Our Daughter has the Nex Factor!

The Gleeful & Greedy Restaurant was packed on Saturday evening for the local final of the Nex Factor. It seemed as though every giraffe in the county was there to hear the finalists sing.

To cut a long story short, our family song and my sister Nektareeni's song didn't make the top three. The winner of the competition was an outstanding young singer, Nexandra.

However, there was a surprise in store for us ... Our middle child Necky Becky was awarded a special prize! When she gave her neck-bending rendering of 'Be Who You Wanna Be!' backed by local band The Stiffnex, she totally won the audience and judges over. She was way too young to enter, but had jumped up on stage last week anyway. Everyone said she had more neck than anyone, and it was decided to award her the accolade of 'The Neckiest Factor!'

You can listen to her song here: 'Be Who You Wanna Be!'

(NB: Necky Becky has just pointed out that her long-term ambition is to be a gardener, not a pop-star - but she doesn't see why that should stop her from singing if she wants to).

The Glorious Giraffeness of Everything!

I'm not getting different glasses!

After a week of my daughter Nexi neckling at me to get some 'cool' frames, and arguing about which of the photos she'd taken of me was best, I was feeling a little nexasperated.

I turned to Maureen.

"What should I do?" I sighed.

"Nothing!" replied Maureen. "You are who you are. All the years I've known you, you've looked like Raph G. Neckmann. Don't change!"

Oh, the joy of being true to one's self and the glorious giraffeness of everything!

Yesterday one of my pans of chutney boiled over. (I admit, I was distracted by blogging, and when I was about to clear up the mess, I got dragged away to practise our song for tomorrow). What a wonderful surprise I had today, to discover the spillage on the AFF Gas cooker had set into the most beautiful giraffe-pattern!

I feel at one with the universe!

The Best Food Grows On Trees!

Ambling around the blogosphere earlier today I came across a delicious-sounding recipe at Willow Manor. (I hope I've managed to put a link to it - we're quite new to the Interneck here in Neckelchester, and I've only just worked out how to enable Comments!) The recipe is called Blackstreet's Cabbage Roll Casserole, and I've asked Girth to try it out at the Gleeful & Greedy Restaurant, (without the meat in it of course, as we giraffes are vegetarian).

I've posted the picture of a willow tree to say 'thank you' to Willow for such a beautiful, varied and interesting blog.

The image shows one of the wild giraffes of Giraffe World. They like to browse among the trees by the streams, and also up on the knolls and mountains.

Below is a reproduction from an ancient tapestry in Raffsburgh Castle. It depicts two of our elegant ancestors eating scones and jam in a lovely summer garden surrounded by fruit trees.

Although we're now nearing mid-winter I've been warm and cosy in our kitchen engaged in one of my favourite seasonal activities - making chutney! I'm certainly no cook, as my family will verify, but my chutneys and jams are renowned throughout Knollshire!

One way of judging a good Giraffe World chutney is to look at the shapes made by the evaporate under the lid. You should be able to see very definite giraffe-pattern markings - can you spot them in the photograph?

Giraffe Glasses

My daughter Nexi told me that I need to change my glasses. She says my half-moon spectacles make me look more like her grandfather than her dad. (Apparently she formed this opinion during the Nex Factor singing competition at the weekend). I am commanded to get some more up-to-date glasses to wear when we perform our family song at next Saturday's final!

I decided to discreetly visit a few opticians in Raffsburgh to try on some frames. On my own ...

No chance! The family guessed my quest and insisted on coming along, 'to advise'. Nexi brought a camera and photographed me in a variety of frames. 'So we can all make a sensible decision at home!' said she.

Here I am in bespectacled splendour!

'The Executive'


'The Artist'




'The Singer-songwriter'

'The Astronomer'

Which will it be?

The Nex Factor comes to Neckelchester Village

We had a really exciting evening yesterday!

A couple of weeks ago Necky Becky had picked up a leaflet advertising a singing competition to be held in the village. The competition is called 'The Nex Factor', and lots of our friends are entering. Of course, we all wanted to join in!

After much debate, we put together several entries, and spent vast amounts of time rehearsing. I had a great number called 'Raph's Rap', which seemed to cause embarrassment and cringing among the family whenever I 'sang' it. My sister entered 'They call me Nektareeni', which she often performs in her restaurant. Necky Becky insisted on screeching 'Be Who You Wanna Be!', to the horror of her sister. Our final entry was our family song, 'With Our Necks Entwined'. We had written this to celebrate moving to Necky Knoll House and launching our new business.

The Village Hall was packed last night for the first round. All the giraffes of Neckelchester and Raffsburgh must have wanted to stick their necks out and sing! After a long evening of music, merriment and intense competition, the judges made their decisions as to which contestants will be going through to next week's final ...

Three of our acts are going through! (Unfortunately my rap number was not chosen). Twenty songs will be performed again next week at The Gleeful & Greedy Restaurant. Of these, one will be selected to win:

Knitting Neckwarmers in a Neckonomic Downturn

We giraffes feel the cold. The more neck you have, the longer the scarf you need! I'd been grumbling about the dearth of winter neck-attire in the village shops, when our enterprising elder daughter Nexi came up with the idea of knitting our own - and selling the surplus ...

I'm a great believer that when there is a downturn in the neckonomy a bit of flexibility keeps your head above water. With this in mind, and without thinking too much, I said "Great idea!" to Nexi.

Several hours later, my enthusiasm and our bank balance had diminished and my neck was aching from heaving dozens of boxes of knitting wool up the front steps. Necky Becky had voiced her shrill disapproval all the way round the village, but her sister had her own way. Soon the whole family, (and several friends), were resolutely knitting.

Maureen started me off on a simple chunky scarf, while she worked on a very distinguished-looking pinstriped creation to go with my business suit. Nexi was showing off with some circular needles, designing a whole range of stylish neckwarmers. She even managed to persuade Nukkle to stop knitting with his drumsticks!

When we had picked out the neck-wear we wanted to keep for our own use, (and the ones with too many dropped stitches - ie mine), we took the rest to be sold in Nektareeni's Fashions.

Nexi's neckwarmers have been a big hit! Maureen tells me we're in profit already and we've got a long list of orders. She also gently informed me that most of the scarves I knitted have been returned.

Rambling Again!

Over half a year has passed since I last wrote my Ramblings, and what a nextraordinary year it has been! I can hardly even begin to describe everything that has taken place. Suffice to say we have settled in uproariously at Necky Knoll House, had a fun-filled start to our Giraffe World Tours business and to top it all, experienced a most fantastic and unexpected adventure!

My sister Nektareeni suggested that Maureen should write a book about it all. I'll just keep on rambling about our neccentrically normal everyday lives ...