Walking in the rain

It can be done. After a couple of months of trying to walk home from work more but always taking the bus if it's raining and I've proved that I can now walk home in the rain. There were a few down sides to it though, my hair was getting blown around so much it kept whipping me in the eyes and when you have your head down and umbrella as low to your head as possible it's difficult to spot the cow pats on the path through the field. A few close shaves with the cow pats but now that I've done it I can no longer always assume that I'm justified in getting the bus home in the rain.

I've also found a quicker route home as well which cuts about 10 mins off the previous one so although the extra 10 mins is probably better for me, I figure that when I'm still walking 40 mins home then it's not too bad to cut it down. Plus I'm more likely to walk more often if I know it's not going to take so long. One day I will try and cut the bus journey out but at the moment I think I'll stick with it for the mornings a least.

Next time I walk though I will remember to have my iPod charged, I set off this evening to come home and there was no battery left on it at all. The only song I had in my head was American Pie, which in theory I should have been able to sing through the full length version 4 times and then been home. I couldn't remember all the words though and I kept repeating verses so after 30 mins and I still wasn't anywhere near the end of the song I gave up on it. There's only so many times you can sing through "drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry..." before it gets really tiring!

A thousand dresses

Ok well maybe not a thousand, maybe more like 27 dresses, Sal and I had a day of trying on wedding dresses on Saturday. It was quite fun, for me anyway sitting down all day in 3 different shops waiting for Sal to appear in another dress. It was such a hard decision though, they all looked so lovely on her so we took Mum back on Monday to make the final decision. That was harder than we thought as well and in the end picked a dress that hadn't even been considered on Saturday.

Can't wait to see it again on the day now, 9 months (290 days) according to Sal's countdown. We had a chance at the weekend to see the church, the hotel and the car so now the plans are all coming together I might need to start looking for a dress!

Going Bananas

I've survived another weeked looking after 120 8 to 10 year olds, but only just! Being back at work was a real struggle this morning and I'm remembering why after last year I thought it was a good idea to take the Tuesday as holiday, oh well!

After prior warning to bring wellies I arrived on Friday night to a very muddy site at North 08. As I was once again avoiding the camping by staying at Mum & Dad's then the mud didn't bother me as much as it would if I was having to stay in a tent for the weekend.

Although it was exhausting it was a great weekend, the kids (for the most part) were great and it's about the only time of the year when I do all the actions to the songs! But for another year I'm now retiring the phrase Going Bananas.....We're Bananas and it will not be shouted again until North 09.

A new way to paint

I discovered this evening that there is a faster way to paint a kitchen. As soon as it happened so many blogging titles and comments sprang to mind but I decided just to let the photo explain it to you.

So my dinner was a little smaller than I anticipated this evening....

The Big 3-0 (part 2)

So after a lovely day on Friday, then official Birthday arrived on Saturday. So many people obviously thought I'd forgotten how old I was going to be so they kindly gave me lots of cards with a big 30 on the front to remind me.

Matthew, Charlie and Abi came round after breakfast and we started to get ready for my BBQ in the evening which involved putting up the gazebo that next door had kindly lent me in anticipation that the great English weather in the middle of August is not as good as you might expect. Auntie's Pauline and Sandra arrived after lunch which was lovely and then it was back to preparations. I think we would have planned to be a little bit further on in the preparation by 4pm but we weren't! So there was a lot of hard work put in by Mum, Dad and Sal - Big Thanks!

Then it was party time! Mum & Dad had brought with them some (not too) embarrassing photos of me spanning my 30 years, which were generally quite amusing - I still think the Noddy fancy dress costume was the best! I had a lovely evening so thank you to everyone that made it on the evening and to those who couldn't make it thank you for the messages, cards and presents.

Sunday was a fairly quiet affair, more fun with Abi who decided that at 23 months she is old enough to swig out of the wine bottle (don't worry it had been finished and washed out!) and to try on all of my shoes again, it was obviously so much fun when she'd done it on Saturday that they all got pulled out again!

So this is it, I'm now officially out of my 20s, no major lightening bolts, sudden aching bones, loss of memory...so maybe I'll survive my 30s after all :)

The Big 3-0 (part 1)

It finally arrived, after a year of wishing that my age would suddenly stand still (or start counting backwards), the 30th birthday still happened on Saturday and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. In fact it was better than I was expecting thanks to lots of lovely family and friends.

Sally arrived on Thursday night so we got an early start on Friday morning with painting pottery at Rainbows Ceramic Cafe. It turns out neither of us are that creative, although I'm a lot faster at it than Sal. I painted a jug and while waiting for her to finish her bowl decided to paint a plate as well and still had to wait a while.... It was a lovely morning though and the painting is fun, I'm going to start planning now what I'm going to do next time!

After that we went for a lovely lunch to Cafe Concerto, there was a bit of debate over whether we should have cake or not but as that was the main reason for going then the decision was to share one.

Mum and Dad arrived in the afternoon and after a shopping trip we went to see The Railway Children at the National Railway Museum in the evening. It was a great performance by all of the cast and the staging was fantastic. The seating wasn't great, although we could see fine it was very squashed. For me being between Mum and Sal wasn't so bad but Sal was a bit squished by the rather large lady next to her...!

The painting gene

I don't have it. It must have missed me, Mum & Dad definitely have it, Sal has it, I don't have it. I hate painting. I knew I wasn't that keen on it because I have been painting before and found I get bored very quickly but I thought that was just a patience thing, but I spent Friday night and Saturday painting the kitchen and I hated it. Even when I thought I was being really careful my roller still managed to hit the bit that I was trying to avoid. The paint constantly seemed to appear on the worktop or the floor when I didn't even notice it dripping and at one point I'm sure there was more paint on my hands than my brush.

In spite of all that I finished it! Except for a few bits that I can see now that I should have sanded a bit more or filled that bit in then generally I don't think it looks too bad. This time I even remembered to take the blind down before I started instead of trying to paint around it! The fridge is now in it's place so the only thing left to do is to have the old fridge taken away which will be done this week.