Christmas is here in my new lounge!

We've done most of the skirting and Ollie has built his entertainment unit. We've finally put the new curtains up and the new rug down. Brian refuses to walk on the rug and skirts around the tiny space around the outside. It's really funny to watch. Especially when you pick him up and drop him in the middle of it! He jumps off again real quick!

Thursday was our department Christmas do so Friday I was a bit worse for wear. I had to go home from work at lunch!

Random Photos

I took the photos off my phone this evening and thought I would share.

This is the arty photo of the Wembley arch...
Take That...
Christmas tree and lounge photos to follow tomorrow!

Christmas has finally arrived!

Yesterday started really badly. Our bunny, Fuzz, has been off her food since Saturday and her eyes all gunked up on Monday so we made an appointment for the vet yesterday morning. Unfortunately it was Myxomatosis and the kindest thing was to have her put to sleep. So we are now rabbitless and we don't think we will be replacing her. It's too hard when they get sick. The vet said that she was so unlucky as Myxi season is well over but it has a 2 week incubation period so she must have been bitten by the last infected mossie of the year.

Still after a quick trip to Hempsted Sainsbury's and B & Q we got stuck back into the DIY. We managed to fit the blind to the kitchen window before nan and granddad came to visit. Then we did the run of skirting in the lounge where the Christmas tree was to go. So finally I could put Christmas up! The tree is now in it's corner. I wasn't sure at first about the green in our red and gold colour scheme, but it looks really good. I'll try and get some piccies up at the weekend. I'm off out for my department Christmas party tonight and I'm staying at Bobbie's tonight.

Take That!

I went to see Take That on Monday!!! How very sad. It was absolutely brilliant!

These photos are from Clare as I can't get the ones off my phone at the moment.

We were 7 people away from Take That, we were in the second row on the floor at the O2 and at the end of our row was the mobile stage bit where they did a good few songs. It was the best concert ever! I knew all the words to all the songs apart from one from their first album (I wasn't really that big a fan the first time round)

It was a great girly night out and the 6 of us had all you can eat Chinese and some wine before hand and then sang along to the Take That CD in the car on the way home.

Plus we also saw on the way out we had been sitting a few rows in front of the guy that played Stuart in Neighbours! Real star spotting.

It was gone midnight by the time I got in and so I've been a tad tired the last couple of days - we went to Ikea last night as well and got a few bits for the house. We've also picked out the kitchen worktops that we want.

Ta Da!

Here is our finished bathroom!

Well I say finished, but I still need to seal around the bath (the sealant had gone out of date) and foam the hole in the wall where the waste pipe for the sink goes (the foam can had foamed itself shut!) I also need to give the tiles another scrub as there is still some grout on them. Plus I need to put the edging around the tiling on the sink. So not really finished, but a lot more finished than it was this time last week!

You can just see my lovelly tiling in the mirror in the picture. I am really proud of myself, even if I do have many cuts, lacerations and baddys on my fingers and about 17 less layers of skin on my hands.

Ollie has also been busy constructing the shelves for the TV accessories. (DVD player, Amp etc)

Wet

Today's challenge on the photography challenge blog is wet. Here is my attempt at wet, my bath running for me to get ready to go out to the pub tonight. It's going to be rare occurance - Ian, Helen, Alan, Ollie and me are all going to the pub together! Getting all of us together when 2 of us work in London, 2 of us do shift work and 1 of us lives in London but spends more time in the outer hebredies and works 14 hour days 4, 35 days in a row is quite a challenge!


For the first day of our week off I have been quite productive and made 6 Christmas cards. Only a few more to go now.
A Selection...

We also went to Sainsburys, fun! But we did get 2 more Christmas presents and a birthday present for Ollie's nephew who is 4 today.

Mum's birthday

Saturday was mum's birthday party. Laura did all the arranging which she did superbly, only asking me to get some sparklers!

Ollie had never let fireworks off before and being the pyromaniac that he is asked if he could be in charge. After years of standing while other people let one firework off at a time we joined forces and attempted lighting more than one at a time.

I managed to get my rockets to spin which was impressive. Halfway through we were interupted by mum's friend's bloke playing happy birthday on the bagpipes on our driveway!

Dad nailed the catherine wheel to the fence which got stuck and wouldn't turn round.

We continued with the fireworks, not exactly sticking to the safety rules but being careful until the last 3 rockets when we only had enough lighting stick left for 1 light. So we twisted all the fuses together and set them off. One went off in the sky, one into next doors garden and one in the tree!

Then we moved onto the 3 million sparkers Ollie had got which ended up in some strange places (in the firework pot, in a beer bottle and in the cake!)

Halloween Pumpkins

Unfortunately my pumpkin was not ready for Halloween. I is starting to turn orange but according to the guide I read on the net, it's supposed to be harvested when i is fully orange and then mature for 10 days. Well this photo was taken last weekend so it had no chance of being ready for yesterday.
Ollie enjoyed carving pumpkins so much last time that he wanted to do it again, so we got some pumpkins in Sainsbury's and took them to mum's on Sunday for the carving. Here is the end result!

Last night I refused to stay in the house in the dark (so the trick or treaters wouldn't know we were home) and went to yoga with Helen.

Guitar Hero Really Rocks!

We bought our own guitar hero from ebay. It was delivered just before all the postmen went on strike on Friday, so we have had loads of fun today!

Last night was the cricket club dinner organised by Laura. It was a good evening, even though we didn't really know anyone there. The dinner was alright, but the caterers were a bit poor. They managed to spill every course on the table and one even knocked over a bottle of wine on the next table to us! We left early because we were a bit tired and we were taking nan and Grandad home and they had been up since 4am to get mum and dad to the airport. So we missed the band who were good apparently. Grandad won the raffle - again.

Today I have been incredibly busy. We went to the gym and to Sainsburys this morning and I have planted the rest of my bulbs, painted the pipes in the bathroom and made 6 (yes 6) apple pies!

Guitar Hero Rocks!

Last night we went to Helen and Alan's for a poker night. It was a proper married couples evening with 4 sets of married couples! We did feel a bit old! It was lots of fun though. Afterwards we had a go on guitar hero which they had borrowed from Helen's brother. It is fantastic! It gets some getting used to but once you get the hang of it it's highly addictive. Ollie managed to get a high score on Sweet Child of Mine which was really hard.

So that's another thing for my Christmas list!

I went out with mum yesterday afternoon down to the craft shop in Margate. I only got a few sheets of paper but mum stocked up. We stopped off at Laura and Wayne's on the way home as I haven't seen it since it was a shell. It's very nice, I love what they've done. It's impressive thinking that they've built their own house.

Ol and me both won the lotto last night. I got 4 numbers for the first time ever and he got 3! So we treated ourselves to the 8 in 1 remote that we had seen in currys last week. It's a really funky touch screen one which will replace the 3 that we've got for the tv, sky box and dvd/amp. It was half price in the sale and we got another 10% off as the box had been damaged! Ollie's set it all up and I'm going to have a lesson in how to use it later! I think he's going to set up special buttons for me for the PS2 and X Box so that I don't have to remember what buttons I have to press on the tv and amp for it to work.

Body Shop party

Last night Tiff had a Body Shop Party. It was the girl's first party and she did really really well. I had a great time.

She has got me to agree to holding one as well so that should be a laugh!

Tiff got me a huge sparkly diamond (I'm presuming not real!) for my birthday which is now sitting on my desk sparkling away. I'd take a photo but I left my phone at home today. I've ordered my new phone - for the second time as the PAC code to transfer my number didn't work yesterday. When I get it I will be able to take photos and upload them directly to my blog! How cool is that!

Another Exam pass!

I passed my ACCA paper 1.2 on Wednesday! 74% this time. It was a really tough paper so I was really pleased with that.

To celebrate and to spend my bonus money for passing I bought Ollie a new PSP for the train. I went to Sainsbury's Maidstone but they didn't have any so they phoned Sittingbourne and reserved me one to pick up. So back to Sittingbourne and to Gamestation to get some games to go with it.

Ollie was really pleased with his suprise - until he realised I had been fobbed off with the old model for the same price as the new one! So I had to go back to Sainsbury's yesterday for a refund and we'll be going to Gamestation at the weekend for a new one! He felt really bad pointing out that I had got the wrong one - but I'd rather he had the better one and I didn't get conned!!!

He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty boy!

Yesterday Brian went missing for about 24 hours. Now we wouldn't have been worried if it had been Abby. She is always out and about and is more savvy and street wise.

Brian, however, rarely leaves the house for more than 5 minutes at a time as it tends to interfere with his sleeping and or eating. For him to miss 2 whole meals was unheard of! And let's face it, he can only be described as special needs and I'm not sure he's equipped with the necessary stuff to survive in the big wide world.

He finally turned up at 2.30 this morning minus yet another collar and cat flap magnet (I had unlocked the cat flap in case he had lost his key!) I had to get up (yes at 2.30am!) to find him a spare collar and door key.

So now we are quoting Monty Python at him as punishment.

Bored bored bored

I'm thoroughly bored of revising now. I've officially had enough!

I did have some time off last night to make some more cards...
And as promised a photo of my pumpkin...
And for those who are interested, Brian is actually sleeping in HIS bed today!

The life of Brian

It's such a hard life being a Brian. This is where he has been all day today...

I must point out that he tucked himself in all by himself with no help from me or Ol, Ol just found him like it!

And this is where he spent Friday afternoon...That bag by the way is what I use to put the recycling in from the spare room so he is sleeping in a bag with coke cans in!

I went outside earlier to take a photo of my pumpkin, got it all lined up. Turned the camera on and realised I'd left the memory card plugged into the computer! Doh! So I'll go out there again another time and take one.

Wow I did it!

I actually managed to grow something edible. Well I have done before but only mint and rhubarb! I even managed to kill of 3 lots of Basil! Last night we had the first crop of corn on the cob. It was really nice. It looked like corn on the cob, had the same texture and didn't taste too bad!

Considering all my other plants have died and the stinging nettles keep returning to invade my flowerbeds and lawn I was very pleased with myself.

Just in case you were wondering we had it with mash and chicken tonight hoy sin and balsamic vinegar sauce.

I even have a pumpkin growing! I'll have to take some photos for a pumpkin update diary!

Other than that I have found the challenge blog which gives you a word a day and you have to take a photo - I may give that a go when I'm not so busy with my studying.

Sunday Housework day

We've been busy again today. I went to Homebase this morning as we needed white spirit so Ollie could paint the other side of the door. They had some bulbs so I got some just because I was late planting them last year and they didn't come up.

I weeded one flowerbed and have planted some tulips and some other blue things that I can't remember the name of! And I planted some dwarf daffodils in a pot. But I've run out of compost for my other pots and the inclination to do any more weeding so the rest will wait until I get some (compost or inclination, whichever comes first!)

Ollie's busy doing his ironing. I've hoovered upstairs but have been banned from doing downstairs as it will throw dust onto Ollie's painted door.

Christmas Cards

Friday mum came to visit and bought her embossing powders to share with me which was really nice thank you!

So Saturday night to cheer me up after the football I made a few cards. (Needless to say my Magnolia stamps have all arrived! The photos are a bit rubbish, but it's the best I can do without going outside!

Football luck ran out

Saturday we had tickets for the biggest match of the season! The North London Derby, Tottenham v Arsenal. We caught an early train and got to the ground in time for lunch. Unfortunately the greasy spoon that I had gone in with Dad last time we went (4 years ago or so) had shut down, so we had to make do with a KFC type place. Which was OK, Ollie didn't go much on his but I thought the chips were nice.

We had a look in the club shop which was having a sale and I was going to get a t-shirt and a scarf, but the queue was too long!

We found our seats, conveniently in front of a gangway so that we could climb over to get out. The ground seemed very small when you have been to Wembley twice in the same week!

We played alright in the first half, going in 1-0 up. But we went to pot second half and lost 1-3. The last goal was unforgivable really, we were dead on our feet. We had 3 strikers on at the end, but they were all trying to stand on the penalty spot!

We made our way home very disheartened. We had never seen so many armed riot policemen. There were a row of them in the ground between the Spurs fans and the Arsenal fans. Then there was a row of vans with dogs, police horses and riot traffic police all along the High Road! The Arsenal fans were kept in the ground and then escorted to the tube! We didn't see any trouble though. We did see at the tube station a little boy of about 6 with his dad and he was wearing a white England shirt. When he bent over you could see that he was wearing an Arsenal shirt underneath! Silly dad letting him do it if you ask me!

I had another disappointing week at the fantasy football as well and James has pulled further into the lead.

Dinner at Helen's

We went to dinner at Helen's on Friday night. It was as usual lovely. Helen tried out a recipe from her baby food book and it was very nice!

Ethan is at that just learned to walk really cute stage. He can turn on the charm when he wants. Alan says he goes from strop to cute in 2 seconds flat! He had been finger painting that afternoon so I came home with a picture for my fridge.We gave up watching the rugby and turned the Wii on. They went out and got one after borrowing ours for a while. I came a close second at bowling and last at golf!

Some birthday photos

Tuesday night we had my birthday meal at mums so I took my new filters and had a play. I think these are quite funky. I wasn't too sure about the soft focus when I unwrapped it (it hadn't been on my list so was a bonus one!) but at the moment I think it's my favourite!
And some with the star filter. A little odd, but ok!

Finally a wedding album

I'm ignoring the fact that we've been married more than 6th months because I've finally ordered the wedding album! It's just a photo book from Pixmania. I have no idea what it's going to be like but at £30 it better be good! I want something to show people and it's going to take me forever to get the scrapbook one done.

Ollie did suggest getting 15 and giving them out for Christmas but I wasn't too sure about that!

Other exciting news, my Magnolia stamps have been dispatched!!!! I can't wait to have a play. I still can't find my embossing powders but I think Magnolia stamps will more than make up for it!!! I'm very tempted by another 3, but shouldn't really this month. Maybe if I pass my exam...

There's a sink in my bathroom!

While I have been studying this week, Ollie has been very busy working on the bathroom. He has run all the pipework for the sink, installed the sink, put the cabinet back up, put the hand towel holder and the loo roll holder up and even put the blind up.

I am really proud of him for doing such a fantastic job. We still have one minor leak on one of the corner bends for the pipework, but I've just put on the 6th lot of epoxy resin and hope that this lot finally plugs it!!!!!

So just the painting and the wall tiling left to go and we're finished!

Come on England!

Another match at Wembley last night. As we have the week off and it was an evening game we decided to make a day of it and go to London early and go to the Science museum.

I packed a picnic which we ate on the train. Ollie joked that he had taken me out for a picnic on the train and we were only going to the car park of the museum and then coming home again! (Long standing joke as that's mainly all Grandad did when we were small!)

I can only remember going to the Science Museum once before and we only got a quarter of the way around before we got tired and went home. Well I can quite understand that as we didn't see everything yesterday either! We did see the really real Stephenson's rocket and some other cool stuff. I did far too much learning and Ollie even explained the developed theory's of the atom (has something to do with raisins in puddings!) It was a little disappointing as they had closed a lot (I suppose for the after holidays gig about) and were redoing the bit where you get to be all hands on with Science. I was well chuffed that I managed to make a 3D pyramid with 4 3D tetrawotsits all by myself!!!

So then it was off to have a cup of tea and a rest before dinner at Garfunkels again. Which was just as nice in Piccadilly circus as it was at Victoria.

Then we went to Wembley, via Wembley central this time. We're not doing that again as it's about 3 miles from the stadium. We had a much closer view of the pitch this time see...
Well we were 2 rows in front of where we were on Saturday!

It was a fantastic game and I managed to rattle my brain cheering so hard when we scored (all three times!!!) Ollie had remembered his scarf and I was annoying people (well Ollie anyway) with my flag. We are going to see Spurs play Arsenal on Saturday so we are hoping for a hat trick of 3 - 0 scorelines!

Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday!

I had a really fantastic day. Ol got me a load of stuff for my wedding album. I had said that I wanted some Bazzill and Basic Grey. So I put a load of stuff in a basket on the Internet and left the laptop open in the hope that someone would come along and pay for it and they did! My teddies, however, did not get the plan and went out and got me 2 Sainsbury's packs of fresh Basil and would have got some basic grey school socks if they had them in stock!

I had pancakes for breakfast. Although I am not as good as Alan at doing funky faces and shapes. I spent the morning playing and reorganising my stash. Not having scrapped in a while I didn't feel ready to start the wedding album so did a photo that I had printed last week with my free photobox credits. It's basic grey Scarlet's letter repose and some Bazzill with Scarlett's letter fibres.

Then nan and Grandad came over. They brought mum's gift as she was in bed with a migraine after looking after Laura's dog all night. Mum got me some snazzy fine liner pens in lots of colours and some filters for my camera, so look out for some funky photos coming up in the future! Nan and Grandad got me Singstar 90s for the PlayStation. That's almost a complete set now!

After lunch (cheese on toast) Helen and Alan came over. They got me the nicest new handbag. Although you do know you're old when your friend gets you a present from Marks and Spencer's and you like it! We cannot believe how much Ethan has grown up in the 4 weeks or so since we saw him last. He's now running all over the place but he's not very good at steps at the moment. He's so cute as well. They went home with their tile cutter and a lot of apples and pears for Ethan's dinner! Just as Gemma and her gang turned up! They had got me Pirates of the Caribbean for the Wii and brought Ol's dad's present of Harry Potter for the Wii. Harvey spent the whole time getting all our DVDs off the shelf and laying them out on the floor!

We had Chinese takeaway for dinner and played Harry Potter, then watched Garden State. The day was finished off with some Singstar which even Ol had a turn at. He was good at Crash Test Dummies, but not so good at Achey Breaky Heart!

All in all it was a fantastic day and I did so well with presents and cards and happy birthday texts and messages on Facebook. I'm going to have to write a whole new list for Christmas and I thought that I would have enough on there to last me until next Birthday!

We saw England win at Wembley!!!!!

Saturday afternoon saw us off to Wembley to watch England v Israel. Although I have been to live football matches before, I have never been to an international. Ollie however is an old pro, having even travelled to Portugal to see the Euros in 2004.
I remembered my flag! Ollie forgot his scarf and didn't want to be seen with a flag (as they get in the way!)
The tube was packed and we were squished up against the most drunk, loud, northern supporters. I was so scared! There were so many people there it was amazing and the atmosphere was incredible inside the ground which had been missing when we went to see Muse in June.
We got to our seats and - yes they were in the upper tier in the very back row! So our view would have been enhanced by some binoculars! But it was still very good and our view for Owen's goal was even better than the camera angles that they showed on TV. The boys did good and we finally fought our way to Wembley station afterwards in the millions of people!
Dinner was at Garunkels at Victoria station and we got home very hoarse and tired!For the benefit of those watching on TV all these people had to hold coloured hankies over their heads during the national anthem!