It's a grey day out there.

So I am getting myself ready for a quick trip 3 down to the Loire valley. The aim is to get everything I need into the hand luggage so there will be no waiting around at the airport. Knickers, toothbrush and paste, moisturiser and a change of clothing, is this possible? Normally I pack for the 'what if' situation, so now I must think of another phrase to combat it. Any ideas anyone - something that will convince me I don't need all the junk I normally take?

Phew!

Found the passport, the online tickets, the euros from past trips, so now I can get on and sort out the clothes. That is easier said than done, as I gave away bags of them and can't remember what I have left... doh.
Has anyone found that tidy gene yet? I'm desperate to try it out!

TLC

Today is the day that my little house is to receive its holiday allowance of TLC. A great deal of that includes ironing - hence my blogging! Does anyone else get angry when doing this work - it really is the shortest lived thing that I ever do in the house - apart from tidying, dusting, getting rid of the piles of papers, cleaning windows....
There, that is a fairly accurate picture painted, in one sentence, of my housewifry skills.
I have owned up to my shortcomings, but does that do anything to the pile of ironing? No!
Do I get remission? No!
Drat, drat and double drat.....

Oh Happy Day!

Three forty came and I was out of school as quickly as my pupils, what a release. We finished the term with a service in church and I must say the year six from my class were simply great. They had spent the morning with a woman 'doing drama' in the church. I wasn't there, or even introduced to her, so I have no idea what she is like, but the tableau the pupils performed was wonderful - they enacted the last meal and Christ's journey to the cross. Even the ones who have the concentration span of just a few seconds were fully engaged in the production, it was a tribute to them and the way they seem to have matured in the last few weeks. Well done them.
So, let's enjoy the holiday, I'm off to Chatsworth Park tomorrow to meet my son and his girlfriend for lunch. Happy Easter everyone!

Winter musst be over!!

Hibernation has been broken - I woke just before six this morning and without too much resentment, rose from my lovely warm bed to do some work. This might not be exciting to you, but I am one of those who does not get up very easily in the morning, so am rather pleased about it!
I have my enrolment form for the last part of my course and it has this exciting part on it - 'check your name as this is the one that will appear on your certificate' instruction!! Ooh, the end is in sight... I also ordered some books fromAmazon on Saturday afternoon and the first one arrived yesterday mornng - beats me why we go to bookshops with that kind of service around, - except that it came froma Britiah bookshop and was obviously posted on SUNDAY???! So things are all on the move and life is exciting.
Have a good day everyone.

Don't tell anyone...

but it has been a lovely warm day here. What bliss to be able to hoe the borders, then sit outside and read, without feeling that I am totally lacking in vitamin D!!
When I get into the holidays I will take some pictures and post them, the most joyful find were some flowers on a variegated daphne that mum took as a cutting. There see - she lives on!
The bulbs are coming out too and the scented shrubs seemed to be almost sprayign their perfume into the air, wonderful!

They pass the smile test!

Thank you for this Pewari, it is the best criterion for keeping 'old familiars' that I have heard. All those family things that have come to me and I have few feelings for don't often raise a flicker, just a feeling of 'ought to keep'. So, yet more liberation on the clearing out the house front and shall I own up to the first things that are getting the order of the boot?
Well, over the years I have undergone a lot of dental work, - painful stuff that. Each time something radical takes place, my dentist takes a cast of my teeth and gives it to me as a kind of present. Are you with me now? I have at least six of these casts littering up my bathroom cabinet - I am going to throw them away now, yes this minute. I shall drop them from a great height into the bin.

4x4 language

I am thinking about those big vehicles that drive around with their spare wheel on the back door - usually with a covering on them. In the recycling centre in Newport today there was a wonderful one, none of your advertising printed on it, it just said 'Bugger!'
What a good way to make people laugh!

It is so true what people say.

In many conversations with friends and other people, they have all said that in life things seem to fall into place. This week I have talked online with my closest friend about the relevance of a relationship to life. We agreed that a partner is almost a marker to one's living skills, as we are to our partner's achievements. I think this can be widened to one's friends and people who you have contact with in life - maybe not for long, but who affect your own acceptance of life and sometimes we do the same for others.
I have been very weak willed about starting the serious reading for my degree, even reading fiction when I know I shouldn't be taking the book off the bookshelf! However, I am glad that I did. One character spoke about his unwillingness to give some household linen to his daughter becuase she didn't have the same pride in using these things as his dead wife did.
That one sentence hit home rather hard - recently I have been hoarding many things of my mother's and I suddenly realised that I have been almost trying to live times through her and forgetting my own feelings about many items and occasions.
Suddenly today I can face putting her things to one side, the things that were left after her death were not her cherished items, she gave those all to us before she died - some of them, many years ago. And she also told me not to be so sentimental about 'stuff'.
Her real messages are at last coming through to me - live life in the best way that you judge at the time, don't live by other people's expectaions, consider them but make your own judgements.
So, I have collected 6 huge sacks of stuff for recycling, I am going to get the bathroom sorted out (yes, these decisions have not been made in my emotional fog), and I am not going to slob in front of any old television programme, do I wnat to finish this degree? Yes?
Well then I will.

I think I can see what it is...

This dashboard thingy is good, I just need some 'vroom vroom' sounds to make it less earnest!

Wow - I have a blogger dashboard!

I have done it - gone over to Firefox - thanks Tim for the nudge! Its very quick, organised and thoughtful. Even providing me with a new dashboard, didn't know I needed one! (Will some knowledgeable person tell me what it is please?) Do you think I could start to talk to this machine to tidy up all my unwanted favourites and addresses? Perhaps not, I still like talking to the wall best of all!

I was good...

I went to the new gym last night for my first work out - lots of new torture machines there to give me aching bulges. However, the scenery is different: instead of being in a converted chapel, it is in an industrial building which has bubble windows that you can vaguely see shapes through and the machines are packed very close. So now people can hear me muttering under my breath when the going gets tough, or when I can't program one of the more complex machines. Never let it be said that they just put you on a bike - is the seat at the correct level, how is your heart beat, which type of cycling do you want to do? Questions, questions! Never mind, one day I might actually be able to claim that I am approaching a level of physical fitness that is acceptable.
Dream on!

Been good!

There - I've been and done it, didn't think I would actually go and do it again quite so soon. Bear in mind this is only the second time I have done this in my whole life... so I'm feeling pretty smug! Trouble is, there are lots more of them in this place, so the agony is going to pile lots more quickly.
Oh yes, sorry - I have joined another gym; mine shut up shop last week. And before you say it, no I didn't break all the torture devices, they almost broke me! However, I have been to another one in Newport and I shall continue to work towards that goal of being slightly fit before I go walking up the mountains this summer.
So, how do you think I celebrated? Well.... I bought some fish and - no chips, just one scallop and some mushy peas. Yummy!!!

Telling Stories

We had a visit from a professional story teller at school today, he was fantastic! The boys were dubious about it before hand - "We are butch boys now, we don't do stories." that kind of attitude, but they ate humble pie afterwards and admitted that he was excellent. He told the story of the ghost on horseback who roams the countryside around the Styper Stones. What a gift!