Sunday 29th November

More cards!

 

Saturday 28th November

A recent tradition has been to meet with our old motorcylcing mates once a year for a meal.  This year Maurice organised it and we went to our favourite Italian restuarant Pomodoro and Mozarella.  It is authentic Italian run by a family of Italians, and the atmosphere is really lively and noisy!

That’s Bob laughing with Liz and Gary next to Bob.  You can see the  rather gorgeous young Italian waiter in the background!

Friday frolics

I went into Brighton for a bit of shopping and Christmas atmosphere.  Here’s the Christmas scene in Churchill Square

 

Afterwards I met the girls from work at The Tea Cosy, a quirky little tea shop in Kemp Town.  It is chock full of royal memorabelia,

and has lots of rules that you have to obey otherwise you get escorted off the premises!  (eg no mobile phones, no ducking biscuits, no elbows on the table!)  It is absolutely great!

 

I had salmon and cucumber sandwiches and breakfast tea:

The others had a cream tea.  YUM!

November 28th

Where does the time go???!!??  Can’t believe it is nearly December!

Some pictures from the beach this morning:

And here is my doggy back in the car!  He loves going in the back of the car – he sits up and looks out all the time even on a long drive!  But he is not very good at getting back in after a walk – have to throw a treat in to entice him to jump in LOL!

getting a bit behind ……again

I just can’t seem to get inot a routine since I started working 2.5 days per week!  One problem is that the days I work are changing week to week.  I want to be flexible- in fact, I quite like being flexible, but it means that taking photos doesn’t happen on days when I am at work all day (too dark!) and stuff like my Anglo-Italian Family History Society gets left and left!  Goodness knows when I am going to get prepared for Christmas…… and then there’s Lucy’s 18th birthday on 8th December, and Nicholas’s 21st on 27th December!!!!  EEEK!

So here’s a few photos I managed to take this week:

This one was taken in the garden centre that sells cheap decorations.  I went there Tuesday lunchtime with 2 of the girls from work.  We have decided to dress the Family Centre up this Christmas!  (We didn’t buy these!!!)

 

This is my absolutely gorgeous kit from Cocoa Daisy!  It has a wonderful selection of papers (and I ordered an extra add-on pack), and look at those cute brads!  I got it delivered to work, so I didn’t have to go trapsing into town to the Post Office to pick it up.

 

Finally, here’s my lovely little pink MP3 player!  DS wouldn’t let me have an iPOd, doesn’t want iTunes on this computer – don’t understand why!!!!!  So this is a Creative Zen.  It is really lovely and I have uploaded lots of my CDs to it – still haven’t downloaded anything!  I like to have the CD!!!  I listen to the radio on it on dog walks, and this is our local station for Worthing – SplashFM.  I can’t get a good signal for Radio 2 on it, (unless I am on the seafront!) so often listen to this local station instead.

November 22nd

oops!  I have missed a few days this week.  It has been very dark and rainiy and not at all conducive to taking photos! (Still got 4 months to go though)

Here’s a few photos of my gorgeous Villeroy and Bosch Christmas ornaments.  They sit on my dressing table in front of my pretty mirror.

And here’s the finished picture that I made yesterday at the Craft Barn, with the wonderful Sue Roddis.

I have some pictures in my other camera of the making of this picture, but the batteries are dead, so will have to upload another day!

November 17th

I didn’t work today (working tomorrow and Thursday) so I decided to make some Christmas cards:

I got a bit frustrated this afternoon, because i wnated to print off some planning forms for my Christmas binder, and found that we have run out of yellow ink!  Why won’t the printer work if all I want is B&W?????!!!!?????  So I cycled into Worthing to buy a new one - £16.99 eeek!!!  And bought some more pressies while I was there…….. 

 

So I didn’t get as many cards made as I had wanted.

November 16th

The orchid flower heard my pleas!  Look what it is doing today!  These 2 pictures taken with my macro lens show the 2 different parts of the flower.  The top picture shows the back of it in focus, and the bottom picture shows the front piece.  It is bright cerise pink inside!

November 15th

This bud on my orchid plant has been growing for ages!  I loom at it every day and wonder when it is going to burst open.  It looks like it won’t be long now.  The orchid plant was a present from a friend for my birthday back in March, and had a lovely long stem of white flowers.  This is a new stem with about 6 buds on it.

 

And I am still scrapping along with the ukscrappers cybercrop.  This one was for a challenge and also fits in with the weekly challenge!

It is another LO for Lucy’s 18th birthday album.  This one is of Maurice’s Dad.  He was Polish and came over here in ww2 and never went back.  He used to invite us round for tea, and cook lashings of pork chops ‘Grandad style’, chicken legs, mashed potato, tinned peas, and thick gravy!  Afterwards there would always be a chocolate gateau that he had not taken out of the wrapping to defrost!  The bottom picture shows Lucy blowing out some candles on one such gateau that doubled up as a birthday cakeLOL!

November 14th

2 good things this weekend!  One is the cybercrop over on www.ukscrappers.co.uk, and the other is that Maurice is going to Phoenix tomorrow for a week on business and I have put in orders to 2 scrapbook stores and a quilt shop for him to bring home with him next weekend!  YAY!

Here's a LO that I did this morning for the cybercrop:

It’s another one for Lucy’s 18th birthday album.  Isn’t she cute?  I think this picture really shows her personality!

 

And here’s a sneak preview of a Christmas minibook I made for a swap over on UKs:

November 13th

ohoh it’s Friday 13th today!

 

I want to show you my new mirror for my newly decorated bedroom:

 

And here I am reflected in it!!!  You can see our lovely new wallpaper in the right hand side, and a pencil drawing of Sompting Church drawn by my Dad on the left hand side.  (Sompting church is where we were married and where my Dad’s ashes lie.

November 12th

I took my macro lens (and camera LOL!) up to Highdown for my dog walk this morning!  Haven’t been up there for ages, and it was lovely to meet old doggie walking friends!  Quite pleased with this picture of the teasels.  Do you remember making little animals from them?  Does anyone still do that I wonder?

November 11th

Poppy Day, or to give it it’s correct title, Armistice Day seems to be more poignant this year more than ever.  I guess it is mainly because of the growing backlash against the war in Afghanistan and the loss of so many of our soldiers.  For me personally it is so poignant simply because I have children of the age of some of the soldiers who are dying and being maimed.  It makes me so sad to see photos of the soldiers who have been killed.  They all look so handsome and brave!  They have their whole loves before them!  Whatever the rights and wrongs of our presence in Afghanistan, I feel for the families who are losing loved ones.

 

My picture is of the poppies by the war memorial in Worthing.  It was dark when I took it today, but I love the almost vignetted look to the photo!  Mum and I were sad to see that 3 of these crosses have the same surname – Carnaby.  I wonder which war they died in, probably WW2.  Were they brothers?  or cousins maybe?

Some photos not taken today

OOps!  I didn’t take any photos yesterday or today (took my camera to work meaning to take some more pics round the building, but it was too dark today.

 

So, as I am beginning to plan Christmas for this year, here’s a couple of photos from past Christmases!

One year I made loads of jars of mincemeat.  It tasted much better than shop bought!

This one was taken at a Christmas tree exhibition in a local church, sheer magic!

A Whole week without posting!

This week has been particularly cRaZy!!  I have been very busy with work and going out that I just haven’t had time to upload any photos – but I have taken them!  I am a bit sad that I have not had time to keep up to date with Shimelle’s class on blogging, but intend to catch up today.  I will post stuff on my other blog Linda’s Life, so feel free to hop over there if you are visiting from Shimelle’s class.

 

Here are my photos from this week:

We visited Nicholas in Bath on Sunday.  Here he is in his room – through that window is a fabulous view over Bath (but it didn’t photograph very well:()

 

Monday night I visited Burnice in her craft cabin for some crafting.  It really is absolutely gorgeous, so cosy and roomy!  We spent the evening chatting and stamping each others new Paperartsy stamps, and deciding what to do on future Mondays.

 

 

 

Tuesday I took some pictures at work of my work colleagues to put up on our notice board.  Not sure I should post them here really.

 

Wednesday I took some pics of my Christmas binder.  Part of the ‘organising for the holidays’ course over on www.simplify101.com.

 

 

 

 

Thursday, I was lacking in inspiration!!  So here’s a picture out of the window!  I quite like this one – it shows that the weather was quite nice and bright and the that the trees have nearly lost all of their leaves now.  Our bright autumn colours are nearly over, the nights are drawing in and it is beginning to feel cold.  Winter is approaching.

 

 

On Friday’s I often get together with some friends for coffee.  When they come to me I do a massive tidy and clean as they are both very houseproud!  It was my turn today, so out came my trusty dyson:)

 

 

Saturday was Brighton crop day.  We have a tradition now that we take a group photo in November and all have to scrap it next time in December!  Last year we all wore silly Christmas hats, this year we all wore green and red!

L-R Back row: Me, Lorna, Terri, Janet

L-R Front row: Sylvia, Sue, Sara

 

 

 

Off to find a photo opportunity for today!