2014

It went fast as I'm sure 2015 will too or is that just because every year seems to fly by when we get older?

So how was it for you?

For me it was mostly a good one. 

The main events in our year happened in August and September. 

My brother got married at long last and my daughter and youngest son were bridesmaid and pageboy.  The other boys chose not to do the whole penguin suit thing.

me with 3 out of the 4 of them. I think the earth would implode if we actually ever got a photo with all of us looking at the camera properly.

 

 

Following that was exam results - both GCSE and A Level. My boys did well. The  younger of them has faced a lot of medical obstacles in his life and his achievement of all grade C or above in every single subject is something we couldn't have expected when he was younger.  My elder son also excelled and put his mind to getting the right grades to get into the university of his choice to study maths. We visited a lot of universities last year and again this year. The grade requirements varied so much and he could have done badly and still got in at some places.  He made the decision that that wasn't the sort of place he wanted to be studying and pushed himself to get into one with high requirements and succeeded. 

September brought his journey away from home and the learning curve that is university. Lots of tears (by us not him) later, a couple of visits up to see him, a broken phone and things a mum doesn't need to know about and his first term was over and he was home for Christmas. 

His younger brother started college and AS Levels. It hasn't been plain sailing and courses have been changed but I think he is now on track. He does make me laugh though. He's doing Law and his autistic brain has now stored so many laws that he keeps repeating.

I couldn't be prouder of my daughter. She graduates next month for her post graduate teaching degree. Teaching courses finish too late in the summer at the university she attended  for students to graduate in July so they do it in January.  She  got a teaching job quite soon after finishing uni and started in September as an NQT in a secondary school. She made her classroom her own over the summer holidays ready for lessons to begin. She even has her own form group. Very proud mum. 

We celebrated a big wedding anniversary in May with a holiday at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest.

 

 

The youngest decided he was ready to join a rugby team. He's trained for a couple of years but was lacking the confidence he needed. He joined in June and hasn't looked back. Our last few months have tripled the training sessions he attends and there is also match day. He really struggles with personal space so it has been interesting to see how he copes. He still has issues with people in his face but overall he says he can block it out and focus on what he's doing. I wish he could apply that focus to the rest of his life but it's all baby steps

 

 

The husband ran his first marathon and other races he did included the great north run. Proud wife time but oh my god we had some arguments about his training schedule. He had to do it before work so got up at stupid o'clock. The dogs barked like mad as soon as he left the house and I ended up being up at stupid o'clock too. Didn't go down well day after day after day I'll tell you. 

My crafty life went down the route of tons of knitting and crochet - more crochet than anything if truth be known. I haven't done a scrapbook layout for months and gave my place up at punky scraps. Unfortunately it is no more anyway. I have had the urge a little bit lately so may get back into it in 2015.

A huge part of our lives for the last six months has of course been Percival. He has made sure that everybody loves him in record time. 

 

 

 

 

The allotment - not much to say about that to be honest.  It wasn't a particularly productive year. The slugs ate just about everything I planted. I wanted to be good and use anything other than slug pellets but in the end they were the only thing that worked and it was too late for most things.  We had our first lot of apples from the tree we planted as soon as we got the plot, a sunflower grew, we got parsnips for the Christmas dinner and lots of flowers bloomed to brighten the place up.  It is definitely a work in progress which will hopefully produce more in 2015.

I've also had some crap thrown my way (even this past week) in the form of online piss taking by people I know in real life which made me realise once and for all they are not and have never been nice people to be around. I've been party to real life conversations in the past that I found uncomfortable and raised my suspicions.  Taking the piss out of somebody online in plain sight is no different to talking about them behind their back in the playground. Bullying plain and simple by people who think they are clever but actually have made themselves look like the nasty low lives they are.  I don't even know why I am giving this blog space to be honest but it happened and needs saying so I can draw a line under it put it to bed once and for all.  I'm well and truly over any kind of friendship with people like that. Karma will play out in the end.

 

Lots of other good things happened in 2014 and there is probably something big I have forgotten but as the saying goes - that's all folks.

 

Hope you had a good 2014 and that 2015 brings you health, wealth and happiness.

 

And There It Went

We shopped, we opened presents, we cooked, we ate, the sprouts caused a lot of wind and then it went, over, done for another year. Bye bye day of sparkle until next year. 

Oh Flip

The sparkly season kind of crept up a bit too soon. Yes I know it never changes date and there is plenty of time to prepare so why am I never as organised as everybody else seems to be? Story of my life lately lol

The ideas are there in my head but why oh why do they come in the wee small hours? First thing I did this morning was a list of stuff still to buy and *fingers crossed* it's all on there now and finally I can be at least a bit more organised. 

Next year my goal is that I WILL be more organised and not leave it so late. Haha yeah yeah and pigs might fly

Mixed Up Seasons

We went to the allotment for a quick visit this morning. The main aim was dropping some stuff off on the compost heap and getting out of the house for a walk. 

I was very surprised to see my cherry trees are budding. 

I didn't look at the apples but I'm guessing they are doing the same. Seasons all mixed up. I hope the frosts don't do too much damage to them. 

Facebook

I've always had a love hate relationship with the book of face.  It certainly highlights the needy of attention amongst the human race, those who have a keyboard which spouts so much verbal diarrhoea that they really should think of giving it some medication and those who just want us to know every single part of their credit card maxed out luxurious lives.

This last few months I've taken a massive step away and going back just highlights it all the more.  There are some parts of it I do like such as the lovely people on there.  They aren't all needy whores. So what I'm doing now as and when annoying status updates from people I don't really know or spam from the various pages I've liked over the years is clicking the delete or hide button depending on who they are.  Operation Declutter is well under way.

There are some things that maybe once upon a time I would have put myself before I got a grip and thought why the hell would anybody need to know that.  Today for instance I could have put how embarrassing the dog was when she came with us on the school run - two poops  the second of which was very messy and in the most embarrassing of places for a year 6 boy on his way to school apparently when I was already holding a bag of poop.  Or the fact that she was a disgusting muddy mess by the time we got home and she rolled on my new rug or I could have said what I had for my dinner or even whether I had opened my bowels this morning.  NOBODY could give a monkeys about any of that so why the hell do people feel the need to tell everybody on facebook?

Yes I'm on a rant!

Noooooooo

I can't quite believe that the last ever Dallas aired last night. Yes I know it's rubbish tv to some people but flipping eck! Lighthearted telly for me. What's not to like about a programme with John Henderson and Jesse Metcalfe?

They left it with so many loose ends - was Christopher really in that car when it blew up,  will she keep the baby, will Sue Ellen stay sober and will John Ross have met his match with Judith?  I'm left wanting more and surely that's a sign of a successful show amongst the rubbish that is around at the moment? 

Don't Ask!

We now have Internet, we have Virgin instead of sky  and we have a phone line plus we have a tv box in the bedroom now.  To get to that stage though it took a lot of furniture moving, bed disassembling, stress and doing it all again in reverse. They came out last week to see if putting the TV box in the loft bedroom was feasible and the route through which rooms they needed to cable it. Turns out the engineer decided it was better to run it the other side to which we were told and he was right. When you're faced with a room that is only a few feet wide anyway, a heavy wooden bunk bed and a mountain of crap (erm toys) underneath to move at a moments notice it's huge fun especially when you are the only one in the house but hey ho it got done and the cable passed through the wall to the stairs eventually. Thankfully my other half moved everything and disassembled our bed this morning so the cabling could go the only route possible in the loft.  3 hours after the engineer arrived he was done.  Took a long while to get everything back in place/reassembled once the other half got home from work. Hopefully the switch will be worth it financially at least for the promotional period. 

December Daily (ish)

Erm yes ok so sometimes weekends and Mondays are excluded from my kind of December daily or in other words I forgot. 

Tomorrow Mr Virgin is hopefully going to show Mr Sky where to shove his stupidly priced package so I may or may not have  any internet for most of the day.  I'm hoping yes because I haven't done a yarny Wednesday post in a long time and I've got a ton of projects for show and tell. 

It's a bit chilly

I don't usually bother too much about the cold weather. I prefer autumn to summer but it is flipping cold out there tonight. There is a winter nip in the air. Definitely going to be wearing more layers than a jumper and coat next week spectating at rugby training. An extra pair of socks for definite - couldn't feel my feet stood on that field tonight. 

Percival At 6 Months

or thereabouts because we don't know exactly how old he is. The vet estimated he was born mid May when we first took him for jabs etc so that makes him 6 and a bit months. 

He loves cuddles and being warm. If you get up it takes all of two or three seconds for him to pinch your seat. He doesn't seem to care who he sits with as long as they are warm. He is currently sat on my daughter's knee while she is attempting to mark work. 

We found out at his first proper examination that he has a heart murmur. Not a very serious one but it is under observation. He hasn't been neutered yet. Two reasons - one because he doesn't go out as such so doesn't get sexy time with the ladies. He sneaks out occasionally  but our yard is enclosed by a high fence so he stays within it. The other reason is we need to talk through and accept the increased risks of him having an op with the vet before they will do it. With the others they were booked in and done as soon as they were old enough but because of his condition we can't just do that. 

He is definitely more mischievous than the other cats ever were at this age. I now need a new cover for my sewing machine after he decided to destroy it by sitting inside it and don't get me started on the Christmas tree. 

As he has got older his crazy markings have become more prominent. That black strip is like a mohican. 

Leave a bag anywhere and he is in it. He very nearly went to university with my son. Can you see him peeping?

We put the fire on a few weeks ago. It goes without saying that he was under supervision whilst it was on. He sat watching it for a long time and then just curled up and went to sleep. 

Even if one of the other cats is sat on your knee he sneaks in. This photo is one of my favourites. It took Olly a very long time to even walk past him without hissing so they have come a long way. 

His tail - well that deserves a post of its own. 

December Daily - Advent Candle

This is the advent candle we bought from  John Lewis

December Daily - Advent Calendars

The first day of December is all about the advent calendar in our house or should I say calendars in plural. The kids always get one with that awful chocolate in it that just doesn't taste like chocolate. 

I bought this calendar from Avon many many years ago. There is a stick for every day up to Christmas and santa gradually drops down the chimney until he reaches the bottom on Christmas Eve. 

Then there is the advent candle. I left it too late to find one last year so I was determined this year that I would be organised. John Lewis to the rescue. We won't mention that it was bought while we were visiting son number 1 at university in Newcastle for his birthday and we eventually found them on the top floor. I think the husband and son number 1 now hate John Lewis. Shopping is not their favourite thing. Number 3 son was made to sit and have his photo taken with a model penguin from the John Lewis Christmas advert. At that time he hadn't seen the advert and most probably thought I was bonkers. 

December Daily - Day 1

Not the December daily as in scrapping every day up to Christmas I've become used to hearing about but rather my attempt at no longer neglecting this little space in the cybersphere by attempting to blog every day in December.