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Hello!

It's been a while again since I posted, but I shall not apologise, oh no! The ironic thing is that to blog so often I'd imagine you would need to not go out of an evening after work, but then you wouldn't have anything to write about on said blog...a perfect catch 22 if ever I knew one.

So, things have been trucking along nicely in Room 27. I've been playing sports (both tennis and arcade games thank you very much)

I've been throwing eggs at people's heads...sorry Mr. Jack...

I've been getting jabbed up for the Big Trip to Africa and have the Rabies vaccination in my system, something I never thought I'd do, especially since I've been to Africa twice now (gloat, gloat) £135 is the biggest joke, 'but the trip was free' I keep reminding myself...

I've been entertaining family and losing baaaaaadly at card games.

I've been watching this video so many times I now know it off by heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ltcWcwnPfY

We hosted my Dad and Gill and also Josh's parents a.k.a the In-Laws here this past weekend which has been calorific and fun filled. From pub quizzes to garden drinking, to curries, from IKEA trips, quiz machines, 20p book sales, picnics in parks, cupcakes, to more curries and playing cards, it's so nice to have a nice house that we're not ashamed of inviting people to! OK so the mattress on our spare bed would be more comfortable if it was made from nails, but we don't have to sleep in it, and most visitors are usually drunk when they fall into it!

We went for a walk on Sunday to Otley Chevin, heck I even took my binoculars! It's a beautiful place and one I want to go back to when I'm not desperate for a wee! Why does that always happen at the furthest point from a toilet...?

Here are a few pictures from the weekend just gone:

Where I'd quite like to live...love that turret

He ain't heavy, he's my brother...

 Sunday Chevin Strolls

 Windswept, but what a view...

 Lucky Chevin Heather, let's see what luck it brings me.

Things I'm excited about:

• Only a few weeks until I'm floating above the Serengeti in a hot air balloooooooon! Surreal!
• Finding Red Velvet cupcakes in Tesco
• Having 20 followers on Twitter! It's a small step in the right direction!
• Bank Holiday coming up, long lazy weekend heading my way...
• Finishing my current book 'One Day' by David Nicholls, I just love it!
• Having fresh OJ in the house, you can tell the In-Laws were here...

I Love This Photo

This blog is like that saying about buses...I don't do one in a few days then two or maybe more come along at once. Routine bores me. Whatevs.
Anyway, just thought I'd post this photo as it was a happy afternoon spent at Kings Cross with my Mossmans after a training day in LDN. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be whilst waiting for a train than sat outside a pub with a glass of the old red stuff with cracking family peeps.

I often used to think of living in London, and I do like it in small doses, and when I meet up with people there; but sometimes when you're on your own and squashed in to a Japanese tourist's armpit on the tube and you think of the million squillion germs on your hands from holding on to the bars, I do rather like my commute to work with my lovely friend called Honor in her car called Quentin :) I've a soft spot for Yorkshire I'm afraid. My brother says he doesn't know who I am anymore, what with living oop North and marrying out of the Mossman name...

It's a fab city though is Old London Town.

Zebras, Dogs, Cats and Bouquets

Hewo! The evenings are getting darker quicker and earlier and I sure don't like it. It makes me want to curl up in my zebra suit and not exercise and want to eat bad things...

 uh oh. It's a Pop Tart.

So...the boy and I have taken it upon ourselves to shoo the couch potato away and go and play tennis once a week. Once a week is all we can do or we'd divorce very quickly, you see I didn't realise but it turns out that I am a BAD LOSER. I wouldn't say I'm competitive (is that how you spell that?) but I sure as hell don't like losing. Today we've been to play after work - I even sported a head band I was so into it...and I threw the racket down on the court which is now bent out of shape. Ooopsie!

It was actually all Josh's fault because he kept playing prison rules and either whacking the ball straight AT ME or hitting it right at the edge of the court so there was no way I could get it, without the elastic band arms of Mr. Tickle, or is it Mr. Silly...? And yes I know it's a game but my point was that I wanted to learn and wouldn't be able to learn if he just WHACKS IT!

Anyway the score in the end was about 56-0 to him when we called it a day as my language was too bad for the children around in the park, it's really echoey there.

So, I've rationed myself 3 segments of a Terry's Chocolate Orange bar and I'm making it last as long as possible right now. Don't want it to end...they were 3 for £1 in the local shop which I thought was an excellent offer, saving myself at least 60p on chocolate that I didn't even need.

In other news, last weekend was spent zooming around the country doing a Family Tour. We managed to hit Leicester, then Thatcham, then Chaddleworth for some BBQ and family pub fun...

See I told you it was fun! We managed to see an incredible 17 family members in one weekend and then visited my dear Nan's grave to put my artifical wedding bouquet down on her plot. I wanted to do that since the wedding, so it's a jolly good thing I chose artificial fleurs ain't it?

This weekend brings more family fun as the Dad's are coming to town! Josh's Dad, Jane, my Daddypops and Gill are coming to play! Yay! Drunken photos to follow I'm sure. Terrible influences our Dad's, most of the time we don't even WANT to have a drink... :) tee heee

Things I'm excited about:

• More Terry Choccie Segments
• Olympics in the park on Thursday - drunken fun!
• Facial booked to get me gleaming once more - looking a tad pasty at the moment...
• Sushi for lunch tomorrow! I heart sushi!
• Pub Quiz tomorrow - fingers crossed for a win.
• Aunty Pam coming to visit!

Catty cuddles and boiled eggs

Josh was out tonight having a curry with his friend Jamie, so it was just me and the pusscat!

Hello!

We had a celebratory night because Catty got his fur test results back and he doesn't have any kind of worm infestation or skin problems! Woo hoo! He's happy because he doesn't have to go to the vet's in his little box anymore (he hates going in the car, he howls like a wolf the whole way there and back) and I'm happy because it's costs a lot of money at the darn vets!

So, to celebrate, he had his last batch of worming tablets mixed up in his food, plus we played with his ribbon for like a half hour, running all around the house, Lord knows what the neighbours thought was happening.

I made the most of the boy being out and played wifey doing laundry, then got bored and watched Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model and cooked myself boiled eggs for dinner - waaaaay, can't beat 'em. I know it's bad but I can never be bothered to cook gourmet for lil' ol' me.

Eggsellent!

Then it was time for catch up cuddles with Mr. P. He gives the best cuddles and he's one lucky cat :)

Just a regular Tuesday night in at the castle - one drawbridge pulled up!

Finding Victorian Grandeur in Blackpool!

Good evening to you,

Josh and I just returned from an overnight stay in Blackpool which was unexpectedly fantastic! I've never been before and it was a birthday treat from the hubby to stay for a night around the North pier area in a lovely little guesthouse. Josh has been once as a wee boy, probably ran around naked on the beach building sandcastles (that didn't happen this time). I like to think of Blackpool and picture it 50 years ago as a top holiday destination, but someone at work said that it's like Benidorm without the sun, so I went with some pre-conceptions...

We got the train up there, which we'll NEVER do again but was worth a try. It was honestly hell on a train, full of children screaming for no good reason and kicking seats, I gave my iPod to Josh to listen to some soothing bars of Mumford and Sons to make sure no ruckus was started. It's not the children I blame by the way...

The sun was shining when we arrived and kept it's hat on all weekend. For once, the British weather was in our favour and we soaked it up!

We found our guesthouse quickly and dumped our really heavy bag in to our room. I have no idea why our bag was so heavy, we were only staying for one night! We are so useless at packing! The trouble is when you live in this country, you never know what clothes to pack!

We explored the North Pier (Blackpool has three piers - North, Central and South) with the intention of trying all three piers out for size - Goldilocks style.

Well, I tell you, it's been a while since I walked on a pier and I forgot how much I missed it. That thrill of walking on wooden boards, over the sea, the seaside music, the smell of seasalt, then looking down to see the sea beneath your feet! Love it.

I fell head over heels with the North Pier, our first and only pier stop over the whole weekend, we kept coming back to North Pier, probably on my insistence.

The North Pier has a sun deck at the end of the pier and we whiled away a good few hours sitting in the sun on Saturday and Sunday. I'd love to say that I had a quaint oldey worldey drink to keep in style with the surroundings, but I really fancied a Strongbow. So I had one. Or two.

I could feel myself turning pink in the sun, and I was mad at myself for not bringing my hat with me, so we reluctantly moved along. This is the part where I almost fell out of love with B'Pool, we headed central bound, intent on finding lunch, and walked smack bang into horrible tackiness. Stags, hens, druggies, just plain weirdos and people just looking for trouble. Bleurgh GO AWAY. Made even worse by the hot sun, you could feel the tension.



We cut down to the beach to escape it,we walked in the sun which I love doing, and headed for the Pleasure Beach baby! Woo!

We paid £10 each to ride the biggest, scariest, fastest rollercoaster in Europe. We queued 1 hour for the biggest, scariest, fastest rollercoaster in Europe. We managed to get front row seats on the biggest, scariest, fastest rollercoaster in Europe and I felt the full force of 89 m/p/h wind in my mouth as we soared above Blackpool! Excellent. Live fast, die old.



We got the tram back to North Pier for another bevvy on the sun deck before heading back to the ranch to get ready for some nice dinner out. Had a beautiful 3 course meal in Bella Italia - you can't beat it. I was quite intimidated by Blackpool at night. If I thought it was awful by day, it's worse by night. We avoided the freaks and ducked in to Scruffy Murphy's - it's safe in Irish bars, and this one had a nice singer singing songs I likes very much! We got drunk!

Drunk walk back to hotel in scary Blackpool where I swore the whole way home as some sort of drunken shield.

Sunday was spent eating English Breakfasts, walking 5 miles along the North coast of Blackers as I like to shorten it to, along to Cleveley which is your quintessential English coast destination. A lotta tat in baskets outside shops full of market stall clothes! Love it! Got the bus back to the bright lights to...North Pier for fish and chips!

Purchased sticks of rock and a fridge magnet and headed for the station. Hope you like the photos, I tried to sum up what Blackpool might have been like 50 years ago, when folk came on the train to Blackpool and there was no other place like it. Now it's a place that was once grand, and now is unloved and slightly peeling at the tasselled edges everywhere...sad. But not North Pier... :)

Things I'm excited about:

• The Parent tour 2011 - next weekend The Baxters are heading South to see both our parents and have some quality family time. We haven't seen them since our wedding!
• Giving out sticks of rock
• Putting my new Blackpool fridge magnet on the fridge
• Potentially going to Jamie Oliver's restaurant this week!
• Settling in at work - no one likes being the 'new girl' :)

Room 27

Hey dudes,

I'm checking in to room 27 for the next year. Room 26 was getting a little small for me and I'd outstayed my welcome there, room 28 is too big at the moment, so 27 it is!

26 served me well though; I got married, I moved out of Headingley, I got a new job, I lost over 2 stone, I discovered I don't hate mushrooms, I got a cat, I...well that's enough for now anyway!

I had a great birthday! I nearly got a cup of tea in bed,, but I overslept so no tea for me. Josh got me a WIFE card which thrilled me, plus 2 awesome CD's. Work was fine, apart from having my birthday cakes stolen! I got some lovely presents from Rachel and Dawn, some lovely cards and Nayani bought me a carvery dinner! Yumtowns!

I got home to MORE CARDS, and my Dad sent me a great present, the heel from my wedding shoe that got stuck in the drain outside the church :) a guy from the church pulled it out of the drain and held on to it for Dad and he posted it to meeeeeee.

Then a bunch of us coolkids headed to Tariq's in Headingley for a trip down memory lane and a lamb saag. I love lamb in my curries. The plan after dinner was to head to a karaoke booth, but it was BROKEN!!! So instead we played on a quiz machine for like half an hour and gambled all my taxi fare.

Cat lollipop...birthday me...birthday gamble...best bag ever from Rachel...

Things I'm excited about:

• Dad is taking part in an all day badminton match for his church charity this Saturday - Go Dad! 
• Josh and I are going to Blackpool for the weekend! Pleasure beach, trams, fish and chips
• Tomorrow is Friday - what's not to be excited about?
• Wearing my new welly boot necklace from Rachel :)
• Going on the Big Dipper for the first time!

It's nearly my birthday!

I love having a birthday! I feel like it's a day where nothing bad should happen, I feel invincible and everyone HAS to be nice to me - that doesn't always happen when you are working on your birthday and have customers to face, it's almost like they don't care that it's your birthday when you interrupt their complaint to inform them of this...tut tut with the RUDENESS.

 

~ Must mention one birthday I was working in Superdrug pharmacy and I told one lady it was my birthday whilst she was waiting for her prescription (not that my massive badge and helium balloon tied around my wrist was hiding anything) and she came back in to give me some flowers! How nice is that? There are still nice people in the world :)

 

I wonder two things about this scenario looking back though, I did kind of PRESUME the flowers were for me, I THINK she offered me the flowers but it would be just like me to shriek THANK YOU THEY'RE AMAZING and they might not actually have been for me...also, never really liked flowers, like chocolates. Not ungrateful, but would have preferred chocolates by mystery lady... ~

 

This year on my birthday I'll be in a new job which I'm starting tomorrow and doesn't have any customer facing side to it, so hopefully should escape the unpredictability of customers calling in with potential narkiness...

 

Things I'm excited about:

• Getting the husband back from a stag do in York - I get scared of stag do's...
• Starting a new job tomorrow in marketing! EEEEP
• Getting cupcakes delivered to work on wednesday - forgot when I ordered them that it was my birthday on the delivery date! :)
• Seeing a friend on Tuesday that I haven't seen since 2009! Catch up a rama!
• Posting wedding thank you cards :)
• Buying kit for trip to Africa in September - zip off trousers ahoy!