a1nnie

Earth Hour

2011-02-27T14:29:00.002-08:00

What are YOU doing at 8.30pm on Saturday 26th March? Millions of people from around the globe will be switching off their lights in a silent campaign to reduce global warming.

Check out the WWF site for more information - http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk

Earth Hour

2011-02-27T14:29:00.001-08:00

SNOW

2010-12-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

It's been snowing for three days and the temperatur hasn't risen above zero so we have loads of snow still. I can't believe how deep it is. I don't think it has snowed this much for a very long time. Cars are just about getting around now and Andy and I went shopping yesterday and today. But otherwise we have all stayed in - fortunately no-one has had to travel in to work; although Andy is working in his office in the garden. Andy's route to work-

We took the dogs for a quick run over the green. Millie loves the snow and had a fantastic time chasing snowballs. Diesel was just a bit bemused by it all.

Millie getting completely covered in snow -

Both Millie and Diesel waiting for a snowball to catch.Millie having fun in the snow.

Frosty morning

2010-11-28T09:16:00.000-08:00

When I woke up this morning I noticed the heavy frost and when I was drinking my tea the sun started shining. Remembering that today was my last chance to get some photos done for the Facebook's Photography Trading Card Group, I leapt up and went outside with my camera. I left the dogs behind as I wanted to concentrate on the photo shoot. The car needed defrosting first!
There were some really cool frost patterns on the car windows.

Going straight to the woods, I started snapping; here are some of the photos taken today. It was a lovely morning and I was really surprised at how many golfers and dog walkers there were out at 9am on a very cold Sunday morning. I like these two the most. The posts lead the eye along the path to the man walking his dog right at the end. And this one is of a hedge covered in frost.

Then, I came back and collected the dogs and took them for a long walk. It was hard work trying to get some good photos of them both in the same shot!!

Early start

2010-11-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

Bleurgh. It is 7am and Andy has already dropped me off at work. However, I can't get into the office until 7.30am so am sitting in the cold 24 hour computer room waiting for the receptionist to arrive so I can get to my desk and start work. When Andy dropped me off early last time I actually started doing some work, but I wont get paid for it, so I'm not doing it this time.

So where were we with the films? Argh, no I haven't got my list, it is on my laptop at home. I will just have to continue this tonight.

Films - cont'd..

2010-11-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

Carrying on with my list of films watched in the past couple of years.

The Boy in the striped pyjamas

Set during World War II, a stry seen through the inocent eyes of Bruno, the eight year old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

We hired this film one evening from Blockbusters. It's a very sad film,

Coraline
A very strange film, along the lines of a scary fairy tale. I enjoyed watching it, if only because it was so different from the usual. The voices are from Dakota fanning, Teri Hatching, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

When Coraline moves to an old house, she feels feels bored and neglected by her parents. She finds a hidden door with a bricked up passage. During the night, she crosses the passage and finds a parallel world where everybody has buttons instead of eyes, with caring parents and all ehr dreams coming true. When te Other Mother invites Coraline to stay in her world forever, the girl refuses and finds that the alternate reality where she is trapped s only a trick to lure her.

The day the earth stood still

To be honest I don't remember much about this film. I checked a trailer out to remind me. I recall Keanu Reeves being in it, so apart from that I guess it wasn't that good!

Christmas cake

2010-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

Well the Christmas cake is in the oven and I have a four hour wait until it is ready! When I popped to the supermarket to get some of the ingredients the shelves had been mobbed of flour and dried fruit. I think everyone is making Christmas cake this weekend.

countdown

2010-11-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

In the countdown to Christmas, 6 weeks, I'm told, I thought I ought to check how much time I have left to complete my 101 things to do in 1001 days. I had a slight panic that I might be fast running out of time.

I started this challenge on 9 Jan 2009 and it is due to finish on 8 October 2011, which happens to be my mum's 66th birthday. So that means I have already had 673 days and have only 329 days left. That means 47 weeks or 10 months and 25 days. Or 7396 hours.

Now 10 months sounds alright, but consider this. I am likely to spend 4 months of that time sleeping (more if I get a chance!), 2 1/2 months at work and probably 2 1/2 months wasting time on my laptop. So that only leaves me just over a one month to finish off my challenge.

As I review this challenge, I notice how much my priorities have changed over the past 673 days. There are some things on the list, that I am quite unlikely to do now, although at the time, I thought would be feasible. I am unlikely to go to Tai Chi or Pilates, much as I would like to - I just can't afford it. I am still working on getting Andy to join me in salsa dancing lessons. I'd love to do this dance, it is so sexy and means you get up close to your partner. Maybe in January? We'll see.

Well I think I have cracked number 73 on my list -watching all those films, so I had better take another look at my list of things to do and see what else I can do within the deadline.

list of films

2010-11-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

Right, Sev and I have just gone through the alphabet and compared notes with regards to listing films we have watched from a to z.

He keeps strange hours and watches late night films and watches chick flicks with his girlfriend.

So here are both our lists. I will go into mine in a bit more detail over the next day or two.

Mine---Sev's
Angels and Demons --- Adventure Land
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas --- Batman Returns
Coraline --- Click
The Day the Earth stood still --- Dirty Dancing
Evan Almighty --- Epic movie
The Final Destination --- The Final Destination
Great Escape --- GI Joe
The Hangover --- Happyness
Iron man 2 --- I am Legend
Julie and Julia --- Jarhead
Kill Bill --- Kick Ass
League of gentlemen --- Love Actually
Mama mia --- Marley and Me
Night at the museum 2 --- The Notebook
One hour photo --- Oceans 11
Panic room --- Pirates of the Caribbean
Quantum of Solace --- Quantum of Solace
Rock school --- Road Trip
Star Trek --- Star Trek
Time traveller's wife --- Terminal
United 93 --- United 93
Van Helsing --- Van Helsing
Wall-E --- Waterworld
X-men origins - Wolverine --- xXx
You, Me and Dupree --- Yes Man
Zulu --- Zombieland

I've cheated a bit with G and Z, I couldn't think of anything that I have watched in the past 18 months beginning with these 2 letters, so have included a film that I have seen, but not for a while. Everything else I have seen recently.

films

2010-11-13T12:21:00.001-08:00

Number 73 of my 101 list of things to do in 1001 days.

I have neglected to keep a log of all the films I have been watching over the past year or so. I must check my deadline too!

Number 73 of my list is to watch 26 films beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Strangely enough I have managed to tick off some of those I thought might be difficult, like x and i. I have even managed to watch a film that was a number! How's that! LOL I usually watch films on SKY or normal channels, rarely going to the cinema - it is just too expensive.

So here is a quick rundown of my list so far. As mentioned above I have neglected to keep a log of films I have watched, so this list is retrospective.

2012

Starring John Cusack the storyline is that Dr Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns the US President that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fracton of the world's opulation, the entire race is doomed. The world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the imending catclysm whilst volcanic eruptions and earthquakes wreak havoc around the world.

In my humble opinion it was okay - your average American apocolyptic film with the usual good effects. Not something I would be in a hurry to watch again, unless there is nothing else!

Angels and Demons

Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor are two of my favourite actors and they were great in this film. I have read all the Dan Brown books, so was very excited when this film came out. We did go and see it at the cinema and I have seen it again on the television.

Storyline - When a murder of a physicist, Leonardo Vetro, finds a symbolist, Robert Langdon, and Mr Vetra's daughter, on an adventure for a secret brotherhood, The Illuminati. Clues lead them all around the Vatican, including the four altars of science, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. An assassin, working for the Illuminati, has captured four cardinals and murders each of them painfully. Robert and Vittoria also are searing for a very destructive weapon that could kill millions.

It has everything I like in a film - my favourite actors, mystery and suspense and some gory deaths with a twist at the end. Great. Definitely would watch this again.

Aliens in the attic

This was hilarious, we watched this about a month ago on Sky, I think.

Storyline - An extended family go on summer vacation. When they have problem with the television image the kids go up to the attic/roof to find the antenna dish destroyed. They find out that there are four alien invaders preparing to invade Earth using amind control weapon that only affects adults. The group of children lock the four aliens in the attic and try to force the adults to leave the house so they can deal with the aliens. One of the aliens doesn't want to harm the people on Earth and helps the children to fend off the baddy aliens. Because they are small and their vulnerability is depictedin the film, it is really quite funny. The children have fun with the mind control weapon on an annoying older sister's boyfriend who is quite obnoxious, that was hilarious too.

I will do the rest of the list another day.

Photography ATCs

2010-11-07T04:07:00.000-08:00

Here is my favourite of the six photography ATCs that I received this week.

and here are the ones I sent out:

Am itching to get out and start to take more photos ready for this month's swap.

2010-11-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

What to do this weekend? Too many things to choose from! Geocaching, geneology or photo-taking. Andy and I are going to help Sarah move into her new flat. Lo and behold there is a cache not 500 feet from her front door! heehee. Also if the weather stays dry tomorrow, and I'm in the mood for it, I might take Millie for a walk with me - and perhaps pick up a few caches.

I have been researching Andy's family history for a while now and have done all that i can on the internet. So now it is down to the parish records. Luckily his family have all lived in the same county for generations, so that makes it easier to research! YAY. So I might go to the County Records office tomorrow to do some more searching of births, deaths and marriages in the parish records. First of all though i gotta get up early and take Alice to work for 8am. GROAN. Well I can have a lie in on Sunday. Monday morning we are up very early to go to Sarah's. (Hi Sarah!!)

The photo-taking comes from my recent recipt of some photography ATCs. There is a newish group on facebook where people can swap their photography on ATC sized cards. I got a nice collection this week. Will upload them over the weekend. Add that to my list! LOL. So I got to looking on the web for photography themes. One person has photos of takeaway containers. On their own, each individual photo would be a bit odd, but a collection of them looks okay. Like a set. Some ideas i got from looking on another site http://www.danielgallant.com/Photo-Theme-Series are windows, door knockers, texture in nature and texture in architecture, water images, clouds and trees. I don't want to do boring or cutsey photos, like of the dogs or scenery. I want to do more artsy type photos. So we'll see what comes out of this wekend.

Diesel

2010-10-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

After getting back from walking Millie last Saturday, my mum called to say that someone had a 2yr old boxer who needed a good home. So that night we drove up to meet Diesel. He is very excitable, about the same size as Millie. They seemed to get on, and both Andy and I liked him. So we brought him home that night. He has been absolutely brilliant and has settled nicely into our routine. I think he likes being with Millie and Andy all day, as previously his owners were out at work all day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imBjcjI1Nhw

They love to playfight together, above is a video of the two of them playing in the living room. At first we walked Diesel off lead in a secure park as we were not too sure if he would come back easily. Thankfully he seems to realise we are his "pack" now and follows Millie everywhere. So when we call them, they both come back.Yesterday and today we have walked them both off lead in the woods and open park. He has been very good and has come back, albeit not as well as Millie does when he is distracted, but we have not struggled as yet.

A walk in the park

2010-10-16T06:51:00.000-07:00

Just been for a very lovely walk with Millie. We went about three miles along the sea wall. I managed to find four new caches, all quite easily, but we did have to climb up two very steep hills during the trip. It was a gorgeous sunny day, which certainly makes a walk much more enjoyable. We did have to pass some cows though, which always makes me nervous. Thankfully, with Millie on the lead we got passed them without too much bother. As always she needed a shower when we got back as her feet were quite muddy and she managed to roll in one of the many cow pats. Smelly dog.

Mum rang yesterday about a 2yr old boxer who is looking for a home. So after having phoned the owner, we have agreed to go and visit the dog tonight. I am quite excited about Millie having a playpal, but we will see how it goes.

chatting

2010-10-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Had a lovely chat with Sarah over the course of the day. First of all by email at work - which was fun. She was in the Uni library - bored! Then we chatted on the phone. That was nice, because no-one was at home, so I was a bit lonely.

I was sitting in the living room quietly playing tetris on facebook, after having popped upstairs to do a pee, when I heard some moving around upstairs. At first i wondered who/what was up there as everyone was out. Then I realised Millie was not in the living room. The daft dog had gotten trapped in Alice's bedroom and could not open the door. LOL. So I wen to rescue her and she was pretty excited to see me again. She was funny.

PS
Hello sarah :D

Pizza cake

2010-10-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

It is Sev's 19th birthday tomorrow and I wanted to make a "pizza" cake. I saw this decoration for a cake in a cookery book at Andy's mum's house. As Sev likes pizza I thought it would be a fun thing to do. So I made a some small cakes yesterday to trial out the decoration. I made these with icing sugar and water mix, but today when I made the bigger pizza cake, I used butter icing which gives a better finish, I think.

Hope he likes it.

10/10/10 CITO Event

2010-10-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

It is geocaching's 10th year and so 10th october 2010 was a very special day that needed to be celebrated big time. Over 76 thousand people logged a cache on this auspicious day, smashing the previous record of 50 thousand in April this year.

Needless to say, I joined in too. I went to Essex's first ever CITO event. CITO = Cache in Trash out. So this meant clearing out any rubbish, or trash, that was lying around in one of the country parks. As it is a stunning beautiful area that I visit regularly, I felt I ought to do "my bit". So off I went and met up with over 20 other cachers and between us we filled a trailer full of rubbish - it was quite unbelievable just how much rubbish there was.

Thankfully the weather was wonderful and dry. It was a little windy in the country park, but the sunny and dry day more than made up for a bit of wind. In fact it was such a lovely day I persuaded Andy to come for a walk with me and Millie in the late afternoon. After going round in circles in a field full of cow pats getting lost, and being chased by a herd of cows, I only managed to nab one more cache. And Andy was not impressed with the walk at all. But all in all it was a good day.

just a normal weekend

2010-10-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

Had a nice day today. Andy and I had a lie in, after getting up at 6am every morning this week, it was a treat to lie in bed until 9. After a bath and a leisurely breakfast we took Millie for a walk. We tried to find a geocache which involved crossing a field with some horses. Now I am not too scared of horses, but when a bigun come running at you, just a week after another horse tried kicking Millie, it is a little scary. So I told Andy to walk quickly with Millie to get off the field, whilst I walked as quick as I could with the horse at my shoulder. So needless to say, i didn't get the cache. I will just have to try again without taking Millie with us.

So we went on to a country park just a quarter mile further and had a lovely walk around there. It had a nice cafe, shop and three trails. The three different trails took you around the country park with a focus on three different things, like sculpture, WW2 and explosives. The park used to have a factory on it which produced dynamite, gelignite, and other explosives, so it has quite an interesting history.

One strnage thing we did see was some very old style houses, like 15th century old, in a sort of circle with the intention of making a village and village green. One house had been transported from Stansted area when they built Stansted airport. Apparently the house was sold to the current owners for 50p. How bizarre. Even more bizarre the house is currently being protected by chipboard, so it looked very strange with a chipboard house and thatched roof.

Needless to say Millie managed to jump into a very smelly ditch, so she needed a shower when we got back.

Caching in Essex

2010-10-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

I went caching one night after work. It was a dry day, we've had a lot of rain this week. So I took the opportunity to go for a nice walk in the Essex countryside. The walk was about 2miles, which was just about right for me. It took me 2hours, but I was sauntering along and took loads of photos. My last cache I nabbed just as it was getting dark. Below are some photos from my circular route.
These berries were very photogenic!

I was amazed to come across these llamas whilst I was out walking.

This is a typical cache pot

Church Micros

2010-09-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

Andy and I took part in a Ride and Stride event yesterday. This is about visiting churches and trying to raise money towards the upkeep of those churches. Andy and I were out all day. Of course it was the perfect excuse to get some church micros to notch up some more caches. We came across some truly amazing places of worship. It is such a shame that not so many people use them anymore, but we were pleasantly surprised with the enthusiasm of some of the people 'manning' the church open days. Of the 11 churches we visited we only went inside four of them.

This is the first one we visited for a quick 'cache and dash' church micro. It was only 9.30am so no-one was around, but it is not used for regular worship anymore so there are no seats inside - we peeked through the windows! Being perched high above a hill it can be seen from the main road and also has magnificent views across the Essex countryside.

The next church looked quite plain on the outside but inside it had some marvellous decoration from early 20th century artists with some very lovely aluminium panels.

Our next stop was at St Andrews Church. Here is the litch gate. The church is over 800 years old, with people worshipping in this spot for generations, including Andy's family. We spent some time here and went to find Andy's nan's grave.

Next on our list was North Ockendon's St Mary Magdalene Church. This is thought to date back t before 1075AD. However it may date as far as 630AD ast St Cedd, Bishop of the East Saxons, is thought to have carried out baptisms at the adjacent St Cedd's Well. I loved these memorials of the Poynts family.

We were warmly greeted by some people who were manning the open day at the church. They told us all about the history of the church and we had a good look at everything. There were these lovely alabaster memorials on the wall to the Poynts family who figured highly in the history of the church. The one on the left is one of two, one of them Sir James Poynts. There are about eight of the white ones on the left that were put up between 1603 and 1607 which apparenlty were an attempt to cover previous family history by recording eight more Poynts from 1307 to 1603. The first attempt at family tree!

All in all we had a great day and I got 12 more caches to add to my 800 finds. All good.

Day Ten = Creativity Boot Camp

2010-06-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Day ten - Creativity Boot Camp.
I've missed a few days cos I wanted to take photos but just haven't done that. So today have decided just to do the journalling for now and possibly think about the photos later.

Journal prompt today is thinking about the experiences of the day. That's easy, it's like making a list. I can do lists. In fact I love them.

At the end of your day, think about the millions of sensations you experienced. Try to answer these questions.....
Which ones stand out in your mind as being the most pleasant?
Today I finally collated a load of data from two different people that will answer a question that we have been trying to get hold of for over a month. I felt really pleased that we finally had cracked it, in just one day's hard work. Now all I have to do is analyse it all!

Were there any that were repulsive?
I had to go to the GP today with suspected kidney infection. I was asked to pee into a tube - yuk, why cant we have a pot to make it a little easier, instead of trying to aim, without being able to see clearly down there, to pee into a pot which is less than an inch wide. That was yukky especially as I managed to pee all over my hand. But even worse was seeing how awful my urine actually looked. NOT healthy, not healthy at all. So thankfully I have some antibiotics and will start to feel a little bit better.

Did any bring back memories from your past?
I can't really think of anything specific really, not from very old past. But more recently I had a kidney infection only a few months a go and remembered how bad the pain was then.

Did any motivate you to do anything particular?
Oh gosh, I am harping on about this blasted kidney infection, when I really dont want to think about it, I just want to get better... quickly. I have been feeling uncomfortable and suspicious of a urine infection. Then in the morning the pain started to travel to the side of my back. Exactly the same as a couple of months ago when I had an infection before. So this pain motivated me to make the doctor's appointment, rather than wait and hope it goes away. Cos that just makes the pain much much worse. So I am pleased I was motivated enough to do that.

Did any of these sensations inspire you in your creations?
Not today.

If you were to try and capture creatively any of these sensations, how would you do it?
Hmmm, that's a tricky one. I don't really know to be honest. I had a great journey home, very quick with little traffic, and it didnt take too long to get out of the car park, like it usually does. So I did some journalling about how leaving the car park is the best part of my day.

30 day colour challenge

2010-06-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

I am off to buy a journal after work so I can join in on this challenge which starts today. How exciting. I wish I didnt have to go to work, so I could stay at home and CREATE all day!!!

30 day colour challenge

2010-06-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

href="http://www.iheartrunwithscissors.com/2010/06/30-day-journal-challenge.html">

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell Video

2010-06-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell Video

An absolute fravourite of mine from when I was about 19years old. Playing this as loud as physically possible and yelling at the loudest possible. Sod the neighbours! I remember singing this with a group of work colleagues one new year's eve. We all had to work New Year's day and stayed up all night listening to music and drinking and then went straight to work. Couldn't do that now! Happy memories. Singing this loudly used to help let out any frustrations I had at the time.

Days 4 and 5

2010-06-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

Creativity Boot Camp - days 4 and 5

Finding it difficult to keep up. Feeling pretty exhausted in this humid heat we have been having and not been too well either. But I do hope to keep going and join in on this creativity course. It certainly is giving me food for thought and it is great to see other people's work, I really enjoy that part too.

Day 4 - Heavy Metal is the word prompt, but I haven't done anything about it yet. Just about dragging myself through the day at the moment. But I will do.
Day 4 - Journal prompt. To write about what elements of some photos taken during the day have motivated me to take them. I went for a little walk today, and although i didn't actually take any photos, I did look at the world around me and think about what I would photograph and why. I walked along a footpath next to a field of unripe wheat. Several things captured my interest in this lovely green field. I noticed that the field stopped dead in a line, making a wall along the footpath. It was a very even line. I imagined the wall as a block to my creativity, which I am certainly feeling today. I was mesmirized by the sharpness of the line. The other thing that I was intrigued by the wheat was the colour of the stalk. To look at the field you would think it was all green. Not so. The stalks were a milky blue. A very lovely colour. I wish I could have captured that on camera and tried to capture that colour and the contrast to what one would expect. The final thing I noticed about the field was the tracks made in the even field by the tractor. You could see the two lines that the tractor wheels drove along when the farmer planted the field. I have been walking in the countryside since other fields of wheat have grown and seen the wheat grow each time. Something I have really enjoyed. I recall playing as a child, one summer, in a wheat field behind where we lived. Happy memories. The tractor lines on today's field went over the brow of a small hill. It reminded me of life's path, going off into the unseen future.

Day 5 - Word prompt - Grow. As mentioned above I love walks in the countryside and watching everything grow so fast in the Spring. It is amazing how green everything looks right now. The grass, where it has been left uncut, is practically thigh high. Amazing. But the one main thing about the word grow that strikes me is growing up and growing old. I did as suggested and listened to some music from when I was young and very emotional. To be honest i think i am still emotional inside, but you have to keep it under control, otherwise you really would be out of control - and that is no good. Cos that means no job and no money and no house etc etc. I enjoyed listening to the music. There are always good memories of 'when we were young'. I think we still do have those emotions within us. I still feel frustrated when unable to do something I want to. Trying to think about my hopes and my expectations. I always knew I wanted a family and have been blessed with three beautiful healthy children, for whom I thank God every day. I am so proud of them and pleased that I have managed to raise them reasonably well. More than i could have hoped for. Other hopes and dreams, like travelling. I managed to do that too. So really I have managed to achieve everything important that I wanted to do when i was younger. I would like to make a difference to someone, make someone's life better for something I have done. Perhaps being a Cub Scout Leader has helped with that a little. So all in all, I really am quite content now.

Photos to follow............

Mental as Anything - Live it Up Video

2010-06-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Mental as Anything - Live it Up Video

Day 3 - multilayers

2010-06-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Day 3 of creativity boot camp and the word of the day is multilayers. Plenty of ideas with this one, first thing that came to mind was layered cake! yum yum. Unfortunately no layered cake in the house at the moment, so had to think of something else. I found some great layers in the roses. Here is one pink rose out in my front garden.

Then I went for a walk in the woods with Millie and tried to capture the layers within the woods. The hedges and the trees and the grass. Where I am thinking this has more impact is in the countryside with the bright yellow rapeseed fields against the green backdrop. Thanks to this creativity course I think I will go out there and actually take some photos of the yellow layered against the green, instead of just looking at it. Watch this space! But I did find some layers within the woods. I like to think that the woods themselves contain layers within layers. Not only is it a lovely place for us humans to enjoy with our youngster and dogs and horses, but deeper down a layer are the mammals - the squirrels etc and even deeper down another layer are all the insects. The woods mean different things to different people/wildlife. I absolutely love going out there and exploring the textures and layers that are seen in the countryside.

Finally I took a picture of Millie in the garden. She managed to pose for a full 2 seconds, long enough for a shot. She had been a good girl in the woods and had not moved a muscle when we came across these squirrels having their dinner within 10 feet of us. She was on a lead though!

Day 2 - picnic

2010-06-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

I took some photos using Andy's camera as I knew it had macro on it. Found out later that I have macro on mine too! I have taken the picnic photo on his camera and wont be able to upload it until tomorrow.

But thinking of picnics, we had a picnic in a country park with my nieces and nephew. This is a photo of Andy enjoying a swing with the kids.

Day 1 - Ivory

2010-06-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

Racked my brains for ivory as per instructions for day one of the creativity boot camp online course that I am doing. The first thing that came to mind was ivory skin, then ivory satin shoes for a wedding. I looked through all the blogs and the images that others doing the course had created. There really are some great unsung artists out there.

Finally I went for a walk in the woods today and took some photos in the woods and in my back garden too. Here is a rose which is from my back garden. We have a large climbing rose over the fence and it really looks amazing this time of year, so I usually take loads of photos when the roses are in bloom. This is as close to ivory as I can get.

Creativity Boot Camp

2010-06-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

Creativity Boot Camp - Day 1

2010-06-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

Right, enough of the procrastinating. I have looked at other people's work on the links from the creativity boot camp blog, and they are fabulous. So, of course, I think I am no where near good enough! When I look at some of the creativeness that people are producing I know they are artists and I am not. Why do I not think of myself as an artist. I like to create, I feel that I do have a creative soul. I just am never happy with the end product, I guess. But then who is? I guess that is why there are so many tortured artists. My God, I am an artist after all! LOL.

I can't paint, I can't draw, my photography is a bit of hit and miss and my digital scrapbooking is pretty basic. Occasionally I am happy with something. I guess that is what it is about. You need to take hundreds of photos sometimes, and somewhere in there is the masterpiece. The one that works. I just need to strive to find that more, to practice more. Not just take photos and hope one is okay. So practice, practice and practice some more, I guess is the way forward.

I have been procrastinating as well in deciding what is going to be my medium. Photography, when it can take some time to set things up, and the lighting has to be just so. Or digital scrapbook pages, which are easier to do at any time, day or night, but probably wont push my creativity as much as I would like. And......I really do want to improve my photography.

I am happy to share my work with anyone online and probably my husband too. If there is something really good, I might even share it with close family via facebook.

Creativity Boot Camp

2010-06-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Have gone on to DSP chat for the first time in months. As usual after the one hour chat I am full of creative ideas and have loads of websites on. Usually takes me several hours to go through it all. I often end up on the most wonderful websites and blogs as well.

Just came across this blog - http://creativebootcamp.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-1.html

It's a bit late now to start getting into it, but will start tomorrow and journal my journey on here.
Quite excited as I haven't done anything creative for ages.

Climbing trees and other adventures

2010-05-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

Millie having a great time whilst out for a walk last weekend.

Have been having a great time out caching with some great adventures. Last weekend was really good. On Saturday I went round a series of 6 caches in a mile long circle. One of the caches was about 25 high up in a tree. I left my bag and walking stick on the ground and walked along the large trunk that had fallen at an angle. It was a bit nerve racking but I managed it slowly and carefully. Millie was going crazy howling and crying. I reached up and signed the log and put it back. Then started coming down. Millie thought she would join me at that point and lend a helping paw which made things tricky. I was so worried that she would fall off. Anyway we both made it down safe and sound.

I continued along the footpath that was in a dark wooded area that was absolutely covered in bluebells. The smell of the bluebells was really strong in the enclosed area. The next cache was interesting too. It was a box inside a large log that had been cut out. Very clever.

Then on Sunday I joined my caching pal Jill to drive round a local town to pick up some caches. We found everyone of them. Two of them were brilliant as they were not the usual plastic clip and lock pot or 35mm film container. One looked just like an apple but was hand made out of some unknown substance with the pull out core as the log. It was in a very dark part of the woods so difficult to get a photo. Howeve I did manage to get a photo of the next one which was a clay, I think, mushroom. Very enjoyable.

I will finish off with a fantastic view across the English countryside. We had found a cache under a bench and were sitting on the bench signing the log. The sun was shining and the world was a good place to be in that day.

Caching

2010-04-26T12:46:00.001-07:00

Am enjoying caching everyday. It is quite challenging to do at least one every day. I have done at least one cache every day for the past two weeks, so going well so far but not sure I will make 100 consecutive days. as it is hard going.

Had a great day today. I dropped Alice off at college and had two hours to do a bit of caching before picking her and Sev up to take to an interview they both had at the same place. I have never been into the woods that I went into today and it is always nice to explore somewhere new. It was pretty hilly in these woods.

I also found a pink cache which was unusual. Sev was surprised that it did not stand out from all the green and brownness of the woods but I explained that it was well hidden away in a hollow log.

I have twelve caches that I have laid for others to find and there was a couple who had been looking for my caches over the weekend. They said they couldn't find one of the caches that had already been "muggled" just a month ago. So I was pretty annoyed to think it had gone again, and with a trackable in it again. So as I was off work today I popped along to see what was what. Luckily the cache was there and the trackable were still there. Thank goodness. The same couple said that the log in another cache was full so I went to replace that too. When I got home and checked the log it was actually not full at all. Very strange as the couple certainly weren't new to caching with approx 750 cache finds. I was surprised at their comments, but at least all is well.

Over the weekend I replaced a log that had been left to get wet. It was not at all possible to sign as the paper was just one papier mache mess. I took the log home and pulled it carefully apart and hung the pieces of paper from the log up to dry. It has dried beautifully. Not sure what to do with it now because the cache owners no longer go caching. The log is five years old so I wont get rid of it.

I've got one cache in mind for tomorrow, and then I want to go to Surrey to do the MUGS series and nab about 25 caches in one hit!

A walk after work

2010-04-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

Had a busy day at work today, Katy had the day off so it was pretty hectic for me. Still loving it though. I know it has only been a month but I am so much happier where I am right now. There is no way I am going back. YAY. Words can't express how happy that makes me!!! :D

Last night I saw a new cache right near work. I did debate with myself about nabbing a FTF first thing this morning before work, but it would have been a one mile walk and I probably would have ended up hot and sweaty before I even started. So I waited excitedly until work had finally finished at 5pm. Drove to the Country park car park and set off. The first one was literally just 500 yards away. I was lucky in that I was just putting the cache back when I dog walking muggle came into sight! Phew. That was close.

It's a beautiful evening so I know I will have a nice walk, especially as I have managed to find at least one cache today! YAY. Third day in a row. Heee hee. So off I go to the new cache. Nice easy walk along a clear pathwhich was slightly muddy in places. The cache was hidden in a log. It took me a few minutes to find it but was pleased to find it eventually.

I walked back to the car. There is one more nearby, a third of a mile away, but i decided to leave this to another day. After all I need to save some to continue with my 1 a day for 100 days challenge. LOL.

Caching

2010-04-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

I have managed to find a cache yesterday and two today. I read someone's caching blog where they have set themselves the challenge of finding one cache every day for 100 consecutive days. Well I have managed two days in a row, I wonder how many more I can do in a row!! Doubt I could make 100 but it is worth a go. Trouble is I am running out of local ones to do before or after work during the week, so will have to plan carefully.

Just seen a new one come on line tonight which is right near where I work. Now do I get just that one or do I get another one nearby? Hmm, that might actually depend on how much time I will have, particularly if I plan to go before work which I am!

Tonight I went off for three caches and to give Millie a walk too. It gets boring going round our local woods every night, so it is nice to have a change of scenery as often as possible. The first one I went after was uphill - Plumberow Mount with a little mound at the top. There were some lovely views across the countryside. Unfortunately there were a couple of lager louts loitering right by where I thought the cache might be so I could not get to have a look even, just turned around and went back downhill. Millie had a great time running up and down with a log to throw around and chew. We popped into the car and drove a short way to nab two easy ones. The first had a DNF from November 2009 and nothing logged since so I was not too hopeful about finding it. But lo and behold it was an easy find. Funny how that goes sometimes it is dead easy, sometimes what everyone else has logged as an easy find can take me ages to locate. Anyway signed the log and started trekking up another hill to the next one. There was a lovely carpet of spring flowers on the ground, not bluebells, these were white. Not sure what they are called. There were limited views from the top of this hill. The cache was in a great hiding place. It was in the top of a telegraph pole that was hollow at the top but the cache owner had placed a little lid on top with the cache inside. Very neat.

month of SPAD

2010-03-05T15:48:00.001-08:00

During the month of February I took part in a challenge to take a self portrait a month and here is a layout showing a few of those photos. It was quite a challenge as usually I am pointing the camera the other way! Also finding new and inventive ways to take a photo of the thing, namely me, every day was quite difficult too. The challenge was on Digital Scrapbooking Place website and there were quite a few others doing the challenge too, from all over the world. I really enjoyed finding out about these people, all of whom I have never met. It was great to see their day to day goings on throughout the month. I certainly will miss the comments and chatting with each other but I dont think I will miss thinking of different ways to take a photo of myself.

Joggers foil cacher

2010-01-25T13:11:00.001-08:00

Oh dear you couldn't make it up. Tonight was like a scene out of a comedy film. I had just dropped Alice and her boyfriend at St Johns Ambulance at 8pm and though I would nab a simple cache or two on the way back home. It should be quiet on a cold winter evening I thought. I drove along the seafront and saw some joggers, and thought it must be a jogging club. But then as I drove along there were more and more. Until I reached my destination at the end of a parking spot on the seafront where a tiny nano sized cache was hidden somewhere. Only to find about 50 or 60 joggers warming up and generally loitering around right in the spot I wanted to search.

I had to laugh, will try again later when I pick Alice up when hopefully they will have dispersed.

So on to the next one. It was just outside a church and was another nano cache (about the size of those little circular watch batteries). Only to find that the cache location was in a park with locked gates. It was dark and I was hesitant to peer through the gates after having just finished watching a programme about vampires. Talk about scare myself silly. So I decided to go home and get warm again. Will just have to try another time.

I have had a bit of a weekend of things going wrong whilst caching so this evening just polished it off. LOL

I thought I would lay my own little caches in a nearby country park. So off I go on a nice dry winter's day. I had prepared three tubs and 2 x 35mm canisters to place in trees and little nooks and crannies. I had left a trackable item in one of them and it was not until I got home that I realised that I had not noted which pot/location had the trackable. You are supposed to log these on the website, so I messed up there and that has caused a little bit of confusion as just two hours after the cache site went live online, someone had picked up the trackable already! Talk about eager. Then a few hours later I realised I had put the co-ordinates for a nearby car park instead of the actual cache site. DOH. I wont be laying a series again for a while. I think I will leave it to those more experienced. Oh you have to laugh.

Ups and downs and muddy paths

2010-01-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

It was a beautiful sunny morning when I woke up, clear blue skies. No work today, so that means only one thing. A nice walk in the countryside. I didn't want to take Millie with me because I knew I was going to be walking around a village first so I took her and Barney for a quick run over the park nearby. There is a cache there, a tiny one about the size of a fingernail, which I have been looking for on and off for six months. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ede3c12f-57c8-44fa-81a4-8835f78ccfd8 I had yet another look today. Nope couldn't find it. I'm thinking it must be lost so take the dogs back home and head off to the village.

At the village there was a multi-cache. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=985c1ec1-634a-4d03-8f54-a0c752daed2c This means that you have to go to different locations to get the clues and work out what the co-ordinates for the actual cache are. I spent a nice hour or so wandering around, finding out interesting little facts about this quaint and very old village which is absolutely steeped in history. Including a market square where people used to be hung. One such chap was hung just for being a Protestant in 1555. Unfortunately the cache site was in a field, so I had to traipse through the mud, which I had hoped to avoid today. The cache was in a tree which was right on the edge of a ditch. With all the rain and snow we have had recently the ditch was waterlogged so I had to gingerly cross the ditch to get to the tree. Picked up the cache, a small tupperware pot full of little odds and ends and opened it up to write on the log. Just as I had all the contents out, along comes a man walking his dog. Caught in the act. God knows what he thought I was doing. You've got to laugh. But I do always seem to get caught red handed these days. I must look all around before actually getting the cache. Anyway go that so off I went to do another one. This was a straight forward cache with co-ords and a clue to where to search. So I parked the car up and walked along to the cache site which was near a fishing lake. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=afdc0319-070a-4676-b339-f3ce79ca9e49 Fortunately there wasn't anyone around but unfortunately I could not find it at all. The clue was to look under a log. There were loads of logs and I searched under them all twice. No luck. Oh well that will be a DNF (did not find) to log on the website when I get home.
Off to the next one. My knee was getting very swollen and painful by now so I though I would do a straight forward mulit-cache up the road in an another village.http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f901231b-eab1-43ea-b3df-e15fabb5d086 The clues were obtained from a war memorial and I had the co-ordinates to the cache quickly. This one was in the woods, down a muddy path. So much for avoiding the mud today! It was quite slippery and on a slope so that was fun going down then back up again. I found the cache site easily though it was in a part of the woods that was not visited often so there were no paths in some areas, just loads of brambles to trip me up. Well that was me for the day so I went home for a nice cup of tea and cheese on toast for lunch.

I got home and started to log my finds on the geocaching website when I found out that the one I had tried to find this morning, in the park, had been found today. I was so incensed that I had not been able to find it. I messaged the person who had found it, someone I met last week actually, and confirmed it was where I thought it was. So off I went again to look for it, this time I took Millie with me. This was at 4pm today. There were loads of people walking their dogs so it was difficult to hunt for the cache. I spent ages walking up and down and talking to dog owners whilst Millie had a wonderful time running around with other dogs. Eventually there was a lull and I finally had it in my hands after much searching. What a relief. It has been bugging me for so long, not having this one ticked off my list, especially as it the nearest one to where I live.

So then I finally went home for dinner. What a day of ups and downs.

Today

2010-01-13T09:51:00.000-08:00

Today I had a rotten migraine, I haven't had one for months. Not sure what the trigger was but I had to go home from work, take some migraleve and go to sleep for a few hours. Felt better when I woke up, although still a little fragile around noise.

I am planning on going to a geocaching meet/event tonight. Hope my head holds out alright and it is not too noisy there! mmm, some hope. I am really looking forward to meeting other geocachers, especially those whose names crop up on the website. I have met some and it is always nice to meet people with the same interest. Andy is not interested at all in geocaching and moans and groans every time I want to stop off somewhere to find a cache. Hopefully I might be able to pick up a few caches tonight before the meeting starts at 8pm.

So from the last log it looks like I AM making another jeans quilt. Will have to gather some dark coloured jeans and some red material to make one to match Sarah's room. I enjoyed making the one that I have done already and am looking forward to making another one.

Jeans Quilt

2010-01-12T13:04:00.000-08:00

I decided to make a jeans quilt after having seen one that my mum had made. I liked the frayed edges and appliqued hearts. So I collected together some jeans, a pair Andy's old jeans and a pair of Sev's and someone from work donated three or four pairs that she was going to throw out. So these were all painstakingly cut into 5 1/2 squares. I cut out about 130 squares. I think I will probably only need 120, but there may be the odd one or two that doesn't work for whatever reason.
Step two meant cutting out 33 hearts from some cotton material that I had bought. One with flowers on and one with strawberries on. The strawberries look very realistic. You could almost reach out and pick one. So these were cut out and appliqued on using a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine.

Then I randomly sewed the squares with hearts and the squares without hearts into strips of eight squares each. This made 15 strips of eight squares. I have laid them across the backs of the dining room chairs here. Then all of those 15 strips were sewn together to make the final top of the quilt. I was very pleased with the result. To make the edges frayed I snipped at them all, giving myself a blister in the process. Then put the quilt in the washing machine with a tennis ball. Don't ask I don't know why but apparently this helps with the intended fraying. Mine didn't come out as frayed as I would have liked, so I may need to pick and snip at it a bit more.

Then I sewed on to the back a nice warm fleecy material in bright red. It really sets of the blue jeans material and matches nicely with the hearts. So here is the finished quilt. It didn't take too long to make at all and I am very pleased with it. I might just think about making sarah a quuilt like this but with green hearts, or even stars. Then again if I could put sheep on the squares that would look really cool, but I don't know how to make sheep shapes to applique on - could be tricky.

My first FTF

2010-01-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

WOOHOOO, I got my first First to Find (FTF) yesterday. The cache had been enabled on 6 Jan and I had driven past it on my way to work four times. When I saw yesterday that it had still not been logged on the website I though i woudl go for it and see if I could nab my first ever FTF. The snow was still on the ground, so the site was not as green as on the map! The main roads were okay to drive on but the road alongside the cache site was pretty snowy but Andy was okay driving on it. After a quick search I found it easily nestled at the bottom of a tree.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=756dcac2-cc74-463a-aaaf-c505c53713c1

As we were close to a country park near where I work we thought we would continue on and take Millie for a run. When we drove up the country road towards the country park car park, there were loads of cars parked along the road. I thought "What on earth?" Then I cottoned on. Everyone had come from near and far to go sledging down the hills. We parked up and had a little walk. Millie loved the snow. Andy did a video of Millie rolling in the snow. When he gets it loaded up I will load it up here for you to see. She is so funny in the snow. There were loads of people sledging down the hill using almost anything that would slide. It was really great fun to watch.

We were so excited about going sledging ourselves we called the kids and told them to get something to use and make a flask of tea. We drove home and picked them up, made sure everyone was well wrapped up as it was very cold out on the hills. We took them back to the country park and we all had a great time going sledging down the hills and watching others doing the same. Even I went down twice. It was really exhilerating. Unfortunately I spilled the tea so we only got one cup! Then it started snowing quite heavily so we called it a day and went back home before it got too tricky to drive home.

Beautiful day for a walk

2010-01-02T13:22:00.001-08:00

I went for a lovely walk this morning along the river bank. It was very cold, about 1C, but there was little or no wind and it was nice and sunny. I took Millie with me and we were out and about for about three hours. It was really lovely. At first it was peaceful with hardly anyone around, but nearing lunch time a few more walkers were around. The sun was rising over the sea. It was a very nice walk indeed.
Of course I looked for a few caches along the way and was successful in all but two which were very tricky. One was in a thorny bush on the slope of the bank so I found it difficult to balance and look through the base of the thorny bush. Maybe another time. I think I need to work on my training of Millie to go in for difficult finds! LOL. I will upload a photo of her enjoying the walk tomorrow.
Tomorrow is chores day. Enough of fun, frolicks and holidays and going for long walks. The decorations are coming down and I have quite a list of things to do to get everything up to scratch. Back to normal on Monday.

bitten

2009-12-31T05:56:00.000-08:00

I've been bitten by a vicious little chihuahua. I apologise if anyone actually likes these little tykes but I never have liked small lap dogs that yap a lot. I like them even less now. We were sitting in our living room when we spotted a small dog running around the round. I went out and tried to coax it to come to me but it wasn't interested. It had a collar on. So I grabbed my coat and a dog treat and went after it. It still wouldnt come to me, perhaps the treat I had was not to its taste, but it did get close enough to me for me to attempt to pick it up and the little bugger bit me. Naturally I dropped it straight away but a few minutes later managed to corral it into a walled garden. I asked the owner of the garden to call the police. The police called the Animal Warden from the council and someone came along pretty quickly which was good because the dog was trying to get out but I had it cornered. I was worried it would try to nip me if it did get past me. Thankfully the Animal Warden managed to get it very easily. So that was that. Now I have a very sore finger for my troubles. I defintely don't like chihuahuas now.

It's Christmas time

2009-12-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

It is the lull between Christmas and New Year and time to reflect on the year gone and to think of New Year's resolutions. Here are a few photos of our Christmas celebrations.

Sarah, Sev and Alice, despie being 19,18 and 16 stil wanted Christmas stockings. Did anyone order a toy boy! LOL. My four year old nephew had fun with a box on Boxing Day.

A few photos of us all at Christmas. This last one is of all Andy's parent's grandchildren.

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

Well the snow has all gone and it is much easier to get around now. I took Milie for a walk over he woods and she still managed to have a roll in what was left of the snow/ice. She was so filthy we had to wash her AGAIN when we got home. She met up with a 9month old labradoodle and the two of them had a great run around.

I have finished cutting up all the jeans squares for my jeans quilt. At some point over the holidays I will sew some red hearts on some of squares and then start to sew them altogether.

Well it is Christmas Eve and everything is done. The shopping - between us Andy and I have been to Tescos EIGHT times in the past two days! LOL. But we have everything now, finally. All the presents too. Off to church in a few minutes as I dont think I can stay awake until midnight.

Have a great Christmas and New Year everyone.

snowy weekend

2009-12-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

We have had a great time this weekend taking Millie for walks in the snow. Millie has thoroughly enjoyed rolling around in the white stuff. The snow is still here as the temperature has not gone above 0 degrees. We haven't gone anywhere though because the roads are still very icy. I am not looking forward to going to work tomorrow morning when it will be very cold and icy.

Without having realised it at the time, I have managed to knock off another of my 101 things to do in 1001 days - number 85 go to a quiz night. Andy and I went to one at the church hall with Andy's parents and his brother Simon a few weeks ago. I thought we were doomed when I saw a chap who I was in the same team with some years ago. He is so clever and knows almost everything. I went up to him and said hello and asked if he remembered me from all those years ago and said I might as well go home now that he is here! He laughed and said he did remember me and my ex-husband who knew an answer that he did not. He even remembered the question and answer in great detail!! He was glad my ex was not there that night! In the end we came third out of seven teams. Unfortunately two teams had a bust up and one of them walked out! We thought it quite hilarious that people would get so wound up over a church quiz night.

Not doing too good with the numbers 18 and 19 of my 101, i.e. quilts. I have started to make another one. How hopeless am I? I am quite looking forward to this one though as it is quite different. I am making a jeans quilt out of old jeans. I have been cutting up old jeans into 5 1/2 squares and have about 86; I need about 140 altogether. I think to get away with the three that I have not completed is to give them to my mum and ask her to back them for me.

SNOW DAY

2009-12-18T01:13:00.000-08:00

The first photo is the view from the green to my house. The second one is of the green with snow in the trees. It looks really pretty.

It snowed heavily last night. We don't get snow very often here so it is quite an event when it does snow "proper" snow which actually stays on the ground for more than 10 minutes. It is actually about 6 inches deep which is pretty cool. I got up early to listen to the radio to see how bad the roads were. Everyone kept saying stay at home unless your journey is essential. I live close to the main road though, so I thought if I cant get out to the main road it will be alright. There was nothing on the radio about any problems on the roads I was intending to use to get to work this morning. So I went out at about 7.30am this morning. It took forever to wipe the 6" snow off the car and then when I went to try and turn the car round it keep sliding and got stuck.

So as I can't even more the car at the moment I am not going in to work. I took Millie over the green for a quick run in the snow. At least you can see her in the dark! LOL.

Decorations

2009-12-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well the Christmas decorations are finally up, after Andy has pestered me for the past three weeks! I have always put them up 10-15 days before Christmas and not before! They do look lovely, Andy did most of the work this year; he was very excited to be putting them up. I will load a few pictures up a bit later on this evening. We are going to an outdoor carol concert in Old Leigh at 6pm and will take some more photos then. So I will load them all up later tonight. We bought a new outdoor set of lights in the shape of two reindeers and a sleigh. When our neighbours saw them they said they were thinking of buying the same thing! We are going to look a bit odd both having the same thing, but never mind. I love driving around looking at all the decorations. We will probably have a little drive around this evening as I want to take some photos for a photo swap that I am doing on www.swap-bot.com

laptop

2009-11-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

I've not had a good week with my laptop. The screen cracked and this made it unusable. So I have been struggling all week and cursing. So Andy got fed up listening to me and went out and bought a new one today! OMG. We really shouldn't have, but I do use the laptop a lot. Now of course i don't have Photoshop on the new one and somehow I need to transfer my photos and digital scrapbbooking kits to this one which could be tricky cos the old laptop is very difficult to use with a broken screen. But I am very happy with the new one.

I've also started dieting AGAIN. Not sure how many days I will last. I am pretty crap at sticking to diets. I am just doing a basic diet - slimming world. I find it the easiest one to follow because you dont have to weigh everything. So let's see how we go. I am just getting fed up lugging this body around and want to be able to go for walks without it being so difficult. That will have to be my incentive.

Money free weekend

2009-11-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

I LOVE the Internet and I LOVE googling to find out new and interesting topics. I am a member of swap bot (http://www.swap-bot.com/) and there is the opportunity to swap almost anything - ATCs, knitted items, mostly hand made items, sometimes swap things like ribbons, make matchbox and sometimes there are some email swaps as well as sending post cards. There is a huge variety. Today I joined a swap which is an email one - so it is free. The challenge is to make a list of 100 things to do that are free on a weekend. Ideas available from another website - http://www.thesimpledollar.com/
I had a little look on this and there are some great ideas. I quickly came up with a list nearly four pages long. Some ideas are fun, some are a bit boring but they are all free.
Here is my list:
.Phone a family member or friend for a long chat (phone deals usually include free weekend and evening calls)
.Deep clean a room in the house - wash curtains, carpets, clean out cupboards, hoover under the furniture etc
. Have a long chat with a partner about life ambitions and goals
. Make a romantic dinner with a loved one and light some candles, make it special with tablecloth, knapkin, wine etc
. Go to the library. You can read a magazine or a newspaper there; have a wander around and see what facilities they offer, borrow a book, DVD or magazine
. Read a good book.
. Meditate
. Watch a local community game - cricket netball, football
. Put your finances in order, check out what unncessary extras you are paying, see if you can get a better car/house insurance
. Put your paperwork/bills in order - file and throw out old stuff
. Shred all your papers for recycling
. Alphabetise your CD/DVD collection - I know this sounds very sad, but it is very fulfilling.
. Play a board game
. Do a jigsaw puzzle
. Watch your children put on a little show
. Make a den and play a make believe game with the children
. Make an indoor assault course for young children
. Walk along the seafront, on your own, with your loved one, with the children or the dog(s)
. Make a sandcastle. The beaches in Devon have amazing sand for this.

. Wash the dog (usually after a muddy walk is a good time)

. Take a nice walk in the woods or local nature reserve/country park

. Visit a castle ruin, gardens that are open to the public
. Cook up some meals in advance
. Bake some bread
. Bake some biscuits with the children
. I used to fill the sink with water and lots of bubbles and let the children play with the cups etc
. Paint some still life indoors, or go out and paint some scenery. If not paints available then colouring pencils would be just fine too
. Have a good clear out of the kitchen cupboard,s throwing out all those out of date goods
. Make a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days - still working on mine!
. Start a blog (perhaps detailing your success of above)
. Digital scrapbooking. There are some freebie kits and embellishments available that can get you started. One site that I use, which is very friendly and supportive is http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/
. Make ATCs. These are Artist Trading Cards - check out this site. www.atcsforall.com/
. Make some Christmas/Birthday cards by hand
. Make decisions and write out your will
. Walk through the house and make a maintenance to do list
. Actually do some of that maintenance around the house - fix that leaking tap, broken curtain rail etc
. Do some basic car maintenance, or teach yourself how to (good old Google will show you) Check the oil, water and air in the tyres
. Clean the car, inside and out
. Clean out the garage
. Have a boot sale. Although you do technically have to spend out to do this initially, you would actually get more than your money back as long as you don't pick a day when it rains and no-one wants to buy anything like I did earlier this year.
. Sort through your books, CDs and DVDs. Either sell your unwanted items on ebay or Amazon or swap them on websites such as PaperBackSwap, SwapTree adn SwapADVD.
. Teach yourself how to knit
. Take some digital photos
. Share your photos online
. Visit a free museum
. Play on the x-box
. Play on the Wii - Wii fit is a good one
. Play games online
. Chat on facebook
. Get together with some friends and have a nice chat

. Go geocaching - check out their site for a cache near you - http://www.geocaching.com/

. Stay in bed and watch TV
. Practice origami
. Make a video for You tube. this can be a "how to" video or whatever takes your fancy. I spend ages just looking at the videos
. Go for a swim in the sea
. Play a game of football/boules/tennis/badminton etc
. Scan your old photos
. Make a scrapbook using your photos
. Write a snail mail letter to an elderly relative. You could pick their brains for some family history and/or tell them all about your family's activities.
. Investigate your family tree - there is a lot you can find out online
. Watch films - a series of films like all the Star Wars movies (we watched all six one day!)
. Make a zine
. Cut the grass
. Tidy up the garden/greenhouse
. Trim the hedge or tree
. Do a crossword puzzle or soduku
. Do some volunteer work
. Watch the sunset/sunrise from a hill or on the seafront
. Do an exercise DVD
. Start a journal
. Learn or play a musical instruments. This can be on your own or with friends
. Sharpen your knives, scissors and lawnmower blades
. Plan your next year's holiday
. Give your partner a massage and if you are lucky receive one in return. Last year I learnt how to do Indian head massage and reguarly give my family members a head massage when they are tired or have a headache
. play a card game
. take a child to the playground and spend a great time pushing them on the swing and on the seesaw
. Google anything - I spend hours surfing the net. I usually start reading someone's blog which often leads to a link to another web site and then go on from there.
. Take a long hot bubble bath
. Manicure yours or your loved one's toes and finger nails
. Take some unwanted items to a charity shop
. Go fishing - on the beach or if it is free to get on a local pier, off the pier
. Go cycling
. Go running
. Do some amateur stargazing. Or you can go along to a local astronomy's open evening. We have a local one that often have a number of telescopes set up and let the general public have a look through and have a chat about astronomy.
. Write a book or some poetry
. Put up the Christmas decorations
. Wrap your Christmas presents, bought last weekend
. Write your Christmas cards

. Find letters of the alphabet on Google maps in YOUR area. I know of two people who have done this, one in UK and one in the Netherlands. I think I might see what I can find in London and Essex. Check this out. http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1250975&page=all

. Take part in Earth Hour and turn off all the lights and if possible what electricity you can.

Well that is 90+, not quite a hundred, but I am sure you can think of a few more. When my children were young we didn't have a great deal of money, so we often had money free weekends. In fact, I think I have probably done almost everything on this list at one point or another. When I asked the kids, now aged 16 and 18, what they would do on a money free weekend they could only come up with chatting with friends and playing ont the x-box. All my efforts were in vain!

This weekend's adventures

2009-11-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

I have had a busy weekend, mostly geocaching. Andy must be thinking I am getting obsessed! But I just want to make the most of the opportunities available. Yesterday there was a World Wide Flash Mob event in London which I wanted to do as well as a few London caches and today the weather was georgous so I wanted to make the most of it.

Unfortunately yesterday's weather was not so good. It rained and was very windy all day. The rain did not stop until 4pm so i was not too happy about that. I walked miles and only got to do four caches in the end. But it was nice to meet up with other caches for the event at 6pm. It was dark by then so everyone came ready "to flash" their lights and torches. The organiser had put lights all over her wheelchair and assistance dog and someone else had put little flashing lights all over their bike. They looked pretty cool. I signed my name and swapped a trackable so a successful day in the end. Unfortunately the promised fireworks for the Lord Mayor's Show which was also going on that day, had to be cancelled due to high winds which was a shame. Came home absolutely exhausted but happy.

Whilst I was walking around London I went past Westminster Cathedral and the remembrance crosses and poppies were still in place. It brought a lump to my throat to see so many little crosses, each representing one person who has given their life in war. This is a small sample of the display.

Then today when I got up the sky was blue! HOORAY. So wonderful to see blue skies again. So I thought I really must go and take some more photos of cemeteries for the upcoming swap that I am in and surprise surprise there are some caches nearby. LOL. So I thought I would go and spend a few hours wandering around the countryside. Went to two local cemeteries and got a some photos. Need to get those prepared and posted later this week. Then on to the caches. Had a very successful day finding all the planned caches easily. I was down a path with bushes either side where the cache was hidden. I was hiding in the bushes when two girls riding on their horses came by. How embarrasing. What to say to explain why I am in the bushes and not on the path. So I just blurted out "Oh I am just getting right out of the way because I don't like horses at all" Oh dear. I DO like horses really, but just couldn't think of anything else to explain my prescence there. The things we do/say to avoid detection.

Last night I swapped the sheep trackable,that I had picked up on Junction 15 on the MI last weekend on my journey back from Sheffield, for Jake from the Tweenies. Jake's "mission" is to visit football grounds, so I took him for a photo shoot at our local football ground this morning.

Anyway, I have had a very good weekend. I have had a nice dinner and a lovely hot bath and am chilling with a glass of red wine and soon will be on the DSP chat tonight. Life is good.

Today's Dishing the Week
OUTSIDE MY WINDOW - it is dark and the curtains are drawn
I AM HEARING - Andy dishing up dinner
I AM WEARING - my black jogging trousers and pink T-shirt
I AM THINKING - how tired I am
I AM THANKFUL FOR - sunny Autumn days
I AM CREATING - a matchbox book to be sent off tomorrow
I AM GOING - to have a nice hot bath after dinner
I AM READING - nothing at the moment
I AM HOPING - for another sunny day next weekend. LOL
FROM THE KITCHEN - we have a nice roast chicken dinner coming up
ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS - walking in the countryside enjoying a beautiful day
A FEW PLANS FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK - Apart from work finishing and posting the book matchbox for a swap and printing and preparing cemetry photos to be sent off later this week. Andy has a dietician appointment at the hospital in London.

Elf yourself

2009-11-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Check out this fun link of me and my family dressed as elves dancing to a christmas tune. http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/mYLqbjvP7WIrqK0m

2009-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Whilst checking out my partners for swap bot cemetry photo swap I came across Maureen's blog which I found really interesting. She had included a nice little blog info that I wanted to add here at least for today, but if i remember weekly too, as Maureen has in her blog.
Dishing the Week
OUTSIDE MY WINDOW - it is dark and the curtains are drawn
I AM HEARING - Andy watching the television
I AM WEARING - my work clothes of black trousers and black and white top
I AM THINKING - how sore my eyes are and does Barney need a wee or just want some fuss or his post dinner walk?
I AM THANKFUL FOR - mine and my family's health
I AM CREATING - nothing right now, but have a matchbox book to make this week
I AM GOING - to bed at 10pm after Flash Forward
I AM READING - places to visit in London in preparation for my visit to London on Saturday
I AM HOPING - my allergic reaction of face swelling and sore eyes will go down by tomorrow morning and if not if I can figure out what has caused it
FROM THE KITCHEN - we had beef stew and dumplings, yummy
ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS - driving out of the car park at work at the end of a long day and breathing a huge sigh of relief
A FEW PLANS FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK - work, work, work. Apart from that making the book matchbox for a swap and getting cemetry photos uploaded and printed.

Shattered in Sheffield

2009-11-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely shattered. Have come to visit Sarah for a few days in Sheffield. Today we went geoaching in the Peak District. We went up Winn Tor which is about 400m high. I look a little windswept here! It was raining and a little bit cold and we were tired from walking up and up and up. You can just about see the view behind Sarah; she has the cache in her hands.

There was a series of caches along the way, so plenty of opportunities for a rest. We got to as far as we were going to, height wise and unfortunately it was raining. But we had had some fabulous views. I couldn't believe how many people were trekking, and cycling, up and down here. We got back to a place called Hope where we had the car parked and had a nice hot cup of tea that I had put into a flask. Boy did that taste good. So we are home now and showered and I am going through some red wine whilst chilling out. My knees are agony but I am pleased that we did it.

Yesterday we went round a cemetry looking for clues and a cache. Sadly we didn't find the cache, though I am pretty sure we got the clues right and were looking in the right area. I think the cache itself was quite small and difficult to find with all the leaves on the ground. Will have to try this one another time of the year. The cemetry was really old though, 1800 - 1850 mostly and was really creepy and overgrown. This is a picture which gives you an idea of just how unkempt and overgrown it is right now. It is a real shame as there are some noteworthy people interred here. This website gives a more in depth description about the cemetry. http://www.gencem.org/

It was on a hill and there were some very interesting headstones. I took some photos for a cemetry photo swap on swap bot that I am doing. I think there might be a few good photos in there. It was raining when we went round so was suitably atmospheric.

Sarah tells me it always rains here, and I think I am inclined to believe her as it has hardly stopped raining the whole time I have been here. Be glad to be home back down south, have a hot bath and hopefully not have too much rain!

101 in 1001

2009-11-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

Have been ticking off more things on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. For the past couple of days I have been tidying my work room up, after a recent change of rooms. I have also cleared out the filing cabinet and sorted out all the household paperwork. The result is a nice tidy room and three bin bags full of recycling and rubbish. Feel exhausted now, but really pleased to have got it done. It was difficult to sort stuff out in the room because it is quite small and I still can't kneel down after the op, which is annoying, but I got there in the end.

Halloween

2009-11-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

Andy's parents decorated their house and did some halloween games for the four youngest grandchildren ranging in ages from 1yr to 7yrs. They all got dressed up and did a treasure hunt in the garden as they are a bit too young to go out trick or treating. Little Sophie was soooo cute in her witches dress; poor Abbie's dress was a little too tight in the arms but I think the boys were quite comfy in their outfits. They certainly enjoyed finding all the hidden treats in the house and garden.I am glad I went geocaching yesterday as it is raining heavily today. I got my 100th cache so was very pleased. Also I got one that I have been trying to find for ages, having gone down to the location several times. I was absolutely determined to get it this time and with a pictoral spoiler from the cache owner, I managed to retrieve it. I was pretty excited to find out that there was a cat trackable in there too. I like cats and cat ornaments. I shall take some photos and take it up to Sheffield with me on Thursday.

I am looking forward to seeing Sarah for a few days, but I sure do hope the weather improves as I don't fancy wandering around the Peak District in the rain. She seems to have the whole weekend planned so I guess I had better just relax and let her have control! mmm, a bit difficult for a control freak like me!

sev

2009-10-28T13:19:00.001-07:00

Sev went 'up North' for some aptitude tests to join the Navy and had to wear his suit. He looks really smart in it so I couldn't resist taking a photo and of course making a layout of it.

Sophie and Charlie came to visit us today, along with Barbara, Trevor and Simon. They are quite cute. It is a shame we don't get to see them that often. Charlie is 4yrs old and Sophie is about 15months old. She is just such a sweetie. Her little face lights up and she smiles her goofy one toothed smile when you call her name. That smile hides a little terror though, she climbs all over the place and she got the shiner that she has in the photo when she was climbing out of the bath at home last weekend.

Millie

2009-10-27T12:03:00.001-07:00

Here is a layout I have just done of Millie. Well actually it is a plopper with her photo "plopped" in. I upoloaded it to the DSP site just now. She really is a pickle. When she wants some fuss she knows she has to sit still and not fidget so she sits gazing up at you adoringly with such a soppy face it just makes you laugh out loud. But she has been a horror too. She has dug up the new turf twice now and the garden is a mess. She also keeps getting into the rubbish bags. She just doesn't get enough mental and physical stimulation during the day. This picture is one I took about a month ago when I was out geocaching with Sarah and her friend Hannah. The light was good and fortunately after a few misses managed to get a half decent picture of her. She is very hard to photograph. She doesn't keep still long enough usually and as she is so dark the lighting has to be pretty good. Bless her!

2009-10-26T15:06:00.001-07:00

Andy was bemoaning that, in his opinion we were well off and would always have to watch the pennies, especially that we are unable to afford a second car, one of his own choosing. In his mind having a company car is a sign of his achievement in life/work. He knows he is materialistic and has come a long way, having lived with me for the past 6/7 years, but still craves material things.

It is of course a human trait to want more for ourselves, but at the same time we should always be grateful for what we do have. I am reminded of the story of "The Village of 100 people" I have highlighted below how fortunate I am. Having heard recently of some people I know who have lost a parent or loved one, it certainly is a time for reflection and appreciation of that which we do have.

IF THE WORLD WERE A VILLAGE OF 100 PEOPLE
In the world today, more than 6 billion people live.If this world were shrunk to the size of a village of 100 people, what would it look like?
59 would be Asian14 would be American (North, Central and South)14 would be African
12 would be European 1 would be from the South Pacific
50 would be women, 50 would be men
30 would be children, 70 would be adults.
70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white
90 would be heterosexual, 10 would be homosexual
33 would be Christians 21 would be Moslems15 would be Hindus6 would be Buddhists5 would be Animists6 would believe in other religions14 would be without any religion or atheist.
15 would speak Chinese, Mandarin 7 English 6 Hindi6 Spanish5 Russian4 Arabic3 Bengali3 PortugueseThe other would speak Indonesian, Japanese,German, French, or some other language.
In such a village with so many sorts of folks, it would be very important to learn to understand people different from yourself and to accept others as they are.
Of the 100 people in this village:20 are underonurished1 is dying of starvation, while 15 are overweight.
Of the wealth in this village, 6 people own 59% (all of them from the United States), 74 people own 39%, and 20 people share the remaining 2%.
Of the energy of this village, 20 people consume 80%, and 80 people share the remaining 20%.20 have no clean, safe water to drink.56 have access to sanitation15 adults are illiterate.1 has an university degree.7 have computers.
In one year, 1 person in the village will die, but in the same year, 2 babies will be born, so that at the year's end the number of villagers will be 101.
If you do not live in fear of death by bombardment, armed attack, landmines, or of rape or kidnapping by armed groups, then you are more fortunate than 20, who do.
If you can speak and act according to your faith and your conscience without harassment, imprisonment, torture or death, then you are more fortunate than 48, who can not.
If you have money in the bank, money in your wallet and spare change somewhere around the house, then you are among the richest 8.
If you can read this message, that means you are probably lucky!
(The statistics were derived from Donella Meadows "State of the Village Report" first published
in 1990)

I consider myself lucky and very rich. I have three wonderful, healthy and intelligent children. Money may be tight, but I do have money in the bank, my wallet and change around the house. I feel safe in my own home and have plenty of free time. Perhaps I should consider some form of volunteering again, something I haven't done for a long time.

How lucky are you if you lived in this vilage of 100people?

Dotee dolls

2009-10-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

I have made three dotee dolls this week. These are tiny little material dolls with a hanger and tail and decorated anyway you like. I have done a button one for a swap - the dark green one. She is supposed to be a chinese one and has a chinese bun with a large red hair pin through (a button). The blue one is the first one I made. I started this at the ArtFest in June. I now have plenty of beads and a few interesting buttons so plan on making a few more. I might make some for stocking presents for Christmas! Here are my first three dotee dolls.

Below are pictures of a matchbox that I made for a swap on swap bot. It was a halloween theme. I had lots of leaves and autumn colours so that is what I used.

not quite as productive as I had hoped this week

2009-10-24T04:29:00.000-07:00

Well at least my knees are getting much better. Mobilisation has improved tremendously and I can get about in the house without any need for support, although my left knee keeps clicking and wont work quite as well as the right. We went to Tesco's yesterday, I had hoped to walk round using the sticks but ended up opting for a motorised wheelchair. To be honest I was glad that I did cos I think it would have been a bit too much walking around. Although I ended up crashing into a display when I was trying to reverse park the thing.

But I haven't been as productive with my crafts as I had hoped. To be honest I spent the WHOLE of yesterday! (what a waste) looking at geocaching and working out all the caches I could nab along the route to Sheffield, along the M1. As it is such a main road, there are loads of caches at junctions and service stations. Not sure I will end up doing them all as there are nearly 20. It would take me all day to drive up there. That is of course if my knees are up to by that time.

Had some bad news last night. Paul's (my ex-husband) dad is dying, they say he doesnt have more than a day or so to live. He is such a character, he is in his 80s now, but that doesn't make it easier. I think it was quite hard on Paul because his girlfriend was away for the weekend and not available by phone so he had to deal with this sad news on his own. The trouble is I really would be okay to go to his dad's funeral as I really liked the guy but it is a good 5-6 hour trip there and another 5-6 hour trip back. So will have to think about that, not sure when the funeral will be. Brian (Paul's dad) split with Paul's mum when Paul was 14 and his sister, Pam, was 4. So he practically brought Pam up and she has lived in the same town as her dad her whole life. This will be particularly hard on her I feel. Brian has certainly had a full life, with two wives and several serious girlfriends. He has travelled a lot and has battled alcoholism for most of his life, like his father and his son. He was full of stories and a real ladies man. It is a great shame, I hope the end is not too difficult for him. Glod bless you Brian.

I've noticed how bereft of photos this blog is and when I get my camera back from Alice later today I will load some pictures up. I have made a few dotee dolls. There was a button dotee doll swap on swap bot that I have signed up for. That needs to be sent off before 7 Nov. But I am a bit wary about sending anything this week because of the postal strikes. Hopefully it will get there safe and sound when I post it in between the strikes. It has an oriental look to it as you will see when I load the photos up.

op

2009-10-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

It is the morning after the day of my op on my both of my knees. I had arthroscopies of my knees to clean them up - it is called wash out and debridement. This means that they went in with the long rods through small holes in either side of my knees to take a look and rinse out any little bits of debris with water and to trim off any bits hanging off which might get caught in the knee bones and cause pain. The op went smoothly and I was in and out in one day. Andy managed to tear himself away from a 24 hour stint at work to drop me off and pick me up from the hospital. Alice thankfully helped me upstairs and was very gentle in helping me get comfortable in bed. Slept well as I was pretty tired. Woke up in pain though. After waiting for someone to get some tea and toast for me so I could take some painkillers, gave up waiting and struggled downstairs on my own. It took 45 minutes to get downstairs, make some tea and toast and take my tablets and hobble back up stairs again. Have brought some biscuits upstairs so I don't have to wait next time!

The left knee hurts me, the doctor said that it was the worst one. I had said that my right knee was more symptomatic and they have washed it out, but I dont think it needed anything more than that. They have trimmed the left knee, which is why it probably hurts more.

I was looking at youtube videos of knee arthroscopies and came across an American study which said that they did some fake and real arthroscopies (double blind to avoid skewing the results) and it turns out that those who had had the fake arthroscopies felt much better and no longer in pain. The mind is an amazing thing. I think if I remain positive about the outcome and work very hard to mobilise properly again I should have a very good result from this op. I hope to be able to walk further and even go cycling again. And maybe next summer walk up Mount Snowdon again. That is my ultimate aim; to walk up the mountain without half killing myself doing it!!!

At least being home for three weeks will give me plenty of time to do my hobbies such as swap bot and digital scrapbooking, as usually I don't get a great deal of time to do these. It does mean though that I can't go geocaching for a while, but hopefully when I do, I can walk around without too much discomfort.

Thank God that's over!!

2009-10-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Phew. Have just had Sev's 18th birthday party in the hall with his friends. The lad, who was only 16 and was the DJ, was very good. He used his apple laptop for the music and had all the gear - lights and speakers. The music was a little loud but he was a good DJ. Some of Sev's 'mates' were bloody annoying though, very loud and would not shut the outside hall door behind them when they constantly went in and out. Thankfully it was over at 10.30 and we turned the lights on and started clearing up. Ended up washing the whole floor afterwards as it was quite sticky. Hopefully he had a good time. He's gone off to another party right now and we are collapsed at home. Too tired to get upstairs to bed just yet! LOL

During the day I went geocaching and took Millie for a walk. I went round a memorial park. It was nice to read the large plaques aboout those that died in WWI and WWII. There was a river along the edge of the park and a geoache along the river side. So we had a little walk along there. The river was very nice and Millie thoroughly enjoyed going in and out. One of the caches I could not find, but luckily I cam across a fellow geocacher and we went to look together. He found it after a few minutes which was great. So we sat and had a little chat and then went our separate ways.

Now I've seen it all. Andy is flicking through the TV channels as usual when he came across a programme called Celebrity Poker Challenge. Watching celebrities playing poker. My God. We will soon porgrammes about watching paint dry!!!! I don't believe it (in a Victor Meldrew voice) hee hee

WTJ - Day 2

2009-10-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Wreck this journal - day two
Made great progress on the journal today. Went outside with Deb and Jill when they went out for their fag break and took the journal with me. I couldn't find the burn page so found one where it says I could throw it to the ground and stomp all over it, which I did on the wet grass. Then I gave Jill the book to wreck it however she wished without me looking. It was really hard not to watch what she was doing. I heard a ripping of a page and gasped with horror! Then she gave it back to me. I was relieved and pleased to see that she had threaded a dead leaf through the page. It was lovely. Then later I did some writings and screwed a page up. ONe page I have torn off and put in my trouser pocket to go through the wash. I hope I don't get paper lint all over it! I have taken some photos and will upload them later.

Here is the journal in the midst of being wrecked. Jill put a leaf through one page and one page I have stuck white things all over. The last one, on its side, is a page that I tore out and washed and taped back in.

CACHE
I laid a cache in some nearby woods on Sunday and last night it went live on the website. Already three people have found it today!! YAY. It is quite exciting. I might go and do some geocaching on Sunday as this is my last day for a few weeks. I have about 13 to do to reach my first 100.

wreck this journal

2009-10-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

I bought a journal from amazon called "wreck this journal" It is pretty cool cos you get to do all sorts of things to it like throw it off a bridge, take a shower with it, and burn one of the pages, colour, glue and all sorts. Sounds like fun. I will keep the blog updated with how we progress.

Sev is 18 tomorrow. He is off to a gig with his mates in London so I probably wont see him at all. I am sure he will have a good time. He has booked his first proper driving lesson for Monday and seems quite excited about it. Andy has taught him to drive off road, but this will be his first proper go "on" the road. Glad he is finally doing something productive even if it meant taking away the xbox controllers!!

I took Millie for a walk after work today in some woods that we dont usually go to. It was nice to have a change of scene. She loved it as always. take my camera with meI must remember to I went off to find two geocaches that I was not aware of before I became a member. I have found about 85 caches so far, I had hoped to get to 100 before my op on Monday.

I am pretty nervous about the op. Will probably get a cold and have it delayed!!! I have a sore throat so need to nip that in the bud. Everyone around me seems to be sneezing or coughing. Am trying to make sure I have lots of things to do when I am housebound next week. Not looking forward to not being able to get for a walk every day but hopefully the op will mean that can walk further and without pain later on.

Off to Scotland next year

2009-10-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

WOOOOHOOOO We are off to Scotland next year. And not just once. We are going to a family friend's wedding in Doune on 14 August. Andy and I are going to hire a Mercedes and drive up, a life long dream of Andy's. We have booked thehotel for Thursday 12th to Sunday 15th. It is in Callendar and is just 6 miles from Doune Castle, where the wedding is going to be held. I love castles and the idea of going to a wedding in one is really exciting. Not only is it a castle but it is the same castle where Monty Python team made the Holy Grail film. I really am excited about going. Also...... I get to do some geocaching up there as well. hee hee. Andy and Si have always wanted to drive up to Scotland in a nice car and play a round of golf. So if we get up there Thursday night then they have the Friday to go and play golf, whilst I go geocaching, and then we have the wedding on the Saturday. Scotland is just so beautiful, it is going to be a great weekend.

ALSO I am going to Perth, Scotland for week for the Mega Geocaching Event which culminates on 31 July. There are going to be various 'satellite' events throughout the week before, and I think afterwards but at the weekend everyone will meet up and there will be lots going on.
Check the site out for more information. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=0609bb26-13a2-42ae-8dfd-30d4259e34fe
They do say that you can take dogs and it would be brilliant to take Millie with me as I know she will love walking around Scotland. We can't take her to the wedding in August, so it would be good to take her on this trip. However she can't go into the main building on the weekend. They do say that you can keep dogs in the car underground so she wont overheat, but I really don't like that idea. I wonder if they can arrange dog sitters! I wont be able to relax and enjoy the event if I was worrying about her. I also asked Sarah if she would be interested in coming with me to the mega event. She is the only in the family who likes the idea of geocaching. It would be great if the two of us could spend some time going round Scotland. And if Ash wants to come to that would be great cos I could watch them climbing. I wont be doing anything quite so physical!!:S
So we'll see what happens. But YAY I am going to Scotland next year, not once but twice. :D
Oh yes this is one of my 101 things to do in 1001 days. Another one to tick off the list. It gets better!

more geocaching

2009-10-10T12:56:00.001-07:00

I just love geocaching. I get to go out into the country side, often with Millie and have a great walk enjoying nature. I am making the most of the good weather and getting out and about as much as possible. On Sunday 27th Sept I drove for an hour to Castle Hedingham and met up with a whole bunch, about 40, of other geocachers. Some of them have found 1000's of caches. There were two series already in the area so I went round those two in the morning as we were meeting up in a quaint pub at 2pm. I found these really easily and Millie was brilliant. So it was a great morning's caching. I stopped and had lunch at about 12 in the pub garden. Millie was still being very good, thank goodness. I could see there were small groups of people in the pub who were probably fellow geocachers but as we were not openly saying who we were at the time I just kept quiet!! Just as it was approaching 2pm everyone started to head for a room/bar that had been put aside for us to meet. One woman and organised the meet and one chap had laid a trail of caches. A mum, son and his fiance had set another trail as a group. Mum, Hilary was "keeper of the caches" and she laid them all. Her son put the information on the internet. So it was a real group effort. It was nice to chat to people. The fiance, Natalie, was really nice. They are geting married in the castle next year which sounds really wonderful. The pub was really nice, very quaint and obviously quite old. There were three pubs within sight of each other. I certainly miss having a "local". There are no pubs near where I live and the pubs that are around are really spread out so a pub crawl is pretty difficult. Anyways we were given the information of the two trails and went out into the pub garden for a group photo. Then whilst I was chatting to people loading some of the co-ordinates into my gps and working out how to best utilise my time doing the caches, most people went rushing off to do some caching. I think some were keen to get a first to find (FTF). So Millie and I wandered off once I knew where I was heading. It was a lovely afternoon and I nabbed quite a few more caches. I managed to get all the caches from Andy_UK's trail but the Bartlett clan's caches were much harder to find and I only found half of them. It was a long walk, I didn't finish until 6pm. I actually managed to wear Millie out today. I can't believe. She does have a limit to that seemingly boundless energy. LOL. She jumped into the boot and collapsed and was asleep in minutes. It was a quiet journey home.

Photos below:
I picked up a trackable doggy toy from one of the caches and took a photo of Millie with it.
Millie helping me to look for another one of the caches. It turns out it was not anywhere near here!

Here is a map from the geocache website showing the caches that I did and did not find on this day. It is not very clear but you can see this a bit clearer and even have a look at some geocaches in your own area on this website.
http://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?lat=51.98978&lng=0.59927

badger

2009-09-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

I was popping into the library and there is a park nearby with a geocache so thought I would pop in to quickly nab it before going on to the library. Well!! I never got to the library after all. As I was walking into the park there was a lad in his 20's with a dog standing looking at a young badger. I was amazed that a badger would be out and about during the day in a busy area. It turns out that the badger was really poorly. It couldn't walk far and had difficulty breathing. The lad and his girlfriend had called the RSPCA and had waited for nearly an hour. They needed to get into town so I said I would hang around until the RSPCA, the man to lock up the park or the couple turned up. So off they went. I waited 45 minutes before the RSPCA man turned up. By then the badger had crawled along the path and found a hole to crawl into. The RSPCA man said there was little he could do. I explained the symptoms of the badger and he said he might have concussion. Anyway when I got home Andy mentioned TB. It might be that that is what was wrong with it. So there wasnt much that could be done. I will give the council a call and let the parks section know that there is a poorly badger there so they can perhaps keep an eye out. It will either die or recover! So I didn't get to the library nor did I get the geocache.

hobbies

2009-09-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Having fun with two of my fav hobbies - geocaching and swapping on swapbot. Just sent off two CDs that I burnt myself with songs that reflect my life's journey. It was enjoyable going through old memories. Had a spot of bother trying to make the CD covers though. I couldn't get them to the right size. Have had to send them out with the back sleeve being too small but they needed to get out in the post today. Never mind.

With the geocaching I have two events planned over the next couple of months, one next weekend and one in November. Tomorrow I plan to mope up a few geocaches that are in the area.

photos

2009-09-12T13:26:00.001-07:00

Alice has started college and has homework already. She is going to make a small music magazine for her media studies. The first thing to do is to take a photo of a musician. Alice adn I went to the woods and did an impromptu photo shoot. This is the result. Luckily Sev was a willing party!!

geocaching

2009-09-12T13:15:00.001-07:00

I took Sarah and her friend Hannah geocaching over Great Wakering one lovely hot evening. We were gone for three hours. A bit longer than planned but it was all good. We went round a church, found a micro and then searched for clues for the cache. We managed to find eight of the nine that we were looking for. It was on the 8th Sept that we went - so that was pretty cool. The one that we couldnt find was really tricky. Apparently quite a few others have found it difficult too. It was a lovely walk and I think the girls enjoyed it.

Millie enjoyed the walk too!

geocaching

2009-09-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

Had a great day out yesterday. First I went to Hanningfield Reservoir and met up with some other geocachers, some of the names I recognised from the caches. Kev had planned 14 caches altogether, 8 of them with lego pieces which made a little man next to a tree. Very clever idea. Here is a picture of all of us.

About eight teams did a race round the reservoir collecting the lego pieces. I didn't do it though, although I did get one cache near the meet. It was nice to meet people with the same hobby. I think some of them are going to Castle Hedingham at the end of the month so it will be cool to see them again.

I then went home and picked up Millie and took her to the Orsett Show. It was packed, there were loads and loads of people there. There were sheep and cows in pens and a little practice agility course set up that Millie and I bumbled our way around. She didn't understand the concept of going through the tunnels! Then we went on to watch some horses doing jumps - it was the novice round and they were very good. It was very enjoyable to watch. I wandered all around the outside of the display rings in the middle and had a good afternoon there. I bought some cheeses with strange additions like chocolate! One was cheese with chilli - which is very hot.

Then I took Millie home and went round to parents in law to pick up Andy. He had been there to help his brother spready out some topsoil and lay out some turf. We had fish and chips there before coming home late at night. So all in all a pretty full day.

It is now Sunday evening and Sarah is here for a few days. Always nice to have her home, I think she has a busy few days planned meeting up with friends.

I am having an MRI scan of my lumbar spine tomorrow to check out my back, in case I have hurt it really bad. Just to check if there is any cord compression. I think it will be alright, but just want to make sure really. I will get my boss to check it out as the is the expert. Then we are going to parents in law again as Sarah has not been to their new home yet. Hopefully Sarah and I will get a chance to do a little spot of geocaching. I am supposed to be giving blood tomorrow, but not sure if I will have time.

geocaching

2009-08-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T15:13:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-24T14:45:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-21T14:14:00.001-07:00

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)

2009-08-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-08-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Starting to feel better

2009-07-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

Starting to feel a bit better. My back has improved hugely, although I have to still be careful not to walk too far or overdo it. Ever since I had to give up my allotment I have been feeling quite down. The weather has been pretty poor as well so that has not helped, but am feeling a little bit better today.

Good news is that we have had our new kitchen fitted. I am really pleased with it. We just need to do the painting and lay the flooring. YAY

It is a lovely day today so we might go and eat out to enjoy it whilst we have it.

back ache

2009-06-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

Being in pain really is not very good fun. Since I had a great time doing the team building activity day two weeks ago, my back has been very painful. At first I thought I had pulled a muscle in my back, something I have done often. But two weeks later I am still in pain and getting pretty fed up. This is different to what I normally suffer. The pain is very low in my back, around the coccyx region; I guess it is similar to when I fell down on my bottom about 20 years when I fell down some stairs. That took months to get better. Two weeks later it still hurts to sit for more than 20 mins and walking is difficult. You should see me getting out of bed in the morning, I'm like an old lady, having to lean on everything and shuffle slowly, even though my bladder is bursting.

I just hope with some rest and gentle exercise things will start to improve.

UK Art fest

2009-06-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

we all took a piece of jigsaw and "altered it" to make one whole jigsaw

Here we are learning how to make dottess, being taught by Marina

courdroy cat trying to get to grips with learning to crochet

Elizabeth showing us how to crochet

Me poring over the needle and wool starting my crochet

I set off to Cheshire for a weekend with other crafters who I had "met" through the ATCs for all forum. We had a great time, chatting mostly, but we did spend the whole of Saturday making ATCS and learning/teaching each other new crafts. i learnt that you can make original stamps using cheap Tesco rubbers, I learnt how to crochet and how to make a dottee doll. We are definetly going to do it again, this time in Scotland. A lot of the Americans were interested in going to Scotland and having this Artfest weekend as part of their trip, so I think the numbers will have increased by then. Elizabeth and Margeux, our two Scottish lasses, are going to organise that one. Here are some photos of the weekend.

goodbye allotment

2009-06-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

Am pretty upset today as have had to give up my allotment. I loved going there as it was so nice to work away listening to the birds and other people toiling over the soil. I am just in too much pain all the time that I just cannot cope with it. I have been trying for the past year to get someone to help me but no luck there, so today I handed in my keys. I burst into tears, how embarrasing. Woah that is spooky, as I was writing this I got a phone call from the allotment people to say that they would save the potatoes that I put in for me. And they found some secateurs that Sarah bought me that I thought I had lost. Oh how sweet of them. I think I shall mourn the loss of the peace and quiet the allotment allowed me. But I guess I really must now sort out the aches and pains that I suffer with. This can't go on. Having to give up my hobbies because of the pain is not good news at all. But I bet you anything the docs say there is nothing that can be done as there is probably nothing much wrong. BIG SIGH.

busy busy

2009-06-05T03:32:00.000-07:00

Phew what a busy few weeks it has been. I went to Stubbers (web page www.stubbers.co.uk/)yesterday as part of a team building day for my ILM 5 Leadership and Managment course. It was really great fun. The staff were fanastic and everyone who was there had a great time and worked really well together. I was in a team of 7, Lisa, Ali, Sarah, Jessie, Diane, Natasha and me.

This is a picture of the whole of the ILM 5 just after the raft race.

Our first task was to try to cross a pond by using ropes and two logs. It took us a while to figure out what to do with all the available equipment, but we got there in the end and we all managed to get across safely without getting wet. Once on the other side of the pond we all pulled on the rope to get the next person across, so by the last person there were six of us pulling and she went really really fast along the rope across the pond. It was really cool.

The second task was to build a tower out of milk crates, as high as we could with two people standing at the top. It was really great fun. Again it took us a while to figure out the best plan but when we got it set up we really whizzed along. Natasha had a great time at the top. We managed a height of 21 crates, but the next team managed 25. Still we were pleased with our achievement.

We had a very well earned lunch break and then went on to a third task which involved moving along tightrope wires using ropes to help us and getting across from one platform to another. Then we had to balance ourselves on a large seesaw. Then finally we had to get each person in the team through a spider's web made of rope. That required a lot of trust in each other as we had to lift a few people and guide a few people through.

The final task involved all three groups racing to make a raft out of empty barrels and poles and ropes. We were offered an optimal design and went with that. I learnt how to tie a great knot. Just need to practise it otherwise I will forget how to do it. We all finished making the rafts and went into the water at the same time. We had to get to a platform in the middle of the lake and rescue our "damsel in distress" and row like crazy to a buoy, touch it and turn back. We were well in the lead the whole way. It was really exhausting and my arms still ache from rowing so hard, but our team got back first. But the race wasn't over, we had to untie it all and put it all back neatly. It was a great laugh and we finished well ahead of the other two teams. Several people got very wet but I think everyone had a great time. That was the end of the day and we all finished on a high. Fortunately the weather was really good, sunny with some cloud, so it was not too hot or too cold.

WE WON THE RAFT RACE! YAY

Ducklings

2009-05-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

The accommodation block where Sarah is living is full of about 1000 18/19 yr students. There is a pond there and two ducks have had ducklings, one has 11 to look after and one has 2 to look after. They have become the talk of the whole complex and even have a facebook group for everyone to follow their daily exploits. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=83652563387&ref=nf There are some great photos and stories on there.

Air Show

2009-05-24T11:43:00.001-07:00

Andy and I had a great afternoon watching the Air Show today. We booked a table at the Cliffs to eat and watch the show. We had a great view and watched the whole thing in comfort. It was a really hot day so I was glad to be inside. The food was really lovely. We had canapes to start and some champagne. Then we had pate followed by cold meat and salad. After being absolutely stuffed there was georgeous profiteroles to follow and then cheese and biscuits. All the time we were eating there were planes flying by at about our height, so it was cool to get some photos. We were able to get out on to the balcony to watch the show.

With this picture you can see the pier in the background.

One of my favourite of the planes is the Sea King Helicopter which is used for air sea rescue and also here are the parachutists that all land in one spot on the beach after spiralling down in a line. An amazing finale today.

Everyone's favourite, the red arrows.

today

2009-05-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

Today we went to South Weald park which is very near the parents in law. It was huge and had a lake in the middle of it. We took the dogs and Millie and Barney had a little dip!! LOL Barney's "dip" was accidental, we think. We were busy watching Milie worrying about her going into water after the ducks. A swan gave her a warning sound and she backed off, but Barney being dippy, jumped right in! Andy had to pull him back out as it was very deep and there was no easy slope to get up on. It was quite funny. As we walked round we threw sticks in for Millie to catch. She loved jumping straight in the water to get the sticks and kept barking for more. Poor old Barney's back legs were giving way after a while, so we went off to sit down for a bit. It was a lovely trip out. Then we popped in to see parents in law and brought back the Karcher (to clean stuff) and Andy invited them all round to ours for a BBQ in the evening. It was a bit chilly by the evening though, but it was nice.

Just finished watching De Vinci Code. We have already read the book and watched the film at the cinema. It certainly has an interesting twist. Looking forward to see Angels and Demons next week at the cinema.

101 things to do in 1001 days

2009-05-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

No 47 - don't buy craft stuff for one month. Well it is day 8 and i am doing ok so far!! lol. The first week was the danger week, hopefully I can last another 3 weeks. In my opinion the balance of a craft weekend doesnt count, nor does postage of ATCs!!! LOL

2009-05-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

Have managed finally to put in all the potatoes and onion at the allotment. Quite a mammoth task. Just have two patches of long grass that need turning over which shouldn't take too long. Also really must get my seeds planted so I can put them out at the end of the month. April, May and June are always so busy in the garden. I think I might give up the allotment when the rent runs out in September. I keep changing my mind about it as I love being out there, but I just can't do the heavy digging which is needed in the early Spring. Will have a think about it over the summer and if I really am not enjoying it then I really should give it up. But being out in the sun with the birds singing along whilst you work, and others working in the background is a really lovely peaceful time. However, I just usually end up in so much pain that the after effects of spending time there is not good news. i will get some photos of the allotment next time I go, probably at the weekend.

Andy has become obsessed with cutting the grass at home. Whereas when he first came to live with me five/six years ago it was hard enough getting him just to do the front lawn. He has been cutting both back and front nearly every day. We got a new lawnmower that cuts shorter, so he has cut back on that now thank goodness and given the grass a chance to grow! I put some weed killer and grass feed out on the front lawn this evening so he can't cut the grass for three days.

Went to my managerial course today. Everyone seem tired and hardly enthusiastic. We were left to our devices for two hours so that we could put together a questionnaire that we are going to ask our colleagues to complete. The intention of the questionnaire is to measure the opinions of others about our quality of written communication, namely emails. So that will be interesting to send out! Haha. If 15 of us send out 20 questionnaires and get back say 10 that will actually make 150 for our results, which is quite good. And it would be a great cross section of levels of staff. So you never know it may actually work out to be useful as a tool to measure written communcation within our group.

I have been making ATCs like mad again. There was a collage-a-thon on ATCs for all website last weekend so I made about 1o cards and have sent out 8. I still find it quite amazing that people actually want what I have made! Very strange concept to get used to. I want to make about 5 or 6 cards to send to a Facebook ATC group that is UK based. Not many people do this strange hobby in the UK, so it is always difficult to keep postage costs down. So any opportunity I can find to send within the UK the better.

I had a few positive contacts re the family tree over the past week, which is quite exciting. Have managed to extend the tree on one side and need to check an interesting story to confirm another relationship. But from one of the contacts we have actually ended up being friends on facebook. Alice wanted to talk to someone she was related to, no matter how distantly that was her own age. Her FIFTH cousin is a year younger than her and lives in Australia. So we will see what develops from that.

I am going to have to tell Sev that he can't play on his xbox war game for a few days, Sunday to Thursday as he has four exams next week and really needs to concentrate on revision. He absolutely hates revising but if he is to get good enough grades to be an officer in the Navy this year, then he will have to put some work into it. So that is a battle I am not looking forward to. he will probably be grumpy the whole time, but it will be worth it, I hope.

Sarah tells me she isn't doing too well, has had a cold for 4 weeks now. No it isn't swine flu. she is just run down and not eating properly or sleeping properly. She also has exams coming up so needs to look after herself a bit better. The photo below is of her rock climbing. Her boyfriend teaches people how to climb so four of them spent the day doing that. I am glad that she managed to get out and get some fresh air and exercise in the lovely Peak District.

Sarah Sev and Alice

randomness

2009-04-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

I really must change the header of this blog - the black is much too depressing for Spring. Not actually growing anything as yet on the allotment, except rhubarb. James, my brother, very kindly helped me to dig over and prepare the ground for the potatoes. I will put the potatoes in at the weekend. I have bought some seeds so I really must get those done as well, might do sew some seeds tomorrow and put them in trays in the greenhouse. I am seriously considering giving up the allotment when the rent runs out in September. My knees and back ache too much and I just cant manage the heavy digging. It will be a great loss, but unless I suddenly lose a lot of weight and get very fit I can't see how things are going to change in that respect.

My brother was visiting us so he could start the prep for our new kitchen. He has pulled out the old larder and lifted the tiles off the floor. He has also nicely boarded up the door that did lead to the hall from the kitchen. The kitchen fitter came round yesterday to check the kitchen designer had done his calculations right. There is a bit of an issue about the fridge. it is too big to go where we wanted it to - where the larder was. The larder was under the stairs so there is a lintel in the way. We cant remove the lintel otherwise the stairs will fall down. So he has left the lintel and had to leave a supporting pole as well.

I was pretty upset about the fridge as it is only a year old and I really like it. However Andy's parents asked if they could have it and we have said that is okay. mainly because when they move in 6-8 weeks time they are giving us their range cooker, a double bed, two bedside cabinets and a drinks cabinet. So "fair swap" I guess!! We will just have to buy a similar fridge which is smaller. The kitchen designer said the kitchen would be fitted beginning of July, but the fitter said it wont be until August!! So not happy about that as we have the floors bare now. Oh well, it is always stressful having works done or moving, but things are bearable so I shouldn't complain. It is not like we don't have any or minimal use of the kitchen.

The kids are soon to start their exams so we have exam papers everywhere and revision timetables to keep an eye on. They both seem okay about it, though i think Alice wishes she had lots of time in between each exam. Sev actually did some revision without being reminded today! I was amazed and pleasantly surprised. He is so annoyingly laid back about his studies, although acutely aware now of how bright he is now that he is in main stream education. He says if he doesn't do well enough in his exams to get in the Navy as an officer he will just go in as a rating. Oh he is so annoying. Why can't he have a bit of motivation! Just an ounce of the motivation his sisters have would be something. But I am sure he will do well no matter what he does - he just seems to be lucky in that respect. Time will tell.

I took Alice to the supermarket to buy a little book that she can use as a school leavers book. She has decorated it and is going to take it into school for her friends to write in and decorate. I dug out an autograph book that I had when I was 14 - it is exactly 30 years old! Can you imagine that. I am surely not old enough to have a book that I have kept for that long. I couldn't remember some of the people who had written in the autograph book, mostly school friends, but it was nice to read through it. I am sure she will cherish her leavers book for 30 years too. LOL We talked about her last day/exam and how she and all her friends will probably cry. They will probably see each other during the holidays and beyond I should think. Six of them are arranging to spend the weekend camping together which is a great idea as a final get together. She unfortunately will be missing the prom. I think she is more disappointed about not getting a dress than actually going to the prom. I might just let her buy a dress just for the hell of it, I am sure she can find some opportunity to wear it this summer - maybe for her 16th birthday party.

bye bye sarah

2009-04-25T14:46:00.001-07:00

Spent another three hours down the allotment today. Trimmed the grass around and in the large strawberry bed. It was a bit windy but still quite warm. One of my allotment neighbours very kindly lent me a DVD of Sweeney Todd, the American version with Angela Lansbury, so looking forward to seeing that tomorrow.

We went up to the parents in laws today as it was nan's birthday. We bought her a couple of vases and some flowers. Then at 7pm we took Sarah to the station as she was heading back to University. She should be there by 11pm tonight and her boyfriend is escorting her back across the city to her accommodation. It is horrid having to say goodbye to her. I wont see her until late June now. She is just so damned independent and unwilling to be "mothered". Luckily Sev recognised my sadness, I think, and gave me plenty of hugs after she left so that cheered me up. But then he might be going away soon too, off to join the Navy by the end of the summer.

BIG SIGH

allotment

2009-04-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

Well it is allotment time again. The old regulars are back and it is nice to say hello to everyone again and have a little chat. We do actually do some work too though. And there is plenty to do. I have done my usual "not in the mood for it" all through April and now find myself having to play catch up. My potatoes and onions aren't even in yet. They are supposed to be planted March/April, so I guess I have a few days left! Hopefully my brother James will be down to give me a hand with the digging. I really just don't have the strength for the serious digging. Pottered about today clearing some weeds. And the other day cut some of the grass at the side. I will get some seeds on Pay day which is next Wednesday and start planting. My allotmet neighbours are watering their allotments every day as we have had glorious sunshine all week. I don't actually have anything to water yet! mmm, I really do need to catch up.

From vegetable growing to apples. I have been doing my usual surfing through google and as usual one site leads to another and I find a great idea that I want to try out. This time it was how to make a picture using text. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Pictures-out-of-Text I tried to do a bowl of fruit first but it really was just too complicated. So I eventually came across the idea of using the apple logo and this is the result. Go on, have a play. I have been reading a book by Darren Waller called "Random Acts Of Kindness. It lists 365 suggestions for doing a random act of kindness to a loved one or a stranger. It is humourously written. For example. "Shop locally instead of at the supermarket, unless you are a shoplifter" I thought that was quite funny. But it has some really lovely things that have seemed quite a small token by one person but has made a huge impact on the recipient. Like the man whose toll had been paid by the previous driver cheering him when he was on the way to a funeral. Really uplifting stories in there and some funny ideas too. I just might try one/some. I definitely intend to send a post card to my company's post room and IT dept to thank them for their brilliant work which does tend to go unremarked upon.

Sarah is still with us, but is going back tomorrow evening. It seems she has had a fun time hanging out with her friends this week. It has been good to have her back for a week.

We all went to the theatre to see Sweeney Todd, the musical thriller by the local amateur theatre group. It was a fantastic night out. The show was excellent with its little quirks and some of the singers were really great. We thought the way they arranged the disposal of the bodies from his barber chair was hilarious. They had the barber shop set 10 steps above the stage floor and the chair was swivelled round and the trap door opened so the body slid down onto stage floor, behind the scenery. It made us laugh every time they used it.

growing

2009-04-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

I am having great fun making ATCs for the UK ARTFEST in June. Have made another Sarah Fanelli one and think I might make some more of this one as I really do love it.

This one below is actually big enough to make four ATCs. It is a "works in progress". I have just torn scraps of black and white patterned paper on to some card. Then I slapped some black poster paint on and added some stickers and rub ons. Just waiting for it to dry. May try and sand it, but a bit worried that some of the stickers may come off. Not decided yet how to proceed, but will try to remember to keep a log here of the progress.

enjoy

2009-04-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

Just enjoying the last half hour of peace and quiet before the two wandering urchins return home. Sev and Sarah have been in Sheffield for the past week. That means I have been able to find milk in my fridge and food in the cupboard!! Poor things didn't have much money though, so I think Sev is a wee bit hungry. We have stocked up on cereal and milk and bread and eggs so he can have a decent breakfast before going back to College tomorrow. I don't think they did a lot, not even any walking which seems a bit of a waste - but heh it was their week to do what they wanted.

Sarah is only back for a week and then she goes back to University, having gotten some money in the bank by then, so she shouldn't starve when she gets back. I guess I will have to put away my crafting gear for a week whilst she is here. Maybe I might be able to sneak back in the spare room to do a little bit when she is out! :)

I made some ATCs today and there is one I am really pleased with, not sure I really want to swap it after all. I think I will just have to make some more. It is based on a Sarah Fanelli drawing.

Art Fest in June

2009-04-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

I am getting very excited about attending my first ever live ATC trading weekend. The details are:

UK ARTFEST 2009
WEBSITE - ATCsforall - Forum - http://www.atcsforall.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=68

Anita and Kay (Fantasy Firebird) from ATCs for all website have very kindly set up a weekend where those from the UK can join in on a live ATC swap. There will also be some workshops set up by those that are going.
VENUE: Holiday Inn, Runcorn Just off Junction 12 on the M56 (between Liverpool and Manchester Airports)
DATE: evening of Friday 12 June to early Sunday 14 June
COST: Weekend package £98; Day package for Saturday only is £28
WORKSHOPS: Stampcarving, Dottee Dolls, Crochet and Needle Felting, Rolos and Jewellry, making ATCs and trading ATCs

I am going to start making some ATCs to swap today. Not sure how many I will need. I think we have to colour themes - black and white AND Lucky Dip which basically means anything goes. This is great cos then we can all bring our own artistic talents to the fore to swap. Only 54 more sleeps to go!! Better start making some ATCS.