Had a lovely evening meal out with my usual Tuesday friends on Tuesday of course, always good to catch up with gossip haha.
Wednesday morning hubby and I drove to friendsL&K's (hour and a half away) and after a quick coffee I went with friendL to meet the coach leaving the men with their plans of computer buying and installing and moving huge wooden sleepers in the garden. FriendL is an active member of her local WI group and had arranged a coach trip to the West End to see Blood Brothers. Just 16 of us piled into a small coach and were deposited near the Phoenix Theatre, Charing Cross Road. FriendL had really kindly bought me a sandwich and bottle of water so along with others from the group we went into a little park area to sit and picnic in the sunshine (a bit chilly though). It seemed like community gardens with little paths and small areas where brick walls or large stones had been arranged for seating. We did get a couple of odd-bods walk directly into our semi-circle and start chatting but they didn't stay long and I don't think anyone felt too intimidated by them!
The show was brilliant. Marti Pellow (formerly of Wet Wet Wet) was a lead role as narrator and although I didn't actually recognise the other actors they were all brilliant. I laughed and cried!!!
We got back about 7pm(ish) and the four of us then went straight out to dinner. When we finally got back to their house to settle in the lounge we had all their cruise photos and our Florida photos to bore each other with.....then definitely ready for bed at midnight.
Thursday up not too early and lovely bacon sarnies for breakfast (thanks FriendK), then we bid our fond farewells around 10:30am(ish). On our way home Hubby and I stopped off at B&Qs to have our first look at kitchens - yes I've finally given in and letting him give ours a makeover!
Thursday evening was an art-group night. So nice to see a few more people there. I think there were 10 of us :o) Then onto the truck stop for live music and a bit of dancing and a lot of chatting to friends. And Friday was our usual Daughter and children here for dinner day. E was doing a lot of sewing and made a full set of clothes for the rag doll she had made, clever girl in both design and execution. R spent a lot of the time sitting around not sure what she wanted to do. O was his usual cheeky self and Daughter and I cooked between us and pegged out washing and brought it back in again between us too.
Today is a relax day for me, recharging my energy levels because I've a full house again tomorrow with NieceL and her family along with Daughter and hers......off to do the shopping list now!
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Saturday, 24 March 2012
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Pressing......
OK so the pile of ironing had got so intimidating, every time I walked out of the bathroom I could see the tower of creased clothes piled high in the room opposite. Well tomorrow Hubby needs the top he only wears once a month for a bowling league and he missed last month because we were away so I guess this top had been in the pile two months so I'd obviously not done any ironing for that long and had holiday washing in there too!!!
Well today was the day. So apart from two very short tea breaks and one hour long lunch break I managed to iron my way through five recorded TV programmes and even though it's early March and a bit chilly outside I needed both windows in that room thrown open to keep me cool enough to carry on!
I'm very pleased to announce that at 5pm it was all done, including his bowling top.
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Well today was the day. So apart from two very short tea breaks and one hour long lunch break I managed to iron my way through five recorded TV programmes and even though it's early March and a bit chilly outside I needed both windows in that room thrown open to keep me cool enough to carry on!
I'm very pleased to announce that at 5pm it was all done, including his bowling top.
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Thursday, 8 March 2012
Helpful distractions....
Woke this morning quite worried about SisterM who had been taken into hospital yesterday and kept in overnight, thankfully by early afternoon she had text me to say treatment and scan done and she was going home. So I let my siblings know.
Meanwhile Daugter came over with the children and the day was taken up with car washing (Granddad with R and O), trousers making (E with help from me and Daughter), checking out an internet story (me and R), crochet (E), craft shopping (me, Granddad, R and O), lunch (all of us), collecting frog spawn in a bucket to watch (me, Granddad, R and O), bathing (R), hair combing through and drying (Daughter for R), afternoon tea with muffins (made by Daughter yummy), badminton in the garden (Granddad with all children at various times), playing mario with O (Granddad - while Daughter took R and E to choir)........so a busy day had by all.
This evening I'm off to my art group but mentioned that I really don't know what to paint as I'd finished my last projects. So R suggested....
* Toast with butter melting over the edge
* Pancakes with syrup on
* A French worm wearing an onion string around it's neck
* A Penguin wearing dungarees and a straw hat
* Cowboy panda
* Hippy blackbird with dreadlocks
E said to keep the perspective of lying down toast the finished picture should remain lying down!!!
This made for a very funny lunchtime with lots of laughing. The only problem is I think R would really like it if I did produce these pictures, I wish I was a good enough artist to manage it.
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Meanwhile Daugter came over with the children and the day was taken up with car washing (Granddad with R and O), trousers making (E with help from me and Daughter), checking out an internet story (me and R), crochet (E), craft shopping (me, Granddad, R and O), lunch (all of us), collecting frog spawn in a bucket to watch (me, Granddad, R and O), bathing (R), hair combing through and drying (Daughter for R), afternoon tea with muffins (made by Daughter yummy), badminton in the garden (Granddad with all children at various times), playing mario with O (Granddad - while Daughter took R and E to choir)........so a busy day had by all.
This evening I'm off to my art group but mentioned that I really don't know what to paint as I'd finished my last projects. So R suggested....
* Toast with butter melting over the edge
* Pancakes with syrup on
* A French worm wearing an onion string around it's neck
* A Penguin wearing dungarees and a straw hat
* Cowboy panda
* Hippy blackbird with dreadlocks
E said to keep the perspective of lying down toast the finished picture should remain lying down!!!
This made for a very funny lunchtime with lots of laughing. The only problem is I think R would really like it if I did produce these pictures, I wish I was a good enough artist to manage it.
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Monday, 5 March 2012
40 years in 210 minutes....
I know a lot of people knock Facebook and yes for me it can be the cause of total procrastination looking through other people's pointless status updates but I love it for the way I can keep an eye on family and friends and just occasionally find or be found by someone I knew in a past life and lost touch with.
JF found me, we had known each other in our youth club days, and we arranged to meet some 40 years later.
The venue was about 22 miles from home and roughly mid-way between where we both now live. It's a food-hall with a cafe and we sat at that table talking non-stop for three and a half hours. One of the waiters heard how we were having a 40 year reunion and was so amazed he even brought over another waiter to introduce us!
We only really dragged ourselves away because JF had an evening planned that she need to get ready for, but we left with promises of doing it again soon and an invite for hubby and I to her house to meet her hubby too.
Thank you Facebook.
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JF found me, we had known each other in our youth club days, and we arranged to meet some 40 years later.
The venue was about 22 miles from home and roughly mid-way between where we both now live. It's a food-hall with a cafe and we sat at that table talking non-stop for three and a half hours. One of the waiters heard how we were having a 40 year reunion and was so amazed he even brought over another waiter to introduce us!
We only really dragged ourselves away because JF had an evening planned that she need to get ready for, but we left with promises of doing it again soon and an invite for hubby and I to her house to meet her hubby too.
Thank you Facebook.
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Sunday, 4 March 2012
Florida holiday - February 2012....
Another holiday with Hubby, SisterM and bilA.
19 Feb off to Orlando in Florida for 10 days with a night flight on 29 Feb getting us home mid morning on the 1 March.
The journeys to and fro were thankfully uneventful, just the usual queueing and hanging around, but nothing really to report on. Collecting the hire car took time but was easy too. We had talked to lots of people before hand and been told which were the best diners to go to for a good breakfast and some venues we should not miss and the provided sat.nav. managed with everything Hubby put into it, including getting us to the place we collected the villa key from and then onto the villa. Hubby did all the driving for the whole holiday, of course.
By total coincidence our Canadian cousin F and her daughter M were going to be in Florida at the same time as us so we arranged to meet up with them, but as they were still over 3 hours drive away we suggested they sleep over so we had a full day with them which was lovely.
The villa was lovely and four bedrooms instead of the three that SisterM had booked, so plenty of room. Two double bedrooms both with en-suite so no arguments there, and the other two twin bedded rooms shared a bathroom so really easy when F&M stayed.
We used diners Bob Evans, Dennys, iHop as on our recommended list, also we could tell the very popular ones in the evening as they had huge crowds outside with people holding bleepers and having a 60-90minute wait.....we couldn't be bothered with that, so we mainly ate our 'dinner of the day' in the theme parks but not the fast food as each one had choices of 'nice' restaurants too, then snacked in the villa at night. The night F&M stayed we had Chinese takeaway delivered, which meant lots of chatting time :o) Unfortunately SisterM had a rotten 'holiday' tummy day and was very tired so didn't enjoy their visit as much which was a shame.
First theme park we did was Magic Kingdom, which we all were very disappointed with. It was very scruffy looking, seemed like all shops and fast food but very few rides and only geared to the very young, but no magic, no Disney characters walking around........we certainly wondered what we had let ourselves in for with this sort of holiday!!!
But very glad to report EVERYWHERE ELSE was so much better. We did NASA and was lucky enough to be there when they launched a rocket, we went to SeaWorld and were given an upgraded ticket to go back a second time for free which we did, Hollywood World was great fun too and Epcot was brilliant. On our last day on the way to the airport we also had an hour long Airboat ride spotting alligators in the reed beds of Boggy Creek then we listened to a short talk and got to hold a small alligator (with his mouth taped shut of course).
We got totally rained on twice and even bought those Mickey Mouse plastic ponchos the second time. M&A decided they needed two rest days, Thursday and Sunday so they could recharge their personal energy. Hubby and I left them to it on Sunday and headed out shopping, didn't buy lots but interesting to see the different goods and prices.
This was a very special holiday as my big sister has terminal cancer and we never thought she would be able to go on this sort of holiday, her travel insurance cost more than the holiday, so we made the most of it all and even cuddled Winnie the Pooh and Shamu the Whale posing for photos enjoying the silly-ness of it all.
Got home lunch time Thursday and so far Clive and I don't seem to be suffering jet lag, fingers crossed eh?
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19 Feb off to Orlando in Florida for 10 days with a night flight on 29 Feb getting us home mid morning on the 1 March.
The journeys to and fro were thankfully uneventful, just the usual queueing and hanging around, but nothing really to report on. Collecting the hire car took time but was easy too. We had talked to lots of people before hand and been told which were the best diners to go to for a good breakfast and some venues we should not miss and the provided sat.nav. managed with everything Hubby put into it, including getting us to the place we collected the villa key from and then onto the villa. Hubby did all the driving for the whole holiday, of course.
By total coincidence our Canadian cousin F and her daughter M were going to be in Florida at the same time as us so we arranged to meet up with them, but as they were still over 3 hours drive away we suggested they sleep over so we had a full day with them which was lovely.
The villa was lovely and four bedrooms instead of the three that SisterM had booked, so plenty of room. Two double bedrooms both with en-suite so no arguments there, and the other two twin bedded rooms shared a bathroom so really easy when F&M stayed.
We used diners Bob Evans, Dennys, iHop as on our recommended list, also we could tell the very popular ones in the evening as they had huge crowds outside with people holding bleepers and having a 60-90minute wait.....we couldn't be bothered with that, so we mainly ate our 'dinner of the day' in the theme parks but not the fast food as each one had choices of 'nice' restaurants too, then snacked in the villa at night. The night F&M stayed we had Chinese takeaway delivered, which meant lots of chatting time :o) Unfortunately SisterM had a rotten 'holiday' tummy day and was very tired so didn't enjoy their visit as much which was a shame.
First theme park we did was Magic Kingdom, which we all were very disappointed with. It was very scruffy looking, seemed like all shops and fast food but very few rides and only geared to the very young, but no magic, no Disney characters walking around........we certainly wondered what we had let ourselves in for with this sort of holiday!!!
But very glad to report EVERYWHERE ELSE was so much better. We did NASA and was lucky enough to be there when they launched a rocket, we went to SeaWorld and were given an upgraded ticket to go back a second time for free which we did, Hollywood World was great fun too and Epcot was brilliant. On our last day on the way to the airport we also had an hour long Airboat ride spotting alligators in the reed beds of Boggy Creek then we listened to a short talk and got to hold a small alligator (with his mouth taped shut of course).
We got totally rained on twice and even bought those Mickey Mouse plastic ponchos the second time. M&A decided they needed two rest days, Thursday and Sunday so they could recharge their personal energy. Hubby and I left them to it on Sunday and headed out shopping, didn't buy lots but interesting to see the different goods and prices.
This was a very special holiday as my big sister has terminal cancer and we never thought she would be able to go on this sort of holiday, her travel insurance cost more than the holiday, so we made the most of it all and even cuddled Winnie the Pooh and Shamu the Whale posing for photos enjoying the silly-ness of it all.
Got home lunch time Thursday and so far Clive and I don't seem to be suffering jet lag, fingers crossed eh?
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