My brother

My brother, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Jason playing his new guitar. He decided to buy a new one after being invited to join a band.

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Junior BAFTAs

"And the winner is...... just let me fumble with the envelope for a moment or two to create a false sense of suspense......."

I just thought I'd post a few more pictures of Lydia at her last school play for the folks back in England. Still, me and Lydia shall be flying north in a week or so, if all goes according to plan and I don't fall foul to any snags in the paperwork I'm wading through.

Making time for the important stuff

As school has finished I have more time on my hands so that means I get to catch up on things I missed during this last frenetic winter. Lydia was in a school performance today and so I was able to attend her Oscar winning performance as a forest elf in her school play.

Lydia's birthday

The holidays are almost over and we are back to Greece tomorrow. As a result we decided to celebrate Lydia's birthday yesterday, rather than on Monday. I guess blowing out a candle on a cup cake in an airport departure lounge isn't really the dream of most eight - year olds.

Jack's back!!!

Suburbia, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Me and Lydia arrived in England last night just in time to experience some of the worst weather the country has experienced in 50 years, which made a nice change from Greece's hottest June in 50 years. Parts of the north, around Sheffield resemble disaster zones as two month's worth of rain fell in less than 24 hours.

However, none of this dampened my spirits (bad pun intended) as it was good to see my family again after such a long while, not to mention being able to sleep in conditions that didn't feel like you'd entered a sauna wrapped in a wet blanket.

Walking to to the centre once again revealed how much Bristol has changed since I last lived here and was a real eye opener as far as the people were concerned. Chatting to British model makers about a piece of work that took them 10 years to construct, having Jamaican style curried goat with a trainee radiologist and discussing the pros and cons of church conversions with an Irish guy fron Clonmel, all of whom were complete strangers, were just a few of the highlights.

What a great way to start a holiday.

Father and kids

Father and kids, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Taken in the centre today

Saturday

When the impossible becomes a matter of routine

Forget the numbers, ignore the jargon, pay no heed to mbs or mps, the thing that makes technology so great is the way it allows ordinary people do extraordinary things. I'm now watching my niece's birthday party live on the web. Today Maisie will turn four and she is having her party at her grandmother's house.

Luckily, the room were everything is laid out also has a computer with an internet connection, Skype and a video camera. this means that I, too can follow the event and take part. With the computer connected to the speakers it almost sounds as if I were in the room with them. What was once a science fiction fantasy has become a piece of everyday reality. It's like being there when people saw their first motion picture or made their first phone call.

At no cost, I can chat to my family in England and share with them these special moments. Now that's what the best technology is all about; allowing us to do what would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Not quite Saturday Night Fever

Despite it being a rainy Saturday night here in Thessaloniki, I'm happily baby sitting Lydia and her friend, Penelope who are playing in the other room, happily oblivious to the bad weather outside. We've just finished making chocolate double chip cinnamon and vanilla (basically whatever we could find in the cupboards) cookies. They're absolutely delicious if a mite mis-shapened. We started off the project in order to avoid a "want to go home crisis' and it seems to have worked, at least for the being.

Sometimes it's the minutia of everyday life that gives meaning to what we do.