Happy 100th Post

Well since it's my 100th post I think that calls for cake and balloons! 

Do feel free to pop round for a cuppa with that cake - do you prefer tea of coffee (*instant only I'm afraid*).  We might even be able to stretch to a mocha or a hot chocolate. 

There is definitely squirty cream but I'm not sure if we will have any marshmallows left.  We seem to have a little elf (or perhaps 3 teenage children!) that eats them when know one is looking.

Most of the food shopping is done.  We went on Tuesday as apparently the 23rd is the busiest day for supermarkets.  We may pop out today for a last few 'fresh' items.

We aren't having a traditional Christmas dinner tomorrow.  That is being saved for the 27th when my Sister and Brother-in-Law, as well as my motley lot, will be at my Mum and Dads.

For quite a few years now we've spend alternate Christmas' at home or at my parents.  When we are at my Mum's she insists on the whole works for Christmas dinner - 8 veg, lots of sauces, stuffing, sausages in bacon, Yorkshire puds etc, etc.  We shall be having a buffet lunch instead. 

(It was that or buy everything 'ready done'.)

I remember when the children were very little that it seemed daft to spend most of the day in the kitchen and miss out on them opening their presents etc.  I would have been happy with beans on toast and more time spent together .....

.... so this is a sort of compromise.

Now that the children are all teenagers I suspect we may be entering a 'new phase' for Christmas. 

I (*just about*) remember the 'time before children'.  Christmas is very different when you are all adults - I remember it being a lot less stressful!

 

 

And certainly no-one announces on Christmas eve ...

*as the teenage girl did, never having mentioned it before*

... that Santa is definitely going to bring a Playmobil Hospital for her!

As usual (despite promises made to myself, again!) I still haven't wrapped a thing.  Hopefully I won't be up past midnight doing it, which I have been in the past.

I'm also hoping the teenagers won't need to be told to stay in bed until at least 7am. 

About 6 or 7 years ago we seemed to have reached a stage where we didn't need to remind them about what was an acceptable time to get up.  We had a year or two of even having to wait for them! 

The following year they took us completely by surprise and were all wide awake at 4.30am - which coincided with the year I was wrapping until 1am.  Santa nearly took all their presents away again that year!

Do you now I had forgotten that until just now - and I bet I haven't scrapped that story either. 

In fact Christmas seems to be the thing I am worst at getting scrapped.  I think it is because by the time the photos are printed it is dreary February and I want to look ahead not back.

So there is nothing else left to do but say MERRY CHRISTMAS and a very Happy and Peaceful New Year,

Louise x

Me on Monday .... the thank goodness weekend.

A very merry and Christmassy Monday to you all, courtesy of the very lovely Sian.

It was a weekend of as little as possible, topped with a lot of telly watching.
 
As a teacher I very often put life on hold for a week or two prior to breaking up.  Christmas is no exception and is even more stress filled since I also have to plan/organise/sort out for my daughter's birthday.

 

In fact if I had realised how much more pressured it would make December I would have planned her arrival a lot more carefully!
 
Our weekend really started on Friday ... which saw the girl child become a teenager!  She was lucky enough to break up at lunchtime - some of us had to work until our normal finish time. 
 
On my journey home I remembered that I hadn't picked up a birthday cake that morning.  So I diverted to a Tesco express to buy some very gooey chocolate cake.

Following instructions from the new teenager, we had booked a meal at a local Italian restaurant.  She was joined there by my parents, her paternal grandmother and her partner, my sister and brother-in-law, and one big brother.
 
There is a whole post in why the oldest-by-one-minute son wasn't there - but it basically boils down to tiredness.. He was sound asleep when we got home from the restaurant at 9pm and stayed asleep until well gone 10 the next morning.
 
Saturday morning started by watching 2 naughty Shetland ponies (or a very similar breed) playing 'chase' with their owner.  They are kept on a local allotment but obviously had other ideas.

I had hoped to do some crafting, tidying and perhaps a little shopping.  Instead I spent the day mainly being a couch potato, whilst my OH and the newly teenage girl went visiting her paternal grandfather. 
 
Of course we had to watch the strictly final, which we thoroughly enjoyed ... although I wonder a little at the fairness of it when some of the contestants have attended drama/theatre schools.
 
Sunday saw my OH singing carols in the local town centre.  The teenage girl and I went along to offer our support.



There were many more singers than this - and a lady playing the keyboard to accompany them.


I'm not really sure what happened to the rest of the day - lots of doing bits of this and that.  And staying up late watching repeats of very old 'Open All Hours' whilst I sorted this post out!

I hope you have had a restful and productive weekend,

thanks for visiting

Louise x

The Ghost of Hamlets Father

The oldest by one minute son loves acting.  He chose drama as a GCSE and is going to continue with the subject into A-Level.

*My mum worries it isn't academic enough and won't 'get him a good job' but then she isn't happy if she isn't worrying.*

He loved being in the school Christmas plays, and was most disappointed in those years when he didn't get a 'role'.  For the last 3 years of primary school (you had to be Y4 or above) he took part in the summer productions.

He was a 'lead singer' in the first two he took part in (comes from their very musical father ... I can't hold a tune in a bucket) and had an acting role in the last one.

So I was surprised when he didn't get more involved in the various productions his secondary school put on. 

Turns out doing the play got you out of PE with a teacher he really disliked, and that was why he did the primary school productions.

However, after his passion for drama re-emerged, he has wanted to be involved, but has been on trips or ill when the auditions were on .... and a chorus part was not 'good enough'.

So in what was possibly his final year *until he decided to stay on the 6th form* he was determined to be in the Christmas play.

So on Thursday night (there were 2 other performances) we went to watch 'The Spirits and Scrooge'.

The tale was based on A Christmas Carol, but was from the viewpoint of the ghosts.  Jacob Marley was the main character, along with the other 3 ghosts.  But there were also some other famous ghosts from famous literature.

 


















He played the ghost of Hamlet's father.  He did it brilliantly - the show producer described it as a 'master class of comic timing'.  And he did it all in full Shakespearean voice, complete with accompanying mannerisms and expressions.

I know I'm biased but he was brilliant.  I'm doing (or trying to do) a Christmas Journal this year.  I'm hoping this may be the start of a new family tradition of appearing in a Christmas play/pantomime.

Merry Christmas,

Louise x

Me on Monday ....the very rainy weekend

Waving to Sian and all the 'Me on Monday' bloggers.

It was a weekend of braving the elements to do some shopping and put up the outside lights.  It was a weekend of trying to get the house straight before the Christmas rush.  It was a weekend of a sneaky Chinese takeaway, just because.  It was a weekend of having a proper roast dinner (lamb) and of finally getting all the decorations up (well almost all of them).  It was a weekend where I discovered I had forgotten to order some Christmas presents.  It was a weekend where I seemed to be busy-on-the-go but get very little done, other than more online shopping.  It was a weekend of the youngest child being excited about her upcoming birthday - a teenager at last!  And a weekend where it rained......again!

Hope you had a lovely weekend be it busy, relaxed, or somewhere in between.  Wishing you all the best for the week ahead

Louise x

Me on Monday .... the putting up the tree weekend

Hello and a very happy Monday to Sian and all the other Monday sharers out there.

What is it about weekends and storms?  I still haven't got my bulbs in the garden, or tidied it up. 

However when I see the havoc the weather has wreaked for some of you I will try not to grumble (too much).

It was a weekend of finally getting Christmas shopping underway (online), not managing to visit the Christmas tree festival, enjoying some mother-daughter time, starting to sort stash and giving up, getting a praise postcard, watching telly, watching a dance show but having to miss OH's carol concert, seeing family, completing the family set of Christmas jumpers, cups of tea in Tesco, chatting with an old 'friend/acquaintance', ironing and laundry, putting up the lounge tree and getting a little tired of wet and windy weekends. 

I have managed to actually purchase the older-by-one-minute son a few Christmas presents.  I've only been asking him what he would like for a month or two!

After this success I seemed to get carried away and bought quite a few more items.  Still not sure I've done it all yet.

I did some housework which led to me deciding to tidy, sort and hopefully get rid of some stash.  After spreading stuff everywhere I got distracted and came back later having lost the will to finish the task.

I stuffed it all into a back to sort at some other time.

The girl child and I headed into our local town for an hour or two.  I got some Christmas cards but managed to forget my nephew's birthday card.

We nearly got blown off our feet a couple of times by the gales.  We were checking out lipstick colours as the girl child has several on her Christmas list.  Guess she isn't so much of a child anymore!

I watched 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
 

 
It's one of those films I've seen parts of but on Saturday I managed to watch the whole film.
 
We then had a clash of events Saturday evening, with my OH singing as part of Torkard Ensemble, at a local church, and my daughter dancing at a Christmas show hosted by her dance school.

Since my daughter needed driving to the event in a neighbouring town, that is what I watched. 

My sister and parents also went, which gave me a chance to give them the Christmas cards I had bought earlier!

Sunday involved the usual food shop, however we found Christmas jumpers for the boys* (the rest of us have one already) a got a lovely cyclamen to grace the table.

*which they put on immediately!

As the girl child had received a praise postcard from school she was given a treat.  She chose a box of praline chocolates - she takes after her mum!

We called in at Tesco's for a few Christmas mugs and some dishwasher salt.  We hit the café first, which has undergone an amazing transformation since the last time I used it, it serves Costa drinks and has couches and chairs rather than the work canteen style it used to be.  A very pleasant surprise.

I remembered the items I had gone in for ... my OH just had the dishwasher salt to collect, so you can guess what we didn't buy can't you!

It was an afternoon of catching up on missed Dr Who and I'm a celebrity, watching some more old films and fetching the trees and decorations from the loft.
 
This slipped into an evening of planning school work and watching Vicky become Queen of the Jungle.
 
During this time my OH kindly assembled the tree and put the lights on it - we are slowly adding decorations to it!
   


I'm definitely NOT ready for Christmas!

Louise x

Memories from a photo

Whether you're bothered or not, here's another 'Memories From A Photo' post. 

I wanted to choose a slightly more recent photo.

Or should I say I didn't want it to be of a similar age to the last one... I'm not fooling anyone that this one is in any way shape or form recent.

If you're wondering ...and I know I would be...I'm the one with shocking hairstyle and terrible jumper - fashion was never one of my strong points!

Actually I have photos of worse outfits and hairstyles than this.

I may NOT being sharing those ones!

I have no idea where this photo was taken ... what I do know is that it must have been a Sunday afternoon.

I know this because my parents had a 'corner shop'.  It was open 7 days a week but we shut at noon on a Sunday so that we could have some family time.

If the weather allowed we all piled into my Dad's work van - these were always red Ford Escorts.  Us kids sat in the back.

No seat belts ... *yep I shudder to think about it now*.

In fact there were no seats!  We had cushions, blankets and as we got older sometimes a beanbag.

This isn't me - it's my sister.

We didn't have another car.  We went everywhere in the back of that van.  Even to posh restaurants!

A lot of those Sunday journeys involved water.  We usually found a stream to paddle in or a ford to drive through.  Sometimes we took a walk alongside a river.

Most of these were in Derbyshire.  We lived just in Derbyshire but these trips took us into a more attractive part and usually took between 30 and 45 minutes to reach.

Sometimes we took friends along with us - 5 or 6 of us sat in the back of a van!

My brother is on the right

In the summer we might call into a pub for a drink.  Children didn't go into pubs back then so we used to sit in the beer garden ... or sometimes we'd sit in the van with the doors open.  And if you were hungry all that was on offer was a packet of crisps, salted peanuts or pork scratchings (yak to the latter).

And we would have a bottle of pop - with a paper straw.  Which collapsed after a few minutes or so.  You had to keep tearing the soggy bit off.

If you weren't careful the straw got too short to reach the drink!

In winter we often went to Clumber Park and walked through the conifer woodland.  We could walk for hours and we very rarely saw anyone else.  I loved those walks.

I remember those red shoes - they gave me terrible blisters.  That is when I learnt that if you have wide feet you need a good fitting shoe.


When I got older I appreciated that my Mum had always made me wear 'proper' fitted shoes for school.  And had refused to buy me heeled shoes ... I realise now how awful young girls can look in them.

There are a lot of other things my Mum didn't allow me to do, that I may have begrudged at the time but am now very thankful for.

You only realise these things as you grow up and sometimes only when you have your own kids...

...or am I thinking of that moment when you hear your parents sayings coming out of your mouth?

Well you wouldn't know I'd struggled to think of what to write would you?  I do ramble on sometimes...

I heard that comment of 'only sometimes?'

Thanks for popping by,

Louise x

Winter Photo Hunt

Maggie mentioned this Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt co-hosted by Eileen and Joy.

I managed to complete the Summertime version hosted by Rinda so am looking forward to doing this one.

 

The items to find are

 

1.   A robin redbreast

2.   Tinsel

3.   Outside lighting

4.   A star

5.   A snowman

6.   A puddle

7.   Berries and/or nuts

8.   A wreath

9.   A tree that has lost all its leaves

10.  A windy day

11.  Your favourite pudding

12.  A fancy button

13.  Street art

14.  Afternoon tea

15.  Candle light

16.  A chimney

17.  A ladder

18.  An arrow

19.  A fountain

20.  Cutlery

21.  Your own handwriting (this one is compulsory and cannot be substituted)

If you find any of the above hard to get you may substitute with one of the subjects below, except No. 21 which is compulsory.

Alt A  A supermarket trolley or basket, filled with shopping

Alt B  An animal statue

Alt C  Metal railings  

 

Now I am also planning on doing a Christmas journal and am trying to take some photos each day.  On Tuesday I took some of the tree my daughter has in her room.

 

 

 

 

I think that nicely ticks '#2 Tinsel' off the list.

 

And last night was the Hucknall Christmas Carnival so here is a photo of #3 Outside Lighting.

 

 

 

 

Santa's sleigh was an extra :)

 

I may add other ones for this as there are some very 'dressed up' houses around ... and I do like to have a few icicle lights and some fairy lights in my hedge.

Thanks for popping by

Louise x