Tales From Little Bennett End

Well winter sure did close in quick here. Joe played his last game of golf for the year 2 weekends ago and will rest up over winter to try and get rid of his recurring tennis elbow. But at the beginning of winter lots of fun things do happen. Our friends Richard and Olivia and their son Gareth have now moved to the UK and we hosted Richard's 43rd birthday on bonfire night with a big chocolate hedgehog cake and fireworks. Gareth still thinks his Aunt Sally baked it especially. Joe's niece Claire also came by for another short visit and at the end of the month we celebrated Sally's brother Nigel's 40th by giving him a parachute jump and a pair of incontinence pants for the occasion. It was also a month of travel for Joe with 2 business trips to the US, Chicago for a few days and then NY for a whole day (where I'm typing this note). Joe will start a new job on the 5th of December. He will finally complete his gadget freek personae by going to work for the group CTO.

November also saw an early arrival from Santa Claus. Santa let Sally have the pick of bunny rabbits before his main batch. We now have 2 rabbits a tan and white one called Starsky and a white one called Hutch. Both rabbits are settling in. The cat's ain't too pleased though.

Callum is now nearly 5 months old and we quite often get a whole night's sleep out of him. He really does have a great personality. Lots of smiles and laughs and he really doesn't mind being passed around people. He seems to be really fascinated with baby's near his age so hopefully soon he will get to play with some. He's also now a member of the Country Club (well you have to get them in early) and has just recently had his first shot at swimming in the pool. Here he is on his dry run at home.

Hard to believe now that we've been back from holiday nearly 6 weeks but then as we write this just so much has happened we can't wait for the next one. Anyway straight after our trip to Scotland Joe headed off to San Francisco for a conference on the future of Collaboration and Social Networking. Amazing stuff. Learned all about how large groups of people when asked independently how to estimate something will be more accurate than experts in that field and also felt like an old man learning about wikis and blogs and how TV advertising will be killed off by them. If I sound over enthusiastic its because it may well be my next job to move into this field.

Anyway on his return we took Callum to his very first family wedding and his introduction to the Bennett side of the family. He was a huge hit despite a major nappy accident a third of the way through the service, daddy pranging the new family car and making his way right down the chief bridesmaid, Victoria's dress.

The rest of the month saw us visiting Sally friend's Jo, Tony and little Thomas in Birmingham. Some of you may remember Thomas as that tiny little baby from our wedding day. Well he's now 20 months old, walking, talking and signing little lad with a lovely nature. We also stopped by to introduce Callum to my old Uni friends Pearl and Paul.

We also were inundated with visitors. Caroline and Yvette came down for a few days to meet Callum and take him to the local bird park and my neice Claire came again to terrorise him.

Well its now well and truly Autumn/Fall here at Little Bennett end and we are in the midst of plans to decorate the kitchen and downstairs loo as well as planning for Xmas. This year we will be spending Xmas here and Ne'erday up in Scotland although no idea how we will get all of the little guy's (now 13lbs 10 oz) stuff up on plane along with presents.

Wrap up and get the honey and lemon out !!!

Joe, Sally and Callum