October 09

October started with Dad's 65th Birthday. I met Mum, Dad, Sandra, Joan and Albert in Richmond after work on the Friday, having been in Huddersfield that day and we had a lovely dinner before going to the theatre. It was a West Country Theatre production called Home on the Range and the three actresses in it were very good and as seems to be common with their productions, very good use of very few props.

Saturday was the Amazing Praise concert, this year foolishly, I didn't start practicing until a week before and had a crisis of confidence and almost pulled out of it. Mum and I spent some time on the morning clearly marking the notes that I was going to play and which I was going to ignore. I think it worked quite well and I managed to get through it without too much embarrassment, thankfully there were two other cellists there so I managed to hide behind them. Next year must learn to say no, or have something already booked in for that weekend....

I finally had a week off work in October, having been the only one not to take much time off work over summer this was the first opportunity to take more than a day off at once. After I'd booked it in I needed to decide what to do with it so I of course, looked at who I could go visit and decided that Madrid in October would be nice so I set off to stay with Vicky for 3 nights. After arriving on the Saturday we went out for Ice Cream and cinema. Sunday was mainly sightseeing, trip on the funicular railway. There was a birthday party that Vicky wanted to go to for twins of a girl who had been helped by the pregnancy crisis service in Madrid that she volunteers as so we spent a couple of hours there. My main conversation was with a 5 month old girl as no one else spoke English but we were fine until someone else came for a cuddle with her and then I was left to play toys on my own. Monday Vicky was working for some of the time so I wandered round the gardens, read my book in the sun and then Tuesday morning we went to the cathedral and the royal palace.

I spent the rest of the week at Mum and Dad's, getting to catch up with quite a few people - dinner with Vicky and Ben and lunch with Carlie and Noah before joining them for Helen and Paul's Wedding. I think officially that makes me a wedding crasher but no one seemed to mind!

September 09

So in trying to get my blog back up to date I've decided just to have a look at my diary and see what I did each month and try and remember the highlights. Probably won't be all that interesting but we'll give it a go for now.

So September, I went for a weekend to Sal's. Always a good weekend, this time we went up to London for a day on the Saturday to see Les Mis, my fourth time, Sal's sixth I think. Of the six of us that were there I think we'd seen it 22 times between us by the time it was finished. Great show as ever.

The following weekend we had a girls evening out to Harewood House to see Grease as a drive in movie. We did the same 2 years before at York Racecourse (much more convenient for getting to but Harewood wasn't too far). After a slight rearranging of cars when we first got there and ignoring the stewards waving us in so that we could get all three cars together and not park behind the tallest 4x4 there, we settled in for some food first. It was a good evening for the film and as always involved a lot of singing along - still surprised at how much of it I can quote only watching it every few years!

The rest of the month seems to have been filled with the usual work, travelling around Yorkshire, fitting in a visit to the Lavers when on a Huddersfield work day, and the start of Strictly Come Dancing seems to have marked the start of many Saturday evenings with Naomi and Gillian passing commentary on the dances - in my no so expert opinion.

Now onto October....

Queuing

Isn't it funny how we queue when there's no need to. After a weekend at Mum & Dad's I planned my drive home via Tesco for food and fuel. When I arrived in the car park all the shoppers were standing outside the shop as the fire alarm was ringing. Unlike many other people I sensibly stayed in the car and waited until people started moving in - it was raining at the time as well. But others decided to get out of their cars and wait in the rain and seemed strangely drawn to what would appear to be the back of the queue so that they weren't cutting in the front when people were eventually allowed back in. I was waiting about 15 mins in my lovely warm car with music to pass the time. Once they were allowed back in though it was chaos as everyone started their shopping at the same time and moved around at roughly the same pace, while others searched for which aisle they had abandoned their trolleys in when the alarm had started! It reminded me that online shopping and delivery looks a very attractive alternative.

No Wellies!

After a very muddy weekend last year at North 08, we were back for another year at North 09. I once again took advantage of Mum and Dad living close by to the event and drove the 10 mins from the house to Coul Beck Farm for Saturday and Sunday rather than pitching a tent for the weekend.

I started off the bank holiday weekend with a lovely evening on Friday with Mark, Carlie and Noah, who I haven't seen enough of over the past year so it was great to spend the whole evening with them. Then it was off to the farm for two days. The weather was fine so there was no need for the wellies that had been so essential last year. This year I was just a visitor and not a helper so after doing children's work for the last three years I was looking forward to break and just being in the adult meetings. The morning meetings David Stroud leader of Christ Church London spoke and in the evening Jeremy Simpkins from Jubilee Church, Teesside, both following the theme of the weekend of Transformation of our lives, our churches and our cities and towns. These were also supported by the afternoon seminars of which I went to hear Arnold Bell speaking on being transformed through the Word on Sunday afternoon.

It's been a great weekend, listening to some really good speakers who are so passionate about seeing the churches grow in the UK and across the world, and it's been a great chance to spend time with some friends from church and get to know people better.

Birthday things

I've had another lovely birthday weekend. Similar to last year, Sally arrived on Thursday evening and we had a lot planned. Friday morning was the most relaxing couple of hours at Harrogate Turkish Baths. I think we undid any good detoxing that had been done by going to Betty's for lunch and over-indulging in an Afternoon Tea, if only I'd not eaten the last little cake...

Saturday lunchtime followed the same indulgence with a visit to Cafe Concerto before Sarah arrived (early amazingly!) from Stockton. It was another afternoon at the pottery painting studio, Sal again taking twice as long as I do, making sure her design is perfectly placed and painted. You can tell in the finished items that I should have spent a bit more time in making sure that I'd put enough paint on my mug! I was pleased though when Ruth came round after I'd collected the glazed finished products and asked where I'd bought my new mug from! Only spoilt by showing her the gold blob in the bottom where the star went wrong so I just painted the whole circle on the bottom leaving it looking like something has died in the bottom of the mug.

Saturday night I had some of the girls around, after my usual panic about having people in my house it was a lovely evening of food, drink and chatting. The whole weekend was then finished off with a visit from Mum & Dad on Sunday for my birthday, another lovely lunch out at The White Swan at Deighton (will start diet again soon...) and a lazy afternoon watching the athletics, a great birthday again!

New Car Things

So it turns out I do have an alarm on my new car, as I discovered this morning - along with the rest of my neighbours. I blame Ruth for talking to me as she walked past so that I hadn't opened the door within the required 15 seconds before it locked again. Which I didn't realise until I then went to open the door and tested the alarm! I guess it's good that I know that it is there, and that I know how to stop it ringing as well. Although it did take a little while this morning while I got over the initial shock so my apologies to the neighbours, but it was after 8am so if I have to up then you should be too.

A little early

I've sent my first Christmas card of the year today. When Sal and Rob decided to have World Vision Wish List for their wedding list, I decided that as I've said for years that I would sponsor a child, then it was about time I did it. So I've sponsored a little girl called Tiange Modu from Sierra Leone. She's 4 years old and she likes toys. That was all I knew about her at first, then a few weeks ago I got a letter written by one of the World Vision volunteers and with a print of her hand and some information about the development where she lives which has mango, orange and coconut trees and most of the people are farmers.

Today I was sent through a Christmas card to send her, because some of the developments that they work in are so remote then it can take a long time to get cards to them for Christmas that they need them back by September to start sending them out. I can't say I would have picked it myself - a cartoon camel doesn't usually feature on the cards that I choose for Christmas. But I've written it and sent it off already, now I just need to be as organised with sending the rest of them before Christmas.