Cadfael: The Virgin in the Ice - theatre....

The world premiere stage adaptation of Ellis Peters’ famous medieval sleuth.

It is winter 1139 and raging civil war has sent many refugees fleeing north from Worcester, among them an orphaned boy, his beautiful 17 year old sister and a young nun. But they seem to have disappeared somewhere in the wild winter landscape of frost and snow – and Brother Cadfael embarks on a dangerous quest to find them.

The search will lead him to discover a chilling and terrible murder, and a tale of passion gone astray.

Ellis Peters’ Cadfael novels sold millions of copies worldwide and spawned a very successful television series starring Derek Jacobi.

Featuring film projections, lavish settings and bespoke music, this stunning new production is produced by the same company that bought you The Holly & The Ivy and On Golden Pond.

Sadly have to say I found this boring. The story line was delivered in a very disjointed way and the whole thing felt very flat, with no great highs or lows. Out of the four of us two enjoyed it and two didn't, so it wasn't awful just not my sort of thing.
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Is he my new boyfriend....

On weekdays Hubby and I are usually out independently, both busy but separate. Every two weeks after our art group my friends and I go to Olive's bar on the A14. It was set up as a lorry park with facilities for lorry drivers but soon became well known and well used for the good food in its restaurant served 24 hours a day. They also have a large bar area and Thursday nights is live music (some better than others).

We are not the only group of friends to go there regularly so we get used to seeing the same faces and we have watched many changes in other people's relationships, often assuming that someone we had seen on their own for a very long time had now found love when seen on the dance floor with a new partner, of course it could be just a new dance partner.

Well because last week I didn't have my own car for art, hubby dropped me off then came to Olive's bar for a pint and to take me home. This Thursday we decided to go to Olive's bar again even though it wasn't an art night, because they had our favourite duet performing and their bookings never seem to coincide with art nights. Seven of us met there early to eat a yummy carvery first and hubby came with. So now I'm wondering if the other regulars who don't know us well enough to be introduced, think the man I was slow dancing with is my new boyfriend rather than my husband of nearly 40 years!
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Brain stretching....

Both of my granddaughters have me challenged to games on Lexulous (online scrabble) and they are both good enough to give me a brain stretching struggle. You know that programme "Are you smarter than a 10 year old?" well I'm definitely not, in this instance at least :-)

Better do some exercise before they leave me behind altogether!
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Construction/Decoration - ongoing....

Ten weeks so far and kitchen is in full use now although stuff still to do. Dining room painting started today, so I had furniture to move and book cases to empty and the only place left for them to go is the hallway.

A One Man Protest....

Another great theatre trip last night with Trish and Pat, to see....

A MERCURY THEATRE MADE IN COLCHESTER PRODUCTION

“The temptation to come back for more is irresistible”
The Guardian

Sexual confessions in the garden shed that Miles has ‘occupied’ trigger a disastrous sequence of marital misunderstandings in this hilarious tale of love, lust, poetry and burning trousers.

A One Man Protest is part of Intimate Exchanges, a series of plays by Alan Ayckbourn, in which just two actors play every single character exploring how even the tiniest, careless choices we make in our lives can have enormous consequences.

It’s the ultimate theatrical game of love and chance, and an absolute comic delight. We’ve chosen the four funniest and most poignant plays in the series to be part of our 2013 season, so whether you’re only able to join us for a single episode, or like thousands of people who’ve seen Intimate Exchanges over the years you find that you have to know what ‘Fate’ has in store next for Ayckbourn’s wonderful cast of characters, and decide to join us for two, three or all four instalments, you can be sure of an experience packed full of razor wit and lightning costume changes!

Olympus Has Fallen premier......

Hubby got free tickets as a Sky customer to the local premier showing of ...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2302755/

Not much I can say about it apart from it was nice to go to the pictures with my hubby and he really enjoyed it. It's just another Die Hard type film now Bruce Willis is getting too old. One man single handed saves the President's son, wipes out thousands of terrorists including one he thought was a good guy but he wasn't fooled for long, then saves the President, then saves the entire USA from destruction, clears his own conscience of a past mistake that wasn't his fault anyway and ends the film falling into the arms of his wife and walking off into the sunset!

Full house at the cinema, so I guess it's a plot people are happy to see over and over, or perhaps it's just because the tickets were free!
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Construction - part 8....

Now in its 10th week, the kitchen, far from being finished is in a fully operational state (even if I'm not). Yesterday the plasterer returned to do the other part of the dining room ceiling so it now matches the rest.

Which of course means all the dining room furniture looks like this...

We have chosen the wall tiles, which if you look closely you'll notice are not plain white but have 'polo mint' shapes over them, which will just catch the light occasionally.  And after looking at all sorts of borders and being told that the ones I'd found online, kept a picture of but failed to bookmark, were now discontinued by the tile shop  :-(   so we actually decided on this simple chrome trim instead.

We've also chosen (only this morning) the flooring and just waiting for the lovely young salesman to come back with a quote before we actually order it. Silly me forgot to take a photo of it, but here is a poor copy from a webpage....

Hubby has done a bit more plumbing trying to improve the waterflow through the taps, it is a little bit faster but probably not enough of a difference to justify the hassle, but you don't know until you try.

We're still waiting for a replacement cupboard door and drawer front that arrived damaged and replacement cooker hood filters that are two different mesh at the moment and hubby needs to finish fitting the carousel cupboard and of course the dining room needs decorating as soon as the new plaster has dried out but before the new flooring arrives. So still very much his ongoing project!
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Little boy with big ideas.....

We had O here for the day and he arrived with a bag full of things he wants to do.

First out of the bag was the board game Takenoko, says on the box suggested age 13+, O is very nearly 4 :-)  He set everything up and said he would teach me but warned "it is a very long game Grandma". He explained very well (although totally confused me) and when we rolled the 'weather dice' where each face has a different action value he said, "you have to read from the rules for that because I can't read yet you know".

After a while he said we should come back to this a bit later as he wanted to show his next game, Quoridor, which he explained well and played well and beat me even though it's recommend for age 6+.

Then it was time to go out as we needed to buy some bits for the kitchen and look for flooring. O loved the shopping and loved investigating and held hands every time he was asked to. He told us what flooring he liked and what ones he didn’t and loved running up and down the rows of huge carpet rolls. We laughed so much when he announced "B&Q is my favourite shop ever!"

Back home (still only lunchtime) and our friend who does a bit of gardening for us was just about to leave but stayed for a last cuppa, but O stopped him leaving by getting out the bats and a ball and insisting he played tennis (he's a granddad too so happily played).

Finally in for lunch (quite a bit of bargaining over that) then O announced "Because I was outside talking about plants it has given me a very good idea. I want to do a flower picture" then trots off to get the flower presses, paper and glue and we sat and made two lovely flower pictures.

Back to the lounge and back to our paused games and also reading the books he had brought with. Then eventually at about 4:30pm he decided he needed some sit still time and sat with granddad and my tablet to play a few of his games.

I so love having all the children here, however, having just one on their own is always special.
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Advice given and wanted.....

Can you help me with a technical question? I received the email below and thought "that's really useful, I should save it somewhere or share it or better still do both". However just to copy and paste it in meant I lost all the little images, to save each image from the email to my tablet and then paste them in one by one produced big pictures like my photos, not the little thumbnails as in the original email. Perhaps I need to do this sort of thing on the computer and not on a tablet. All suggestions gratefully received.

Meanwhile, (without pictures of vinegar bottles or tubes of toothpaste) you might find the following useful...

Who knew?

Did you know that Toothpaste makes an excellent salve for burns? 



Sore throat? Just mix 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1/4 cup of honey and take 1 tablespoon six times a day The vinegar kills the bacteria.

Cure urinary tract infections with Alka-Seltzer. Just dissolve two tablets in a glass of water and drink it at the onset of the symptoms. Alka-Seltzer begins eliminating urinary tract infections almost instantly-even though the product was never advertised for this use.

Honey remedy for skin blemishes...... Cover the blemish with a dab of honey and place a Band-Aid over it. Honey kills the bacteria, keeps the skin sterile, and speeds healing. Works overnight.

Listerine therapy for toenail fungus: Get rid of unsightly toenail fungus by soaking your toes in Listerine Mouthwash. The powerful antiseptic leaves your toenails looking healthy again.

Easy eyeglass protection... To prevent the screws in eyeglasses from loosening, apply a small drop of Clear Nail Polish to the threads of the screws before tightening them.

Smart splinter remover: Just pour a drop of Elmer's Glue-All over the splinter, let dry, and peel the dried glue off the skin. The splinter sticks to the dried glue.

Balm for broken blisters... To disinfect a broken blister, dab on a few drops of Listerine, a powerful antiseptic..

Vinegar to heal bruises... Soak a cotton ball in white vinegar and apply it to the bruise for 1 hour. The vinegar reduces the blueness and speeds up the healing process..

Quaker Oats for fast pain relief.... it's not for breakfast anymore! Mix 2 cups of Quaker Oats and 1 cup of water in a bowl and warm in the microwave for 1 minute, cool slightly, and apply the mixture to your hands for soothing relief from arthritis pain.

Baking again...

Well the kitchen is nowhere near finished but the new cooker is open for business and all the food has found cupboard homes so even though I'm still hunting down all the bowls pots and pans I've cooked dinners this week and today with Daughter and the children here I just had to cook up a big batch of chocolate fairy cakes. Didn't realise how much I'd missed spontaneous baking   :-)

Even though Hubby and I have both got rotten colds and when the children ran outside to play in the first warm(ish) sunny day for months, having to carefully manoeuvre round the old kitchen debris by the back door, it seemed almost normal again!
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Winter draws on....

....still !!!

It's 4th April but still bitterly cold outside with a very chilly wind and it was actually snowing again today too and I've got the coughs and sneezes again. O is full of rotten head cold too. It's UK wide and I've heard of so many people having boiler problems, depriving them of heating or hot water when they need it most. And of course running the heating for enough hours to keep the house warm and get the laundry dry is going to cost us all a lot more than it ever should. This winter is going on far to long!

Bet you're reading this curled up under a blanket too.
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Entertained and entertaining....

Sunday roast was wonderfully cooked for us by our wonderful Daughter, yummy. We spent all afternoon and early evening over at her house being amused by O with him and D and a remote control car and a remote control helicopter. Think they were both a bit hyper from eating lots of chocolate.  Had a lovely surprise when our Son turned up after dinner fully loaded up with yet more chocolate!

Today is a bank holiday Monday but still the first Monday of the month so we held our usual coffee morning. In the lounge again today although everyone had to go and check out the kitchen progress and gave lots of lovely comments. The lounge was full and it was nice to see a couple of the husbands that would normally be at work.

And....although still very chilly, the sun is shining :o)
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