idealcases review…

Those lovely people at FuelMyBlog have done it again, I was offered a new iPad case in return for a review of IdealCases new iPhone app. There was a little hiccup as I no longer have an iPhone but I still have my iPad so I was able to use the iPhone app on there.

Installation was nice and easy – head to the App store and install as usual. The link on the website currently doesn’t work but it’s straight forward to find it in the App Store.

I’m not sure if it’s the app or the fact it’s on my iPad (rather than an iPhone) but there is an extra bar on the left hand side which does block some of the display and menu but the app is still useable.

The menu is easy to navigate, the app could do with a grammatical edit as there are quite a few capitals missing or gained in the middle of sentences.

When it comes to device choices there are nine main brands/devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Samsung, Google, Blackberry, Nook and HTC) again there is a lack of continuity between being a brand (HTC/Samsung) and an indvidual product (iPhone/iPad). On the first screen it would probably have been better to narrow by brand then on the next screen narrow by prodcut for example Apple -> iPad -> iPad Mini. Again there are no capitals on quite a few names other than this (which I guess is a personal preference in a way but I think it would look more professional with the capitals).

It was really easy to choose my product from here, on the next screen I was given a choice of case (matte black/matte white). With other products such as the iPhone 4/4S there were more choices such as a wallet case, gloss white or black, and tough white/black).

Having decided on my case I hit the done button which took me back to the start menu with my choices filled in. The next screen gives you the options to choose your photo for your own case.

It was easy enough to choose from my iPad’s photo gallery or to take a picture with the camera however connecting to three party sites such as Flickr or Instagram was a real struggle when I hit back after looking in my photo library I found that the screen had turned from portrait to landscape but the frame had stayed in place and cut off the rest of the display (as below), it’s possible this is because of it being an iPad rather than an iPhone however it still would probably put me off.

When I designed my case however the app didn’t misbehave and I was able to follow the instructions and options to create my iPad case.

Following placing my order I received an email to confirm the order had been placed, I also received another email to let me know that the order had been despatched (This was the following day). The case arrived on Saturday which was three days after placing the order and two after the confirmation of shipping – All in all it was a quite service. This was on the normal first class mail option rather than paying extra for a next day service which is available.

The packaging was good and wasn’t too bulky so it still fitted through the letterbox with the normal mail. There were clear instructions that the case is a snug fit but I did fit that it was really snug and I needed Chris to help me to fit it in the end as I was reluctant to force it in case I damaged either the case or my iPad. My previous case had a cover that folded round in front of the screen whereas this case just covers the back. I am concerned that the lack of protection on the front could be a problem but overall I love the product – especially as it has a photo that I took (of flowers that I received for my birthday!)

All in all the premise of the app is good, I do think it needs tweaking and refining but does definitely make it quicker and easier to order a personalised case, if they start doing Samsung Galaxy S4 I’d definitely be interested in ordering one for that too.

Pros

Easy to follow
Easy to place order with or without an IdealCases account.
Easy to choose pictures from the gallery or take one with camera
Possible to add text
Ordered within 20-30 minutes, arrived within three days – faster service available

Cons

Grammar!
Hints (good idea but a little irritating)
Really hard to link to third party sites for other photos.

This is a sponsored post and for full disclosure purposes, I received a new iPad case from IdealCases in return for a review of their new iPhone app. Courtesy of FuelMyBlog.

this weekend i… #twi

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… went to take part in a sponsored bounce for the CF Trust that my friend Dave, his wifey Emma and JD organised. Dave and Emma’s kids have CF so it’s a cause close to all our hearts. There was a guy from Bedford Flyers there who was able to do a bit of teaching/coaching while we all bounced and had a go on the trampoline. Our Sidekick was amazing and I was so proud of him for giving it a go rather than freaking out and sitting on the sidelines. One of the ladies made this amazing cake to have on the cake table…

This Weekend I… caught up with JD. We walked from the school that the sponsored bounce was hosted at into town. I was offered a lift by JD’s Mum and Dad but I turned it down, given that the sun was shining and I didn’t really have to rush to be anywhere I would take the time to catch up with JD.

This Weekend I… received my new iPad Mini case that I’d ordered from IdealCases. It was sitting on the stairs when I got home all ready for me to open it. I’d ordered it on Thursday and it arrived within 3 days! This is what it looks like……

This Weekend I… took part in a performance called Dr Watson’s Elementary School. It was good fun and we had lots of laughs. My brother was in it as a character called Mr Sparkes. He was the school caretaker. It has a murder mystery as part of the story and it was definitely interesting to see who did it in the end especially as there are hints within the story. My Grandparents came to watch as three of their grandchildren were in the performance. I was sat the opposite side of the room from them so I’m not sure how much enjoyed it and I missed them at the end of the performance but it was lovely to have a catch up with my Grandma before the performance started.

This Weekend I… played taxi with Chris to get some of our friends to Church. We had two stops this week but sometimes we have 3 or 4. Following church, I finished writing a letter to my friend K. Two of my other friends came to check on me to make sure I was okay as I hadn’t moved from where I had been sat during the service. I ended up having two really good heart to hearts with K.

This Weekend I… was blessed enough to be invited to a lunch for volunteers who help at The Fountain. We had tomato soup to start (it’s growing on me – still not my favourite but its okay!), lasagne for mains and for pudding we had a Polish desert that one of the young people had made. It was very sweet but very yummy.

This Weekend I… chilled in front of the TV. The rest of the weekend had been so mad that I just needed to chill out. I watched Mean Girls with K then caught up on the TV that I had recorded. Our Sidekick and I then watched How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory and Once Upon A Time. I finished off the evening watching a movie called Elevator Girl.

sunday quote v.3

Friday Questions #9

I really mean it this time! I will get my butt in gear when it comes to posting these questions on a regular basis.

If you join in leave your link in a comment or send me a tweet – I’m @girltaristhan on Twitter.

1. Last week there was a multi million rollover on the EuroMillions Lottery. One break time we sat discussing what we’d do if we won – what would you do?

Clear our mortgage (you know sensible grown up things first!)
Help my brother get on the housing ladder (Well if he wants to do that!)
Buy Chris his electric car (and get an Electric Smart Car for me lol)
Donate a chunk to charity (What if The Fountain didn’t have to worry about resources etc.?)
I wouldn’t give up work completely but I’d take time out to pursue interests – write a book, spend months, crocheting and knitting my fingers off. Maybe set up my own business.
Help my family out in whatever way I can.
Put money in trust for Our Sidekick that way if he decides university is where he wants to go then he has the financial support to get there and achieve his dreams.
Go to Australia, catch up with Loz and Sheens, meet up with Jelly, Mel, Ruby and Brandon. Well and do the tourist bit.
Go to New Zealand and see the Kiwi.
And quite a lot more…..

2. What songs have you been listening to recently?
Ready for the performance tomorrow I’ve been listening to The Monkees and a Jools Holland cover of Lady Madonna (I couldn’t find The Beatles version!). Also been listening to too much of Hairspray and Grease lol. There was a bit of opera thrown in for good measure. I think Les Mis crept in too.

3. Dream holiday – where would you go?
There are way too many places that I’d want to visit. I wrote a list of the American states and then started filling in the places I wanted to visit in each state – my page was filled within in a couple of hours – However I’m going to have to start it again as I misplaced my list….

4. Actual holiday – do you have plans this summer?
So far there isn’t anything booked but hopefully we’ll head off somewhere fab.

5. Since starting my new job I’ve been introduced to two new blogs, which blogs do you like reading? (top 5 maybe??)
First up we have those two new blogs that I’ve been introduced to, Number 1 is Gujarati Food Made Easy and number 2 is Buttercream Magic both are written by Meetali. Next is the Monster Yarns blog. Monster Yarns is a business that my friend Judit runs. She’s seriously passionate about knitting and all things yarn – she inspires me massively. Last is a draw between Melissa Explains It All and Brooks Reach Building Adventure. The first is written by Mel who is a fellow girl geek who loves movies and tech just like me. The second is Ruby’s blog documented her and her husband’s adventure building their own house. As it happens Mel and Ruby are married to Daniel and Branden of Jelly and Bean.

Currently…27th June

It’s been a bit crazy around here and blogging has to keep moving down the list of things to do, chores have to come first now rather than me avoiding them lol. Originally this post was called Lately… but following some tweaking I’ve come back and renamed it Currently…

Reading
I’ve just finished reading From Notting Hill with Love… Actually by Ali McNamara and have now started its sequel From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually. I think the thing I love the most is how Scarlett ends up in so many vignettes of scenes from movies like the brownie competition from Notting Hill and the guys fighting in the fountain for her honour from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Basically if you love London based chick flicks give the first one a go – I’m positive that you will love it.

Watching
Season Six of Dawson’s Creek mainly, I’ve also re-downloaded You’ve Got Mail given that it’s filmed near my friend’s new apartment. She’s over in New York studying/working and apparently she regularly goes past some of the locations (while noting that she is!).

Listening
Erm the soundtrack from Hairspray and the Glee versions of the Grease songs.

Thinking about
The usual, I have a to do list that takes up one side of an A4 sheet and I think I’ve only crossed off like 3 things! I guess it’s handy having a really slow computer at work some days!

getting healthy pt 1

Those of you who know me in person know that exercise isn’t one of my favourite activities. I think in the past the most exercise I’ve done has been to pick up the remote and start the next episode of whichever TV show I’m working my way through or walking to the bookcase to put down the book I just finished and pick up the next one in the TBR pile (which never gets smaller it just gets bigger and bigger especially given the pile of books I was given by my friend who moved house a couple of weeks ago).

With my new job just around the corner, I decided that I’d walk to work as many days as possible. By the time I’ve reversed out of the driveway and found a parking space at the other end, I could be at my desk, booting up my pc and cuddling that first drink of the day.

I did Race for Life again with my Mum this year and although I managed to run further than I have in past years (I started running st the 4k mark, ran about 400-500 metres, walked a bit and then ran the rest) figured it was about time that I stopped making excuses and tried out the exercise this. I’ve been a member of the gym in the past and I’ve always felt self-conscious or embarrassed that I am a size 16 asthmatic who can’t really run very far, that doesn’t seem to have the coordination for a cross fit trainer machine and that I wear a massive man’s t-shirt to try and hide my body rather than wear a body-hugging t-shirt to show off my “rocking bod” lol.

My friend D has just finished his sports course at the local university and so between finishing his course and deciding what to do next he’s helping me out – I guess in a roundabout way that makes him my personal trainer but that sounds a bit OTT – I see it more like hanging out with a friend lol.

First thing was first:

what do I eat?

Well this was a bad place to start, I have the tendency that when I’m bored I get hungry, or its more like “I’m bored, I’m not really hungry but it’ll give me something to do so let’s eat!” or rather than have 1 or 2 of something I’d eat 5 or more. Jaffa Cakes are one of my weaknesses – why have 1 when I can eat 12 (I’m pretty sure that’s a pack! Oh dear!)

Also, I eat too much junk food. I think it’s a massive weakness.

So the plan is – replace chocolate or sweetie based snacks with fruit or something else healthy.

Done – as part of my pack lunch I’ve been packing a carrot (or now 2 because I’ve realised that I still crave chocolate around 11 am even when I’ve had breakfast) and cut down chocolate bars – I have one Penguin sized bar instead of two in my packed lunch. I have ham and Philadelphia sandwiches – I get the Lightest Philadelphia and spread that on the bread just on one side instead of having margarine as well. I have a Babybel in there too. I have crisps but try for lower calorie ones. Quavers seem to be a good choice and I have Skips for lunch today – will check out how good they are……

I’ve also been trying to replace fizzy with water. Under D’s instruction, I’m allowed fizzy at lunchtime. If I need a caffeine/sugar fix, I need to try to have fruit juice instead. I think it’s then natural sugars rather than artificial ones. (Does that make sense?)

do you eat breakfast?

No I didn’t. Now I try to – some days it’s a slice of toast as I leave for work but I keep trying to have a bowl of cereal or something like that. It’s currently Malt Wheaties as we have them in the cupboard but I’m going to go back to muesli or Weetabix or something that is in theory a little healthier.

how much do I sleep?

Enough but not enough. So the average human needs around 8 hours sleep, it has even scientifically proven that people who sleep at least 8 hours a night find that dieting is more successful or something to that effect. So I have been trying to do this….. I have fallen into bad habits in the last few days but I am going to kick myself in the rear and get back on track. I try to switch off my iPad/put my phone to standby and not touch it again from 11 pm. I’m allowed to read or crochet or write letters but no to the screen. I then try to turn the lights out at midnight and go to sleep. (Chris apparently is appreciating this too because it means he gets a proper amount of sleep each night as well!)

how much water do I drink?

Again not enough. At the company, I used to work for we had diet cola in the fridge and to get drinkable water you had to go upstairs to a solitary tap (until we moved office and had a sink to ourselves). I think this became the start of my cola addiction (haha it sounds kind funny if you call it a coke addiction…….. Not that drug addiction is a laughing matter….) anyway, I’m now trying to drink more water. It’s a challenge and some days it’s easier than others but it’s happening. Yesterday I was definitely on about a litre of water drunk. In theory, if I can keep it up it’ll become second nature and I’ll drink water by the bucket full.

So far I seem to have put on weight but following a discussion with D I’ve figured it out. I think my I’d put on weight before starting, I’d tried to ignore that fact even though I knew it was there and wouldn’t go away. I’d had a sore throat bug thing and so made out I couldn’t do any exercise and should stay curled up on the sofa. Instead, I gained a few kilos. Now my belt is a hole tighter on my jeans and I have to keep pulling them up! Hopefully, I’ll be in a size 14 soon and who knows maybe a 12. We’ll see how this combination of bits goes to start with.

this weekend i…#twi

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This weekend I/we…started by going bowling. Quite a lot had happened in the past week that meant although we’d seen each other we hadn’t really had time together just to hang out. By Friday I just wanted to curl up and chill out, mainly to read my book (From Notting Hill With Love Actually by Ali McNamara). At first I didn’t want to go and although bowling isn’t the first thing I’d pick to do I don’t think the boys quite expected it to go the way it did. I won two of the three games which was slightly mad! I also seem to have a debate over which ball I need to use. I usually go for an 8 or 10 with Medium holes. I ended up using one with small holes and by the end of the game I’d broken my thumb nail about 3 times so I had to cut it down completely when I got home and I’d trapped my thumb between the cover and the internal bit of the ball so it was really sore.

This weekend I… started Saturday really lazy, I’m sure I should have got up and been more productive but the craziness of the week had caught up with me and I just wanted to chill out. Chris dropped me off at the Old Folks Home that I help at on a Saturday. My Oldies (as I refer to them lol) were back to normal and were their chatty selves again unlike last week when they were really quiet. While I was clearing up, a daughter of one of the residents came in to let me know that one of the resident’s would be 93 on Sunday – that’s seriously exciting! I couldn’t even believe that the resident was 93 – they don’t look it!

This weekend I… caught the bus into town to meet with Meetali. We were meeting for a coffee and to discuss blogs – we seem to have inspiration at like 10am while working then say “Hold that thought we’ll talk at lunch” and by the time lunch rolls round we get distracted by other things and don’t come back to that particular thread of thought. Meeting for a coffee outside of work seemed like a good way to make sure we were discussing blogs (and not on work time lol). While we were chatting and working away, one of the guys who was getting baptised on Sunday came over and chatted to us about the baptism and how excited he was about it all. He also invited Meetali which was quite funny given the fact that they literally just met.

This Weekend I… watched the final of The Voice. Between the coffee and getting home we popped to my parents to collect Our Sidekick who had been hanging out there, we then came home and chilled in front of the TV. My favourite to win was Matt. Leah was an amazing singer but really not my cup of tea – if I had her album and there was scary whistle register high note like in Minnie Riperton’s Loving You in every song I’d have to switch it off. The notes are impressive and anyone who can get that high and sound good (And not look in pain!) has my respect – I used to be able to get to a B (not the first one above middle C but the next one up – apparently that’s B5 or something like that) but now I think the highest is a G5 or an A5 with some encouragement.

This Weekend I…. got my butt in gear and sorted out those buttons on the sidebar. Also updated the Google+ page for this blog (yeah go over there and +1 because I know you’re lovely people!). I also updated some of the links back here from other places.

This Weekend I… had a crazy Sunday. We had normal church in the morning but had to play taxi before church so ended up going via two places to get different people. Every time someone mentioned the baptisms that were happening in the afternoon we cheered as loud as we could – it was getting a bit silly but was really good fun all the same. After church I dashed off to a rehearsal as our performance of Dr. Watson’s Elementary School is on Saturday. We had a rehearsal for four hours and then via some other places I headed back to church ready for the baptisms.

This Weekend I… was very blessed to be asked by my friend K to be part of the actual baptising bit of her baptism and also to sing with her as part of her testimony. I was stupidly excited as I’d never baptised anyone before – I guess I’ve probably seen about 20-30 baptisms and so it wasn’t like I didn’t know what happened but it was still very exciting. My parents and my Grandad surprised me by coming to the baptisms.

sunday quote v.2

found here and there…

Found Here and There

Sculptures dressed as Hipsters, both Chris and my friend Hazel shared this on their FB pages today. I spotted it earlier and thought I’d share. I did think that you kind of needed either a before/after version or the name of the statue so you could go look for the before shot elsewhere, either way I liked it.

Hazel also shared how Debenhams are spearheading a campaign to not retouch model photo shoots for catalogues and advertisements. Debenhams have now called on other High Street retailers to ditch those airbrushed images too. They aren’t ditching them completely (So those stray hairs can be cut out but not thinning thighs and things like that). You can read more here. A spokesperson said:

‘We want other retailers to follow suit and encourage positive body-image through minimal retouching rather than bombarding them with unattainable body images,’

I know each culture has different traditions but this is an interesting one, while we’re busy trying to stop our kids crying. In Japan they have a whole ceremony where a mother hands over her baby to a sumo wrestler who tries to make said baby cry, the winner is the one who makes baby cry first (They usually doing it by scaring the baby and they aren’t allowed to cause pain to the babies).

Chrsitian Nightlife Initiative Network who run the Street Angels project in a number of towns including Bedford, have recently expanded and now have a group in Santa Ponca, Majorca. When the Bedford group started, I went out on duty with them a couple of times, sometimes it’s just a matter of standing across the road and praying to calm disturbances and things like that and other times it’s being hands on, maybe giving first aid until a paramedic arrives or handing out flip flops to girlies who can’t wear their killer high heels home because they are hurting their feet or causing them other issues. You can read more here.

this weekend i…#twi

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.This Weekend I… swear I haven’t really stopped – well until my epic 12 hour sleep on Sunday night.

This Weekend I… started Saturday by running errands and getting my Dad’s Father’s Day bits sorted out. I got Dad a t-shirt that says “The Original Super Dad”, a mug that says something like “My Dad’s my hero” and a bar of Ginger chocolate. (I then found the chilli chocolate on Sunday that I had meant to get him on Saturday).

This Weekend I… then went to serve dinner at the Old Folks Home. Love my oldies – they are so funny – after winding each other up something mad last week they were so quiet this week. One of the ladies got in a muddle and was sure that her lunch had been ordered for her and then it wasn’t on my list, thankfully we had spare so could share that out.

This Weekend I… jumped in the car and headed for my Mum’s via the shop for some wrapping paper. When I got there I wrapped my Dad’s Father’s Day presents while sat in my Mum’s Office which I then delivered downstairs and lined them up along the sofa.

This Weekend I… I then came home and waited for Our Sidekick to arrive home from his Mum’s wedding/contact. He’d had to dress up really smart and he looked really fab in his new shirt, suit, tie and shiny new shoes. I was really excited and asked about twenty questions when he got in, I think he didn’t expect me to be that interested or be excited about it (erm It’s a wedding and I’m a girl – I’m always interested lol!)

This Weekend I… carried on with my current crochet project – I’m getting there but had a slight change of pattern but it’s good – no extra work for it lol.

This Weekend We… did Race For Life again. This is the 4th Year (or might be 5th?!?) that me and Mum have done the race. We walk most of the way. This year I got to the 4k mark and tried to run what I could of the rest of the race. I probably did about 400/500m then had to walk a little more but then ran the rest of the way and crossed the finish line around 58 minutes, Mum came in at 1 hour and 3 minutes so she wasn’t that far behind me.

Mum and I at Race for Life

This Weekend We… were invited to our friend’s house for dinner again. It’s pretty much open house so people kind of come and go all afternoon. I went out to the rehearsal and then came back a bit later.

This Weekend We… had another rehearsal for Dr Watson’s Elementary School. The performance is two weekends away so we’ve had a couple of extra rehearsals slotted in to make sure we’re all ready for the performance.

This Weekend I… had an epic twelve hour sleep. By the end of the rehearsal I wasn’t really happy, my head was starting to hurt and even though I was drinking buckets of water it wasn’t clearing my head. At one point I was curled up on the sofa chatting to my friend, I hope he understood what I was saying because I was kind of dozing and probably not making that much sense! In the end we came home, I completed my time sheet as I had forgotten to do it on Friday when I got home from work, went straight to bed and minus 3 wake ups I slept through to this morning – It was an epic sleep and definitely prepared me for the exercise session with my friend Dwayne this afternoon (more to follow on another post – although currently I’m running out of time on my self/Dwayne imposed sleep/exercise/food routine that I will not give up on straight away!)

thursday tunes

Thursday Tunes

As well as podcasts now I’m walking to and from work there’s a lot of music being played each day (and quite a lot of dancing too sometimes!). Here are the top 5 current favourites, here’s Thursday Tunes:

Dancing in the Streets by David Bowie and Mick Jagger

Need You Now by Lady Antebellum

Telescope by Hayden Panettiere (Also have the Lennon and Maisy cover)

Ho Hey – Lennon and Maisy (Cover of The Lumineers)

Final Performance (Mashup: Price Tag/Don’t You Forget About Me – Barden Bellas (From Pitch Perfect)

knitting…

This week it is World Wide Knit in Public Week. In a way we kicked this of with the yarn bombing along the Embankment in Bedford on Saturday – I have a bunch of photos to show off but but wanted to get the presentation right.

Anyway back to the point for my birthday two years ago I was given a copy of ” Knitting for Good!” by Betsy Greer. This birthday present was from Rickie especially from Canada. I’ve been reading it on and off between other books.

I’ve specifically trying to finish it given all the community knitting I’ve been taking part in, the main two being BedYarn and the other being the giant blanket we’re making to auction off for Macmillan.

I’ve had post it notes stuck in various pages with quotes written on them. My current favourite is nearly a whole paragraph about using knitting to strike up conversations.

From Chapter Two

Art goes on the wall to be admired, whereas craft is meant to be used.

From Chapter Four

“One of the benefits of handmade is that by doing something like knitting or wearing a handmade item in public, we provide a topic of conversation with people who have similar interests. I’ve been stopped on the subway by a person who liked my hat and have struck up a conversation with someone when I noticed that the sweater she was wearing comprised the exact same stitch pattern as a sock I had recently finished.
Crafts like knitting, which are considered “different” yet culturally familiar activities, help us facilitate conversations. Try knitting in public or letting your knitting needles stick out the top of your bag as you travel about town. I can almost guarantee that some sort of conversation will present itself. See how it feels, and then see where it goes.
There are either things you can carry with you that can also act as conversation starters (a baby and a puppy come instantly to mind), but few portable activities embody a skill that has been carried down through generations all over the world like knitting does. It may seem a little silly, but in it’d own gentle way, this seemingly simple craft can help you connect to your neighbours. It mag even show you a whole new part of your community that you didn’t know existed.

What do you think…….

this weekend i… #twi

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

this weekend i… started my weekend at my Mum’s doing bits again then went to serve lunch at the residential home as this weekend was mad for other bookings.

this weekend i… well we took Our Sidekick over to MK for the second part of his birthday present. He regularly jokes about driving (usually when Chris and I are discussing who’s turn it is to drive somewhere etc) and so when my Mum handed me the leaflet and suggested it a while back I decided it would be a good present for him. I think Chris and I were more excited about the whole thing that Our Sidekick but he got to ride in the front seat of “Foster Grandad’s” car both ways so I think that made up for some of it! We took lots of photos of Our Sidekick driving. I thought I’d taken a bunch on my phone but I think I ended up taking loads on my Mum’s. I just have this one……Our Sidekick was getting instructions from his instructor about positioning the chair, which pedal was which and how to adjust the mirrors. I loved the idea and just wished it had been around when I was younger – I think I’d have probably freaked out at the idea of being able drive a car in my teens (In a way one up on my friends!) but I’m sure I would have enjoyed it anyway. You can find out more information at Young Driver.

Young Driver

this weekend we… went to the Cash ‘n’ Carry on our way through Milton Keynes for dishwasher tablets (how exciting!). We headed to Marston Forest Centre on our way home with the idea that we could have our picnic there but when we got to the car park gate it said that the car park closes at 6pm so we decided to head for Priory Marina in Bedford. On our way we went along the Embankment – the idea being that we’d only do it once but then we turned round and my Dad parked up so we could have a proper look at the Yarn Bombing – especially after the little squeal I let out when I saw my knitting wrapped around a lamp post!

lamp post tree

2013-06-08 18.13.40

this weekend we… then headed to the marina for our picnic – it was actually really cold and I sat in my waterproof jacket to try and keep myself warmer even though it wasn’t raining! WHO ATE THE SUMMER?!?! Can it arrive already please? I still have my winter jumpers out because the weather can’t make up it’s mind!

this weekend we… went to the Castle Quarter fair following church. My lovely friend Debbie from Naive Art by Debbie Newnham and Judit from Monster Yarns both had stalls at the fair. I stopped past Judit’s stand like 3 times – mainly just to drool over the yarn! She has such amazing stock. (She’s currently hosting a competition – Just create a knitted or crocheted monster by the 1st August – £30-50 gift vouchers for Monster Yarns are on offer for the winners in three categories!)

you want an opinion on bedford….here’s one or five…

Wednesday’s are always a bit crazy, between work/school we tidy up like mad things and then host Connect Group (don’t get me wrong – I do like it, it’s great having a house full of laughing mad chatter!). While Our Sidekick was tidying the living room and I was cleaning up the kitchen, making dinner and making my packed lunch for Thursday’s lunch (I’m a girl I do multi-tasking well!). There was a knock at the door. I was singing along to music on my phone so I’m actually surprised I heard the door. After the pushy Energy Door to Door Selling Girl last week I kind of wasn’t in the mood to have my time wasted. I opened the door and it was a chap from the Liberal Democrats dropping off a survey – he asked if I could fill it in or post it back. Not impossible I can do that. So while dinner cooked I started filling in the form – 4 lines into the comments box and I was going to need more paper to get on with it. (The questions are bold, the answers are normal, the italic bits are me adding bits following my speed answers!)

#mytown #bedford #connectwithpc @papercoterie #evening

How important do you think it is to improve the bus station area of the town centre?
The bus station is an entrance for tourists and currently it probably puts people off from coming back to Bedford especially with Cambridge and Milton Keynes being so close to Bedford.
Having spent a lot of time either in the Bus Station on my way to and from town, work or other places and having sat/volunteered in The Fountain, through the years I’ve spent a bunch of time in the Bus Station. Now I personally would happily walk across town to the stops outside Oxfam and The Corn Exchange rather than stand in the Bus Station. It’s drab and could really do with a lick of paint amongst other things! If you’re a visit to Bedford it isn’t always clear that some of the buses leave from the bays along the sides or the bays that are kind of on the roundabout rather than in the bus station – also that the X5 drops off in the big bay outside Iceland but picks up from one of the end bays instead (And I think Cambridge bound picks up next to the Oxford bound one just to confuse things!)

Dave Hodgson has been fighting to stop the threatened loss of emergency and full maternity services from Bedford Hospital. How important is it to you that services like these remain?
The last time I went to Accident and Emergency I had to wait about three hours to be seen by someone (even though for various reasons we were brought in by police escort then another three for tests and to see a specialist to see my friend. If we have a reduced maternity service at Bedford where would expectant mothers have to go – I think the next Accident and Emergency is Luton and Dunstable or Milton Keynes – both of which are around 20-30 miles away – surely that could be life or death for a premature or ill baby/mother?
When I was 14 I was rushed into hospital in an ambulance having been involved in a road traffic collision in the town centre (Yup it’s pretty impressive managing to stop most of the traffic in Bedford just by deciding to lie down in the middle of the High Street – got to love those one way systems!). If the local Accident and Emergency hadn’t been in Bedford or had been closed, I would have probably had to been taken to Luton and Dunstable or Milton Keynes. Both of which aren’t that far away (well they are about 20-30 miles and all those bumps in the road can’t be good for a spinal injury or something like that). Fortunately I had whiplash and a sprained ankle so in the end I was released the same day. On the other hand being on a spinal board when all you want is a hug from your Mum and for her to tell you that it will be okay then the less time on that spinal board is better!

Unlike many other councils, in Bedford we still have weekly collections of our black bin waste. How important to you is this?
It’s still important but we tend to recycle more than we bin anyway now so recycle collection every week and black bin fortnightly would be better. Can we not also recycle glass in our bin collection like surrounding areas?
In our kitchen we have two bins. The smaller of the two is for normal food waste and bits that can’t go in the recycling. The recycling is in a bigger bin and is often emptied twice a week. Our green collection bin is still in the back garden as Chris has been doing bits getting the garden ready for summer. What I’d like to see is glass being collected in the weekly/fortnightly collections. We either seem to have far too much glass to recycle or not enough to make it worth a trip to the tip or the bottle bank.

Mayor Dave Hodgson has made it clear that those who litter in Bedford Borough can expect to be fined. Do you agree that people littering should be fined?
Fines only work when the act is witnessed (just like the no seat belt/mobile phone fines)
The fines are a good idea but at the same time it only works if someone actually witnesses the act. We followed a car along on Castle Road on Tuesday and the driver was on a mobile phone. How do you go about reporting that? If no-one with authority witnesses the crime then how is the fine applied? Can I call the police or something?

Of all the improvements planned for Bedford Town Centre, which is the number one priority for you?
Riverside North
Bus Station Regeneration
High Street Heritage Regeneration Scheme
Redevelopment of the Higgins Bedford (former Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Bedford Museum).

As someone who has linkes with a town centre business both the High Street and Bus Station need work done on them – something needs to be done about Porter Blacks – it’s been empty for at least a decade.
When we were looking at venues for The Fountain, we did look at the Porter Blacks building. It’s at the top of the High Street as you come into town. If that building could just have something done to it to make it look more welcoming and like it’s worth stopping off in Bedford, I’m sure it could make a massive difference.

Who do you feel is most to blame for the Government having to cut spending?

In the next Mayoral Elections in Bedford who are you most likely to support for Bedford Mayor?
Dave
Maybe Dave
Conservative
Labour
Other

Each government sets out what they will do and then don’t achieve it. I use my vote because as a woman, women who were part of the Suffragette Movement gave their lives to give people like me the freedom to vote but when government say one thing and do another I struggle to see the point in my vote. I tend to vote for the one who will screw the country less this time round.

Both these questions had similar answers. Each government makes decisions and choices that affect the following government just as much. I tend to vote for who will mess us up the least.

What do you think?

the pre-30 list: part one

The Pre-30 List

Get a new job…

…or vocation

Given that I’ve just completed Day 6 of my new temp job, I think in a way this goal is completed. Okay it might get completed multiple times in the next three years if I don’t settle but for now I’ve crossed it off. I’m currently signed up until the end of August – part of me wants it to be extended but at the same time I wonder about finding something else and going somewhere different. But I guess we’ll see what God has got planned. Life can change a huge amount in 12 weeks ish.

My job is working at a international company in their Bedford office (well where else would I be walking to lol). I’ve made a bunch of new friends including Meetali who is also a blogger – She writes for Butter Cream Magic and Gujarati Food Made Easy. (I think we bug other members of our team because we spend our breaks together talking blogging and holidays lol).

I wrote more about it under Hannah’s Job Search so I won’t repeat here, the first couple of days were a bit touch and go but in the next few it got better. Yesterday (and probably today!) I’m working on spreadsheets which I really enjoy (what a nerd!) even though everyone else seems to point out how boring they are.

this weekend i… #TWI

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… well on Friday when I finished work, Our Sidekick and I went on a road trip to MK, the idea being that I’d missed most of the holiday because of starting my new job so I figured we could cram in something before he goes back to school today. We had a great time and when we got home we watched How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. This has become our Friday tradition as the new episodes are often televised on Thursday while I’m out at Scone Roses or other bits.

This Weekend I… Saturday started with a lazy start. I should have got up and been more productive but I felt rubbish. I’ve had a sore throat since Wednesday and it’s been somehow affecting my asthma. This makes the stairs really not fun. Even walking down the stairs makes my breathing go mad.

This Weekend I… went to Cambridge with Chris, Our Sidekick and my Sister-in-Law for the Strawberry Fair. I felt scarily at home, my Sister-in-Law commented for the first half an hour or so how uncomfortable she felt and how she freaked out felt. I spent Sunday trying to tell friends about the Strawberry Fair and how exciting it was but I couldn’t do it very well. I virtually spammed by Instagram feed and Twitter but the signal on the actual field was really bad even though it’s in the middle of Cambridge – I think this was to do with the number of people on Midsummer Common added with the number of people probably posting pictures and updating social media at the same time. (There are a heap of pictures – I need to sort them for proper but you can find most of them on Flickr or Instagram.

#strawberryfair #cambridge

This Weekend I… sang in the worship band at church. The first Sunday of the month is an all age service (I think it has another name now but I can’t remember what it is!). I’d been asked by the worship leader to bring two Kid’s Worship songs on Thursday to rehearsal so that we could check we knew them and learn the actions. It was a challenge given the sore throat-ness but on Thursday I had hoped it would be gone. It hadn’t completely gone – actually it felt worse and I probably should have given up there. I had a pain in my throat when I swallowed which made me really think that my tonsils were up. Before the service, we were all prayed for to make sure that we brought God’s glory and that kind of thing. While I was prayed for I swallowed and took a deep breath. The swallowing had got from a strong pain making me feel like I was trying to swallow a golf ball in one go to a dull ache in the back of my throat. Given the issues with my asthma and the sore throat I was stupidly excited. When we finished praying I ran across church, tapped Chris on the shoulder and started to tell him what had just happened. I wasn’t even out of breathe from running across church which was even better. I’m still going to need to go to the doctor’s to make sure my inhalers are all topped up and ready for the summer and also about some others bits that are worrying me a little bit but other than that I am doing well.

This Weekend I… had the first BBQ of the Summer. We were invited to a friend’s house for the BBQ. He’s like me and loves having a house full of people. All sorts of shenangians happened too including threats for pranks when my friend fell asleep on the sofa!

the dam busters

On Monday, here in the UK it was a Bank Holiday and although I didn’t really have time to stop and watch a film I did think about when I was younger. Growing up, Bank Holidays would involve watching a film together – usually this was Dad’s choice as he had control of the remote, it would usually be something like The Great Escape, The Bridge Over The River Kwai, Ice Cold In Alex or one of those epic biblical films (that seems to steal your will to live) with Charlton Heston as Moses or someone equally important. This post is about a different one that often came up around that time. This is about The Dam Busters.

The film itself is based on a military operation called Operation Chastise that took place in 1943 as part of the Allies taking on Germany. The mission was for the RAF’s 617 Squadron to attack the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe Dams in Germany with Barnes Wallis’s “bouncing bomb”.

As I understand it, the mission was for the pilots to fly their plane low enough to get the bomb to bounce like a skipped stone across the water, and for it to sink in front of the dam then explode crippling the dam and the industry that used the dam.

About two weeks ago there were celebrations and memorials for the people involved in these raids as it’s 70 years on. On Thursday, we caught a bit of a program about the Spitfires and what it would have been like in the actual plane – they really had a lack of space! On Friday, there was a documentary all about trying to recreate the raid. Having been “introduced” to the Dambusters and the Bouncing Bomb by my Dad I thought Our Sidekick might be interested, he was pretty much glued to the television and really fascinated with it. How they released the bomb and how they had to do it at just the right angle to make sure that it would bounce.

Actually it fitted right in with what he’s been doing at school anyway. Our Sidekick is currently doing World War 2 in History so we’ve been doing homework based on that theme for the last few weeks. The assignments leading up to the end of the year is to pick a task from a list – there’s about 20 tasks split up into different categories – each category gives a different level of points. Our Sidekick has to do one a week, the Friday before the half term break it was decided he was going to watch a film based in the specific time slot given and then he’d write a review. I texted my Dad to see which war films he had on DVD and that we could borrow. In the end, Our Sidekick asked to watch The Great Escape. My Dad didn’t have this one on DVD but we sorted out and managed to watch The Great Escape, we started on Friday and I said to Our Sidekick that he would need to finish it the following day – I had forgotten quite how long The Great Escape is. I’d expected him to kick off a bit and refuse to play ball. Instead he sat down in front of the DVD – put on the film and got on with it. NO COMPLAINTS!

I tried to think about what it was that interested me about war films, specifically The Dambusters and The Great Escape. I think it was because although both films were serious there were bits in it that were kind of funny, in The Great Escape for example there’s a bit when they are trying to get rid of the dirt from the tunnel so some of the guys fill up their trousers with the soil and then walk round the yard (Right under the German soldier’s noses) and empty this dirt – other guys then walk after them mixing the tunnel dirt in with the outside dirt. I remember watching Schindler’s List in History at School and remembered how much I really hated it – it wasn’t a bad film, it was mainly the topic. The idea that such a bad thing could happen to so many people I think it overwhelmed me a bit (I think even now the image of the little girl’s red coat in the crowd and then again in the camp still gets me). Having said that I willingly watched The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas which is also set in a concentration camp.

hannah’s job search – part eight

I have 4 minutes left of my lunch break so I’m going to hispeed type this down and hopefully the formatting will be in the right place.

On Tuesday I started a new temp job doing data entry at an energy company, the first day was more or less health and safety and company background. We started the morning with a kind of getting to know each other exercise. We were each given a sheet of flip chart paper and had to write a list of our likes/dislikes and our lives up to now with interesting achievements and things like that. I found that my sheet was really spread out on the top half but then the bottom half was really crammed together. I had to go first and walk the group through my whole chart. I’d included on there that I’d been support crew for Chris when he did LE2JOG and that I’d done part of the Tube Challenge with him – well that struck up a whole bunch of conversation about what the tube challenge was and how I came to be doing it.

Wednesday started still in training, after lunch we did a bit more training then we were taken upstairs to the office we’d be working. Originally the plan was for us to buddy up in our team and then put into practice what we’d been learning but for one or another reason that wasn’t working so we buddied up with other people in the other team already doing the job we’re joining in with.

The girlie I was paired up with was lovely and friendly and helped me to put the stuff I’d learnt into practice to get up and running. It was fairly easy and once you’d remembered where each detail would be you could nip through the records quite quickly.

I was back with the same girlie again today – we chatted about how our evenings had been and what we had planned for the rest of the day after we finished work. I went for lunch at 1, my girlie went for lunch at 1:30 so for half an hour I ended up working with another pair, which was good because I got to see how someone else does the same task. After lunch I went back to working with my girlie. About 3ish we had a meeting back in the training room to see how it was going and to chat to the manager who’s above our Team Leader. While we were in the meeting we were discussing about other skills that we had. I said about my use of Excel and I might get given extra tasks which is quite exciting (scary but exciting lol). The good thing about the building so close means that I can walk to work. It’s really pointless driving (by the time I’ve reversed out the drive way and found a space at the other end I could be sat at my desk!) but I guess if it’s down pouring or something like that then it wouldn’t be the end of the world to drive.

Today on my way to work (and on the way back in fact), I listened to the Silver Screen Queens Podcast. I still haven’t listened to the Star Trek one as I still haven’t seen the film but I listened to the Big Trouble in Little China one. Listening to Mel and Katy discuss movies feels like I’m hanging out with them (I think I said the same about Jelly and Bean!)

hannah’s job search – part seven

I have another part to add to the story of Hannah’s Job Search. I had another interview yesterday at a local company – it’s a bit further away that I’d expected to travel but that’s not a problem. The two ladies who interviewed me were lovely and friendly, and I felt really welcomed. They even asked questions about my blog which was really funny, especially as it caught me a little off guard and I had no idea what to say about it lol. Apparently they’d even had a look at it (so ladies if you’re reading again HELLO!).

I’d worn trainer socks and my new-ish unworn DMs – this would have been okay but the back of the DMs rubbed up against my heel and the trainer sock disappeared into my shoe, by the time I’d left the interview a blister had appeared and popped. By the time I’d run a few errands (Even though I was back in my trainers) the blister had got worse.

Yesterday afternoon I got another email inviting me to an interview, the times on their website are steering me towards interviewing on Tuesday which is fine but there are quite a few dilemmas spinning round my head at the moment, I have a temp-to-perm job starting on Tuesday, I thought it was right for me but I’m really not sure now. I have the interview from yesterday and this possible interview either this week or next week. Do I risk the definite for the maybe……..

Anyway, I woke up this morning to an email from the team organising the volunteers for TEDxBedford, I’ve been rejected as a volunteer. Since I heard that there was going to be a TEDxBedford I’ve been so excited about it, I’ve been watching the TEDx videos online hoping that one day I’d be able to afford a ticket to go, have an idea to share with the world as a speaker (like Hannah B or Ruby – these are my two favourites) or just be able to volunteer – and so now I have been rejected as a volunteer at TEDxBedford and I physically can’t afford a ticket – even if I was in a job it would be a lot of money for the ticket. But you know what – I’m involved in so many things anyway I think I’ll be okay.

super sweet blogging award

I’ve been tagged by the lovely Judit over at Monster Yarns. Judit is super lovely and very excited about all things knitting and yarn.

These are the instructions for this one:

1. Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Acknowledge that blogger on your blog and link back.
3. Answer the ‘Super Sweet’ Questions.
4. Nominate a ‘Bakers Dozen’ Award (13 blogs), link to their blogs in your post and notify them on their blogs. It’s OK if you don’t have 13 blogs to nominate, just share the love!
5. Copy and paste the award on your blog somewhere.

Super Sweet Questions:
Cookies or Cake?
Not sure. I think cookies – then again at least if I have one slice of cake I then walk away and don’t go back for seconds whereas I could eat half a packet of cookies before realising what I’ve done.

Chocolate or Vanilla?
Would have to be white chocolate or vanilla, milk chocolate is okay but I definitely prefer white chocolate.

What is your favorite sweet treat?
Double Stuff Oreos….MoonPies…..

When do you crave sweet things the most?
All the time! Most of the time I’d pick something sweet over savoury – probably explains why I could do with joining Slimming World or something like that

If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be?
My dad used to refer to my brother and I as Rhubarb and Custard – never sure why but I usually answered to it if needed. Mum calls me HJ or Sweetie lol.

And the nominees are…

1. Mel at Melissa Explains It All. One of the three fab bloggy friends from Australia. Girl geek just like me.
2. Ruby at Sew, Cook, Create! and Brooks Reach Building Adventure. The second of those three Australian blogging girlies and another girlie geek.
3. Sarah from xo.Sorcha.ox. The third Australian and one of my lovely pen pals and a book worm just like me.
4. Lucy from Mrs Bishop’s Bakes and Banter. One of the lovely ladies from Scone Roses WI
5. Liz from Little Red Welly. Another lovely lady from Scone Roses WI.
6.Elle at Pipe Dreams and Professions – I’ve been reading her blog for ages, I am so proud of her as she released her first book on Kindle etc about a month ago and this week the paperback is being released (just a hint if you like Confession of A Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella – I am pretty sure that you will like Kept – give it a go and see if you like it).
7. Marceline at Asking for Trouble. She draws the cutest cartoons. I love the bunny and panda from the Super Cute Kawaii range.

this weekend i… #TWI

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… had a sewing lesson. On Friday, I spent the afternoon with Angie having a sewing date. We also drank lots of tea!

Sewing with @kingfamily. Good times!
Mammoth cup of tea #sewingdate
Yay! I made this! Thank you @angiekingfamily!!

I left the new tote bag on the back of the living room chair for Friday evening – part of me didn’t want to use it as much as I wanted to show it off!

This Weekend I… spent Saturday running round like a headless chook. I took Chris to the cash and carry then into work. I came home and got Our Sidekick ready for contact. I then went to the residential home that I was working out to serve lunch for my friend. Then jumped back in the car and came home for Our Sidekick to be dropped off. Then off to my Mum’s to work on some bits for her while she was away. Then I went home and sorted dinner for me and Our Sidekick. We then watched Doctor Who and Eurovision.

This Weekend I… got sick-er. By Saturday night I was really congested and felt rubbish. I got up Sunday morning and got straight back into bed, I wasn’t going anyway. It’s now Monday and I still feel pants but I can breathe now which is the main thing lol.

This Weekend I… spent nearly all day Sunday in bed watching Dawson’s Creek or trying to sleep. I tried knitting too but couldn’t get my stitches to behave – at one point I dropped one stitch and in the time I was trying to save it I managed to drop half my other stitches. Back to crocheting squares for now.

friday questions #8

I’m going to do my best to get Friday Questions going again on a regular basis. If you join in leave your link in a comment or send me a tweet – I’m @girltaristhan on Twitter.

1. What book are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading Chasing The Dragon by Jackie Pullinger, I now have another two books to add to the TBR pile after being to the Girls Night In evening at Putnoe Library last night. Ali McNamara and Christina Jones were both there. There was a question and answer session and then a book signing. It was lovely to chat to Ali especially as we’d spoken earlier via Twitter – thanks to Rickie!!

2. How many films have you seen this month?
I’m not really sure – I think maybe four or five. We started the month with going to see Iron Man 3 at the cinema as part of Our Sidekick’s birthday celebrations. We’re possibly going to see Star Trek: Into Darkness at some point but I’m not sure when. I’ve been watching random films on Netflix. I’ve seen The Family Man on the TV.

3. Do you like to sit in the front, middle or back of the cinema?
I either like to sit right at the back or about half way back, sitting too far forward makes my neck hurt or there’s too much to take in and I can’t see it all. I also try and sit under one of the spot lights so that I can crochet during the films – It sounds really silly but I like to have something to do at the same time.

4. Is there anything really interesting in your family history?
I’m still looking into it, I know that there was a double wedding, Great Grandad got married the same day as his brother, what’s even funnier is that Great Grandad’s brother married his sister (does that make sense? Two brothers married two sisters).

5. If an old TV show could come back onto our screens, which would you choose?
Well I’m not sure, I love The Good Life and could watch it all the time. I love the relationship between Tom and Barbara and also their relationship with Margo and Jerry. Then again I’ve been watching Dawson’s Creek from the beginning. I think it has a flash forward at the very end but I’m on Season 3 so anything could happen.

hannah’s job search – part six

There is an update. I have been offered a temp to possible perm job on the industrial estate near my house. I’m not entirely sure it’s right for me and so combined with the start date being pushed back I’m still looking for jobs.

I applied for like 4 or 5 different jobs on Monday – including one that would be going back to a role I used to do (maybe not the right thing to do but I know I can do the job successfully and when I left it was on good terms rather than bad terms). I’ve applied for another three since Tuesday lunchtime. One even mentioned Doc Brown from Back to The Future in the advert – how does that happen?!?!

I’m not sure if anything will happen from these but I kind of hope that something does. Some of the roles I’ve applied for I think would be hard work but I think they would be really exciting too. I guess we just have to pray and see.

what i’ve been doing…..

This week is pretty much about being at home and spending as little money as possible while I’m not really earning it.

Then again tomorrow it’s Alpha and we’re serving dinner and at some crazy point last week I got really excited about being able to make Pineapple Upside Down cake and volunteered myself (mental note DON’T DO IT CRAZY LOON!)

I think I have some idea of what I’m doing and I had done it at my job as a Kitchen Assistant so it shouldn’t be too hard and I should be able to do it. I think it’s the other extra bits that are going to complicate matters but it’ll be fine!

So what’s new today that I didn’t know say 24 hours ago…..

Well, Chris is currently having his hair dyed – a few weeks ago he decided that having it shaved into a mohican was a really great idea (cue me with the hair clippers nervously cutting off his hair!). Dying it was also an idea but we decided that we would leave that due to certain important events in the lead up to the actual dying date. He’s had it dyed blond so that it’s lighter than his light brown hair. He’s now waiting for the crazy surprise colour to take. I do hope it works other wise it might look really nuts.

No forget that it does look nuts already! Then again it is like a chemistry set on his head.

This evening before the hair dying escapades kicked into full swing, I was at a friend’s house helping her son with some of his studies – ICT is driving him a little bananas and he needed some help. We ended up discussing career choices and things like that – he’s interested in computing and building computers but at the same time he’s not sure really what he wants to do. I’m sure he’ll find it in the end but come the beginning of next academic year conversations about A Levels will start and it’ll help if he’s got some idea what he wants to do and where he wants to go next. I might have to revise some of the stuff he learning to make sure that I can point him in the right direction – I guess this is a case of things happen for a reason. So what qualifications do I need to officially be a tutor? I guess a PGCE or something like that would help but then again maybe it’s not the way to go.

Part two of my #birthday present from my brother. What to read? This, the current book I'm reading or something else!

My brother texted me earlier to see if I was at home as he had something to drop off. He appeared a little while later on his way home from work and delivered this. It was the second part of my birthday present. I’ve been a Dan Brown fan since I read The Da Vinci Code and the others (I think I preferred Digital Fortress) but I’m not sure whether to start this one straight away – I’m in the middle of a couple of books and finish those first would more than likely be better – especially as I was given three other books for my birthday and I haven’t started those yet!

I’ve been watching Dawson’s Creek – it was one of those shows that I watched here and there but I think it clashed with church on Sunday mornings so I only really got to see it when we were home at the right times or if it was repeated during the school holidays. The version that is on Netflix though has a different title song – I always thought that “I Don’t Want To Wait” by Paula Cole was the theme tune but in some airings it’s this other song which is “Run Like Mad” by Jann Arden (I definitely prefer Paula’s song – also the editing is really bad sometimes……)

I’ve been given a bunch of knitted squares which were going to be added to the Macmillan blanket but are too small so I’m doing something with them. Unfortunately there are enough squares but so many of them are all pink that one corner is just pink rather than the checkered effect on the rest of the squares. I’ve started knitting another square to see if I have the right tension and size needles to match what I have already – hopefully it’ll be fab and look good at the end – for now I’m keeping it under wraps and going to post Before and After pictures when it’s done.

What have you been upto?

the pre-30 list

Each birthday I write a list of goals that I want to achieve by the next birthday, this originally started with 101 in 1001 days a couple of years ago that never really happened – I wrote the list but then didn’t really have the drive to complete all the goals. I reduced this to “26 before I’m 27” or which ever birthday was coming up next.

This year I turned 27 – 27 goals would be easy to achieve but then I decided – what about writing a bigger list that would cover until I’m 30. And so that’s what this post is all about. I started the list with help from some friends including Liz from Little Red Welly. Then when I was getting stuck I gave the list to Chris and asked him to add some – thankfully he thinks out the box and aims higher than I seem to do.

So here is the list – the deadline is April 27th 2016 (interestingly about a month after my Dad turns 60!)

One thing that scares me
One thing that I’ve always wanted to do
One thing I haven’t done since childhood
One thing that does something nice for someone else
One thing you would be proud to tell your grandkids about
Lead 6 people to Jesus
Visit a country I’ve been to
Visit a new western country
Visit a new eastern country
Indoor Skydive
Skydive
Perform on stage
Learn to ride (horses? unicycle? tricycle? ideas?)
Do a skidpan course
Learn a new language
Learn to make coffee and try each one!
Light a fire without matches or a lighter
Dye hair a crazy colour
Make jam
Teach an older person to get online
Make a quilt
Make a scrapbook
Create a short film
Get a new job……or vocation
Go Paintballing (Thanks to Our Sidekick!)
Climb the Cheddar Gorge
Visit the Millau Viaduct, South France
Go go-kart racing
Get BMI to “normal” bracket
Save a life (Chris recommended this one – I think it needs more clarification!)
Help build something (building)
Read the New Testament
Cycle holiday, at least 20 miles per day
Trust God to provide me with something bigger than I’ve ever trusted him before (money, house, etc)
Get hair wrapped in coloured dreadlocks
Heal someone or cast out a demon
Be interviewed on radio or TV
Make ice cream

This is the list as it stands, some ideas are going to take saving up and things like that, it’s also going to take a lot of planning – some bits I can do right away others I can’t but I hope you will join me on the adventure. If you have suggestions for other goals I’d love to hear them – let me know.

hannah’s job search – part five

(Image Source)The last two weeks ish have been a little crazy, on Monday I got signed up with a temp agency based in Kempston, so that was another to add to the list. I was waiting to hear about any positions that they might have but by Wednesday I hadn’t really heard anything so I was going to give them a call anyway – just in case kind of thing.

I had a call Thursday morning to see if I’d be happy/able to go over to Woburn and do some waitressing in the evening – I’d need to be over there by 3:30 and would finish around 8. Not a problem – thankfully Chris’s shifts fitted together with what I needed to do. I needed to wear a white shirt and a black pair of trousers – well I know I don’t have a white shirt – I have a white one with grey and black stripes but it would have been far too “busy” for what was needed. I had a look for my black trousers at speed following the call but I really couldn’t find them – I think that gremlin that steals the odd socks stole my trousers too this time! At about the same time I had an email from another agency in Milton Keynes – they’d picked up my CV from one of the websites I’m signed up to and wondered if I’d be interested in a job (as it would turn out it’s walking distance from my house! YEAH!)

I darted to the local supermarket to see what they had in their clothing department – white shirt/black trousers are always handy for interviews and for work so I’d make use of them (it wouldn’t be like buying a really specific outfit that would get worn once and never again!). The supermarket has recently been having a massive refit (I think we might be getting another Extra store) and so in the actual store they’ve got hardly anything apart from essentials and in the outlet unit which is a discount bit just had two pairs of black trousers – both were in either size 8 or 10 – no way on earth was I going to able to squeeze in those!

I texted my Mum and asked if she had those bits that I could borrow – thankfully she did and so between finishing at the residential home with Mum’s friend and heading down the bypass to Woburn I nipped to her house and tried on the shirt and trousers at high speed. I was quite worried that I wouldn’t make it in time as I would need to through a motorway junction. I jumped back in the car and headed out to the bypass. I made good time and I think I pulled into the car park at 3:20 or something like that.

As I walked to the actual building I would be working in I quickly rang back another agency who had rang me during the morning. The lady I needed to speak to was busy and couldn’t take my call – I politely asked if she could email me rather than call as it would then be easier for me to respond when I finished my shift at 8ish.

I arrived the same time as another girl who I’d later get to know quite well as we stuck together when we realised that we were both temps and both bricking it! We waited at reception and then was met by L who would be running the evening as far as what we needed to do and things like that. We were told to take our things to one room and then come back and meet L who would have a name badge and some uniform for us. She returned with the shirts but the biggest girls shirt she had was a 14 – I said I’d try it but it was far too small – I couldn’t get it done up (given the lack of space in it I think a 16 could have been tight as well).

I went back to find L and explain that the shirt didn’t fit – I ended up wearing my own shirt anyway with a name badge – as I am a temp I get a new name too lol. I was Suzanne on Thursday – I figured if anyone asked I’d say “Call Me Suzi” and just had to remember to answer to it when needed.

As the people we were waiting on tables for had moved their dinner forward we actually finished earlier than expected. I called Chris and ended up collecting him from work. I asked him to make sure there was a cold drink ready for me as I was seriously thirsty (I am still feeling the affects today – I’ve pretty much drank 500ml of water in the last hour – which is probably a really bad move this close to bed but I’d rather have to get up in the night than have a banging headache like today).

At about 9:30/10pm I received an email back from the agency for the job near my house and they wanted me to complete two assessments – preferably so that they could try and get me into the interview list the following day. Great so having spent eight ish hours in two really hot kitchens you want me now to focus on this kind of thing. Well I had a big drink of squash and got on with it. Clearly I didn’t do too bad – these were my results below.

I got one answer wrong because their example field had Woburn Sands spelt Woborn Sands and also I hit another s so it ended up being Woburns Sands. On another question the postcode was completely the wrong format (99% of the time I was processing orders at my old job and typing out postcodes so knew immediately just by reading it I knew the postcode was wrong). I emailed the agency to let them know that I’d done the assessment but did they know that there are mistakes built into their forms.

Chris and I watched Elementary and then headed to bed as we’d both had slightly mad days!

Friday Morning

Friday morning was a lazy start – I was shattered from the day before and was really really glad not to have a 9am start! I had a phone call at about 9:15 from the agency about the job near my house – could I be available for a telephone interview at 11am ish? Not really – Fridays are always a bit crazy in the kitchen and so really I couldn’t stop for 20 minutes and do an interview. The agency were able to organise it for 9:45 so I had half an hour to cram like a mad lady to be able to be fab when they did call. I was quoted about 20 minutes for the interview and it was finished in about 7 minutes – I came back up to Chris and was like “Is it good or bad that my interview finished that quickly…….”

I got dressed and headed off to the kitchen. While I was there my Mum’s friend and I talked about my hours for next week and what would be happening. The permanent person is coming in on Tuesday and Wednesday to learn the ropes and get ready – from Thursday the new person would be taking over. Part of me is sad about it, I’ve got to kind of know the people that I’m working with now – both the carers who look after the residents and the residents themselves. There’s Mr K who sits on the table nearest the kitchen – he’s lovely and regularly talks about his adventures in the Navy. There’s Mrs B on the middle table who always says hello to me, she always asks how I’m doing and when I see them sat in the lounge after dinner she’ll regularly shout hello to me and have a chat with me, there’s little Mrs G she’s really quiet and you sometimes have to ask three times so that she hears you but she’s just so lovely. Also Mrs B and Mrs D think I’m great because I can drive the stereo and the DVD player (Friday afternoons is film afternoon so one week I walked past singing along to Singin’ In The Rain, the following week was Sound of Music and then this week it was The Wizard of Oz – so I skipped down the corridor singing Follow The Yellow Brick Road – as my ex-employer used to say – You’re far too happy!). There are things still in the pipe work but they are up in the air – I guess we’ll just have to see what lands – for now the waitressing kind of balances out what I’m missing next week and hopefully I can find some other temp bits and bobs or something more permanent.

the stuff i found here and there

Waiting for the bus.

Three times this week I’ve taken the bus, while on the bus I’ve been crocheting or reading various bits and pieces, some have been stored up for a while after being found so hopefully I remember where they are linked from!

An interesting infographic – if the world was made of 100 people.

A friend posted a picture of a shoe rack that he made from an old pallet on Facebook – I mentioned that we needed a new coat rack and he sent me a link to this. I love the idea and it would be very individual – the challenge is whether the wall would be able to take the weight or not.

I love this iPad skin. It’s created by Marceline at Asking for Trouble. The thing is with my current case it wouldn’t really work. Maybe I need a clear case like a iPhone case for iPad!

The fab and lovely Dawn Tan who creates the most amazing pictures has launched her new blog here. I love her artwork, in our old flat we had one of her pictures hanging above the desk. I love her drawings of recipes and food. I also love the giant marshmallow bag that she made. It’s seriously cool!

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Each Image should link to it’s relevant source

#hannahs27th – this weekend i…. #TWI

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This weekend I… I celebrated my 27th Birthday. It kind of started around Wednesday with Connect Group but there wasn’t really any mention of it but I was leading, on Thursday there was the Scone Roses S’n’B night at The Ship pub.

This weekend I… properly started the birthday celebrations with going to my friend’s concert at Esquires. Verra Cruz, Frühstück and Through Dying Eyes were playing. Through Dying Eyes were up first – they were good but a bit screamy and so not really my cup of tea, but as a band they were together and were good and people in the audience were enjoying it.

Through Dying Eyes at Esquires

This Weekend I… went to a meeting about TEDxBedford, while I was there I was given a present of flowers from Caroline who I met while doing the Free Hugs Flash Mob in Bedford back in March.

Flowers from Caroline

This Weekend I… went to my Mum’s house to open my presents from her, Dad, my brother, his girlfriend and my grandparents. I was given two books from my Grandparents (The Chronicles of Brothers: The Fall of Lucifer and The Chronicles of Brothers: Messiah both by Wendy Alec). My Mum told me a bit later that they’d ordered them from Amazon all by themselves without assistance (in the past my Grandma has given my Mum the money and asked her to order or given me the money to get what I’d like). My Mum and Dad gave me a necklace for me to wear with my posh dress to a wedding we’re going to in the summer. They also gave me some gift vouchers for Monster Yarns – I’m so excited to pick out the yarn that I like but I can’t decide whether to knit myself a jumper or something like that or crochet myself a blanket for our bed (or maybe a blanket for Our Sidekick that he can keep to remind him of our adventures and things like that when he moves away from us one day). From my brother, I was given House Season 7 and a card that saId “To Be Continued”. I haven’t seen any of Season 7 yet as I think it changed channel and I’d forgotten to ask Mum to keep it for me.

Following present unwrapping we all jumped in the car to head to Milton Keynes – I’d kind of guessed that it would either be MK or Cambridge when Mum told me what time dinner was booked and what time we needed to be at her house to leave but other than that I had no idea what we were doing well until my brother said “that’s okay, Hannah can direct me to the theatre”. That was enough to give me the hint. Rich also put me in charge of music on the way. We had Linkin Park and Alanis Morissette.

We had dinner at Bella Italia – one of my favourites – I had Spaghetti Bolognese, for pudding Rich and I shared The Godfather. It’s a chocolate and ice cream sundae (by this point I’m convinced that I’ve had miles over my calorie intake for the day!). Mum asked us what we wanted and Rich and I instantly started quoting The Godfather. (I’ve seen The Godfather before but it was actually You’ve Got Mail that gave me the quotes!)

“Take the gun, leave the cannoli”

“Who did you not know who you were with”

This Weekend I… saw Starlight Express for the first time. Back in blur, my Mum and I went to see Phantom of The Opera at Milton Keynes Theatre. It’s our local receiving theatre for touring productions that we’d normally have to go to the West End to see. While we were there (or possibly from a Marketing email after) we found out about a stage performance of Starlight Express. I’m not sure it would have necessarily been my first choice as I’ve not really heard that many songs from it or really know the story line. As it would happen one of the two songs I knew from the musical had actually been cut from this version of the show as its considered too hard to sing following all the crazy skating.

This Weekend I… went to church, got to meet my friend’s 7 week old baby (and get lots of hugs!) then had dinner with church friends. We also had birthday cake which was good.

4kcbwday4

4KCBWDAY4: Colour Review

4KCBWDAY4 Colour ReviewWhat are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects. Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting.

Only after writing this part of your post should you then actually look to see what colours you have used in your projects. Make a quick tally of what colours you have used in your projects over the past year and compare it to the colours you have written about. Compare this, in turn, to the colours that are most dominant in your yarn stash – do they correlate?

Now think back to your house animal – do the colours you have chosen relate to your animal in anyway – if you are in the house of peacock, for example, are your projects often multicoloured and bright?

I love multicolour wool – I love how it changes as your work progresses. For individual colours I think it’s probably pinks and purples although green and blues would be my favourite colours.

My current “handbag project” is a lemon yellow square for the Macmillan blanket, yesterday I was working on a green one having finished a blue one before going to the Scone Roses Stitch ‘n’ Bitch night (ugh that name annoys me – Knit and Natter doesn’t quite have the same ring but at least you don’t feel mean about it lol).

I think actually looking at my projects they are pinks and purples. I finished a kit I was given at Christmas and that was a magenta pink colour, following that I started the Baby Blanket which I called Max, I then worked and finished a blanket for a family member which didn’t really stick to one colour – each square was different to it’s neighbours. I’m now working on squares for the Macmillan blanket which pretty much come down to what I have – it’s currently a good project to clear out some of my stash!

4kcbwday3

4KCBWDAY3: Infographic – the “average” knitter or crocheter

There are many ways of conveying information on a blog; text and images being the two most widely used. Many infographics combine both these elements to provide a visual way of presenting text information.

Each image should link back to it’s own source.

4kcbwday2

4KCBWDAY2: A Mascot Project.

Your task today is to either think of or research a project that embodies that house/animal. It could be a knitting or crochet pattern – either of the animal itself or something that makes you think of the qualities of that house.

Alternatively it could be a type or colour of yarn, or a single button. Whatever you choose, decide upon a project and blog about how and why it relates to your house/creature.

Eek! Okay so knitting or crochet and bees – can’t be hard right!??! Let’s go…

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Found these – how cute are they! I would either need to make them big enough for my feet or make them for Dinky No 1 if/when that happens – then again I could make them for the Mini Fairy I’m sure she would love them. 🙂

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I love Amigurumi – I just wish that I could get the hang of it – I need to sit down and properly focus on it.

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Another Amigurumi to try

4kcbwday1

Technically Day 1 was Monday (I’m catching up and so today and tomorrow might be a bit spammy on your feed. Sorry!)

So what is 4KCBW all about – well that bit stands for the 4th Knitting and Crochet Blog Week.

What is Knitting and Crochet Blog Week?
Once a year knitters and crocheters that blog are invited from all over the world to take part in a community blog week in which they are presented with a number of topics to blog about over the period of seven days. The topics are very flexible and can be interpreted in many ways, so there is a good deal of variety in the posts that this inspires, which then provide wonderful reading for anyone who enjoys reading the blogs that it inspires.

What Do Bloggers Get Out Of It?
The blog week was originally intended as a week in which inspiration for new and interesting blog posts and ways of blogging could be shared by the fibre arts and blogging community to find new ideas and ways of keeping blogging fresh and interesting. The other benefits that participants soon saw were an increase in the number of visitors and comments that they received over the course of blog week and also the many new blogs that they discovered by taking part. It is also great fun and a good way of shaking of any writers’ cobwebs by inspiring a fresh approach to blogging.

So here I am. First task is:

A bit like Harry Potter, but not quite, this year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is split into 4 houses. Don your favourite knitted or crocheted hat and let it guide you to which house you will be in.

There were four to choose from and like Judit from Monster Yarns I decided that I was in the House of Bee.

The House of Bee

The House of Bee: Bees are busy and industrious, but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest.

This is clearly me but I kind of suck for finish what I’ve planned – I have a kit downstairs that my Mum bought me and I haven’t started because I don’t really know how to knit in the round (need to speak to Judit about that one!) I get distracted with knitting and decide to knit and purl even if it just calls for knitting, or I start one granny square only to spot something on Pinterest that I decide to give a go. At the moment, I don’t really have a project. I’m working on squares for a blanket that a group of us are making for Macmillan. My friend’s Mum organised a coffee morning last year after she had been really poorly with cancer (boo! hiss! cancer sucks!) then around Christmas I taught my friend to crochet and her Mum decided to use this to the advantage and came up with an idea that we’d crochet or knit as many 7×7 squares as we could and then we’d auction off the blanket – all the money going to the Macmillan appeal.

books: kept by elle field

A while back I made friends with someone called @ellefie on Twitter. We’d chat about anything and everything – usually books as we’re both massive book worms (just look at our Goodreads pages for that!!)

One of the conversations we have had over the time we’ve been friends is about Elle’s aspirations to become an official published writer. I’ve been a reader of her blog so some how knew that one day she’d reach this goal.

Well the day came, at the weekend I saw a tweet ping up from Elle which caught my eye:

So scared! Nearly ready to hit publish and then I’ll have my first book on Amazon. Meep! #indie #kindle

— Claire ‘Elle’ Field (@ellefie) April 21, 2013

Yesterday morning, Elle told me that her book had gone live, so as I walked from my car to my temp job I quickly got Amazon UK up on my phone and downloaded her book. At about 11:30 last night I finished it and I loved it.

Kept by Elle Field

The blurb from Elle’s blog goes like this:

Life hasn’t quite worked out how Arielle Lockley planned. Becoming the next Coco Chanel, not shopping at Chanel, was always her childhood dream but somehow she’s ended up as a kept woman, living the jet-set lifestyle with boyfriend Piers.

When the recession hits, it’s not just the economy that takes a tumble. Broke and homeless with zero job prospects, can Arielle find her way again in time or will she always have to be a kept woman?

I finished reading it last night – having not done much else all evening! There’s definitely an air of “Confessions of A Shopaholic” by Sophie Kinsella – and I think if you like that, you will definitely like this. This first drew me in, then I wanted to know what happened to Arielle and how her life unfolded. I really liked the “flashbacks” to explain why Arielle is the way she is, and to explain her relationships with the people from her past. By the middle, I wanted Obélix to confess undying love for Arielle but I think it would be too complicated for another love interest!

You can get it here on Amazon UK or Amazon US. If you do download and read it please tweet, FB, review or on Goodreads or Amazon or pretty much anywhere else you can.

st. george’s day

Back in January, after I had been to a Burns Night party. I ~~asked~~ complained about celebrating St. George's Day. Something along the lines of this:

I’m pretty much completely English and there doesn’t seem to be any traditions where we celebrate being British or things that we’ve achieved. You’ve got Burns who was a Scottish Poet and St Andrew’s Day. You’ve got St Patrick’s Day for the Irish and St David’s Day for the Welsh. Some of the shops in town close down when it’s Eid because of the percentage of their staff have got religious celebrations. There’s Canada Day, Independence Day and Australia Day if you want a few more.Maybe we should be having a Shakespeare Party or making more of a deal about St George’s Day. Well either that or I’ll become Scottish or Irish by adoption lol.

Well, as it happens in my current temporary job we're having a St. George's Day party later today. Well I'm super excited – it means that it'll be harder work today but it'll still be good. See you on the other side.

BTW, it's also Shakespeare's Birthday – Happy Birthday Will!

Posted with Blogsy

this weekend i… #TWI

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… had a fab catch up with some school friends. We worked out while sat round the table for lunch that some of us hadn’t seen each other for about 13 years – how have we all been left middle school that long already?

This Weekend I… made trifle – well I attempted to make it – I didn’t have enough cream and the cream that I did had didn’t really work and so the custard and cream turned into an interesting mess and so it was nicknamed Eton Trifle Mess or something like that. It still tasted lovely and filled a hole!

This Weekend I… started writing a Pre-30 Bucket List – On Saturday it’s my birthday (and I’m excited!) normally around this time I’m writing a “X before I’m X” list which was the original plan for this year but then I decided I’d write a longer list and have about three ish years to complete it in.

This Weekend I… well we started bouncing ideas round about various things – why is it the best ideas come at the funniest times……

This Weekend I… helped Mum make some birthday cards – well I folded bits of paper and tweaked bits while she finished up some other bits to get started on the cards.

friday questions #7

Sorry all, I sort of dropped off the map with this one just before Easter but I’m hoping to get back into the swing of it now.

1. What current song is at the top of your playlist?
I don’t have a single one at the moment. I love Ho Hey by The Lumineers (especially this cover by The Stella Sisters) and Pompeii by Bastille (Thanks to JD and The Murf singing it lots!)

2. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
Could I ban cancer? Would that count?

(then again it’s my questions…..my rules!)

Therefore – cancer it’s banned – no change that it’s cured.

3. It’s my birthday next weekend – how should I celebrate?
Je ne c’est quoi! So Verra Cruz are playing Esquires on Friday so that would be a good thing, my Mum has blocked out time in my diary that I’m busy but other than that I don’t know what’s planned. There is Open Mic on Monday so depending on how rich/poor I am feeling I could start with that in a couple of days time. I also thought of adding a crazy challenge in the stylee of Chris (see Tube Challenge or Monopoly Challenge — then again it seems I didn’t blog about these before – this might need some elaboration at some point)

4. What’s the 7th item on your bucket list?
I actually have no idea. I regularly make reference to “Bucket List Moments” but I don’t think I have a physical list – maybe I need to start one. I guess it would probably be a place to visit or something like that.

5. I am a bit like my Grandad in that I’m a bit of a jack of all trades and master of none. If you could be a master at one thing what would it be and why?
I think it would be crocheting – okay I can do it, but I still look at patterns and decide I can’t do them because they are too hard. I’d like to be able to look at the plans and know that I could complete them.

hannah’s job search – part four

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I had meant to write last week about what was happening, then between what was happening and all the other things that were going on I didn’t really get chance to blog properly. It’s not exciting news like I have a permanent job for as long as i like it but I have something for now.

So what is happening, well last Thursday or Friday, a friend of my Mum’s got a call and it meant that she needed someone to help her at short notice – well I’m jobless and she needs someone.

It would be temporary and it’s part time, but it’s better than nothing right?

So that’s what I’ve been doing this week and last week. I start around 10/10:30 which means I get a lay in (or like today I got up and went to church to help with Playtime before going into work).

I’m doing all sorts of bits around the kitchen. On my first day I made meringue, on the second day I made Pineapple Upside Down cake, I also made the sponge for a Victoria Sponge (my boss put the cake together). This week I made a sultana cake as well as peeling lots of veggies and doing lots of washing up.

It’s tiring but it’s really interesting and I’m learning loads and improving my skills. Definitely beats a desk job for now!

bible…

worry…

The hardest thing not to do at the moment is worry. Often it uses more energy to worry and so you get tired and stressed out. You go over and over every possible conceivable idea of what may or may not happen, you rehearse your reaction in your mind and then find that “what if….?” springs back into your mind.

I don’t have a permanent job at the moment, I am working temporarily as a kitchen assistant for my Mum’s friend’s company – am I worried – maybe a little bit but right now it’s okay, I think the biggest thing about leaving my full time job is that “what if….?” question(s) that keep pinging back into my brain.

Then I try to remember two verses….

Sometimes it’s not easy and sometimes I do want to freak out, but then I seem to think about something else and then come back to it and realise that, that worry was for nothing. God will provide in whatever shape or form that is.

The Daily Post: April 5th

Tell us about another blogger who has influenced your own online journey.

We could be here all day – I’m not sure that I could narrow it down to one blogger. But here’s a few for you…..

Sarah over at Yes and Yes is so lovely and friendly (we’ve chatted via Tweet and E-mail). She’s a copywriter/blogger-for-hire by day and a fab blogger by “night”. She writes amazing posts that really make you think but also ones like How Do I Become a Grown Up? and The Definitive Packing List.

melissa

Now I think Melissa would say that it was me who inspired her to start blogging but at the same time she inspires me to keep going. We met each other when her and her Hubby were in England as part of their World Tour for their honeymoon. We hung out in London, tried Chipotle (well I did!), and wandered round the shops and touristy bits. She wrote a series entitled “Keeping Secrets, or The Secret Spiritual History of Melissa Jane Savage” – it was really good and so inspiring and interesting. You can read Part One here.

There’s also Becca – we met via Twitter and in person but she’s also my penpal – we both love receiving proper handwritten letters. Becca’s main blog is The Latte Lover – all about her passion for coffee. She’s even blogged about The Fountain twice.

Then I have Ruby – she’s another lovely Twitter friend who’s become a friend. Her and her Hubby are in the process of building their own house – it’s all very Grand Designs! She regularly updates her blog to talk about what’s happening with the building – it’s all very exciting. Hopefully one day I might get to see the house in person.

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When I’m struggling with ideas for these posts I’m turning to The Daily Post being ran by WordPress. You can find their blog here.

review – march

Books
(Read and actually finished….)
A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans

(Started and not finished, or carrying on with but not finished…)
Knitting for Good!: A Guide to Creating Personal, Social, and Political Change Stitch by Stitch by Betsy Greer
The Penny by Joyce Meyer (lent to me by Mum)

Films
The Descendants
The Cat Returns
Ponyo
Spirited Away
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Matilda
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
Say Anything…
Nine to Five
Limitless
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Gladiator (started but not finished)
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (Korean)

The Month in Bullets

This was the month of huge changes, mainly with regards to my job. Some of these are specifically scary but at the same time, it’s reminding me to trust that God has a plan and something good is coming.
As Chris put it, I’ve not only stepped out the box, I shredded it to pieces.
I finished at work on the Thursday before Easter. It was a bit sad to leave, but part of me was really relieved.
At some point during the month I discovered Nashville as More4 have started showing it.

Top 5 Posts

Hannah’s Job Search – Part 1
Bloglovin’ and Google Reader
Friday Questions #4
Knitting, Crochet and Yarn, oh my!
Am I a Mummy Blogger?

hannah’s job search – part three

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I hadn’t planned to blog each day with a change and yet things keep changing just as quick as I can write about them.

Yesterday evening I had a call from Joy who runs the bookshop asking if I could come in a different day to do training and this morning was an option – I didn’t have anything planned so this made sense.

I had had a runny nose most of yesterday but put it down to the fact that it was kinda cold and I was going in and out of warm buildings into the not so warm air outside. Well I woke up this morning and was getting stuffy, it wasn’t a good start to the day at all.

I headed to the bookshop for 9:30 and made sure I was early (first day at “work” and all). I got taught how to use the till and a quick guided tour. I served a couple of customers and took a few calls. The calls were a little scary as I wasn’t really sure of how to check for the books or what was the procedures but I got there in the end and was able to sort it out.

After that I headed home, I had to collect some bits and take them back to The Fountain for Chris. I was due to collect JD from work at 1ish and it was only about 12.15ish. I parked round the corner and ate my scone that I’d bought from The Fountain and read.

We popped to the supermarket to get some lunch then came home. We hung out and watched New Girl then had a Studio Ghibli fest. We watched Ponyo followed by Spirited Away. After that we played xBox with Our Sidekick.

While we were hanging out I had a call from my Mum about a temp job that was going if I wanted it (yes please!). I called my Mum’s friend and organised the details. It’s a couple of hours a day for a week or two but its something and in the rest of the time I can look for ther jobs and things like that. I’ve also got a second temp job which is a couple of hours a week doing social media bits for a friend. Between those two and the volunteering at the bookshop I think I can show that I’m not sitting around wasting my time.

This evening, Connect a group met at our house and we all watched Skyfall, in the end there were fifteen people sat in my living room – I swear any more and we would have needed to open the garden doors!

hannah’s job search – part two

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Yesterday evening I went to the cinema with JD, as we drove back home we were talking about work and (unintentionally) came up with a plan for me.

First thing in the morning I’d get up and go into town and work my way through the agencies, at 11am I’d go to the appointment I already had booked, I’d do my other bits, take Our Sidekick to the dentist and then do what was needed following that (including catching up on the TV that my Mum has had recorded at her house for me).

Okay so this was the plan but it didn’t quite go that way, I got home and showered so that I was able to dress in my best interview wear and head into town. However when I got into bed and tried to sleep it wasn’t happening, I think my brain just kept ticking over all the things I needed to and remember like smile, be confident, let them see the Hannah I am when I’m not in an interview setting and nervously quaking in my shoes! I finally dropped off eventually as next thing I remember was waking up this morning with Chris standing over the bed as he got dressed.

I woke up and came to. I realised that my original plan wasn’t going to work so I made a Plan B. This started with me hanging out in bed and doing social media bits. I replied to some comments and posted a couple of new statuses both on my accounts and some others.

I got out of bed, got dressed in my smart outfit (new turquoise top and black trousers) and went to Mum’s to use her printer. It was only as I was loading it I realised that a bunch of it didn’t make sense…… how many did I send out the other weekend – issues!!.

I spent the next two hours ish tweaking the wording so that it did make sense. Then the format went funky. So what should have been a quick job turned into an even longer job – great! I got it all amended and printed it off. I headed over to an office in Brickhill for my appointment with the first agency. I had to fill in a form to sign up and then have a chat about he job I was looking for and things like that. I headed into town to work my way round the other agencies. It’s funny how some make you feel really welcome and others make you feel like a nuisance.

Following the many visits, I headed to Mum’s to catch up on the TV she’d recorded for me, the plan was also to fill in job applications but instead I ended up doing an IT Assessment and typing test for one of the agencies. Was quite impressed that my copy typing speed is about 70 words per minute. I thought it was less than that but clearly not. As well as this I popped into The Word Christian Bookshop to see if the owner needs any volunteers. She wasn’t in but I left my details so she could call me.

this weekend i…

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… (well technically Thursday) I finished at work.

This Weekend I… (Friday – it’s a four day weekend!) I went to the Open Air service in Bedford town centre. We were stood near the back and at one point I went to grab a sandwich as I wasn’t really sure what the plan was for the rest of the day and I was getting grouchy having not eaten anything all morning.

Following the service, a whole group of us (I think about 20 in the end!) invaded Dragon’s Chinese Buffet for lunch – I think we probably made most of the covers for lunch! It was good fun especially when we ended up swapping chairs to make sure that everyone had a seat at least for part of the meal. I think the table was meant for 8 people and we ended up with about 12 crammed round the table but it was still great fun. While at dinner, me and my friend came up with a plan for lunch on Sunday. We have started going out for lunch but it’s cheaper to get bits and pieces from the supermarket, cater for a few extra people and then one or two people take responsibility to host. Chris and I hosted this time – it was going to be a bit crazy as by Saturday lunchtime we were on eight people (by Sunday it had gone to thirteen, and by the time we ate it was at fifteen!)

This Weekend I we… celebrated my Dad’s Birthday. We had dinner on Saturday evening at Mum’s house. Mum had been on a mission and had made a roast dinner with all the trimmings like at Christmas. We all sat around the table together and then following dinner we watched Doctor Who.

My #Dad's #birthday meal. #mum is on a mission.

This Weekend Iwe… went to church for the family Easter Day service. It was good fun and a lot of testimonies were shared. Following church we had the lunch gathering at our house. We got home from church and went mad on the tidying to make sure that it was ready for people to come round.

After everyone left I carried on tidying up but also managed to clear out the pantry – it had been getting to the point that it really needed to be sorted out – the bottom shelve was overfilling as my tupperwares escaped!

(Okay so still looks messy but it’s a whole bunch better and things should be easier to get to and I feel more organised for it!)

Following that Our Sidekick and I hung out and watched Shrek Forever After and then I watched Labyrinth when he went to bed (Thank goodness some bits are dodgy! Then again not as dodgy as The Guardian have made out in their review)

eightynine: twentysix before i’m twentyseven

I started to work my way through my list to check off what I’d achieved and actually I really have failed this year. Some goals I’ve achieved but in comparison there were so many others still to do. I’m in two minds about writing a list for next “year” – in the last three years when I’ve done the lists I’ve never managed to achieve all the goals that have been on my lists.

I think part of it was juggling being a working foster mum to a teenage and trying to cook more balanced meals and things like that. When Our Sidekick came to live with us I was 25 and a bit so prior to that it was my own motivation that sucked and meant that I didn’t achieve my goals. Following that maybe I use it as an excuse. I’m sure it’s possible to achieve what I want to, work and be a foster Mum but clearly I haven’t managed that balance just yet. Maybe this will be my year but for now we’ll just leave it – I might still write a list.

This is this years list and how far I am up to:

1. Finish The Host by Stephenie Meyer.
I have read and finished it, and I even have a date in the diary to go and see the film with my Twilight Buddies (aka my cousin and my auntie!!)

2. Read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
I started it but it’s still in progress – according to Goodreads I’ve read about 72 pages which makes it around 20%.

3. Complete The Sketchbook Project 2013 (by January 2013)
I signed up, I started and then my book went walkabouts. I found it but about two weeks after the deadline when it was too late to send it in.

4. Read 30 books in 2012 (Ends December 2012) (10/30 at present)
Again going by the total on Goodreads and a blog post I made it to 29 books in the end. Now it’s always possible that number 30 did sneak in but wasn’t on Goodreads – that has happened in the past. (So far I’m on 6 for 2013 – it’s bad, very bad!)

5. Take a photo everyday (3/365)
This one didn’t really happen. Well having checked on Flickr I’m about two thirds through the year. Still not a whole year but it’s more than I thought. You can check them out here.

6. See 20 new films (ones I’ve not seen before).
I’m pretty sure that I did achieve this but I failed to keep a list! I know I definitely went to the cinema a couple of times. I saw Pitch Perfect, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part Two and The Hobbit. I also saw Priceless on iPlayer. I also saw Hope Springs, Couples Retreat and Untouchable. That’s six films – I’m sure there is more too.

7. Cook 1 new recipe a month. (0/12)
This didn’t exactly happen but I did get into cooking more so I made more cakes and tried to make more meals at home.

8. Go to a comedy night.
Back in June, Rich and I went to see Dave Gorman live in Cambridge. I wrote about it here and here.

9. Complete The Green Sand Ridge Walk.
This didn’t happen – I had meant to organise it with my Dad and then before I knew it the summer had gone and it was too cold or too wet.

10. Sign up for a bible plan (to read the bible in a year).
I signed up and at first, I was really focused and determined but then I got distracted. Need to try better next time!

11. Read the Bible in a year (3/365)
See above – it kind of worked at first but then didn’t happen……

12. Write a guest blog post for a friend (and be proud of it).
I wrote a blog post for Kaitlyn’s blog about how I’d like to be a QI Elf. (I added it to my blog at a later date. You can see it here.)

13. Give up caffeinated fizzy drinks for 3 months (or longer!).
This one did happen but some days I fail and have one or two cans of Diet Cola – on the whole, though it’s been a tiny proportion of all the fizzy I drink.

14. Plan more date nights (at least 12! That’s one a month).
We had a few more but not as many as I really hoped to have.

15. Save up £100 a month (That’s £1200 by my 27th Birthday)
This didn’t happen. I wasn’t very disciplined about this.

16. Organise a girlie date night with Lil Sis once a month (or more!) (0/12)
We haven’t had one a month but it is getting better and I’m determined that we will have more in the next few months.

17. Organise a “craft night” with my Mum.
We had an afternoon rather than a night but it was still good – and quite a few more have happened.

18. Complete Harry Potter Years 1-4 on iPhone.
I ended up deleting this from my phone and didn’t get all the way through it.

19. (Finally!) Meet Ellefie in person (Twitter/Blog).
We haven’t managed to meet up so next year it will have to be! When I was in London, Ellefie wasn’t free and then when she was free I was back in Bedford.

20. Finish The Hobbit.
I managed to finish reading the book slightly after the film came out and I had seen it. It was an interesting book but had taken me a little while to get into it.

21. Read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
This one on the other hand, I started it but I’ve still not finished it.

22. Learn how to crochet
Not only have I learnt to crochet but I’ve made two blankets for other people and I’ve also taught a couple of people to crochet as well. I love seeing the pictures of the things that other people have created.

23. Make something by crochet
See 22.

24. Play at an Open Mic Night (not hosted by Church or The Fountain)
I’ve played or sung at a couple of them and my friend Al is awesome and regularly plays while I sing along.

25. Read the 7 Chronicles of Narnia books (1/7)
I managed The Magician’s Nephew and got part way through The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe but haven’t got through any more than that

26. Start my sideline business for proper! (29/06 – In progress)
This is still an in progress thing. I had been trying to do it in my evenings but between finishing work and then just feeling really drained I couldn’t get motivated about it.

So now the challenge is to write my goals for next year……27 before I’m 28.

hannah’s job search – part one

(Image Source)

I kinda hoped that this post would have good news and bad news but it doesn’t.

Last week I had my appraisal at work, it didn’t go that well and I got very worked up (to the extent that I’m pretty sure that I had a dehydration headache by 4am the following morning). I’m sure there are negative things to say about my employer but at the same time there are more than plenty positive things to say too. (I’ll leave it there for now).

I went for a nice chat at a recruitment agency on Monday and was invited to an interview on Thursday. I got a call back Thursday afternoon and it wasn’t positive. Following my appraisal and a chat with my manager it was decided that this week would be my last and I finished on Thursday.

So this is all negative and I’m doing what I can to see the silver lining. Part of that silver lining is that I get some time with Our Sidekick while he’s off school for the holiday. But it also gives me the “opportunity” to trust that God will provide, both for money while I’m unemployed to pay bills and things like that but also that he’ll provide me with a “Hannah” shaped job.

So what am I doing for now. Well I’m applying for jobs here, there and everywhere, going to make sure that I fill in all the paperwork and print of my applications to show to the Job Centre person when I go to sort out my JSA, I’m also going to write a timetable so that I’m organised and don’t get into bad habits like sleeping in until lunchtime. Add to that, that hopefully I will get some chores done I can be a housewife extraordinaire.

Where does that leave my blog – well I’m still going to write. I think in that timetable there will be writing time as well. Who knows maybe i’ll find my niche, I’ll also be crocheting and knitting so I’m taking commissions. If you have questions or would like a quote then I’d love to hear from you.

am i a mummy blogger?

I’m throwing this question out there, then again in a way I might be just stepping up onto my soap box. I promise I won’t be up here long. So I don’t have a pregnancy story or a birth story or something like that (well at least not yet – maybe one day I guess) so what qualifies me as a “Mummy Blogger”?.

Then again is it one of those titles that carriers with it massive negative connotations. I went off to google “Mummy Blogger” really I wanted a definition if that was possible but then got sucked into one of those internet worm holes that sucks your time and then you realise that you only had meant to read that first link but then read five and your hot drink is now cold. Anyway, I googled, I didn’t come up with anything but then again with the blog posts that popped up I’m wondering if those negative connotations go further that just a tiny opinion in this massive world. First up, there was the New Statesmen website followed by The Guardian.

So are there other bloggers out there blogging about being foster parents and do they struggle to find other foster mummy bloggers like I do? And do we count as Mummy’s in the same way (the debate of whether Mother’s Day counts for Foster Mum’s took a chunk of Mother’s Day weekend a couple of weekends ago.

Now what has prompted this……….well when Our Sidekick came to live with us in a rash moment I signed up to various newsletters etc. One being for Brit Mums – I figured that there had to be someone out there who was in a similar boat, well I’m guessing there is but for now I still feel like the odd one out – so someone, anyone please tell me I’m not the only blogging foster mum!

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Image from here.

eighty five: onehundredwords….#82

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

…looking at all of that chocolate…

Given the up and downs of the last few weeks I can’t wait to be looking at all of that chocolate that is waiting for me on Easter morning. I know I have one Easter egg so far and that might be two or three by Sunday.

Then again when it gets to Easter Monday or later next week I’ll probably be fed up of the sight of chocolate again.

Right now I need to go shopping for my family’s Easter Eggs, especially now that the job situation is a bit more organised. Easy right?

eightyfour: this weekend i…

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… got a crash course in some accounting software that my Mum uses – hopefully it’ll come in handy and be helpful when I cover Mum’s trip abroad in the Summer.

This Weekend I… spent a chunk of the day at my Mum and Dad’s dining table writing my fingers off. I was mainly working on my CV and job applications but did attempt to tweak my blog layout (some extra help was needed from Chris). I’m hoping it’ll look properly different and look awesome but for now it’s complicating my brain and I’m not competent enough at the moment to do what I want to with it (Maybe further help is needed or I’d need to pick someones brain like Megan/Jake @ The Nerd Nest or Kyla Roma @ Freckled Nest Design)

This Weekend I… didn’t do that much else lol. I went to church on Sunday and catch up with a bunch of people – we went out for lunch with some friends at The George and Dragon (one of our favourites they are so friendly and welcoming when we go). After that we came home and I pretty much took up residence on the sofa – either reading A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans or catching up on TV.

This Weekend I… watched The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down A Mountain, Serenity and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (how creepy is Joseph Gordon-Levitt in that one!).

bloglovin and google reader

I have more to write and talk about but tonight I need to sleep.

Tomorrow is a long day for now here is a link to follow my blog on BlogLovin, given that in a few months Google Reader is closing…..

seventyeight: onehundredwords….#81

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

…the unseasonal weather meant …

Each time the weatherman tells us it’s going to snow a collective groan goes round the office, then we ask how much snow will stop the deliveries. Then again each time I hope enough will settle that I won’t be able to get the front door open – that’s the problem with our front door – it opens outwards. This time the unseasonal weather meant that the top half of the country has ground to a halt and the southern half can’t decide what they’re doing. At the moment it’s sleeting outside, it’s settling on the cars but not on the road.

seventyseven: this weekend i…

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… attended the yarns and fabric sale at The Lane hosted by Monster Yarns and School of Craft with my Mum. We chatted lots about various different bits discussed projects and her impending international field trip with one of friends. Also gave one lady directions to find the sale.

This Weekend I… took part in my first flash mob, unfortunately it took me so long to get into town and then to find people (not that hard but I was annoyed and getting grumpy because of the traffic) that when I got to the mob I was glad to see people. I stayed for about twenty minutes then had a call from Chris and had to go deal with things that meant I couldn’t stay for the rest of the flash mob. I’m not 100% sure how to embed the video from my iPad but you can watch it here.

This Weekend I… watched the Ireland vs Italy rugby match with My Mum, Dad and Our Sidekick. Turns out Our Sidekick doesn’t really like rugby but I think he likes the hanging out with his “foster Grandad” and so that makes rugby cool (maybe we should have stayed for the England vs Wales match)

This Weekend I… was more focused and did more chores. It did help that on Friday evening, I had fifteen minutes warning that Our Sidekick’s social worker was coming round (It then took her forty five minutes to get to us which meant that the living room and the kitchen were almost spotless!)

This Weekend I… watched My Neighbour Totoro, 5 Centimetres Per Second, Melissa & Joey and I’m A Cyborg But It’s OK. If it wasn’t for Melissa and Joey I’d have been all Korean/Japanese-d out.

Thank you #netflix. Found an interesting #anime cartoon called #5centimetrespersecond

This Weekend I… didn’t want to go church. I felt a bit rubbish. The cold was getting me down and it was raining outside. Chris dragged me out of bed and to church. We ended up at a friends house for dinner.

This Weekend I… attended my first rehearsal for Dr. Watson’s Elementary Schoo which is the production we’re doing at HowMad. It was good fun but I could hardly sing which was interesting especially when I was handed a really sensitive microphone! I also got to hear my cousin play drums. He’s pretty good.

seventyfive b: bassbuds review and competition

This morning just before I left the house to go to the Monster Yarns and School of Craft Fabric/Yarn sale at The Lane I checked my email and spotted one from those lovelies at FuelMyBlog.

I recognised the name and the product from two of the blogs that I regularly read. They had both talked about how much they loved their set of BassBuds headphones so I was excited to take part and replied as quick as my little fingers could type! See for your self – check out the post on Miss Geeky’s Blog and the one on Rickie Writes.

Aah, but why am I writing about this… Well those lovelies at BassBuds are running an exciting competition – BUT the deadline is in three days! So don’t wait to enter!

Over on the BassBuds website you can enter to win tickets to the launch party next weekend as well as VIP tickets to “The Show Tour” Concert at Wembley Arena.

The prizes are as follows:

The Deluxe BassBuds Dream Package

2 x tickets to the BassBuds UK Celebrity launch party
2 x VIP tickets to the ‘Show Tour’ concert at Wembley
1 Night stay at a London Hilton
2 x BassBoomz
4 x BassBuds

The Super BassBuds Package

2 x tickets to the ‘Show Tour’ concert at Wembley
2 x BassBoomz
2 x BassBuds

Twin Buds and Boomz Pack

2 x BassBoomz
2 x BassBuds

But, that’s not it though! There are runner up prizes in the shape of 100 sets of BassBuds (and these can be shipped worldwide!)

So what are you waiting for – get over there and enter!

This is a sponsored post and for full disclosure purposes, I received a pair of Bassbuds headphones in return for a post about the competition. Courtesy of FuelMyBlog.

Image 1 – Source
Image 2 – Source

seventyfive: infographic fun

Why Are There Seasons? infographic by visually.

I’m a bit of a meteorology nerd. Then again I’m not sure a weather person was even on my list of jobs that I wanted but at one point I wanted to be a storm chaser. I think Chris thinks I’m nuts for this (especially given how much of a wimp I can be sometimes!).

friday questions #6

1. Does fashion matter to you?
Sometimes but then sometimes not. Most of the time it tends to be “what am I comfortable in?”

2. What’s your worst habit?
Singing along to the radio at work? Can’t help it some days. One day this week my colleagues got The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music. Then yesterday it was My Favourite Things. They are safe today though. I’m croaky and I think my voice is going!!

3. What is your biggest goal for this year? Have you achieved it yet?
I think my two major ones are to loose some weight and to complete my book reads challenge. Neither are going particularly well but given that my jeans don’t fit so well any more I figure that one might be working at least a little bit.

4. How many books on average do you read a year?
About 30 maybe more. Last year it was a few less but I think I might have missed some of my count. And I have like 11 in progress so that probably doesn’t help.

5. The Fountain‘s team are dressing up as Eighties Celebrities for Red Nose Day today. Who would you dress up as?
If it could be any one it might be Adam Ant because I love his military-esque jacket. Then again being Kate Bush would be pretty cool although all that hairspray might not be so good.

seventyone: baby blanket – max

If you follow me on Instagram (or other social networks as I tend to take a picture and then spam everyone!) you may have seen pictures pinging up of the Baby Blanket that has been taking over my life since about Christmas.

It actually started earlier in December but I was full of cold and other bugs and so crocheting anything for anyone other than myself was a bit beyond me. (Also I was cram reading to attempt to finish my target number of books in 2012 (at present I am miles behind 2013s goal…..oops!)

Well now that the blanket has been delivered (in theory!) I have decided to post pictures of the finished product. Thanks go to my Dad for being my glamorous assistant and standing in the garden while I snapped pictures (and criticised my work……)

This was my first official commissioned piece for someone outside of my family. It’s all hand crocheted into giant granny squares and then sewn together with a crocheted border added round the outside. It’s approximately a metre and a half across as requested. My friend asked for coffee and cream – this was a challenge given the choice of wool I had to choose from but I think it does still fit the criteria.

seventy: this weekend i…

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… spent Saturday afternoon with my Mum – pretty much unplanned. I’ve been working on a blanket and needed Mum’s help as its not a regular pattern like the baby blanket I made (pictures to follow tomorrow in fact!). We managed to get the square to fit together and I crocheted small squares to fill in gaps while Mum started to see the squares together. By the end of the afternoon we had a blanket and I just had to go home and finish it off. While crocheting away we had Unforgettable playing on the DVD player. It was one of Mum’s presents.

Coming up with a plan

This Weekend I…. watched far too much Drop Dead Diva – I’m about three quarters through Season 4 which means I’m about to run out of episodes to watch – I don’t think we get the right channel to receive it on our TV so I might have to wait until Netflix add Season 5 after transmission. Next is either the rest of Numb3rs, The Killing or starting at the very beginning of Downton Abbey.

This Weekend I…. watched the season finale of Call The Midwife – and cried lots! And shouted at the iPad too! The two storylines that have had me shouting at the TV have been the Vicar and Jane and the Doctor and Sister Bernadette. I imagine that this would be me, Cat and My Mum in a crisis – we’d be crocheting or knitting away to pass the worry in a productive way. (Screenshot from BBC iPlayer on iPad).

This Weekend I… well we celebrated Foster Mother’s Day in our own way. It didn’t go quite right to start with but I was presented with a gorgeous picture of a rose that Our Sidekick drew for me, then this evening me and Our Sidekick played “The Fancy Pants Game” or something like that on the Xbox. I beat him twice or something like that. We then had family date night and played a card game called In A Pickle.

sixtynine: mother’s day

Today is Mother’s Day here in the UK (why is it on a different day in the US for example?). A friend of mine is celebrating her first Mother’s Day and she’s super excited about it.

I sorted presents and a card for my Mum early last week so I was all organised (Especially as I’ll have three mums to organise for this year). But before that I had lunch with my friend B, we were talking about whether anything would happen at church for Mother’s Day (aka Mothering Sunday), in the past there’s been a tub of Celebrations or something similar handed out by the kids to all the ladies in the church whether they are mums or not.

In this particular conversation it diverted to how it can be difficult and rally hard for those ladies who aren’t mothers for whatever reason when Mother’s Day comes around. It can also be difficult for sons and daughters who have lost their mothers (or in my case a Granddaughter who lost her Grandma).

Creating something fab. Hanging with my Mum.

Then I got to think about it yesterday afternoon while working on the blanket for Chris’s Auntie’s housemate with my Mum. What about foster mothers? Okay so in some cases (like mine) they didn’t do the biological mum bit first so does that make them/me any less of a mother?

Then I got thinking back to those ladies who aren’t mothers. Within my friendship group there are mothers with one child, mothered with two or more children but there are also ladies who aren’t mothers but these have all influences and inspired me and cared for me on some occasions like my mum would for me. There are some of these ladies that I’m closer to and refer to as my “second mothers”. So what can I do to celebrate the amazing inspiring women that they are on a day that is angled at mothers. Well that’s the big thought ticking round my brain…..

How do you celebrate Mother’s Day? How are you celebrating with your mother or your children?

friday questions #5

1. What book are you currently reading?

I’m trying to finish Dracula by Bram Stoker for Book Club next is Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

2. Who did you hug today?
Chris – he’s so huggable!

3. Who’s your favourite Dr Who actor (or do you not watch it?)
Ooh! Good question – erm probably David Tennant or Matt Smith – then again I haven’t really watched the older series so it could change.

4. What do you think about school uniform?
I think it’s good to provide a sense of being part of a team but at the same time – who designs school uniforms?

5. How many books are in your TBR pile?
Probably more than I have time for! I think it’s about 50-60 long!

sixtysix: how do i ever form full thoughts…

Ever have those thoughts that if dwelt on enough they might multiple into fully fledged posts but you’re not really sure where to go with them – I think that’s my case and so hence this post – they are like bite size little chunks of wondering.

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Even between a bunch of things happening including the new knitting club and a meeting for the HowMad performance I managed to fit in catching up on reading some blogs. I have the worst habit of sometimes skim reading the post to try and take it and process it. Except sometimes that means that I miss the point or I focus on one point but not the rest of the blog.

Do you get comments that either don’t properly relate to your post, or relate a tiny bit but then go off on a tangent?

I try to be glad either way because it’s a comment from somewhere outside of my family!

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I get it’s nice to have proper edited and created pictures and things like that but is your life really that perfect? What happens on your bad day? Do you put on a cheesy smile and hope no one will notice that the laundry has exploded over the kitchen/utility room floor or the sink won’t drain because of the number of plates stacked in it. Then again I throw on my jeans again because it’s too much effort to plan an outfit (probably explains *certain* things).

Some blogs don’t seem genuine – I’m not going to point a finger at specific ones as that would be mean but wanted to put that thought out there – what do you think? Are some blogs out there a bit disingenuous?

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Yesterday evening it was parents evening, we’re off to see various subject teachers about different things. I think Our Sidekick said there were four appointments – that’s about 4 less than expected but it’ll work – who knows some teacher might have spare appointments or something. I’ve got the feeling that they are selected teachers (like picking the ones that you know have good things to say about you!)

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Our Sidekick and me were hanging out and we tried to learn the cup song that Anna Kendrick sings at her audition in Pitch Perfect (me and JD love this film!)

knitting, crochet and yarn, oh my!

A couple of Christmases ago, I helped my sister in law start working on tidying her room. It was in a bad state as something needed to be done about it.

Anyway for one reason or another its at the point where more help is needed so Chris has been popping over one morning a fortnight or so to try and make some head way with her room.

When I helped before there was a t-shirt that my SIL couldn’t part with but really it was too small to wear. I came up with a plan and with some calico I made a bag of sorts – she had the main logo from the shirt and could still use it in a different repurposed way.

Chris had been over to her house on Monday and when he arrived home he handed me a pair of well loved trousers.

She’d asked “Can you take these trousers to Hannah and see it she can make them into a bag?”

Erm yeah maybe I can. I started with guessing how much leg I’d need – also because they are combats and have a crazy number of pockets a big question from Chris was about how many pockets I could fit in the trouser bag. I spent about an hour sat in the middle of the living room floor unpicking and tacking by hand a rough idea to get started. In some bits I think the sewing is going to be a feature. I’ll keep you posted.

Yesterday the baby blanket went in the mail and should be reaching it’s destination in a couple of hours. Part of me was excited another part was nervous and a third part was sad. I’d created this blanket that I’m now giving away – okay that was the whole purpose of a commissioned piece but at the same time it’s still sad lol.

(Photos to follow – I don’t want to show the world before the new owner has seen it!)

On the other hand, yesterday evening was the first meeting of the new knitting club set up by Judit from Monster Yarns. We were all meeting at Pensieri in Castle Road (it’s pretty much what used to be Ram Yard Car Park except its now The Castle Quay or something like that).

Mum and I found a table in the corner and got on with our bits and pieces. Most people were knitting and we did have our knitting with us but my current crochet project was our order of business for the evening. We got out all the squares and roughy pieces them together to get an idea of what we have. While we are sat there two ladies from the table next to us asked for quick lessons so we cleared the table and taught for a little while. We then went back to the crochet project.

It was a lovely evening and Judit from Monster Yarns and the lovely lady from Pensieri were so welcoming. Mum and Judit talked lots about patterns and projects. Mum is currently on a cardigan which looks amazing! (Wondering if she can knit me a jumper that resembles a Sarah Lund one – erm do you watch The Killing aka Forbrydelsen?)

We sat and chatted and crocheted lots. My mum bumped into an old friend who updated us as to what her son is up to (he’s the same age as me). He’s now a doctor of psychology and lecturer or something like that.

We headed back to Mum’s after and I watched the remainder of the episode of Bones I’d started before going out.

sixtythree: this weekend i…

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… grabbed lunch with my friend B. We met at Jaffa and chatted about kids work and how life is in general. There were two kids playing outside the cafe and some of the older people were commenting on what they were doing and if they were causing trouble.

This weekend I…took photos of the baby blanket ready to mail it off – first it had to be shown in the flesh to two friends at church. They both thought it was amazing.

This weekend I… watched more of Drop Dead Diva – I think that my friend looks like Brooke (she plays Jane). It’s for an Ally MacBeal vibe.

This weekend I… went back to knitting. Just for one project I think – then probably back to the crochet – we’ll see! Chris made a whole comment about how I didn’t knit!

This weekend I… watched Elementary with Chris while Our Sidekick was at the youth group. We then tried to watch an episode of The Simpsons but it kept being glitchy.

sixtyone: review – february

Books
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Dune (well less than 20 pages – I wasn’t really getting into it) by Frank Herbert
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Films
Under The Tuscan Sun
Making Mr Right
Superman Returns
Song For Marion (and found this post)

The Month in Bullets

There has been lots of crochet this month to get the baby blanket finished. I managed to finish it on the 28th! I had a little help from my mum went I was going a little bananas with it. She’s amazing!
I’ve been watching far too much television on Netflix. Even found a new show called Drop Dead Diva – it has an Ally MacBeal meets Being Erica.
I went to Aquacise with JD and her friend W. I had an awesome time but I needed to be at the other end of the group as I’m far too short to be in the deep end!
I also went swimming for the first time in ages. I did eight lengths which was probably nothing but I was exhausted! I had to stop on about the third or four length as I felt like I was going to die lol. I’m told its like running. The more practice the further you can go – next time I need to remember my goggles and possibly invest in a nose clip.
Currently been reading Little Red Welly and Mrs Bishop’s Bakes and Banter quite a lot recently. I really like them both. Especially the baking on Mrs Bishop’s blog. They are both Scone Roses ladies.

friday questions #4

1. What would you say is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

The most beautiful place would have to be Wast Water in the Lake District. It was so calm and serene.

2. If you could eat one food for the rest of your life and not get sick or ill (or fat in some cases!) what would it be?

Probably pizza or pasta or something like that I love Italian food. Although if it was the only thing I ate I might be the size of a house then again I might have to throw some salad in there to balance out.

3. How did you get into blogging?

I used to have a free website which was covered in adverts and was mainly so that I could play with building websites. Chris then introduced me to blogging and it stuck and here I am like five years later still blogging (or attempting too!)

4. Highlight of this week…

I finished the baby blanket! I’m going to take photos today hopefully and send it to its owner tomorrow. So excited to see her reaction – I hope she loves it.

5. Your favourite smell

Freshly cut grass or fresh baking. Especially that warm just cooked bread or cake smell – always smells homely lol.

fiftynine: mario’s world tour

Hey there!

So I haven’t forgotten about you lovely lot. I’ve been desperately crocheting my fingers off to finish the baby blanket for my friend – it was the first piece I’d been commissioned to do and so have been desperate to get it right and make sure it’s the best I can do for my friend and her new baby (who is super cute!)

But that’s not the reason for the post right now – there will be pictures of the finished article in a week or so once it’s been delivered.

Back at the beginning of February, I went to my first proper Scone Roses WI meeting – I’d been to the S&B night but hadn’t been to an official meeting.

I went along with my friend @kingfamily and we got settled somewhere near the back.

The visiting speaker for the evening was Mario from Someone Once Told Me – he told us about his blog and the world tour that he’s planning – I was very excited and wanted to learn more so decided to interview him.

Me: Tell me about you, you said at the WI meeting that you aren’t Italian and that you are Maltese – how did you end up in England?

Mario: My father was Maltese, my mother is English. I was born in England, but whisked away as a baby and grew up in Malta. Nationality wise I’m half and half but always favoured the Maltese side, really. My dad died when I was a kid and for various reasons my mum, sister and I moved over to England in 1985. I hated coming here, but we had little choice.

Me: If I could only know one fact about you, what would it be?

Mario: I wrote the programme notes for Leo Sayer’s last UK tour, when I was a student.

Me: I love You Make Me Feel Like Dancing – cheesy pop at it’s best! How did you end up with the idea?

Mario: Someone once paid me a compliment and I thought I’d keep it in mind that day, to cheer me up. Then I started thinking how everyone has stuff inside them, which they’ve been told and choose to carry around, whether it was a compliment or an insult. I then started thinking how I could capture these things we’ve all been told and therefore learn about people’s experiences – and in doing so I hit upon the idea of SOTM. I thought of the whole thing, most of what the project is, within 7 minutes.

Me: How long have you been doing SOTM?

Mario: I started taking photos for it in September 2006, and sent the site live on 8 September 2007. I’ve had a new photo up ever since.

Me: Do you have any specific blogs or websites that inspire you?

Mario: I met a blogger called Kate McCulley who runs the successful travel site Adventurous Kate I was very impressed by what she did and how she did it. I liked the clarity and honesty of her writing, plus her use of striking images. She was also incredibly gorgeous. Happily, I later managed to persuade her to become my girlfriend.

Me: Who’s your biggest inspiration and why?

Mario: Eric Cantona. He showed me that you can really screw up, but come back and be better.

Me: Is SOTM your day job?

Mario: No – it’s my passion but it actually costs me money. I’m a journalist for the BBC News website.

Me: Do you have a favourite quote/picture?

Mario: Sting was once asked which of his songs was his favourite – he replied that he loved all his children. I feel the same way, but I’m particularly fond of this one, although I think this one is the most powerful image on the site. Her face is sorrow.

Me: What can we (the blogosphere) do to help with the world tour?

Mario: There’s more info on the tour here World Tour Update One and the original announcement is here I need people in the places that I’m visiting to meet, who can introduce me to people who’ll pose for SOTM. I need people to translate in various countries, and I also need places to stay for a few days on my journey. Any offers of help of any kind will be hugely appreciated.

Me: How many pictures are you aiming to take on your trip?

Mario: I’d like to take 1,000! So I need to meet a lot of people.

Me: How would people go about joining in with SOTM? Do they need to be at specific events?

Mario: I will be organising meetups in various places but also people can tweet @SOTMario or email me mario@sotmario.com to get in touch that way and I can meet them wherever they are in the places that I’ll be visiting.

Me: What’s your favourite place you’ve travelled to so far for a SOTM picture (or in general)?

Mario: I went to New York City for a holiday/SOTM trip and had a superb time. I took some great SOTMs and made lovely friends. Doing single trips like that has made me realise just how wonderful a SOTM world tour would be.

Me: Do you have any advice for other photographers / bloggers out there?

Mario: Make sure that whatever it is you’re doing, you’re doing it for yourself without the idea that it’ll make you rich or famous. Don’t do things that you think lots of people will like – create things that you want to create, just for yourself. You’ll achieve better results that way. Stay true to your own principles, and do things that you like above anything that might be purely crowd-pleasing. The first email I ever sent was to Terry Pratchett, and his reply stated that I had to do things my way and hope that others liked it – that’s what he’d done, he said.

You can find SOTM on Twitter and Facebook or you can go straight to the website here. He’s also on Instagram.

fiftysix: this weekend i…

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… helped Our Sidekick make and ice a birthday cake for his mum. In a stupid way I’d left it to the really last minute but at the same time it made sure that the cake was as fresh as it could be.

This Weekend I… gave blood. My friend came with me and we had a few giggles. We then popped into town and bought some more wool for the baby blanket. It’s getting there and is almost finished. Part of me is excited to finish it. The other part of me is a bit sad to see it go – then again it means project two can start.

This Weekend I… was supposed to go to Book Club however with so many things vying for the 12-3 slot in my Saturday something had to give. Unfortunately this week it was Book Club – we were discussing the first half of Dracula by Bram Stoker.

This Weekend I… on Sunday we had church as usual. This week we had a visiting speaker called BB Shonga from a church in Zambia. It was good fun. Following church we went for lunch at The Gordon Arms. I had meatballs. They were yummy but needed more sauce on them.

This Weekend I… technically it was today by this point I read about Goth Subculture following this post on UCB.

If you stepped into The Order of the Black Sheep church you’d find black walls, Gothic logos and a ram’s skull – this church has it roots in the heavy metal scene. John 15:19 tells us to be in the world but not of it. How far should we go to appeal to those ‘outside’ of the church? Would you go to a church like the Order of the Black Sheep – why, why not?

There’s now over 150 comments on the status but yesterday my biggest “complaint” was that people had a stereotypical view of Goths and automatically linked it with satanism which isn’t the case a lot of the time.

This Weekend I…. (again another Monday one). Me and Libs went out for dinner and then went to the cinema to see Song For Marion. It’s a lovely story albeit really sad in some places (especially one bit in the middle – I think Libs thought I was a bit mad when I whispered “call an ambulance!”).

fiftytwo: the Holy Spirit, giggles and emotions.

A few years ago I explained depression to my friend’s son as being so sad in your heart that’s its the only thing you can think about.

On Monday we went out as a family and had a lovely day at Stockwood Discovery Centre. On Tuesday Our Sidekick and I were at home just pottering around. I spent a chunk of the morning crocheting and then spent the afternoon in front of the computer.

I think without realising it I’d got more and more grumpy and sad but without necessarily knowing what I was grumpy and sad about.

But I think Chris and my Mum hit it on the head in a row about way. On Tuesday my Mum phoned me. We had a chat which included me crying which wasn’t so good. I was a little upset/angry that she’d said that stuff to me. It was only yesterday or maybe even today that the pieces fell into place and I “realised” where my mum was properly coming from and that it wasn’t on purpose to upset me (although she knew it would – cos she’s awesome as she knows me that well!).

Add the combo of Chris talking to me yesterday. I’d gone into work and it had been tense. Various bits and pieces had either been messed up or got muddled and so there were issues. At lunchtime I took a walk to the supermarket but things were still niggling me and I couldn’t shake whatever it was getting at me.

I headed back to work, kept my head down and got on with work. At the end of the day I walked from my work to The Fountain to collect the car. In the end I helped clear up so that we could all get home in time for Connect Group. It didn’t quite go to plan and I got snappy at the boys. We were having a movie night at Connect Group and ended up watching Meet The Fockers.

After Connect Group, Chris and I had a heart to heart. Similarly to the conversation with my mum it wasn’t easy. I got upset and had a cry some of my upset-ness might have even come out as anger but some of the stuff Chris had to say was out of concern and love. You could say he had to be “cruel to be kind”.

But why does that all matter…..because on Tuesday I had that feeling in my heart of being so sad and down that if I breathed in too far my heart was going to explode out of sadness.

I went to work today with a story in mind. It was the bit in The Hiding Place where Corrie and Betsie talk about “being thankful for the fleas” (you can read it here).

This evening I went to Scone Roses WI Craft Swap Night and then after finishing Square Eight, making dinner for Chris and watching part of the Brit Awards, Chris and I had another heart to heart. Actually you need to know about the crazy dancing, while dinner was cooking Chris was playing music and Our Sidekick had to guess the band and/or the song title. During one of the songs we broke into dancing but it was crazy dancing. At one point we were both trying to do the Beyonce Crazy In Love booty shake but with added actions so your arms were waving around like they were disjointed or made of rubber. We’d then stop long enough to catch our breathe only to burst into the dancing again.

Back to the heart to heart, so it carried on from yesterday but with more positives tones. At one point, I said to Chris that something he said mare me want to jump and start waving my arms around, so I did. I stood on our bed waving my arms and singing (it was supposed to be like an awe sound you might get accompanying an angel or something like that).

I then sat down and tried to go back to my crochet but I started laughing and no matter what I tried to do I couldn’t stop. My back was hurting and my sides were hurting but I couldn’t stop.

I’m of the believe that God’s Holy Spirit can come on you at any time and each person will react differently. When Jesus was baptised by John The Baptist, the Holy Sprit came on Jesus as a white dove. At Pentecost, everyone spoke different languages. So how does the Holy Spirit come on people now? Well I’ve seen people fall over in the Spirit – it looks a bit like fainting in a way, I’ve seen people cry hysterically or son quietly, I’ve seen people curl up on the floor and laugh hysterically or be so full of joy they don’t necessarily know what to do with themselves. Other people speak in tongues (it’s a different language) and then others get a gift of translation of those tongues.

When I got the hysterical giggles, I believe that it was the Holy Spirit. That it was from God. When I’d just about calmed down, I kept wanting to dance – it was mainly crazy fidgety dancing rather than anything graceful but I had too much energy and it was like I was hyper!

So yeah, have you ever experienced the Holy Spirit or seen someone else experience the Holy Spirit?

things about me

34 (was supposed to be 50) Things About Me

1. Even now at 26 I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

2. I think I’d be a writer. I don’t know what I’d write but as long as it paid the bills it would be okay right?

3. I keep meaning to write a bucket list. The start of it is coming I know. Places to visit – but not just a city, the actual specific places in that city that I want to go to for example Wok to Walk in Amsterdam, Tiffany’s in New York (not to shop but to eat breakfast a la Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast Ar Tiffany’s) and the cafe on 69th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus which was “The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail – Thank you to the Book Snob for the info)

4. I’m married to my best friend. He compliments my crazy and kicks me out of my comfort zone (as much as I hate it, most of the times it’s for the better).

5. I love snow. It’s better when I don’t have to go anywhere. But I love snow….. (It would seem Our Sidekick also loves it a bit more this year than last year).

6. I have one brother. He’s younger but taller than me. He’s my resource for all sorts of things and my team mate when we play Articulate.

7. I am one of six grandchildren on my dads side and one of four on my mums side. On both sides I’m the eldest.

8. As a kid I wanted to be a vet until I saw someone stick their arm up a cows bottom to help with delivery of a calf. That was it I didn’t want to be a vet any more.

9. I also wanted to be a Lawyer (a quirky but kick butt one like Ally MacBeal),Book Editor (I figured it was a job where I could get paid to read all day!), gardener (but I hated weeding lol), teacher or paramedic. At one point I also wanted to be a forensic scientist.

10. Apart from tweets that are clearly spam I try to reply to all of them – like replies it makes me feel like someone is actually listening to what I say. So if you @ me I do my best to reply.

11. I wished for a snow day so that I could stay home and read – for that to have happened they would have needed to not grit our road, get about two or three more inches of snow specifically up against our front door and probably come up with an option for me to work from home.

12. So far in 2013, I’ve joined a book club, been to a WI meeting and taught two people crochet. There’s at least a third person in the pipeline and a fourth following suit.

13. I watch far too much television, I also read too much (if that’s possible). I’d like to sit a reading test to see what my reading age is – then again it probably doesn’t yield the same results once you leave education. I guess at 26 it would confirm that I can read at a degree level or something like that.

14. I love writing proper handwritten letters. I have five pen pals that I write letters to. It’s possible there are more.

15. I’d love an old fashioned typewriter so that I could write other letters too.

16. I have brown eyes.

17. I’m going prematurely grey rather than try and hide this fact I haven’t dyed my hair recently. Somedays it bugs me and somedays I embrace it.

18. Having said that I have a streak a bit like a skunk lol.

19. When I have more grey than brunette I’m threatening to dye my hair pink blue or fire engine red.

20. I’d love to speak at TEDxBedford in June. Question is what would I talk about.

21. Our guinea pigs (Owen and Samuel) are the first pets that I’ve ever had. I wanted a hamster growing up but the whole thing about cleaning up their poop kinda put me off (and my parents wouldn’t let me as they figured that they would be cleaning up after the hamster if I had one – can’t say I blame them!)

22. I suck at looking after house plants – I think it must be because they can’t tell me that there is a problem or they are hungry etc.

23. If I could pay my bills by crochet then I think I would – my fingers would hurt and my hands would probably be falling off but I think it would make up for it in the end.

24. I love Doctor Who however unlike MellyWho I’ve not seen that many of the episodes pre-Chris Eccleston – clearly I need to borrow them from my brother and get watching!

25. One day I’d like a tattoo, it might not be in the next ten years or so but one day maybe…….Then again I might get disowned by my parents or at least get an epic telling off!

26. I’m not a fan of skirts or dresses – one in a while I’ll go through a phase but it usually finishes again and I go back to trousers.

27. I love to travel and would catch a plane tomorrow (if life wasn’t a little more complicated!) but I couldn’t travel for months on end. I think I’d miss home too much.

28. Rainbow cakes and chicken stir fry are becoming my party pieces (as I write this post the chicken is sizzling away to make stir fry as the takeaway was closed).

29. Growing up I loved cooking but hated the clearing up also the silly comments I would get from my dad or brother.

30. I own two acoustic guitars, an electric guitar, bass guitar, ukelele, tenor recorder, treble recorder, sopranino recorder, flute and clarinet.

31. I play all apart from the ukelele and clarinet competently. I can also play piano (at a varying level of difficulty – I can play Für Elise up to a certain point by heart but I go to pieces when I try and read the music to learn the next part.

32. When we got married, I hated Indian food and pretty much refused to eat it. Now I’d openly choose a korma from the menu without being forced lol.

33. I regularly dream quite vividly. Sometimes so vividly that I have to convince myself that it was a dream when I wake up.

34. When Chris and I were in Paris we went to look for “Rue de Loo” which was where Julia Child lived at one point. Unfortunately I had the house number wrong so we ended up looking at the wrong building! Oops!

fortynine: this weekend i…. #twi

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I… hung out with some friends, Our Sidekick and my friend’s husband played lots of Minecraft on the xBox while we watched movies and did crochet sat on the sofa.

This Weekend I… spent a chunk of time doing crochet, I’ve been working on a baby blanket since Christmas – the idea being that it would be finished by the time that baby arrives – well baby is arriving imminently and I’ve not finished it – not for want of trying though. I’ve almost finished it (I’m on Square 7 out of 9 – it’s getting there!).

This is squares 1 to 4 sewn together – it’s going to be 3 x 3 in the end (possibly with a border but that’s if it needs it).

This Weekend I… caught up with the Uni Girlies, we met up for dinner in Milton Keynes and swapped Christmas presents (in some cases) but mainly birthday presents.

This awesome fountain is outside of the restaurant that we were going to in Plan A. In the end we went to Zizzi which was okay but the service could have been miles better and faster.

This is one of my presents that I received. Yummy shower gel and soaps from Lush. Lush goodies are yummy, very smelly – in a good way and I don’t normally spend that amount on shower gel or shampoo so I really am grateful and can’t wait to use them! (Plus their staff are super friendly and I don’t think I’ve ever been in one of their stores and had bad service – how crazy is that!)

This Weekend I… gained an epic cold 🙁 It started as a sore throat and then by Sunday morning I felt rubbish – thankfully I have Chris to drag me out of bed and drag me to church, by the end of the service I didn’t feel amazing but at the same time I wasn’t about to go and curl up sobbing in the corner!!

This Weekend I… welcomed back my friend who was on our first OM team at church and welcomed our new OM team – this time we have two guys and two girls which should be really cool once they get settled. One from South Korea, one from the US, one from Switzerland and then the fourth person who I didn’t really get to speak to so I’m not sure where he’s from lol.

This Weekend I… I started reading “The Friday Night Knitting Club” by Kate Jacobs. My Mum lent it to me as she thought I’d like it and so far I do! (There seems to be chatter on IMDB that there would be a movie version but it’s all old chatter – who knows maybe there might be a film version one day!)

fortyeight: quote five

friday questions #3

Look out for #fridayquestions over on my blog. HannahSays.co.uk

1. Do you prefer sweet or savoury?
Sweet! I’m really bad! I’d rather snack on a biscuit than something savoury.

2. Do you prefer handwritten letters or emails?
I love both but prefer handwritten letters – they are much more heartfelt in a way than an email – especially given the number of emails that I send on a daily basis!

3. What book is number one on your to be read pile?
At present I’m reading up to Chapter Fifteen of Dracula. I’ll probably go back to “From Blah to Awe” by Jenna Lucado Bishop.

4. Would you rather do a job that you hated but you earns lots of money or earned minimum wage for a job you loved?
It would be nice to have a job I loved and the money but as long as I could cover my bills I think I could be happy (ugh that’s really cheesy but hopefully makes sense!)

5. Did you do anything for Valentine’s Day (or is it overrated)?
I went to Aquacise with JD and her friend. It was good fun but kinda tiring especially as I spent most of the time treading water to keep still. I got home and Chris and I exchanged presents. I had got him the digital LP of “Don’t You Worry Child” by Swedish House Mafia. I thought he’d like it. Well he did – he liked it that much he already had it! He got me a card and a Digital Photography magazine/book. Going to need some adventures or people to snap pictures of.

I think Valentines is a bit overrated but its about each couple coming up with their way of celebrating it.

Rather than having the linky thing for your entries please leave the links in the comments for now.

fortyfive: v-day

Happy Valentine’s Day one and all.

I’m celebrating by going to an aquacise class. If Chris and I celebrate it we’d go out on a different night as it tends to be more expensive to go out on actual Valentine’s Day.

How are you celebrating? (if at all)

I later found these super cute coasters….

fortyfour: pancake day

Pancake Day

At the end of last week I wrote a huge to do list – I think in total it had about 50 things on it – mainly to do with writing blog posts and getting them scheduled in the right places (I decided that if I could schedule the Sunday posts earlier in the week then I could have a “day off” from blogging and still stick with in my “blog each day for a year” challenge with MellyWho (who is awesome and could do with a comment hug so please jump over there and drop her a comment – she’d love it!).

Anyway, so I got thinking about traditions and what makes a tradition – so in true style I ran off to the OED website for a dictionary definition.

NOUN

[mass noun] the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way:members of different castes have by tradition been associated with specific occupations

[count noun] a long-established custom or belief that has been passed on from one generation to another:

So I’m pretty sure that a lot of the traditions outside of Christmas are pretty much our own inventing rather than picking one families traditions over the other. Pancake day is one that both sides of the family did but in their own ways.

If Shrove Tuesday fell in half term (which it did for part of the country but not for Bedfordshire this year) then we’d often have a cooked dinner followed by pancakes but not any particular pancakes – they were Grandma specials! She’d often make them on the Monday then stick them in the freezer and defrost them Tuesday morning or something like that. I just remember there being pancakes and then Rich and I feeling stuffed for the rest of the afternoon! If Shrove Tuesday fell during school term then we’d have pancakes for tea. Even the fillings were a treat, Grandma, would often get cherry pie filling especially. I’d have that with ice cream every time – probably increased the feeling of exploding!

Now we’ve both grown up and haven’t been to Grandma’s on a Tuesday for tea in a while but we have taken the traditions to our own groups – I’m not sure whether Rich had pancakes or not but Our Sidekick and I had the pancakes sorted.

I got in from work and we got started on the pancakes. As unimpressed as he was I got Our Sidekick to read the recipe and weigh out the ingredients while I did bits around the kitchen. We then swapped positions and I cooked the pancakes. Rather than sitting down between rounds we pretty much munched through our pancakes while the next ones cooked in the pan.

Ingredients

110g/4oz plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
200ml/7fl oz milk mixed with 75ml/3fl oz water

Sift the flour and the salt.
Make a well in the middle and crack the eggs in there. Whisk in the eggs. It’ll go a bit doughy and might stick to your whisk.
Add the milk/water mix and stir in all the flour.
Add a little bit of oil or butter to your hot pan. Grab a ladel and put some of your mixture into the pan. The first pancake always tends to be a bit dodgy – I’m not sure why but there is some logic to it or so I’m told!
When the mixture has “set” and gone a golden sort of colour flick the pancake over and finish side two. Serve with your choice of filling. My favourite is chocolate buttons, banana and vanilla ice cream or cherry pie filling and ice cream.

fortytwo: this weekend i

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I started reading Dracula. It’s the next book for Bedford Book Connections and I’m really interested in a slightly strange way. I used to watch Buffy and Angel as a teenage. I also read/watched the Twilight books/films (yes okay I’ve learnt the error of my ways but I see it as “advance research” – also means I can complain about how vampires don’t sparkle!). I have also watched Interview with The Vampire and Queen of The Damned.

This Weekend I kind of protested and did as few chores as possible on Saturday. In fact I spent most of Saturday either blogging or crocheting. I will finish this baby blanket as soon as possible. Especially as baby is due imminently!

This Weekend I sang in the worship band for the first time since I officially left back in November. We had an Outpouring meeting with Carl Tuttle leading worship and speaking. I texted the guy leading worship saying I was about if he needed a bassist or I could sing and he wa like “yeah! Sure be at church at this time”. Two friends later commented about how great it was to see me in the band again. One said “Just to say thank you so much for worship. Please come back and join the team.”

This Weekend I bought ingredients for stir fry. We also discovered that poppadoms are gluten free.

This Weekend I well technically it wasn’t the weekend, I discovered that unicorns are in the bible. Yeah okay it all comes down to translation but it stills kinda cool lol.

fortyone: quote four

It’s a silly one from Facebook.

forty: sconeroses and crochet

Having fun at @sconeroseswi. @sotmario talking about his website - http://www.someoneoncetoldme.com

On Thursday, it was time for my first proper WI meeting. I gave @kingfamily a lift as her house is kinda on my way and it seemed silly driving two cars to get there when we could share. We had a catch up in the car and when we got to the car park we bumped into @neverforgetcouk in the car park and chatted on our way in. We walked through the front door and had a lovely warm welcome. Liz was on the door and welcomed me like she knew me forever! We were lucky to have Mario from Someone Once Told Me coming to talk about what inspired his blog and how it got to where he is now. Also he chatted about where he’s going next – from June 2013 he’s doing a world tour. I think he said about 20 different places in the end working his way across Europe into Asia, Australia (I think!) and then into America and Canada – then again you can just check out this list from his blog:

France (Paris)
Germany (Berlin)
Switzerland (Geneva, Zug)
Italy (Emilia-Romagna)
Malta
Egypt (Cairo)
South Africa (Port Elizabeth, Cape Town)
UAE (Dubai)
India (Punjab, McLeod Ganj)
Bangladesh (Chittagong)
Thailand
Malaysia
Cambodia
Vietnam
Philippines (Manila)
China (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing)
South Korea
Japan (Tokyo)
Australia (Sydney, Melbourne)
USA (cross-country tour)

This would be an amazing world tour – probably something that WezWanders would head off on! Can I go too? Traveling to that many places would be amazing! Problem is I don’t have the money and I have a family to look after here – I guess for now my passport will just have to stay in it’s safe place.

Yesterday, I finally had a play with the Vine App – I’m not entirely convinced that it is worth the space on my phone (especially given the issues that have been had with it’s start up) but it was worth a try and was kind of fun. On the iPhone app there isn’t sound but when you look it up on the internet there is sound. I tried to post the video but I can’t work it out so here’s a link.

A few weeks before Christmas I taught my friend to crochet, It was a good time to hang out and catch up, discuss what everyone is up to now that we’re all grown ups (haha well at least in name we’re grown ups I think we all still act our shoe size sometimes!). I taught my friend how to make granny squares – using a combination of my own instructions and our own twist on it as we went along. I was sent text messages and tagged in pictures to try and solve the hiccups along the way but it was good fun. She decided that she’d make a blanket for her little one. At the beginning of the week she asked if I could help her stitch it all together as she’d be finished soon. I had a cold so I suggested that if we got together at the end of the week that gave me time to get rid of the cold so I didn’t breathe it over her (and possible pass on to her little one). Yesterday we got together to stitch it all together, she had a couple of rows on the last square to do so I worked on my baby blanket while my friend finished with the squares for the blanket she was making.

We laid all the squares on the floor to decide what pattern to assemble them in. I then started in one corner walking through how to crochet the squares together while my friend started the other side – that way I could teach her by showing her but rather than doing it on my own work I was helping her. I did six of the twelve squares and then sewed in all the end while she did the other six. I headed home and about 20 minutes later or so I got a picture of the finished article. I am so proud of her!

We also got talking about our lives growing up and also crafts and how they play in our lives. My mum taught me to sew, knit and crochet when I was growing up. Crochet and knitting didn’t stick with me at first and actually crochet only finally stuck with me in the last year or so when Mum went through it with me again (very slowly!). Now I’m teaching people but what changed things in 10-15 years. I have lots of ideas but I think that’s for another post. What do you think? How has our lives changed that makes us want to make things now rather than buy them if we can?

thirtynine: friday questions #2

1. Which is the coolest blog you read?
Even I know that this is a crazy hard question! Okay so top five are Miss Zoot, Miss Geeky, HandMadeLove, The Nerd Nest and Little Red Welly.

2. Harry Potter of Lord of The Rings?
Book wise I’ve not actually read the Lord of The Rings series, I’ve read The Hobbit but Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion are to follow at some point. Harry Potter on the other side I read pretty much as soon as they came out. I went to the midnight release for the last Harry Potter book and dragged Chris with me (then again maybe it was one of those “stepping out of the box” moments)

3. Would you rather gradually lose your sight or lose your hearing?
I think I’d rather lose my hearing, it would be hard as I love music and often listen to the audio track of a TV show while blogging or writing in my journal. Also I work in Customer Service and my main role involves answering the phones so I’d still need to be able to hear the caller at the other end. Having said that there are so many advances with technology that I might still be able to use a computer to do parts of my job still.

4. Would you ever wear real fur?
No, I really wouldn’t. I don’t mind leather for my shoes but there’s something about fur that gives me the creeps! I love the film 101 Dalmatians with the real dogs but the idea of wearing Dalmatian fur is a bit crazy.

5. If money was no object, would you travel or stay home?
I think I would travel a bit, I guess if money is no object that could cover my bills at home while I traveled a bit. Then again Our Sidekick would still need to go to school etc, so if he and Chris came with me it might have to be in the holidays.

So off you go, fill in the answers and link back here. I look forward to reading.

Have a great weekend!!!

thirtyeight: valentine giveaway

Almost twenty blogger’s joined forces for a HUGE Valentine’s Day themed giveaway to celebrate the month of love! Not only can you win tons of goodies for you, your loved ones, AND even your blog – but you can also win $75 to Amazon to shower that special someone (even if that special someone is you!) with gifts this year. There’s a TON of ways to enter to win and TONS of awesome blogs and shops to check out. What are you waiting for?!

from these lovely ladies:

AFTER NINE TO FIVE • LIKE ORDINARY LIFE • MY BEAUTIFUL, CRAZY LIFE
THROUGH THE EYES OF THE MRS • HANNAH SAYS… • POLKADOT PRETTIES

2 Essential Zip Pouches from Lil’ Alice

Lil’ Alice essential zip pouches are one of the most popular items in the shop! For the sweetest holiday of the year, lil’ alice has a limited edition set for YOU! The set includes 1 – 8×6 & 1- 7×4. Perfect for makeup, money, receipts, sunglasses & more!

8×12 Collage Print from Newfoundlander at Heart

8×12 Collage print from Knotted Tree Photography. Give your love a bouquet with a twist, these flowers will last forever!

Small Clutch from Sew Beastly

Small clutch featuring two applique hearts in two darling prints. Great size for fitting all your essentials & much more, also great for organizing a bigger bag. Perfect for the sweetheart in your life, even if that sweetheart is you!

Valentine’s Subway Wood Art from Unintentional SAHM

Great for hanging on the wall during the Season of Love.

3 coffee sweater vests and 3- $5 Starbucks Gift Cards from My Life His Mission

Give them away or keep all 3 for yourself. After all, it is okay to show some love to yourself (and your coffee) on Valentine’s Day!

A friendship set of forget-me-not bows from Curious Jac

One bow is gold-toned and one is silver-toned. To coincide with Valentine’s Day, the accompanying bead detail will be red and clear.

A custom-made, hand crocheted hat by Sweets and Shutterclicks

Similar to the one in the enclosed photo but only in Valentines Day colors and themed. Very warm but light, sturdy, and extremely cute. Perfect for Valentines Day.

A set of sweet coffee cup warmers with a sweetheart design from Of Woods and Words

One red and one pink – from my Etsy shop, Yes Sir, Yes Sir! Handknit from 100% wool yarn, these sleeve for your coffee cup will keep your coffee (or warm beverage of choice) hot and your fingers cool. A charming gift for Valentine’s, but can be used year-round, because who doesn’t love their coffee?!

2 rubber heart ice cube trays from Whispering Sweet Nothings

Blog Love Package from Finding Eden Media

Everyone deserves a little extra love + pampering on Valentine’s Day…even your online space, so let’s show your blog some love! We’ll start with our Mini Social Media Design Package featuring a custom Facebook Timeline Cover + Twitter Background + then after reviewing your blog/social media platforms, we’ll provide 5-8 personalized ideas on how you can improve/grow in the online conversation – we’ll talk about design, reader engagement, content strategy, + more! We’ll wrap it all up with a free enrollment + the necessary materials for an upcoming Blogger Playdate workshop – great for newbies to the blogging world to give you tips, tricks, + resources for maximizing your online space!

“Grink Splatter”” thank you cards, set of 14 from Gourmet by Janae

Show the love to someone you’re grateful for! Give one of these stylish thank you cards to someone who has truly touched your heart. Blank inside, measure 3.5 inches by 5 inches, envelopes included.

Chocolate Lip Balm Trio + 3 Month Lip Balm Subscription from The Gnarly Whale

You’ll receive three vegan lip balms – chocolate raspberry, chocolate strawberry, and chocolate banana – PLUS a three month lip balm subscription to help ensure that you have totally kissable lips even after Valentine’s Day is over.

thirtysix: review – january

Books
Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes
Nikki and The Vampire by Yaritza Garcia
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

Films
My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend
Babe
Horton Hears a Who
Couples Retreat
Conversations With Women
Les Misèrables

Television
Numb3rs (Season 1)
Dexter (S1EP1 and S5EP4 – I didn’t get on with it and gave up)
Doctor Who (David Tennant Specials into Matt Smith’s first episode).
Mrs Brown’s Boys (my crocheting friend introduced me. Not sure it would be my first choice but it was very funny)
Miranda
Call The Midwife (Season 2)

The Month in Bullets

Watched far too much TV, thankfully I balanced this out by spending my lunch breaks walking (and walking to collect the car from Chris instead of taking the bus – however I ended up with a mysterious bruise on the back of my leg and it kept aching.
MellyWho and I started what we’ve accidentally called “One Whole Year” – we’re blogging everyday for a year – hopefully by us both doing it we can keep each other on target.
Why is it sometimes that big heart felt deep and meaningful conversations can hurt the most – either because they are brutally honest or cause you to ponder over and over something you were trying to squish down and ignore.
I went to see Les Miserables with my Mum. It was awesome.
I got talking to some lovely ladies from Cambridgeshire about a bloggers meet up – loads take place in London but hardly any take place further afield.
I went to my first WI S&B session (alternate name – knit and natter)

thirtyfive: monday came too soon

On about Thursday last week my throat started to hurt. I just thought I had over done it and I’d be fine. Well by Saturday my throat was still hurting and I was beginning to feel like a cold was climbing into my body. Yesterday I spent most of the day in bed in the hope that the sleep along with cold remedy and just relaxing rather than trying to soldier on would help. Well it did to a certain point but then at 11:50 when I turned out the light to sleep – the sleep wouldn’t come. So 40 minutes later I picked up my phone to start blogging.

Why is it sometimes that the time you try and be good and have a decent level of sleep you’ve either ingested too much caffeine or your brain kicks in with all those awesome ideas as you try to go to sleep. Yesterday it was all about having too much sleep during the day. Clearly I’m suppose to soldier on a bit more before surrendering to my bed lol.

I got thinking at one point about what I would do job wise if anything was an option. Writing was the thing that came up but I don’t know how to make that a reality. I love the idea of doing research as part of my job. Researching information and collating data would be right up my street but how do I turn that into a job to pay the bills…….ideas please?!?

thirtyfour: quote three

(from here)

thirtytwo: friday questions #1

1. If you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, which “house” would the Sorting Hat place you in?
I think I’d be in Gryffindor – well either that or Hufflepuff just because it has an awesome name and reminders of a certain pink Pokemon!

2. What is your favourite line in a film?
My favourite line is actually the speech that Michael Douglas gives at the end of The American President. You just think he’s screwed up his chances with the girl and then he gives this speech. You can find the quote here.

3. If you were in alphabet soup which letter would you be?
I’d be a H of course! Then again maybe I’d be an E so I was really popular.

4. What do you look for in a good friend?
Someone who is trustworthy. Puts in as much as they give in – after all friendship is a give/take relationship. Someone who appreciates my crazy whether that’s singing in a petrol station at the top of our lungs or getting excited over random items in the supermarket.

5. Do you believe in fairies?
Yes, well as far as them being part of fairty tales and things like that but I’m not sure I believe in them as an actual entity that I could find at the bottom of my garden or something like that. Then again the story of the Cottingley Fairies is kind of interesting.

So off you go, fill in the answers and link back here. I look forward to reading.

Have a great weekend!!!

thirtyone: burns night

#tartan bow for #burnsnight at #connectgroup. Well it was this or my tartan pyjamas!

This picture was snapped standing in the hallway at my friend’s house. I had my phone in my hands with my arms over my head – I’m surprised that no one saw me!

Our friend The Murf is Scottish and very proud of that fact! I wasn’t at Connect Group when it was decided we were having a Burn’s Night party but when Chris told me I danced round the kitchen singing Scotland The Brave.

I was very excited about it. The last Burn’s Night I was at, I was waitressing so I took in the Haggis and handed it over for the address then evacuated quickly to get on with serving the rest of the meal.

This time I was going to enjoy it. I’d already decided that I was going to try the Haggis. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d like it but I knew that if Our Sidekick was with us then Chris would encourage him to try it and so I decided it had to be done. I always cringe at it but have never tried it so sucked it up, refused to be a wee Jessie and gone on with it.

When we arrived we were comparing tartan attire. With all the stuff at work today I’d forgotten all about it. I had thought about wearing my tartan pyjamas but wasn’t sure that it would go down so well. Chris was able to borrow a waistcoat from The Murf and then Murf had some tartan ribbon so I was able to chop off a bit and tie it in my hair. I just wrapped it round my messy bun and tied it in a knot. Our Sidekick told me it should be in a bow – I was about to tie it when he got super excited about tying it for me so I turned round and got him to do it.

When dinner was almost ready The Murf grabbed the haggis and we all sat around the table while The Murf turned up the Scotsman and addressed the Haggis.
Following that The Murf, another girlie from Connect Group (or should that be Lassie!) and I helped to serve – I was given the job of serving the Haggis – I’m sure there’s a better way to do it but I basically spooned out the filling and shared it out lol. We then dished up the neeps and tatties. The Murf was on gravy and haggis sauce duty.

Following mains, us three headed back to the kitchen, those two sorted pudding and I started on the washing up. I’d nearly done all the plans and most of the cutlery – I was on a mission not to leave The Murf with all the washing up to do.

Pudding was Scottish ice cream with shortbread and a salted caramel sauce which was amazing! I could have eaten lots more of that! The sauce looked really easy to make so I’m tempted to try it again.

Following dinner, I read My Luve’s Like A Red Red Rose I decided that if I was going to sing it I needed more practice and to be able to do a good job at it!

We then had the Toast to the Lassies followed by the response. I’m sure there is a specific version to follow but it seems to be where the guy giving the speech voices his opinion about women so it basically turns into a massive diss to the girls in the room. Thankfully our Guy Speaker was then responded to by his Sister so that was good.

Following that we sat and chatted then to finish the evening we sung Auld Lang Syne with lots of extra verses.

Something like…..

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I’ll be mine,
And we’ll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit,
Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie’s a hand o thine,
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

It was seriously good fun and I think I’m going to mark it my diary for next and ask if we can have another Burn’s Night Party.

I’m pretty much completely English and there doesn’t seem to be any traditions where we celebrate being British or things that we’ve achieved. You’ve got Burns who was a Scottish Poet and St Andrew’s Day. You’ve got St Patrick’s Day for the Irish and St David’s Day for the Welsh. Some of the shops in town close down when it’s Eid because of the percentage of their staff have got religious celebrations. There’s Canada Day, Independence Day and Australia Day if you want a few more.

Maybe we should be having a Shakespeare Party or making more of a deal about St George’s Day. Well either that or I’ll become Scottish or Irish by adoption lol.

thirty: onehundredwords #75

You can get more information and join in here.

The prompt for this week is

Yes this week’s prompt is a picture of the Grand Canyon.

So here we go……

One day I’ll travel, from here to there and there and there. I’ll go from North to South and East to West. Well at least in mind I will. I have a list of places to go but the list gets longer and never seems to get shorter. New York, not just the city but the state, and then to the West Coast maybe via the Grand Canyon to see if it’s really that impressive. Then again someone told me Niagara was amazing, then someone else told me it didn’t live up to the hype. It would be a shame….

twentynine: tuesday tunes…

Tomorrow at Connect Group we’re having a Burn’s Night party. I’ve been listening to this song lots in case I should be able to sing it.

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry , my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve !
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

twentyeight: this weekend i

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

This Weekend I watched about six episodes of Doctor Who (including The Water of Mars episode which freaked me out the first time round!). Also watched Numbers, Bones (mainly to catch up with the ones my Mum is recording for me!) and some other shows.

This Weekend I went to the Bedford Book Connections book club. We met at The Ship so following Thursday I was prepared that I’d end up smelling smokey again. But actually once I’d caught the bus and walked from town to Mums I just had a faint whiff instead of right in your face smokey-ness. At the Book Club we discussed Dune by Frank Herbert and then talked about the aims of the group and things like that.

This Weekend I well we went out for Sunday lunch with friends from church. I had Spaghetti and Meatballs – It was yummy but could have done with more meatballs or less sauce. Chris had a roast dinner from the carvery and Our Sidekick had a cheese burger. He actually wanted the tower burger but we said it was too much (both too much food and too much money!)

This Weekend I realised that since about December I’ve taught three people to crochet (or refreshed) and helped one person to learn to knit. It’s so exciting.

twentyseven: quote two

twentysix: what i did today

The crazy weather was set to continue this weekend. The weather was warning that we were going to have rain and snow last night but instead it was a bit of rain and sleet. According to my phone we had an 100% chance of snow around midnight and it was still sleeting. Any snow that we had was gone by this morning. Even as I write this post outside it’s chucking it down so clearly it’s warmer out there – I’ve got bare feet and am not reaching for the slippers so that’s got to be a sign too! I guess unless we have another cold snap it’s going to get warmer from here onwards. (Woah I think we just had some hail!)

This morning Our Sidekick and Chris were both out doing different things and I was heading out too. I’d seen on Facebook at the end of last week that there was a new book club that had sprung up. I had got in touch with the guy who’s organising it and decided to go along – they were meeting at The Ship pub which I’d been to on Thursday for the S&B. It’s called Bedford Books Connections. The book this time was Dune by Frank Herbert. When I was growing up we had a computer game of Dune – I can’t say it was anything amazing but it introduced me to the whole story of Dune – or as I found out by starting the book this week that I actually missed chunks of the story out. We also spoke about what books to do next and we’ve decided to do Dracula by Bram Stoker next which should be interesting – I think a lot of it is linked to Whitby and The Abbey there. Part of the Book Club is to share linked material as well so maybe a film, or in my case for Dune, the game. So maybe writing about The Abbey and Whitby might be handy – although I’m not sure I’ve ever been to Whitby – I will need to ask Mum and Dad about that one (Chris – that might be a choice for a holiday some time!)

Nuntium - Found by accident. #bedford #michellecrowther

When I walk from a specific car park to the hight street in town, there’s an alleyway I often use – it’s quite gloomy and I’m never 100% sure i’m safe so I walk as fast as I can. But I got a pleasant surprise when I walked along the alleyway today – it’s been painted a creamy white colour and there are lights up on the walls to light up the whole alley way and there’s these amazing pieces of art on the wall. I started to read it but it takes some effort especially as it’s backwards and often in other fonts. I guess if i was really clever I could try and mirror it or something to read it but that would be too clever! There’s also this plaque – clearly if the art went up in July I don’t walk through the alleyway very often any more because this was the first time I saw it. “Nuntium” is Latin for a message or annoucement. I think I might have to go and read the wall in more detail – maybe drag the boys with me too!

While coming out of the alleyway, I had a chat to Chris and he was heading over to my parents house to sort out some bits so I caught the bus there, while waiting for the bus to arrive at the stop in town I popped into the Oxfam Bookshop – oh dear what a mistake to make! I ended up purchasing The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes and another one but I can’t remember the title (it’s all the way downstairs and I’m being lazy – sorry lol!)

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse - Reading at the bus stop

For Christmas, Chris got the box set of the Doctor Who specials (David Tennant ones). Our Sidekick had been watching the episode when Matt Smith’s incarnation meets Richard Nixon. I had to explain who Richard Nixon was and who did The Doctor mean when he says “Say hello to David Frost” (I knew this mainly because of the film Frost/Nixon) and then who the little girl was. We decided to go back to David Tennant’s incarnation so Our Sidekick and I ran upstairs to where Chris was working knelt on the floor and said please like twenty times each then explained why.

Doctor Who - The Complete Specials - David Tennant!!!

twentyfive: women’s institute

Crochet

Yesterday evening I did something a little out of character. Not a bad out of character but still kind of stepping out of my box. The idea of going to do the pub to meet with a bunch of ladies I don’t know scares me a bit – mainly along the line of “what if they don’t like me?” Thankfully in the end I wasn’t on my own as a friend happened to be going too.

Anyway so when you say “The Women’s Institute” I imagine older ladies with blue rinses talking about jam and making sure their Victoria Sandwiches are the best with the perfect jam to cream concoction in the middle to glue it together.

Well either that or Helen Mirren and Julie Walter’s characters in the film Calender Girls getting the giggles at the back of the meeting and getting in trouble.

The Women’s Institute was formed in 1915 with two clear aims: to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. Since then, their aims have broadened and they are now the largest women’s organisation in the UK.

The Women’s Institute plays a unique role in providing women with educational opportunities and the chance to build new skills, to take part in a wide variety of activities and to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities.

The WI is made up of County Based Federations. The Scone Roses WI belongs to the Bedfordshire Federation. Bedfordshire has over 80 WIs across the county, some based in villages and small towns, others around the more urban areas in the county. Each WI meets at least once a month with a speaker or demonstration.

But in this case The Women’s Institute isn’t all like that any more.

There’s a local WI here in Bedford called The Scone Roses set up by Lucy, Liz, Sîan and some other lovely ladies. Lucy is the president of The Scone Roses (and a blogger – her blog is here).

Once a month they have a “Stitch and Bitch” night (aka S&B from here on) at The Ship pub. I packed up my crochet, put Chris on Sidekick duty and headed off to the pub. I was a little worried I’d be first but my friend was waiting outside when I got there (after nearly getting pushed along Goldington Road by a car who didn’t appreciate me sticking to the speed limit!!).

We grabbed a drink and sat down in the bay window seat. The pub has a wood fire so it was toasty and warm in the pub. We had a chat and caught up since I saw her a few weeks ago and got out our WIPs (then again it should be “works in progress” rather than “work in progresses”).

While we were sat that another two ladies arrived, followed by another two. We all settled down with our projects and got chatting. I taught Berry (I’ve nicknamed her for this conversation!) how to do granny squares – although we both kept getting distracted by the conversations that were going on around the table.

I felt so welcome and have decided to go to the next meeting – I’m thinking of becoming a proper member too. Chris thinks it would be good for me to make new friends and also some non-church friends.

I think we worked out that the average age around the table was 30ish. I was the youngest at the table yesterday but I really don’t think it mattered at all.

The one let down of the wood fire was that it made my hair and clothes smell smokey. Bit worried that my WIP now smells too but I’m hoping by airing it and running through the washing machine before its commissioned into usage with get rid of the smell.

So the WI isn’t just for older ladies
You can find The Scone Roses on the Web, Facebook or Twitter.

The next proper meeting is on the 7th February and the talk is going to be by the creator of the website www.someoneoncetoldme.com about how he got started, and a chance for us to all appear in future postings!

twentyfour: that day thing

So just need to type these all up tomorrow. #ideas #work

Since going back to that day thing also known as work after Christmas, some days it has felt like I’m wading through treacle – I just about clear my to do list just to add another ten things to it.

I spoke to my manager the other week as a lot of stuff was getting to me and getting me down. We chatted and having chatted we’ve been able to fix some of the things which is good.

I work in Customer Service and most days I do like my job, and okay I’d rather start later so I could have lie in but it balances out. Most of the bad days don’t count against the good days but some time the bad days get me and get me really down.

But I’m doing okay this week. I still feel like the treacle is dragging me down but as long as I can clear the outstanding stuff by Friday then it’ll be all good.

How do you make sure you complete everything you’ve got to do today? How do you keep focused on the tasks that you’d find boring when you’d rather spend all day doing the tasks you find interesting? Is there one specific task that you’d give away to someone else so that you didn’t have to do it?

twentythree: found here and there

I spent yesterday evening catching up on reading lots of blogs and sending out comments to various other people. So I’m here to share some links….

Melinda of Miss Geeky wrote about the preconceptions and the prejudice that surrounds being a girl geek. I wrote an epic comment on her post and it was almost a blog post on its own! You can read it here.

Megan from The Nerd Nest is hosting an awesome giveaway over on her blog. Amy from Lemon & Raspberry is giving away a copy of one of her One Year of Journaling courses to one lucky reader of the Nerd Nest!

So you’ll win one journaling prompt and example in your inbox every week for a whole year–and it starts the week after you sign up! Choose from two courses: One Year of Everyday, which prompts you to tell YOUR story of YOUR life, and Our First Year Together, which prompts you to tell your love story! You can find more information over on Megan’s Blog.

My friend who I taught to crochet a couple of weekends ago, posted on her Facebook at link to a blog called Little Red Welly. The post was of particular interest because it was about The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin – it’s clear I’m not the only one who found it really interesting. You can read the blog post here.

The lovely Em and Tim from Today’s Letters just had a major move and it’s so exciting sharing with them about their new adventures.

Every month Sarah at Yes and Yes publishes a post called the Network of Nice. I love being able to help as many people as I can. See if you can share the love too – you can find it here. (You can also find Sarah’s awesome e-book here).

When we were in London two weekends ago I found a graphic novel/comic book called Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter. It’s awesome. If you like Pandora (from Kerrang! Magazines) and/or Scott Pilgrim you’ll love it. You can find more info about Chloe at Chloenoonan.com and more info about Marc Ellerby (the artist) here.

twentytwo: onehundredwords #74

You can get more information and join in here.

The prompt for this week is
….the extreme weather meant….

“The extreme weather meant that schools up and down the country have been closed in the last twenty four hours” The newsreader read.

“Yeah! I know I had the day off and still ended up doing homework” he complained.

“But I’ll say it again – the more work you do on the assignment the better your grade and it’ll show your teacher that you mean business.” she sighed “You still had fun though – you came to work with me.”

“I know that was fun but the homework was rubbish. My teachers are mean!”

“Think of it this way you could have homework for every lesson”

twentyone: snow day!!!

Yesterday evening at about 8:30 after the United Church Service finished, Our Sidekick kept praying to God that there would be a snow day – every time someone mentioned school he was praying really hard that school would be cancelled for a snow day. Well at about 8:45 the school updated their website. The 21st January 2013 would be a snow day at his school.

Originally he was going to stay home at Chris didn’t have work – then between then and going to work this morning, Chris got a message saying that one of his volunteers couldn’t be there today as her kids schools were closed too.

I decided that Our Sidekick needed to go with one of us and given that work had been posted on the online school system and he still had his history project to work on that it made sense for him to come to work with me. Well he wasn’t a happy bunny but with a bit of encouragement with a bacon sandwich from the canteen when we got to work we set off for work.

I snapped a couple of pictures outside of work, actually both these two came from one photo and yet they look so different. With Our Sidekick with me at work today I had to make sure that I took a proper lunch break – or at least long enough to get a sandwich or something to give to him so that he didn’t keel over or get grumpy through lack of food. I was kind of reluctant to go to the shop given the level of snow and slush outside but at the same time the canteen food is just getting worse – either through lack of choice or lack of flavour.

I’d ordered these Crochet Hooks from Curtzy via Amazon, and they arrived today. I got very excited and did a little dance – I think Our Sidekick still thinks I’m nuts but I guess part of it is encouraging him to accept his crazy too – unlike me when I was his age and was determined to surpress my crazy in the hope that I’d fit in a bit better – and look how happy that didn’t make me. I’ll stick with showing off my crazy and crocheting until my hands feel like they might drop off.

I finished helping Our Sidekick with his homework before I opened my crochet hooks properly. I’m beginning to think that I should do the assignments as well – Our Sidekick could hand it in and see if the teacher noticed that they’d gained an extra student in the class lol – oh and the fact that I’m 26 and a degree level student lol.

I was crocheting away at my granny square that is part of a baby blanket for a friend and I went to remove the hook and the handle was still in my hand but the hook was still in the stitches. I messaged the company and then hunted for my superglue, after all I’d just posted a picture on Instagram about how awesome the hooks were which had also posted to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Hopefully someone will come back to me – I don’t mind hanging onto the hooks and fixing them but I’d at least like a new 4mm hook, or if they are being generous a refund or a case for my hooks would be good. I currently have a pencil case to hold my hooks in but I tend to gain pens in them too.

twenty: quote one

Oops, it got mashed up by mistake – I blame the snow!!!!

nineteen: snow, family and friends

If you live in the UK you’ll know how we were hit by a bunch of snow in the last week – especially in the lady 24-48 hours.

I called a customer at work yesterday to tell her that her order wouldn’t be with her until Monday at the earliest. She said that she completed understood given how crazy the weather was. She was in South Wales.

We watched the now gradually get worse throughout the morning. I snapped a picture and emailed it to my colleague in the US. I imagine that she laughed when she saw it given that they had a couple of feet of snow rather than a few centimetres like we had in Bedford.

We were let out early from work because we weren’t sure how clear the roads would be and given it had taken my manager nearly two hours to do a forty five minute journey it made sense to leave while we had the opportunity. I signed into my work email when I got home as I could at least do that given my manager had let us out early.

I had plans to go out in the evening and wasn’t sure that it would be okay but actually the roads between my house and my friends house were clear and the end bit where it wouldn’t be 100% clear I could walk the rest of the way.

I had an amazing and lovely time at my friends house. It was lovely to hang out with my second mum, my adopted auntie (in that way that the little kids at church call us Auntie Hannah and Uncle Chris or Auntie Hannah and Auntie Chris in one case – thank you Mini Fairy!). We were also joined by another friend after the youth group. We had Indian food for tea – I had a korma with boiled rice as it was the least spicy on the whole menu and shared a garlic naan with adopted Auntie and shock horror I actually liked it and it was really yummy – I think with a spoon and more naan, i’d have eaten the rest of the sauce out of the takeaway tin. Well done Alamein you might have converted me.

I headed home via my parents house to collect the boys and at 10:30/11pm last night we had a late night snow ball fight on the green near our house. It was crazy and lovely and made me love my crazy little family even more.

Today started with an epic lay in for both me and Our Sidekick. Mine finished around 10am when Chris phoned me but I was feeling not right – my head was hurting so I think I had over slept.

On the other hand a lazy start gave me time to get my head round the day. I was catching up with my Uncle and his new family members. Then a crochet class in the afternoon. My two people didn’t show up but it’s okay – coffee with my uncle had been an extra hour and then I got to hang with my parents and talk spreadsheets with my Dad and watch the first two episodes of Season 8 of Bones (and borrow Season 7 from my Mum).

eighteen: my friday

Today was one of those days that I was so grateful for those around me. I had a horrible day yesterday and was just emotionally shattered this morning. Going to work was one of those “do I have to?” moments but actually once I got to work and got settled at my desk I was on a mission.

I had started a massive to do list yesterday to keep track of the ongoing outstanding bits I needed to do. About 10am it started to snow although it was tiny flakes that didn’t seem to make a lot of difference. But it became a joke about looking over to the window to see what was going especially as it involved looking at my managers desk. I had a chat with my manager which was good because it needed to happen kind of urgently.

By 1pm the canteen had decided to close and the staff in reception had switched to a skeleton staff for the rest of the day. We were let out early – I came home and Our Sidekick and me started on Italian homework and his History project. The history project isn’t going to be a one night assignment and is going to take a bunch of work – it means that he’s got history homework pretty much every day until its done. We’ve been learning about the Whitechapel Murders – also known as the Jack The Ripper murders. I want to include a psychological profile but that might be a bit over kill for Our Sidekick’s working level.

This evening I had dinner with two friends and then a third friend joined us. It was lovely to catch up, we played a card game called Dobble and a second one called Name Dropping.

Crochet

Tomorrow we have another crochet session at The Fountain and I’m really excited. If you want to come bring a 4mm crochet hook and appear about 4pm ish.

seventeen: onehundredwords #73

You can get more information and join in here.

The prompt for this week is
…the notes from the piano….

I felt the warmth of the sun across my face through the window. Lying in the middle of the floor and drifting off to somewhere distant was one of my favourite pastimes. The notes from the piano invaded my consciousness. Why was it that as soon as I got comfortable and relaxed someone would come and interrupt. I’d spent most of the day dealing with grumpy people why couldn’t I just have some space to chill.

“Now I’m not relaxed” I thought to myself as I sat up grumbling and muttering. I may as well go find something to do instead.

sixteen: french homework

I’m 26 now. 10 years ago I had sat my GCSEs and had given up my first part time job partially because it was boring as but also because I was spending all day Saturday at work and not doing my AS Italian homeowkr because I couldn’t physically do it – I remember one weekend spending most of Saturday and a chunk of Sunday desperately trying to do it. They tell you there is a step between GCSE and AS Level but don’t make it clear how big the step is!

Anyway, today Our Sidekick came home with French and Media homework, he also had History homework that was set last week but he couldn’t do it as he couldn’t get onto the school VLE system (we tried and failed like three times this afternoon!). The thing is I want to do his History assignment for him because of how interesting it sounds lol. I have to keep restraining myself and send him off to do something a task while I entertain myself playing on Facebook or tweeting people.

Why am I like this well I put it down to this, when I was at school, I was the kid who did extra work to attempt to get a better grade. I’d go home the day the homework was set and work really hard on it. If needed I’d spend all day Saturday working on it, and if I forgot a piece of homework I’d be gutted. Our Sidekick had French homework today and to try and encourage him I wrote a paragraph at the same time except my paragraph was longer – it wasn’t intentional it just happened….by the way I gave up French at the end of year 9 at Upper School, I carried on Italian until Year 12 but it’s French that I remember the best. I thought about posting it on here – then I thought that it might be really boring if people don’t speak French. But with some help with my cousin’s lovely wife I am going to post it. (There are a couple of mistakes apparently I’m muddled with le/la’s in places but it’ll come with practice I bet).

So in theory it goes something like this…….

Je m’appelle Hannah. J’ai vingt-six ans. J’ai le yeux marron. Mes cheveux marron et gris. J’ai 157 centimètres.

J’ai un frère il s’appelle Richard, il sont vingt-quatre ans. Ma mère elle s’appelle C. Mon père il s’appelle G. J’ai un grand-mère elle s’appelle G et deux grand-père(s) ils sont s’appelle A and T.

Je travaille dans les services clients. Je habite à Bedford à Angleterre. Bedford est 90 kilomètres au nord de Londres.

J’adore voyager le pays estranger (foreign countries) mon favorite place visite a vacances est Paris au Amsterdam. J’ai visite Amsterdam une fois et Paris trois fois. J’aime le Grand défense, le tower d’eiffel et la sacre cœur.

J’adore regarder la télévision et regarder des films au cinéma. J’ai déteste la football. J’adore lire des livres de fiction en particulier classiques.

fifteen: a jar for ideas

In the first chapter of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin talks about having more sleep and in turn it makes you happier. I was determined to try it out. I couldn’t start it straight away as it was already after midnight when I was ready the chapter.

I attempted on Sunday to switch the light off at 11.15pm and go to sleep. Except it didn’t work. I lay in the dark clicking over a bunch of ideas. I lay there thinking about writing them down and figured I’d remember or would wake up more if I picked up my phone to write down the ideas.

But now it’s Tuesday evening and for the life of me I can’t remember what the ideas were. I remembered one was to write down a bucket list and specifically the places I want to visit (but I mean really specific like The British Library in London or The Vatican City in Rome). But that was it. There was another idea and it was awesome (or at least in my mind it was awesome). Melly has also inspired to write me a post titled “50 Things about Me” as she posted her post here. Whether its a phone call, text, email or Facebook status, make sure you tell your best friend how much they mean to you, each and every day.

this weekend i

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

Saturday
Eventually once everyone in our house was up the boys went to purchase new bike pedals for Our Sidekick’s bike as it had got to the point where his pedal was almost completely disintegrated. Encouraging Our Sidekick out of bed was a challenge then again I think he’d somehow managed to squeeze extra time out and so went to bed late.

While the boys were out I watched a film and a couple of episodes of Numb3rs. While Chris amd Our Sidekick were out someone knocked on the door and said they were there to collect Our Sidekick for contact – well no one told us that transport had been booked for him as I’ve dropped him off every week since we started having contact supervised. I explained that Chris was dropping him off and that we hadn’t been told about the lift. I got all comfortable again when there was a knock at the door – it was the transport person again – did we want to collect Our Sidekick or should they bring him home? Well if you’re offering and seeing as you’re booked you can collect him that would be lovely.

Chris arrived home and grabbed his shirt for work but got in a grump with me that I hadn’t done them and could I do them as he was down to his last one or he should really be putting that one in the wash. I wasn’t really sure but after some cross words (don’t worry we apologised and made up later – see life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies!) and Chris heading off to work, I gathered together all the washing and did some chores.

I tidied the kitchen and got the washing on, I caught up on some TV while sorting out wool and other bits to take with me to the crochet lesson that Mum and I were running at The Fountain. We knew we were expecting one person but we wanted to be ready if we had extra people.

Our Sidekick was dropped home with another bag of goodies (tube/box of crisps and some chocolate I think) we then headed to my Mum’s to collect her (makes more sense then running two cars when we’re going to the same place lol)

We got to The Fountain and parking once again was a challenge but we got there in the end. We got settled in with our drinks (Apple Crumble special for me and a cup of tea for Mum) just as our friend arrived (we’ll call her A) – she was our definite. I grabbed her a cup of tea as well and while I was at the counter another lady arrived (we’ll call her S). We didn’t know her personally but we knew her in a six degrees of separation kind of way. She grabbed a drink and we got started. We were working on basic granny squares as you just need chain stitches and trebles to get started – you can always learn extra stitches after. I worked with our friend A and Mum worked with our “new” friend S.

After the crochet session, Mum and I went to the local supermarket to get some bits for tea and some other bits. I came home and chilled for a bit then went back to The Fountain to collect the boys. I cooked dinner for us all while the boys fixed Our Sidekick’s bike. We then all went for a run – well in my case power walk as my ribs were hurting.

When we got home Our Sidekick cleaned out the guinea pigs cage while me and Chris gave the guinea pigs a bath – it’s really funny when the sounds of the water makes them jump and they have like a fit – their legs and arms go crazy and they splash around.

Sunday
Originally the plan had been that we’d go to visit Chris’s Aunt and housemate – unfortunately the housemate went down with the flu on Saturday so it was decided to postpone our visit.

Chris decided that while we had nothing booked in the diary (as bits had either been moved, cancelled or our apologies had been sent) we’d go out for the day.

We caught the 11.06ish train out of Bedford and headed for London. We were on a First Capital Connect service which meant that it was pretty much all stops to London. (It came down to money vs time).

We got into London around 12.15 ish. I’d spent most of the journey crocheting and chatting to the boys about the route and what we could do in London when we got there. My friend Daren asked his FB friends about how important wearing a watch or having the time on their phone was. I haven’t had a watch in a while. I used to have one with an elasticated strap – it was the one I was given to learn to tell the time when I was younger – I was still wearing it into my teens and twenties as the elasticated strap was more comfortable than a metal, plastic or leather strap. I have tried other watches and I do have a current one (although its been on loan to Our Sidekick for school days when his phone has to remain in his pocket or bag). So the problem with relying on my iPhone for the time is that when the battery runs out I feel really lost – on a normal day it’s not a problem there’s the clock on the office wall, the display on my work phone and the toolbar on my work PC.

First off we were walking from St. Pancras station towards the British Museum, we stopped on a corner to check the route and Chris realised that we were stood right outside the British Library and he thought I might like a look. Chris said to Our Sidekick that we’d have a quick look then head to the British Museum for our proper trip of the day. We went in the first exhibition which was in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery (it’s named after him as he was a major benefactor during the refurbishment of the building). There were lots of special old documents in here. There were Shakespeare scripts, a notebook that belonged to Jane Austen and an original copy of Handel’s Messiah score – that was fun to read given that I was part of Messiah from Scratch in 2011 and 2012. While in the library I got a text message from a work colleague with some awesome news that we’ve been waiting for and so I did a little dance right in the middle of the library lol. We decided we needed to move off but it’s definitely somewhere to visit it in the future – I imagine I could probably spend all day in there! There were so many documents to look at – there’s a whole collection of folios too – I imagine that if you want to handle them then you’d need special permission and all that sort of thing but I could just look at them from a distance lol.

We grabbed some lunch on the way between the library and the museum, I had a BLT sandwich, Our Sidekick had a Swedish Meatball Wrap which smelt lovely but apparently was spicy even for him which is virtually unheard of from Our Sidekick. Chris had a salad as it was one of the few things without gluten in. (Is it always going to be this hard to find placed that make gluten free meals!?!)

The British Museum was interesting but by this point I was really warm having been outside and then in humidity controlled rooms. There were lots of people so everything took twice as much time to see it and then you felt like you had to dodge out like five people’s way. We did get to see the Rosetta Stone which was really interesting especially for someone like me who loved learning about Ancient Egypt and the Pyramids however it was one of the busiest exhibits so there were like twenty people all trying to see the one exhibit which isn’t as big as I imagined it to be.

After the British Museum we went to North Greenwich to go on the Emirates Air Line cable car across the Thames. It was good fun although Our Sidekick was a bit grumpy. I borrowed Chris’s phone and snapped a bunch of pictures of what I could see.

We caught the DLR to Bank then caught the tube to Tottenham Court Road. We then ended to Soho to grab tea at Wok to Walk. First of all we went to Snog which is just across the road. It sells frozen yoghurt will many different flavours – I had a Natural Classic size with Oreo cookies on top. When we were in Amsterdam we ended up eating at Wok to Walk quite a few times as it was relatively cheap in comparison and was yummy and filling. Amsterdam beats London. London – lack of seating. There were seven people around the main table that was supposed to sit like 12 or 14 and we were snug. Amsterdam on the other hand had two or three larger tables. There’s a second one in London so we might have to try that one next time. The sweet and sour sauce on mine was burning the back off my throat and it had no “fire woks” next to them so it wasn’t supposed to be spicy.

Following dinner we headed back to Piccadilly Circus to catch the tube back to St Pancras. We found an awesome graphic novel shop called Gulp. Chris got annoyed at me for taking too long. Well me and books what do you expect. They had shelves of Zines but most of them had swearing – I did find one that looked interesting and didn’t seem to have swearing so hopefully it’s okay.

On our way through the Trocadero, I found this amazing Japanese shop but the boys weren’t appreciating my geeky moment (some manga is dodgy and our site blocker thing seems to automatically pick up those bits so I can’t link but if you go to the Trocadero site there is a link – the store is called TokyoToys.

We got back to St Pancras and had a whistle stop visit to Platform 9 3/4s, Our Sidekick was getting tired so he didn’t really want to be there, we popped to Paperchase on our way through St. Pancras. Chris said we needed to go and I said I’d pay and catch up with them at the barrier. Turns out Chris had read the sign for the 1907 train which only went as far as Luton so although I sprinted from Paperchase to about three stores from the FFC barrier which in the end I didn’t need to have done as we needed the 1920 service out of London. It was a good day but would have been better if Our Sidekick hadn’t been in such a strop.

Oh I didn’t tell you all about epically breaking my nail, it bleeding everywhere and me holding a tissue to my finger until we got to North Greenwich and found a pharmacy or shop that would sell plasters. Thank goodness for the pharmacy on the peninsula.

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