Hot Hot Hot!!

We have been having a few hot days (which have been followed by some very variable and wet days!!) Beth has been desperate for a paddling pool, so we have obtained a 'birthing pool' from Emma and set it up in the garden!!! its been there for a few days and Beth has been in everyday (as long as we top it up with hot water!!) I am quite impressed with it and I am very tempted to get myself one of those garden spas that you inflate and heat up, I am visualising New Year in the hot tub, fantastic!!!!

About to climb......

Carl has been in Kenya for the past 5 days, he has been on a three night safari and tomorrow morning he starts the travel to the start of the climb. He has prepared well and has loads of equipment so

 I hope all goes well. 

So far he has raised a total of £1,180 its not too late to sponsor him, please visit his 'Just giving' page and support him. Thank you.

He has left the country!!!

This afternoon I took Carl to Heathrow airport, getting ready to go did not go without incident. Because he has a climb as part of the trip, he needs to take the right gear including boots, sleeping bag and sleeping mat, he also needs warm gear and safari gear. So at lunch time he had realised that one suitcase was not enough and we didn't have a suitable second case (for that what he meant was that he wasn't prepared to take my black case covered in red cherries!!) So Tina came to the rescue and loaned him one.

When I got home to collect him, he had both bags packed but one was over weight and one was under so we had a bit of fiddling to do to get them equal. It has been so hot that we were both dripping by the time we had finished.

We headed off and we were  less than a mile from home when his traveling companion called to say he had arrived and was waiting in the terminal!! We were lucky and managed the whole journey without a single hold up on the M25 (not the same could be said for my return journey!!)

So I was very good, I said goodbye and never shed a tear this time!! I am getting much better at this.

I still snuck a photo or two!!!

So here he is with Keith's Backpack, My purple case and Tina's red and black case!!

He refused to look back at me.Little sod!!

There he is disappearing into the terminal just a flash of red t shirt.

His flight was due to leave at 8pm but in the end didn't leave until 8.30pm I tracked it out of Heathrow on the computer and watched until it went into French airspace. I hope all goes well and that he has a good time.

Thank you to everyone who has sponsored him, the total now stands at £1145 !!

Finished!!

Well our garden is finally tree free, I admit to having a pang of regret having them removed, but its for the greater good. The fence is up and the stumps have been removed. The garden is covered in sawdust but I expect that will disappear over time. The grass is looking pathetic mainly due to lack of rain!

We have decided that we want a border so that I can grow cottage flowers and lavender to attract the bees. We will have to dig something into the soil as its been supporting trees for the past 30 years!!

I power washed the trampoline to get rid of all the sap, so we are all set for bouncing and soaking up the sun.

We have had some great weather over the past few days and last night we sat in the garden and saw some spectacular cloud formations.

I think this is called a Mackerel sky.

We have noticed that without the trees its a whole lot brighter and the sun stays right into the evening. We still have a lot to do out there including trying to disguise the god awful wheelie bins.

Today is the day that Carl starts his African adventure. I am very apprehensive about this trip I suppose because it is to a continent I have no understanding of and it doesn't feel as developed as a lot of the places he has been. He has been preparing himself physically for a while so I am hoping the trip up Kilimanjaro won't be too painful! There has been a last minute rush to sponsor him, so I would like to say a big thank you to all of you  who have supported him so far and would like to do a last minute call out to all those people who have been thinking about sponsoring but haven't got around to it, its not too late please take a look at his just giving page  The total to date stands at £1,115 .

All Gone!!

This week our garden has undergone some radical changes, for quite a few years we have been thinking about having the trees on the left side of the garden removed. The people originally in this house must have been tree freaks because when we moved in the back garden which only measures 20ft wide by 30ft long had a huge silver birch, an apple tree, a fully functioning and heavily fruiting plum tree, a weeping willow, a fir type of tree and a Scots pine. Over the years we have gradually got rid of them, the garden is simply too small and overcrowded.

The only two left were on the left of the garden, the fir tree and the Scots pine. The Scots pine seems to have taken off over the past few years and was much taller than the house. The fir tree was getting wider and wider, so we took the plunge and had them chopped.

So we took the plunge and had them chopped. The tree surgeon came on Thursday and took down all of the trees and overgrown shrubs.

He had to climb up the tree and chop it into pieces to get rid of it. We saved the logs for Steph and her open fire in the winter (by then the sap may have dried up!!!)

The only plant that we saved was my favourite oranges and lemon rose, its looking a bit surprised now to be sitting there all alone in the blazing sunlight!!

The plan was for the company to come back on the Friday to grind the roots and put up a fence as its quite exposed now. Well things never go according to plan and when we got up Friday morning the was a car parked parallel to our back fence and gate, it was locked but parked so badly that it was taking two parking spaces and we couldn't open the back gate. The bloke wasn't able to get the grinder in so now he is coming back on Monday to finish up. We eventually tracked down the owner thanks to our local PCSO Christina and the car was moved by the owners wife who could believe that her husband had been that anxious to get away on his fishing holiday that he had dumped the car!!!

So now the garden looks like a wilderness with piles of sawdust all over the grass. There is no place to hide and not a speck of shade!! I sat out for a while but in the end had to sit under the washing on the line. We do have a parasol, but its out of reach as we have had to stash 'stuff' on the opposite side of the garden.  I am sure it will be great once its done!

Tonight we are off to a Wedding reception, can't wait!!!

Lets Party!!!

Today we had a street party. Its been an age since we have had a street party and it was great to see so many present and past neighbours!! We did have an organising meeting last week, but all we did really was had a few drinks and a spaghetti and meatballs dinner!!! Any how it came together and we had a brilliant day!

So who were the movers and shakers??? This year we had no representatives from number one. The present owners of number 2 were away so they donated a bottle of wine and a happy 30th Birthday Card

 (our road is 30 this year!!)

 We had a visit from the previous residents of number 2, Rachel,Dave, Lauren, Monty and Nathan. They bought their puppy Smudge.

We are at number 3, so Liz, Tom, Laura and Beth.

Number 4, the longest residents, Karen, Graham, Nick,Zoe and Megan.

Number 5 the previous owners Clive, Tracey and Brogan and the present owners Grant, Emily , Phoebe and Olivia.

Number six, the present owners Simon Tannaz and Keanush.

No representatives from number 7 :(

There was plenty of food, a barbecue and cakes along with plenty of drink!!!

Year and years ago, we think at least 10 years ago, Tracey,Karen,Rachel and I sat outside under the tree and made bunting and sipped wine. We used the tried and tested technique of string and staplers. We had quite a production line going, one cutting, one stapling, one spacing the flags and one topping up the drinks. We made yards and yards of the stuff!! Karen kept the huge roll of bunting and we got it out today and decorated the street!! It was in remarkably good condition although it was a bit creased and the spacing was shot, but I could recognise some of the fabric and it bought back the memories!!!

I am amazed that it has lasted so long!!!

Here we have the men putting the world to rights!!!

Topped off with some of Karen's wonderful cup cakes!!

We all enjoyed it so much that we have made a plan for the winter. For the past few years we have had snow at some point we all usually end up out the front making snow men and having snowball fights, well this year we are going to have a team barbecue on that day when we are stuck at home!!!!

Happy Days!!!

New Car New Week

Last weekend Dad and I went out and found him a new car. He wanted something that was a bit higher and a little more comfortable than his corsa, he likes our Zafira, Ruby, so we went and had a look at a few of those!! He needed an automatic and this blue one fit the bill. This week it has been converted to hand controls and he is now up and running. The brakes are little on the sharp side, but he'll get used to it!!!

On Wednesday we went into Hospital to speak to the physios, Mum is making slow progress and she is keen to get home. They won't discharge her until she is safe to walk and not fall over. It looks like there may be a fair way to go with that one. Today she was taken back to the QE2 where they have Xrayed her again and she was seen by the consultant. They have told her that the bone is slowly healing but they estimate at least another 6 weeks for there to be noticeable healing. There is still some infection and that is slowly getting better. I think there are a huge number of hurdles for her to over come and I am not sure that she will ever be able to do so.

Busy Busy Busy....

This past week has flown by. Much the same as the weekend. Already facing another week at work.

We went over to Bishops Stortford to see Mum this afternoon and she as down in the dumps. She has been there a month and has been making fantastic progress on her best day she walked 46 steps which is really good. Trouble is she is fed up with being in hospital and wants to be home. That seems to lead to tensions between her and Dad and then things get out of hand and they both end up upset. I do feel that we may be getting closer to getting her home as the staff have visited Dad at home and know what they need to do to get things right for her. (not very much!!)

I just wanted to do a last minute plea for sponsorship for Carl. He is next month going to climb Kilimanjaro in an effort to raise money for the local Scout Group. This is not an easy option for him and it has not been cheap, while it will be an experience it would be great if he could help the Scouts out along the way!!

So please visit his just giving page HERE and pledge a couple pounds .

THANK YOU

Fantastic Night!!!! - The Ego Has Landed!!!

Last night I went to Wembley with some dear friends. My friend (Karen over the road as she is known  in these parts!!) managed to get some much sought after tickets for Take That The Progress Live 2011 Tour.

We headed off around 5 pm after a nice sandwich tea with juice lovingly prepared by Karen. We had booked the car park the night before and when we arrived were pleased to find it was minutes from the stadium! We went in and found a seat and had a fantastic view of everything.

I was amazed at the size of the arena, it was massive, the number of people was incredible, the whole place seemed to be breathing!!

The supporting act was the 'Pet Shop Boys' In reality it was Pet Shop Boy. Very good none the less!!

The main show was brilliant Take That were outstanding and put on a brilliant show, loads of effects and the songs took you straight back!!!

It was a brilliant night out that I would do all over again!! The only bad news was that our perfect car park was not to easy t exit, so we ended up sat in a queue for well over an hour eating the last of the sandwiches and trying not to think of running water as we all needed the loo!!!

We eventually got home in the wee small hours of the morning!!



Why do Weekends go so Fast?????

The weekend takes ages to arrive and then in a flash its gone. We look forward to it all week and then in no time it has passed us by. I really wish they were longer. The past week at work we have been bombarded with pension issues. I had expected to be able to retire at 60 when I started my working life all those years ago and as such I have paid into several pension schemes to enable that to happen. A few years ago the government decided that we were all living longer so they would equalise the retirement date for men and women. Men were retiring at 65 so they started to move the women's retirement age towards that. So for a few years the age I could go at moved to 62, still not too bad.  Well now that date has moved again and I am looking at being 66 before I can retire. Its a real problem, it now feels like I am never going to get there so what is the point of having a pension I am not overly likely to see?? who knows how many people die before they reach 65??

I feel its particularly unfair because when I started I made my plans, I think they need to apply the changes to people who are starting work and not to those of us who are already nearing the end. I feel like I will never get there!!!

This weekend we spotted the trees by the back door moving without the aid of any wind, I thought it a bit strange and thought it was some birds on the bird feeder. So I looked a bit closer and spotted a pair of mice clinging onto the wire and having a good feed!!

It was quite difficult to photograph them as they had arrived as it was getting dark. Since last week they have been back every evening and I realise that they have been coming for a while. We had spotted evidence of activity below the feeder but we had assumed it was the pigeon as he had tried loads of times to get nuts from the tree!!

This afternoon we visited Mum in the Herts and Essex Hospital, she is doing well but is struggling with depression and the stresses and strains of getting back on her feet. We have decided at work to send her post cards to cheer her up. So today she had an array of cards from all my work friends. If anyone out there wants to send her a post card, please feel free, She is Mrs Maureen Botwright, Cambridge Ward, Herts and Essex Hospital, Bishops Stortford. Herts (I have no idea of the post code) She collects post cards so all would be welcome!!!

Have a great week.

A Hum Dinger of a Storm!!!

I am determined one way or another to try and get tickets to see something in the Olympic next year, I have failed on the original allocation and I have failed in the second chance allocation, so now its down to trying to win some in a draw!!! Beth's School is bidding to be able to carry the Olympic Torch in the run up to the games, so they need people to bid for them, you can help them out by bidding for them HERE and at the same time have a chance of winning some tickets. Please support the school and give yourself a chance!!!!!!

This afternoon the storm promised for yesterday afternoon arrived in a very big way, I got caught outside and was soaked in a matter of seconds!! The air cooled immediately but we were treated to a huge electric storm which resulted in all the lights going out at work and a switch onto emergency generator. The lightening was amazing and the thunder was right over head. You can't beat a good summer electric storm!!

I have a few photos that I took at conference last week, the venue was fantastic. It was a converted Railway Station, huge and airy. You could see out of the top windows the roof of the Midland Hotel opposite.

The hotel is famous for being the place used by the Beckhams when they visit Manchester! It looked good, but walking by the kitchen on the way to conference was a bit off putting, somehow fried breakfast is never so appetising once you have eaten!

The restoration of the building was great staff said that this was the original clock from the station!

I think we are back to Bournemouth next year, I like the seaside!!

Ferry Across the Mersey!!!

Well it had to be done, while in the north west of the country we decided to take a trip to Liverpool. I had never been there before but I have childhood memories of what I think Liverpool is like.

The memories started when I was at Junior school long before computers were invented, when doing a project for school involved actively tracking down the information required by visiting library's and writing to people. So back then we were doing a project on ports so I decided to write to the port authority for Liverpool. They sent me back some brilliant information lots of photos which were expensive in those days!!

There was one of the Mauritania similar to this one and there was one taken from the Liver Building looking out at the docks similar to the one below.

I remember thinking that it was a place that I would like to visit one day. Since then Liverpool has been through a huge regeneration program. There were riots in Toxteth in the 1980's but things have turned around now and the Liverpool we arrived in was very impressive!

We made our way to the ferry terminal and waited for the boat to return, it had been a pretty miserable day weather wise, but once on board the sun came out and looking back towards Liverpool we could almost have been in New York it looked that impressive!

We sailed on the Royal Daffodil for the 30 minute round trip.

It was well worth the journey across to Liverpool in the heavy Manchester rush hour traffic just to say that we had taken a Ferry across the Mersey!!! (Simple pleasures eh?? another one off the 'to do' list!!)

Home Again

I am now home again after a very good conference, there was the usual combination of boring staff with loads of far more interesting stuff and only one card vote!! I do enjoy national conference, you see all sorts of people and learn all sorts of things!!

This year they had some great T shirts and Steph managed to bag a free one, it wasn't until we looked at it we realised it was small and not one of us is small sized, so we took it outside and decided to get a few shot of Mark holding it up against himself. Unfortunately, Steph was not in full control of her phone and instead of taking the shot she kept switching the phone off, this meant that we were there far longer than expected.

This is the shot that we were trying to get. What we didn't realise until around 10pm that night was that while we were faffing around ITV were filming us. We appeared briefly on the 10pm news review of the conference!!

Here we are trying to get the shot, Fame at last eh??? well around 5 seconds of fame!!!

Thanks to all of you who noticed us!!!

The week flew by and we have come away reinvigorated and full of ideas of what we need to do to try and get messages out there. The future looks bleak for all public service workers and I am sure our own members have no idea what is coming, we plan to change that in the near future.

Good first day!!

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

We took a walk down to the conference centre it's a spectacular building! It was my turn to go in first and it was the usual mixture of the business of the day plus the first few motions.
At lunch time I met with an old friend Skelly great to see her again!!!
Tonight we will be 'networking' !!!

Where has summer gone????

This weekend has been a complete wash out, we have had heavy rain and then some more. Carl has been trying to get his tent dried out after the camp last weekend. It has been erected on the trampoline and although the outside is dry the inside had gallons of water trapped there. I have turned it over and I hope that can be packed away some time soon.

Mum seems to be settling in well at the new rehabilitation hospital. I feel much happier with her there, to start with the staff seem less rushed off their feet. There are Doctors available and the place is modern and bright. Mum has been taken out to have her meals in a dining room and the two ladies in her bay seem fine. Today Dad drove over for the first time and took Keith and Nicky. She seems to be happy and keen to make progress, so I am hoping that she keeps that thought!!

Today is Fathers day so I called around to see Dad this morning and gave him his presents and card.His garden is looking good, he has a load of tomatoes on the go in the green house and some are even quite large still have a way to go before the will be edible!

He has a fantastic display of roses today you could smell the fragrance on the wind.

My favourite colour for roses in the whole world is orange, you just can't beat a vibrant orange rose. My friend Madeline always manages to find me gorgeous orange roses for my birthday !!!

 This little bush is smothered in buds, the flowers are beautiful when in bud, but once they fully open up they are no where near as pretty.

Dad is particularly pleased with his sweet peas they are all purple and a bargain. They cost him a pound for a ropey looking pot full of seedlings which he has nurtured and grown in to great display!

This week I am away at conference again, it will be nice to check out the sites and delights of Manchester. I just need to confirm which hotel  am in and I will be set !!

Have a great week.

A busy start to the weekend.

Yesterday I had an interesting day at work, we went to Chelmsford and ended up in an interview with a solicitor for around 6 hours!! It poured with rain and the return journey by satnav took us to all sorts of places that I had never heard of before. It should have been a simple journey but we ended up in country lanes and it took an age to get home.

After work I went around to see Laura and help her sort out her flat. She has been on the waiting list to move into a one bedroom flat, but its not happening at the moment every one she applies for is taken by someone with a higher level of need. She had started to pack, so now she has loads of boxes everywhere and things had got out of hand. So I helped to sort things out and clean up. It took until 8.30pm just to get that sorted, I hope she keeps things nice now.

Mum has now transferred to the rehabilitation place in Bishops Stortford. We haven't visited as yet but she has spoken to us all on the phone and sounds very positive. She has been out of bed in a wheelchair so she has a bit more freedom. She will start physio proper on Monday. We plan to visit her this afternoon.

Both Tom and I have not had a good night I have been up a couple of hours and its only 5.30 now!!!

 We received sad news yesterday about the loss of Toms cousin Liz. She was in her early fifties.She had called us before we went on holiday to say that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she had been told that it was terminal. She was going into hospital the week we were away for them to carry out radiation therapy to see if that would help. She sounded her usual self, upbeat and still very proud of never having had a day off sick in her life. The day we left she passed away quite unexpectedly. Because we were away we were out of contact so we continued to try and call her for the past two weeks on her mobile phone. Finally yesterday we were able to speak to my sister in law who told us what had happened. They had tried to call us and give us the date for the funeral but there hadn't been anyone in. Liz's mum is Toms sister and she is quite elderly and has alzheimers she doesn't understand what has happened.

I think we may have to try and catch a few hours later on today.

And Breathe......

I have had a very pleasant couple of days away at a conference in the not so sunny town of Reading. It rained and then it rained some more, but it didn't matter. I had a day of speakers and and workshops yesterday followed by pre dinner drinks (with a dress code of smart!!!) followed by a nice dinner with more wine and then after dinner drinks!! I had a very nice time!!

Today was more of the same with fringe meetings that were very informative. It certainly explained a few things to me!!

I was lucky enough to be able to travel back with a colleague which made the trip go faster.

I will be going to Manchester next week for a week long conference, Its simply that time of year!!!

Tonight Mum has been moved from the QE2 hospital to The Herts and Essex Hospital in Bishops Stortford, this hospital has a rehabilitation department and we are hoping that Mum will get back on her feet and get back home before the summer is over. She was keen to move and we will support that decision even though its over 20 miles away which will make visiting difficult.,

Laura is still pretty sore, but getting better, she is having the dressing changed everyday at the doctors and will have to have the district nurse in over the weekend. She is getting better .

We spotted this bird in Stavenger, what is it ?? It was quite big is it a crow??

Will I Ever Get a Spare Five Minutes????

I sometimes wonder what is going on and how I come in for all sorts of problems. This week has seen my daughter end up in hospital with an emergency operation. On the plus side it was dealt with quickly and efficiently. She had a pain in her back, which turned out to be an abscess, she had been put on heavy duty anti biotics, but these didn't have much of an effect. She ended up going to Accident and Emergency and they whisked her straight off to surgery. She was very brave and had the procedure under epidural. She is now feeling much better, but is facing a little time to have the matter heal up. 

On the same evening that we were visiting her, Mum had a funny turn, she had a pain in her chest and she ended up being put on drugs and oxygen and the Doctors carried out an ECG. We have seen her tonight and they have ruled out another heart attack, (they carried out blood tests) she is feeling very fed up and sorry for herself. 

I hope we are moving towards a resolution with her, generally she is doing much much better and I am hopeful that she is close to being moved to rehab. 

Tomorrow I have some time away at a conference in Reading and next week I am away at National conference in Manchester. It will be nice to have a break!!!

I can hardly believe that we are nearly two weeks on from our holiday where we were treated to views like these from the deck. I am going to go back there sometime soon and the next time I am ordering bright sunny weather so that we can see all the scenery in all its glory!!!

A Strange weekend.

This weekend has been frustrating to say the very least. Last Thursday we started to have problems with our Internet connection. It was off more than it was on and it was annoying beyond belief!!! I called their status line and they said they had a problem in our area and they were anticipating repair 'soon'. Here we are four days on and its still more off than on. Virgin have promised a rebate but not having it has had a huge impact on our weekend.
Beth has been unable to do her homework research so I will have to write her a note. It was homework that could only be done online so she has been stuck.
I wanted to look up some bits and pieces for projects I have on the go. That didn't happen. I wanted to share some photos with my friend Madeline and that was difficult. Its amazing how much you rely on the Internet and just how much you miss it when its not there.
Just when you think things could get no worse, the Sky box in the living room gave up the ghost. Poor Tom faced with a TV with nothing to watch. It seems he will have to watch back to back 'New Tricks' until they can install a new box on Friday next week.
We have been in to see Mum and tonight she was in fine form, she is very pleased with herself as she has been out of bed and had a shower and hair wash, this is the first hair wash in six months!!! I hope the drains were ready for the onslaught!!! She is very positive at the moment and she was very happy tonight.
Dad is feeling better after his surprise couple of nights in hospital last week. He is recovering well.

I still have photos to sort out and I have spent a little bit of time scrapping this weekend which has been nice. I have had the latest lot printed so will be tackling them soon. We took this photo in Stavenger  Tom so wanted it to say SluttSlag!!! It was nearly there!

Leaving Flam...

I took this little video when we were leaving Flam, Its a place that I would like to return to one day.

The scenery all around the village was beautiful.

It reminded me of some of the scenes from the old film, Jason and the Argonauts!!

The water was so still and the reflections of the mountains were stunning.

Just look at those snow capped mountains in the background, those little houses are so remote from the world! The vessel we were travelling on was a ferry they stop off along the fjord when passengers want to get on and signal them with a light. Norway is a developed country with such remote spots.