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To all the Mummies and Mummies to Be out there,

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

I nearly always have a project on the go – especially at the moment as I’m trying to clear out my yarn stash and finish up on the projects that I’ve started but not finished.

These are the current two in progress. I started this blanket for Our Sidekick back before Christmas but didn’t finish it.

This is the second blanket I have in progress. These squares are going to be sewn together to create a baby blanket for Blueberry. I do have the next project lined up – I just need to clear one of these before starting.

I had meant to write this on my way back from Cambridge on Thursday but then I ended up driving us home and it was all a bit crazy as I jumped from one thing to the next. So didn’t get there in the end.

Chris and I headed over to Cambridge to spend the day together. Chris had been surfing on the internet to see what we could do. He knows that I love ancient history (as much as I love modern history!) So when he came across the Museum of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Classics, he knew for sure that it would be right up my street. It’s near Newnham College but if you didn’t know it was there you could miss it (especially if you mistime it and catch a change of lecture time like I think we did!). We parked the car near Coe Fen (Fen Causeway runs right through the middle of it) and we headed for the museum, while we were parking my phone started ringing and it was Our Sidekick asking a bunch of questions, we switched it to FaceTime so that he could join us for part of the adventure. It started to rain so I was trying to keep it level while not getting rain all over my phone lol.

The museum was really interesting and was crammed full to bursting with statues and casts of famous statues. I kept telling Chris about how this one in front of us was related to the one over there via this one over here – I think he was either really bored or excited that I was excited.

We headed for lunch at the Rainbow Cafe which is on the parade of shops opposite King’s College, this was another of Chris’s internet discoveries. The menu was vegetarian, vegan and gluten free friendly. Chris had said it was gluten free and vegetarian friendly so I thought I could at least get egg on toast or something like that. When we got there it was really lovely. It’s in the basement of one of the shop fronts, you go along the side of one of the buildings and in through what would be a back door for the ground floor. You go downstairs and there you are in this little cafe. It is really small so you would struggle with a buggy, so if we went back with Blueberry, I’d make sure that s/he was in a carrier – then again I don’t always do stairs that well so I might make sure that Chris was carrying at that point. Anyway, we found a table and got comfy, I had Vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese and Chris had a potato bake thing. It was strange going out for dinner and Chris being able to order direct from the menu rather than having to take out all the “glutened” parts. He also asked very nicely if he could have pudding given that like 90% was gluten free. I said he could and I ended up having vegan soya ice cream – and oh my word it was lovely. Part of me expected that it would taste rubbish because of the fact it was vegan and made from soya but it tasted amazing!!

Following lunch we went to Paperchase (I needed my fix okay??? If they ever opened one in Bedford I’d be so poor!) and then headed to the Fitzwilliam Museum. By this point I was beginning to feel it and really needed to sit down – why do museums rarely ever have chairs or if they do they are miles away from anything! I found a wall to prop myself against near this mummy, I think if I wasn’t flagging I would have found it more interesting. I did however find the coptic jars for one of the mummies and so sent a picture to Our Sidekick (by this point he was super annoyed at Chris and I and so contact was restricted to required contact lol).

We headed back to the car and then back towards Bedford but it seemed like everyone else had, had the same idea because the traffic was horrible on the way home. It got to the point where Chris had to drop me off at SW straight away and thankfully my Mum was able to take me to Embroider’s Guild. Normally it would have been the Monster Yarns Knitting Group at Peniseri but because Judit was talking at EG, Mum, two of our friends and I went to Embroider’s Guild to cheer Judit on. As we often say, Judit has a passion and gets us all so excited about knitting, crocheting and what we can create.

As you all know because I keep posting about it I’ve been reading a book called #SpeakLove by Annie F. Downs. It’s really inspiring and often gets me thinking at really random times like 5:45 on New Year’s Eve morning or just now in the shower!

A friend of mine approached me about something that was written on FB. It doesn’t matter who was involved and what was said but it has had me thinking most of the week. The thing that was said I’m sure was meant in a completely innocent way but from an outsider looking in – it doesn’t look so innocent.

I joined FB back in 2006 – this was one of my first statuses (as you can see it wasn’t particularly earth shattering!). I think it’s so easy to get a bit “social media happy” that we don’t think about what we’re writing or how it might come across to other people. I know when I was first on FB I did make some faux pas. I’d post something thinking it was vague enough that people wouldn’t know what was going on but actually it was really glaringly obvious in fact I had a similar hiccup about two or three months ago and so it’s still a learning curve for sure.

But people remember in a lot of cases not just your friends and family can see the posts. Especially when it’s so easy to take a screenshot and it be shared again and again. I know that the company I work for do have a Social Media policy in place with regards to commenting on the company FB page or if your friend is ranting about the company to possibly avoid the conversation rather than wade in, in case what you’re saying isn’t necessarily in line with policy and things like that, but what about it from the other angle. What if your future employer saw a status you wrote or pictures of you up to no good? Sometimes you can’t stop what is posted by your friends but you can do your part by filtering what you post.

I hope this make sense. What do you think? Is it easy to get “social media happy” and post without thinking? Is it easy to forget that there is an audience out there who are going to see your posts?

Hi there. 3 posts later and December is almost done.

It’s the 30th and I’ve spend most of the day in bed. I did get up and go to the supermarket on my way to work in the hope that Orange Juice and snacking on satsuma or five would help me feel better. However by about 9:40 I was feeling rubbish and decided that hope and bed was going to do me better (this is why I’m blogging from my phone while my iPad plays You’ve Got Mail wrapped up in my fleecy pjams and duvet).

So where did December go? Well Christmas usually starts around the 15th with the Carol Service at my parent’s church and the Nativity at church. Well this year I wasn’t involved in the Nativity which was one less thing to fit in. Then again this year we were invited and were able to go to the Christmas Dinner at my parent’s church which was at the beginning of December so Christmas started earlier.

Every year I try to be a bit more organised than the previous year, I was doing better this year until various things stepped out of line and I ended up at Interchange on the 20th trying to get one last present. Having said that I did get one present today but then the person I was giving it to has been out of the country and then catching up with family and sleep since touching down in the UK lol.

So January will soon be upon us and 2014 is full of a crazy amount of adventure for us….but more to come in another post. I’ll be back soon.

About two weeks ago I went to The Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. I was blessed to be given complimentary tickets by my friend Kathy who had a stand at the show (have you seen her work?!?! This lady is super talented!). I had meant to write about it but following the show, I’ve felt really tired and not completely with it. I’ve been having fun doing stuff that doesn’t involve me sitting in front of my computer for too long – I think the concentration was too much through the thick head of a cold. I managed to squeeze out a few posts along the way and write one that’s going up tomorrow but that was about it. I have plans to try and get myself in gear and ordered again. I work out that I have 8 weeks to Christmas and that means the next things on my list include lots of Christmas presents. The biggest one of them is the blanket I’m making for Our Sidekick. I made another for a friend of mine and he asked could he have one too. When I was about 14 we re-decorated my bedroom and my Mum made me a quilt with dolphins on it, to go with the theme of my bedroom. When Chris and I celebrated our first married Christmas, my Mum had made as a quilt in whites and creams. I can’t quilt like my Mum but I can crochet until my hands fall off, I love the idea of being able to make something for Our Sidekick that can remind him of the times he’s had with us even if he moves on from ours.

While at the show I got really inspired. I mean like REALLY inspired add that to the stencilling workshop we had at Scone Roses and I was ready to give something a try! For as long as I can remember I’ve loved painting and colouring but I’m not that good at drawing and so have always stuck to stuff I know I can do. I used to really enjoy making art journals but the journals that I make were always different to those that I was sent as part of swaps through Swap-Bot or saw on the internet.

I was about ready to give up and just go back to stuff that I can do but then spotted this quote written in my journal.

Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad whether they love or hate it. While they are deciding make even more art.

Andy Warhol

So that was that, I got out my markers, I bought some new felt pens and some watercolours and got going, If it’s not perfect so what, if the colours clash by mistake, get over it! I have two ribbons which I tie round the book to keep it shut when it’s put away but other than that I’m filling the pages. There are two packets from tea bags, there is my shirt number from Race for Life. Some pages work and some don’t, some are taking a bit more work and others are coming together really easily. My white on the watercolours is currently a pale blue as I cross mixed the colours by mistake. I also have to thank a couple of my penpals, there’s Adrienne in Germany who talks about painting with watercolours and telling me off when I say I can’t do it, to Bobberdilly in Kansas, who is just a great inspiration, each letter I receive has a watercolour or felt pen designed drawing on the front of it. The envelopes are just as important to hold on to. I think I need a scrapbook just for the envelopes that are designed. I wanted to experiment, and started with a gradient sign that I’d seen on my way back from the Opticians after going on a little explore (“I wonder what’s down this road…..”). Even I’m now painting in my pen pal letters, this was just a little one….

I even found a French newspaper that I’d bought when Chris and I went to France a few years ago, I chopped it up and stuck it all over the page to create something interesting. However I got a bit heavy handed with the watercolours over the top and now it’s not looking so good but it’s a learning curve.

Reading
Crochet and Knitting patterns mainly outside of work, inside of work it’s emails and spreadsheets. I’ve been reading penpal letters and replying to them too. Other than that I’ve not really been reading, I want to read some more and attempt to catch up with my goal for 2013 but for now it’s not working. I’ve also been reading news articles about knitting jumpers for penguins in New Zealand.

Watching
Have found the latest series of Rizzoli and Isles on iTunes so have watched the available episodes and am now waiting for the next ones. I’ve been watching Monarch of the Glen on YouTube, random person thank you for uploading them. I also had borrowed the DVDs of Downton Abbey from my Mum. I got to the beginning of Season 2 and Chris got all excited about it so started watching with me. We finished it on Tuesday and now I need to buy or borrow Season 3, might see if it’s in CEX.

Listening
A couple of new songs have been added to my playlist. After receiving an inspired email from Judit last week I’ve been singing “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music on and off and in the end I downloaded it to listen to on my way to and from work. I’ve also added “Heart Skips A Beat” by Olly Murs and The Rizzle Kicks, “Misery Business” and “Still Into You” by Paramore.

Planning
Christmas presents, Christmas celebrations at home and with family, and some friends.

Crafting
Finished a couple of hats for the Innocent Drinks Big Knit. Working on the next square for Our Sidekick’s blanket. Attempted a wooly hat from the kit I bought from Toft at The Knitting and Stitching Show but I’m struggling with working the circular needles. Might need to speak to Judit at Monster Yarns, she’s like my knitting helpline!

It’s doesn’t technically fit in with #30DaysofLists as it’s not one of the official prompts but while we’re making lists I wanted to share some of my favourite tunes at the moment.

First up I have a Medley from Danni’s new album called A Little Redemption. I used to be at school with Danni and loved listening to her sing then – now I can be really biased and listen to her album (erm lots!). I really like Hey There, Sunshine – it’s upbeat and friendly and I can imagine singing along really loud on a road trip or something like that.

Next up we have To The Broken and The Shattered by my friend Marc. He’s a really cool worship leader who happens to look like Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. There’s actually more of a story to that comment – the youth were encouraged to come to the members meeting before we voted in Marc as our new youth leader at RP. One of the lads was sat behind me and it was the first time I had met Marc, I turned round to the lad and said “Oh I get it now – he really does look like Dave Grohl!!”. Anyway, this song was written by Marc and Carl Tuttle, my gorgeous friend Esther and her amazing sister Eunice sing backing vocals.

This one has been on my hard drive for a while but not made it onto my phone. Josh Garrells was reccomended over on Today’s Letters. It’s got something quite country about it but with a sprinkling of Jack Johnson or something like that. As quoted on his Bandcamp page ” I wanted new music to listen to- something Godly that wasn’t cheesy. Here it is. Uplifting, sobbingly beautiful, inspiring. I am so grateful. Favorite track: Rise.” My favourite is Beyond The Blue.

Somehow I stumbled across Chantilly’s blog a while back and when she released her EP, I had a listen and fell in love. I love all the songs and can quite happily have her album on repeat! What You Do To Me and Just The Way You Are, are two of my favourites. (If I could get the chord charts I’d love to play them at Open Mic)

Are there any you can recommend to me?

I have a friend called Charlotte and she’s an English teacher, we’ve been friends on and off since we were in our teens and went to BYP – it was the smaller not so well know youth theatre group. Anyway, she was challenging her housemates/friends to do one of her assessments – I guess to make sure it was okay and all that jazz. Well I accepted the challenge and had meant to write it every night this week since about Wednesday and have still not done it – so here it goes (I’m supposed to be doing chores, and clearing the piles of magazine pages from my bed! I know blogging = procrastination!)

So the challenge is……”700 words or 2 hours writing a feature article explaining why you feel so strongly about a celebrity.”

I’m going to be incredibly boring. Growing up, my friends often had posters of their favourite bands blu-tacked or sellotaped to their bedroom walls. I had one friend who had magazine pages taped together to the extent that I don’t think I actually knew the colour of her bedroom walls. I had the odd few articles and things like that but there were that many.

I had a pink very girlie room until I was about 14, when it was redecorated and painted blue. Following the redecoration I had a few posters up but not that many. The biggest poster I had on my walls was of Elijah Wood as Frodo in Lord of The Rings, well it was that or Ian McKellen as Gandalf!

I did have a few smaller posters and pictures in an A3 picture frame on one wall which I tended to change round depending on who was my favourite band at the time. Even now there’s not one particular celebrity that I really like.

Occasionally I read the covers of the gossip magazines in the supermarket or flick through a copy of OK! or Hello while having my hair done at the hairdressers but I’d rather spend my money on books or craft magazines (especially when they come free with yarn, crochet or knitting kits, crochet hooks or knitting needles!)

I’m guessing that historically throughout time there’s always been a form of celebrity – I guess a local celebrity would have been someone that the whole village or town knew of, more than likely for bad reasons rather than good reasons. In Victorian times I’m guessing there were celebrities who you heard about in the newspapers or maybe went to see at the theatre for example but I think with the invention of television, cinema and later the internet and social media, the idea of celebrity has become more accessible and also quicker. If a celebrity is spotted in a particular restaurant, someone can tweet that they’ve seen them and before you know it the world knows that Brad Pitt had a Caesar Salad for lunch or something like that.

But with the growth of blogging and the internet, have we developed a new form of celebrity, not in like a Hollywood Movie Star level of celebrity but on a smaller scale (in a way – stick with me it makes sense in a minute!), for example, you write a blog and you walk around your local town – someone recognises you for that blog (this has happened only once or twice in Bedford but it happens lol). But how about on a bigger scale for example Vicky, Gala Darling, Elycia, Elsie or Miss Zoot. Okay so some of these names might not be known or might be celebrities in a way in a reduced section of society but to that section there is some form of common interest.

Then again these bloggers and those celebrities in the wider idea of what a celebrity is, are still human beings, I’ve met a handful of celebrities over the last few years and what surprises me each time is how 98% of them are so lovely and down to earth (Even when I’m getting tongue tied and a bit star struck! I’ve met one celebrity twice in the last few years and both times I’ve just about said hello and then not know what to talk about!) there is the percentage of celebrities who I’ve met and when I have met them they’ve been grumpy but it could be that they are having a bad day or something like that.

So do I have a favourite celebrity, no I don’t, there are ones I admire, there are bands and solo artists I’d happily go and see in concert in the blink of an eye, but I personally do think that the way the media treats celebrities and famous people is disgusting. If they put on some weight they comment, if they are having a tough time they comment or if they lose lots of weight they comment. I know I’m not innocent as I do read the covers of the magazines sometimes with more interest then I probably should have but at the same time I don’t tend to buy them.

There we go, that’s the word count stated – hopefully it works 🙂

This Weekend I… well we, as it was our first proper free Saturday in a while we decided to go on a “house” field trip. We ended up at Anglesey Abbey which was really good fun. There’s a tree house that you can climb (at the highest point you can get to its 6.5 metres from the ground!). I’d armed Our Sidekick with my phone so that he could snap away while I snapped away with my DSLR. We have a screensaver that runs on our TV when you leave it paused or on a menu – it’s quite good and I decided we needed some more pictures so that was the idea. I still need to get the pictures off my phone and onto the computer. Our Sidekick snapped this one while we were messing around.

This Weekend I… got an amazing message from my friend who had read my post on Saturday about starting Slimming World and she’s started exactly the same evening as me! It was very encouraging and good to know I’m not on my own!

This Weekend I… went to see my Mum, she arrived home from New Zealand around 4pm ish so we popped by to say hello and get lots of hugs. My Mum said she found that the people in New Zealand are really huggy and welcoming so she was used to being hugged by virtual strangers lol. She was a bit spaced because of the jet lag and was a bit confused about what time of day it was, I think I’d worked it out to be about 3/4am in New Zealand when we went to see her and she said because of the flights they’d had about 5 meals but they hadn’t necessarily corresponded with the time she thought it was so often wasn’t hungry – I remember having that on the way back from Turkey and that’s only four hours ahead of the UK – what would I be like on more difference?!?

This Weekend I… finished watching Star Trek. It had been on the TV a couple of nights ago so I had recorded it to watch at some point. We ended up having massive conversations about the history like how the new Kirk is the same Kirk who William Shatner plays in Star Trek TOS. Then how far in the future was TNG from TOS. Also that Leonard Nimoy appears in TOS and the new-ish film (I think Our Sidekick only knows who he is thanks to The Big Bang Theory. I might have to borrow TNG off my brother if he has it – it was part of my teenage nerd education!)

This Weekend I… sang in the worship band at church. While I was at band practice Chris played taxi to collect some of our friends so that they could come to church too. During the service our friend’s little girl who I call Pickle came to sit on my lap. While she was there hse fell asleep in my arms. She was really out for the count especially when I started to fidget. After church Pickle and her Mum came for lunch at our house. Thankfully Chris was onto it because I was feeling rubbish and just needed some kip. I dozed for about an hour – I know that Our Sidekick came in and I’m pretty sure there were elephants tap dancing on the stairs but in the end I did feel better and felt even better when I’d had some food.

This Weekend I… watched Arrietty with Chris. We both grew up on the Mary Norton stories following The Borrowers and when Our Sidekick first moved in with us we would read him the stories (not because he couldn’t read himself but it meant that we could have some bonding time and do that parent kind of thing – I think he loved the fact that we gave up doing whatever we were doing to spent that time just with him). I originally saw Arrietty at the cinema with a friend, actually taking a picture of this and posting on Instagram and commenting on one of her photos spun off a whole conversation about her coming for tea one day and us hanging out and watching Studio Ghibli films.

This Weekend I…technically it was no longer the weekend but given that it was Chris’s birthday I had taken the day off work. Last year there was a miscommunication amongst other things regarding Chris’s birthday and what we were going to do for the day. So this year I wanted to make sure I did what i could to do something about it. I had left my normal work alarm on so that I could make the most of the day. I was about to get all in the swing of things when we found that we had ingredients missing and we also had equipment missing -like who ate my sieve?!?! It can’t have gone far right?!?! With the help of Apple and Google I was able to find a recipe to make Chris gluten free American Style pancakes – I found they were really stodgy and didn’t spread very well – I’m told they were really nice (either that or he was making it up and saying they were nice when in fact they were disgusting lol).

This Weekend I…also made normal pancakes – what was a few more given the explosion that had happened in the kitchen. I threw the ingredients together as per a different recipe and again it was really stodgy. I did try a little bit of Our Sidekick’s pancakes and genuinely (and quite desperately!) wanted to have a whole pancake but I stuck with the bite that Our Sidekick let me have. (I WILL BE GOOD!!)

Allow me to wax lyrcial about my husband for a moment – I promise it won’t take long and you can always hit that big red button and close the window if you can’t be done with the romantic pukings for a few moments.

This week has had its ups and downs – come to think of it July had lots of them too by itself!

On Tuesday after I’d been to the cinema with Our Sidekick I came home and Chris and I got the house ready for our Fostering Annual Review that we expected to be on Wednesday before Connect Group. He surprised me with the picnic that I wrote about earlier in the week.

On Monday our friend JD came round for tea and to hang out as we hadn’t really seen her recently. She’s been on a mission and has lost a bunch of weight and got healthier in the process. Chris had mentioned how different she looked and I explained what she’d been up to. So…on Thursday I went to join Slimming World. Now the idea of dieting to me fills me with a bit of dread – am I going to need to watch what I eat for the rest of my life to make sure I don’t put all the weight that I lose back on again? With my friend Dwayne who’s been helping with all the exercise stuff heading back home in a few weeks, am I going to fall back into bad habits?

No chance! Chris is on a mission of his own. When I got in from band on Thursday I hadn’t had any tea – I’d polished off two bananas but that’s not really tea. As a sort of last hurrah I had chicken nuggets from a certain yellow arched fast food takeaway place (mainly because Our Sidekick hadn’t had tea either as Chris had to put his International Rescue uniform on and go rescue a friend while I was at band). 6 chicken nuggets have quite a few syns – they aren’t impossible to fit into the plan but most days I will probably attempt to avoid them! I kept a note of what I had eaten on Thursday (although I think most of it wasn’t on plan!) and so officially on Friday morning I started this slightly mad journey.

Breakfast consisted of Shreddies and milk – the shreddies had to be measured quite precisely to make sure they fit as my Healthy B Choice…the milk also was measured – 250ml on the dot – that’s it for the whole day!

Lunch – Chris had cooked me a piece of chicken that I could have cold with chopped up carrots and then a banana for pudding. I got part way through my chicken and it wasn’t cooked completely so I had to leave it. I was in a bit of a panic as I had 15 minutes left of my lunch break and needed something to fill the lunch sized hole. I grabbed a sandwich from the canteen – it was egg mayo (low fat mayo that is) with two slices of brown or wholemeal bread (I’m told there is a difference but I’ve still not quite figured it out!). I did get a little worked up because I knew that I’d mounted up the syns against me just through lunch.

Dinner – this was a little easier as Chris was here to help me out. He cooked pasta, a better cooked piece of chicken and saw that I could have soy sauce as syn free so it was sprinkled over the top. I also had baby carrots.

Breakfast this morning consisted of two weetabix, a banana and natural yoghurt – the yoghurt is manky, it’s quite sour in taste……… Chris says I can try sweetener in it to make it taste a bit better. Can you use sweetener in cakes? I wonder…..that might take some more research.

Why am I saying this all this? Well… because Chris is being amazing, okay it’s only officially Day Two and a whole heap could go wrong from here but he’s being great helping me out to make sure I stay on track. Now we’re off on an adventure so I will catch you lot a whole bunch later. TTFN.

I found out about Five Minute Friday from my friend James’s blog. So it’s not technically Friday any more and I’m not even sat at my own desk. At least I wasn’t at my desk when I started this post. Now I’m finishing it on my phone between bites of my sandwich.

So the rules from Lisa’s Blog go something like this……..

We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that I post here at 1 minute past midnight EST ever Friday. And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #FiveMinuteFriday

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

It started because I’d been thinking about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And I figured, why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing.

So now on Fridays a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write without worrying if it’s just right gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes.

Your words. This shared feast.

This week’s word is……Broken.

This week has been tense. Today after work we were due to have our Annual Review for being foster carers, this meant between work, caring for Our Sidekick and the general craziness that ensues around here we really needed to pull the finger out and get on with making sure the house was spotless and presentable. Following going to the cinema with Our Sidekick yesterday I came home and worked on tidying some of the house. Chris and I had had a falling out earlier in the day and so all in all we were hot bothered and tired. I was on my hands and knees sweeping up in the hall way when Chris declared that “we are going to stop tidying – anything else can be done tomorrow” followed by “I’ve got something to show you please come out in the garden.”

Well I put my shoes on and headed down the garden. On the far side of the trampoline, was a blanket, Chris had also made a circle of tea lights in the grass around it. He set about lighting the candles but the lighter was broken.

He came up with a plan and managed to get the candles to light in the end. We had strawberries and mascarpone as well as “posh” fruit juice.

This Weekend I… following the news that Our Sidekick’s mum was taken into hospital, in the slot where Our Sidekick normally goes for contact, I took him to the hospital to see her. She was still sedated but it was good that Our Sidekick got to see her for a little while.

This Weekend I…. then dropped Our Sidekick off at his friend’s house for a sleepover. There was a change of plans so they didn’t do part of what was planned but I’m sure he still had fun. I headed back to my Mum’s house to do a bunch of stuff for her while she’s in New Zealand with Kathy.

This Weekend I…. went home and washed my hair and then Chris and I went over to MK to Ikea and then to Red Hot Buffet. While in Ikea I received Call No 1 from my Mum. Thankfully Ikea have joined a lot of other stores and now offer Free Wifi to their customers (this is really good seeing how there’s a signal black spot in the middle of the store!). At Red Hot, I had chicken korma and egg friend rice. I had some sweet and sour pork but decided that a plate and a half was enough for me as it would undo any of the good that I’ve managed to do in the last couple of weeks. Given how crazy the last few days have been I pretty much went straight to bed when I got home.

This Weekend I… got up and collected our friend and her friend on the way to church – I even remembered to take my bible so that I could use that instead of my phone! The idea being I’d listen better…….

This Weekend I… almost went to lunch with my friend as it was his birthday yesterday. That was until it turned out that Our Sidekick hadn’t followed the instructions I’d given him, our friend’s daughter needed to go back to a&e and I ended up playing taxi lots.

This Weekend I… sat in a&e with our friend and her little girl. Worked out that if I held her with her head on my right arm, her left arm tucked under my arm, and then my left arm over her legs and my hand under her back/side then I could rock her and dance around the paediatric cubicle. When we got moved to the children’s ward (don’t get me started on that one!), the dancing carried on and I nattered away about the cartoon character pictures that are hanging from the ceiling. It seemed to keep her calm especially as the doctors took ages to see her.

This Weekend I… went to Dad’s to collect Our Sidekick, I ended up staying and we watched Hook and then a bunch of TV that Mum has on Series Link for me. I love Hook – never realised until my Brother pointed it out but young Wendy is played by Gwyneth Paltrow!

This Weekend I… had two(!) Skype calls with my mum – the first was intentionally to me, the second was to my Dad and then Our Sidekick and I abducted his laptop to chat to Mum too! On Saturday Mum and Kathy had been to the Gala Night at the Symposium that they are at in New Zealand. I’m loving Kathy’s mask and Mum’s fascinator – you can read Kathy’s post by clicking on the picture below).

This Weekend I…. came home and tried to relax for what remained of the weekend – I’m sure it was pretty much impossible but I tried! Also finished watched Season 3 of Rizzoli and Isles.

You can get more information and join in here.
The prompt for this week is

“Hannah can you come here?” He shouted from the kitchen

“Do I have to?” she called from the sofa “I just sat down after running round like a headless chicken, this heat is just zapping me. I swear it’s that hot you could probably fry an egg on my face – then again the pavement outside might be a better choice!”

“Eugh! That’s disgusting!” added their foster son from the other end of the sofa.

“Come on! It’ll only take a few minutes then you can crash out again – I’ll even make you a cold drink.”

“Okay then if I have to…”

It’s now July, I’ve been in my “new” job for almost five weeks. I have my first check up thing in the next couple of weeks to see how I’m doing and how I can improve and things like that. The summer holidays are almost around the corner and booking a holiday is top of the to do list. I guess if I was off somewhere foreign and sunny I could be looking for a new item of swimwear. I can never decide if I want an all in one job, a tankini or something to go with board shorts (because I don’t really like showing off my legs lol). I’d also be looking for lovely maxi dresses and new shorts. I’ll probably be staying in the UK so unless the weather gets warmer I’ll be wearing my jeans and rolling them up when the sun comes out.

I guess for now a girl can dream. I love to travel and explore new places as it happens I have a list of places to go to or to go to again.

Some places I’ve wanted to go for as long as I can remember like Italy or new ones that have been added more recently. I actually joked to my friend that I’m secretly Italian given my love for Italian food and culture.

So where would I go……

Amsterdam
Back in 2007, Chris and I went to Amsterdam for our honeymoon, pretty much since we got back I’ve wanted to go again and the list of places to go to keeps growing. We attempted to go to AnneFrankHuis (Prinsengracht 263-267) while we were in Amsterdam but the queue was so long that we had to choose between standing in the queue and not getting to see other bits or go visit other bits and come back. We tried a further two times but again it was far too busy. So that’s back on the list of places to go “next” time.

This sculpture was in the Vondelpark when we went to Amsterdam. I would describe the Vondelpark being to Amsterdam as Central Park is to New York. It’s not right in the centre but it’s reachable on the tram system. The Vondelpark was good for wandering round and deciding what we wanted to do next. We also went to the film museum that is in the park. I looked it up but the EYE Museum has now moved to Amsterdam-Noord instead of being in the Vondelpark now. The pavilion is still a lovely building to have a look at if you like architecture like me.

There is also the Van Gogh museum, I can’t remember what put us off going there….maybe have to ask Chris about that one. We went to the American Book Center which was a two storey book shop that sold primary books in English. I bought a copy of The Diary of a Young Girl while I was there (I need to track it down and finish reading it!)

We also visited Madame Tussauds, it was a little disappointing as it’s pretty much the same as London with a sprinkle of Dutch celebrities for good measure. I had my photo taken with Freddie Mercury.

Another fun place we visited was the NEMO museum, it’s pretty much like the Science Museum but it’s more hands on and interesting. We got to play with giant bubbles (you have a hula hoop and try and pull the bubble up around you!)

All in all I’m sure there are other places we visited. Normally on trips I keep a journal of where we have visited and things like that but I hadn’t started doing that until the year after Amsterdam. Clearly we need to go again!