geocaching

Had a lovely day yesterday going out geocaching. Found four caches in a country park nearby. The views from the hill were amazing - right across the estuary. We went through some woods as well. Millie had a great time running around, even on sucha lovely dry day she managed to find a mud hole! So she needed a shower when we got home. She was covered in mud and grass seeds. Then we spent the evening watching films.

Today we went to see Richard for a birthday drink before he went back home to Australia. i didnt get up until 12.30 so we didnt have lunch at the pub as planned, just some nibbles. Just watching "The day the earth stood still" before going to bed. Got tomorrow off work as it is Bank Holiday. I plan to sort the fish tank out. I need to get a new light and some more fish and clean the tank out. Then I really MUST finish my assignment. It is the last one and is due in Friday next week.

physio

I saw the Consultant today about my knees. He says I have some arthritis and probable cartilage problems so I am going to have bilateral arthroscopies. After that i went to see the physio about my back. Yep, busy morning. He prodded and pocked and asked me loads of questions. He tells me I have facet neural irritation. He prodded my back and it helped a little. He has given me some exercises to do.

Went swimming again this afternoon with Alice. Already we are starting to improve. I did 25 lengths in 30 mins and Alice did 31 lengths.

She has her GCSE exam results tomorrow and is a little worried. I am sure she has done well. She is brainier than she gives herself credit.

I have thre ATCs that I really must get done tomorrow and in the post for facebook ATC group swap. I have had all month to do them. Typical of me to leave it to the last minute.

I also have the last assignment to do from the ILM 5 course that I am doing. Hopefully it will get a better result than my last couple of assignments. Cant believe it is nearly finished after all this time.

swimming classes

I phoned up my local swimming pool to see about classes to improve my swimming stroke. I was told that there was a class tonight for anyone aged 11+ for free. So I thought great. I will take Alice along with me as well. We were told it started at 6pm but after swimming for half an hour were told it actually started at 6.30pm and was in the baby pool. So I said to Alice "No way am I going in the baby pool" I spoke to the teacher and she offered me the 60+ non swimmers class! Cheek. I know she was being considerate but I CAN swim and I am NOT 60+ thank you very much.

So the only choice I have left is to pay £65 for a term of classes for improvers. Mmmmm, maybe not. Apparently there is a national initiate to get 16 and under and 60+ swimming so they are offering swimming lessons for free.

Ah well, we got to swim for half an hour for free.

101 in 1001

Just been reviewing my 101 in 1001 list of things to do. Not doing terribly well, considering 226 days have gone already. I have done 18 on my list with 4 in progress. Oh dear, need to step things up a bit. I actually only started with 68 on my list in January as I couldnt think of any more. But I have now had another think about and will be adding some more.

I see some people have finished their 1001 days and have made a new list of 101 things but have included those that they didn't get to do in the first list! LOL. That sounds like my lists. I am always carrying over unfunished items on my lists.

My family are all over the world on three different continents and over the next 750 days there will be some travelling going on. Hopefully we can get involved with some of it though of course finances will limit what we can do.

June 2010 – Andy and me and Alice ( and poss Sev) go to Scotland
June 2010 – Mum and dad travelling Europe for one month
September 2010 – Alyson visiting from US
Christmas 2010 – Stuart and Suzanne coming over from Australia for 3/5 weeks
- Mum is thinking of all of us staying in one place again for a weekend or so in early Jan
April/May 2011 – Kayleigh, Rebekkah and mum (and dad?) going to Australia

Definetly doing Scotland. Would love to go to Australia, but that will be a big expense but then we do have a few years to save. Save HUH, don't make me laugh. Will definetly be up for a get together when Stu and Suz come over. Lots of exciting things to look forward to over the next few years.

swimming

Went swimming with Alice today. Was very pleasant, I managed 20 lengths and she did 24. Will need to get another pair of goggles as we had to keep on sharing. The plan is to do the direct debit thing which is just £20 a month and I can swim whenever I want. So I plan to do do 5 days a week after work and at weekends go for a walk with Millie.
My knees really hurt when I was swimming though, so when I see the consultant on Wednesday i will check that it will be okay to continue swimming.
I think if I do do this I will need to get a swimming hat so I dont have to wash my hair everyday and I want a float as well so i can do the leg strengthening lengths that kill!

nice summer's day

Had a nice summer's day today. Got up late and pottered about the house. Got my purple matchbox ready to be posted tomorrow. Just waiting for the address so I can post my ten pages from ten different books on. In the afternoon we went to the in laws for dinner. Had a roast dinner out in the garden. I took my niece and nephew geocaching just before dinner. It was great fun walking through the woods with them, something I think they are not familiar with doing. We found the cache, well my niece did, so that was good fortune.
Just finished watching "Catch me if you can". I love Leonardo di Caprio. Have decided to add to my 101 in 1001 things to watch all his films. I have a few more things to add to my 101 as I only ended up with about 60+ things to do.
One of the the things to add is to try and donate as much grains of rice as I can. Apparently 19,200 to feed one person for one day. I have done 1,000 so far!! Got a long way to go yet. Try it - http://www.freerice.com/ You get to donate and help the poor without having to spend any money yourself. Do check it out - it is really easy.

swimming

Now that I can't walk far, nor cycle or do gardening I am left with swimming. So as of pay day next Wednesday the plan is to pay £20 a month by direct debit so I can go swimming as often as I want, every day if I wish. I will aim between 3-7 times a week and see how it goes. Occupational Health at work have referred me for physiotherapy so between the two I hope to get my back stronger so I can go back to walking the dogs at least.

Rope Runners

We took the kids and my brother and his four kids to a place called Rope Runners in Kelvedon Hatch. It is a series of poles with rope obstacles to move across at three different levels. They all had a great time, even my brother. I really wanted to have a go but my back is still not good. Very disappointed as it looked great fun. Certainly an incentive to strengthen my core muscles.

results day (yesterday)

The A level results came out yesterday. Sev got D, E, E, E, and U. Not as good as he had hoped! In fact his hands were shaking he was so shocked. So that means he wont be trying to get in the Navy as an officer. But I think he is okay with going in as a rating being an Aircraft Operator. He has to have a medical and a final assessment before finally joining up. It just takes months and months. His mate applied to join the RAF last December and is finally joining this September. Sev started his application in February this year.

I spoke to my niece about her AS levels and amazingly she got exactly the same grades as Sev! She was pleased though as it means she can continue into the next year for her A2 exams.

My back has been unbearable these past few days. Fortunately today it seems a bit better. At least I can sit and stand without pain for a while. Going to go to Occupational Health on Monday afternoon and have finally filled in the incident form from when I hurt my back two months ago. Not sure what Health and Safety team will think of it! LOL. Oh well, my manager told me to fill it in.

Went to see Time Traveller's wife yesterday. It was pretty good. I certainly enjoyed it and didnt remember the ending until near the end. I didnt remember the daughter at all, so that was nice to watch that bit. Bless Alice, she loves these love stories so we had an enjoyable evening together at the cinema. Told her all about my first love, she reckons that is the first time she has heard me tell her about it. I guess I don't really talk a great deal to her about stuff. She has absolutely no idea what sort of person I was as a teenager. Hopefully when things get back into a routine we can spend more time together and get to chat more.

It feels like we are in limbo at home at the moment. With Sarah gone, the house is most definetly quieter. Sev is always out and Alice is either sleeping or on the computer. It seems like we are kind of waiting for Sev to go off to the Navy and Alice to go back to college. It has been a very long summer. Shame it hasn't been lovely Portugal type weather so we can enjoy it more.

Sev's Navy thing is really dragging on. First he wanted to go in as a rating, then cos he did so well in the aptitude test they felt he should try for officer. He went for one interview, it was for ratings so they said come back another day. He went for the officer interview and they felt he hadn't had enough experience as he has not worked, is not a captain of a team or anything at all. So he decided to give up on that and go back to being a rating. He has an interview for rating on Wednesday. However, in the meantime the outcome of the officer interview is that they put him forward for a leadership course in mid September. Now does he still get to do that course if he is going down the rating route? Hopefully they will be able to tell us on Wednesday. Not sure whether to call them up first and explain what has happened or wait until then. I just want him to join up so he has some structure to his life. It looks like he wont make the September intake now. So that is another four months that he will be hanging around doing nothing. No work, no driving lessons. ARGHHH, how annoying. But time passes and I am sure it will all work out eventually.

new kitchen

My list of 101 things to do in 1001 days is starting to look good, getting loads of crossed off items now. The ones I am most pleased about are the kitchen related ones. We finally have a new fitted kitchen. I have never had one, so am very very excited and so pleased to have such a lovely kitchen. Just today we have had the vinyl flooring laid through the dining room and kitchen so now it is completed. YAY.

I think I may need to add some more things to my list because I don't actually have 101 things as yet! LOL.

Favourite things at the moment are geocaching and facebook farm and zoo. And typing maniac on facebook. I checked my typing speed yesterday on the internet and it is 80wpm. WOW. I am really loving geocaching though. I am going to go to a "meet" in London where the founder of the geocaching website is visiting from America. It will be a great chance to meet up with others who like the challenge and fun of geocaching. Needless to say Andy wont be coming as he really isnt in to it at all.

Sarah and I went to visit mum with Alice in Clacton and left Alice with my mum to go shopping. They had fun, Alice got some fancy welly boots, wish they were my size! Sarah and I went off geocaching. There are only four in the area, three easy ones and one with a tricky puzzle to work out. We thought we had got the puzzle finally. Sarah and I spent ages trying to break the code, only to find out it was dead easy once you were on site. We did actually get the right co-ordinates and were searching in the right area, but because we couldn't find it we started searching elsewhere. Two hours later, bladders bursting and tummies empty we went back to mum's for a break. Afterwards we brought my baby brother James and Alice with us to go find the tricky cache and the two easy ones. We found one quick easy one on the way back earlier. It still took quite a while, but we were surer of our co-ordinates this time and looked harder. It took all four of us a good 30-60 minutes to find. The cache, a small tupperware box with some goodies, was very well hidden, so we were delighted when we found it. I found this one, Sarah had found the easy one earlier and then we went on to find the other two easy ones. James found one and Alice found one. So everyone was happy. Now I have two trackable geocoins to take with me to London to pass on to others. One of the geocoins wants to go east, so I will need to find someone going on holiday abroad.

Next week is a big week for Sev. He has yet another Navy interview on Wednesday followed by his AS level results on Thursday. I don't think he is too bothered about the results as it wont affect him going in to the Navy. Alice gets her results the week after. Sarah is in Devon with Ashly and his mum and dad. I think they hope to go hiking and climbing a lot. I have no idea WHERE in Devon she is! LOL I hope she has a great time before coming back to the drudgery of work, work and more work.

Sarah has decided to change from Chemistry to Maths and will be starting from Year One again in September. I just hope she enjoys this more. Missing her loads, always wish we had more time for cuddles and getting close, but just never seem to manage it. I don't think she had a good time at home this time round with her friends giving her grief and it being a bit boring for her. At least we did one day's worth of geocaching. She is the only one that actually enjoys the challenge as much as me.