Home Again :(

Well time really does fly, its hard to believe that our two week holiday has been and gone and I am back home and back at work. As usual Florida was quite an exhausting trip although I did have the benefit of one of those little electronic scooter things. Without one I would not have been able to have done the parks. I simply can't walk any distance without severe pain in my hip.

So I'll tell you a little about the trip.

We stayed at The Clarion Inn, Lake Buena Vista. This was a lovely hotel, although if you look at Trip Advisor you will see many mixed reviews, I think basically it comfortable, serviceable with friendly staff, what more can you ask for? There was an on site shop and Deli, a restaurant, bar, swimming pools and most of all a very comfortable bed. 

We were on the ground floor and the only real disadvantage that we had was that in the morning people would walk pass the room talking to each other which woke us up, but we were planning on getting up fairly early to get cracking in the parks so not a huge problem.

Our first day was spent at Universal Studios. We were lucky as the crowds were relatively small so we didn't really have to queue too much. The parks were well organised for people in scooters and wheelchairs, they had easy access to just about everything that I wanted to go on. They also let all of us stay together because its not much fun being split up from your family to do the ride alone. 

On the walk through the park we met Shaggy and Scooby, Shaggy cracked a great gag, Where are you from? Beth said North of London, Shaggy said , Oh I heard you have a bridge there and its falling down!!!!

Tom met Marilyn Munroe!

The girls met characters from The Simpson's!!

The Simpson's ride was fantastic, we managed to have a few goes on that a slightly different experience each time. 

This year for the first time I was able to fit into all the rides that I wanted to go on. Luckily they have seats for you to try so that you don't have to queue up for nothing. I was a bit worried about how it would effect my hip, but as long as I was able to keep my feet on the floor I was able to brace myself against the carriage and not hurt myself. I decided against the roller coasters without floors and flailing legs would not be good for me!!! It was boiling hot, for the whole of the two weeks and although I didn't do that much walking, I didn't do that much eating either!! So I was surprised when I got home to find I had lost half a stone!!

I'll update more when I get a moment!!

Sunny Florida

Morning!!!

After a lot of wondering we finally got away on our break to Florida, we travelled with Thomas Cook from gatwick. the flight was very good for the first time in a while I would go as far as to say it was comfortable! The plane seemed quite spacious with comfortable leather seats. It was one of those planes with downstairs toilets, 8 of them which meant you could get up and stretch your legs. 

We arrived at Orlando to find that they had messed up our car booking so that took a while to put right, we finally headed off for our hotel with the help of our sat nav. I had downloaded the USA maps earlier in the year whenTom Tom sent through an offer £20 for the maps. They were charging $15 a day to rent one here so I easily made my money !!!

The hotel is lovely, I had been in contact with a lady on the front desk before we arrived so she had made sure everything was top condition for us!! She arranged for us to pre pay breakfast at a reduced price plus we both had a basket of fruit and sweets in the room, a lovely touch!!

I had planned to update this as we went along but this holiday has been full on one way or another!!
We have had some fabulous weather, no rain during the day and lots of sunshine. There has been a bit of rain overnight but that hasn't interfered with our plans too much!!
It has however been quite humid, so for the first time in my life I seem to have acquired curly hair!!! I seem to have loads of photos with Curly/frizzy hair, it's quite a site to see!!!
It's nearly time to head home so I will update the blog once we are back and I will finally be able to add photos, something that blogger in Safari seems to be resisting :(

Wedgewood has no worries!!!

I seem to be settling into a weekly update at the moment!! Its funny how there are just not enough hours in the week to do all I want to do anymore. 

Last week my friend Jane and I went to Artshed in Ware to have a go at a bit of pottery. Jane went and collected the results and bought them home!!

Considering that we made these from scratch I am quite pleased with the outcome. I am still not sure about the milk jug , not sure the shape will actually hold much in the way of any liquid !!! I was particularly pleased with the little cake stand that I made. Luckily it was Carl's birthday this week so I was able to try out my new cake stand!!

I think Karen was very clever to pick green cake cases to show off my green cake stand!!

How times change, an integral part of birthdays now is a pint of something to go with the cakes, Carl has acquired a liking for Crabbies Ginger Beer, he is spreading his wings !! He spent the night of his birthday out with his mates and when he got home he was so 'happy' he had to sleep on the sofa, oddly he was that happy that he chose to try and sleep on the two seater sofa, which was just a little surprising!!!

A big 'Thank you' goes to Karen for the beautiful cup cakes, peanut butter, chocolate and gorgeous raspberry flavoured ones. I added the candles (very special ones, with flames that burnt the same colour as the wax) although I had trouble convincing Carl about that as you can see he was quite 'happy' by then!!!

This year he ended up with house presents, he has finally exchanged contracts on his flat and completes on Friday, so Laura bought him a clock and a wine bottle candle and we bought him a set of saucepans. He has expensive tastes so they were the best red saucepans to fit in with his kitchen decor!!!

At the end of last week I was away at Conference at Brighton. We went down by train and I was booked into the Hilton on the sea front. It was a strange Hotel, looked very grand from the outside and the public areas were rather elegant, with huge great big chandeliers, once in the room it all became a bit mundane and slightly run down.I have got used to sleeping in a soft bed, so the rock hard mattress was a bit of a trial, I felt like I didn't sleep well, but somehow managed to oversleep on the second morning!!

It was nice to see the sea, although the second day was very windy and chilly. We found a nice place to have lunch on the beach, it was so cold that we never risked a trip down to the waters edge.

Barb and I on the second day getting ready for a day of debates, which turned out not to be debates but a day of everyone furiously agreeing with each other! Still we did actually get a card vote right at the end on a subject that really didn't matter that much but was enough for there to be a little disagreement in the ranks!!

To finish the week Beth went to a fancy dress party dressed as a pirate!! she enjoyed herself and looked rather good without being too over the top.

Next week we are being decorated, so we have had to empty all the front room cupboards, I have ordered new furniture and Carl is taking my old stuff to start him off with. I just need to order a new sofa and chairs when the painting is finished. The house looks like a jumble sale and I will be glad when its finished. 

Mum is still in hospital but she seems to be getting stronger so fingers crossed she will be set free soon. My friend Debbie's Dad is in ICU after a pre-planned operation, we are all saying prayers for signs of improvement and  a speedy recovery for him. 

Have a nice week.

xxxx

Week of Overload.

This week seems to have been one of total overload, everything is closing in on me and I can't seem to get too much finished although I have started a fair few things. Mum is still in hospital. She has had the result of the biopsy on her knee back and it appears that there is a general infection in her joint. They are putting that down to the metal work in her hip. Three years ago she fell and broke her femur and after a traumatic time she had to have a load of metal work inserted to scaffold her bone. Right from the very beginning this was infected and it took nearly four months for it to heal and stop weeping. The surgeon is now convinced that the infection is in that metal work and it has to come out. They have done a load of scans and xrays and they 'hope' that the bone is strong enough to manage without it. If it isn't they will have to put more metal back in a different place. Its all a huge worry for all of us and for Mum. The operation is planned for next Thursday. The only good news is that they are going to do the operation at the QE2 , a much easier journey for us. 

This weekend Dad has been around to dinner, he has also spent a load of time in his garden sorting out his borders ready for the winter. When I popped around he picked me some of these lovely sunflowers. He didn't plant this particular one, it must have arrived via bird poop!!! Its a really unusual one with loads and loads of heads. So we have saved some of the seed and hope we can grow some more next year!!

I now have a lovely vase full of them in the living room.

We have also been sorting out the colour we are going to redecorate the living room. I think we have finally settled on a scheme so I am going to order some new bookcases and a suite of furniture. Carl will be taking some of our stuff with him to his new flat so its a great time to have a change. 

Today I went on a great course with my neighbour Jane. It was to make a vintage tea set out of clay, the time absolutely flew and I ended up making a cup and saucer, a milk jug, sugar bowl and a cake stand. It was totally absorbing and the time flew!!

This is the kind of thing we were trying to make, looks a bit rustic, but it was a case of learning the ropes and seeing what we could come up with.

Everything started with a thumb pot, something I've not done since junior school. Its not as easy as you might think, the clay is floppy and thins out in some places and not in others!!

We also made a cake stand, which we imprinted with lace curtains!!

By lunchtime we had made the whole lot, we spent some time drying them with hair driers which meant that we were able to paint them today as well. It was great to see everything take shape. If I did it again I know that I could refine my designs. 

The paint doesn't reflect the end colour so going with my favourite colour, all the insides are painted celadon green and the outsides are painted a cobalt blue. The edges and handles are all painted with a dark metallic colour which I am hoping covers a multitude of sins!!!

We can't wait to collect them next weekend !! I hope they all survive the firing process.

If you fancy a go take a look at ARTSHED, they have some lovely courses. 

Best of all the course that we did was reduced to half price via Groupon Bargain!!!

Here's hoping this week will be better than last week.

Time to Empty the Pot!

For my birthday in 2012 Laura bought me a 'Pamper pot' It was a pink pot with a slot for saving money, with no way of getting at the money until you smash the pot. Well today was pot smashing day. We planned to do it before we went on holiday, putting the money towards our spending money. We planned to smash it the week before we went, but we weren't able to get anymore in so we decided to smash it now. 

We all had a guess at how much money was in there, we had predominantly saved 20p pieces, although right at the beginning we were undecided so we knew there were some 50p and 10p in there as well.

We just couldn't get anymore in the pot!!

So we put the pot in a carrier bag and I gently tapped the top to see if I could remove the top and keep the main part of the pot to put flowers in afterwards.

In the end I was able to tap the top off and get at the money!!

There was a huge pile silver to count. Our guesses ranged from £100 to £200, it was hard to tell just how much was in there. 

In the end we counted it all and bagged it all up to take to the bank and we were amazed to find that the pot contained a massive £249 !!! We have already bought ourselves another one because you simply don't notice the odd 20p going missing from your purse, its a great way to save up for a special treat. 

The next pot was a bargain one from Tescos sale, they were selling them off after fathers day for a couple of quid. I hope the next one will fill a bit quicker!!

A Trip to London.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a course in London, in the Euston Road. Its an easy train trip to Kings Cross and a small walk to the venue. I like to visit as the building has the most wonderful views all over this part of London. The BT tower is still impressive, looks like something out of Dr Who !! The spire is St Pancras Church. 

This very ornate building is St Pancras Station and The Renaissance Hotel. The flat ugly building on the left of the photo is The British Museum. 

This is looking to the west, the roof garden below is lovely on a summers day, I popped out there and the planters were full of herbs, they smelt gorgeous!

I took the photos from the board room at the top of the building, perhaps one day I'll be chairing a meeting in that board room!!!! I was lucky enough to be able to stay over for the night at a Premier Inn jut over the road. It was a typical Premier Inn with an exceptionally large flat screen TV!!

We have had a bit of hospital orientated few days. Beth went out with her work for a 'fun' evening at the Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre. She actually had a good time right up until the very last down hill run where she lost control of the ring that she was on and ploughed backwards through a small gap in the safety fence and clobbered her back and neck on a metal pylon. She damaged her back and had pain and numbness in her legs and her neck. We ended up going over and an ambulance was called and she was taken to Watford General Hospital.

The First responder was very good and got Beth settled and gave her pain relief (gas and air) We then had to wait a fair while for an ambulance to arrive to transport her to hospital . Thankfully after Xrays they gave her the all clear, no broken bones. She does however have whiplash and a very bruised back, hip and leg. I think it may be a while before she risks any down hill exploits again!! I am just so thankful that it wasn't any worse. 

Mum went into hospital today to have a knee replacement, we took her in yesterday for a load of pre-op blood tests. She went into the hospital by ambulance this morning, but at lunchtime Dad got a call to say that they were not operating because she had a urine infection and it wasn't safe to do so until it was sorted out. So this evening they gave her IV anti-biotics and we collected her and got he back home. She is pretty fed up as she was hoping that by now she would be recovering from the op and not waiting for a date to have it done again. She realised that it was for the best but upsetting none the less.  

This week I am hoping for less hospital involvement!!

Have had a very 'average' week and weekend

This week has seen the end of the summer, it has been horrible weather wise, cold windy and wet. None of those lovely mellow autumn days, last warm days of summer easing you into winter, just full blown cold and wet. I don't seem to be able to cope with the cold anymore and I am freezing. During the week I had to resort to my hot water bottle, in fact two hot water bottles were required I was so cold. I now have to dig out my winter gear. Having done so I realise that I don't have any woolly pullies to keep me warm. This morning I put in an order at everything £5, as it says everything is five pounds and there are some great bargains on there!! I am now waiting for  my parcel to arrive!!

Today has been a washout added to that I have not really felt like doing anything I feel like I have wasted my day. I have made some 21st Birthday invitations, so I do have something to show for my efforts. I hope that the lady who ordered them likes them. (she liked the prototype!)

It was a nice feeling to have the stack finished and piled up ready to go. 

This week is going to be a busy one with a trip to Cambridge and an overnight stay in London for a course. I need to start thinking about my forthcoming hip op. I have finally been told that they will do the operation in the first week of November. Its a huge weight off my mind to finally know that its planned. I just need to get from now to then!! I hope you all have a great week.

Top Tip of the Day

When taking your morning tablets, make sure that you don't drop any accidentally  into your morning cup of tea, I searched everywhere for the capsule that I knew I had dropped but couldn't find it and then took a mouthful of tea only to realise the most foul taste was my missing medicine PUKE!!!!!!!

Impulse Buy!!!

I am not the worlds best house keeper, I aspire to have a nice house but with working full time there is always something that gets in the way. I have lots of ideas but usually run out of time before I get to translate them into the real thing!! This year I plan on swapping some of my furniture. Carl will be moving into a new flat so its a great time to look at buying some furniture that I have had my eye on for a while!

I have started by buying a new kitchen table, the one I have had for an age was perfectly fine but for years I have been battling with getting the chairs around it. The table I had was a round one that converted into an oval, but even as an oval you could only get 4 chairs around it (you could seat more but the chairs stuck out). So I decided to look for a rectangular table. When we visited Fran and Pete a few weeks ago they had a lovely rectangular table and chairs exactly the same as mine except they had painted theirs and they looked lovely. So this week I bought a table off of The Bay I am thrilled with it I can get all six chairs tucked in under the table which seems both bigger than the last one but takes up less space!! I now plan to buy some ESP (easy surface prep)  as suggested by Fran and change the chairs into something far more beautiful.  Strange thing about the new table, when I rung the lady to arrange to collect it I thought I recognised her voice, it turns out it was a lady I used to work with a few years ago, its a small world!!

Anyway onto my impulse buy. I popped into Aldi to pick up some cereal bars when they had an electric mini cake maker on offer. So I came out with the machine and grand ideas of what I could do with it. It has turned out to be a really useful machine and I have used it lots already. I am not usually a cake maker as it takes a lot of effort and seems to make a load of mess. But I decided to try this maker with a packet mix just to give it a go. I have been most impressed. The cakes are bite sized and cook in less than ten minutes. 

They only had pink ones left and at £7.99 I thought it was worth a go.

I have found that Petit Four cases from Asda are the perfect size. You can only cook 7 at a time and whatever mixture you use you can only get one teaspoon in the case.

Yesterday I made a couple of batches some fruit cakes, which was dried fruit and mixed spice added to a basic Victoria sandwich cake mix!! I also made another batch using left over bananas mashed down and mixed in with the basic packet mix. I know that this doesn't make me into a Nigella, but for a quick and easy cake which because of its size must be better than eating a full sized cake calorie wise, I am pleased with how they have turned out.

I have even pushed the boat out and added proper swirly icing to the top of some of them !! I have started to look on line for other recipes and it seems that you can make mini tarts in the machine as well, so I can feel some experimentation coming on!!

So as I said quite an impulse buy when  I was only planning on buying some cereal bars!!!

Finally I have had a bit of a week and I am glad that it is over so I can move onto a fresh week, Beth has been very helpful and she knew I was feeling a bit fed up with everything, so she surprised me a beautiful bunch of flowers to star on my new table!!

I hope you all have a lovely week make the most of the last of the lovely weather, you can definitely feel a change to the air first thing in the mornings, we are heading into autumn, my favourite time of year!!

Busy Times!!

I have neglected my poor blog and I have been reminded by several people, so I'll take the slap on the wrist and get my finger out once again!! Beth appeared in the local paper after they did an article of her hair cut and fund raising efforts. She was thrilled to have made the cut and loads of people seem to get the paper as we have had lots of comments from people noticing her!!

In the past couple of weeks Beth has had her GCSE results and she obtained enough A to C grades to start her college course at Oaklands. She is studying early years learning and she is so excited!!!

After enrolling at college we all went out for a celebratory lunch!!!

We have harvested our potatoes and this year the amount was just a tad disappointing. I think that we have something going on in the container as they all appeared to be small and scabby and not in a very nice way!!!

Next year we'll try some in a different container. The weather is still fantastic so we are making the most of the last beautiful days of the summer. 

I love the way the air smells as we approach the autumn, because of the children were born in October and November its a smell that reminds me of a very happy time of year. Going into hospital and coming out with a lovely baby, going into hospital in the warm balmy weather and coming out with a frost and the start of cooler weather, before we know it, it will be Christmas.

I am enjoying doing my sewing again. It is amazing how good it feels to be able to put pieces of cloth together and producing a dress. I have treated myself to a new sewing machine, Beth had loaned me her little one, but its not really able to do the full range of things. I need it to be able to do straight stitch and zig zag, also I need to be able to change the foot and put in  a zipper. I tracked a beautiful Elna machine on EBay and managed to win it. Tom and I took a trip into London to collect it and I have given it a bit of a run out. So far all seems to be fine. So I am looking forward to putting it through its paces this weekend.

I am also enjoying a bit of card making using an on line word program. I am quite proud of myself I have made my own colour combinations by using hexi-decimal codes!! (I am not even sure I know what that means!!!) But it works for me!

Today Mum had an appointment at the hospital, a pre med for her knee replacement operation which is planned for later this month. Everything seems to be OK so its all go for the 24th of September. I hope the knee makes a difference and that she will soon be back on her feet.