Boo Hoo

I won’t be on line for a few days.I am sat here waiting for DHL to pick up my laptop.The fan is playing up so its off to be fixed.

So there will be no posts from me this week.But here’s a little note for you.Thanks

I will be lost without my laptop.

What will I do in the mornings?-I suppose I’ll have to get up before 10am .

What shall I do once I’m up and dressed?-I suppose I could do some housework

What shall I do when I am eating my lunch?-I suppose I could read one of the ever expanding pile of magazines.

What shall I do in the afternoons?-I suppose I could walk Teddy and bake something scrumptious for tea

What shall I do in the evenings?-I suppose I could sit and watch all the programmes I’ve accumulated on Skyplus and get an early night

What shall I do when I go to bed?-I suppose I could read one of the collections of books on my bedside table and get some sleep.

I suppose I will survive ,but its going to be hard.Wish me luck……..

time traveller

I went back in time to the Victorian era yesterday

Luckily the weather was sunny if not a bit chilly,but at least it was dry.

 

 

This squatters cottage bed reminded me of the one I had just left back in our hotel.

Thanks God I had taken my own pillow.

I know that I am spoilt at home with goose down quilts,pocket sprung mattresses and Egyptian cotton sheets.But it would seem my home is of a 5* standard.

 

 

 

Ironbridge where we stayed is a World Heritage site.Our hotel was one of the best in the area.

In fact Aga were holding a conference there and I saw a few faces I recognised from cookery classes I’ve taken.

The view from my bedroom window was a bit disconcerting.

I didn’t expect the Ironbridge power station to be right outside,in such an idyllic spot.

Ironbridge is famous of course for its iron bridge.It was completed in 1779.The first bridge of its kind anywhere in the World.

I particularly enjoyed a sit down and warming up session in a local pub.

I was content to sit and read my latest Bill Bryson book all day,but my taxi arrived to move me on to Blists Hill.

Blists Hill Victorian village had just opened its new Canal Street as part of its £12 million redevelopment.

I’m afraid once you have experienced the perfection of a Disney park anything else just pales into insignificance.The new development looked a little too new and perfect for my liking.Its a shame that the only atmosphere for this era came from the junior school children dressed in costume for their trip.

It’s what the place lacks.

Lots of people going about their everyday business.But I realise they won’t have the funds of Disney.

A lot of the staff looked quite understandably very bored.And talked about their glee at being able to finish their shift shortly.

 

 

 

I must say the toilets were a bit ropey.

But then I have had far worst in France and Jordan.

I couldn’t find the Andrex triple velvet?

 

 

I’m afraid with my type of crude sense of humour a few signs made me laugh.

I bought a couple of funny postcards for my scrapbook room gallery wall,from the print works.

This place looked very authentic and was working to print the paper bags for the shops.

Bizarrely one of the places looked exactly the same as we can experience nowadays.I walked into the pub,which was full of pensioners having a sing song.I reckon every town or village would have a pub that wouldn’t look out of place in this museum.

I had a lovely day out and it beats doing housework!

Is it a bird?

No its a plane!

We saw several light aircraft fly over us in Cambridge today.That is all that’s flying here in the UK.

Poor  Anna Bowkis is stuck in Florida until at least the 28th April.My Sons girlfriend is still in the UK after spending 2 nights at an airport hotel with her holiday to Lanzarote now cancelled.Her Dad is stuck in the States and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight at the moment.I am keeping my fingers crossed everything will die down and that by June we will be happily sat on a plane to Chicago.

Although the weather has been beautiful this weekend I spent a very chilly day at the Tempsford crop yesterday.The kit was my least favourite colour purple .In the last few weeks I have had to endure a couple of purple/lilac kits.Its weird as when I was a child,purple was my favourite colour.But I find it very dull and I prefer much more vibrant colours nowadays.

So both of the layouts I have made,are not some of my favourites .But I tried to do my best.

I didn’t find the white paper we were supposed to use as our background,worked for me so I added some of my own papers and embellishments.

In fact there is very little left of the original kit left on this layout.The pictures are of a studio photo session on my Sons first birthday,1987.I have a very fetching perm in the photo.

This was the second layout.Again I had a play with it and added some of my own stash.

Then I at last got to work on a more colourful layout I had,had a play with at the crop.I bought the papers at the Ally Pally show.I knew they would be perfect for this photo of us collecting shells on a beach in Florida.

As the weather was so beautiful and after spending the previous day freezing in a dark hall.We treated Teddy to a day out at The Orchard,Granchester.

 

 

It was our first visit to Granchester this year.Its out most favourite place.

We stopped for some Sunday newspapers and managed to get a perfect sunny spot amongst the apple trees.

 

Teddy found all the eating a little too much to take.So we had to give in and let him have a treat.

We returned home to find Jeni soaking up the sun.

 

 

She should be in Lanzarote on holiday.

But she’s secretly pleased her holiday was cancelled.

She’s found out its raining in Lanzarote!

 

 

 

Lets hope the weather holds as I’m off to Shropshire tomorrow.But I believe I may be in for a bit of Lanzarote weather.

Oh and by the way Hubby saw a van with a logo that caught his eye.What a great idea.Not sure whether to go for the collection of photos one or the box of chocolates.What do you think?

Colour your world

I finally got around to finishing my Shimelle April challenge #5-Colour your world.

Sandra wrote this on the forum “Over to you, Buzz...you do this on EVERY LO anyway” (Buzz is my forum name.)

So I felt challenged by Sandra and Shimelle.I knew the photo I wanted to use and that it would work well with oodles of flowers.The challenge was  a project with a rainbow of colours: at least red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple from scrapping supplies.

I have spent a very hot and sunny couple of hours putting this together in the conservatory.

I think that is every colour of the rainbow and a few extra!

I wrote a few weeks ago about another challenge that I was going to take part in on The Freaky Eaters site.Each week there will be a different challenge set of new foods to try.I was quite chuffed to see two of the three I already eat/drink.The three to choose from were pasta-tea-tinned fruit.

So tinned fruit it had to be for me.It made me shudder just thinking about it.Its the texture I can’t stand.I asked the family for ideas.Tinned pineapple was thought too “hard “for me.Tinned peaches too”slimy” So I thought the way forward would be  crumbles made  from tinned fruit.I usually scoop the crumble topping off and give the fruit to my Husband.But I do like the flavour of some fruits that mixes with the crumble so I choose these to start with.

For some reason I usually start a new food in its very processed form.i.e. boil in the bag beef.Erghhhhhh.

So this was a good way for me to try some fruit but not in its raw form.I choose to go with the cherries first  and put a good covering of crumble on it,plus lashing of cream.

Yep that's an empty bowl.I would LOVE to tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed it ,but I had to crush any cherries that had kept their shape and swallow and “Think Of England”.But I will persevere with the crumbles.So probably at the end of my trial I will have gained pounds and no extra foods.

Oh,well at least I tried.

Ally Pally

I have had a busy week doing nothing in particular.Mainly just enjoying the sunshine and pottering about.

I was beside myself with excitment,as I had a day out at the”Big Stamp and Scrapbooking show” at Ally Pally on Saturday.I drove us to the event and I was quite proud as I only nearly killed us both twice.My concentration goes out the window when I’m chatting.Luckily Sandra had her eyes peeled and alerted me to oncoming traffic!She can’t wait for me to be the designated driver in Chicago.Especially as I have only driven an automatic car twice.Never mind I’m assured its just like driving a bumper car.You just press a peddle.

Ally Pally was packed.We headed straight for the £1 stall,unfortunate so had everyone else.I used to not enjoy Ally Pally as Hubby used to flit backwards and forwards between here and the States,the dollar was weak so he’d come home with lots of scraping goodies for me.I used to walk around All Pally tutting as I wouldn’t pay the prices ,which at the time were double what I could get in the States.But times have changed.Hubby hasn’t been to the States in over a year and our pound just seems worthless.So I was prepared for some serious shopping.I knew I wouldn’t make earlier mistakes with purchases.I now know my own style and what I am likely to use.

Sandra and I also recognise each others style ,so we can point things out to each other.We tended to buy the same papers ,but we will come up with totally different styles of layout.

We found a range both of us hadn’t heard of before Melody Ross for GCD studios.It was bright and eclectic just like I love.(but rather pricey)

I was so intrigued that I googled Melody Ross when I got home.It turned out she she used to own the scrapbook company,Chatterbox.But after a tragic accident her husband suffered,they lost their home and business.Take a look at her blog it makes interesting reading.

Now Sandra is known for her love of tools.She professes to get great use out of them.But I have seen little evidence.Her BIA is only now being rescued from its dusty corner it has sat in for over a year.This was the lady who got a BIA and didn’t make mini books!!!

When Tim Holtz’s grunge board and its tools came out.Out came Sandra's pennies again and everything purchased.Its a running  joke between us how many times Sandra and Hilary have used there hammers.

 

I found this Melody Ross gigantic mallet  for sale.

We were in hysterics and I think Sandra had wished she was wearing a Tena lady pad after our photo session.

 

No doubt when I am not around to stop her ,this mallet will find its way into her tool kit.Collecting dust along with all the other “useful”  items.

 

Here’s a little of the stash I purchased.

Checkout those cute little chipboard suitcases at the top of the above picture.They will make great little travel mini book holders and they were just £2.99 for the pair.Me and Sandra hyperventilated over several papers and we even bought several things and split them ,even that train paper on the right.We purchased some fab flags/pins.But there were far too many for one person to use.So we made an executive decision and purchased them to split three ways with our friend Hilary.

I texted her at her scrapbook retreat to advise her she had made a purchase.Lets hope in her extensive stash she doesn’t already have them.

I have been busy over the last week moving all our photos from their old flip photo albums into some new spotty slot albums.

I have boxes of photos I’ve inherited from my parents that I am trying to merge with mine.

So far I have filled 4 albums and I’ve only covered my Sons birth up to my Daughters 2nd birthday!I have to keep sending out for more albums.Plus its been very frustrating trying to remember the occasion and date when the photos were originally taken.

Most of the time I am grouping them by the outfit each child is wearing.My children always wore very distinctive colourful clothes,mainly Oilily.They were my way of expressing my eclectic,colourful style.Luckily for them I now have scrapbooking and a home to experiment on.

Its funny as they dress very conservative now.Tasmin likes to blend in particularly.

I’m off to enjoy the sunshine scrapping in my conservatory.So watch this space for my attempt at a challenge Shimelle has set .

rain,rain,go away

This was my attempt at working with transparencies for Shimelles class.I’m not a great lover of vellum or shiny plastic on a layout.I pulled out lots of bits and bobs for this ,but when I saw the 3 birds I knew they were perfect for a layout of 3 old birds….

We have another day planned for photographing bluebells.Fingers crossed it won’t rain again.

Today's prompt for Tracey's class was to take pictures of something pastel.

I have to come up with some other ideas for this,as I didn't feel that inspired today because it was a wet damp day.

 

 

Yesterdays prompt was to take a self portrait.Thank God Tasmin came home when she did.I needed 3 hands and ten foot long arms to take these.

I had been inspired to take some pictures with close up flowers after finding this amazing photographer Kirsty Mitchell.Tasmin went to school with one of the models and came across the photos on facebook.Check out her flickr and blog.She makes all the props herself and can you believe it,she’s new to photography.

 

I grabbed Tasmin for some natural shots.Very natural as she’d just got out of bed…..

I love that Tasmin is out of focus in this first one.

Mondays prompt for the class was to get down low on the ground.All well and good,but you may remember I didn’t get dressed on Monday.But there was a moment when the light was good,so I grabbed a cushion and went out in the garden.Now I’m not very agile,and as I got down on the grass,I feel backwards legs all akimbo.

Lets just hope the neighbours weren’t looking out the window,otherwise they got a glimpse of what I’d had for breakfast!…..

 

Now I know a few of you are jealous of my amazing DIY hubby.I am thinking of patenting this amazing duster he’s made.He was so proud of it????

We have impossibly high ceiling in our house,so without a ladder I can’t  reach the lights or cobwebs.But I am now the proud owner of this contraption.

I will be taking orders as soon as Hubby has finished my scraproom.

 

Now remember this gorgeous display when I share with you my garden as we landscape it this summer.

Hubby was chuffed with his little spring display and asked me if I’d seen his handy work!!!!

See it,I’d nearly wet myself laughing.So when you see the garden evolving this summer, know that he’s doing the digging and I’m standing orchestrating the planting.

I’ve rescued the bellis flower from its lonely home to this little gathering.