30 something !

It was my 39th birthday on Christmas Eve and instead of celebrating or contemplating my 39th year, my final year as a 30 something year old, I was ill in bed!! Taking every precaution possible to not catch any of the usual suspect viruses doing the rounds obviously didnt work for me.

It was 9pm on Wednesday evening when the dreaded lurgi took hold, out of the blue it struck me down like the Intercity 125 on the East Coast Main Line. One minute I was standing in the kitchen making and cup of tea the next I was hanging onto the kitchen bench watching the cooker, fridge and washing machine spin by me as if I were on the Waltza. Not long after that the sickness started and that was me floored. Christmas Eve was spent in bed, the only comfort found when I lay horizontal. I opened my cards and pressies in bed and slept on and off for the rest of the day. This certainly wasnt how I had intended spending the last of my 30 somethings.

Christmas Day morning brought a better feeling although I was still a little shaky and fuzzy headed. We had plans to spend the day at my parents and swap gifts etc. I decided to take the chance, take it easy and try and make the most of the day. I had really been looking forward to my lunch. My dad makes a fabulous Christmas Dinner and his homemade secret recipe stuffing is just to die for. I was worried though that after the previous two days I just might not be up to eating anything. I was deterimined to give it a try though. I managed to get through the day, keep down some dinner and spend some good quality time with my family.

This is Andrew tucking into his 2nd dinner !

Mum & Dad with their special present. A doodle by Rick

Boxing Day was another family affair. This time at my house with my usual Boxing Day Buffet. feeling almost 99% better I agreed to go ahead with our family tradition and have the usual boxing day feast. It was a much quieter affair than usual but very nice.

Today has been a quiet day at home. We had a walk down by the river with the dog this afternoon and other than that we have done nothing. Well...apart from putting a couple of loads in the washing machine, absolutely nothing. We are both in need of a rest. Since Andrew arrived home on the 18th December I dont think we have had a full nights sleep. He goes out and comes home in the early hours. I often wonder where he gets to until 3 and 4 in the morning !! My friend who has a son in the forces warned me that after a couple of days home on leave she is always ready for her boy to go back....even though she misses him terribly when he is away. I now understand what she means.

Tomorrow we have the little monster here for the day so will spend the day playing games and building lego helicopters and polices cars.

I think once we get that out of the way, I will blitz the house and start my clear out for the New Year. I maybe feel a sale on Ebay coming on.

The Long 4 Weeks

It was August when I last posted and as usual I had made myself a promise to get back into the habit of blogging. That promise was also to post a couple of times a week not every couple of months which is the habit I have slipped into AGAIN.

No excuses really, I read my friend Gails blog daily, and look forward to the feed coming through into my email. Maybe because I dont actually log on to Blogger and instead have the blogs fed through could be a reason for not coming on. I sat thinking for a while earlier, and came to the conclusion that maybe my life is just so boring that I have nothing to write about !! The thing is my life isnt boring, far from it. There is always one drama or another happening.

Life has been pretty quiet though these last few weeks. Andrew left us 4 weeks ago to join his troop in Surrey. The house has been deathly quiet. I didnt realise how much I would miss him.
It is taking so much getting used to.

We speak to him most days and thankfully he is doing ok. We had some moments at the start of his training where we thought he might just come home as he was so homesick but he has settled in well and phones us with updates on his progress. I am looking forward to seeing him during his 7th week of training when family members can go down for the day and visit the barracks.

I updated my blog today and changed the background in an attempt to try and get into the Christmas spirit. I bought my first Christmas present today which is bad for me. I am actually usually all done by this time of the year and only have the lasgt minute food stuff to buy. I have decided to make a list, hit the shops for one day only and stick to the list. We agreed the food for Christmas day, its mum and dads turn this year so we sat and planned the menu today. Dad has agreed to do the shopping for that so thats one less thing for me to do. to be honest I love Christmas lunch at my mum and dads. Dad has his own recipe for the Turkey stuffing and it is just to die for. Home made Christmas pudding too. yummy. It will be a quiet christmas this year for us, but for the first time I am actually looking forward to a peaceful Christmas and not the usual chaos in our house.

Its official.....he's leaving.

Well, it has finally arrived. The news that Andrew has passed his entrance for the army. I have continued to support his decision as I know this is all he wants to do, but now that it is actually official I am gutted. We are off to see his colour sergeant this morning, there he will get all of the details and his start date.

My little boy is leaving home.

Tri-National meeting

Ive been really quiet and even after hints from my fellow blogger Gail, I just couldnt get back into the swing of blogging. There just always seems to be one thing or another that stops me....I guess really its a poor excuse but thats just how its been.
Last month has been one of the busiest months I have ever had in terms of work committments. Lots and lots of late meetings, sometimes not getting home from work until after 9pm. You see, Ive been planning a Tri-National Youth meeting with partners in Solingen Germany. The actual project has been 2 years in the planning stage. It started back in my days as the Isabella Centre Manager when I made links with a Youth Project out in Germany. After a number of meetings I had hoped to take a group of young people from our Youth project out there, but because of financial constraints and the lack of funding to support the project we had to put the idea to bed. However, when I took up my new job with the council I was given the opportunity to set up the project again. I visited Solingen back in March of this year and re-established the partnership with the Interju project. Further meetings, emails and telephone calls later we set a date for the meeting...........the meeting from which I have just returned. Exhausted, both mentally and physically.......questioning why I actually did this???? and in what state of mind I have been in whilst developing this project.

On a serious note the meeting was fantastic for all of the young people involved. I took out 12 young people from Blyth Valley, and met with 6 young people from Nimes in Southern France along with another 15 young people from Solingen & Ratingen in Germany. The project was a complete success for all those youngsters taking part, they mixed well, communicated without any major problems and upon reflection they have forged some life long friendships. We had lots of tears the day we left.

As a Community Develpment Officer, I work with a number of partners agencies, and mix of diverse groups of people. On this occasion the main focus of our preparations for this trip was ensuring we were able to get young people to engage with others from another country. We concentrated on cultural differences between the young people and how we could over come any issues that arose. What we didnt do was consider the culturual differences between the Youth Workers that came out with us and the partners they would be working with during the week. These differences were evident in the working practices with young people and had a major impact on the project and the programme to be delivered.

I am going to spend the next two days drafting my report and recommendations for the future of the project and also explaining why are partners in Solingen will be refusing to work with the Youth Services again !!

I will post again with excerpts from the journal I kept whilst over there. I firstly have to empy my head with all of the negative stuff that happened and focus on the positive outcomes achieved.

Thanks to Gail at Squared Off for this unusual task. This is Gails way of getting me off Facebook and back to blogging. Thanks Gail, I really enjoyed the task.

This is my collage based on the answers to the questions below.












INSTRUCTIONS:1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.2. Using only the first page of results, and pick one image.3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.
THE QUESTIONS:
1. What is your first name? Ann
2. What is your favorite food? right now? Chicken Korma
3. What high school did you go to? Blyth Ridley High
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Johnny Depp
6. What is your favorite drink? Tea
7. What is your dream vacation? Borneo - Orangutang Sanctuary
8. What is your favorite dessert? Creme Caramel
9. What did you want to be when you grow up? Air Hostess
10. What do you love most in life? My Family
11. What is one word that describes you? Optimistic
12. What is your flickr name? Annd

Im Gutted !!

I finally made the decision today to buy myself a Wii Fit. Den had already offered to get me one, but I made the usualy excuses and thought of countless other things I needed to spend £69.00 on.

I called in to my friend and fellow blogger Gails house for a cup of coffee this morning, one we have promised to have with each other for months now. She has a Wii Fit and offered to show me the reasons why I SHOULD buy and forget about all the other stuff.


So after an hour or so of demonstrations, even down to a lesson in snow boarding by Gails 5 year old, I set my sights on buying one.

Off I toddled to ASDA after my coffee, joined the queue to get parked........had I missed something today, were ASDA selling everything half price or were they giving something away free? The place was busy. I finally got parked finding a space that had plenty of room either side of me because someone had actually parked right. My list in hand.....I had 5 items to buy no more no less.... I entered the store.

I made it to the pet food aisle....cat food YES, dog food, YES, cat litter, YES. Ok next aisle cleaning stuff....I manoeuvred past the gossips taking up most of the middle aisle and turned into where I needed to be, Fairy liquid, 3 for £2, Yes I'll have some of that.....and off I marched trying to steer the trolley that wanted to go only to the right, straight ahead. Spotting an empty checkout I pushed and steered and got there just in time for the girl to say "can you put the closed sign on there for me after your shopping" phew, as I scanned the rows of checkouts I realised I had got lucky. The queues were building up fast.

Packing my few items into my re-usable environmental friendly bag I headed towards the electrical department, I wasn't so lucky this time, the queue was massive. Never mind, on this occasion I was happy to stand and day dream about the afternoon I would spend getting fit and enjoying it.

It was not meant to be though. When it got to my turn, I asked for the Wii fit and the young lad behind the counter smiled at me in pity and said sorry we have sold out. I was gutted. making my way out of the store I decided to head down to Argos and try there, only to find the same, SOLD OUT !!!

If only I had taken up Den's offer last month, I would have been well on my way to being Wii fit.

And, to make matters worse, Ive already convinced myself that it was meant to be and have a list of all the stuff I need to buy!!

A Victor Meldrew Week

I doooooooont believe it !!!!

Is it an age thing? I find myself increasingly saying "I dont beleive it" More and more things seem to irritate me so easily these days, stupid parking, bad driving, shopping trolley madness, ignorant shop assistants......the list is endless.

After finishing at my Saturday morning class I decided to go for my food shopping. Den was probably settled in front of the TV waiting for the kick off (Its FA Cup Day).

I pulled into the car park which was really busy, but spotted an empty slot at the other side. When I got to it though, I knew why it was empty.....the numpty who had parked in the next space had taken up the best part of the other space too. I muttered a few un pleasantries under my breath and began trawling the car park for another space. I finally found one, miles away from the store which meant I would have to take the trolley back to my car full of shopping beacuse I wouldnt manage to carry the bags that distance then trail back to the trolley park. I think the supermarkets should introduce a scheme where an attendant walks around the car park and all those "bad car parkers" should be awared a giant banana or something that gets attached to their cars so the whole place can see how bad they park. Either that or the attendant should wrap the car in cling film so it takes the driver another hour to get into his car, giving him/her a taste of how we all feel when trying to find a space.

Suopermarkets should also provide shin and ankle pads for those us of us who seem to attract every bad trolley driver in the place. If I got my ankles clattered once today, I got them clattered 20 times. 3 of those times were by the same man who even had the cheek to smirk while apologising.....PLONKER.