Viva Las Vegas

Having made the decision to leave LA we had to stock up on goodies for our 272 mile trip across the desert to Vegas, so we asked the hotel for directions to the nearest shops/supermarket. Very vague instructions were given, they seem surprised that we needed shops, and it took us a while to find the grocery store. Much less so because it was hidden in a rather posh residentual area rather than a shopping mall or outlet centre.

We stored our water, cola, crisps and chocs (well its a long way) in the car and headed for the only open cafe (it was Memorial Day and most places were shut) for breakfast. At the time we were impressed with the choice and amount of food. We were later to discover that what we had got there was very meagre for Californian standards but hey we were only in the country one day!

Then we hit the road.

As last time, driving in America is so easy. The International Freeway goes straight to Vegas (straight being the operative word). I had spoken to Karen (Scrapdolly) before we left as she and her DH had done this trip many times, and she had told me there was nothing between LA and LV except one town. She was not wrong, although the countryside did change slightly as you went through the mountain pass and across the desert. But it was hot and our hire car had no air con so we were pretty glad to get to the outlet centre that marks around the half way point.


As well as the comfort break and the need to stretch our legs, we needed to buy Martin a pair of sandals as I had made him throw away his old smelly pair on our Florida trip. There were a few shops amongst the food places so we took time out to stroll around. Because he didnt want toe posts or flip flops we didnt find any sandals but we didnt come away empty handed. I had filled my ipod with suitable road trip music before we left home, taking the cassette car adaptor with me. Our car was a little more modern though with no cassette player but an audio jack. Trouble was the jack I had bought in LA wouldnt work, so we were relying on local radio (mostly talking). So we treated ourselves to a cd.

Yeah ok, it was California and Martin is a fan but there are only so many hours of The Beach Boys you can stand!!! Luckly I did eventually find a half decent radio station!!!!

Traffic was light on our side although on the other side cars were bumper to bumper as half of LA travelled home from their bank holiday outings. Comfort breaks were impossible from here on as it was a nightmare getting out of the car parks back onto the I road due to the amount of them stopping for a break from the traffic jams, so no more stops and eventually we arrived in Vegas!

USA holiday number 2 California!

Day 1
Sunday 2th May 2008
Los Angeles

Everyone laughed when we said we were flying out of Heathrow terminal 5 and there were several jokes about lost lugguge, but to be honest leaving from there was waaay easier than Gatwick. Wayne and Laura took us ap and despite the fact that their alarm(s) didnt go off, we still arrived in plenty of time. And life was so much simpler with our on-line boarding passes already done. Terminal 5 is huge, but sooo quiet.
As usual we left to pouring rain



.. but this time arrived 11 hours later to beautiful blue skies.
OK That all sounds like too much plain sailing for one of our holidays, and the fact that we also managed to find the hotel we were booked into first try also adds to this impression but yes, you guessed, there was a downside. A rather big downside. This is the view from our hotel window!!


The hotel had been booked blind by the travel agent, with our flights, and had cost us quite a huge part of our holiday money. It attempted to make itself a luxury hotel, and was very near to the Getty Centre and the end of Sunset Boulovard - well yes we can see the rroad links are good. And we could hear them all night too.

To be honest our time in LA was not at all enjoyable. We were charged $18 for valet parking which as well as being expensive was a pain because you would be amazed how many times you need to go out to the car when every time you do the valet guy has to bring it round. Martin was particularly annoyed about this as he had read that the parking was free, but we didnt have the appropriate reading material with us. Furthermore as well as being right on the junction of two international freeways, the swimming pool was on the side of the road, and although Wii fi was available, laptops were not.

We gave the place a shot though and after dropping off our suitcases, headed out to see the sites. LA is huge, and the Americans do not give you any indication of where things are. Oh they are very good at letting you know where YOU are, but signs saying 'Downtown' or 'Beachfront' are non-existant so if you dont have a decent map or simply dont know, then there is no way to find out. Its not easy to ask anyone either because LA doesnt allow you park anywhere. All the parking was at meters (we had no change having just arrived) or car parks were $12 (thats £6 in real money).

So after driving round for over an hour and seeing nothing much we returned to the hotel. Martin then saw the end of Sunset, so off we went again. It took us half an hour to drive through Beverly Hills and all we saw were very tall hedges.

At this point we had had enough, so we high tailed it back and took the decision to abandon our plan of 3 days in LA and to drive to Vegas the following morning.

Hi honey we're home.

We actually got back yesteday but having been up nearly 36 hours the last thing I was able to do was update my blog. Just turn on the pc, check emails, watch doctor who and fall into bed. Of course today has been washing, shopping and tryiing to hack through the jungle in the garden as it has rained torrentually every day since we left. The plants and vegies didnt do so well in the weather - apparently most pots were floating in water, but the grass has gone mad.

I am going to do daily updates on what we got up to in America but I still have stuff from suitcases to sort, more washing and hoovering to do so just a few photos as a taste for now.




We loved the idea of doggie water fountains in Golden Gate Park



With such small portions we cant understand why we have put on weight!!

byeeeeee

We will be off in the early hours of the morning. No blogging for 2 weeks now but while hanging around waiting for the final batch of washing to be ready for packing, I found this wonderful kit on the Coco and Co site (sorry site is in french so I cant give full credit) and just had to do a digi LO.

Chelsea

Yesterday Martin and I went to the Chelsea flower show. I have always wanted to go but never been able to as I was always working, so it was a real treat when Wayne offered us 2 free tickets and the date of them con-insided with Martin's day off.

We travelled up by train and then (after much searching for the ATM machine at Victoria station) caught the shuttle bus service. There were so many people taking this that the bus company had had to bring in some of the open top tourist busses for duty. So for a few quid each we got to ride on the top of one of these when tourists on the tour were getting the same for £30! The garden show is amazing. So many people but so well organised. Lovely wide roads so that you dont feel squashed at all, and plentty of facilities (although the ladies toilet queue was round the block!)

Drink and food was expensive, but only to be exected in the middle of the trendy part of London, although I was disappointed not to get a glass of Pimms but at £4.50 a small glass - well no way hossie!

We had met a bloke on the station platform who had told us he was going to be manning the Marshalls children's garden so that's where we headed off to first. The trouble with the show garden's is that they are very design orientated, so there wasnt one overall that we loved although every one had aspects we liked. The children's garden had been designed by children apparently but of a whole I do not think many children would have played in it for that long.

From seeing all the show gardens we concluded that - colour is not 'in' this year. All the themes were either green, or purple and white. Shrubs were popular, as were vegetables. Practically every garden included veg somewhere in them. We then progressed to the small courtyard gardens, all of which we loved. Difficult to pick a favourite because they were all what we thought a garden should be like.

We had carried a small picnic around with us, the picnic area was packed, if only we had chatted up the Marshall's man a bit more and got an invite to the guest tent! LOL We found a little patch of grass by the path though and spent a pleasant time people watching, and observing the BBC film crew. I must have wandered in front of that camera a dozen times but I dont think they caught me once. No idea who these tv personalities are but I snapped them anyway.
Google says this is Joe Swift but I am none the wiser.


The urban gardens were ..odd.. but quite fun and some of them had some really funky water features.
The queue for the floral designs was massive so we went into the Pavillion. Here were the smaller gardens, and the garden centre experts. We fell in love entirelly with the 'Sign of our Times' garden which had a 1950's garden one side and a future garden the other., Most people were looking at the 1950's garden, I think that is what most people's idea of a garden is, and I have to say, it contained all the garden elements that I personally love, including the rotting green house with the worn out guttering collecting water run off into a metal water butt.

How does your garden grow?

As promised, photos of my growing things!



So far we have bought 14 grow bags for various reasons. are 4 on the patio now, 2 with tomoatoes, 1 with peppers and 1 with cucumbers. Apart from the one I still have left the rest have been used to fill pots for things like potatoes:




We have 10 pots and one dustbin full of potatoe plants.

growing seeds or planting up


- all the strawberries came from one seed packet of something that looked like dust. I never expected them to germinate let alone grow.


runner beans and sweetpeas (also in a pot this year).

Treats for me, and good news.

Good news

Both Kelly's bessy mate Helen, and one of Laura's bessy mates are expecting babies! Helen is having number 2 child and is past the 12 week semester and Hayley is due in Jan 09.

Treats for me.

Wayne arrived with my brand new shiny laptop. It is so so fast, no more that sickly pc that kept throwing error messages at me, and plus now I can access the net from all over the house (and the garden!)

The kids came over last night to help me set it up and to have a cuppa. I have been on it the entire day loading up software and generally playing. I am soo so pleased with it.

As if that wasnt enough, Wayne has also got 2 tickets for the Chelsea Flower show and he is giving them to us!!!! Not only that they co-inside with Martin's day off. I have always wanted to go but thought the price too expensive, the whole event not to Martin's taste, and impossible for me to go as it was on during school teaching time. But since I seem to be a bit out of favour with the agency (no work or phone calls for over a week now) and so am not teaching, the tickets are free gifts, and who cares, Martin can just be bored, so we are going!!!

The only other news is that Mum and Dad have both managed to get my flu/cold type lurgy.

Oh and Martin has now decided that we should book into a hotel overnight at Heathrow rather than making Laura drive us up. I wish he had thought of that earlier, we could have used our tesco vouchers.

Not bad. just ill

I haven't been a bad blogger, just had a really rotten summer cold/come flu type thing that left me ill in bed for 4 days and not really feeling up to much for 4 more. Today is the first time I have felt even the slightest bit of energy for anything, and I am still sniffing away like mad.

Of course being ill means nothing much has happened in my life although the girls are pretty busy in theirs. Kelly has a job interview next week and two exams the week after. Laura is knee deep in wedding plans, end of term assessments (dreading when she gets to her first year of report writing, since she is teaching 5 subjects that will be a very heavy workload) and things are slowly progressing on the house buying - although still nothing on selling their own.

I, typically have had no work since I signed off at the Job Centre so this morning I sent off for the childminding pack from the council. Hopefully this will include all the info I need about becoming a registered childminder.

Mum and Dad have returned from holiday - and are promptly looking at brochures to set out again. Dad has a lot of Tesco vouchers burning a hole in his pocket. Trouble is they are not the good deals they once were. For instance, Butlins are doing a 4 day deal on half board, £49 pp. If you use your Tesco vouchers though the price nearly trebles! OK its still a good deal because you re still not actually paying anything from your own pocket, but when you know on other deals (the restaurant ones for instance) you will be getting full whack on your points its a bit galling.

We are still getting ready for our major road trip (Ha! Ha!). Since I didn't really want to go I told Martin all organising was down to him. So far I have - hunted out passports and all other paperwork: organised Laura to drive us to and from the airport; and attempted to work out some kind of itinerary. Working out the itinerary is a bit of a nightmare as we dont really know anything about the place so we cant decide where to go and what to visit. We started off thinking we would land in LA, have a bit of a time there, drive to Vegas, and from there up through Death Valley onto Yosimite and so into San Francisco. However this was a lot of driving in the time we have and is all through desert.

Put off by this, I suggested a domestic flight to Vegas, back to LA and then drive up along the Californian coast. A great idea as internal flights are really cheap. Except on National Holidays. And the Monday after we land is Memorial Day. So now we are going to stay in LA for Bank Holiday, drive the 272 miles to Vegas and take it from there.

How come even if you go on holiday annually there is always still bits to buy before you go? I nabbed some rather snazzy water bottles from Matalan with bits in the middle you can take out and put into the freezer to keep your drink cool. Great for road trips across the desert!

Craft wise.
My dress is made but because I have spent 2 weeks surviving on ice-cream and soothers, the diet kind of went out the window so I need to loose a few pounds to wriggle into it properly. Continue to watch this space.

Because this poor computer is limping rapidly towards its final resting place, Wayne has finally found and bought me a laptop. It has arrived but he needs to set up all the software. In hopes he will then come and wireless enable me I cleared up the scraproom so that he can get to the hardwear. With all the junk out the way I was finally inspired by one of the days on my AL Calender to start a LO. Its not quite finished but I will upload it as soon as I have.

And the garden is, despite yet another cold snap, coming along in leaps and bounds. Yesterday I transfered (rather small) tomato, pepper and cucumber plants into growbags, nearly all the squares in the SFG are full (cabbage, broccolli, beetroot, peas, strawberries, carrots, and lettuce), the runner beans are over a foot high: the fruit garden has been partially netted and I have managed to fill quite a few pots and baskets with flowers. As soon as the sun comes out I will add some photos.

Bank Holiday catch up

Saturday was Martin's birthday. It was fairly low key as mum and dad were off on their holiday on Sunday and the kids were busy plus he had to work.

With Jo still ill, where as we would normally have done something with Jan and Trev that was not on the cards. I have not heard any news for quite a while on Joey, and can only hope she is making steady but slow progress. Anyway Martin and I ended up going for a lovely meal at the George and Dragon in Fordwich. It was a little more expensive than we normally eat out but well worth it as it full of fresh ingredients and all cooked to order. So tasty. Plus I even managed to eat within my weight watchers points (lost 1lb this week!!).

On Sunday the kids were all over for a BBQ so I had to shop, clean and cook for most of the day while Martin was at golf. As well as that Laura had wanted to go to the local annual roundtable bootfair, a huge effort taking up most of the playing fields. Wayne didnt come commenting that it was all someone elses rubbish! This from a regular ebay buyer - go figure. Shame was he was right. One man was even selling jars full of rusty keys???

The BBQ was fun, and afterwards Laura beat us all playing Flux. (Its about the only game we can beat Ollie at on an even playing field).

Monday everyone was working, mum and dad had arrived safe at their overnight B&B stop and I spent the day in the garden planting up bedding plants (having spent £50 at B&Q). This week between planting out (why did I buy so many - I dont actually have room in the flower beds), teaching and watering dads greenhouse I have been quite busy.

And with the sun finally shining I have not felt like messing with paper and glue. Finally as I had to go and sign off at the job center yesterday, I decided that since I am a dressie girl at heart and they just dont sell any of the dresses that suit my body shape or that I like, I would dust off my sewing machine and make my own. The shop in Whitstable sells material that makes dressmaking worthwhile so I got a lovely pattern and some material,



and spent a pleasant afternoon cutting all the bits out. Watch this space to see if I can get it made and fitting me.

NSD

National Scrapbooking Day!!!

There are loads of offers going on today. Nearly all the digi shops are doing sales and lots of the paper shops are giving offers.

I need paper. My paper stock is verging on non-existant. The trouble is I havent bought for sooooo long that I have no idea what is out there and just get overwhelmed looking at all the wonderful lush goodies. I have just spent an hour between Scrapshed's site and Scrapfairies. In the end I shut down the pages having bought nothing :(

I wish there was one big page with all the papers on so that I didnt have to keep opening and closing pages, going back and forward, then when I find something not being able to match it to anything else on the site. I wish I knew what I was looking for.

I wish the sales weren't just for one day.

So now I am off to do some housework, think about what I NEED, and am going to come back later and actually ORDER!

Weddings at the weekend

Well a pretty boring week up until Thursday evening when I got a text from Laura asking for me to take Bailey Balls the large puppy over to the doggie grooming place the following morning. This was because Wayne (who had expected to drop him over) ad not been able to get an hour off work to do so. A good early start to the day then? He is a lovely dog though and sat in the car beautifully as I drove him there, and he went off with the strange lady with no problems whatsoever.


After dropping him off I took a run out to a new venue that has been recommended by the caterers for Laura's wedding. There is nothing wrong with the venue we had picked out except that it needs a marquet plus porta loos plus catering tent plus walkway plus.... well the costs just keep piling up. Its also a far cry from what Laura actually wants which is an old rambling country house with rooms to put up guests and a bit of garden to wander around in if its lovely and sunny. Its not lack of money stopping her turning her dream into reality. and its not that these places do not exist. They just dont exist near enough to the church she is being married in. So if we ever win/earn enough to do so, we are going to buy a place and fill this gap in the market. Kent is such a beautiful place full of old oast houses and such it is just a real pity. Anyway the new place is another converted barn which has only just started doing weddings, so we have an appointment to veiw on Tuesday. Meanwhile I crept up the drive and took a quick photo.




I took quite a few photos on Friday because Shimmelle has a class going on UKS for the cybercrop which involves mapping out the 25th of every month for a year and scrapping it. I didnt take that many photos as I didnt think cleaning out the cooker was going to make much of a Layout. I did take a few of the seeds I planted though

and my square foot garden which I have just planted up with onions, leeks, carrots and beetroot to go with the cabbages, and peas already in it.



On Saturday Kelly had asked if she could lend our Wii remotes as they were off to a Wii party that evening and would I also drop them over as they had to stay in and wait for their new cooker to arrive. Well the new cooker apparently was broken before being delivered so they have to wait until next weekend for it to come. It was a beautiful day though so after a cuppa with her and Ollie I went off on a little jaunt along Sittingbourne High Street. A pleasant surprise as the Round Table were holding a fund raiser and the whole road was full of stalls, clowns, punch and Judy and about 30 vintage cars!

Anyway home to try out my hand at the cybercrop classes. Unfortunately try as I might I just could not get the pdf files to open until it was well past scrapping time. I did finally get one class finished this morning.

Now you think you have read all this drivel and cant see why I called it Weddings at the weekend. But its because I finally got taken to the wedding Fair. I have never been to a wedding fair, they didnt exist when Martin and I tied the knot - you just got on with it. No wedding planners, toastmasters, bands or chocolate fountains. It was a village hall, a disco if you could afford to hire one or some aged uncle bunging records on your home hi-fi system and a buffet with tons of cheese and pinapples on sticks and sausage rolls. If you were a bit posher (like us) you opted for a sit down meal but not many people did that so you were pretty limited in choice.

So the whole fair thing is a totally new experience on me .... and although it was interesting, not one I think I want to experience again. Laura already has many ideas, they are adamant they want more novely rather than traditional things so much of what we saw wasnt really appropriate. We did come away with three bags full of leaflets and info though, and were very impressed with the casino tables (casino tables?????) and cocktail bars.

Lunch time by now we stopped off for sunday lunch at our local country pub where Martin joined us, and we had a huge platter of roast beef each followed by apple pie and custard.

Such a shame we have to go back to work next week.

Oh and good vibes for Laura who's school are being Ofsted'ed on Wednesday and Thursday. Good luck babe although I am sure you wont need it and will come out with a glowing report.

Tagged

I have been tagged by the lovely Soojay.

1. If a movie was being made of your life who would you like to be cast to play yourself? And why?
To be honest I am absolutely hopeless with A and B list celebreties, I dont keep up with the gossip or the photo pages, so dont really have much of a clue who is who in the land of Hollywood superstars and leading ladies. I'm the same with books, I can read them, and enjoy them, but wont have a clue who wrote them. And since the kind of movies I like are either in Black and White or U/PG rated I dont think any of the child stars will work LOL


2. You are spending a whole month on a desert island for charity and you have to choose your favourite celebrity to spend the first two weeks with & your least favourite celebrity to spend the second two weeks with, who would they be & why?
See answer to one. Same problem, dont know who is who. If a cleb is mentioned on a forum I have to do a google image search I am that hopeless.

3. What are your three favourite crafting products?
I like making most of my embellishments myself so I guess that after my computer which I use on every LO either for ideas, printing out photos/pattern paper, or images, or for the journalling, its got to be my small provocraft non-stick scissors, my inks and stamps (they class as one as stamps are pretty useless without ink). If I ever manage to get a cricut or robocraft I susspect that my rocket to the top of my list.

4. If you could invent something to do anything what do you think it would be?
Something really small but incredibly useful which would change peoples lives, bit like velcro did. If it makes me incredibly rich in the process I wont say no because I could give heaps of money to a ton of charities then.

5. What are the last three books that you read?
Tricky one because I really am an avid reader but for the past year I have been putting speaking books onto my ipod. This means I can 'read' and craft/garden at the same time. So if those books count I have just finished re-listening to all 7 Harry Potter books as read by Stephen Fry and have just started on The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

6. Qvc or create and craft?
I used to watch lots of QVC then I changed aliences and moved to C&C. Now I dont tend to watch either if I can help it.

7. Docrafts or Dovecraft or DCWV?
No idea, cant say I have bought any of it, except from a couple of See-D stamp sets.


8. What is your claim to fame?
Only by association. My mum is related to one of the Beverly sisters in some way. My eldest daughter lived in the same flat complex as Jade when she was on Big Brother, and DH was Shaun Williamson's boss before Shaun went off to actor school and became famous. DD2 and I once spotted 'Ricky' from Eastenders, standing in a car park in Herne Bay!

Ok if they havent already been tagged I am going to nab Jen and because I think both of these people should visit their own blogs a little more and give me some of the stuff I like reading - Boo and Kelly.

Red Noses

I just want to upload my version of the sketch class for this weekends upcoming cybercrop on UKscrappers. Please excuse the bits of glitter and glue, I really need to do some housework on my scanner.

sniff sneeze sneeze sniff

Yes a week full of cold/flu type symptoms, probably caught from Kelly who suffered last week. So glad she shared it.
So I didnt do much at all for the second week of the holiday. Mainly sleep and watch telly. We did go out and buy a heap of card so that Laura could make her 'Save the Date'cards, but that was about the highlight.
.
On Friday Martin and I had been invited to the wedding reception of a girl I had known well through Uni while I was doing my teacher training. Although still in touch we dont see each other often as we have now moved off in different directions. Still feeling like death warmed up we headed out to find the venue. I wasnt sure why we hadnt been invited to the wedding as well, but that soon became clear. Just as she had always said she would, they had had the actual marriage ceremony on the beautiful Island of Mauritus.

It wasnt a bad do either despite the band being an hour late arriving, and the venue being rather like a pub bar and really squashy. The hog roast was to die for, and the 4 songs we did get to hear the band sing were terrific. Sadly by the time the food turned up though, the flu/cold bug had claimed me again. Plus we didnt know a single soul other than the bride and groom, both of who were busy doing the hosts with the most bit. So we quietly slipped away and I was tucked back up in bed by half ten.

So this week, back to supply work and now the cold has gone, suffering from rape seed alergy. Oh well. Summer cant be that far off now can it?

Fun playing

I am having so much fun playing with my new toys from the BSASB show at Ally Pally. These are not really for cards, more experiments. I actually dug out my brayer and used it for the first ever time!

Used Kaleidacolor inkpad to brayer over background then stamped over the top

And this one is a lesson on the Stampscapes web site.

As lesson on website, I just added some sukara souffle to give a slight snow effect.

I was already making this LO - I scraplifted it from Scrapdolly's blog but its actually a class designed by Karen Russell so credit to both talented ladies. Its interactive so the side opens to reveal more photos and journalling. And sorry yes the scanner managed to knock off the 'a', its sitting on my desk ready to be glued back on.

Crate paper, Bo Bunny chipboard letters and swirl, painted , covered in crackle glaze and then inked, embossing paste corner and florish, tapestry stamps to make dragonfly background.

Anyway I was playing with my new Dreamweaver embossing paste and discovered a Creative Memories drawing template of corners and borders which I thought might work as well as a brass stencil (as had been demo'd to us at the show). I added some of my new cosmic glimmer powders and am so pleased with the result. It was pretty daunting doing it straight on to a finished LO though.

A break

Martin has been on holiday this week, so he started off with a very long list of household maintenance jobs to do. Mean while I have been spending time with Laura sorting out wedding type bits and bobs. On Tuesday auto glass were sorting out the broken windows on her car - seems the police finally caught the kids that did it, unbelievably they had damaged 30 other cars! I had to take her car keys over to her in-laws-to-be house as that is where it was parked, and at the moment the keys were requested, the folk buying Laura's house turned up to discuss fixtures and fittings. So I got to spend a pleasant hour with Graham and Di discussing wedding ideas so far
!
Dress shopping
On Wednesday even more wedding excitement as Laura, mum and I went into Faversham to help Laura try on wedding gowns. Gosh there is so much to choose from nowadays. I took a few photos but obviously cant upload them in case the groom takes a peep and she eventually chooses one of the many she tries on. Laura did find it hard work though, those dresses are heavy and so many decisions to make. So I can see a few more trips out before 'the one' is discovered. Laura has such a beautiful figure that she can carry off practically any design, the problem is this does work against her though as none of the shops carry sizes small enough and we are having to wrap a size 8 body in a size 14 gown which doesn't really give a clear indication of what they will look like.


Day out
On Thursday Martin had all but finished his chores so we decided on a day out. We settled for Nando's, The Dickens World, and then the pictures all at Chatham Dockland. Laura came with us as a treat, but I was so so angry and disappointed. Dickens cost £12.50 per person, we were told to allow at least 3 hours to go round. WRONG - OH SO WRONG!! We lasted for 3/4 hour and the only reason we were in there that long was that we really couldn't believe we had paid that much to enter and there was nothing to look at!. Honest, if you are thinking of going - save your money!! Having gone in you are treated to a large warehouse that has been converted to look like a Victorian market place - since London consisted mainly of tiny alleys this in itself is not right. Still, it has been made using fascias with only two places to go into, a tiny shop mainly selling ponchos at a quid each, and other rubbish souvenirs, and the other 'shop' is the photo place to view and buy your photo of you on the water ride.

There is a haunted house but since the queue for this was over an hour long we didn't bother (its this long because other than the water boat and the 3D cinema there is literally nothing else to do/see apart from the pub selling meals!) There were a few people dressed in costume but they didn't interact with the visitors that much, in fact none of them talked to us at all.

So we cut our losses, came home and went to see the Spiderwick Chronicals at our local bug hut. Which we really enjoyed.


Holiday booking
On Friday we spent 3 hours in the travel agents with the lovely Michelle who is very patient with us considering we had no idea where we wanted to go. Just a date and the idea that we wanted to go stateside. We finally settled for 12 nights in California, fly-drive starting at Los Angeles and ending in San Francisco. We still have to book hotels as we go but we can explore to our hearts desire.

Stamp Show
And finally yesterday I travelled up to Ally Pally with Kelly to the Big Stamp and Scrapbook show, where we did lots of walking, saw lots of demos, and spent heaps of money. For those who want to know I bought:

3 stickles at 3 for £5 (sadly I duplicated a colour I already had so Kelly if you want a green?)
A refill for my black Stazon pad (really pleased about that as I thought I was going to have to buy a whole new pad)
A set of stampscapes - I have already been playing! This is my first attemp using a mix of TH distress inks and cats eyes.


A set of cosmic shimmer powders
Some dreamweaver embossing paste, and a christmas stencil to play 3d stencilling with
Some cheap card blanks ready to make wedding invites
and a bag of lush gold glitter.

Today I am very worn out and its back to basic housework.


NB I do have a LO to upload but it will have to wait until I have scanned it in.

Its all happening here!

Two weeks of supply work have left me little time to blog, and plenty of other stuff has been happening too. It was great to be part of a school and not just doing day supply because I really got to know the children, and Friday I even got to dress up with them as part of National Book Week. I was Mrs Lather from Mrs Lather's Laundry (although not many people recognised that fact LOL). But it was enjoyable even if travelling 40 miles a day round trip was rather tiresome.

Looking forward to two weeks off and some time with Laura started well as we took a quick evening shopping trip together to buy her something to go out clubbing in. I ended up with a new handbag and purse, she got some shorts.

This happy start to the holidays was rather ruined when she had a huge row with Wayne, resulting in some lost hours sleep for us and the wedding in limbo, but I am pleased to say they are happily sorted out now and the arrangements for the wedding continue. We are still researching the price of marquees, and hopefully this week we are off out together to take a look at wedding dresses.

As if that wasnt enough, and as if it has only been a couple of weeks since she got her car back from the bump at the round-a-bout, she came home from the cinema yesterday to find vandals had smashed in most of the car windows. Poor Laura is now car-less for the holidays until autoglass get it fixed.

Meanwhile it is too cold to do much even though Martin is off this week. I have given him a list of tasks but they are mostly minor ones and he has covered many of them already this morning. I have been sewing instead of scrapping, continuing to make decs for my 'folk' based Christmas this year.

Felt stars for the christmas tree

These, when sewn together and stuffed will be
little applique sacks to strew about the house.

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