Scrapbook Saturday 22/11: Santa's Little Helper!

This weeks scrapbook page was created using a kit by Angelique, a french lady, who's blog Le Digiscrap d'Angelique has a lovely selection of kits available, together with examples of them being used. This kit is one of her FREEBIES and has some great papers and elements.


As you can see we are starting to get in the Christmas spirit :-)

Don't forget to hop on over to MammaDawg.com and check out all the other great entries for this weeks Scrapbook Saturday and add yourself to the blogroll.

Taking the Grandson to Finding Nemo on Ice!

Contd from previous post.....

Fortunately it was only for the two nights as they were up here to go and see the Finding Nemo on Ice Show at the NIA in Birmingham on Saturday. When they asked me to book tickets for the show, there had been a couple of previews on the TV and I thought it would be fun to go with them and enjoy a night out with my grandson, as I don't see them very often. I was horrified to realise that this time it had been a whole year since I'd last seen them!

My daughter drove us into the city using her satnav and we arrived in plenty of time, I think the volume of traffic surprised her as she thought it was rush hour. I explained that the traffic was always that busy as Birmingham is the 2nd city in Britain, so it's very like London traffic. She's not used to driving in traffic like that as she lives down in sleepy Devon. But she coped very well, even when several lanes of traffic converged from different directions as we approached the NIA and all wanted to join the one she wanted, particularly as it was a very dark and wet night, making conditions difficult.

The show was fantastic, with wonderful costumes and great skating. There were two entrances at one end of the large ice rink with a large screen between them, on which was projected appropriate scenes from the movie. From the moment the characters of Nemo and his Dad appeared on the ice after an introductory scene from Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy, it was clear that to my 5 year old grandson they were real. The very fact that it was clearly a woman on ice skates wearing an oversized Nemo belt didn't register. He just soaked up the spectacle of colour, movement and music – and all were there by the boat-load.

The sets were impressive with plenty of eye-catching pyrotechnics when required (grandsons reaction was 'awesome' when we all jumped the first time one went off) and some neat high-wire stunts to get the kids 'oohing and ahhing' on cue - the pelican was particularly fun! The menace was provided by a giant shark and whale but, without wanting to give away the ending, they left the set without satisfying their hunger pangs, while being pretty impressive.

So overall, a fantastic show that enthralled the children from start to finish, and grandson went home happy clutching his souvenir programme and Nemo mug and hat, which he couldn't wait to show his schoolmates the next day.

What is it with Teenage Boys?

It's been 4 weeks since the Boy Wonder moved in with us and I think we've only seen him a couple of times! Well that's what it feels like, as he spends all his time up in his bedroom, and most of it is spent on his laptop playing World of Warcraft. Well he is 17, and apparently this is fairly normal behaviour for this age! At least according to my friends at work who also have teenage children, particularly boys.

I think poor hubby had this idyllic vision of the two of them spending time together and bonding - yeah right! He has however, been sadly disillusioned, particularly now the first few weeks are over and he can see what the future holds. The first week he took time off work to run around various colleges, training centres & job agencies with the BW, trying to organise him into the world of work or get some training.

He had been accepted by an agricultural college for a course in animal management (I think he had ideas about working in a zoo or somewhere like Woburn) but at the very last minute he changed his mind and decided he didn't want to do it (Don't you just love them?) but he has no idea what it is he does want to do - if anything!


Unfortunately with the recession looming large this is not the ideal time to be job searching. He does have about 12 GCSE's so he's not stupid, just aimless and I think hubby has got fed up of being the one doing all the 'driving' and decided to just get Christmas and New Year over with before giving him a kick up the proverbials.

At least he's not costing us a lot to keep at the moment, which is one way of looking at it and we only see him at meal times :-)

Unfortunately he is occupying the room that used to be my study and I had to clear out all my books etc. Two large bookcases, which we managed to accommodate in the other two spare bedrooms, the smaller of which we use as an ironing room and the larger of which is my dressing room, which doubles as a guest room. However I still have a large stack of boxes of books, papers, photo albums and other paraphenalia piled on the sofa bed and on the floor, so when my daughter came to visit with my grandson for a few nights at the weekend, I was unable to accommodate them in that room, so they had to sleep on the sofa in the lounge!

Sky Watch 21/11: November Sunrise!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

This slideshow consists of a series of photos I took yesterday morning from a window at the back of my office block south of Birmingham, England. The whole series was taken in a 15 minute time frame and have not been altered in any way. I hope you enjoy the show.

Be sure to click on the Sky Watch badge for the Blogroll link above to visit more beautiful skies from around the world.

Sepia Scenes 20/11: The Floozy in the Jacuzzi!

Sepia Scenes is a Meme that Mary the Teach, over at Work of the Poet.com has started. Mary is also the organiser of the Ruby Tuesday Meme. The meme consists of posting a photo you must have taken yourself, it can be any subject, but it must be tinted sepia. Easy to do in a photo editor. Mary will open the Mr Linky list up from Wednesday every week, but you can add your entry any day after that. For more info and to get involved pop over to the Sepia Scenes HQ.



This weeks photo is one of the fountain in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. The statue at the top is known as the Floozy in the Jacuzzi! The building at the top is the Council Offices and to the left is the Town Hall.

I edited it into sepia and framed using a very easy to use online photo editor called PHIXR.COM which is useful if you don't have access to your own editor, but do have web access, plus it doesn't need Flash or similiar to work.

Ruby Tuesday 18/11: A Man and his Dogs!

Click on pic to enlarge
As I had just completed this digital scrapbook page of my lovely hubby looking very happy with our 2 dogs I thought it would make a lovely Ruby Tuesday post - it's certainly red enough!

Why not join in and post a Ruby Tuesday picture yourself, the rules are simple. Just post a picture with red in it, but it must be one of your own and it can be of anything you like. For more details hop over to The Teach at Work of the Poet and check out the blogroll.

My Diet Monday: Week 7 - 264lbs (16lbs lost)

I can hardly believe I've lost another 2lbs again this week! which makes a total of 16lbs and only 12 to go to my first goal of losing 2 stone by 31st December. And this despite having Spag Bol and a roast chicken dinner at the weekend, although I've got very good at regulating how much I eat when I have my main meal in the evenings. Whereas before I tended to eat whatever was on my plate, now I stop when I know I've had enough, and depending on how much is left it goes to the dogs or in the freezer for another time. As for breakfast and lunch I have stuck to the SlimFast shakes religiously, avoiding all temptations such as a cake sale we had on friday for Children in Need, not to mention the large box of chocolates and bottle of wine I won in the raffle! (Hubby won a DVD of the latest Indiana Jones movie & a set of matching collectors marbles!)

I had my daughter and grandson stay for a couple of nights at the weekend and we went to see Finding Nemo on Ice at the NIA in Birmingham, great show, but I hadn't seen her since this time last year and although I knew she had lost weight - three and a half stone actually - I was amazed at the difference that made to how she looks and has really spurred me on to be even more determined to keep on the straight and narrow.

The only problem I have at the moment is a lack of exercise. If I am honest I haven't been doing any for ages. I did try doing some to a YouTube video, but hubby said I looked like a demented aeroplane, which I had to agree with :-)and let's face it, I didn't need much of an excuse to stop! Now I've said this before so you'll probably take it with a pinch of salt, but I'll try and get more active this week. I'm not going to give myself a certain number of minutes to workout each day but just going to see what I can do and maybe that will work better. It will be interesting to see how it goes. Join me next week to see how I get on :-)