A tardy blogger

I can't believe how long it has been since I last blogged. For me, anyway.

I wish I had the excuse that it was because I have been too busy but no, this is not reason. I just haven't had anything to say. I know, unusual for me I hear.

I did however do something yesterday. I had lunch. Not just any old ordinary lunch. Yesterday I was officially a "lady who lunched". I met up with a small(ish) group of friends at a fabulous restaurant, L'ortolan at Shinfield, just outside of Reading. The food was to die for and we had a fabulous time. Much laughter, fun, champagne, wine, petit fours, chatting, gossipping... well, you get the picture.

After lunch Cherry and I popped in to Costco and I was then even able to make Richard happy as I took home some of his favourites, The Works Bagels and a huge tray of pain au chocolat. Well, I had to repay him somehow for taking the day off work to watch the children, especially as it was a teacher training day!

A perfect weekend

and a Happy 11th Anniversary for Richard and me.

It was bliss. My mum and step-dad were coerced in to looking after the children for the weekend, so on early(ish) on Saturday morning Richard and I made a run for it and left for Portmeirion or rather our hotel Maes-Y-Neuadd which was just across the estuary.

The forecast for the weekend was rain, good job as we have a hosepipe ban currently, but fortunately for us from the time we arrived it was clear and didn't rain one little bit. The sun even came out in celebration!

The hotel was fabulous and the food was to die for. Absolutely scrummy, the staff were beyond good and one of the waiters, after chatting to us and finding out it was our wedding anniversary, had obviously had a word with the chef because when they brought out the dessert it had "Happy Anniversary" piped over it in chocolate sauce. Lick of lips!

Sunday it did rain but that suited us just fine and we spent the morning relaxing in our gorgeous suite. We left late morning and met up with our best friends who live in Shropshire for lunch. They had also arranged to have their children looked after my parents and so we got to spend some lovely adult to adult time, no interruptions from one of our children. Pure luxury.

All in all a fab weekend. Oh, and a photo, Richard and I on Saturday evening just before we went down to the restaurant for supper:

Oh and at home I don't know who had more fun. My mum and step-dad or the children! Snippets of conversations on our arrival home included "And Harriet opened the car door in the lion enclosure" "Grandad pushed me down the stairs, honest" and "Take a photo!". I'll expand more on these later...

ScrapManic 6

Woohoo! I'm all booked in! I've paid my deposit and it's on the calendar (in our house if it's not on the calendar it's not going to happen!).

I love ScrapManic, not only because lots of my friends will be there and it's sometimes the only place I get to meet up with them, but it's also a great venue, the classes are always first class and the food is yummy oh and there's a great bar! And I always come back feeling as if I've had a break.

Roll on November... well, maybe not too quickly because I do have a couple of other things to do before then.

I have another, bigger and slightly more expensive, new baby

So, today I bit the bullet and, after picking Noah up from pre-school, drove down to PaperArts and bought myself a CraftRobo!

I am now sitting at my desk blogging about this fact whilst my Robo is still in it's packaging and box by the side of my desk. Why? Therefore I am going to leave this post here and go and play... wish me luck.

I have a new baby

Which is good news but also bad news.

The bad news is that I have this new baby because I lost the old baby. Making any sense? I thought not.

OK, I'll start again. I have a new baby. It's a Canon Ixus 800 IS and is too cute for words. And the reason I've bought it is because I have lost, yes lost, my Pentax Optio, which was one of the smallest camera's ever and would fit in to my jeans pocket.

I've searched high and low for it and know that it went missing whilst we were still living at the rental house. I was sure it would turn up after the move and we'd unpacked all the boxes but sadly no. I know I have my Canon Digital Rebel but it is just too big to lug around for everyday use and I needed a small camera, one I could keep in my handbag.

Richard finally gave in to my nagging and today she arrived. I'm loving some of the features, being a gadget girl. One of which is that when you are viewing the photos on the camera's LCD screen if you then turn the camera round the photo changes so that no matter which way up you hold the camera the photo is always the right way up for you to view. Cool.

Took these photos of the children earlier this evening with it, which were taken without the flash but it has a stabilising mode on it so that it helps to reduce the 'shake'. Oh, and with Noah we're supposed to be looking at his poorly toe!

Christmas in May

OK, so it's not actually Christmas but I've done a Christmas layout.

I was really inspired by the LO that Ali Edwards did here and so after Christmas decided to keep back some of my cards and do something similar. Well, 5 months later they are still being moved from room to room, from pile to pile and bizarrely every time I came across them I would think "Christmas cards. Why do I still have Christmas cards?" and then it would all come flooding back. Christmas cards, Ali Edwards, layout...

So, I find them, again, today and went through the ritual. Christmas cards. Why do I still have Christmas cards? However this time I thought, you know, I should just throw them away. But then I thought NO, don't throw them away, sit yourself down and do the darn LO! So that's what I did.

Feeling kind of low

I don't want to go in to it here but I'm feeling a little low today. Instead I'm going to just concentrate on some positive things:

• Loving the fact that whilst pottering around the supermarket on Sunday I bumped in to 4 different sets of friends. Two of which I haven't really managed to catch up with since we moved back. It's such a nice feeling to just see people you know whilst going about your everyday life. I missed that in Canada.



• Loving the fact that whilst some people moan about the state of the youth and yobs in this country that they can prove it's not always true. I was waiting at the checkout and the 2 tattooed rather scary looking men/boys ahead of me were so polite and considerate and they even helped me!



• Loving meeting up with scrapping friends and having some good old fun, laughing at the fact that Emma and Jane turned up both wearing almost identical outfits, making it to the crop in one piece even though Corinna was driving, and re-meeting Fi again.



• Loving completing, not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 layouts at Fiona's recent PaperArts crop:

   


   

I know they are nothing fancy but I'm pleased with them. It's another 3 layouts completed and in my album. And no, I did not buy Noah's t-shirt to go with the patterned paper, it just so happened they match perfectly!

And I know I've only posted 3 layouts but the 4th just needs a little tweaking before I'm completely happy with it.