Failure is the Key to Success

Ardley Hill Lower School, which is just down the road from the lower school our kids go to, is hoping to win on Wednesday in the ITV People’s Millions Competition. The overall aim of the competition is to improve the quality of life of local communities by funding projects that transform the local environment – its buildings, amenities, public and green spaces.
Ardley Hill are hoping to gain funding to build a new glass enclosure for their swimming pool to enable them and the community to use it all year round.
A couple of years ago Watling Lower School were able to make use of Ardley’s pool during the summer term, but were unfortunately unable to take advantage of the opportunity this past year.

Wednesday’s vote in the ITV Anglia West region is between:

Continue reading » Swimming for our Future

Tags:Ardley Hill Lower School,Beds Garden carers,peoples millions,swimming for our future

Although it was announced last week, today the Sky Channels returned to VirginMedia after a break of over 18 months.

A new agreement has been signed between BSkyB and VirginMedia that will see the Sky basic channels on Virgin until June 2011. It appears that VirginMedia are paying BSkyB £30 million to get the basic channnels, exactly the same amount BSkyB are paying VirginMedia for their channels. It looks like the loss in revenue from advertising have put VirginMedia in a strong negotiating position. When they were both suing each other 18 months ago, according to VirginMedia’s court submission, Sky initially asked for £55 million, but later reduced this to £40 million. Sky were only paying around £5m for the VirginMedia tv channels.

Cynic that I am, I can’t help wondering how long it will be before the cost rises to ‘cover the additional channels’. Of course it didn’t go down when we lost them, so maybe not

Tags:bskyb,sky channels,virginmedia

While we were on holiday at Center Parcs, we bought a bird feeder at the Nature Centre and then added a pole to put it on. They are made by CJ Wildbird Foods, and were very reasonably priced. After we got home we were looking at their website and found that they only charge £2 delivery for orders under £50 and free for orders over. We wanted to add a base to support the pole and also got a variety pack of the peanut cake tubes and a squirrel resistant peanut feeder. I had them delivered to work and they arrived on Thursday; I’m glad I did as the box was enormous, it only just fitted in the car.

Continue reading » Birds galore

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We got up and packed this morning. I collected the car from the car park. I’m glad we weren’t up and about on Friday when people were leaving, its mad out there! There is a 10 mph speed limit and cars are supposed to give way to cycles and pedestrians - unfortunately this is reality, its a wonder there hasn’t been an accident.

After squeezing a quart into a pint pot, (well that what loading the car felt like,) I took the car back to the car park and rode back to the villa. We locked up and took the keys back to the Information Centre. I handed the keys back in at about 3 minutes to 10am, 3 minutes to spare, no problem. As I was heading back to the bikes there were still cars coming on-site, I think they would be pushing it to vacate their accommodation by 10am.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 8

Tags:Center Parcs,Major Oak,Sherwood Forest

We went into the guest services this morning and reported the heating problem. Then we crossed the road to Jardin Des Sports, where the kids had their pre-booked activity later today. Again, like most of the other facilities here, it was noticably smaller than its counterpart at Elveden. The kids went and played outside in one of the children’s play areas before went went across to the adventure golf where we played 9 holes.

We had lunch at the Pancake House. We had a table outside as it was looking nice, but part of the way through I thought we were going to have to change table as it looked as if it was imminently going to start raining.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 3

Tags:Center Parcs,Huckleberry's,Sherwood Forest

We got up very late this morning after a great sleep. It had been raining overnight and there was still light rain this morning. Just to keep the kids occupied before we got breakfast, I put the telly on. The tv has 13 channels available, BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5, Center Parcs information, Jetix SKY Kids, CBeebies/BBC3, Sky One, Sky News, ITV2, E4 & TMF. Picture quality on some was poor and there was nothing on the Sky One channel.

We went to the Pancake House for lunch and all had sweet pancakes - hmmm, well we are on holiday. I think we timed it about right, we got there just about 12 noon and it soon started filling up. After about 15 minutes it was raining, so we were glad to be inside. The service was great, as were the pancakes. Between us we had Dutch Apple, Banoffee and Chocolate Heaven. It had stopped raining by the time we left, so that was a plus as well.

Continue reading » Sherwood Forest Center Parcs 2008 pt 2

Tags:Center Parcs,Nature Centre,Sherwood Forest,Strada