What Happened Next

Again I've proved that i'm a very very bad blogger. Much has happened since my last post so I thought i'd explain in pictures. I'm actually only getting this opportunity because i'm at home ill with the flu. But it's not such a chore really as I'm working on my Brand new, beautiful, cute, mini laptop.





The first big thing that happened since I last posted was that I got to see my best friend and I finally got to meet her gorgeous little daughter Ellora. What a beauty!

Then at the begining of August we went to Liz & Chris's wedding down in East Sussex. It was a beautiful day and Liz looked like a film star. We had a great time. Not least because we picked up a brand new car! A mazda MX5 hard top convertible. It arrived the day before the wedding so we drove down south in it. We couldn't have the top down though because weather on the Friday was too grey, thank goodness the clouds parted and the sun shone on Lizzie & Chris's celebrations.

Next, we took a week off work and headed up to the lakes to spend a few days at the Caravan. The weather was pretty changable and we spent many hours relaxing and reading, a nice break from work.

While we were away, Chili took a holiday at Andy's parents house! He seemed to have a relaxing time too, and when we brought him home he sulked for a week.

On the August bank holiday weekend we invited Alex over and on the Sunday we decided to go for Sunday lunch at The Kings Ransom pub in Sale. We used to go there all the time when we lived there and it was great to go back. Plus, this was the first time Alex had had a pub sunday lunch in England! Truely historic!

So, there you have it. We're now in September and we're in the middle of a lot of house alterations so things are a little bit messy here. We've had the kitchen & dining room knocked through and we're having the kitchen units extending next week. The conservatory is on order and planning permission has come through so that should start before the end of the month with any luck. Most life changingly, we now have a dish washer! Oh, my god, how did I ever live without one in the past! Hopefully it will free up lots more time for me to spend on blogging... or maybe i'll always just be a bad blogger!

Birthday Reunion in Bradford

Last year after my dad died and I went back in to school I decided to organise a reunion of old grovian musicians to do a concert at the school to raise some money for the british heart foundation and also so we had a reason to get everyone back together again. Unfortunately the concert idea fell through earlier in the year as we didn't get enough interest so I decided to just ask people if they just fancied meeting up in the pub next to school and quite a few from my year group decided to come along. Mrs Johnston and Mr Crawford our music teachers also popped in to see some of the old faces and it was great to catch up. Some of the people there, I'd not seen for 13 years which just seems impossible as my memories of them seem like they were yesterday.



It was good to see everyone. Some of them had changed and I found them even nicer than I'd remembered them as time had turned them from the teenagers they were in to confident, interesting, and genuine people. Some of us had little or nothing in common any more but plenty of fond memories. Quite a few of them had not changed at all which was a little strange. Some of us had drifted apart and some of us had drifted towards each other due to the various experiences we'd been through since leaving school. It was a nice day. Even Andy seemed to enjoy it :0)




Suzanne & Gareth and the boys came down to meet us too as it was my birthday and it was great to see them as usual. I love suzanne, I see her as a friend and as a big sister seen as we grew up together. We've invited them over to spend the day with us in bolton this next weekend.

The Worst Monday in History

Yesterday I succeeded in surviving the worst monday in the entire history of the world.

To start with it was the 1 year anniversary of my dad's death which meant i didn't sleep well so woke up tireder that when I went to bed.

I woke up with a headache, went to work and was faced with disaster after disaster while trying to upgrade our CRM software. My headache turned in to a migrane and I just burst in to tears. I couldn't go on. I ended up going home from work, pissing my boss off in the process.

Then later on whilst still hardly unable to keep myself together I managed to run the battery down on my car and had to get the RAC out to rescue me and ended up having to drive my car round and round and round and round a car park for 30 minutes. The other people in the car park thought I was insane. Whilst this was going on my husband tried to come and rescue me (not sure how as he had no jump leads... )and he got stuck in horrendous traffic and couldn't get to me. I told him to just go straight home and that the RAC would sort me out and they did (they were really good actually), but on the way home he got impatient with the traffic and ended up impulsively buying another Tom Tom sat nav unit from an electrical store so he could navigate his way home a different way... Crazy crazy crazy (all because I had his sat nav yesterday in my car so we now have one each... actually that's a good thing).

Anyway, by the end of the day the bad luck started running out and after all the crying, the stress etc I slept like a log.

A victory for lethargy

Thank god for computer games! Andy has been seduced in to buying a new computer game whilst out shopping for his dad's birthday present and so I think the spring tidy up has been postponed for another day and so I'll get to lie around in my pjamas for a bit longer. This is after all what bank holidays are for. Things like spring cleaning should be left for responsible adults, not people like me. I mean, even if i did dust and hoover the house today, it would still need doing again next weekend anyway so my thought is, hell, it can wait.

Later on today we've been invited over to Andy's parents as they've organised a games night. From what I can gather, we'll be playing old board games that have been re-discovered after a loft clear out. This would be a really fun evening if I didn't know how competitive they can be. A christmas game of family fortunes can quickly turn in to a battle of the sexes with taunts and insults being casually thrown around in that loving family way. It sure scares the hell out of me, so my plan is to blend in, have plenty to drnk or maybe even opt to help in the kitchen hehehe. Actually I fear this reaction is just my fairly deeply buried competituve nature going in to fight or flight mode as the last thing i'd want is to enter in to battle with my father in law over a harmless game of Scotland Yard or Cluedo and end up saying something I might regret hehehe. I think i'll take that pack of happy families and snap cards that I got from the secret santa at work! I think that would be a safe bet. We'll see!