Duxford on a cold and Windy Day!!!

Today I was lucky enough to be asked along on year six trip to Duxford. They have been studying the second world war and Duxford have a fabulous education centre. We started off in the classroom where they were shown all sorts of things including the life of an evacuee,life in a war time school, air raid shelters, make do and mend, living off the land, black out, all sorts of things. It was really interesting and quite sad as well, seeing the effect it had on people.

After lunch we walked for what seemed like a million miles into a fierce strong wind to the furthest exhibit, the land army. By the time we got there our eyes were streaming, my hands were blue and my ears felt battered and frozen!! We spent some time looking around before heading back to the American Airforce exhibit. I am pleased to report that it was actually quite hot in there and I sat down with the other adults to a very welcome cup of tea.

We headed back outside just in time for the rain to join the wind. It was a quick trip to the shop and then onto the coach for home. The heavens then really opened so we were lucky not to be outside then!!

It was a great day which is free to schools, I really think that they learnt something as well. Beth was lucky and got herself picked out to try out a gas mask, which she is modelling at the the top of this post!!

My Final Guest week :0(

This is the last week as a 'Guest Star' On Di Hickmans Blog,
I am sad about it as I have enjoyed having a deadline to meet and the challenge of thinking about new ideas. So this card is the final offering. Boo Hoo!!
Again this week at work has been busy and back to back meetings. I am off tomorrow so I am looking forward to having a break. Beth has a netball tournament on Saturday morning, we have to be there at 8.30am which is the middle of the night for the weekend, as usual we will have to be in two places at once as Carl has another production at school. I keep thinking that life will be easier once he has passed his driving test, problem then will be the amount of worrying I will then have to do while he is driving by himself!!
The next big worry is the secondary school allocation which is due on Monday afternoon. Fingers Crossed that she gets into the school we all want.

My Town Monday - on a Tuesday!!!!

I was blog hopping when I came across one that suggested that it would be good to blog about where we come from, so I thought that would be a good idea. The only thing is that it was to be done weekly on a Monday. So already on my first week I have failed!!

I live in a 'New' town. Welwyn Garden City. It is a very pretty town, the town centre has a nice fountain and lots of green areas as you can tell by these photos. When it was built all the houses were very similar and all buildings in the town centre looked good together. The new Towns Commission (before it was run by the council,) had strict rules about what people could and couldn't do with regards to their houses, for example, no TV aerials on the roof, all windows had to be small panes of glass. As years have gone by this has been relaxed and people pretty much do as they like now.

So there is the first thrilling installment of Life in My Town!!!

My Collage.

I hate to throw away hand made cards, So I got myself a big frame off of Freecycle and I have made a collage out of SOME of my hand made cards. I have some left over, so I am going to look for another frame so that I can use them as well. I love it and I have it displayed on the wall in the conservatory! I can use it as inspiration.

A rare Moment of Quiet......

Carl is at School doing a production, Beth has gone swimming with Heather and and Emma, Tom has gone to see his accountant, Hunny is asleep on her sofa, and I am all ALONE !!!!!!

Peace at Last!!

Saturday Morning.

This morning I have finally got around to photographing all the beautiful hand made cards I received for my birthday. I have made a new slide in the side bar to show them all off!! Carl was a bit cheeky, he took a card that I had made for a challenge, removed the heart element and replaced it with a picture of himself!! He then sent it to me for my birthday!!!
So its thank you to- Georgina,Carl, Gina, Ginger, Jaffers, Manna, DebbieLou, Suzanne, Natalie, Debbie Y, Lulu, Amber, Karen and Sue D. I love them all!!!

This weeks Card.

This is my card for Di Hickmans Blog. I have really enjoyed working to the deadline for this blog. It really concentrates your brain!! This one is made with Junkitz Salsa paper. (I am a late discoverer of Junkitz and I love the bright colours!) The little gems are from a baggie I received from Nets!! Thank You.

Today I received another present from my old friends Tina and Rod, they gave me a huge scrapbooking kit for Christmas and a little scrapbooking kit for my birthday!! I have been so lucky with the gifts I have received. Thank you.

I have been very busy at work, lots of driving to do and now my partner in crime is off on her holidays to the exotic east coast of Yorkshire, I bet that will be bracing this time of year, not much danger of a tan from that holiday!!

I have made a good start on my wedding anniversay invitations, I have used the same colours but I have a variety of designs. I have yet to print the inside of them, I'll need to wait until I get all the details finalised.

Amazingly I still have a few packets of tomatoes left, its not like receiving chocolates, as I'm the only one that likes them in this house!!!

More Cards.

Today I received some more birthday cards from my web friends I just don't have time to photograph and post them at the moment but I promise to show all for the weekend!! I also want to say thank you to my friend Sue D who gave me a lovely birthday pressie of a Momji Doll, the first one I have ever received!! She is very pretty and is likely to be a new collection for me!!
Tonight has been a strange one, I went to Slimming World and some how managed to lose 1/2 lb. Not much but I was expecting a gain. (two lots of birthday cake plus some other naughties this week)
Very sadly when we arrived Sue who runs the club told us that one of the long time members, Penny, had passed away. Its so sad, she was such a sweet little lady who looked at Slimming World as her social club, she was always full of questions and enjoyed chatting to everyone. When we started back at the beginning of January she was there and she always made a fuss of Beth telling her what a pretty face she has. Beth knew her well as she had a grand daughter in year five at her school. Its very sad that she has gone, she will be missed by all of us at the club, plus people who knew her at the coffee shop in town and all her other friends.

My Birthday!!!

Today I have had a very nice Birthday. I have been lucky enough to receive some beautiful hand made cards which I will post over the next couple of days, from my online friends from all over the world. My family have given me some wonderful gifts,Troll Beads (Laura and Scott)Tickets to see Blood Brothers in Leicester square, (Carl) Beth surprised me by asking one of her teachers to paint a picture of me from a photograph she took in, I was very touched its a great picture! Mum and dad bought me a dozen twinkling H2O's (as demonstrated to my Dear friend and neighbour, karen, waves!!) They also gave me a bouquet of flowers. Tom gave me flowers and a birthday cake.

I also received flowers, candles, jewelry and a book about Amsterdam from Debbielou and her family (thanks)

Fran, Pete and Becca gave me a box of pretty candles and a funny fridge magnet - Thank You!

Ginger gave me some stamps and a Lurve CD (so I can print my own background papers) Thank You !!

Shirl thank you for the stamps glitter and paper, much appreciated!!

Jaffers I love my happiness stone!

The girls at work gave me a bottle of port (very Large) a hands free set for the car for my phone (hate the in the ear devices) Flowers, and some crafting goodies.

My holiday pal gave me a sweet fridge magnet (Thanks Wedney old bird!)

So just when I thought that my cup could runneth over no more, Karen and Megan arrived. The card at the top of this post is from the family Heron. I love Tomatoes and karen knows that. So I was most impressed with a birthday card dedicated to my favourite delicacy and with the immortal quote - 'Its Difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.' I laughed, they laughed, we all laughed!! I opened my present from her and found that I was the proud owner of four assorted packets of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, vine tomatoes, beef tomatoes and bog standard tomatoes!! Inspired absolutely brilliant!! It was so funny I had to throw Karen out before she ruined my carpet!!!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who has made my day so great!

Respect!!

Tonight Beth performed at The Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage. She is a member of the Barn theatre youth group and they were asked to do a performance. Respect was about just that respect, a young persons view on what that means to them and how it effects everyone.

They put a lot of work into it and the performance was very good. The children are all between 11 and 13 and in the first class at the Barn. Beth loved it even though she was a little scared!!

The theatre was full, Tom was working so we took Hannah with us.

Huge theatre with hundreds of people but we still managed to end up sitting behind one of my friends from work, we did exactly the same when we went to see Godspell!! Perhaps she is stalking me.

Last Week on Di Hickmans blog.......

I had this card published. I bought a bargain Junkitz Salsa Pad at a crop that I went to and I really love the bright zingy colours (typical, I discover Junkitz just as they go out of business!!) I am addicted to twinkling H2O's they really cover well and are such vibrant colours.

I used the sketch for this card, but I have already given it away, We sent it to Hannah for her 18th Birthday!!

Happy Saturday!!

Today has been a busy but productive day. I got up early to take Carl to work. Beth and I then stopped off at the Market and it was FREEZING, my eyes were watering and I felt about 108!! It is worth it because the fruit and veg are half the price of the supermarkets.

We then went onto Tescos and did the shopping, surprisingly it wasn't very busy so we whizzed around there and we were back in the house with the shopping put away by 10am! We then went around to see mum and dad and I tried out my new camera. (not really mine its a work camera, but I am looking after it!)So the pictures above are the result of my testing!

This afternoon I have managed to scrap some more of my holiday photos. Not too many left to do now, just as well as I am running out of Disney related Bellies!!

Tomorrow should be fun, I only have to be in two places at the same time twice. Beth has to be in Stevenage as she has a dress rehersal at The Gordon Craig Theatre and 20 minutes later Carl has to be at work in Hatfield, I have exactly the same problem at picking up time, the trials of being an unpaid taxi driver!

Valentines Day round up.

Yesterday as we all know was Valentines day. Tom is quite romantic and has always bought me gifts and a nice card every year since I have known him (28 years now!!)Yesterday he bought me a minature red rose bush. I love roses and they are always such a huge expense on Valentines day. I made him a card and gave him a packet of jelly lips!! He is the only person in the world who finds chocolate 'too sickly' I mean he is just not normal. He tells me that he can't finish a whole mars bar, for goodness sake I think that is bordering on abnormality which needs medical intervention!!
Yesterday saw beth receive a Valentines present and card from a special friend. She had decided to make him a card. We went out and bought a present with her pocket money. The funny thing was that they both had very similar ideas, cute teddies and chocolates !! She is so proud of the present and card!! Ah young love!!

Thank God its Friday!!!

This week while having been no worse than most weeks is coming to an end, I think the law should be changed so that all weekends are at least three days long. Looking forward to getting home tonight and starting on the housework :(

Tonights the Night.

Well its weigh in week again, but tonight I am not feeling very confident, it feels as if I have had a bad week, but I have tried very hard to be good. We'll see. I have been busy at work and tomorrow I have a conference in Cambridge, still keeps me off the street I suppose.
I am itching to get started on my invitations for my Silver wedding Reception, the only problem is I can't exactly decided what design I want. Being mean (or frugal) I want to make them out of stash I already have, I have a ton and really don't need to be buying more. So when I thought about it I don't really need to make them all matching as no one will see what everyone else has got!! So that ping of inspiration means I can use up a lot of my stuff AND make them individual!!!

Complaint.....

Today I had another flat tyre, what is going on??? I suspect that Malcolm has been around to my house, pretending that he has more cat poop in his shoe and while hopping around on his one good shoe, he has stuck a three inch nail into my rear nearside tyre. I think its pretty poor show, shoddy goods thats what I say, Shoddy goods........

The Purple Challenge - Shame I can't remember which blog I saw it on!!!

I was blog hopping when I saw a challenge to make a card using PURPLE and then post it on your blog, Well I have made the card, I have used purple, I have posted it on my blog, its a shame I can't remember whose blog the original challenge was on to link back to!!! So if anyone out there knows the challenge blog this came from, let me know !!!

SBS9 - Blog challenge.

I have at last got around to posting my card from the sisterhood blog challenge. I have had it ready for a while just not got around to posting!!. This card has a Magnolia Stamp and the background paper is Junkitz Salsa range, three prima flowers finish it off!

Beautiful Day.

Today we went out for a drive, (Carl driving us around for practice!) I planned on going down to Tewin Water to look at the snowdrops in the woods, but we got diverted and ended up at the Church at Tewin instead. The sun was bright and the sky was even brighter,a vibrant blue, although its still only February it was warm enough to go without a coat.

We took a walk through the church yard and found loads of snowdrops,primroses and daffoldils a spectacular spring site! I had never been to this church yard before and it was interesting to wander around looking at the grave stones. One read that the man had died of an 'apoplectic fit' in 1728. There were lots of graves containing just about all of one family (so it seems). There were lots of babies in the 16, 17 and 18 hundreds. It was a time when life expectancy in children was not very long. It makes me want to get out my own family history and dust it all off!!

Disaster!!!!!

Today started off badly, I got up and had my shower, went back into the bedroom to dry my hair, as usual I sat on my bed rubbed my hair switched on the dryer and was starting to dry my hair when I got soaked by a deluge of water pouring through the light in the bedroom! Beth told me that she had heard dripping from above the room, so Tom was sent into the loft to see what was happening.
While we were getting the loft ladder sorted out water started to come through the ceiling in the upstairs hall, downstairs below the stairs and through the heating trunking into the kitchen. Beth ran around with pots and pans, I turned up the mattress to stop that getting wet.
Tom discovered the problem, the cold water inlet into the water tank has a small U bend in it directing the water downwards into the tank, for some unknown reason this had come off and the water was shooting straight up and going outside the tank and into the loft.
Tom managed to fix it back on with the temporary aid of a hair bongo. We need to get it fixed properly as now everytime water goes into the tank it is too close to the overflow outlet and causes the overflow to activate.
The thing we forgot about was the airing cupboard, that was directly below the water tank so when I opened that it was flooded as well, loads of towels and linens soaking wet, looks like I have some washing to do over the weekend !
So just as I thought that it was save to go to work, I went out to get into the car only to find I had a flat tyre!! (I blame this fully on the previous owners who have quite obviously sold us a substandard vehicle!!) By the time we had sorted that out I was well and truly late. Thank goodness Tom was at home, he hasn't had a restful couple of days off!!

Fame at Last!!!

Last month with a flash of inspiration I 'tried out' for a place on Di Hickmans design Team, well I never made it into the full team, but I did make it as a guest designer and as a result have made cards for each week in February!!

Have a look at Di Hickman 's blog!!

Here are my first two, I had to follow a sketch that she gave me, the full write up is on her blog, but the stamps used are Inque Boutique coloured with twinkling H2O's.

I am pleased with how they have turned out, the black card is certainly not a traditional valentines cards!!!

On Track.

Lasy night I weighed in and lost 4 lbs !! Hurrah, that takes me to 1 stone 2 1/2 lbs. Tonight I am going to celebrate with a bacon and tomato sauce sandwich!! Yummy yum.

Little Mummy!!

Beth has always loved dollies, which is a bit of a shock considering that she is a bit of a Tom boy! She has a room full of babies and toddler dolls, all named all schooled and loved! At Christmas Beth received a fair few pounds so she decided that she wanted a lifelike doll (she had also seen the reborn dolls on a programne on TV) So she talked us into it. Here she is cuddling her new arrival, Michael, he is very life like, he smells of baby talc and has eyelashes and lifelike hair. He is the right size for a newborn baby and weighs 5 1/2lbs, with the feel of a baby!!

Beth has some clothes for him and would love to have a moses basket for him, so I am having to look out on freecycle for a pre loved one !!

I've been tagged...

I've been tagged by Katie! How exciting. It's the Middle Name Game! I have to post the rules before I give my answers so here goes:

List one fact about yourself for each letter of your middle name.
Each fact must begin with that letter.
If you don't have a middle name use your maiden name.
If you're tagged you need to up-date your blog with your middle name and answers. At the end of your post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. Oh and don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they've been tagged.

Here goes.....

A - Alien (suggested by Beth) Adorable (again suggested by Beth!!) Artistic (sometimes)

N - Noisy, Neat but not tidy!

N - Natural Scrapper (not!!!)

E - Enthusiastic, earnest,Efficient (sometimes!!)

That was quite hard and I don't think it captures the true Me!!
Anyway I am going to tag Debbielou, SueD, Anna and Ginger Pie !!

Look at these Beauties!

Last Sunday our friends Debbie and Malcolm came over for lunch and along with the wine Debbie bought us some beautiful roses. They were in tight bud and there were loads of them. Now a week on look at them, they are gorgeous, a lovely buttery colour and all of them are holding their heads up high, not a single droopy one!!

I love roses!

Today......

I'll mainly be cleaning, shopping, cleaning, driving someone to work and cleaning up my scrapping area so I can make a start on some crafting!!

Weighed in!!

I forgot to report on this weeks weight loss escapade!!
Well I managed to stay the same, (I blame a Chinese last Friday and a bottle of wine that I was tricked into drinking on Sunday, thanks Debbie!!!) Mum lost 2 lbs and Laura lost a whopping 5 lbs!! So I have lost 12 1/2 lbs, mum has lost 12 lbs and laura has cracked the stone at 1 st 1 1/2lbs!!That said I am finding it a big struggle again this time, everything naughty seems so appealing and I want to eat it. HELP!!!