TARDIS Tuesday 2nd post of the day- 60 years of Doctor Who

Last week, Doctor Who celebrated its 60th anniversary!

This programme was always been a part of my life.  It is one of my first memories actually. I have forgotten most of my early childhood. Even as a young child under 10, I had very dim recollections of anything before 5. Is this normal or was this just me?

Doctor Who episodes are one of the things I remember though. Vividly, I remember the episode, Mindwarp, in which Peri gets killed (or actually doesn't). I remember watching Doctor Who before that but remember no details except for Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant themselves.  I remember many, though not all of Sylvester McCoy's episodes.

One particular serial, The Curse of Fenric, set in WW2 in a town on the coast, cast itself onto my memory simply from the fact that it absolutely terrified me and I was terrified and, I think, scarred me a little.  These two girls get dragged under the water by a creature and when they emerge out of the water, they are vampiric with white faces, dark eyes and massive talons.  My rational mind knew they weren't real but still, part of me felt their presence any time I was in the dark.  Our tiny bathroom was a thin room which looked out directly onto my Mum's bedroom door. In the evenings, when I went to the bathroom, I had to sit in the bathroom with the door open, directly looking onto that doorway to ensure that the two girls wouldn't emerge out of it to get me.  This lasted a couple of years. At night, I would sleep with teddies around my head and at the sides beside me.  The terror slowly faded but was never forgotten. 

Doctor Who went off screen for a few years. I watched, and enjoyed some repeats of classic episodes I had never seen before, liking Jon Pertwee's era and Peter Davison's too.

In 1996, a TV movie was made of Doctor Who, casting Paul McGann as the Doctor. As a 15 year old, I was struck by this handsome hero and really started to gain an interest in Doctor Who.  For Christmas, my sister bought me the best present- a cheap video shop had opened in our town and was selling Doctor Who videos in it.  She bought me the TARDIS tin with 'A trial of a Timelord' in it.  Oh, how excited I was by this present!  I ended up buying more videos with my hard-earned cash from my job at the chip-shop. I'd spend my weekends watching these.

I began buying Doctor Who magazine, wrote a really cringy letter declaring my love for Paul McGann which was published!!! It kept the excitement alive with no no episodes of the horizon.

The next Christmas, my sister topped that present with a whole set of Vintage Target novelisations of classic stories she'd found in a  vintage bookshop!

I visited a small Scifi fair in a nearby town, went to the Who shop in East Ham with my friend Ruth, also a Doctor Who fan! Utter amazement at a whole shop stuffed full of memorabilia!  I longed for the TARDIS video cabinet!

I joined the DWAS- Doctor Who Appreciation society for a year.

In 1998, I plucked up the courage to book a ticket for the UK's largest Who convention in Coventry called Panopticon! I booked a coach to Coventry and went by myself, aged 17. I met various characters including Sophie Aldred, Sylvester McCoy, Nicholas Courtney, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, several Dalek operators, Elisabeth Sladen and gained autographs for them.  I seem to remember spending most of the day in queues on the staircase! Sophie Aldred admired my turquoise nail varnish. I wore my friend Sarah's cricket jumper in honour of Peter Davison.  I saw two of the employees from the Who shop I'd met at that first Sci-fi fair, Ollie and Jason- it was nice to see a familiar face!

That year, a new Doctor Who shop opened in Barking, not so far from where I lived, and they had lots of signings and things for sale!  It was a great, great shop and I was so sad when it eventually closed!  I remember having my photo taken with K9, AKA, John Leeson! They had these wonderful drawings made of the stars which you could buy to get signed!

I got busy with University so Doctor Who took a back seat for a few years.

When the new series began in 2004, it was an exciting time! Wonderfully, my little sister became interested in the show and we went to the Doctor Who exhibition in London as part of her birthday present! She recently sent me a picture of the two of us arm in arm with a Cyberman which I'd forgotten about!

It was around about October 2012 that I wore my first dress up (or cosplay in the modern vernacular) as a Doctor Who character- I made a Dalek dress as part of CBC's Robot party.   I was ridiculously happy with it!

A month later, inspired by my blog friend Melanie,  who had dressed up inspired by the classic Doctors, I put together my first outfit inspired by William Hartnell.

A week later, I dressed inspired by Tom Baker.

In January, I dressed inspired by John Pertwee!

My next post about Doctor Who didn't come until 2014, though it may have been mentioned! I wasn't watching it as I hadn't got a TV so missed most of Matt Smith's tenure!!

I shared my thoughts on Peter Capaldi, the new Doctor in 2014

October 2014, I wrote my first post on Clara Oswald who I dressed up as with items from my wardrobe!  Then I wore my second Clara inspired outfit!

I then got to know Maricel who introduced me to TARDIS Tuesday! She was so fun and tried to wear TARDIS blue on a Tuesday or an outfit inspired by a Character.I attempted to join in regularly! This was my first post mentioning TARDIS Tuesday and my  second post!

As with many bloggers, she eventually stopped posting which was sad.

But by then, I had discovered that one could find other Who fans on Instagram!!

TARDIS Tuesday has become a regular on this blog - an expensive habit! But it's been a fun hobby to have. I've enjoyed making friends with lots of fans on Instagram!

I've enjoyed watching Doctor Who all these years and I thought the 60th anniversary special was a great episode in many ways. A little contrived in places but it was lovely to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate reunited!

Happy anniversary Doctor Who! You have bought me much joy!

xx

The two weeks at home

 I left you in my last Northumberland post with us driving back to Essex on Tuesday the 1st August. 

Wednesday, the 2nd August:

CBC and I spent the day at home, getting washing done, doing some tidying (me) and cleaning and bemoaning the rain! It WAS good to be home! I LOVE waking up in my bedroom when I don't have any reason to be up! I love our bedroom and the way the light hits in the morning and how spacious our bedroom is. Having grownup sharing a TITCHY boxroom with my sister (bunkbeds) and even when my mum moved out when I was renting our house from her, her room was still tiny, I REALLY appreciate the space in my home!

Thursday 3rd August:

 CBC and I got up and travelled in the car to Watford to meet our/ his PGCE friend, her children and another friend. She was over from Sweden where she and her husband live.  We met them in Cassiobury park (which is an EXCELLENT public park with great facilities) and immediately went on the little train with them. Her toddler twins LOVED it. It was nice to engage with them this time as the last time we had seen them back in Summer 2022, they were not really communicative.  We walked back to Fiona's Mum's house for cake and tea and played with the boys.  Toddlers are exhausting! I admired a beautiful purple house plant and was given a cutting of it- apparently it might be Tradescantia. It has now rooted and has taken residence in the enormous pot in the bathroom, recently vacated by monster Aloe which suffered a dreadful demise!  After that, we drove to the Chilterns to music camp! I was really sad that CBC didn't want to go this year but didn't make a fuss about it but was really happy we could combine the trip to see fee to visit camp!  We arrived just as they were going into dinner. As we were going to watch a concert performance of The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan, I had brought my tricorn hat (which ended up being borrowed!) and they had themed dinner of Cornish pasties and cream tea- odd combination! The performance was hilarious! I was offered a glass of gin and tonic by some friends who were watching. I don't usually like Gin (I don't really drink ever) but I said yes, and it was quite refreshing! Afterwards, we chatted to various friends until midnight and then had to drive back to Essex!

Friday 4th August:

URGH! It was a rainy, rainy, rainy day.  I have no idea what I did during the day but in the end, after CBC and I were going a bit stir crazy, I called our friend Nath and suggested we take a trip to the Cinema together.  We ended up going to Southend Odeon to see Mission Impossible but CBC and I had  a Thai street food  meal at a little place on a side-street we discovered- it was quite slow to come so we had to bolt it down which is not my favourite way to eat Thai food. Mission Impossible was largely unbelievable but highly entertaining. Alas, on the way from the car, I wasn't looking what I was doing and ended up slightly stepping off a high curb and ended up falling splat onto my knees in the middle of the road. It was SO painful and I had the most EPIC bruise on my left knee which lasted for the next 2 weeks!

Saturday 5th August:

More rain.  Again, we felt a bit stir-crazy! CBC wanted to drop his computer bike off to a vintage restoration cycle shop called By the Sea Cycles to have some work done, so we went to Westcliff. Whilst he sorted the bike, I had a quick look in the charity shops (nothing bought) and then he met me. We decided to walk to Southend pier. We had a Rossi ice-cream, sitting on a bench and then walked along the esplanade. It felt really good to be out. We had our raincoats on and an umbrella. At the pier, we went into Cafe 21 where CBC had a pizza and I had an Earl Grey tea.  We hotfooted it back to the car as we only had 2 hours free-parking and went home. 

Sunday 6th August:

 CBC had booked us tickets to Writtle Jazz Festival!  Bizarrely, he then chose that morning to mow the lawn and do some gardening. I was perplexedly waiting to go and eventually we drove there.   We parked at Writtle college and then walked to the Village Green.  We set up with our camp chairs and went between the two gazebos to watch first the Jazz Dynamos, then the NeilAngilley trio, the Paul Higgs Pavane, all of which were excellent. I had some veg noodles in my own container with my own cutlery (the catering team were happy to fill my own container) and CBC had some Mexican.  I was sad to miss Amy Hollingsworth as I know her from my local orchestra but later, I saw her mum and dad who were both doing a shift on the events team and had a catch up! We made our way home around about 7.30pm.

Monday 7th August:

CBC decided to go out cycling so I decided, after being at home for a while, to take myself off on a circular walk to the nearest woods. I met very few people and had a lovely, sunny, warm walk. Spotted a Speckled Wood butterfly.  CBC was home before me!

Tuesday 8th August:

I spent the morning at home whilst CBC went off to Maldon to meet a work colleague and her toddler plus an cold colleague at a soft play and then I caught the train to Stratford to Westfield to meet two childhood friends,  Davina and Joanne. Davina was the friend I reconnected with at the school 70th anniversary.  We went for lunch at the Malaysian place at the end, near John Lewis and then had a walk in the Olympic park. The food was delicious and it was nice to catch up but I am not that keen on large shopping centres so I wasn't so fond of that part!

Wednesday 9th August: 

TODAY was CBC's and my 10th wedding Anniversary!!!! It got off to less than an ideal start by CBC being very reluctant to get moving but eventually, we drove to Tunbridge Wells, Kent to our friend Tony and Libby's beautiful house. They are friends from music camp and I was really sad we hadn't got to see them. Plus, Libby had broken her leg and was really stuck at home and feeling really down so we concocted a plan for us to go and see them so Libby and I could play flute duets. CBC and Tony went to go and walk round their extensive garden (and shared lake!),  talk about walking in Zermatt and Libby and I got started on duos.  We stopped for a beautiful garden lunch and then Tony joined us on piano to try out some new arrangements he had made of some Debussy pieces.  Finally, CBC joined us for some Haydn trios 'London Trios' for 2 flutes and cello which we all enjoyed.  We said goodbye to them and drove to my Dad's and Stepmum's.  We  chatted and then shared a beautiful fish curry in the garden, cooked by my sister and Magnums.  After dinner, we ended up playing our new board game, Herd Mentality, with much hilarity, and headed home around 11pm.  It's not the most conventional way to spend an anniversary but it was a wonderful day!

Thursday 10th August:

 CBC planned to go somewhere (I forget where) so he drove me to Battlesbridge station to meet my friend Lara to drive to our friend Hazel's house to play flute trios.  We were supposed to be doing a concert the previous Sunday but it had been cancelled so we were happy to meet to play particularly as H had been ill and L rather stressed.   Later, when I got home, CBC and I cooked a Vegetable dinner, trying to make use of the masses of vegetables he had brought the on Tuesday.

Friday 11th August:

 My sister came round with my niece late morning after my niece had had trampolining at our local leisure centre.  We drank tea and K and I played board games, including the debut of the new vintage game, Rivers, Roads and Rails, that I had recently acquired.  We then all headed to the garden centre which has an excellent tea-room/lunch place with garden. We all enjoyed tasty lunches and played Herd Mentality to much hilarity.  CBC and K played hide and seek around the garden centre whilst my sister and I debated buying Dahlias. We both ended up buying a plant in the end.  Back home, we all played a game of Dobble and then they went home.

Saturday 12th August:

 In the afternoon, CBC and I drove to Leigh to pick up a painting that CBC had bought back during the Art Trail in June and we had lunch at Barlow and Field, an intriguing Vegan sliced bread roll.  Later, CBC headed out to meet some colleagues for a birthday whilst I started to pack for Switzerland.

Sunday 13th August:

  I headed to church for 9am to play for the morning service. I really like playing my flute as I sit next to lovely Sue, who plays the keyboard and join in. It's really low key and I enjoy it. Had a lovely surprise today as the minister, his wife and family from the baptist church I used to go to before lockdown were there for the service as their daughter, who lives in New Zealand had got married at this church exactly a year ago and were there for their anniversary. It was so lovely to catch up with them and they were pleased to see me settled in this church. Richard, the minister, said he loves coming to the service here, and if he has a Sunday off, he likes to come there for worship. Back home, I did some more work on packing and spent most of the day trying to harass CBC into packing. He got started eventually, in the evening...

It had been a varied 2 weeks at home, it had flown by quickly! Did not get all the school work I was intending to (story of my life), but it had some fun times.

Now, we were heading to Switzerland for our 10th anniversary tour!

xxx

10 years!

 It's 10 years since CBC and I got married!

It's really hard to believe!  We look a LOT younger in the photos.  

We have enjoyed looking at our photos from the wedding this morning.

Yesterday (the actual day), we went over to Kent to have lunch with our friends from Music camp and played music with them. It was a joyous time. Then we went over to me Dad, Stepmum and sister's and had dinner and played board games. It was great fun. Our celebration will be in Switzerland.

If you would like to see it, here's the posts with the accounts of the wedding day here:

The Big Day- before the wedding

The Big Day- the ceremony

The Big Day- onto the mansion!

I am very thankful for 10 years of marriage. 

I am grateful for fun and laughs and music. I am thankful for understanding each other's jobs. I am thankful that we like vegetables! I am thankful for walks and cycling and for times of rest. I am thankful that we are both teachers and get to spend our holidays together. I am grateful for time and family. 

CBC doesn't read my blog nowadays but if he does, I love you. xx

A

Checkmate!

Hi again!

I'm attempting to type up some posts as I seem to be getting a bit behind writing up things and then it is too late! I'm going to write about what I've been up to this week since I got back from Cornwall.

Let's start with an outfit though.

Thank you for your kind comments on my anniversary post and on my TARDIS Tuesday.

On Monday, CBC and I went out for a Thai meal for our anniversary in the town where we first lived when we got married.  It's a bit of a drive from where we live but we decided it would be nice to do that.

We had the ENTIRE restaurant to ourselves as clearly, no one else wanted a Thai meal in the restaurant on a rainy Monday night.  The food was delicious, plentiful and fulfilling. I had Thai fishcakes for my starter and then Thai Green Prawn curry for my main. This is my standard thing I eat in a Thai restaurant. The trouble is, I love it SO much that I just never want to order anything else in case it is a disappointment!

What did I wear?

I wore the charity-shopped Monsoon linen jumpsuit I shared last week and then decided to team it with brown/tan- the jacket was charityshopped on a charityshop crawl with Sophie and Hazel a few years ago.  The shoes have 3 shades of brown and come from Aldo. Bought about 14 years ago.

For jewellery, I wore a pair of beaded loop earrings which were a present from a work colleague and my silver acorn necklace that CBC bought me for our 1st anniversary.

Tuesday was one of those days I'm not quite sure what I did at first. Some sort of housework in the morning and some gardening (woe is me- all my tomato plants in the raised bed have succumbed to Blight!) some reading and then I headed into town on my bike to return my library books.  I picked up 3 reservations and then decided to do an extended route home via the nature reserve - it was such lovely weather for a short cycle. On my way home, I went via the COOP and picked up some reduced stirfry veg and some prawn skewers to supplement the veg in the fridge.  CBC had headed out on a cycle ride.

Our friend N, CBC's old housemate was working in the area so he popped round for a few hours to catch up. We had some juice, then a cup of tea and snacks in the garden.  At around 7pm, my friend M popped round to pick up the Cadbury purple butterfly confetti I have been punching for her for her wedding table decorations.  There was about 2000 butterflies in various sizes in the tin which I've been using my craft punches (the same ones I used for my own wedding) for over the last 3 weeks.  I also sent her off with one of my Seedum plants I had grown from cutings.  Whilst N was still there, I went and picked about 50 monster runner beans from the garden and then destringed them using the beanslicer. Once N went, I made our dinner using all the mouldering vegetables from the fridge as well as the ones I bought earlier and some plastic free noodles from the Zerowaste shop.

On Wednesday morning, after a lazy start, CBC and I drove to a town about 40 minutes drive from us to go to the opticians to pick up CBC's glasses. He took them back in March (when I found the wild garlic) to get the coating replaced on his lenses.  They said they couldn't recoat them and they would need to give him new lenses.  They then broke the frames when doing it and said they'd try to get replacement frames.  They were out of stock.  CBC phoned them last week to remind them and they said they still hadn't got any frames but miraculously managed to order some the next day.  He ended up having to pay £99 to get them, even though it wasn't his fault. Seems a bit unfair to me.

Whilst he did that, I had a quick look in some shops (mainly Wilko- I found NOTHING Vix!) and the charity shops. Only ended up buying a pair of grey cotton/silk trousers which don't fit me as I can't get my massive size 8 heels through the tiny foot holes! Only £3 so I will redonate or pass them onto my single-mum TA work colleague.  I did see a pair of screen accurate Timberland boots worn by Rose in Doctor Who which I was tempted to pick up for some of the cosplayers on Insta but forgot about them in the end. We had a delicious lunch in a great cafe which has super selections and then we drove to the station to park the car to go into London as we were going to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall to see the Aurora orchestra.

The train to Liverpool street was fine but the tubes were horribly crammed. I really didn't feel comfortable on there.  We walked from Knightsbridge station as South Ken station is currently closed.  We were early so we walked in Hyde Park which was delightful. We had a cup of tea in the bowling green club cafe which was really relaxing and quiet. At the Albert Hall, we met up with some friends briefly and then watched the prom.It was wonderful.  The Aurora are a fantastic orchestra and they perform a large-scale piece FROM MEMORY every year at the Proms. Every single player learns the entire piece from memory.  In this case, it was the Firebird suite by Igor Stravinsky which is 40 minutes long and very complicated! It is amazing.  In the first half, they perfomed Rachmaninov's variations on a theme by Paganini (the famous Variations) and then we had a talk from Tom Service and Nicholas Collon, the conductor on understanding the Firebird. If you are in the UK, I strongly urge you to watch the concert (link on iPlayer HERE!)- the piece is amazing and if you listened to the talk, you will really understand the piece. It is programmatic which means it tells a story- in this case, the Russian folk tale of the Firebird.  I love the Aurora and I know a few players in the orchestra.  Plus, I am proud to say that I have been conducted by Nicholas Collon on a few occasions- he conducted my regular orchestra once for a concert and then he conducted at my music camp for a week once! 

After the concert, we headed to Knightsbridge station and had to wait an awful 7 minutes for the next tube by which time, the entire Albert Hall seemed to have arrived on the platform- it was SO busy (I confess to this having been my worry about going to the proms). Luckily, our Liverpool Street train went in 6 minutes so we didn't have long to wait! After picking up the car, we ended up getting to bed at 1am.

Which meant getting up at 7.45am was NOT pretty! CBC had to go into school for GCSE results day as head of Year 11 so I got up with him and went in the car with my foldup bike.

I then rode off and made my way from his school along the seafront and drove quite a few miles. It was so nice to be cycling along the seafront. I rode until I reached a railway station and then got the train to my Mum's.  She has broken her toes so it stuck at home and was glad of company. We had Spaghetti Bolognese for lunch. Later, CBC picked me up from the leisure centre a couple of miles away (there was an accident so the road was blocked to my mum's) and took me home.  I did some work in the garden cutting and pulling up the blighted tomato plants.  We then practised the music for the wedding.

Friday, we woke up very late and after a scrummy breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, we did some more practice for the wedding and then CBC drove me to the hospital to visit the breast clinic. I'd had  Nurse's followup appointment on Monday afternoon about a lump in my breast (which we were pretty sure was a cyst but as it hadn't gone down in 2 months,  she referred me. I was amazed to get an appointment 3 days later. As I am over the age of 40 now, unlike my two previous lump encounters, I had to have a Mammogram. It's VERY uncomfortable! Luckily, the lump turned out to be 3 cysts close together, praise God, one of them quite large and so they were aspirated. I walked a mile and a half to meet CBC who had gone to a cycling shop and we went and had dinner at a delicious Vegan barbeque restaurant. I had an amazing Vegan ribs dish and we shared an exquisite Firecracker cauliflower dish!

We came home and I did some reading and gardening and then tried on my wedding outfit candidates! Can you guess which I chose? Head back to my previous post if you haven't already voted?

And that was my week!

8th anniversary

Here is some music to play whilst you read this post. Please hit play and proceed.

Today is mine and CBC's 8th anniversary! Confession- we almost forgot! He did, I remembered last night when I was working out what date it was for something!  Please make me feel better about the fact we almost forgot by telling me that you also forget!  In our defence, we are in limbo on school holiday for 6 weeks and unless it's a school day, I have no clue what date it is! AND, we have just been on holiday in Cornwall for a week!

Here are two pictures from the day.  CBC is none too happy about having overt pictures of him on here these days so here are two selected from our wedding 8 years ago where he's not too obvious.

This is the moment of our vows.  If I look teary, it's because I unexpectedly howled whilst singing Love Divine- tip-do not sing too heartily or loud on your wedding day or weird things happen, especially if you are someone who is affected by music!

And here's a view of the church via the flowers.

The prayers

I thought I'd write 10 things I love about CBC here as a tribute to him (he won't read it- never bothers with my blog now). I want to wring his neck several times a week/month and I know the feeling is mutual, but I love him dearly.

10 things I love about him:

1. He is the most imaginative person I know.  He has a way at looking things and describing things so very aptly to astonish you with his imagery and descriptive skills.

2.  He stops being grumpy after we've argued and is able to be nice again very quickly.

3.  Very, very unfussy in terms of eating.  The most unfussy man in all our family who any of us have married (except my Dad who is a dustbin).  Absolutely loves vegetables and is willing to eat 7 times of veg in one meal.

4.  Always manages to look after me when I am freaking out about something, e.g. at the top of a mountain and I feel like I am going to die if I take one step forward.

5.  He is so musical and entertains me all the time with his music making at home on the piano.

6.  He gave me the gift of a home from home. I love Northumberland and it is an inherent part of me now that I yearn for it and long to return to it when I am not there and feel like I am coming home when we go there.  He values how our relationship brought him closer with his Dad in his final years and how much his Dad loved me and him and how that relationship changed.

7. He is super creative and fun and always manages to help me to explore new places.

8.  He puts up with my environmental quirks and wishes and has adapted in many ways to fulfil that. He puts up with me having lots of things (even if he moans about it a lot!) 

9.  He is a gentleman- he is charming and is always really nice to people we meet.

10. He's super CUTE!

There's many more things but there are some to start with!

Hope you are well.

xxx

P.S. If you are wondering about the music- it is by Gyorgy Ligeti and comes from his Five Bagatelles for Wind Quintet and is what I came down the aisle to!

P.P.S:

In case you are new to this blog and didn't ever see my wedding posts- here they are:

The night before

The early morning

Part 1: Prep

Part 2: Onto the Church

Part 3: Onto the Mansion

6 years!

This time today, six years ago, also on a Friday, CBC and I were married and the wedding reception was ending!  We had had a frantic hour of clearing up items and were finally leaving!

So it is our anniversary! As usual, we sort of forgot and haven't really done anything but we had a nice time today with a friend in London and ate left-over Butternut squash risotto!

Here's some photos from our wedding to remember!

Even though you aren't reading it, I love you CBC!x













And here we are on our first anniversary!

4th Anniversary card

Hello there!

CBC and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary this week! Hurrah
It is, apparently, the anniversary of fruit, flowers and in modern times, linen.
CBC ordered a new duvet cover for us,under the auspice of the anniversary- tenuous, but it is very pretty!
I made him this card!

 Knowing it was to be a fruit anniversary, when I googled, "4th anniversary card", I saw quite a few puns based on pears.  This seemed quite a nice way of incorporating the fruit idea.
It was simply a matter of drawing myself a pear template & cutting pears out from green mirrored cards  The stems were from an old brown envelope & the leaves and hearts from some other scrap paper.  The lettering was just a silver gel pen.

I thought it would be fun to display it on top of the trug of apples and pear windfalls I picked up from my garden yesterday.

Anyway, I would like to say a Happy Anniversary to my lovely husband.

xx

My 12th Blogiversary!

What do you know?  I missed out on writing about this Auspicious day two days ago!

Yes, I can proudly announce that two days ago was my 12th Blogiversary! I began on April the 6th, 2005- you can see my post here.

This means I have actually been blogging a whole THIRD of my life!

It all started twelve years ago when I was a PA to the Head at the Royal Academy of Music with much time on my hands.  In my spare time, when I wasn't at rehearsals, I wanted to write and when I saw that my University friend Rachel (at this time PA to the Head of a Bible college) was writing a blog, I was inspired to have a go as I do love writing and it seemed an ideal incentive to write.

Over the years, things have changed in the blogging world (sorry to do the whole retrospective but it's rather obligatory on such occasions, rah, rah, rah...): the friends I first had blogging- Rach, Amy, Chris at the Chrlog, RJ, have mostly stopped blogging but a few still persevere (looking at your Stephen/ven!).  In around 2009, I gained some lovely new blogging friends such as Sophie (in the Sticks), Laura at Daisychaindream, Lauren at Someonelikeyou, The Two Birds and a few others who are still blogging.  Later on, I met the lovely crafters, the amazing Ang Almond, the fabulous Dinoprincess Char and others.

Then for quite a few years, there have been some of you wonderful, wonderful stawarts who I have met through here and I value greatly and love their blogs still to this day. I apologise if I have missed anyone- the list includes: Julia, Tasha, Vintage Vix, Louise, Lisa at Jumble and Jelly, Anca, Nevena, Gretchen Joanna, Alison Dormouse, the Julies  Hazel, the Jans, Donna, Ivana, Linda, Denise, Fil, Ally, Anna, Bev, Melanie, Pom Pom, Imogen, Salazar, Maggs, Susie, Lizzie, Corinne...

And finally, recent new friends: Ann, Fiona, Johnny Jumps up, Thriftdeluxe and anyone I have missed out (I am sorry if I have- just thinking off the top of my head!)

Anyway, it is to you I say thanks. I am quite sure I might not have continued for so long if it wasn't for your lovely comments, support and friendship.

I thought it might be quite nice that if you wish to leave a comment- rather than doing a giveaway in the usual sense, if you leave me a comment and I will pick one person to make a card for to send it to you! And if I think I can just your taste, I might possibly send something little with it!

Thanks for reading and do leave a comment- I'd love to make a card especially for someone!

xx

Droppping in

Hello there!


I've just returned from 10 glorious days of camping, pretty much cut off from the world. Apologies if you think I have been ignoring you but the internet reception is pretty awful there so I barely managed to check it. The wonders of scheduled posts eh?!

It's been very refreshing to be pretty much completely cut off from the world. Having the time to think, getting away from technology and being surrounded by amazing, clever people, you get inspired. I've played symphonies by Shostakovitch, Tschaikovsky, John Adams, Schumann;composed and performed variations on a theme by Paganini; washed up for 150; made around about 50 envelopes and 40 tags out of music paper; made a ladybird circle skirt; written a song; taken part in crazy antics and created milk bottle hoopla; eaten lots of food and now I am exhausted!

Oh and it is my 2nd anniversary!  Happy anniversary to CBC and I!

xx

A jolly year of married life

CBC and I celebrated our first anniversary on the 9th of August.  It's hard to believe that we have been married a year now and this time last year, we were enjoying the last week of our honeymoon in Switzerland!

We celebrated our anniversary in Haltwhistle and Hexham.  It was an interesting day as CBC got up at about 6.30am to take part in the 'Hell of Hexham' cycle ride, so I woke up to an empty space, but on the pillow, was a paper bag with a present inside.  A beautiful little acorn necklace. CBC has a silly nickname for me Kezzie-Squirrel and so I thought the acorn was really cute! Plus, since it was our paper anniversary- from an acorn grows a tree and from a tree comes paper. I was thinking he had come up with this really clever way of representing our anniversary!





I hadn't actually got him anything at the time as I was hoping I could buy him something he'd choose from Corbridge, but belatedly, I found the perfect cufflinks for him made from vintage paper maps- there was ONE pair of Cufflinks saying Hexham and Haltwhistle on each one. What were the odds of that!?

I spent the morning in Haltwhistle before we drove to Hexham for lunch.  After a brief trip to a nearby town to take CBC's sister and husband to a party and an explore of the village show, we met up with WOMOTM for a lovely Italian meal,followed by watching 'The Hobbit Part 2'- in 3D back in Haltwhistle.  CBC was all excited seeing a 3D film for the first time. I just had to console myself with wearing the 3d glasses as I cannot see the 3d stuff due to my dodgy eye!.  It was lovely to have a family anniversary and spend time with family on our anniversary.  

I have enjoyed getting to know my beloved husband even better this year as we have lived together. I am glad to say, I love him dearly and I very thankful for him.

xx