Shut your eyes and don't peep....!
Yes, OK... a bit difficult when this is a purely visual medium, but humour me please?

Right, breath slowly, take your time and breath in very deeply...can you smell them?






What?






The roses of course!!



and another....





this is a little sweetie too



and tomorrow I will post the most delicious scent of all!!

PS Can any one tell me why my little message on the right is repeating itself?? I am not a techie person, I just try these little experiments and they usually backfire!

Feeling silly?
Try this! www.reasonablyclever.com - very good for keyboard skills and mindless tapping!

Wow! At last!
It's half term and no more school for a week - well except for the marking and a presentation to prepare for an interview for the job I am presently doing.... No, I am not cynical. No, no, no.

I have dejunked my bedroom - clear surfaces, all around, washing and ironing done, so smugness is creeping up on me, except for the fact that I am determined to do the rest of the house too. The sitting room is done, so I treated myself to watching Love Actually. Why does this director always release a film that hits below the emotional belt? The music at the funeral just reminded me so much of my mother's determination to go out to Menuhin and Grapelli's Putting on the Ritz, so yes, I bawled my eyes out. But I feel better now. And wasn't it a lovely film? Thank you DLG for recommending it.

(I wonder if this site is still barred in The Kingdom? If so, you won't get that little message. The news is not good from there today, I just hope you are keeping safe out there.)

Please join me in celebrating my mum's birthday... a somewhat large gin and tonic would be wonderful.

It's all change!!!
Whilst I have been poorly they've been and gone and changed the set up of blogging again! It's most confusing when you know that the brain is not keeping up and life could be more dynamic, then the appearance of something basic is totally different, that really throws a spanner in the works!
So, Pewari has another baby, Steph has been gallivanting, DLG has been projectile vomiting and Tami has been sending wonderfully funny sayings around which kept me going during ofsted. Oh, its good to be back chatting to the ether, I have been readin gyou all, just not contributing.
I am sulking slightly at the mo because I would like to have gone to the Chelsea Flower Show, but work intervened. DRAT! Diarmud's little ball house would have been fun to see, but there we go, I can weed my garden instead. Daughter went yesterday and I have been tryin gto get her on the phone to find out about it - failed on that front too!
Never mind, life is good, still going strong and smiling about things. I will post something sensible later on in the week, meanwhile I need to write another application form....

Busy week...- SATs!
What a palaver - nearly over now though. Now I am going partying this week-end. First to Fleet and then to Leicester, one is a birthday party the other a farewell to the old carpet session!! I'll let you know what happens and I have a new camera so I can take pickies again! Even videos with this one!

Please excuse me...
I am going to have a personal confession here, normally I admit to my piles - the paper ones. Today, I have an even worse condition that has crept up on me - I have worms. Over 300 of them, infecting my old hard drive and the culprit is some kind of pornographic program which has the same name as a prgram that I use for school and did not notice.
How stupid can I get?!!!
It was not letting me access my virus program website and it was only when I checked the site was working from school that I got suspicious. The b******s! Why do people think it is acceptable to do this kind of thing? I bet they hated their primary school teachers!!
The other bad thing that has happened is the rain - bloddy rain. My first county match of the year is rained off - the squad of girls who have been training all winter just have not experienced the effect of rain upon cricket, perhaps the ECB should put this into the coaching manual - it will rain when you least want it to!! So the trip down to Hereford and the match beside the river will have to wait. Instead we go to Pershore next week-end for another game, its not beside the river but it is still very picturesque. We shall see.....
Tomorrow I am off to the show at Malvern - it was excellent last year, this year I might even buy one of the collapsable wheelbarrows I saw, and some plant supports, as well as the plants, and those wonderful snippers, and some climbing french bean seeds and - oh it sounds like a shop is coming on!!! Goodeeee!

Fort Knox
It has been rather like asking to see the gold bars in FK today, the net has not wanted me to connect or to log onto the site. Botheration!
Well yesterday was wonderful, I took the retail therapy route and feel much better after it, in fact I went so far as to look at a new house! MMMMm. Yes, big thoughts there, but I shall need some more bedrooms if my grown ups (as opposed to ‘children’) want to come and stay, so in the nearish future that may well be on the cards. It was rather exciting anyway to just go and look – no compulsion, or wasting anyone’s time, I looked at the village and the siting of the house and thought it looked very possible!!
Meanwhile, my little house has had some attention paid to it – things like hoovers and dusters have seen the light of day, clothes have been thrown out – TWO sacks, so that I can hang the new ones up. Gosh that feels good!
The garden smells delicious – wallflowers are worth their weight in scent! The yellow flowering currant is lovely too. Livvy and I had a count of the fruit trees last night – pears, apples, plums, greengages, cherries, red currents, goosegogs, quince, I’m getting there on the garden front!
The early evening is lovely at the mo, so I shall have a gin outside while reading the paper and then cook myself a steak and salad for dinner. An hour of tennis has given me a huge appetite!
Its so good to be back to my normal cheerful, optimistic self – in fact I am going to say, welcome back me, I’ve missed you!

Whooppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Ofsted is over! I can live again!! So, the list goes like this - bubble bath, shopping at Mo, then the shoe shop just down the road, lunch at Julien's, flowers from a good flower shop, home for a proper coffee, then my little house is going to recieve some real TLC. After that I am going to throw out the old clothes before I put the new clothes in the wardrobe, oh and buy a paper comes early on in the list, cos then I am going to sit outside and read it in the garden.
Its a bank holiday week-end so I think I will buy a book to read too, that's a real luxury, especially in term time! Tomorrow I shall book myself a holiday for half term, I would like to go to Italy so I'll check if there are any places left. Then I shall mow the lawn - do you really want me to go on? This time is for me - this week-end will see me marking and that is all. No going into school at all. Oh yes, tomorrow I am going to play tennis - ??? I have never played tennis, I dont know why I agreed to do this, but I expect there will be laughter involved in it.
Have fun everyone, I hope you enjoy the minutes as much as I will, whatever the weather!