Can Carbo, Figueres

I am at Michael Muldoon's Can Carbo near Figueres which is about 2 hours north of Barcelona. Gavin came over with me and we are helping Michael turn it from a derelict farmhouse into an upmarket Bread and Breakfast. If ever you are travelling in this area next year or later then I strongly recommend you stay for a couple of nights. There's Barcelona, Figueres birthplace of Dali, the Costa Brava (much nicer than it sounds) and Peralada where they have Glyndebourne like concerts. Can Carbo will be lovely and Michael will be the perfect landlady.

Gavin and I got here on Tuesday night and we're staying until Monday. We have been cleaning the kitchen, moved 100 bags of cement into the store room and then cleared stones and rubbish from the stairs up to the private residence. We have got to finish that today.

Comments:
Why doesn't that surprise me about Dad - I bet he bossed everyone about too! x
Posted by: Ruth | December 09, 2006 at 01:08 PM

For the record, George may have exaggerated on the cement bag front: not quite 100, but 50. Also, he only turned up at the end of the job and then took all the credit.
Posted by: Gavin | December 03, 2006 at 08:58 PM

Say hi to Gavin and Mike from me. Hope the bags of cement were small ones. Glad to see dogs are allowed in Spain!
x David
Posted by: David | December 01, 2006 at 11:09 AM

Hoverspeed, introducing Old Stories

The competition

Well I've been doing a bit of maintenance. Changed the About box, added a pic to the home page, added a photo album and re-organized the categories. I've added a new category called Old Stories. The idea is that we can put in old stories under this. I'm thinking of Tom's near death experience in the Canal de Midi, Paul's parachuting attempts at Jacobs, Trev's cliff-hanging experience with a hang-glider and others. I'll start it with Dad's Hover Speed story. Read it here.  Download hoverspeed_story_by_mea_keeling.pdf.

Hey, Simon you could likewise upload your Arctic story ...  xxx George

Casewise AGM

Casewise had its AGM yesterday. Simon was there and he was of great assistance. We passed that complicated motion in the agenda, using sub-point 5. That means that we will increase the holding company P&L account from about £500K to about £1,200K. We need the approval of a judge first. This should be a formality. (Famous last words) The formality takes at least another 2 months. When thats all ove that means we will legally be able to buy back shares, pay preference dividends and pay dividends on ordinary shares. In that order. What Simon pointed out was that the £500K does go  up and down and I will be watching it like a hawk! Thats because I want Casewise to pay dividends on Ordinary shares so I get some dosh. Those of you who want to sell your shares back come before me in the pecking order :-( It's only fair. If you decide to keep some or all of your shares then there may be a dividend in 2007. I am aiming at somewhere between £1 and £5 per share.

Rob

great idea George, just to say that if you wanted me to host a website, I could possibly arrange that through exahost.
all that's needed to be done is to choose a domain name, and we could say put a family tree on it, and perhaps other information like barbars books, etc.
if people are keen and prepared to offer to help with the content, I would be prepared to pay for the domain name and the hosting for the first year at least. we could call the site
8keelingbrothers.co.uk
or may be keelingfamilytree.co.uk
what say you?
George replied: You can do all of the above on typepad. We could even get an 8brothers.net URL to point straight at it. So I suggest that we don't go crazy yet.

Toms post

What a good idea! Well done R T G & D and thanks G for offering to pay the sub pro tem.

Ref the 17th Dec, the current roll call is

Mum and Dad, Rob sounds almost definite, Jo, Alice, Rory, Jude, Trev, Jaq, Tom, Ted, George, Ruth, Trev, Carolyn, Simon, Urs, Eila, TSAEIO, Jim, Emma, Izzy, Polly, Josh, Rosie. Trev and Simon are welcome to encourage their older children to come along and the same applies to Poppy. Camilla spoke to Siobhan last night and sadly said that she and David will be unable to make it. Paul's gang and Lizzie will be away.

Did anyone see the picture of Bush and Putin on the front the Telegraph yesterday, wearing Vietnamese national dresses? Very Prisoners of the Sun when our heroes are being prepared for sacrifice on the Inca's bonfire I thought....me! wear that patagonian petticoat? never! and when I say never I mean never!...not at all, your hat is very chic

Possibly Amusing

The other day I was shown a booklet, that a friend had discovered in his Grandfather’s briefcase, from WWII.  The booklet is called ‘A Short Guide to Great Britain’ it was issued by ‘The War and Navy Departments, Washington DC.  It was issued to all US servicemen coming to Britain in 1942.  As you can imagine it is full of gems throughout, but there is one particular entry that stands out.  This is a direct quote.

British Women At War.
A British women officer or non-commissioned officer can – and often does – give orders to a man private.  The men obey smartly and know it is no shame.  For British women have proven themselves in this war.  They have stuck to their posts near burning ammunition dumps, delivered messages afoot after their motorcycles have been blasted from under them.  They have pulled aviators from burning planes. They have died at the gun posts and as they fell another girl has stepped directly into the position and “carried on”.  There is not a single record in this war of any British woman in uniformed service quitting her post or failing in her duty under fire. Now you understand why British soldiers respect the woman in uniform.  They have won the right to the utmost respect.  When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic – remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich 

evening at george's

yes a fine evening at Georges with shepherds pie followed by all getting our kit off and hanging it on the shower hotrail. i for one will sadly not make it to georges exit party as i will be on the way back from meribel that evening.

love you all - dr trev

Somebody lost their nickers

Somebody lost their nickers. I found them on the towel rail in the shower room. I will only send them back if you declare your interest by posting a comment on this post. They are Gap M 31/33. So probably a bit tight for Trevor. I don't think they are Rob's because he did not stay here and had no reason to get his kit off.

xx George

Getting Started

Rob, Trev, David and I had dinner last night. David arrived first and one of the ideas we had was to create a blog for us 8 brothers. Dinner was great. D and I stayed up until 2.30 gossiping. Trev was staying overnight because he is going to a medical conference in London today. Sorry I didn't invite any others of you. It was all a bit impromptu.

George

Whats it for?

What's it for? Well it's just so that we can keep each other up to date. For example somebody could write an account of the party on the 17th Dec at Toms. Mum and Dad are going to be there. The whole George branch is coming, including Carolyn. Jim's shower will be there. I don't know who else will be. Then the other bros can catch up on what they missed. When you make a post you can put it in a category. I have created a category for each brother.

Another big event coming up is my exit London party. It will be on Saturday 6th January starting around 9pm. All brothers are invited along with their spouses and grown up children. Then I am off to Berlin the following week. The new tenants will be moving in on the 15th.

You can insert pics in a post, like this one of me posing outside 3 Sheffield Terrace last August. Lots of Love, George