Robn in the snow

Woke up this morning to find that it snowed last night. Of course that meant Robin made me jump out of bed and take him down to the garden (most robins like snow). So here he is. It's melting now, but don't tell Robin that...

KJ asked in the comments of the last post if High School sport is popular here, drawing crowds etc. Sadly not, I used to play for my school team and the crowd would usually consist of 2 or 3 pushy parents screaming at their kids for not doing well enough. We don't even get crowds for our sports teams at university/college level, whereas it seems in the US some college teams get crowds of 100,000! Crazy. Must be very odd being a superstar when you're 18 to 21, then coming down to earth with a bump when you leave college and get a humdrum job. However, we do have several hundred soccer teams who get paying crowds each week from your Manchester Uniteds getting 75,000 people to your Hitchin Towns, who play 7 or more division below, getting a couple of hundred.

If anyone had any more questions about UK culture, feel free to ask!

Back of the net!

Hello again. Here's a picture of Robin which I took at Hitchin Town FC this morning. I was up there at 8.30am helping them get the pitch ready for this afternoon's game (there's been an awful lot of rain, so they made a call for volunteers). Hopefully it looks like the game will go ahead now (after some stirling forking and sanding work from myself and a few others). Got to say, even though Hitchin are in the 7th tier of English football, I was still quite excited to be allowed on the pitch of a proper football team with a proper football ground!

Talking of football, did you folks over in the US hear that David Beckham is heading your way? Are people over there interested?

Robin by an old shoe shop sign

Here's a picture of Robin taken by an old shop sign in Hitchin, the town where we live. It's a lovely old sign, built into the wall as a mosaic, above the door of the shop.

Freeman, Hardy and Willis was a UK shoe shop chain set up in 1875 and named after three employees of the company. Their catchphrase was "Shoes For All The Family". I'm guessing this sign would date from the first few decades of the 1900s. In the early 1990s, there were 540 of them in the UK, but the chain collapsed in 1996 and is no more.

Still, at least this gorgeous sign remains and still looks in great condition.

Happy new year!

Hope you all have a top one.

Robin does moblogging

I was telling a friend the other day how easy it is to post blogs via a mobile phone (Hello Clive! Hope you and Gwyn made it to Oz ok!). After that, I thought I should put my money where my mouth is and give it a crack. So I've set myself up to post Robin pics on the go (in this case, "on the go" involved being in my kitchen!). And very simple it is too.

Of course, this gives me even less excuse not to post regularly!

Robin on Boxing Day

Hello again - hope you all had a good Christmas. Mine wasn't as sleep-filled as they have been, but it was nice to celebrate our first as a little family!

This is a picture of Robin at a football match that happens every Boxing Day (Dec 26) in the village where my mum lives. It's the oldies of the village versus the youngies (though the boundaries between what constitutes the two aren't all that clear) and it's been going for a good 20 years now - possibly more. The ball is behind Robin's head and was about to be volleyed home by the chap in the blue shirt sprinting in above Robin's right eye. He was playing for the youngies, who won the game 4-0 (I think, I wasn't paying all that much attention by the end). It's nice that the tradition goes on.

Sorry I missed a week!

Sorry folks, I missed last week's Thursday posting and I'm a day late with this one. It's obviously been pretty hectic since Junior arrived - and I haven't really left the house much!

Oh well, better late than never - here's Robin next to the Christmas candle thingy that's sitting in our window, which my wife's mum kindly brought us from Helsinki when she came to visit the baby. Looks very fetching as you pass it at midnight. I know this, because I've had to take the little one out in his pram at that time to calm him down from one of his crying spells...!

Look who came a week early...

Yes, a week earlier than planned, our little boy turned up on Monday night/Tuesday morning. My missus was a total superstar and little Yan is absolutely lovely and seems jolly happy. Needless to say, Robin is very impressed.

Happy, happy days.

Red sky Robin

Hello again. So, as promised, I'm going to be blogging every Thursday from now on - and here's a picture taken with my brand new super-fancy digital camera. It has a function on it where it can automatically swap one colour for another - in this case the blue of a clear blue sky for the red of Robin's chest. Very clever. And quite dramatic looking. I think I'm going to like playing about with this camera.

Thanks to those of you who commented on the last blog - Rob, KJ, Dawn and, of course, my mum - it's nice to know you're still paying attention. We still get quite a lot of visitors to this site every day, which is great. So if you're looking, do say hello in the comments - you don't have to register or anything.

In other news, it's just 12 days to go until my missus is due to give birth to our first child. Scary. Exciting. Mind-boggling. And brilliant.

See you next Thursday. Who knows, I might be a dad by then...

Robin meets Johnny from Razorlight

Hey folks - sorry it's been *such* a long time. I've been super-busy with moving house, being busy with work and having a pregnant missus. It's all good, it's just not left as much time for blogging as I would've liked. Hope some of you are still there though, I'm aiming to post once a week from now on - every Thursday. And now that I've said it, I'll feel bad if I don't! But keep the comments coming, it's nice to know someone's reading.

Anyway, this is a picture of Robin with Johnny Borrell the frontman of multi-million selling UK rock act Razorlight. And a lovely chap.

Robin at Hitchin Town

Here's a pic of Robin at Hitchin Town vs Bognor Regis Town in the 2nd qualifying round of the FA Cup last weekend. The game ended 0-0. The official attendance was 353 people and 1 robin. Hitchin won the replay to progress to the next round (if they win four more games, they could entertain Manchester United in this little ground...)

Robin meets Lily Allen

So, this week Robin met Lily Allen, who's widely known as the poster girl of MySpace, because she caused quite a fuss on there with her music before she got famous and started having hits - in fact her songs have been played over 4 million times on there and she's got 74,000 friends (click here to see her profile). Robin hasn't caused quite such a fuss on MySpace yet, but he's got 101 friends, which seems pretty good. You can see his profile here.

Robin at Brazil v Argentina

Hey folks. Here's a picture of Robin at the Brazil v Argentina game last weekend. Sadly, we weren't on a trip to South America, but it was the next best thing as two of the best teams in the world came to play a game at Arsenal's brand new stadium, just a couple of miles from our house (Brazil won 3-0).

Oh, by the way, we're moving house in a couple of weeks, so I might not be posting too much as I'm so busy with packing, but it should lead to a whole new set of Robin pictorial experiences...

Robin hits MySpace

Hey folks. Yes, as the picture proves, Robin has finally made it onto MySpace (I've been meaning to sort him out with a profile for ages). If you'd like to join him on there, do head to his profile at www.myspace.com/robintherobin and click 'Add to Friends'. Thanks folks. Oh, and he's not really 69 years old - he's 5, but you have to be at least 14 to get on MySpace. Shhhh...

Robin and deer

Hey folks.

So this is a picture of Robin with the deer at Dunham Massey, a National Trust house and gardens near Manchester that we visited last week when we were up there for the England v Greece game. Click here to see its home page. We had a lovely walk around the grounds with our pals Simon and Evelyn, who'd taken us there. Top ice creams too!

Robin at England v Greece #1

Hey folks

So, on Wednesday, me and the missus went to see England v Greece play football at Old Trafford in Manchester. We decided to go in the Greece fans' section (as you might rmemeber, my wife's family are Greek). Unfortunately, Greece lost 4-0, but it didn't matter too much because a) it was only a friendly (ie not part of a tournament) b) the Greek fans kept singing and jumping about all the way through the second half, keeping everyone in the ground entertained and c) um, I'm English, so it was quite nice to see us play well and score a few goals!

Oh, and note the St George's flag being created by the England fans behind the goal at the other end, using red and white paper. Very creative.

Robin at England v Greece #2

Here he is, outside the home of Manchester United FC, Old Trafford - which holds around 72,000 fans. Which makes it rather big.

Robin in Belfast

Hey folks

Here's a shot of Robin in front of the Albert Memorial Clock in the middle of Belfast, Northern Ireland - which actually leans four feet off the vertical, making it the Belfast equivalent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was only in Belfast for about 24 hours, having not been there for around 20 years, but it seemed a quiet, pleasant sort of place these days - even if the police cars do still drive around with armour on them.

A record-breaking hot day!

Hello. Here's a picture I took a moment ago of Robin on what they're saying will be the hottest day in London on record! Apparently temperatures will get as high as 38C/101F. It certainly feels like it - it's baking out there! We've got a little electronic temperature sensor on the window sill. It's in the shade but apparently it's 36.6C/98F out there at the moment! Hot hot hot hot hot. Robin is currently chilling near our over-worked fan...

Robin at the races #1

Hey folks. On Saturday I took the missus to the races at Sandown as a birthday treat. We had a top day out and didn't lose too much money despite our particularly rubbish gambling skills. This picture shows Robin standing very near to the finish line, with number 4, Road To Love, galloping to victory in the 5.25 at odds of 9-1 (naturally it wasn't the horse that we'd bet on). It's great to see the horses up close - they really do travel at an amazing speed. See below for Robin's first foray into horse riding (on a horse that doesn't move quite so quickly)...