Its been a while.....

Well New Year has been and gone, Carl is back in Hong Kong and life is back to 'normal' in fact it seems like ages until we have another holiday, which is depressing. I suppose the dark days of winter have that effect on people.  We are still doing our fair share of hospital visits for just about all of us, but I hope that they sort Laura out first, it has been uncomfortable for her for a few months now, she just wants things sorted out and back to normal. Fingers crossed that she gets sorted soon.

We took a trip into London one Friday evening to see the London Lumiere. We drove to Potters Bar station and that  was the start of the problem!! They had changed to automatic number plate recognition, so we drove in and attempted to pay, sadly it couldn't find my car, we were given a huge list of cars, not one of them was ours!! So we had to call the 'number' on the machine and register my car, credit card and full details all to pay £2 !! Worse than that I registered my car but couldn't get it to accept my card, so now whenever I park at Potters Bar, Rick will get the bill!!! Jolly decent of him I say!!

We got off at Kings Cross and walked around the first area, despite the wintry evening it was absolutely rammed with people!! We stopped to watch as much as we could but some of the places were ten people deep and we couldn't get anywhere near them. This projection on a building was very clever.

It was good to watch, lasted around ten minutes and was also rammed!!!

We moved on and found some other installations!!

We look as if we are doing a bit of a Halloween type of shot here! It was just the 'flower installation'!!!! casting an green glow. 

We enjoyed the bits that we did manage to see, but we really wanted to have a bite to eat and for some reason we couldn't find anywhere with any space, it was starting to be a bit of a nuisance , in the end we had to settle for a posh fish and chip place that was fairly expensive, but we were out of options by then!!! We had a really good night, its was chilly and really felt like a winters night better than that it didn't rain!!!

For the past couple of weeks my friends Jane and Karen and I have been preparing for a bit of  craft sale  in aid of cancer research, it was a low key event on a school night, but we were really pleased with all the support we got from friends and family. We didn't publicise it too far and wide, kept it to a select from people close at hand, we seem to have raised a fair bit of money (we are yet to add it up) So thank you to everyone who came and made it such a good evening!!

I have still been doing some pottery, this term I decided to have a plan of action. Half the lesson I spend thinking about what to do which results in a huge waste of time, so this time I started with a plan. I have decided to make a bird feeder totem pole. I have a picture in my mind that includes lots of different elements. I have bought a metal pole which I will use to support my 'Creation' I have spent a few weeks now making, boxes, houses, a giant acorn, spacer tubes, plates, curly flowers etc. I plan to stack them all over the post and set it up with bird feeder 'stuff' hanging from the various bits I have built into it.

As I say in my head its a work of art which will rival Banksy for its message, I suspect in reality it will Blue Peter a bit of a run for its money!! 

So watch this space for an update !!

I am going to try and keep my blog updated but I  have been so tucked up with my Angels that I haven't had much spare time!!!

This week I am off to Brighton for a conference, can't think that Brighton in February is going to be very welcoming, the weather forecast is dodgy, so I better pack my thermals!

So see you soon, sorry Eunice I have been so remiss in my updating!!

A Trip to Brighton

Well its that time of year again, conference time, I love conference!! This is what my life has come to, loving conference!! The bonus is that I get to see lots of great places. This time we returned to Brighton. I stayed in The Waterfront Hotel, which was called the Thistle hotel last year! Last visit I was lucky and was put in a sea view suite, it was awful but someone had to help them out and stay there!! This time when I checked in I had a sea view room on a different floor, it was a lovely room, but not a suite. The next day the loo sprung a leak so they ended up moving me back to the suite as it was the only free room!!! I consider it to be MY suite now!!

Nice view of the pier.

The view from my living room (sofa, two armchairs and a window seat, two TVs and a flash coffee maker!!)

There were a couple of lovely sunsets looking over the remains of the pier. We had a good few days. Most evenings we ate out and had an interesting experience in a Chinese restaurant. We went in a group of nine of us and they found us a lovely circular table. What we didn't know was that they had someone else booked for our table in an hours time. So we ordered and they gave is a big bowl of prawn crackers to get on with, we were still eating them when the main course arrived, so they simply took our plates away!!! we were speechless, it was quite funny particularly as we had asked for some more sauce for the crackers, which they delivered once they had forcibly removed the remaining crackers!!!

The main course was very nice and they kept coming over and taking the dishes as soon as they were just about empty. Finally we finished and they came back and made a big thing about picking up our plates, pushing and shoving us to get to them! we pushed back but the waitress was not bothered! The next guests had arrived and were milling around. We asked for the bill and they took forty minutes to get that sorted, so it took longer to settle the bill than actually eating!

Brighton is a lovely town, there always seems to be loads going on. I love all the artist touches. There were quite a few decorated walls, these were two of my favourites!

I always like to try and get a couple of photos in conference so that I can report back, I had no idea that we had been photo bombed!!! Brilliant!

Last night we were out for the evening at a party. We had a rather nice time!! I also had my first time using a kind of photo booth!!

I loved it, had a laugh posing for it!! We have Harry to thank for making the lovely frame!

A sad looking Harry pretending to be Charlie Chaplin!!!!

Last week I launched my 'Remember Me' Angels page and website. I really didn't have any idea how it would go and no real idea how to get my name out there. Well whatever I did it seems to be working! This week I have picked up two orders from clients rather than friends, so I am starting slowly and I hope to build it up. I have some ideas so I will have a play and get it right before launching it onto the world. Please feel free to take a look at my website and tell all your friends!

'Remember Me' Angels

Today was Carl's Birthday, strange for him not to be around, but this year we are missing Laura's birthday as well. :(  October is going to be a busy month in-spite of that. We are taking her out for an early celebrating this week . We are looking forward to late holiday ! 

So have a good week, don't work too hard!!!

Last of the Cruise....

Our last port of call was Dubrovnik in Croatia. It was a beautiful place, the weather was hot and sunny and we had our last trip of the holiday there. 

Because we had free on board credit we decided that best way to spend it was on a trip package. We didn't have a choice as to what type of trip we did in Croatia as there was only one in the package. It was quite an experience!!! We took a coach from the ship to the walled city centre where me met our guide - Yacob. He spoke good English so encouraged we set off on the tour. It soon became clear that this was to be the quickest and least informative tour of the trip!! We walked down the slope and into the city, the pavements were made of marble, it was beautiful. Yacob marched on and we all scurried after him! All the tours are graded by the ship to give people an idea if they will be able to physically do them and this one was graded as suitable for limited mobility. It soon became clear that this was not the case. Yacob had certainly decided that it was in his interests to get the whole tour over as soon as possible. So we made a concerted effort to keep up with him, within 30 minutes the tour had been reduced to half of those that had started, undeterred Yacob marched on whizzing us through museums and churches. At one point we caught up with him and realised that he was simply reading passages off of the wall!! (I am good at reading and I am certain I could have managed that myself!!) The last stop of the tour was a museum at the top of a flight of 50 stone steps with no hand rails! This resulted in one lady having an asthma attack. We hung on to the end but I don't think we learnt anything !!

It was a very pretty town and I am sure it might have been interesting if the guide had been a bit better!!

We had been lucky enough to have a balcony cabin, but every time we docked in port our cabin had looked out over the sea and not the port. It is so hard to appreciate how big the ship is and I had planned to identify our balcony and photograph it from the shore. At last Dubrovnik was our only chance of doing so. So I  took a series of photos showing just how big the ship is!

So here is the ship docked.

I stuck a piece of white paper to the glass on our balcony to try and identify it.

Zoomed in a bit our balcony is above the second life boat from the left on the second floor.

Now you can start to see the piece of paper.

Finally a close up showing the piece of paper!! Its amazing just how huge the ship is !!

The holiday seems like ages ago now, I am already thinking about planning next years, I am keeping an eye on the promotions and I plan to book early, we might get lucky and sneak a free upgrade again!! 

So MSC if you have the Google bots set to search for references to your cruises just in case you are looking to give away a free cruise.... Choose ME!!!!!

Sailing away from Croatia we had the most beautiful sunset.

It was the only one of the cruise, which was odd as we had beautiful weather, it was just cloudy at sun set on the other evenings!

I have just returned from a week at Conference in Glasgow. I can honestly say that I am knackered and was really glad to sleep in my own bed again. I stayed in a Premier inn which was new and comfortable but you really quickly get fed up with eating out and hotel beds. 

The hotel was on the banks of the Clyde in an area that had been regenerated it was nice but with one major downside, no local facilities, no corner shop and a three stop train ride into central Glasgow. It meant that I was trapped in a small area as I had to be in conference at 9am and stayed until late on in the day. Because we were captive we had to buy from the venue which of course was venue prices. 

The one big bonus was the scenery I managed to get the below shots on my phone!!

So back to the usual slog this week! I hope you all have a good week.

Dreary couple of days away.

*******STOP PRESS*******

Forgot to add to the original post that I was lucky enough to have been in fine company!! Thank you Alison for your kindness and outstanding ability to find rose wine in an otherwise not terribly exciting few days!!!!

I have just returned from a couple of days away in Bristol, a city I have not visited before. I was attending a work related conference. To start with its a bit of a pain with three trains to get. I had to travel into London and then get the underground to Paddington before finally getting the train to Bristol. All in all it took me 3 1/2 hours! It wasn't even a very restful journey. The trains were all busy and I really don't understand why there isn't enough space for luggage. The other issue is accessibility it amazes me just how many stations are almost impossible if you have mobility issues or are travelling with a buggy. Even the signs confusing ! Because it was a work function they supplied me with train tickets, although they should have thought to allow some time to get from one train to another, I had one very near miss which would have added hours onto my journey!

We all stayed in the Holiday Inn in the centre of Bristol, which was very nice, standard Holiday Inn hospitality!

We were opposite a massive Premier Inn, I expect the view from the top was spectacular!! The view from my room was less so, I had the view of the car park and boarded up shops!!

In front of the hotel was a huge roundabout, which had an underpass which lead to a place known locally as 'the bear pit' guarded by a black and white bear statue, I am sure in the summer months it may well be an interesting place but it felt pretty dire in the rain :(

On the plus side there was a huge fabric shop opposite the hotel, so instead of having lunch I popped over there and managed to buy myself some sparkly fabric for my New Years eve outfit! Bargain at 50p a metre!

We ate on on the one night that we were there, it was prebooked by the course organisers, we went to new restaurant called Aquila. The surroundings were very nice, but the food was underwhelming and very expensive, big plates tiny portions and simply not very tasty, won't be hurrying back there!! 

Finally I headed back yesterday afternoon, left Bristol at 2pm and when I eventually arrived at Kings Cross there was only one train delayed, which was of course my train! There were hundreds of people waiting for the platform number to be posted up, once it was there was a mad stampede for the train. Considering it was late it was not going to hang around! I was lucky that I guessed the right platform and was towards the front of the queue. people were still trying to get through the ticket barriers when the train left!!

I am started to get excited for our Hamburg trip, I keep looking at the weather forecast last week it was showing a bit of snow for the day after we get back, but that could move, so I am getting ready for every eventuality!! I am also keeping an eye on New York in light of their snow this week, they also have forecast of snow on Christmas day so fingers crossed we get a nice sprinkling to add to the Christmas feel!!

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.

I'm Back

 I have had a few days away in Harrogate on UNISON'S women's conference. I woke up yesterday morning to the return of winter, a good few inches of snow. It was a bit of a shock as I thought we had done with all that and I don't remember ever having snow on my birthday before!!

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon to find that the Hotel, was not quite where we expected it to be, instead of within walking distance to the conference centre it was 2 and a half miles away!! We were left no choice but to drive in everyday. We registered on the Thursday and sat down to the first sessions. I like conferences for the variety of speakers, a lot of people have overcome huge hurdles to get up and speak. This year we had a very inspiring speech from Baroness Blood. A fantastic lady who was instrumental in the Northern Ireland peace talks and the Good Friday agreement. She is an ordinary person who was moved to try and do something for her community to make life better for everyone. She came up against all sorts or opposition but stuck at it and won out. Check her out HERE one determined lady!!!

Yesterday was my birthday so I came home to lots of celebrations, cakes and presents. I simply have not had time to thank everyone yet, there seems a lot to do to get things sorted out, a few days away seems to create a load of washing and general mess.  I did think yesterday that I was just about straight, only to open a card from Sandra FULL of those shiny confetti things, so now my floor is covered in red and pink hearts! I have until November to save up industrial quantities of the same to send back to her!!

Good news on the Mum front, she is making slow but steady progress. She is coming home on Wednesday for a home visit for the staff to see what needs to happen at home to get her reinstalled, so that's a positive move.  We have had a lot of people make contact after the article in the paper including people we met on the cruise last year who had no idea. Tomorrow I will post some birthday photos!