Mind Spillage & Thought Leaks

A Christmas Journey

2012-01-10T07:51:00.000Z

So Christmas 2011 has come and gone in a flash, its back to work and back to a normal routine. Im sure I'll get around to a proper catch up (or maybe I wont) but my Christmas has been documented in a better way then just a blog post. I actually got around to taking part in JYC, Journal Your Christmas, a Shimelle class that I signed up for originally in 2006 and did it that year. The last time I took part was 2007 and I made a failed attempt in 2010, but this year Ive managed it. Most pages are here, Ive just left out a couple that I think I might re-do as Im not 100% happy with them. Its a really nice thing to look back on in a couple of years time to remember that few weeks of the year.

Ive done it digitally, the only way I could keep up with the prompts with everything else going on, but I have printed it out and layered some of the pages so its turned into a nice fat book. Just needs the front cover printing and binding together and its done. So there you go. This year I might try and do a journal for the year, perhaps a double page per month. Just a short and sweet one today!

Tree fatigue

2011-12-12T15:51:00.000Z

I didnt realise Id left it so long again since my last post. To be fair though, not a great deal has been happening to blog about.

I had a birthday and now that I know exactly how old I am, I know next year I'll be leaving my 30s. That may sound strange, but last year, I thought I was going to be 40 this year. Whats more is I mentioned it to a couple of members of my family and they didnt pick me up on the fact I was wrong. You may wonder how Id forget how old I was anyway, its not rocket science after all but its very easy really. It stems from going from 36 to 37 - Im not a fan of ages in odd numbers, they just dont feel right so Id said that I would skip 37 and go straight to 38. I said it so many times that it seems I got muddled and thought I really was 38 that year and since, have thought I was a year older than I actually am.

Ok so that makes me sounds like Im a sandwich short of a picnic but it wasnt until my cousin, who is 24 days older than me pointed out that we arent in fact 40 until 2012, that I was corrected. So either my own mum (hi mum!) and Billybob dont know how old I am, or just werent listening at the times I was blathering on incorrectly last year, about being 40 this year.

So anyway, I had a birthday, it was very nice, I cant remember actually what I did, but thats obviously a sign of old age.

We slipped into December and so began the usual search for the perfect Christmas tree. Actually it was more like 'drag the family round in the rain in search of a niceish looking tree, then just pick one because everyone was wet and moaning'.

We went to the usual place we go and I spent probably around 20 minutes torn between a large green tree and another large green tree. The 12 year old helper (well he looked that young in his santa hat) was most oblighing, twirling each tree round for me several times adding that Id just missed the best one that had 'acorns' on it. Did it love? Did a fir tree really have acorns on? Hmm.

Anyway, to cut a long and very boring story short, got the tree, let it dry out, decorated the tree. Hated the tree. Why? Because this year Betsy and I had chosen some new decorations, going for, quite aptly in our house, a food theme. You know, gingerbread, sweets, blah blah, all pretend munchie stuff. Which, as it turns out, is much heavier than the normal glass baubles I hang. Tree didnt like it. Tree would not hold up new decorations and kept spitting them out.

Wasnt feeling tree love, but then again, neither was Poppy doggie on Sunday when she did this while we were out having birthday lunch with mum (she's ok, she knows how old she is).

Now a few things could have happened here.

1. She tried to take the pretend gingerbread off one of the lower branches. This would have upset the very very fragile balance of the tree with all its finery on the tips of every sodding branch ready to fall at the slightest touch.

2. She jumped up at the tree because she didnt like it

3. She chased Bubble cat onto the window sill as she often does and knocked it as she did

4. Squeaky cat, who likes her to get into trouble, suggested to her that the big jolly christmas pudding hanging around half way up was real and it would be a really good idea to try and get it.

I'll never know what happened, I bet its number 4, but either way, the tree was face down and its adornments all over the floor, a couple chewed, but mostly undamaged. Tree will now be relagated to outside with blue fairy lights and artificial sturdy tree will replace it in that I can bend up the branches and make it take the weight of fat pretend gingerbread men and other sweeties.

Tonight will be the 3rd time of putting the damn tree up as the first time I put it in the wrong corner by the radiator and had to move it away. Which is really annoying as I do it every year. So I had to change the furniture around to allow it to go in the corner that it always ends up in once Ive realised yet again Ive put it in the wrong place. Which is doubly annoying now that the artificial one is going up because that could have damn well stayed near the radiator and I wouldnt have had to move things around.

Enough of trees.

Scrap 365 Magazine's debut issue hit the shops mid November and has been very well received. I believe issue 2 is out very shortly and something to look forward to. Ive not scrapped much that I can share since my last post, just this one of Billybob and I as small gingernuts..

My cheeks are still that big.

Lycra laddies

2011-11-09T15:20:00.000Z

I like Autumn. I like all the old cliches about it, the colours, the leaves, blah blah, and I also like that when you've failed to diet over the summer when its legally ok to eat salads, that Autumn means you can go back to wearing large jumpers to hide your bulk. Feeling all Autumny I decided to revisit a digi page I did a couple of years ago, that now offends my eyes. Brought it up to date with how I scrap now, using the Month of October Kit from Penny Springmann. I like it much more now.

As I was organising the photos of Ben I decided there and then that I HAD to do a page of his funny photo face. If you point a camera at him, his face immediately contorts into a weird grimmace. Its very amusing that he cant just make his face do nothing. In trying to make it do nothing, it inevitably does something that ends up with him and an odd expression. I trawled through my photos of him and scrapped my favourite ones onto a page that will give me great delight to bring out and show his first girlfriend.

Last night we went to see the WWE Smackdown tour at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. Its a very nice place and if we hadnt been running late and if I hadnt needed the few minutes that we did have left to have a wee, I'd have probably taken the time to take some photos.

Anyhoo, it was more than just a series of fights this time as it was being filmed for TV. It meant there were story lines going on, back scene footage, arguments in the ring and all the other bits you normally see on Friday Night Smackdown. It did mean that we saw the back of a lot of the wrestlers as the camera were across the other side of the ring, but this also meant we could see ourselves in the audience as the camera were pointing at us, so who knows, we may see ourselves on sky sport 3 and 4 soon. The seats were great and with my zoom lens I got some ok shots. Not great because of the lighting and fast movement, and some were spoilt by fog following the pyrotechnics they used so Ive had to sharpen them up to scratch, but as they are for Ben, he'll think they are great anyway.

So Booker T who was commentating but then did a guest referee spot, with Randy Orton...

Be rude not to enjoy the front view of Randy wouldnt it...

Ooh look, there's Randy again. He's with Sheamus who can be in my gang because he's a ginge.

They were shouting at Christian who was pretending to have a poorly neck.Obviously its England because there's a taxi and a red post box. Of course there is.

But Shaemus battered him anyway.

Mark Henry, Worlds Strongest Man (although why he's called that when that title was from 2002 I'll never know) stomped all over Daniel Bryan who has grown a rather odd beard.

Im sorry but a man that size should NEVER wear Lyrca. Mind you I wouldnt tell him or Big Show that, Big Show is a massive 7 ft 1 inches tall.

Aww look, there's Randy again..

He was waiting for Wade Barrett..

Who hails from Preston dont you know. They had some sort of spat and Randy got wasted.

Then Wade's nose started running.

I could be a commentator, see, its not that hard. It all ended with a 6 man tag team match with Randy, Sheamus, Big Show, Christian, Mark Henry and Cody Rhodes.

Mark Henry and Christian legged it and I cant remember what else. The whole thing finished around 11pm so it was a good 3 and a half hours long with lots of different matches featuring other people that werent quite as attractive as Randy Orton so I didnt bother with loads of photos of them. I do think he should lay off the sunbeds though, that last photo shows that his back is starting to get that leather handbag look, he should take a leaf out of Sheamus' book and stay in the shade...

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T13:36:00.001Z

The date is getting closer, has everyone subscribed to Scrap365 now?

Look what was posted on Friday over at the Scrap365 blog...

"If you are planning to go to the Hobbycrafts Show next week (3-6 Nov) at the NEC Birmingham, then we have a big surprise for you!!!

Our launch event is being held at Hobbycrafts and so the first issue of Scrap365 will be exclusively on sale at the show - before it's available anywhere else!!!

And because it's our launch party we'll also have a special subscription gift offer AND a prize draw to win a whole year's subscription to Scrap365 at the show.

If you are at the show pop along and say hello (the stand is C28, listed under Traplet Publications in the show guide).

ETA - subscribers have no fear. If you have already taken out a sub with us your issues will be posted at the same time (next week) and so you will also get to see the mag well before it goes on sale :)"

All very exciting!

I can just about sum up that last two weeks in bullet point form. Things Ive observed and things Ive learnt.

X factor makes me want to throw something heavy at the telly. Frankie whathisname just makes me cringe. He looks like he needs a good bath and the nit nurse from school to check him out. Little Mix for the win.
If a dog eats a bar of soap, it doesnt necessarily mean she'll bark bubbles (disappointingly)
Still on the animal theme, cats dont like to wear red velvet jester collars with bells. Time to re-think the christmas cards this year.
Its never simple buying a second hand car - what we thought was a simple sale isnt and its time to get legal advice. Bummer.
Its never simple trying to sell a second hand car when your other halves mate says he'll have it, so you dont part ex it, then he changes his mind. Double bummer. Anyone want to buy a lovely Renault Megane Scenic expression 2003 plate for a bargain, let me know!
That if you plan to go to Blackpool to see the illuminations, dont take any notice of the weather forecast. We changed from going on the Sunday, to the Saturday based on the weather forecast, tootled up to Blackpool in Cocoa with the idea of going through the lights with the top down to get a great view. Stopped at a cafe for tea to let it go totally dark, the minute we stepped outside to get in the car the heavens opened. Drove straight home. Sunday, annoyingly was perfect weather to do it.
That not all clowns are scary - we were taken as a treat by my auntie and uncle to see Slava's Snow show at the Lowry. Had no idea what it was all about and its hard to explain but definitely worth seeing.

That buying and organising most of the Christmas presents for people this year by end of October is extremely satisfying and smug filled.

Lastly a quick digi page I did in honour of Halloween, albeit using a old photo of Betsy from 2008. One of my favourites though, had to scrap it at some point didnt I.

Credits are on my UKS gallery.

She's off to a teenage Halloween party tonight, as a 'Fallen Angel'. Which is basically a black tarts outfit that Ive had to 'de-tart' somewhat in order for it to be a appropriate. The whole fallen angel thing is most definitely appropriate though, I can assure you!

2011-10-17T07:30:00.000+01:00

Do you ever look at your own kids and think 'Crikey you''re weird'?

I admit to thinking that quite alot, does that make me a bad mother? Mostly with Ben, frequently these days when he wanders round commentating on his own life. Take the other night for instance, "Ben" I said, "Could you please fetch me a glass of orange?" He paused the DVD we were watching, got up from the settee and said to no one in particular "And with that, Ben looked understandingly at his mother and rose to his feet to enter the kitchen".

His mother, meanwhile sat and stared at her son and thought 'damn he's odd at times'.

Its not even as if he just uses bog standard phrases to describe his actions, he launches into lovely eloquent waffle such as when I asked if he'd done his homework - I got "Ben looked quizzically at his mother when asked about his homework". Quizzically. He couldnt just say "Ben looked at his mother blah blah" which is strange enough, but he puts in nice words to go it. Weird dude.

Last weekend, was very very exciting. Last weekend we bought Cocoa. The last time we had a Cocoa in the house, she was a small brown and white hamster who could climb the stairs. This time around she's a little squat clown car and she's all mine. We'd been thinking of upgrading my car for a while and when I spotted her in a car sales place in Heaton Chapel, I dragged Beech and the smalls to have a look. Ive always always wanted a convertible and there she was, an Astro Black Mini One convertible. Smashing. Only bad point was that she had ugly graphics on her bonnet, apparently added by her previous own who made his own graphics. Because it could be said that Im a little impetious sometimes and jump in with all three feet, after we'd paid the deposit I paniced. Perhaps we should have looked around a little more before deciding. So we did.

We had fun with a stange man with a lisp in Dukinfield who tried to lock us in his Alan Sugar style boardroom till we agreed to buy his mini, we viewed a mini that looked perfect, cept for the no battery thing which makes it difficult to test drive and we visited with a nice man selling a Peugeot that was so nice, Id have given him my kids in part ex. All in all though, pros and cons weighed up, we ended up back in Heaton Chapel, back to my first and original choice of Cocoa.

Kit is In the City by Jenn Barrette

I'd like to say it was all the sensible things that swung it, the extra warranty, the low mileage, the optional extras and the promise of a CD changer from the garage, but it wasnt. I fell in love with her red leather interior, hook line and sinker. The kids love her which is a good job really because Ive always said if I ever had a convertible, Id have the top down in all weathers except rain. Including last night 8pm in the dark at 13 degrees on the motorway.'Whats that kids, you're cold? Surely not, mummy gave you a blanket didnt she?' Mwwhahahahaha! Love my car.

This weekend has been a weekend of all sorts. Its been a weekend of shopping, sleepovers, riding round in cars and a dog being groomed one day, then rolling in poo the next. The shopping trip was done out of spite. I wanted to go to Dunelm Mill and B & M stores to look for a bar stool for the kitchen. Beech wouldnt get up to come with me so I told him I therefore could not be held accountable for anything I spent. Spite shopping, its the best.

Not much got me giddy in Dunelm Mill, B & M was far more exciting. Bethany came with me, mainly to mither constantly about wanting everything in the shop, but also so that she could climb into a canvas wardrobe and zip herself in. You can imagine how well that went down, like not at all well (Ive noticed teenagers use the word 'like' an awful lot dont they?) As I pointed out to her during the five minutes we struggled to unzip the damn door to get her out, its not the sort of behaviour one expects from a young lady of 13.

Mind you, her behaviour did inspire this page recently...

Its about the difference in her mood when she's allowed on facebook vs those frequent times she's not due to bad behaviour or bad attitude. The title came first, Face Book vs Face Ache just about summed it up and the page followed quite quickly. I used two of Jenn Barrettes kits (love her kits), Blah Blah Blah and C Vision, plus an Alpha by S Clingerman.

So then, have you all subscribed to Scrap365 Magazine yet? First issue out 18th November so not long to wait now. You can subscribe two ways, the number to subscribe by telephone is 01684 588599 and this is the same number for international subs. Anyone from the UK can get a special deal of 3 issues for £3 which was offered at Ally Pally but this is only open to the UK subscribers I'm afraid. You can also subscribe online here which makes things easier doesnt it. Chop chop, go subscribe!

Birthdays and Beaver Teeth

2011-09-26T21:52:00.000+01:00

Id just like to say thank you for all the lovely and supportive comments left from the Scrap365 Blog hop - it looks like lots of people are very excited about the launch of the magazine which is terrific! I cant wait to see the first issue, remember, its out on 18th November.

Last week Betsy turned 13. Entry into teenagedom, moodyville etc blah blah. Cept Betty came out of the womb a teenager, or at least it certainly feels like that somedays. She came home very excited the other day, having been given a flyer for a kids disco thing at a real live club, with special guest from Waterloo Road (her favourite show). Excited not only because of the Waterloo Road connection, but because the disco was for 13 to 17 year olds and wooo hoo, by the date of the disco, she would be 13 hurray! 'That's really good' I said, 'Just one problem'. She might be 13 by then, but in that she's at least a month older than any of her friends, they wouldnt be old enough to go with her. Gutted. Course I could have gone with her, Im pretty sure I could pass for 17, what with my youthful looks..snort.

For her birthday she took her friends to Frankie and Benny's for tea on Saturday night. The girls trouped round with their bags of clothes, make up and bling helped each other get ready, then patiently stood in line (rolling their eyes) while I took their photographs. As a little momento of the night, I scrapped the photos to give them all a copy.

Ben on the other hand isnt enjoying being 11. I think its something to do with the photo I took of him on Sunday while we were out walking Poppy.

Looks ok really, quite sweet, there's his little dimples, his little red noddy cheeks and his hair that he's growing out in an attempt to look like Justin Beaver, sorry, Bieber (its the teeth, they caught me off guard)...

So why was he so upset? Cause of this..

S'me! As I pointed out, there are many similarities between those two photos, although Im not sure whether thats because he looks like a girl, or because I looked like a boy. He wasnt too impressed, in fact he's suggested he should perhaps get his hair cut now, fancy that.

Im going to go scream into a cushion now as Ive just accidentally cleared off all the photos on my memory card.

2011-09-22T18:00:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the Scrap365 bloghop!

For those of you that have found your way here from the blog of the very talented Morag Cutts, and have never stumbled across my ramblings before, let me introduce myself.

Im Suzy Beecher, Im 38 and I live in Stockport with my husband Beech and children Bethany 13, newly turned teenager today no less, Benjamin, 11 and a menagerie of animals. I started paper scrapping in August 2005 after stumbling on a scrapbooking website and realizing it brought my love of photography and recording family memories together. A couple of years later, I started dabbling into digital scrapping; I work full time as a Personal assistant and was finding it more and more difficult to make time to paper scrap.

It’s a lot easier for me to just grab my laptop and scrap, plus it’s a lot less messy! I use photoshop elements to scrap with and find it a relaxing thing to do in front of the television. I also make hybrid cards and canvases from my digital designs and am currently transferring my digital scrap book pages to printed canvases to display at home.

I’d say my style is probably best described as ‘cluttered’ – I like to throw a lot of elements on a page to start with, and generally either whittle them down as the page progresses, or add even more! Im also a fan of college pages, the more photos the better for me! Im very excited to be a member of the team for Scrap365 and hope you feel inspired to digi scrap after seeing how easy it can be!

If you fancy a sneaky peak at Scrap365 magazine, pop along to the Big Stamp and Scrapbook show at Alexander Palace this weekend and visit the Traplet Stand (#63) for a looky and a special subscription deal.

The first issue will be on sale on 18th November on newstands and digitally worldwide. To keep up with us in the meantime, follow up on twitter (@scrap365mag.com) or find us on facebook

So, onward with our blog hop to our next blog, belonging to the lovely Jean Franks Beck!, by the way if leave a comment on all the Design Teams blogs as you hop along them all, plus on the Scrap365 blog you could win a years subscription to Craft Stamper magazine, PLUS stamps worth over £20!

September

2011-09-13T08:10:00.000+01:00

Just checked this on line and must apologise for the appearance of the photos which seem to have blurred in compression. Soz, they are nicer large, but hey who is going to bother to do that - I wont be offended, honest.

So - on to the post. September. Which must mean that Autumn, my favourite season is on its way.

Which means the children, who are now far too old to want to sit around in piles of leaves whilst I run round with big red cheeks shouting ‘look happy wont you!’ will be hiding from me before I drag them out to a leaf filled park.

Still, this year I have Poppy dog to humour me, Im sure she will love to run around in leaves for me while I snap. Obviously not literally, not like going Autumn-psycho on the dog, but snapping photos. Which reminds me, I want one of these..

From clickinmoms.com, found it on my new love 'Pinterest' Gosh there are so many sarcastic sayings on there, I could spend my life on there just storing them up for everyday use.

The kids school holidays ended with a week in the sun. This time around we went with Grandpa silverpop, Billybob and even Beech was allowed to come, staying in a nice hotel in Son Bou. I think its probably the first holiday where I have done absolutely nothing. Or almost absolutely nothing. Normally holidays are full of trips, here there and everywhere, but this time around we did just one evening trip, instead filling our days with sun bathing, swimming and eating. Over and over in that order. Because we didnt do much, there's not a great deal to blog about it so I'll let the photos tell the story.

A blurred 'we're going on holiday' shot at the airport. This is when I decided to deny all knowledge of knowing these people. Got to be careful about the photos I put up here, Billybob has some crackers of me and she can very easily retaliate on facebook.

First day, pool, kids straight in. Classic Betsy pose, removing a wedgie.

I thought the pool was quite small really, compared to other hotels Ive been to, but it was large enough for the stupid amount of inflatables we took with us/purchased at the hotel shop. Im sure people thought we were all abit odd, in the end we had 4 giant rubber rings, 3 settees with arms lilos (one of which popped) , a massive inflatable doughnut chair and a bog standard lilo with pillow. I bet they called us the inflatable family, and not just for reasons of pool toys, all inclusive, its hard not to over indulge.

Beech, Betsy and I ventured off resort just once, to take short trip on this...

Cause if you cant jump on a Thomas on holiday, when can you jump on a Thomas? He pulled a teeny tram behind him, that collected at the hotel on the hour, tootled round Son bou and returned in 45 minutes. Which is three times more time that we needed in Son Bou becuase it turned out to be very like Blackpool Prom. Cept you dont tend to get shops and shops full of inflatable crocodiles in Blackpool (we resisted the temptation to add a crocodile to the list of inflatables, however we did try to get a sit on Walrus but they'd run out). We made it to the beach, but that was packed so it was a very short trip out. See how excited Betsy was by it all?

The one and only evening trip we took was to see Somni, the dancing horses show. All geared up, I had my canon and three different lenses with me to try and get the best photos possible. Result? NO photography allowed during the show and three million people in front of me during the aftershow where you could take photos. Best I got was this..

not even a real horsey, and this...

a woman on a horse, looks like shes falling off the horse and has wings, but the wings actually belong to the horse behind her. Of course they do. To be honest, the first 15 minutes were ok, horsey trots and clip clopping in sequence, few rearing up horses and some walking on their back legs for a few steps. After that, the remaining 1 hour 45 minutes became a bit samey, it was boiling in the arena with no air con and I was arsey about not being able to take photos. Nice to get back to the hotel at the end of it.

Got some nice aww bless shots, like this one of Silverpop and Billybob.Note Billybobs tan..

and the pool by night was quite nice...

by sunset even nicer...

Of course Harry came with us - can you see him?

He wasnt allowed in anyones cleavage this holiday. Betsy nicked my little camera quite a lot, resulting in photos like this...

and this. Apparently an abundance of sneaky red slushies gives you a tongue that looks exactly like your beach towel. Not a single pixel in that shot was edited..

We landed back into Manchester later than scheduled on the Monday night, which was a bit of a shame for Ben as he had first day at high school the next morning. In a day before Bethany as they give the new year 7s chance to look around and get settled before the rest of the school joins them the next day to give them the wrong directions to classrooms and put their heads in toilets.

He looks very grown up in his uniform, its the tie and blazer that do it.

And perhaps the haircut. Or rather lack of haircut. He wants to keep it longish, which is ok by me because I prefer it that little bit longer. I think he's going for the Justin Bieber look, he goes to Bethany for hair advice and when I suggested this morning that perhaps it needs the tiniest of trims at the back to straight it up, he said 'I'll ask Bethany if thats ok to do'. Ok whatever, they are either thumping each other and screaming, or hugging and giving each other fashion and hair advice, its a fine line between love and loathe.

He said his first day was 'amazing' which was good, just waiting to see if he feels the same now hes done a full week. Trying to get a photo of them together the next morning when Bethany started back was more difficult. They look like Children of the Corn but publishing this will hopefully teach Bethany to try harder when having her photo taken with her brother.

Wake up Betsy.

Other than that, its been a quite weekend this weekend, lovely to see my doggie again, missed her while we were away. Put Ben to work in the kitchen, giving him plenty of practice in preparation for his food tech classes (actually thats a lie, I couldnt be arsed making dinner on Sunday so he did), but see he likes it.

and he made a cracking cheeseburger pie, as seen on pinterest (told you, love it, best site ever).

Yum. So thats the round up so far. Got Bethany's enter into teenage years to come in the next couple of weeks. That should be fun, she's already given me a present request list that is about 40 billion pages long, including a cocktail party and limo. Was a new pair of clogs and an orange for birthdays in my day.

2011-08-18T14:47:00.000+01:00

Its August. In fact its mid August. Kids holidays are in full flow and they’ve definitely hit that stage where they are now bored. Oh to have 6 weeks off to get bored.

Doesn’t help that they are now at that age where they aren’t as easily entertained, trips to the park just don’t cut it, they want to either be glued to some electrical device (Ben) or shopping (Bethany).

Ive been trying had to remember to take more photos, not only because of the complete lack of photos from 2010, but also because without photos, I can never remember what we’ve been up to.

The big news is the kitchen is now well and truly finished, done, complete. All in all it took 6 weeks from start to finish, well and truly over the week we’d initially been given. A long long process that I wouldn’t particularly like to go through again. 6 weeks of mess, furniture and appliances all over the place and dust. Dust from units, work tops, tiles over everything and everywhere. Still, its done and that’s what counts.

We’ve gone from this...(ordinarily not this messy, I had started to empty cupboards at this point, honest)

To this..

Cupboard fronts that aren’t peeling off, doors that actually shut, what a novelty. Worktop space to prepare food on without it going in the sink, brilliant. Pleased with how the splash back turned out, very simply a piece of board, papered in the same paper as the dining area, with a clear glass splashback over the top, to tie in both halves of the room.

The bit that is seemingly most used is the new bit, affectionately known as the ‘butty station’ Dead handy, next to the fridge, by the tassimo, perfect for making sandwiches, drinks, eggs on toast, the lot. Brill.

Before...(mid stripping obviously)

and after..the butty station

and papered...

Had to celebrate so this weekend we had family round for a summer tea party, praying that the sun would shine, which thankfully it did. Spent all day Saturday cooking and baking as I decided I wanted everything that was to be served, to be homemade. Epic fail on the jam front though, well and truly overboiled it, having been side tracked by a quiche and egg custard, resulting in jam that required a chisel to remove from the jar.

So not homemade jam.

Three attempts at macaroons later and I was happy (read that as I was most definitely NOT doing them again) with the results. Firstly tried pistachio, a particular favourite of mine but which we didn’t actually like much. Sent them to work with Beech to be told that no one there liked them either. Fail.

2nd Attempt, this time, pink ones. Still not very good with a piping bag, they came out tasting nice, but looking like little piles of dog poo. Fail.

3rd time lucky, still not round and shiny as they were supposed to be, but I could live with the flower shapes that plopped out of the bag, so went with those. Apparently they were very nice, they didn’t last long enough for me to try one, always a good sign of a tasty macaroon.

You can just about make them out on the right hand side of this photo. What you cant see on the other end of the table is these…

What would an afternoon tea be without cupcakes from Amanda Magpie of Manchester Tarts. Gorgeous. Also managed to grab people for photos, which was unexpected.

Billybob and Granny (mummy)

Billybob, Granny (Mummy), Nana Liz, Grandpa Silverpop

Aww bless.

Now that all the house mess is sorted, its meant Ive had time to scrap again. Using couple of the photos I took of Bethany recently, and a bit of a play on words from the Right Said Fred song, Deeply Dippy, I managed to do Bethany @ 12 page, just before she turns 13 in a months time.

Another to get printed on to canvas to join my expanding gallery at the top of the stairs. It is weird having some time on my hands now, front room is sorted, newly painted, kitchen/dining room, done, Bethany's room I repainted last Friday during my day off to freshen it up, and Ben's room was updated likewise the same day. He's well and truly off football now, but in that his bedroom was decorated in red, white and black, its also very handily the colours of the WWE logo. New duvet, new rug and a red blind, and its transformed into a room he loves. My bedroom was finished a while back and the garden was tidied up and patio power washed prior to my tea party so there's no 'projects' on the go which feels a little weird. Whats a girl to do with spare time she's not used to?

2011-07-27T17:45:00.000+01:00

I've just been telling Billybob about the strange occurrence last night, that I've still not managed to get my head around.

I think it was getting on for 4am in the morning when I heard a knocking at the bedroom door. Thought it a bit strange in my half woken state, but shouted, ‘whats up, come in’. Expected a child to appear but no. Then again, knock, knock, knock and again I shouted ‘Just come in!’. Nothing.

Scrabbled out of bed thinking the worst, child so ill, cannot open the door, expecting to see a limp child on the other side, but what did I see? Small black cat, namely Bubble, comes sauntering in and starts chatting like it’s the middle of the day. I must have sounded very odd because I couldn’t help but say out loud in a really confused way ‘Bubble, how on earth did you knock on the door, you have furry paws!’

Still no idea. Very bizarre.

So, July has been an odd month all round, the kitchen was finally finished last week, having taken almost 4 weeks to get installed and tiled. All that is left now is the wallpapering which Im very excited about because once that's done, its done. The idea I had for my splashback has worked and I think looks good, had a few traumas over the tiling choice (oh fancy that, got dragged to the tile shop and ordered to pick tiles in less than 10 minutes otherwise Beech would have exploded) but after a last minute change of mind about the positioning of the two types I went for, that too worked out and I think looks good. Had second thoughts as they are very blingy, and were meant to go on the main wall. Last minute change put them elsewhere and I think they lookjust about right where Ive put them instead.

See, blingy.

It meant I could start picking out things that will complement the new look, those little accessories that pull everything together, and surely the best bit of doing up a room?

I found this little beauty, which has been a great hit.

Tefal Toast ‘n’ egg. Yes, not only does it make toast, but at the same time its able to either poach an egg, boil 4 eggs, scramble and fry an egg and even warm beans or cooked bacon, perfect for the chicken owners household. Betsy loves it.

Last weekend I rekindled my love of Dunelm Mill, having not been for a while. What a mistaken, how could I have forgotten all the glorious things they sell!

Having been forced into having a dishwasher that I really really didn’t (and still don’t want) its become apparent that we need more crockery. Mainly because we don’t actually generate that much washing up (hence me not wanting one) so its been pointless switching it on to wash what little we use during the day. Im sure there are lots of people that love their dishwashers, maybe people that use lots of pots during the day so they mount up, or cook lovely big meals all the time etc. I, however, don’t see the point in putting it on for a 2 hour cycle to do 4 plates, maybe 2 pans, couple of glasses, the odd dish and some cutlery each night.

So now what happens? We try to make enough pots to justify switching it on. So a glass gets used, then put in there. Then, instead of using the same glass for a second drink, a clean one is brought out of the cupboard. That also goes in there once used. To me its defeated the object of having a new kitchen, that has lots more cupboard space, to then have to fill that extra space with more crockery. Madness. I still think its stupid that you more or less have to wash things off before they go in there anyway and added to that, its muggings here who has to empty the damn evil thing everytime. The one single plus point it has is that dirty pots can be hidden in it, meaning my lovely new sink is always clear from either stuff waiting to be washed, or stuff sitting on the drainer. Spose, I’ll give it that one plus point.

The point of my waffle is that it meant I could legitimately go out and buy loads of stuff without Beech whinging, because its down to him wanting the dishwasher (that surprise surprise, he’s still not learnt to use) that we need the extra pots. Oh my Dunelm Mill has lots of crockery.

Bought these wonderful teacups and saucers, I like the old fashioned afternoon tea style of them.

They are also perfect for filling with ice cream from my bargain ice cream maker – strawberry see?

Kids didn’t like the strawberry ones because oddly enough, it has strawberries in… Erm yes kids, did the name give it away, strawberry ice cream? Smart cookies aren’t they. Cept apparently, it doesn’t taste like strawberry flavour. What?? Ahh stuff it, I like it, surely that's what counts anyway.

What else. Oh, a new place for eggs…

A jazzy microwave…

And some flowers dotted here and there..

I think it may have become obvious what I've chosen as my accent colour?

I did drop a little bit of a clanger the other day though. I have in my possession a plate and bowl that I used when it was knee high to a grasshopper. I've kept them safe for oodles of years now, and put them well out of the way when things were being moved to and from the kitchen. Cept Poppy managed to get to them anyway, knocking the bowl onto the hard floor where it smashed into two pieces. Thankfully a clean break meant I could glue it without the break being two obvious, then popped it into the new wall cupboard above our newly installed butty station.

Then when I came to move it to its proper resting place, I discovered I've glued it to the damn shelf. It wont budge. Stuck fast to the shelf. Bugger.

Bethany broke up from school last Friday, managed to get through first year of high school with no great traumas. Phew. Ben still has this week to go though, but the end is in sight for primary school. He had his school leavers production last week, and despite his teacher writing all over his report how great his singing voice is and how she and the music teacher love to listen to him, he didn’t get a singing part, or even a decent part, he was a villager with just four words to say. His outfit didn’t help, it consisted of leggings lent to him by our childminder that I didn’t see until the night of the production, they were shiny skintight black lycra, which, coupled with my granddads black leather flat cap made him look like a little rent boy. Poor Ben. You could tell his heart wasn’t in his performance, specially when he started doing L for loser signs above his fellow actors heads as they spoke their lines. Bad Benji. He also had his leavers disco on Friday, he said he wasn’t going right up until 5 minutes before, but Betsy and I bullied him into it. Worked out all round in the end, for Ben because he had a really good time and me, I was staining the new banister and figured he’d be better off out of the house with no danger of him leaning on it.

The vegetables are coming on well, first crop of lettuces harvested and fed to the pigs and second lot well on its way. We have beans..

and some teeny carrots on the way...

Bless, baby carrots.

Hope the pigs damn well appreciate these.

Creative juices are flowing

2011-07-12T08:09:00.002+01:00

For a change. There's all sorts going on, what with the new kitchen that has taken a billion years to fit and still isnt quite finished, living in piles of 'stuff' and 'things' while it all gets done and the devastating loss of the most precious carrier bag ever (the one containing all very important documents plus a lot of family stuff that cannot be replaced EVER that was moved from the sideboard when the sideboard got dumped), its been a right few weeks.

The end is sort of in sight, I just need to focus and decide on tiles and paper and stuff like that.

Meanwhile I havent been resting on my laurels, Ive had another bout of scrappingitis and produced a few more pages that will eventually become canvases.

Betsy got to be the first to bake in the new kitchen. Cause basically I couldnt be arsed but we wanted a pudding.

Ive done a few two pagers recently as well. I found that Id stopped scrapping because sometimes I didnt have one good enough focal shot, but lots and lots of 'ok' shots. So I bunged them all on a page and they spilt over to second. Like this...

A page about the girls, but didnt have enough space for the Wheelies or the Lodgers so they got their own page.

I knew I wanted to do holiday pages (first time) but also that I really couldnt be bothered doing an 'album' so again, had to be a couple of two pages. First two to cover off the ship...

and the second too to cover off the places we visited.

Finally, Ive been meaning to scrap my photos from last years project of growing my own vegetables. Had loads of those too, so they took on the story of how, for some reason, I grew a lot of things that we dont actually like to eat, hence the title...

Ignore the border, that isnt actually on the real page, its the border I put on them that gets wrapped when transferring to canvas. For some reason, this particular page refused to 'save as' a jpeg from the .psd file and this was the only way it would play. All credits for all pages can be found in my UKS gallery.

I also squeezed in a Race for Life this past Sunday, along with Billybob, Ben and Poppy. Bethany was going to run but didnt feel very well, Poppy ran and wore her pink t-shirt with pride and Ben came along for the fun of it and was very chuffed when they awarded him his very own medal. This year we raised a not too bad £467, which was just 2% off our target of £475. It takes the grand total that we've raised over 3 races to £1335 which Im pretty proud of.

Cool beans as Betsy would say.

Isnt it a wonder

2011-06-15T08:15:00.001+01:00

Left to report from May was the incredible parents evening with had with our Betsy.

She had a very shaky end to primary school and a shaky start to secondary so we were apprehensive about what we may find out at parents evening. This was the big one where you pretend to make an appointment with each and every form tutor but in reality, you shoulder barge people, stand on feet and sprint to an empty chair in front of a teacher as soon as you see one.

What can I say, we were told some fantastic things and came away incredibly proud. Not that we weren’t already proud, but when you have every single teacher telling you that your daughter, who was painfully timid at the start of the school year, has come along in leaps and bounds, has made the most progress, has produced work beyond her year, is a pleasure to teach, is a fantastic drama student who has the teachers and class in stitches and who words very hard and is ahead of target in most classes, its hard not to swell with pride. Well done Bets.

The second bank holiday Monday in May, the kids, granny and I slipped off on this..

Specifically this one

All sneaky like. Well not too sneaky, but we did book quite late on our Ancient Wonders cruise. Leaving Beech behind to look after the Beecher menagerie (complete with strict instruction on who to feed, when and what) we caught an early plane Monday morning and arrived into Turkey just after lunch. The transfer from the airport to the port of Marmaris took just over an hour and twenty minutes, some of which time we had torrential rain. Just what you want after taking off from a cold, wet UK really. Thankfully it didn’t last long and on arrival at the port we had sunshine. Phew. After being photographed and processed we left our luggage on the quayside and boarded the ship (NOT boat, as the captain said, if you call her a boat, you will have to walk the plank) for the first time.

It was quite different to the Thomson Destiny that we travelled on in 2007, it seemed smaller from the outside and perhaps not as pretty in shape. Our cabins were on deck 1, below quayside, in the dungeons, back to back with the crew cabins and thankfully next door to each other .I was very pleasantly surprised to see that they were roomier than on Destiny with lots more storage space. Ben and I were sharing, as were Granny and Betsy. As our cases wouldn’t turn up for another couple of hours, we went to find some lunch/tea at the 24 hours Lido restaurant and have a bit of an explore to find the most important bits, the family pool...

and the shops...

Which arent allowed to open until we've set sail due to duty free laws. We were then able to unpack, met our very friendly and helpful cabin steward ‘Idris’ and make our way back to Deck 6 in anticipation of the ‘sail away’ party, that erm never really seem to happen. On Destiny they made more of an event of sail away, disco, a band but on Celebration it was almost like she snuck away with just a few people watching the quayside…

and we were on our way.

It was easy enough to get to sleep the first night, a 4am start that morning, lots of travel, first night buffet syndrome (you know, where you eat one of everything and go back for more just because its there) added to the gentle rock of the ship meant we were away the minute our heads hit the pillows. We woke bright and early to a day at sea which although nice and relaxing, the one downside was it meant everyone was on board. Which sounds daft but at port, you have people on shore on trips etc which frees up the sun loungers and tables on the open air decks. After the full safety drill of life jackets and 6 floors of stairs to run up, we were free to enjoy the day. We eventually found 1 sun lounger which we decided to take turns on, and a table with chairs for Granny to sit at to appease the trapped nerve in her back.

It didn’t look particularly sunny, a bit dull to start with. It was at this point I realised my camera wasn’t working properly. I think mums ‘sitting on a ship’ face did it. I stress that’s ‘ship’ face, don’t say it quickly.

Only joking mum, see, heres a nice one.

For some reason it kept whirring but not focussing and on further investigation, it became apparent my favourite 50mm lens had fallen apart. Which was incredibly sad (save for the fact that I almost almost almost had just brought that one lens as it was in my hand luggage and I didn’t want to lug heavy stuff round, but at the last possible minute, had shoved my tamron and zoom lens into Ben’s suitcase). Otherwise I wouldn’t have had a camera.

Now that would have been devastating.
Obviously being at sea meant there wasn’t a great deal to snap so there are many daft photos of all that I wont subject you to. Ben took first turn on the lounger..

and this was the one and only day he had those sunglasses because shortly after, he lost them. Typical lad. It was also the start of him sunbathing under a towel. Weird.
Guess who else came with us?

Why Harry of course! For anyone that has read my blog over time, you’ll know that Harry the tiny green Bang on the Wall Hippo goes on holidays with several members of the family. He’s been to Ibiza, Turkey, Iceland, Portugal, Lanzorote, Rhodes, Austria and France. I’d imagine he’s the mostly worldly travelled hippo. Im not even sure why, he just does. Anyway, as usual, Harry is photographed in various places, the photos of which are sent to his mum, Billybob, with the phrase ‘Where’s Harry’. Daft family game but we like it.

So Harry came out..

He went where no hippo has gone before at this point, but I know mum would proper batter me if I post that particular photo.
And Betty, water baby that she is, went in the pool.

And did her bestest Bruce Forsyth impression.

She wont like that so heres a nicer one

We took part in the daily quiz, did quite well and following that was the fancy cocktail making display thingy. Which I tried to miss in that it was my turn on the lounger and I was trying to sunbath, but the sounds of ‘Suz, you have to see this, come see this, you must see this’ dragged my from my relaxed state and had me taking lots of photos that are now very boring.

Here’s one anyway

The rest of our day at sea was spent in much the same way, sunbathing, eating, sunbathing and eating. I think this was the night we decided to eat in the main restaurant, which involved dressing up a little, which we did. I remember was a nice meal, hampered only by Betsy suddenly feeling ill and having to go back to the cabin prior to her dinner arriving. I think it was a touch of sun, swallowing pool water (which was just filtered sea water) and previous night buffet syndrome, a.k.a you stuffed your little face too much Betsy syndrome.

Day 2 and we woke up in the port of Istanbul to this sight.

Being the organised peeps we were, we’d picked our shore excursions the afternoon we boarded, for each day, chosen for ease of walking and half day trips to avoid child whinge syndrome and overtired adults. So, after a quick breakfast we’d jumped on the coach for our first tour. That I cant remember the name of. Lets just call it ‘Looky round Istanbul’

There were a couple of photo stops here

Cept I cant remember what that was called because we weren’t close enough to the guide but it looked good. Did you know there are about 3500 mosques in Istanbul city alone? Or something like that. They are all very pretty too. We set off again, this time to cross the Bosphorus Bridge, which spans the Bosphorus Strait, making Turkey a Euroasian country as it is in both Europe and Asia.

So pretty cool really to go from one continent to another in the same city. This photo was taken of our ship docked in Europe while I stood in Asia...

Onward again and some free time to sit on a bench in the sunshine. From our viewpoint we could see the Hagia Sophia Palace…

The blue Mosque…

And Harry enjoying a fountain.

Back on the ship just in time for lunch and the daily quiz and a relaxing afternoon. Not quite sure what was going on here but it made me laugh.

Then, as we turned in for bed, we discovered a new friend on Ben’s bed…

From Idris. Bless.

Day 4 and we woke up in Lesbos (much to Ben’s amusement). Cant remember the name of the tour again so lets call it ‘Looky round Lesbos’.

We stopped here for a quick photo op..

and went up this little street towards a chuch, but again don’t know what it was called as we weren’t near the guide, but it was very pretty

Besides, I couldn’t concentrate on what was being said because the brats were revolting and I was more interested in the pack of dogs that were tootling around the group.

We found our way to the church, but once again I didn’t listen to the guide as I was too busy trying to do penetrating stares at the back of my kids’ necks as they were sat a few rows in front of me. No etiquette, they were oblivious to the dirty looks they were receiving from sitting in church with hats on and I was too far behind them to do that parental annoyed hissy thing at them. At one point a strange local siddled up to them and for one moment I thought he was going to physically remove them (the hats, not the kids) but he just stared with disgust.

Anyway one, not great, churchy shot.

Soon as the guide stopped talking and the group moved, berated the kids and back down the cobbled street to spend free time in a café and buying odd wooden stuff from little shops like this

Im sure you’ll agree, every granddad in the world needs a carved dog headed catapult which is exactly what we bought him. What was our towel animal that night?

A Rabbit.

Day 5 and we were back in Turkey at the port of Izmir to visit the Ancient Agora (ha I remembered!). Constructed during the rule of Alexander the Great, what little is left remains because of Faustina, wife of Marcus Aruelius she said, sounding remarkably like Wikipedia.

In fact, this is Faustina...

How nice to be remembered by your face in an arch.
Its an open air museum don’t you know, not riveting but photogenic all the same.

More memorable for the fight I had with the toilet roll dispenser and lost. Kids were thrilled to be there.

If they thought that was boring, they were horrified when we pulled up outside a Turkish museum. Too many steps for mum so we left her sunbathing on a bench while the kids were horrifically argumentative around a hot, stuffy and incredibly boring museum, (not that I told them that, after all, I am a grown up) and I almost lost the will to live. Ben's ears pricked up at the mention of camel wrestling, only to have his hopes dashed when it became apparent it wasnt just a Turkish wrestler called Camel.

When the realistatiion came that it was none one,but two Turkish museums, even I balked at that one and we all stayed outside on a bench. Found another doggie.

and Harry went exploring...

Boarded the coach again to somewhere that involved a long walk which didnt best please us so we spent our free time being totally misunderstood by an ice cream seller (who didnt understand our Turkish guide either when he stepped in to help) and sunning ourselves on a bench, much to the disgust of quite a few locals who obviously didnt appreciate our clothing. In fact, one very old local lady, dressed head to foot in black, tried to tell mum something. When mum indicated she didnt understand, the woman cursed her and walked off. Or least thats what it looked like, she brought to mind the evil stepmother from Snow White, disguised as the apple seller. Look, here she is..

Very strange. On the walk back to the coach we saw another pretty Mosque..

and a clock tower thingy

But again no idea what they were as we werent near the guide. Nice though. And that night? Captains night. A night to get dolled up, attend a cocktail reception and meet the captain for a dreadful photo.

Sadly the onboard shop had run out of black bow ties, so Ben had to make do with a white one but he looked quite dashing I think...

Names Bond. James Bond. We tried to pass off his black cardigan as a tux and the effect looked ok until you got to his feet and saw that crap mummy had forgotten his black shoes so he wore white trainers. New ones for the holiday and thankfully ones he’d managed to keep bright white so they could have almost passed for dress shoes. Almost.

In our finery we made our way to the reception, joining the huge queue to have bad photos taken in front of pretend atriums. They used flash for a start! Not flattering. Finally got to the captain, shook hands, had bad photo and joined the party. I have to say though, he was very funny when he addressed the room and we were introduced to the senior staff on board. On to the grub and disappointingly, the meal was nothing special but I suspect the reason for that came later.

Betty looked glowing (having burnt her face a day or so before), it had calmed down by then. Once we’d eaten, we did what any normal people would do and returned to our cabin to slip into something more comfortable. We’d set sail by this point and mum mentioned how windy it was on deck 6 in the open air so we went to play.
Windy??? Gale force!

We played ‘hang on to the handrail for dear life’

While I hung on one handed in order to take funny photos

Captains Night was also the night of the Buffet Magnifique, where the kitchen staff excelled themselves in fruit and vegetable carving and food sculpture. During the afternoon we’d seen a demonstration on deck of ice carving by one member who in twenty minutes had carved a sculpture from a large block with just a chisel. 11pm the buffet opened for photographs. It was incredible.

Those were my favourites, birds made from melon.

Flower made from oranges, carrots, beetroots and onions.

Chocolate Gladiator! Unfortunately we were all too knackered to stay for the opening to eat at 11.30pm but it was stunning to look at.

Day 6 didn’t work out so well in Athens on our 'Looky around Athens' but we did see the Acropolis from our viewpoint and with my zoom, caught the Parthenon atop.

Shame about the scaffolding. We visited the museum at the foot of the acropolis which is built on stilts as everywhere they try and excavate in Athens, they unearth some more ruins, that they then cant build on top of. This is the way around it!

Back on the ship, Ben was doing wrestling moves and karate kicks in the pool...

That Bethany tried to copy. Fail.

No towel animal for us that night, but Betsy had an eagle in her room.

I think my favourite stop was day 6 when we stopped off in Crete. The view from the deck as we went to breakfast was beautiful (if you ignore the port side activities of course).

There was promise of some time at the beach on this tour, so kids were prepared in their costumes and we set off. Didn’t really turn out to be as we’d hoped as we had perhaps 30 minutes at ‘the beach’ as the guide talked a lot. She pointed out the mountain named after the Goddess Hera..

Do you see her profile there?

and left us to it. The beach was mostly shingle and no time to swim so the kids amused themselves by throwing pebbles in to the sea like you do.

Shortly after this photo was taken,

an accident happened that resulted in a scream, and this…

As Ben over swung and his pebble ricocheted off Betsy’s head before plopping into the sea. Aww.

Id personally checked with the on board excursion team that there wasn’t too much walking on this tour, as in Athens, there was far more than mentioned in the description. I was told there was a little and a few steps, but nothing much at all. Liars! Up and down cobbled streets with a tour guide that made me feel increasingly more uncomfortable with her political views (and Im not political at all!) meant that by the time we came to our next free time stop, all we wanted to do was wee, eat ice cream and sit in a café. Pretty streets though

We saw a vast amount of the island as this was a ‘panoramic tour’ which took the coach up incredibly high all around the island and our last stop allowed us to capture views like this..

And a rare moment of sibling love that just had to be documented.

Back on board ship that afternoon we were given a demonstration on how the towel animal are created, its dead clever you know. A hand towel and a coat hanger none the less!

Swan

And a Monkey

Ace. Being our last night, it was also the Baked Alaska Parade in the main restaurant. Bizarre I know, but basically it involved lots of chefs and waiters, legging it round the restaurant holding flaming puddings much to the surprise of the kids. Unfortunately they were too quick for me and camera without flash see..

Following this, all the waiters got together and sang us a little song to say that they would miss us. Awwww.

Back to the cabins to pack as our luggage was to be left outside by 2am, ready for transfer to the quay side at Marmaris once we docked there the next morning.

And a lovely morning it was at port..

That was the end of our Ancient Wonders cruise, back to rainy Manchester!

Cast not a sommat until May is out.... or something

2011-06-10T20:38:00.002+01:00

Cant remember the real phrase. May has gone and already its almost mid June.

I have more excuses about meaning to blog earlier but can’t really be arsed typing them. You can actually ignore this post, Im sure it will be very boring for anyone reading but I want it in my next book.

From what I can remember about May, it was very busy. Mainly because after the sale of Aggies house after being on the market for almost 2 years, it meant that we could finally go ahead with the plans for a new kitchen. I thought perhaps we’d spend a couple of months looking at the options, few weeks getting various companies round to measure up and another few weeks designing it with the company we’d go for.

Not so. Less than a week after funds had cleared, Beech had a joiner, an electrician, a plumber and a decorator booked. Which sounds ok cept firstly, he’d booked the electrician to come the following week which meant I had to choose light fittings for the whole house within 4 days. Secondly the decorator/handyman was also coming within the following week so I needed to think about what he was going to do. Lastly and more importantly he’d booked the joiner for 4 weeks time to fit a kitchen meaning I had to pick/design a kitchen asap in order for it to be delivered on time.

So lights for the whole house, a kitchen, appliances, flooring and décor in 1 week.

You may be surprised to hear that I wasn’t really ok with the whole planning all at once thing. I realise Im very fortunate to be getting all these things done, but I had imagined it would be one thing at a time in a leisurely fashion. After a bit of a temper tantrum, I persuaded Beech to cancel the decorator and forget about the joinery in the lounge and to just sort the kitchen and lighting out.

So, first things first, we had made appointments with B & Q, Howdens and Wickes to come measure up our kitchen. Howdens came, and a week later emailed some design images, two of which did not resemble the layout of our kitchen. Not only that but they hadn’t included a few of the things I had said I wanted. Epic fail.

Wickes man asked me to measure up and take the measurements to him. I did. I measured every non moveable aspect and all wall measurements. He said it was too detailed and didn’t really understand the cooker wall. I cant see the problem, can you?

In fact he said over and over it didn’t make sense until I lost my rag and pointed out that I wasn’t a professional measurer and the other companies had come out to us to take their own measurements. In the end he agreed to come out, which he did the following day and managed to knocked over my utensil jar, resulting in a smashed two tier cake stand. Epic fail. Not only that but his plan looked exactly like mine when he’d finished.

B & Q, we had to wait for them, but it turned out they were the most thorough and made the most suggestions whilst measuring up. Luckily enough, Mr Plumber man also turned up as Mr B & Q man was there so they had a nice chat about the placement of the replacement boiler and it all seemed to be going well so I hoped B & Q came in with the best design.

Which they did. 2 days later on the Sunday we were in store to see what they had come up with. Unlike Wickes who had put together a design based on their choice of electrical appliance which I thought a bit presumptuous, Mr B & Q, hereafter named, Rob, sat down with us and designed the kitchen from scratch, suggesting what could fit here and there, and basically let us tell him what we wanted. I hadn’t had much time to do my homework on the appliances which was a bit daft, specially as I ended up having to just point at whatever in the brochure there and then and saying ‘that one’, now that I have had time, I doubt I’d have picked anything different. It was done in about 1 ½ hours and in that Id swung from wanting a white shaker style traditional kitchen, to a high gloss cream, back to the white shaker. Also, my dreams of a range cooker were thwarted as where the cooker is, didnt then allow for workspace next to one, and my other dream of a Belfast sink, also thwarted as Beech had put his foot down insisting that we have a dishwasher, which needed to be fitted under the sink. Ive always been resistant to having one – washing up takes a few minutes, you only need a few pots as they get washed after use, and in our current kitchen, we are short on storage. Dishwasher take ages don’t they. Beech however, wants a dishwasher. Which has to be fine as realistically its his inheritance that’s paying for this.

In that there was a 20% discount on all kitchens, and some cupboard fronts were half price until the Monday, we decided to go away for an hour, (and see Mr Wickes who was pants) and then make the decision. By the time we went back to place the order, B & Q were up to their ears in kitchen people and there was nobody free to see us. Which was bad news as by the time we had a new appointment on the Monday, I had changed my mind a million times and had finally settled on the cream gloss. Til we walked through the displays again to Robs office and Beech said ‘Oh, the white gloss is nice, what do you think?’

Now here’s the thing. Whenever I ask Beech for an opinion he says ‘I don’t mind’, or ‘it doesn’t matter to me’ or ‘whatever you want, Im not bothered’.

So, in a rare moment of him expressing an opinion for something that is clearly a huge purchase, this was a defining moment. Which ultimately meant, had I dismissed his opinion on this one, forever and a day later Id be hearing ‘what does it matter what I like, you always go for what you want anyway’.

Dilemma.

I figured seeing as the kitchen in my head wasn’t happening and not actually practical, did it really matter if it wasn’t the colour I’d finally settled on? The wooden style worktops were all that was left of my dream kitchen, would that be enough? So up we trot to Rob, braced ourselves for his wrath as we once again asked him to change it to high gloss white. Looked ok on the plans. All changed over, sorted, order goes through, delivery in 6 weeks. Which makes delivery 23rd June. Fine by me, little longer to get the other stuff sorted out, Beech not pleased as now he has to move the joiner. Order placed and paid for, then as Im walking out of the shop I remembered why Id gone for the cream gloss in the first place. Our house isn’t ultra modern, the downstairs is what Id call country homely. The lounge floor is dark oak, the furniture wooden, its traditional style. So to me, a bright high gloss white rounded very modern kitchen with black tiled floors might just look out of place in our little home. A cream kitchen with wooden flooring, would suit perfectly. Not only that, but the bedroom is silver, black and grey, the toilet and bathroom are black and white, and I really really didn’t want another black and white room in the house.

Rob did say we could change anything in the order up until day of delivery…. So I decided to sleep on it.

In a survey of everyone I know, the outcome was that I should stick with the white. Specially as we are keeping our nearly new washing machine and that would stick out like a sore thumb against cream cupboards. Still wasn’t convinced as thinking ahead to the wallpaper, I could find more suitable papers with cream tones than white. I’d already decided to change the flooring to wooden laminate to tie in with the worktops so next evening spent a good hour in B & Q wandering to and from the flooring to the worktops before realising that the laminate wood effect worktops looked pants. Needed to be real wood or non and seeing as I couldn’t justify the price difference of £800 between the two, my dream wood worktop has also gone by the by, it will now be black. To go with the black tiles on the floor. A bit like this only the worktops wont be high gloss and all cupboards will be white. You get the idea.

A little sad that this whole kitchen thing hadn’t worked out as Id dreamed about, the following day I was over the moon to stumble across some wallpaper in B & M that is how Ive imagined now that I have my head around this totally different idea of a kitchen. That will, I think, look stunning with a high gloss white kitchen, black tiles and black worktops. That will pull the cupboards, the floor, the appliances all together and will look fabulous. That will stop the kitchen being so black and white as it has HUGE red poppies all over it. So after all that, the stress of having to pick a kitchen in what was 2 days, Im happy with everything Ive picked and cant wait for it all to be installed.

Course there was one provision – the toilet and bathroom will need to be redone so that they aren’t black and white (snigger).

With that out of the way I had 2 days to sort the lighting. Our house is an oddity, the doors and windows arent standard sizes, and for some reason, the only rooms in the house that have centre lights are the lounge and toilet. All other rooms rely soley on wall lights. Which wouldnt be a problem if they werent all fitted with odd shaped fittings that only allow uplighter shades. Which as you might know, dont give out much light. Therefore the plan was to install centre lights in the two bigger bedrooms, and replace all the fittings for the side lights to allow 'normal' fittings on. Also to replace the fluorescent strip in the kitchen as its been dodgy for years and comes on when it wants, to replace the centre light in the lounge that every now and then spits out the bulbs, showering the room with glass and to replace the electric board which was fitted in 3500 B.C. Oh and to have some downlighters in the dining part of the kitchen instead of the weird wall lights.

Always worries me when people turn up to do these jobs with names like 'Jimmy the Chimp' but turn up he did on two out of the three days he was supposed to and he did a reasonable job (drilling holes in the ceiling in the wrong place, muddy footprints on the kitchen table and installing the wrong wall lights in Betsys room aside).In the grand scheme of Beech and his black book of people that 'do stuff' it was quite uneventful.

Lighting checked off the list. Thats where we are we things, the kitchen is sorted apart from changing the worktop, the lighting is done and complete. The plumber is almost sorted, just waiting on a quote for a combi conversion which may or may not lead to a new bathroom design, the banisters are chosen and just need purchasing as that will be done by the kitchen fitter so all that will remain is the decorating that has come about from all the work being done.

The bedroom was finally finished two weeks ago, taken long enough to pull together, but now its finished I love it. Im dead chuffed with the plastic panels I found in B & M for a bargain £1.99. Ive hung them on Beech's wardrobe doors as they are just MDF painted plain white and I think they look pretty.

Finishing touches were the Ikea TV unit on the wall opposite the bed which now holds the TV that used to live downstairs.

Can have proper cinema nights now, kids and I snuggled in my giant bed. Also invested in a proper wardrobe for me instead of a canvas thing shoved in the corner, as Beech has the big one as he has more clothes than Madonna. A dressing table to match the bedside cabinets, a joy to behold as Ive not had a dressing table since 1995 and its nice not to have to sit in Betsys room to dry my hair or put make up on in the bathroom and finally finally, a bed head, also a first.

Its all coming together, slowly but surely and stressfully. All worth it though.

Course when its all done I'll want to move as there will be nothing left to do...

2011-05-16T08:39:00.000+01:00

So as mentioned last post, at the end of April, we had something far more important than a royal wedding, we had Bens 11th birthday.

As WWE is the thing of the moment, he received figures, books, jamas and even knickers featuring his favourite wrestlers. I had hoped to get a WWE type of cake but unfortunately that didn’t pan out (Amanda if you’re reading, I tried to do through the contact bit on your website, did you not get it?) so I went down the run to Asda jobbie and found a Monkey.

Isnt he lovely?

He has sparklers in his head, how pretty. And now?

He’s a dead monkey. Wiped the smile of his face. Ben had a lovely time and once again, I was too stupid to take a photo of the most important bit, the birthday boy himself.

Ben is attempting to get enough wrestlers to be able to hold his own 40 man Royal Rumble. He’s not far off and his obsession grows weekly. So much so during a period of time when he was banned from playing on his X box he decided to make his own version of a monopoly board, but instead featuring wrestlers as property to buy. He started off with one huuuuge piece of paper as his board that he painstakingly drew the places on and started to make the mortgage cards required.

He was struggling with the floppiness of his ‘board’ so it started with me suggesting that we perhaps found him a large piece of card to use instead. Then, because I do lots of things using powerpoint, not only at work, but at home (my cards start as images I turn into decoupage sheets on powerpoint) I suggested perhaps he might enjoy making the spaces on the computer, finding images (copyright free of course) from google so that his spaces and mortgage cards had pictures of the wrestlers in question. So he did.

He spent lots of evenings (because his xbox ban was considerable) making boxes, picking colours and finding photos to use. The idea grew and grew until we ended up with a mountboard board, little monopoly money personalised with WWE on, and the equivalent chance and community chest cards but for the WWE world.

Looks good doesn’t it? Better do, I spent hours cutting out the squares, precision pritt sticking them to the mountboard and another few hours cutting up the tiny bank notes.

And after all that? He played it once for about 15 minutes.

The downside to his obsession is his need to try and wrestle with anyone and everyone. Couple of bank holiday weekends ago we decided to go for a picnic. Me, Granny, Betsy, Benj, Auntie Billybob, DanDan the Camouflage man and Chloe his little girl. Oh and poppy of course. Two picnic hampers, bunch of rugs and we parked ourselves in Cringle Park, Stockport.

Where upon Ben learnt lesson number one….

You just wont win...

And even if you wait until she’s settled down , eaten and doesn’t notice you creeping up, you still wont win…

Silly Benj.

Doesn’t it look that way though? Need big forceps for that one. Ben isn’t the only weird child Ive produced….

Yes, you have to ask yourself why, on a day that was 400 degrees, clearly dressed for the sun, was she wrapped in a blanket with woolly socks on. Because she’s on the cusp of teenagerdom which means I don’t understand ¾ of the stuff she does these days.

So, the Royal Wedding bank holiday came around. Another lovely sunny day. Silverpop came to visit armed with wood, skill and a dog in order to start the production of guinea pig palace. Which reminds me, does anyone want 4 very lovely guinea pigs? Cause clearly their pig mum Betsy has developed ‘out of sight, out of mind’ now that they live in their outside home. Anyway. The pigs were to be homed in the little chicken coop, complete with nesting box bedrooms, loft access lounge area and steps to private gardens.

Sort of. Problem being that although for a few months each pair of pigs has been conscious of the others, being in a two up two down sort of way in their house hutches, and Im presuming have chatted on several occasions, when all four were put in the same place, a pig free for all commenced. Ive never seen a truly nowty pig before. Actually that’s not really fair, it was mostly two pigs, one from each pair going at it while the other two squashed next to each other in a corner going ‘OMG have you seen them two, what on earth is their problem’. Poppet really really took offence at being put with Peanut, started to play the Im THE pig game and Peanut flipped. In the end she was going so mad she was biting everyone, including her best mate in pig frustration so back they went, their separate ways and the whole coop idea had to be re-thought. So that’s where we were that Royal Wedding bank, me waffling round trying to pretend I knew how to work the new gas BBQ,

and running in and out of the front room for a what on earth is she wearing update, Silverpop building a divider down the middle of pig palace

and Poppy pretending she's a person

See my bunting? That was my effort towards the wedding, that and some bunting at the front of the house…

Theres a Benj and a Poppy in the window there. See that tree? Its massive, more about that in a sec. I thought it looked quite jolly, specially seeing as we were the only house in the square to make an effort.

So my Royal Wedding conclusions are these

1. Quite disappointed with the wedding dress – oddly normal, was hoping for something completely outrageous that we could laugh at. She looked delightful and classy.

2. Got over that quite quickly having seen the outfits of the two Yorkie girls, specially them napper covers. Had my laugh then instead.

3. Didn’t think queenie carried off the yellow so well. Shes a bit pale, needed a stronger colour in my mind. Maybe a union jack dress, a la ginger spice.

4. William got bored very early on, probably due to not much sleep the night before having been tied naked to Buck Palace gates by his crazy, James Hewitt lookalike brother. Watched him almost fall asleep during the service – made obvious by the fast blinking which you always do to try and trick yourself that you aren’t going to crash out at any moment.

5. Disappointed that some lip reader somewhere didn’t catch Harry saying something wildly inappropriate at the altar as Kate approached.

6. How funny was it that Camilla didn’t quite know where to stand when she arrived. Thought she looked nice though.

7. Disappointed that Wills wasn’t caught singing ‘God save our gracious granny’ during the national anthem.

So overall theme, disappointed. Cept I do like my bunting.

The bank holiday Monday that followed was pretty much a carbon copy of the Friday, Silverpop came back to complete pig palace, I waffled about doing some cleaning and Bethany wore a sun dress and fur lined winter boots…

I don’t know why I was surprised with the ensemble once again, we recently went to buy her some shorts for our upcoming holiday (more later) and she asked if she could wear tights with them. This from the girl who rolls her school skirt waist bands so high you can almost see her breakfast. She’s guarding the chicken skewers there, by the Monday Id sussed the BBQ.

Had a knock at the door and it was the tree man that recently topped next doors conifer hedge from around 100 million feet to door height. I love tree man because it means that we now actually get some light into our garden. He’d put a note through asking if we wanted something doing to our tall tree at the front, which I did, and I was going to phone him later that week. Turned out he was bored during the bank holiday and was looking for something to do. So, he said he could take off 15-16 feet, I said ok and five minutes later, came back with his tree truck. Before he started, I walked across the road to take a before photo – didn’t actually realise it was this big until I looked at it like this!

Didn’t take him long, he made it look very natural but its still too big and still needs more taking off that is hanging on the roof. It’s a start though.

Pig palace was completed and the girls thrown in to see their reaction.

That’s Pudding there, tootling around the lounge area. You can just about see the ramps through the little holes that lead to the run area. Initially they couldn’t get to grip with them, literally, so silverpop made the all important alterations, grippers and side and now all but Patootie race up and down them, click clacking as they go. The idea is that at some point we may be able to remove the wire divider there and they will all live in harmony. We’ll see.

I think that’s me just about caught up with April now. May is proving to be complicated with a new kitchen to design and order, various plumbing changes (the house, not me!), electrical alternations and joinery work to be done. All at the same time. Good job I love a challenge.

Crikey Its May

2011-05-12T15:47:00.000+01:00

April, a time of greenery, sun and chocolate eggs. Of daffodils, lawn mowers and light evenings. How great is are the light evenings? Makes those after work trips to the bottom of the garden to refill water and chicken pellets so much easier.

Firstly, Im happy to say, once again I've been lucky enough to keep my job. Which up until now I hadnt broadcasted at my place of work as so many other people have yet to find out if they are ok. So that was a huge relief. Fingers crossed for so many others.

April drifted along quite sanely really.

Project patio soldiers on, with the planting of lettuce, onions, celery, carrots and chard. Where have I planted lettuce, onions and celery I hear you ask. Well the lettuce and onions have been planted here…

This fantastic trough that grandpa Silverpop made me out of bits of wood, its very cool. Its also massive and when my veggies have grown, who knows, if Beech doesnt behave, he may end up buried in there...

Carrots are in big pots and I've actually forgotten where I planted the celery so that will be a nice surprise if it suddenly grows. Lettuce, chard and carrots are being grown to feed the Beecher menagerie, chickens and guinea pigs and the onions are for the kitchen. Actually I lied about the chard, this post had been half drafted since mid April and now thats its getting on for mid May, its all old news. The lying bit comes from finding the packet with the Chard seeds in the drawer the other day and realising I hadnt actually planted them as stated above. Back to April...

I also bought some pansies and pretty stuff for the patio pots and hanging baskets…

Poppy likes pigs see. She's kissing it...

With her teeth. Scruffy dog, more about that later.

We had a mothers day and I received what will probably be the last mothers day card made at school, from Ben. Apparently they dont do it in big school. Bah.

How pretty. Course it was signed in the normal way, you know, just in case I cant figure out which of the millions of Bens that live with me its come from.

I think he'll still be signing his name 'Ben B' when hes in his twenties. See the little note about Wrestlemania? Thats because it was the same day as mothers day, on PPV at a whopping £15 in the early hours. And no, he didnt get to watch it, specially as you can more of less see it on You Tube a day or so later. Worth a shot I spose he thought.

What else. Got to remember now as thats all I had typed up back in April, hoping my cameras memory card will jog the old memory a bit. Ah yes, chickens. You might remember that last year I purchased some day old chicks called Welsummers in the hope of raising a layer of a deep dark brown egg. You may also remember that they kept dropping like flies and I gave up. You may remember that I'd purchased some on behalf of Beech's boss and annoyingly (and also thankfully) the ones earmarked for her were perfectly fine and went off to live in the country. Which a month of so ago now, came into lay. Their new mummy very kindly sent me three of those eggs. Guess which ones?

I'll give you a clue, they look like chocolate. How cool are they!! Thats why I desperately wanted a Welsummer, just look at the colour of those. The one at the end especially. Fantastic. What isnt quite so fantastic is that both of the Welsummers that went to live with Beech's boss were taken by a fox, along with one of her cockerels so out of the 5, there is just Edward, (the one we'd named Ostrich cause he was tall) who Im told is the size of a great dane, and Bella (see, even chickens with those names are fated to be together, never mind vampires) who is currently sat on 8 eggs which will hopefully hatch this weekend. Edward Im also told was a complete star as it seems he was battered during the attack, and took a firm beating trying to protect his little group. Im also told he is incredibly sad and lonely because Bella is busyon eggs and so Ive said I will donate 2 of my girls to them to keep him company. Consequently, Rosie and Dizzy will be moving house this weekend to go and live in the country. Im sure they will love it.

End of April saw Ben's 11th birthday and a week or so before it, the first suprise for it. It started at the dog groomers. Poppy went in for her first big girl haircut.

Scuffy bag. Mostly black, lots of tufty puppy fur.

All long and wind swept. With the warmer weather she was finding it hard to keep cool so it had to come off.

How grown up is she? I think she's laughing at Ben's shorts there. I have to say, I was amazed at the colours that were unearthed from the black puppy fur, would you have thought she was the same dog? Now she's also incredibly silky and doesnt get sticks caught in her tummy fur. Anyway, one with the story. We collected her from the groomers, and took her to show grandad silverpop. Oddly enough, while we were there, Grandad asked if we could give him a lift to his boat, which of course we could. We threw Ben into the back, back seats, Bethany and I in the back seat and Silverpop and Beech in the front.

Not far into the journey Ben fell asleep, which was quite handy because we werent actually going to the boat yard which he'd have realised sooner or later. Just before we arrived at our destination he woke up. I told him he looked a little disheveled and sweaty from being asleep and to here, change into this t-shirt I just happened to have with me. Which he did, specially as it had his favourite wrestler John Morrison on. We parked up in a huge car park and got out of the car. ‘Where do you think you are?’ I asked Ben. ‘Erm,’ he said, ‘In a place that sells cars?’

Err no.

We walked for a bit, noticing lots of people walking the same way we were, lots of kids and strangely, some had masks on, some had huge belts, lots had caps on and I could see Ben’s face looking very puzzled. Silverpop produced a John Cena cap from inside his coat and put it on and very very slowly Ben’s expression changed. Then we saw a couple of kids with Ray Mysterio masks on and as we walked up to the arena I said to Ben, ‘Do you know where you are now?’ and he answered in a very tiny, almost daren’t believe it voice ‘Are we are at Wrestlemania Revenge?’

Of course.

I'd never been to the LG Arena in Birmingham before, it’s a nice venue. Our seats were good, tiered enough so that even the kids could see over a tall adult sat in front and we had a great view of the ring. From the adverts I knew John Cena, The Miz and Randy Orton would be performing (bit of geeky wrestling talk now Im afraid) but didn’t realize it was a full bill and far more wrestlers than we had hoped for an imagined.

We saw Santino, Koslov, Evan Bourne & Chavo and a couple of other less known wrestlers first, then new sensation Sin Cara took on Alex Riley.

We saw Randy Orton and CM Punk kicking seven shades out of each other with bottles, sticks, you name it..
then to Ben's huge delight, John Morrison came on. Sadly my zoom wasnt long enough, despite us having good seats, but Ben's happy cause you can at least see who they are.... s'John Morrison init.
Doing his fancy schmancy leaping around init. He's beating up Dolph Ziggler there.

We saw the Celtic Warrior, mr milk bottle himself, King Shaemus beating up Daniel Bryan

Also performing were the Bella Twins and R-Truth came on and did a bit of a competition for some people to go back stage. Course we were all waiting for...

The very lovely John Cena to duff up big mouth Miz. Course as any wrestling fan knows, Miz cheats and had back up, so Sin Cara came to the rescue and it became a tag team match.

We all really enjoyed it, so much so, we thought we'd book tickets to see the Smackdown tour in November. Wrestlemania Revenge was the Raw brand, so to see wrestlers like Big Show, Rey Mysterio, Christian, Alberto del Rio, we'd have to go to a Smackdown show. Tickets were duly booked and then came the annual 'Draft' which we didnt really know about and what do you know, the people we specifically wanted to see at Smackdown have now transferred over to the Raw brand. [insert swear words here]. It should still be a pretty good show, especially as its going to be televised which means there will be a lot more to it, than just an exhibition show so Im sure it will be just as good. Cept I really wanted to see Rey Mysterio, bummer.

Suspect this post is far too long now, serves me right for not blogging for weeks and weeks. Few bits more to tell but will do in a new post. Lastly, seeing as I uploaded this photo in April to mention, the canvases for my digi pages all came back, very very pleased with the quality, odd photo as the angle is a bit weird, but thats because they are hanging on the stairs and its tricky to get them in straight on, but here's my little gallery so far.

I like it.

All sorts really

2011-03-21T13:47:00.000Z

Almost at the end of March, which along with the official start of Spring, the clocks going forward, the lighter nights starting, it should also throw a little light on whether or not I still have a job.

Having been through this two times already in the last 2 years, what with my company being brought privately, all my charges being made redundant and the stress of whether I was still needed (yes, phew), then the start of a new and very different regime followed by consultation for redundancy and thankfully being ok in the end, I thought all the work trauma had passed.

Having been sold once again, this time to a large French company, its a waiting game once again to see who, if any of the people I look after, will be ok, and consequently if there is a need for me. Still, worser things can happen as they say and what will be, will be. Course it would of course be nice to keep my job, Im in my 10th year and was hoping to make it to September to my anniversary.

Ben went on his residency trip to Robinwood last week. Packed him off with his suitcase to Cumbria and then waited for a call about broken bones.

Cept we didnt get one. Which is amazing considering both kids have inherited a shedload of clumsy from me. He had a great time, he did the zip wire, went canoeing and this time managed not to damage any property in the way that he did on his trip to Hadrians wall (dropped his disposable camera from a bunkbed and it exploded, scorching the carpet...)

This weekend started on a sad note as we said goodbye to this lady.

Nutmeg the nuisance. The last of my original Spice Girls, my one remaining ex battery hen, top dog, aint no messing with her, first to lead a revolt into the kitchen, first to discover cat food is very nice and first at anything remotely looking like food, Nutmeg. She's been slowing down for a while now, not as quick on her feet although still clearly top of the pecking order. Last week I noticed her comb had a blue tinge to it, which is never a good sign and she was looking a bit plump. Seeing as she's always been the scraggiest chicken Ive had, for her to look plump, was also a bad sign. Particularly when I had a squidge of her and she was very thin under all the fluffed up feathers. As the week went on, she became less and less mobile, wobbly on her feet and although still eating and drinking, she could only manage that if they were put right in front of her. So, Saturday I made the kindest decision and took her to the vet. Ms vet confirmed she was very thin and it was the best thing to do.We also discovered she had a deformed keel, most likely from her year as a battery hen. She was given some gas and put to sleep. I’d had her almost 2 years so that's pretty good going for an ex batt, and I know she enjoyed her time with us, wrecking my garden, constantly trying to trip me up, having a go at the cats and living the life of Riley.

Just waiting to see who comes out as boss now that she has gone, Im thinking it might be Snowdrop as both she and Rosie are the two oldest now. Rosie seems to have fallen out of favour though and slipped down the order, but we’ll see.

Saturday lunch we took Poppy to Sale Water park and in an attempt to really really make my kids dislike me, we walked round the length of the lake. The waterpark does look enormous but I've walked around it a few times over the years and it isn’t really as big as it seems when you walk it. They didn’t know that of course so there was a fair amount of whinging, then we got stuck behind a coffee morning on foot (several new mothers in a gang with prams) but eventually all became peaceful, kids stop complaining, Beech included.

I’d taken my camera having found out just how few photos of the kids I’d taken last year when looking for one for Ben’s at 10 page. About 10 in total. How disgraceful is that. Or, and this is probably really the case, I did take loads more, but they were all crap so Id deleted them. Either way, I need to get back in to the habit otherwise we just wont remember what we got up to in 2011.

Turns out Im still having problems taking a decent photo, either that or my camera is knackered but Id rather not think that, but the photos I did take were all pants. See?

Cripes knows what settings I had it on but clearly they werent right! Poppy looks very gangly there doesnt she. She's on stilts. When her back legs get wet and scrawny she looks like she's teetering along on high heels.

After we got back I cleaned up the back yard in stage one of '2011, the year of the lovely patio'. Ben, in a fit of creepy crawly bumlickness, asked to help in an attempt to win back his X box rights that had been revoked during the morning. He was put in charge of planting up my birthday plants, into the very lovely pots Id received for Christmas. I showed him how to do the first and left him to it. Wasnt long before he had company....

Thats Cherry there, our little green egg layer. She's second to bottom of the pack, gets picked on but oddly enough in the past few weeks has gone from being very shy and skittish to becoming Brave Ninja Chicken. She's the one that will dare to come over the fence when she knows the dog is around and when Poppy goes into the garden, she's the one that will stand and stare her out from in the run, rather than legging it squealing in a girly fashion like the others do. Maybe Nutmeg had been training her to take over as double 'ard chicken in the styley of Karate Chuck.

Anyway, all was going well on the planting stakes, Poppy was having a great time killing the plastic plant pot the first plant had come from. Thats when I realised there should have been two more for her to mess with. 'Benj?' I said. 'Where are the other two plant pots, there should be three empty ones in total now?'

Thats when I discovered he'd planted them in the big pots, still in the containers. So he started again.

Smashing.

Saturday night, Betsy had a party. In a pub no less. She'd decided she wanted to curl her hair so asked me to put rollers in it. Which I did, with the warning that they'd take ages, if we took them out too early the curls would drop before she went, but that if we left them in til last minute and it didnt look right we'd be buggered.
Who knew rollers were so stressful? We took them out 15 minutes before she was due to go and guess which way the roller trauma went? Yes, her hair looked bizarrely like a 1940's housewife from a television advert. Which isnt the greatest start to a party she was already worried about, with hair she then hated. So, we did what I do in the face of a hair disaster and put it into a high pony and called out the big earrings. She looked absolutely gorgeous of course, even Ben said so without prompting, but did she believe any of us? Course not. You can see in her face she's a wee bit upset and so not convinced she's beautiful.

Its those eyes, gorgeous they are. Course, we had to have the photo outside didnt we...

She's still not convinced in this one, there's a classic 'Oh god can we just go' face there. I dont think she'll be happy til her hair has grown again, she had it cut a couple of weeks ago and even though she picked the length, she (in her words) 'didnt think it would be that short'.

Its a bob see, and she's had highlights. Poppy likes it.

Which leads me on to my latest digital pages, this one inspired by the above, and a couple of other lovey dog snog shots. Credits for all these can be found in my UKS gallery.

And finally Im up to date with Ben's age pages, having just done 8, 9 and 10.

Ben hasnt changed much at all in looks, he's still got that slightly gormless grin. Ive still Bethany's at 12 page to do, just need a decent photo for it. I also re-did her at 9 page because I dislike most of my early digital pages. Have had this, and the other ones put on canvases too, they look great going up the stairs.

Thats about it really. Tomorrow Im off work which is exciting, to put up a plastic garden storage thingy, continuing on with stage one of '2011, year of the lovely patio'. Next it will be the vegetable planning stage along with the completion of Guinea Pig Palace. Crikey I know how to live dont I!

Back in the saddle?

2011-03-10T20:17:00.001Z

Firstly, to answer Katie who left a question for me last blog post, Katie its dead easy to make a blog book. Just download the software from www.blurb.com and either 'slurp' your book across if blurb supports your blog host, or do what I do and cut and paste each post into the template and arrange your photos to suit. Sense check it, upload it to Blurb and order - simples!

Normally simples anyway, volume number 10 arrived with a blank white cover which is not how it was sent off to print. Still, its the first problem Ive had with them and they've sorted it and a replacement book is on its way to me as I type.

OMG I scrapped. Can you believe it? I think the last time I scrapped was August 2009. Not one but two and a half pages! The half being one that has been started but needs the photos adding (after Ive taken them, how forward planning is that!).

Firstly, had to do something with Bethany's leavers disco photo didnt I.

So turned that into her '11' page. Just need to do her 12 page and Im up to date. Which is more than I can say for Ben age pages, the last one I did for him, he was 7. Oops. I decided to see what this page would look like as a canvas so sent it off to a seller on ebay. Two days later, it came back and the quality is incredible The colours are sharp, it looks amazing in real life, light is poo up the stairs where this is.

This will be the first in my 12 x 12 canvas collection, Im hoping to, bit by bit, get all my digital pages on canvas.

Secondly, just so that I could use a new kit Id bought, a page about Ben and his love of baking and cooking. Credits for these can be seen on my UKS gallery (user name SuzyB).

The lack of scrapping goes hand in hand with the lack of blogging - both caused by a lack of photography. Hopefully with the onset of spring there will be more occasions to get the camera out.

Lastly, as this is a short blog post, but hey, small steps in getting back into blogging and all that, Happy Birthday to Grandpa Silverpoop who was 46 on the 28th. See?

OK who transposed the numbers? ;o)

Bumting

2011-02-11T12:12:00.003Z

As Im now up to date on my blog books having just sent 2010 to print with Blurb, I figured I should probably actually blog in order to have something to print for 2011.

The sad fact is that 2010 fit entirely into one book. Which although makes it easier to organise in formatting and speed, means that last year I blogged maybe just once or twice a month.

The fact of the matter is Im boring. Im going to try and be less boring in 2011 though. Lack of photos didnt help, for the last 6 months of last year, photos were of chickens and dogs and not much else. Why Ive hardly even taken any of the kids and thats inexcusable, especially in this important year for Bethany as she has changed so much in just 4 months at big school.

Talking of Betty, discovered she'd cut her own hair yet again yesterday. Cant believe she's still making the same mistake at 12 years old. A beauty this time, a piece of hair that she says always sticks up, she decided to chop. AT THE ROOTS. So now she looks like she's had a patch of alopecia and the hair is just growing back as its just tufts. Ok if its at the back of your head but now when its just above the temple. Sheesh.

Ive been quite busy in the kitchen too, decided 2011 was the year of the organised menus. Tried it before, didnt last but this year Ive being very very organised. I've already planned evening meals through to April because I got sick of getting home at night and thinking what on earth have we got in the fridge/freezer, what can I make with it, feeling CBA and shoving something in the microwave instead. So far have kept to plan, homemade fresh meals for tea each night. Jamie has helped. My pal Jamie Oliver. Him and his 30 minute meals that lets face it, you cant really do in 30 minutes without the aid of film crew but are pretty speedy all the same. Love his Joules Pregnant Pasta, his Cypriot chicken and Chicken Pie. Changed his frangipane recipe to better suit us though, not greatly keen on jam so instead I put chocolate drops in the base of mine and they were a billion times nicer.

Lots of cooking uses lots of eggs see and we're getting around 4-5 a day at the moment! Talking of eggs, we had a ghost egg the other day. Look.

Clear yolk. Didnt actually expect a yolk at all as the egg was so teeny (thats a side plate) but there it was, a ghostly yolk. Not quite finished in production. And of course its a chicken plate.

Secondly, Im doing the Race for Life again this year for Cancer research with Betsy and Auntie Billybob. Running in memory of both of my maternal grandparents and my mother in law who we lost to cancer, and for those people close to me, my Auntie and my close friend Anita who are fighting right now. If you havent already been mithered to sponsor anyone for anything yet this year and can spare some pennies, I would be very proud to run for your sponsorship. Well, when I say run, obviously I dont mean run, I mean walk fastly. Fastly? Ooh I made a new word. Oh yes, if you click on the Race for Life logo up there it should take you to my just giving page. Thank you.

Anyway, I need to talk about WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment yes? Ben is into this BIG time. He has the wrestling ring and some plastic dudes with odd names, odd faces and even odder dress sense. One plastic dude is missing his hands due to a sneaky puppy so I dont suppose that helps when you're a wrestler. Cept they arent really wrestlers are they?

Course not, as the name says, they are Entertainers. If you've ever seen Raw or Smackdown or whatever else its called you'd see they dont wrestle. Even the warning they read on the show says it all 'We have been practising these moves for many years to make them safe so dont try this at home'. Means, 'its all fake'. Which is ok, a bit obvious and sometimes they look more like dancers than wrestlers but my point is this.

Why cant I stop watching it when its on??

Its mesmirising! Its not even that its full of half naked beefcakes because lets face it, there are so many there that should never be seen in skin tight lycra, specifically King someone or other who clearly has his bus pass. In truth these dudes are plucked and waxed to within an inch of.. well most things, their colour gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'American Tan' and they wear outrageous spandex and manhandle each other on a bouncy floor. Yet I cant help but watch when its on, even though I sit there commenting on how crap it all is.

I even know names now! Oh yes, thats Edge, hes the world champion quite dishy, ooh John Cena, there he is, looks a bit like Mark Warlberg and dresses like a 12 year old kid. Ray Mysterio, what on earth does he look like under that mask and Big Show. Lump of dough in a mankini. Very Sad.

Even more sad is the little bits of drama they insert into it - a love triangle between the world champion, a title chaser and a woman with a gob the size of san fransisco, a bust up with the female wrestler and the male wrestler - talk about wooden acting, Ben's figures have more charisma. Yet. I. Still. Watch. It. Perhaps there's some sublimal message to it that draws me in and Im powerless to fight it.

Its an odd one.

We have new additions to the household - Peanut and Patootie (as in cutie patootie). More Gillypigs. We took them in a couple of weeks ago as a favour to a friend who's daughter had decided the novelty had warn off, as children do. We changed their names as Ruby and Annie didnt suit us so Peanut, who looks like a Peanut was named and Patootie named because she is very cute and incredibly shy.

Our existing pigs, Pudding and Poppet are indoor pigs, these two were outdoor pigs so started off in the hutch outside. We tried bringing them in and putting them in with the other each night for an hour or so which worked out ok for the first few nights, the Poppet, top pig and cheeky as they come decided enough was enough and went a bit balsistic. Then we had the very cold weather and me being the soft touch I am couldnt bring myself to put them back out at night so we gradually weaned them inside in a cage below the others. Double decker pigs.

The plan is come slightly better weather to ressurect the little chicken coop/run outside for them so they can all live together in total luxury because it will be like a palace for them. Big enough so they can stay in their couples and with the run underneath, perfect. Course gotta grow some grass first.

And finally, the reason for the post title? Its our new word. Not sure where it has come from but Betsy announced the other night that she wanted to call the new fish Pleb and Bumting. Yes, new fish. Old fish who ate its mate last year (probably didnt mention this) was lonely. As you would be having eaten your (large and only) friend in the tank. Least I presumed thats what happened, one day there were two fish, the next there was one fish and a bit of midrift floating round. Then remaining fish started to look a bit ill so I put him (because really would a girl fish eat its friend? I dont think so) in a smaller tank expecting him to peg it then I would finally be able to put a vase on the chest of drawers and not a fish tank. What do you know though, fish made a miraculous recovery and got better.

I left it a while before I purchased buddies for it because historically, the minute Ive done that, the original fish has indeed swum to the big sea in the sky in a crappy timing sort of way. Anyway, remaining fish was then given the name 'Christmas' by the daughter of one of my directors who visited at Christmas (see, clue in the name) and Bethany has now called the other two Pleb and Bumpting. Which of course led to a new name for Betsy of Betty Bumting. Yeah whatever.

Maybe the idea wasnt just to blog crap to fill a book but I figured thats all I do generally anyway so why change the habit of a life time.

Ben's out of the blueness

2011-02-05T09:59:00.000Z

I just thought Id record a tinsy bit of Ben's randomness this week. He will be sitting there quietly engrossed in something or other, like for instance skate boarding on the xbox this morning when he'll just come out with something a bit odd. This morning it was:-

'Mum, how many times have you said the word lightbulb in your life?'

and when I havent got an answer, because most of his out of the blue questions have me rolling my eyes and responding with 'Benj, Ive absolutely no idea' he looks at me with disgust.

An easier one early this week, I could answer.

'Mum, if you were a cheese ball, what sort of cheese would you be?'

'Well Benji, I'd be cheddar of course'. He does have a cheese theme because on other occasions he'll come out with his favourite phrase of 'Lets all eat cheese without asking'.

Maybe its Ben that has corrupted Squeaky in the ways of cheese with all this cheese talk, because all of a sudden, cheese has become Squeaky's catnip. He's never been one for treats, ignores them, whatever they may be, but since last week, he's become a cheese fiend.

He ambushes anyone on the way to the fridge, he jumps up when you bend to get in it and if you happen not to pass him a teeny piece or two, he smacks you with his paw and walks off annoyed.

I wonder if Squeaky was a cheese ball, what cheese he would be.

See thats what happens when you sit waiting for the Tesco man to come you end up typing a load of bollocks on blogger.

Lesson of the day

2011-01-15T17:53:00.001Z

You cant chop sausages in a blender.

A Christmas Recap

2011-01-13T07:23:00.000Z

So back to a Christmas report before its just a distant memory.

The holidays started with our annual trip to Moston Cemetary to say happy birthday to Mr Beecher senior. A trip almost identical to last year cept last year we didn’t have a doggie with us, but once again it had snowed heavily.

The headstone has been renewed now to include Aggie and beautiful it is too. An attempt by Beech to get the kids to say a prayer which turned into a heated discussion between them with the kids reminding Beech that he’s never actually managed to take them to church so they don’t know any prayers to say and finally, a moment of reflection, Poppy included.

Whilst the boys were too lightweight to want to trudge up a hill to the field next to the cemetery to give Poppy and run around, Betsy as we now call her (and she dislikes with a passion but then I thought it was an improvement on Betty) and I dragged ourselves up. Or rather Poppy dragged me up and its probably the only way I would have made it. Betsy decided to make snow angels

But Poppy didn’t really understand why she’d thrown herself to the floor and was flapping her arms and legs in a frantic fashion so tried to do her best St Bernard Impression, to save the day.

Two days of cleaning followed by the 'proper' start of Christmas.

A couple of changes this year, firstly a slightly smaller tree sat on a table as we prepared ourselves for Poppy tree love.

Cept it never came, she never bothered with the tree, or its hanging delights at which we were very surprised. We also dragged the fake tree down from the loft, Silverpop dug it in to the garden as Beech and I failed miserably and we threw some blue lights round it in the hope it looked jolly. In fact its still there, sans lights of course but we are now the family that leaves the decorations up all year. Presents for friends and family went underneath the table and were guarded heavily following an accident with a mischievous puppy.

Being her first Christmas, she didn’t obviously know that you don’t open presents until Christmas day. Or maybe she did and maybe that’s why she snuck a present, from Bethany to Me, from under the tree and outside onto the patio. Whereupon she opened it, decided the brightly coloured bobble hat inside wouldn’t fit her, so discarded it in the snow.

I initially found the little big Bethany had lovingly made in Tec at school on the kitchen floor. Being that there was still a gift in it, whispered to myself how lucky it was I had found it before the dog, and put it back under the tree. Then I went outside to be met with a small furry girl, wiggling at me like she does cause she loves me, but with what looked like blood pouring from the side of her mouth and all over the patio. Obviously panicked for a second until I realised it was shreds of red tissue paper that had surrounded aforementioned bobble hat. Phew. Anyway, turned out the bobble hat wouldn’t have fit me, nor Bethany even as it was a tiny size so was used elsewhere.

It was a busy affair this year as we had two Christmas dinners. We had a pretend Christmas day on Christmas eve, with presents and a three bird thingy with Grandpa Silverpop and Nana Liz and a real Christmas Day on the day itself, again with presents and turkey for Granny and the BIL which was not by any means my choice. The BIL bit I hasten to add, not the Christmas day bit. A last minute cancellation meant we had him, definitely against my better judgement seeing as he’s a complete arse and I wouldn’t care if he read that. The last few times he’s seen the children he’s frightened and upset them for reasons I wont go into so to have him in my house, at my table did not please me at all. Thankfully he behaved but he’s not forgiven by any means.

Anyway. Christmas eve eve was a busy one with preparations for our first lunch. Three bird thingy cooked, potatoes peeled etc and can you believe it, only ONE photo taken of the whole Christmas even thing?! I tell you, my photos are dreadful, don’t know whether it’s the lens but they were all dull and fuzzy, whatever the lighting. Must go back to my fixed lens which performs beautifully. Anyway, a token turkey shot is all there is…

I did try the traditional ‘you two kids sit in from of the tree with your new Christmas eve pyjamas on’ photo but all those shots came out crap. Mostly because of the fact neither wanted to sit next to each other and one would smile in a slightly hysterical way while the other would grimace. Even tried shots of them on their own but that didn’t work either….

A pre Christmas haircut had been called for as he was starting to look somewhat shaggy. He's even got a new nickname now, Beech came up with it and its sort of stuck.. it has more than one variation too so there's a few to choose from.

Our Christmas Eve pretend Christmas dinner went without incident save for the traditional forgetting of cooking one item and serving one item. Forgotten cooked item, or rather mix up in the freezer item was the cauliflower cheese, almost forgotten to serve item was the stuffing balls made in preparation the previous evening. Presents with Silverpop and Nana Liz were swapped and opened and of course we were all very lucky to receive great goodies – I for instance received the chicken encyclopedia I’d wanted along with some DVDs. Im sure Silverpops bestest ever present was the Old Spice set I bought him, doesn’t every fella love Old Spice? Actually it was a nostalgic gift, bought because I remembered my dad wearing it when I was little.

Christmas eve night, started once again preparing for real Christmas dinner, Turkey Crown cooked, stuffing balls done (didn’t forget to serve them that time) but realized we were short on veg. Oops. New Christmas jamas on and to bed so that Santa could come. Actually talking of Christmas pyjamas, Im in two minds whether to write to Tesco’s about mine. White, with Christmas words written all over them, whilst sat on the toilet, having time to study them, I noticed a spelling mistake.. ‘Candy Cain’. What?? How very dare they spoil my Christmas wear with their incorrectly spelt sugary minty sweets!

I may be forced to document this error with a photo and write to them detailing the trauma of it all and how it completely spoilt my Christmas. Cause obviously I had to take a red pen to them and correct it, in all instances. Actually I didn’t, but if you do know me, you might have actually believed that for a second because it is a habit of mine. I can spell - I cant always typo correctly so there will probably be loads of mistakes in my posts, but its not bad spelling that’s to blame. Just fast typing with fingers faster than brain. I do take a red pen to things though. Bad habit.

Christmas morning, despite her badly spelt jamas Santa had been and left oodles of presents under the tree, and it was all very exciting once again. Poppy delighted in all the wrapping paper as paper is her favourite toy and everyone was very happy with their gifts. Granny was collected and more gifts arrived and Ive come to the conclusion that my family must think I stink because this year I got smellies off everyone. Got the hint chaps! Gits.

The BIL arrived, late, apologised for not giving us a Christmas card because he’d ‘run out’ and we sat down to real Christmas dinner. Very tasty, remembered the stuffing balls, and cauliflower cheese but forgot the cheese and biscuits which was just as well as I’d forgotten to buy the biscuits element. 20 minutes after dinner, BIL went so that was a result and we all sat down to play with our new toys and eat chocolate biscuits that we didn’t really want but you still have to eat them you know? Again no photos taken, which is a bummer.

Boxing day saw us at Billybobs flat, the kids having their last ever visit there as she’s now moved to a new flat. More presents, mine being an all in one pyjama suit in black and yellow like a bee (which is not a good idea if you're feeling gassy as there's just no escape), in the same style as this one, beautifully modelled by Danny...

Suzy Christmas bought the hat, doesnt it suit him incredibly well? That'll teach him to call me Bruisy. Billybob said I wasnt allowed to post the photos of her in her new pink suit with stripey sleeves but I promised to use the nicest so she's just agreed its ok. There was just something uncannily familar about it all. Oh, I know...

I think when Billybob sees this she must remember Im her only sister and she loves me.

She looks very sweet in it really...

Not quite the end of dressing up, there was also the game, pass the wig. I think Ben won.

And I think the least said about this one, the better...

So that was a jolly Boxing Day.

After a hectic few days it was nice to not have to do very much at all, the days inbetween Christmas and New Year were spent mainly doing what each member of the house wanted to do. Betsy stayed in her room on a marathon Waterloo Road watching session, Ben and I were complete geeks and played World of Warcraft on laptops side by side at the desk, We're talking proper geeky. Interspersed with a lunch out and a cinema trip we had a nice relaxing time.

New Year, my absolute favourite night of the year (thats heavy on the sarcasm) again we decided to just please ourselves for the evening until 11.50pm came and I bullied everyone into wellies and heavy coats for a dog walk around the block to see the New Year in. Gratuitous dog shot here just because she's a cutie.

As we walked out there were a few chinese lanterns dotted about, by the time we walked back watching fireworks, there were millions. We had our own to let off but seeing as Im not allowed things that require igniting I thought it would be better to avoid starting the new year with a front garden tree blaze so we just watched everyone elses. And that was that.

Im sure thats more than enough waffle so I shall sign off with an egg photo from my newest laying girl. Obviously wants to make a name for herself, not content with just a normal egg, nooo no, she decorates hers...

Its 2011!

2011-01-07T23:01:00.001Z

Firstly thank you to those people that commented on my last post and I wish you a great New Year. Secondly, I would just like to say my lack of blog posts hasn’t been as a result of some troubles so I apologise if Ive misrespresented myself and caused concern. The lack of happy New Year spirit was purely down to my job, for the second time in two years being in serious jeopardy and more importantly, the fact that a close friend of mine had some very bad news. However, Im an optimist by nature so I see hope in both situations. Also, Im experiencing a huge bout of cant be arsed when it comes to blogging.

So then, it would be great to say lots of exciting things have happened but that would be a big fib. We've had bitterly cold weather and snow for a start havent we. What do you think about snow Poppy?

She says it makes her nose cold.

What do you make of the snow Snowdrop?

Eh?

I said what do you make of the snow Snowdrop?

She says she doesnt really mind it as she can use her comb as a bobble hat.

Christmas has been and gone in a flash and even though I had an extended holiday, it feels like it never happened. What was fab was having Poppy Loppy Lugs during the festive period to bounce around, give sloppy dog kisses, sneak soft toys to love out of Bethany’s bedroom, nick cat food and to chew up empy toilet rolls at every available opportunity. She was as good as gold, save for chewing up Ben’s Nintendo charger but that was his fault seeing as he encroached on her bed..

And then left the charger wire lying across it. Apologies for pants lighting on that one. And in fact most of the others, photography seems to have gone down the drain.

Following on the pet theme, Squeaky has been in the dog house. Well not literally because he’s a cat, but he’s certainly wasnt in good books. Not mine, I hasten to add, he’s only out of my good books when he tries to bite me when he wants feeding.

He was in the dog house with the dog. Again not literally because firstly we don’t have a dog house and secondly they don’t get on so Squeaky would never go to tea with Poppy in any house, dog or otherwise.

He was in the dog house because of his penchant for dog smacking. He thinks its hilarious to sit and stare at Poppy til she feels uncomfortable, til she feels the need to go to him to show him she loves him even if he hates her, whereupon he smacks her. Then he laughs. Not outwardly but inside you can tell he’s in hysterics. Then when the yelps come which they do, and she comes tail between her legs to me to tell me that he’s done it again, I check her nose and eyes for any damage.

Which up until the other weekend there had been none. Til the other weekend when he caught her a cropper, caught her eye and as the vet told me after I discovered blood in her eye, scratched her cornea. So Squeaky was in the dog house. For causing a blood blister on her eye and for making her have to have eye drops three times a day for a whole week. He was a bad cat. He certainly didnt deserve a Christmas jumper treat like Poppy did.

In chicken news, the mystery of the Wheelies was finally solved a couple of weeks before Christmas. Sadly it wasn’t the way I wanted. My two lovely, run to your hand, love me Wheelies got to 5 months old with no outwardly signs of being boys. Till one morning when I was changing their water and heard a strange noise from the shed. Listened… no, cant be, shook my head, carried on. Then again. Listened again… no. Let them out, Wheelie one ran out, jumped on the perch nearest me, stretched HIS neck and crowed. Gutted. Thankfully Silverpops uncle has chickens and very kindly offered to take the pair of them off my hands – couldn’t split them up so even though just one a boy, they both had to go together. Was in the process of taking a couple of last shots of them to remember them by, when the second of the pair jumped out of the carrier and also crowed. Two boys. Flabdangit. So off they went to a new home to crow in peace and I was sad. 10 went to 8.

Then 8 went to 7 as we lost Sweetpea the Cream Legbar on the 4th.

Always a sickly girl, her being the one that brought mycoplasmosis with her when I got her, she never fully recovered and always had her cough and sneezes. She didn’t really grow much either, not like her best friend the White Sussex who is now so big she looks like an inflatable chicken (I did toy with the idea of tying string to her feet and floating her during New Year celebrations as she would have been far better than the millions of Chinese lanterns around). She was however, a little poppet and liked cuddles and she promised to be my blue layer when the time came, which sadly did not. Unlike her Bessie mate (who came to us at the same time), despite being 23 years old now (ok, slight exaggeration but she is around 36 weeks which is not the norm) laid her first little egg on Sunday. I found it quite by accident as I was cleaning them out on Monday, it was half buried in the outside run, not at all where it should have been. Being a teeny egg it was obvious it was from a new layer and seeing as her comb had suddenly appeared, obviously hers. Later on in the afternoon Beech said to me, ‘have you heard that racket?’ went outside and there was Dizzy, gobbing off big time, running up and down the run like a nutter. I thought perhaps she was celebrating a second egg but no, nothing in the nesting box, nothing in the run. Still, there was something wrong as she was very agitated and so I ushered her into the shed and left her to it. If I thought she was loud at that point, it wasn’t anything compared to how loud she got 10 minutes later after finally dropping a second little egg.

OMG.

The noise was incredible. Never mind the worry over having cockerels crowing, this chicken can hit forty billion decibels! It went on and on, I paced about telling her to shut up, I went in the run, she stopped, I came out of the run, she started again and the temptation to put her in a pillow case under the stairs was immense. I didn’t of course, I went inside praying she doesn’t do that every time she lays otherwise my neighbours will like me even less than they do now.

Gobbo the inflatable chicken.

There is more, Christmas, New year, all that stuff yet but seeing as Ive had this post half typed for about 2 weeks, I thought it would be better to post now rather than when its properly finished, by which point it will probably be Spring....

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T19:28:00.001Z

I know I said Id be back and I will, just not yet.

2010 turned out to be a pretty crappy year and 2011 doesnt hold much promise of getting better.

Still, there's always hope isnt there so I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

I'll be back

2010-12-06T21:40:00.002Z

Shortly, I promise.

Just been trying to clean Ben's face seeing as he seems unable to do it properly himself. One of his nostrils seemed a bit gunky, was just trying to mop it up with the flannel.

He dodged out of the way saying 'you really dont want to be knowing what goes on up there'.

Quite rightly as it turned out. Ew.

Woof

2010-11-15T15:10:00.001Z

Where the doggie gone?

there she is!

Peepo Poppy

October Roundup

2010-11-05T08:06:00.000Z

OMG Ive done it again. A whole 6 weeks has got away from me once again.

I really only thought it was about 3 weeks ago that I blogged, time is just flying by. Thing is, now I cant even remember what Ive been up to.

The biggest news if the addition to the Beecher and my extended family. I knew watching hours and hours of Animal planet would do me no good, I just knew it. Its actually Beech’s fault. If he hadn’t suddenly agreed that we could have a dog, nothing would have changed. But he did suddenly agree and so we made in roads to adopt a dog from one of the many local dogs homes. I did my research thoroughly, I had a list of critical criteria that had to be met by said dog, had to like children, cats, small furries, not mind so much being on its own and able to iron. Ok so maybe not the last bit. I had wrestled with my conscience over and over about the leaving dogs on their own thing but figured that after seeing how they live at some of the dogs homes we’d been round, a loving family when we were around should more than make up for that. The first weekend of looking we found two dogs that fit the criteria, but unfortunately they were already reserved. After 4 weekends worth of visits we actually found a new suitable candidate at the same dogs home just down the motorway that shall remain nameless.

He was a cross breed, small, had some training, fine with kids and about 2 years old. We registered our interest in him, filled out the provided forms and awaited a call re a home visit. I was told the home visit was to make sure our garden was secure. So not to see where he’d be living, but to make sure he wouldn’t escape and become a stray once again. Ok. So I waited a week for a call that didn’t come. Realised that they were probably low on resources etc so left it a bit longer. Still no call. So I called them, explained what I was calling about and was told that there was no reservation on the dog, which Id sort of guessed because the woman didn’t actually write on my form which dog we were interested in. He was still available and she would call me back shortly after finding my form. Which she did, this time telling me they had tried to contact me over and over without success so had cancelled the reservation. Cept I had no missed calls on my mobile at any point. We were put back on the list for a home visit which I was told would be a further 2 weeks on. We decided to visit him again that weekend to keep in touch and to see if we could meet him outside his very small concrete run.

No was the answer. You cant touch or see the dog outside of its cage until you’ve had a home visit. Once you’ve had the home visit you are allowed to take the dog into a concrete pen for an hour before taking him home. That’s because they have no exercise area, no grass area, nothing for the dogs. I also realized at this point that 4 weeks on, the two dogs we had originally enquired about were still there, still with reserves on. That because of some arrogant woman, we couldn’t interact with the dog we wanted for another two weeks. It was all a bit odd and in the end, sadly we decided that things just didn’t feel right there and that we wouldn’t be look to rehome from there. Which makes me feel terribly sad because those dogs are still there and it seems that the people running it are inept and do more to hinder the process than help it.

So that was that.

Until I spotted an ad on Preloved for a cocker spaniel needing to be rehomed. In a whirlwind of emails we arranged to go see her at her home in Bolton and we were smitten – collected her the very next day.

Very very shy, not at all socialized shehadn’t even been out for a walk, she was a timid wee thing. The only problem was that she was a lot younger than we’d been looking for and just at that teething puppy, needs company during the day stage. I felt so awful about it, had huge traumas about what to do until grandpa Silverpop and nana Liz very very kindly offered to foster her for us. Which means this little girl who is no longer so timid, gets the best of both worlds as during the week she spends the day with Liz, goes home at night with Liz to Silverpops house at night where her best doggie friend Maccs is, then at weekends comes home to us and we walk her little legs off.

We changed her name to Poppy as her original name just didn’t sit right with any of us and she’s a cheeky girl, mostly obedient, but very affectionate. She has big fat paws which are ace and she uses them to batter Maccs and to smack anything out of your hands that she wants to have. She wags her tail with her whole body and she wants to be friends with the Beecher cats but they aren’t yet convinced.

She finds the chickens fascinating – they aren’t too bothered about her but then they wont meet her without a fence in the way! Talking of chickens, I still have my fingers crossed that the wheelies are girls. So far no crowing, no large hanging tail feathers and no huge combs have appeared so maybe just maybe they are both girls.

Wish I knew for sure! The girls aren’t keen on winter, mainly because by the time I get home from work, they’ve already put themselves to bed because its dark so they don’t get to play out like they do in summer. Short days for them. Better this year as Ive extended the big run length by another 8 feet. Just looking for some interesting logs and things to put in there to give them something to jump over and play about with now. I read somewhere they like swings so might even rig up a swing in the run to see if its true!

A new addition to the back garden in an effort to make it look more than the bald sparse area that it is, is my new fence. Mainly to keep the girls off the patio, its also been handy keeping Poppy away from the girls. Unfortunately Missy the hen doesnt agree that she shouldnt come over - in fact she told Squeaky loudly so...

Kids are ok, firmly settled in school now and Bethany, shock horror has even had her first detention. Ben has surprised us all in his eagerness to dog walk even in the worst of weathers and mostly holds the lead for Poppy. Cheeky boy.

They did a bit of this recently...

With Ben deciding he wants to find the worlds biggest spider climb to conquer it. Not that we found it on google. Betty went for the smaller option...

with the added bonus of the slightly psychotic look. So thats about it really, dogs, chickens, climbing and fencing.

Cluck cluck

2010-09-17T21:47:00.001+01:00

Chicken News. Lots going on over the last 6 weeks – please feel free to skip this post, its more for my own records really.

Firstly, my wheelies. My little Lemon Millefleur Sablepoot Bantams. These being the two chicks that hatched under my broody hen (they have feathered feet so when they run they look like they are on wheels). They’ve come along in leaps and bounds over the 10 weeks since they hatched. Initially it took them a few days to be brave enough to venture out with mum, then after that there was no stopping them.

A week after they’d hatched I discovered a local breeder that happened to be selling a couple of breeds of chickens Ive been after, so I did a little happy dance. In the past Ive had to travel a fair way in order to purchase new girls. I got in touch to see if I could get hold of a Welsummer chick the same ages as my wheelies that I could slip under my broody without her realizing. When we got there the chicks were actually two weeks old so a week older than my hatchlings and too big to sneak under my broody. I ended up taking three Welsummer chicks, one for me to keep and two for Beech’s boss who had decided to keep chickens. When it became apparent they would very quickly become too big for the indoor brooder Id organized, dad and I set up a large dog crate complete with cardboard sides and I invested in an electric hen rather than using a heat lamp. They settled in but after a couple of days it became obvious all was not well with one of the chicks.

It was lethargic, didn’t really want to move and despite me getting it to drink, a day or so later it passed away. Actually, that’s a bit tame, this tiny chick did the most dramatic death scene Ive ever seen. Considering it spent a lot of time on its tummy with its eyes closed, at the end it wobbled over to the heater, lay down, rolled over twice, flapped its wings desperately and then sort of swooned – a bit like a child in a play over acting. Most strange. Poor little thing. Id emailed the breeder asking what might be wrong, they admitted they’d lost a chick and had an outbreak of coccidiosis and were treating all their chicks and said they would give me a syringe of medicine to treat the others. All their other chicks were fine. So they said. Also, this sort of thing happens a lot with chicks so we put it down to just one of those things.

2 week old Welsummer girlies. Sad see cause their friend died.

A week after the first Welsummers arrived, I trotted back to purchase a replacement Welsummer for me along with a Cuckoo Marans for Beech’s boss and a Black Copper Marans for us both.

A week later we had another dead Welsummer. Now all the chicks were in the one pen, a mixture of lots of breeds, maybe a hundred of so its not a cut and dried thing that there was a problem with the breed. In that amount you will loose some but rather than replace again I left it at that with all the remaining new chicks being for Beech’s boss. Which was very disappointing as now I was caring/cleaning out and feeding chicks that wouldn’t even end up as mine.

Roll on a couple of weeks and I was still desperate to get my Welsummer, and the chicken Id been after for months and months, a Cream Legbar. The breeder had both available, this time, not as chicks (as I wasn’t take any more chances) but as growers. This means they no longer needed to be under heat (which was good because by this point I was sick of having chicks inside by the patio doors and really not excited about having to clean them out everyday), and are about 8/9 weeks old.

Again I got a replacement Welsummer for me, got my long awaited Legbar and also made an impulsive decision to take a Light Sussex hen that Id seen on each of my previous visits – very very pretty girl, older than the others at 14 weeks but the last one of her breed. Tootled off home to put my new girls in their quarantine pen. First thing I noticed as I let them out was the Cream Legbar had a deformed foot. Her toes were all bent round and consequently she was unable to scratch with that foot. Email to the breeder straight away and she agreed to swap it, which we did the following day. Replacement seemed fine, now obvious deformities, but the Light Sussex had a runny nose and the Welsummer had started to look a bit miserable. Because it was still quite small, in fact there wasn’t much different between the inside chicks and the 8 week grower, I decided perhaps a bit of warmth might help so I moved her from outside, to the crate inside with the other bundles of stubby feathers. Sadly she took went downhill and after emailing the breeder again, we agreed Id take the chick back to see what she thought. Unfortunately it died on the way there. Obviously the breeder felt bad at me losing a third so felt the need to show me the remaining chicks in the pen that my latest purchase had come from. Unfortunately, as she was showing me how healthy they were, we both spotted a welsummer that was stood hunched up, eyes closed looking very unhealthy. She picked it up, wiped its eyes which were stuck together and set it back down. Hmmm. I chose not to get any more replacements.

Unfortunately I got to find out exactly what was wrong with that chick.

The following weekend the Legbar (now named Sweetpea) and the White Sussex (Dizzy as in Dizzy Blonde because really, she’s the thickest chicken Ive ever come across) were moved from the little quarantine run by the back doors, to their new quarantine run by the shed. Next door in their little house and run where the Wheelies. I thought they could meet each other through the wire, get to know each other and then once the wheelies were a little bigger, they could all go into together before finally, in a few months time, all joining up with the big girls. They had been allowed to free range together and it was looking promising as there were no scraps.

The next day, checked on the new girls, Sweetpea looked a bit miserable, but then she seemed to have an odd habit of standing with her eyes closed. Checked on my older girls in the main run I spotted Snowdrop asleep but making a rattley noise as she did, but worst of all, my best girl Lily with a runny nose and frothy bubbles coming from her eyes. I immediately separated her because in the back of my mind I knew Id read something awful about it, and went to google. Mycoplasmosis. A respiratory disease of domestic fowl. Very contagious amongst flocks and can be difficult to contain. I phoned the vet and made an appointment for her, took her in and had the diagnosis confirmed. Early symptoms include runny noses, lethargy, hunched up birds with closed eyes – all the signs Id missed in my new girls. Was incredibly cross as you can imagine.

The vet prescribed a soluble antibiotic that I had to administer for 5 days to my entire flock of 15 (remembering I still had 5 chicks that were waiting to go on to their new home). For 5 days I had to measure out 10 litres of water to split between 4 runs to dose everyone. Lily picked up a little, nothing much really changed with the other girls but certainly no one seemed to get worse. I decided to take Sweetpea to the vet to see if there was a problem with her eyes as not only was she now just standing with her eyes closed, she was wandering around with them closed which obviously couldn’t be right. Made her appointment for the weekend. The morning of the appointment I went out in the morning to check on everyone and once again, all of a sudden Lily did not look at all well. In fact she looked worse than ever. Changed the appointment for 2 chickens and took both her and Sweetpea in.

Saw the big cheese vet this time, he said Sweetpea was in a very bad way, he gave her eye gel for her eyes, and both Sweetpea and Lily had to have two injections each. He warned me that there was every chance all my girls would come down like this and if that was the case, we would have to think about culling them all.

Obviously I was devasted and incredibly angry. I could have lived with the loss of the new girls, upsetting, but in the grand scheme of things, manageable. What I was upset about was the fact that my old girls had now caught this disease from me bringing new chickens into the equation. Sweetpea couldn’t open her eyes because they were infected an swollen, she also had a very strong, unpleasant smell about her, despite being clean, which the vet said was all part of the disease. None of my other girls have ever smelt of anything so it was very strange to have a smelly hen.

He told me to come back after 4 days to see how things were going which I did. Lily had visibly improved, Sweetpea had gained a little weight which was good but they both had another round of injections. All in all, Lily made a brilliant recovery, but Sweetpea ended up having 4 injections in total and although is acting very much like a normal chicken now, eyes ok, tail up, quite feisty in fact, she still has that runny nose and still smells.

At the last visit the vet said she might suffer with it on going now so we’ll just have to see what happens.

I emailed the breeder at the start to suggest she had her flock check out. She mailed back saying hers were fine. Except of course the ill one with its eyes stuck together….

So thats the sorry story of the outbreak of Myco. Its not all been doom and gloom as having chicks around the place has had its extremely amusing moments.

The Lodgers as I called them, the chicks for Beech's boss were funny little things. It became apparent once their feathers start to grow in that there might possibly be two boys there. Mainly because the cream coloured Cuckoo Marans seemed to develop a tiny comb before the rest

and the two Black Copper Marans, although the same breed, were very different. The larger of the two had barely any feathers on when 'it' arrived and seemed to weigh a tonne compared to the other. Felt very odd to handle as 'it' was proper solid, but felt like a plucked chicken because 'it' didnt have any feathers on its stomach for a good few weeks. 'He' also had a tiny pink comb. The other by comparison had no comb, was small and round (very sweet) and fully feathered.

Ok so maybe not her best look, she does look a bit crow like, but her sweet and shy character and the fact she was so rotund was very appealing. I wanted to keep her but didnt want to separate her from her chums so let her go. She's been named Bella in her new home which I think totally suits her. Her counterpart, who we now know is a male (thank goodness they dont mind!) was more gangly and protective towards the others.

Chicken lurve see. The chick he has his head resting on was the last Welsummer I lost. Thats all she did, stand around looking miserable. bless.

The Cuckoo Marans I affectionately nicknamed Ostrich because thats what he looked like he would turn out to be! He was a lot taller than the others and the first to try and run off. The first time they were allowed out into the garden for a play, he led the way. They were out for an afternoon in the sun, when I brought them back in that evening, they were all completely knackered.. none more so than Ostrich...

Going Going Gone

He's sat on the electric hen there, its easier to manage than heat lamps that need to be raised. Underneath the yellow bit is a metal plate that is warm. Rather than it radiating heat, the chicks press themselves against it to keep warm, as they would with a real mommy chicken.

They like sunbathing too...

The Lodgers went to their new home at the end of August - I know they will be very happy there because given the choice, I'd move in there too!

As for my wheelies, well by mid August they looked like this...

Still with the big feathered feet, which in this weather, unfortunately get filthy with mud.

They love me though. Mummy chicken buggered off when they were 5 weeks old, I suspected she'd had enough when she started snatching food and legging it rather than passing it to them as she had previously. Then one evening she just put herself to bed with the big girls rather than in her little house with her babies. They shouted for a while, then miserably trudged off to bed themselves. The next day I brought them in for half an hour, couldnt believe how tame they were considering they hadnt been handled. Now they run up when I got out and if I put my hand out, they plonk themselves in it to be lifted up.

We've called them Poppet and Nugget (geddit, popcorn chicken and chicken nugget?) but I have a terrible suspicion that Ive either got a girl and a boy, or two boys. Bugger.

They didnt mind getting two new neighbours and when they met without wire between them they got along just fine. There's always that getting to know you phase though isnt there - when you arent used to habits of others...

I can assure you, Sweetpea was just asleep there.

Then, from two weeks ago they've bunked in together. Grandpa Silverpop very kindly converted the back end of my shed into a large chicken house for me, ready for when they can all go in together, smalls and older girls and thats where they live at the moment.

Work in progress before the perches and nesting area were installed. And what a nesting area! Dad came up with this!

Perfect nesting boxes once they are filled with straw, easy to clean, just wash them out - fab!

The wheelies are even bigger now, although compared to everyone else they are still very small because they are bantams. Their markings are gorgeous and although Im pretty sure at least one is a boy, I live in hope I'll be wrong and that I get to keep them both.

Dizzy, who hasnt had much of a mention is now 20 weeks old which hopefully means in a few weeks she'll lay her first egg. If she figures out where its supposed to come from that is, I think I mentioned she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Her comb is still tiny though so the telltale sign of it starting to grow and become redder should signal laying is imminent.

And thats that. Chicken update done!

2010-09-16T08:35:00.045+01:00

Its been over a month since I blogged. I could blame that on the fact Ive been working on my blog books, having just sent volume 9 off to print. That wouldnt be true though. Its because Ive turned into the worlds biggest boring person. I am boring boredy of Boredtown, Boresville. Im not bored, Im just boring. Better have a run through August then..

Firstly, Ive become addicted to Animal Planet channel. I blame that on the incredibly pants weather we had during the week off I had in August with the children. We had dreams of having sunny days out, roaming the North West having fun but of course the good old British Weather had a very different idea.

It rained 4 days out of 5.

I spose it wasnt too bad as Bethany didnt really feel up to much the first few days anyway but it meant that after doing bits of cleaning and cooking, whilst uploading blog posts and photos for the next book, I stumbled on my new favourite channel 215.

Specifically my favourite programmes on there are Animal Precinct and Animal Cops Houston/Philadelphia. They make me sad and happy in equal amounts, lots of neglected and poorly animals, but lots of rehoming and happy endings. What’s the problem with liking those programmes you may ask? Well, if you remember the last time I had a week off and found the 60 Minute Makeover programme, I ended up re-decorating the lounge and 3 bedrooms because of it.

The dangers of day time television - its a bad bad thing for someone like me with compulsive additive nature (good job I don’t drink or smoke) because now Ive been watching programmes about poor unfortunate animals, I want to go out and rescue a load. Of course I cant do that, mainly because I already have so many animals dependent on me, but also because Beech would probably kill me if I brought anymore home.

Our cats were rescue cats so I could say I’ve already done a little bit getting them, and the most recent chicken acquisitions were definitely brought to a better place (another story for another time) so that was a good thing. I want to do more though and I need to think about how I'd do that.

Anyway, the last day of our weeks holiday turned out to be brilliantly sunny. After a quick vet visit in the morning, (part of the other story for another time) I jumped on the net and booked tickets on line to Chester Zoo, taking advantage of the sun and Ben's amicable mood and the fact he didnt grunt when I suggested it.

Im glad we booked the tickets, it meant we didnt have to wait in the enormous queue that greeted us.

The last time we were at Chester Zoo, it was New Years Day two thousand and sommat. A good few years ago. Its like its not changed though – has it?

First up, the Elephants. I love elephants, mainly because they seem to have a real sense of fun about them. Star attraction of course was baby elephant who made an appearance..

And then when one of the herd decided it was too hot and wanted to lie down, baby elephant really wasn’t chuffed that it had no one to play with…

Onward past several species of animals that couldn’t even be bothered to look at the camera until we reached the Zebras. Which are definitely white with black stripes. Hard pressed to find a shot once downloaded, that didn’t show the Zebra’s ‘thing’. Ben, who is well and truly in his ‘rude sniggery little boy’ phase thought it was very funny.

We had a nice picnic, spookily bumped into a couple of people from work and enjoyed the sun while it lasted.

These are my zoo observations:-

• Giraffes are odd really aren’t they?
• The spectacled bear did not look like he was wearing glasses
• Elephants stand around laughing (I swear!)
• Zebras forget to put the stripes on their stomachs
• Monkeys act all innocent on branches until children approach whereupon they start to play with their bits

As we walked back towards the car at the end of our rounds, we noticed a crowd around the elephants enclosure – waited patiently until a gap became available and went to see what the fuss was about. Ahhh mummy elephant giving its child a bath.

Right baby ellie, get right under the water

(Not sure that you have any choice with an elephant on top of you)
I don’t care if its only a tuft or two, your hair still needs washing!

You drove me to it, I warned you you’d have to go right under to get the shampoo out!

The school holidays ended very quickly of course and that meant the start of a new era for Betty - adventures at big school. She was abit nervous about it the night before but dutifully got up (on time for once!), donned the new uniform and it was then I realised that not having had to consider ties before now, I'd bought a stack of the wrong sort of school shirt. Oops.

PHOTO REMOVED

Isnt she lovely? Cept of course for the tie. Thankfully our childminder has far more sense than me and pinned the collar at the top for the day while I legged it to Asda on my lunch for shirts with collars! She's so far enjoying school, its a big place to find your way round and there have been a few hiccups, both her and her friend have been knocked over by big kids and her friend even managed to spend a whole lesson in the wrong classroom but big school does take a bit of getting used to doesnt it. Bless.

The homework every night is definitely getting a bit of getting used to - I thought she perhaps might wonder why I've installed a desk in the front room where their laptop sits along with the printer - a little hint that she might be there nightly maybe? Ben's first day back was uneventful, mainly because he's so laid back about everything a.k.a doesnt give a toss so not much worries him.

Lastly I celebrated my 9 years anniversary with TDG on Friday 3rd September, which is also spookily Billybob's 6 years anniversary with TDG. What did we do to celebrate? Had cakes of course!

Not just any old cakes of course, cakes from Amanda Magpie at Manchester Tarts. See, there's our company logo and our name and those other cakes were inspired by our brand values which each have an image to go with them. Seahorses signify partnership, they oyster is for creating value, the stones for innovation and the little hands with the net indicate our safe hands brand value. We were all very very impressed. If you havent ventured on to Amanda's website before, you should take a look - she creates amazing cakes! Thats about it really, I'll leave the chicken update to another post seeing as there's a lot to say on that subject!

Autumn

2010-09-08T14:05:00.002+01:00

Is it September now? Must be nearly time for a blog post I should think.

Must get round to it at some point.....

2010-08-05T10:41:00.003+01:00

The end of an era. My oldest baby has left primary school. Albeit (it seems) weeks after everyone else had broken up, our school broke up for summer on 30th July.

That last couple of weeks have been a bit of a doss about by all accounts for them anyway, with the week before last being full of shows, outings and discos and last week leavers assemblies and bringing a torturous amount of school tat home.

Firstly came the end of school production featuring year 6 as lead roles. Bethany has been waiting all her primary life for this one, with aspirations of being one of the lead lead roles. Alice in Wonderland, she was not to be but she more than made up for having small parts by making sure she had several of them.

Firstly she was 'white rabbit's helper'

and you can be forgiven for thinking she looks like some kind of rabbit slapper, but that was make up in preparation for her next (speaking) role. A 'Cardner'

Her biggest bugbear was that her 'lead' role was as a Cardner. Once the roles had been given, for weeks after she would be in the middle of something totally unrelated and suddenly announce 'Im a cardner!' as if she just couldnt get head around the fact. Funny. Anyway, she played all her parts beautifully (juror, heckler, sommat else and sommat else) as did all the year 6's. The other junior classes were also involved so Ben also had his part. Suited him down to the ground....

I'll give you a clue. Its the dork with his hat over his face. Who else would that be?

The big event was on Friday 23rd, the year 6 class spent half a day at Laserquest, the other half bowling, with pizza hut inbetween, followed by the leavers disco in the evening. Moira, our childminder (for now 11.5 years!) treated Bethany to a hair appointment prior to the disco where she had it layered and curl ready for the big do.

Gorgeous or what?

I'd imagine that a lot of the kids in her class were quite frankly amazed at this young lady when she turned up.

I say this in the most affectionate of ways but our Betty doesnt make the most of herself on a daily basis. The main on going battle would be my lack of understanding on the hair front. This child LOVES make up, has assummed a massive collection of this and that and experiments with it. She also loves earrings, can spend hours going through her million jewellry boxes, changing her earrings to match each outfit. She spends an age getting the face and ears just right for going out and then seems surprised when I get frustrated that she never brushes her hair! She would walk out of the house with a birds nest on her head if I didnt religiously point it out everyday and needs constant reminding to also wash it. So my beautiful Bethany, on a normal school day quite often looks unkempt. With her glasses on, walking stooped with her head down as she does, I suspect she goes unoticed a lot of the time, which I think is probably the plan.

I bet she got more than a couple of double takes at the disco and that thought makes me smile.

She had a great time, all thanks to the Parents Association as they funded the whole day/evening. Not only that but each child was presented with a DVD of the Alice in Wonderfland production/Leavers Disco footage and a year book with photos and aspirations of each child in it. Precious memories to keep.

So then, as from last Friday its all over. September brings big school, a totally different uniform (how difficult is it to find navy blue skirts and trousers) and a culture shock I suspect when it comes to homework. Ben on the other hand is looking forward to being a Year Six and is already planning to go for lead role in their leavers production (and whats the betting he'll get it to, little brown nose). His thoughts on the sex eduction lessons he's recently had keep coming to the fore, in the most inappropriate places. He thinks its the funniest thing he's ever heard, wildly amusing. As he announced mid Sunday lunch in the pub local to us two weeks ago, completely out of the blue as we were tucking in 'Arent wet dreams a really funny thing'.

Beech choked on his hunters chicken, I agreed and suggested we perhaps didnt discuss it right there and then.

It has meant he's turned into one of those giggly daft boys that wants to spend time looking up rude words in the dictionary though. He hasnt actually done that yet but we did have an episode last weekend while I was trying to point out the merits of a childrens encyclopedia by asking him to give me any subject he could think of to look up. 'Sex' featured, as did 'wee, bum and boobies'. Actually, despite me saying there was no way the word boobies would be in the index, even though he'd said he'd seen it, it wasnt until he insisted we checked I remembered about the bird...Dammit.

Roasting hot Rhodes

2010-08-03T10:36:00.003+01:00

Its taken a while, I grant you, to blog about our holiday back in June. We went to very sunny Rhodes and had a great time so why has it taken so long? Because I took a million really bad photos.

Normally I go through my photos when I get back from holiday and am spoilt for choice for the ones I want to put on this blog. Not this time. This time I struggled to be excited over any of them. In fact, the ones on this post are the best of a very very bad bunch. Not sure what happened, maybe Ive just lost my photo mojo but since then Ive taken some really poo shots.

We started off in a room that was very dark, just off to the side of the Sun Palace Hotel. We werent there long, mainly because the card slot for the electrics came out of the wall and once fixed, the electricity disappeared forever. After a word with the rep, whilst we were on our first trip of the holiday to Lindos and Rhodes town we were moved to a superior family room, right by the pool, the bar and the restaurant - fab.

Ben was not impressed with our first room.

Or maybe thats just his normal face, who knows.

Our new room was much nicer and had a verrandah that meant we could see the entertainment without leaving our room. Bad camera settings but quite like the fact that they all look so angelic.

Our trip to Lindos/Rhodes Old Town was very good. Owing to mum's bad leg and Bethany's lazyitis, just Ben and I walked up the very steep wibbly wobbly way to the Acropolis perched on top. Views from just half way up were stunning...

and it would be nice to say I had some other photos but as aforementioned, they were all crap. I'd also like to say the hike up was worth it but I just dont get how you can restore such a place as this with new stuff and still bill it as an ancient must see.

Does this look like a temple to you?

No but then the scaffolding didnt really add to the ambience of it all. Even Ben wasnt convinced, clearly in this photo he's looking up thinking 'this column doesnt look very old'

Did they think by doing that it disguised the fact these columns arent actually a billion trillion years old? I felt cheated.

On the way from Lindos to Rhodes old town we did actually see a 'real' old temple, one belonging to Apollo Pythois you know. See, now these are old columns.

Our next trip was a couple of days later, to the biggest waterpark in Europe. We had picked the perfect day to book our tickets as the day or so before Bethany got sunburnt due to lack of hearing (ignored the lecture about sunscreen and wouldnt come back for re-application regularly and for those of you that are thinking thats my responsibility, she is old enough at wise enough at 11 to come when called!) and the morning was overcast and cool.

The waterpark itself was also almost empty which meant no queing whatsoever, more than enough room in all pools and the kids loved it. Shame once again, the photos were plop. This was the lazy river..

and this the wet bubble...

which basically consisted of a large wet bubble (funnily enough). The idea being, you hoist yourself up by the rope and bounce down again. Thats Ben there. Kids make things look easy dont they? Or maybe its because when I did it, it felt like I was hoisting up the body weight of a shire horse, boy was it hard work.

Photo overload now but its the best way of showing how funny this was. Take two small children and one very large bucket of water and wait ten minutes with your camera at the ready....

Last one makes me laugh, Betty got thrown off her feet and her little legs in the air make giggle.

Unfortunately the jolly mood of the day didnt last as despite it being passed around, in pockets, hung on bags and shoved in lockers, Bethany's most precious jewellry possession was lost. Ironically, the tiny silver flipflop necklace given to her years ago by our childminders mother was lost at the end of the end of the day when she finally returned it to her neck (or didnt). She was heartbroken, Ben and I re-traced our steps but couldnt see it and both Ben and I were upset for her as we knew how much is meant to her. One of those times where you want to shout out the lesson of being careful through sheer frustraction at being useless to change the situation but know that the pain of her loss was more than enough. I'd hoped to track down a copy, texted auntie billybob to see if while we were still out there she could find anything so that I could have maybe pretended it had appeared in the washing on our return home but there was nothing even remotely like it to be found. Rather than replace it with something similar, that would never be the same, when we got back I bought her a very special necklace, from me, with an inscription on it I thought fitting. It says 'Always follow your dreams', and Bethany has those by the bucket full.

Our third and last trip of the week was the one that really doesnt merit talking about as it was quite frankly, dreadful. Billed as a relaxing boat trip round blah blah, with 'the crew sizzling up a barbeque on board' was actually forty billion hours on rigid wooden benches on a small boat with food poisoning thrown in later than day (for me anyway).

I think in this photo, Ben is clearly thinking what I was thinking 'wtf are we doing here'. Even Bethany couldnt rally much enthusiasm...

The next day was had a lazy day by the pool. Mainly because I'd thrown up red slush puppy coloured raw barbeque in the bath in the early hours and didnt feel like moving much at all. This is the first holiday where the kids have been old enough (and more importantly, sensible enough) to do their own thing, get their own food, go to the bar for their own drinks and basically, sort themselves out without being silly or fighting. Bliss. Bethany spent most time in the pool, Ben dipped in and out and read Harry Potter and Percy Jackson the rest of the time. The rubber rings bought in Lanzorote came in handy once again...

I think Ben looks older than his years in this shot...

Betty leapt and snorkelled...

and a great time was had by all. Shame about the lack of photos though....

Peep peeps

2010-07-10T19:48:00.001+01:00

This last week has been very exciting. Firstly and most excitingly, despite the traumas of the past 3 weeks, which included the following:-

Moving my broody girl from the nesting box to the 'broody coop'
Chasing her round the garden when she decided she didnt like it
Letting her back in the nesting box
Constantly removing the eggs she kept stealing from the other girls from under her
Moving her from the nesting box to the broody coop again
Confiscating her eggs when she told me in no uncertain terms she was NOT sitting on them in the broody coop
Letting her go back to the nesting box
Dad erecting a partition in the nesting box so that she could no longer steal eggs
The purchase of a small incubator as back up when moving her for the third time to the bloody broody coop
The purchase of rubber eggs to try and encourage her that the broody coop was a good idea and if she promised to behave she could have her real eggs back from the incubator
Giving her her eggs back after she finally realised the broody coop was in fact her very own pad complete with dining area, kitchen and private garden and that she'd be very happy there.

Around day 14 I candled the eggs which basically meant holding them above an angle poise lamp with a piece of cardboard on. The light shines through the egg showing the contents.

Clearly this is an empty egg, one from my other girls which obviously arent fertile. I couldnt take a photo of the fertile eggs because of the heat of the lamp on them would be dangerous if left too long. Basically though it appears as a dark mass with an obvious air sac at the end. One of the bantam eggs was clearly ok, we could see the chick wriggly around. Out of the 8 eggs she was sitting on, I threw one away as it was definitely clear and marked two down as probably dud with question marks before putting them back under her. Unfortunately it was a bad idea to use pencil as it rubbed off quite quickly as she turned them each day but on day 19 it became apparent that one definitely was as it cracked and leaked white all over the other eggs. Thankfully because Ive been petting her although the incubation period, she was happy to let me clean out her apartment and wipe down the other eggs without trying to peck my eyes out.

Because the eggs went under her a few days apart and because of all the faffing about taking them off her and giving them back when she was behaving, the dates of hatching became very blurred - I thought the bantam eggs would hatch at some point this weekend, with the blue Cream Legbar eggs hatching early next week.

So, after all that how happy was I this morning when I removed the lid of her apartment so say good morning and stroke her head like I do every morning and spotted a tiny fluffy head peeping out of her feathery skirt! I wondered how many might have hatched because they hide closely under mummy. Lucky for me mummy decided to have a drink once Id moved the water into the hutch which meant I managed to snap this shot.

Two little bantam babies, very cute and fluffy. You can see how tiny the bantam eggs are to the CL ones by the size of the empty shell there. Will be a good few weeks before I know whether we're lucky enough to have two girls, however if and when the others hatch it will be apparent straight away how many are boys and how many are girls are they are an auto sexing breed. This just means the boys are a different colour or have markings to the girls.

She's a very proud mother and for the moment is still happily sitting on the remaining eggs. The incubator is on stand by in case she decides they arent going to and gets off early. The second lot were supposed to arrive at the same time as the others but the ebayer seller didnt send them on time, hence going under later. If that happens, they will go in the incubator and hopefully 3 will hatch and once they've fluffed up I can sneak them under her at night - she should then take them under her wing so to speak without a problem. The brown lump in the drinker there isnt anything untoward, a chick can drown in a tiny amount of water so pebbles are put in there so they dont fall in. Its amazing how quickly they learn, already they are pecking away at their chick crumb and earlier when I offered new mum half a grape she took it off me, tore it up into tiny pieces and dropped them in front of the chicks to eat.

Ive become a mummy chick bore and it will only get worse.

Anyway, the other exciting thing this week was the discovery of this gem whilst Beech and his siblings were sorting out my MILs house for sale.

Its Beech's dads contract for when he played for Manchester City 1953/54 season. How cool is that! They also found a newspaper clipping detailing the new city team of that time, all such precious things to find. While going through the garage in the pile for tipping I found a plastic bag full of trophies. Some seemed quite old so I mentioned to Beech we should bring them home and go through them first. Lucky we did...

a trophy presented to Frank as senior cup winner for City. Just brill.

Like I say, an exciting week. In other news a couple of weeks ago I was awarded this...

My bronze award for blood donation. I started donating as soon as I was old enough as my mum and dad were regular donors. Then I had a tattoo so couldnt donate then, after that followed children and another tattoo until it was one of those things I kept meaning to do, but didnt. Then when my MIL had to have regular transfusions last year I made my mind up it wasnt something I should keep putting off. I made my appointment on line and trotted off to the donation centre handily 2 minutes from home. Nowadays they take the test blood from the middle finger and not the thumb. Nowadays they have a machine that stops taking blood once you hit your quota. Other than that it was exactly the same as the last time I gave 13 years ago even down to the nurse not being able to find a vein and stabbing me 40 billion times (had a lovely big bruise for a week, battlescar see). And of course I got my bronze. A bit of a gap between the 9th and 10th pints but I got there in the end. I would ask anyone that is able to do this small thing to do so. Its a small amount of time to do something that has big rewards for someone in need.

Kids couldnt quite get their heads around it and when Id got back to the house with a huge plaster on my arm we had this conversation:-

Bethany: Where've you been?

Me: I told you before, donating blood.

Bethany: What? You donated blood??

Me: Yep, it helps saves lives you know.

Bethany: Do they have to like, hit you really hard until you bleed then?

Me: Erm no.

Bethany: Ewwww

Me: They put a needle in your arm and collect the blood through a tube.

Ben: Do they put it straight into a poorly person then?

Me: No, there are no poorly people there.

Ben: Then what do they do with it?

Me: It collects in a bag and they take it away, test it and give it to a hospital

Ben: In a bag?? How can it be in a bag??

Me: Its a plastic bag

Ben: like a Tesco bag?

Me: No

I supposed it is a bit tricky to understand it really isnt it. As long as they understand it saves lives and its a good thing to do, thats all that really counts.

A.W.O.L

2010-06-23T18:38:00.000+01:00

Actually I have been doing all sorts in my defense of my extended period of blogging absence.

For one, Ive been on holiday which is a new blog post in its own right. Before that though Ive been decorating.

Again.

Brought on by an enormous bout of 60 minute makeover. It stems from sometime in April when I had a day off for something or other. I discovered the delights of ITVs 60 minute makeover and decided that as it was daytime telly and destined for me to never see it again, that I would do series record. Roll on a month and a Thursday evening in May when I noticed the red bar on the virgin media screen with the word ‘critical’ underneath it. Turned out it’s a daily show and I had filled our V+ with hours and hours of it. Good job I liked it. So I sat and watched a couple, deciding my idols were Colin and Justin and feeling more and more creative with each show. Course that was it then, it doesn’t take much to make me decorate as we know, having changed the colour of downstairs twice in the last 12 months.

I’d gone to B & Q the Friday night looking for inspiration for my bedroom. A room Ive hated for a couple of years having made a mistake with the wallpaper as written about here. With the demise of my beautiful bed and having been sleeping on the mattress on the floor for months it was time to take the plunge and get a new one. Less said on that particular event, the better.

So, with the arrival of a stupidly huge and comedy size bed that in comparison to the princess and the pea story makes the princess look like she slept on a sanitary towel, and the throwing out of the one piece of furniture in there, it meant the room was a totally blank canvas, waiting for re-design. Thing was, I had NO idea what to do. Too much choice, an onslaught of ideas from 60SM as I now like to call it, cabbaged my head as it were.

I spent weeks umming and arrhhing about various colours, and on this particular Friday night, went to B & Q alone, to look for something. I did find something. It took me overnight to realize exactly what it was I needed to do. Back I went that Saturday morning, purchased 6 rolls of wallpaper, got back and papered one wall in the lounge and one wall in Bethanys bedroom. OK so I know I wasnt supposed to be thinking about any other rooms but the devil made me do it. In my weak and feeble defense (as I explained to Beech that afternoon when he’d come home from golf to find the blue lounge with the white fireplace that he’d left that morning that I only decorated in March, was now greens, taupes and golds with the old wooden fireplace back in situ), now that I’d papered a wall, I couldn’t change the décor for like, ages.

The temptation of blank walls that can have their colours changed at the drop of a paint brush was just too much, too easy for me to change, but now there was paper up, I HAD to stick to it. Which is what I explained to him about the fact Id also papered the signature wall in Bethany’s room with gorgeous big eggshell blue blooms to match her other plain walls. Means it has to STAY as it is now.

Its weird because I swore Id never have wallpaper again, for the very same reason I’d just put it up. Because I like to change things around, I get bored with my surroundings very easily and a slap of paint is a quick fix. Its Laurence LB’s fault though, the paper was just too gorgeous to pass up and once I’d done the walls, I knew it was the right thing to do. Not only that, but now the room has to stay this colour, it meant I could actually buy curtains! We have vertical blinds, cream in colour to go with whatever colour I’d decide on at any particular time. Now the room is done and will stay this way, Ive been able to buy gorgeous curtains to match and to complete the room of furniture, without worrying if it will go with my next colour scheme.

Best of all, I love it. I always did like the green better.

My favourite item is this...

Not quite what I had in mind for this corner, I’d wanted a green/brown striped chair but couldn’t find one cheaply, but having stumbled on this, ok, old fashioned looking bargain chair in Home Zone, I knew it was perfect. NOONE else likes it. Bethany calls it’s the ‘scary chair’. Its really comfy though and actually I take that back because Squeaky has become quite partial to it.

So, both the lounge and Bethany’s room had a makeover, took me longer than 60 minutes of course, but then I didn’t have a team of 30 dudes running round the house helping like they do. As for the bedroom that started it all off? Well that’s nearly finished now. Horrible mistake paper off, plain white walls on. Least til I decided what colour I actually wanted to go with. Which is why, during my first visit to my now favourite store B & M (LOVE IT) I was surprised to see THE paper, the paper that made me think, that’s it! 4 rolls did the job, I just need flooring and a few knick knacks to complete it.

In other news, I have a broody chicken sat on 8 eggs. She decided on the day we returned from holiday that she was going to hatch all the eggs the other girls had laid. I tried to explain to her that it just wouldn’t work, hadn’t she noticed we don’t have a cockrel? She wasn’t bothered, she’d gone broody and that was that. A couple of mornings after this discovery, I’d turf her off her stolen eggs until she’d decided there was nothing else for it but to carry on and peck about and play out. Til the next morning when there she was again, warming stolen eggs and growling at me when I tried to take them. You’ve never seen a chicken growl?

Let me change that!

You see? She growls. In the end I figured if she was going to sit on something, she might as well have golf balls. Which she did, for two days bless her until I took pity on her and bought some fertile eggs from ebay for her to incubate. She’s now sat on some Cream Legbar eggs and some Lemon Millefleur sablepoot booted bantam eggs. What a mouthful. Im hopeful the Cream Legbar eggs will hatch as they will produce the blue egg laying breed that I was desperate for, but couldn’t get, months ago. 3 weeks we have to wait to see if anything happens. 3 weeks! Not very long in the grand scheme of waiting times but for me, Mrs Impatient Pants thats dead dead long.

Whilst we’re talking of breeding, Ben is about to embark on sex education. Im wondering how he’ll take the whole thing, remembering how absolutely disgusted Bethany was when she knew. He asked me the other night about it after I’d approved the form from school asking if they could teach them. In fact we’ve had a couple of conversations about it since.

Ben: Mummy, whats sex?
Me: Ask your dad, daddy’s tell boys, Mummy’s tell girls (HA!)
Ben: He’s not here. My friends say sex is the same as the naughty swear word beginning with F. (damn those friends!)
Me: Well, in slang, I suppose that’s right. Ive got a book for you somewhere that explains a lot of it, I’ll find it for you
Ben: Whats it called?
Me: Its called Whats Happening to Me?
Ben: Whats it about?
Me: Well, it explains about what happens to you as you get older, the changes in your body and all that
Ben: I know what happens to your body when you get older.
Me: You do? What?
Ben: You get wrinkles, sorted.

Ok then. Bit later on we progressed to this one

Ben: Mum, why do boys have willies and girls don’t?
Me: Erm because that’s the way they are made
Ben: But its gross that boys have willies and girls just have that line
Me: (trying my best not to laugh) I know but it’s just a case of what you’re used to
Ben: Its horrible, Ive seen sneaky and girls don’t have ANYTHING except a line
Me: Yes, like a piggy bank (oh dear, perhaps not the best thing to have said)
Ben: (laughing his head off as Bethany walks in)
Betty: What are you talking about?
Me: Girl and boy bits, Ben thinks its horrible that girls don’t have willies
Ben: They have piggy banks!
Me: Penny slots (oh eck, done it again)
Bethany: Can we stop this conversation right now?
Me: yes, probably a good idea

So thats that for now.