I've just got through the first week since eldest son went off to University.


I felt very anxious in the run up to him going - and hearing the stories of my friends crying when they left their children, I was really dreading it. I'm the one who cries at adverts - so I couldn't see how I wasn't going to make a complete fool of myself. But I held it together - not too hard really when we saw the lovely room he had - and he seemed to be happy and looking forward to it all. He's taken half the house so he must feel at home!

Quilting

Earlier in the year I decided to make a patchwork quilt. I'm not an expert quilter - previous experience making a cushion cover when I was at school - but I decided that I wanted to create a family heirloom.



Progress has been slow - it took me about a month to choose the fabric I wanted. I read up on different techniques, took advice from friends and then decided to do my own thing. I probably would have been more sensible to either start with a smaller project or to go for a squares design. I went for a king size bedspread made from small hexagons.


I've now made 8 "templates" - not sure how many more to go - but it must be lots! I'm a bit worried that it might not match in with my room decor - but frankly by the time I finish it who knows what colour my bedroom will be.



I'm taking a break from it to complete another heirloom - a patchwork quilted memory cushion which is going to feature a picture of my parents on their wedding day. It's my dad's birthday soon and I thought it would be a nice present for him. I'll post a picture of it when I'm finished!

I went on a trip to Slough today. I've never been before so my impression of the place was based the Slough of Despond (I know it's nothing to do with the place but hey!) and what I'd seen in The Office.


Trusty sat nav got me there - but as soon as we approached the town centre it started ordering me to turn round at the next available opportunity. It obviously wasn't happy that I had reached my destination.


I found the office I was visiting, tried to cross the road to reach it but nearly got run over by two red BMW's doing a bit of boy racing. On my way out I got mixed up - fortunately not literally - with two policemen trying to bundle a suspect into the back of a police van.


I was glad to get back to my car - although I was stopped in the car park by a man asking for my unexpired parking ticket - a request I didn't feel able to refuse. This was followed by a close encounter with a traffic warden so I ended up the one making a quick getaway!


On the way home sat nav decided on a scenic route which took me past a sign for a community orchard. What is a community orchard, because I'd like my community to have one.

I've deleted this post so many times that blogger will be wondering what's going on. He'll need to buy a new eraser. Was going to blog about my lovely holiday in Cornwall, but whilst it was so very lovely it was also wrapped up in the trauma I am going through with my poor Dad who has been unwell and is now in a nursing home.

I then started a post on guilt - linked to the Dad situation. Hubby read it and said I need to have a stiff gin. Good idea but it is only 5.30 in the afternoon and too early even for me.

So I'll tell you about my day. It's bank holiday and we have had a lovely day. Went for a walk from Stamford to Easton on The Hill. A circular route that was supposed to include a pub lunch. I messed that one up - marched us all out of one pub as I thought the other one in the village would be better - only to find the other one had actually closed down. Third pub didn't serve food, so we went hungry - not that it mattered.

On holiday I had great idea for a website. Decided on a good name and could hardly wait to get home to register it and get started. How spooky to find that MY name has been registered by some-one - whilst we were away on holiday. Now think my holiday cottage must have been bugged. Not that I'm paranoid or anything...

I've just seen on Yahoo news that over excited Harry Potter fans are going to skip to the end of the new book to find out what happens. I'm no fan of the famous wizard so I'll probably join them to save having to read the whole book. Then I can taunt people who are struggling through the x hundred pages to get to the end.

A friend of mine - who will remain nameless but she knows who she is - always reads the end of a book first - to check out if the ending is worth the read I suppose.

I remember years ago my father was ill, lying in bed reading an Agatha Christie novel. My brother walked in and said "Oh, that's a good book - the Doctor did it didn't he?"

My father chucked the book at him and didn't read another word of it. Some years later my brother confessed that he had since read the book himself and the Doctor didn't do it!



I've added a link to a blog I 've just heard about. It's letters written during World War 1, published on the blog exactly 90 years after they were written. Makes fascinating reading. And you'll have to wait to find out the end...

Slight hitch in my search for literary fame and fortune.

I wrote the first chapter of my novel and although I say it myself, it was pretty damn good. A punchy, witty start to what is clearly going to be a best seller - ha ha!

The children were curious to know what I was writing about and so feeling a bit coy I decided to password protect the document. Very busy for the next couple of weeks so no chance to get any more writing done. Last night I sit down to start chapter 2, and I can't remember the password! I've tried practically every word in the english language - and a fair few that aren't.

So if there is a method of breaking a password on a word document please please tell me...

It's Sunday afternoon and has just started to rain - again.

I don't want to trouble myself with the official statistics but in my world this has been the wettest June since records began.

The Glastonbury festival is in full swing - well nearly swung now - and I think I read in the paper that 1000 people have been treated for injuries caused by slipping in the mud. My two nephews are there. Poor boys seem to have inherited my brother's organisational skills - they turned up and started pitching their tent only to find that the bag of "tent" they brought with them was in fact a random collection of tent poles and nothing else.

It's stopped raining here now - looks like it is gearing up to be a sunny night - ho hum..

Bag Free Zone

I've decided to go green and dispense with the evil plastic bag. I've been working towards this great day for ages - and I'm the proud owner of countless "bags for life" that seem to have had a life of one shopping trip, as I forget them at home or leave them in the boot of the car. But yesterday I was given a particularly lovely hessian bag to spur me on.


This morning I set off round town with my lovely (if a bit scratchy - no pain no gain) bag stuffed full of my quite extensive collection of "bags for life".


I did the weekly shop and sent it off to customer collect and then went around town to get a few bit and pieces I needed.


At the first shop I bought a couple of tops - smuggly putting them straight into my bag. At second shop, I bought a book - straight into bag.

But this was where unease started to grow - the sales assistant in the third shop eyed me up and down as they added a CD to my haul. I felt I needed to go round showing them receipts to prove I wasn't some sort of dare devil shoplifter, challenging them to ask me if I'd paid for all those goods they could see languishing in my bag....

"Your call continues to be held in a queue. It may be more convenient for you to visit our website"

AAAGGGG I have now been on hold for 20 minutes - correction it took me 5 minutes of the call to go through some automated press 1, press 2, press 384 option thingy before I got an option to be put through to "an Adviser".

Now I'm waiting for an adviser to come on the line and answer my question. It isn't more convenient to visit their website because I have already done this and the information I wanted is not on there.

Oh the joys of modern technology. Must go - Justin has just answered...

Went to visit my parents yesterday. Unlike other people who I worry may stumble across my blog and take great offence to something I have written, there is no chance this might happen with my mum. She is one in a million but when it comes to "new" technology she really is in another league.
She's 82, so is allowed the occasional senior moment, but we had a great chat about every subject under the sun. Then Tom offered to show her how her new mobile phone worked and all sense seemed to go out of the window .....
I'd bought the phone for her as she'd lost the charger for her old one. She didn't use it too often and I soon found out the reason for this!
First off she wanted to check if the ring was loud enough for her to hear it. So Tom went to her landline and dialled the number. Great, she liked the ring tone.
Then she wondered if she would be able to hear what people were saying to her. Tom was speaking to her on the phone - and no, she called, she couldn't hear him - same problem she'd had with her old phone. I went back into the room where she was and she was holding it like you would speak into a dictaphone. I put her straight - and she was pleasantly suprised to find now she could hear!
Tom then talked her through how she could make a call picking a number from her phonebook. He patiently went through the steps - about 5 times, then in true trainer style suggested a little exercise for her to put her learning into practice.
Her task was to switch on the phone, pick my mobile number from her phonebook list and call me.
3 times she did this - and each time she picked her own home number by mistake - 3 times her home phone rang - 3 times Tom pointed out what she had done - 3 times she said to him "I'll just answer the phone and you can explain it to me again".
I'm pleased to report that eventually she got it - I think. Won't test her out by calling her on her mobile as no doubt it won't be switched on.
Now she wants to get "online" - how we will get on with mouse control is any-one's guess.

Things I didn't eat - an occassional series

Today I resisted the following:

- a WHOLE plate of custard creams that some-one unkindly left within my reach - ALL day during a boring meeting

- a packet of new chocolates - round things that look like Maltesters but better - by the checkout when I was buying the paper

- crisps - all laid in a bowl out ready for me to pick at during my lunch

I've decided to focus on what I could have eaten, but didn't, instead of what I did eat - hope you get that!

I spent the day with tall willowy people - you now the sort - thin with very long legs. So felt very short and stubby. Realising the effect willowy people have on us lesser mortals makes me think I need to find a very, very short fat friend to walk around with....

Believe it or Not?

Heard a story today which I don't know whether to believe....

A bus driver in Sweden was taking a group of people to an asylum. He stopped for some reason and the group escaped.

Worried about the consequences, he went to a nearby bus stop and picked up the queue of people waiting there. He drove them off the asylum, where it took a week for them to convince the authorities they were being wrongly detained....

I think one of the most entertaining programmes on TV at the moment is Chaos at the Chateau - on Channel 4, Thursdays. It really is proving to be my own personal TV highlight of the week.

It's about a couple who have bought a derelict Chateau in Slovakia with the view to renovate it and open a boutique hotel. The fact that neither of them have experience of renovating a property or running a hotel does not stop them in their quest and to give them credit the place inside does look stunning.

There's some very clever editing going on to make the programme as entertaining as possible - some of which you have to take tongue in cheek - like the bit when the only time they can view a flat to rent is whilst she is having her hair highlighted so she has to race around the streets of Bratislava with a tinfoil head.

Last night they were trying to find prospective staff to run the hotel, using some interview techniques that certainly hadn't come out of any HR handbook. The final decision to recruit seemed to rest on the applicant's star sign - a technique I might adopt if it works as it would be lot quicker than some of the interviews I've sat through lately!

Friday night found me anxiously watching the boys perform in their school band competition. Quite what disaster I was expecting to see, I'm not sure, but the amount of nervous energy I consumed waiting for them to come on stage could have lit a small town for a week.

Anxious moments (or should I say trials) start as soon as they are born and there never seems to be any let up. First there is the hearing test (both referred) then the toddler test (me practically dislocating my neck trying to show them which was the blue block without saying anything and negating the whole exercise). Finding out later both were colour blind helped me to come to terms with that trauma.

Then it's performances in school plays. Subtlety suggesting a small part can be more fun; trying to find out when precisely their bit was so that I could work out how long the agony of waiting was likely to last.

Back to Friday - in the end it was great - as soon as they started to play I felt fine - could almost relax and enjoy it.

And very well done to Matt and James for bringing home the cup!

A Rude Awakening

What a start to the week!

I woke at 6.00am, heard a dripping sound, thought - Oh must be raining, should get that gutter fixed - then went back to sleep again.

At 6.30 hubby's alarm goes off - he gets up - half asleep still - and wanders into our ensuite. There he makes the alarming discovery that the dripping sound is not rain water but toilet water!

He calls me in (sounds calmer than it was) and I stumble in there to see what's going on. The sight before me is not a pretty one - toilet pan three quarters full with (thankfully) clear looking water. In our dazed states we survey the situation.

Then I say "why don't you flush it to see if that will sort it out"

OK - I said it - but he did it. (shared responsibility is so important in these times of crisis)

No sooner was the flush pulled then gallons (and I mean gallons) of water starter overflowing the sides.

A commotion then ensued - from which we gleaned the following learning points:-

1. A single flush of a toilet produces a suprising amount of water, which can move quicker than I can.
2. A tooth mug does not make a very effective bailer.
3. Towels are good at absorbing water but too many wet towels combined with a broken tumble drier can make for an interesting drying dilemma.
4. Teenage boys are not good at responding to clear, loud instructions early in the morning.
5. Aforementioned boys seem to have been napping in their "parts that make up a toilet" lessons and don't know what a cistern lid is.

Order was restored when hubby returned (with more towels and larger, more effective bailer) and turned off the water supply to the cistern.

We now have a very clean floor, which is a good thing, and a quite clean ceiling, which isn't so good....

I'm reading "In the Company of the Courtesan" by Sarah Dunant. I'm really enjoying it - although it is a book that requires a lot of concentration - not something I'm able to do very often. It is set in 16th Century Italy and is full of details about life in Venice at that time.

Well I presume it is historically accurate - although I'd only know if I read some historian saying it wasn't - not being an expert on Renaissance Italy myself.

My own novel is moving on slowly - fortunately it requires no research on my part - not that it is based on my own life or that of my friends and family, I must hastily point out. The problem I have is that I can think of some great bits to add in, exciting story lines, witty one liners, that sort of thing, but only when I am not able to write them down. Fantastic ideas come into my head when I'm walking round the shops or driving along a road. When I'm sat infront of my computer my mind goes blank. I think the only solution is to invest in a mini tape recorder. Problem with this is a) it would be another example of spending money rather than getting on and doing something and b) I think I'd look slightly more nutty than normal walking around talking to myself. Any suggestions??

Had to go for a smear test yesterday. The reminder came in the post just before Christmas but I decided it was inappropriate during the festive season so put it off for a few weeks. Common sense made me make an appointment and it must be said that it has been hanging over me like a black cloud ever since. How ridiculous is that!

Eldest son wanted to know why I was going off to the doctor - so I told him. He was horrified - well he did ask. Anyway it wasn't as bad as I remembered - it never is - is it?

(Youngest son has just read what I'm writing and wants to know what it is. His brother told him not to ask as it will make him sick - think this is getting a bit dramatic now. We've told him it's a girl thing - and that's enough).

It has got me wondering what's worse - smear or dentist. Had a brief debate with my chums on this and we didn't reach much of a conclusion.

On one hand - you can talk whilst having a smear, but you don't have to take off your knickers and show off your wobbly bits at the dentist.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a number of years ago. She had rather large boobs and remarked that her dentist placed all his instruments on them whilst he worked. She found it rather annoying and uncomfortable - I found it rather alarming and recommended a new dentist asap!

Had to go to Milton Keynes, that well known home of confusing signposts, so decided to give hubbies new Sat Nav a trip out.


Things started well - it worked out a route and told me it would take 1 hour 18 mins to get there. Great thinks me - just in time for my meeting. Things went slightly awry when he (had to be set on a default man's voice didn't it) told me to turn left at the end of my road - and I'd have gone right - but I did as I was told. Soon I was scooting along the A1 - in the right direction which was a good sign.


I just couldn't get used to having this man shouting instructions at me. (not sure why that should be such a novelty!) If things went quiet I wondered if it had stopped working - then he'd say something and I'd jump out of my skin (every single time!!) There's me thinking hummm is it working, then AGGHH what's that he said??


Eventually he decided I needed to turn off the A1 onto some other road. It was his idea not mine but suddenly things started to go wrong. He didn't want me on that road - kept asking me to turn left in 80 yards - there was nowhere to turn - I'd have ended in a field if he had his way. Then he decided to re-calculate the route as things were not going to plan. He then tells me it will take 15,375 hours to reach my destination. WHAT!!!!


Anyway we worked through this little hiccup - I took control - and eventually he sorted himself out and when we finally got to MK he started to be a bit more helpful again.


He'd learnt the error of his ways - wish all men were that quick - and on the return journey he took me a completely different way. Far more scenic.

I've started to write a novel.


They say that every-one has a book in them and I think this might be the cause of my on-going weight issue.














WOMEN'S ENGLISH
1. Yes = No
2. No = Yes
3. Maybe = No
4. We need = I want
5. I am sorry = you'll be sorry
6. We need to talk = you're in trouble
7. Sure, go ahead = you better not
8. Do what you want = you will pay for this later
9. I am not upset = of course I am upset, you moron!
10. You're very attentive tonight = is sex all you ever think about?

MEN'S ENGLISH
1. I am hungry = I am hungry
2. I am sleepy = I am sleepy
3. I am tired = I am tired
4. Nice dress = Nice cleavage!
5. I love you = let's have sex now
6. I am bored = Do you want to have sex?
7. May I have this dance? = I'd like to have sex with you
8. Can I call you sometime? = I'd like to have sex with you
9. Do you want to go to a movie? = I'd like to have sex with you
10. Can I take you out to dinner? = I'd like to have sex with you

I hate shopping for food so have made it more bearable by analysing the contents of other people's shopping trollies. I like to look at the food they are buying and then decide if the owner matches up to my expectations.

When I get tired of this I look to see if there are any trollies I'd like to do a swap with - - there usually are but the owners hang on tight when they see me eyeing it up. Yesterday I was in a hurry and in no mood for games. I raced up and down the aisles - lobbing in stuff as if there was about to be an imminent food shortage.

I was actually rather proud of my pickings - no treats - just the necessities. Hoped some-one was taking note as I would have come out rather well. In fact the thoughts of appearing on some healthy eating programme, proudly showing off the lovely contents of my fridge rather distracted me and I forgot to pick up some milk. Had to leave my trolley to get it. When I got back my trolley was no-where to be seen. In it's place was one filled with all sorts of naughty things. I looked up and down the aisle and the ones either side. I had only been gone about 1 minute so whoever had taken it couldn't have got far - unless they were taking part in a trolley dash - in which case they would have been a bit disappointed with their winnings!

I did consider just swapping trollies and quickly making for the checkout with all this booty I was left with. The kids would have thought it was Christmas again. But just then a man appeared - very apologetic - he'd mistakenly taken mine. Quite how he could have done that I don't know - his was overflowing with cakes, coke and lovely looking ready meals - mine was fruit and veg, lean meat and not a treat in sight.

He seemed a bit perplexed by my reluctance to hand his shopping over - I'll have to be quicker next time.

I wasn't quite as bad as Philip but could ignore no more the fact that one of my eyes wasn't able to read as well as the other.

After a few weeks of self induced eye tests (you know, shutting one eye and seeing what you could see) I decided that I needed a visit to the professionals.

I am now the not so proud owner of a pair of "reading glasses". Doesn't the name alone add on 5 years to your age?

Yesterday I wore them at work for the first time. A sympathetic lot I work with - not! Certainly provided a bit of amusement amid the new year blues and I was pleased I could be of service!

Happy New Year ....

... bit late I know - and it isn't because I have only just surfaced from too much celebrating!

Actually the one thing I hate about a new year is the way you have to say "HNY" to every-one you see, for at least 2 weeks. It gets very tedious.

Don't want to start the new year on a rant but while I'm at it I also don't like new year resolutions. Think that this is due to the general lack of will power - I'm hopeless at sticking to anything so why should I be any different at new year.

Have been to the sales - not to look at clothes as frankly I can't stand rummaging through a load of tat in the hope of finding something decent. My favourite thing is to buy a stock of presents for the year to come.

Today I came across a cracker of a bargain - casino set thingy reduced from £49.50 to £9 . I was so excited I wanted to clear the shelves and buy the lot. Had to have a strict talk with myself and rationed my purchases to two, which was all I could feasibly carry at the time.

The problem with buying bargains like this is that it does look like it cost a lot more than the £9 it did. So you give it some-one you'd normally spend £10 on and they feel awkward as they only spent £10 on you OR you give it to some-one you would spend more on and you feel guilty as you know it didn't cost much.

I exchange presents with a friend and we never seem to co-ordinate in what we give each other. One year I buy her jolly socks and she gives me some gorgeous Moulton Brown body lotion. Next year I buy her a pashmina thing and she gets me a bottle of wine. This year it was wellie boot liners from me and White Company smellies from her.