Been Shopping.......

Today I have been scrap shopping, Hurrah, been ages since I have had a good scrap shop!
I went to a shop in watford and bought a few new things to play with. I have restocked my supply of brads with some very pretty brads that are spotty and some that are flowery.

I have also been scrapping again, this scrap pad competition has really spurred me on !!

The weather is on the turn , with big grey clouds over head. I am glad it seems to be a bit cooler and less humid.

This week is going t be busy, with Laura and Wendy both on the move. They are both going to need a hand, but we will be on holiday for Lauras one. Fingers crossed that all goes well!!

I've been playing with my camera !!

I have been hanging around my hanging baskets and managed to capture a buzzy bee landing on one of my petunias!! I am so pleased with my baskets this year, we were not able to devote as much time and energy to them due to dad being in hospital. None the less they have turned out very nice and are so pretty.

Good News for Laura at last

After a long string of failed interviews, Laura has finally managed to secure a full time job as a cashier at Barclays in town. Hurrah, thanks to Richard for getting her the interview. Hopefully she will start on the 8th of August.
More good news, Wendy has decide to move on from the flat that she rents and Laura and Scott have applied to the land lord to move in. Well after doing all the credit checks, it has been confirmed that they can have the flat !!! So today they handed in their notice at Wrights and started planning for the big move. Unfortunately we will be on holiday when they move, but Scotts dad has said he will help them.
So positive things happening at last. We have booked the holiday flights for October next year, with the express idea that Laura will have to stick with the job until then at least !!

Happy Birthday Mum !!

Happy Birthday Mum !! 71 years young !

Yesterday was mums birthday, we bought her a pack of scrapbooking paper, some beautiful roses, a chewy toy for when Ben arrives and a pooper scooper!!

We took her a birthday cake and sang the famous birthday song!!

Many Happy Returns.

Panshanger Childrens Fete!!

Every year just befopre the summer holidays the children of Panshanger School organise and run a 'Kids Fete' Its always messy, its always fueled by sweets, its always scorching hot and its always FUN. As ususal the night before the fete Beth suddenly 'Rememebered' that she had agreed to provide the prizes for her stall, which was a 'keepy up' competition with prizes for infants and juniors.
Luckily Morrisons had a pack of balls suitable for prizes, so we were set up. Oddly they decided to change everyone 12p a go. It didn't take them too long to realise that the odd amount was going to test their maths skills to the limits everytime they needed to give change, so they reduced it to 10p !!!
As always it was boiling hot but they all did well and enjoyed themselves and made over £400 which is going towards the new playground equipment that they all want so badly!

Pre Crop on the Pad.

I have not done any scrapping for ages and at last a competition has got me on track again.
On the scrap pad we have been given a pre crop challenge, which is great as I am away for the main crop. I intend to enter all the rounds and Debbie has given me a chance to send the week I am away directly to her!
It has been so hot that it has been hard to scrap, mainly because I have to have a fan on to keep cool and that blows everything everywhere!
Last night Beth had Emma sleep over so today is payback time and Beth is around Emmas. Gives Tom and I a bit of peace. Hurrah !! Carl is still festering in bed so all is peaceful.

Been a bit busy this week.

I don't know where this week has gone, I have been flat to the boards at work and have not had a spare minute to myself. Beth has had her sports day and the Active Alligators came first. They have been there or abouts for a few years but finally cracked it this year !!

Been missing for a while.......

Since getting back from Bury I have been busy busy busy !!
I returned to 140 emails at work , all too much to deal with really.
I am really missing Steph, its nice to have someone to share the load with.
Work has been generally busy with lots of unpleasant things going on resulting in some extra long hours for me. I am hoping to get some catch up time tomorrow.
Tom has started his new job and due to confusion he thought today was a training day, but in fact he was shadowing someone and won't get paid. I am not impressed. But I think he has got the wrong end of the stick completely. Because he did not tell them when he wanted to work, he has now not got any work, again another misunderstanding on his part, they did ask at interview but he didn't realize the importance of saying what he could do!!
Oh well, he will get started soon.

Beautiful Bury St Edmunds!

I took these photos last night while taking a walk around the Abbey gardens. The flowers were beautiful!
The fields were on the way to Long Melford and they looked stunning with the purple plants. I have no idea what they are though !!

The last day .....

Here I am on my last day of my course, and to be quite honest I am sad about it ! I have had a great time, met some lovely people and really enjoyed myself.
Last night we had dinner at Cafe Uno, followed by the rest of the evening watching footy in the Kings Arms, a rough pub opposite the hotel ! It was great to watch Italy Stuff the Germans in the last minutes of extra time, so much better than going to penalties!
After the football we got chatting to a guy called Julian, a stunt butcher from Sainsburys via Weymouth!! He had a few to drink, his mate Martin was sober! We ended up in the pub until about 11.30pm and had a real laugh.

I've met Jill !!

Yesterday was a very exciting day, spent the most of it in class doing computer stuff. It was boiling hot and the pc's were chucking out a load of hot air as well.
I was so pleased to have finished for the day at 4pm. Had a strawberry frappachino with my new friends Ann and Lyn. We had a look around the shops and headed back to the hotel. I checked in and was given a really nice double room, but when I tried to open the window the lock would not budge, it was stiffling so the chap on reception swapped me into the room above, equally as nice with a window that opened!
In the evening I drove out to Long Melford. On the way I came across these feilds full of beautiful purple plants, I have no idea what the plant was but being a good scrapper I stopped and photographed the view. I will have to do some reseach.
I arrived at the Bull Pub and met up with Jill from A trip Down Memory Lane. We spent a very pleasant evening chatting about loads of things, we started outside but I was getting eaten by the mossies! We finished off inside and it felt like I'd known her for ages !I am very jealous that she and Mel are going to USA on a buying trip in January, what bliss!!
Got back to the hotel about 10.40pm got a text from Ann to see where I was, I then realised that the text was a delayed one as I had been in a bad reception area. SO around 11.30 they came back knocked on my door and had a cup of coffee!!
Had a very peaceful night.

Back in Bury.....

Here I am back in Bury. The journey here was good traffic minimal and did the journey in an hour and a half not bad for rush hour.
Tonight I am meeting Jill in a pub in Long Melford. Will be great to meet her!

Lost my Mojo..

I have not scrapped for weeks now, and I have a ton of lovely photos to do. I just don't get enough time to get the stuff out, its starting to depress me, I want to do it. Perhaps its the summertime holding me up.
Sometimes I look at all the lovely layouts that my online friends do and I really want to be able to emulate them, BUT I think my reason for scrapping changes. I go though heavily artistic periods where I want to do frilly, heavily embellished pages, but by and large I have photos that are not always extrodinary, but they tell a story and I want to be able to use a large number of them to do so. SO I find it hard to do single photo pages unless its only a single photo that says it all. Generally I have to use more !!
I do try but the harder I try the worse things get. Perhaps after 7 years Scrapping has run its course and I will have to consign all my equipment to the loft along with my cross stitch stuff, quilting stuff etc.
I feel quite sad, I hope it come back, but I think I have lost my way.

This is Hunny, she had been swimming in the river and I managed to capture her face on during a big shake to get rid of the water ! She loves the river and we try and take her down there most weekends.

Its been blimming hot !!

This weekend has been a scorcher, I mustn't complain as its likely to be all the summer we are likely to get ! It has been a busy one. After the disappointment of the football yesterday (all Toms fault for saying our bad luck at penalties couldn't continue!!) I spent the time today continuing with my mission to clear out my cupboards. We popped into Stevenage and bought a couple of new dinner services and have finally got rid of the load of mismatched crockery that I have collected over the years. The problem was that they were the last two left in Argos and they couldn't remember where they had hidden them. So we stood at the counter dripping with sweat and feeling increasingly pissed off as people came and collected their goods. When eventually a member of staff came over and said they would have to offer a refund as they were lost, at precisely the same time as they appeared.

New Everything!!

This week we finally had word about our new three piece suite HURRAH, In the new years sale we bought a new leather suite, we took delivery of it in March and within 24 hours found that there were hole under the arms of the sofa and that the manufacturer obviously knew as they had tried to fix the holes with staple. So we complained and after a long winded process managed to get a replacement suite and a £100 reduction. In the mean time we had the incident with the water leak and the insurance company have also this week agreed to replace the living room carpet. So now we can change colours completely in the front room, I am thinking mink and beigey brown colours, with a smattering of green thrown in. What I really need to do is get one of those booklets with what is trendy and look at their colour combinations. Watch this space...

Today is also Panshanger Village day, an event that is usually a wash out, this year looks like bucking the trend. They have very optimistically (in my opinion) decided that it will be held from 2pm to 5pm. The problem being England kicks off at 4pm, so I can't see there being too many people hanging around after 4. I just pray that the country dancing is on early or I'll have to stay and watch Beth who is performing !!!