Unexpected Treat

Yesterday I did something a bit unexpected!  I went to London to see the ballet at the Coliseum - The Snow Queen.  You see, a friend of mine was supposed to be going with her friend, but said friend got a bit nervous about travelling to London because trains have been delayed or even cancelled this week due to the weather.

Anyway, on Friday Ann asked me if I'd like to go instead; and, having nothing planned I jumped at the chance.  So, Saturday morning found me and my car sliding around the station car park trying to find a suitable spot to park in.  The journey to London (and back) was utterly uneventful - except that it was very very cold waiting at the station in the morning, so it was a good thing that I had my hands wrapped around a gingerbread flavoured hot chocolate! ;-)

We had some time to spare before the ballet, so we grabbed some lunch at a local pub and then wandered down to the Coliseum and settled down to watch the Show Queen.  Unfortunately we were on the end of a curved row of seats, so I had to lean forward a bit to see the whole of the stage - there were some unoccupied seats in the next row down, so we did move at the first interval and I am glad we did cos I was far more comfortable actually leaning back in the chair.

Well, the ballet itself was gorgeous - the costumes were dazzling, the footwork amazing (although there was one exceedingly close near miss with the Snow Queen and one of the other dancers!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected trip to London.  In fact, I really should go more often as it is only an hour away and if I am canny with booking my train tickets early, it really doesn't cost all that much.

It's lovely to do something unexpected!!  I wonder what will happen next!?

Happy New Year

Well, that's it now - Christmas is all over for another year and Easter Eggs are beginning to appear in the shops much to my annoyance!

It's now that time of year where everyone attempts to reflect on what's happened in the last year and comes up with some resolutions that they just know wont be adhered to  much beyond January 5th! (which, incidentally is Twelfth Night and you need to have taken your Christmas decorations down by then.)

Since I have yet in my life to stick to a single resolution, I don't think that I will even attempt to make any this year except perhaps a simple wish to lead a healthier, happier life!!  Which I think that everybody tries to do in their own way.

So...what's this year going to be like?  There is certainly one big event happening this year and that my brother's wedding to Elizabeth this August - a huge family get-together that will be great fun - the hotels are already booked!  Other than that, I think that this is a fairly standard year - all the usual events and things that we have to do to keep going!!

In any case.....Happy New Year to you all and may you all succeed in your endeavours!

Christmas Tour!

I am bit late to the mega party that is the Christmas Tour of Homes as hosted by the Nester!  I mean, for goodness sake, there are almost a thousand other bloggers before me – all showing off their wonderful Christmassy homes!!

So, here is my seasonal offering…

Of course the tree takes pride of place – I kinda just chuck everything at it and hope that it works well – the trouble is that a Christmas tree in full regalia just never ever seems to photograph very well (as I am sure that you all know already!!)  No flash and it’s too dark, use flash and the lights vanish as you can see in the photograph below…

I also have this rather funky Father Christmas – I think that he looks great, although he wobbles a great deal if the table is knocked because he has one of the springie things inside him – and he wobbles a LOT!!

Candles sometimes seem to take over my home, and Christmas time is certainly no exception as I have two tealight holders that, of course, don’t photograph all that brilliantly…

And I thought that I would have some fun with some baubles and a trio of candles – this takes pride of place on my coffee table and I think that it pulls the whole thing together quite nicely!!

So, there you go – that is my tour of Christmas in my home!!  I do have a lovely stained glasses (sorta thing) Christmas wreath that I normally hang on the door to the lounge, but I can’t seem to find it – it must be buried in the attic somewhere!!

Anyway, if you would like to see more Christmas decorations and see what other people have hanging in their homes, just click on the banner below!  I promise you’ll have fun – perhaps you’ll even join in!?

Oooh

It looks as though I have been given the honour of “beautiful Blogger” by the lovely Liz over at Liz’s HOH blog.

Apparently what you have to do is nominate seven other bloggers for this and then tell everybody seven things about yourself.

So here goes!

The nominations are….(I hope you don’t think I sound like someone at the Oscars!)

Sunny in Seattle – a fabulous blogger that I have been following for ages now – is pregnant with twins and needs help naming them!!

Northwest Ladybug – I love this blog – there’s a great photo on it of a dog and cat sharing a beanbag in front of the Christmas tree!

Dispensing Happiness – for doing exactly that and organising things like blogging by mail!

The Literary Feline – for having a lovely blog and occasionally popping up on mine!!  ;-)

The view from the hill – who loves knitting and needs a bit of cheering up!

Liffey’s Blog – now this one is a bit unusual cos Liffey is a Hearing Dog!!

…and, of course, Alice – one of the bloggers that I have been following since I started blogging!

Well, that’s the seven blogs, now I need to think of seven things to say – I assume that’s seven things that I haven’t already said in two and half years of blogging (!!!)

I am sure you know this by now – but I am quite addicted to my laptop and/or iphone!!  I am constantly checking to see what’s going on, who’s emailed me and stuff like that!! (Mum would say that I am just very nosy!)

I hope to begin tap dance classes in January!!  I have made a new friend that plans to start her own classes the village hall – so I will give that a go!!

I am back at the dentist next Wednesday! :-( Yes that saga has not finished yet – I was still in pain (on and off) so they took an x-ray last week and then said to come back and they will redo the filling free of charge!  (will let you know how that one goes as clearly there is something not quite right with the filling.)

I love the song performed by the Salvation Army – Rise up Shepherd – I think that I’ve blasted it out of the speakers in the car at least fifteen times this week!!! (along with the other Christmas music!)

I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping – I clearly need to get a move on!! Three of them arrived in the post this week, so I AM getting there!  ;-)

I am just about to watch the latest Harry Potter release after leaving the DVD on my coffee table for a week cos I was too busy to watch it – that NEVER happens round here!

Finally – I will admit to loving Star Trek!! (that is, all but the original series as I am not so keen on that!!) So most weekdays evenings I can be found watching Voyager at 7pm and Sundays I will settle down to watch Deep Space 9!  (any more closet Trekkies out there ;-)  )

So there you go!  Thank you to Liz for thinking that I deserve this badge!

Classic Christmas music!

I absolutely adore the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah and was really tickled quite pink to find this version!!  (Found it on the lovely Grannymar’s blog!)

Utterly utterly classic!!!!  (just ignore the chap giggling away in the corner!)

BBM

….or Blogging By Mail!  A little while ago I signed to take part in BBM as hosted by Dispensing Happiness – the point was to send a parcel of five things that relax you to someone else that had signed up!!

I sent a parcel off to She Devil Delights and it contained some earl grey tea from Tea Pigs, a novel from my favourite author Nora Roberts, some chocolate, some bubblebath and some greeting card kits that I’d made up myself.

But that’s not what you want to know; you want to know what I got in the post today!! Technically I got it in the post yesterday, but all the postman left was a notice to come and collect it from the depot, which closes round about 3pm so I had to wait until this morning to pick it up on the way to work.

Of course, I couldn’t wait until I got back home to open it, so I opened it at work, had a peep and then resealed it for safe carrying home!  So……it came from the wonderful Gabi in Salt Lake City where you can find the blog The Feast Within (where I had actually previously bookmarked a frangipane pear tart that looked rather fabulous!).

And it contained the following….

Three lovely books, including one by my absolute favourite author – Nora of course!!   Two bars of chocolate, one of which is all gone now (tee hee!!), several bags of yummy looking tea (including chamomile citrus and organic breakfast), some lovely beauty stuff like a raspberry lipbalm that smells delicious and organic orange bath salts! Not to mention the 2 ounces worth of unsweetened chocolate to be used for chocolate brownies as per the recipe included in the little notecard; which also mentioned that book that you can just about see under that pile of goodies – The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim – is a particular favourite of Gina’s who said “ I’ve enclosed my own much loved copy of The Enchanted April – I read it whenever I need a sunny Italian vacation in a book, ahhh San Salvatore”.

What a lovely thing to say and I feel very privileged to have such a book sent to me – I would find it very hard to part with one of my own favourite books!!  I am so pleased I took part in Blogging By Mail and I would definitely do it again!

Thank you to Stephanie for organising this and thank you to Gina for sending me such a lovely parcel!!!

SantaThing!

I have been a LibraryThing member for ages.  If you don't know what LibraryThing is, it's a place where you can catalogue your personal book collection and see what other people have (appeals to the nosy in me as well as the librarian!)

 

Two years ago the fabulous LibraryThing people started SantaThing and I joined in the first time around and got an intriguing book.  The second time around I was a bit nervous of what I might get that time because I wasn't all that keen on the book that I had (which was The Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin - a distinctly acquired taste I think!) even though it was quite interesting and I did enjoy it, but I would not choose to read it again if that makes any sense at all.  This year, I thought that I would get stuck in even though I am bit late to the party!!

 

So late in fact that the deadline for SantaThing is today at 4pm EST which actually means 9pm my time, so if you are British you have plenty of time to go and put your name down for SantaThing!!  Simply put, you need to be a member of LibraryThing which is free up to a certain point and then you need to plunk down $25 (£15) to put your name in the hat and then once the names have been distributed (no addresses given out) you can have fun choosing the right book for this other person that you are likely to never ever meet!! And of course you get to have fun opening a suprise parcel - only a surprise in that you won't know what the book is!!

 

You know you want to do it!! ;-)

Thanksgiving

It would appear that today is Thanksgiving over in the States!  (As if I could possibly have failed to realise it after reading all those blogs giving thanks or telling us what they are going to eat!)  Anyway it is, of course, an apppropriate time to say thanks.....

• for antibiotics!!  I went to the dentist the other day and it turns out that the newly filled tooth is fine, but I have developed an infection in the injection site!! (the trouble is that mouths are generally not very clean places) So now I am on two lots of antibiotics and two lots of painkillers - I must surely rattle!! Still, I am thankful to whomever invented antibiotics as I will now be on the mend.
  
  
• for subtitles as it means that I can watch the television without having to guess what's going on (I really don't like it when a programme doesn't have subtitles as I do feel quite unable to watch it)
  
  
• for the new friends that I have made on my recent Alpha course!
  
  
• for my job that allows me to buy my craft things!!
  
  
• for my family - I love you all so much!!
  

What are you thankful for?

Lazy Days

This Sunday has been a particularly lazy one!  While the tooth appears to be getting better (she says tentatively), I am still feeling all irritable and so have spent today in my pajamas and dressing gown!!  Not the most productive of Sundays although I did manage to clean up the cat's litter tray (it needed it!)

Sometimes though, a day a in pajamas is just what is needed - no obligations, jobs, visitors or anything. Anything of importance can go hang, time is better spent on the sofa in front of the telly with the cat on the lap and the laptop precariously balanced on the knees!  I have spent the day rummaging blogs, chatting with Mum on facebook (and beating Mum at scrabble - but only just!); not to mention making endless cups of tea with the ocassional pill to keep the pain away - Nur0fen seems to work best, but I can only take one more today so I am saving that for just before I go to bed.

So, I refuse to feel any guilt for having an idle day as sometimes we all need one!

Toothy update!

Well, it has been a couple of days since I went to the instrument of torture otherwise known as the dental chair!

Naturally it wasn't an entirely pleasant experience, but I had enough anaesthetic to numb the jaw right the way up to the ear - it is quite a weird feeling to have a hearing aid in a numb ear!  The dentist did her best to clear out the decay and she said that she would put some medication in the tooth before filling it up.

Unfortunately the pain has not yet gone away - if anything - I would say that it has gotten worse!  I suppose I was somewhat naive in thinking that as soon as the anaesthetic had worn off I would be entirely painfree.  But on thinking about it, it makes sense that the nerve would be tender and sore after the drilling and poking around!!

In addition to which, the dentist said that the decay was rather close the nerve and so the nerve itself may be damaged and so if the tooth is still ultra sensitive (aka painful!) in about a months time then I may need a root canal. So I am really rather hoping that this pain is just a result of the "surgery" and not anything else.  In any case, I am popping paracet@mol and ibupr0fen (safely of course!) and it seems to take the edge off.  (I hate those funny symbols in the medical words but I have already had a spammer and I think that this is one way to prevent them from  finding us!)