Tuesday 29 November 2011

Candlelight for romance.....

....or just because there's a power cut?

Have to confess it was the latter, sorry if that disappoints you but the power went off half way through EastEnders so I was disappointed too. Thankfully it was recorded on sky+ so I know I haven't lost it, phew!

Hubby had gone to bed about 10:30pm and the power went off about 20mins later. I just sat in the dark for a moment planning my next move, not a problem as we always have torches in easy to get places and the main power box is often throwing the trip switch so I wasn't really surprised and knew what to do, however, when a voice from up the stairs calls down "Can you manage or do you want me to come down" I did reply "Well if you are still awake that would save me climbing" (he can reach without climbing), so Hubby got out of bed to come to my rescue.

By the time he came down I'd lit lots of candles and the soft warm glow was really pleasant. Hubby then discovered that it wasn't our trip switch it was a general power cut that seemed to have affected all of our street as no inside or outside lights on anywhere. So we sat for a little while in the soft romantic glow and Hubby said "Can't even have a radio on as we don't have a battery one anymore. Nothing else to do so we might as well go to bed and sort out the clocks and timers in the morning." And that's what we did after blowing all the candles out and taking a torch up the stairs.

This morning we discovered it had been off for about two hours, so I'm glad we didn't stay up waiting and also glad it wasn't longer when things like the freezer would have a problem.

And I will let you know if I get to light all the candles again, for whatever reason :o)
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Sunday 27 November 2011

My way (#6)......

Over the years I seem to have developed some very definite ways of doing things and usually it's for a very good reason, so I thought I'd share. 


We all get spot stains on the carpet from time to time, well I'm for ever carrying mugs of tea or coffee from one room to another. I've found baby wipes the best thing for getting them off and it doesn't seem to matter if they are good ones for delicate skin or supermarkets own value range!

What's your way?   
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Monday 21 November 2011

Getting from A to B.....

....via X, Y Z!

On Saturday poor Daughter had a cracked windscreen problem. so they all came here and The children stayed when Daughter and Hubby took the car to be repaired then collect again two hours later. Then collected M from the station (he'd been in London on business) and all here for dinner.

Yesterday M had to be in London again but when he arrived at Ipswich station discovered that lots of the trains had been cancelled and although he did eventually sit on a train fir ages there was much debate about if was going to pull out or not and of course that led to the worry that if he got there would he be able to get home? So Daughter said she would drive him to an underground connection and piled the children into the car and I went along for the ride.

The journey started with very thick fog which didn't really clear for about 30 miles. The girls had got up and out without breakfast so they snacked on the stuff Hubby had quickly thrown into a bag for them. O was awake the whole journey and insisted on us playing the CD of his favourite Twisted Sisters track, "We ain't gonna take it", over and over and over again!!!

After what seemed like a short run of easy driving conditions we hit the road works, gas works it said on the sign. A couple of miles at a crawl while two lanes squashed into one! Can't say how many miles we crawled for or how long it took but it felt like a long time. Eventually reached Newbury Park station and dropped off M then we headed for the nearest Sainsbury's because we had invited ourselves to NieceL's house and needed to buy in lunch stuff.

Yummy note here.....we can't get any Jewish foods in Ipswich Supermarkets anymore so while in a Sainsbury's that does Matzos and Matzo Meal we stocked up :o)

Had a really lovely day with NieceL and her family although it took quite a while for the children to get over shyness and play together, then of course they were having a great time just as we wanted to leave!!!

On the subject of transport, while we were there we heard that NieceS had been out in her car when a group of lads threw a stone at her car and smashed the passenger front window, she was cut by some flying glass and was really shaken thinking about what happened especially as she had her two daughters in the car, a toddler and a baby! Hope the police catch them grrrrrrrrrr!

Anyway back to our story, M text to say it was all running really late and it was now due to finish about 6pm, so a couple of us walked the dog to Sainsbury's (again) to buy stuff for a pizza dinner with oven chips. Then it was time to leave with Daughter getting full direction for an alternative route which would avoid the single lane gas works problem, however, when we got to the main junction it looked relatively clear so we went the more direct route and collect M from the station who had been standing waiting for us for a while. Eventually got dropped off at home at 9:40pm so a long day, but lovely to be with family!
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Friday 18 November 2011

Proud Grandma...

Just a quick catch up starting at last Sunday when Daughter and I went to collect my art group paintings from the art exhibition they had been entered into. Unfortunately this exhibition had been very badly organised only because, I suspect, they had not done it before, but my total understanding wore a bit thin on pick up day when I had to pick up 19 paintings by 6 different artists. The paintings had all been hung randomly around two rooms and they very kindly offered help locating them, which entailed me collecting and wrapping while Daughter and four of their team all running round two rooms reading the label on each painting! I couldn't believe they didn't ask me for the receipts when letting me walk out with artwork and they didn't have a record of one of my members having collected her own....so we all hunted for ages, until I finally rung her! Also after they all hunted for ages for another one I was missing I asked to see the book of sales........out of 450 paintings entered, 19 of which were from my art group, only 15 had sold and one of the sold was by my 9 year old granddaughter E. Her mum and I were sooooooo proud that we kept smiling and giggling and Daughter had to ring home to tell E  :)

The rest of the week has been all normal stuff really. Lots of the days the children were here and we all got to do stuff together or they fought and shouted and we hid with cups of tea till things calmed down! One thing that stands out was when Daughter gave both the girls a reading test and the really difficult words that R was reading with ease proves she is a totally fluent reader (although can't actually remember the reading age that test resulted in).

I've been catching up each day on "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" as it has to be recorded upstairs far away from Hubby! I know it's rubbish but I love it. My night out Tuesday with FriendM and FriendH was cancelled but FriendM cooked for me Wednesday, there were four of us and it was a lovely evening. Thursday was art group then to the truck-stop afterwards, giving FriendD a lift as he can't drive for a while.

Now trying to get organised for Christmas presents buying and card writing etc and so so so pleased to have my laptop working properly again so I can attempt to do most of it online!!!
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Tuesday 15 November 2011

I'm back....

Yay I'm back online with my own little netbook balanced on my knee thanks to my clever Hubby who in the end had to do a complete rebuild! I guess I'll be tweeking various settings for the next few days to get it back to how I like to use it but it's just so nice to click a button and it does what you've asked and not to have to sit there watching the egg timer for 10 mins each time! I'm a happy person again :o)

Now all I need is something of interest to write about hahaha
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Saturday 12 November 2011

Excuse thE SILence.....


MyLaptop Has DiedAND as youCanSEETHIS smartphone isSO old it SeemsToHave Dementia!!!  So I may beQuietFor AWhile.
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Wednesday 9 November 2011

To do's done (or not)....

From yesterday's list....

* Huge pile of ironing, = stood for two hours and done about half
* Clean off the office whiteboard = cleaned and started writing up some fun words
* Kitchen worktops = cleared and cleaned
X Kitchen floor needs washing = not yet!
X Minor clothes repairs on the 3 items = not done and discovered there are actually 5 item waiting.
X Clearing my desk of the junk that was thrown on there after the 3-tier trolley collapsed = not yet
X Tidy and sort out the games room stuff. = not yet
* Leaf raking, as it's that time of year. = total success as I got hubby to do this :o)
X Check if the girls still want to keep the balance beam! = haven't seen the girls to ask
X Knitting more little bows = not yet
* Reading my book = yeah enjoyed about 45 mins
X And of course the christmas shopping preparations = not yet
So don't have to hang my head in shame as not too bad after all.
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Tuesday 8 November 2011

To do list....

Had a busy few days so need to catch up with stuff like...

* Huge pile of ironing, I even record certain programmes on the TV upstairs to encourage me to stay and do the ironing but somehow it has built into a daunting tower.
* Clean off the office whiteboard as the girls have answered all my questions on there and think of some new questions to write up for them.
* Kitchen worktops need to be cleared and cleaned. Hate to admit that there is still a pan or two from Sunday's dinner waiting for dishwasher space.
* Kitchen floor needs washing as it's still sticky from the toffee making we did on Halloween.
* Minor clothes repairs on the 3 items that have been hanging on a wall bracket upstairs for ages.
* Clearing my desk of the junk that was thrown on there after the 3-tier trolley collapsed
* Tidy and sort out the games room stuff. It's called the games room as apart from the pool table it also has units that are crammed with board games, packs of cards, juggling balls etc, and is also the storage for all arts and crafts stuff which the children often get out but rarely put away properly.
* Leaf raking, as it's that time of year. Don't mind them all over the grass actually, but they build up all round the water butt and rusting bbq that look so messy and also in the under-cover patio they build up in the corner all round the table and chairs. Doesn't help that a very heavy oak balance beam is stored under there too from the girl's gymnastics days!
* %That reminded me - check if the girls still want to keep the balance beam!
* Knitting more little bows as the girls wanted to put on a stall for Children In Need and little bows to put on hair slides and broach pins was their favourite idea but they have done very few so I said I would do some for them to help.
* Reading my book.......tricky when I sit for short amounts of time and then my lap has either food, laptop or knitting on it.
* And of course the christmas shopping preparations, lists and shop browsing and buying!!! This year 2 of my sisters and I are planning a shopping day together to buy about 30 presents to give in almost a secret santa sort of way. Never done it this way before so fingers crossed.

I'm stopping this list right now as I started off enthusiastically knowing I had a plan but now the list is too long and I'm guessing very little will actually get done and I'll feel so guilty that I'll probably never blog again!!!
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Friday 4 November 2011

It was one of those days....

I've been trying to arrange to see sisterM for ages but we have had trouble sorting out a date and this week I was busy till Thursday or Friday and she couldn't do Friday! Thursday was also M's graduation, a big day for him and he had bought tickets for Daughter and the three children but I was to have O and take him with us to my sister's so the 9 year olds could enjoy the grown up celebrations without an excited 2 year old running around.......however, we got an 8:30am phone call from Daughter to say there was a problem and E couldn't go with them. So Hubby and I went to Daughter's house at 9:30am and sent the rest of them on their way, all looking very dressed up and excited, then I cancelled my visit to sisterM and Hubby took O home to play while I stayed in the house with E, mostly just reading my book.

The others all got back about 2pm and said that it had all gone very well, even though the tickets had been expensive and the food had been quite meager. So Daughter took me home and collected O. I decided to have a late lunch as a dinner out of the freezer realising that actually I hadn't had any breakfast and was very hungry. Went for a big bowl of spaghetti carbonara  (not really part of my carb-free diet) but ate the bloody lot  :o)

My laptop had been playing up and today it was at its worst. It wants to forever do scans or install virus updates which stops it opening pages and often makes plug-ins 'unresponsive' and today it even decided to reboot itself after I had stuff open.....argh wanted to throw it out of the window, but managed to just shut it down and watch TV instead. Then my mobile looked a little low on battery so I plugged that in but of course that is the time to receive texts so I'm kneeling on the floor in the hall to read and reply!

Then this evening was art group and as the day had seemed quite chilly and the room we do art in is never warm I put on a few extra layers, but once in the car I was boiling so had windows open and the dial on cold......in November!!!

For the last few weeks I've been giving FriendD lifts as he has an eye problem and mustn't drive so I have to leave earlier and make a slight detour and he is always at the lamppost before me, except today of course and that was when I realised that I had forgotten my phone which was still plugged in at home....so if there was a problem and he had tried to let me know it was tough!!! But of course there wasn't a problem he was just running a bit late and my lack of patience today had made me imagine all sorts! 20min drive and we made it to the hall where FriendS had arrived realised she had forgotten to collect the key from the caretaker's house and left us standing in the carpark while she did that. Finally in and set up but as you can imagine I wasn't in a very artistic mood.

As an art group we have been invited to exhibit as part of a not-so-local-to-me school two day exhibition. I had offered to organise for our art group members by posting the forms and sending one cheque for the hanging fees, collecting all the paintings at our regular meeting, taking them and collecting them on the right days to save everyone having to do it. I had printed off all the paperwork for each member and printed extra labels as the rules had asked for a label front and back and I'd asked for suitable wrapping to protect their artwork while I transport......of course not everyone read the info and as I collected them in I had to ask for extra labels to be added and notes on what changes they want me to ask the organisers to make (like a price change) and one of our members had misunderstood the wrapping request as each of her three paintings were wrapped in brown paper with their label on the outside as if ready to post rather than hang! So I'll have to sort them all out Friday for delivery Saturday morning.

After art we always head for the Truck-Stop for live music, dancing and social chit chat.....but the slip round we needed had been closed and I had to drive a very long way round to get there. Once inside we discovered that the bar is being refurbished and the stage is now against a wall we couldn't see from our usual table but the dance floor is still where the stage used to be surrounded by tables, guess it will be good when it's finished but didn't make me feel like dancing tonight. Major downpour all night and when we were leaving, and another slip road closed so I had a very long detour on the way home too in the very heavy rain.

Was glad to finally end the day and crawl into bed!
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Tuesday 1 November 2011

My way (#5)....

Over the years I seem to have developed some very definite ways of doing things and usually it's for a very good reason, so I thought I'd share


Halloween for me is another fun event to enjoy for the children, however, I really do not like mine trick or treating. I'm not saying that I disapprove of others doing it and in fact we always have sweets ready for those that knock on our door but for our children and now our grandchildren there is another way.

We are so lucky as in this house and our first house (where our children were born) we have lived on the flight path for all witches going to their halloween party. As you may know witches are very greedy and always overload their broomsticks with party goodies. So looking up into the dark night sky if you see the flashing light of a broomstick crossing the sky it's time to get ready for a bad rider turning a corner too fast because that seems to be the moment they drop some of their sweets out of the sky right into our garden!!!


We had great fun last night chasing round with our three little ones searching the grass with torches and gathering up all the dropped goodies  :o)


What's your way?
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