Super Babies Doing Zumba

Hello there dear peeps from the inter web. This week I would like to chat to you about the London Excel Baby Show and the whole experience of being at the Excel.

Getting there is really easy, as it is to get any where in London. People always complain about London Transport but those that do are just professional complainers as London has a great transport system. Not perfect but great never the less. After all you can get just about anywhere in London at just about any time of day or night, be it by Tube, Bus, Boat or Train. There's always a way of getting from where you are to where you want to be.

At the Excel we found that the baby show wasn't the only thing going on that weekend. There was also a comic convention, a hoteliers convention and a Zumba trainers convention. Now I always thought that you would get no stranger bunch of people than those attending a comic / Sci-Fi / Horror convention, after all where else would you find people dressed up in all kinds of weird and wonderful garb than at one of those. Well let me tell you where. A Zumba convention, that's where.

I kid you not when I say that walking through a crowd of Zumba devotees is like walking through a Japanese Anime movie. They were all dressed in the brightest colours you could imagine, with several tassel's hanging from their baggy Goldie's Gym style leggings, tight vests with baggy cut down tops over the top and some even had multi coloured hair (with yet more tassel's) I ask you, is it a qualifying condition of being a Zumba instructor that you have to dress like a cartoon character on acid.

Now don't worry my dear peeps for the comic fans didn't disappoint. As my pictures below clearly show, there were plenty of fun loving comic book fans all willing to dress like complete wazacks for the cause. A skinny kid in a Green Lantern costume that was about 5 sizes too big for him, a fat kid dressed as the Flash ( I mean come on, accept you size and choose a character more appropriate like the Hulk or the Thing) A guy dressed as the Joker who looked more like a really camp version?!?! Of 70s Elton John with Harlequin in tow. A Wonder Woman who has definitely seen better years with a guy who was dressed as..... Ok I have no idea on that one and some people who were also just as baffling to me apart from the guy dressed as the Lizard from Spiderman (who by coincidence is also the bad guy in the new Spiderman movie re-boot coming later this year) I didn't manage to get any pics of the Zumba lot but you can see a few of the Super Hero peeps below.

Before I move onto the baby show itself I have one last Super to tell you about. This guy was dressed as the Punisher and I have to admit it was a good costume. This guy had everything the white skull on the shirt, pistols, knives and a big automatic weapon of some description hung around his neck. He really did look the part. The only problem though....... He was about 5ft tall! I think he was compensating for something.

Now onto the baby show.

First off I was surprised by the size of it. Me and my lovely wife (Romanianmum) had been to the baby show once before but at Earls Court, this was a couple of years ago when Kara was just a baby and if memory serves it was some what bigger there than it was at the Excel, which is surprising given the over all size of the Excel. But never  the less it was still a good show. There were plenty of brands and products on show, both to look at and to buy. From nappies, breast pumps and dummies to prams, cots and play things. There was even a place for mummies to get a manicure if they so wished (what exactly this has to do with babies I have no idea but mummies do need pampering sometimes so I'll let it slip) 

There was a free baby change area where you were supplied with everything you needed to clean up baby free of charge, which is always a bonus especially in these hard times. A play area where you could drop off the little one for a while and demonstrations and advice been given on stage all day long.

Some of the products on show were great like the Bunkcot, a two level cot that can be converted into bunk beds when they get older or a combination of the two. As you can see below, Kara loved playing in one while we were there. I think a purchase may come later if she ever gets a sibling.

Another great fun thing were the Happy Hopperz. If you ever had a space hopper as a kid then you will know what I'm talking about. These bouncy animals are the same kind of thing as a space hopper but rather than a big ball these animals were small enough for small toddlers to play on. Click on the link and check them out. While there we met up with some friends from the blog sphere, Snuggle-bubby and her husband to be (not long now) with their little one Dexter (lets hope the homicidal tendencies don't start showing later in life) After a coffee we all ended up looking at some rather nice leather changing bags from Koochu. These were very nice designer bags and looked no different from some handbags. There were even some that looked just like you're average leather man bag (now there really is no reason for Dad to avoid carrying the nappies)

While their you are also treated to a fair amount of freebies, from drinks and nibbles for the little peeps to detergents, anti bacterial sprays and dish washer tabs. Freebies, always a good bonus.

The whole experience was a good one but if there is just one complaint to make about the show its this, there wasn't enough toddler stuff. Now I know its called the baby show but really, there's not much of a leap from baby to toddler and while there was still some stuff there for the little peeps I couldn't say it was a balanced share of the floor space. I think for the sake of 2 words, the Baby AND TODDLER show it could be a whole lot better and appeal to a whole lot more people. But this is just a minor gripe.

I also have a small complaint about the Excel but it is by no means limited to just the Excel as Ive experienced this all over the place. Dads take the little ones to the toilet as well not just the mums. Kara needed to go to the toilet and so off I went with her, through a door, down 2 flights of steps through another door just to find that the baby change toilet was situated in the ladies! So I ended up taking her into the men's, not an ideal place for a 3 year old girl. Worse thing is you know how messy men's toilets can be and I had to sit my little boogie down on a seat in a men's cubicle. WHY OH WHY, when they only have space for a gents and a ladies do they only think to put a changing area in the ladies. I just don't get how architects can be so narrow minded as to think only women take little ones to the toilet. There were other baby change toilets scattered around but when a little peep says they need the toilet then you take them to the closest one, lets face it, they don't have the best bladder control at that age do they? So you don't have time to pick and choose which toilet you go to, but it might help if on their signs they actually told you if the baby change was in the women's or not instead of letting you go down the steps and be at the door before finding out. Excel management I hope you get to read this.

Below are a few more images from the baby show, nothing special but a quick glimpse into what to expect should you decide to go next time.

One last thing about the Excel itself. Should you get hungry while there, and lets face it that's pretty much a definite, then there are a great variety of food places to choose from as well as various places you can get a coffee, tea, beer or wine from. But be warned they're not cheap by any stretch and if your on a diet then all you've really got is salad, in abundance. But as exhibition / conference halls go, its not a bad place to go if you want to take in a show. Or a Zumba conference should you have a deep seated burning desire to dress up like a character from a Japanese cartoon.

Till next time....

The Voice has spoken.

The Future Of Crime Fighting (Pic 8)

My picture this week is one that I never expected to post, one I never expected to take. I stumbled upon a superhero?!?!?!
OK, truth is we visited the Baby Show at the London Excel today and while there there was also a comic convention going on in one of the other halls. Needless to say there were plenty of people walking around in costumes, some I recognised and some I didn't have a clue about. But this one was by far the greatest.
Imagine the Wonder Woman as she nears retirement with a bit of Amy Winehouse skankyness thrown in.
The original was taken within the Excel but using the magic of Photoshop and my limited skill with it I managed to place her by Putney Bridge. Outdoors, where super heroes belong.

So without further delay I give you, the working class version of Wonder Woman.

By ecky thump its that there Wonder Bird lass.

 Would you want saving by her? Answer's to the usual place.

Till next time.....

The Voice Has Spoken

Pancake Day With Boogie

What better day to celebrate Pancake Day than to make them with my little girl Kara, AKA Boogie.
Believe it or not this is the first time in my 42 years that I have made pancakes, don't ask me why it took me so long it just has.
When I picked Boogie up from nursery she immediately told me that she had made a pancake at snack time and when I asked her if she wanted to help Daddy cook some she immediately jumped at the chance.
She sat on the worktop as I mixed the basics together and as she watched she told em that she had her own utensils and wanted me to get them. A few seconds later I was back from her play kitchen with her tiny utensils. Real metal ones purchased from IKEA. And so she began to help me mix. Pretty soon we were ready to start.
One pancake down and all was looking good until. Boog looked at the pancake and said that it need some sauce and proceeded to poor some of the mix onto the cooked pancake. I couldn't help but laugh and just threw the pancake back back in the pan to cook the freshly added mix.

With a small pile of pancakes ready we sat down to eat them with some nutty chocolate spread.
They were sweet, they were yummy, it was filling and it was fun.

Hope you had a fun and filling pancake day as well.

Till next time......

The Voice has spoken.

Mr Frog Goes To Church (pic 7)

This weeks pic is the result of a desperate man. I had no idea what I was going to throw on here today but then my daughter decided to put her frog under her flannel in the bath and told me he was going to sleep. It was so cute that I immediately got out my camera. I then decided I would try and cut out the image and paste it on another picture. And so I took Mr Frog to church. It took a while as I had never done anything like this in CS5 before and there was a lot of trial and error (should probably have looked for a tutorial on line but I like to do things the hard way)
And so I give you Mr. Frog Goes To Church.

Till next time...


the voice has spoken

The Girl In Red (pic 6)

Week six of project 52 sees my first attempt at using selection and colour conversion in CS5. It took a while for me to figure it out but eventually I got there. Using Schindler's List as an influence I chose this picture as my little Boogie was enjoying the winter weather in her red fur trimmed jacket.
I hope you find as much enjoyment looking at it as I did making it.

The Girl In Red

Till next time....

The voice has spoken

Undead But Not Forgotten, Bill Hinzman R.I.P.

Over the last few weeks there have been several deaths in the movie industry from directors to producers to actors but this morning I was sad to read of the death of the legendary Bill Hinzman.
Who the hell is that? Your probably asking yourself. And who could blame you, after all throughout his long career he never managed to break free of the B-Movie Horror genre. In fact although his career spanned 5 decades he still only made a relatively small number of films. Back in the 80s he even managed to direct a couple of lame direct to Video horror films, The slasher film 'The Majorettes'and the zombie flick 'Flesheater' It was in this second film that he basically reprised his most famous roll, that of the iconic first Zombie in George A. Romeros classic 1968 'Night Of The Living Dead.'

Along with 'Night,' he also worked with Romero in 'Theres Always Vanilla,' and 'The Crazies,' and over the years he appeared in such legendary box office blockbusters?!?!?! as Santa Claws, The Drunken Dead Guy and It Came From Trafalgar, among others but he never got a roll that would match that of the first Zombie in 'Night Of The Living Dead.'

If you havent seen the movie then go watch it immediately, plus, where have you been for the last few decades hiding under a rock?

Any way, I digress. If you have seen it then I'm sure you remember the first zombie scene with the, oft' quoted line, "Hes coming to get you Babara!" Well Bill Hinzman was that zombie, brobably the most famous zombie to ever grace the screen.

The trailer for this classic can also be found here 'Trailer' (just how many times can they get the title of the film into a trailer. Dont you justy love old trailers?)

So ladies and gentelmen I give you Bill Hinzman, the most famouse flesh eater there ever was.

Bill Hinzman

1936 - 2012

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.

Something I Love

Looking through all the pictures on our Mac I was surprised to find myself drawn to this picture when looking for a picture of something I love. I passed over countless pictures of Kara and loads of pictures of Otilia all of which I love as much as I love them but this one jumped out at me as soon as I saw it. Its a picture of me and my wires family. Her parents - Mircea and Aurelia, her sister - Simina, Otilia and me. Its one of the very few pictures I have of all of us together. It was taken the year before Kara was born so no little Boogie but it shows all my new family whom I love dearly and am proud to be a member of.

So may I present to you The Pasolescu's (and me)

I am sharing this picture of something i love with Love all Blogs and Albelli.

The Watcher In The Woods (pic 5)

This weeks pic was taken once again in Toting Common (truth be told it was taken the other week as this week has been a busy one) Ive tweaked it a little in CS5 from the RAW data. Having been taken on a dull January morning I increased the colour and saturation in order to make it a little more colourful without making it look cartoony and un-natural.

Look closely and you will see there is someone looking back at you. This is the reason I took the picture, I tried a few shots but in this one the little guy is looking directly at me.

Hope you like it.

Till next time.....

The voice has spoken.

Fun In The Sun, A Holiday Memory

As the title says this post is about a memorable holiday in the sun. Unfortunately it was the winter sun and it was freezing outside. I say unfortunately but actually the weather put an edge on it that otherwise wouldn't have been there. So here goes, my memorable holiday in the sun. Cue Sex Pistols song.

Back in 2004 I ventured out down a long and lonely road with only the vaguest idea in which direction I would inevitably end up travelling. After a few memorable months on the roads of Europe I eventually ended up in Romania, where I met my lovely wife Otilia (AKA Romanianmuminlondon). You may have read her blog, if not then do so now.

We met in a club in Bucharest and pretty soon were spending every day together. After celebrating Christmas and New Year in Bucharest the girlfriend of one of my friends said she could get us a house in the mountains of Transylvania for a few days. We immediately jumped at the chance.

And so it was that a week later a group of us set out for the mountains surrounding Brasov.

At the bus station in Bucharest we got the first glimpse of our transport for the next couple of hours, a minibus that didn't look big enough for our small group never mind the cue of passengers that were waiting at the stand. But half an hour later all people were on board and the bus trundled its way down the cold and ice covered streets of Bucharest. It was cramped and it wasn't particularly warm in the bus but at least me and Otilia had managed to get a seat next to each other. For the next couple of hours we wound our way around narrow, pot hole filled country roads. Through small towns and tiny run down villages. All very beautifully covered in thick deep white fluffy snow.

Eventually we made it, shaken but alive, to Brasov. A beautiful place that I highly recommend (along with the rest of Romania) At Brasov we met up with some other people and piled our selves into a couple of cars for the short journey up the mountain to the house. By the time we were dropped off it was dark, even colder and very late. A short walk from the muddy mountain road we found our selves faced with a large white house. As we entered, the true nature of our accommodation became apparent. Minimal lighting, no water (not even in the toilets), constant power cuts and just wood in the cellar to heat the house with. Did this dampen our spirits, hell no, it just made us try even harder to have fun.

Each room had in it a masonry heater. You place wood in the bottom, let it burn and it heats up the bricks creating a large heater. We quickly got these heating the rooms, something my wife is very adept at, and then got on with the business of having fun.

With the dawn of the next day the true beauty of the surrounding area could be seen. The trees were bare of leaves, the ground white with thick snow and the lake just a little down from the house was completely frozen over. Otilia and I headed out for an early morning walk to blast the cobwebs from our heads, needed after the drinks of the previous night. From the other side of the lake the cold and dominant house looked like something you would see in a horror movie. Think Evil Dead by a frozen lake.

After our walk we got back to the house and began chopping more wood for the heaters and the barbecue, after all people have to eat. As I mentioned at the start this house had no water what so ever (thank god for beer) so the toilet was, well, where ever you wanted it to be. You get the idea. After all we were in a secluded house in the mountains. After another walk in the woods we stayed in the house listening to music until the sun went down. Or should I say dropped as it seemed to disappear very fast and needless to say the real mountain coldness came back with a vengeance. Once the sun fell we collected wood from the cellar, piled it on the barbecue and lit a fire to be proud off. Cooked Romanian sausages were eaten, songs were sung and beer was drunk. The evening was tremendous. The woods looked fantastic in the moonlight and the soft glow of the fire and the sky was a brilliant mass of shining stars.

The following day was much the same as the one before, after all were in Evil Dead Vampire country. What else are you gonna do?? The evening was once again filled with great food, a hot fire, singing and drinking.

The next day, we packed our things and headed back on the road to Bucharest, stopping briefly to see the church that one of the girls was re-painting the murals in. Stunning work.

The journey back was much the same as the journey there and after a couple of days in the mountains Bucharest just didn't seem that cold any more.

Was this the best holiday I have ever had? No. Was this the best memory from my year bumming it around the bars of Europe? No. So why have I chosen to write about this particular memory? Simple really, it was the first time I holidayed with my wife. And lets face it, no water, power cuts, wood heaters, food and beer.
What better way to spend a few days with friends.

I would have provided a few pictures but unfortunately they are all on a CD in a pile of CD's and it would take me a week to find them. Maybe next time.



The voice has spoken.

This was our entry to the Tots100/ Al Fresco Holidays competition. Their sites look amazing and we would totally love to visit one someday, for now it’s a muddy camp site in Norfolk for us! There’s still time to enter the competition – take a look here.

A Skeleton From The Closet

Ive found myself thinking of friends recently, I don't know why but its been on my mind for a few weeks now. I thought it was time I shared a ghost from my past with you. Bared my soul so to speak, share the burden of secrecy, tragedy, betrayal and sadness that has been lurking in the darker corners of my mind for a few years now. Let the darkness unfold......

How many friends do you have? Before you answer that let me just clarify what I mean by friend. Forget the fake, pretend, un-real friends that many people gather on face book, twitter and the like. I'm not talking about some person you happen to chat to every now and then on the Internet but have never actually met. Not even the people you work with whom you may refer to as friends but if you quit work wouldn't miss at all. When I say friends I mean friends, true friends. People you would do anything for, people who you don't even have to see or speak to for months and yet if you suddenly needed them or they you, you would travel any distance to be with. People you would trust no matter what. That is what I mean by friend.

I am lucky enough to have a few of these friends, not too many (I don't believe any one has) but a hand full. That's all a person needs really, not too many but we all need one or two.The last time I added to this my list was 7 years ago when I was lucky enough to be able to add 2 people to my true friend list. Little did I know that only a few months after adding these 2 I would be scratching 1 from the list forever.

How well do you truly know a person?

I will ask this question again at the end, please don't take it to heart. I still trust impeccably those that remain on my list, but how well do any of us know any one else?

Some of you will know, some of you won't, but Ive been married before. I don't usually mention this but its relevance here is important so there you have it. At my wedding I chose one of my friends, as we all do, to be my best man. That is the true measure of friendship, to ask this of a person you must have a place in your heart for them. this man accepted of course. I had been the best man at his wedding a year earlier so it was no surprise really. This is usually a bond that cements a friendship forever. Usually!

We had been friends since we met when I was 16 and by the time I got married at 28 our friendship had grown very close. When he met his wife we (my wife included) went on holiday together, we drank together, we laughed together, we bared our wounds and healed together. Within a few years I had separated from my wife and moved to London. I still called in from time to time to see my friend and his family. They had 2 children, from a previous relationship of hers, that he had taken on and treated as his own. A young boy and his older sister.

After been in London for a few years with nothing happening in my life I left the country and bummed around Europe for a year. It was on this trip that I met Yiu Chi and Stef, 2 people that to this day I consider family. It was while in Turkey, camping on the southern coast of Turkey (Datca) that I received a call from my brother.

My friend had been arrested.

He stood accused of molesting his stepdaughter.

I was shocked, I couldn't believe it. It couldn't be true. But it was.

When I returned to England I visited the old factory I used to work at, the place where I first met my friend. After speaking with my old mates the full extent of what had been happening became known.

The following is what I have been told by those who knew him at the time. I have seen no official report on the matter but have no reason to doubt any of it.
His wife become pregnant. They were both overjoyed as you would expect. Shortly after announcing it to the kids the daughter asked my friend in private what he was hoping for. He answered that he would like a girl......... as he had finished with her!!! The following day at school she broke down in class and it all came flooding out. The following few days the true depth of his crimes became known. When the police arrested him they searched his car and found, hidden in the boot, child pornography. They searched his computer and found the same, there were even movies that he had filmed of his daughter by using cameras hidden in her bedroom and bathroom.

He was sentenced to 5 years (only!!!) due to a glowing character reference by his mother. Well she's not going to give him a bad one is she. 5 years for destroying an innocents life.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. This was a man whom I loved like a brother, he was kin, I trusted him implicitly. I felt unclean because I had cared so much for him, I felt betrayed because I had trusted him. I even felt a touch of guilt for not knowing what he was capable of. It made me think of an event that happened years earlier. I don't know for how many years he had been doing what he was doing but around 6 years earlier he and his wife were at my house and we were just making small talk as friends do. When they told me a story. At the time it seemed humorous, an innocent statement that could easily have been taken the wrong way.

One evening he had gone into the girls bedroom to kiss her goodnight. He thought she was asleep and she never made it known to him that she wasn't. The following day she came down and told her mother that he had touched her. He laughed and said he had stroked her hair as she was asleep and didn't want to wake her by kissing her. They laughed, the girl went on getting ready for school. When they told me this I too laughed as I, along with his wife, would never have believed it could have been anything else. Were we wrong, was that the first instance of the horror to come. Could we have, together, stopped him from doing anything else. I will never know.

I haven't seen his wife since this happened, slightly through fear. Right or wrong I simply wouldn't know what to say, how do you even begin to approach a subject like this. I have tried in the last couple of years to find her but, I trust, she now goes by her maiden name as I haven't been able to locate her through her married name and unfortunately I can't remember what her maiden name was. Shame on me.

I have no idea why this has all come to mind recently or why I felt I needed to share it with you but it does feel good to right it down. Maybe its a delayed reaction to a friend request I got on Facebook a few months back. It was from him. Why he would think I would want to know him now I have no idea, especially since I have a, soon to be, 3 year old daughter.

To finish off, I ask you once again. How well do you truly know a person?

Think about it, but don't give yourself nightmares.

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.