Jo Blogs

A Long Time

2012-02-17T21:11:00.002Z

It has been a long time since I have written anything at all on here or even wanted to.

It isn't really because my life has been boring or anything. I guess it was just a major case of writer's block. Also, I suppose that I didn't really know what to write after my last post. Poor Hattie. That was a decision that I didn't ever want to make (especially by myself). We have Skye now, though, who has gone a long way to healing my broken heart.

I'm not sure why I decided to start writing on here today. Especially this weekend. There is absolutely nothing going on. Nothing. Fun times.

So let me give you a brief update on life as it is now:

I'm living the life of a nomad. Mostly in Kent, sometimes in County Durham and often in East Sussex. I don't like this but I don't really have a choice.
I live in a pub.... (Don't get excited it is converted and no, the bar isn't there anymore.)
I'm back at university studying Operating Department Practice (google it - I'm not very good at explaining and everyone asks).
I've been enjoying/missing terribly our new dog, Skye. I say new but we've had her for over a year now. She is fun, strong, very sweet, very, very friendly and a little mental. She keeps us on our toes. But I only get to see her every now and again at the moment. Who knew the South was so far away from the North?
Phemie died which is sad. She was a very sweet girl. I'm now not going to be able to have a hamster until at least 2014. This is a very long time!
I'm 25. I'm nearly 26 which is closer to 30 than 20.
Dan Parks has retired from international rugby. It has been a week and a half and I'm still gutted. I cried for 5 days straight.

So, now you know.

Let's see how this blogging thing goes and whether I can come up with any interesting posts. Only time will tell.

13.06.1995-02.11.2010

2010-11-02T21:55:00.000Z

My Skin Is Still Crawling

2010-08-23T22:34:00.000+01:00

This spider was so big it should have been paying rent.

Another Fabulous Keswick

2010-08-09T18:58:00.000+01:00

How can Keswick 2011 be a year away??

Peanut Butter

2010-07-06T18:31:00.002+01:00

DONE!
And it is GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

Three Ingredients Only

2010-07-05T22:24:00.002+01:00

This is how I spent my evening. I roasted and then skinned peanuts. A lot of peanuts. Now all I need is some white chocolate chips, maybe a little oil and a food processor and I'll have some amazing White Chocolate Peanut Butter. Brilliant!

No Better Way To Spend A Saturday

2010-07-03T19:04:00.005+01:00

Taking advantage of the immense weather that Britain currently has to offer and a free Saturday, Sarah and I went to Archers today for ice cream and a chat. I went for Black Cherry and Hokey Pokey whilst Sarah had Chocolate and Mint Choc Chip. We made the most of the countryside and took in the views and lay on the grass. It was a little toasty so I may be ever so slightly burnt. That's not sarcasm. Really, just a teeny bit burnt.

Warning Lots of Adorableness Follows

2010-07-02T21:52:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week I went into town with Sarah and her two adorable nephews, Jack and Riley. It was absolutely roasting so we did a few errands and then headed to Starbucks.
Jack wearing his hat pushed up on his head a la chav.Auntie Sarah's drink seemed much more appealing.Actually, anything is better when drunk through a straw.Melts my heart!The boy laughs at anything!Mega cute.Insanely gorgeous!It was such a good morning. Quality time with a good friend with the added bonus of her sweet, sweet nephews. Those boys are just so gorgeous that I could just eat them up.....
And apparently.....I tried.

A Year Ago Today....

2010-07-01T17:43:00.000+01:00

I arrived back in the UK from New York.....

Could Not Be More Tame

2010-06-30T11:37:00.001+01:00

Halloumi

2010-06-29T12:13:00.000+01:00

If I could live on one food and not get ill or not get fed up of it, I would chose cheese. I love cheese. I love lots of cheese. I meant that both ways. I could eat mountains of different varieties of cheese. Except Stilton. I can't stand food with mould in.
If I had to narrow my choice down to one cheese it would be Halloumi. I love it. Oh my goodness me. Just writing about it is making me drool.
So when your friend makes a sneaky trip to Cyprus, the home of Halloumi, what does she bring you back?
Mega.

I can't wait to try it. I'm interested to see if it is the same as the Halloumi that I am used to.
If you've never tried Halloumi, you need to. It's amazing.

Jus' Chillin'

2010-06-28T09:05:00.001+01:00

'Gauranteed'

2010-06-27T15:13:00.001+01:00

Well, Thomas Cook, with this sign you have pretty much 'gauranteed' that I will never buy a holiday from you.

Where I Talk More Sport

2010-06-22T10:42:00.000+01:00

Anyone catch that Wimbledon Federer first round match? Oofa! That was a bit if a doozy, no? I was a little torn, I must say, because I would quite like to have seen an upset but I was also kind of hoping that Feds would pull himself together and turn Terminator on the other guy. Not sure why I was hoping that cos I am not a Federer fan. At all. He's *yawn* so... so.... bori..... *zzzzzzzzzzzzz*

He never really did turn Terminator until the last set I guess. A little too late to be convincing. Maybe it'll make the rest of the tournament a whole load more interesting this summer though!

I can't talk sport without mentioning the rugby boys, you know my new best friends. Scotland won both their test matches against Argentina which means that they have won an away test series for the first time ever. That also meant that the team have won three away matches in a row for the first time in 26 years.

Good job, guys! They also rose two places in the IRB world rankings to seventh, slap bang in the middle of England and Wales. Oh yeah!!!

Proof. Ha!

See? Who needs football??

The Thing About Vuvuzelas

2010-06-21T11:30:00.004+01:00

Wimbledon starts today. I'm not going to lie. I'm mega excited about it! Let's be honest, it hasn't come a minute too soon. Anyone else sick and tired of the constant moaning of the people yapping endless on about that other sporting tournament that has been going on lately? No, not the US Open.

There is usually much more hype about Wimbledon but this year I guess that it has been overshadowed. I think that has to be a good thing. I can watch it without any preconceived ideas about how players are going to play because I have no idea about whether they are fully fit or how they've been playing lately! Is Roger Federer going to win it for the hundredth time? *Yawn* Is it going to be Nadal? Will it be Murray's year? Or will it be someone else completely? Does anyone really care about women's tennis? Who knows! But at least it'll be more interesting than the drivel that has been gracing worldwide TV sets for the last week and a bit. Anyone seen a good match yet? I must admit that I have been working most of the time so I haven't caught much of the football at all. Not that I'm missing anything!

And may I just say, John Terry, if everything is alright in the England camp then why the 'Clear The Air Talks'??!

So, the most talked about thing this World Cup, other than the French team, has been the vuvuzelas. It has been the most talked about because it has just been impossible to get away from them. People have complained that they have ruined the normal football atmosphere of singing and generally yelling abuse. Um, so what? It is a different kind of atmosphere! Ok, so it sounds like there is an angry swarm of wasps following your every move and it might get a little grating but it is something that is uniquely South African. Why shouldn't they be able to celebrate holding a worldwide sporting event in their country in their own way? Just because it is not something that we are used to..... I, for one, hope that the tournament organisers will not bow to pressure.

The All England Club have already gone ahead and banned vuvuzelas from Wimbledon. Um, why? I highly doubt that anyone would be trying to bring a vuvuzela into Wimbledon and if they did it wouldn't be every third person like at the football. This isn't South Africa and they aren't readily available. And no disrespect to football fans (I used to be one - Still am really but just for Scotland. All other football is irrelevant.) but I don't think that Wimbledon attracts quite the same kind of crowds that the football does. It is Pimms and strawberries, not beer and mushy peas. Just saying. Totally different ball game. Literally.

Anyway, Feds is set down in his opening match so already this is more exciting than any of the World Cup games played so far!

Still Raving About Reeth

2010-06-14T10:15:00.000+01:00

We had a wonderful time at Reeth on Saturday. Can you tell??

Flora And Fauna

2010-06-13T14:45:00.000+01:00

North Yorkshire is such an amazing and beautiful place!
I sometimes find it hard to believe that this is all on my doorstep!

Running Riot In Reeth

2010-06-12T23:47:00.001+01:00

Smiles

2010-06-10T20:05:00.002+01:00

How I wish I was in New York with these sweet faces!

Not Even A Little Bit Ashamed!

2010-06-08T21:01:00.010+01:00

The fact that I am a little bit of a stalker is not a new thing to those of you who know me. Examples of this can be read about here and here.

When I lived in New York I got to the point where I figured that when an idea got lodged into my head, however ridiculous I would come across to anyone in the sane world, that I would regret it if I didn't just go ahead and do it. This lead to waiting a good four hours for Daniel Radcliffe in 2009 and I haven't looked back since.

When I visited NY at the beginning of May (I can't believe it was already a month ago!) my stalker tendencies emerged once again. I had it in my head to go and see In The Heights which is a musical that I haven't seen before. The added bonus is that currently starring in it is Corbin Bleu of High School Musical fame. I was gutted when I went to the box office and they told me that there wasn't an evening performance that night. The matinee was in progress at that point. I had planned to see the show and then wait outside for autographs and photos (much like with The Little Mermaid). So I missed my chance to see the show and Chen Li and I went to go and get cupcakes.We each had a Red Velvet and a S'mores from Magnolia in Grand Central. Yum!!

Anyway, we decided to (well, I forced Lili to) go back to the theatre and wait outside for Mr Bleu and get his autograph and picture.

Job done.

And I went to see Wicked that evening and thoroughly enjoyed it (again). I may or may not have wept through the whole second half (and maybe most of the first!).

So that was my first stalking incident in less than 30 days. It is pretty similar to my previous other adventures (i.e. waiting outside a Broadway theatre.... blah, blah). For my second I took a step into the sporting world.

I went to see Scotland XV against Japan Select at Murrayfield last week. I went by myself so didn't have to worry about embarrassing any of my friends. I waited around after the game to get some photos.

The first excitement was that I ended up standing about 5ft from Gregor Townsend (hero!!). I did draw the line at asking him for a photo because he was with his sons. I'm not so crazy!

But here comes my most stalkerish happening ever. My favourite Scotland player is Dan Parks. He has been a favourite for a while, not just since every man and his dog has loved him.

Whilst every other crazy person waiting for the team was waiting by the barriers, I was standing back a bit..... trying to act cool. I failed but I spotted Dan Parks (who hadn't been in the squad so I wasn't expecting to see him) leave by the door. I literally followed him round half of Murrayfield before I got the opportunity to ask him for a photo. This is the first time that I have actually hunted someone down like that.

You might think I'm crazy but you don't have a photo with Dan Parks, even if it is a little blurry.Seriously, I can't believe that I did actually chase after him but it was totally worth it. Ha! I'd do it again!

After that excitement I went back and waited for the other players..... I think I got some pretty good pics!

And finally, I hopped on the team bus. I was clearly quite pleased with myself for doing this!

Yes, I Know.

2010-05-30T22:31:00.002+01:00

And I agree. I am useless.

So much has been going on recently that I just haven't had the time or energy to write about all the fun stuff that has been going on.

I will get to it...... eventually. Probably later in the week. You can expect a barrage of posts (I hope). I've hopefully got one more fun thing going on this week and then after that I'll knuckle down and write some posts.

Till later!

Teaser

2010-05-15T19:40:00.002+01:00

Here's a little taster of what I've been up to this week:More to come!

Monkey Business

2010-05-05T09:04:00.003+01:00

Monkey Bread has been something of an obsession since I first heard of it around December 2007. I should say that I have actually only tried it once before but I've talked about it a lot.
Well this was my first time making it. I was a little nervous because I was worried that it wouldn't live up to my expectations but I just had to make it.
I realise that some of you will have no idea of what I am talking about. Monkey Bread is basically sweet dough balls slathered in melted butter, sugar and cinnamon and baked in the oven. AMAZING!
I was a bit nervous because I had to make the dough from scratch. I'm glad I did though cos it turned out to be really good.
Here it is just before it went into the oven.Oh my!Not gonna lie, I scraped the pan that I mixed the butter, sugar and cinnamon in. Well worth the gained pounds!Waiting, waiting....... and wishing I'd cleaned the oven door......Finally ready!YUM! Sticky, sweet goodness........ The dough is very dense rather than light. I don't know if that was a product of my dough making technique or the way that the dough was meant to be but I liked it that way.
I may or may not have had some for breakfast this morning too. I feel now that I am comparable to an Icelandic volcano. I may pop at any moment but Monkey Bread is so worth it!

Need I Say More?

2010-04-27T17:47:00.000+01:00

All The Things I'd Forgotten About

2010-04-23T16:15:00.000+01:00

It's funny the things that you find when you are having a clear out. Here is just a small sample of the items that I found when cleaning out my big cupboard:
1) Big, sparkly chav earrings......

Stunning! 2) A collection of Shaun Maloney pictures3) Sean Bean!4) My mini disc player. I'm kinda sad that it didn't have a longer life..... stupid mp3s!5) The first album that I ever bought.... I still remember the first time that I ever saw Boyzone. They were on GMTV singing Love Me For A Reason. I still love that album!6) My Mum and Dad gave me this on my first day at Barney.7) My degree.8) These boxes are stuffed full of letters. The top one just contains letters from Sophie!9) 18th Birthday cards. I'm 24 now. Work that one out!10) Something that I bought years ago for a friend and never gave to them....... They should have it now.11) And I didn't find this munchkin in my cupboard (although it wouldn't be the first time that I found one of my hamsters in there!) but I just had to show you this picture even though it is so blurry! Little fatty!I wish I could say that my cupboard is now empty and tidy but it isn't... I don't think I'll ever conquer that one!

Did I Hear You Say Adorable?

2010-04-22T09:30:00.001+01:00

That's right!

Give Blood

2010-04-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

All I did was try to do a good deed and this is what they did to me.... On Wednesday (it also happened to be my birthday!) I went to try and give blood. I say try because I wasn't hopeful of being able to donate after the debacle I had trying to donate last time. I was in first year at university and went with two of my flatmates. That time I ended up with absolutely enormous bruises on each arm and unable to move them very well. They didn't even get any blood from me!
Needless to say, that put me off donating blood for quite a long time. I decided to try again because in my job I see the value that donated blood has. I'm often sent down to the blood room to collect units of blood for patients that need it and I know that if that blood wasn't readily available then it would be an absolute disaster.
So I bit the bullet.
It started so well. The test drop sank! Hurrah! Already better than last time! They did have trouble getting a big enough vein to take the donation from and my arm ended up going blue but they did (eventually!) get the needle in. What is more it stayed in. Success........
Or not. Apparently, whilst my blood was flowing, it wasn't flowing fast enough. Grand. It seems that they have to get the blood in a certain amount of time...... or maybe it was just nearing home time..... (who knows!) but they stopped my donation. I gave half a bag.... Bummer! At least it can still be used for testing..... Bonus(!)

Then, to add the icing on the cake, I actually wouldn't stop bleeding. I had three different people sit with me and non of them could stop it. It didn't stop til later that night. If only they'd sent the bag home with me. I could have given them the donation!

I expected to bruise because of my experience last time (I wish I had photos of that because I wouldn't be able to do them justice. Pictures being worth a thousand words and all!) but I'd not really taken into account the fact that I work in a hospital and if you work in a hospital then you have to be bare below the elbows. That isn't good with a rather unsightly bruise and skin that is perpetually reacting to the plasters that are covering it!

That being said, I'm rather proud of my bruise. I'm also glad that I managed to give half a bag, even if it can't be used to give to people. Next time I'm not going to go straight from work because I was probably a little dehydrated which won't have helped the low flow. So, yes I am going to try one more time. It really is something that I feel I should do. I know that I can't tell others that they should or even think they should but it is a small thing to do that makes such a big difference to someone.
Hopefully next time the bruise will be worth it!

The Best £1.79 I Have Ever Spent

2010-04-20T19:07:00.002+01:00

You know what, I really do like my iPod. I never thought that I would be persuaded that iPods or 'iAnything' were the way forward. The iPod Touch is really something special though. I both love and loathe that I am so hooked on technology but this thing is BRILLIANT. Yeah, you've probably guessed that I am not referencing my iPod purchase in the title of this blog.... £1.79 would have been a mega deal!

I'm talking about an App that I downloaded. It cost me £1.79 and it is definitely worth it. It is called C25K (Couch To 5K).

If you haven't caught on, it's a running app.

I tried getting into running a while back. I have a book with a schedule in it and everything. It is actually a really good book and I found it very useful. The only problem was that I was running on pavements which is the hardest surface that you can run on so is very hard on your joints. It just got too painful for me to continue.

Now I have a car so I am able to drive to somewhere where the running surface isn't quite so relentless so I decided to get this app.

This way I can do the alternating jogging/walking whilst listening to my music. It also means that I don't have to keep looking at my watch because I get peeps in my ear and an instruction whether to run or walk when it is time to change pace. I can just concentrate on what I am doing.

I tested it for the first time today and it really worked very well for me. I actually enjoyed my exercise and can't wait to go out jogging again soon!!

From When I Turned 24

2010-04-19T16:33:00.004+01:00

Here are a few snapshots from my birthday party last week.

The girls (Beth, Sarah, Sophie and Megan and myself) started with facemasks. Naturally! We then got dressed up. We kept James waiting about half an hour though! Ooops!Poor James! Can I hear you say uncomfortable??My lovely birthday hat. It sings too.We got takeaway - Dominos and Little Fat Buddha.There were party poppers.....and cake!It melted!Then we broke out the glowsticks. We all know that no party is complete unless there are glowsticks!

We also played Disney Trivial Pursuit but I don't have photos of that.

What a wonderful birthday!!

The Forbidden Corner

2010-04-10T10:36:00.007+01:00

A Fantastically Fabulous afternoon of Frolics at The Forbidden Corner Filled with Frights, Fun, Friends and Frogs.

Last Creme Egg Of The Season

2010-04-09T10:24:00.000+01:00

Springtime in the Sunny North East

2010-03-25T22:45:00.004Z

Not sure why the photos are small but you get the point!

A Futile Exercise?

2010-03-24T18:37:00.002Z

The dog has smelly breath. That's no secret. You can probably smell it from where you are sitting. But I've just got to say, that seeing as she has hardly any teeth left, I think that this.....is just too little, too late.

Hammer!

2010-03-22T19:12:00.003Z

These boys could not be any sweeter! (Yes, I do know that the title has seemingly no relevance to the actual post...... makes sense to me though.)

Thanks for the photos, Beth.

I Know You Are Trying To Help But...

2010-03-21T21:57:00.002Z

I found this gem on our local council website....

'If English is not your first language and you would like more information about this document, or if you require information in large print, Braille or on tape please contact......'

No one else see the issue here?

Not The Wooden Spoon

2010-03-20T18:59:00.006Z

Finally! Something good has happened in my little sporting world. We've all pretty much given up on poor old Darlo (they lost again today) so, no, it wasn't to do with them.

The Six Nations is over. For Scotland anyway..... England play France shortly and then it will be totally over. We pretty much triumphed this afternoon in that we don't leave the 2010 Six Nations with the wooden spoon. Three cheers!! I would have felt nauseous if we had finished last in the table because I think it would have by no means been deserved. Scotland have often languished near the foot of the Six Nations table for the past few years. It was eleven years ago that we last won the competition. It was still the Five Nations then. Believe me, most years we have deserved to be propping up the table.

This year we didn't. We've been fairly 'unlucky' I suppose. We could (and should!) have won against Wales. That knocked our confidence against Italy and maybe we could have won against England although I missed that game actually. Either way, those games were well within our reach. Against France we had no hope really (They are going for the Grand Slam this evening deservedly) and I would have said the same for our game against Ireland.

You could tell that Ireland were desperate to win this game. It was their last game at Croke Park before moving back to the newly renovated Lansdowne Road (Aviva) so they wanted to leave there on a winning note. They came out of the gate all guns blazing but were playing too fast even for themselves! I got tired just watching the first half of the game. It was exhausting! I can't even imagine what the players were feeling like...... although I am thinking 'jelly legs' at the moment.

Scotland just stuck together and played good, connected rugby. It was a great game to watch.... probably better for the neutral. It was a little too tense for me. Especially when Dan Parks had a penalty to kick in the last minute of the game to take the lead! Of course he made it. Of course! I didn't doubt it!! :-) Dan Parks has really been the stand out player for me in the this Six Nations. I think three Man Of The Match awards say it all really. He really has just pulled it out of the bag. I do think he is wonderful.

So, we ended up beating Ireland 20-23. Marvellous! This meant that we climbed above Italy who had beaten us. Sorry Italy...... better luck next time. Enjoy that wooden spoon.

A couple of things I loved today. One was how jolly they made Flower of Scotland. I'm seriously struggling to think of a time that I have heard it better. The arrangement of it was so upbeat and cheerful..... you know considering that it is about defeating the English in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1341 which I'm confident was a fairly gruesome affair. The second was the dry remarks of one of the commentators. I've looked to see if I could find out who the commentators were but no such luck. Some of those comments I will never forget. They have been locked in my memory forever. So, so funny!

I'm so glad that Scotland finally got something for their Six Nations endeavours.... but I am definitely glad that we did not come away with that dreaded wooden spoon!

Who Needs Boys Anyway

2010-03-15T10:00:00.000Z

Saturday was a day with three of my most favourite girls in the world. Throw in a little Meg and Tina time and only then could it have been better.
We went to Brimham Rocks for a picnic and a mess around. We ate lots of snacks, drank Fruit Slurps....

and decorated Gingerbread people.After we ate, the climbing began.I am a big fan of rocks......Beth not so much.....Brimham Rocks makes you feel tall and incredibly small at the same time.Three wise monkeysI love these girls!Sarah and I listened to the rugby on the way home. Thankfully it was a draw cos I'm not sure that we both would have made it home in one piece if the outcome was any different.

On a side note, I'm currently reading Sacred Singleness by Leslie Ludy. It is GOOD! I'm also trying to read the Bible in 90 days which is really hard but immensely wonderful at the same time!

A Day For Mothers

2010-03-14T16:56:00.004Z

Today is Mothers' Day.

I love my Mum and I know she will love me for using this photo of her dressed a la John Knox in Edinburgh last Summer.I love my Dad too but as today is Mothers' Day, it is all about Mum.I ♥ you, Mum!!

xxx

The Heart And The Splodge

2010-03-13T11:59:00.001Z

Beth and I went to Costa yesterday. Naturally! I ordered my usual and Beth got a Latte of some variety (can't remember which!).

This was my drink and this was Beth's:

I'd be flattered if I didn't know that they put that on everyone's hot chocolate (probably even mochas too coming to think of it!).

Phemie had me in fits this morning. She was licking my empty yogurt carton and had a huge glop of yogurt on her nose. It was in her whiskers and everything. I tried really hard to get a picture of that but she was too lively. I had to clean her with a tissue in the end..... which she promptly stuffed in her pouch.

Love And Laundry

2010-03-07T14:34:00.001Z

Song of the week:

Love and Laudry by Point of Grace.

I saw Point of Grace at the Grand Ole Opry when I was in Nashville back in April '09. I actually didn't think so much of them. Don't get me wrong, they were good but not amazing. It might have been because they were on near the end of the program and I had gotten pretty tired. I went ahead and downloaded their new album anyway. It is called No Changin' Us and it is just brilliant. My favourite song BY FAR is Love and Laundry. It is just so fun and truthful and, of course, most importantly it is so Country. Man, I LOVE that Country music!

A Lot Less Hope And A Bunch Of Bananas

2010-03-06T20:37:00.004Z

It has been a long time since I have been to the Darlington Arena. It's been a REALLY long time now that I come to think of it. For whatever reason (from the fact that there was hardly any football played at the Arena in the back end of the year, or I was too busy) I just haven't managed to catch a game. I can't actually remember the last match that I went to. Not that it matters, I can pretty much tell you the result.
I know. It is a big change of tune from posts of the past. Don't get me wrong, I still live in hope. It's just that the hope seems much more difficult to grab hold of now. I suppose the object of that hope has shifted slightly. It is now much less 'I really hope that Darlo can do the impossible and survive the drop' and has become 'well, here's hoping that we only have to sit out one season in the Conference before returning to League football'.

So seeing as I had a day off and nothing else planned, Dad and I headed to that bog white elephant on the outskirts of town. Torquay were the opposition and football was the game (supposedly). We started with a minutes silence in respect for Keith Alexander (the manager of Macclesfield) who died earlier in the week. Does it sound bad if I say that a minutes silence is my favourite part of any sporting event? I mean, obviously I don't love the reason why we have them but I love how the background chatter of a large crowd (1819 in this case) hushes (hopefully) and stands there altogether for a minute just amazes me. I love, love, love the atmosphere.... and then the roar when the ref blows the whistle to signal the end of the minute just seems so awesome. Having said that, it was somewhat muted today cos there weren't that many of us.

I really don't know what to say about the match in all honesty. It could hardly be called a football match. I will say that Darlo did play the better 'football'. Slightly. All the goals were really soft, except Torquay's third. Did I mention the result was 3-1 to Torquay? Hands up all those who are surprised.

Something grated on me today, apart from the fact that we lost again of course, and that Torquay's goalkeeper was literally twice the size of any other human being that ever existed, oh! and that the Torquay team looked and played like bananas, was the choice of Man of the Match. Curtis Main was the player on whom the award was bestowed. I've got to ask, WHY?! Fine he scored the goal (which was not a good one btw and he didn't do any of the work to 'create' it) but that was about it! The boy can't turn on the ball either so ended up passing the ball in really odd directions. I just don't understand how he was awarded it. Seems to me that not much thought went into the decision. Irritating.

It really isn't looking good for poor ol' Darlo. I'm pretty sure that there is no chance of survival now but I guess there is always hope while it is still mathematically possible.

*Sigh*

Costa Skinny Hot Chocolate - My Drug Of Choice

2010-03-04T19:21:00.005Z

If you have spent any time with me in the recent past, you'll know this about me. I pretty much live on these:

Well, what is inside them really, although I have nothing against the Costa takeaway cups.

Costa Skinny Hot Chocolate.

Wow. I really just cannot get enough of them. I had to satisfy the craving again today and after buying new jeans and boots (yipee!) so I nipped in to Costa to get one.

It was a little embarrassing. The conversation with the server went along these lines:

Server: 'Hi there. What can I get for you?'

Me: 'Small skinny hot chocolate to take away, please.'

Server: 'Do you come here often enough to get a Costa Coffee Club Card?' (I love the alliteration!)

Me: 'Do I have to pay for it?'

Server: 'No.'

Me: 'Then, yes.'

Server: 'Yeah, I thought I recognised your face!'

Ha! I'll be able to start ordering 'the usual' soon.

I'm thinking this card will come in very handy around Keswick time.......

I can't believe I was ever a Starbucks girl.

A Flying Visit

2010-03-01T22:46:00.000Z

We had a lovely visit from my cousin, Margaret, this weekend. There isn't really a lot to say about the weekend. We went to Costa and Ochis, watched some Outnumbered, went to church and played with the hamster. It was nice to just catch up!All weekend we were told that there was a 'similarity' about us.What do you think?

The View From My Bedroom Window

2010-02-21T13:38:00.000Z

Snowing again! There is actually more snow than what it looks like in that photo. I'm glad that I am warm and cosy inside. I knitted this neck warmer yesterday. Talk about good timing!

Treats

2010-02-18T22:36:00.004Z

Treat 1Treat 2Treat 3Treat 4Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Ten Extremely Uninteresting Things About Me

2010-02-12T23:20:00.004Z

You may be noticing a lack of regular posting here lately. I'm afraid that is because I have mostly been working and not much else! When something, anything, interesting happens in my life, you'll be the first to know. So, to mark this incredibly uninteresting time in my life, here are 10 things about me that are extremely uninteresting. Read at your peril.....

1) My drink of choice from any 'genre' is Ginger Beer but, like most things, I'm very particular about it. Old Jamaica is the only 1 for me and not the sugar free stuff.

2) If I could be on any TV show it would be Strictly Come Dancing. Hands down. Except, of course, that you have to be either a celebrity or a pro dancer to be on it. So to make it possible I would a main character in Spooks. I'd make a great spy.....

3) I totally adore Country music. I am by no means an expert. I love a lot of the modern stuff (Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban etc etc) and really want to hear more of the older stuff.

4) I really, really dislike Beyonce. Sorry.

5) During the day I listen to Radio 1. During the night I 'listen' to Radio 4. When I say listen I mean I leave my radio on all night and it is tuned to Radio 4. I'm not sure I take a lot in but it is dreadfully annoying when there is a rather interesting debate on when I'm trying to get to sleep.

6) If you know me, you'll know this. I'm kind of messy. Ok, fine. Really messy! I've tried very hard to be neat and tidy but I just cannot do it. It is an impossibility. Don't think that that means I don't care about my belongings. I do. I know exactly where they are on my bedroom floor..... most of the time.

7) I am a hopeless romantic. This is why I have stopped reading Nicholas Sparks novels, why I have only watched The Young Victoria once and why I should probably stop listening to Brad Paisley's Then.

8) I'm not squeamish at all.... except, apparently, when it comes to toes (being operated on. Regular toes don't bother me) and blood clots. Urgh. I just dry heaved.

9) I can get into pretty much any sport going...... football, rugby, tennis, (even!) baseball, cricket, athletics, skiing, diving (all watching of course) etc etc etc but I have yet to find any entertainment in golf. Spoils a good walk, as they say.

10) I LOVE playing games. Doesn't really matter what - Phase 10, Pit, Scattergories, Cluedo, Egyptian Snap (you know you all love it!). I can get pretty competitive.

The Last 5 Tracks I Downloaded

2010-02-04T18:40:00.002Z

5) Everlasting God - Chris Tomlin. Sang this at Keswick last year. Love it..... even though the verse makes me laugh a little.

4) I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers. This was my ringtone in the US and I was missing it so I decided to make it my ringtone again.

3) Gotta Be Somebody - Nickelback. This is seriously one of my favourite songs EVER.

2) Then - Brad Paisley. Beautiful. If you want to know what I mean then google the lyrics. So sweet!

1) Don't Stop Believing - Cast of Glee. It is just so stinking catchy!

Actually, this list is already out of date because I am in the process of downloading Sweet Thing by Keith Urban and Life Is A Highway by Rascal Flatts. I do love my Country music!

Because I Could

2010-01-31T21:53:00.000Z

This is one of my favourite views in the world. I went there yesterday. Because I could.Amazing, isn't it. Wouldn't you go there? You know, if you could.I decided to head over the A66 to Keswick on my day off. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere really. Because I could.Don't get me wrong, I don't live like that...... 'Because I can' I mean. That would be stupid and dangerous for everyone. There are a lot of things that I don't do even though I could. But it was lovely to be able to go to Keswick just because I could.I love Keswick. I feel happy there. There a so many good memories from all the years of going to the Keswick Convention and from family holidays before that. Memories like sitting on the end of this jetty with Beth, dangling our feet in the water and chatting.No sign of your sewing kit, Beth.The snow topped mountains were just stunning. It was cold in Keswick. That is something that I am definitely not used to there.Paddling didn't seem like a good plan.Even if the water did look incredibly inviting!Seriously, you could jump straight in, right? The sky was so clear and the sun was so bright.The colours were so vivid despite it being the depths of winter. How do people not believe in Creation?Up at Castlerigg Stone Circle, just before sunset, the views were even more spectacular.I was in total awe.What a wonderful day I had.In my own company.With my own thoughts.And all because I could.

Yogurt, anyone?

2010-01-24T17:14:00.000Z

I wasn't so happy when Phemie came across this empty yogurt pot and started licking the it out but I wasn't too worried about it, seeing as though I grabbed the camera and started taking photos. I wasn't quite sure what the yogurt would do to her tummy. She was fine though and I know that hamsters are remarkably good eaters. You can feed them almost anything. Phemie clearly has good taste.

Having said that, then she found my camera strap.

Sweet little bug eyed Phemie!

Not Sorry To See The Back Of It

2010-01-23T16:55:00.004Z

I found a few more snow photos on my camera that I hadn't uploaded to the laptop. It's funny to see them now. The snow has been gone for a little while now and, believe me, I was not sorry to see it go. Mum took these around the garden....... unless she is in the picture then she didn't take them. Obviously.This was a bit of a thankless job..... shovel it, then it snows again.......Maybe that is what she is lamenting here?
More snow than I ever remember having before. Hope it doesn't come back soon!

The Most Uninteresting Post Ever?

2010-01-20T20:44:00.002Z

I have nothing to say. Well, you know, apart from these words. Obviously.

Life has just been ticking on very unremarkably. I am very thankful for that, believe me.

I have started my new job which is equal parts excitement, confusion and sheer terror. I love it! Well, today was good at least.

Other than work, which started Saturday and I have had two days off since (I'll just let that sink in.........), I really have done nothing. I'm wracking my brain to think of even one thing that is remotely interesting that I have done and nothing is jumping out at me.

I'm now going to watch an episode of Spooks.... Series Two if you have managed to read this far. I'm a latecomer to Spooks having only started watching it this past season (series 8). I have already borrowed series 1 from Sarah and now I am on series 2.

I'm sorry for wasting 2-3 minutes of your life. You'll never get those back. I apologise.

Some Of The Snow

2010-01-13T10:42:00.007Z

We've started to thaw out a bit. Well, in the North East anyway..... I'm not sure about North of us and I'm pretty confident that the South of England and Wales are still struggling with the weather but here the snow is disappearing. Hurrah!

So, while there is still at least a dot of snow lying on the ground I thought that I'd better upload some of the photos from our trip up North. I can't take credit for all of them..... in fact any of the first bunch. Mum stole my camera (well, borrowed. She did ask my permission.) and got snapping. The snow was pretty deep and it snowed just about everyday that we were there at least once.

Apparently Mollie never goes into her kennel.... except for photo shoots!On New Year's Day my cousins and I decided to go sledging...... in the evening. It was dark. Really dark! We had a lot of fun. I was a bit of a wimp compared to the others but to be fair, they'd been flying down the brae for about two weeks before I even got there. It was a struggle to even get to the brae at all (well, for me. I'm extremely unfit!) because we had to walk through undisturbed snow. It is really tough to walk through snow that comes up to the top of your wellies..... especially when your cousins are ploughing (ha!) on ahead and you don't have a torch!! It was super fun when we got there though!This was my run on the super fast sledge. I didn't go fast. I veered off the track and ended up thigh high in snow. Eesh! It was the last run as well and I'd psyched myself up to go really fast. Oh well!I may have done a few face plants in the snow. Or not. Whatever.

By the way, this is what I had to put up with at lunch......... who said face to face contact was becoming obsolete??

In The Night Garden

2010-01-12T21:48:00.003Z

Could a day be any better than having a hot chocolate (Starbucks, in case you are wondering.... skinny too) with a sweet friend and then spending the afternoon playing with her adorable, smiley nephew until he fell asleep after watching In The Night Garden?

It was especially good because said friend was really meant to be back at university at the weekend but didn't go because of the weather.

What a treat it was to spend the day with you, Sarah! I had an absolute blast! Love you!

To Start Off 2010....

2010-01-07T14:39:00.003Z

.....we resurrected something from the past decade. Actually, it wasn't even from the last decade! it came from 98/99!! Ancient, I know!

We took Craig's Furby out of eternal retirement on New Year's Day. I'd totally forgotten how funny they are and it literally entertained myself, Craig, Cara and Emma all day..... and a little into the next!

He even enjoyed our New Year's Day meal with us and we made him his own little Christmas cracker hat. He loved it.

I had a great time up North over New Year so I'll tell you a little more about that soon!

My 2009

2009-12-31T21:00:00.002Z

This year I have:

attended a Ludy Discipleship Conference in Windsor, Colorado.
found my 100th geocache in the US.
travelled to Nashville & Memphis, outwitted tornadoes and fell in love with Country Music.
cried at the Little Mermaid three times, met Drew Seeley twice and received a letter from 'my chef'.
also seen Wicked and Billy Elliot.
knitted a hat.
'met' Daniel Radcliffe.
turned 23.
attended my first baseball game. Go Yankees!
mourned a snail called Leaf.
seen Julianna and Michella finish 5th and 1st grade and Alex graduate middle school.
ate a few deep fried Mars Bars...... in NYC.
ate at a fondue restaurant.
surprised Meg and Tina in Pennsylvania.
said goodbye to New York and my girls and broke my heart.
went to Keswick, Edinburgh and London over the summer.
got the sweetest new hamster in the world.
got my first car.
gone to a few football matches - Scotland and Darlington..... both teams being a frustrating as the other.
gone to Beamish with my cousins.
wished my Grandpa a Happy 89th Birthday.
gotten really immersed in Strictly Come Dancing.
been employed by the hospital as a Health Care Assistant.
received a new GPS amongst lots of other things for Christmas! Hurrah!

It has been a really good year.

I pray that everyone will have a blessed 2010.

New GPS

2009-12-30T19:00:00.000Z

The other day we went geocaching (well, we looked for one!) to try out my new GPS. It was really rather fun, albeit somewhat treacherous. The path that we had to follow, one which we know very well, was covered in ice and was really slippery but we still had a good time and Hattie had an absolute blast. Getting to and from the cache was much more difficult than actually finding the cache itself.
Ooops! At least one person ended up on their behind!The new GPS works really well, not that there was anything wrong with the old one but now I am a paperless geocacher! This was my first cache for a while and I will not be leaving it so long until I go caching again.

The Weather And The Guests

2009-12-29T18:13:00.007Z

It has been a fun couple of days.

It has been mighty wintery too. I thought I'd seen the last of snowy or icy winters when I said goodbye to New York.

As you can see, the snow that I spoke about in the last post was just the start of it all. The pavements are still lethal. Walking into town is a challenging adventure in itself. I can't believe that I haven't landed on my butt.... yet. Believe me, with no sign of gritters or the weather warming up anytime soon there is still plenty of time for that to happen. Apparently we are going to get more of the same over the next few days too..... Forgive me if I'm not overjoyed at the prospect of it.

We did have a White Christmas though which was nice.... It was an Official White Christmas too with snow falling on the day itself.

The week before Christmas we had two little guests staying with us until they could move into their real home at Christmas. The reason that I didn't write about them before was because they were presents and I couldn't risk anyone seeing something that they shouldn't.

So, more about these guests. They were two tiny dwarf hamsters - Winter White Russians to be precise. I totally fell in love with the little monsters. I nicknamed them Gilbert and Sullivan (which probably contributed to the loving them business but I couldn't have them to stay for the week being nameless). I still haven't heard what their official names are yet. But here are some pics of Bertie and Sully. I had such fun with them. They were so adorable.Such sweet boys! Bertie is the grey one and Sully is white.

Don't worry, I have by no means forgotten about this little minx. She is still sweetness itself.

Snow Is Falling

2009-12-17T20:45:00.003Z

The snow is here! Will there be a chance of a White Christmas this year?Magical! I know the pictures aren't great but they give you an idea!

BTW, this post makes 2009 officially my most bloggy year to date. Wonder how I'll get on with it in 2010...... Guess we'll all just have to wait and see!!

Mange Tout and Hail

2009-12-17T16:01:00.002Z

You know, I think I know which one of these munchkins........gets a better deal when I'm taking pictures.....

Hattie is very unimpressed with me right now. Hattie, just so you know, if I was able to take Phemie outside to take photos in the hail I would. If you could sit on Phemie's head, then I would take pictures of that too. Unfortunately, you just don't look as cute when you are eating mange tout (although you are just as cute when not eating) or I would take pictures of you doing that too!

What would I do without my sweet pets!

The Art of Eating A Tunnock's Tea Cake

2009-12-07T20:11:00.004Z

Today I am going to walk you through something that is very important to me:
The right way to eat a Tunnock's Tea Cake. Really, this is the only way to go about it.
So, here we go.
1) Get your Tunnock's Tea Cake.2) While the tea cake is still in its wrapper, break the chocolate covering the marshmallow. Ironically, I really dislike it if the chocolate is already broken. So irritating.3) Now it is time to unwrap the chocolatey, marshmallowy, biscuity goodness.4) Woohoo! Nearly there!Look! It is all ready to go!5) Pick of all the chocolate that is covering the marshmallow. This is why we broke it before.Keep going until all the chocolate has been eaten.6) Then you have to bite off the chocolate that is covering the biscuit base.Yup, you have to get right around it.7) Next you eat the marshmallow.8) You should be left with the biscuit base. Eat it!9) Savour the last bite because that is the last little morsel....10) Done! So now you know the proper way to eat a Tunnock's Tea Cake. Next time the topic will be Cadbury Creme Eggs (freeze them!), Twix (bite off all the chocolate, eat the caramel and then the biscuit - pretty much the same concept as the tea cake) and KitKats (separate the two fingers and snap each in half, bite outer coating of chocolate off and then eat layers separately).

I'm a creature of habit, what can I say?

Madness

2009-12-05T20:05:00.002Z

Hahaha! Even my sweet Phemie thinks I'm crazy.

(Please ignore the fact that I have no neck or front bottom teeth in this photo, have only wisps of hair and a enormous spot in the middle of my forehead!)

(2xA) + M =

2009-11-30T11:02:00.006Z

This is what happens when you mix two As and an M:
There is a lot of preening,some silly faces,more preening,silly dancing,crazy dancing,more preening,ballroom dancing.... oh, wait!,a little bit of ventriloquism,sisters,and best friends.Most of all, you get fun!

Lunch And A Camel

2009-11-25T11:42:00.005Z

Mum and I went for lunch with Lorraine yesterday. We headed up the A66 to Mainsgill Farm. They have a nice little tea room there, a farm shop and a gift shop. I'd been there once before when June was staying with us. Beth and Maureen came with us that time too.

We had our lunch, chatted then browsed the shops..... We may have purchased the odd bits and pieces too.
Mum and Lorraine posing in front of the herd of bale sheep. It was pretty windy up there as you can see. It is in a quite exposed location.

Mum and I then checked out the animals:

Some chickens....some cows........

buba donkey (there was a mama donkey too) and llamas........alpacas......and a camel!!Brilliant!!

Speaking of wildlife, I've just been watching a little creature feeding at the bird feeder. I couldn't work out what kind of bird it was at first then I realised........ it was a mouse! The poor birds can't catch a break! The feeder is 'squirrel proof' (I put that in inverted commas because that is debatable anyway!) but I don't think that there is a way that we can make it mouse proof.

Choketastic

2009-11-21T20:26:00.003Z

It is amazing how a sporting event can affect your mood so greatly.

Darlington lost today. 5-2. We did win last week against Burton Albion but apparently two wins in a row would just be too much. But wouldn't you know, I've actually become accustomed to losing. It really doesn't phase me any more. 5-2? Well, at least we only lost by 3 goals. It could've been worse. Much worse probably. I've seen us play.

Ok, that was slightly unfair. We don't tend to play too badly and usually we just cannot catch a break. The ball does everything but go across the line and into the net. I doubt that that was how it was today. I don't know, it was played in Chesterfield. I didn't go to Chesterfield. I suppose I could have gone. I'm pretty glad I didn't go having seen the result. Hindsight is a brilliant thing.

It wasn't totally a bad day.

In fact, it was a pretty stinking amazing day. Like I said, where Darlo is concerned defeat no longer phases me.

There was another sporting event occuring today but it wasn't a football match (well, you know, apart from all the football matches!). I'm talking rugby here, baby. Scotland played Australia (which I can never spell correctly btw). You should know this: Australia are very good at rugby. Scotland are not. Maybe I should say not so good. They're ok, nothing amazing.

Do you get the picture? Australia were meant to beat Scotland but nobody told the Scotland players that! They defended like crazy. Scotland hardly had any of the ball but the Australians just couldn't break them down. They came close, ok, very close - there were two visits to the fourth official for video confirmation of Australian tries.... or non tries as it turned out, and they even touched down but from a forward throw which is not allowed. They also missed a penalty, a drop goal and most importantly a conversion. I'll come back to that!

Scotland took their limited chances and scored two penalties and a drop goal. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the last 10 minutes of the game. It was so tense. Especially the last two minutes - Australia were hugging that try line for what seemed like forever. They did score a try in overtime. I hate overtime. That left the score at 9-8 to Scotland and Australia still had their conversion to get some points from.

I think everyone thought that it was over. Scotland had put up a good fight but Australia got the win in the dying seconds.

I was standing in the middle of the room, repeatedly chanting, 'Miss it, miss it, miss it, miss it.'

Well, you'll never believe it, folks. He did miss it. HE MISSED IT! That was the last kick of the game and it was Australia's chance to WIN. HE MISSED IT! He completely choked. As one of my school friends has written he was 'choketastic'!!

I let out the biggest scream that I possibly could and ran upstairs to where my Dad was also watching the match. Yes, we were watching it in different rooms but he was switching channels and I was watching Strictly Come Dancing on iPlayer on my laptop at the same time as watching the game.

Anyway, we must have been loud because Hattie even came to see what the commotion was all about. Hattie is all but deaf, by the way. She probably thought that we were crazy.

I felt quite giddy after that result. It was so unexpected and it looked like it just wasn't going to be right at the very end.

Seriously, it does amaze me how much effect sport can have you your mood. I feel pretty good tonight!

A Hamish Update

2009-11-10T20:11:00.006Z

**Update 2: Hamish is still in Vienna but has been moved to a different cache. At least I know that when I next visit Sophie we'll have some caches to find!**

*Update: Hamish has already moved on! Can't wait to see where he turns up next!*

It has been a little while since I've heard any news of my little travel bug, Hamish. The last time I knew of his whereabouts he was at Zurich Airport in Switzerland. Someone picked him up there and said that they were taking him eastwards. It turns out that eastwards is........

Have you guessed yet? One of you should have at least!

Now??

VIENNA!!!!!

I am so super excited by this! Vienna is where my lovely, lovely penpal Sophie currently lives.I love her. She's fab! But if she didn't realise where Hamish is from the photos then shame on her! Just kidding! xxx

I'm sure that Hamish will have a wonderful time in Vienna. Maybe he'll visit the Christmas market which is something I'd really love to do. I'm not at all jealous.........

House Guest

2009-11-08T20:30:00.000Z

We have a guest staying with us this weekend. He is very sweet and well behaved and his name is Mr Bingley.

Did I mention he is a hamster?And a cute one at that?

This little fellow belongs to Sophie and since she was away this weekend, I have the honour of taking care of him for a few days. Mr Bingley has only been at his new home with Sophie for a week so he is still a little nervous but did I mention how stinking adorable he is!We have been waking him up and handling him a quite a lot so I think he is getting used to us a little. I'm sure that he'll be relieved when he goes home and has some peace and quiet.

Here is a note that he sent to his mama that I think proves my point:

Mum,

how could you leave me here? It is less like a hotel and more like bootcamp! They wake me up at all hours of the day and manhandle me. I was very nervous and shaky at first but I'm a bit more confident now. They did give me a bit of pear which I loved. I've been getting them back for waking me up by running riot and keeping them on their toes. They can hardly keep up! Can't wait to see you!

Mr B xPoor Phembo isn't all too sure about this arrangement. She thinks my hands smell funny cos I've been handling Mr. Bingley. She's not used to sharing me!!
But who could be mad at this wee man? I'm sure that she'd be fine with him once she got to know him. Well, either that or one would kill the other, you know, cos they're hamsters! Don't ever put two syrian hamsters together because there are only two outcomes: hundreds and thousands of teeny, tiny hamsters or one hamster. Either way, not good!

I've really enjoyed getting to know Mr Bingley. I'm hoping I get the chance to look after him again sometime soon!Such a sweet face!

Remember, Remember

2009-11-05T18:23:00.003Z

the 5th of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot,

I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Tonight is Bonfire Night. The fireworks are lighting up the sky already. This is my first Bonfire Night for two years and actually I'm not celebrating it tonight at all!

That's because the Darlington bonfire and fireworks display was last Saturday. It seemed to me like it should have been on this Saturday coming up because it is closer to 5th November but apparently they are always on the last Saturday in October.

The town fireworks were really good. There was a 'space' theme so all the music was to do with space. Duh! They even had a big white balloon (a bit like a mini hot air balloon) that lit up at one point and rose up. It was meant to be the moon. Super cute.

I didn't get great pics cos I just used my phone and I don't have a phone with a 12.1 Mega Pixels (or whatever the stupid amount is that James' has!) camera but behind Simon, Anthony and Lorraine is the bonfire.I had a blast with Sarah. We giggled and swayed through the entire display. What a monkey Bethan is!Abi and Bethan. There was a whole bunch of us there from church but these were the only photos I got.Aren't they wonderful! Darlington really outdid themselves this year. Can you see the 'moon' at the bottom of the photo?

If you don't know what Bonfire Night is, it is a commemoration (for want of a better word!) of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 where a group of men, including Guy Fawkes, tried to assassinate the king, James I/VI (He was king of both England (I) and Scotland (VI)) by blowing up the Houses of Parliament. The conspirators wanted a catholic monarch. Their plot was discovered and they didn't get to light the gunpowder that they had amassed in the basement of Parliament. The most famous conspirator was Guy Fawkes and sometimes people burn a 'Guy' on their bonfires. Bonfire Night is sometimes called Guy Fawkes Night.

It is a little strange to celebrate such an event but I guess we are celebrating it not happening?

Now it is just fun really. All that was missing from my Bonfire Night was a toffee apple!

I Like This

2009-10-29T15:28:00.002Z

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'.
"I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
And need Christ to be my guide.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But God believes I am worth it.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!

by Maya Angelou

All For One And One For All

2009-10-25T22:28:00.001Z

Here we are! The Three Musketeers! We're sticking together and looking after each other. Ok, really it is me looking after these two munchkins but I do appreciate their company.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to take a picture of the three of us together? Pretty much impossible!

Phemie, who is normally the most docile creature in the world, decided that this would be the time that she would run riot. She went crazy!When Phembo was looking, Hattie wasn't! (How cute and fat does Phemie look in this??!)There were even times when none of us were looking at the camera! I'm not totally sure how that happened as I was taking the picture!Eventually Hattie gave up on me..........and Phemie literally started climbing the walls.
Oh, how I love them!

All That For A Few Veggies, Bread and Milk?

2009-10-24T16:19:00.004+01:00

I went grocery shopping this afternoon. I was in desperate need of bread, milk and food for tea this evening and tomorrow. I finished the bread and the milk went off yesterday so I really should have done this shop last night but it all seemed like too much effort and it was raining..... After my experience today I really should have gone last night. It might have been so much simpler!

It was still raining when I left to go to Sainsbury's. Urgh. I don't mind rain that much. I didn't wear a coat and I didn't use an umbrella. I'm that hardcore. Actually, what that means is that I got wet especially because the car park was so busy and so I had to park at the other end of the car park from the Sainsbury's entrance. Urgh.

I picked up my basket and duly filled it, as you do, with lots of healthy goodies (Is it weird to crave turnip?), bread, milk etc etc. I then realised that my purse was sitting at home on the breakfast room table.... at least that was where I hoped it was!

That meant that I had to ditch my shopping at customer services and bomb it home, pick up my purse and pay for my shopping....... Eeesh! By that point it had stopped raining. Plus 1! Whoop! Getting out of the car park at Sainsbury's is fun and games at the best of times.... today I wanted to scream. Loudly. It was made even worse by one particular idiotic pedestrian. One car tried to pull out behind me but was crossing the opposing lane. I couldn't pull any further forward at that point to let them in properly. Not wanting traffic to be disrupted further, when the car in front of me moved I naturally moved forward. Unfortunately, that meant that I was still halfway over the zebra crossing. Shall I repeat that? HALFWAY across the zebra crossing! HALFWAY! A stupid pedestrian decided that it would be a good thing to do to hit the back of my car multiple times.

Mr Idiotic Pedestrian, did I inconvenience you? Was the other half of the pedestrian crossing not good enough for you? Was it that difficult to manoeuver yourself around the back of my car? In what circumstance did you ever think that it was appropriate to even place your hands on my car, let alone with force?

Yup, that just made my day. To make matters even worse, or to make my mood even worse, the sun that was shining was making it near impossible to see as I was driving home. Wet roads + bright sunshine = horrendous driving conditions.

Thankfully my purse was sitting on my breakfast room table. So, it was back to Sainsbury's for me. I managed to pay for my shopping and FINALLY I could take my precious veggies, bread, milk and select other items home. Hurrah!

Incidentally, this may be one of my best ever purchases. I have a few of these fold-away bags but none as big as this.

It fitted all of these groceries in....... OK, fine, I also bought Sainsbury's Sour Cream and Chive flavour crunchy snack mix but I had to wait a while for my camera's battery to recharge to take the photos that you are viewing and, well, why wait to start snacking?! I haven't finished it though..... yet. Just so you know!

Mind you, after fitting all of these groceries in the bag it was so heavy that even my car started beeping at me because the passenger didn't have their seatbelt fastened..... Um, yeah, that was a bag of groceries....And to make it even better it folds up all teeny tiny. Marvelous!

I don't plan to brave Sainsbury's again soon.......

89 Years Old

2009-10-20T22:40:00.002+01:00

My Grandpa turned 89 on Saturday!There weren't quite 89 candles on the cake though....
Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Lessons Learned

2009-10-14T18:09:00.003+01:00

Yesterday at Beamish I learnt something very interesting.

You can take the boy out of the farm.......

But you can never take the farm out of the boy!

Continuing The Theme

2009-10-08T16:17:00.005+01:00

I decided to make bread. I mean, my baking spree had been going so well and there was a bread recipe in Good Food Magazine so, why not? I don't have a bread maker and I couldn't tell you where the mixer is let alone if it has an attachment, so I had to do it all by hand, kneading and all.

In all honesty, I didn't think that it would work out at one point. I thought I was back to my cooking disasters.

Granted, it looks like an old potato on the outside but inside it is wonderful.....
I must admit that I just couldn't wait until I had a reason to try the Hummingbird Red Velvet Recipe and the verdict is..... WOW! They turned out so much better than the oily ones that I made last week. Hurrah!

I Got My Bake Back, Baby!

2009-10-06T19:20:00.005+01:00

I've always loved baking. I'm pretty sure that it comes from my Mum who is the baking queen. I love creating all the sweet treats... biscuits, brownies, cakes etc etc.

But when I was in America I totally lost my bake. I mean, seriously. I was terrible. My disasters included burning Place and Bake cookies, ruining Aunt Chrissy's 'Best Oatmeal Cookies in the World' and making inedible cookies for a school bake sale. Oh man, I was awful!

Now that I'm back in Darlington I seem to have gotten my bake back! Hurrah! It mostly started by the need for me to have a Red Velvet Cupcake. I hadn't had my usual Saturday NYC treat since I left NY.... obviously! So, I decided to just go right ahead and make my own. I found a recipe on someone's blog - it was originally a Paula Deen recipe. The cupcakes turned out tasty but slightly too oily. Even Sarah got a cupcake for her 21st on Thursday.But, the bug had bitten me.......

I decided to buy a new recipe book - The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. Oh, how I wish we had one of their stores up here. Even the front page of their website makes me drool! I mostly bought the book because a) the pics are good enough to eat and b) they have a recipe in it for Red Velvet Cupcakes that uses butter rather than oil. Seeing as we still had some cupcakes left from my previous baking session I decided to try something different and went for these Marshmallow Cupcakes. I think my favourite bit of these cupcakes was making a hollow in each cake for melted marshmallow. Eating all those little circles - delicious! I found the actual finished cupcakes a little too sweet.

I had a good excuse to make some more cupcakes as we had a memorial service at church and I'd promised that I would make something for the tea afterwards. That time I made vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Sounds a little dull but I made the frosting yellow and decorated them liberally with sprinkles of various kinds! No pictures of these ones but they tasted gooooooooooood! I will definitely be using this as my 'staple' cupcake recipe. No other recipe will do.

We have a fellowship tea at church on Sunday so I have another excuse to bake. I'm thinking that I'll try the Hummingbird Red Velvet recipe..... but there are a lot of others in the book that I'd love to try. I wish there were more people in this house so that I could justify baking lots and lots but I'd be afraid that there would be a lot of wasted cupcakes and that would be a travesty.

Links

2009-10-01T21:46:00.002+01:00

I just updated the links on the right hand side of this page. I deleted some and added some more.
My current favourite website is Cake Wrecks. It is absolutely stinking hilarious! If you need a good giggle, a general cheering-up-ment, are bored out of your skull or something then give this website a quick visit. Just keep in mind that all the 'Wrecks' are done by 'professionals'. Mad!

So much fun!

In Case You Didn't Already Know....

2009-09-30T11:31:00.004+01:00

Phemie is the cutest hamster a girl could wish for.

And she just got even cuter.

She has been asleep on my shoulder for over an hour now. Seriously. That never happens. With any hamster. Ever! And the fact that she seems to be content to continue sleeping there.... AWESOME!Sorry about the lack of quality in these photos. The only camera that is close at hand right now is my webcam on the computer. I'm surprised that I even managed to get a photo at all. Trying to position a laptop with one hand whilst trying not to awaken the sleeping hamster that you are trying to photograph is harder than it sounds.

I also typed most of this post one handed. Again, not easy!

Oh, and I know I look terrible but this is pre make-up and dressed. Blah.

Sweet dreams, Phemie!

Archers Ice Cream Parlour

2009-09-28T21:42:00.005+01:00

Beth, Sarah and I went to Archers today which is just outside of Darlington. It is one of my favourite places to go.
We got ice cream: As always, it was delicious. I went for banana and hokey pokey (it has cinder toffee in it and you can’t go wrong with cinder toffee!). They really do make great ice cream there. Definitely worth a visit if you can get there. Amazingly, or not, they have cows on the farm. These calves were seriously cute. Hopefully I didn’t get E.Coli. Wash your hands properly, kids!
There were chickens everywhere. No lie. They were running around all over the place…. bothering you when you ate your ice cream…. Like I said, totally worth a visit. We also wanted to go in the sunflower maze but gate to access it was shut and we would have felt very dishonest if we’d just climbed the fence….. it was very tempting though!
Instead we decided to take photos. Most of these were where we were trying to get Sarah to do a sad face…. We weren’t terribly successful as you will see! That one was just creepy so we decided to do some smiley ones. Turns out they were just as difficult…. Yup, we are all super photogenic!
Such a fun afternoon for Beth’s last free weekday afternoon until half term!!

The New and Improved Phonetic Alphabet

2009-09-25T15:16:00.002+01:00

For some reason the other night my Mum and I decided to try and remember as much of the Phonetic alphabet as we could. We didn’t do too well. If you look at the table below the words in bold are the ones that we remembered. It took a looooong time to get even that many, believe me. We started to fill in the blanks with our own suggestions and then just went ahead and completed our own version. Personally, I think it is an improvement on the original with my favourite being ‘Dog breath’.

Real Phonetic Alphabet	Our Made Up Version
Alpha	Anthill
Bravo	Beehive
Charlie	Cobweb
Delta	Dog breath
Echo	Elbow
Foxtrot	Fleabite
Golf	Grandpa
Hotel	Hanky
India	Igloo
Juliet	Jester
Kilo	Krakow
Lima	Lipstick
Mike	Mousetrap
November	Noggin
Oscar	Odd job
Papa	Pirate
Quebec	Quibble
Romeo	Rudolph
Sierra	Sandbag
Tango	Teacup
Uniform	Udder
Victor	Violin
Whiskey	Wobble
X-ray	XFactor
Yankee	Yorkie
Zulu	Ziplock

Highest Mountains, Lowest Valleys

2009-09-19T22:20:00.001+01:00

It was another good day at the office for the Darlington Football Club players yesterday.

Does sarcasm come across in written form?

Ok, so we lost again. It was 2-0 at home to Bournemouth. Bummer.

I was quite impressed with the crowd today. Nearly 2,000 people turned out to watch the match (1,999 people to be exact. Shame we couldn’t squeeze that one extra person into the ground!) I wonder how many will be at the next home match which is a week on Tuesday against Rochdale.

Whilst I was watching the match (the play wasn’t exactly captivating) I came up with the reasons why I still go despite the fact that we haven’t won a league game yet this season. In fact we are still languishing at the bottom of the entire league with only one point.

You may ask what the point is. ‘Give it up already,’ I hear you say but it is too difficult. Yes, I could go and support a club doing well or even almost guaranteed to get the right result….. Chelsea, Man Utd, one of the Old Firm, or Bournemouth as it happens. But that, my friends, would be wrong. Not only would it be wrong, it would be boring.

My reasons for still going to every home game that I can despite Darlington not getting any results:

This is my 10th season supporting the club. I’m not about to throw all that away for some fickle allegience to another club (e.g. mentioned above!).
The Underdog theory. Everybody loves the underdog so why should it be any different with Darlo. It is what the Scottish national team thrives upon. We could really use this to our advantage.
My club needs my money (fine, my Dad’s money). It needs all the money that it can get. If I don’t go, then it is unlikely that my Dad will go and therefore the club will lose out on nearly £40 worth of support. Wow! That is a ridiculous amount to be paying to see that kind of football with those results. Maybe I’ll just scrap this list altogether…
Maybe we could go for some kind of record. The team to be relegated with the lowest points total, the least goals scored, with the fewest scored against them or, maybe, we could be the first team to be relegated by the end of October. Smashing. But I see that Portsmouth are giving us a run for our money on this record thing. They haven’t even got off the mark yet. I’m beginning to appreciate having even one point! I would be strangely proud to be associated with a record breaking team like that. If you can’t laugh at yourself then what else can you do?

Actually this is the main reason why I still attend these matches:

I live in hope. I hope that on any given match day my team will put on the performance of their lives. I hope that I will witness something amazing, spectacular. I hope that just once my team will lead in a match. Most of all I hope that this match will be the one, the one where we finally show everyone what we are made of, why the supporters carry on following the team despite the lows. I hope that this match will be one of the highs, one of the good moments in a football supporters season, the game where we turn things around.

I hope that this game will be the one where we take home all three of those precious points, the game that we win.

That is why the Quakers get my continued support because, no matter how deep the valleys are, I’ll always be waiting, hoping for that mountain top, hoping that this is finally the day that I can stand at the end of a match and applaud my team, knowing that they have done me and the rest of their supporters proud.

I ♥ Strictly

2009-09-19T10:41:00.003+01:00

Well, that is me glued to my television screen every Saturday from here to Christmas.

I ♥ Strictly Come Dancing. I really do. I’ve been two years without it and it is finally here again!

Yes, in America they did have Dancing With The Stars but it was completely different. Ok, no. It was all too similar for my liking. The theme music was exactly the same. They even had two of the same judges, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli. But it just wasn’t Strictly. It was a poor imitation and I just could not get into it. I didn’t really want to get into it. It was just a little too painful to listen to that wonderful theme tune and not have Brucey and Tess waiting for me at the end of it. They only had three judges and Craig Revel Horwood wasn’t one of them. He is definitely my favourite. I did not like their third judge Carrie Ann Inaba.

And talking of pointless judges, there is definitely something different about Strictly this year. Arlene has been ousted and replaced by Alesha Dixon. Yes, ‘pop star’ Alesha Dixon, not ‘professional dancer and therefore qualified to judge other people on their ballroom and latin skills’ Alesha Dixon. Fine, she won Strictly in 2008 but so what? She didn’t reassure me by her judging performance tonight either. It is a dancing competition. I don’t think she talked about dancing at all. Useless. At least Mr Revel Horwood was on top form. I really think he is mint.
Actually the first show of this series was last night (Friday) and I couldn’t watch it because I was at the Darlington Civic Theatre watching the Soweto Gospel Choir. So I watched it on BBC iPlayer this morning whilst still in bed. I also ate a gigantic crispy cake for breakfast. Yes, I’m disgusting.

I really enjoyed the show (apart from Alesha Dixon. Don’t get me started on her duck chuckle. And it thought Bruno Tonioli was irritating).
Well, I complained about Alesha Dixon not talking about the dancing in her critique so I suppose

I’d better write a little about it. But I don’t pretend to be a dancing expert….

My favourite is Chris Hollins. I just love his sports presenting. He was my pick of all the celebs before the show even started.

Chris came second in the judges’ scoring last night. Good for him. He did really well. His dancing looked good to me. I wasn’t blown away but somehow I didn’t expect that on the first show!! His face during the Tango was so funny. He has to work on that a bit.

I also think Linda Bellingham did brilliantly. She looked terrific on the dance floor. It wasn’t the most exciting Tango (should that be capitalised? I feel like I’m talking about an orange fizzy drink!) but I think she did what she did very well.

Of course Ali Bastian stands out. Her waltz was beautiful. I’ll be really interested to see how she with the Latin dance tonight. *Yay! Strictly two days in a row! Hurrah*

My favourite professional dancer, Anton du Beke, was in the group dance. He is partnered by Laila Rouass this year. I’m a little sad about that cos I’m not her biggest fan. I would love Anton to win it though. He is constantly cheery. It is so infectious. I smile back at him through the TV or computer screen. I can’t wait to see how they do in the individual dances next week.

Oh Strictly! All the glitz, glam, sequins, satin, feathers, fake tan….. hapless celebs. What a great mix!
I guess you all know where I’ll be tonight at 7.25pm!

My Little Jet-Setter

2009-09-18T11:47:00.006+01:00

*Updated Below*

It has been a while since I have updated you on my wee friend, Hamish.

I think that it is fair to say that I have beaten Hamish home. I've been back in the UK for over two months and he has been jetting the globe since May 30th.
So Hamish started his journey in Central Park, NYC. Since I said my farewells to him on that sunny day with Chen Li he has travelled nearly 4000 miles (3969 miles to be precise). He has made 3 further stops on his journey so far. He was in Germany for a good long while. Firstly in the north near the Belgian border, then he moved further south right by the French border south of Strasbourg. Next he moved to just beside the Swiss border, in fact the nearest city to him at that point would be Basel.

Now he has finally crossed the Swiss border and is in a Travel Bug hotel at Zurich Airport! How exciting. Maybe he'll come closer to home this time.... or maybe he'll travel further away! Either way, I can't wait to find out!

*Update: It is now 00:07 on Sept 19th. Hamish has already been picked up. According to the log left by the person who collected him he is heading eastwards! How thrilling!*

Snapshots of Summer 09

2009-09-17T09:00:00.004+01:00

Beth's 'B' Birthday Bash Keswick Week 1Keswick Week 2Megan's Surprise 18thTransforming Sophie into Bellatrix Lestrange Day in Edinburgh with Beth and MumDay in London with Sophie

The Problem With Vegetables

2009-09-16T09:36:00.004+01:00

Sweet Phemie LOVES broccoli.But sometimes she has a hard time storing it in her pouches!
You should see her trying to squeeze carrot rounds in there.

Old Friends Still Good Friends

2009-09-08T20:47:00.002+01:00

From this

to this.

I had a wonderful lunch with Emma. It is so good to catch up with old friends!

A looooong football post!

2009-09-07T18:43:00.007+01:00

It was a mixed bag of results this weekend. Actually, even though it was mixed, I was able to revel in the good side of the results.

I went home this weekend, footballing home that is. And what a return it was. The weather was dreary and dull and terribly, terribly wet but that didn't matter one single bit. I was just glad that I wasn't at the front of the west stand cos they got drenched!

Anyhoo, Dad and I got up super early and drove up to the magical city of Glasgow. Hurrah! My first time back in the city since coming home. It hasn't changed much. It probably hasn't stopped raining since the last time I was there.

We arrived just in time for a quick nosh at our favourite Partick diner, Cullis'. It really is wonderful and two eggs, chips and beans definitely keeps you going long after the football match has ended. We ate really fast. I'm surprised that we didn't get crazy bad indigestion. I'm very thankful that we didn't. After that we started our journey through Glasgow to get to Hampden.

First stage: walk along Dumbarton Road to Partick train station. Here was the biggest difference that I came across. It nearly took my breath away. They were doing up Partick station when I left and now it is all finished. It used to be dark, dirty and dingey and now it is light and airy and has a totally different layout from before. Ok, it is only really the kiosks that are in a different place but it freaked me out a little.

Second stage: train to ~~Grand~~ Central Station (not in New York anymore!). Same as always!

Third stage: train to Mount Florida. This was the quietest train that I have ever caught to Mount Florida. Usually you are squashed in like sardines (think Chinese transport system and you might just get the picture!). Amazingly we managed to get seats AND the people who were standing had decent amounts of personal space. Incredible.

Fourth stage: walk the short distance from the train station to Hampden Park whilst looking for a shop that sells gum, showing match tickets to multiple policemen/women and having bags searched.

(Thankfully they didn't search my bag too hard cos I came away from Hampden and realised that I had a large bottle of Ralph Lauren perfume with me. A large, glass bottle. They frown upon those at football matches. Not totally sure how the policewoman missed that one but I'm rather pleased that she did.)

Arrived at destination.

It was only just beginning though.

It was 'Saltire Saturday' so everyone had to bring their Saltires with them. Dad and I both had one with us. I mainly used mine as a blanket.

This is the Saltire just in case you didn't know what in the world I was talking about.This is the Lion Rampant, Scotland's other flag. Maybe Wednesday when Scotland play the Netherlands it will be 'Lion Rampant Wednesday'. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

It was a 'do or die' game against Macedonia (probably should have mentioned who it was against earlier!) for World Cup Qualification. We did it. 2-0 with both goals in the second half (which was a bit of a pain as it was at the other end of the pitch to where we were sitting).

Some things to mention: Scott Brown (amazing, AMAZING. Ok, so he can be a hot headed brute but he played so well. He was the pick of the bunch for sure.), James McFadden's needless booking (still can't work that out), the Tartan Specials at half time, Loch Lomond (had to wipe away a wee, stray tear), the pie that flew over the edge when Scott Brown scored that first goal (rather unfortunate that we were on the second tier and precisely why I wouldn't let my Dad put his coffee on the ledge.), McFadden's super run passed multiple defenders AND goalkeeper to score, Shaun Maloney came on as a sub (HURRAH!), the big brawl just before half time, the Hampden Roar (took. my. breath. away.).

Here are a few pics:

Next stop: the Netherlands. Hampden Park. Wednesday. 7.30pm. We've got to win it to have any possible chance of getting a play off place to go to South Africa next Summer. I can't wait to make the trip to Glasgow again. I shall not be walking from Hampden to the city centre again though.

I think it is fair to say that there is some optimism in the Scotland camp. In the Darlington camp on the other hand......

3-0 defeat away at Lincoln. That still leaves us propping up the whole of the football league with a measly 1 point out of 18. It would be laughable if it wasn't so achingly painful. I really didn't think that we would have a team this season at all so I guess that I should be thankful that we even have one point. It is just hard to with the new season optimism that you get regardless of how cobbled together you know your team is. The thing is that I really don't feel like I can bag on these players. Most of them came here knowing the club's plight and I am so grateful to them for coming despite that.

The most unfortunate thing is that the team doesn't actually play that badly. Not the games that I've seen anyway. They certainly played well in front of the 828 people that crammed into the 27,000 seater Arena to see them win against Lincoln (ironically) in the JPT. That game was the final straw for Lincoln's manager Peter Jackson who was sacked after it. Everyone knows what happens the next game after a manager is sacked. The team always win. It was just a shame that Darlington were playing Lincoln in the league that next game. I don't know why anyone is surprised that we lost that game so badly.

I have no doubts that the team will improve. They've already been obviously improving in the way that they play. They are starting to know where each other are going to be at any given time on the pitch. I just hope that they get their act together and shock some teams sooner rather than later.

Like I say, mixed bag of results this weekend. Hopefully there'll be more of the same for Scotland and a big change for Darlo!

Introducing......

2009-08-31T16:42:00.007+01:00

I did promise that I would introduce you to the new member of the family.

She is perfect.

Two ears.... two eyes.... four legs......

Yes that is right. I got myself a new hamster recently.

Her name is Phemie (Fee-mee) and she is just so sweet.

She loves grapes, dried coconut and egg. She also seems to like carrot which Zinzan never used to touch.

She is a little mischief too. This is a video of how I found her when I picked the box up from the carseat after driving home with her from the petshop.

Such a sweet wee thing. I'm so glad she is here.

Sorry......

2009-08-11T17:14:00.004+01:00

I know. I KNOW!

I started writing an update about all the stuff that I have been up to but it turns out that I've actually been up to a whole ton of stuff and writing it all up is a bit of a daunting task. I'll get round to it eventually. Probably. Maybe. Well, I'll get round to it like I got round to unpacking. From when I came back from America. Nearly a month and a half ago.

You might be waiting a while.

My gallivanting is over for the moment. So now I am making good use of my time by watching the entire first series of Lark Rise To Candleford and Spooks. Incidentally, I really want to borrow Spooks season 2 from Sarah but I had such trouble sleeping after watching the first series that maybe it isn't wise. Oh well, who needs a good nights sleep anyway??

Currently it is Little Dorrit that is gracing my (ahem, my Dad's) laptop screen. So far it is just wonderful. I am totally terrified of Andy Serkis' character though. Maybe I won't sleep after Little Dorrit either.

I'll get back to my travels in my next post...... or maybe I'll tell you about the newest member of the family.......

Of the four legged variety. Rodenty.

That's not her name.

I'll tell you about her soon...........

To Be Continued......

An Update

2009-07-08T09:17:00.002+01:00

It has been a week (almost to the minute) that I landed back in the UK at Heathrow. It is hard to believe really. The week has gone by really quickly but I still feel like I am only here on holiday and am going back to the US next week or something. Maybe that explains why I stopped unpacking less than halfway through. My room is a bit of a disaster area just now. I'm trying to ignore it and step around all the mess...... No, I'm going to try and make a start on it all today.... I think.

In the UK I am loving:

Old Jamaica Ginger Beer. Classic.
Watching Taggart episodes that I missed on t'internet.
My new car. His name is Mitchell and he isn't a Christian but is thinking very seriously about it (That is for Beth...... In-jokes are probably not the best thing to put on blogs but I couldn't resist this one!)
Hattie. Sweet, little old dog!
Sharing a brownie dessert with Sarah that is meant for 6 people.
Ceilidh dancing. F.U.N!
Heir Hunters. Seriously, that TV show is awesome.
Wimbledon..... until Murray got beaten and we were overrun with Americans. (No offence, of course!)
Crumpets with butter and Marmite.
Did I mention my car already?
Having meals cooked for me. Yummy!
Singing loudly in church.
Being able to sing loudly whenever I want because my parents won't mind about the racket!
Seeing relatives that I haven't seen for a while.
Proper Cadbury chocolate.
Greg's Cheese and Onion Pasties (I'm a little ashamed that my list contains so much food. Maybe I should just go and have breakfast so that food is no longer on the brain!)
Geocaching with The Old Man of Stoer.
looking forward to Keswick on Sunday with Beth.

I am missing:

my girls. Oh, how I miss my girls!
my Osbornes.
Westchester OPC.
Red Velvet Cupcakes.
Broadway shows (I'm itching to see The Little Mermaid again!).
Urban caching with Chen Li in NYC.
Sicilian pizza.
Collecting Snapple lids with Beth. Beth, I would like to direct you here.
Thumper.
Say Yes To The Dress.
Rolling my eyes whenever baseball is mentioned. Blah, blah, blah, Yankees, blah.
Laughing with Julie.
Being able to rent a car and drive down to Carlisle.
Star stalking.
Grand Central Terminal.
Cold Stone Creamery. Oh, my!

I still feel homesick for New York. I miss it but it is nice to be home and see friends and family again.

Heartbroken

2009-06-30T03:49:00.003+01:00

How can I say goodbye?

Good News

2009-06-29T02:22:00.003+01:00

I got a message today that cheered me up. I was alerted by geocaching.com that someone had retrieved and placed Hamish. I had been a little worried that he had been swiped but, thankfully, so far so good.
He is in a cache called Mausauel-Cache which is located in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. Pretty cool, Hamish! Looks like he isn't going to beat me home but I am hopeful that he will eventually make it home!
My little adventuresome Hamish! Safe travels, little one. Until we meet again!

*Speaking on 'Until We Meet Agains' I do have a post lined up. But I am feeling a little ~~like I want to jump off a cliff because I have so much to do in such a short time~~ overwhelmed just now so I will be writing it up at some point. It will probably be my first post when I am back at home.*

My New Playlist

2009-06-25T01:34:00.003+01:00

So my Dad misses the old music on my blog. Well, tough. I liked the old music too but I wanted to put some music up on here that kind of sums up my time as an Au Pair. Be warned, it does get a little 'teeny bopper'. I do look after 3 girls after all. It is just something that I couldn't avoid.

Here is why I have chosen the tracks that I have:
1) Frank Sinatra - New York, New York: I am pretty sure that I'm going to be pining for this place when I leave. I'm going to try my best not to but I fear that it will catch up with me. I love NYC. Hard to believe that I never wanted to come back after visiting in 2006. Strange that I came back just over a year later! I am going to miss going to Broadway shows, going all over Manhattan geocaching, Dylan's Candy Bar, Central Park.... I could go on..... I can't wait to come back sometime soon!

2) Kiss - Rock and Roll All Night: This song is so random but is definitely the song of my first year here. The girls just love it. They loved it even before Guitar Hero. Hard to believe, I know. I had never heard the song before I came here. I'm surprised that I had even heard of Kiss actually. The family have a video of Vinny and his friends playing baseball in the good old days and Rock and Roll All Night is the song that is playing in the background. I was shown the video pretty soon after I arrived here and have been singing the song since.

3) Drew Seeley & Selena Gomes - New Classic: This song is featured on Another Cinderella Story which is Michella's favourite film (see post below). I love it too actually. I can't deny it. I'd like to, but I can't!

4) Nickelback - If Today Was Your Last Day: First of two Nickelback songs. I love it. That's it.

5) Idina Menzel (Wicked) - I'm Not That Girl: This is played a lot in the house. Alex did this at her last piano recital so I've heard it a whole ton lately. I'm not complaining. I adore Wicked. I wish I'd gotten the chance to see it again.

6) High School Musical 2 - I Gotta Go My Own Way: First of the HSM tracks. I wanted to put more on here but I think that there is only so much teeny bopper-ness that one playlist can take. I chose this one because when Michella and I would walk Julianna to the Girl Scout Cabin we would always sing High School Musical songs. The Jonas Brothers and Miley would sometimes creep in there but it was mostly HSM. This was Michella's favourite one to sing. She would even act it out. So funny! Made the walk a whole lot more enjoyable.

7) Nickelback - Gotta Be Somebody: The other Nickelback on my list. Again, love it. Final.

8) Jonas Brothers - Burning Up: A Chiaramonte girls' classic. They love it so I hear it a lot. It is catchy. A little too catchy sometimes - gets stuck right in your head and it is impossible to remove! Funny video too. You should check it out!

9) Phantom - The Phantom of The Opera: Another Alex recital piece which she played for the recital previous to the last one. She actually did a medley and it was really good.

10) Miley Cyrus - See You Again: We love Hannah Montana. It is a little scary when you start watching it on your own when there are no kids with you. That happened to me. It was then that I knew that I had to stop watching so much TV. While I've been here the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Concert Tour showed in cinemas. I went to see it with the girls. Awesome stuff. Didn't see the Hannah Montana movie though.

11) Jonas Brothers - S.O.S: My favourite JoBros songs. I can't tell you the number of times that meals have turned into singsongs. The Jonas Brothers are a favourite for those times. Alex and Julianna like Nick and Michella likes Joe. I guess that leaves me Kevin. I always feel sorry for him. It seems like people forget about him a lot.

12) Jason Aldean - She's Country: I heard this song a lot in Nashville. I think it is awesome. Really funny. I like country music. People enunciate in country music. I can actually understand what they say! Woohoo! I hope that I'll get to go back to Nashville one day.

13) HSM 3 - A Night To Remember: This song has a story. It progresses. I like that. Funny too.

The next three songs are from bands that I went to see whilst I've been here:

14) Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby: Sept 07 at the Beacon Theatre with Julianna Conz (from Brazil). I was still feeling somewhat homesick at this point and had seen this concert advertised. I decided to see if I could get a ticket the day of the show. Julianna came with me. We had great seats. It was a lot of fun.

15) KT Tunstall - Other Side of The World: Nov 07 at the Roseland Ballroom with Julianna. Another act from home. Very exciting. Half her band didn't make it to the show for some reason (she said why but I can't remember). It didn't matter. She was excellent without them!

16) Relient K - High of 75: Nov 07 can't remember where. Went by myself to this one. Relient K and Switchfoot are two of my favourite bands. Their support act Ruth were great too.

Ok, done. The selection of music make a bit more sense now?

The Little Mermaid

2009-06-24T02:22:00.008+01:00

I have a serious obsession. It would worry me but I am like this all the time.

I see a musical. I buy the music. I listen to it until the death (or until the next musical obsession comes along).

The first time that I saw The Little Mermaid, I didn't have time to get obsessed with it. I saw Wicked a week later and promptly got obsessive over such numbers as 'Defying Gravity' and so on. Oh, do I LOVE Wicked!

When I saw Billy Elliot a few weeks ago with Mum that kind of threw all thoughts of Wicked right out of my head. The only thing that has stopped me buying the CD is the bad language. That kills me because I think that the music is just so good!

Now, it is The Little Mermaid's turn. Things have changed since I watched it in January. Was that REALLY January? Seems like yesterday! There is a brand new Ariel - Chelsea Morgan Stock replaced the original Ariel, Sierra Boggess. There is also a brand new Prince Eric. Oh, is there ever! Drew Seeley is in the show for 12 weeks until August 30th. Yes, I just linked you to his Twitter page. Is that weird? Drew Seeley stars in Michella's ultimate favourite film, Another Cinderella Story. She just adores him....... 'Joey Parker'. The other day she was running off quotes from the movie in the car. So funny..... and a little scary. He is also Zac Efron's singing voice in HSM (just 1, not the other 2. Apparently the Efron could sing by then. Weird.).

The other difference was that I actually had some company with me this time. Beth was staying with me in NY for a week. She wanted to go and see either The Lion King or The Little Mermaid. I'd already seen The Lion King twice so it was The Little Mermaid that we plumped for.

We stood in line at TKTS in the RAIN (apparently it is impossible for the weather to be even half decent when I am lining up to buy Broadway tickets!), all the time hoping that two tickets would be available. I would have had a hissy fit right there and then if there hadn't been.

Well, there were, so we went. Duh! We had great seats - Orchestra section row 5. We were off to the side somewhat so we could see into the curtains backstage! It didn't matter. I mean, when you can see the veins in Ariel's arm, you know that you are close!

I was so excited that the same kid was playing Flounder, Brian D'Addario, as when I had seen the show before. I had been going on about him all day to Beth about how AMAZING he was etc etc. I actually started to worry that he was going to be awful. Of course, he wasn't. He was perfect. AGAIN! This boy can do no wrong. He has such a huge stage presence and, yet, such a little voice in 'real life'. More about that later.

I was blown away by the performance. Really. Not just Flounder, of course, but everyone. It makes me weepy just thinking about it........ which might explain my reaction when at the show. I cried from around the quartet 'If Only' until after the final curtain had fallen. And, no, I don't mean just sniffles. I mean, actual sobbing. It would actually be really embarrassing if I didn't have a good story to go along with it.

Let me go back around about 16 years to when I was 6 or 7. My Mum took me to London to see her Uncle Donnie in hospital. We also managed to go to see Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (longest name of musical ever?!). I was SO excited! I had been so jealous when my Dad had gone to see it when Jason Donovan was in the lead role. When I went Philip Schofield was Joseph. He had been one of the presenters of my favourite Saturday morning TV show, Going Live. Ah! Gordon The Gopher. I can still see how they announced in the show that Philip was going to be the next Joseph. I thought it was the funniest thing! Joseph was AMAZING. I can still see the part where he is in the pit and the camel. The finale too. Awesome. Anyway, I cried during the finale. I just did not want the show to end! I was CONVINCED that Philip Schofield was waving to me during the ending scene because I was crying. I mean, he was the only person that I was looking at so, naturally, he must be looking at me, right? Like I say, I was absolutely positive that Mr Schofield was waving at me. He wasn't. My Mum went along with what I was saying though. She didn't want to hurt my feelings by saying, 'Duh! Joanna, how can you be so totally and utterly ridiculous? Do you know how many other people were in that theatre that night? He was waving at them all, doofus!' She's nice like that, keeping what she is really thinking tucked away safely.

So why in the world are you telling us this ancient, boring, totally unnecessary and irrelevant story, I hear you cry. That's right, I heard you. No need to be ashamed but you are wrong. About it being irrelevant that is. It is totally relevant to what I am about to tell you. this paragraph may, in fact, be totally irrelevant. I'm just proving a point that the previous story was not ancient, boring, totally unnecessary and irrelevant. Gosh, aren't you glad that you read my blog! :^)

I'm must be tired.

Anyway, at The Little Mermaid I cried and cried and cried. I physically couldn't stop. Just as the curtain was about to fall after the finale, Robert Creighton, who plays Chef Louis, spotted me crying my little heart out, waved at me and blew me a kiss. WOW! I hear you, you are repeating what my Mum said in her head after the Joseph incident. Well, how about this......

We left the theatre and decided to wait by the stage door to get autographs.

Beth with Chelsea Morgan Stock who plays Ariel.With Drew Seeley. Can't tell that I'd been crying AT ALL! Hmmm....Beth and Rogelio Douglas Jr who plays Sebastian. This is my favourite picture. Just look at his face! Beth dislikes this picture intensely. But tough, it is MY blog!This is Brian D'Addario. He is so stinking amazing. I love him. He was so unimpressed with us. He is 12 years old after all! Such a small voice when not on stage........ or maybe he was scared that we were going to kidnap him!This is MY chef, Robert Creighton. To conclude my story, he walked out of the stage door, came straight over to me and said, 'Oh! I saw you in the audience!' and gave me a huge hug! Ha! That totally makes up for the Philip Schofield thing! He was so sweet.

So, Beth and I both got our playbills signed. I also got Drew Seeley to sign the poster of him that Beth had bought me.

What a night! Truly awesome!

........ I started to feel really guilty that I hadn't got my girls an autograph from Drew Seeley. He is Michella's favourite after all! The two bigger girls love him too. What to do about that?

Beth and I decided to go back. No, not to see the show but on Tuesday evening we waited outside the stage door again. I had bought the girls a copy of Another Cinderella Story and we took that with us. Turned out that we should have taken our playbills too because Norm Lewis, who plays King Triton, came out the stage door which he hadn't done on Saturday. We didn't have anything for him to sign but we did get a picture with him.

I love his expression. He is just so smiley!

This was the security guard. He was not at all menacing. He was so lovely. Selena Gomes, who is also in Another Cinderella Story, was at the performance that night. The security guy (I wish I'd gotten his name! I don't like calling him 'security guy'!) motioned to me that she was coming out of the doors. I tried to go catch her but missed. Shame.

Oh well, still got Drew Seeley!The DVD says: To Alex, Julianna and Michella. Love Drew Seeley.

I don't need to tell you that they LOVED it! Alex said, 'You got us Another Cinderella Story. I knew it. I didn't even have to look.' To which I replied, 'Well, look.'

They watched it twice this weekend. I'm sure they'll watch it a lot!

New Music

2009-06-23T19:48:00.003+01:00

I changed my playlist. You may or may not have noticed!
I'll explain more about the songs later - maybe this evening. I still have to blog about Beth's visit. Don't worry I haven't forgotten to update.... it has just all been a little crazy here.

Only one week to go. I am crying inside.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

2009-06-08T01:26:00.009+01:00

***UPDATE: I don't think that I mentioned who the Yankees were playing. It was the Tampa Bay Rays.***

I can't believe it. I actually went to a baseball game yesterday.

OK, yes. I do love sports but I'm usually limited to football (soccer for you heathens over here), rugby, tennis, cricket...... did I say limited?

Baseball has never really held any interest for me. I don't know anything about it except I do know that Alex Rodriguez is currently dating the actress Kate Hudson allegedly. I don't know why I know that.

I decided on Monday that I probably should go to a game. I mean, it is the American pastime after all! So I went ahead and got a ticket.

I was strangely excited on Saturday. I did not expect that. I hopped on the train to Grand Central - it was weird buying a ticket to Yankees E153rd St instead of Grand Central. I did one geocache before going on the shuttle from GCT to Yankees E153rd St. It was funny to me because they always announce where the train is going and where it stops along the way in a pre-recorded announcement. That in itself isn't funny but the guy on the announcement sound so funny the way he said Yankees E153 St. It just sounded like he was so excited! He must be a Yankees fan!To get from the train station to the stadium you have to walk by the old Yankee Stadium. They don't have original names for their stadium like we do at Darlo. I have no idea what our stadium is called at the moment! I meant to get a photo of the old stadium on the way out of the game but my camera died a terrible death during the 8th inning so I never got the chance. It always dies at the most inconvenient time. Such a pain. I'll teach it a lesson next time.

I walked around for a bit outside the stadium to soak up the atmosphere and then headed inside. First thing I did inside was buy a hat. Good thing too. You'll see.

I had to head up 3 flights to get to my seat. I still had a good view as I was in the second row. They have cup holders. Such a novelty. We may always have a unique name for our stadium but we don't have these.Before the game started, of course, the national anthem was sung. I liked how they asked everyone to remove their hats. Respectful.I'm gonna tell you, I have no idea why there are so many innings in baseball. Seriously. Just cut out the first four and be done with it. It was dull. Dull. Dull. Dull. Nothing happened. It only got interesting in the last few innings when all the players realised that they actually should do something to win the game. I didn't mind that the game was dull really though. I was taking it all in.Still novel.

I was lucky because I was sitting beside a father/son combo. The little boy, Danny, was five years old and it was his first ever baseball game just like me. It worked out well for me because his father was explaining everything to him and, as I don't understand baseball at all, I listened in.

Danny was very sweet. He gave me a rundown of the movie Cars. He likes guitar hero. He can run very fast. He loved the clapping hands that kept coming up on the screen. He sung his little heart out when it was time for 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game.' I wish I'd got a picture of his sweet little face. He's going to be a great Yankees fan. They are lucky to have him.

So like I said, the game only really got interesting towards the end but by that time I was just so uncomfortable that it was hard to get any enjoyment out of it. The sun was relentless. In those seats you are just so unprotected from any kind of weather, be it sun or rain. Out of the 3 1/2 hours that we were out there, we probably had cloud cover for about 15-20 minutes..... if that. I got burnt despite slathering on the sunscreen multiple times. I was sweating out of every pore in my body. It was so disgusting. My only consolation was that it was just the same for everyone else. It got to the point where I just wanted to get out of my jeans. It was ugly, I tell you, ugly. That wouldn't have ended well for anyone though and I'm pretty sure that that would have marked the end of little Danny's career as a Yankees fan. He would most likely be scarred for life and need therapy until the day he died. Thankfully, I managed to resist the urge. I'm not sure how I resisted. It really was that AWFUL!

I survived. Thank goodness. It was getting hairy there for a while. The best bit of the game was when the grounds people (? - I really don't know what to call them!) 'performed' YMCA. They do it at every game apparently but I had no idea that it was coming until I noticed them all walking in time to the music..... It was so funny. Ha! I laugh just thinking about it.The closest that we got to this.......was the Mark Teixeira homerun that was coming straight towards us but dipped down at the last second to the people below. My heart stopped at that point I think. Those balls come at you pretty fast. One child was hit with a foul ball. Horrid.

*My detective skills tell me that Mark Teixiera is of Portuguese descent. The X is pronounced like 'sh'. When I was at Au Pair Orientation there was a Brazilian girl whose name was Alexandra, except it is pronounced Aleshandra. Apparently that is how they pronounce their Xs. I'd love to know if I'm right*Will Ferrell was at the game. You'll have to trust me that that is him though. Some of the action. I can't remember who this is though. Either Derek Jeter or A-Rod probably as they are the only ones that I remember taking photos of.Still novel.

I enjoyed the game but the Yankees lost 9-7. It was all a bit anticlimactic really. The atmosphere only really took off after the 7th inning I'd say and it isn't like football and rugby where you stay in your seat until half time and then go do what you need to. There were so many empty seats all the time because people went awandering. The attendance was 46,205 by the way.

It sure didn't beat Hampden for atmosphere..... but anywhere would be hard pressed to do that.

I'm glad that I went to see the Yankees. I can now cross that off my list. I'm going to have to come back to NY for the US Open one year...... maybe see the other A-Rod. I tried it. It doesn't work with him. He'll always be Andy Roddick.

Fun times........ but I don't think that I've ever been as pleased to get home and get into my pjs at 6.30pm than I was yesterday!

My Sweet Julianna

2009-06-06T00:46:00.002+01:00

Today was horrible.

Not just the weather. It rained all day. ALL day!

I shouldn't say today was horrible really. It wasn't. It was quite a good day. Normal. Except for Michella's Brownie Bridging Ceremony.

She has completed being a Daisy and they hold a 'Bridging Ceremony' for the Daisys (Daisies? I'm not sure how to write it in this instance!) to become Brownies. It was super cute. They had to actually walk over a little wooden bridge and their Brownie pins were pinned onto their Daisy vests by older Girl Scouts. Michella's was pinned on by Julianna. Their pins are pinned on upside down and then will be turned the right way in another ceremony when they become Brownies officially. It is a little complicated but the kids loved it.

In all today was a good day. It just all went to pieces as I was making dinner. Julianna and I were talking about the friendship bracelets that she makes with her friends. They are known as the "Six Strings of Friendship" - so adorable. They actually sell their bracelets. I was telling her that I would have to buy one from her before I leave. She, in turn, told me how many she had to do before mine.

Then it clicked how soon I am leaving.

The look on her face.

I will never forget it.

She tried not to cry.

I tried too. It didn't work.

It hurt that I had made her cry. I mean, it wasn't like I set out to do that but it upset me that I'd upset her.

Then she talked about me leaving for the rest of the evening. She was trying to be nonchalant. She didn't fool me.

She hugged me every time that she walked passed me.

She was sad. I was sad. We just tried to keep from mentioning it to Michella.

My sweet, sweet Julianna. She is more like me than I care to tell her. Poor girl. I'm going to miss her smiling face. Sweet, sweet Julianna.

Quidditch..... for Muggles?

2009-06-03T15:28:00.002+01:00

I came across an article in Sports Illustrated Kids today that intrigued me to say the least. Quidditch is the sport that is played at Hogwarts by Harry Potter and his friends. It is taken very seriously..... think League 2 Play Off Final, Wimbledon or the Superbowl. Those are all comparable. Now it is not just played at Hogwarts. At least 200 colleges and a number of high schools in the United States have started Quidditch teams or intend to.

Um, what??

Are these people overlooking the obvious?

You know, the lack of magic and the fact (I say 'fact', ha!) that Quidditch is played on broomsticks..... that fly!

Apparently, that doesn't seem to stop these people. There are brooms but the brooms don't fly and there is no magic. It has been adapted for us 'non-Wizarding' folk.
Here is what Sports Illustrated Kids says about Quidditch:
Objective: To score the most points. Each team has 3 hoops on its end of the field and players score points by throwing a ball (also known as a quaffle) through one of the opponents' hoops. This is 10 points.
The game ends when the Snitch is caught. I did wonder how they were going to do this. I mean, you can't just make a tiny little gold ball hover and dart around the pitch trying to avoid being caught. In Muggle Quidditch, the Snitch is a human and the team who pulls a sock off the Snitch's shorts wins 50 points and ends the game.
The team with the most points wins.

Players: Each team must have 7 players on the field at all times, including at least 2 girls. A team is made up of 3 Chasers (throw the Quaffle through the opponents' hoops), 2 Beaters (attempt to temporarily knock their opponents out of the game by hitting them with balls known as Bludgers), 1 Keeper (defends his team's hoops) and 1 Seeker (attempts to find the Snitch).

Key Rules: Players must keep their brooms between their legs at all times by either holding on with one hand or gripping it between their thighs. The Snitch is allowed to leave the field and may hide wherever he or she wants. But if a seeker has not found the Snitch withing 10-15 mins after the game begins, the Snitch should return to the field of play.

So there you have it - Quidditch for Muggles. Who knew!
Here is a video that I found on YouTube. We don't have sound on this computer at the minute so let me know if there is any inappropriate language. I doubt it as it is from the news but just let me know anyway! I'm having trouble getting the Html up here so click on the link to see it

I'm really looking forward to spell checking this post, by the way!

The article in SIK (ha, ha!) ends like this: 'And having a good time is what the game of Quidditch is all about, whether you're a wizard or a Muggle.'

Um, tell that to Harry and Malfoy!

A Momentous Day For Hamish

2009-06-01T02:31:00.006+01:00

Saturday I went caching in the city. I was by myself this time as Chen Li had strep throat, although she joined me later on. I was working on a puzzle cache that included finding about 6 separate caches at little community gardens in the East Village. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. The gardens were all so beautiful and caching in that area was just so peaceful. It made such a difference from the hustle and bustle of midtown. I managed to find five out of the six caches so that wasn't too bad really. I really didn't mean to take this picture like this. I prefer to take photos where people aren't pointing their behinds towards the lens like this! After caching downtown I headed uptown to Snug As A Bug In Central Park where I had decided to place my first travel bug. His name is Hamish. He is actually a keyring that my auntie, Kathleen, sent me. His goal is to get back to Darlington. I sent him on his journey exactly a month before I leave so it'll be interesting to see how he does. Hopefully he will get to his destination safely but we'll see!Chen Li came to see him off with me. So long for now, Hamish! Hope to see you soon! Safe travelling!

And because I really just cannot get enough of this sweet, sweet face......

I adore this bunny!

2009-05-30T14:47:00.003+01:00

She really is the sweetest thing!

And yes, I am ignoring the fact that it is exactly one month until I am forced to leave this place. It hurts.

Things Have Changed

2009-05-30T13:27:00.004+01:00

Thankfully, the situation is not the same as when I wrote this. When I wrote that I was pretty much in the depths of despair and convinced that it was the end of my beloved Darlington. I was sad but kind of resigned to the fact that it was going to be the end. I was even thinking through what team I was going to support. Someone suggested Manchester to me. I supposed that they meant United but either way the answer to that would be, 'Um, NO! Are you kidding??!' No Premiership teams for me, thank you! I support the underdog. Unless, of course, the team that I am supporting gets to the Premiership of their own accord. I'm not going to give up supporting them if they do that. Hopefully, it will be Darlington whom I support in the Premiership sometime. And, yes, I doubt that that will be in the next five years!

It appears that Darlington have a new buyer. His name is Raj Singh and he was the popular choice..... dare I say only choice.... to take over the club. Is it weird that I am not excited? Really. I'm not. At all. I mean Darlington have been saved! But my question is, for how long? When I first started supporting the club at the end of 99/00 season things were good. I mean, really good. Well, you know, apart from having a crook as the chairman. At that point George Reynolds was still parade around the ground with Darlo scarf held high being hailed as the be all and end all of DFC. He promised the world - new stadium, Premiership in five years. He had saved Darlington from the brink of extinction and could do anything.We were going to the Division 3 playoff final. The last at the old Wembley. We had a great team who really should have won automatic promotion and it was all hunky dory. Well, we didn't win promotion. We lost to a Peterborough side that played worse than us in the horrible conditions at Wembley that night.

It was downhill from there. Endless flirtations with relegation, an enormous and useless (although beautiful) stadium that really wasn't necessary at that point in time and a chairman acting like a dictator that you come across in recent history books. Thankfully, his reign of terror was not over a country but over a small football club and didn't extend from that.

He then put us into administration a couple of months after the stadium was opened and was later arrested for money laundering.

I was overjoyed when Darlo were taken over by new owners - The Sterling Consortium. We were Reynolds free! Hurrah! Since then Darlo have been doing ok on the pitch. We have been in the top half of the table consistently. Two years in a row we placed 8th which is one place below the play off places.

Blah, blah. Anyway, George Houghton became chairman in 2006 and we went into administration in 2009. We nearly went out of business and now have a new owner...... except old chairman Houghton is still involved.

Forgive me for being sceptical.

Maybe it is because I have been so far removed from the club as for basically the past two seasons I have been 3000 miles away. I only saw one Darlo game in that time and it was a preseason friendly against Leeds (0-0 in case you were wondering, or even if you weren't). Or maybe it is because Ryan Valentine left the club (two different links btw). What is even the point now?? I say that in jest but I will reserve my happiness about having a new owner until something good actually comes from it. So I guess that we will just have to wait and see. Don't get me wrong, I hope that this is a great thing for DFC. We need a break. A good run of things - like Hull, who my Dad and I watched in their old stadium, Boothferry Park, playing against Darlo in Division 2 on the day that the Queen Mother died, who now play in the Premiership. I'll just settle for moving out of League 2. Behind Rochdale, we have been in the basement league for the longest time of any club. They have been in Division 4/3/League 2 (all the same league) for 35 years. We've been there since 1992. I'm done with League 2. I'd rather move up than down though. League 1, here we come....... please?

Just need to rebuild the squad now...........

So we are safe. For now. It'll be interesting if nothing else!

Here's to another 125 years!

I ♥ My Mum

2009-05-27T16:13:00.001+01:00

*This post was written last week sometime but the internet has been very tempremental here so I haven't been able to get this post on the blog until now. I also want to add more photos but Blogger is being unreasonable just now so I'll try again later! Keep your eyes open for them!*

I had such a good weekend with my Mum. We packed so much into the time that she was here that it felt a lot longer than just a few days.
On Friday evening we went to a fondue restaurant. Swiss cheese fondue, salad and then chocolate fondue. She has the pictures so maybe she'll send some to me and I can put them on here (hint, hint - and btw, I mean send by email, not snail mail!). *By the time that I managed to get this post out onto the blog, the pics have been put on Facebook!* On Saturday we went into the city and geocached. Naturally. We found 10. Chen Li joined us too.
The highlight (for me, anyway) was the red velvet cupcakes. Hmmmmmm! SO good!
We went to see Billy Elliot the Musical on Saturday evening. I was dubious about going. Really. I just couldn't see how Billy Elliot could be a musical. I just could not imagine it. Well, what can I say? I LOVED it! Really, truly loved it. The music was great, the dancing was great. The accents were a little interesting at times. But I think I am going to start using 'nowt' in conversation. Let's see how confused I can make these Americans!

On Sunday we went to church and then to Alex's confirmation dinner. It was really so enjoyable. My Mum got to meet a lot of the people that I had mentioned to her in phone conversations.

On Monday we packed up a lot of my stuff for my Mum to take home with her. It made me really sad actually. My noticeboard is looking very empty right now.

I had a really great weekend with my Mum and I was sad to see her leave. It really felt like she was here a lot longer than just a weekend! So much fun!