I was having a walk during my lunch break last November (2014) and happened to perfectly time walking past the Devon Air Ambulance ready to take off from Derriford Hospital. So I got my phone out and waited and filmed the lift off. You may not be able to tell much from the video, but I was struggling to stand at some points as the wind from the helicopter nearly blew me over!

WELL DONE ANDY MURRAY!

Here are some photographs that I took of Jacko Sparrow and his Pirate crew.

[See image gallery at sgtworld.com]

Kelly and I enjoyed the day at Bantham Bay as well, as we hadn’t been to the beach for over 2 years (2 years ago the Summer was terrible, and last year she was heavily pregnant) so it was great to finally feel the sand between your toes on a hot day (even though it was a bit drizzly and cold to start with!).

I went on my bodyboard for the first time in years and enjoyed it a lot, even though I was struggling to catch any waves.  I don’t think it was me though, as others seemed to be struggling as well!  The water was cold when I first got in (no wetsuit) but I aclimatised to it after a few minutes, and had some fun.  Looking forward to doing it again, although my ankle did ache a bit after all the paddling.

To end the day we had a BBQ at home which was very nice, and a few cans were downed as well! ;0)

Here are a few photos from the beach. Enjoy!

http://johnny-ong.blogspot.com/2007/10/michael-jacksons-dead.html

Interesting 

Congratulations to them!

Me with Witney

Kelly with Witney

copyright BBC

This is the first time that anyone really famous has passed away since I have been a ‘grown up’ so it is a bit strange how the World is reacting.  I guess it is almost up there with the reaction when Princess Diana, Elvis Presly and John Lennon passed away, but being several years ago, I was not even alive for the last two of those.  I do remember the day Princess Diana died but was only about 14 at the time, so it didn’t strike me as anything much.

However, growing up with Michael Jackson always being in the news and his music being critically acclaimed, this feels a lot closer.  One of the first tapes that I bought when I was about nine years old was his ‘bad’ album, and I thought it was fantastic.  I also remember watching the ‘Thriller’ video when I was about the same age.  He then brought out his film ‘Moonwalker’ and my brother and I used to watch that over and over again (with my brother hilariously trying to recreate the moonwalk and his other various dance moves!).   So you could say, he has always been in the background somewhere.

Even through all his well documented troubles (which he was aquitted for) his music still kept being played, and people still widely recognised him as the King Of Pop.

So farewell to the greatest entertainer of them all and I will be sad not to see him do his famous ‘Moon walk’ live again.

( unless he has faked his death of course, as the conspiracy theorists will no doubt suggest! )

Since Christmas we have been coming to terms with looking after Ben, which we love really, even though he needs attention all the time.  He is now 8 months old and is a proper little man! He can sit up on his own, clap his hands, and is generally a very happy chappy.  We just can’t believe it has been 8 month since he was born. Shocking!

Apart from that we have decided that we must live in a different world (Plymouth) as when the WHOLE country was battling with the Snow in early February, we had a light sprinkling, and that was that!  Only 15-20 minutes up the road from Plymouth, there was heavy snow, and if you travelled about 35 minutes up the A38, you would have been caught in a severe blizzard that caused the road to be shut, and many people to abandon their vehicles for a small parish hall for the night.  Amazing.  I love the snow and would have loved a decent covering, but it wasn’t to be yet again.  It is very strange as even as far South West as Penzance (which theoretically should have less chance than Plymouth to get snow) had bucket loads of it.  What a crazy place this is!

We have also had probably the earliest BBQ party in family history, with it being held on Easter Saturday.  It turned out a fantastic choice as it was the hottest day so far of the year, almost a Summers day.  We had a great time and ate and drank too much!  And then had a good laugh on our newly bought Nintendo Wii.  Good fun was had all round!

We managed to stay up to see in the New Year, although it was very difficult as I was still struggling with a cold and Kelly was just starting to get another one as well.  But we managed it, just.

New Year’s Day, we had a lovely Roast which was very tasty and then relaxed for most of the afternoon before we came home again.

I think we had an early night, that night, as we were both shattered and Ben was tired as well.

Christmas was a bit strange this year, due to illness.  Kelly was ill 2 weekends before Christmas, then I got ill at the end of the same week and ended up being off work for the whole of the week before Christmas week.  I then started to get better but managed to catch a really heavy cold on Christmas Eve so was ill all over the Christmas period.  And when I started to get better, Kelly got ill again, so was a bit of a nightmare, especially as it was Ben’s 1st Christmas.

However, we managed to get through it all and had some good times.

The Saturday before Christmas Day, Kellys parent came up to babysit Ben whilst we went out to watch Christmas with The Rat Pack at the Pavilions, which turned out to be very good.  We had a meal in the Sippers pub (next to the Pavilions) before hand, and then popped in for a drink again after.

The next day we ended up going to Trago Mills at Newton Abbott to do a bit of Christmas shopping with Kelly’s parents.  Was a fun day out and had a very nice Pasty.  Managed to get a few more Xmas presents as well, just to finish it all off.

Christmas Eve we went over to my Mum’s house for Roast Pork in the evening, which was very tasty.  Unfortunately, this was when I started to get ill again.  The car also started to play up as the Eco-Diagnostics light turned itself on, so I had to check the oil and water in the dark and freezing cold, which is not what I was wanting to do!  Thank goodness that it seemed to sort itself out in the end!

Christmas Day was when I started to feel really awful and ended up going to bed during the afternoon.  It was a very different Christmas this year, as it was Ben’s 1st.  So our usual timing for opening presents, cooking dinner etc was all out and we had to do it all on the fly!  We ended up getting up at 7am to start opening our presents and we didn’t finish until the afternoon as we obviously had to sort Ben out every now and again (feeding, washing, changing, etc) and also getting the Roast Turkey cooked.  We all had a good array of presents, and Ben actually had more than either of us.  He is a very lucky boy!  My presents included a Technic Lego set, clothes, books, DVD’s, Finger Drum Kit, Canvas Print (which is excellent!), chocolate, alcohol, a Transformer, and much more.  Kelly had items such as a new Jacket, a jogging outfit, more clothes, DVD’s, chocolate, cook book, CD’s and more as well.  Ben has mostly clothes as he was too young for toys really, but he did get a Walker, a Travel Cot, a Money Box, numerous cuddly toys (which are all lovely and soft!) and a Tumble Time Tigger.  All in all the day went well apart from me not feeling very good.  The food was lovely and Kelly did an excellent job cooking it (though I did help a bit of course!).

Boxing Day we went down to my Dad’s and had more presents.  I was feeling pretty awful again, and we ended up stopping in Tesco on the way down to get some medicine and tissues for me.  We had to wait for Darren (Brother) and Marina (Sister in Law) to arrive as they were quite late.  We opened our presents and then nipped to the pub for a game of Pool.  It was Ben’s 1st time in a Pub and we only took him because we knew it was going to be dead in there.  He slept through it all in the end.   Pool-wise, I beat Darren twice and Dad once and then he beat me in the final game as I potted the white when I potted the black, so he was very lucky!  During the afternoon I had to go to bed as I was just feeling so awful, but did manage to perk up again in the evening for a game of cards.

Although we both were suffering from illness, we had a pretty good 1st Christmas with Ben.