learning all the time

Well, that's the second thing that I went to last week which I really didn't want to go to and it turned out to be a triumph.

Holiday on Ice - I went to a similar thing about 20 years ago, and it was good - but I have never felt the desire to go again, and when Mark gave me and Oliver tickets for the February 'Energia' show at Westpoint, for Christmas, although an extremely thoughtful gift - my heart sank.

Now, it may well be that the last time I went, I was in the throes of a very dull first marriage and months away from separation and so my emotional responses to anything at that time probaby weren't terribly reliable, but I squared my shoulders, put my head down and summoned up enough enthusiasm to get us in the car and out to Wespoint on Saturday night. And shame on me - it was a bloody fabulous show - Oliver's excitement was reward enough and a joy to share, but the skating, costumes and wow factor were just brilliant. I am definitely going to go next year and boy, I have learnt a few lessons over this one.

I took some crap photos which I will share with you, and I got a right old telling off half time for using my camera. Feel a bit aggrieved to have to take a bollocking for such crap results.

Before the show started:

and no, despite all evidence to the contrary, we were not high on drugs.


Last week was half term, and saw Oliver going off with the holiday playscheme to Plymouth Aquarium. I've never been, but he said it was brilliant, and had a great time. They did some activities there, one of them was making 'goo', and so taken with this idea, Oliver took the trouble to ask the man how to make it, and then spent a considerable amount of time using up all my cornflour at home.

Feeling very content to see his enthusiasm for creating/finding out in action.

wet, cold, miserable.....

that's how the day looked like it was going to pan out to me this morning. And, weather wise - it was. However, in terms of unexpected enjoyment - the day was a big 'free' success.

Diggerland Devon. Has never appealed to me - how could it. It has the word 'digger' in its name. Yawn. Diggers don't do it for me. Maybe it's because I am a girl (yes, I am), or maybe because diggers are just bloody DULL and are just functional machinery, I dunno - but, for 8 year old boys - this place is Valhalla - the epitome of joy and power in their little worlds. Even though it was wet, and cold, and I froze my tits off for nearly three hours - it was worth it - because Oliver and his friend enjoyed it so much. I actually had Tesco Clubcard vouchers so it was technically free - the normal admission price is £17!!!!!! But even I must admit, I would consider coughing up for this. (Although it would piss me off to have to cough up £17 for me to get in too....)

Oliver was able to drive most things - tractors and diggers, and I guess that feeling of control for a kid must be fantastic.

Have now just about thawed out, and looking forward to a hot bath as highlight of the day.

I've had enough

I feel restless, fed up - on the verge of a big change.....

Fellow bloggers may have noticed that I have stopped following your blog.....please don't be offended, I was just getting overwhelmed with blog updates, but I still have them on my internet favourites, and will be dropping by from time to time....

One blog I have followed for a long time is Let Her Bake Cake, by Hilary, a canadian girl transplanted to London. Now I love this blog - it is my mostest favouritest blog of all. I found it one day by link from Shimelle (well known to you scrapper gals) and I love the tone she sets, and I love her love of baking. Do drop by, because she seems like a nice chick (she nearly always comments on the comments you leave) and quite often she has a damn fine recipe featured there. To this end, I have been having a go at the Ottolenghi brownie recipe she featured fairly recently, and this is the brownie stack I made for Dad's 65th birthday:

They are, very good brownies. Although the general concensus of opinion is that half of one at a time is enough. There are four 100g bars of choc in the recipe (makes 9 biggies). I chop up one bar as an 'addition' and boy, it's rich.

On Thursday Oliver and I trollied off to Plymouth to see the Horrible Histories show, Awful Egyptians. It was really very, very good. We both love HH - it is just the bees knees, the mutts nuts, the top banana of kids entertainment masquerading as education. Here we are with our boggle goggles on. The second half of the show used a 3D screen, and it was brilliant. I screamed like a girl, along with the other hundreds of real (under age 12) girls in attendance.



Mark, Oliver and I went to the cinema this morning and saw Voyage Of The Dawn Treader. It was great, although my eyes leaked tears (really - not crying, just welling up and spilling out) throughout the last 10 minutes when the children were leaving Narnia, and Reepicheep (sp?) was heading off to Aslan's world. I fear I am becoming (more) mentally unhinged. Have had a headache since.

Gotta sign off - nearly time to dish up our Saturday night roastie - I thought we were having pork, but when the meat was defrosted and ready to go in the oven, it looked suspiciously like lamb. I hope it is lamb, because I have chucked in a load of rosemary with it.

it's a new day, it's a new dawn, and I'm feeling

extraordinarily tired, actually.

Went to Haytor on Saturday as the sun was shining. Again I found myself cursing that the English weather had conned us in to thinking it would be a lovely little trip out. It was bloody freezing up there, although very pretty.

Oliver (well, Mark paid for obviously) bought me these flowers at Trago:

Mark and I had a heated couple of sentences, not even a squabble, really, over a new spelling initiative he started with Oliver last week. Think in truth, I spoke out of turn and thoughtlessly, and he massively over-reacted. Hence forth, no spellings have been done, and we both feel shitty. Sigh. Why is life so tricky. No answers on a postcard please, it's a rhetorical.

We have finally worked our way through volume one of the Story of the World history book, which has been fantastic, and kindled an interest in history for Oliver, and fuelled my passion for the past. Will be trying to get hold of volume two soon. Another piece of Egyptian history was added to the timeline last week, and this week we are off to Plymouth to see the Horrible Histories on tour show: Awful Egyptians. Both looking forward to that.

Well, better get going. Really I am just delaying the inevitable washing up, wrapping up of ebay parcels, preparing a veg casserole, avoiding strangling the dog and then getting bullied by the Biggest Loser Kinect game. etc etc etc. Now, do I insist on getting cracking on some home-ed worky stuff, or do I leave Oliver whilst he is quiet and playing an energetic Kinect game of football? Find this the constant dilemma of home-edding.

To do, or not to do, that is the question. No, no answers needed for this either.

so THAT'S where all the toilet roll goes

Oliver and Kinect boxing. Sigh. All very comendable in the initiative deparment until one needs a big poo and there's no loo roll around because he is being Rocky Balboa in the living room.

My entry for the fire colours journal:

This is the last one in the circle of ten, tomorrow I am due to receive my journal back, so will show that off later in the week.

today's table

looks like this:

Disclaimer: the hair straighteners and wine glass are nothing to do with home education in any way, shape or form.

In fact the meagre amount of lovely cold white wine I just quaffed was to compensate me for the sweaty and shaky half hour I've just spent at the Doctors having a mole surgically removed. Oliver cried (real tears) at lunchtime when he realised he had to accompany me to this 'procedure' and then once in the Docs surgery promptly went from sitting in the corner with his ipod and headphones on and eyes shut to pulling up a chair to the end of the bed and telling me gleefully that there was 'blood dripping from the injection'. What a ghoul.

On the table today we have maths (Saxon 54) and Sudoku. The maths is going extremely well, and it is something I enjoy with him, because he gets it and likes it. The sudoku is a new thing, prompted today by an email from the lovely Louise re Activity Village. He gets it and is enjoying it. It works on logic, and needless to say, me and logic are not best mates. In fact we are not even on nodding terms. Glad to see that the boy does not take after me in many aspects of life....

Also in the pic is Oliver's new notebook for spanish sessions at the hut - I didn't even realise that everybody else took a notebook - so my poor little lad has been drawing on loose bits of paper like a pauper! tsk tsk. So today we went and bought a lovely new pad and some pens - it was great, reminded me of the first day of term at school with lots of delicious new stationery.

And finally....

This is Ladram bay on Sunday. Lovely, one might think. But - no. In this pic you should just be able to make out my dog, buggering off up the beach back towards the car. Mark (unseen in the pic) is strolling off in the opposite direction, patently ignoring the impending screaming at the dog to return. Also note the evil glowers coming from the hiking fraternity on the far right. (no dogs on the beach apparently, which we decided to ignore....) Clearly Harvey is a better reader than us because he left the beach of his own accord pretty sharpish like .....

junk journalling

Welcome to my 'new' thang. Junk journalling, as far as I can gather, is pretty much just bunging anything you want to into a book which you think looks good, and lots of paint. To this end, here is the beginning of mine - an altered book. I won't 'do' the cover until much later, but at the moment I am finding gentle satisfaction in slapping paint about.

Here is a 'naked' page;

The 'nude' front cover;

a few 'ready-for-entries' pages;

a couple of completed pages;

Tres enjoyable. Also picked up my cross stitch again, pic to follow of progress made with that.

Home edding update to come.....

I have lost £3.....

....no, sorry, that's 3 lb that I have lost this week. Ha ha - it's a joke - see how I did that? £ - lb?? Never mind. It was funnier in my head.

And helping me along the way in my quest for a less chunky moi is an Xbox Kinect game - the Biggest Loser. Now, this is apparently a game show type programme on tv (never seen it) for tubbies who need to lose weight before they die of a cardiac arrest. It is, as confirmed by the reviews of the game, a difficult one to control. If you were thinking of getting a Kinect - and I think it's a fab concept because it generally means that instead of your kids sitting on their arses getting blistered fingers from using handheld controls, they are up on their feet using energy and co-ordination. No, it doesn't compare with being in the great outdoors for real, you puritans, but it is a good step for lazy gamers (of which there are millions) - anyhoo, IF you were thinking of getting one - you need alot of room. I frequently find myself backed into the farthest reaches of the room pressed up against the corner of the sofa trying to be seen by the sensor whilst preforming a series of 'jab crosses'.

AND, the point of today's diatribe is - this game is shit. Buy it if you want a programme of controlled exercises to follow on a regular basis (I do), but if you are not deft with the old control aspects of gaming (I am not and frequently swear at the console) and the constant drawl of American twang jars at the very core of your patience (good jaaaahb, perfect pose - just like a yoga master) then don't buy it - you will end up very angry.

AND - today, because the stupid pile of shite (the console, obviously - not me) hadn't saved what I'd done last week (3 workouts, no less), I had a terrible score and ended up at the bottom of the 'leaderboard' and up for elimination!!!!!! What utter bollocks. What happens if you get eliminated from your own game that you bought and paid for and can turn off at any time is a bit of a mystery to me. I ended up watching the elimination process in fascinated horror as it came down to me, or 'Amanda' getting kicked off the show. Luckily, 'Enzo' voted for me to stay, not Amanda, and I live to workout another day. Phew. I noted my character, a little fat round object in a red vest, collapsing on the podium in sheer relief.

Truly, I fear for our future.

ok, ok, don't faint

I am back in blogworld. The reason for the break? Er, Christmas, disillusionment with scrapbooking, holidays, blah blah blah....

So, Christmas was good - highlights and lowlights as ever. Great pressies received by us all, and it passed peaceably enough. We had the fortune of going to Lanzarote just after Christmas to join Mum and Dad in a villa in Puerton del Carmen - somewhere I have not (and never wanted to) visited before. How narrow minded am I?? It was, although a tad purpose built and touristy, lovely in it's way. The weather was idyllic - hot days, cool evenings, the resort was not busy. We had a villa with our own pool (that's a luxury that I will now demand from any holiday, I can tell you) just up from the main promenade, near the shops (tacky or not, I don't care - shops is shops), and I loved being able to bimble along either way along the beach/prom for a walk. Pics:

Cheezers:

Oliver and his nemesis, the front crawl:

Canarian sunset:

studying the specials board:

Madre y Padre:

Now this - this was an experience. Mum and Dad talked us into a stroll out to see the planes land - YAWN I think to myself - but - sacre bleu - how wrong could I have been mes amis - it was bloody fabulous, free entertainment!!! The runway was yards from where we were standing, and they came in at a speed of at least one million miles per hour and brushed the top of my hair.... well, it seemed that way anyhow. It was well good (as I would say if I were young enough to get away with it).

Get yer fill of that blue sky.......

The baking from Saturday's blog post of intentions:



The cherry & almond flapjacks were very good I have to say, the mince pies - well, same shit different year really. I hate my mince pies. In fact, I'm not at all convinced that homemade mince pies are worth the time, money and clearing up anyhow. I am sticking firmly to my shop-bought preference from now on. Sod it.

Today we got on with the timeline. We did the birth of the Jewish Nation, and it was fantastic to witness Oliver's joy at producing aesthetically pleasing work. He is genuinely enjoying this timeline, so I am dead chuffed with it.

laters.

do have a look....

....it's bloody funny.

http://www.52newthings.co.uk/the-52-new-things-list/

In a break from my blitherings, do take a look at the link above, it's a bloke who is trying (with the aid of suggestions) to do something new every week. My personal favourites are the walk home, the back, sack & crack and the colonic. Hilarious.

It is Mark' s birthday. It has started off with pressies (well received, I think - he is very difficult to buy for) and now he has taken himself off to the osteopath. Not as a result of the presents, I might add.


Oliver is off a-Pokemon-ing for the day, so I am left to my own devices. heh heh heh. Here are my intentions:


1. Get out all the gifts from the wardrobe thus far purchased for Oliver and make a list of what we have


2. Make mince pies (somethng I almost never do as they seem cheaper and easier and nicer than mine, but saw a recipe using ground almonds in the pastry, and think this will make all the difference. (yes Kim, I know you always do this....no one likes a smarty pants ;) )


3. Make cherry & almond flapjacks


4. Douse, sorry, feed my Christmas cakes with the last half of a bottle of brandy (the first half of the bottle already being in the cakes)


5. Squeeze in some exercise. I am uncomfortably aware of the tightening of my waistband and too-snug fit of jeans around my inner thighs. Problem is, for the first time I ever remember, I really just don't want to exercise. sigh.


6. Finish my second beaded bauble whilst watching Foyle's War. I love Michael Kitchen.


7. Ignore no 5.


8. Feel guilty for not doing no 5.


9. The usual drudgery: washing, washing up, changing the bedclothes......


10. Dye my hair. Well, cover the greying, darkening roots really. I have a box of 'natural baby blonde' waiting for me. How the word 'natural' can be incorporated into a box of hair dye positively bulging with artificial chemicals is beyond me...


This years tree:




Fabulouso.

'Tis the season....

and we're off. Yesterday was officially the start of the festive season, but due to the general business of Wednesdays, the erecting of the tree has had to be delayed. Much to Oliver's utter disgust and distress. When we were kids and had a real tree (miss the smell but not the clearing up) it didn't go up until a week before the big day. The goodies didn't go out until Christmas Eve. Last year I put the goodies out at the same time as tree went up and everything got scoffed by the end of the first week, earning me a bollocking from Mark. This year I'm planning a more staggered assault on the cellulite and general indigestion (the real meaning of Christmas obviously not being lost on me then) by putting out carefully selected and limited treats. (boring)

Yesterday's efforts:



The Advent Box




The Nativity scene


Today we have awoken to snow! Quelle delight. So the putting up of the Christmas Tree will take place on a snowy cold December day - a la Dickens, so I am forgiven by Oliver.


The morning dog walk


Although it looks as if I walked him at around 4am, this is not the case. I am just crap with the camera, and have the uncanny knack of managing to make a photo look as if it was taken in a completely different time zone than we are actually in.


see?



Also, I am now snapping photos of every aspect of our daily life in order to capture for posterity our December doings for my journal. Bit of a drag that I can't print them up, and since I need them at a smaller size than the norm, I have to get Photobox to send me my prints every few days (or it becomes hideously expensive).



And I beaded this




Hasta Manana dudes.

it's all about me

In a fit of rash creativity, I signed up for a swap on UKS (not again I hear you cry) - a fairy in a box swap. No, I don't know what possessed me either. Anyhoo, I have not taken part in any discussions on the thread about it, so frozen by terror at producing something hand made not from paper.... so here 'she' is in her beaded no-face glory.

Apparently I have to give her a name and decorate a box for her to live in too. Effin hell when will the torture end...

And here lies my entry for the Colour My World Art Journal:

This one is sunset colours, and I have used the lyrics from the Garth Brooks (who?) song 'Standing Outside The Fire'. Basically I think the message in it is do or die. Throw yourself in and get on with it or be a wimpy, insipid wraith on the edge of life. That sort of thing.

I struggled enormously with this one. I couldn't get any images to 'work' so have had to resort to typography. Quite pleased with it in the end though.

Also, I have finished (yes, you have read correctly) finished, a very under-used word over here at me and my amusings, my December Daily journal. It is now all ready for the beginning of the festivities on Dec 1st. Lovely. Bring it on.

Oh - and I placed a bet! A real live one online with a real live bookmaker!! Tee hee aren't I the daring one. It was on the next evictee on 'I'm A Celebrity...' (yep, I love it) and I won £44!!! How fabulous. Still, only a drop in the bottomless well of expense that masquerades under the name of Christmas.

And don't give me that old cobblers about the true spirit of Christmas and making your own gifts etc etc because I have made my own gifts before and it costs twice as much as popping into Boots on a 3 for 2, I can tell you. I can fully appreciate the true spirit of Christmas without needing to resort to sparse decorations and an orange and a couple of brazil nuts in our stockings. so there.