Jan 31 2012

Nick’s Wedding

Category: Anna's Photos,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 7:20 pm

I didn’t include these in the August post from last month, as there are a lot. We came back to Britain in time to be at Nick (my brother) and Roz’s wedding. It was down in Cornwall, where they live, so a very beautifully pregnant Irina, Anna, myself, Mum & John went for a holiday in a cottage near Falmouth, giving us plenty of time to see them and unwind in the Summer sun. I think it was our first week long holiday since Dubai back in 2003 (money that would otherwise be saved for vacations tends to pay for plane tickets between Britain and Kazakhstan), so it was very refreshing to break the routine. Anyway, enough typing for now, here are the pictures. I’ll try to caption July & August’s photo galleries soon.

Too many photos to label them all, feel free to ask questions about any that interest you.

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Dec 30 2011

At LC2 with Anna, Grandad, Nic…

Category: Pictures,Tweets — ChrisM @ 7:03 pm

At LC2 with Anna, Grandad, Nick, Roz & Jack. They seemed to enjoy the multi-storey jungle gym. On to fairground in rain http://t.co/jEEOsQFK


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Dec 29 2011

Speedy recovery 4my bro&his st…

Category: Tweets — ChrisM @ 2:34 am

Speedy recovery 4my bro&his stomach.Hope OK by NYE at absolute latest.Mum&John back from anniversary break in hotel.Dad over4few days.Happy.

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Oct 29 2011

Recent Videos

Category: Anna's Videos,Videos — ChrisM @ 9:00 pm

I have given up on using PockeTwit to post videos with this blog. Although the auto-uploading to YouTube and the posterous interface itself is mostly great, the video recording resolution is limited far too low. As the program’s author obviously has issues facing bigger groups to sort, I’ve switched to uploading directly to YouTube. So videos should now be a better quality, but there could be a delay before it appears on this site.

First we have Anna, Ira, Lolyk 2 (this was shot before Tim was born, so he was called Cedric or Lyolik 2 as a place holder name) & Gwen walking in the sun to a local play area.

Swansea Beach, again before Tim had been born.

A few days after Tim was born, Anna and I went outside so she could play with her bubble blowing machine.

Nick, Anna, Jack, Ira & Gwen this morning in Clydach. Roz wasn’t in the room, and I think Tim was asleep at the time.

Right, there are more photos and videos to come, but I still need to complete a few other tasks first.

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Oct 12 2010

NRJ visited by CIA!!

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 2:55 am

Just before we left Britain, Irina, Anna and I all went to see Nick, Roz, and the newly arrived Jack down in Cornwall. There are no photos here of Anna’s cousin as they prefer him to have some online privacy for now, but the following shot was taken in their house in between bouts of coo-ing and cuddling Jack a little. It felt really strange to see such a (comparatively) small baby again, though since that time Jack has made it quite clear that, physically at least, he’ll have no problems playing rugby in the future. Fingers crossed for our trip back to the UK this Christmas, and if we do make it, I’m hoping we’ll be able to cross paths. Anyway, enough of “Uncle” Chris, here is my brother Nick and me on the sofa.

Nick And Me

Nick And Me

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Oct 12 2010

ChrisM, AntiSceptic or SilentlyScreaming?

Category: WordPress — ChrisM @ 2:45 am

If you have registered for a lot of different sites, teams and organizations online, you may find it difficult to remember the exact URL, and user name you’ve chosen in the past. This isn’t a problem if you keep your bookmarks fresh, but if you want to give your membership details to a friend, you want to ensure you don’t go giving your YouTube account name when talking about a forum for antique watch enthusiasts. Unless you always use the same nickname, and the site in question has an easy to use search facility, it is quite likely that people won’t be able to find you.
This is where the DandyID Services plug-in enters the fray. You can can see a very simple example of how it works by visiting the About / Contact Me page here at ChrisMerriman.com. The DandyID Services plug-in is designed to display the icons, site names and obviously the underlying URLs in your sidebar (via a widget that becomes available once the plug-in is activated and configured. Obviously you’ll actually need to tell DandyID about which places you have a membership, but their accounts are free to operate, and it doesn’t take too long to collate all the info you’ll need.

(The post it titled as it is because depending on where you look for me online, you’ll find me as ChrisM, AntiSceptic or more often than not, SilentlyScreaming).

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Sep 07 2010

Present Time – A Little Delayed

Category: Anna's Photos,Personal — ChrisM @ 10:08 pm

Delayed in two senses. When Nick came up to Evesham (btw big congratulations to him for recently passing his driving test!) he bought the Christmas and Birthday presents that we had not been able to open due to being in Kazakhstan at the time. Even though his son Jack was about to be born, we really appreciated him making the effort and making sure we had some more time together (he also had a job interview in Cheltenham, so the timing was perfect). The second part of the delay? The video of this evening was posted a little over a month ago. I have been very slack recently at posting to this blog, other than occasional tweets. Now that PockeTwit (my preferred Windows Mobile twitter client) isn’t working due to OAuth being required for logins, the site has been quite bare recently. I am hoping to put up a few more posts by the end of the week, and if I can just create 36 hours in a day, I might even manage to post more next week 🙂 Oh, 12th of March is the date these photos were taken, which reminds me, I need to check if AnnaMerriman.com is still pulling these posts in automatically, and also start manually embedding those videos that don’t make it across.

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Sep 07 2010

Shiny Seb

Category: Friends,Pictures,Videos — ChrisM @ 8:14 pm

In case you haven’t browsed the Celt Photographic site recently, check out John’s latest posts when you get a moment (August and September would be a good start).

Anyway, if you check the recent entries, you can see the transformation of Seb from a bruised, battered and cut mountain biker, to a lizard man! All still images are copyright Celt Photographic, please make contact via the previous links if you wish to use any pictures etc. etc.

Seb has also just posted up a video that the artist who painted him has uploaded, and I’ve also included another from her collection.

Any ladies interested in Seb should send me their details, along with a photo, so I can vet them first!

Still Smiling Seb

All Muscle Or All Bruise

Lizard Face

All Over Lizard

(Small last minute correction, the smaller image of Seb was apparently taken by John’s friend Nick, I’m hoping he won’t mind me using a low-res copy on this site.)

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Jul 27 2010

Opening Presents With Nick

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 2:22 am

Still in Evehsam at Dad’s place (the same evening (12th March 2010) as the duck feeding video), Nick came over to say hello. He had a job interview in Cheltenham, so we decided to all converge at Dad’s at the same time. Roz couldn’t make it as she was very close to giving birth to Anna’s cousin at the time. Nick bought up all the Christmas and Birthday presents that we hadn’t been able to receive whilst in Kazakhstan, and Anna seemed to enjoy another paper ripping ceremony :). I look forward to using mine in earnest when Winter once more hits Astana, and Anna still plays with hers regularly. The Big Hungry Caterpillar is also a big hit with Anna, and I’m very glad Nick and Roz got it, as it seems to be a “proper” childrens’ book to me 🙂 The hand puppets and toys also get played with often, and Anna seemed to lose interest in the wrapping paper and sellotape very quickly…
Obviously since the clip was taken, we now know that the baby was a beautiful boy (Jack), but Nick and Roz didn’t know that at the time. PS Nick, it has been a good 15 years or so since I studied French, but I’m pretty sure they have male and female endings to words, and it is German that has neutral as well? ;-P The last of the three clips shows me trying on all my Christmas presents at the same time. It wasn’t cold in the house 🙂

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Jul 27 2010

Grandad And Anna

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 1:36 am

On the same day that we saw some friends in Cheltenham (11th of March), we had also set up camp in Evesham, over at my Dad’s house. He seemed very happy to see Anna, and she seemed totally content with the new surroundings to investigate. The year before when Anna had been there, she obviously hadn’t been able to move around really. In case you’re wondering, that is Anna’s little suitcase you can see in the bottom left hand corner there. Always have a good supply of toys with you at all times 🙂 We were all waiting anxiously to discover whether we would soon have a new niece/nephew / grandson/granddaughter, as my younger brother (Nick) and Roz hadn’t discovered whether they were to be having a boy or a girl, and Nick came down that weekend as he had an interview in the area, and we didn’t know for sure whether we’d be able to cross paths again before our return to Kazakhstan, as for some reason babies don’t always arrive exactly when the doctors guess 🙂
Anyway, enough for now, I think there are some photos or videos of Nick still to come.

(My) Dad With Anna At Home

(My) Dad With Anna At Home

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