Waffle & Blurb

Frustration!

2008-08-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

I am so FRUSTRATED!! Here is my dilemma, which I must add is totally unsolvable, so don't even bother trying to solve it ok?

Here I am, 42 years old, and stuck in such a bit rut I can barely see the side of the damn thing! The rut is constructed thus! I want to do stuff with my house and can't cos of the small problem of kids still being at home despite my best efforts to extract them - this is coupled with a severe lack of money which is down to being bloody awful with the stuff AND the kids being a constant drain on what we haven't wasted! This forms side one of the rut! This side is not so steep as I am not THAT bothered about the house cos if I did it up now it would be a bomb site in a matter of days due to the kids and dogs!

The other side of the rut joins quite nicely in with the bottom and is the biggest part of my frustration.....WORK! Believe it or not I actually like to earn money (see above) more importantly I like to be out and about and doing stuff but I HATE HATE HATE my chosen career path! I want to do something interesting so badly it is like a bloody bite that keeps on itching and let me know it is there but like bites there is very little I can do about it. Do I quit my job and start freelance writing again and hope that I can earn enough dosh to pay the bills? No, I need the guarantee of some money coming in and I am sooooooo flighty that I would most likely not be terribly good at hitting deadlines OR thinking of truly fabulous things to write about. I love being all arty crafty farty and have been knitting madly recently with half a mind to do some craft fairs with my little bits of scrummyness but then I thought of the sort of knitted goods I have seen at craft fairs and my creative self cringes at the thought of 'old lady' knitting and I want to do something amazing that will make people point and say 'wow'. Therein lies the problem, the 'wow' factor! I found this fantastic Japanese book the other day with 'house shoes' in it and they were all crocheted and definitely had a 'wow' factor....small problem...have you seen my attempts at crochet? No? That is cos I cant bloody do it!!! However, I have determination if nothing else and I will try to create something which will make all go 'wow' , but I would advise that you do not hold your breath!

Pretty Shoes

More Pretty Shoes

I wanna make these!!!!

So that is the middle and half of the other side of the rut...the last bit is still in the work category. That is Lincolnshires lack of job opportunity! My personal little bit of Lincs that is....the newspaper which advertises jobs had a sum total of 10 jobs and none of those were aimed at the likes of me...I could have applied for work as a Pall Bearer, HGV driver and/or tractor driver. I could have applied to be a plumber, driving instructor, care worker (part time) and of course the staple job for round here, packer in a factory. Sigh! So what do I do? I suppose the fact that I need to work I should stay put for now and keep applying for the alternatives as and when they crop up but oh I want to be a writer, so so so much but just lack the imagination and drive! Hence Frustration!

I should not whinge, and I should not moan, cos there are so many people who would love to do my shitty little job and they would not think it shitty and live in my 'never tidy' house, which I am sure would be oh so tidy in someone else's hands, so I will complain no more!

One must hope that the next time I get around to blogging I will be feeling somewhat more fulfilled!!!

Oh by the way, here is a goody. I took on a course about six months ago to qualify to be a counsellor (please say nothing derogatory about that) only to discover that it only qualifies me to work for myself and there is not one association which actually recognises that particular qualification ie, NHS, Relate et al! Good choice huh? I will finish it this winter and you never know what might happen once I am in possession of said qualification but I don't doubt that I will still be number crunching this time next year....yawn!!!!!!!

Crookshanks

2008-07-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

It is a sad sad day here in Lincolnshire. My darling mogster Crookshanks is dead! Andy found him yesterday morning squidged on the road outside the house!

I am heartbroken as he was without a doubt my favourite moggy, he had a huge fluffy ginger tail and the sweetest disposition and he will be sorely sorely missed.

I have put together this tribute to him:

They will not go quietly,the cats who've shared our lives.

In subtle ways they let us knowtheir spirit still survives.

Old habits still make us thinkwe hear a meow at the door.

Or step back when we dropa tasty morsel on the floor.

Our feet still go around the placethe food dish used to be,

And, sometimes, coming home at night,we miss them terribly.

And although time may bring new friendsand a new food dish to fill,

That one place in our heartsbelongs to them. . . and always will.
- Linda Barnes

I wanted to write some clever words here that summed up how I felt about Crooky but I just could not put into words how sad I feel about losing him. I know that I still have three more moggies all equally loved but Crooky was special, being my first ginger babe and such a hunk he was too. So I won't write soppy words of love and devotion, just suffice to say he will be much missed around here and never replaced.

Crookshanks - my gorgeous fluffy ginger baby

RIP July 16th 2008

!!Newsflash!!!

2008-04-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

I have BIG news!!!!

Sammi is expecting! Yes indeedy, she is expecting a litter of puppies in about four weeks! I guess we were fairly naive to think that Alfie's constant attention (more commonly known as doggie porn) about one month ago would not end up in pregnancy but we didn't think he was old enough!!!!! He is only eight months old now and apparently according to the vet a boy can father puppies at just five months!!! Eeeek, he is sooooo for the snip now!!!!

Anyhow, after much deliberation over the last week we decided that Sammi is getting fatter and she is acting a little odd so we decided to get a scan done....and well, you know the rest!

I was mildly miffed with the vet we saw last week, she went out of her way to scare the bejeezus out of us by telling us all the nightmare stories of what can go wrong, and in quite graphic detail too!!! However we jointly (that is me and the old man) decided that we would let her go ahead and have her babies, after all the alternative is just plain mean and messy! However the one we saw today was much much nicer and was very sweet and explained many things and we are now much happier with her going ahead with the pregnancy! By the way the offspring will be called Pom-a-poos, what a cool label to put on them!

Here is her ultrasound piccie.....yes it is not just us humans that get a piccie of the babies we are growing.....

Now the red circle shows where the puppy/puppies are....I had to have this pointed out to me as it is just black blobs and white blobs but the white blob encircled is one or more puppies....we don't know how many to expect but I have been informed that Pomeranians have between one and three puppies and we are now taking bets on how many she is going to have and what the sex will be! I have a wager on three, two boys and a girl....anyone care to join in? There is no prize just the satisfaction of being right!

Well, that is all for now, I will leave you with a picture of the happy parents to be.....don't look too bothered by it all do they?????

Extreme Camping.....Part 2

2008-04-09T14:17:00.001-07:00

Ever feel jinxed? No? Well frankly I am beginning to wonder you know! In the last....um.....20 years or so if we (that would be hubble and family and me) wanted a holiday it would always be under canvas or in a caravan, and in that 20 years I reckon we have had one or two dry holidays! The last four camping trips have been like this:

Holiday 1.....about 2 years ago....family, dogs and all in the new tent in Rendlesham forest. The weather? Severe (and I mean severe) gales....our tent did survive but we did get a broken pole...I believe there was a fair amount of wetness involved too!

Holiday 2...... a similar period of time ago, a late summer break to Yorkshire...oh boy did it rain!!!! HUGE thunderstorms and not a dry day to be seen!!!

Holiday 3....Easter weekend at Snetterton....well you know about that one

and the latest breakaway, Sunday April 6th 2008, Brands Hatch for the first round of the British Superbike Championship and what did it do? Snow, snow and yet more snow!!! A rather nice motorbike racer made the comment that David and I were the BSB Jonas....I saw no whales though!!!!

However, we were very warm and cosy in our new van and I just did not care what the weather was doing!!

View from our caravan window - 7am Sunday morning

Just one hour later and at least 3 inches of snow now outside the caravan

View over the track, just after the start finish straight at about 10.15 am and it is still snowing!

Dave...ready, willing and able to do his job....shame there were no bikes to Marshal!

Toodleoo!!

Caravans are us!

2008-03-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

Funny thing about caravans...you spend your adult life hating the bloody things, if there is a traffic queue on a bank holiday weekend you can bet it is either a tractor or a caravan that is at the front of said queue, bimbling along blissfully unaware of the road rage building behind him!!! Anyhow you hate them but we always end up either owning one or considering owning one!

We have sadly now joined the ranks of the slow moving and are the pround owners of a small 2 berth van! Do look at the piccies below it is very nice considering we paid a mere £265 for it. We spent yesterday cleaning it out, removing all the bad stuff, naff ornaments and general detritus that seems to find a home lurking in drawers and cupboards. Rachel and I spent some time redecorating the bathroom (badly) but it is better than it was. The single worst thing was the loo itself which is now residing in a skip at the local tip....it was quite literally a bucket with a seat and lid!!!! Nice....not! We have invested in a new portaloo, some cushions and new bits and bobs to brighten it up a bit and are now very pleased with our super cheapo purchase!

Next weekend we are off to Brands Hatch for the first round of the British Superbikes, in warmth and comfort and the weather can do what the hey it wants!!!!

Mad Dogs and Englishmen!

2008-03-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

There is a saying that only 'mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun' this saying is also true of winter weather!

My hubby and I are totally bonkers and this has proven itself this weekend. Dave was due to attend the British Superbike testing weekend at Snetterton to do a spot of marshalling and I decided to join him....it was a fairly easy decision given that it was a toss up of spending the weekend with the kiddie winkies or doing adult stuff at Snetterton....Snetterton won hands down!

So we went on Friday afternoon and...oh yes, I forgot to mention we were camping....under canvas well not really canvas these days more re-inforced nylon....it is a little like sleeping under a parachute and in so many ways!

We set up our tent in extremely windy and rather cold weather with the help of some fellow campers (oh yes it was a definate lunatic weekend gathering). It took a little while to erect due to the extreme wind but we finally did it and made it good and cosy then disappeared to the bar for a few drinkies. At around midnight we went to bed, by this time the wind had managed to work itself up into a bit of a gale and had been joined by hail, sleet and snow and of course rain by the bucket full!!!! We lay in our cosy beds, nice and warm and dry, and watched the lantern swinging precariously back and forth in the centre of the tent, the weather battered the tent but we remained smug and comfy....until.....about three am I woke up and noticed that I was a little damp...this had a lot to do with the fact that the tent had been blowing into the inner tent and water was getting in....as I lay debating what to do a rather robust gust of wind caught the side of the tent and the side sort of collapsed! At this point I gathered my teddy, quilt, pillows and other important things and buggered off to the car! Dave, being a man, decided that he would stay put but just 20 minutes later he too had decamped from the tent and joined me in the car! The back of the tent gave way and had landed squarely on his head!!!! After three hours sleep Dave was up and ready to marshall and got the tent sorted out before he went....I was going to put everything back in when I noticed that there was no way we could sleep in it as everything was soaked! I went for my brekkie had a wander around the paddocks but on returning to the car found that the tent had infact given way again and one of the poles had totally splintered and made the tent unuseable. We didnt want to go home so we booked into a B&B which was a really good move as it was comfy, warm and had a lovely big bath which we made the most of!!!!

Sunday dawned blue and sparkly but it was snowing by the time we got back to the circuit, it then continued to snow all morning, which meant no bikes on track but we did enjoy copious amounts of tea and coffee in the restaurant and lots of the riders came in and had a chat with one of the commentators just for our amusement....great!

The upshot of all this snow, rain, wind and cold was that Dave and I have decided not to camp anymore and purchased us a very cheap caravan on ebay....I will let you know how that works out....it was ridiculously cheap and I am worried it will fall apart before we get it home but I will keep you posted.

I have to say I had a really good weekend despite being frozen and wet and blown about by the howling winds and am really looking forward to the next weekend away in our caravan!!!

Ta Muchly :0)

2008-03-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

This is a super duper quick post before I hop off to beddybo's just to say a HUGE thank you to everyone (Specially you Sindie), who has made such lovely comments about my piccies.....I am loving the whole photography thing and had to share a little gem with you all :0)

This was done just for a giggle you must understand but I have just dabbled in a spot of self publishing and done a book with my pics in it....you can see it here.... http://www.lulu.com/content/2124510

I have ordered myself a copy just so I can see it in print and I next intend to do one solely of my puss cats and doggies....a challenge as they are notoriously hard to photograph :0)

Anyhoodle, till we blog again...nite nite!

Photographic Genius

2008-02-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Gosh, no blogging for months then two in close succession, how lucky are you!!???

Now, let me tell you a little story, a storyette if you like. When I was a wee nipper of a girly my Daddy took me on a highland tour on a bus. He did odd things like that, but it was a cool couple of days, just me and my Dad :0) Anyhow, in order to capture the memories of this spendiforous trip my Dad gave me the oldest and most bizarre camera ever. Turns out it was a Kodak Box Brownie, it was a square brown leather box and the top flipped up and this was the viewfinder, you then could fiddle with knobs and buttons on and around the camera until you got a picture in frame...oh yeah the picture in the view finder was upside down which took me a long time to get my small and youthful brain around! So, there we are standing on the shores of Loch Macsomethingoranother, Linnie I think it was; Dad capturing the beautiful scenery with his minds eye and me with my clunky old black and white picture box. I stood on that shore and fiddled, inwardly cursed, twiddled until I got a great upside down picture in shot and 'click', there it was forever captured on film. When I finally got it printed off, it was pretty good so I entered a competition and believe it or not I won....it eludes me now exactly what I won but I know I won, which is cool given the considerable age of the photographic equipment. My storyette is in danger of become slightly essay like so I will cut this short, I fell in love with art at the tender age of 9'ish, shortly after that wonderous trip to Scotland and have spent the rest of my life playing with it, I have made bears, created bizarre art in the form of paint, fabric and other odd things and every now and then I have picked up a camera. As I may have mentioned earlier this year, 2008 is my 'annus' (for those heathens amongst you, this means year and not bum) of change and so I treated myself to a spanky new digital slr camera, for those who get this stuff it is a Canon EOS 350D and every spare moment I have had recently I have been snapping away and having a very good time. I have joined some online camera groups which will appraise my pics and have been getting some excellent feedback.....so I bit the bullet and entered one of my efforts in the AOL picture of the week comp and well.....check out this link: http://lifestyle.aol.co.uk/homes-and-property/pets-and-hobbies/your-photos-the-editors-weekly-pick/article/20070629072109990008 . As you can imagine I am ridiculously pleased with myself right now! If you have hit the link after a week from the posting date of this blog then you will have missed it but you will find it if you look really hard!!!!

I thought I might share a couple of the pictures that have been receiving some fab comments from professional photographers, would love your opinions too....except you Sindie, you don't get my photo art!!!!! :0)

Tinned Salmon

Water Chimneys

The White Feather

Oh yeah and here are a few of the menagerie!

The Gorgeous Crookshanks

Beautiful and Elusive Greebo

Jungle Cat Yoda

Super Sexy Sammi

Long time, no talky!

2008-02-19T13:28:00.000-08:00

Oh now how eventful has life been in this family.....er...not very actually!

I changed jobs....again! I totally could not handle driving for an hour and a half each way to work every day and then drive around the Lincolnshire/Norfolk countryside a visiting my learners so I binned it! Not before I had sourced myself a new jobette! I am now working as a Financial Administrator for a teeny weeny transport company in my local town which is cool. I can't decide if I like it or not....the two guys (yup just two) that I work with are fab, great fun, typically male but undeniably good folks to work with! The job itself is another new string to my already overloaded bow...I have never ever done this sort of job before but I am slowly getting the hang of it and I have now been there 6 weeks and while there is nothing else out there for fab PA's like myself I shall stay put!

My darling first born son had his 18th birthday celebrations on the 9th of Feb...we decided to throw an informal party thingy at the local pub...I invited mostly my mates and family and Nat had two friends along for company! I did this cos I could not handle forking out shed loads of money on a bunch of 18 yr olds who would no doubt be yakking it all up by the end of the night...seemed to me that if I invited 'sensible' adults then most of the food and drink would stay down. I hadn't of course counted on my darling brother! He is a dream....he came up from London for the night and proceeded to get my poor boy drunker than anyone I have ever seen before....at one point...shortly after he fell over a bar stool and ended up on his head, upside down under a table...he looked for all the world like someone had removed all his bones....he just wobbled about A LOT! We managed to get him in the car and he nearly made it home before.....oh yes...muchos puking (silent...no huey and ralf for my son) in my handbag!!!!! The worst thing is that the next morning he was so bright and sparkly I could have strangled him! Still apart from the copious amounts of sick a really good evening was had and I think everyone enjoyed themselves....below is a piccie before the serious drinking began!

This mottley crew are, from left to right: Glynn and Fi, David, Me, my Mum, Tom, then Nat with Andy in front, Sindie, Gary, Rach and Dave and lurking in the back my brother Ian, you can just see a pair of fingers over Nats head and that is my step Dad Ken!

I have to say I am most impressed with Sindie who for the first time that I have known her got very very drunk and was most amusing! Personally I stayed stone cold sober but nonethess went to bed with a raging migraine at 2am!!!!

The next morning, Sindie, Gary, David and myself piled into my lovely puke smelling car and drove to a little place I know just south of Lincoln, where Sindie purchased the adorable Bobbie, who is a very small and most highly comical Shih-tzu puppy. You can see her on Sindies blog: http://contentsofafriedbrain.blogspot.com/ I being an extremely naughty person talked Dave into letting me have another dog, her name is Sambucca (in honour of the flaming ones consumed the night before) and she is a three year old Pomeranian! I would love to show you a piccie of her but she is less than photogenic and refuses to pose for me and so you will have to wait until I can catch her unawares! She is very shy and is very very unused to life in a normal house having been a breeding dog and therefore used only to a kennel. She is quite odd to be honest but she is settling in and has been a good influence on Alfie who continues to be madder than a box of frogs. I managed to snap a piccie of him at the weekend...oh my hasn't he grown into a handsome young man?

Well that is about it for now, I am tired and going to bed now....will blog again when I think of something vaguely interesting to say!!!

Toodles!

All Change!

2008-01-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well well, another New Year has dawned and I have already made some rather significant decisions and changes!

For anyone who knows me I am not what you would call thrifty! In fact I am the opposite of thrifty I am a total wastrel!!! I spend money like it is going out of fashion, I guess I take after my Dad in that I consider credit a great and magnificent thing to be used at will!!!! Unfortunately I have to pay it back and as a result of my reckless spending for the last...ooooo I don't know how many years I now have rather too much to pay back. No that sounds bad, I am not that bad and don't owe loads and loads of money but I do love my Next catalogue and they have just had a sale!!! Anyhoooooooo I have decided to try a little bit of thrift and am trying to save more this year and pay off some of my debt including my beloved Next catalogue.

I have been very sad recently, well for most of 2007 to be honest and I was feeling very much like I was a bit of a failure. I have made some really dreadful decisions where work is concerned culminating in taking the job at the training company. I just found it to be too money orientated for my liking. I know all companies have to make money but to the detriment of the very people that they are supposed to be helping it kinda felt wrong....so I went and found me another job! I left today and start my new job as a secretary for a small transport company on Monday. I am rather pleased that I actually can get all these jobs, I must be doing something right!!!! Anyhow all bets are being taken on my ability to hold down this job but as my New Years resolution is to save money and keep a job I think it would be a loosing bet!

I also believe that this is my year for completing things that I have always wanted to do! These are not things like bungee jumping, parachuting or seeing the world but smaller but more creative things like actually knit a jumper that looks like a jumper and not some sad excuse for a sack and of course I am going to write my book...I found a great self publishing site which will print ONE book at a time for you in any format you want and I have a very talented artistic pal who I am sure will do my artwork for me...so even if it is the crappiest most unreadable book in the world I will be published...hehehehe! I will say no more on this matter as I am getting very superstitious in my old age and do not wish to jinx anything else. I have found that whenever I mention something good that I plan to do or new job that I get ridiculously over excited about it never seems to go right so I am shutting up!!!

Christmas, puppies and stuff

2007-12-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

It has been eons since I last put fingers to keyboard and added a little nugget of wisdom to this tale of life in deepest darkest Lincolnshire. To be honest I have been reluctant to say much until I had been in my new job a while and decided whether or not I liked it!

Well, I suppose I do like it but it is very very hard! I have been there about a month now and can honestly say that I understand little and am struggling most days to keep up with it all!!! My slightly ageing brain coupled with the complications inherent with learning anything new are making it very tiring and very stressful BUT I think that once I get the hang of it I will be fine! I am now an NVQ Assessor (in training) and coupled with that I am also a Learning Advisor, which basically means that I see folks through their NVQ's and for those that have learning needs in order to complete the NVQ I kinda sort them out with that too. There is much 'red tape' and additional funding jargon to deal with which I think makes the job much harder but that is the way of the world! Overall I like it and once I am qualified I will really like it cos I am hoping then to understand it a bit more!

Now then Christmas is coming and the poor old turkeys are getting nervous, those not already in the freezer cabinet at Morrisons and I am sad to say I am not getting with the Christmas spirit at all! I have not written a single card and I have done my Christmas shopping with less than little enthusiasm! Everyone is getting one pressie each this year cos I just cannot be arsed! How sad is that now? We did manage through our lethargy to put up a rather fab tree today, I like to think of it as a chaos of red and gold and as you can see it is quite fabulous! I always try and trim my tree so that it is perfection, however I usually get rather bored shortly after I have put the lights on so the rest kinda gets chucked on in a haphazard styly and voila a Richardson original!

It does however look rather fabulous when all the lights are turned off and the little lights are all sparkly....lovely!

Now onto puppies! I recall the last puppy I had was my gorgous wee man Paxo - for those not in the know Paxo was my Lhasa Apso! He was a lovely puppy, easy to house train, never bit or chewed and like an easy baby, a joy to bring up! Alfie on the other hand is a devil dog! For something so diminuitive in size (my cats are bigger) he is a nightmare! He spends half his day chewing on various body parts (or Ginnys ears) and trust me when I say this is a singularly unpleasant experience as his teeth are like razor sharp needles! The rest of his time he is trying to get as much attention as he can or shitting! Roll on when he gets his big teeth and calms down a wee bit and learns a bit of bowel control! He has got into some bad habits cos my kids are just plain lazy and when they come home from school/college/work, they just ignore him and he pretty much does what he wants! I will need all new carpets soon as Ginny (the old lady of the house) has been protest crapping all over the place and now has to go to bed with Rachel to stop her filling the front room with large and stinky poo's overnight! Ahhhhh the joys of pet ownership and lazy kids!

Here is Alfie in all his beauty....when something looks this cute you just can't stay mad for long!

Well that is all I can be bothered to write for now, I am wholly bored and still have some prep to do for work before I go to bed. Part of my job is to travel around visiting my learners at work and as I am a total ignoramus when it comes to all things geography,despite having a sat nav, I still need to get a map of where I am going, preferably with directions, so I am off to good old Mult map to find a map of Wisbech!

Merry Christmas if I don't get around to blogging again before the big day!

Ooooooo Puppy!

2007-11-06T17:29:00.000-08:00

Before I get into the 'oooooooo puppy' bit, just wanted to write a few lines about my lovely daughter!

She had her tonsils out on Friday...can't recall if I mentioned this before but she had some suspicious cyst type lumps on them and for the sake of common sense it was decided to remove her tonsils and do a swift biopsy to ensure that there was nothing more sinister going on.

Anyhoo she had her op and apart from being very sore she is making a good recovery so far and is eating all normal food...no jelly and ice cream these days you know!

Now onto the puppy....oh yes...I finally got an ickle biddy gorgeous ball of fluff!!! He is a 9 week old Toy Poodle by the name of Alfie, although for some bizarre reason known only to the 'powers that be' I keep calling him Archie! Anyhoo here he is:

I was extremely patient waiting for the Chihuahua to materialise but not having the funds to buy a Chi puppy and the fact that the odd rare adult that pops up costs in the region of £900 to £1200 I decided to go for a dog that I know and like. We used to have a marvellous toy poodle called Doodle and he was the sweetest and most adorable wee fella ever. David was especially fond of him and I thought that a poodle was the next best thing to a Chi.

I don't have much else to write really...I am going to go to Bingo on Thursday night with my pal Fi...I haven't done the old bingo thing for years so I am quite looking forward to it!

I start work on Monday and I am really really nervous. I have been doing quite a bit of reading up on what I will be expected to do both in terms of my actual job and my A1 Award (this is the qualification I need to get in order to the job) and am wholly and totally confused by the whole thing...it is a sad fact of my nature that I want to know everything and be the best at it from the word go and often beat myself up royally for not being perfection personified! Some character traits are really annoying aren't they? Apart from the fear factor I am really looking forward to my new job although I am now concerned about Alfie's welfare in my absence! However, I am sure that there are lots of people who work full time and own puppies and they must manage just fine! There I go worrying again!

I am off now...it is 1.40am and I am having trouble sleeping, this is not unusual for me as I often struggle to sleep when Dave is not here but tonight it is a definate touch of the insommnia! Ho hum a bit of internet surfing, a couple of fags and a cup of cha should sort me out ready to recommence the tossing and turning soon!

Foooooooood!

2007-10-31T14:34:00.000-07:00

Oh how depressing was the news today? It would seem that if we eat red meat and drink alcohol we will all die of cancer! So just to clear this up we CAN'T eat...red meat, sugary yumminess in any shape or form, butter, full fat cheese, crisps, cakes of all types, more than one egg in a month, any processed food (which I agree with) and oh I am sure lots of other yummy things, but we CAN eat fresh fruit, veg, brown bread, plasticised margarine, white meat and fish. Well excuse me but as much as I like fresh fruit and veg I like my cakes and butter and eggy bread and to celebrate this tonight I made.....Hokey Pokey!!! Oh my yummy scrummy in my tummy!!!! Hokey Pokey for those of you who have been fortunate enough to miss Nigella and her recent series of condescending cookery tips, done with a ridiculous permanent smile on her face, is Honeycomb - a delicious mix of caster sugar, golden syrup and bicarb of soda. This is so delightfully wonderful that we have already eaten it and it hadn't quite set so was scrummy and chewy and now my broken tooth is screaming at me for exposing it to all that sugar!!!

I can't help thinking that we should be allowed to eat what we want, drink what we like and live our lives according to how we feel not as a money saving exercise for the government!!! I agree that we could all do with living healthy but until the shops go back to the old fashioned way of selling food (this is so not going to happen) and giving us a lack of choice in terms of the old bad for us stuff then we should all make sensible food choices and then eat large amounts of Hokey Pokey until your teeth fall out!!!!

I had some good news today...I have been offered a new job. It is the role of Learning Advisor/Assessor for adults doing their NVQ's in the area of Admin and Customer Service. I am saying no more about it as I am totally stoked to have this job and so do not want to jinx it!!!! I shall not mention it again until I am firmly in post and have been working there for a number of months! So don't ask me cos I am not saying anything!!!!

As it is All Hallows Eve we are sitting around in the dark eating Hokey Pokey and muffins and watching Most Haunted Live on the TV and watching the web cams on our laptops....how sad are we???? Still we are hoping to be scared witless...one thing is sure if we eat much more our teeth will fall out and we will be sick!!!!

Happy Halloween, sleep well!

A Distinct Lack of Interest!

2007-10-29T01:11:00.000-07:00

It seems like a very long time since I last wrote anything here. I have to admit to being somewhat embarrassed to write anything as in my last blog I was all excited to be starting my new job with the police and well frankly this has not happened! I am not going to go into lengthy explanations cos I have run out of interest in the whole thing but suffice to say the job no longer exists as far as I am concerned and I am back looking for work...AGAIN!

I have been jumping through hoops trying to get a job at a local solicitors office...two interviews and, of all things, a typing test and still do not know the outcome of that...I am not entirely sure it is a job I would enjoy as it is working in a commercial setting dealing with all that boring correspondence that goes with business type law rather than litigation (which would be far more interesting). However this particular office is a good payer, they have some fab benefits and it is nice and local plus it is a job and right now my coffers are so empty the moths have begun to move in!!!!

Apart from the whole job debacle not a lot of any real interest has happened...how sad is that? Hubby and I spent a fab weekend in Warwickshire last weekend wandering around marinas, hopping on and off narrowboats to see if we would like to live on one! We must have looked over 30 plus boats over the two days and we are very enthused by the whole thing. It is very frustrating to have to wait and to be honest I think selling the house will be our biggest problem in the whole thing...not cos there is anything wrong with the house but because we live in Lincolnshire and big houses in the middle of villages just do not sell well!

Here are some of the piccies I took that weekend...now who would not like to live on one of these and just look at the scenery....so peaceful!

Braunstone Marina

Brinklow Marina - so peaceful and very remote and rural (heaven)

Another view at Brinklow of a moored boat. This is a new marina and oh so lovely...it is about 20 minutes from Rugby by car but you would not know it as it is so quiet and peaceful!

From Left to Right - My Mum, Dave (hubby at the back), my Step Dad Ken and my youngest offspring Andy - this was at Braunstone Marina when we had finished looking at the boats!

Anyhow that is it for now...will let you know if I ever manage to get a job, or if I go mental in the meantime with the frustration of it all!

Employed again!!!

2007-10-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

At last!!! I had a phone call from the Police Recruitment peeps and my security clearance came back today and I start work next Wednesday (just to clarify that is a week Wednesday - the 17th)!!! Yay me! I am really chuffed and excited and absolutely terrified all at the same time!!!! I shall have loads of training before I get dumped in the deep end at the station I have been allocated so that is a little less worrying but for the time being I shall be travelling around quite a bit, I have to go to Grantham next week (about half an hour away), I will have to go to Lincoln to get my uniform and my piccies taken some time soon, then a lot of my training will be at Stamford, no idea how long that will take to get to but it is a bit of a tab from here, still I don't mind I am just glad to be doing a proper job again!

I haven't been doing a huge amount recently due to lack of enthusiasm but I did manage to get my sad old butt onto my Aprillia yesterday and went up to Cadwell Park to see my hubby and son while they did their marshalling at the New Era bike meeting. I enjoyed the ride a lot although I am as stiff as a board today, one thing about my little bike is that it is seriously uncomfortable to sit on for long!!!

I sold my little pink scooter on Ebay this weekend...I was sad to see it go as I have enjoyed riding it to work over the summer but I got a reasonable price for it and that will see me through until I get my first pay from the Police.

Geez I really don't have much else to say really, being a touch bored as I have been of late and lacking in creativity I have no fab new works of art to show you and so I will go now to come back and blog another day.

The Bag!

2007-10-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all!

Well I finished my bag! Now you have to understand that I made this without a pattern and without any aforethought and it is just a practice thing to see if I get bored! Well I did get a bit bored but that is mainly cos I had to handsew the entire thing and trust me when I say it is a rather large bag!!!!! I also have no clue whatsoever what I am going to do with it! But I did enjoy making it and have plans to do another one but involving a pattern and stuff!

Anyhoo, I started off with a large bit of felt which was just folded in half, I added a piece of quilt batting to the back and handstitched the wiggly lines in pink and blue silk embroidery thread. I then took my cat drawing and sketched it out onto the front (a muchos laborious job), I then embroidered over it and presto one fat cat!!! I am pleased with how he came out. I then sewed in the lining, sewed up the sides, bunged some beads round the top and braided some cord for the handle. I did have a pair of plastic handles but they were just too small so I just popped the braided cord on till something else inspiring comes along to use as handles.

I know it is very amaturish and stuff but I may use it at some point!

On a totally different note, I have just scared myself silly watching The Fog!!! I have had to leave the room with an hour to go as it is so scaaaaarey!!!!!!! I should know better than to watch horror films on my own!!!!

T'internet!

2007-10-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

Following my mates self portraiture revelations on her blog last night I bit the bullet and took some piccies of me myself and I! Anyone who knows me, knows that getting a picture of me, actually identifiable as me, is nigh on impossible. I know I am not photogenic and do not need any permanent reminders of that thanks very much. Anyhoodle, I had a play about on the puter and came up with some pretty good piccies which I was really rather pleased with, naturally I have computer enhanced these and they are head shots only as the rest of me is definately NOT photogenic, the camera really does put pounds on and when you already have too many pounds attached to the old body you certainly do not need anymore!

Here are two that I can live with:

And here is a rather nifty old fashioned movie style thingy which I found on t'interweb whilst having a bit of a browse....naturally the dogs are not part of the self portraiture!!!!

General burblings....

2007-09-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

Um, I have nothing whatsoever to say tonight...I have done nothing this weekend except start on some smashing hand quilting for a bag but it is in the very very early stages so I refuse to post piccies until it is finished and looks smashing or it will hit the bin!

I fell asleep in the middle of the antiques road show this evening and woke up as Michael Palin was in his closing moments at just before 10pm and have a strong feeling that now I won't be able to sleep when I go to bed! Oooops! It is absolutely lethal falling asleep in the evenings but it was warm and cosy in the sitting room and off I went!

I have been rather down of late, no real explanation for it apart from that it is part of my nature and it often leads me to thinking about the future. I am one of these people who likes to have something to look forward to and recently with my poor job choices, kids not working and generally being very very annoying, hubby being away a lot, I have felt like there is very little to look forward to. Anyhoo, that coupled with 'women's problems' ( a great two word get out clause usually used by men to explain a woman's monthly nightmare - or in my case two monthly hell, cos that is how long it lasts!!) has led me to feeling far more down than usual. Anyhoo me and the old man were watching some late night TV last night and ended up watching this fab programme all about this chappie who did up a narrow boat and made it fantastical! Well, many moons ago David and I flirted with the idea of living on a narrow boat and that just rekindled our desire for that getaway nomadic life! We have decided to do it once the kids finally leave home tho to be honest I can't see that ever happening right now, after all, Nat is just bumming about at college, Rach earns less than the average third world worker and Andy doesn't even leave school for another 20 odd months!!! But when they do finally go that is what we will be doing!

Well that is my musings for today, I know have been fairly miserable recently but I am hopeful that I will feel much happier soon! At least I don't have to go to the bookshop anymore!!!

Fabric!!!

2007-09-28T07:36:00.003-07:00

Well as promised here are some piccies of all that fab fabric I got yesterday!

As you can see there is tons of it...so much in fact that I have made up some lovely little fabric packs and have listed them on Ebay. I have even put together a lovely little package for my creative pal Sindie who will be receiving it shortly!!!!

Also as promised here is a piccie of my monster fat cat that I doodled at work yesterday, no particular reason for showing you I just like him...he is sweet!

Jobs et al

2007-09-27T13:37:00.001-07:00

Well I finally did it and quit the bookshop! I was reduced to much blubberyness this afternoon by the Wicked Witch of the East and just couldnt take anymore...in fact my adorable hubby told me not to go back so that is that! I shall have to get very very creative financially and do lots more ebay selling to make the ends meet until I get my start date for the police job but I am sure I will manage!

On an up note I bought a box of fabric oddments on ebay the other day and it cost me £9.99 and I was really chuffed to open this box this evening when I got home as it was jam packed full of fantastic fabric. A lot of velvety type fabrics of the sort used by bear makers for paw pads (suedette) and loads of scrumptious felt for my bag making, ribbons and cord, some gorgeous satiny stuff and ribbon and some lovely satin which has quilt wadding already attached to it and it is in strips, amazing stuff! I worked out that if I made up little fabric packs with it I could possibly double if not triple what I paid for it if I re sold it...the box is HUGE!!!!! Tomorrow I shall have a good sort through and look at what I am going to use to make my first quilty bag and also what I shall use to make other stuff with and what I will sell....I am very pleased. I shall take some piccies and pop them on tomorrow along with my little cat sketch which I did at work (I was very bored this afternoon).

Time for bed methinks. Blog ya later!

Book Signings!

2007-09-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Phew what an evening....I have just got in from the Mary Berry book signing at work....it was really really busy!!!! We sold all the tickets and we also had a fair few folks come who had not pre bought tickets and the place was packed! Mary Berry is a cook and it would seem has been around for many moons...I personally had never heard of her but I think I was definitely in the minority!!! In the last half hour to forty minutes I served something like 70 customers and sold over 75 books! I am knackered! I was totally left on my own too which was not very fair but hey ho!!!

Rachel had her specialist appointment today cos of her lumpy throat. She is ok and has not got anything nasty!!! She has a quite large cyst on one of her tonsils and so they are going to take them out for her in November! They will slice and dice them and double check that there is nothing nasty going on but overall the specialist is happy that a cyst is all it is! Phew we were a tad worried there for a while!

I am extremely glad that I don't have to do anymore book signings for a while...tomorrow night is Monty Roberts apparently he whispers to horses and then they behave themselves and do what you want them to...I am curious to know how that works but not enough to go and see it and definitely not enough to work the event!!! Then on Thursday they have Sandra Howard coming...she is married to a politician whose name ends in Howard (can't remember who now). They have just signed up Ken Barlow of Corrie fame who is coming next month and the guy who did the walk round Britain and of course Clarissa Dickson-Wright in November...hopefully I will have started my new job and won't have to work any of them!!!

Sadly I am not feeling much more positive than I was at the weekend but a lot of my woes are down to hormones and mine are all over the shop right now....apparently it is my age, which is nice!

I have a day off tomorrow and I intend to take it nice and easy and have a relaxing day all by myself! I am having lunch with a friend but not till after I have had a good long lie in!!!

Tatty bye!

Life!

2007-09-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

A good Saturday to you!

I have been thinking today about what life lobs at us on a regular basis, sometimes it chucks good stuff but more often that not it is usually pretty crappy!

I mean think about this....the government decides to give the nation a motto! I can't help thinking that the NHS, Education and important stuff like that could do with a little attention, not wasting time, paper (think of all the trees) and most likely millions of OUR pounds to put a few choice words on our bank notes ( a la America) and public buildings. My favourite to have been put forward so far was 'May contain nuts' and 'Great Britain, we queue' and 'mustn't grumble'. How about...Great Britain where the upper lip is always stiff....fancy a cuppa?' It is quite frankly a joke!

Another thing I thought about was....I hate working at the best of times and I am now doing a job which I thought was one of those life changing perfect jobs, and as you may have already noticed it is most definitely not perfect! What would I really like to do? Earn money making people happy...that would have to be in the arty crafty department as my humour whilst hilarious is often misunderstood or just plain incomprehensible! I want to paint, sew and generally create wonderful stuff for people to gasp at and say things like, 'marvelous' and 'wonderful'! Not going to happen tho is it? I also thought this week how cool it would be to open a shop which sold all that wonderful fabric that is out there in the world, and lovely cards and paper and pretty hand made jewellery and oooo lots of stuff that would make it an Aladdin's cave of wonderfulness! Sigh but that could never happen either cos that involves money and I havent got any of that!

Another interesting little nugget that floated into the old grey matter today was how unfair life seems to treat people I know and care about. One of my friends is in crisis cos of a complicated relationship, another has Cancer and my lovely daughter has had an urgent hospital referral for a mysterious lump in her throat.

To top all this off I read in an old copy of the Sun newspaper (otherwise known as Beano for adults) that some blokey who already has a small fortune (we are talking in the millions) won the Euro Lottery. Why? Why? If God does exist why does he allow this level of good fortune to fall upon those who are already clearly blessed with the ability to create wealth? I have often said I would most philanthropic if I was lucky enough to win the lottery, so why not smile on me and mine? Why? Cos in his ultimate wisdom God likes us to suffer a bit so that then when we do finally shuffle off this mortal coil we get something better than lottery wealth? Mmmmmm that is one that I don't much want answered for a while thanks but I am open for some lottery funding should anyone want to bestow it upon me! Perhaps I should start to do the lottery might win it then, but I seriously doubt it!

Also I believe my mother has finally gone senile! She is only in her late 60's and very young for her age but has in her infinite wisdom gone on a SAGA holiday, which she appears to be hating! She has emailed me daily with ever more bizarre emails....Alien invasions, exploding volcanoes....need I say more?!!!!

On that I shall go and blog again another day!

Art and Stuff

2007-09-19T13:01:00.001-07:00

I had a most enjoyable day off today but sadly failed miserably to do much more than lay around watching naff daytime TV!!!! I did lots of washing (yawn) some hoovering (bigger yawn) and tidied up a lot (HUGE yawn) but I wanted to do something artistic and ended up not doing so.

I surfed the Internet and failed to find a sewing machine that I could afford! I did however find loads of scrumptious sewing machines that I couldn't afford!!! Most depressing!

Anyhoodle I ended up doing some clever stuff with glue and paper on canvas to give my paintings some added umph! May post a piccie when it is done...it is supposed to be a pressie for a couple of mates but the little time I ever have is somewhat restricting when it comes to creating stuff!

I am going into work late tomorrow cos I have to take Rachel to the doctors...she has a curious little unidentified lump in her throat, she has been to the docs with it before and they had no idea what it was but were confident it would go down, but it hasn't and it is getting sore again so back she must go!

It will be interesting to see if I get a hard time when I finally turn up at work! I am absolutely determined to stand up for myself the next time her ladyship has a go at me and so I have no idea how long I will be there for. In a small rather weird way I almost want to have a showdown with her so that I can go soon but I can't afford to not work for very long so I should stay there as long as I can stick it out really!

Ho hum off to beddy byes!

Bit Miffed!

2007-09-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Evening all....tonight I am mainly a bit miffed!

Why? Well it has much to do with work (no great shocks there) having had what I can only describe as the worst day since I started. This is not though, the main reason for my miffedness. Let me try and recount the day and see if I can get this across without being too confused.

Firstly, I get to work, it was chilly and I was still feeling under the weather so as normal I went to the coffee shop and started to make my usual morning cuppa. Standing behind me, making herself a coffee was my delightful boss. She turned round and asked me 'what are you doing?'. Although the answer was fairly obvious to even a blind man I explained that I was in fact making a cup of tea. I was then subject to rigorous questioning a la gestapo and was rather nicely reduced to a bit of a blubbering jelly! I naturally do not cry in front of anyone but being the huge softy I am I had a few well chosen tears in the loo! I mean really what kind of person denies you the basics of life? I NEED my tea in the morning and have never ever worked anywhere where I can't have a cuppa first thing in the morning!!!! I immediately quit! I will not be spoken to like she spoke to me by anyone! However the lovely assistant manager talked me out of it but I have said I will take it one day at a time and if she speaks to me badly again then I will most definitely do the walk!

Secondly, I went to collect a parcel afterwork which contained a few books that I ordered, lovely quilty books with lots of lovely ideas for smashing bags! A problem occurred immediately on opening them, all the hints and tips were for machine embroidery and machine quilting! Not much use to someone who is minus one sewing machine! I don't see how I can transfer any of the lovely stuff to handsewing as it looks far too complicated! Grrrrrr

Thirdly, well here is the kicker...I have allowed common sense to prevail over my decision making. I really really really want a Chihuahua and this lovely old lady dog who needs a new home would seem ideal but I just cannot justify the cost involved in rehoming her and so I am not going to bother.

All in all I am muchos miffed with these things and I am now going to have a look on Ebay to see if I can find a book that allows me to handsew stuff in smashing styles! Maybe buy some fabric, that would cheer me up!

Nighty night!

New and Exciting Crafty Ideas

2007-09-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking of late of new and exciting things to do...I have the brain of a great artist stuck in the body of a lazy moo and so many of my exciting ideas never come to fruition due to my lack of interest after the first five minutes.

First up, I saw this it is a stunning bit of fabric by a guy called Kaffe Fassett who does loads of really creative stuff with fabric, needlepoint and knitting...anyhoo I saw this and thought how cool the dahlias looked and wanted to make something with it. Then I saw this:

....Now having chatted with my pal Sindie I could cut out these flowers and applique them onto other fabric....there are hundreds of super cool fabrics out there to play with and then make gorgeous quilted bags! Now when I say quilted I don't mean patchwork but ordinary fabric quilted with loads of fab designs then embellished with flowers appliqued on and beads and stuff and pretty handles. There is much that can be done here!

I have ordered some books from Amazon to get some inspirational patterns and ideas and shall do my best to create something so amazing that I will become rich and famous and everyone will want a Bry Bag! They will be the very latest thing to have....if I do get my Chi I shall create her a very special bag of her own with her name embroidered on it and stuff! Perhaps then I could move into designer doggie bags...everyone will want one!

Anyhoodle that is my latest plan, but having no sewing machine (I can thank the children for that) I shall have to handsew and hand quilt all of it so it may be a very long time before my fame will come to fruition!

Still watch this space and I will show you what I manage to create!

Pooch!

2007-09-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Wot a very pleasant weekend I have just had...twas most refreshing and relaxing and I had lots of arty ideas that I now need to put into physical form! True I have felt decidedly under par but I feel much better this evening and shall put on my smiley face and go to work on the morrow!

I had a phone call this evening from a lady in Ely whom I called yesterday to answer an ad she had put on the net for a Chihuahua. The dog in question is a smooth haired Chi going by the name of Bi Bi, she is 8 years old and if I like her then she will set me back about £250!!!! I am going to make arrangements to pop over and see her on my next day off. I am stupidly excited about it and want to go tomorrow but I cannot afford to take another day off without running the risk of losing my job!!! LOL Don't get me wrong I have no problems with losing this particular job but I do need the money until I know my start date with the Police.

We had a lovely visitation from my bestest pal Sindie and her utterly adorable hubby. It seems like forever since we last saw them but they were in the area on a bit of a camping trip in their lovely campervan and popped in for some chat, tea and crafty brainstorming. I love to see them and often wished we lived closer as we could do the girly chit chat more often but I have to make the most of the time we spend together.

I am now going watch Lord of the Rings: Return of the King before bed.

Toodle-oo

Throwing a Sickie!

2007-09-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

Oh shame on me!!! I have been a baaaaad girly!!! I threw a sickie today! Gosh I hope nobody I know at work reads this and puts two and two together!!!

I have been feeling a little under the weather of late, overly tired and kind of virusy. I got up as usual to go to work and on leaving the house just stood in the back garden....then I turned round and walked back in the house! Do not ask me why I just couldn't face it today! Instead I decided to take young Andy to Cadwell Park to watch the club bike racing. I think it is safe to say that I spent a much more relaxing day sitting in the sunshine watching the bikes go round than I would have if I had stayed at home, and a much much much better day than if I had gone to work!!!!

I should explain why I decided to go to Cadwell Park (which is between Horncastle and Louth in good old Lincolnshire). My darling hubby has decided to become a marshall at these bikey events and if I am ever going to see him then I must follow! No way would I marshall, far too much standing about and even some running if today was anything to go by....I do not run. You see I am one of these lovely wifey type people who wants nothing but my hubbies happiness and it makes him very happy to stand at his marshall post with the other orange clad fellows, watch the bikes and pick em up when they fall over! At this point I would love to show you some piccies of the runners and riders, the fallers and the citrussy heroes but being an airhead I took my spanky digital camera but not the all important memory card!!!!

Cadwell Park is in the Lincolnshire Wolds about 40 miles from home and in a lovely hilly and rather pretty part of the countryside. It is a lovely drive up there and I suspect an even better bike ride as the roads are lovely and twisty turny interspersed with some long long straight bits. Sadly this over inspires some bikers to go very fast and we have had quite a few fatal accidents this year. The track is set in a sort of natural dip so there are lots of up hill and down dale bits to the circuit with the world famous 'Mountain' where bikes either take off or spend a good half mile wheelying due to the excess welly being given by the riders! Most amusing to watch specially when the rider has problems getting the old front wheel back on the tarmac again! Today we watched club racing which is just as good as Motor GP or Superbike racing and more amusing. You get all sorts racing, even some girlies (GO Girlies!) - there are young people, old people, thin people and 'he ate all the pies' fat people all with one thing in common, a passion for biking and to be honest if you want to ride your bike like a banshee this is definitely the place to do it!!!!

So a good day was had by all, I was beginning to feel ill again come three in the afternoon so Andy and I went home and I promptly fell asleep again as soon as I got home and sat on the sofa!

On another note I placed an ad in the local free ads online last week for a little doggie companion, preferably a Chihuahua (naturally) and have already had two calls but neither of which were for Chi's, one was a westie and the other was a Chinese Crested neither of which I particularly want so I have left them. I phoned a lady tonight who has a female Chi after a new home but she has my malady and is unwell right now so I will call in the morning. Will let you know how that goes.

Time for me to go, will blog again another day!

Oh Happy Day!

2007-09-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well well well!!!! I got a phone call last night (Thursday) from one of the lovely ladies who interviewed me for the police job.... and guess what? No, cant guess? I GOT THE JOB!!!!!! All those positive vibes must have worked!!!! I have been offered 30 hours a week, it is my first choice of the three jobs that were available but it is less hours than I am working now and it is more money and I really want to do the job!!! I am ridiculously pleased with myself and am really looking forward to it!!!! I wont start for a fair while cos they have to do my CRB checks and stuff to make sure I am honest and trustworthy, which of course I am!!! I even get to wear a uniform so no more worrying about what I wear to work anymore!!! Happy Me!!!

Everything else in my lovely life is much as usual but it is nice to see that the kids seem fairly settled, Dave is enjoying his new life on the road driving his big ole truck all I need to complete this picture of family bliss is my little Chihuahua!

Work got a whole lot easier today knowing that I wont have to put up with Devil Boss for too long now and I shall so enjoy telling her where to put her bookshop! The sad thing is all the other people that work there are so lovely and it is such a shame that one single person can make it horrid! I have come to the conclusion that there has to be one irritation in every job on this planet. I don't know why - it is like the cosmic forces that run our lives feel the need to try us at every turn and show us that the perfect job is probably not!!!!

The weather here in lovely Lincolnshire is really good right now and I am really enjoying my daily run to and from work on my little pink scooter. There is nothing quite like it you know, poodling along at 30mph, cool breezes blowing in my helmet and my iPod playing in my ears! You see there is a plus side to everything in this life...crappy day at work, lovely trip to and from!

Right I am going to eat my tea now...an experimental meal of spicy casseroled lamb fillet with jacket spuds and yummy green babyleaf salad...mmmmmmmmmmmmm yummy scrummy in my tummy....burp!

Auditions and Interviews

2007-09-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

Nat passed his audition and is now officially back at college and officially sponging off us for another three years!!! Oh happy days. He is very pleased and enthusiastic and already has rehearsals booked for his first gig which will be in December. I shall attend this gig with a smashing T-shirt which will read 'I am Nathans Mummy....he is the bass player' or something equally embarrassing!!!

I had my police interview yesterday for the role of Enquiry Officer...I do not have a clue how I did, I want the job tho so am in no doubt that I wont get it!!! I am feeling a little unlucky right now...I mean lets face it I thought working in a book shop would be magical and fab and fun and it is so not any of the above!!!!

I should hear about the job next week...if praying works then please do some of that for me, if your thing is to meditate and send positive thoughts my way then do that too please, if you have some other way of making stuff happen, do that too cos this is the first job I really fancy from the many thousands I have applied for in the last few months.

As an aside...and totally off subject...I downloaded the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday and it is FAB!!!! I think I am a closet cello player and would love to learn to play the cello (not something that is overly called for round here) and there are some fantastic cello bits in the music, bril!!!! I had it turned up full blast in the car yesterday as I sat in confusticating traffic, totally lost in the middle of Grantham and it really gave me goosebumps! So if you like a touch of classical with a twist of modern then you must get it it is fantastical!

I am off to bed now cos I am absolutely shattered...my darling hubby woke me up at 5.30 this morning cos he wanted a brew on his way through the village. He was in Scotland yesterday and had to be in Spalding for 6.30 this morning, so he thought he would pop in for a cuppa...bless him!

Nite nite, sleep tight, make sure the bed bugs don't bite!

Children and school

2007-09-02T02:57:00.001-07:00

Well that time is nearly upon us....the new term looms large....oh happy days!

As you know I took Nat to college on Wednesday night (I think it was Wednesday...I have trouble remembering the days of the week) to enrol in a new course to spur him onto work and greatness.

We enrolled him in the IT course as this made muchos sense, everyone wants people who can do IT these days and they seem to get well paid for it too and seeing as Nat spends most of his day on his computer and has learnt to speak the language rather well we thought he would be ideally suited to this course. They informed us after he had filled in the reams of paperwork, that they were a smidge oversubscribed on this particular course but would call him on Friday to let him know if he was successful. They also suggested he looked around the other courses on offer for a fall back just in case he didn't get in. So we plodded off to look at the other courses on offer...nail painting and make up courses didn't inspire him and we were about to leave when he noticed that there was a Music course. He shot off at the speed of light to the tutor (who looked rather bored) and was immediately enthused by the content of this course! I groaned inwardly...Nat is a rather talented Bass guitar player...he is totally self taught which for a boy who spends most of his time asleep is quite amazing...he has never shown enthusiasm for anything apart from church and his music and the fact that he has taught himself to play has rather impressed us all! The upshot of this is that he has an audition on Monday morning and if he passes that then he gets to spend at least the next year learning about the music business and gigging...now why couldn't I find a course like that when I was doing further education!!!!???? He has been practicing like mad since Weds and fingers crossed he passes the audition. He did receive a telephone call saying that he had got on the IT course but I feel that hell may well need to freeze over before he takes them up on that offer!

I will of course let you know if he is successful and of course one hopes that he becomes rich and famous and then we can live off him for a change!!!

Worky stuff!

2007-09-02T02:43:00.000-07:00

Well....what a week! Busy busy!

I was just beginning to enjoy my new job...until yesterday. I am confident that my boss is very unlikely to ever read this blog so I am going to say it how it is!

Yesterday I did my first display! Yay me! I got to display this special edition of Penguin books and I made it look really smashing...until that is my boss came in from a day of bookbinding. I don't quite know what flew up her arse but it must have bitten hard cos she was in a really crappy mood and declared my smashing display crap! That wasn't the worse of it tho...oh no...worse was indeed to come. One of the girls had been tasked to make a display of the TV tie ins, you know cookery books and the like which tie in with current TV shows. She asked me to do design the sign to sit on the top shelf. So I spent the afternoon hand drawing and cutting out smashing autumnal leaves to collage onto a lovely rustic sign I had created saying 'Autumn Highlights' , twas truly artistic and very eye catching! I had run my idea past both managers who were more than happy with it and said it was jolly arty! I had nearly finished it when 'bitch boss' from hell came in and promptly binned the lot!!!! I could have cried! I have struggled all week with my bad hand and you have no idea how much that hurt cutting out all those leaves, but did she care....she did not!!! I said nothing as she was well into rant mode and was shouting the odds about everything and so I kept my head down, cashed up the tills and left as soon as I had finished! T'would seem that I have just swapped one crappy boss for another! Thank the good Lord that I have an interview tomorrow as I have a feeling that this 'perfect' job will not work out!!!!

On a happier note, I got home from work with a small frown on my face to find that my delightful hubby had bought me a Nintendo Wii!!! I have been a hankering after one of these since they were released and oh me, oh my they are most cool! We spent last night bowling and playing tennis! You actually do the motions for bowling and find yourself running around the living room to play the tennis!!!! It is so good, best type of computer game in the world!!!! And we all played...we had little inter family tournaments!!! Such fun!

Well that is all from my delightfully fun life for now...we are having a day at home today... I have to try and make my house resemble a house again and not a landfill then as a reward I get to do some sewing!

Wish me luck for my interview tomorrow!

Damage!

2007-08-29T01:31:00.000-07:00

Do not damage your right hand (if you are right handed)...it is amazing what you can't do!! I woke up this morning and briefly on waking had forgotten that I had hurt my hand and reached out for my watch....searing pain reminded me of last nights little mishap!!!

I have so far discovered I can't light a ciggie with my right hand, I can't hold a mug (a large tea stain is now in evidence on the carpet) and I can't wipe my bum! I had planned on going to Boston with Nat today but driving is not really an option so he called the college and we can go and enrol tomorrow night so that is ok, I may attempt to go to Spalding with Andy later to get his school stuff.

I am now going to attempt to iron my clothes and actually get dressed....should be worth a giggle!

Later dudes!

Ouchkabibble!!!!

2007-08-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

Oh me oh my! What an evening I have just had! Firstly we had a lovely visit from my pal Fi, who I haven't seen for ages and ages so it was lovely to catch up...it all went downhill when she left.

I was messing about with the kids (as you do) and Nat and I were play slapping when suddenly and I have to say painfully my little finger decided to do a back flip!!! It was tear inducing painful!!!!! My hand has swollen up and I now cannot move my little finger...a swift and fun drive to the A&E ensued with Rachel offering to steer....not advisable...it is a damn good job that I have an automatic vehicle and power steering or we would now be careering across the good old Lincolnshire countryside, out of control and screaming!!! However thanks to my amazing driving skills we got to the hospital in one piece and I saw a very nice foreign doctor who sent me for x-ray and I have not broken my hand (bloody well feels like it) but damaged the tendons all the way up to and including my wrist!! Oh happy days...even better it is my right hand!!! Fortunately it is my day off tomorrow so I can rest it!

It is now 1.20am and I am completely shattered and am going to bed with a nice hot cuppa which my lovely daughter is making me!

Toodle pip!

Oh My!!!

2007-08-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

A last little tidbit of information on Chihuahua's and transportation....I did a quick search on Ebay and came up with 42 pages of Dog Carrying equipment a small samplet of this quirky and frankly bizarre selection is below:This Ferrari of pet transportation is for those of us who feel our pets need to travel in style, despite having four legs....but.. how ultra cool is this? Not quite as cool as this below:

My personal favourite, the baby pouch for Chihuahua's...I just got to get me one of these!!!

For all of us girls who just have to have pink and fluffy!!

And let us not forget the cat owners...they too must have comfort AND style!

These are all available on Ebay, truly.....pages and pages of the fantastic, odd, designer and plain old cool accessories for the pampered pooch (and moggie).

Last but not least...for those truly sad who have forgotten that this is a dog we are talking about here and not a baby.... the stroller!!This really honestly is designed for pooches not people..whatever next?!!!
Check them out for yourselves: http://search.ebay.com/dog-carrier_W0QQfrtsZ200

Paris who?

2007-08-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Right now folks, earlier I posted a wee blog about my desire to own a Chihuahua...this seems to have caused some amusement amongst those who know me, for why I have no idea!!! Anyhoo it has been bandied about that I am getting ideas that I am Paris Hilton....is this a hotel? I have no idea who this person may or may not be but I am getting images of blonde bimbo with more money than sense and no doubt a designer Chihuahua in a designer bag slung over an overly pampered designer shoulder! Am I right?

Ok I want a Chihuahua for a number of reasons and these are as follows:

1. Could anyone with a heart say that this is not cute?

2. Who doesn't want a dog that fits in a tea cup?????

3. When Dave is away on his long week away I can take my little baby up to bed with me, he can snore away at the end of the bed, or on Dave's pillow!

4. It will fit in a bag, doesn't have to be designer, a nice little eco friendly paper bag like you get at the indian takeaway would be cool!!!

5. Did I mention....cute?!!

6. I can train it to do stuff....like sit and lie down and fetch; then I can throw unfeasibly large sticks for it to bring back!!!

7. I could also teach it agility!!! How fun!

8. I would love it and feed it and cuddle it and love it some more!

9. Did I mention the whole tea cup thing?

(mind you, you may want to give it a rince before you make a cuppa in it)

10. I am such a lovely warm and kind lady that everyone should want to be giving me one of these gorgeous wee cuties!!! I deserve it you know!

My mother, cruel and nasty woman that she is, refuses point blank to buy me one or even donate to the Chihuahua fund, which is now open by the way!!! My long term happiness is but nothing to her...heartless I say, heartless! Now it would seem even my friends are determined that I should suffer the igmony of never owning my dream pet!!!

Sigh.....! I will have to take to selling body parts now in order to raise some money...I hope you all realise the sacrifices I am prepared to make!!

Of Dogs and Jobs

2007-08-27T03:05:00.001-07:00

Well hellody do...I have not blogged in forever, or that is how it seems...I have been a little pre-occupied of late and believe it or not working!!! To be frank I have been so tired at the end of the day I have not even been turning the old computer on let alone finding the energy to blog!

Anyhoo, so what has been happening...well...as you know I applied for a gazillion jobs mostly within the NHS and by happy chance got shortlisted for interview for all of them! After an exhausting round of interviews I was actually offered each and every job!!! Suffering as I do from a lamentable lack of decision making ability I had a very hard time choosing which of the jobs, if any, I wanted but finally settled for the nice little part time clerk typist job at the local Mental Health centre in Spalding. But, to be honest I just didn't feel comfortable with this and although I had decided to take it I still had one eye on the possibility of something a little more...um...different!

As it happened that something different turned up in the form of a job at the local bookstore. My favourite shop by far in Spalding is a lovely Aladdin's cave of books which I frequent regularly to feed my bookish obsession. I popped in there with Dave just by chance as we walked by whilst looking for employment agencies. I originally wanted to know if they had any part time jobs but they happened to mention that there was a full time job available working on the front desk and would I be interested in that? I bit their hands off and went along for a trial day on Monday last week and was offered the job on the spot! I started on the Wednesday and well I rather liked it!

Being on my feet all day has been troublesome though as I have a rather poorly foot right now and it has been a tad painful, however, overall I have quite enjoyed it so far...BUT... and here is the thing...I feel a little like a square peg in a round hole...I don't feel like I quite fit! It is rather boring for one thing and although the people are lovely and the work is ok (really knackering...who would have thought?), something has just not jelled!

I got home from work on Friday and there was a letter waiting for me from Lincs Police. My first thought was 'Oh God what did I do?' but I have been offered an interview for the role of Mobile Town Enquiry Officer, it is based at Spalding but it is one of those jobs where you get to go where you are needed within the South Lincs area. I had clean forgotten that I had applied for it but having given it a lot of thought, re-read the job spec I am going to go for it, I think it will more encompass my huge talents and it is not minimum wage (the book shop pay is dreadful) so I am going to go for it!!!!!

You know one of these days I will settle down and decide what I actually want to do with my life, hopefully before I die!!! It will be just my luck you know...there I will be lying on my death bed when suddenly I will realise the job/career that I should have done all my life!!!

It has been a time of change all round here, David has changed jobs and gone back on the road in his big old truck. He was not settled to driving recovery and to be honest the hours sucked big time! He seems quite happy right now, the biggest downside though is the fact that it will take him away from us all week. But I think whatever will make him happy is good with me.

Now onto other matters...Rachel (she is the middle child) received her GCSE results this last week...we were very nervous for her but she did really really well....I was extremely happy for her. She got 6 c's and a B. Not bad for a girl on special needs in Junior School eh?

Now...see this super cute little fella? This is a Chihuahua puppy, his name is Chuck...and I want him!!!! I always thought I would go for something in the Dachshund line for my next doggie but I have totally and utterly fallen in love with this teeny weeny breed!

I mean who could resist this?

Or this?

Or this? I mean really.....how utterly adorable are they? The downside to this little plan is that they are mega expensive so I am setting up a Bry's Chihuahua fund and I reckon if I save like mad I will be able to afford one sometime around 2050...I suspect however that around that time I will be fertiliser so any generous souls out there could make me a very very happy lady and donate the £800 required at any time starting from now! Christmas is coming you know!!!!

Decorating and Teeth!

2007-08-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

Well good day...and it has been a good day! I finally got around to re-decorating my scuzzy dining area! It was one of those rooms that we rarely use and had been decorated...badly...years ago and was looking really really grotty. I had started to strip off the wall paper and it wouldn't come off and oh deary me it was a mess. I had to get a little creative with the redecorating side as without taking out all the panels that are the walls and replacing them and then getting the whole thing re plastered (I don't have the money for that!) it was going to be very difficult to get a nice even finish.

Rach and I spent yesterday stripping off what we could of the remaining wall paper without damaging the plaster board underneath, we then made a collage of wall paper on two walls, I bought a couple of rolls of that stuff you can paint over and we ripped it all up and randomly stuck it to the walls. This hid most of the bad joins and paper we couldn't get off. This morning we went to Focus and got some thick gloopy ceiling paint and some dark teal colour pots, mixed it all together and painted the two end walls. Dave replaced the light and (we repainted the ceiling yesterday) and Rachel painted the two collaged walls. We then moved my ancient old welsh dresser out of the front room and gave it a damn good polish, put my best china on it and presto a new dining room. Ok so it is not house and gardens and I am sure Sindie will be mortified at how badly we did it, BUT it is way better than it was before and I am quite happy to use it again which is a bonus!

Here are some piccies of now...didn't think to take some before piccies, but trust me it was terrible!

Now to teeth! Some time ago I mentioned that I collected phobias...one of my favourite phobias is a fear of the dentist. This has been entirely handleable due to the fact that I live in one of the areas of the country which has virtually no NHS dentists and I cannot afford the private one at all! Anyhoo, I have been blissfully trogging along enjoying good dental health until that is this morning! There I was happily brushing my teeth as I do twice daily when I suddenly felt the absence of tooth at the back of my mouth coupled with a large chunk of crunchiness whizzing around my gums...I broke a tooth!!! The big molar right at the back has decided to disintegrate and now horror of horrors I have to find a bloody dentist and actually go!!!! Dave has managed to get on with an NHS dentist so I will have to go there and see if they can fit me in and take the bloody thing out! YUK. I get so scared I am actually paralysed by my fear you know, I know the logical answer that there is nothing to fear and dentistry today is relatively painless but nevertheless I am terrified! But this time I am definitely going to go!

Right I am shattered, my back hurts and I am now going to go watch me some crap Star Trek movie and eat chicken curry with my kids!

Going, going....

2007-08-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

Tis a sad sad day today....I am listing the last of my bearies on Ebay, well the ones I can just about bear to part with :0(

With our current situation (ie me with NO money) I have been flogging all my surplus stuff and have been putting off selling my favourite bearies but there is no point keeping them now. I have kept my very favourite ones, mostly gorgeous wee things that Sindie has made me or I have managed to steal from her over the years and of course the ones that Dave has got for me.

If you want to see them they are at: http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZbry011

'We're all going on a Summer Holiday......part II'

2007-08-09T15:16:00.001-07:00

The Sewn Wonder of Brys World

2007-08-09T12:14:00.001-07:00

My pal Sindie asked me for some close ups of my most wonderful little piece of sewing wonderment, so here are some close up piccies just for her!

'We're all going on a Summer Holiday......'

2007-08-09T01:56:00.000-07:00

You know the tune!!! Sing along now!!!

Well it wasn't exactly a summer holiday, just a couple of days camping on the north Norfolk coast but oooooo twas lovely.

We decided to go for a bike trip somewhere local cos my bike is slow slow slow, Dave likened it to a glacier in its acceleration when he had a go on it...he just didn't believe me when I said it would not go any faster than it already was!

Anyhow we ended up in Hunstanton which is quite a nice beach resort on the North Norfolk Coast...it has a lovely beach and the tide goes out for miles and there is loads of safe shallow water to play in.

We stayed just long enough for a quick drinkie then set off again to find a campsite. We found one almost immediately which was good for me cos my bum was getting sore!!! We ended up at Holme next the Sea a teeny village just outside Old Hunstanton going towards Cromer. Lovely! It was just a field with lamentable facilities but for £6 a night what do you want!? We got peace and quiet cos it was an adult only site which was very acceptable!

We set up the new tent, a rather nifty freebie which I got from the points I collected by using and abusing my credit card for the last year, and for a freebie it is rather good! One of the worst things about a two/three man tent is that they often have no inner tent. This means you are literally just sleeping under the canvas outer and overnight it fills up with condensation and you wake up wet!!! No joke, we have a two man tent which Andy and I used last year and it was horrible!!! We were extremely pleased to discover that our new tent had a nice cosy inner tent so no soggy awakenings for us!!!

We spent the time just relaxing and doing very little! I found my bike extremely uncomfortable to ride, it has the most rigid suspension you can imagine and after a while most of my lower body hurt BAD! We found a nice pub to nosh at on the Tuesday evening and we were in bed by 10pm!!!

Wednesday was another lovely sunny day and rather than come home we decided to check out Sandringham. I paid the £18 to get in...wot a rip off...if you think about it, the Royal Family have more money than you can shake the average stick at and they charge us to have a look at what they have! mmmmmmm still we paid and had a wander round the grounds...the house is ok, a bit ostentatious for my liking and oh my aren't folks impressed by royalty? As the house is used by the royal family we were not allowed to see that much of it, mainly cos when the family are there all the exhibits we saw had to be taken down and put away and it was turned back into a 'home' if you can call it a home. My first thought was how expensive it must be to heat!!! We got chatting to one of the tour guides and he told us that last week Camilla and Charles came to stay for 2 days, it took them 3 days to put the house right before they got there and another three days to put it back so us surfs could look around again. Does that not seem a bit ridiculous!? One woman was explaining to a tourist that the Queen uses all the rooms when she is there and this lady was so impressed that she was looking at the chair the Queen sits on I thought she might wet herself!

Anyway, we finished wandering around the house and ended up in a large room with paintings being displayed. They were some oils which Prince Phillip had done which quite frankly were pants! and some really nice watercolours that Prince Charles had done. Charles is certainly the one who has some artistic talent...it was funny to listen to people proclaiming how fab the Phillip oils were...sorry but they were very very bad!!!!

We then went to visit the museum and the Stable Tea Rooms for some light but expensive refreshment and then got to look at the many royal cars which was a tad dull for me! The very worst bit of the whole thing was we ended up in a room which was stuffed full of dead animal heads, a large tiger skin and a table created from not one but six Rhino's!!! I was horrified that in this day and age they Royal Family thought it acceptable to show off this truly horrible side of their past!!!! It was like a shop of horrors! I walked straight through this room and ended up in another room which was worse still...the dead animals had been stuffed and arranged in a jungle type setting with piped in animal noises..there were rhinos, deer, a red bear, a lion and lioness, leopards...well if it is close to extinction it was in there! YUK

We left there and sauntered home, all in all a very nice trip...we did this trip on the bikes to see if we could take enough for a few days camping on the bikes and we could but we needed chairs and airbeds cos a sleeping roll might be ok for teenagers but at our age we found it hard to move in the morning having pretty much slept on the hard ground!!!!

Hope you enjoy the piccies!

Phew...Wot a Scorcher!

2007-08-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

To quote my favourite film....Wizard of Oz...'I'm melting, I'm melting!'

Tooooo hot, too hot too hot!!!! I am so hot that I am mostly rather grumpy!! So I have stayed in the cool of my sitting room and watched the heat haze over the garden!!!

I have been busy doing some fun stuff with sewing...I found this fab book on embroidered flowers, sadly it was aimed at those who are lucky enough to possess a sewing machine (mine is broken and now living in the tip) so I had to adapt a bit and do it by hand. As a first foray into this type of embroidery I am quite pleased with the results...what do you think?

and a close up

I really enjoyed doing this and would like to do some more but would like to have a go at something much bigger this is quite tiddly!

While I was taking the piccie of this I found some watercolours that I had done a few years ago that were lurking in a cupboard and thought I would share them too.

These piccies are all out of my head and have no particular place in mind or in the case of the framed one, no particular idea other than I like to mess about with paint!

I don't know what to do with all this arty stuff, any suggestions? No rude ones tho please!

Well it is too hot to sit here and type, I am getting all melty and horrid, you know my knees sweat when I get hot? That is really not nice!

Curious Weather Phenomenon Spotted in Lincolnshire

2007-08-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.aphoenix.ca/category/photography/sunrise-sunset/

A curious object has appeared in the sky over Lincolnshire...reports are sketchy at the moment but it is widely believed that this object is called the sun! Scientists are perplexed as to how it came to be there but are enjoying the warmth it is creating and are having trouble suppressing the desire to eat ice lollies. Farmers are making the most of this uncanny turn of events and have all rushed out in force to bring in the harvest, this is causing some minor blockages on the roads and an upsurge in queues in the regions chemists as people with streaming noses and red runny eyes are desperately buying the ever dwindling supplies of antihistamines!

This warm spell of weather, which has been cleverly dubbed 'summer', has also brought out a strange group of citizens who have turned a rather odd shade of pink. These strange humans can be seen late in the afternoon around seaside resorts gingerly making their way to their vehicles making strange 'ooohing' and 'ouch' noises with each step, and generally are laden down with bags, beach umbrellas, buckets & spades and cross tired looking children. It would seem a nasty side affect of this malaise is deafness as many can be heard shouting at the children with each painful step taken! Very odd indeed!!!

Do not despair though, wet weather is predicted for next week so normal service will resume shortly!

This news bulletin has been brought to you by Bry's Waffle & Blurb - bringing you the news as it happens!

Today I mainly:

Ate peanut M&M's

Listed some old clothes and stuff on Ebay

Smoked

Drank tea

Did lots of washing

Weeded the jungle out the back of my house in the hope of finding a garden!

Drank more tea

Watched Friends and Ice Age

Smoked a bit more

Looked at amusing videos on You Tube

Had some yummy toast with lemon marmalade

Drank yet more tea

Sent some email

Sang along to JT on my ipod - loudly and most tunefully!

Happy Days!

Confustication

2007-08-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

Coooeeee...you know it is very therapeutic to write in this every day, kinda like getting all those irritating little gremlins that get up your nose during the day, out and stamped on!!!

Nothing much has irritated me today, which may come as a surprise to Sindie!!! Apart of course from drivers, I am by no means a perfect driver myself and being a woman is often enough for most men to stop reading as they believe that all women are bad drivers! From what I saw today I can honestly say that women are not that bad, most men are terrible and soooooo ignorant it is unreal.

I had to circumnavigate the delights of Boston to get to my interview at 1.30pm at the Hospital which happily is to be found on the far side of Boston and I therefore have to embark on the truly awe inspiring trip round the by-pass!!!! This is a two lane stretch of the A16 which goes around the centre of town with various sets of lights for vehicles to scoot off to the various wonders that Boston has to offer. I sat at the first set of lights and a large lorry of the articulated variety slowly pulls up along side me, I have a small non-descript modern four wheeled vehicle on my inside, the lights turn green, the small modern non-descript four wheeled vehicle which is, by the way in the left had lane to turn LEFT scoots up the inside of me to go straight on and forces me to move over just a nip and into the path of said articulated vehicle!!!! The gender of the person driving small non-descript piece of crap is MALE and in his late 30's with wifey (or maybe lover who knows), I politely pip my horn to let him know that the bloody great Toyota people carrier he has just cut up is about to be squished by said lorry who has braked sharply and is sending me delightful hand gestures out of his window! The gender of the person driving the articulated lorry is of course MALE! I squeak my apologies at him and get in behind the small non-descript four wheel vehicle who rather annoyingly is going slower than your average iceberg!!! I cannot overtake him as my lorry driver is keeping pace with me and gesticulating wildly through his front windscreen! I am beginning to wonder if I have inadvertently hit something and may by some horrible chance have a piece of vehicle or worse still person/dog hanging off my car somewhere! This is of course not the case, it just that Mr Lorry driver is a very angry man! Fortunately all went well from that point on, Mr Lorry turned off to the docks and stupid blokey in the small crappy car turned off at the next set of lights and I drove on to the hospital. I did however note that many people are clearly colour blind and do not recognise a red light, many many young people are clearly very deaf as they seem to have to have their music up so loud you can hear it in Yorkshire and old people should just not be allowed behind the wheel of an automobile!!! This was born out when I got to the hospital to park...I rather neatly reverse parked my large car into a space and as I was a tad early decided to have a ciggie before I went for my interview. As I sat there a little old lady pulled up in front of me in a little Citroen and proceeded to reverse park into the space opposite me...to be frank I had a hard time not peeing myself from laughing!!! She moved forward precisely 1", then without turning the wheel at all, she moved back 1", this she did about 10 times and go no closer to the space...she then sat there for a moment or two and did the same thing again only this time she did turn the wheel, she slowly crept into the space...sideways! She then got out of the car looked at it, and then locked it and shuffled away. I kid you not when I say she must have been at least 180 years old and barely able to walk! She had two sticks too!

My interview was fun! I actually laughed a lot and enjoyed the lovely little tests which were laid out for me! First we (the two people interviewing me and myself) had a little chat about the job (which is quite interesting) and then I had to do my tests. I had a spelling test (oh yes a spelling test) where I discovered I cannot spell vomiting (well I can now but couldn't at the time) and then a fun numbered card test where I had to sort out a load of laminated cards into numerical sequence and then an alphabetised set of name cards which I also had to sort into alphabetical order! After that I was escorted to a computer where I did the shortest typing test ever...it was one paragraph which contained lovely words like diarrhoea and the like!!!! Then I was shown out! What a larf! I don't yet know if I was successful but I rather fancy this job, one of the first I have actually fancied apart from the fabled part time job in Spalding which I was co-incidentally offered today! I am now torn, which one do I want to do? I think I want the one at the hospital but don't really know! I will now wait until I hear from them and then make my decision. To be honest I would like to do both but that isn't possible. My biggest problem is a total inability to make decisions, this is rather problematical as I never thought for an instant I would be successful at all these interviews...just goes to show how bloody fantastic I am doesn't it?

I will of course let all and sundry know what I decide, if and when I can manage to make a decision!

Work and kids

2007-08-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

What a combination! Well now work, that is something I am finding hard to find but on the up side I have been offered a job, I may have already mentioned this in a previous post, I don't remember! Anyhoo I was offered a clerical role at the Substance Misuse centre in Boston...problem is I don't really want it! I applied randomly for a lot of jobs on the NHS website and curiously got interviews for most of them! Anyhow this one is full time and I believe myself to be far to idle now to work full time and the office is less than nice! Anyhooodle I went for two interviews today, one was a total waste of time and effort, it was advertised as 25 hours a week working as a ward clerk inthe local 'cottage' hospital. Nice little number I thought but it turned out to be just 12.5 hours a week as it was a job share! Eeeek! Dont want that one! Then I went for an interview for a clerk at the local Mental health unit in town and I think I may have that one...it is 18 hours a week which works out great cos I can spend a little more time at home being creative and maybe getting famous with my artistic wonderfulness! I have one more interview on the cards right now and that is at A&E in Boston for a full time reception role. I think it might be quite interesting so am going to jog along for the interview tomorrow and see how it goes.

My ideal job would be one where I could get paid to write nonsense and paint my fabulous works of art and sew and stuff, however I think I have to be good at least one of these things for that to work out!

KIDS

Tell me something, I am curious to know, why do we have children? I believe that my body conspired against me and made me think that I wanted nothing more in this life than to be a mother, and for a while I fell for it, in fact I fell for it until I got pregnant then clarity set in and I thought...'bugger'!!!! I had my first child in February 1990 and I was very happy to have my lovely baby boy and with the memory of childbirth still frightningly fresh in my mind I decided to leave it at that. You can imagine my delight when a year later I was expecting child number two!!! This time I produced a beeeeautiful baby girl in 1991 and happily thought 'enough already'!!!! I briefly considered filling that extra space in the middle of the back seat of the car with another car seat and occupant but quickly woke up and decided that this was not a good move, sadly it was not quick enough and baby number three arrived in 1993! The urge to have children left me the moment he was born and as soon as was physically possible I propelled my darling hubby into the nearest clinic and had him neutered!!!!! Enough is enough!!! Anyhow, I survived (and I do mean survived...if you are non maternal in nature and are faced with not one but three children all under the age of four the best you can hope for is survival) and now my delightful trio are 17, 16 and 14. They are fab, I think they are great, we are best of friends and they drain my pockets at every available opportunity wanting things like clothes and food...I mean how selfish can they be! They eat more than a plague of locusts, never wash, clean their rooms or change their clothes, they smell, fart, burp and eat the most horrendous food (super noodles....plastic food) and contribute little or nothing to the general happy atmosphere of the house, so I ask again....why do we have kids! I cannot answer this question, I worry constantly about what they are going to do with their lives, my oldest lacks direction, motivation and even basic cleanliness; he is out of work again and does he care....no he does not! My daughter is slightly better she has managed to get herself a job and she has only just left school but at the moment she stays in bed till the middle of the afternoon and then glues herself to the sofa and doesnt move....at all! My youngest child is the most active and the maddest of the bunch and has a propensity to try and kill himself at every opportunity...just going out on his bike makes me worry to the point of my hair falling out! He has in his young life broken both his legs, had four major operations (he was run over!), fallen out of trees, off bikes, walls and other high objects, had a stone embedded in his forehead and when he got chicken pox he was on great big chicken pox spot!!!! I am scared to let him out of my sight!!!! And do you know what? I adore them in the best way, I love them to death and could not ever imagine my life without them and believe it or not given my time again I would still have them...you know I think I need a higher dose of happy tablets!

A prime example of why I love them so much is evident in this picture.

I asked Nat (this is my 6'4" seventeen year old) to take some boxes down to the granary today and he could not resist getting into one before he went! He ended up on the floor after the dog got totally spooked by a box with legs and a deep voice and went mental at him and he hit the wall and collapsed in a heap on the floor!

Sigh....the joys of motherhood!

Fruit Gums and Motorbikes

2007-07-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

Why aren't fruit gums hard any more? I bought myself a bag of fruit gums to munch on when I was watching TV and they are all soft and squishy! I should complain! Nothing is ever as good as it was when we were kids is it? A pack of fruit gums would last me a decade cos I used to sit and suck them till they went all gooey and scrummy and now, well they are just a disappointment.

Speaking of disappointments...I decided to give my many bikes a run today...for the uninitiated in the life of Bry I have two rather different and certainly really cool motorised vehicles. One is a very cool pink scooter.

http://www.baotianscooters.co.uk/baotian-bt50qt-11.html.

And the other is an equally cool but totally different Aprillia

http://www.aprilia.com/modelli/road/modello.asp?id=111#

The two piccies above are the exact bikes that I have!!! Although my scooter does have a matching pink top box!

I love these two little bundles of fun but sadly they have been stuck in my garage for the last 6 weeks due to the wonderful weather! Anyhow the sun shone today so I decided to take out the little pink peril out for a spin. Sadly she refused to start Much cursing and kicking (of the kick start that is) later we (that is hubby) got her going and I shot off (max speed 30mph) for a ride round the countryside. It was great, I love riding my little scooter, despite much pointing and laughing from motorists (tho that isnt as bad as it was since I removed the bunny ears from my helmet) and I ended up at Morrisons to purchase a new toothbrush. On leaving Morrisons I went to hop on my trusty steed and she wouldnt start again! I kicked and kicked and kicked and cursed and kicked again but I am too feek and weeble and I could not get it started. I phoned home but no-one was answering...three kids and not one of them can answer a phone! Dave wasnt answering his mobile (he had been in the garage tinkering with his bike when I left) so I considered my options...1. push said bike home (8 miles) or 2. wait till I could get hold of Dave and get him to come out. My only concern was that he has been on call all day (he is, in fact a vehicle recovery chappie) and my guess was that he wasnt answering his phone cos he was out on a call! Anyhoooooo, I went back into Morrisons, had a pee and bought some ciggies (not at the same time) and went back out into the sunshine to consider again what to do! I tried Dave again and he answered. Fortuneately he was only a few miles away so he said he would come out to me! Ahhhhh the joys of having a big brave recovery type blokey! He turned up in his huuuuuge truck with the flashing lights going full on and I was muchos impressed and couldnt help thinking how good it must be if your car is in a ditch to see my hubby coming towards you!!!! Anyhow I digress, despite his best efforts he couldnt kick life into my baby and we then set about finding the battery. You would think that that would be easy wouldn't you, but NO it is not. First we hunted under the seat...nothing there....then we took off a little side panel bit....nothing there....then we looked under the bike.....nowt there either .....well there is stuff in all these places, like a REALLY small engine and stuff but no battery. The last bit unsearched was a small panel under the foot rest bit and lo and behold a very small and cute little battery lives there! Dave got out these HUGE jump leads and ....ta dah! she started! I was very relieved that my little bike was ok, I want to use her to get to work ...when I am working again that is! She is all tucked up back in the garage for the night with a charger on her battery to make sure that it is fully charged for my next trip out!

As for my Aprillia well that is a whole different potato! Here is the thing right, I love bikes, I would LOVE to go zooming about on a really cool Triumph...like this one

http://www.triumph.co.uk/uk/Triumph_Sixty8_Bonneville_Motorcycle_Accessories.aspx

Ahhhhh the Bonneville.......sigh and even better the 68!!! A really cool loved up Bonneville....sigh...to have one of these would be fab but to get one of these I would have to do the following: -

1. Take a motorcycle theory test ....easy peasy lemon squeezy and (£30)

2. Take a motorcycle Hazard Perception test....I just cannot do them! No point in asking I am shit shit shit at them!

3. Take some serious amount of lessons and then take the actual bike test! (£Lots)

then if I was to pass all these...(unlikely)... then I would have to have the money to buy a bonneville or similar, this is seriously unlikely to ever happen!

The other small point to add here is that I don't like to go very fast...I know, I can hear you all shouting abuse at me, what is the point of being a biker if you don't go fast, or at least the speed limit!!! The problem is I have an imagination...one thing you do not need is an imagination. You see there I am hurtling down the road on two wheels at a good 40mph (on the Aprillia) and I suddenly think 'if my chain broke right now and I fall off, it is REALLY going to hurt' and 'if I go too fast round that corner and low side under the wheels of that oncoming lorry, then that is going to more than hurt'...I can't help it, these delightful thoughts come unbidden into my head for no reason whatsoever other than I have the said imagination! It is rather unnerving and does nothing for my speeding abilities! So on top of the other problems of taking tests and such like I have the imagination to deal with and so I figured all round it was best to just have a couple of little 50cc bikes that just WON'T go that fast and my imagination doesnt have to trouble me too much. I love to ride both bikes the Aprillia is lots of fun and I can happily chuck that around the local roads without too much trouble from the brain giving me horrendous visions and the little scooter is lovely and sedate and just perfect for the odd shopping errand and getting to work. All this falls apart when it rains cos I hate to get wet and there is no fun in that! I don't have my own car anymore so these are my only form of transport...I don't count the people carrier cos I don't enjoy driving that much but it is handy for the winter and of course I have to use it to attend interviews, although who wouldn't hire me if I turned up on the Pink Peril!!!!!?????

Well that is my waffle about bikes over for a bit....I may take the Aprillia out for a ride tomorrow, depending on the weather and my dratted imagination.

It's a Mystery!

2007-07-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

Hey ho folkerinos, how are you all this lovely saturday??? My vigil the other night sadly netted no comprehensive spooky pics and I only managed to stay awake until about 1am!! Even tho I live in this house and do not fear anything at all from any paranormal entities I was quite scared sitting in the dark! You can totally get people being freaked out in strange houses which are purported to be haunted when it is dark!

It reminds me of a fantastic holiday I had a few years ago with my matey Sindie and her family. We rented a big old house in Devon for a week, it was an old outward bound place nestled at the foot of a valley, no near neighbours and completely surrounded by dark and foreboding trees! At one side of the house was a raging river which ran into the bigger and even more raging river at the foot of the valley. It was most picturesque and beautiful and the house was old and creepy looking!!!! It was three storeys high with some fab spooky attic rooms, I think it had 9 bedrooms in total a fab kitchen with a real life AGA and its very own family of meeces!

On the first night all the kids had decided the house was far too spooky to have seperate bedrooms so they got their stuff and mattresses from the other rooms and all congregated in the biggest of the attic bedrooms. Anyhoo at about 11pm we switched off all the lights and Sindie and I crept upstairs to have some spooky fun with the kids. It was sooooooooooo dark and pant wettingly scarey. The kids had scattered to the four corners of the house and Sindie and I were on all fours on the landing laughing hysterically, unable to move and it has to be said, terrified!!!! We all took it in turns to scare each other senseless for hours until all the scarey tricks had been played out and eventually we got bored! It was the most fun we had had in ages!

I would dearly love to take Sindie to a real haunted house for a night vigil and see if we could actually get through the night without being scared to death!!!

Ok so back to my spooky but not scarey house. My wand turned up back in the box! I give up trying to work out how! We had another disappearance which has been resolved in a totally unexplained manner. We lost the remote control for the TV, Andrew and I turned the living room upside down, took all the cushions off the chairs, looked under the chairs, searched in the fireplace....in short EVERYWHERE! No remote so we just ignored the fact that it was missing and put up with the tele being really loud! Anyhow, Dave gets up this morning shifts aside one of the cushions on the sofa and lo and behold there it was! It was NOT there yesterday!!!!!!!

Nat came back from his hols today, dumped his stuff and disappeared up to his room to play computer games with the guys! Ahhhhhhhh we did miss him so!

Have a fab weekend peeps!xx

Spooky Vigil!

2007-07-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

Tonight I am going to stay up and watch 2001: A Space Odessey (is that spelt right?) with my camera in the dark! I shall take piccies and see if I get any orbs! Bet I dont, but if something spooky should happen I will be on the spot and will get fab pics and prove that there is life after death! I will be rich and famous and won't want to know anyone in my previous life! That is this one not the one in which I was a Centurian's 'woman', or the one where I was Marie Antoinette! By the way the Centurian was Dave! Oh yes!!!

Watch this space.................

Google It!

2007-07-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

oooooo I got some good comments today, thanks guys. In answer to two questions...

1. What do I do with the finished fabnous of my sewing brilliances?

A. I have no idea whatsoever! I have framed one and it looks naff so that may not be the way to go...if I ever do find out what to do with them I will let you all know straight away.

2. Um....can't remember what the second question was! Um...er...I think it was something about my spooky house, but I could be wrong! Hang on I will think of it! Oh yes, Fiona asked me something...

A. I wrote it after you came over today. And if any of you read the question she posed and are wondering who the heck Glynn is...Glyn is Fi's boyfriend and our friend and he is going to be moving in to join our jolly group of loonies soon! Poor thing doesn't know what he is letting himself in for!!

GOOGLE

I did a google search tonight on my name and it came up with:

Goffs Ireland Thoroughbred Auction - I must be a fantastic prize winning mare!!! Oooer!

Suicide.org - I don't think I should comment on this

A charity balloon release - ???????

An iron - again ???????

And my fav

Brys Pirate Radio Station - so secret even I didnt know about it!!

Go on Google yourself it is a wheeze!!

By the way my wand disappeared again!

xxxxxxSleep tightxxxxxxxx

Odd and Spooky!

2007-07-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so far in my blogging I have not mentioned the slightly odd and spooky things that happen in my house. But right now it seems to be getting slightly out of control! Things have often disppeared and we have put it down to 'cupboard syndrome' or premature senility (one and the same really), but this last few days it has got really bad!

Firstly my wand disappeared...stop laughing! Ages ago the kids purchased me a replica of Hermione's wand which I keep in its lovely velvet lined box in my workroom. Anyhow the box was found open and the wand was gone. This is not that odd in itself as the kids do mess about with it, but on this occassion they denied all knowledge of it. A general search was launched which for the kids is usually standing on the spot and gazing into space for a few minutes before announcing that they can't find it! However Andy did have a jolly good hunt, looking down the cushions on the sofas in both rooms and even under the sofas for good measure. It remained missing. Until last night, there we were sitting watching TV when Rachel decided to hunt for an earing and low and behold there inbetween the cushions of the sofa in the back sitting room was the wand! It is now safely back in its box.

Then there was the necklace. I have this really unusual crocodile necklace. It is a plain silver chain with a jointed silver crocodile on it, odd I hear you say! I love it and wear it quite a bit but since I have not been working I have not been wearing much jewellry and as far as I was aware it was where I last put it, in my jewellry box. But, no! I went to put it on for my interview on Tuesday and it was gone! I hunted high and low but couldnt find it. Anyhow when I went to bed last night I leant over my bedside table to turn out the light and lo and behold there it was, in plain view right there on the table!!!! Now that was odd.

Often I hear odd noises in the house, footsteps outside the bedroom when all are asleep, I am quite nocturnal and am often awake in the wee small hours. I used to put it down to the fact that the house is old and it creaks and groans, specially when lorries thunder through the village in the dead of night. But these are most definate footsteps. Most recently I was in the kitchen at about 3am making a hot drink as yet again sleep was evading me when I heard the door to the stairs open and close and caught out of the corner of my eye a dark shadow moving behind me in the corrider leading to the downstairs bathroom. I assumed it was one of the kids going to the loo but naturally there was no-one there and on checking all the rest of the family were snoring contentedly in their beds.

My best mate Sindie is quite tuned into the odd and unusual and we had one episode where we had to close the curtains in the back sitting room cos she could see someone/something standing behind the tele reflected in the french window!!!

This morning we got up and the back door was open! We had all gone to bed at about 11 last night and we ALWAYS lock the stable doors at the back of the house and the inner glazed door in the kitchen. Dave was first up and said that the stable door was open and the back door was unlocked!!!! Being the last to bed we had both double checked that all the doors were locked and trust me when I say that there is no way the kids had been down and opened them! So as we havent been burgled, no-one else has a set of keys how did the doors open?

I am sure that the sceptics among you will say that there are perfectly rational and sensible explanations for all these odd happenings, but I think not! I have long believed that the house has its own resident spook, quite a quiet one but nevertheless a spook!

Oh I nearly forgot, the other day, Rachel and I were sitting in the back room watching Big Brother when we heard the back door open and close, she went in to the kitchen to see if it was her Dad but no-one was there! Not the first time that has happened AND last week my friend Fiona was here and we heard a man shout from the front room and the dog shot out of it like her arse was on fire but yep you guessed it no-one there, front door locked! Who shouted at the dog?

Come on then all you sceptics what is it all about?

Sweet Sixteen, Harry Potter and Sewing!

2007-07-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

Phew so much stuff!!!! Rachel was 16 yesterday! I cannot believe that my teeny weeny little prem girly is so grown up!!! I hate the fact that we have to get older, because of course none of us want to age do we, lets face it inside I feel about 25 not 41!!!!

The day didnt start to well tho. Rachel wanted a laptop so after much chat we decided she could have mine and I would get a new one. Well as it turned out we ended up getting Dave a new one due to some plonker spilling tea in his and the keyboard froze, as well as getting me one! anyhow my old puter was working dandily when I put it away in the box. Rachel unwrapped it yesterday amid muchos excitement and even a little squealing only to find the damn thing had decided not to work! How the hell does that happen? A perfectly good computer working on one day and completely and utterly buggered two weeks later when it has been happily residing in a box?????!!!! We took it straight to the little computer man in town and he confirmed said buggeredness and advised buying a new one! Dave has very kindly agreed to purchase a new one for her but it has turned out to be an ultra expensive birthday!

We, that is Rachel and I, went into town to do a little shopping, she did afterall have money and vouchers that just HAD to be spent! She got a computer game which apparently she had been after for ages, lots of bits and bobs from Claire's Accessories and we lunched in a posh and expensive coffee shop!

On getting home Rachel shot upstairs to load up the game on her pc and low and behold, that didnt bloody work either! I mean how unlucky is that? Suffice to say that despite an amusingly shaped chocolate covered hedgehog birthday cake Rachel had a fit of the sulks! Not perhaps her best birthday!

HARRY POTTER

Well I finished the book....my tongue is firmly glued to the roof of my mouth (see the interesting spells in book 6) and I shan't spill the beans but suffice to say it was AWESOME and it really does all make sense in the end! I cried at various moments in the reading as there were some dead sad bits, dead being the operative word and some really tender moments which were equally tear inducing.

My only problem now is what I am going to read! I love Terry Pratchett books but he has not long since published his latest offering, I adore Bill Bryson but again he has only recently published his latest work, all of which I have read. I spent ages yesterday in the bookshop in town trying to find something that will grab my attention but nothing happened! I just hope and pray that JK finds it in her to write some more gripping Potter type books, lets face it there are a lot of us Potter fans that will be needing a fix soon!

SEWING

You definately need to be sitting down for this bit...not only did I finish the first bit of blackwork wondery but I have now finished two!!! Oh yes, I really like this stuff, it is really fun!!!!

This is my first bit of gorgeousness which I have shown you before when it was nearly finished.

And this is my second, as you can see it isnt black but shades of purple (my favourite colour)

I am really pleased with how they have come out and am already planning my next exciting project!!!

Last but not least, I have been offered a job! At last I hear you breathe! Well yes, and no...it is not the best job and certainly not my first choice. I went for the interview on Tuesday and was offered the job yesterday morning. It is a clerk/reception job at the Substance Misuse centre in Boston. The offices are horrid and of course the job itself is none too fantastic and the pay is terrible! However it is a job! If I take it I will start in the middle of August. My thinking is that I have three other interviews next week and if I get offered one of those then I will take them instead. Two are in Spalding and one is at the hospital in Boston working reception in A&E, which I actually quite fancy! The one job I really want is of course the job working with the police doing the whole jailer thing but so far I have not heard anything so I am beginning to think that I have not been shortlisted.

Anyhoodle I will let you know what becomes of these many interviews and whether or not I take any of the jobs!

Have a fun and fab day!

What Day Is It?

2007-07-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

What with not working and Dave working odd shifts I am losing track of what day it is? I think it is Sunday but I could be wrong.

Well it is out and probably well and truly read by the extreme fans out there! I am of course referring to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It is a really gripping book and far more adult orientated than the earlier books. I have read about half of it but am determined to not spend the entire weekend reading it as then it will be finished and with the prospect of no more books to look forward to I will be depressed at having finished it so quickly! Still only halfway and two main characters have already snuffed it plus a rather sweet friend who I am rather surprised has been killed off!!! Anyhoo, I shall say no more until everyone has had a chance to finish the book but it is jolly good so far!

To be frank the launch 'party' was crap! I don't know why I get all excited the last one was fairly pants when I think about it. Now if I had done it, it would have been much better! For a start they insist that you book your place at the party. Now when we turned up there was no person ticking names off the list so pre-booking seemed to be a waste of time, anyone could go in. Suffice to say the shop was PACKED to the point where it was extremely claustrophobic and after just half and hour I had to get out! Fortunately Costa coffee saw the opportunity to make some dosh on us lunatics and opened their doors so we dashed in their for a hot chocolate and some breathing space! There was a fancy dress competition and yes there truly were lots of very odd people, most of them children but some extremely strange adults interspersed in their. I swear the KluKluxKlan were represented by some mad woman in green curtains, a few adult Mad Eye Moodys were stumping around, one or two death eaters and hundreds of Harrys, Hermiones and a couple of fat Rons! There was also a treasure hunt but we couldnt be bothered to finish it. The quiz which we excelled at so brilliantly last year was pants this time round with Gryfindor cheating royally and of course winning (we were in Ravenclaw). The worst bit was at midnight when the book was finally unveiled we had this humongous queue to get through and I got to wait behind the most obnoxious young man I have had the misfortune to meet! Not only was he loud, he was arrogant and well a general embarrassment. I wished I could do magic at one point just to be rid of him!!!! Anyhow I finally broke free of the place at 12.30 and couldnt have been more pleased to be on my way home. If J K ever does write another Potter book I am going to order it from Amazon!!!!!

Yesterday which I am assuming was Saturday if my guess at today being Sunday is in fact correct passed in a blur of boredom and words. Nathan had left for Keswick before we got up - I was a little miffed he didnt pop his head in to say ta ta - Rachel and Andy buried themselves in the book all day. I read for a bit, did some chores, slept (mmmmmm), read a bit more, watched some TV and ate! Bit of a wasted day really! I seemed to recall that it rained a fair bit yesterday but I could be wrong!

Today is not much more interesting I dont think. We are going out tonight to celebrate Rachel's birthday which is on Wednesday, Fiona is coming with us. Carol (my friend from my old job) is coming over this afternoon and I have some parcels to wrap up to send tomorrow.

Oh yes, I now have four interviews in the next couple of weeks which is good. I was singularly unsuccessful in my bid to get any jobs at the schools that I applied to which is a bit of a bummer but the NHS seemed to like my applications cos all the interviews I have are with them!

Well time for me to bob off and have a bath, get some clothes on and get this stuff parcelled up and tidy the house a bit!

Weekly roundup

2007-07-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

Good morrow

It's been a funny week really, not much has gone on worth noting. I got three interviews, yes three and would you believe it two of them clash so it may only be two!

My Mum paid a surprise visit to us on Wednesday which was nice. They live in Rugby, and they dont get out much so it was nice to see them. My family do seem to be scattered to the four corners of the country really, I live in Lincolnshire, my Mum and step-father live in Rugby, my brother lives in Hertfordshire and my Dad is sadly not with us anymore (couldnt get much further away than that). So generally we dont see much of each other! I am incredibly lazy when it comes to visiting folks, I hate hate hate to travel and hate being away from my house even more! I never feel comfortable without my own things around me, perhaps it is something to do with my depression I don't really know as I don't really like where I live, I love living in Lincolnshire but am none to keen on the house! We live in an old turn of the century (1873) dwelling house in a little village (sounds peachey doesnt it?) But the house is huge! I hate cleaning and it is always a little bit 'lived in' which drives me insane cos I like clean and tidy but dont have the umph to achieve this! I would dearly like to have a LOT of money and really do the place up with polished wooden floors and clean lines a big countryfied kitchen with an aga and scrubbed table. Upstairs I would love a new bathroom and stuff but sadly we are not in a position to do any of this so I put up with it!

Tonight is the night the new Harry Potter book is launched. Rachel, Andy and myself are off up to Boston to the pre-launch party at Waterstones. I am really looking forward to it, it should be immense fun.

The weather today is really miserable! It is all cloudy and grotty and there is rain forecast for later - deep joy! It is more like October than July. Normally I wouldnt complain cos I hate the summer, I am not a sun orientated person but even I am feeling the need for some lovely sunshine on my pale and pasty skin.

I managed to finish, yes finish my fantasmagorical black work and will post a piccie later if I can be bothered to photograph it and am already working on the next one! I am well chuffed with myself for actually finishing something! It truly is a first!

I am off to get dressed and do some tidying up, my house is looking far to lived in today to be acceptable so I am off to make it look a little nicer.

Harry Potter Spoilers and Sewing

2007-07-18T02:59:00.000-07:00

Wot a combination! I just read a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Spoiler! Why? Why?!! I am a foooool! Still I dont believe a word of it but having said that the whole thing was pretty convincing as they had put scans of the pages of the book on the site too! Despite this stupidity, my excitment at the new book is in no way diminished I just wish I had a little more self control...possibly why I still smoke!!!! No willpower you see!

Anyhow the new book is out Friday/Sat midnight! I am still ridiculously excited and am really looking forward to the launch party at Ottakers in Boston. When the last book came out we all trogged along and there were a mixture of normal fans and the mad variety!! Wands were in abundance as was an entire Potter family. Dad was Snape, Mum was McGonagal, young son was naturally Harry and the daughter (was about 5) was Hermione which was most amusing as she was wigged up and everything!!!! LOL I wonder who will be there this year!

I know my kids have grown up and Dave has never had a deal of interest but now it is only three of us going, Nat is far to grown up to be seen at such silliness...despite the fact that we won the Harry Potter General Knowledge quiz last time!!!!! Anyway he is in Keswick on his Christian Retreat from Friday.

BLACKWORK

On to sewing. Next to Potter I have a real sewing fetish. I am no good at settling to anything for very long. Although I did make bearies and all things fluffy for nearly 10 years and thoroughly enjoyed it but that passion has waned of late, no I am telling a lie it hasnt waned it died! Funny thing that, I totally blame my best pal Sindie who I have a major creative connection with. A few years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer and her creative mojo left her (well her mojo for bear making left her) and took mine with it! I thought it might be hiding and just in a temporary limbo but nope it has gone. I have tried to recapture it since being out of work but no joy, I have made one bear and am now thoroughly bored with the whole thing!

So I reverted to my next great passion cross stitch but that no longer held the mojo in place and it too has gone by the wayside, and just when I thought all was lost I discovered blackwork! Now I really will not bore you with the history but suffice to say it has its origins in Elizabethan needle work.

As you can see above, black work was used to embellish garments, and jolly nice they were too!

Now it is purely used as a decorative art and I love it, it has the ability to hold my fluttery butterfly brain for longer than a few moments. In fact much to everyones surprise I am proud to say I have nearly completed a sampler that I found on the internet.

I am quite pleased with how this came out for my first attempt. As you can see it is not quite finished but I shall get it done today! Then I can move on to the next exciting project. I have bought some fab finer count fabrics on Ebay one or two have been hand dyed so they are really smashing and I have lots of patterns and charts that I have been wildly purchasing and downloading so do watch this space.

I did find the most amazing peacock today just to show you how beautiful blackwork can be. I can't find the pattern on its own anywhere and the kit is about £30 which being out of work I cant afford right now, but one day I will do this.

More of that Weathery type stuff

2007-07-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, we just had a most spectacular thunderstorm! Rather than shivering under a sheet we all piled out into the garden and snapped some piccies! I do thing that Armageddon visits us now on a regular basis...I cant remember the last time we had such a stormy summer!

Didnt see any tornados but there will be more storms later methinks!

These piccies were taken from my back garden just after the storm had passed over us.

General Musings....

2007-07-17T02:26:00.001-07:00

Late yesterday evening we all plodded to the end of the road to watch lightning flash around us and I posted this little mini adventurelet on here. My friend read it and commented on how this would please her and distress her Mum. It reminded me of my Grandma who was so terrified of storms that she would hide in a teeny tiny little cubby under the stairs. She had a chair in there and a torch and book and would sit in there and resolutely refuse to come out until every last vestige of storm had passed!

I too was terrified of storms as a child, I saw them as the end of the world. Nothing that loud and that flashy could ever be good! My Dad cured me of this particular phobia. We went on holiday to Spain one year, a real family affair, Mum, Dad, Grandma and Grandad, me and my big brother Ian. We drove from Sussex to somewhere on the Costa del something! It took ages!!!! On the way we would stop at various French villages for the night. One night there was the most amazing storm, it raged around the area for hours and hours and I was quite literally PETRIFIED. Never in my small life to that point had I ever ever been witness to such a vicious and mean storm (please remember I must have been about 6 at the time) and I was cowering under the bed, crying and truly terrified! My Dad (bless him) fished me out and instead of comforting me and making me feel better, picked me up and stood me at the open window!!! Eeeeeek! I nearly died...I sobbed and screamed and sobbed some more but he was determined that I would enjoy this magnificent natural spectacle. At that precise moment in time I hated my Dad, why was he being so cruel? But slowly my sobs subsided, my screams eased and I realised that from where I was this could not hurt me and it was in fact rather cool! Ever since that night I have loved storms and will go out of my way to watch a good one. Thanks Dad.

Recently we have been getting rather a lot of tornados. These are my absolute favourite scarey natural phenomena. Naturally they wouldnt be too high on my fav list if they got too big for their boots and came down on my house or anything but from a distance they are great to watch.

I was driving home from Spalding a few weeks ago when I happened to notice a large swirling cloud, really really low, drifting across the road in front of me. What it was was the rotation which often precedes a tornado but this one didnt infact amount to anything. We did however see about 5 over the fields over the space of about two weeks.

I love weather you know, I reckon I should have been a weather person, a whatsit called, oh yes meterologist. I probably would have been quite good at that!

If I Knew You Were Coming.....

2007-07-17T02:15:00.000-07:00

...I'd've baked a cake! Anyone who knows me knows I hate loathe and detest cooking! Oh yes it is tantamount to torture a real punishment for me to have to cook. I don't have any idea why but there it is I hate cooking. My dishes when I do venture into the kitchen usually consist of cheese on toast or something simple like a pot lasagne where it all gets lobbed into one big cooking pot, thrown into the oven for a very long time and good luck trying to eat it! However, recently I have been so bored that I have in fact been doing a little more adventurous meals...the other day for example I cooked a Moussaka, well, I sort of cooked a Moussaka...we had no lamb mince so I used beef and we had no aubergines so I left them out but in essence it was Moussaka and jolly tasty it was too! Yesterday whilst in Sainsburys (which by the way is really really expensive) Nat was pestering me to buy cake, I am none to happy about all the 'stuff' that goes into food these days so I offered to bake him a cake! Oh deary me!!!! So I bought the necessary ingredients and a really big cake tin. I spent some time just staring at said ingredients getting my motivation right and then I piled in. I did in fact use a recipe from my one and only recipe book and I have to say I created the most amazing Farmhouse Fruit Cake EVER!!! It was magnificent, weighed a ton and was devoured in minutes! I am unbelievably pleased with myself for my creation, which, in my opinion would have won me a rosette at any local village show!!!! I wanted to take a picture of the cake but by the time I had got my camera it was already reduced to crumbs!!! I may do another one day and I will post a pic so everyone can exclaim at my cleverness!

The question now has to be what do I cook next?

Thunder and Lightning

2007-07-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Oh I do love a good storm and the best thing about living here in flat old Lincolnshire is that you can see for miles and when there is a storm you get the best view.

We, that is my oldest Nat, Rach the soon to be 16 year old, Dave the hubby and dog have just been for a walk down to the fields at the back of the house to watch a most spectacular lightning storm which is raging somewhere north of here! No thunder which is a mild disappointment but ooooo lots of lovely lightning.

Well it is off to bed for me, curtains drawn back tonight I think as I get a wonderful view across the fields from my room and so can watch any storms that should happen by in the night!

Sleep tight!

All Things Harry Potter

2007-07-16T01:22:00.000-07:00

Where do I start with all things Potter?

I was introduced to Harry Potter by pure chance and a rather large amount of misfortune on the part of my youngest son Andy. About five years ago now he was hit by a car while playing out the back of our house. It was the single worst moment of my life seeing my youngest baby under the wheels of a car seemingly dead! I will never forget it as long as I live! He was seriously injured having a nasty head injury and the worst broken leg I have ever seen, not to be too graphic but his foot was hanging off and we all thought he would lose it. After a few days of unconcious mutterings, much puking (him not me) and much worry and no sleep he was transferred from the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston to Leicestershire Royal Infirmary. Here he was subjected to numerous operations on his foot, including pinning broken bones and skin grafts to put it all back together. During this time he and I got bored beyond belief! We were really lucky to have our own room, mainly because I was staying with Andy and sleeping on a ward with half a dozen sick (and I mean sick) kids is not conducive to recovery for Andy or sleep for me! I digress, where was I? Oh yes, Potter. Well I decided that it would be fun to read to Andy when he was bored so he chose for me to read the Potter books and so it started.

The first book is Harry Potter and Philosophers Stone. I thought this book was very apt to its target market, it was written in a very child like manner and I have to say I didnt think I would like it. I had already seen the film in our old fleapit cinema in Felixstowe many years before and was not overly impressed in fact the biggest thing I remember of it was that my bum went to sleep and my brain fogged over cos I was so bored. At this point I didnt think I would ever get interested in Harry and his adventures.

Anyhow a brief synopsis...Harry is a wizard, his parents are murdered by the rather nasty Lord Voldemort for reasons unknown at this time, having survived an attempt on his life by said bad wizard with nothing but a lightning shaped scar on his head, he lives with his Aunt, Uncle and cousin in Little Whinging. Owls start delivering letters to him (as they do) and eventually he discovers his wizardishness when a half giant in the form of Hagrid the Hogwarts Gamekeeper comes to an island in the middle of the north sea to personally tell Harry about Hogwarts. Hogwarts by the way is a school for Witchcraft and Wizardry. So Harry goes to school makes lots of new friends namely Ron and Hermione. All this is not enough and Harry soon embarks on a big adventure to save the Philosphers Stone from getting into the hands of this nasty wizard Voldemort who is a little on the poorly side given that when he tried to kill Harry (when Harry was a baby) he seemed to manage to pretty much kill himself but he is still around in spirit form able to possess people and animals to get around! If Voldemort was to get hold of the stone he would be able to 'come back' and no-one really wants that.

Anyhow we read this book and while my personal book review jury was out deliberating we embarked on the second book.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets... oh you know I was going to be all arty farty and write loads of interesting things about Potter but I just cannot be bothered. Suffice to say by the time Andy was discharged from hosptial I was hooked, I have no idea exactly what makes Potter so addictive but once you have picked up one book that is it there is no going back.

Here are some piccies of the other books and clips from the films which were all awesome, even The Philosophers Stone was good the third time I saw it, now I have every book and every film and am waiting on tenterhooks for the next and potentially last book. I say potentially as I, like all Potter fans do not want to see the series end at Book 7.

Oh yes the latest book Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is on sale in

The Bird Killers and Cupboard Syndrome

2007-07-16T00:43:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning with a view to being all light and fluffy and yet I feel like crap! I am so not a morning person!!

I wanted to get a picture of my cat Yoda and his tail this morning, since he had his operation his tail has been a subject of much amusement to most folks who see him...bless him, he could get a complex, but when I went into the garden to take a piccie what do I find... yep another dead birdy!!!

Still you can see his tail although compared to the carnage he has just inflicted onto some poor winged creature the tail pales in significance!

The real culprit of course was Grebo who actuall despite her diminuitive size actually catches more birds and rodents than any of the other cats. She actually gave Yoda the bird, I suppose I was not supposed to see this but it just goes to show that females are so much more talented than men across the animal kingdom!

Anyhoo, what to do today?!

First I have to find enough motivation to get dressed, this is not easy you know, getting dressed is a big deal, when you have nothing to do all day except housework - those who know me know that this is not my favourite occupation and something I find nearly impossible to do without an ipod on full blast (dont ask) - getting dressed seems fairly unimportant! But today I have to shop, go to the bank, the library and take Nat to the doctor, oh that reminds me I have to phone his work for him (cos of course at 17 he is totally incapable of phoning in sick himself!). My brain only allows me to retain a few things at a time so I do not doubt that I shall arrive in Spalding with the intention of going to the bank, etc etc and end up standing in the car park wondering why I came into town. I call this affliction 'Cupboard Syndrome' - this is an all too common side effect of getting older and stems from the age old problem of finding yourself standing in a cupboard and wondering why on earth you are there! You will then go back to point A from where you started, stand there for a bit and think about things, get sidetracked into doing other things and then eventually some four or five hours, possibly days later you will remember why you went to the cupboard - sadly when you arrive back in said cupboard you have yet again forgotten why you are there! Now I am only in my very early 40's and this happens to me all the time, I shall be a dribbling mess by the time I make 60 at this rate!

Sunday 15th July 2007

2007-07-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Hey there

This has to be a super quick post today cos I am unbelievably tired! The young man was released from the hospital...yay!!!! It only took 8 hours to let him go!!!! I think there was one on call doctor covering the WHOLE hospital yesterday and he just couldnt make it to the 7th floor so the nurse let him go in the end.

We went to see the Harry Potter film and it was AWESOME! But then I would say that cos I am one sad person!!! No seriously it was very grown up and totally gripping! They kept to the book really well and didnt invent too much like they have been known to do in other films...I highly recommend it but not as late as we went! We got there at 10.30 and left at 1.20AM!

I have applied for another police orientated job today, just been sitting typing it! I applied for this post last year (PCSO) but was scared of working and even more scared of donning a uniform and being a pretend policeperson! However I have given it much thought and they are now recruiting again so I am going for it!

My day was typical of any day really today, some people came and collected items they had purchased off me on Ebay (not that typical actually) and then I listed some more which was muchos boring, then I watched one of my many cats bring home yet more dead animals - that made four for today...FOUR I ask you, why do they do it? They dont even eat them! This morning I went out to a dead pidgeon, blackbird, very cute vole and then later little Grebo (the smallest and cutest killer) struggled over the fence with a sparrow in her mouth!

Oh yes, my pets! I forgot to tell you about them...well we have four cats, a dog and 7 chickens, well six chicks and a very noisy cockeral! The cats are: Murry - old, black and white short haired cross breed who has turned into a super loving homey cat but I am putting that down to age, he used to be a viscous killer like the rest but I think he has hung up his claws and retired. Next is Crookshanks (can you see that Potter link there), he is a big fluffy ginger tom and one of the trio of ninja killer cats. We rescued him from a farm about two years ago when he was a bundle of kitteny fluff and too cute for words. The farm in particular has a rather laid back policy to the breeding habits of their cats, it is basically 'let them go for it!' I find this a little disturbing as they have hundreds (slight exageration) of semi-feral cats wondering around. When I asked them what happened to the kittens that were born late they shrugged and said that most died over winter!!!!! Being too soft for words I gave Crookshanks a home, closely followed by my next addition Grebo a very nervous and teeny tiny tortoiseshell lady. Suffice to say we have had them all neutered! Late last year we took another trip to the farm and took home Yoda another ginger mog who has been nothing but a medical marvel! He is tiny considering he is now over a year old but he has been really poorly. First he had fleas, worms and ear mites which were really bad. It took us months and months to get the worms out of him but we succeeded in the end and he picked up and became almost like a proper kitten. Then some numpty trapped his little tail in the door of the outhouse and he had to have the bottom inch amputated! He is much much better now and behaves like a proper cat now in fact he recently joined the ranks of evil killers with a brace of ring neck doves! Lovely.

We also have Ginny a corgi crossed with a collie. We gave her a home cos she was very cute and fluffy but we were slightly deceived on her age...she is old and has arthritis in her back legs and best of all she hates and loathes all other dogs!!! Walking her is such a blast! NOT!!! Still we love her despite her devil dog tendencies!

Right now I have to sleep....catch ya tomorrow

July 14th 2007

2007-07-14T03:55:00.000-07:00

Today

My oldest son (17) is currently residing in our local NHS hotel with a partially collapsed lung! Do not ask me how he did it cos no-one has any idea. Apparently it is very common in tall and skinny people (and he really is too tall - 6'3" and weighs about 3lbs) and it just happens! It is called a spontaneous pnumo thorax (dont tell me I spelt that wrong I know this). Anyhoo we are hoping that he can come home today as it is only a partial collapse and it should blow itself back up again.

Today is also the day the whole family gets to go to our very own personal MECCA - the cinema to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. Yes, yes we are those sad individuals who are obsessed to the point of stupidity with the wizarding world!

I have often mused the reality of all this, and cant help but wonder if the books are a ruse to put us off the scent of the real wizarding world....well you never know, we could all be muggles and their could be a dark wizard called Voldemort and other such things lurking out there just beyond our blinkered vision.

Anyway back to sane land. I still do not have a job which I am getting mightily miffed about. I am qualified to be a boring secretary I HATE being a secretary, it is so dull, I frequently lose the will to live when sitting typing some idots letters! The other day I did a days work at a local factory, sitting on reception answering the phone and well that was it, answering the phone. It must have rung about 10 times all day and for this I got paid £30!!!

I have applied for some ultra cool jobs: - Jailer in the local nick - that would be a very very cool job, teaching assistants - I like to impart knowledge, telephonist at the hospital - taking the 999 calls and all sorts of other things which have very little to do with being a secretary!

I am a qualified Psychotherapist but have never done anything with it. I did the course to try and understand why I had a nervous breakdown some 10 years ago, suffice to say I am none the wiser but I do know how to counsell others who suffer with the extremes of modern life!

Well that is it for today, will try and post again tomorrow. Have a fab weekend one and all.

A New Blog

2007-07-14T03:37:00.000-07:00

Good morning

I am brand spanking new to this blogging malarky so forgive me if I waffle and blurb! I thought this was a great way of putting down my fascinating adventures (hahahahaha) for all to enjoy rather than just me!

I am a forty something lady with not much to tell but my life is as cool as anyone elses so enjoy or yawn or sleep - whatever!

My name is Brioney, a name I totally hate and loathe - why do our parents do that to us? They have these gorgeous little bundles (and I was too gorgeous for words) and decide to call us these odd names without a thought to our future taunting and misery! I have been reliably informed that my name came about from a nurse whom my father rather admired when my mother was in hospital and he rather liked the name!! Brioney, you may think is not that bad, but trust me some dirivatives of this include Brian the Snail, just plain Brian and many more - kids are so inventive arent they? Anyhow, the minute I could I became known as Bry, it is easier to remember, needs little explanation in terms of 'how do you spell that?' and makes me feel a whole lot better! Sadly folks still seem to think that this name invokes images of the male gender but I can live with it!

I am between careers at this time, mainly cos I lack direction - funny thing I have lacked this particular direction since I was 16 and was kinda hoping that I would have found the right road by now but sadly this is not the case. I find it highly frustrating that I have never found my destined path in life unless of course drifting around in a highly confused state was the direction I was supposed to take! I love arts and crafts, music and all things of this ilk but have never truly settled to any of it! I play the flute - badly, I paint - badly, and I create wonderful half finished works of stitchery! It keeps me amused when I am looking for work though!

One road I did travel down and rather successfully was the path of motherhood and wifedom. I have been happily married for 18 years to the most fab fellow whom I met one drunken night in a squaddie pub and have been with ever since! We managed to produce three fab kids who are now fledging and getting ready to leave the nest. They seem a little reluctant to go but I suppose that is a good thing and must mean we are doing something right!

I will keep posting interesting tidbits from my fabulous life as and when I feel the need to download!!!