I Might Be a Rich Now.....

But I accidently shredded my Lottery ticket! Oh well never mind, please no-one tell me the numbers.

We took a trip to the very fine city of Liverpool yesterday, Barry worked for almost a year in Halewood but never got the time or inclination without me to visit the splendours the place has to offer!

I took him on a tour of The Beatles Story, he was, as I expected blown away by it. It is an excellent place to visit if you love Beatles music. It is also a bit of an emotional roller coaster at times, particularly the last two rooms!
I took some illicit photo's whilst in there. Not really allowed but the japenese tourists were conveiniently ignoring the no photography signs so I thought if they are doing it why not me. I can always pretend to be Hungarian (I am 1/4 anyway!) and do not understand the signs.

We then wandered about Albert Dock and even bought our very first Christmas present for my candle crazy Sister.

We found a wonderful Jazz Cafe Bar for lunch called Ha ha's. Wow! great coctails girls! How decadent to be sipping a Sorrento Appeltini on a Sunday Lunch time. I was mesmerised by the fabulous lights on the ceiling, very modern chandeliers, beautiful, or was it the effect of my coctail?

Afterwards we discoverd a bit of a 'gig' going on and listened for a bit to the very loud 'Lightening Seeds', we wished Rob had of been with us as it was such a happeining day!

On Albert Dock they have part of The Tate Modern gallery, Free entry so it seemed rude not to go look and see what it had to offer. I wanted to go and see the Henry Moore sculptures and was not in the least disapointed. I had to keep my fists firmly clenched as it was all I could do not to stroke the wonderful smooth lines of his 'bodyform' works, fab! Also we looked at an exhibition by Joseph Rauchenberg which was truly fascinating. I love to see something a bit different and this certainly fitted the criteria. One exhibit called 'Condition of Woman' was a glass case on a pedestal filled with what looked like the contents of the bathroom bin, on reading the description it was INDEED the contents of his wifes bathroom bin complete with empty Tampax box from 1960. How very strange. I was delighted to see some Degas scultures, I did not even know he had done any. They like many of his paintings were of dancers in poses of getting ready for dance.

All in all a most excellent day, definitely need a weekend up their to do it justice.
Now we are broadband I can post my illicit pictures as well (No not that sort of illicit pictures!!!!)

My Boy!

My boy is not happy, he has spent the week sulking! Can't play, won't play!

All because we got new sofa's! He now has not got the best seat in the house, no chair by the window in order for our little gaurd dog to sit and watch for friends and foe passing. The friends being 'The girls' nextdoor who come to play with him and take him for walks and feed him titbits. The foe being a gorgeous Golden Retreiver who DARES pass our house on his daily walk!

To add insult to injury he is not allowed to stay in the lounge while we are out and has been made to spend time in the 'servants quarters' not befitting his status. He does indeed have the run of the kitchen and consevatory with a fluffy comfy bed, a basket of toys and a few dog biscuits. He has rewaerded us by chewing the door and leaving an unmentionable mess on the floor. He has also discovered the joys of the rubbish bin and all its contents! It is now known as TA-shi's Lunch box!

It seems that he has won all his protests and has now been given his own blanket on a corner of the sofa. Proving dogs are as manipluative as children.

Playing Dodgems.... and failing!

It had been a good week so far, I had run two successful training courses and had one more to go. Excellent delegates on both days despite one person starting the day with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp! Some people come on our courses thinking they have nothing new to learn and that they are know all there is to know about childrens physical development! Non of us will ever be in that position as we all learn something new everyday. I soon won her over however and made sure that I reconised her experience within the group. She, like children blossomed with a bit of praise and positive feedback in reply to her sometimes ascerbic comments! By the end of the course she was smiling and enjoying her self and even gave me a hug and thanked me for the great course. I love it when they all go away in a positive mood!

Sadly on the way home my day took a serious turn for the worse. I crashed my lovely new car!!! The M5 motoway where it joins the M6 is truly a nightmare at the best of times. This day is was raining heavily and there was a traffic jam from hell. I was almost at the point where the traffic has to sort itself into appropiate lanes for M6 North or South, I was already in the correct lane, suddenly the traffic started to move faster as the traffic moved to go towards the slip road South. Great I thought, lets get home! Suddenly the traffic stopped! It did not slow down it came to a sudden halt as some twit up front had realised he was in the wrong lane and at the last minute changed lanes. Sadly although all the trafic halted I did not! I smashed hard into the car in front. I have been driving since I was 21 yers old (30 years ago) and have never ever had so much as a tiny bump! So this was a big shock to me. I was mortified, luckily the guy I hit was great about it, probably as he was driving a company hire car.
My car is quite badly damaged and the front end will have to be virtually re-built, new bonnet, new front grill, new bumper, new A/C unit not sure about one wing yet, that may also need replacing.
Poor Barry was talking to me at the time of the collision (hands free of course) and had an awful shock as I shouted a swear word and then heard me crash.

The main thing is I am fine apart from a very sore back caused by my desparately trying to brake and knowing I could not stop in time.

I was still feeling quite shaky the next day but had to go to work as I had another course to run, the most energetic one of the week as it deals with our 5 to 7 year old classes. So although I started the day with a bad back it soon disapeared as I demonstrated the more physical parts of the programme! Proving if you have a bad back (muscular pain) excersise is the cure!

Oh yes! I learnt a new way to handle children forward rolling around a bar from one of the quietest delegates on this course! Proving we all learn something on them even the tutor!

Tonight Matthew, I am going to be a Border Collie!

To those of you who know our family or indeed ARE our family, you will remember Ben our very clever but sometimes daft, but as loved as any other human in our family Border Collie! We were all bereft when he suddenly collapsed and died four years ago and I certainly felt no other dog would replace him in our hearts. I was of course right as you cannot 'replace' any much loved animal or human, however a new place is found in our luckily very big expandable hearts. Most of you know how I ended up with funny peculiar Ta-shi, and how I had chosen a much prettier pup from the litter and signed all the paperwork etc. When I suddenly put the pretty pup down and said no I want this one and picked up the odd little fur ball that was to become our new best friend. I have always thought Ben had a little part in my choice and was looking down that day and decided that this was the chap for me. I never once regretted the choice as Ta-shi (Supposedly lucky in Tibetan) is a great little dog and as well trained as any collie I know. Have not tested the herding sheep thingy though!

Now one of Ben's funny tricks was that he loved to swim or get into any kind of dirty water he could find. "Please not the bath though," was his mantra! He, however needed a reason to get into the water, so would go to the edge of the river bank or lakeside and carefully drop his ball into the water. He then would look at me with those gorgeous brown eyes and happy smiling face and say "Look what's happened I am just going to have to go in and get it are't I!" Of course I would agree and he would spend some time happily doggy paddling before eventually retrieving the wayward ball and come out and give me a fragrant shower of eau de river!

On Saturday evening BJ and I were walking Ta-shi along the Oxford canal when suddenly and precisely he went to the edge of the canal and dropped the ball over the edge into the water!!! He stood and looked at it wagging his tail and looking at me as if to say "aren't I clever?"
To say I was flabbergasted was an understatement I have always joked that ta-sh is Ben re-incarnated as a dog with a bit more attitude but it was only a joke. More was to come on this surreal walk.

We cross a field which has been left fallow this year but has a lot of waist high rye grass, Ta-shi always sticks to the footpath with me as he does not like any grass that tickles his rather low slung tummy. When suddenly he goes off on a mad one rushing into the grass at top speed, birds and ducks fly up squawking and quacking in surprise as a mini whirlwind invades their hide-outs. He carried on this malarkey for ten minutes before coming out (once he had remembered which way was indeed out) with a spring in his step and tongue hanging almost to the floor after such mad exertion. This was another game of Ben's! How very weird!

On Sunday BJ and I took a trip to West Midlands Safari park and spent a lovely day in the company of various wild beasts. The funniest thing was when BJ fed (you can buy food to give to the giraffes and Llama's) a giraffe. The gorgeous beast (the giraffe not BJ) gracefully lowered his gentle face and took the food, he then put his now rather loomingly large face into the car and spat it out all over BJ. It was the funniest thing, I am still laughing today.

The stupidest thing we saw was when driving through the tiger reserve a safari truck came racing up past us and the other cars. I wondered what was the matter, I could not believe my eyes when as we rounded a bend I saw that a child was standing head and shoulders out of the sun roof of the car she was in, about ten foot away lay three tigers. MAD!