The happy couple

Experimental cooking

2011-11-26T18:30:00.004Z

Hi everyone!

Douglas and I watched Thomasina Miers recent TV series - Mexican Food made Simple, then got the book!

Tonight, I decided to make Empanadas and a roast tomato and chilli salsa to go with them.

Here are the recipies!

The Empanadas

3 Tablespoons of Mayo

1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard (oops I put in a tablespoon and used wholegrain mustard)

1 Green Chilli

A couple of splashes of tobasco (I used Chipotle, a bit milder)

8 oz graded cheddar

1 packet of puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

Salt and Pepper

The Salsa

(these quantities make more than you need.. you could half this much quite easily)

4 plum tomatoes (we didnt have plum so I used normal ones)

2 cloves garlic

1 large jalapeno chilli (I used a red chilli as we didnt have any jalapenos)

1 large tablespoon of chopped coriander (I missed this out as D does no

t like it fresh)

1/2 a white onion finely chopped then rinsed under cold water (I would suggest frying it, or use spring onions. The raw onion was too...... raw!)

Juice of 1/2 a line (we stuck lemon juice in, as thats what we had)

a pinch of sea salt.

How to do it!

Put the oven on to 200'C, 400/F or Gas 4.

Grate the cheese, mix it into the mayo and mustard, finely chopped chilli and mustard.

Roll out the pastry and cut into circles of about 10cm diameter.

I cut round a large ramekin dish which was fine.

Get trays ready with greaseproof or baking paper on.

Put about a tablespoon of mix in the middle of each circle

Brush egg round the edges and fold over into mini pasties.

Brush the top of each parcel with egg to make them look shiny when cooked.

Cook them for about half an hour!

Whilst your empanadas are cooking...

Get a heavy bottomed frying pan and heat it up (dry)

roast the chilli, tomatoes and garlic by turning them now and then in the fryi

ng pan. They got a bit burnt on the outside, but thats how they should look! Making tomatoes and chilli stay on the bit you want to cook is also rather hard, either hold them in the right place, or prop them up with the garlic :-D

Peel the garlic, and take the skin off the tomato if you can, and bash them and the chilli (oh, take the top off it) in your pestle and mortar.

The first time we made this, D put it into the blender, and althoug

h it tasted lovely, it was rather watery. Bashing it in the pestle and mortar gives a rougher texture that is nicer.

Put the finished salsa in the fridge whilst you are waiting for your baked cheesy goods!

PS The following photo is sideways :-( I cannot convince Blogger to turn it round, even though I have turned it round on my laptop. Grrr!

I hope you enjoyed the "In Progress" photos, here is the finished article!!

The empanadas tasted lovely, and the salsa, though a tiny bit too hot for my taste was gorgeous too!

October update

2011-10-23T12:45:00.006+01:00

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blogging! I will try to blog more often again :-)

We started the month with a visit from my co-Freegle Moderator, Sairah, her partner and their kids, Adam who is 6, and Thomas, who at the time of the visit was officially not born as he was about 6 weeks early!
On the 7th October we went down to London for a couple of days to see Ds brother Simon. We found a B&B is Islington called Kandara Guest House which was in a quiet road, very close to the bus route and very comfortable, I highly recommend it if you need a base in London for a holiday.

Simon was a wonderful guide. He took us to lunch on the first day at a Malaysian restaurant. It looked a bit cheap and cheerful, but the food was good. Click here for a link to trip advisor reviews. We wandered round bits of London, and went back to our B&B exhausted!

On Saturday, Simon took us to Borough Market in South East London. We had a wonderful morning walking round the market, testing cheese and cakes, and buying some lovely stuff to take home and to have lunch. It isnt cheap, but it was a nice treat. I'm sure we will be going back at some point :-)

I'm sure the photos will speak for themselves!

We also went round a small part of the Tate Modern, and after that we were exhausted!

We got back on the Sunday lunch time, had a few hours to relax before D's older brother Mike, his wife Rhona and their kids Andrew and Aileen descended upon us for a few days!! The kids stayed with us, and the grown ups stayed in a holiday cottage a few miles away.

We had a lovely few days, going to Speedwell Cavern, and then to Chatsworth House. We all went round the house, then Mike and Rhona went for a look round the countryside, I took the kids to the petting farm where we were able to cuddle some guinea pigs. Douglas chilled out in the car whilst Aileen squeeked more than the guinepigs with her favourite word - "cuuuuute!!" - This word seems to apply to any small furry animal, including our cats who were not impressed at being enthused over ;-)

The other interesting thing we have done this month is going up to a workshop in Neon Glass in Wakefield.

We learnt how to bend tubes of glass, and saw the process of creating a vacuum in the tubes, cleaning them with Helium gas, then putting Neon Gas in to create a wonderful red colour when electricity is applied! I found this on our local Groupon email, and thought it looked fun, and indeed it was! Again, photos will say more than words :-)

Sticky end to our Holiday!

2011-08-08T21:06:00.004+01:00

On the Sunday night, Douglas didnt feel very well. We were due to leave Monday morning anyway, so I packed the car and had breakfast - Douglas by this time was feeling worse, and didnt eat anything.

We went to say our farewells on camp, and retrieve our camping chairs, but Douglas stayed in the car feeling horrible.

As we drove into Ripon, we decided to make a detour and go to the cottage hospital. It would have been about a two hour drive to Sheffield Hospital and we decided that Douglas really couldnt cope being in a car for that long.

The staff at Ripon were lovely. They found Douglas a trolley bed, and called their Doctor who arranged for him to be taken, by ambulance to Harrogate Hospital as Ripon is only really for minor injuries. Douglas was feeling and being sick, and his temperature had risen considerably.

I nervously followed the ambulance, having never been to Harrogate Hospital before. The driver was lovely and made sure I followed her all the way.

I met up with Douglas shortly after he had been given a bed, and stayed with him for what seemed like an eternity.

The Doctors came, but some iv antibiotics into Douglas as well as some pain releif - he had contracted yet another infection that because of his poor immune system had raged right through him very quickly.

So.. there he was, stuck in a Harrogate hospital and there was I, stuck without my beloved at the end our our holiday!!

I went home, as I couldnt think what else to do. I packed a suitcase with clothes, kindle, his mbile phone and many other home comforts, and had a bad nights sleep :-(

I phoned work early on the Tuesday, told them I wasnt coming in and why, and set off up to Harrogate again. I was devastated whenI got there to find I had left the lovingly packed suitcase at home on the living room floor!!!!

My lovely husband forgave me - he was just pleased I had come to keep him company for the day :-)

I reluctantly went home, and somehow managed to work on Wednesday - I think I was on Auto Pilot!!

On Thursday I went back up to Harrogate (work very kindly agreed I could have a days emergency leave... I think I would have gone anyway!!) This time, I took the suitcase with me!

The Doctors said there was no chance of me taking him home, although he was feeling much better, but then.. right out of the blue at 2pm they said he could go home!!!!!!!

After a very looong wait for his tablets, we escaped, and got home by 6pm!

Here endeth our summer holiday.

You won't be surprised to hear that I slept like a log that night, with my Douglas back beside me, and slept loads over the weekend to catch up with what I'd missed.

Our summer holiday 2011

2011-08-08T20:40:00.006+01:00

Every year we go up to North Yorkshire, and stay in the Ripon area.

In 2010 we found a luxiouious B&B called The Old Coach House, in North Stainley

http://www.oldcoachhouse.info/

So we decided to make a return trip. I am glad to say it was just as lovely as last time, and a great place to base ourselves for a long weekend.

The reason we go up to this area every year is to meet up with like minded Pagan friends who gather to celebrate Lammas (Harvest Festival) and to have a lovely relaxing weekend in each others company.

There are about 200 people that go to camp in what essentially is just a couple of fields with a tap and some composting loos. We also have access to a field with a stone circle that some of the campers helped to build.

On this family friendly weekend, all ages are represented - from the fairly newly born to the elderly, some of whom (like us) cheat and "camp" in B&Bs nearby. There are talks and activities, but we mainly just chill out with The Dagda, the Pagan security group that keeps us all safe and sorts out any problems.

This weekend was very special as Douglases best friend Dave was having his handfasting (like marriage) We were delighted to be there to witness Dave and Liz saying their vows and having their hands tied to represent their married lives beginning.

The camp disorganisers normally do not allow any photos on camp, as not everyone is "out" as a Pagan in their normal lives, but as Dave and Liz specifically wanted photos, the rule was waived.

Davd and Liz looked beautiful as we stood between the stones of the stone circle plighting their troth.

After the vows had been spoken, the newlyweds came round the circle with a drinking horn full of wine and some biscuits, giving some to each of the many people who had come to witness their wedding. If you look carefully at this lower picture, you will see that Dave and Liz are bound to each other. They stayed bound until the evening!

We are honoured every year with the presence of Damh the Bard. Dave as he is also known, composes, sings and plays beautiful Pagan tunes that Douglas, I and very many others at Camp adore. You can see him, looking up at the sunny day whilst a piper does his bit.

What a very special weekend that was :-)

Lumarium - Architects of Air

2011-08-08T20:24:00.008+01:00

On Thursday 28th July - the day before our long weekend holiday, I dragged Douglas into town to see a Lunarium created by Architects of Air.

Imagine going inside a static bouncy castle and looking up at the light from the sky coming in through the plastic.. then imagine that the colours are vivid and beautiful.. reds, yellows.. purples.. blues.... This art installation had come to town just for a week. I took Douglas to see it on the last evening, and I'm very glad I did!!

Only a few people were allowed in at once, entering into a receiving chamber between two heavy flap like doors to keep the air pressure up inside.

We walked round in the maze of tunnels and cave like spaces, in awe of the beautiful colours, watching other peple wandering round, and some curled up on the floor in the sides just enjoying the atmosphere - I think one or two were asleep!

I hope you like the photos we took :-)

What a wonderful start to our holiday!

We are alive!!! (Part 5)

2011-07-24T20:03:00.004+01:00

Ok, I lied lol. THIS is the last update.

Whilst the guys were sorting out our patio, they found a gorgeous little animal under a stone, and put it in a bucket for me to see when I got home from work.

The boys told me it was a lizard, so I had a look and indeed it looked very lizard like, very small and very cute!!
I took some photos of it before finding a new stone for it to hide under. I sent the photos to my friend Eliese, and also put it on Facebook. My parents, and then my older brother then both told me that my dear little lizard was a baby smooth newt!!!

For scale, the white thing on the left edge is egg shell, and the green bits are blades of grass.

I was rather dissapointed, but having a newt is still rather nice :-)

We are alive!!! (Part 4)

2011-07-24T18:51:00.008+01:00

Hello blog readers! Part 4 and probably final part of my flurry of updates.

A month or so ago my mum and I took my younger brothers three kids to Whirlow Hall Farm ( Click HERE for a link!) sheering day. We parked in the field, and walked down to the farm to watch the sheering. We also spent some time making some sheep - well Leo tried the eyes, and Martha managed to make a sheep. I made one too, but it was a bit crazy as you will see by the photos!! We had a lovely time :-)

Crazy Leo :-)

Can you tell which one I made?

Douglas modelling the disaster sheep when it got home :-D The sheep is now on his desk at work lol!!

A few weeks ago, Douglas and I decided to get our horrible patio sorted out. The concrete lintel holding it all in was coming adrift, and it was a mess of weeds and uneven slabs - it was unusable and a mess!!

My parents knew a couple of young men - Richard and Alistair - who had fairly recently set up a gardening business, so after they had come round and had a chat, we decided to let them tackle their very first patio ever! They set a price, and promised that if it took longer they wouldn't charge as it was a learning process for them!!

Sadly I can only find one before photo, but I have more during and after photos!

This shows part of the patio before the lean-to got Freegled. It shows what a mess it was!

During..............

The guys took all the weeds out, removed all the old slabs, and dug the soil into the middle away from the area where the wall had fallen down, and away from the concrete lintel running parallel to the lawn, which needed re setting back into place.

They used a load of old bricks that were hanging around in the garden to make a good solid wall at the side of the path. They cleaned them all, and then created the wall, keeping the interesting ones for the top, so we can see where they were made - many from local brick factories that no longer exist.

This is the finished article in the evening sunlight :-)

The last one is Billy, who has given it his Royal seal of approval. We are very happy with it too!

If you live in the Sheffield area, and you would like a quote from Richard and Alistair, put a note on here and I will email you Richards mobile number :-) They are very hard workers, and you can see what a lovely job they made of their very first patio!!!

We are alive!!! (Part 3)

2011-07-24T10:02:00.006+01:00

A few weeks ago, my boss at work had some spare tickets to go see Billy Elliot in London, and very kindly gave them to me!!

I asked Douglas if he wanted to go, got a resounding NO, asked my mum who was going down to London that weekend to see a friend.. again got a no... so I thought again, and contacted my friend Eliese who was delighted!!

We decided to make a day of it, and set off quite early, courtesy of a Douglas taxi. Eliese had not been down to London for ages, so I decided we would go and explore Camden Lock. We had a great time looking at all the strange clothes and other items for sale, as well as some very strange people!! Here are some of the photos I took.

This is the actual Lock! We sat and had a drink in a lovely cafe.

We got the tube, and got to the Theatre with a bit of time to spare.. this is Eliese looking excited (we both were) before we went in.

The show was amazing, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was different from the film, but a jolly good stage show!!

After a curry at a nearby restaurant, we got the train home, ending up back at Sheffield Railway station at about 11pm! Douglas wasnt feeling well, so we got a taxi back to mine, then I drove Eliese the 5 mins up several hills back to her place. I went home, and collapsed into bed exhausted but very happy!

We are alive!!! (Part 2)

2011-07-23T22:22:00.006+01:00

We took Loonie and Amy to Bristol zoo whilst in the area. We had a great day looking at all sorts of animals - I think this one was the most fierce!

After the zoo, and dropping off Loonie and Amy, we went to Clifton (quite a posh bit of Bristol) and had a really lovely curry! Here I am having a veggie Thali - little portions of a few different curries! It made a good end to the day.

We also spent a day in Bath, having treated ourselves to a day at Bath Spa which was glorious. We each had an hour long massage, followed by four hours of the two pools and four steam rooms, broken by a glorious lunch in the Spas restaurant! This view is the roof top pool. The water is naturally warm, so sitting in it whilst feeling the cold (ish) air flow by and looking out at Bath is wonderful!!

On the day of the Royal Wedding, I watched the pomp and ceremony on TV in our holiday cottage whilst Douglas did his best not to :-)

We decided to leave a day early, because we had been invited up to Lawn Road, Fishponds, where we used to live. There is a park opposite our old house, and some of our ex-neighbours had organised a party! It was very strange to be back, but lovely to catch up with some of our old friends :-)

This photo is taken from the back of the church, looking onto our old house, and those of our ex-neighbours.

Loads of people turned up, we all brought food which was shared between all :-)

We drove back to Sheffield, got home at about ten, much to the joy of our cats who had missed us. We had a lovely holiday, but oh boy it was great to get back to our own bed!!

We are alive!!! (Part 1)

2011-07-23T21:12:00.004+01:00

Hello my lovely bloggers!

I think a big update is in order :-)

Lets start with some photos of our "summer" holiday at Easter in the west country. We stayed in a little cottage near Wells, so we were close to Bristol to visit friends and mooch round Glastonbury and Bath once again!

This is the Grand Hotel on Broad Street, Bristol. Its just up a bit from where we used to work, and also where my parents had their wedding reception many years! We were lucky to have such lovely weather for our weeks holiday :-)

Parts of Bristol have changed greatly since we lived there. There is a huge shiny new shopping mall there, which has very sadly sucked life out of the rest of of the center of town centre. The once busy Galleries mall looked like a ghostly shell.. such a shame.

One reason we went to Bristol was to meet up with our friend Leonie, who we have known for years.... Im her daughters Odd Mother (no, not God mother) We met up in the new posh mall, and had a very expensive lunch (Not fab food either!) The photo below shows Leonie looking like her nickname, Loonie, and Douglas with his "beetle wing" clip on sunglasses.

I think Amy enjoyed her lunch more than we did!!

The place we stayed was in a village just outside Wells. It was an old dairy, converted into a little flat with a bedroom, bathroom, galley kitchen and living/diner area. It was a lovely place in a quiet area, but the bed was very soft and we didnt sleep well - its one of the perils of having a holiday, you can't take your bed with you!!

This is Douglas chilling in the living area.

Auntie Sitting

2011-04-17T20:06:00.004+01:00

Last week my step Uncle Eddie was burried. My Auntie Lizzie had spent very many years looking after him - particularly recently when she spent many many hours by his side in a nursing home.

My parents have brought her to their home for a couple of weeks rest and recouperation.

Yesterday, Saturday, Douglas and I took Lizzie out for the afternoon. We packed her into our car, wheelchair in the back and took her out to lunch at The Old Train Station, Hassop. We had a very nice lunch before heading down to Bakewell.

We had a lovely walk round the town, stopping at various shops, and having a look round a craft fair. The nicest bit was walking through a park with highly coloured tulips in!

Lizzie very kindly gave us some money for some plants, so we got some lobelia and a couple of other things.. and a jar of lemon curd, which Douglas will enjoy for breakfast!

Friday 8th April. Kid Sitting Day

2011-04-10T06:47:00.004+01:00

Our Nephews and Neice have started their Easter holidays, and as their parents have still been working this week, Douglas and I booked a day off to "Kid sit" (They are too big to say "Babysitting" any more!)I went and collected them at about 8am, just before Thos and KT left for work.

To start the day off, all three kids came out into the garden and took turns mowing the lawn which they really enjoyed. We put the table and chairs back on the lawn and potted up some plants. Its great to be able to teach them how to fill soil in round a plant, bed it down with your finger tips and water it.

The weather was warm and sunny all day, and the kids had a great time in the garden, and although the lawn cutting wasnt perfect, the kids had fun, and it is good enough until next time it has to be cut.

My parents phoned to say they were popping round to visit, so we put our swimming and cinema plans on hold for a while. Martha helped me make a loaf - we have a breadmaker so its a case of throwing everything into the pan and pushing a button :-)

Leo requested to have a go at World of Warcraft - a computer game, and Martha watched "Alice" on Ds computer. Shes busy thinking about her startting role as the Red Queen in next terms school play. Leo is going to be the Mad Hatter but as yet, is not quite so excited as his sister.Carlo watched "Up" (A Film) so all was peaceful.

Having two kids aged 11, and one aged 6 to entertain can be a little difficult at times, as the little one has different likes and dislikes, but generally they all get on well.

The parents came round with their guests, then when they had gone, we had lunch.

After lunch we consumed nearly all of the amazingly tasty still warm loaf Martha and I made. Lamb/cheese and marmite sandwiches were consumed, then we went swimming. The pool was almost empty which was great! We played with an inflatable world I found ages ago, and Carlo ventured out into the swimmers only section, which was a first for us.

I took this after swimming - its a bit blurry but still a sweet photo!

For those of you wanting to know, Top left, Douglas, bottom left Carlo, Middle is Martha and far right Leo! Leo and Martha are twins aged 11, Carlo is 6 and Douglas.. well his mental age is normally about 5 lol!!

Carlo

As they are getting older, taking them swimming is getting easier.. I think we will be quite sad when they reach the point when they are old enough to go on their own, but thats a few years off yet :-)

We got back home at about 3pm, I had a sleep as I wasnt feeling very well, then at about 4 we took them home.

Once we dropped the kids off, we went into town and had an early tea at Wagamammas, which was delicious. They do Japanese noodle dishes, Im particularly fond of their Sweet chilli veg and tofu noodles (YUM) so I had that, and Douglas had some strange chicken dish. You can see my meal in the photo below.. and how much I enjoyed it by the other photo!

The plate of food magically seemed to vanish! not sure where :-D

Unusually for us, we were going to a concert that evening with Thos and KT, but we were quite early, so we went and sat in the Peace Gardens - a lovely public area with a fountain that kids (and bigger kids) can play in.

The kids enjoying getting wet, and the teenagers enjoying pulling their friends into the water, and coming out totally soaked. I hope they dried out before going home!!

At 7, we met up with my Thos and KT to go to see Karine Polwart, a Scottish folk singer with a really beautiful voice.

The venue was a not terribly pleasant nightclub called The Plug. As Karines brother (who was touring with her) said, if you stand still on the floor for too long you might get stuck there due to the sticky floor! (Far too many drink spills, and no cleaning had caused this)

Im glad to say that despite the lousy venue and the disgusting cider, Karines songs and the atmosphere were great. I met 7 members of my choir there, and one of them had somehow requested a song. Karine said that "she heard there was a choir in the house tonight" and welcomed them on stage!! About 4 of our group went up, and thoroughly enjoyed a little chance to share the glory! lol. (I was quite happy to watch from the floor)

We had a lovely evening,

Sucker Punch the Movie and Mouse problems!

2011-04-02T20:56:00.004+01:00

Douglas and I went to the movies this evening to see Sucker Punch - the term means an unexpected punch, or blow, and (without giving the ending away) its truely delivered at the end of the film.

Sucker Punch was very exciting. Its based on the story of a girl who gets put into a lunatic asylum, who copes by imagining that its a bordello, and then copes with that by going into a fantasy world on a Quest (complete with Japanese style fighting, monsters, helicopters and a smattering of dragons!) as part of trying to escape the asylum/bordello

If you enjoyed the film Inception, and you like Manga Action films, you will enjoy this psychological thriller.

Our evening out was spoilt a little by a rude man behind us, whose mobile rang TWICE during the film, and both times he answered it and had a conversation! ARRGGHHH! Surely the amusing "Orange Mobile" adverts about annoying mobile phones are clear enough?

********

We got back at about 6.30pm, Lilly was providing ornamentation to our cat stand ( a sawn off tree my dad made into a glorified scratching post for them) and Billy was draped over the back of the armchair. Both were looking out the front window waiting for us to return and their dinner to be provided, which of course it duly was.

I came up to our office shortly after coming home, and got on with some "homework" I had to do.
I'm on a development course at work, and last session we looked at managing ourselves and our workloads, and how we could improve ourselves.

Part way through this, Douglas called and asked me to come down.. he was just watching his favouite movie, the Wicker Man (the 1973 version, not the travesty released a couple of years ago) when a mouse scuttled past in front of the fire place!!

Douglas is not best keen on mice, so we got Lilly (she probably brought it in to start with) to go downstairs, but she was more interested in eating some left overs from her dinner. The mouse was cowering behind the TV, so I got a pint glass and a box lid, and crawled behind the Telly and very gently captured the unwelcome visitor, put the lid over the top as mice are talented jumpers, showed Douglas (not Lilly) and took it outside.

This is about the third or fourth mouse we have been "gifted" by the cats recently. Yesterdays offering came in almost dead, and was deposited into one of my shoes!! We remove these "gifts" praise the cats and hope for no more :-D

Dear pussies!

******** Update the next morning *********

After the cats had enjoyed their breakfast, they showed great interest in our downstairs loo, so I moved a few things in there and Lo and behold! The mouse was hiding there. I got my trusty pint glass and plastic lid, went into the loo and shut the door, and moments later I had the unwelcome visitor safely trapped. The mouse has now been interrogated, cautioned (it wasnt his fault after all) and extradited to his own country once more.

How long now until the next one???

When you are no good at DIY.. phone for help!!

2011-02-27T20:43:00.003Z

Douglas and I decided to do some spring cleaning today, so I got to do the downstairs loo, and our spare bedroom ( Billys favouite room because he can push open the closed door lol)

I noticed that our loo seat was wonky, and realised that it had broken, which could have been very painful for any posteriors coming into contact with the broken bit! Humph I thought.. going to have to buy a new seat, or see if anyone on my recycling network Freegle has got one going spare.

Next, I set about moving Lilly from the spare room, then stripping the spare bed, and sorting that room out. I looked at our very nice pine wardrobe, with the hanging bar and clothes dumped at the bottom. The bar kept falling out making the wardrobe totally useless.

Hmm who is good at fixing things.. Hmm.. I picked up the phone and left a message for my parents :-)

About half an hour later, my mum rang, and she and my dad came round very soon afterwards!

By some wonderful co-incidence, they had a spare loo seat, so with a bit of grunting and groaning to get the old one off, the new one went on and problem solved!!

Next, the rail in the wardrobe was sorted. My dad unscrewed the brass rail holders, and put them back in with some slivers of cardboard so they stuck out more. I hope the rail will now hold up, so Ds nice interview jacket wont get any more cat hairs on!

My mum, during this mending session, my mum dead headed some of my conservatory plants, and did some pruning in the garden until it started to rain.

How nice to have practical help so close to hand!

Thanks Ma & Pa!!!

Blowing my own trumpet!

2011-02-10T20:27:00.001Z

For those of you who listen to Radio 4 or the World Service, The title of this entry may sound like a topic for “Just a Minute” A very funny radio show/game in which the contestants are challenged to speak for one minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition on any subject that comes up on the cards )

Well, it is a very funny show, but this is about me (surprise surprise!)

In November, there had been some talk at work of a special training course those who wanted to develop skills useful for the supervisor job.

The idea was, for those of us who were interested would apply and have interviews as if for a real supervisor job.

This idea was put on hold as real supervisor jobs came up!!

I’ve been in my current job for 3 years now, have got involved in all sorts of projects and done a bit of coaching, so after being encouraged to apply, I tackled the huge application form and sent it in– First application for a job in three years. 32 people, all EA employees applied for about 5 jobs,

I wasn’t too surprised not to get an interview, but just after Christmas, I had some very valuable feedback on what I did wrong on my application form, and how to tackle one next time!

The same application forms were used to decide on 20 of us to be interviewed for the training group. I got lucky and was picked for interview!

I spent quite a few evenings working very hard on the competencies I would be asked about, making sure I had a couple of examples I could talk about that fit each section.

Well, dear reader, I found out yesterday that I had done well enough to get selected for one of the 6 places on offer.. But today.. and this is REALLY where the blowing of the trumpet starts!!!!

I had a meeting with my team leader, who told me that not only had I done well at interview.. But I had done better than EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!

Even better than that ( ohh yes ) I was the ONLY ONE that, had it been an interview for a supervisor role that got high enough marks to be considered for the job!!! Wow.

Now comes 6 months of training, and hopefully a few more opportunities to practice my application and interview skills!

Our new car!

2011-02-07T20:11:00.002Z

Introducing

LOLA!

She is a Honda Jazz, and we got her today :-)

Quick update

2011-02-05T13:58:00.002Z

Picking up our new car has been delayed until Monday.. so no photos yet.. but here is a picture of my lovely paperweight!

Its called Manhattan Nights. It reminds me of a holiday in New York, years ago with Douglas, and looks like a fairy castle. I love it!!

A Round Tuit

2011-02-01T09:26:00.002Z

Well, I keep meaning to get around to writing more blog, but then I forget and time goes by until someone prods me. I’m sorry, I promise to try harder.

Solstice

Well, we had a good Winter Solstice celebration on the 21st December. We had the day off work, and had a sleep in (well, only after I had got up at 6 to feed the cats)

Our gifts to each other were no surprise this year. Douglas and I had been to York on a day trip with his work a few weeks previous, and made me choose me a beautiful paperweight as I collect them on a small scale. I was delighted with his idea and being able to choose something so lovely!

I got an electronic book reader. As many of you will know, hes an avid bookworm, and can chew his way through a normal sized paperback in a couple of hours with no difficulty at all. Due to this, our house is overflowing with books, and despite putting up a lot of new shelves this year, his consumption of reading matter is still a problem!

We did a lot of research into the various devices available and settled on Amazons Kindle. He now carries a small bookshelf worth of books round with him on a device that weighs much less than many of his books, and our bookshelves, although still groaning, are not any fuller. RESULT!! (the other great thing is that many of the “e” books he has purchased are cheaper than the paper versions!

New Year, New Bugs.

As a new years gift, Douglas contracted swine flu. It started off with him feeling generally unwell, having a chest infection then feeling sick. Overnight he rapidly got worse, and found it hard to breathe, so we called the Dangerous Dr Service (err I mean out of hours service) who would said they could not see him for a couple of hours, so they sent an ambulance to take him to hospital instead!!

I followed on in the car, knowing that he would almost certainly be kept in, and I would need transport to get home again.

We got to the hospital at about 11am, Douglas was given a cubicle and a trolley to lie on, and was told it was almost definitely swine flu. He was given a facemask to prevent droplet infection, and eventually a nebuliser to ease his breathing. As the day wore on, the A&E department got more and more busy, patients filling every cubicle, and more lined up in chairs and trolleys in the middle of the corridor. We were in the infectious end.. there were many other people in the same situation as poor Douglas.

At 4pm, I went home, abandoning Douglas to get some food for me and the moggies – all three of us were very hungry! I went back at about 6. He hadn’t been offered any food or water in that time. I sorted both out, left him with a suitcase of stuff and went home again.

At 4am the next morning, Douglas was transferred to an “infectious diseases” ward in a different hospital, where he stayed for the next couple of days. He was given the famous drug “Tamiflu” and was very impressed with its effectiveness!

My parents very kindly acted as taxi and brought him home, for a period of recovery before he was allowed out just in time to celebrate my dads birthday!

New Year, New Car!!

Douglas and I had been thinking about changing our car. We have a Vauxhall Astra at the moment, which is about 8 years old, and enjoys eating our money through petrol, insurance, tax and repairs.

After looking at Which? and other organisations reports about second hand cars, we decided to go for a Honda Jazz. The Jazz is a much smaller car, less CC, but with excellent layout and good storage.

We visited our local Honda outlet, and were soon signing on the dotted line for a lovely two year old Jazz!! We have paid our deposit, and on Saturday we will pay the rest, leave our old car as part exchange… and voilla! Drive away our “new” car!!

Watch this space for a photo.. I will put one up as soon as we get the car.

We are still alive!!

2010-12-17T12:15:00.002Z

Hi everyone, just to let you know we are ok! - Im at work, doing this in my lunch as we are waiting for our new tv/broadband/phone to be connected hopefully next Monday.

A bit of news..

Douglas was given a new tablet for yet another problem he has ticked off from the new diseases/conditions left in his medical dictionary that he hasnt used yet, and it caused a mighty reaction on one foot, bringing him out in a very nasty itchy and sore rash. Walking was very painful for several weeks.

Im glad to say the rash has now gone (he stopped the tablet that caused it) and hes fine now.

We had a lovely day out in York at the Christmas Market with colleagues from his work. I "drove" Douglas in a wheelchair that we hired from Shopmobility, due to the above. We arrived back at home about 6pm, absolutley exhausted but very happy!

I applied for a new job at work, but didnt get to interview stage.. I need more practice at doing applications the way "they" want them :-)

The cats had their "Cativersary" on the 15th December.. this marks 4 years of their life with us!! They are a gift that keeps giving and giving (as long as we feed them, and tell them how much we love them every day!)

Douglas had a good works lunch out, going to a local pasta place and having steak.. it was a nice surprise and a big treat when a wealthy colleague decided to pay for the lot!!

In the new year Im moving teams at work. Ive done Waste Carriers stuff for three years now, and because I want to be developed (hence the application for a job one step higher than I am now) the Management have decided that they would play musical chairs with some of us. Im moving to the team that deals with all the emails the Environment Agency get.. which can be long and complicated at times!!

Well, happy Solstice/Yule/Xmas/New Year to you all,

I hope to be back online soon to post some photos!

Anna xx

Halloween Weekend Part 4 more photos

2010-11-01T20:38:00.004Z

Last lot of photos!

The Devil came to dinner.. and he ate vegetable soup!
(Maddys father!)

Marthas friend Maddy apple bobbing

Amy looking angelic

Halloween Weekend Part 3 Extra photos!

2010-11-01T20:27:00.002Z

These are general photos of the weekend.. each with a little caption below them!

Firstly, this is a photo of Billy with Amy behind him. I think Billy is saying
"What on earth is this monster doing in my bedroom?"
He looks quite alarmed! lol. He dosnt like kids much :-D

This is Martha and her friend Maddy looking Very scary!

Carlo borrowed my mask.. I think he looks great! His eyes look beady black. whohoooo!

Leo just after bobbing for apple peices! I wouldnt like to meet him on a dark night :-)

Halloweeen Weekend Part 2

2010-11-01T08:17:00.005Z

We arranged with my brother Thomas to hijack his house and have a Halloween party there, with Loony, little Amy and his kids.

We went shopping in the morning and purchased sausage rolls, indian mini bites, crisps, dips, carrots, and a few other party goodies. Earlier that day I made apple crumble to take with us too.

Amy was going as a fairy.. you can see her getting into her lovely little costume here.

By abut 5pm, we were all in our costumes faces painted, raring to go, so we packed all of our goodies (annoyingly we forgot the apple crumbles) and went of to the other side of town.

Amy went as a fairy, Loonie painted her face green, and had a wonderful witches hat, I went in my blue evening dress with a green and brown face, I put my green cape on and my leaf mask when we went out! Douglas did his face with white paint, with blood smeared on (paint again) he had medical "greens" with blood spatters on that looked quite gorey!

We drove down Thomases driveway to be greeted by a very scary zombie in a dinner jacket and bow tie, weilding two blood covered axes!! When we got into the house, the same scary monster was seen trying to kill a pumpkin. I must say he was making a pretty good job of it! lol!

The Zombie (aka Thomas) and the scary fanged Martha Monster

Carlo the Killer (in my green mask!)

Leo the Lurch

Even my mum joined in, by borrowing Loonies hat! I think it suited her very well (No Mother, Im not saying you are a wicked witch.. as you must know by now, most witches are not wicked!! lol)

More photos coming soon!!

Halloween Weekend, Part 1

2010-11-01T05:57:00.007Z

Our friend Leonie (aka Loonie) and her daughter (very nearly 3 now) came to stay for a long weeekend. Amy is sweet. Shes chatty and funny, and loves to try and do things for herself.

On Friday Douglas wasnt feeling very well during the day, but rallied round in the evening enough for a trip out to a buffet place near us called Flaming Dragon - mainly serving Chinese food, but with Brazillian roast and Teppan Yaki. The Brazillian bit just seems to be various meat done on a BBQ but the Teppan Yaki is great. There are dishes of raw ingredients.. meat, noodles and vegetables. You choose exactly what you want, and its cooked for you as you wait with soya sauce on etc.

We all had a good time.. as the photos below will tell you!

On Saturday, we went up to Walkley for a Give and Take Event that Sheffield Freegle were organising on a little patch of green land. The covenant on it says it shall remain undeveloped as long as there is at least one community event held on it each year, so Sheffield Freegle, Madame Zucchini (an entertainer who makes veg soup!) and a power company, with lots of energy saving info) all had stalls.

All of the volunteers had their photos taken with our trophy from the Sheffield Telegraph Environment Awards, which was great. I took a fishing rod I used to use as a hair scrunchie holder years ago, and took away a brand new lap/cushion tray which was great!

Having said our hellos and goodbyes, Douglas, Loonie, Amy and I headed up to Meadowhell as Loonie wanted some clothes for her little one.

Meadowhell was.. frankly hell. It was incredibly busy. We had borrowed a wheelchair for Loonie, as she has M.E. and gets tired walking very far, and a push chair for Amy.

Amy decided she would walk most of the way, whilst I pushed the pushchair that became a shopping and bag carrier. Douglas had the hard work pushing Loonie who is not thin by any manner of means. Towards the end, Ds job got harder as Amy sat on her mums lap.

We were all glad to get back home. I was exhausted, so fell into bed for a while, and Douglas collapsed on the settee for a bit. I think Loonie had a nap too!

We had a peaceful evening, chatting about plans for the next day. (Sunday blog coming soon)

Award Winners!

2010-10-24T22:37:00.006+01:00

Last Wednesday evening, some of Sheffield Freegle went to a posh hotel in town to the Sheffield Telegraph Environment Award ceremony.

We were up for "best recycling group" . It was all very posh. We had a speech from the editor of the newspaper, then another by a "Look North" weatherman who presented each award along with someone from various businesses that sponsored the award.

We were sat at large round tables, and served a meal before the awards were given out. I had a (weird) terrine of mixed peppers to start with, then for mains the menu said some kind of vegetable thing in pastry and mushroom sauce. I had already said no mushrooms please ( I don't like them at all!). The waiters came out saying "special diet" with two plates of the most insipid risotto Ive ever seen! My friend, and one of the group owners, Eliese, cannot have much dairy, but like me, when she saw this plate of stodge, she decided to have the strudel thing.

The strudel thing was weird but edible.. it was vegetable cous cous wrapped in pasty sitting on top of mashed potato with a few sad looking vegetables next to it. We had a very strange apple "jus" aka gravy with it.

Desert wasn't much better.. it was a dark chocolate and orange lump on a slightly soggy biscuit. Eliese had melon, a much nicer plateful!

The awards started.. our category, best recycler, was very near the bottom of the list.. it was quite nerve wracking waiting!

Our turn came.. they introduced Heely City Farm, then Sheffield Freegle.. we sat on the edge of our seats.. and the winner was......... SHEFFIELD FREEGLE!!! WOOOOT!

The three owners went up to get the award, then Adam got interviewed afterwards. I will try and find the clip and put a link to it in due course.

After the awards had been given out, there were still lots of people milling around the hall, so Eliese (on the left in the picture below) and I went round giving everyone our promotional bookmarks out, inviting them to join our group ;-) very cheeky but many people seemed genuinely pleased with the idea, and promised to join!

Anna xx

From the left.. Eliese Freegle Finegan, Adam Recycle Renison, Tracy Recycle Renison.. and me!

Desmond week 2

2010-10-24T22:19:00.005+01:00

It all seems quite a long time ago now, but I attended the second session of the Desmond course, which was mainly about food choices.

The main bit I remember (and was useful to me) was a practical activity involving moving a lot of different foods into three categories.. good, not so good and naughty. As expected, most of the nice things were in the naughty section, but the course does not ban any food.. just says be aware of them, eat less of them, and do some extra phyiscal activity to compensate for them!

I did learn a few tips, such as if you are frying food, a vegetable oil is better than olive (Olive oil is better in salads) , and that marge is better for you than butter, and foods rich in Omega 3 as it helps combat the affects of cholestrol in the body.

Here are a few pictures from the course.

So... what next?

Im trying to eat smaller portions, Im eating less chocolate, and trying to do a bit more physical activity, and taking my diabetic pills much more regularly as I know how they help me, even if I cant feel any changes.

I didnt find the 2nd week any thing like so interesting as the first, but then I know what I should and shouldnt be eating, and what has fat in it etc.

Overall, I think its a great course, and I wish Id gone on it much earlier, and I wish my GP Practice encouraged people to go on that, instead of trying to flog them £300 worth of hypnotism from a private practioner!! (Yes, one of my practice nurses really did this)

More soon from a most interesting week!

Anna xxx

Desmond

2010-10-10T19:22:00.004+01:00

Whats this? A new man in my life? (nooo one is enough lol) A new neighbour?

No!! you are all wrong! DESMOND stands for...

Diabetes
Education
Self
Management
Ongoing and
Newly Diagnosed

So.. on Saturday morning I went to the first half of a DESMOND course, because about a year ago I was diagnosed as having Type 2 Diabetes. When I was first diagnosed, I was very shocked, and very upset. The nurse dumped a handful of leaflets into my arms, and a prescription for some tablets, and that was that.

I read some of the leaflets, but as Douglas was already diagnosed with diabetes, I didnt really read further, and that was the limit of my education until someone mentioned that there was a course I could go on (the someone was definatley NOT my practice nurse or GP!!)

I didnt think I would get much out of the course, but I thought I'd go along anyway just in case.

There were about 10 of us in the group, lead by a specialist Diabetes nurse, and a practice nurse with a special interest in the subject.

After a chat about how the course was organised, and that it wasnt in a lecture format.. more working with knowledge we had as a group, putting it in order, and learning bits to add to it.

Each person said who they were, how long they had been diagnosed, what there symptoms were etc, which in itself was very interesting. We also put down any burning questions we had, so they can be dealt with during the two mornings the course spanned over.

Firstly we looked at what Type 2 diabetes was, and a very simple model, explaining that they key that unlocks the "door" allowing insulin to be used in our bloodstream does not work very well, and sometimes the "lock" itself is rusty as well.

If you look very carefully, you can see a key and a lock sitting on or close to the pancreas where insulin is produced. The parts were magnetic, so they were placed on as each one was discussed.

Various symptoms that the group had discussed were explained which was very interesting, then towards the end we played the "Sugar" game (oops wait.. did I say game? its an exercise! lol)

The nurses put items on the table, and we as a group had to put sugar lumps near each product to say how many lumps of sugar each one had in it. Again this was a very simplified exercise, but eye opening.. Things that say "low fat" often have a higher sugar content to make them taste nice!

Next Saturday, we will be talking a lot more abut diet, and physical activity (known to many of us as exercise!). We will be setting ourselves an individual target.. one thing to help us manage our diabetes better!

Lucozade is LOADED with sugar, as is the carton of concentrated orange juice!

So.. week one of DESMOND done.. It was very interesting, well paced, dealt with worries and anxieties and I really enjoyed it!

Please come back next week for the next exciting episode of .......

Anna goes Desmonding :-D

The Family Spirit

2010-10-04T12:56:00.004+01:00

On Sunday Douglas and I were invited over to my parents for lunch. The menu was roast chicken with all the trimmings (roast potatoes, parsnips, and veg) so I made some mini nut roasts as my chicken replacement.

I looked at my parents photos of their recent trip to Germany and France.. there are some really beautiful ones! My father defiantly has an artistic eye for pictures.

We had a really good meal. My younger brother and his 3 kids were also there, so it was a busy table full of Cosshams (and the honorary Cossham, Douglas) lol. It all went well, even Carlo, aged 6 who first of all announced that he wasn't hungry, managed to polish off a large portion, and then several extra chipolata sausages, followed by blackberry and apple crumble and ice cream!!

After lunch, my mum suggested a game of Monopoly, which we used to play quite frequently as kids, although my memory of playing was that the game took forever, and normally ended up with one or more kid in tears because they hadn't won!

Mum, Thomas, Carlo (assisting) and Leo

My mother tells me that when I was small I didn't have a competitive bone in my body, and that I was always happy when someone else won. Ok back to the main story :-)

My dad, Carlo and Martha had fun building (then destroying) marble shoots made out of the wooden bricks that have kept generations of Cosshams happy, whilst the rest of us rolled our dice and counted our money.

Slowly, my husband, my mother and my nephew were all bankrupted by either me, or my angelic baby brother, and left the game.

Douglas and my mum still solvent at this stage

My cards.. doing pretty well.

So then there were two. After managing to land then buy several properties that were owned by the bank, I had a whole row of properties with houses and hotels on. My brothers fate was sealed, and soon enough, he landed on one of my hotels, and that was that.

I will gloss over the near tantrum he had when he realised that he had been crushed by his most beloved, generous, kind but now horribly competitive older sister and just say that I went home with a very evil grin on my face, which strangely has come back again just now :-D

Ok.. there was a bit of a discrepancy over what happens when a player mortgages all his properties.. does the player whose rent needs to be paid got them, or do they just go back to the bank, so he might have had a teensey weensy point in his frustration, but the grin remains!!

Sweet Victory! Notice correlation between hotels and my properties :-D

Badgers need your help

2010-09-26T11:55:00.003+01:00

This is a quote directly from the RSPCA website. Please read and sign the petition.

The (UK) government has announced that it may undertake a badger cull in some areas of England as part of a package of measures to control the disease of bovine TB in cattle. Defra Minister, Jim Paice MP has announced that a consultation will be carried out in September.

Scientific evidence suggests that the culling of badgers may have a limited benefit on the disease within the culled area and in surrounding areas outside the cull it may, at least initially, increase the disease in cattle. We also have concerns on how culling might be carried out.

An injectable TB vaccine for badgers was licensed for use in March and we are dismayed that the Government has announced it is only going to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB in a limited area of Gloucestershire, rather than six areas in Staffordshire, Herefordshire/Worcestershire and Devon as was originally planned. It is currently not clear what alternative plans the government might have to utilize the vaccine.

We also want to see a continuation of improved cattle measures, including pre- and post-movement testing, husbandry and biosecurity.

Please sign our petition to let the government know you are against culling.

If you would like to write to your MP to express your views on this issue, please click here

Thank you for giving animals a voice.

Anna

A Freegle Ceilidh!

2010-09-22T07:50:00.005+01:00

A few months ago, one of the women in my choir approached me to suggest that Sheffield Freegle team up with her folk band to organise a ceilidh (folk/barn dance). Her band (The Well Dressed Band)

The WDB are holding a series of Ceilidhs, each with a different community partner, to raise awareness of the different causes (great idea!!). The first in the series was Abundance, we were second and I dont know who is coming next, but I know they are booked!

Two of my fellow moderators were as keen as I was to do this, so on Sunday we arrived at the hall early to put up banners, spread chairs and a few tables around, and generally get organised.

Douglas came too of course, so that made 4 of us. Before the event, I was unsure if just the four of us could cope (having never organised this sort of thing before) , so I asked my older brother if he could possibly come down from York and join us, which he did.

The evening went very well, the hall filled up with people and the dancing began. The band were very good, and the caller, Pete Coe who started with nice easy dances (to lull the beginners into a false sense of security ? haha!) then as the evening wore on, he introduced a few more difficult dances, but by then the dancers could cope with that :-) Not only is he a good caller, but hes quite a funny man, so it was enjoyable both dancing and listening to his jokes.

At 8.30, half way through the dance, we had a break. I had to get up on the stage and explain what Freegle was all about, and to encourage people to join Sheffield Freegle. That was a bit scary, but aparantley I did ok.

We had advertised that we would like people to bring a home made dish of food to share with everyone else, so by the time everyone had arrived, we had a wonderful feast laid out. There were salads, home made breads, pies, toasted seeds and all sorts, not forgetting some lovely cakes for afters! (Sairahs chocolate and beetroot cake was really nice, and that surprised me since I have a hate hate relationship with the evil red veg!)

The dancing went on until 10.30, by which time Eliese, Sairah and I had finished most of the washing up from the feast. Douglas and John stayed in the hall for the 2nd half of the dance, acting as security against any stray curious youths that fancied coming in to see what they could pinch - its a rather rough area!

John left at about 10pm to catch a train home to York, and the rest of us tidied up the hall, put things away, packed our car, took Eliese home, and got back to ours by about 11.30pm which is a very late night for us!

Everyone had a good evening, we handed out quite a lot of leaflets, so hopefully we will get some more people joining as a result!

Needless to say that Douglas and I were very tired the next day!!!! zzzzzzzzzzz

Laurieston Hall. Sunday 5th September (last day)

2010-09-07T18:12:00.008+01:00

********* Please start on Thursdays post if you have not read the rest yet **********

Breakfast duty this morning, so I started early by sweeping the floor in the hall area.. After last nights bonfire and people tracking grass through, so it looked much better when I had done!

Ali Burns came to do the second workshop with us and took us through a newish song of hers that has quite a difficult alto part! Her songs are lovely - she tries her best to give each part a nice tune to sing whilst putting them all together to create a lovely overall sound.

Ali Burns in action

After lunch, I would have liked to go see the red kites being fed, but no one who had transport wanted to go. Instead, I and a German/Irish girl spent the afternoon with one of the residents, a lady called Marion who taught us how to 'drop spin' that's spinning wool using a s pindle that you suspend from the wool you slowly tease out and spin into thread then wind a little round the spindle and keep going. I had a great time and managed to spin a yard or so of rather bumpy length!

My first attempt at drop spinning!

Basket with wool and a drop spindle in

Tea was at 6.30 as usual. The tables had been re-arranged into a u shape so we could have a 'banquet' for our last evening. We all dressed up. Some from the dressing up collection in the sunny room, some like me in their own stuff. I wore my lovely mediaeval blue dress, my new green cape and my new 'green goddess' mask I purchased earlier in the summer. Everyone looked marvellous.. Some very funny!

Who could it be?

Some strange costumes!

For tea we had baked potato wedges, some kind of bake with tomatoes on the top, green beans, a mushroom sauce (yuk) and some odd thing with ?hot beetroot in it (double yuk!!) oh, we also had roast peppers that were nice.

I finished off my bottle of wine (It's taken me all three nights to drink it.. Not too bad!)
Dessert was some lovely chocolate biscuits and ice cream.
After a gap, final night festivities began in the billard room. We all sat round on sofas and chairs and played pass the parcel. When the music stopped, the forfit was for someone to think of a song that fitted the theme on the note. We sang all sorts.. Themes ranged from travel, to political all the way to mythological, the latter being a part rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon! The prize in the middle was a bar of soap!!

Voca Loca, our sister choir from Dublin sang two lovely songs, then Body of sound sang two of theirs.

Next came a drama! We had a very creative rendition of The Quangle Wangles Hat!

The final organised event of the night was a team game. Three teams were each given a song to sing, and given a style in which to sing it. I formed part of the audience/judging panel!

The first team had to sing nursery rhymes in the style of the winning volley ball team .. It got worse and funnier as the teams went on!!!

By the time prizes had been awarded ( one to each team, of course) it was 11.15pm so I decided to finish packing, shower then sleep. I'm sure that singing went on well into the night but I was tired.

It was a wonderful weekend.

It took us about 5 hours to get back home.. we left at about midday after a rather tearful parting from our friends and the beautiful hall.

I was sad to leave, but very happy to be back home with my lovely Douglas and my lovely puddies.

Laurieston Hall. Saturday 4th September

2010-09-07T17:59:00.005+01:00

I woke early and had a shower, then went back to bed to read until breakfast at 8. I went out along the drive to call Douglas, tried both landline and mobile with no response. I sent him a text to find out what he's up to.

Our singing workshop was held by Ali Burns. We have sung quite a few of her songs before so it was great to have her teach us a few of her newest peices.

Lunch was a varied menu. Most had cauliflower soup, the cooks made a small batch of courgette and veg soup for me and 3 others. There was a tomato tart, green salad, ?devilled eggs and some brown scones to have as well. I wasn't terribly keen on the soup, but the tomato tart was lovely so had enough to eat.

I found myself sitting on the same table as the cooks, so I was able to question one about yesterdays peanut sauce.. I now have the basic recipe!

After lunch there were various things going on, I plumped for a lesson in onion plaiting! This will help the onions to keep over the winter, to feed yet other guests.

Brigitte, from Voca Loca plaits. The Hall can be seen in the background.

Onions, all plaited, ready for storage.

In the evening, we sat round a bonfire, and the sauna was lit. We sat round the fire, singing songs, watching and listening to the women who had a sauna. Some of them got into the very cold pond. The water, that comes via the surrounding hills, the stream, through the hydro power unit into the pond is incredibly cold.. there were quite a few shreiks as people got in!!

As before, I went to bed with songs singing round my head.

Laurieston Hall. Friday 3rd Sept

2010-09-07T17:52:00.004+01:00

Woke at 6am, had promised to phone Douglas to make sure he was awake. I had to wander out of the building down the track a little as the house has a lead lined roof!

The morning was beautiful, mist still hanging around, the end of the Dawn chorus, and a bat busy having breakfast in and out of the trees. D was already awake but it was nice to have a chat.

Breakfast here starts at 8. I had no problem getting some more shuteye until then.. It must be the country air!

Breakfast itself was good.. Home made bread, milk and yoghurt from lauieston cows, fruit, and museli. I did my first duty.. Washing up and cleaning the kitchen- it's great to be able to help!

Doing our warmups before singing

We sang till 1pm, having a break to sit in the sun in the garden. It was so nice out that having collected my lunch ( leftover pizza, jacket pot, leftover carrot salad) I went out and ate at a grockel bench and chatted to a resident who has lived here 30 years.. People truly love this place and life style.

Morning Break

I had a rest then we set off on a singing walk, stopping to sing woody songs to the forest, babbling brook and watery songs to the stream, then laky songs to- and then IN the Loch!!

I was very brave.. After a few other girls had stripped off and got in, I followed. It took me quite a while to pluck up the courage to fully immerse myself swim as it was so cold, but was very pleased I did!

One or two women got up onto a platform floating a little way out in the Loch, and after a bit of sunbathing more women joined in, and soon there were about seven of them, naked as the day they were born, all doing a circle dance on the tiny raft. It was very funny!

I didn't stay in the water long, not wanting my extremities to freeze, but i stayed in long enough to swim round the platform and find a bit of slightly warmer water that had the sun on it. Having got dressed again we walked back to the house and warmed up.

Tea was stir fry veg and rice with a delicious peanut sauce. Even though I don't like peanut butter, I do like Satay sauce, so it was another enjoyable meal. Pudding was a rough but tasty blackberry and apple crumble with custard. Nom!

I wasn't feeling well ( tummy was playing up) so I went to bed after tea. I set my alarm for 9pm to catch a bit of circle dancing which was lovely. We then spent an hour or so doing a "show and tell" I took a lollipop stick Martha gave me years ago.. She had decorated it and written 'friendship stick' on it :-) I enjoyed hearing about the lovely objects other people had brought.

After we had shown/shared our objects, singing started again. I stayed for a while before Heading back to bed. I went to sleep with tunes going round my head, it was lovely.

Laurieston Hall. Thursday 2 Sept

2010-09-07T17:38:00.006+01:00

With my darling husbands blessing, I booked a place on a little holiday with my choir (Body of Sound, or BOS for short) to sing and have a nice weekend with an Irish choir from Belfast (Sister choir, you could say) called Voca Loca.

I kept a diary of my doings, and I thought I would share it with you!

*****************************************************************

Set off from Sheff at about 11am, piled into a minibus with 10 others. The trip was about Six hours, which included one long lunch break and one short pit stop just outside Dumfries.

Lauieston hall is an old not terribly stately home, (the current building is Victorian) about 26 people live here full time as part of a co-operative. They pay rent and do two and a half days work for the house.. Looking after the crops, animals and house. There is also a business side.. Groups like our choir come and stay through the year. Some of the residents work for the business side.. cooking, cleaning, organsing and playing host to each group.

We arrived here at about five- it was so good to un-concetina after a long journey. I have a room to my own .. Requested due to my snoring and not wanting to disturb Anyones sleep!!!

My room turned out to be huge with enough beds for about 8 people! I unpacked and had a shower (just a dribble of hot water but enough to freshen up). The rest of the group went to the local loch for a swim, so I read and chatted to a couple of the staff and a friendly resident dog. I hear there is a resident cat - a Ginger Tom called Percy who is friendly until he's had enough.. then he bites!!

Evening meal was at 6.30. It consisted of a gorgeous pizza (a special non mushroom one had been made for two of us) a delicious carrot salad and a green salad. Dessert was chocolate cake topped with icing and walnuts, a large bowl of whipped cream was also served.

We spent a while relaxing in the large hall which has sofas and a lovely open fire. Dora the dog was much in evidence enjoying the attention.

We gathered in a large room- Bos and a choir from n. Ireland called 'Voca Loca' I think this makes about 40 of us! We sang many simple songs, mainly rounds, starting with

Asalam asalam
A le cum asalam

It is from the Koran and means peace be with you.. It was beautiful. By ten I was falling asleep, singing at the same time. By this time, everyone had gathered and eaten so we went round introducing ourselves. I shall never remember all these names!!

After signing up for some jobs, I trundled up to bed, read for a bit and zonked out.

Security

2010-08-26T13:42:00.003+01:00

Dear Friends, Family, Fans etc...

Recently I have been getting a lot of spam posts, and its annoying me.

I have altered my settings so you have to type some of those letters before your post will be accepted. I'm really sorry about this!

Anna xxx

7/9/10

Security is working!

Sunday

2010-08-22T21:32:00.003+01:00

Today Douglas was not feeling on top form, so he had a quiet day at home, whilst I went over to my younger brothers, and after a few games of swingbat and a nice chat, we walked down to the local swimming pool that has flumes, waves and a river rapid with his two sons, Carlo and Leo. Martha was away for the day with friends.

I took this picture just before we left. A few weeks ago, we found out that like his Uncle, Carlo is a big Spongebob fan, so we found him this colourful T Shirt on e-Bay.

When we got back from swimming, Carlo came up to me and told me he wanted to tell me how much he loved his new T-shirt, and Thank you Very much :-)

Kids can be so sweet sometimes!! lol!

Curry means Money

2010-08-19T12:53:00.007+01:00

A few weeks ago, my team from work went to Heely City Farm to create some fencing for a paddock.

We saw what good work they do with inner city kids, the general public and adults with learning disabilities, and decided it would be great to raise some money for them.

Being a lover of a good curry, I suggested it would be a good fund raiser to make lunch for anyone in our office. My friend Robyn said she would be happy to help. We decided to hold our curry day at the same time as a "dress down day" also being held for the farm.

We got loads of orders from our colleagues.. I think about 30 people ordered in all!

On Tuesday, I spent most of my evening peeling, slicing and frying a very large bag of onions (with a large amount of garlic in too!).

On Wednesday lunch, I went to the local wholesalers and purchased large amounts of rice, naan bread and mango chutney...

After work I went back and purchased 50 chicken thighs! Douglas and I spent all of Wednesday evening giving the curry its first cook. I was a bit worried as it didnt smell right, but Douglas reassured me all would be well.

On Thursday evening, after a day in the fridge, the curry was ready for its final cook. The house filled with such a great smell.. I knew everything was going to be fine :-)

Robyn spent the evening making a huge vat of lentil dhall, which was our veggie option.

Another member of our team, Arshid, who used to be a chef in an indian restaurant kindly made us 70 veggie samosas (even kinder if you stop to consider that its Ramadan!)

The big day arrived and I was very excited. I managed to get all three vats of curry into the fridge, then Robyn managed to put her dhall in too, which was great.

We started serving at 11.45, then it was non stop until at about 1.15 our last customer arrived! We worked very well as a team, which was just as well since at times we had a queue of 5 hungry diners!! Everyone was most complimentary about the food, and some were very kind and washed their plates up so we could re-use them.

By 2.30 we were exhausted, all the food had gone, and we had cleared up the tremendous mess in the kitchen. I think the kitchen looked better than it had before by the time we finished :-) You can see how red I have gone with the heat, and that was just heating up pre cooked food. I think I would melt in a real kitchen lol!

After the final customers had paid and we had taken the cost of the food out of the takings, we had made about £85.00 for our chairty.. we were very proud of this!!!!!!!!

After such a busy day, and a few sleepless nights worrying about how this would go, I was glad to go home and collapse into bed for an hour and a half.

I would do it again.. but not for another year I think :-D

Summer Holiday

2010-08-06T08:19:00.004+01:00

Time flies!

I have been gently reminded that I have a blog (thank you DAIL lol) and that I really need to reassure my readers that Douglas and I are still alive.

well....... good news!

Douglas and I are still alive and kicking!!

Last week we went on our mini summer holiday up North to our usual destination of Pagan Camp, held in a couple of fields near Ripon.

As usual, rather than camping, we found a B&B fairly close to the site. I had told Douglas that it was a pretty standard B&B, but as a little surprise for him, I had booked a really rather nice looking place.... and booked into one of their best rooms!!!

The Old Coach House, North Stainley is a really lovely, and very superior B&B, with very friendly owners, nice breakfasts and very comfy beds. Our delux room had a bed about a mile wide, a really lovely powerful shower above a decent sized bath. Douglas particularly liked the old wooden beam in the ceiling.

We spent most of the weekend with our friends from the Pagan security firm, the Dagda (named after an Irish God) whom we have known for years.

Whilst on camp, photos are only allowed with the permission of all who appear in them.

Sadly, even in this day and age, many Pagans are not "out" and if their friends/family/employers found out, it would cause a lot of upset, so I only have one photo to share with you.. and thats one of a mysterious Green Woman who appeared on camp. You might be able to work out who she is.. but there are no prizes for doing so! (Photo will appear tonight)

Whilst on camp, I offered to be taxi driver for some people who wanted to go to the supermarket. He, a tall skinny morose fellow with a leather hat sat in the front, his girlfriend, one of the Dagda, sat in the back.

As you do, we got chatting, and I found out he came from Leicester where I spent much of my childhood. I enquired what area, then as I lived there too, I enquired what street, then the penny dropped.. he said "you are Anna Cossham, aren't you?" My jaw dropped as I realised that this "stranger" sitting next to me was someone in my class at junoir school.. and his younger brother was my younger brothers best friend for some years!

Small world, innit?

I didn't like this boy very much at school (he was always getting into trouble) and discovered that lepoards (and some school mates) dont change their spots!!!

Photos!

2010-07-19T20:15:00.005+01:00

Hello blog readers, I am pleased do say that Douglas and I are both feeling much better :-) Thank you for those who sent sympathy, love etc. We appreciate it!

I've had a busy day looking after the little monsters (neice and nephews) so its great to relax for a while.

Here are the promised photos of the Street Choir festival.

This photo was taken on the steps of City Hall, Sheffield on the Saturday of the Street Choir Festival. It was lovely to see so many people just soaking up the sun and atmosphere, and enjoying each others company.

Looking through the programme of events. Later that day people were paddling in this fountain as it go so hot!

This is hundreds of people watching me and hundreds of singers, standing (and sweltering) on the steps of city hall waiting to sing some songs we had practiced. If you look carefully, you can see all the singers reflected in the mirrored doors of the building in the background. It was a great feeling to be one of many, singing to many!

I have saved the best till last! After our mass sing, each of the 35 choirs went off to do their own bit of busking. This is my choir, Body of Sound singing in the Winter Gardens, a wonderful glorified green house with attached art gallery.

A week of mixed fortunes

2010-07-11T06:36:00.002+01:00

On Tuesday at work I felt very odd when I went to work, and then felt sick at about 2pm, but having had some time out to have some fresh air, I felt better enough to carry on to the end of my day.

On Wednesday again I felt rather odd, and a bit sick first thing, but went into work expecting it to pass over.

An hour into my working day, I realised that I just wasn't going to make it through, so I packed up and came home and curled up in bed feeling rotten :-( By Wednesday afternoon, it had turned into a full fledged tummy bug - I wasn't well enough even to attend choir that evening (!)

By Thursday evening I was feeling a little better, which was great because on Friday afternoon I had promised to help out at the Sheffield Street Choir Festival - 35 choirs from all over the country (and from Germany!) gathered to sing. The choirs have a definite Socialist/Feminist feel to them, so as the last song in our massed sing we sang The Internationale. At the end of it I was a little surprised to see many people raising a fist as a sign of their strength and protest I guess!

I have found a link to this very song being sung in 2007 when Manchester hosted this street choir event!! Have a listen here!

I'm still not 100% better.. I managed the morning rehearsals, the massed sing, and our busking slots (all of the choirs busked all over town yesterday lunch time) but went home instead of catching the afternoon concert and crashed out, returning for part of the evening concert where Body of Sound were singing.

It was a lovely day! Douglas, my parents and Martha (who is staying with them for the weekend) came to listen to the massed sing, and then to the first of our busking slots.

Photos will follow soon :-)

26th/27th June- Green Fair and beyond!

2010-07-01T07:45:00.008+01:00

Yet another busy weekend for me!

SATURDAY

Douglas and I went to Sheffield Green Fair, an annual event now in its 40th year run by the Green Party.

I went in two capacities, firstly with Freegle, my recycling group, as we had a give and take stall there, and secondly, with my choir, Body of Sound.

We set out at 10.15 with loads of stuff junk and some books for the give and take stall, collected a fellow Freegler and some of her junk, and soon we were at the fair with the others, setting up our stall.

During the day we chatted to loads of people, explaining all about what Freegle is, and how its great to get rid of things from fridges to tellys to unwanted gifts and old books, and to ask for things that you need, like garden equipment, or maybe a microwave when yours goes "bang" unexpectedly.

We sent out 38 invites, which is the best we have ever done at an event, gave out loads of leaflets, and shifted a goodly proportion of our stuff.

During the day, Douglas helped to talk to people, then went off int
o town for a while, wandering into Waterstones, of course! He came back with a first aid kit for us to take to events, and a few books to keep him happy.

The Green Fair, as you would expect, had lots of eco friendly stalls, quite a few local pressure groups and entertainment (of a green nature) even the local green funeral directors were there with a bicycle hearse which Douglas and I thought was great! I didnt have much time to look round, but what I saw I enjoyed very much.

My older brother John was also at the Green Fair, as his alter ego Professor Fiddlesticks. Whilst unicycling round the site, he fell off and injured his ankle quite badly, making him pass out with the pain for a while. The on-site first aid came to his rescue, supplying ice, sympathy and elevating his leg to reduce swelling.

The family obstinacy gene was apparent as John put his boot back on, and managed to do some balloon modeling for the children as planned, although his ankle was still giving him a lot of pain. He kept smiling though!

He got home that evening, on his bike with all his juggling gear, and went to the hospital Sunday morning when his ankle was put in a cast due to the tip of his fibula having broken. Poor John!!

Douglas and I got home at about 6pm, not realising quite how tired we were until we sat down.

It had been a wonderful day, but we were cream crackered!! (err for Americans reading, this is rhyming slang for knackered, which in its turn means exhausted lol)

SUNDAY

Douglas opted for a day at home, and we both had a relaxing morning, but by Midday, I was up past the Northern General Hospital at Fir Vale fun day for another Freegle stall!!!

This event was very different as we expected.. the Green Fair is highly specialised, so we were bound to pick up a lot of members. the Fir Vale fun day was a general community event, with some community groups present, but an awful lot of tombola or car boot like stalls!

Im glad to say we still got quite a lot of interest, and a whole load more of our stuff went. People find it very difficult to get their heads round the concept of taking an item/items from our stall and not having to pay for them, but once they get the idea, some of them come back for more and more!! (Oh, and we frequently get asked if our laptop, that we use to show people the website is free too!!)

This is what the fun day looked like. The weather was wonderful again!

Our youngest helper, Sabi is pictured below looking very cute. Shes good at crawling, and good at standing up. For the first time ever, at this event, she took her first (unaided) step! Her mum was delighted!!! Sabi is wearing the latest designer cake crumbs round her mouth, having just polished off a rather nice cupcake from the stall next to ours.

I went home at about 4pm, happy to spend the evening relaxing in Douglases company.. and then the weekend was over again!

Saturday 19th June

2010-06-24T07:32:00.003+01:00

Last week my Aunty Lizzie came to stay with my parents for a holiday, so on Saturday, Douglas and I took her out into town for the day. This gave Lizzie some time with us, and my parents some time without her.

Having visitors is lovely, and Lizzy really needed a break from her husband who needs a lot of care, but visitors also mean extra work, so we were happy to take the pressure off Ma & Pa for a day and let them do their own thing.

We did some housework, then I nipped into our local village on the hunt of some skirt fabric before catching the tram on to the local Tesco where Douglas picked me up.

Aunty Lizzie can walk, but not very far, so earlier in the week I booked a wheelchair at the shop mobility centre in town for her. I had booked a manual wheelchair, but when we got to the place, there were electric scooters (Granny scarers). After some tuition and some reassurance, Lizzie was soon zooming off in front of us into town!

We caught a glimpse in the distance of the World Naked Bike Ride (Sheffield division) taking place - cyclists strip off and cycle around to protest about global warming and use of cars etc then walked/rode into town, pausing at a fascinating shop full to the rafters of interesting skirts, dresses, hats, scarves and leather jackets etc. Lizzy and I both purchased a few items :-)

After lunch we went into the Millennium Gallery, a beautiful glorified greenhouse with art gallery attached.

We just had time for a trip into John Lewis, where I found about 4 different fabrics that will make lovely skirts! (I have narrowed the choice down now, having 2 skirts made) I have a friend who used to be a professional seamsress who will make them for me.

We drove Lizzy back to ours, we had a drink and chatted for a while, then the parents came back from their day out visiting a "garden open" .

She, and we had a really good day!

That evening we relaxed, and enjoyed what was left of our 11th Handfasting Anniversary.. Still together 11 years late.. not bad eh?

Freegle at Chapeltown Fun Day

2010-06-12T22:09:00.005+01:00

I spent most of the day at a park in Chapeltown today.

I am a moderator for our local Freelge group. Our aim is to keep things out of landfill, helping unwanted goods find new homes.

We had a lovely gazebo, a new strong table, and some new very posh banners (thanks to a successful funding bid) as you can see from the photo below, we filled up the table and the gazebo with loads of stuff ready for people to take away..totally free of charge!

Sadly, many people found the concept of "FREE" very hard to understand, and wanted to pay for the items they took. We had to explain again that FREEGLE means FREE and there is no charge for offering or requesting items from our site (or taking things from our gazebo) but if they wanted to, they could pop a donation into a bucket, then the money donated to the event charity ( A local Cancer Charity).

This is Tracy, one of our group owners.

The day was quite warm and very sunny, and we had a lovely time. We have met loads of new people, and we hope many of them will join our group!!

I LOVE FREEGLE!!!

An evenings entertainment

2010-06-12T21:25:00.004+01:00

We decided to introduce our beloved nephew and niece (now aged nearly 11) to the joys and delights of Gilbert and Sullivan. (The small one has just turned 6, and is too young for this type of evening outing. His time will come when hes older)

Several months ago, I found out Pirates of Penzance was coming to town, so I went onto YouTube and found some relevant clips to test Martha and Leos reaction to the music. Pirates went down very well, so dates were discussed, and plans put into action.

The day before the show, Martha hurt her leg, and was unable to walk on it. This could have an end to our plans of taking her with us, as our tickets were up in the balcony, but I phoned the theatre who very kindly swapped them for a seats in the stalls, so Martha could come, wheelchair and all.

The performance started at 7.45, but we had to be down in town early to swap the tickets, so we picked the kids up at 6, and were chauffeur driven into town by their dad (my not-so-little-anymore brother)

We swapped the tickets over, and went to a very nice Italian restaurant for tea.

If you have read this blog before, you may remember that these two rascals absolutely adore Spaghetti Carbonara, so you can imagine it didn't take them very long to choose what to eat! Douglas had the same, whilst I opted for a very nice vegetarian pizza.

Smiles all round.

We read the synopsis out to Leo before the performance, but Martha said she had a pretty good idea of what it was all about, and wanted to work it out for herself.

All four of us enjoyed the production immensely - this photo was taken in the interval. You can see how close we were to the stage.. we could even see the eyeliner worn by the pirates!!

The performance finished at about 10pm.. at least half an hour after normal bed time.. but as we waited for Thomas to pick us up again, both kids were absolutely full of beans.. Leo was bouncing around singing "With Cat Like Tread, upon our prey we steal" Martha, being in her wheelchair decided to sing "With Cat like wheels..." which we all thought was very funny!

We got to bed at about 11pm, very happy but very very tired!! We look forward to our next theatre trip with the kids, as this one was so much fun.

Our front garden

2010-06-05T21:22:00.005+01:00

For ages Douglas and I have been looking at our front garden, wanting something to provide a barrier between the border and the house, as the soil just drifted down into what used to be a pebbled area, and splashed the front of the house with mud when it rained.

One of my colleagues at work told me her husband was setting up as a gardener - she told me this as she needed to get him a waste carriers licence (for taking any rubbish away), as I do this for people all day long as part of my job, I was able to sort her husband out with the required documents (having, of course taken the correct fee for work to bank!!)

I saw a photo of some work done by this chap, and was impressed at how much nicer the space looked after his attention, so we got him to come along and quote to tidy up our garden. The quote was very reasonable, so today the work commenced!

This is the "before" photo.. as you see, the garden is messy, and dosnt have an edge, and its all just slipping down and messing up the front of the house. Nasty!

After a hard days work, Michael and Sheila have transformed our garden into a picture of summer beauty. We are delighted!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh what a difference a day (and a lot of hard work) makes!

If you live in the Rotherham/Sheffield/Doncaster area, and your garden needs some TLC, drop me a line and I will put you in touch with the people who transformed ours :-) We are so happy!!

Busy Bank Holiday

2010-05-31T22:27:00.009+01:00

My brother asked us whether we could look after his three little darlings on Sunday evening as he and his wife were going out.

We enjoy looking after his kids - after all they were one of the main reasons we moved 140 miles North a few years ago!

On telly recently, there has been a series called "Junior Masterchef" where young kids, of about the age our nephew and neice are, cook a series of dishes, some of their choosing and some not, and battle it out for a trophy at the end.

The series inspired us to get Martha and Leo doing more cooking when they visit us, so I went into town on Sunday morning, and found a really lovely beginners cook book to inspire them!

I looked at quite a few other childrens cookbooks, and this was the best! I was also pleased because it had a recipie for Spaghetti Carbonara, which was what M&L had decided they wanted to eat that evening.

The next few photos show cooking in progress. Both kids did well, and were impressed that Douglas has "Chefs fingers" - the ability to handle things that are rather hot (like putting spaghetti into boiling water)

I love this photo, because Martha is concentrating very hard on her frying onions, and the way Douglas put the spaghetti into the saucepan is beautiful!

Another great photo... Both kids in on the action!

Carlo, being nearly 6, is a little too young to be looking after things on a hot stove, but he "supervised" and gave encouragment (oh, and told them to hurry up lol) whilst his older siblings were busy! (I admit, I did suggest to him that he could encourage them AND to tell them to hurry up!) - oh what a wicked Aunty I am!

Dinner being ready, the three kids and Douglas all tucked in to a very well made meal (I dont really like spag, and Im veggie, so I left them to it)

Carlo looks like a little angel in this photo.. he ate up every scrap of his meal and would have eaten more had there been any!

After tea, we got the kids washing up a few plates each. This is not part they enjoyed very much, but its an important part of the process, and has to be done!

The next installment is going to be..... leek and potato soup when they next visit. Martha has taken the cookery book home with her, and has probably spent all evening pooring over the recipes trying to decide what to make after we have made soup! (ahh.. so many choices.. but lots of time too)

The kids stayed over, and this morning we took them swimming. We had about an hour and a half in the pool, playing with an inflatable ball, and the kids having fun in the waves and water flumes.

My brother had invited us round for a BBQ at lunch, so after nipping home and making a potato salad, we went round t their house and had a really lovely lunch with them.. my brothers roast pepper quiche was really fantastic!.. it was possibly the best BBQ he has done :-)

Home later that afternoon.. exhausted but happy.

Body of Sound busk for ASSIST

2010-05-22T23:45:00.006+01:00

Today my choir met in town and did an hours busking for ASSIST - a local charity that helps destitute asylum seekers in and around Sheffield.

Here is a peice from their website, but click here to find out more.

Asylum seekers become destitute when all the support they have been receiving from government is withdrawn following a final negative decision on an asylum claim. We often hear that they are failed because they are not genuine, but researches in 2003 by a group of MPs found that over half of those refused were in fact genuine; a proportion thought to be even greater now due to lack of adquate legal help.

Refused asylum seekers are not allowed to work, to register themselves as homeless, or places in local authority night shelters. There is no legal way for them to support themselves. Many become destitute, struggling daily for food, accommodation and clothing. It is estimated that there is about 1000 destitute asylum seekers in the Sheffield area alone.

What help do we give?

finding night shelter for those sleeping rough
finding temporary accommodation with host families
paying a small weekly grant for food and basic living expenses
advising about other sources of assistance available (charitable and non-charitable)
giving free bus pass vouchers to those with serious medical problems, and pregnant women who would find it difficult to walk
giving free bicycles
finding longer term solutions by assisting clients to pursue their asylum claims
raising awareness to the problem through events and talks
opportunities for volunteering

And now.. some lovely pictures of the choir raising money and awareness for this group!

If you look carefully, you can see me in the background next to my very smily friend Magali!

We sang for an hour, and had a great time.. hopefully we raised a bit of money for this worthy charity :-)

Pineapple Friday

2010-05-17T21:35:00.008+01:00

I purchased a lovely big pineapple last week, knowing that my parents have a marvellous pineapple slicer machine.

I popped into see them on my way back from work on Friday to have a tutorial from my talented father, in the art of pineapple slicing!

My dad cut off the top and bottom of the pineapple, pushed the device into the middle of the fruit, and started twisting. The blades go into the pineapple, turning it into rings as he twists.

I had a go at this, and didnt make such a good job my pineapple .... it went squiffy. I think either you need to be pretty strong, or you need to develop the knack for it.. or both :-D and I dont have either!

Action shot ! The white tube with the spiral on is hollow. The hard core of the pineapple gets sliced off and pushed up the tube - a wooden spoon is good to push it out.

Juicy pineapple being taken out of its skin

When the rings have been taken out, you can use a sharp knife to slice the last little bits out of the pineapple tube you are left with.

End result..rings of juicy sliced pineapple. It tastes about a million times better than stuff from the can!

For those of you who now feel like rushing out to buy one of these devices, my parents got theirs from Lakeland. They have a video showing how it should be done, but personally, I prefer my sequence of photos as...

a) My photos have my dad in them and not a poncy presenter and

b) I still have a load of this pineapple downstairs in my fridge and freezer!!!

NOM NOM NOM! (As they say in Cafe World lol)

For those of you who need a translation, this means yum yum yum :-D

Walkies last Thursday

2010-05-17T21:17:00.006+01:00

A while ago I got an exercise machine from a colleague at work - I thought it would be a good idea to do a 20 min session now and again.

I put it up, and tried it out, and realised why it was given away.. its pretty scary!!

I decided that the best thing to do was abandon the idea of the exercise machine, and do some of the real thing... Walking! (yeah yeah.. comments from the family expected on this one lol)

I had an enjoyable 20 min walk round our local block, stopping only to take a few photos en route, which I thought I would share with you. I shall walk that way again :-)

My favourites are the black tulips, and the sausage cat at the end.. a long bodied, and short legged tabby who came to say hi.

I hope you enjoyed my walk as much as I did. I think the cat was a reward for getting half way :-)

Kid sitting

2010-05-09T15:16:00.005+01:00

Last night we had a special delivery - Martha and Leo our nephew and neice. The younger nephew, Carlo is with his best friend, and the grown ups (well, my brother and parents) are out canoeing along the River Wye.

Douglas made a really fantastic looking Shepherds pie which the kids and he enjoyed whilst they watched Dr Who. I watched with them but had curry instead :-)

Having thrown them into bed at about 9pm, we went up about an hour later to find they were both still reading!! Lights were turned out at some point, and sleep for all of us ensued.

I fed the cats at about 6am as usual, then after a while went back to bed. Martha got up about 8.. but this photo below was taken at 9am.. a certain Someone had a bit of a lie in lol!

We had a slow morning, watched most of a DVD, then Martha and I vanished off to the cinema to watch "How to train your Dragon" a film about a Viking boy who finds that rather than killing dragons, he has the knack to befriend and train them. It was great :-D

Douglas and Leo went to see "Clash of the Titans" loosley based around the story of Perseus. That started quite a bit later, and they went by tram, so they didnt get home until 4pm!

Martha and I had a bite to eat at Flaming Dragon after our film. We ate some rice and noodles, then for desert, Martha turned into an orange eating monster!

When we got home, it was quite a nice sunny day, so she and I went into the conservatory and planted some lavender, some chillies and some feverfew. The feverfew had its Latin name on, and I thought it was another type of chilli, so now we have chillies one end and feverfew at the other end of the trough - we had a good laugh over that :-D

We seived some compost, (ok.. we riddled it) and Martha was very careful to rescue all the worms to put back into the compost head with the stuff that hasnt quite turned into nice soil yet.

We sewed some nasturtium seeds on the bank at the back of the garden, a row of leeks in the veg patch and watered it all in.

I hope that my parents and their dad have had a good day.. hopefully I will be able to post some lovely photos from their day later in the week.

Kids are being picked up after tea.. we have had a lovely day with them!!

Home made (in every sense of the meaning)

2010-05-01T22:49:00.006+01:00

Please feel free to drool over a home made, and home grown rhubarb tart I made this evening.

My mum wasnt sure it would work, and suggested I make a crumble instead as rhubarb can be quite sloppy when cooked, but as Im stubborn I went ahead anyway ( I did, however listen to her advice and pre baked the pastry to stop it going completely to mush when the fruit went in)

As you will see below, it came out looking really nice!

Anyone fancy coming by and trying some? I dont know what it tastes like yet, but it looks delicious.. will let you know tomorrow.

Further to above.........

When I was making the pie, I chopped the rhubarb up and put it in a bowl to mix it with some nice fake sugar stuff called Splenda, as both Douglas and I have to be careful about the amount of real sugar we consume.

Douglas suggested I put some cinamon in too, so I got the jar from the cupboard and shook it over the rhubarb for the first sprinkle... strangely some little red bits came out of the jar, and I realised I had picked up and shaken the chopped dried Chilli jar instead!!!!

I told my beloved, who was quite amused, and as only a few flakes dropped in, we decided to leave them there.

I tried the delicious pie yesterday (the day after I made it) and whoa!! I realised Douglas and I had made a discovery.. HOT Rhubarb pie! (and I mean Chilli hot!) The pie has a kick!

Sadly, my parents are not keen on food with a kick, and as I try to be a good kind daughter, I have pre warned them, so when they come round today (Bank holiday Monday.. yeah!) they will avoid the delicious looking item in the fridge.

Maybe I should suggest this idea to Heston Bluementhal?

Is it a bird, is it a plane.. no its the Super Lampshade guy!

2010-04-25T20:48:00.002+01:00

Recently Douglas and I purchased some new lampshades, and once I had given this one a good wash, it was suitable to be given away. When we have something that still has life in it, but we no longer need/want, it normally goes on Freegle.

I put the offer of this lampshade on, and someone was very keen to give it a new home on verbal description alone.. so I thought I would send her a photo by email to make sure she did really want it!

I gave the lampshade to Douglas, and asked him to model it.. so he did :-D

The lampshade, but not the base (As shown here in the photo) will be picked up on Tuesday.

The base (also known as Douglas) is far too precious to be disposed of.. anyway our local Freegle site does not allow living things apart from plants to be offered :-)

Beautiful Yorkshire

2010-04-25T20:40:00.004+01:00

I just had to share these with you. My parents went out today with their canoe to a place about ten miles from York, and found this beautiful clear river. What a beautiful spring photos!

Love is...

2010-04-22T20:01:00.005+01:00

Billy has decided that the best game in the universe involves killing long papyrus fronds, but my plant is running slighly low on stalks, so last night I put a request out on Freegle for some raffia.

When the papyrus stalks are dry they look and feel a bit like raffia, so I thought Billy (and Lilly) might not mind the substitue!

I had an email from my friend, Eliese, to say she had some spare raffia and would pop it through my door at some point.

I got home and found a little bag with plenty of raffia to make several decent cat dangling strings.. this is the result when I made one. A very happy cat indeed!

Later, Douglas and I were watching telly. I sat on the floor to play with Billy a bit, then picked him up for a cuddle. He walked off me and settled on the sofa next to Douglas, purring away like an engine whilst I took the opportunity to worship him some more. I do love my little boy so much!

I must not miss my favouite little girl out! She has been keeping me company up on the desk whilst I typed this, demanding that I typed one handed, the other hand being needed to worship her highness :-) Lilly (or Constance as we call her when she "constantly" demands love and attention) is very happy when one of us are up here - she must think that the fluffy cushion case between our computers is here throne :-)

Shes such a little darling.. very affectionate, and (even after several years of life with us) is still growing in confidence - once or twice now, I have actually managed to pick her up without her being utterly terrified and wanting down immediatley.

One day we may have a lap cat.. one day.. but we are not in a hurry :-) Good things come to those who wait.

Choir

2010-04-21T23:05:00.002+01:00

I am delighted to say my choir has started again after a long Easter break.

We started, and finished with an African song which means step (or come) forward. It was fun, but I found it hard without the words (albeit very simple) to look at.

Here you see some of the members singing, with our dynamic enthusiastic leader, Helen Lyle, in the red top doing her thing, and singing along with us.

We danced /moved with the music and walked around as we sang.

Its good to be back!

A sunny weekend

2010-04-12T19:23:00.002+01:00

Over the weekend we had TWO BBQs!!

On Saturday my little brother and his kids came round for for a BBQ. I did overtime in the morning, so Douglas did a wonderful job getting a potato salad and a tomato salad made. They had cocktail sausages and chicken bits marinaded in yoghurt and home made curry/tandoori powder, I had veggie sausages made into kebabs with lovely peppers and mini tomatoes (with the same type of yog curry coating on!

Sadly, I didnt take any photos.. mainly because Martha and Leo were very busy playing "Sims" and other games on my phone lol. Thomas has an Iphone as well now, so they were both very happy playing games!

We went in after lunch, and Thos put his feet up in our armchair, and snoozed, whilst the kids entertained themselves. He dozed for about an hour, which was rather sweet! Douglas did the same, dropping off to sleep like a cat in our lovely warm conservatory!

On Sunday, Douglas and I had our own barby... and I did take a couple of photos... here is one, I will pop more on later!

Long awaited update part 2

2010-04-07T21:56:00.003+01:00

We got to Kettlewell and with some help from a poorly photocopied picture of where to and where not to park our car, we found our cottage.

Look about 6 or 7 down in this link, and you will see a tiny photo of the cottage we stayed in.

River Cottage is tiny. It has a small living room with a semi open plan kitchen downstairs, and upstairs it just has a bathroom and one bedroom.. thats it! It was great for a couple to have a very relaxing holiday :-)

We met up with the rest of the family, and had our evening meal with them, which was very pleasant.

On Wednesday, Douglas was still feeling a bit fragile, and so was I, so we decided to have a restful day exploring a nearby town of Skipton, which was lovely.

Follow this link, and click on any of the orange dots for views of the town!

Thursday we spent in Harrogate with our neice Martha. She had been pony trekking the day before, and was feeling rather stiff and sore as a result. Her dad and the two boys set off on a long hike up to see a limestone pavement, and as she would not have coped with it, we were lucky enough to adopt her for the day!!

One little treat we had was a visit to the world famous Bettys Tea Rooms. They opened in 1919 and are still going strong today! At lunch times, people queue for ages for a seat, but we went for a mid morning cuppa, and were able to get seated as soon as we walked in.

Below are views of part of the menu and the view from our seat.

That evening, Thos took us all for a meal out in one of the local pubs, and although it took a VERY long time to arrive, we had good food and a pleasant evening out.

Douglas really didnt feel very well again on Friday, so we spent a very quiet day in our cottage. We had also agreed to make an evening meal for everyone, so I popped out to the local shop (ouch! incredibly expensive, but then I guess it is a small village shop and they have to inflate their prices to make ends meet) to buy a few things, and then had a wander round the quaint village church that has some very beautiful and moving stained glass windows.

We cooked a roast chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli for that evenings meal - we had salmon on brown bread for starters, I was pleased to see that everyone (apart from Carlo, and hes only 5) had some of the salmon. Despite having rather limited cooking facilities, we managed to produce a good meal that all enjoyed.

I made myself a really tasty veg stir fry as Im veggie, with home made sweet and sour sauce thats incredibly easy to make ( mix sploshes of vinegar, sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, a teaspoon of jam or honey together until the whole thing tastes right). I had that with rice and thoroughly enjoyed it, as did Thos when he tried some after his main meal.

Saturday was packing up and going home day. We chose a much more sensible route home (non sat nav lol) and got home about lunch time.

My parents went via York to pick up Toby, one of my older brothers sons for a few days holiday which was nice, as we dont see a huge amount of his two boys.

As soon as Toby had left, my parents had yet more visitors! This time it was my fathers brother, my Uncle Bill who lives in Germany, and one of his sons, Chris, who lives in London. Yesterday my mum drove Bill over to see us, and tomorrow Chris is going to meet up with Douglas (who is still on holiday) and they are going to cook up a storm in the kitchen, as they both love cooking.

Well, thats it until I get some photos of the various goings on emailed over to me from my mum!

I promise not to leave it so long before my next entry, but please feel free to prod me if the gap seems too long :-)

Long awaited update part 1

2010-04-07T21:38:00.002+01:00

So! its been ages since I updated my blog.. various people have prodded me via email about doing so, and to them and the rest of you I apologise (and Im now updating as I should have done ages ago!)

Last week, the week before Easter, as a birthday present for me (and because it was a nice thing to do) my parents had booked up (and paid for) a family holiday. They booked a cottage for me and Douglas, and a large house for them, my younger brother and his three kids (Katy, his wife was working, so sadly couldnt join us)

Douglas and I were off work on the Friday, and due to set off on the Saturday morning, but by then Douglas kept being sick, and when he wasnt being sick he was making urgent dashes to the loo. He was feeling very grotty :-( Our thoughts on this were "oh no, not again" as hes suffered from this problem quite a few times now.

By abut 10.30am, I could see he wasnt getting any better, so we called the out of hours Dr service. Eventually, after the Doctor had phoned and found out what was going on, an ambulance turned up outside our house, and left with a hot/cold shivering/sweating sicky Douglas!

I followed, and after keeping him company and looking after him for several hours, the hospital Dr decided he needed intravenous antibiotics and a hospital bed. As the time ticked by I saw our holiday trickle like water through my fingers. I had been so looking forward to it.. and poor Douglas was feeling so horrible. It looked like our week off was going to be written off as a disaster.

By Monday morning, I was going stir crazy, so went into work and did half a days admin which took my mind of the fact that my parents, Thomas and the kids were having a lovely time in the picturesque Dales!

Dear Readers.. I rescued him on Tuesday afternoon. We came home, I packed the car, and off we went!

The journey up to Kettlewell was not uneventful. We engaged SatNav but not brain, so the dreaded contraption took us the most dreadful route via the suburbs of Bradford, a large sprawling and not terribly well off city. Just on the outskirts of the City, we noticed some smoke, and soon realised it was from the back passenger side wheel of our car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We stopped in a garage forecourt, well away from the petrol pumps, and called our car rescue service who came out to us within a couple of hours. The RAC man turned up, and had a good look at the wheel and brakes etc, and worked out that the problem was due to Douglas leaving the handbreak of the car on a few notches whilst driving, that had caused one wheel to get very hot and burn some of the greese away (that was the smoke).

Mr RAC rescue man followed us in our car for about 6 miles further up the road to ensure that there was no other problem, then left us to continue on to Kettlewell, much releived that it was nothing more serious!

Part 2 follows :-)

Extolling the virtues of ones husband :-)

2010-03-06T23:16:00.003Z

I have just written my blog with almost no mention of the most important person in my life, who is wonderful :-)

Douglas wasnt feeling like swimming, and said he was quite happy to stay at home and do housework (and bake choc brownies for my choirs event) whilst Carlo and I went swimming.

I got back to find the kitchen shining.. floor cleaned, dishes done, cooker cleaned.. not to mention a lovely tray of brownies made!

I only had time for a few kisses and a change into my green and purple singing outfit before rushing out, Sat Nav at the ready to the venue.

The Sat Nav proved not to be very helpful, and to cut a long story short, I got very lost on the way to my choirs venue.

In desparation, I called my ever patient husband and told him of my woes. He turned on the computer, found the venue then found where I was, and with much paticence he guided me, road by road to the Hall.

I really could not manage without him!

Douglas, I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Busy day

2010-03-06T22:29:00.003Z

Its been busy today, but a very enjoyable Saturday.

I had a little sleep in - got up about 8 and had breakfast with Douglas. We did some housework and watched Masterchef (on recorded TV) then set off to a nearby Sports Stadium to pick up young Carlo - our 5 year old nephew. Mum was out all day doing a course, Dad and the other two kids were performing in a show/panto, so trying to look after Carlo at the same time would have been impossible... and we were happy to help!

We got to the gym session early, and Carlo was doing very well, balancing on a beam and enjoying himself. When he had finished, we went round the supermarket, and got Carlo to choose what he wanted for lunch and tea, then went home and ate.

Carlo spent ages playing with some small toys and the cat tree that belong to our Sacred Beasts, but was very pleased to be taken swimming. Just he and I went.. Douglas stayed in to do more housework and make some chocolate browines for later.

We had a great time in the pool! Carlo can now swim without any arm bands etc, and can even swim with his head underwater if he has his goggles on. I was a very pround Aunty watching him!

We got back, and I had to make a pretty quick turnaround as I was singing with my choir, Body of Sound for the very first time!!!

We were singing ten peices, to celebrate International Womens Day. It all went very well.. and I have some photos to share. I would love to upload a soundbite, but I dont know how to do that yet!

The ABCA stuff in the photos show how one of our more complicated tunes is set out. Each part, Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass each follow a different pattern of verse and "la la laa" bits. I promise you, the end result is lovely! This was taken in rehearsal.

I took this one during the performance. There is one song that i have only sung twice, and although the words are very simple, the tune is fast and complicated, so I quietly stepped out for that one.. and took the opportunity to take a few photos!

This is our leader, Helen, getting us ready to start a song.

Culinary Activities!

2010-02-24T23:16:00.004Z

Douglas likes pies. Chicken pies, Beef Pies and Pork Pies. Its fair to say he really likes his pies!!

We usually buy small pies - the sort that come in little cardboard boxes, and sit on small tin trays that you pop into the oven and have with mash n peas. Nice and easy to cook after a stressful day dealing with customers medical claims at work.

Due to dietary restrictions, there are not many varieties of pie in the shops that Douglas can eat, so we decided to have a go at creating one ourselves.

Douglas cut up some chicken, and made a stew with onions, carrots and other veg etc, and I did the pastry side of it - baking the pastry liner blind before ladling in hot contents, popping a pasty lid on top. I added the important pastry leaves and blobs decoration before brushing the whole thing with an egg and milk wash, and cooking it.

As you see, Douglas was rather pleased with the result!

You may be interested to know that the jumper that Douglas is wearing was made part by his late mum (DMIL) and partly by his Aunt (DAIL). We have two of these lovely jumpers, and we keep warm in them when its very cold.

Given less than half a chance, Billy also enjoys them. If a jumper gets left on the floor, or on a chair, sooner or later we will find that the larger of our two Sacred Beasts claims it for his own, and snuggles up on it very happily.

Well, its time for me to go to bed, to join Douglas, and probably at some point in the night, our very own cat shaped (and jolly heavy) paperweight, Billy.

Lilly, not to leave her out of this entry entirely, will exercise her vocal chords in the early morning whilst walking up and down my side of the bed, reminding me to leave my nice warm duvet and attend to her breakfast as usual :-)

Last weeks activities (part one)

2010-02-24T22:52:00.006Z

Its time for a general update in the lives of Anna, Douglas, Billy and Lilly!

Last week at work, i and my colleague Jim decided we needed to have a look at the works compost heaps, and use our lovely big compost screw to mix the contents a bit. It acts like a cork screw, you drill it down into the heap, and use all your strength to pull it, and the "cork" of compost out with it.

Our compost isnt really doing as well as regular compost because it consists of 99% teabags, fruit and the curious biodegradable corn bags that people use to carry it down to the heaps. On advice from big brother, Compost John, I got a bag of shredded paper from the office, and have mixed it in as best I can with the contents of heap 1 that was started about a year ago.

You can see the compost screw at work here, and also my colleage Jim who helped to heave the contents of heap 2 on top of heap 1. It was hard work and very smelly!

Last Sunday was a nice early spring day, so Douglas and I decided to go up to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, as I had never been. Sadly I really wasnt impressed.. there are not a lot of sculptures in the grounds, and they were all modern - not to my taste apart from this one, which was quite interesting. Oh.. there was one that looked a bit like a rusty iron backbone I quite liked too. Its featured on the parks home page.

The gallery was the most interesting. It featured the work of Rob Ryan, who is an artist who designs the most beautiful paper cut out pictures Ive ever seen! If we had had £300 spare.. just floating around feeling bored, we would have purchased one of his prints, but as we dont happen to have that amount of money to spend on a peice of art, we looked at his website instead! (Much cheaper, although you cant really hang it on your wall and enjoy it lol)

Valentines Day

2010-02-14T12:42:00.001Z

Guess whos gone all Romantic?!!

Billy and Lilly snuggle down next to each other for a few minutes of leurve!

You dont realise how good it is till its gone...

2010-02-14T12:27:00.004Z

On Thursday morning our central heating system wouldnt light. We thought it was just one of those things, but it still wouldnt light on Thursday evening, so we knew there was a problem.

I called up British Gas on Friday, and was offered a Monday appointment which I grabbed gratefully, as being without heating or hot water isnt much fun. (work very kindly said I could take a days holiday as an emergency to get it sorted) It turned out that a heating engineer was able to pop out on Friday afternoon (Douglas was having a day off)and have a look.

A rather new bloke came out, and said the motherboard was dead, and another chappy would come out on Saturday and fix it.

This newish engineer also took a look at our gas fire, meausred the Carbon Monoxide levels it was giving off, and told Douglas that it was spitting out the lethal gas at three times the safe limit!!!!! eeek! He put a warning sticker on it saying "do not use".. oh dear, another thing to mend! Well, rather that than us ending up with Carbon Monoxide Poisoning!

Douglas has now purchased us a new Carbon Monoxide detector, just in case it happens again. We did have one before but it bust, and we hadnt replaced it. Let this be a warning to all ye with gas fires. Go spend £25/£30 on a Carbon Monoxide monitor.. its better than being dead!

Another gas engineer came on Saurday, fixed the problem which was some wires from the motherboard that had come loose. It was sooo good to have heating and hot water back again.. it really does make us appreciate such luxuries!

I called up a gas fire repair company on Saturday morning, and they are coming out on Monday some time to sort that out. (My requested emergency day off will come in very useful, after all)

I wish we had never purchased a flue-less gas fire.. its given us quite a lot of trouble since we had it installed. Lets hope it can be fixed on Monday! I will let you all know.

Shopping Spree

2010-02-14T12:05:00.006Z

The week before last Douglas and I decided that it was high time we got some lampshades for our house.

We had one lovely one and one grotty one in our lounge, one lovely one in our hallway and quite a lot of naked bulbs that would benefit from some adornment.

This is the lovely one we already had in our lounge.. we now have two of them!

I logged onto ebay, and spent a couple of evenings happily browsing lampshades using my Iphone, showing Douglas any I considered worthy of a second glance.

Before long, we had selected two rainbow bead chandeliers (this is one of the rainbow ones)

a white paper globe shade with some Japanese script on, and a duck egg blue shade, also with a Japanese feel to it. At the same time, I “just happened” to stumble across some very cute, and quite cheap charms to go on my bracelet. I had to buy 10 of them (for about £2, total)

Douglas requested some new Crocs (a plastic based shoe that’s very comfy and airy for him to wear at work) so I found a nice smart black pair in his size.

These shoes have air holes all over them. When they were brought out, someone invented little decorations that would fit neatly through the holes... and I found one of these I just couldnt resist!

How many husbands would put up with their wives putting a "Nessie" on their shoes?

Long live the Loch Ness Monster.. seen in the photo above :-) I think Douglas quite likes it!

Bringing back memories

2010-02-06T18:54:00.002Z

My parents have gone on a short holiday, so I have been entrusted with the "Uncle sitting" duties from a distance.

My mum phones her brother (who is in his 80s, and not very well) on a regular basis - maybe a couple of times a week, to make sure hes ok, and to give him some company as he lives alone. These duties are now mine until my parents return :-)

My mum sent me a text saying they have got to their destination safetly this afternoon, so I rang Robert (the aforementioned Uncle) to let him know and have a chat.

He had been out in his car to a nature reserve on the coast in the Essex area, and had been listening to Classic FM on his radio. He heard a peice of music by Schubert that brought back some happy memories for him.

Robert had scribbled down "Schubert" and "Troika" on a scrap of paper, and wondered if I could locate the peice in question!

Douglas and both searched the internet using my little Iphone, but nothing came up, so I came up here to the computer which makes things faster and easier. Still nothing!

I phoned Robert back, and went through the Classic FM Playlist for earlier today.. still no joy! I went through the presenters names, and eventually Robert identified the presenter, and said it was his CD of the week. Armed with that info, I was able to find out that this desired peice of music was actually SCHUBERT: DIE SCHONE MULLERIN.

To further check that this was indeed the peice, I headed for You tube, and much to Roberts joy and surprise, was able to hold the telephone up to the speaker and let him listen to the first few bars.

Needless to say, I have now ordered this CD which will be delivered down to Essex some time next week.

I dont have many relatives on my side of the family, (two Uncles, one Aunt) so being able to track down an elusive peice of music, purchase it and send it off within the course of a half hour conversation makes me very happy.

Dress down day at work

2010-02-03T08:21:00.002Z

Last Friday at work we had a “dress down day” we have one of those about once a month. We each donate £1 to the months charity to wear what we like for the day.

This month, one of our colleagues – Dennis - chose to support the RNLI as he was in the Navy for many years, then joined the RNLI, and is now a Governor within the organisation.

I made a batch of chocolate brownies, and purchased some crisps on the way to work, as there is always a cake/snack sale during the day to raise a bit of extra cash. My chocolate brownies always go down well, and it means I can have the pleasure of baking without the temptation of eating a high percentage of what I cook!!

Below is a photo of Dennis, “decked” out in his RNLI uniform next to a whole raft of raffle prizes. Please note that one of his daughters made the lovely cake!

Sadly, all I won was a strip of blue raffle tickets, but my colleague Ali who sits next door but one to me, won the cake!!!!!!!

The first photo is him on the phone to a customer, and the second one is him pretending to eat the lovely cake :-)

What I spent my money on!

2010-01-24T16:43:00.003Z

I used my voucher to buy the bracelet.. Douglas got me my first charm!!

The next two I want are two black and white cats with smiles (Just like the one Billy is wearing right now, curled up next to me). I didnt like the ones Swaroski had.. they didnt look like cats!

A special Saturday

2010-01-21T08:12:00.004Z

Some of you already know that for the last term (Since September 09) I have belonged to a choir called Body of Sound. (Choir consists of about 40 women)

Several times a year, the choir are invited to spend a weekend at the house of one of its members. Lesley and her husband live way out in the countryside, quite high up, in a converted/beautifully restored barn and cottage.

Last Saturday was my first visit up there. The group were quite worried that the snow would cancel the weekend, but luckily it had melted just enough to make the trip possible.

Douglas gave me a lift up there (so he could have the car and go shopping etc). I was a bit nervous at first.. although I've been with the choir for a term, they are a very close knit group and it is taking me a while to feel part of that group.

The house/barn was beautiful. I was one of the first to arrive, so I settled down by the log fire, and was joined by Lesleys fathers little dog, Tyler, who enjoyed some attention and the fire.

Bit by bit more women appeared. The dog wasnt phased at all by so many people turning up, and happily wandered round collecting new smells and getting lots of attention.

When everyone had arrived (I think about 20 of us were there) we sat in the barn and each shared a photo we had brought with us. There were some lovely photos and some fascinating stories told!

Everyone had brought something for either lunch or tea, so once lunch items had been set out, we ate. There were several types of soup, home baked bread, a few types of cheese, salads and dips on offer - not to mention the cakes and chocolates which I did my best to aviod!

After lunch, we used some art and craft materials brought by people to create bits to go in a "garden". The things we created had to in some way embody what we felt about the choir, so we all set to work, glueing, chopping and creating. Being a choir, as we worked various songs just popped out of conversations, and we all just began to sing. It was lovely!

After we had talked about, and admired the garden we made, we got down to some work

discussing the choir, giving our leader Helen some feedback on the year and saying what we would like to do in the future. Helen works very hard, finding songs, organising copies of words and teaching us. Although she enjoys doing this, she is self employed, and part of our "subs" for being in the choir go to pay her wages. Its good for her to get feedback from those who she works for!

Even the little dog got decorated!

Douglas picked me up after another marvellous meal at 9pm.. I had a really lovely day and feel very much part of the group now :-)

Blowing my own trumpet (again.. sorry)

2010-01-21T08:04:00.002Z

Hello dear readers, apologies for the lack of blog recently, but I wait till something that I hope will be of interest to you happens, and now I have a fair few things I can tell you about!

Firstly, a couple of weeks ago I had some good news. My ex team leader nominated me for an award for the hard work I have put in recently.. Here is what she said!

For her involvement in setting up the renewal letter process for the Carrier and Broker team:

Anna was involved in mapping the current process to identify improvements that could be made
Suggested that we use an outside company to print off the application forms – they would look professional, release time taken to print them off ourselves, cut down on paper, free up the printers.

She suggested trying to cut down on the paper used which meant us using A4 envelopes at a cost of 56p each to post.

Was involved in writing a new letter which included Online registration as an option. This resulted in only 1 sheet of paper being used (down from 13 sheets per pack) which enabled us to use the stuffer in facilities (saving time) and using a normal envelope (reducing postage cost to 28p per item (halving the postage costs).

With nearly 19,000 letters going out since the beginning of Sept this is a saving of around £5500 in postage alone without including savings in paper and time.

These improvements have reduced our environmental footprint (less paper), costs (postage & paper), customer service (improved letter and more choices in registration methods).

Anna has continued to monitor the process, keeping detailed spreadsheets of what has been sent when and feeding this back to the Team Leader.

She has also assumed responsibility for the printing of the letters (around 1500 per week).

She has also suggested a project to monitor the impact of these letters and give us details of when customers actually register (is the 1 month letter more effective than the 6 month letter) -she is in the process of setting this up.

In summary Anna has put a lot of work into setting up and driving this process improvement which has been a huge benefit in terms of reducing cost, time spent sending out packs, more efficient process and a better service to our customer as well as the environmental impact of reducing our paper usage.

Whoohoooo!

I got a £50 gift token for our local shopping mall (Meadowhell.. err I mean Meadowhall). Not sure what I will spend it on yet, but it might be spent on Saturday :-)

Snow snow snow snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-01-05T16:25:00.004Z

When I went to work it was begining to snow.

Through the day I got really rather worried about getting home, and eventually (long after d's workplace had chucked him and his workmates out) I got chucked out an hour early. I wanted to leave quite a lot earlier, but as the trams were still running I got told to stay a bit longer.

I drove home, no problems until I got onto our home road, which was really very snowy still. I have abandoned the car not too far away and got home to two cats, howling for their tea. Poor babies.. they have to wait until 4pm for dinner :-) Its not as though we dont feed them enough! lol.

Before I settled in, I did a crazy thing. I went out and lay in the snow to make my very first ever snow angel!! Douglas said it looked more like an abomnible snow monster.. I dont care.. it was fun. I mainly made this snow angel for my friend Marchaline who is a blogging buddy! Its her turn now (hope you are reading this, M!)

So, here is proof. The photo is really not very good, but its going up anyway :-)

Ok.. if you look VERY carefully, you might see that this is my head. lol Top left hand corner has a head shaped space..

As a reward for looking at my snowy photo, here is one I took at lunch time, going up to the canteen for a bite to eat :-)

Its lovely looking out at the snow now.. not sure if I will get to work tomororw or not!

A lovely evening out

2010-01-01T10:17:00.004Z

On the 30th, my mum sent me an email to work telling me she planned to see a film that evening, and would I like to go with her. This seemed like an excellent idea!

The film we planned to see was called "Morris, a life with bells on"

I quote from a website which tells you all about the film..

Morris: a Life with Bells on is a heartwarming feature-length comedy shot in documentary format that follows the fortunes of one of the leading Morris teams in the country, Milsham Morris, and in particular those of its leader, Derecq Twist. Morris is a gentle and affectionate look at an aspect of English culture which is, in the finest traditions of this country, unapologetically eccentric, and towards which there exists a huge amount of good will. The film's events take place in the summer months in and around Dorset, and specifically centre around an idyllic thatched country pub, the Traveller's Staff. The film is an unashamed celebration of not only the English countryside but also of what it means to be English.

I finished work at 5, and had to be in town for the movie at 6. Luckily, one of my colleagues was going to the same cinema (different film) and gave me a lift.

As we parked, I saw a tall gent in green trousers and a lovely red hat.. some of you will know I have sentimental memories of someone elses red hat, so I commented to him on how lovely his chapeau was!

When I got into the foyer, I met up with my mum and lo and behold.. rather a lot more chaps in green trousers (and the one with the lovely red hat) were gathering.. it was Sheffield City Morris come to dance and see the film!!

After a few dances, we all went in and watched the film! As an ex Morris dancer myself, and an ex folk dancer I found the film delightful.. and killingly funny - lots of "in" jokes as some folkies take their dancing very seriously indeed!!

After the film, my mum and I walked up into town, with broad grins on our faces, which somewhat offset the fact that it was terribly cold outside. We had hoped to eat at the little cafe linked to the cinema, but as that was closed we headed out to find something else.

We ended up at an extremely nice Italian, where we both had a pizza and defrosted before venturing out again, and making our way home.

Thinking about the film still makes me smile.. If you see it on anywhere near where you live, I strongly recommend you go see it!

Snow snow and... more snow!!!!!!!!

2009-12-24T09:51:00.006Z

Last night it started snowing again, and I like an idiot went out in it (in the car) to collect some computer speakers that a bloke advertised on Freelge. It was a little slippy in places, but at 8pm last night it wasnt too bad.

We woke up this morning to find that it had been snowing through the night.. everything was covered in a beautiful blanket of white stuff :-) We decided to leave the car under its snowy blanket, and go to work by tram.

Douglas and I got the same tram together at 7.30 this morning. He got off at his stop, then I had another 15 mins to mine, then eventually got to work at about 8.30.

The rest I will leave to the photos!

Wassail!

2009-12-22T21:30:00.004Z

Seasons Greetings to our friends and family this snowy Yuletide!

WASSAIL!

I booked the 21st off and spent the afternoon cooking a right royal meal for us both...

Douglas had Garlic roast chicken, roast parsnips, roast potatoes, brussel sprouts and carrots, not forgetting the chicken gravy..

I had home made nut rost (with loads of garlic in) roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli.. and some delicious veggie gravy!

We had a really lovely evening, and washed our meal down with some sparkling chardonnay, then chilled out on the sofa watching a film. Billy came and sat on me for a while, which was really sweet, but hes a heavy lump, and when he became too heavy I moved him off :-(

I think he has just about forgiven me, so he and I will head up for bed, and join the already sleeping Douglas :-)

Have a lovely Christmas, and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

oh PS come visit us next year!!!!!!!!!

An exhausting day off work

2009-12-15T19:18:00.003Z

My nephews and neice go to a school that has already broken up for the winter holidays, but their Dad (my brother) is still busy being a GP, and their Mum, (sis in law) who is a teacher, works at a school that only broke up this afternoon, so I booked the day off quite a while ago to sit on all three kids for the day.

Being a nice Aunty, I offered to have them from last night, to make life easier for Katy - one less morning trying to get the kids to us and herself to work on time.

I had decided that it would be fun cook something with the kids.. they told me previously that they adore pizza, so rather than make cake I thought it would be fun to make pizza from scratch!! We started after breakfast at about 9am.

They all took turns in grating cheese, chopping up chunks of mozerella and pineapple, then squishing garlic in Elaines (the late, much missed DMILs) amazing garlic squisher.

Martha was very dissapointed we didnt use our amazing hand blender with attachements, that also used to belong to Elaine. Elaine and her sister (DAIL) called this hand blender the "UM" as many years ago, when I was up at their house I kept saying "please pass me the "Ummmm" as I couldnt remember what it was really called...and the name stuck!

I organised the cooking by getting the kids to take turns being "chef" whilst the other two read or played on the computer etc.

It kept arguments down to a minium and gave them all important parts to play in pizza making :-)

After we had everything ready, they decorated their pizzas and we popped them in the oven. That took us till about 11.45am, and we were due at the local swimming pool to meet up with a school friend and friends mum.

We had a great swim, then about 1pm ish Carlo (smallest one) and I got hungry, so we sat out in the cafe area, and ate our amazing pizza. Carlo said it was the best pizza he had EVER eaten (in his whole 5 years lol) the twins came along and enjoyed some too. They adored it, so I think we will have to make it again some time!

The twins went off with their friend from school (and mum) for the rest of the afternoon, and Carlo and I got back home at about 3pm (me pretty exhausted by now lol) We watched a little kids tv then went to collect Douglas from work.

Carlo is growing up very well.. he loves reading little bits from books, can count up to at least 40 and probably beyond with very few mistakes, and spent quite a while discussing the "sticky stuff" that held the flap of his book bag together, what shape the "sticky stuff" was in, and whether it could be made into a mouse shape. He thought the main problem with this was that a mouse tail is too think and curly :-) The new word for the day was VELCRO.

We took Carlo, and quite a bit of spare pizza back into the loving care of his mum then went home ourselves.

I had a wonderful, incredibly busy day. Being with all three kids can be a bit difficult at times, especially as the two boys tend to provoke each other and need to be separated, but mostly it was lovely to be with them, great to see them cooking, swimming and just being themselves :-)

Being an Aunty is great.. I can steal the kids, play mum/teacher/chef/swimming helper with them.. and then.. HAND THEM BACK!!!!!!!!

Im now looking forward to a quiet, restful day at work tomorrow lol!

Blowing my own trumpet (again lol)

2009-12-14T09:13:00.006Z

I have said in the past that I get quite a few compliments from my customers.

Now, for the first time ever, our "cool wall" has got one of my compliments (known here as commendations) as the star letter of the month!!

I got 3 commendations this month, but 4 if you include one for our waste carriers team.

Im reet proud of meeself, as they would say here in Yorkshire!!

The ones with little red lines round are my commendations for November.

I hope this shows that its not all "play" here, and we do actually work very hard, and our customers appreciate us :-)

What we did at work today!

2009-12-09T22:35:00.005Z

For the last few months, every team in our contact centre has been spending a bit of time on a challenge our managers gave us.

Each team had to find out what our customers think of our service, and where we can improve. My team deals with people registering as Waste Carriers, so they were the customers we were interested in.

We created a questionnaire, put together a list of customers who had recently received their certificates, contacted them and asked them to take part in our survey - many very kindly did.

From the survey, and various other spreadsheets of lovely stats that we keep, we got lots of lovely raw data, that was then sorted out into some useful info, and put into graphs.

We have a very creative and talented team - some put together a story, some created props, others did the graphs, and one created some music then played it on his guitar for our presentation.

Here follows a quick outline of our story!

Santa is sitting in this grotto with his Elves (one of whom wants to be Elvis, so is known as Elfis). He gets a letter from the government saying they cant afford to give him money for all the toys children want for Christmas, but they will give him some money towards creating gifts out of waste wood (after all we are in a recession!)

Santa goes out and a local carpenter gives him lots of offcuts of planks etc. Just as the reindeer are having a drink at the local river, an Officer comes along and asks Santa for his Waste Carrier Licence (as hes carrying waste wood). Poor Santa does not have a licence, so has to return the wood, and go home empty handed. the Officer tells the Seasonal Fellow that he faces a heavy fine if he does not stay within the law!

Santa is shocked and thinks that if he does not get this licence, he might go go Jail.

Elfis appears and starts singing Jail House rock.

Meet Elfis!

Elfis is my dear colleague Arshid who is an Elvis fan!

Santa calls the Environment Agency, who explain all about it, and show him the site on the web where he can apply for one.

As Santa waits for his licence, the good fairy (aka Ricky) tells us all about how fast our process is, and what our customers think of how we are doing, and what we can do to improve our service. (lovely graphs and charts illustrate this)

Next scene.. Santa gets his licence, collects the waste wood and takes it back to his workshop where he makes toys for all the children, and all ends happily ever after!

Meet my lovely team!

From the left top.. Tim, musician, Lucy, Narrator and organiser, Arshid (aka Elfis) Ricky (aka the good fairy) Ali (the Officer and elf) sitting down.. Alice, (an elf and prop mover) Sonia (Narrator 2 as I had lost my voice) Robyn (elf) and Rob (aka Santa!)

We had a great time, and the information that we got from our project will be used to make the process faster and easier for our customers, and help us help them!

More photos of the wonderful conservatory

2009-12-07T15:08:00.004Z

This is the cheerful chappy who painted our conservatory.. its really beginning to look nice!

The finished article looking clean and beautiful!

The inspector gives it the final seal of approval
(tempted in by cat biscuits lol)

Our lovely new conservatory!

2009-12-01T12:24:00.005Z

As some of you will remember, a few months ago I put a photo in my blog of the beginnings of our new conservatory.

The rectangular space next to our kitchen had been dug out by the previous owners of the house, and was really just a muddy weedy space with our kitchen one side, and an old wall the other.

Now, many months later the conservatory is very nearly finished!!

Here are some photos.

This used to be a window, now it is a lovely double door. There are doors each end of the conservatory, so in the summer we can keep both open and have lovely fresh air going through the house.

Before the walls were painted and the floor was down:

Looking in from the garden end when I got back from work one evening.

More photos of the finished article yet to come!

Silly goings on at work

2009-11-17T21:01:00.006Z

Whilst I was on holiday, my dear work colleague Malcolm had his penguin office desk toy kidnapped.

The poor peng was put, head down, into a mug of water, and stuffed into the office freezer. Notes were left to lead his owner on a trail to the place his much loved bird had been hidden.

By the time he got there, Penguin was frozen into his watery prison, and Malcolm was rather distressed. In a desperate attempt to free his desk toy, he got hold of penguins lower half and pulled.. and pulled.. hoping that he would slide out of the ice.

Penguin lovers may wish to stop reading now..

The worst imaginable happened.. Penguin snapped in half.. his upper half stayed firmly in the ice.

Poor Malc. When our team leader found out, she told our team off for their tricks, but probably had a bit of a laugh about it too!

Malcolm has a new desk toy now.. a rather manic looking Octopus that he has named affectionately (?) after his Wife, by calling it "Pauline 2".

Pauline 2 can be seen in Malcolm's hand any time he leaves his desk. He is not leaving anything to chance now!!

I made an ID badge for the Octopus today in a spare moment, so in a few days time, I hope my friend on the facilities desk will email the real Pauline and tell her that her new ID badge is ready. I'm sure she will enjoy the joke when she sees what I created!!

Ps We do work hard at work.. I created the ID badge in my break lol :-)

Photos of Wot we did on our holidays

2009-11-16T22:09:00.007Z

Douglas in the town of his birth - Jedburgh

Melrose School. Douglas spent a year here.

A newly purchased rubber band bouncy ball! (And Dreaded Sister in Laws younger son lol)

DSILs Older son. I think the caption should be "Id rather have a pint of beer"

DBILs lovely youngest, and of course she is my favouite Scottish Neice!
(shhh dont tell her shes my ONLY Scottish Neice lol)

The Firth of Forth from the train window. It was incredibly beautiful!

*******

Special apologies to TDBILs oldest. I dont seem to have uploaded a photo of him from my phone yet!

Wot we did on our holidays!

2009-11-15T20:57:00.005Z

We decided it was about time to go "up North" and see Douglases side of the family.

We went up on Thursday the 5th November to a small border town called Jedburgh, where Douglas was born, as its many years since he last went there.

I had booked a most superior B&B for our one night there.. and lovely it was too. Willow Court is a large bungalow set up into a hillside. I think they have about three double rooms that they let out, and according to our host (with the most) they are the oldest B&B in town!

We had a meal in a cafe very close to the B&B called Simply Scottish. Douglas enjoyed Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, and I had a really lovely spicy bean burger. The meals were rather large so with that and the best of a bottle of wine on board we staggered back to our room.

Friday

After our one night there (with a lovely breakfast) we had a look round Jedburgh. We drove around and after a while found both of Douglases old schools (primary and secondary) The house he lived in with his family was very close to the B&B, and hadnt changed much.

We went to Melrose, another small town nearby, where Douglas went to private school for a year, and had a wander round the shops and a drink in a little cafe.

We drove a little further North, had lunch in a shopping centre that D's mum used to frequent, then on to Douglases Auntie (TBAITW) who lives in a lovely little village on the Firth of Forth.

D's Auntie had very kindly agreed to put us up for a few nights, so we took all our clobber up to the spare room, with lovely views out over the water.

On Friday, TBAITW and partner cooked a wonderful lump of Roast Beef, Yorkshire Puds, roasts and all the trimmings. Ds sister and gang came. Our Hosts with the mosts kindly made me Yorkshire puds and roast with veggie fat whilst the others enjoyed theirs with goose fat. I was (still am) very grateful for their care and understanding of my diet!!

On Saturday we got the train up to Dundee, where we met up with Ds Sister & Partner, and two kids, and his older Brother and his two kids. All the kids (yes, us included) had a really fun time in the water - the pool there is fab.. it has 3 or 4 flumes, a river rapid and waves!

Douglas did the biggest of all the flumes, and was shot out of the exit a few meters above water. The momentum from the descent and turns in the pipe caused him to shoot out and twist and a strange angle (Douglas says "elegantly" lol) he landed with an almightly splash belly first into the water, giving his poor insides the fright of their lives.

According to Sister, sisters partner and big brother, Douglas displaced an impressive amount of water at that moment (they got a perfect view from the stands) . Newton would have been delighted with the result!

After a while the "adults" got bored of watching us "kids" and slipped out into town to find us a good place to eat. We met up and wandered slowly up a hill to a great burger joint called Ketchup. I had another bean burger, but it didnt quite match up to the one I had in Jedburgh!

For meat eaters, the menu was vast and varied.. various family members had the "Who killed Bambi" burger (Venison) and one nephew, who likes trying new things had a CROCODILE BURGER!! (YIKES!!) He ate it all much to my surprise!

We got back to our base exhausted having done swimming and some shopping (after lunch we took the kids to Waterstones, and let them choose a book each as an early Xmas present)

Our Hosts with the mosts were also exhausted. They and their dogs had been at a shoot (Pheasants and such) being "beaters" and the dogs had been "collectors", so we settled on some dishes from a local chinese takeaway, which was huge and very pleasant.

On Sunday, Douglas and I took charge of the kitchen, and spent a few pleasant hours making a large veggie curry, bombay potatoes and lots of little Sambals (a bit like chutneys) to go with it. Ds sister and clan came down again to help us eat it.

After an impressive firework display which we could watch from the garden, we had a drink to Ds late mum, Elaine (DMIL) who loved watching the fireworks with a glass of Noilly Prat in her hand. We still miss her very much, but it was nice to be with family and raise a glass or two.. or three to her. I'm sure she would have approved totally :-)

Monday was packing up and going home day. We went home via a lovely farm shop that both Elaine and her sister (TBAITW) and then Tebay Services near the lake district.

We had such a lovely time, but it was good to be back home again with our two moggies that were really pleased to see us again.

Photos to follow!

Photos from camp..

2009-11-01T22:44:00.006Z

Samhain is not just about remembering death .. its also about looking forward to new life. In this photo, one of our friends came dressed as Death and Rebirth - a great reminder of the circle of life.. death and rebirth.

After some rather heated discussions on the Sentry Circle Forum about the differences between Swedes and Turnips, and exactly what was wanted by Chef Dangerous Dave to go in the stew, these two came dressed as.. Swede and Turnip!! lol

Some more lovely costumes.. Including a dead convict! (she looks strangely lively in this photo though lol)

Finally.. Jack the dog came dressed as..... Himself!

Samhain (pronouced Sah-wain)

2009-11-01T21:50:00.003Z

This weekend we celebrated Samhain.. the end of the Pagan year and beginning of the new one. Its a time to look back on things past, and also to look forward to things yet to come.

FRIDAY

Douglas had suggested we go out to our favourite tapas bar in town on Friday evening, so when I heard (via email and facebook) that his younger brother Simon would be back from Ethiopia, and in town that weekend it seemed the perfect time to arrange a little surprise!

I arranged with Simon that he should meet up with us at the restaruant on Friday, but that it would be a nice surprise for Douglas. I booked a table and as we went in, Douglas told the waitress we had booked a table for two, but i made some hand and mouth gestures behind D's back to say "NO! Its a table for three!!! but shhhh!"

Douglas, bless him didnt see this, or comment on why there were three plates laid out instead of two :-) We were a bit early, so I stalled him from ordering food by suggesting that we ordered cocktails first. I ordered one that D had last time thinking I liked it, but it really wasnt a patch on the lovely raspberry one Douglas ordered.. so he had both and I ordered a rasberry one for myself ;-) Yum! My first ever Daquiri!

We ordered some food, and shortly before it arrived Simon did!!!! He looks very well if a little wild.. his hair was very enthusastic and untamed lol. Douglas was totally surprised and delighted to see Simon. We had a really nice meal whilst the two brothers caught up and chatted away.

Its easy to arrange surprises for Douglas - the only thing is if I do something like that, I know I can't even give him a tiny clue because hes very good at guessing what the item/surprise is, so although I was dying to wind him up and give him some clues but managed not to. I told my mum and people at work though, cause they wouldnt let on! :-)

SATURDAY

We had been invited up to Sentry Circle near Northallerton for a Samhain party and a friends birthday party combined. The land belongs to a farmer, who has allowed a stone circle to be built on a hill, and many native trees to be planted. The circle has taken many years to build, all the stones being pulled up the hill and put into place by pure person power - no motors involved.

It took about an hour and a half to get up there. We were very happy to meet up with our friends, and spent lovely evening just sitting and chatting. Douglas also helped with baking some mutton in the earth oven, then looking after a huge stew that was created to feed everyone who wanted some.

After the birthday celebrations, and enjoying peoples fancy dress costumes, we reluctantly headed for home, and got back about 11pm.

This was the communal fire that heated the stones for the earth oven.

More photos on next entry

Catch up

2009-10-24T19:34:00.005+01:00

Hi blog readers, sorry for the lack of news for a while.

Douglas came out of hospital as I said, and we had a lovely evening together. This episode of illness has taken the stuffing out of him somewhat, and hes still been feeling sick now and again so although he did attempt to go back to work on Thursday, he only managed the morning.

Lets hope next week brings better health for him :-)

I've been incredibly busy at work these last few weeks.. I managed to keep going to work all through the week D was in hospital, knowing that if I didnt, I would only mope at home, miss him and feel miserable - I also really wanted to be at work because there is so much going on!

Over the last 6 weeks here are some of the things I have been given as projects/responsibilies by my fab boss... this is ontop of normal daily paperwork and being on the phones giving advice to our customers :-)

Organising and printing off thousands of renewal reminders for people with waste carrier licences..
Training a few extra people from different departments to help cope with the huge influx of renewals my first job generated
Organising work for these extra people to do, fielding questions and problems they have
Keeping various statistic spreadsheets up to date (Government departments loove stats!)
Helping to organise a few events for Customer Service Week
Organising others in the department to check the certificates and paperwork printed out for customers to ensure its correct and ready for our marvellous letter stuffer machine
Organising for application packs to be put into envelopes by the afore mentioned machine ready for advisiors to send out to customers who don't or can't register themselves online
Teaching various members of my team how to process registrations made by online customers
Providing support and advice about the Waste Carrier process for other staff members who had queries from customers (ie have you registered me yet, how can I .. what do I do because.. )
Reverse cherry picking the more complicated queries and sorting them out .. I love the harder stuff, its so much more interesting!
Making banoffe pie to raise money on our dress down day for a local charity (YUM)

Well, i think thats all I have been doing.. I've been coming home quite knackered, so thats one reason why I have not blogged.

Some of you know that I help our local Freegle Group...

FREEGLE is a play on the word Free and Google. Its about giving freely easily and locally.

If you have an item that still has some use left to it, but that you no longer want, you can put a message on the Feegle forum for your area saying

Offered: Item (describe it), still works but no longer needed (then the area you live in)

(Long pause in typing.. Lilly is on the desk demanding to be worshipped)

The chances are pretty high that one or more of the members (we have 3500+) of the group will email you and ask for the item!

This morning we hired a church hall (In conjunction with the Council who think our group is great) and held a non-internet Freegle giving and getting morning. People came in, dropped things that they no longer need off, and taking a few items that they fancied. It was a very wet day, so we didnt get many visitors, but those that did almost all went away with something given by another.

Someone brought in some mini tree ferns that they had grown by spore. By the end of the event, there were two left, so I have taken them to my parents who are both very keen on ferns, so they will be added to the collection.

In very many years time, they will look like this, but at the moment they look like ordinary pot plants :-)

Look hard enough at the bottom left hand side of this picture and you will see a man!!

Not sure what we are going to do tomorrow - but I know that it will NOT involve housework as Douglas just suggested lol.

I will keep you posted.

Better update

2009-10-15T11:59:00.004+01:00

Hes coming home tonight!!!!!!!!! yipieee!

Ps this is Fridays news :-)

Recovery - Douglas bounces back :-)

2009-10-14T20:33:00.005+01:00

After a busy, productive enjoyable day at work (despite being very tired) it was lovely to pop in and see Douglas, who is so much better.

It seems that this time its a proper tummy bug thats doing the rounds... there are quite a few other kidney patients with the same problem in the same hospital at present... so many that he can't get a side room on either of the two renal units.

As you can see he dosnt look too upset about this, I found him a hair brush for his beard, and got him a card so he can watch TV and phone people. I doubt he will be doing much phoning, and until I get his mobile charger into him, he wont be doing much of that either lol.

He hopes to be out on Friday.. will keep you posted.

Douglas brushing his beard :-)

Douglas

2009-10-14T07:00:00.003+01:00

Just a quick note to say Douglas isnt well again.. hes had diahorreah and vomiting since sunday evening. This sadly isnt uncommon so we thought we would see how it went.. last night D was getting worse and wasnt able to keep any fluid in, so at 7pmish we phoned the out of hours Dr service, and after a very long wait, we went to the hospital via ambulance (first time Ive ever been in one!) and he was admitted straight to a holding/assessment ward. We got to the ward at about 11.30pm.

I phoned them this morning.. hes been given anti sickness medication and is on a drip (probably just saline) and was sleeping.

I will call them again at about 11.30 after they have done the busy bit of the morning.

He has his mobile with him, but probably wont feel like texting at present. I will have mine at work and can see any messages etc at my break times.

updates as and when,

Anna xx

Cute Lilly captured in mid roll!

2009-10-11T16:40:00.004+01:00

Lilly, not wanting to be out done by Billy, posed for the camera in mid roll as if to say "look at me, Im MUCH cuter than he is...

its up to you to decide!

Its such a hard life...... being a cat...

2009-10-11T15:27:00.001+01:00

Dear Billy, after nearly a whole day of sleeping on his favouite armchair in our lounge, was obviously very tired, so he came up to the office for a snooze on his favouite cushion cover!

I think it must be hard work maintaining those lovely whiskers :-) He may be sleeping now, but as soon as he hears the sound of his biscuits falling into his food dish, he will magically wake up and be very hungry after his hard days work lol.

I think Lilly is also sleeping somewhere.. either the spare bed or on/under our bed.

The hair cut!

2009-10-11T15:05:00.005+01:00

As some of you know, I have really really long hair. For those of you who dont.. I had really really long hair until yesterday!!!!!!!!

Now I have just longish hair. I was brave and went to a proper Salon de Hair.. although I have been to barbers shops now and again, and demanded a quick chop of the worst bits, this time it was serious.. a wash then a chop!

The last time I had my hair washed cut and dried was when I lived in Leicester with my parents.. I must have been a young teenager at the time. All I remember is it was jolly expensive!!

The young man who did the chopping yesterday said about 5 inches really needed to come off to make it look all tidy. He did so, and I was very brave in not crying!!

As a special treat he got some flattening irons out and straightened it all.. it looked amazing!!

You can see the choppy bits here!

Douglas, sainted moggies and I are all fine. Douglas had a diabetic eye scan, which is why we went into town yesterday, and Billy.. well Billy brought in a HUGE DEAD RAT on Friday evening, looking ever so proud of himself.

I dont really need to explain ~(but I will anyway) that Douglas freaked out a bit, but very sensibly put the dead specimin into a carrier bag, praised Billy and binned the "prize".

We are pretty sure he didnt kill it, as he was only outside for a few minutes before he brought it in. My older brother, by way of facebook, suggested we should put it on the compost heap as a warning to others of its kind, but we really didnt want it to be brought back into the house again, so into the bin it went!

On the March - a cat visiting my parents pond

2009-10-04T11:45:00.003+01:00

This is a picture my mum took recently of a very beautiful cat walking round my parents pond.

Not quite as beautiful as our two cats (in case they are reading this) but very pretty indeed, and a wonderful photo!

Click on the photo to view it at its best.

What we have been up to PART THREE (final bit)

2009-09-28T19:23:00.004+01:00

The path has been done, is down and looking great, so the next step is to put a lid on the odd space next to the path that is also adding to the damp problem!

Im delighted to say that this "lid" is taking the form of a conservatory (Thanks Parents!!!) so in this photo you see one of the builders putting the wooden slats in place ready to take the concrete base. They did this at the same time as the path, as it saved them getting two lots of concrete delivered.

You will see more photos as the work goes on.. its going to be great!!

A day trip to Sheffield Town Centre

Now and then Douglas and I go to Sheffield Town Centre. On this visit we went to the indoor market to get him some goat (for Curry Goat) and also to support my new choir (Im new, not them) Body of Sound who were busking their raising money for charity.

I have been to my choir for 3 practices now. I'm slowly learning the songs and their way of doing things, enjoying it very much but nowhere near busking standard yet lol.

Do not follow our example of getting goat meat at the market. It was in a frozen pack and turned out to have a very high percentage of bone, which sadly took a chunk out of our best chopping knife :-( We found a local-ish company a few days after this called Black Sheep Meat Company. We will get their meat next time!!

Anyway, I digress... whilst we were in town, we decided to take a trip up in Sheffields version of the London Eye, and saw some lovely views!

It was a bit expensive, but very interesting. I recommend it if you visit Sheffield!

Finally... the post brought a padded envelope for Douglas from Scotland!! Ds talented Step Mum Sandy has come back from visiting Simon in Ethiopia, and made the second of his birthday socks. You can now see two very happy feet!!

You will just have to imagine the huge smile on Ds face, but I assure you, hes delighted with his lovely hand knitted jolly socks that keep his toes nice and warm. I just hope he doesn't start wearing them in bed, or I'm moving down to the spare room!!!

I hope thats a good update for you all.. if I dont post for a while, feel free to phone, email or generally prod me :-)

What we have been up to PART TWO

2009-09-28T19:10:00.005+01:00

If you look back, you will see the story and photos of the cat who adopted my parents for a few days until her real humans came back from holiday. My parents went away just before Crunchy was claimed under her real name of Binos, so we went to visit on cat sitting duties. Crunchos as I like to call her, is a very friendly little lady, as you see from this delightful photo of Douglas et cat.

Crunchos still visits my parents now and then, but has been rather snooty and not very social recently. I hope this is just a phase, and she will decide she likes them again after all very soon!

Next up in the hall of cat fame comes our Billy, doing a very good impression of a cushion. Hes very good at this, but then again he gets a lot of practice in! lol

One last cute picture for this posting.. is it a bird, a cat, a plane? No!! its Douglas Square Pants (or should that be Douglas Square Kilt?)

He we have Douglas on the tram. We were going out for a meal in late August to celebrate his birthday. He is a big fan of Sponge bob Square Pants (as seen on the T Shirt) and I think he looked great in this and his lovely kilt. For those of you who still have no idea, Sponge bob is a cartoon yellow sponge who lives under the sea with his friends.

What we have been up to (with photos) PART ONE

2009-09-28T19:01:00.005+01:00

Well, to start with, I have been making loads of plum jam (I think I may have mentioned this already?)

Various family and freinds have had some of my jam, and its gone down very well. I gave some to our builders (see story further down) and one of them said the whole pot was more or less demolished within a day. He had help from his wife and two sons, and all of them adored it!!

This photo is the plums and sugar getting used to each other before the boiling starts.

A few weeks ago, we had our side path taken up, dug out, a waterproof membrane put in and a lovely new path put down on top. We did this mainly because the path was in a very bad condition, and was letting water into the foundations of our house, and making the side wall damp. We have had problems with damp on that wall for quite a long time. Hopefully it can start to dry out now!

Its now got a nice ridged concrete path that we put our initals and the year in at the top before it dried :-)

We are still alive!

2009-09-28T06:22:00.002+01:00

Just to reassure you blog readers.. we are all still alive (thats me, him and the two furries who own this house)

I have loads of photos to put onto the blog relating to things we have done recently, I promise to sort things out soon!

Anna xx

Excitement in the Evenings...

2009-09-15T14:03:00.000+01:00

Whoohooo!

Look what we have signed up to!!

http://www.unbeatable-energy.co.uk/drumming.htm

Looks cool, eh?

Rainy Season in Addis (Yay another long one from Simon)

2009-09-13T17:58:00.002+01:00

Trout brown scales of water slip down the road to form churning lakes of tea whereever the ground levels out. The garbage filled canyons that criss cross town are now turned to a writhing, muscular flow of chocolate milk. Peals of thunder ring out throughout the day, making it tempting to spend your days dramatically laughing for effect. Now and then the sun comes out for a steamy interlude.

The rainy season in Addis has a rather fearsome reputation, and indeed an awful lot of water falls from the skys, pours along every surface and jets out of the overfull storm drains. But now I have new shoes it's really not too bad; there's a lovely fresh look when the rains stop and the clouds pinken at sunset. The lightning can really come in handy as well, like when you're going home late at night through a district with a power cut in a taxi whose lights don't work.

Plus my life here is pretty amazing. Our cook Ziggy is amazing, plus she makes my bed, washes the dishes and does my laundry! I can't believe domestic servants went out of fashion in Britain. I do occasionally feel guilty and try to help but she really tells me off - I never do it the way she likes. She's also an awesome person though a little possessive of her kitchen. I help her son with his homework and he flounces around singing the interminable Ethiopian hymns which I don't feel is a true repayment.

My housemate is sound - his name is Jason and we get on well. He was a bit of a wildman in his time but has settled down now, and he has good taste in music. The whole Addis crowd is pretty cool as well; I've had some good nights out with them. It's certainly nice having a crowd of rent-a-friends to hang out with, though rest assured they don't compete with The Real Thing. I think the problem is that if you have a genuinely interesting job that makes the world a better place then you tend to focus on it to the exclusion of being a bit of a fucknut, and where's the fun in that?

There just doesn't seem to be that many people I can bounce off of, but that may be do to the fact I'm being slowly weaned off red wine. Suddenly getting to South Africa doesn't seem like such a bad option: will I finally come to terms with Pinotage?

The scene in Addis generally revolves around Bole Rd, an anywhere road which stretches its modern flats, good restaurants and expensive bars down airportwards. Some of them have live music, though there's a real lack of good drummers, and a night of purported Ethio Jazz was
very lame - Death Ray Trebuchet were far better. Check out their Gypsy/Ethio Punk if they're in your neighbourhood soon. Sometimes the bands play 70 covers of tunes you'd throw up to back home, so it isn't really worth it. Only the Reggae bands are really much cop, as long
as they don't go into an extended tribute to Bob. The other joint everyone heads to is the Geez Bar, down some dodgy (though perfectly safe - it's Addis!) backstreets and beloved by Faranjis becuase the beer is only twice the normal price, not five times. It's owned by some French people and heavily populated by la Francais - I spent my first evening there deep in onversation with Julie Delpy, probably. I was already a bit monkeyed when I got there.

Some Faranjis did put on a good night up in the old Piazza, which was wicked. I was meeting a German friend up there and he didn't know the area well, so we agreed to meet at the biggest landmark - St George's church. He was a bit late so I was hanging round the main gates with
all the usual pilgrims kissing the wall, crossing themselves and mumbling prayers. One chap approached from the shadows with a vigourous "Seulam no!" [Hello].

After swapping greetings he just lingered near me for a few minutes, before leaving and promptly being replaced by another fellow. In fact, friendly guys kept on approaching me for about twenty minutes until I started getting suspicious. There's always that feeling of "Maybe I'm reading this wrong - this could just be one of those cultural missapprehensions", but my suspicions were brought somewhat to a head when I went to look for a payphone and one of them ran after me and asked me "Do you want six?"

When I finally bumped into my friend, it turned out he'd been approached in a similar manner, and it seems that Addises holiest site is also the main hang out for its Rent Boys. Which given there's No Gay Africans makes you wonder how they earn a living. We proceeded to a local bar where a prostitute accidentally grazed my knee about 50 times in the most forward display I've ever seen out here, whilst we listened to bizarre 80s Ethiopian music. Think Phil Collins with
exclusively minor chords and major ululations.

But the main Faranji DJ event was actually awesome - as much as I love (old) Ethiopian music it was really good to dance to loads of good old Western stuff. The DJs were pretty good and I would have had a really good night there even had it been back home. It did get me missing
the old house party scene.

Rest assured it's not all partying though, the writing is ongoing. Typically I spend the days with power at home writing, and the days without in the lobbies of expensive hotels using their free Wifi and power. The novel's going alright,* see bottom* though I'm running out of descriptive things from my trips to Poland previously and am having to focus on 'plot' (booo!) and dialogue/characterisation (yay!) until I can make a return visit to the land of constenant conjunctions and very flat. This is making me think I should postpone the India trip, and come back once I get fed up with Africa but still have some cash left, sometime next year.

I'm actually thinking of doing a bit of volunteering at Care International (where Jason works): just a couple of days a week but will be good to 'give something back', as if the Ethiopians haven't
taken enough already! I fear it may be a bit of a shock to be gainfully employed again but I can always quit and go back to writing if it gets a little much.

Anyway, this e-mail is already seriously out of date so I shall send this one now, and split the rest into another 2, to start the catch up and save you from reading fatigue. Still got the Omo tribes trip and my travels with parents *see bottom* to write up, and in a week I'll be off to Yemen. Busy busy busy! For someone with no job. Blimey. Keep smiling one and all,

Simon

Note 1 Simon said he planned to write two books whilst out in Ethiopia, one fiction and one philosophical. I'm not sure which one hes writing, or if both have blended lol

Note 2 His parents (Ds dad and step mum) have gone out to Addis to spend two weeks with him. I look forward to an email all about it from their perspective in a few weeks!

A lovely weekend at home

2009-09-13T17:39:00.005+01:00

A busy weekend again.. I feel as though I almost havnt stopped.

Ive given away most of the jars of plum jam I made about a week ago, which makes me really happy. There is no way we could eat all i made, and its nice to be able to give home made gifts to friends and family!

My Parents and little Bro got a jar each, Alan who gives me a lift to work got a jar, another two jars went to elderly neighbours.. Margaret, who recently lost her beloved doggie, and a few days later lost her brother got a jar, also Edna, who lives a few doors up got one too. Edna gave me a big hug in return, and this afternoon, Margaret came round with some yummy scones.. can you guess what sort of jam we will have with them??

We also went swimming, and gave the house a well needed tidy and hoover. We were going to see "A Picture of Dorian Grey" but as we needed to buy some extra veg so thats on hold for now.

On Saturday morning I got some more plums and a few more jars from my parents, but I wanted to make a big batch, so I put out a request to see if anyone had too many plums on their tree. I was delighted to get several responses, one of them from a lady who lives just a few miles away that had some saucepans from me.

I went to her house Saturday afternoon. She has an 8 foot plum tree that was absolutley covered in beautiful ripe fruit!! She had moved into her house recently and had no idea what to do with them, so I took half a tescos hessian bag full away (huge amount) and emailed her a recipie, hoping that she will make jam with some of what she has left.

I spent Saturday evening chopping plums, then Sunday making the first of all Crabapple jelly, then plum jam, which is quite a lengthy process as it takes a lot of boiling to get it to setting point. I'm glad to say I have finished it now.

Anyone who reads this that comes to visit might just be rewarded with a pot of jam!!

Ive got a load more plums to sort out anyway, but they will have to wait their turn.

PS Douglas is doing well.. he swum more than he normally does when we went swimming, and is currently relaxing after a healthy portion of my blue cheese veggie crumble, and some garlic roast chicken he cooked whilst we were out.

Busy Saturday

2009-09-05T22:00:00.004+01:00

The day started with D going off to do the shopping (Its wonderful to have a partner that can do this, and dosnt come back with all the wrong things! lol). I decided to clean the kitchen, so by the time he got back it sparkled!!

As I'm now a moderator for my local Freecycle group (fanfare please) , Im getting to know the other members of the team, and one, who lives about 5 mins away from us, offered to let me pick some fruit from her plum tree.

In early afternoon, I went over to Elise's house, picked about 4lb of lovely Victoria plums :-)

After a quick diversion to my parents to pick up some jam jars, I went home to spend a couple of hours stoning and cutting the lovely ripe fruit up into little bits.

After getting the plums ready, and making about 7 small jars of lovely plum jam, making a blackberry and apple crumble, and bread and butter pudding for lunch with various bits of family tomrorow Im pretty tired!

Oh.. also two freecylers turned up, and took all but 3 of the pans I had for grabs.. one stayed and chatted for about an hour!

I think after such a busy week, and a busy Saturday, bed might claim us a little earlier than normal for a weekends night :-)

Oh what a week!!

2009-09-05T21:15:00.004+01:00

Last Saturday I didnt feel very well, so I stayed in, did nothing, ate pain killers and hibernated.

On Sunday, we had been invited to our old next door neighbours new house. Douglas didnt feel very well, but we went anyway. It was lovely to see Matt, Katy, toddler Eliza and baby Agnes, who was born about a month before they moved. It was also lovely to see their very calm friendly ginger cat Milo.

Douglas felt more poorly, and didnt go to work Tuesday or Wednesday, which of course was very worrying. Had he still been feeling awful on Thursday, I would have thrown him at the hospital, but luckily he was well enough to go to work. Phew!!

Meanwhile, my Boss had given me an interesting, and time consuming admin task .. printing out thousands of letters to remind customers to renew their waste carriers licences! Had this been just a single paged letter the task would have been an easy one, but with the application form and various other documents to put in, it took longer.

I started off printing each type of document that had go into the pack separatley ... letter, application form, two help documents, a charges sheet and a transfer note had to go in, the ones with multiple pages were stapled, the others not. This was very time consuming and rather boring!

By Thursday, with suggestions from all sorts of people in the office, we had streamlined the process considerably.. we abandoned the staples, and printed off all ten sheets of the "pack" at one together, so all we had to do was bung a pack with a letter, and let the envelope stuffer machine do the rest!!

I was kept busy moving between 3 printers, keeping them busy, and filled with paper, liasing with various people and departments and taking stuff to the post room ready to send out. It was exhausting but very enjoyable!!

On Friday morning, 4.30am, Douglas woke me and mumbled something about not being able to feel half his face which was very weird! When I turned the light on, I could see that the left side of his face and his lips had swollen very badly! It was very difficult to understand him, and also pretty scary.

Douglas, on waking and feeling so strange had felt his arm and leg, made sure they moved and felt normal just in case it was a Stroke.. I'm so glad to say that it wasnt!!

We got up, hoping that if we waited, the swelling would just prove itself to be Odema (water staying in the tissue of his face) and that it would go down when he was upright and not lying on his face.

5.30am.. face still very swollen so we called his work GP advice service who said go to A&E!!

We stuffed a quick breakfast down, went to A&E at our normal hospital. We got seen by the Triage Nurse pretty quickly who fed D a piriton (antihistamine). We waited in the almost empty waiting room for about an hour until the Dr saw us.

I took this unbecoming picture of the poor boy whilst we were waiting to be seen. He has given me permission to put it on the blog!

Mr Rubber Lips Man!

The Dr told Douglas that it was just an allergic reaction to something (we dont know what) and that it would go down in time.

By now the time was 9.30am. I had called work and let them know what was going on, and Douglas had mumbled to his work place too. The swelling was going down a little, but it was still quite pronounced!

I drove D to his work, as he wanted to see if there was anyting non verbal he could do, but 5 mins later he had been ejected as I had predicted. Working in a call centre and not being able to talk properly is never a good combination.

D then drove me to work, and then went home... goodness knows how I survived the rest of Friday because I was exhausted from the week and the very early start!

Im very glad to say that Ds face has now gone back to normal, and hes feeling fine :-)