Definition of loneliness:- That little empty space deep in the heart of you that you don't even realize you have, until the person you miss comes back and gives you a big hug. Suddenly you are whole and full with no empty bits.
I guess I felt like this as I am having a tough time at work at the moment. Its made worse when you get home to am empty house and no-one but the dog to share your bad day with.
However the good news is, Barry is now home for a few weeks as he has some nodding dogs to design software for (Robots to you and me). It will take about 3 weeks to complete with the odd few days up in scouse land now and again.
Work has not been all bad, just the manic boss who is hating the re structuring of the Company and because I will not agree with her is hardly speaking to me or any one else in the office who disagrees with her. I truly think we should all give the new ideas a fair trial and I think they are basically sound and sensible and will with a little tweaking work well.
It has been an amusing week on the children front. I was at my Leaps and Bounds class and trying to engage one little boy in conversation during the 'news' time. He had been away for 3 weeks on a visit to Australia, but it seemed the most exciting bit of the trip was getting off the aeroplane back here and catching a bus to go and find the car! Nothing would entice him to tell me anything else at all about the trip.
During the same day but with the younger class, I had the parachute out and we were all having a wonderful time lots of laughing and shrieks of delight (and that was just me!) . I was suddenly aware that water was dripping on me every time the parachute went up in the air. The excitement had become to much for one little girl and she had spectalularly wet herself and was sitting in a large puddle in which the edge of the parachute was dipping into! So dear neighbor's that is why I am drying a parachute on my washing line today!
One of my colleagues has her 7 year old Granddaughter living with her and she told Nanny she had a 'secret' to tell her! It transpired that they were going to have a wedding in the playground the next day. Matthew Perry was to 'marry' Gemma Bennett and Jake was going to be the Vicar and Jess (the granddaughter was to be a bridesmaid! My colleague made all the right comments on how lovely and exciting it all was and said she could not wait to hear all about it when Jess came home the next day.
After school the next day Jess was asked how the Wedding went, the reply came "Oh it was to cold so we played chase instead"
Now why did I not think of that one!
Barry and I went to Milton Keynes on Saturday as I had a need to visit John Lewis! While there we went to see a new activity set up in the snowdome called Airkix! It is truly amazing, you dress up in skydiving gear and go into an amazing wind funnel and 'fly'. It truly looks the BEST fun, there is a viewing area, we sat for ages watching it. We are going to give it a go ourselves, but I have decided to make it a family affair and get the boys involved (and any-one else who wants to join us) Go to www.airkix.co.uk to see what it is all about.
We have also decided to take ski lessons, and I am about to book the first one at Tamworth ski dome. OK just 'cos I am 50 plus one doesn't mean I have to behave like it! I am acting my knicker size and no I am not telling you what that is, suffice to say its not 10!
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Whale Meet again!
What a strange week we had! A whale in the centre of London! Never before has that happened. It was fascinating to see one of these truly majestic and mysterious creatures of the deep in the midst of our modern fast moving Capital City. But very sad! The creature was doomed from the start, I rightly guessed this chap was going to die, one way or another no happy outcome was about to happen. How I would of loved to be proved wrong, but these creatures seek shallow waters if they are sick or dying, and my guess is this is what happened to this guy. Sadly real life ain't the movies and despite truly heroic efforts of rescue this Willy was not to be free. But maybe he is! Irony won the day when he demised at 'Gravesend'. A little tear was shed in this household as I am the worlds biggest softie where animals and children are concerned.
I visited Lancaster TT this week, to see how they are doing. It was great fun to see they were running so very well and what nice folks they are up there. I had a great game of 'snap' with a little boy who was watching his younger brother participate in a class. He was great fun and told me at least a dozen times it was his daddies birthday today! I asked if he had given Daddy a present, and he had. 'It is a special book' he told me ' but I don't think it is very special 'cos its only got words in it, no pictures'.
The only fly on the ointment is that my boss seems permanently in a bad mood at the moment. She gets very stressed and takes it out on the nearest person which was me last week! Its like working for a truculent teenager at times, however I cannot 'ground' this one.
It also appears that part of my new role (starting 1st March) is looking after the East of England Franchises, now this puts a different perspective on whether we move nearer the office! I am nicely situated for easy access to the A14 and M11 where we are, the main routes to the East. So now we don't know what to do. Maybe get a better car!
The weekend was good! got over my crossness at Barry being away all the time. I decided to arrange an outing for this weekend which was a trip to Stratford on Avon and actually visit the Shakespeare Birthplace Museum. I can recommend it as an interesting way to spend a couple of hours along with lunch in our favorite Italian restaurant a very convivial way to spend a Sunday! BJ thought he was back in Italy and spent the lunch speaking Italian to the Waiters. This was Ok except I suspected our waiter was probably Rumanian but after a glass of red wine it did not seem to matter a jot!
I visited Lancaster TT this week, to see how they are doing. It was great fun to see they were running so very well and what nice folks they are up there. I had a great game of 'snap' with a little boy who was watching his younger brother participate in a class. He was great fun and told me at least a dozen times it was his daddies birthday today! I asked if he had given Daddy a present, and he had. 'It is a special book' he told me ' but I don't think it is very special 'cos its only got words in it, no pictures'.
The only fly on the ointment is that my boss seems permanently in a bad mood at the moment. She gets very stressed and takes it out on the nearest person which was me last week! Its like working for a truculent teenager at times, however I cannot 'ground' this one.
It also appears that part of my new role (starting 1st March) is looking after the East of England Franchises, now this puts a different perspective on whether we move nearer the office! I am nicely situated for easy access to the A14 and M11 where we are, the main routes to the East. So now we don't know what to do. Maybe get a better car!
The weekend was good! got over my crossness at Barry being away all the time. I decided to arrange an outing for this weekend which was a trip to Stratford on Avon and actually visit the Shakespeare Birthplace Museum. I can recommend it as an interesting way to spend a couple of hours along with lunch in our favorite Italian restaurant a very convivial way to spend a Sunday! BJ thought he was back in Italy and spent the lunch speaking Italian to the Waiters. This was Ok except I suspected our waiter was probably Rumanian but after a glass of red wine it did not seem to matter a jot!
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Highs and Lows
Ok enough is enough, I have had quite enough of BJ being away working and only getting home every other weekend. To top it all a whole load of redundancies have been announced again, and we have to play the will it be him, or will it not be him game again. To be honest we don't really care if it is him as we have a plan! As my old Mum will say 'Time will tell'.
I thought I had got the hang of the big ball exercise thingy ma jig, I practiced every evening until I could stay on board and not roll off the darn thing. All was well until Thursday evening and I tried to do the sit ups on it. The problem being I did not realize just how sore my tummy muscles (yes! I do actually have some) were until I tried the sit up. Well I rolled sideways at the shock of the pain, straight onto the brass fender of our 'living flame' gas fire, which thankfully was not 'living' at that particular time. I truly thought I had broken my arm, drama queen that I am and sat nursing the poor bruised limb wondering how I was going to explain THAT at casualty! All was well after a minute ot two just a small bruise on the arm and an enormous one on my leg where it hit the fireplace kirb, and one bruised ego!
I struck gold one day this week when some-one truly thought I was in my late thirties or early forties, after I had put her down after kissing and hugging her!. She could not believe I had a Son who would turn Thirty-one in a few weeks, I love her! Mind you I was having one of those rare good hair and make up days!
BJ came home for the once a fortnight visit, we were not really cooking on gas as I was feeling a little fed up with him for being away so much, although I know he has to do it. I do not have to like it though do I. He says he will try and get home every weekend now the worst of the job is over.
We did have a very convivial evening out with the two boys, we went to The Boot at Lapworth and can highly recommend the food at this traditional English Country pub. The restaurant is in a reclaimed old barn and has a marvelous atmosphere, good food and friendly attentive staff.
The food is the best we have had out in a restaurant since moving to Coventry. This City maybe famous for many things but cuisine is certainly not one of them.
It was great to spend some time with the boys,as we had not seen the Rob since Christmas as he is such a busy boy at work. He gave me the cutest wine coloured suede handbag as a belated birthday pressie. He has such good taste for a man! Thanks Son!
I think the boys enjoyed the food, although they had waitress problems, in so much as they could not peel the eyes of one of them. Ok, she was very slim, very blonde, very tall and very Swedish, yep, drop dead gorgeous in fact. I had to pick there chins up off the floor several times.
Not sure if I should let BJ go back there to work if that's the caliber of the female folk.
One really exciting thing we did was to book our holiday. Surprise, surprise we are not going to our beloved Italy! In fact totally different as we are renting a log cabin on the shores of Loch Ness! We were going to hire a boat for the week and float on the Loch but I decided I would not mind seeing Nessie from a distance but did not really want to look him in the eye if he was to pop up in front of the boat. Actually we felt as inexperienced boaters Loch Ness is a bit vast to learn on. I am very excited as the area looks phenomenal, lots of walks, bike rides and slobbing out as well.
Definitely need to replace my beloved old walking boots before we go though. I have been putting off the evil day as I love those boots. They must be 18 to 20 years old as I had them when Ben was a young dog. Me, the boots and Ben trudged many a happy mile together. They have walked me up Snowden Three times, over dales and streams in Derbyshire, tramped heaths. Moors and woodland in The New Forest, they fit like a soft suede glove but sadly leak like a rusty bucket now, despite re-proofing them every year. The seams have given up the ghost sadly.
I thought I had got the hang of the big ball exercise thingy ma jig, I practiced every evening until I could stay on board and not roll off the darn thing. All was well until Thursday evening and I tried to do the sit ups on it. The problem being I did not realize just how sore my tummy muscles (yes! I do actually have some) were until I tried the sit up. Well I rolled sideways at the shock of the pain, straight onto the brass fender of our 'living flame' gas fire, which thankfully was not 'living' at that particular time. I truly thought I had broken my arm, drama queen that I am and sat nursing the poor bruised limb wondering how I was going to explain THAT at casualty! All was well after a minute ot two just a small bruise on the arm and an enormous one on my leg where it hit the fireplace kirb, and one bruised ego!
I struck gold one day this week when some-one truly thought I was in my late thirties or early forties, after I had put her down after kissing and hugging her!. She could not believe I had a Son who would turn Thirty-one in a few weeks, I love her! Mind you I was having one of those rare good hair and make up days!
BJ came home for the once a fortnight visit, we were not really cooking on gas as I was feeling a little fed up with him for being away so much, although I know he has to do it. I do not have to like it though do I. He says he will try and get home every weekend now the worst of the job is over.
We did have a very convivial evening out with the two boys, we went to The Boot at Lapworth and can highly recommend the food at this traditional English Country pub. The restaurant is in a reclaimed old barn and has a marvelous atmosphere, good food and friendly attentive staff.
The food is the best we have had out in a restaurant since moving to Coventry. This City maybe famous for many things but cuisine is certainly not one of them.
It was great to spend some time with the boys,as we had not seen the Rob since Christmas as he is such a busy boy at work. He gave me the cutest wine coloured suede handbag as a belated birthday pressie. He has such good taste for a man! Thanks Son!
I think the boys enjoyed the food, although they had waitress problems, in so much as they could not peel the eyes of one of them. Ok, she was very slim, very blonde, very tall and very Swedish, yep, drop dead gorgeous in fact. I had to pick there chins up off the floor several times.
Not sure if I should let BJ go back there to work if that's the caliber of the female folk.
One really exciting thing we did was to book our holiday. Surprise, surprise we are not going to our beloved Italy! In fact totally different as we are renting a log cabin on the shores of Loch Ness! We were going to hire a boat for the week and float on the Loch but I decided I would not mind seeing Nessie from a distance but did not really want to look him in the eye if he was to pop up in front of the boat. Actually we felt as inexperienced boaters Loch Ness is a bit vast to learn on. I am very excited as the area looks phenomenal, lots of walks, bike rides and slobbing out as well.
Definitely need to replace my beloved old walking boots before we go though. I have been putting off the evil day as I love those boots. They must be 18 to 20 years old as I had them when Ben was a young dog. Me, the boots and Ben trudged many a happy mile together. They have walked me up Snowden Three times, over dales and streams in Derbyshire, tramped heaths. Moors and woodland in The New Forest, they fit like a soft suede glove but sadly leak like a rusty bucket now, despite re-proofing them every year. The seams have given up the ghost sadly.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Where have my blogs gone?
A glitch seems to have lost all my blogs. This is a test post to see if they come back!
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Dog Day
After a really mad few days at work (meeting an important deadline, to submit our L&B for programme to Kite Marking ) why is it human nature to leave so much to the last minute. At one time I had three documents open on the computer and was trying to work on them all in between being called to help out my boss sort out the appendix' (23 of them) and make sure they were all full of the correct info.
Anyway a planned meet up with Rob that evening was called off as he was feeling poorly, lots of nasty bugs doing the rounds at the moment. So I called into Tesco's to get some cooked chicken and salad fro tea. While in there I saw one of those big exercise Gym balls in the sale for £3.47 including pump! Wow bargain! , I will have one of those, I thought , my core stability could do with some work!
I arrived home to find a snowstorm had happened in my lounge and kitchen! I had left the larder slightly ajar, this cupboard is known as 'The Dinner cupboard' by the dog and two cats as all the pet food is kept in it.
However also residing in the larder was a box of porridge oats! Ta-shi obviously decided it must be dog food and had pulled it out. He had chewed a hole in the box to get at the contents and cheerfully dragged it into the lounge leaving a trail of oats as he went. He then decided to eat part of the box depositing even more porridge around the room. I thought I had ventured into Narnia! I scolded him, and told him its was 'My breakfast, not his' he gave me a lookof disgustt as if to say 'your welcome, I truly think the box tastes better, I'll stick to my bonio's thank you.'
After eating my chicken and salad I decided to blow up my new acquisition. Ta-shi sat and watched quizzically, and then when he realized I had bought 'The Biggest Ball in the World' got very excited! I watched for five minutes as he had a mad game of football with it and then decided to do the exercises on the leaflet.
Have you ever seen a dog laugh?
He sat and watched as I rolled off one side, then the other, tried to balance and lift one leg up in the air, oops off again. Tried the sit ups, a bit better until my feet slipped on the carpet and I came off with a bump! OK the press ups might be easier, 'grasp the ball and push up from it' said the instructions, but the ball won't stay blooming still enough to push up from! One or twoexercisess were achievable and maybe the others will after practice.
Ta-shi loved the evenings entertainment and watched with upturned lips, his doggy version of a smile.
Anyway a planned meet up with Rob that evening was called off as he was feeling poorly, lots of nasty bugs doing the rounds at the moment. So I called into Tesco's to get some cooked chicken and salad fro tea. While in there I saw one of those big exercise Gym balls in the sale for £3.47 including pump! Wow bargain! , I will have one of those, I thought , my core stability could do with some work!
I arrived home to find a snowstorm had happened in my lounge and kitchen! I had left the larder slightly ajar, this cupboard is known as 'The Dinner cupboard' by the dog and two cats as all the pet food is kept in it.
However also residing in the larder was a box of porridge oats! Ta-shi obviously decided it must be dog food and had pulled it out. He had chewed a hole in the box to get at the contents and cheerfully dragged it into the lounge leaving a trail of oats as he went. He then decided to eat part of the box depositing even more porridge around the room. I thought I had ventured into Narnia! I scolded him, and told him its was 'My breakfast, not his' he gave me a lookof disgustt as if to say 'your welcome, I truly think the box tastes better, I'll stick to my bonio's thank you.'
After eating my chicken and salad I decided to blow up my new acquisition. Ta-shi sat and watched quizzically, and then when he realized I had bought 'The Biggest Ball in the World' got very excited! I watched for five minutes as he had a mad game of football with it and then decided to do the exercises on the leaflet.
Have you ever seen a dog laugh?
He sat and watched as I rolled off one side, then the other, tried to balance and lift one leg up in the air, oops off again. Tried the sit ups, a bit better until my feet slipped on the carpet and I came off with a bump! OK the press ups might be easier, 'grasp the ball and push up from it' said the instructions, but the ball won't stay blooming still enough to push up from! One or twoexercisess were achievable and maybe the others will after practice.
Ta-shi loved the evenings entertainment and watched with upturned lips, his doggy version of a smile.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Happy New Year!
Well lucky old me! I had an extra second of Birthday this year, due to the fact that they added a 'leap second' to the end of the old year. Lucky I was having a good time then, how maddening if you were just waiting for a boring day to end and they added a whole extra second to endure!
As it happens I was down in the lovely seaside town of Herne Bay spending time with my scatty sister Annette her lovely Husband Roger and my strangely sober Mother! Also at various times, various much loved nieces popped in and out to say hello on there way to various more exciting parties than ours.
I spent the afternoon of my birthday searching through Annies child development books for various quotes that can be used in our Leaps and Bounds submission. It was a very fruitful search and I got lots of info which is very relevant to our subject.
If only the relevant authorities realized how important physical activity is to a child's overall development. It aids not only the usual motor skills, but cognitive development, memory skills and even eventually aids reading and writing skills. I am a great advocate of getting children to crawl, especially if this is a skill they did not acquire as a baby, crawling is the one most important activity to be encouraged in the newborn to seven year old. It will aid co-ordination greatly and is relevant in the child being able to learn such activities as tieing shoelaces, riding a bike, catching balls and even copying from the white board. They are more likely to be clumsy and uncoordinated if they don't crawl, so get them babies crawling! Actually apparently I never did crawl as a baby. THAT'S why I can't play badmington, boys!
The evening had us playing a hilarious game of pictionary (we forgot to take cranium with us) Roger and Barry against me and Annie, to say the boys wiped the board with us is an understatement but hey! It's just a game and they cheated a lot. (me, a bad loser?) Mind you when Annie drew flames with a horse rising out of it I was somewhat confused, I thought maybe she had got phoenix muddled so that's what I guessed. She was very frustrated that I got it wrong and announced it was 'Pegasus rising from the ashes!' She was mortified when she realized her mistake. Greek mythology is not her thing obviously.
The best comment of the day came from my Mum who asked if I had been watching Coronation Street and what a shame it was that Mike Baldwin has got that dimension!
The most unsuitable present of the year went to Barry, who received some hair gel! The most used present so far, also given to Barry was a wind up torch!
My best present (birthday) was a super picture printer, you just plug your camera chip into it and hey presto out pops the pictures, I love it.
As it happens I was down in the lovely seaside town of Herne Bay spending time with my scatty sister Annette her lovely Husband Roger and my strangely sober Mother! Also at various times, various much loved nieces popped in and out to say hello on there way to various more exciting parties than ours.
I spent the afternoon of my birthday searching through Annies child development books for various quotes that can be used in our Leaps and Bounds submission. It was a very fruitful search and I got lots of info which is very relevant to our subject.
If only the relevant authorities realized how important physical activity is to a child's overall development. It aids not only the usual motor skills, but cognitive development, memory skills and even eventually aids reading and writing skills. I am a great advocate of getting children to crawl, especially if this is a skill they did not acquire as a baby, crawling is the one most important activity to be encouraged in the newborn to seven year old. It will aid co-ordination greatly and is relevant in the child being able to learn such activities as tieing shoelaces, riding a bike, catching balls and even copying from the white board. They are more likely to be clumsy and uncoordinated if they don't crawl, so get them babies crawling! Actually apparently I never did crawl as a baby. THAT'S why I can't play badmington, boys!
The evening had us playing a hilarious game of pictionary (we forgot to take cranium with us) Roger and Barry against me and Annie, to say the boys wiped the board with us is an understatement but hey! It's just a game and they cheated a lot. (me, a bad loser?) Mind you when Annie drew flames with a horse rising out of it I was somewhat confused, I thought maybe she had got phoenix muddled so that's what I guessed. She was very frustrated that I got it wrong and announced it was 'Pegasus rising from the ashes!' She was mortified when she realized her mistake. Greek mythology is not her thing obviously.
The best comment of the day came from my Mum who asked if I had been watching Coronation Street and what a shame it was that Mike Baldwin has got that dimension!
The most unsuitable present of the year went to Barry, who received some hair gel! The most used present so far, also given to Barry was a wind up torch!
My best present (birthday) was a super picture printer, you just plug your camera chip into it and hey presto out pops the pictures, I love it.
New year resolutions:
- Have more fun.
- Be a bit more assertive at work.
- Grow a new hairstyle (been short for years now)
- Start horseriding again, as I have not been riding since coming to Coventry.
Not going to say, lose weight, give up this or that as they are a hiding to nothing.
Lots of love and good wishes for the new year to all of you out there. A special good wish to my USA Mom, Pat who surprised me with a phone call today. Take good care of yourself my lovely friend!
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