Tuesday 26 January 2016

Murders and Mourning

Start with the mourning - it has only been two weeks since I took my camera lens into John Lewis to be repaired. They said it would take up to four weeks. It feels as if it has been forever. I am sooooooo  missing not being able to use my camera. I guess I had not realised how much I used it. How our lives change over the years. Golly when I had children I hardly ever took pictures because you had to buy a film and decide whether to get one with 12 or 20 pictures. Then after you'd used the film up it was then in to a shop to be developed - more money. So having a very tight budget photographs were only taken on very special occasions. How I envy todays generation. Not only can they take never ending pictures of their children growing up but even videos. So I'm very much looking forward to the return of my camera and especially hoping it is returned in the ten days as it is our youngest grandchild's dedication and hubby's birthday on 7th February. Perhaps I should try calling them to ask for this.

MURDERS - no don't worry no one I know has been murdered. It's just that on the TV there are masses of them. Well that is dramas about murder. There has been Endeavour, Death in Paradise, Hinterland, Shetland, Midsomer Murders, Silent Witness. Then next weekend a new series of Vera starts. Then I am even listening to a murder on my computer, by Anne Granger and I am also reading a murder by Ann Cleves. So as you can see murders everywhere! Starting to get them a little muddled in my brain and mixing them up!

Challenges - doing my best to do as much swimming and walking as possible. Also forgot to say one other challenge I am doing this year is reading the whole Bible. Doing this with the help of Victory Church, who do all the donkey work of sorting out what you need to read each day.

So there you go a whole blog and NO pictures :(

Have a good week.


Tuesday 19 January 2016

Where Have I Been? - Hello 2016

After the madness and wonderfulness (new invented word!) of Christmas Mr P and I headed north to our cottage in Northumberland. We had some lovely days of chilling, walking, relaxing and exploring.


Of course the usual pictures from Lindisfarne/Holy Island.


The sheep must get used to all the tourists and quite happily let you walk around them without moving.


I love sheep. The weather was rather grotty whilst away - lots of rain.


Lots of water everywhere - high tides.


This was some of the debris washed ashore at Berwick Beach. The wood had drifted from the River Tweed. Many people were busy collecting the debris - I'm guessing for their coal fires. Some even had come with chainsaws!


The tide bought the beach onto the promenade!

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Now well back in Leicester and all this seems a long time ago. January is one of my busiest months at work, as lots of people decide to make a new start in their year by stopping smoking. Consequently I have long and full busy days helping these people.  Can't resist not showing you a few recent gorgeous photographs of my grandchildren. Sadly not taken by me. My camera or rather my lens is somewhere between John Lewis and Nikon repair shop. The lens stopped working and will take up to 4 weeks to be repaired. I feel at a loss without my camera. I do have a long distance lens, but that's not so useful for everyday pictures.


Asleep in his chair just like his grandad!


Here Ayla learning to stand, golly she's going to be one year old in a few weeks time. So I am busy knitting her a bunny jumper.


Here are the twins enjoying their very first time of seeing snow. Even in Leicester we saw some snow for one day. It was so lovely to see it. I was like a child, as the snow started late Saturday night I stayed up to watch it and had to force myself to bed at 00:30! The next  morning the first thing I did was to look out the window. Oh and to see snow was so magical, made it feel as if Christmas had returned!




Ok finally I have to confess to a delay in writing this post as I have been busy thinking about a challenge for 2016. I felt very inspired after reading Bunny Mummy's 1000 mile walking challenge. Kept thinking I'd like to do that but trouble is I have to go to work full time, do all my other jobs and other commitments. Then Mr P suggested I combined walking and swimming together. So I am busy thinking about what is a realistic challenge. What numbers to work with. For Christmas I bought Mr P a Fitbit Watch. I thought it would just be him excited by this present but by the time Christmas had passed he ended up saying "you have just got to have one of these watches!" It really inspired us to walk more and run up steps etc. So my birthday is in February and he is planning on buying me one then. I think it is after this that I shall come up with my final figures for this challenge. Meanwhile I shall continue at the gym to rack up the miles walked and swimming as many lengths as I can. I did read an article that said "you do not own your Fitbit - but your Fitbit owns you".  Click here if you want to read the article. Oh dear what am I getting myself into? Well must go. Happy New Year to you all.

Tuesday 5 January 2016

Farewell Christmas 2015

Well where has Christmas gone? It didn't seem that long ago I was busy cleaning, cooking, preparing etc for the great event and now it has all gone. Well we had a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family and then having some quiet time in Northumberland.

I am really sorry but I am going to bore you with some pictures of my grandchildren. Our house was very full with 14 bodies and a dog staying for several days. Our house is usually rather too large for us, as it is a church house designed for a family, but with 14 of us it suddenly seems rather small. In fact we couldn't all fit in and  4 of us slept in a local church hall! OK here goes - please press the "x" button if you don't want to see children!


 Oh dear not sure which twin this is but she had been busy pushing a train down the slide!




 Rowan having fun with the train set.


My first ever attempt at a pavlova. This turned out a bit of a nightmare to make as my oven is on the blink! It would decide to do this at Christmas time when I had soooo many mouths to feed.



I came up with the idea of Mr P removing the dining table and using tressle tables to eat off instead. This then meant we had a largish area free for in the daytime for the grandchildren to play in and then in the evening this area became the dance floor! Dancing here with the girlies angel wings! Like you do!


Now those of you who have had children or had to look after children will know that when things go quiet then you need to worry! Well we were busy in the kitchen when I had this awareness of things being too quiet. So I popped my head around the door to see the twins had pulled these bells off the Christmas tree and having fun dragging them around the floor. They had such a mischievous look, but couldn't tell them off!



Colouring time.

Time to go out and get some fresh air after cabin fever.


Ayla doing her best to remove her hat!


Poppy cannot resist a dip in the puddles!


I love the way that Ayla and Rowan are watching each other on the swings.


The girlies still love their gnome hats and also this is a record of how much they have grown.


Karis is far more adventurous than Sophie, who is busy watching.


 Sorry getting park outings mixed up, but just like this photo of Rowan.



This is my daughter in law's picture - isn't it lovely? The children trying to get into the play park!


Another photo of my daughter in laws.


Back to my pictures!


Karis loves to walk around with her hat half covering her eyes!


They all enjoy watching the chickens.


Ayla is beginning to find her legs and is beginning the process of pulling herself up and enjoying standing up until she thinks "how do I get down?" Either she just drops onto her bottom or cries!


Granny enjoying cuddles with Ayla.



The tower before Ayla and the twins destroyed it!


Christmas morning!




Rowan loves to help in the kitchen and here he is joining in with the making of the sherry trifle!




As you can see we had lots of lovely times together. So lovely to see the grandchildren interacting with each other now. The oven managed to keep going, even if it was rather slowly. We had a fab exhausting time.

All that is left is for me to wish you all a Happy New Year.