Busy Bee

Well Easter was soooo boring for the most part as both girls were busy and Martin was working Frday and Saturday. My shoulder was too painful to do much housework or scrapping so I spent most of the time (since the weather was so cold) watching Harry Potter films and eating (sorry diet).

Ok the snow in this doesnt look like much but on the other side of the car (at the same time) it looked like this!

On Monday though Martin was off and the whole family went to the pub that Laura had earmarked as one possible wedding venue for lunch.

Back of Grove Ferry.

Grove Ferry is right on the river Stour and has been established as a venue for years.

Back in the 70's part of the place was used as a disco/nightclub. We ate in the main bar though. The food, in the main, was delish (although my chips werent up to much, the home made burger and pickles were yum).

The meals.

Then we went outside to look see where the marquee would go.

Outside by the river.

Well from what we could make out, slap bang in the middle of the pub garden with pub users and boat owners still able to wander around.

The garden where marquee will go.

The cost is also an issue so we continue to look round.

Next stop, after saying goodbye to the others, was a bed and breakfast farm just outside of town. I had found it on the net and Laura had emailed and phoned but had had no answer, so she had decided to go knock on doors. Wayne and I both loved it the minute we stepped out the car.
A lovely tudor type farm house, all black and white windows on the outside, with an expansive well established lawn and pretty patio,

House and gardens.

arrived at via a covered gravel walkway beside a stable block.

Covered walkway

More stable blocks to the side housed 3 ponies and a lovely (very) friendly dog greeted us as we walked to the door. The whole place feels well out in the countryside with beautiful views of the downs in all directions and the catherdral in the distant valley. The lady who greeted us was lovely too, so this one looks like a good option and has rushed to top of the possible list.

It also opened new options as surprisingly there are quite a few farm type b&b's that may offer wedding service/hire possiblities so it was back on the net searching them out.

On Tuesday I was asked to bail out a school some 20 miles away, a lovely mixed Year 1/2 class. Their poor teacher has managed to injure her foot rather badly in a gardening accident so I ended up there all week and am back for the start (at least) of next week until she has been back to the doctors. It is quite a while since I did a whole weeks teaching and by Friday not only was I very tired but the house looked like a bomb had hit it, there was no food in the house and nothing left to wear that wasnt in the wash basket. Yesterday was a busy busy housework day.

Upshot? Very little crafting has gone on but hopefully now I am up to date again there may be some to come. I have just bought my new issure of Scrapbook Inspirations and could be inspired.

(Don't) let it snow, let it snow, let it ...

Well they promised it would.

Luckily at the moment its not laying

I suspect it will

I HATE SNOW!!!!!!

Happy Easter

Jo is making progress, very slowly but progress all the same.

This has seemed a rather long week with not much going on really. I guess thats because I seem to have spent most of it in the car.

On Tuesday I was asked to go to a new school on the agency's books, one I had not heard of before and some 20 miles away on the Isle of Thanet. Now Thanet, alegedly, consists of quite a few towns, Margate, Ramsgate, Birchington, Broadstairs...but as far as I am concerned its just one almighty sprawl of roads and houseing estates that all look alike, go in no particular direction and have no specific landmarks. So I was very careful, knowing the amount of hours I have wasted driving around the place, to print lots of maps off google before leaving. Luckily I found the place first time, not effortlessly but I found it. Not that there was any real rush to get there as the TA was taking them until I arrived, since the agency had not phoned me until 9.20 am.

On day 2 however they were expecting me at half 8 so 15 minutes after being phoned and asked to repeat the cover I was back on the road. There was an accident on the main road which held me up for a while so knowing I had passed the hospital the day before I decided multimap was wrong and I knew a shorter way to the A&E. After all I had only been there the week before with Laura.

WRONG!!!!

My shortcut put me the wrong side of the railway tracks. I had to double back and try again. The school run had started by now and the traffic was horrendous. Panicked because it was now 8.25 am and I had no idea where I was I started taking roads at random. Luckily I hit on the right one and arrived at 8.45. Just in time!

Then yesterday I thought I would go and check out another school, who were advertising a vacancy. I again took directions from multimap and set off. 2 hours and a quarter of a tank of petrol later I finally got back to some familar roads after driving forever around country roads (some with grass growing in the middle of them) in the back end of beyond. I think that school is a little too far to apply for.

Apart from that I am still on here because the computer hasnt been turned off all week. And I have done quite a bit of scrapping. This one is a sketch from Scrap Mag and uses up some of my old Junkitz papers coupled with some stuff from the latest Shabby Princess free download.

How long ...

...my computer will last and let me on here to update I don't know. It totally refused to work all today and I have had to wiggle wires and threaten it with lots of dire things before it would boot up. So if I am not around its because it has finally fallen over for good.

Back in January we managed to get my dad along to the local theatre to watch the annual town pantomime. No this may not seem like much of a feat but because of his hearing disability he is very reluctant to go to these kind of things, however we persuaded him to have a go at the hearing loop. It worked a treat and he could hear everything going on on stage, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Flushed with our success we booked tickets to go to the larger theatre in Canterbury to see Treasure Island.

What a complete waste of money and total disaster!!

For a start off we couldnt hear, the sound system was totally rubbish and the actors were literally mumbling into their false beards! Then the loop we had got for dad didnt work at all - not that he was missing much but it was hard to get that across to dad, he just thought he was missing out. We swapped his loop and got a new battery but still no joy.

On top of that the acting was appauling and the story - which should have been exciting, full of murder, plots and swash buckling, was soooooo boring. Even the scenery was naff, one set for the whole 1 hour 30 mins (including a 15 min interval)!!! Yes thats how short it was. Which considering how awful it was, wasnt such a bad thing. The group in front of us even said they hadnt understood it at all, and its not exactly a complicated plot.

At least we laughed about it, but it was a rather expensive laugh at the price of the tickets, petrol and car parking.

We took mum and dad home and then went to Prezzo's with Laura and Wayne, which turned out to be the best part of the evening as we had a super Italian meal and some good company.

Not as clever

So I am not as clever as I first thought - my computer is working but is very very temperamental. Twice I have had to take it to bits again, after shutting down as it would not start again. I am tempted to leave it on all the time but am worried that the obvious short circuit/wonky connection/whatever may cause a fire. And I don't want fried cat when I return home should I go out and leave the computer on.

So I am still going to have to buy a new 'puter.

On a much more positive note, I received a text from Jan to say Joey is being moved back to the local hospital!!! Although not fully conscious, there is an improvement and a definite difference between Jo asleep and Jo awake. Soppy me, I sat in the staff room of a strange school, with tears of relief streaming down my face, scaring the rest of the staff to death. They kept asking if it was bad news, and where really genuinely pleased for Jo when they got the full story. The male TA even went off to find me some tissues.

Computer panic

This morning when I got up I switched on the computer and went to get dressed. Suddenly the cat shot out of the study and I heard what sounded like a plane taking off! It was the PC. The fan was going ten to the dozen but everything else was completely dead as the proverable dodo!
I switched off and tried several more times but it wasnt going to do any more than make a horrific noise, so I gave up and went to work.
When I got home, I bemoaned the death of my pc to Martin who's response was to simply get a new one! So thinking I had nothing to loose, I took the cover off and looked inside. Not a clue what I was doing but one wire looked like it shouldnt really be floating about in the air, so I plugged it into the motherboard in the only place it seemed to fit. I then grabbed the hoover and cleared out 2 years worth of fluff bunnies. And........

IT WORKS!!!!!

Not only that it is so much faster and better than it has been in months. I have been blaming sky for the slow internet pace, but am seriously thinking it could have been to do with that stray wire?

Anyway although I have done myself out of a new pc the panic is over and better than normal service is resumed!

A quiet weekend

So what did I do? Well yesterday I went with mum and dad to visit Kelly and take over the gooseberry Plants I bought her last week. Plus to take Ollie and her a bunch of flowers and a card as it is their first wedding anniversary tomorrow. My baby, married one year already ...and I am still doing wedding photo layouts LOL. Laura and Wayne went to look at another wedding venue, which they were much taken with. I scrapped a little and have spent so long on the computer I now have a very sore neck and shoulder.

Oh and I started a blog to note all dad's little stories on.

Crete paper (lots off, I thught it went so well with the pattern on Kelly's top) Heidi Grace Urban Acres stamps Craft work chipboard flowers Prima flowers with stickle centres Foam alphas painted and then stickle dots added American Craft ribbon Oen buttons

Update

This weeks Pencil Line Sketch
Chatterbox papers, Stampendous stamps, chipboard swirls from Bo Bunny, painted with acrylic and then covered in Ranger crackle medium, , Butterflies cut from K & Co paper and mounted on 3D foam, BG stickers and Early Learning centre beads.

There has been plenty going on here, I just havent got round to adding it all to my blog so -

Sunday
The whole family were invited round to Kelly and Ollie's for evening meal which was a lush roast pork dinner made by Kelly and a Cherry Pie made by Laura. The girls gave me ear-rings and a necklace set (Laura) and the Autumn Leaves calender 2008 (Kelly) Plus I had had a packet of skittles from Pumpkin fur baby! So it was a happy mummy who went to bed sunday night.

Only

Monday
I got a phone call from a very shaken Laura early in the morning. She had been driving to work when someone pulled onto the roundabout in front of her car. She deftly avoided hitting him only to find he was towing another car, so she slammed on the breaks. Unfortunately the driver in the car behind wasnt so quick reflexed and sailed into the back of her car. So we got to do some mother/daughter bonding sitting in A&E waiting to be seen. Luckily not too much damage although she is terrified she will have whiplash again, it seems the damage is mainly to her shoulder from the seat belt.

Tuesday
A day supply at Jo's mum's school. I have not heard from Jan since last week so it was nice to see on their notice board a staff update saying Joey was opening her eyes of her own violation.

Wednesday
Laura tried going back to work but only managed half a day so we went to pick her up. We spent the afternoon attempting to find a venue for the wedding. Seems most places have shut down and there are very few doing weddings in our area. A niche in the market but not much help for us.

Today
I again kept Laura company and we phoned up a few more venues. One is booked to veiw on Saturday, but sadly one of the ones at the top of her list no longer offer a wedding service. She did at least get the letter to the vicarage to book the church before heading off to the doctors for pain killers and sleeping pills.

The wonderful supplers of my internet service, Sky, dont seem able to give me a decent enough signal to load pages after 6 at night so I have managed to do a little bit of scrapping although I have been playing Dreamworld the longest journey which is just as much fun.

More from the French Twist Kit I got from Scrummy Stash Cafe