Filling gaps

Filling gaps in my blog.

There has been only one day of supply work since before half term and I was getting really low about it. Bless my darling Laura, she came round to find me nearly in tears with worry about virtually everything so sat me down and we did some straight talking. She has promised to take me into school with her after Christmas to do some observation in a secondary school. Maybe this will give me the confidence to apply for some Science teaching jobs with older children.

Her chat also gave me the push to finally go ahead and sign up for the Childoodcarer course. I dont have a problem with knowing I could do this, just I was worried about loosing my teaching career but as she said, what was I getting out of being a teacher anyway, that I couldnt get from looking after kids at home? Good point, so lets go for it.

I have also applied for a couple of jobs so its back to playing the waiting game.

Other gaps to fill ...

Martin and I took ourselves off to Dover Castle for a second time, as last week there was better weather and our English Heritage Membership cards are burning a hole. Dad told me that he had heard part of the castle was being renivated but when I looked on the website there was no mention. When we arrived there was still no mention on notice boards, only as we checked in at the gate did the lady mention (after insisting on scanning both our cards) that the second and third floor were shut.

What she failed to mention was that everything else was also shut, only the shop and the siege room were open. Consequently it only took as an hour to wander around, avoiding the french children on an outing and get fed up. We then went into Dover itself to see if we could find something to eat. It took us two trips round the town to find a place to park, 10 mins to walk down the rather seedy tatty highstreet, 3 mins in Macdonalds, and that says something about the variety of eating houses because we NEVER do Maccy Dee, and then another 5 in the car park muching our Deli. Not much of a day out, but still a day out.

Wayne and Laura have started employing me as a dog walker twice a week, Bailey is a beautiful dog and so good on his lead, and combined with dad deciding that he will also walk his little Whiskey dog, and me tagging along I have done plenty of walks this last two weeks.

On saturday my baby Kelly was feeling rather sorry for herself with a cough and sniffles so I ran over to sittingbourne while Ollie was at work for a cuppa, managing to stay for over an hour, and stopping her revising. We had a good old fashioned play with Billy as he was proudly showing off the new jumper Kelly had just finished knitting him. He now wants another jumper! And denims!

Another gap

Back to organising the wedding, but the venue we all thought was sorted has hit Laura with a huge price for the bar drinks. Part of the deal is that we use the guy's own barman who we were told was very reasonable. HUH! I dont know what planet £4 a pint and £3.50 a glass of wine is reasonable on, and £20 per person for a drinks package?!!!? Anyway its back to the drawing board and last night we went to look at a converted barn that is being let out as a holiday home. It has been renivated to a really high spec...not my cup of tea as I dont think old barns look right done up to a contemporary style but should be more traditional. Laura had hoped that we could hold the whole wedding inside the barn, the lounge certainly was big enough at 60x40 ft, but the owner eventually talked herself out of this and insists that Laura uses a marquee at least for the eating part. As this defeats the object of hiring a barn in the first place, we were all rather dissapointed and are back to haunting the net in the hopes of finding somewhere else.

Christmas cards

My Christmas card making has taken a bit of a backseat as I have been taking part in the free 'Stories in Hand' course being run by Jessica Sprague. More to come about that in a seperate post.

I do want to upload some of the cards I have already made though, even though I am finding it very difficult to get any decent photos of them and have resorted to scanning.

No idea what the paper is as it was a freebie in one of last years scrap mags. One of the new Hero Arts stamps for this year I made the scalloped circle by cutting out a plain circle with my coluzzle and then using my corner rounder to punch the scallops


One of the Magnolia images I had left from the image swap my Padder mates held last year. Matted onto red cardstock from the papermill and again onto white cardstock that has been embossed with the Winter words cuttlebug folder.



This one is (I think) an old Hero Arts stamp I bought in the sale box last year, coloured with watercolour pencils and faux stitching added. The background paper is last years Foofala christmas paper, and the whole lot has had a good inking with Ranger distressing ink, then topped off with a ribbon.

Bonfire night celebrations

Ollie is self-admittedly a bit of a pyromaniac so when, four years ago we let him be in charge of letting off the box of fire-works in the garden I think we unleashed a monster! Since then he has revelled in buying home fireworks and putting on a mini display.

This year was no dissappointment as he practised the skills he has honed since we first let him launch a rocket from a wine bottle. All the family came over at five, and we started with my infamouse home made veggie soup.

Soup recipe Veggies - you can select what you like but I usually use the following:- 1 leek
Half a small swede
1 large onion 4/5 mushrooms
1 carrot

Roughly chop vegs, cover with water, add 3 oxo cubes ( like beef but I am sure veg stock will work too) .

Bring to boil, simmer until veg are soft.

Use slotted spoon to remove veg to a liquidiser. Depending on how much of the veg you liquidise depends on if you like broth or smooth soup).

Put liquidised veg back into stock, bring to the boil again.

I dont season but let my guests add salt and pepper to their own tastes.

After the soup we all went outside where Ollie had placed all his fireworks from the two boxes him and Kelly had bought with them, in the order that Ollie felt would give the best display. He had even professionally numbered them. I was very impressed. And it was worth the time he had taken. Unlike the parties I had as a kid where dad and Uncle Ray would spend ages between each firework with their torches in the metal box (always one for safety my Dad) peering at labels and trying to decide what to light next, Ollie's careful planning meant a smooth transition between each display and a clever buildup to the finally with each cascade of light becoming increasingly more spectacular.

We loved the rockets, no idea how much the kids spent on these, but they really were quality and went really far up into the sky. We were a bit norty and got a bit competitive with the neighbours, a rocket war I am confident we won hands down!

I was a tad dissappointed in the sparklers, both in quanitity (I love sparklers and two each was no where near enough in my book) and the quality as mine bend very quickly on lighting making it hard to do any sky writing.

Over all though a really impressive display and we all had brilliant fun, so thank you very much kids. Of course you have now set a presidence and we will be expecting even bigger next year!!!

Afterwards it was all back indoors for jacket spuds, hot dogs with heaps of fried onions and ketchup, followed by apple crumble and custard, and finally a Sainsbury birthday (bought by Ollie and Kelly) candles, happy birthday and singed hair as I tried to blow out the candle flames.

No photos, we were all having far too good a time to worry about cameras. So a big thankyou to my family for my birthday tea!!!!

Yet again I have not been called up to do supply work so I am going to spend some of today scanning in my christmas cards and hope to get them uploaded. Here is a couple I scanned yesterday, as I have given up attempting to get a decent photo in the rotten light we have at the moment. Guess what? Its chucking it down with rain again today.




I really like these two, This one I simply run the background cardstock through my zipemate using swiss dots, and rubbed over with a blue cats eye ink pad.


And this one was even faster, practically the only work apart from printing out and cutting paper was to distress the background paper (Shabby Princess Holiday sample kit) with some Ranger distress ink.,

This time last year.

I have been feeling really down the last, week, supply work has been non-existant, there seems to be more month than money at the moment and the weather has been pretty poor. This morning, I started to read back through my blog in an attempt to try and find the Christmas A-Z prompts I did for the pad girls last year (and do not seem to have backed up anywhere). I came across my blog entry for about this time last year, where I was feeling exactly the same as now! At the time I wondered if I was suffering from SAD It seems too much of a coincidence and it would seem I really do suffer from it, and I guess it must take me longer than most to get over the changing of the clocks.

Anyway I am determined to not let it get me down too much and I have lots of stuff to update on here, so I apologise for a somewhat lengthy post.

Last week, while it was half-term, I finally got to catch up with my mate Jan, the mum of Joey who came off her horse early this year. Well there was plenty of positive news. Jo is making good progress and is now able to come home at weekends! She is still hampered physically by her lack of muscle strength and the extra time it takes her brain to tell her muscles to move, and although in a wheelchair there are lots of things she is able to do. The hospital are hoping to get her moving on crutches rather than on the frame she can use at the moment as the frame is not doing her posture any good.

As well as that her hubby Trevor who had to have a valve replaced in his heart has now improved enough to return to work, and since he is a driver/delivery man this is great news. Other good news, Wayne and Laura have put the wedding back on the agenda, still for next July but at a slightly reduced scale. So looks like my diet is back on the books too.

I also have a whole heap of Christmas cards made and want to share, but I need to go away and read the camera manual as the white balance is wrong somehow and most photos are coming out too dark.

Finished

Because I was a golf widow yesterday and it was my birthday I refused to do anything other than play in my scrap room so I got lots finished. For those of you collecting my tiles here is my finished advent calendar and the last of the tiles.

Whiskie

Remember that sad tale of my dad gettting bitten by Danny the rescue dog? Well it has a happy ending, on Saturday the rescue home phoned to say they had another little dog they thought would be suitable. We went over on Sunday and although Mum wasnt keen on having a dog just before christmas, we all fell in love with the new bundle of fur immediately.



Here he is in the dog cage, as he spent the first three nights scratching and crying at the kitchen door for my parents. He was found abandoned so its likely he is feeling a bit insecure.


Mind he is a plucky little guy - he wasnt daunted by the size of his stick!

Happy birthday to me!!

And some more advent pics. Please comment and/or come back and give me the link to your finished calendars as I would love to see the pics in action!

A toot, an apology and more calendar

Thank you to whoever pointed out to MA on UKS that I was giving out these advent calendar pics, I am now proudly displayed and linked on the UKS home page!!Along with Soojay, Emerfera, and Scrapdolly its like a Pad Feast of recognition and I am so proud to be mentioned alongside these fab girls.

There are more pics coming in a sec, but I have to apologise to my Son-in-law again) for omitting to mention that a week ago Sunday the family were invited over to dinner. Unlike Brucie I am doddery. doddery I am and alongside dyslexia I dont really stand much chance of remembering my name let alone the day's events. One reason I have a blog, and I am glad at least one member of my family is reading it and reminding me if I forget things or get them wrong.

It was dad's birthday (see I forgot to mention that too!) so we were all invited over for a delish lamb and roast veggie lunch. Ollie had picked out a 'diy' decorated cake for afterwards, and although the icing was naff, the cake was nice (thankyou sainsburys).

Dad was given his presents (and I am going to write here what he got as he always asks what we got him 'last year' and I can never remember) a dvd player from Kelly and Ollie, a winter shirt from Laura and Wayne and I had bought him flannelette PJ's, mum having sported out for theartre tickets to see a Flannagan and Allan tribute. We also got to see Kez's and Oll's new HD tv in action. I cant say I was that impressed, but the guy's were - which may have been down to the footie content rather than picture quality though.

We did have a small smirk though as it was the weekend that the clocks went back and Wayne and Laura forgot! They had rushed around doing their shopping thinking they were late for their lunch only to arrive an hour ahead of time!!

OK promised pics

Over half way.

And some more dates to go

Some of the images I have used can also be found on this blog.

Two more

Day 3 and 4

Latest craze - Baking tray advent calender

Scrapdolly (and a few others including Andrea and her mum) have made some fantastic Baking Tray advent calendars, based on a 'glue and stick' class held by Gail /Efemera who has kindly shared the dimentions with a few of her pad friends, and I thought I would join in too. I really love the PC Hugz Christmas tiles Dolly used but being me and a tad mean I decided to try making my own, and sharing. Here are the first few (its slow going) and I will continue to upload as I finish them.

I have made all from scratch - after spending ages finding tuts to get the chalky effect, and all the images come from kits by Kitz found on this blog.

JPEG form so just right click and save image as.


For those of you following the link from the UKS front page you need to go to my main pages to get the rest of the images. Click here

Yaaaaaawn! How can life be so boring?

I haven't blogged because there hasnt been anything to blog about. Life really has been one long whirl of filling time, mainly with housework. I havent yet degenerated to day time tv but feel it wont be long :(

Today lots of good news though. Laura has made it up with Wayne and her engagement ring is back on her finger, they have sold the house and moved into rented - a fairly decent sized two bed bungalow opposite to where they were already living - and are waiting on planning before starting on the new building project.

Jan came over to visit and update on Joey's progress. I last spoke to Jan in June, just after Father's Day when Jo was able to turn over on her own and was progressing with her speach, so I was really overjoyed to hear that she has made enough progress to be able to come home for weekends, is doing lots for herself, walking with the aid of crutches and getting out and about a bit in a wheelchair. Brilliant brilliant news!!! :D

Poor Jan is run off her feet looking after Jo, three horses, the rest of her family and house as well as holding down a full time teaching job. Its a bit ironic since I am climbing the walls from bordom.

Anyway I have been crafting and its about time I shared.

About 6 weeks back I discovered the wonderful wonderful talent of Irene Tan, who has a brilliant blog full of new and exciting techniques. I thought I would try a few out. I worked on this Lo for 6 days, and then before I had finished it Irene was chosen as a guest for Pencil Lines. Rather dispiriting for me she said in her interview that a LO takes her from 1.5 to 2 hours! I was still working on mine so I was a bit reluctant to share. I really am pleased with the result though so here it is for me to crow!
Full details and credits on my other blog!

Not to be square

Last year I made a few of my homemade christmas cards in a square formate but they are still sitting in my box this year because I couldnt find any matchinge envelopes for sale. I could get them online but for the few envelopes I needed the postage was going to be more than using them was worth.

So this year I started out using C6 formate, but as I trawled all the card making blogs, sketch challenges and card forums it seems that more and more people are turning to square cards. While I admit working on a square is much easier than a long rectangle, and it does seem that all the new stamps are sized more ready to use on a larger square card, its still a matter of economics to me.

It stacks up like this, an A4 bit of card (bought in a £4.99 box from the papermill) will cut into 2 rectangular cards but only 1 square card. Since I am still wading through paper scraps from 2 years ago to decorate the extra I need on a larger card wont really count, but then we come to the envelopes. The cheapest place I have found them on line is 6p an envelope which when bought in a bulk lot of 100 comes to £7.20 with P&P. I still cant seem to find any square ones to buy locally but C6 envelopes bought in my local market at the stationary stall (where incidently I can see the quality and colour before buying) would work out at 98p!!!!!!!

So here are a few I have made which are going to fit in my cheap envelopes :lol:

No new job

I had an interview yesterday.

I was in two minds about the job as it was full time and I dont really want (or think I can cope) with a full time job but in all honesty there are so few teaching jobs about in this area at the moment. I dont know how the government work out their figures but there is certainly no shortage of teachers where I live. 4 years ago the local Teaching Uni prided itself in getting 96% of its students into posts by September, 2 years ago the figure had dropped to 45%. Vacancies that struggled to get 3 or 4 applicants now have double figures. So all in all I was lucky to be even shortlisted.

When I arrived one of the other candidates were there. We each had to be observed working with a group of 10 children from reception. I had bought a tried and tested book and intended doing some drama with them. The other lady had been very brave and bought ice balloons!!!!!

My lesson went ok, but it wasnt brilliant, however I hope I showed my skills in communicating with the children, coping with the two who crawled all over me, the book and the computer I was using. They all joined in and seemed to enjoy it.

The formal interview was very laid back and didnt seem to have any hidden questions. They seemed to concentrate more on how I worked with other adults than how I taught or my experiences.

But at the end of the day the inevitable phone call arrived saying someone else had been chosen for the post. When I asked for feedback the Head struggled to come up with something, going back to consult his notes, stuttering, long silences before he finally said that in my lesson I could have read the text rather than paraphrased. Showed how much notice he took, as the only parts I paraphrased were the pages I couldnt see for the youngster who was attempting to take the book from me (there was no chair in the room and I had had to sit on the floor with the children), oh and I could have put the text on the pictures I was using on the powerpoint - again nit picking since the pictures were not to enhance the story but to discuss ready for the drama bit, so text here not relevent. And that was it - no other reason for dismissing me and giving the other woman the job.

So once again I come to the conclusion that as the more experienced teacher I am also the most expensive. The other candidate had years and years experience as a TA and was newly qualified. So with as many years working with children behind her as me but at only a third the salary, I can see why they would go for her over me (plus lets face it she had been brave enough to bring in ice balloons!)

She was a lovely lady, I liked her the minute I started to chat with her before the interview, I wish her lots of luck. But I am soooooo fed up with the whole process. It takes me a good day to write an application form. If called for interveiw it takes another day to prepare the lesson and to drive round to find where the school is. Another day in interviews and then waiting for the results phone call.

I have now sorted all my hero arts stamps from ebay, I stamped images onto the back of cd cases and they are all stored away. I am covered in stazon ink for the trouble but there are some fantasic stamps and I have filled 12 cd boxes, an A4 RUB and still have a set of acyrilic stamps in a wallet to add to that little lot.

I have been busy altering stuff for the advent swap and stocking swap that I join every year with my Pad pals so although my desk is a total mess there is nothing I can share yet.

Now I wonder if I will get called for supply today ..............

Lots of cards

Rubbish photos - I really must try taking them in daylight.



This is a scraplift of a card by Tracie on the Penny Black Saturday challenge site. I made the snowflake background paper by using studio g stamps and green and red cats eye chalk inks. The red scalloped edge I cut using the rounded corner punch technique and then run it through the swirl cuttlebug folder in my zipemate. The decoupage reindeer is a free download from http://funkyfairyinspirations.blogspot.com/


Last years papermania christmas paper pack, Stampendous retro stamps and Studio g sentiment stamp, coloured with watercolour pencils, stickles added for dimention and a peice of floss to hold it all together.



I'm rather chuffed with this one, a bit more work. Paper is Foofala from 2005, layered onto green cardstock, ontop a strip of ribbon. Santa is image from weeds and wildflowers 'A Wildflower holiday' Stamp is another Studio g, pointsette is quickutz cut from tissue paper.

Down in the village

I dont usually mention the schools I have been working in, confidentiality and all that, but I have just had 2 days of such a wonderful experience that I wanted to blog about it.

On Monday I got a rather late call asking me to go to a school quite a way away from me. I looked it up on multimap, printed out my route and set out. Having managed to fight my way through Canterbury I was soon way out in the countryside, and someone had taken all the road name signs away! Now when I say way out, I mean way out, soon all I could see in every direction was fields and hedgerow!

When I finally found it, there was one road (which incidently was a dead end) about 15/20 houses, a village hall, a very very small school, a church and a cricket field! And is was all very Miss Read, with only 3 classes for the whole of the primary, and in total 56 children.


On my first afternoon it was games, and I took a total of 6 children along the country lane to the cricket ground to play tag rugby. It was fantastic, like taking your own children to the park!

I had a wonderful time there.


And on my last day it was book week, so I got to dress up as Mrs Twit!!!


Other good stuff this week:


I have an interview for a full time permenant job on wednesday.

Laura has moved back in with Wayne, they are renting a bungalow until the next new build is finished.


I've acually managed to get my dad something for his birthday (mum and I went shopping in Canterbury on Saturday


A big box of Hero Arts stamps that I won on ebay turned up, I am still wading my way through them all (sadly guy put the wrong price on the shipping form and I got stuck for customs charges but hope to claim those back)


I found a brilliant blog and have been trying out heaps of techniques from it. I will blog more as soon as I take a photo of the LO I have been working on for 8 days now. I have had such fun trying out new stuff.

Days out

Autumn is being so much better than summer ever was this year, so much so that Martin and I have had two days out this week, and a third day spent at home in the garden.

With beautiful blue skies and no supply work booked (I only managed to get work for Friday this week) we decided to take advantage of our English Heritage membership again and took ourselves off to Upnor Castle (via the Papermill for some card making supplies I may add.

Upnor is a rather strange little village, right on the bank of the river Medway, well its actually on St Mary's island in the middle of the river, but who is counting. The Castle itself actually juts out into the river as it was built as a sea fortification. The village consists of about 10 houses, 2 pubs and a castle, all set along a cobblestoned road.




We didnt take up the audio tour this time as they wanted to charge us, and since in every other EH building we have been in, it has been free we put up a principled stand. A shame really as it would have been nice to be a bit more informed about the few rooms we were walking through. There was an interesting re-enactment model of a sea battle against the Portugese though.




Then today we decided to just get in the car and go... well we didnt know where but to help us decide I grabbed our two circular pub walk books - not intending to walk you understand, just as a hint on where to go. We ended up in Pluckley, the village where Darling Buds of May was filmed, as it is not that far from us. As we meandered along the country lanes we passed a pub full of classic cars. And not just any classic cars, but sporty convertibles!!


Well it was a pub, there were cars ... Martin stopped.




Having looked our fill at the wheels, I happened to mention that the pub starred in one of the walking books, and before I knew it we were strolling across fields, crossing railway lines


and walking through woodlands




At this point I have to point out that not one time when following the instructions in the books have we managed the whole route without getting lost. And today was no exception. We thought we had followed the book to the letter, but found ourselves in a delightful field of mooy cows, with no sign of the promised style, gate or farm buildings in sight.





I think we managed an extra mile trying to find the road back, and that included barbed wire, a bridge out of Indiana Jones, and some pretty rough arable fields.

But the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the birds were singing, and the pub was shut when we got back desperate for a drink!! Oh and we did the whole thing in tee-shirts because it really was that hot. Who would believe it was October.