Essex round up is moving… #virtualth

In the coming months our Essex girl blog will become part of an innovative exciting project and will feature on a Virtual Town Hall.

At the moment I use wordpress to host for me, but becoming part of the virtual town hall means I will need greater control over the advertising that is on the site, which I am unable to do at the moment.

So we are moving and self hosting… what a blinking ‘mare that is!

Our new home is http://www.EssexRoundUp.co.uk it’s pinker, purpler and more Essex in look than it’s present look (although those that know me knows it will change look on an hourly basis). If I am on your blogroll, please amend the link to the new one – thank you. If you read by email, I think you may need to subscribe on the new site, but gimme 30 seconds to sort that out…

Thank you to all the readers over the last 14 months, and all your comments it’s appreciated, although the 4,000 of you who looked at this blog on Easter Sunday – what were you thinking of?  you should have been out enjoying the fresh air etc. it was Easter…

See you across the road

Sarah

Santas on the run…

The charities have to be so creative these days to raise money.

Once upon a time sitting in a bath of cold baked beans would have raised heaps of money, but now the public, such fickle fickle creatures, demand more. This year for little havens, you can raise money by running in a santa suit. Now this I have got to see

If you are interested, go and register at Haven Hospices, it costs just £12 and no doubt you will get heaps of sponsorship as lets face it running around in a red suit in the freezing cold is rather amusing, as well as for a good cause

It all takes place on Sunday 6th of December, starting at 1oam. As well as a few hundred mad people running in santa suits, there will be market stalls, the real santa in his grotto and a magical elf trail.

Sarah

Book review: The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

Well, this is a turn up for the books
It’s one of Bernard’s best and all the action takes place in Essex. He seems to have broke free of the usual formulaic restraints and produced a really cracking read that should be on the book lists of every adult in Essex this Christmas. I was on the point of giving up with him as well.

Image via Wikipedia

Uhtred is a brilliant hero (I wish he would name them a little better, I mean come on, how can I name my unborn son after someone called Uhtred? no matter how much of a hero they were its an awful name). His best ever in my opinion and more balanced, a fraction more sophisticated than the usual warriors he writes about.

The Burning Land is set 7 years after Sword Song (where Gisela is pregnant with their third child but in Burning Land the youngest child is two, I mean how does that work out? Phantom pregnancy? Miscarriage? Poor Gisela, not a big deal but it niggles at me as these things are wont to do).

Uhtred is definitely a man of his own mind and very creative, the final battle in the book he shows his lateral thinking and pulls of a spectacular fight, it was so good I read it twice. I really like Cornwell’s eye for detail and how he writes about the planning involved in taking a Saxon fortress. I also like how he brought in Skade. Now that is a good name  if I have another girl… or maybe another rottador or I could change Xanthes name to Xanthe Skade.

Woman are often glossed over in books of this nature, it’s assumed that the men fought the battles whilst the ladies stayed at home and wove the Bayeux Tapestry or birthed a few kids. They get a rough deal in most historical novels as they are often poorly researched. In the Burning Land there is more of Aethalflaeds story, and how she lead an army into battle. One person, the feminists who are so quick to jump on any minor thing out of the norm, seemed to have overlooked entirely.

Shame, Aethalflaed is certainly a woman of substance and Saxon hist0ry needs a good look at again, it wasn’t all king Alfred burning cakes you know. The UK was a warring country with many minor kings and warlords and it didn’t really settle until the Norman Conquest. Although you would never know that the way history is taught these days.

Anyway, back to the book. Uhtred has his adventures and old faces crop up again and new people like Skade appear and a break happens with his Dane brother and Brida. It’s a good read, snuggled up on the sofa with a glass of wine and roaring fire. Makes you glad you are reading it and not living it.

Sarah

Santas grotto, Festival Leisure park and Rainham Marshes.

Santas Grotto arrives at Bas Vegas (to the locals) or the Festival Leisure park (to the rest of the world) on 12th and 23th of December this year and you can pet a reindeer.

I am particularly interested in this, as I have never seen a real life reindeer. do they really look like Rudolf? Do they all have antlers?

On sunday 13th, they have Penguins too.

I have looked for more info, but Festival Leisure park don’t seem to have updated their website in the last few weeks, so I have no idea whether its just Reindeer or Reindeer and Penguins (quite frankly, I am going for the Reindeer…). No idea of opening times either.

Other side of the county in Rainham at the RSPB centre in Rainham Marshes, you can meet Santa  and your child receives a gift. Adults £3.50 and kids £7.00 12-4pm and booking is advised. This looks interesting as it it involves a woodland walk to Santas grotto (it certainly helps them sleep at night, those marshes make for an exhausting day out )

Sarah

Maldon Essex, Victorian Evenings in 2009

Last year I took the girls to the Victorian evening in Maldon. If you have kids of any age, the chances are they would love this evening where everyone looks like they are in a Charles Dickens costume drama.

Image via Wikipedia

This year the evenings are Thursday 3rd of December and Thursday 10th December 2009. The high street is closed off to traffic and everything goes Victorian in no time at all.

There are those musical organ thingies (yes, I have such a way with words! ) morris dancing, stalls, carol singing in the churches and even a visit from Queen Victoria

A good place to visit is the old Norman church in the town centre (whose name totally escapes me). Here you can buy soup served up in huge copper pots by what looks like genuine Victorian serving girls. They also have a choir singing carols and it really does feel like Christmas.

There are also Donkey rides taking place somewhere, although I haven’t a clue where (one of my sources tell me it’s in the Plume Library but I think they are kidding me).  Punch and Judy shows also take place but I don’t know if these are the politically correct versions or not

Father Christmas will also be stopping by to hear what young girls and boys would like this year, providing they have been good of course… this takes place in Maldon Emporium.

It gets very cold, so wrap up warmly and of course if you are driving to Maldon, drive carefully around the lanes.

See ya there

Sarah

Welcome to the Funny Farm

Yes I have finally succumbed, no the girls haven’t sent me stir crazy although the request from the 4 year old for highlights in black and pink nearly came close or the 5 year old asking for an iPhone cos all her mates have one… or the 14 year old deciding what tattoo she would like for Christmas.

No, it’s the other Funny Farm, the Facebook one.

 

Farmville

We meet up with the main players in the courier world at the weekend after a small detour around Stratford. All the couriers are talking about making money on Facebook, and I felt a pang of envy…. I want to make money on Facebook. Imagine the stamping of feet here and all the toys being thrown from the pram. So one of my friends take me aside and even though he had 200 pints and slurred a little, I hung on his every word which I have faithfully reproduced here

“Get a farm on facebook and plant crops, Alison has 37 levels and I am just behind her.“

Plant! OMG, does he have no idea of my track record with plants? and now I need to be doing crops!

The whole place, hundreds of couriers all talking about their farms on Facebook and I didnt have one. Bah. Then another of my friends decided to join Facebook just for the Farm. I thought no, I will not have one of these stupid games. It’s business as usual for me.

All Sunday and most of Monday I avoid Facebook .

Monday evening I find I have a farm, a viking clan and a mafia wars thing. Where did they come from? The Hubby. Apparently I have left my login on his PC and when he needs a boost in one of these games, he adds me. Thanks love.

So I now have a farm, and I can’t just have a basic farm and uninstall it, I have to plant a few of the trees that Andrea Sitler has kindly sent me, and a few haystacks that John Kenworthy has sent me… and my own daughter won’t add me as a neighbour.. yet.

I have no idea what I am doing either, I water plants and clear leaves and am given money. My farm is very small and everyone else has acres and some even have fun fairs on them. I hate it already

If you want me, I am no longer on twitter I am in the Funny Farm on Facebook

Sarah

 

The Essex girls guide to Stratford upon Avon

When it comes to Stratford upon Avon there is only one person to show you around and that is our dear friend Steven Healey.

Stratford upon Avon should not be confused with Stratford E15

or

It’s an easy mistake for an unsuspecting Essex girl to make as you can see from the pics above.

Stratford upon Avon is the home to William Shakespeare, the bane of many teenage childrens lives and the main staple of English taught at senior school. Stratford E15 is one of the sites for the Olympics in East London in 2012, its the drain on all our taxes for the next 3 generations but the good news is it will have the crossrail by then and we should be able to go from south to east of the river in a jiffy.

I have to admit to being a bit of a Shakespeare fan, I saw as a young girl a version of Romeo and Juliet starring Niamh Cusack (sister or cousin of John Cusack the Hollywood actor) and in the famous fight scene Mercutio drove a Porsche onto the stage. Instead of fighting with swords they used chains which echoed around the theatre. One of the secondary characters was played by a teacher from then popular TV show Grange Hill and it was utterly mesmerising and I then understood why Shakespeare had stood the test of time, he was the Martina Cole of his day

One of my top ten films is Romeo+Juliet which is billed as Shakespeare for the Tarantino generation, it has Leo DiCaprio and a young Claire Danes, and I bet every teen would understand Shakespeare after watching this. For those that haven’t seen it, it’s a must, Baz Luhrman should be commissioned to film Shakespeare’s complete works or at least Julius Caesar as well.

So, I video’d Steven with my Flip and uploaded it to Youtube and here is the outcome -  The Essex Girls Guide to Stratford

Sarah

The Essex girls guide to getting your car nicked…

Last month we had my little runabout nicked off of the driveway outside the house.  The driveway to my house is a crescent shaped driveway and the car was parked at the apex. Do crescents have apexes? or are they Api? anyway, it was at the top of the Driveway. The driveway also has gates, but it’s a bit pretentious have a gated driveway when you live in Essex, and over the years plants have grown over them, would be such a shame to disturb this mini nature reserve… so I leave the gates open.

And we have Spartacus the Rottweiller, the ultimate deterrent for would be thieves.

In fairness to Spartacus, he did bark and I ignored him as I was watching Lost on dvd. The girls, Jessica and Elise were downstairs when this happened and they ignored it too as they were watching a scary movie and if they came and got us, I might turn it off. Hmmm.

Now normally I leave the car unlocked (I have since the car was nicked trained myself out of this habit completely), my theory being that if they need the car that much, it will be easier to take and drive if the window isn’t smashed, I mean what if someone was desperate to get their wife to hospital as they were having a baby, and their car broke down and the only option they had was to steal my antique fiesta? I didn’t want to make it hard for them, if it was an emergency. Don’t mention joyriders or drunks chancing their arm to get home, it was always the reluctant thief who I imagined would steal my car. I mean what if it was Jack Bauer? Or Tony Almeida? and he needed the car to prevent a terrorist attack, he’d be glad I left it unlocked.

Well, for some reason I locked the car that fateful Friday evening, but they still stole the blasted car.  Broke the window and hotwired it. They stole the car and took it to Grays apparently and then abandoned it. Then it got stolen again and drove to Romford after being used in a crime. My little car has had a right adventure! The police found it, engine running (remind me NEVER to fill the car up in the evenings, only ever fill it up in the morning, luckily I only live 200 yards as the crow flies from a petrol station, 4 miles if you drive though).

So the police sent a recovery vehicle to collect the car and hold in in their depot until forensics had been. That took a week. After the police have sent forensics they send you a release note and the recovery depot get it at the same time. Our release note was dated 28th October 2009. We were informed 1st November, and the recovery depot charged us £20 a day storage from 28th of October to the 1st of November. They also charged us £150 to recover the vehicle and then a further £75 to crush it when we said we no longer wanted it. Well what if someone had done a bank job in the car, no sniggering that it’s a Fiesta and they could have left the crime scene walking, faster… what if? or some other heinous crime?

It was an experience, when your car gets nicked, even if it’s a worthless (£200) Fiesta and a costly experience at that. It will cost you £325 at least. Of course you can claim on the insurance and get £75 back after your £250 excess is taken into account. The Police have a nice line in banalities “the victim always pays when a crime is committed and therefore is always a victim..” yes, they really said that. They don’t really communicate anything to you, for example if the car is used in a crime, they need to state that on the documentation in order for you to avoid being billed for the £150 recovery fee. Other than that the police were very good. They took statements, told us what they knew and told us it would be unlikely they would find who did it, but they would try. I appreciated the trying part, so many knock the police for just meeting easy targets, but as a victim, I felt touched they would do what they could to make me feel safe again.

Kev doesn’t feel safe, so he has installed CCTV, more security lights (we had 4 already) and we got Xanthe, Spartacuses daughter as well. So thats a rottie and rottador, and although young, she is a great mouser already.

The recovery depot have a license to print money, they charge what they want, when they want. I asked to see their contract with the authorities that allowed them to charge what they liked, that was not available for a week and I would have to pay storage while the looked for it. When that contract next comes up, I am forming a consortium to bid for it. My car may have been nicked and used in a crime, but I am still seeing the positive, I am a natural optimist!

We have also had to get a new car, and then have that fitted with an immobiliser, alarm and other things which to be honest would have been better spent on a digital radio CD player, as that £400 piece of kit was taken with the Fiesta and left behind! The CD player was worth more than the car… I recovered it before it was crushed of course, and now it is in a safe place. If they break into my house, I may not be as lucky – they may take it this time.

 

Sarah

My 10,000th Tweet

I knew this was coming this week, and I wanted to say something really deep, meaningful and profound…

Only tweet numbered 10k slipped by without me noticing, so I missed my chance

Instead I tweeted..

Well, it could have been worse! I could have been tweeting about the lack of Pepsi Max

Sarah

Essex Girls – not just a pretty face

How often does an Essex girl get in the news for her brains rather than her looks? Not very often, thats for sure.

Sandra Blackwell is an Essex girl legend, she has taken on and won building company Bellway. Well done Sandra, we’re proud of you

Sandra’s present role is as a beautician, and she is a devoted family person sacrificing her own career to help save her families business. This is also great to read as to many big businesses think they can go back on their word, renege on a deal and generally take liberties with people, she has shown them that is unprofessional as well as unethical.

I love reading stories like this, make me glad to live in Essex and glad not to have bought a Bellway home.

Sarah