Our Blog has Moved!!

As Google have just updated their blogging service, and due to the way we publish our blog, we have now had to move it to:

http://www.benandbarry.com/

Please make sure you update your bookmarks!!

Basingstoke White Out

Well as you may have seen on the news today Basingstoke was particularly hard hit by snow last night. I left my car at work an walked home. Barry's usual 25min journey took 5hrs and he had to abandon his car out on the main road!! Even though he was sent home at 3pm yesterday before the snow really hit, he was expected to be in work this morning! Needless to say he hasn't gone, but we did go and retrieve his car this morning and took some pictures on the way.

New Door

Just in case you can't find us, we've had our front door changed and a change in colour!

Old Pants on Fire!!

Barry has been threatening to burn my old pants for ages, and the end of the last holiday was actually the deadline!! Have been searching frantically all week, and today he did burn my old ones!! I don't think they were that bad!!

Ooooh new sofas!

We really wanted some recliners, and a better fit for our lounge than the corner unit. So DFS delivered some shiny new sofas this morning!

Old (above) vs. New (below)

Its amazing what a car valet does!

Barry's car is turning into the bargain of the year! It used to be a bit of a stinky heap, but now its been valet cleaned its spotless and shiny. All scratches buffed out, all cigarette ash gone, all green slim scrubbed off.

Mmm ash covered carpet to spotless!

Green tree scum to black rubber

Green mould to sparkling paint

Ta-dah!

Weekend at Keith & Jo's

This weekend we celebrated Barry's late birthday at Keith and Jo's in Southsea. Played a load of Guitar Hero, had a cracking Chinese, then played Singstar until we were hoarse! On Sunday morning, some of us were a bit worse for wear due to wine/bourbon combo, but we walked down by the boating lake and along to the pitch and putt for a full on cooked breakfast.

We also volunteered to take Jamie home to Wear, as its right by my aunt's neighbours who were selling a car Barry was interested in. Literally 9 miles apart, but Barry ended up buying the new car!

Old (background) vs. New (foreground)

Elliot is on his way!

Mark and Carol's 2nd baby is on his way!!

Go Ape (sort of)

Today we tried to cure Jamie of his phobia of heights, we failed! Although he made is past the first few obstacles he came unstuck on the "Gorilla net". We finished the second set of obstacles, then returned home for a cracking BBQ.


Direct link to video

New Kitchen Floor

Well we had the kitchen floor repaired last month, but despite our best efforts to preserve the lino it decided to rip and go even more crinkly! So today I cut it all up and layed a rather snazzy new floor using carpet tiles. Design by Barry, labour by Ben!

Old vs. New

Floor Repair

We've had a wavy kitchen floor since before Christmas when the fridge leaked everywhere. Today we finally had a carpenter round to fix the floor. What he thought would be a fairly quick job turned into a more complicated one when all the boards were glued and nailed down!!

Wavy floor above and below - quite a large water stain!

Floor completely up, and new one going down

Yearly Garden

Well the sun was out today, so we decided to tidy the garden. However it was bloomin freezing and very windy, but we carried on anyway!

Before vs. After

New Mini!

Spot the difference!

Big Freeze was Right!

Well the weather men were right again for a change! It was definitely very cold yesterday, and we saw a few flakes of snow in the day, then last night it started snowing and didn't stop!

Only 30mins of snow from last night

9am and its still snowing!

Christmas Day

Today we had Mum, Mary and Julie up for the first time for Christmas Dinner take 2! Barry did another cracker of a Christmas dinner, and I did left over day on Boxing Day! I don't think Mum was used to sitting still for so long, although we did have a bit of exercise by playing bell ringing on Wii Music!

Early Christmas

"Christmas Take One" was the weekend before Christmas, when the Buzzard clan arrived in Basingstoke. We had a cracking first turkey dinner and Barry's Baked Alaska! The highlight of the weekend was Keith and Barry's rendition of MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This!" with the dog joining in and humping/biting Barry!!

• See all the photos here...

Never mind Autumn then!

OK, last week we were still around 18 degrees with the odd sunny day. The leaves had started to fall, the clocks went back. Then we are warned or arctic winds coming and lowering the temperature, and as usual you think, yeah yeah the weather man at it again. Then yesterday afternoon we have a flurry of snow, and again tonight a real thick layer! The leaves are still clinging to the trees, but winter has come early!!

Winter Gardening

As the sun made an appearance today decided to pop to Homebase and grab another one of those ever so handy Hippo Bags and start clearing the garden for winter before next hols. I did the complete front and down the side of the house, which has ¾ filled the bag! Hopefully Barry will help tomorrow with the back, if its not raining again!! We also probably had our last BBQ of the year, and boy was it hard trying to find charcoal in the shops!!

Front before and after

Car broken!

Decided to go to Reading today for a look round, as not been for ages, but my car had other ideas and decided to break down! The RAC arrived quickly and towed me back to Basingstoke. I'm now just waiting for a large bill from the garage :-(