what's so great about 5am?

This morning I woke up naturally at 5am.

Did I take a glance at the clock, roll over and go back to sleep!

No I got up, sorted out the washing I had put on last night, hung all 3 loads out whilst listening to the birds chatting away.

The sky was a blissful blue and the air felt so fresh.

It was still......

There was no noise from the road and the house was quiet....Even the dogs stayed in bed and did not want to come downstairs.

I listened to prayer for the day on radio 4.......

I had a long hot uninterrupted luxurious shower.....

I pottered in the kitchen...

Making a nice breakfast.

Making salads for lunch.....

Doing the dishes......

Waking up my LSP with a relaxed smile on my face (instead of a shake that says hurry up were late).....

What's so great about 5am?

This morning it was all mine!

rainy bank holiday

Brrrr, Its cold and wet  here today.

This morning I got out of bed at 6:30am got showered and made breakfast. We were all ready and in the car for 07:50am. We went into town and picked up SE, filled up with petrol and off we went. We drove through Wiltshire and Hampshire and into Dorset.

Why I hear you ask... was I going to a craft fair, vintage fair, antiques fair, visiting a stately pile?

No.

YD and SE went zorbing

Zorbing is where you climb into a ball and hurtle down a hill, kind of like  being a hamster, on a hill...

It lasted about 30 seconds and all you could hear was YD squealing all the way down the hill. 

They had a good time which made it worth the 2 hour drive and the 1/2 hour in the cold and wet! 

I am now tucked up at home with the last of the roly poly and a nice cup of hot chocolate, listening to the rain outside. 

Bonnie Scotland.

We have friends and family in Scotland so we are lucky enough to visit it frequently.

The amazing thing about Scotland is that you can see four season's in one day.

We leave our home in the south west at midnight so we can zip through the boring bit in the dark.

The sun comes up as we hit the lake district which is beautiful enough but the real magic start's when we get to the east coast. Here are some of our highlights!

If you can see some odd reflection's its because most of these photo's were taken at 50mph! There is so much to see and to photograph it would take a week to get there if we were to stop the car just because I want to take a photo. 

The Waterfall photo and the last one (which is loch Leven) were static shots as we had a brief stop. 

Today We had friends round for Lunch, I made a lovely chicken dish, pan fried chicken with a mushroom, spinach and parmasan sauce, finished in the oven and served with jersey royal potatoes, cabbage, green beans and carrots. 

Finished off with Jam roly poly and Birds custard...yum. 

I have been on a bit of a nostalgic food trip lately, I think its being in Scotland and having Jam and Butteries for breakfast. Butteries or butter roll's are flat bread rolls traditionally made with butter and lard folded together. Although nowadays they are more healthy.... I like them lightly toasted and spread liberally with strawberry jam. mmmm. 

I have had craving's for jam and spam and tip top.......

So tonight I had a Spam sandwich with pickle on white bread spread with butter. I am going to have a bit of left over roly poly for my supper. 

In the cupboard there is a small tin of tip top and some tinned pears which may meet up in the week...

I have another busy week ahead next week but will try and blog when I can. 

Have a great bank holiday!

A walk in the park!!!

I am sitting here looking at 2 tired but happy dogs.

We had to do a favour for my BIL in London so, on the way home we went to Windsor great park.

I love it there. If you want pretty you can go down to Virginia water's  or to Savil gardens and admire the plants. We would have done Virginia Waters today however, As the PGA was on at Wentworth we felt it was best to stick to the Windsor side.

If you squint really hard you can see the castle in the background!

We were careful with our speed!

(not 30 mph or 40 mph or even 35mph)

We walked round Russell's pond, which was blissfully quiet. We only saw 2 people the whole time we were there. The wildlife however, was in abundance.  Unfortunately we only had my camera so no amazing close ups. (more squinting required)

This is a Kite,

You can just see the fork in the tail. It was amazing to see it flying around! 

We also saw a buzzard and some Mandarin Ducks, both of which were to quick for me! 

We did see 2 Canada Geese and some gosling's...

The light was bad so there are no good arty prints today! This was quite nice though.

The star of the walk however was not the view's or the wildlife but the Spaniel! 

For those of you who do not know our Spaniel is Blind (and a bit stupid).

So he only very rarely gets allowed off the lead. As today was very quiet we did let him have a run. He loved it.

(look no strings)

We put him back on the lead after a gun shot sent him running in the wrong direction. He is very skittish. 

Well it was a good job we did as he managed to launch himself into the Pond! 

We rounded the corner and he fell into a ditch, luckily it was a dry ditch, so we hauled him out.  

we walked around the pond and on the way back he fell into the same ditch!!!!

 Once we were passed the pond we let him off the lead again for a short while. Now do you remember I mentioned there were only 2 other people there today, well the Spaniel took a liking to one of them. A strange woman walked past us and the spaniel followed her! well we managed to get him back put him back on the lead and the rest of the walk was pretty uneventful. 

Near to the car park was a heard of long horned cattle. I have a liking for cow's of all breeds. they are such lovely animal's.

 I grew up in a small village and the farm nearest to my house had a small herd of dairy and beef cattle. I used to love going over there. I would help with the milking and getting the cows in. I used to love watching the steers as they grew up and was heart broken when they went for beef. (did not stop me from eating beef) 

I have a strong affection for cattle. I take photo's at any opportunity. 

Sorry for the lack of Blogging I have been so busy since I went back to work. Well its a combo of work and tiredness!! We have another trip planned so I will put the camera battery on charge!!

6 months to go...

In 6 months time, I will be boarding a plane to Vietnam to cycle 400km for charity.

VV Scared at the mo, I nearly pulled out when the headaches were bad, now they are easing I am determined to do it! I do believe in making it hard for myself. While I was off I have not been exercising, eating the wrong food and generally undoing all the hard work that I had done.

So here we are 6 months to go and a lot of hard slog ahead.

Tomorrow I start back on the global corporate challenge.

The GCC lasts for 16 week's and you have to walk at least 10000 step's per day. You track your steps walked, miles cycled and distance swum. Every day for 16 weeks!!!

its such a good motivator, You are in a team of 7 and you compete, not just against other team's in your workplace but against other team's around the world. It helps that I am horribly competitive! Last year the team I was in came top of our organisation, This year I am a team captain and it is my job to set a good example to my team and to motivate them!!! today I was handing out pack's and demonstrating the pedometer's. I have a new pedometer and cyclometer and will put them on in the morning!

The great thing is being able to find new places to walk and cycle. its exciting and I will keep you all updated.

A complete workout.

I am sitting here completely and utterly shattered.

No I have not been for a session at the gym, we did another car boot sale today.

I know that a car boot sale does not normally tire people out However, we have now converted OD's room into a car boot storage room. We had ended up with bits and pieces in to many different places. So everything is on shelves and boxes so we can just load and unload the car. Still cant see why I am tired?

We live in an old house, which means no parking, parking is further up the road, so... boxes carried downstairs, loaded onto trolley, manoeuvred out of the door, taken 200yards up the road and loaded into car. repeat this 10 times. Go to car boot sale, sell some stuff, come home, unpack car, take boxes on trolley 200 yards, take into house take up the stairs, put in corner of room, repeat this 8 times!

Boot sale was a bit disappointing, cold, windy with intermittent rain shower's. Also was held in field full of cow pats!!! not ideal. However some more money for the charity.

Once home, started sorting and clearing cupboards to restock the boxes for the next car boot. This gave me the opportunity to to tidy up the china cabinet.

Sad I know but I love our china cabinet. Apart from the Polish ware its all vintage, some bought some inherited. This is all of our best china, our everyday china is portmerrion, ideal china for a family as if a plate get's dropped onto the slate floor its easy to buy 1 to replace and you do not have to buy a whole new dinner service as it will go on forever.

Yesterday I dent some time in the garden. The early Alium's are in bloom now. The shruberry is looking a bit wild! however I spent long enough attacking the shrub's at the top of the garden, these will get my attention this week.

Last week we went to the churchyard to lay some flower's. It was so pretty and peaceful.

Its now Sunday evening and we are all dog tired, I just need to get some room on the sofa......

Have a happy week. x.

What a week...

Have you ever had one of those day's, have you ever had one of those day's, where nothing goes right from morning to night, have you ever had one of those day's...........

Well I have had one of those week's. 

Saturday:

I forgot the pin number to the joint account. not once but 3 times and locked myself out of the account. Stood in the supermarket feeling a fool. Ironically I can remember LSP's pin number to the account. LSP is not so bothered that I do not have access to the joint account (funny that). 

Sunday:

 Car boot sale! hurrah.... Held on the first rainy weekend for a whole month. very few people there and having to dodge rain shower's. Also no shopping. the idea of having a car boot sale is to raise money for the charity and empty the junk from the loft. Not spend money and fill the house with more new old stuff. 

Monday:

 Mum's birthday anniversary, Children go away on a city break (I miss them when they are not here) and MIL is mugged. 

Tuesday:

 I cannot log into my computer not sure why? lots of time spent talking to IT, finally get it sorted. I was supposed to take in some paperwork to HR and left it at home........ very long day and get home tired. (and a bit grumpy)

Wednesday:

 Ok so I cant log into my PC again, same problem, again talk to IT and discover its my phone falling out with my computer, oh the wonder's of modern technology! Then I forget my password to log into one of the applications, have to phone another IT department to get them to reset that password! (it may sound like I am very forget full however, I need to remember 8 different codes and password's at work. log in codes, pin codes, unlock codes, door codes etc). 

Thursday:

 Charity Quiz night..... Have you ever planned a party and worried that no one will turn up? well this is what happened to us. Despite advertising it all over our work place only 1 team turned up (we were hoping for 20). So we brushed ourselves down and went to the pub! I was sat at the edge of a long table next to a step, apart from I did not see the step when I got up. It was one of those confusing moments when  I could not realise why my  right leg was not moving and then as I was tumbling through the air I realised about the step. I was very embarrassed especially as the barman came over to help me up! (I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me). Children return from trip to Paris and YD announces she is planning to go to north Africa for a month to volunteer at a museum and gallery cataloguing aftifacts and work's of local art. I could barely cope with the her being in Paris for 4 day's not Africa for a month I will crumble.   

Friday:

Woke up with sore leg and sore ankle from falling up the step! Also left my mobile phone at home so a whole day of no facebook or twitter (on my breaks of course) Feeling Sad and moody over last night. got stuck in the worlds longest traffic jam... I could have walked quicker that the traffic was moving and it went on for miles. So I arrived back in town hot and irritated! busy afternoon so I went to the shop for some retail therapy. All the time on the sofa without exercise mean's I have put all the weight back on again that I lost. There is nothing like 3 mirror's in a tiny cubicle to make you feel huge! then try putting on clothes that do not quite fit. There was I  trying to squeeze into a dress and  heard a ripping noise .........luckily it was only a few stitches not a seam... I did end up with a nice new top that hides the lump's and bump's. I then nipped into the supermarket and picked up a takeaway curry and a banoffee pie. 

So here I am, sat in front of EastEnders, lap top on my lap writing a blog about my miserable week.

This has been a week of misshapps but nothing to serious. I have my health, a partner who loves me, 2 great kids, 2 fab sister's, a lovely grandmother, my job, a nice home,  2 crazy but irreplaceable dogs, a mad gerbil, good friends, a rampant garden, lovely hobbies and a whole weekend ahead of me.  Thinking about all of the way's that I can make next week better. 

Have a Happy Weekend everyone.