and not taking a lot in.

We always wanted to revisit it because it looked a lovely place. I love Battersea as well. I lived there for few years and the people are friendly and it's a place of contrast.

So off we went on a considerably warmer day than our last visit. Emily loved the trip down on the tube which was made doubly special as the Jubilee line was close from Green Park. This meant she had to hop onto another tube to South Kensington then bus it to Battersea bridge. Yep, our firstborn is a public transport junkie!! Hannah was a bit more laid back about it and slept through the whole excursion.

We decided to go to Battersea Park Children's Zoo

There were quite a few small animals there; enough to keep Emily interested:........

...........otters.........

.........& meercats to show just a few. There were also monkeys, ostriches, birds, farm animals......the list goes on....

& Emily frighteningly getting into the panto mood without prompting!!!!

Of course, Emily had to check out the activities as well!!!

After leaving the zoo we had a walk around the park. The Japanese Buddist padoga in the park is a thing of beauty and gives you the feeling of peace.

Here's a picture of Sharon in front of the pagoda....

............& a nice one of Sharon & Emily walking around it.

I had to include this one of Emily. I just love it.

Now, you may be wondering where all the pictures are of Hannah. Well, she was asleep with whoever was taking the photographs. There will be plenty of pictures of her to follow in later entries, I promise!

Oh, if you're going to Battersea Park & decide to have some dinner there, visit the Prince Albert pub across the road. The staff were really friendly and the food was great.

The problems with updates after installing XP SP3

If any of you are using Micosoft XP as an operating system and install Service Pack 3 (SP 3), you may find that you will not be able to download further updates from Microsoft products.

It doesn't happen to everyone, but it is an issue. The problem is that when SP3 is installs, it forgets to register it.

Fear not, a work around is available. Follow the instructions below:

Log on as an administrator, and run cmd.exe, and issue the following commands:
> net stop wuauserv
> cd\windows\system32
> regsvr32 wups2.dll
> net start wuauserv
and try again.

This work around was kindly supplied by the Ziggy at kioskea computing community.

Airline announcements

Someone sent me through some announcements that have been uttered by Australian and New Zealand cabin staff. I had to share them with you all:

On an Air NZ Flight with a very 'senior' flight attendant crew, the Pilot said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants.'

On landing the hostess said, 'Please be sure to take all your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have.'

'There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways to leave the aircraft.'

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Auckland , a lone Voice came over the loudspeaker: 'Whoa, big fella. WHOA!'

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Adelaide, a flight attendant on a Qantas flight announced, 'Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as f*** everything has shifted.'

From a Qantas employee: 'Welcome aboard Qantas Flight X to Y to operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public un-supervised.'

'In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with more than one small child, pick your favourite.

'Weather at our destination is 32 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Qantas Airlines.'

'Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.'

Heard on Qantas Airlines just after a very hard landing in Hobart . The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, 'That was quite bump and I know what you are all thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault... it was the asphalt!'

Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: 'We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal.'

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a 'Thanks for flying United. 'He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had got off except for an old lady walking with a cane. She said, 'Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?' 'Why no Ma'am,' said the pilot. 'What is it?'
The little old lady said, 'Did we land or were we shot down?'

After a real crusher of a landing in Sydney , the Flight Attendant came on with, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.'

Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: 'We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurised metal tube, we hope you'll think of Qantas.'

A plane was taking off from Mascot Airport . After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number XYZ, non-stop from Sydney to Auckland . The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax - ARGHHH! OH, MY GOD!' Silence followed and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier, but, while I was talking, the flight attendant brought me a cup of coffee and spilled the hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!'
A passenger in Economy said, 'That's nothing. He should see the back of mine!'

At it again!

For those of you who have followed my blog for the last 2 years will know that I like my conspiracy theories about cloning and doubles.....

.....well, look at these two and tell me there's no similaraties.


(for those of you not familiar with Father Ted, it was a 1990's comedy show from Ireland that I think was one of the funniest programs ever aired on television)

Too hot to trot today

We were going to have a great day out today.......see if it was feasible to go to church (definitely a no-no with Hannah at the moment) then go for a picnic. The heat today around Stanmore was hovering around 29 degrees and the girls wouldn't have been too happy with a drive to a park that would inevitably have been packed. So we decided to have a picnic in the garden. Inspirational!! They both loved it, and it was relaxing for me and Sharon as well!

Anyway, I thought I'd leave this picture of Emily. It has to be my favourite photograph of her.

I'd taken both Emily & Hannah on a 5 mile walk in their pushchair and both sparked out after the first mile. This is a picture of them both together...

Emily looks like she's strapped in like a Riverdance dancer, but she wriggles around so much that they fell down around her arms!

Here's Hannah's first attempt with a dodo...and the last for a while! She looks so weird with it!

We'll no doubt go somewhere this week. We'll start posting on where's good to go with two bambinoes.

Update on Emily & Hannah

I've been a bit preoccupied recently with my daughters. Gosh - so strange saying that! I never really thought I'd see the day when I would have a family of my own.

It was so nice when Emily was born - Sharon and I were so proud when she was born. Proud parents of an undeniably beautiful baby girl. We'd have been so happy with our lot and didn't hold up much hope to be blessed again. When Hannah came along, we felt that our little imprint on the world has now been fulfilled.

Five years ago, we'd given up hope of ever having children; let this be a message of hope to those who have despaired!

So, here's a couple of pictures of Hannah.....


look at the size of her little hands!


....Hannah with a very tired dad........

........I still think it's weird that she's blond and (still) blue eyed with pale skin while Emily is Brown haired, chocolate eyes and olive skin. What a difference! The reason I think Hannah's eyes won't change much is that Emily's changed to brown within a week. Hannah will probably be blue or grey.


Emily has taken to Hannah really well, much to our relief! She's always giving her cuddles and kisses!


Emily is still a happy little soul & loves her garden....


......she's one chilled out dude.......

..........with a sense of humor!!

We're going to continue our travelling around with the kids now, so I'll be posting another entry soon.

The new addition to the Longworths

Hi!

Sharon & I are extremely proud to announce the birth of our second daughter, Hannah Louise Longworth!! Both Sharon and Hanna are doing well, but they have to stay in hospital for a few days. The staff want to do tests on Hannah as we have different blood types. She's absolutely beautiful, isn't she?

A very tired but proud daddy.....

.....Sharon introduces Emily to her sister. She has really taken to her, thank God......

.....& here's our happy clan.......

I'll put a better blog entry on in a few days; just had to share these with you all now though