The bank!!!!!!

The credit card bill is due to be paid.

We always pay it off in full at the end of each month, no problem, using it for all our monthly spenditure in order to gain more Sainsbury points (and hence more spending power).

Usually there is more than enough in the account to cover the total, but every now and again, the dates of my salary and Martin's salary going into the account dont match up and we have to have a temporary 'loan' from our savings account to pay it. This month was one of those, so I went with Mart to pay our dues.

We drew a cheque from Nationwide, made out directly to pay the cc bill. Sainsbury have an odd method, you have to make the check out to yourself and then add the cc account number. No problem, we have done this loads of times. In fact the only difference this time round is that we chose to go to a different branch of our bank to pay the bill instead of our own branch.

When we presented the bill and cheque the girl took one look and said they couldnt accept it as they had no agreement with the Nationwide. Confused we asked what she was talking about. 'Its not a HSBC cheque and its not a HSBC bill so we cant accept it.

WHAT????

Stumped, we went back to the Nationwide to ask them about it.

'I dont understand' said the Nationwide girl. 'That makes no sense at all, we dont have agreements, its just a cheque'

We dont have a current account with Nationwide so they couldnt take the payment, but Sainsbury is a Nat West account, so we tried there. No they couldnt do it because we weren't Nat West customers, but our own bank should do it.

Back to the HSBC

Still they insisted (and by now a very 'job's worth' manager had also joined in) that no bank would do it, because there was no connection between the bill and the cheque (aside from the account number written on the cheque, obviously thats not enough of a clue) so should the two bits of paper become seperated there would be no protection for us.

By this time, we had been walking between banks for an hour, and I was rubbed up the wrong way by the 'attitude'. I pointed out we had been doing this for years with no problem. No you havn't, yes I have, it was now turning quite childish. Its a cashier's mistake and they shouldnt have done it. For 5 years?????

How do we pay the ^%^^&&% bill then?

Ahh we will accept the cheque into your account (even though its blantantly NOT made out to you) and then you can pay by one of our cheques or by cash.

Flabbergasted we payed in the cheque, and then after stopping on the way to collect the cheque book, Martin went off to pay at our own branch.

The fun doesnt end there though. When he arrived our branch had had some communication with the other branch because he overheard the cashiers having a conversation about Nationwide cheques. He asked if they were talking about his cheque and they replied that they were just about to send off an email pointing out the bit in their policies which said they DO accept such cheques and that it was the other branch in the wrong!!

Result!!!!

Last few days

For Boo - yes it was only the one cocktail, I was very good and Laura had me on a slow learning curve.
Anyway hun, this one will make you laugh!

Thursday in Cyprus

Early in the week, Laura and Wayne had been telling us all about their time in Cuba when they had got 'caught' by the timeshare touts. We had laughed when they said the only reason they had gone to the presentation was for the ride home they would get afterwards which had saved them a big taxi fare back to their hotel. I think that kind of sets up the scene for what happened next.

The kids fancied a bit of time to themselves and had decided to go for a walk and explore a bit on their own, so Martin and I took ourselves down to the coastline to find the beach, which was meant to be only 10 mins walk away. We couldnt actually get down to the beach for the cliffs, but we found there were some terrific views and we also got to nose at all the larger more expensive villas.
As we strolled back a guy pulled up in a car and gave us some scratch cards. Surpeise, surprise!! We had won, two bottles of wine and the opportunity of cash or a free holiday.

Confident in the knowledge that neither of us were gullible enough to fall for any speil or end up signing our lives away (since we didnt have anything to sign away) we thought we would go along for a laugh (and the wine).

So we got to spend an hour or so, sitting in the sun, enjoying free (soft) drinks and being chatted up by some guy trying to sell us membership into the 'holiday club'.

Now I am not knocking it, somewhere in all the garbage was actually a really good idea held up with some strong buying power, and we were honest enough to weigh up all the options before deciding, but there were several things any intelligent person would consider before filling in the dotted line -

why do you need to sign up there and then ........ probably because (as I looked up on the net later) its possible to get resales for about half the price.

why, since it is a major purchase, do these companies not set up websites and let you buy online, having done the research first?

and most importantly, why, when in the selling presentation we got on to the inevitiable two man tag game, the new guy had to keep feeling up my knee and arm???????????

His overfamiliarity (and really bad jokes and sense of humour) put me off more than anything else might have done.

We said no.

We were grudgingly given our 2 bottles of vin-de-cheapo white.

We won the holiday (which came with heaps of conditions and included another couple of timeshare presentations so which went rapidly in the bin)

We had to ask for the promised lift back to our villa

We were no longer treated like royalty but hardly spoken to as they showed us the door.

Hmmm, strange that.

We had a brilliant laugh about it with the kids when they came back. Even more so the next day when we heard, over the hedge to our villa, two more likely victims being given the same scratch card chat up line and get into the same car. They were in for a treat too.

Laura and Wayne, meantime had walked further than us and had a walk round Coral Bay beach. A lovely time they said, but I bet they didnt have half as much fun as we did.

Still there was enough hot rays and enough time for more time in and around the pool.




That evening we were eating seperately, so after the other two left, Martin and I went out to choose a restaurant. With strict instructions not to go to the same place as the others, we walked up and down the stripe (which has a fair few choices) before finally settling on an establishment for the full three course set menu. Some of the meals were a tad odd, like the warmed (not cooked) tomatoes with feta cheese and honey, but anyway replete we met up with the other villa members to go to the local bar, and you guessed it, watch another foottie match!!

LO's and Cyprus

Before my hard drive broke I was busy taking part in lots of the comps and sketches put up by ATDML on their blog.

One of them was the February challenge using three different types of patterned paper from your old stash. The photo for inspiration was of three different sized mixing bowls, one inside the other, so this is what I came up with.

I never got to upload it before because of computer problems. I also had this one sitting on my work space for the best part of three weeks, adding bits to it along the way, so its been a bit of a long process getting this one finished.



Cyprus Wednesday

We were rathere dissapointed to awake to windy and cloudy weather, so we did little but mooch about inside the villa. By noon there was a heavy rainfall, which didnt last long but it was still windy.

It did help clear the air as it warmed up enough to spend the rest of the afternoon at the pitch and putt course.
Although very expensive (27E for two of us) we had quite a good laugh. Laura managed a hole in one, and our intrepid golfer Martin kept putting his ball in the water features.

Back at the villa we planned our second attempt at a bbq.

Once more temperatures had dropped so the three of us had retreated indoors to set the table for our meal inside. Martin was outside happily turning sausages and grilling beefburgers when the heavens opened.



This wasn't just rain, this was a deluge. Mart run indoors and stood in the doorframe watching all the food get soggy, and asking if there was a brolly anywhere. This was no good. Our tea was out there. With no further thought I dived outside. Within two steps I was drenched to the skin, but I wasnt loosing my meal. Quickly I shoved the food from the BBQ onto a plate and run back in for Martin to finish cooking it in the oven.

By the time we had finished our grub, the rain had stopped, and most of the puddles evaporated. We made our way to the pub to watch yet another footie match, only to be caught in another downpour on our way home.

More of Cyrprus

So planes still grounded in the UK and chaos reigns. MP's recalled from election campagning to discuss ideas of getting all our UK travellers home. A small silver lining is that supply teachers i'e me are getting a bit of work. I have been booked in at a nearby school for the whole week to cover one of their teachers marooned in Singapore on her way home from her Easter break in Tailand. I am so pleased we booked our break in Cyprus those few days earlier.

Cyprus Day 3

It really was going to be a chill out holiday so most of the party stayed asleep in bed the next morning, apart from Martin who despatched himself to the supermarket bright and early for the much needed bread and a few other urgent supplies.

We treated ourselves to a homecooked breakie before we all took the car to the supermarket. It was packed, as obviously other holiday makers needed provisions too. We managed to get salad stuff and bbq grub, and then enough exhursion for one day, we collapsed beside the pool in the warm sunshine again. Laura had got herself sunburnt already so there was lots of slapping on lotion, our whimpy white bodies surprised by the heat of the sun.

Late afternoon we drove along the coast

beautiful scenery

and across many kms of unmade road to try and find the turtle breeding grounds at Lara Bay. We had been before many years ago but it had been during the egg laying months so the beach had been closed and we couldnt actually see much. This time I hoped to be a little nearer to the incubation shed and maybe even spot a turtle, but all we managed to find after bumping uncomfortably along the miles of rough road not such beautiful roads

was a rather run down looking cafe (although some other visitors assured us they had just had a lovely meal in it) and nothing much else.

Disappointed, but quite happy to enjoy the countryside as we drove back onto tarmacadam, we arrived back at the villa to discover there had been a power cut. No worries, that wasnt going to stop our bbq (the villa owned a fantastic brick built bbq complete with serving benches and lights).

BBQ envy

After we had eaten, the light failing and only one candle in the whole of the place, we were unfortunately forced up the road for a candlelit drink in a nearby bar.

It was quite amusing to people watch and see how various people dealt with the enforced darkness, the bar staff gave mixed reactions, some making jokes with us and puns on the service in the poor light, while others were somewhat short tempered about it.

The power returned after a few hours though, and we moved back to the sports bar to watch the football and laura introduced me to the world of cocktails with a Tequila Sunrise.

Cyprus

Luckily we went and came back before the country's planes were grounded following the volcanoe erruption in Iceland, causing a huge dust cloud (allegedly) over UK. I say allegedly because for the last 3 days we have had beautiful blue skies, warm weather, no glorious sun sets (well any more glorious than Mr J Turner painted) and not a spot of dust on our cars.

Anyway we had a lovely chilled out time and are happy to be back.

This week has also been a bit layed back despite the mounds of holiday washing, cleaning the dusty house, and catching up with the seed planting and potting up in the greenhouse.

Today I had a treat. Ollie was working (one of the 2 saturday's a year he has to go in) and so I got to have a mummy and Kelly day. She had sent me a gold network card so it didnt cost too much for me to travel up by train to Bromely South, and meet up with her there for a day of shopping and lunch out. I say lunch out as we ended up sitting on the wall of the train station's car park eating a 6" subway and drinking a bottle of water each.

I had already been out buying lots of summer stuff for my week in Cyprus but we have also now been invited to join Kelly and Ollie in a villa on Lanzerote for a week in June, so Kelly needed lots of stuff for her suitcase. I bought a couple of necklaces and bracelets to accessorise my wardrobe whilst she hit the shelves of primart.

Thank you Kelly, I had a lovely mummy and daughter day. xx


Cyprus
Sunday
Trust us to choose a bank holiday Sunday to travel! Actually it was quite good as the roads were fairly empty, the queues at the check in were short and fast, and there weren't too many people in 'spoons so we got our pre-flight brunch quickly. The flight was smooth and it was nice to get those little luxuries as part of the flight not as extra's (its years since I went on a flight giving out free peanuts with the free drinks).

We collected the hire car ((although I am still convinced we were conned on the price) and we were freely upgraded from a Ford Focus to something much larger and Martin was more than pleased that all the luggage fitted our 6 seater.

We lost 2 hours in the time zones which made it seem a long day, leaving home at just 9 am and arriving just after 8pm local time, and we still had quite a long drive (about an hour and a half) to find the villa. But it was mainly straight motorway, and even at the end of the journey the directions were straightfoward and got us there easily., especially since we ignored the helpful English guy in the carpark who told us it was best to leave the motor way 30 miles before we needed to, and follow the much longer, winding coast road!

We managed to find a 24 kiosk type shop open and stocked up on a few essentials (although they had no bread) and in fact the only hic-up was that once we had opened the safe, got the keys out and entered the villa, the alarm started to peel........ very loudly! Of course no one had mentioned an alarm to us, and it took Laura and Martin some time to locate the main switch and through a lucky guess at the code number, shut it off.

There was water, wine, juice and milk already in the fridge, but we stuck with tradition and headed for the local bar for an end of travel day drink. Since the main strip was only 2 mins walk away it was no hussle to dump the suitcases and stroll up the hill.

Our 'local' The Blazing Saddles Coral Bay

Monday
Next morning dawned bright and sunny, and we discovered the villa had lovely sea views. It was still a national holiday so with little stock in the cupboards we were forced to go back to the bar for a rather late full english (which was a lovely chilled out way to start the day) before venturing out to find a supermarket that was open. Although there was a really big one in the next road which we strolled over to, that was shut for the holidays. In fact we had to take the car further afield before we finally found someone trading, and he wanted £3 for a frozen loaf of Kingsmill.

We did stock up a bit there, but def. not with bread!! After that we did the unpacking, and hit the patio with our books, our music and our suncream to chill out by the pool.

Chillin'

Later in the afternoon it was even hot enough to venture into the pool.

A fully working waterfall too!

This was unheated so was a bit of a shock to the system when you first put your toes in, but was well worth the effort and lots of fun. Around 4 pm we got the car out and drove down to Paphos harbour area. To us it seemed too much like Margate/Ramsgate, with little going for it. There were a few characature artists and some stalls selling jewellry but mostly it was bars and restaurants, and not much else. Living on the doorstep to Dover castle also made this a little insignificant.

Paphos castle

Still the ice-creams were welcome.

First cone of the year. Yummy!

Still in an exploritory mood we drove in the other direction from Coral Bay village to have a bit of a peek at Coral Bay beach. Catching it just at the right time we were able to enjoy the sunset over the sweeping coastline, from the cliftop bar as we enjoyed a drink.

Coral bay beach

The strip in Coral Bay Village is chocka with restaurants and bars, so it took us quite a while to choose were to eat that evening. Eventually we settled, and had a so-so 2 course meal which came to £70 for the four of us. It struck us that the exchange rate on the euro wasnt going to do us any favours and eating out was going to be a tad expensive.

Before I go

We are off to Cyprus for a week tomorrow with Wayne and Laura. We have hired a villa which last week caused quite a bit of a panic. I had been emailing the hire company back and forth for various reasons since February with no problems, but they still needed the details of how we were transfering from the airport before releasing the details of where the villa was and how to get the keys. Last saturday I emailed these final details through and waited for the reply. It didnt come.

I emailed again on Wednesday, still no answer, so Martin decided to ring them. There was no connection to the London number, and all the other numbers we had were in Cyprus. We tried the men with little mustaches on 118 118 but they were worse than useless, after keeping us on the line for ages they couldnt find any numbers at all. By now I was getting a bit panicky, so Martin phoned Cyprus.

None of the numbers would connect!!

Some more sitting there looking at each other, and then Martin got me to check the international code for Cyprus, we had only been ringing half of the code. Finally someone answered, seemed to know what we were talking about and promised to email the instructions.

Phew!

Except the promised email never arrived.

Thursday morning I tried emailing again, using the reply button to the emails I had got before. It bounced!!!

In desperation I emailed again through their web site.

By now I am near hysterical because its not just our holiday but the kids as well and I am the one that has done all the booking etc. It will be down to me if its all gone pear shaped.

Luckily Martin was able to get through to the head poncho in Cyprus, despite it being a bank holiday over there. He had managed to find one of my emails in their junk folder, and sent the details of how to get there immediately.

And I have found our villa on google earth.

So only the packing to do and we are on our way!!!!

In the meanwhile I took a little time out to play this morning.

I have had a layout sitting on my desk for 2 weeks, wondering what to add to it, to embellish it. Although my craft room is full of tools and stuff to use the tools on, such as glitter, glue, die cutters, card, punches, and such, there isnt a great deal of stash iuswim. Then this morning I had a brain wave. Ages ago I got a tub of dreamweaver stencil paste. I havent used it much, not really knowing how to use it on a LO. I also have a Chatterbox doodle genie.

And I have always wanted some of those glitter/gem swirls but refuse to pay the premium to buy some.

Light bulb moment! Make my own. So I used the paste on the doodle genie to create some dotty swirls, covered them in glitter and voila.

Laptop revived

Its not been a good time for my poor little laptop. First, at the start of the month it managed to catch a virus. It didn't do any damage but Window's security blocked my access to the Internet, and since I couldn't get online to update my anti-virus software I couldn't zap the virus! Caught in catch 22 I had to ask good ol' Wayne to help me out.

The poor pc had only been back home for a few weeks when ZAP!! all of a sudden the hard drive died. So it was back to Wayne for more repairs. (Isn't it fantastic having an IT guy for a son-in-law?) I will have to treat him to a beer when we are on holiday next week. Anyway its sorted out now, he managed to save all my files, and having spent 2 days setting the thing back up to my preferences, re-installing all my software (so pleased my SCAL activation code still worked, a tad panicked when the usb ports lost their drivers, but cricut seems happy now), and finding most of my 'favourites' again, I am ready to go.

Nothing to upload. The trouble with having no computer is that I couldn't print out photos, or labels, cut shapes, or even look for inspiration. Plus I have also had a bit of work the last two weeks. Spare time has been spent doing the huge cross stitch that was a Christmas present.

Last weekend was a freebie entry day to National Trust properties. Now last year we were members of the English Heritage, the only downside being there are not that many EH places nearby and most of those are castles, which tends to wear after a while. We were hoping to join NT this year as there are more interesting buildings and a plethora of gardens to visit.

Martin was working so I teamed up with mum and dad. Since they had already been members of the NT for four years previously, I left it to dad to decide which property we would visit. He chose a route that he hoped would give us time to visit a couple of places (provided the internet voucher would let us in). Our first stop then was the home of the actress Ellen Terry. A beautiful old house - errr... I could tell you a little more, but I discovered, sadly, that the National Trust are not that hot on giving you information about the place you are visiting. In fact Dad and I had quite a heated debate about it, as I will recount in a mo. Our first port of call was the little girls room, and while we hung around outside waiting for mum to finish washing her hands, Dad started to chatting to an old man having a coffee in the deserted coffee room. I was amazed at how much the guy knew about the place, and listened on as Dad and he chatted about how the house used to belong to the Harbour master (? What!!?? the place was in the middle of the countryside), how the sea had receded leaving farm land, so the house later became a farmhouse, and then on how Ellen Terry (apparently a famous actress from years and years ago) had fallen in love with the place and begged the farmer to sell it to him. Finally he told the romantic story of how she had eventually come to own the building and how she had opened the mini Barn Theatre (which we then went in to look at).

It was only afterwards that I discovered this man was actually one of the volunteer guides the National Trust have working for them. I loved the garden even though it wasnt in bloom yet. The hard winter had put all grown back a month, although there were plenty of snowdrops, even the daffs weren't out.
The house itself was quite crowded, and we only spent enough time there to give each room a cursery glance, as time was marching on, and the property dad really wanted to see was the former home of Rudyard Kipling. Now I didnt do history at school - the teacher terrified me, and accept for medieval farming learnt at junior shcool, and a bit about the Romans, all I was expected to learn at Grammar school (before I dropped the subject) was how to draw and colour in to perfection, the mediterannian coast line, and by rote the names of all the English kings and queens (which I couldnt do because dyslexia did not allow for me to rote learn).

So my total knowledge of Rudyard Kipling was that he wrote the Just So series of children's stories, and The Jungle Book. After a couple of hours at his house, I came out knowing that Rudyard Kipling wrote the Just So series of children's stories, and The Jungle Book, he owned a house in Vermont and he was an untidy worker.

Although I was impressed with the old house, I was not impressed with the total lack of information available. In English Heritage places there were audio tours, and huge billboards with lots of info, everything was labeled with links back to the home and owners. Here labels consisted of 'This is a brooch' type sentences if there were any labels at all.

So since mum had been a member for four years I asked if all the National Trust places were like that. This led to quite a debate with Dad. He insisted I didnt need labels, that in every room was a volunteer 'guide' gemmed up on the place and its owner, and all I needed to do was ask questions. I insisted this didnt work for me (and possibly didnt work for lots of others either) For a start, it meant you had to feel comfortable with going up to complete strangers and asking them questions ..I dont. It had to mean they had to be free to answer questions, but since dad tended to get there before me that didnt work either. And mainly in order to ask questions you have to have some kind of background knowledge to base a question on. I didnt have a big enough knowledge base of the man to know where to even start asking.

Infact at one point I had wondered off downstairs leaving Mum and Dad upstairs, where I found myself in the hall alone with one of the volunteers. When I walked in he turned his back on me and started to tidy the piles of brouchures advertising other places to visit. He totally ignored me, and when I walked towards the side of the large table he was stood by, he walked off in the other direction.

I was also was somewhat confussed as to what the Flour Mill at the end of the garden had been restored and was selling bread and flour, had to do with Kipling since he had shut the mill down and just used the water wheel to supply electricity to the house. The mill did have a label of sorts which tried to explain how and why kipling had done this, but even with my science degree I had to read it 5 times as it seems the information started from a point which assumed you already knew all about what Kipling had done to the mill.

This all left me with the feeling that I had learnt nothing and could have walked round the entire estate in 10 mins.

I didnt sign up to become a member.

Sketch challenge

This is one of ATDML's sketches for Februaury

And this is my attempt at it.



A very simple attempt, I had intended it to have more embellishments but once I started trying to add bits to it, nothing seemed to work so I came to the conclusion that the Layout had decided it was happy as a simple lo.


Last weekend my laptop caught a trogen and my security software would not allow me internet access until the threat was removed. I didnt have appropriate applications to do that, so had to wait until Wayne fixed it for me. I felt a bit guilty as the kids were desperately trying to get the house finally finished ready to move in this weekend, but bless him, he found time to sort it out for me by Tuesday.

Its been a busy week all round. I did half a day's supply, went to Folkstone for the day with Mum and Dad to look for a corner table for their hall, no table but a lovely meal in an old fashioned cafe in Sandgate. Thursday Martin and I went to see Avatar at the cinema, our first 3D film.

I cant say we were that impressed, the glasses hurt my nose (they are not designed for spectacle wearers) and after 3 hours both of us had sore eyes. The film, whilst the special effects were brilliant, had nothing new in the 'genocidal maniac attacks, underdog saved by hero who has fallen in love with one of endangered' plot and was way way to long for the little plot line that there was. Not only that, for the sake of a few fern leaves sticking out into the auditorium, it didnt really warrent the 3D effects.

We didnt get home until nearly half eleven, so were already tired when we went to offer Laura and Wayne a hand with their big move. Wayne had hired a van, which he wasnt collecting until 6 that evening, and the intention was to move a few large bits of furniture Friday, leaving the main bulk until Saturday, but with the extra hands of Wayne's brother Craig, and Martin, we very soon had most of the lounge and half the kitchen on the back of the Luton. It was decided to plough on, move the beds and for the kids to actually sleep in their new home that night, leaving just the cleaning up to do in the morning. It was a good decision, we were eating pizza's in the new house by 11.20 and home by 12.

Yesterday was spent finishing the job, and then watching Spurs in the cup on their huge screen telly, eating hot party food and drinking beer. A fun (if not hard work) weekend.

Canvas

I have only ever made two canvasses and they were a pair that I made for my mum and dad, I enjoyed doing them but they were never going to be something I really 'got' into. I was invited to a surprise party for my cousin and his wife as they celebrated their respective 50th birthdays, and completely stuck for something to give them, I managed to convince them to give me a photo of themselves and made them this as a pressy.

I painted the canvas with a mix of green and white Reeves acrylic and then set to, making most of my own embelishements (with the help of my trusty little cricut).

It took quite a while to put all the different colours of glitter on the butterfly because each colour had to dry before the next could be applied.

Lots of layering to add texture - SU! Ribbon needed my sewing machine to make all the pleats, I even put a couple of lines of stitchng around the MME paperand everything needed copics to colour and blend.

I coloured the tiny butterflies with my sakura souffle pens

I also made each of them a card.

For Gary - fairly plain as blokie chap cards are hard to do. A few stickers and a stamp coloured with copic pens

For Gill - a bit more work. The mat I cut on my cricut and then threaded with thin ribbon, the fairy is a rub-on (I have had in my stash a few years, and the vine flowers have been collecting dust for even longer. K&Co papers and the title is a studio g stamp.

Half term week was quite busy, Martin had the week off as he still has holiday to use up before April, the weather wasnt brilliant for holidaying. I spent a couple of mornings helping Laura as they are still painting and decorating like mad to get the house finished before next week.

We spent an hour or so in Leeds Castle as we thought there were events going on for half term. They weren't in evidence but these fellas were cute to take photos of.



We had a trip out to the Papermill so I could get some cardstock to make some New Home cards for Ollie and Kelly as their big moving day also arrived. packing all this lot up was hard work even with the four of us and the two removal guys.



And unloading was even less fun. We skipped our promised lunch in the Harvester as we thought we needed to be at the house for the removal van, but the previous owners had not finished their loading, so it was sausage and chips in the car. By the time we did get to unload it was gone half 3 and torrential rain was coming down. By 7 Kelly was in her new kitchen surrounded by boxes though.

Project 12 Number 1

This has been sitting on my desk for ages, all finished, waiting for me to scan!

The paper is the Frosted Ice collection found in the back of Creative Cardmaking Issue 10, and lots of Bazzill. I cut the large snowflakes out using WWFlakes font found free on the net, which I inked with SU! ink and dusted with glimmer dust. The smaller snowflakes were cut from silver glitter paper.

I cut the title using my George cricut cart, then stamped them with Sizzix Decrotive Elements clear stamps using the same ink, and frosted the edges with snow glitter (own stash). I also used glamour dust on the ribbon.

The date label is a freebie from Sue Colberts designs.

A Layout!!

Sketch 91 on Creative Scrapping

I am beginning to think my album for 2010 is going to be looking very samey. Yet again Kent found itself under 4" of white percipitation. I had managed to nab myself some supply work at a lovely school a bit out from the main drag, so when it started, with heavy flurries and blizzard like conditions on my way there, I was a bit concerned about getting home. Not so the kids, who you would think had never seen snow, let alone have just had three weeks of the stuff, it was all I could do to keep them from clustering around the window most of the day.

Despite the warnings and the early start to the treacherous conditions, KCC had not managed to grit or send out snowploughs despite constant assurances that they were ready to cope. The drive home was pretty hairy, so I was happy that all my various family members made it home safe and sound. Throughout the night the heavy winds and snowfalls continued so that in the morning we woke to deep snowdrifts and white vistas.

Which put paid to my supply work for this week.

Things I have forgotten to blog about:-

Martin and I had a surprisingly pleasant time at Martin's dad's 90th birthday party dinner. Held at the eldest son's house, with just the three bothers, assorted wives, and Dad's (Cyril's) sister, it was roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by apple crumble or fruit salad, and accompanied by polite conversation.

I have had a couple of 'fun' saturdays rubbing Danish Oil onto the doors in Laura and Wayne's new house. Its all hands on deck to get things finished so that they can move in by March as they have given notice on the rental property. Wayne unfortunately has had to go on some training courses for work, and this week he was in Mansefield. He fell sick on his first day there, and poor Laura, after a busy day at work had to do the 8 hour round trip to collect him.

Kelly and Ollie are on track for moving to Croydon on Thursday - I am on house cleaning duty! They have commissioned me to make some New Home/Address cards, a process involving lengthy three way email negotiations to get the designs agreed. Before I could get to the PaperMill to buy the cardstock though, the snow arrived, and gave us the chance to vent our frustration in some of our weird sense of humour - as yesterday's emails show. NB Brian is their cat and the other assoeted characters are childhood teddies who all have lives and characters of their own.

From: yvonne
Sent: 11 February 2010 11:34
To: Matthews, Kelly
Subject: commission

Dear Mrs Matthews (representative for Matthews, Matthews and Brian)

Unfortunately due to current extreme weather conditions, supplies for any commissions involving card stock are unavailable. Our agent is prevented from making delivery until road conditions improve dramatically. The management will obviously keep you informised, and we hope the situation will be rectified asap.

The management is aware that this blockade on essential supplies will effect your recent New Home cards commission (ref no: 1aaaaaaa). The management would like to apologise for any inconvienience you may incure, and assure you that as soon as the roads are passable, will do everything within their power to obtain the required supplies to fullfill your order, and hope this does not discourage you from using our services in the future.

regards

cards made by mummy plc xxx

NB Latest update from our outside roving agent. He has made it as far as Canterbury and reports that conditions have been slightly improved through action by local authority (e.g snowploughs and gritters) but that heavy winds causing drifts of large amounts of snow are still making some smaller roads impassable and he does not advice distribution vehicles to leave the depot just yet.

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Subject: RE: commission
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:36:09 +0000
From: Kelly.
To: yizzard

SYSTEM Generated email...

Dear Cards made by Mummy,

Your message has been received and forwarded to the other board members.

Unfortunately at this time one board member is asleep on the sofa, another is in a team meeting and I am busy with US returns that have to be finished today.

As soon as someone becomes available your email will be responded to.

Kind regards

Mrs Matthews

xxx

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From: yvonne
Sent: 11 February 2010 12:52
To: Matthews, Kelly
Subject: RE: commission

Dear Mrs Matthews (representative of Matthews, Matthews and Brian)

As none of your board members are available at the moment, all future urgent communications will be sent directly to the Manager, one Abbie Matthews with copies to Mr Frodo (Deputy manager), Mr Cuthbert, (Head of HR), and Mrs RB (Head P)A. (I understand Mr Billy (job centre trainee) is not to be included in correspondence due to his junior position, and also that some correspondence should be addressed to 'Box unknown but probably labelled bedroom, Land of spare 'oom, and may not be delivered immediatly) until someone from the senior board members is available to respond to our original missive.

Regards

Cards by Mummy plc xxx (registered trade name).

Dear cards by Mummy,

Thank you for your email. My collegues appreciate being kept in the loop with regards to this order as it will affect them receiving birthday presents (they think!)

Has the weather conditions improved sufficiently for you to stock up with supplies tomorrow? My sources tell me that there is no snow left in Sittingbourne and Chatham didn't have any to start with.

Regards

Mrs Matthews

Dear Mrs Matthews (representative of Matthews, Matthews and Brian)

It is our intention to wait until the week beginning 15th February 2010 before sending cars out of our depot in the direction of the supply distribution centers. We will be drafting in extra drivers for the sortie, and will be able to combine this outing with several others that our design department have planned (combining activities cuts costs allowing us to bring the finished product to the customer at a cheaper and more reasonable price).

Long term weather predictions suggest that this will be the optimum time for travel, especially since there has been little thaw in the local area and the outlook from the office window still conceives the precipitation to be of 4 or more inches deep. Inteception of F.M and A.M frequency wave bands have given driving conditions on the roads between our office and the distribution center (A2/M2) to be hazadous in both directions. We are not lucky enough to have sources of information on conditions further afield.

Please do not feel this will mean we will not be able to meet your deadline. The proofs are all set up already and it will not take our skilled artist long to assemble the finished product once the supplies are made available

Regards


Cards by Mummy plc xxx (registered trade name).

Stooopid aren't we?

I have some scrapping - my Jan entry for project 12 but I still have to get some decent photos, its a double lO and I have to figure out how to manage that. Watch this space.

Blog candy at svgcuts

Pop over to here at SVGCUTS blog for an opportunity to win a cuttlebug and goodies.

52 walks with my camera Walk 5

Since my last post, I havent done so well at keeping up either my blog or with my challenges, as I was having a bit of a winter blue's time. Everything around me seemed to be going wrong and I just couldnt get motivated.

First a broken tooth sent me off to the dentist and including a clean and polish, the bill for a new crown is going to be astonomical.

Then the dishwasher (which we reckon to be at least ten years old) finally gave up the ghost and washed its last dish.

Problems in Kelly and Ollie's moving chain threatened to really hold up their move.

And despite loosing 3LB on the first week of my diet, and feeling a little fitter from going on the Wii every day for a week, I didnt feel so motivated this last week, and didnt manage to loose any more (I did stay the same though so thats still good) I actually got a days supply work, but one day since last December is not really going to keep the wolf from the door - and I am getting mighty bored of being home alone.

BUT

I have cheered myself up now, Kelly and Ollie's move is now back on for a week thursday, a new dishwasher has been bought and installed and I am back with the challenges.

I took my camera for a walk with me when I went to have my teeth looked at, and had a rather pretty walk. Whenever I park in Canterbury I am too mean to use the carpark and tend to use the four hour spots which are free but a bit further to walk, which is ok, since I am determined to get fitter this year. One of the spots I like to park in is here,

and means I get to walk into town through the beautiful Westgate gardens.

So from the town back to the car would involve:

Passing the flint built Tower House or Lord Mayor's office as it is,

Then into the gardens proper which run alongside the River Stour.

past the 200 year old plane tree

who seems to now have an offspring.

past the war memorial

through arches

and over bridges

up steep hills ....

and even steeper railway bridges

bringing me back to the car.