I seem to be following a stream of ideas in the blog at the moment - one post leads to the next.

This is no exception - my A Team reference got me thinking about all those programmes I used to watch and don't any longer; not just because many are no longer on the air (or only on UK TV Gold, or some such repeats channel) but because I no longer have an adolescent boy to watch them with!

I know we're supposed to be poor parents if we let our kids watch too much TV, but once he'd outgrown toys that I could happily play with him with, my son and I spent many happy shared times watching TV together.

We frequently came home from school to sit down to watch Neighbours - that was when Kyleigh was still tomboy mechanic Charlene - or Home and Away.

Then we never missed Knight Rider - Richard pretended he WAS Knight Rider, whilst I just fancied David Hassellhof!

And of course The A Team. Our recent mission has been to do unto my parents as they used to do to BA Baracus and get them on an aeroplane for the first time ever without them noticing. We're succeeding!

But I don't see those programmes any more - nor Dr Who or Robin Hood, even though the new incarnations are well praised. It's just not the same without 13 year old He Who Believed in it All!

Who was the character in "The A Team" who used to say "I love it when a plan comes together"?
I'm busy getting Mum and Dad's passport applications sorted. They sent the photos - they assure me they really weren't allowed to look pleasant - I got the forms and found Dad's birth certificate and their marriage certificate in my Family Tree files and have emailed Carol, who has Mum's certificate in the Family Tree file I passed on to her (next generation Holmes) to drop it off during the week. Meanwhile I'm sending the forms to Tony to countersign and affirm the curmudgeonly old codgers depicted really are my cheery old folks. If all goes well we can gather everything together on Friday and visit a post office on Saturday (before 12 noon, I'm warned) to get everything verified and applied for.
Like I said, shades of the A Team... It's all in aid of The Wedding of the Year in July, of course.

Speaking of humorous books (Meaning of Liff, see recent post) another that has given me hours of fun is Giles Brandreth's "Book of Waiting Games". Two favourites are:

1) The game to play in a doctor or dentist's waiting room - yawn widely, then score one point for every person in the room who can't resist yawning too.

2) The game to make your husband talk to you - think of a word beginning and ending in A (eg Alabama), B (bomb), c (comic) etc, until you come to a letter that you can't think of a word for (eg J!) at which point you sigh heavily, then continue the game the same way. If husband says "What's wrong with you?" before the end of the alphabet, you win (and gleefully say "Q!" or whatever) - if you have to go through the alphabet again he wins.

Our visits to London had tailed off somewhat over recent months, but the arrival of Kris, anxious to see as many sights as she can in her time here, has revived our own interest.

Last weekend we met in the British Museum (and looked especially at the Greek, Egyptian and ancient European sections, as being of most personal interest) and then walked to the Portrait Gallery, where Tudor royalty and personalities illustrated the Philippa Gregory type book she had been reading and we also enjoyed the photographic portrait exhibition, though we all disagreed with the choice of winner - pc topic, but not especially arresting picture.

This week we met in Kensington High St, where Richard hoped to change a pair of ill-fitting Christmas trousers at Next, only to discover there wasn't one! Anyway, we looked briefly at shoes, then went to Kensington Palace, where as well as the usual historic rooms and costumes, was a 10th anniversary memorial exhibition of Princess Diana - the Mario Testino portraits, Bruce Oldfield and others' personal recollections, and still and newsreel film of key moments in her life. Brought back lots of memories and thoughts of what might have been. I still say she would have made a perfect Queen - it's a shame they couldn't have come to some sort of accommodation...

Then we walked through the park past Prince Albert and the Serpentine Gallery, where we had meant to pop in, but discovered a queue we didn't fancy joining - obviously a new exhibition we wot not of! We walked on to the Science Museum to look at the Diving and Boats section, then across the road to the V&A for a look at costumes and fashion (it's been re-vamped, and I don't care for the new display as much as the old) before being kicked out (closing time) whilst looking for musical instruments.

We got the tube back to Picadilly Circus and walked to Covent Garden, where we had a nice meal in a pub, and incidentally found a Next that stayed open till 8pm, where Richard successfully changed his trousers and we looked at suits and ties, re The Wedding. I think we saw a suit that Ed might buy in Croydon - a simple black, 2 button, single breasted, narrow lapel, fine wool one that they had in every size but his!

A lovely day, made all the better by the long food breaks spent chatting to the children.

PS. I see the exhibition at the Serpentine is Anthony McCall, which has had rave reviews.

In between the books I'm really reading, the reference I saw to "bauldry" in a newspaper (Christmas decorations shabbily past their prime, but still displayed for sentimenal reasons) prompted me to revisit "The Deeper Meaning of Liff" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. This and its predecessor recycle place names to supply a list of words for those things we all know of, for which no official word exists. Like the bauldry on my Christmas tree.

The books have long been favourites of ours. We particularly like "Grimbister (n.): a group of cars travelling along the motorway at exactly 70 mph, because one of them is a police car" and "Stibbard (n.): the invisible brake pedal on the passenger's side of the car".

I now discover that my mother is a "Flagler (n.) ; someone who always seems to disappear into shops when you're walking along talking to them" and that Ed is an "Abinger (n.): one who washes up everything except the frying pan, the cheese grater and the pan the chocolate sauce has been made in"!

Reviews of The Golden Compass have been so mixed, we weren't sure whether to go or not. But we decided to give it a whirl as I enjoyed the books so much and Ed is in the middle of "Northern Lights" even now.

We thoroughly enjoyed it. Lyra's Berkshire accent sounds authentically like our niece Stacey's (from Reading rather than alter-Oxford, but near enough...) and we thought Dakota Blue Richards was a good actress, despite her atrocious name. She was feisty and cocky, as in the book and the film makers didn't over sentimentalise her.

We were prepared for Daniel Craig's fairly brief appearances, so that didn't upset us and thought Nicole Kidman made a suitably glamorous and evil Mrs Coulter. Sir Iain McKellen did a good job as Iorek the Bear, too.

I haven't read the books for a while, which I guess is the best time to see a film adaptation, as I wasn't too fazed by any deviations from the detail of the written story - I thought the adaptation stayed true to Philip Pullman's original and look forward to part two.

I don't usually bother but my trip to Tesco today whilst hearing an item about plastics on the radio, prompted me to make one. I only remembered when I got there that I'd purchased two eco bags last time and had left them at home. So I bought a couple more, and resolved to try to use them and not to use so much plastic, especially in the way of shopping bags, this year.

I already refuse bags on single or small items, and recycle some of my plastic, even if it's only taking carriers to nursery for use with wet clothes, but I have resolved to make a big conscious effort to do better in 2008.

I took my camera away with me, fully intending to take lots of photos over the Christmas holiday, and managed 4, one of which was so dark I had to delete it! Oh well - it was a sign of a good time had by all, I assure you.

But here we all are on Christmas Day itself, replete after our lunch at "The Grosvenor". Not the best meal out I've ever had - in fact not the best Christmas dinner I've had at the Grosvenor, but the quality of the company made up for the food.

It was a family get together - Mum and Dad with all their descendants and spouses, plus my brother's mother-in-law, who is an old family friend in her own right. We were rather noisy, and had a quiz (courtesy of Wil) between the main course and dessert, won by the only team of three, playing against pairs.

We all returned to Mum and Dad's for the rest of the day, and re-gathered the same party at my brother's on Boxing day, where we played more Parlour Games and tackled further quiz questions courtesy of Oli and Kris/Rick. We didn't watch any TV, we even missed the Queen this year.