Was it just a dream.....

I rarely dream or if I do then I obviously rarely remember them, so this morning it feels odd being able to come down and explain to Hubby in detail the course of events.

It started with me answering his mobile phone about 6am and I was still in the lounge watching tv and his phone was plugged in behind me, so I had to wake him and he went out - in real life he is an emergency blood runner for SERV - but why did he not have his phone by the bed like he always does for on-call nights? And why was the voice on the phone another of his friends who always likes to joke with me, didn't sound like an emergency call at all.

Scene then changes to me, but a young me, dumped in a big house that is in the worst state you can imagine, Kim and Aggie would have run a mile away from the filth and debris, also dumped with me was our lives in boxes and a huge number of children....it was moving in day to our new home and Hubby was out on call so no help. The children were all being really lovely and looking after each other and coming to help me too, but I don't think they were my children? I was being the most tolerant and patient person ever while cleaning in the huge kitchen and looking for things in the boxes while groups of children were asking for all sorts of things.

So either this is telling me that I'm destined to single handedly open a children's foster care home.....or my subconscious has had enough of this kitchen rebuild and I need to unpack and sort the rest of the stuff and get my own house back!
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Birthday girls...

Yesterday our beautiful granddaughters had their 11th birthday.
Unfortunately I didn't take any photos nor did we remember to mark their growth on the bathroom doorframe height chart, I know M took photos and hopefully we'll remember the height thing next time they're here.

After doing birthday stuff at home they came here and we gave them our presents: a munchkins box game each (as requested), some girly nail stickers for E and for R a hand written rolled card saying "chocolate lovers workshop" booked for July (actually stole this from Daughter as she had already booked it but I couldn't think of anything else). We also put some cash in their cards.

We managed an early party style lunch then Daughter and O had to leave us for a while (they were attending the funeral of a very close friend's baby, sad).
Meanwhile Hubby and I took the girls into town shopping - in the rain urghhh - we both hate shopping but love our girls so much we were happy to make the sacrifice! Let's just say it was quite a tiring 3 hours but they both came home with new clothes and R got new books. Back home at exactly the same time that Daughter and O arrived and just waited a bit for M and D to arrive then it was tea and birthday cake, which Daughter had made and was yummy.

Then it was time for us all to get ready for going out to dinner,  this included the girls changing into new clothes and swapping leggings between them to get the right combinations :-) plus getting D to wash off all the face paints, they had some sort of dressing up day at school and he was Dracular with full cape and his mum's knee high boots and brought nothing to change into or even a coat doh!!!

For dinners out we often have a problem as E is vegetarian and most places give her little choice, so this time we drove 40mins away to the only totally vegetarian pub in East Anglia   http://www.theveggieredlion.co.uk/. It was such a lovely pub and the staff were really helpful and attentive but best of course was the food, we all enjoyed everything ordered. Will definitely recommend this pub to everyone.

The girls said they'd had an excellent day :-)
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Sons, daughter and sun.....

Lovely day yesterday. Hubby was going to be out most of the day so our Son came over early, mainly to see us but also to collect some furniture he had stored here some time ago. Great to see him and even better to see his stuff leave :-)

Daughter was booked to be with her Tudor dancing group to perform at the Mayfair at Crowfield and invited me along. So she came to collect me early and Son stayed later so they could have a good brother+sister catch up before we all rushed off.

It was a lovely Mayfair, the dancers attracted a small appreciative audience which I think was mainly because of Daughter's playing the music for them (I love that she gets so much pleasure from her music). M and I spent our time with O who sampled archery, face painting and a very messy chocolate filled cream topped double pancake...I left his dad clearing up after that one!

And the sun was out and warm all day :-)

What totally spoilt such a lovely day was after rushing to get me home so Daughter could drop the others off then drive 200 miles to collect the girls from their dad, M noticed a really horrid noise from Daughter's car, so a quick look under the bonnet then rearrangement of cars and car seats and stuff and she drove off in mine :-(
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Not quite to plan....

Daughter and children came over with the intention of making little working steam boats. They were following a YouTube video instruction. She was hoping that with another adult at the table she could include all the children but as the first task was to cut up aluminum drink cans followed by extensive use of epoxy glue it was very quickly easier for Hubby to amuse O elsewhere and leave the others to it.

Unfortunately the delayed start and the break for lunch and the repeated waiting for glue to dry meant they didn't actually get anything finished before needing to pack up and go home, so an ongoing project.

I mainly stayed out of their way, especially because watching anyone cut up cans makes me nervous!  I made all the lunches and when I noticed how many soft bananas there were I decided to use them up in a cake. Well I'm blaming it on still getting to know my new cooker, but after 70mins and the skewer coming out clean, it came out and cooled a little and was cut into squares only to reveal it wasn't totally cooked, so back it went for another 30mins. Still looking more squidgy than fluffy it was named pudding to have with custard rather than cake (tastes good so no waste).

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Soul Sisters - theatre......

What an amazing performance at The Regent, Ipswich and great fun sharing it with FriendK. She was my very first friend in Ipswich when we moved here 30 years ago and we used to do everything together, but lives and families take different paths so we get to do very little together these days. This night out was not only her suggestion but she paid for my ticket too as a very early birthday present :-)

Straight from her sensational West End season, the ‘blistering talent’ Emi Wokoma stars in this ‘slick’ new musical inspired by the life and times of Ike and Tina Turner (The Times). Wokoma’s ‘volcanic voice’ has taken London by storm, critics and audiences alike are raving about Emi’s raw energy and dazzling command of Turner’s classic hits (Daily Mail).

Do not miss Wokoma’s star making performance alongside the complete West End cast including Chris Tummings’ triumphant ‘hissably cocksure and sleazy Ike’(The Independent) the ‘exuberant Ikettes’ (Daily Express) and the ‘superb’ on-stage band (Metro).

Soul Sister features; ‘What’s love got to do with it’, ‘Proud Mary’, ’Private Dancer’, ‘River Deep Mountain High’ and of course ‘Simply the Best’ and many more...

The story follows the highs and lows, passions and heartbreak, of Ike and Tina as their careers soared and their marriage crumbled. Full of heart and soul, electrifying chorography, and stunning musical numbers, Soul Sister is sure to have you on your feet, partying the night away.

Fantastic evening and we were all up and dancing by the end!
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Man and boy swap.....

This weekend Hubby went on his annual walking weekend with a group of blokes including two of our neighbours. They went up to the Lake District, driving up Friday morning and walking all day Saturday in very wet, cold and windy weather. Their car load of four all suffered a bit from Saturday's walk so they decided not to bother with Sunday morning's short walk and head straight home. Next door's car pulled up about 4pm and I watched as three men hobbled out (they'd dropped off the forth at his house to save him the walk).  ;-)

Meanwhile...after waving them off early Friday morning us three wives gathered for our celebration of a free weekend coffee or two. When I came home I managed to clear the final bit of dining room furniture that was in the hall and rehome it back in the dining room which meant clearing the heap of books piled on top, empty the contents, clean the cupboard inside and out, manhandle and lift it along the carpet and over the threshold ensuring not to drag at all over the new floor, then load it all up again and finally vacuum a lovely clear hallway. I treated myself to a good read of the book I have on the go (shame I'm not enjoying it) and before sitting down for my evening I achieved an hours worth of ironing phew!

My gorgeous grandson O has been asking for another sleepover for a while now, so as Daughter was busy all day Saturday with E and all day Sunday with R with neither events suitable for O this was the ideal time. I picked up O at midday and first thing was lunch. He'd brought two different wii discs which he wasn't that interested to play but he wanted to show me as I hadn't seen them before. He also brought a cartridge and showed me where to plug it in but we couldn't get it to work! Because Mario speaks with an Italian accent it brought the conversation to O really wanting to go to Italy and see the leaning tower and then the atlas came out and we spent ages looking at Europe and the shape of Italy being the boot. We looked at the shape of the UK and he could see when I said it could be a man sitting down with Devon and Cornwall being his legs flat in front, so Scotland is the head and Wales his fat belly so we infact live on his bum, we both laughed a lot  :-)   O pointed to the map and asked "so what country is this horses head?" I told him it was Norway, Sweden and Finland and the whole group is called Scandinavia, which was a word he "loved" and said over and over! When we saw Iceland he asked if it was made of ice so that led onto google and pictures of the ice hotel in Finland which is now firmly on his wishlist of places he must go.

Feeling a bit peckish O decided we should do baking....

Then all of a sudden the day had disappeared into dinner and a bit of a relax and bed time for O (in my bed) with a couple of books for me to read before he nodded off.

He's a restless sleeper and an early riser! We had arranged that I'd take him home at midday but he wanted to do so much that fitting in washing-teeth-hair-dressing-putting on his makeup, playing with the lego, feeding the fish, creating an assault course, bouncing round on the space hopper, learning about the "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly" song, finding silly songs on you tube, cooking our lunch himself, hiding for ages in the new space I store the kitchen steps and chatting chatting all the time, meant I didn't get him home till about 2:30pm and finally I sat down at home after spending a good hour clearing away all the stuff he'd had out!

So lovely to spend one-to-one time and so many cuddles and kisses, I'm so lucky :-)
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Theatre: A Pageant.....

Another theatre trip to The Mercury in Colchester. This was another in the series like The One Man Protest that we've previously seen and it's the same two actors playing all the parts, so clever and so funny.

A laugh-out-loud tale of provincial intrigue.

A MERCURY THEATRE MADE IN COLCHESTER PRODUCTION

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

A battle between Sylvie and Celia over who’s going to play Boudicca at the forthcoming village fete forces Toby to make a life-changing choice between love and art in this tender, savage and very, very funny play.

A Pageant 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!

Really enjoyed this :-)
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Destruction - again...

One of the few things that definitely did not need changing in this major kitchen rebuild, was the light fitting. It's a round fluorescent tube that's neat and gives a really good even light and I like it. Unfortunately it now seems to blow the whole electrics when it is turned off, not every time but maybe twice a week! It was rewired but the electrician assures us it couldn't be anything to do with that, the starter has been changed but that didn't improve things, so a whole new light is on order!

Also, not really destruction but a bloody nuisance, our new kettle which has been in constant use for weeks now, will still sometimes have that horrid plasticy taste. We are throwing so many mugs of tea and coffee away and boiling up again that it's costing far too much. We even got the bloke in to test all our water purifying system just in case it was that. This morning I'm boiling it up with bicarb to see if that help, meanwhile I'm drinking milky coffee from the microwave. Think we'll have to buy a new kettle again too!
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Construction - part 9......

New floor arrived yesterday. It's a really thick vinyl.

Hubby was up really early clearing out the last of the furniture. Only way he could manoeuvre the base of our large dining table was to get inside it and carefully walk it through the doorways into the lounge, then of course walk it back again afterwards. No easy task as the hall is still full of furniture too!

Lovely fitter guy, took about an hour to do the dinning room side and another five hours to do the kitchen area! Poor chap also cut his hand quite badly on the back of our cooker :(

Although Hubby had done lots of measuring and checking before fitting the only cupboard door that goes to the floor, he's now in there redrilling hinge holes so it opens over the vinyl.
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Rent-a-crowd....

I think the truck stop venue we go to after art would have seemed a bit empty and quiet if our crowd hadn't been there last night. Four of our men decided to go 10 pin bowling while three of us were painting all meeting afterwards at the lorry park Olive's bar, along with three others plus the truckers that sat with us too around tables pushed together and a dozen chairs. Band was ok and we had a bit of a dance so a fun night.

Before all that of course was our art group, which was really poorly attended, just 5 of us. Our numbers had increased a lot over the last few months so it's quite disappointing when lots of them don't come. Last night I was also making a request for donations of artwork for a charity fundraiser I'd been emailed about by the Colchester Rotary Club. Guess I'll have to contact other members in other ways.
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