Don't bother reading.....

So much done and so much still to do,
shopping and struggling with what to get for the last few,
wrapping what I've already got,
printing lists and ticking them off,
menu planning and adding to the online supermarket basket,
swearing that the online supermarket keeps timing out for no apparent reason,
the 'alternative' panto,
the granddaughter's drama group performance,
buying and altering clothing for Christmas dinners,
organising and enjoying a Christmas dinner with x-work mates,
looking forward to another Christmas dinner with a crowd of friends, and
babysitting so Daughter could go to M's Christmas dinner.

However as EVERYONE is doing the same just now I won't bother blogging about it.
Cheers

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Theatre, So not a pantomime......

This is one of my fun Christmas time traditions and this year's definitely was fun!

About "The Brontes of Dunwich Heath (& Cliff)"

Eastern Angles proudly present their alternative festive extravaganza, The Brontes of Dunwich Heath (and Cliff).

Join Mad Cath, Plain Jane and a panoply of off-the-wall characters, as literature and laughs combine in this musical Christmas caper.

Prepare for a whole lot of wacky Wuthering!

Meet, greet and eat......

It was probably because everyone was waiting for me to be well enough, so some of the friends I see only a few times a year all came along at once which gave me a lovely weekend of old friends and lots of food :-)

Friday evening, friendD and I went for a pub meal, very successfully trying a pub she hadn't been to before. We worked out that we had met 23 years ago, lost touch for a while then thanks to facebook met up again.

Saturday Hubby and I drove about 65miles(ish) and gathered at friendsL&K for pre-dinner drinks and friendsB&T arrived very soon after we did. They laughed as they raised glasses of beer and wine while I raised a mug of tea! Us three girls have been friends since school days so never short of chat. Then out in the cold for a brisk walk to the restaurant....lovely and warm in there. The food was excellent but far too much of it, some of the starters were as big as I would want as a main course. I couldn't even manage a dessert and that's unheard of for me. We slept over at friendsL&K although bedtime was after the very chilly walk home and the warming drinks and lots more chat.

Sunday when we had all finally surfaced the lovely K cooked us all a yummy breakfast all while chatting about some exciting future plans they have. Then big hugs and promises to get together again soon and we left them to their busy afternoon and drove home.

Today I had a lunch date with friendN. We've known each other for a long time too, in fact I remember his daughter being born and this summer she got married! Love that we can do lunch now that he is retired too and we had a great catch up.

I'm so lucky to have all these friends and the opportunities to keep in touch....but I will need to cut back on the calories for the next few days hahaha
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Kitchen fest.....

It's been lovely just popping into the kitchen this week to knock up stuff as and when the mood has taken me.

Apart from meals there was the tray bake of a sponge base (only half butter to flour and dark soft sugar, so a bit heavier) with a thick topping of crunchy cluster cereal with chocolate flakes (which had gone soft in the box) pushed into the sponge. The baking revived it to a very good crunch. The leftover blackberries and raspberries came out of the fridge and into paper cases with muffin mixture. There has been a lunch of using up casseroled veg whizzed to a thick soup and drunk out of a big mug (a cold wet day cuddle) with my own rolls still a bit warm from the oven mmmmm. And today was a quick batch of jam tarts and the very runny plum jam I made was perfect in these so I'll be making more as there are plenty of jars of jam that are not good enough to give as gifts.

Of course there are no photos as none of it lasted long enough :-)
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Luxembourg holiday, 8-11 Nov....

This was another of our three couples mini-holidays. Bit of a panic to start with as told we were meeting the coach at 8am but got a text at 7:40am saying coach early and we're already on it but don't panic! We were instantly out the door and our lovely neighbourA was playing taxi so there in a jiffy.

We've done these before and this was the feeder coach and a nice easy ride to Thurrock with no other pick-up stops. Quick comfort break then onto our coach for the trip with driver Bob. I'll not bore you with long coach journey stories of chatting (all 6), sleeping (very rarely me), reading (mostly me), passing round sweets (all 6), losing keys (not me), finding keys (not me either) and lots and lots of getting ons and offs.

So coach-coach-ferry-coach and finally arrived at The Grand Hotel de Vianden in Luxembourg. A lovely hotel and even though our arrival was delayed quite a bit the staff gave us a lovely welcome, really efficiently sorted us into our rooms and served a lovely three course dinner. We all agreed at the end that it was a great hotel, spotless and modern(ish) upstairs and full of character downstairs. Someone there had a bit of a thing for hippos, there were loads of stuffed toys, pictures and ornaments everywhere! Excellent buffet breakfasts and three course dinners were included too!

Saturday coach trip into Luxembourg City where we did our own thing. Beautiful Cathedral and yummy pastry shop for our coffee break.

During dinner Saturday night the staff ushered us outside quickly to witness a local tradition for St Martin's day, where men light huge fire balls on chains from the bonfire at the top of the hill and (pretend) fight with then down the hill to the bonfire at the bottom, we all watched even though it was raining then ran inside to finish dinner. Afterwards our men decided that we would walk into Vianden to a small bar that had a jazz night advertised, so we all togged up for the cold and then once we got there decided €10 each entrance was too much so went to another bar for drinks. Back at the hotel we found the landlord entertaining those in the bar with a singalong and knowing that two of our men were musicians (earlier conversation) he handed friendF the guitar for a while and we all drank, sang and danced till finally heading up for bed at 1:45am.

Sunday's coach trip was along the Moselle River and a stop in Remich, then through Mullerthal (called Little Switzerland) and saw unusual rock formations, then through the pretty town of Echternach.

While on the road a white car was trying to speed past but misjudged and knocked into the side of the coach then drove off. Our driver was furious but managed not to swear, I was most impressed. A little further down the road we came to a t-junction and just as the coach was turning left the hit-and-run car was spotted parked up on the road to the right and half the coach shouted to let our driver know. Seems our coach had a few minor scratches and their top of the range Audi was bashed in right along its side!

Sunday dinner was good and there was an Italian singer entertaining us and the Belgian coach party, so she mixed French songs and English songs modern and traditional so we all had another sing along and dance. Great fun! Only damper on the night was paying our rather large weekend bar bill before we went to bed.

Early start Monday with breakfast at 6am and all luggage and passengers loaded by 7am. Thick fog for quite a while, choppy ferry crossing, heavy traffic, wet weather and road works however home safe and sound but tired around 7pm. FriendA played taxi again and Daughter had been in and turned the heating on, put milk in the fridge and even filled and boiled the kettle ready for us.

Well done BfriendM for finding this holiday at such a bargain price and well done friendF for his German and French language skills that sorted all our communication needs.
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Halloween our way....

This year organised and cooked and decorated by Daughter and the grandchildren.

Theatre: The Opinion Makers.....

I haven't been to the theatre for ages and was really looking forward to it. This was booked a long time ago with neighbour Trish and her friends and about an hour before we were leaving Trish phoned to say one friend couldn't go and did I know anyone who would like to use the ticket. When I rang Daughter she eagerly jumped at the chance of a night out for a change.

This is the website description...

A Mercury Theatre Made in Colchester and Derby Theatre Co-Production

When the utterly incompetent team at Fernsby Market Research find themselves facing the stiffest challenge of their professional lives – to report what the British Public really think of world famous ‘Doctor Campbell’s Lotion’ in readiness for a re-launch – there’s only one thing for it; make it all up! After all, that’s what market research companies do, isn’t it?

Critically-acclaimed writing duo Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon have assembled a wonderful cast of characters for this brand new musical comedy, including: the hapless Fernsby and his useless sidekicks; a beatnik Advertising phoney and his jazz flute playing muse; a Scottish Laird with a dark secret and a glamorous American gold-digger wife; and an insane Home Secretary-in-waiting.

What’s more, they’ve written a raft of great new songs that’ll transport you back to the world of ‘swinging sixties’ London for this hilarious, off-beat musical take on the birth of the political pollster – think Mad Men meets Carry On!

Billed as a musical comedy, but it was neither and the four of us cringed and I think two would have left at the interval and not gone back. Daughter googled it during the break and found some dire reviews which we all agreed with. But I don't give in "it may get better in the second half" I said with a grin, but it didn't.

This is what Daughter put on facebook....
 Really dodgy musical with Bake Off's Mel Wotsit. It was a spoof musical with references to various other musicals particularly in the really poorly arranged music. it was lacking pace, the script was shit and the acting of half the cast was lacklustre at best.

So a night out to talk about for all the wrong reasons hahaha.
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One month after....

Hard to believe surgery was a month ago!

Things are getting back to a bit more like our normal routine, I'm going out in the evenings with my friends to art group, the truck stop (though I'm not dancing yet), pub meals etc. Saturday night Hubby and I joined our neighbours/friendsP&A on their quiz team (and we were winning till the last couple of rounds). Tonight I'm off to the theatre.

I'm doing more around the house, ironing for short spells, I made a cake last week and made a dinner, but I'm being careful not to do too much partly because it starts to hurt but mainly so Hubby isn't left with nothing to do ;-)  He's been such a domestic goddess these past few weeks that I don't want to deprive him!

With the hospital not wanting to see me again till January and although I'm still sore a lot of the time I'm not sore enough to need regular pain relief, so I'm considering this subject now closed before it gets boring and try to blog about more interesting things.

SO -we are sitting here watching the wind build into the major storm they have been forcasting and as I'm typing this post I keep doing a copy to clipboard as the power keeps going off and I may not be able to save it. There are a couple of big rubber playmats flying across our garden and we know they are from under the swings next door. Unfortunately our very pretty tulip tree has been split in two with half of it now lying on the hedge.

We're back....Power went off for a while so we went next door for a mug of tea or two as they have a gas cooker (we've only just changed ours to electric of course, buggar). Seems the storm has now passed us and thankfully we can report no damage.
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Yaay, ouch and boo.....

I've now had a letter from the hospital to advise that the histology report has confirmed that the entire tumour has been removed and they don't want to see me again until my outpatient appointment in January and another CT scan next April. :-)

Unfortunately now I'm doing a bit more the main scar area and my back are hurting a bit more. Swings and roundabouts eh?

Had a lovely couple of hours with R and O (while daughter took E to her percussion lesson). We made a few more Halloween paper and card decorations to add to the collection. Later when daughter came back it all morphed into screen time as usual, with three children having to share our two laptops and sofa space so the third could watch the two screens when it wasn't their turn!

Lovely evening at the truck stop, dinner there for us three ladies (mmmm bbq ribs) while our men went bowling. Then into the bar to be entertained by "Hatman" and later joined by our bowlers and other special friends to help celebrate FriendM's birthday with cake complete with sparkly candles.
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Looking through ruby glasses.....

20 October 1973 and I'd spent the night on a mattress on the lounge floor of friends Jackie and Nick (lost touch with them many many years ago). It was our wedding day and I couldn't leave from home on my dad's arm as my dad wasn't talking to me and wouldn't be there. My future husband wasn't Jewish and although we were definitely not a religious family my dad felt he couldn't give his blessing or approval and it must have been hard for him and as much as I hated his Victorian attitude I also had to admire his courage to stick by his decision and see it through. Well if it was hard for dad it was so much harder for my mum, torn between her husband and her daughter for months and standing her ground too and coming to our wedding. Dad and I did make up a few years later.

So, what can I remember about that special day, forty years ago?

The sun shone on the golden autumn leaves. It was warm and dry.

We were the last couple to be married in the old Hammersmith Registry Office, a lovely old brick building with a beautiful area at the front for photo taking.

Friend Nick wore a chauffeur's hat and put a fur rug in his cream coloured Fiat to drive me to the Registry Office.

My dress was made of crimpoline and a halter neck style so backless. For outside I had a lace shawl and big floppy hat which I think were my borrowed but I've forgotten now who from. The dress I remember had cost me £5 which should have been dearer but they knocked a little off because it had a dirty mark which actually washed out really easily. I wore the most enormous platform shoes and insisted Hubby wore flats (men wore platforms too in 1973) so I didn't look so much shorter than him.

SisterS and SisterP didn't make it to the service as they were laying out the food at the reception, the food that SisterM and I had made weeks before and put in her freezer.

Baby NieceL, just 5 days before her first birthday, blew raspberries throughout the service (loved it).

My mum and Hubby's dad were our witnesses.

Our reception was in a brand new nightclub, The Nashville Rooms in Fulham, West London, we hired the hall for just £10 but had to be out by 6pm so they could open in time for the evening.

Our best man made his speach from the DJ box, think he was a bit embarrassed.

The dance floor lit up which 3 year old NieceS loved.

We moved onto Hubby's parent's house to continue celebrating but my new Hubby and I were the first to leave and head to our little rented bed-sit on the other side of London, as the epic Sparticus was being shown on tv for the first time and we had bought our first 12inch black and white tv specially!

Of course there have been highs, lows and lots of just jogging along, however we are both very proud to be celebrating our ruby wedding and remembering our special day forty years ago! 

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