Catching up..

.. with yourself when you've been busy often results in you tripping up on the emptiness I've found!  Quieter day today, had an hour spare at 5pm and sat in the car by Penzance Harbour, watched the grey sky start to churn and the wind and rain set in, so upped and went to do the food run.

I thought about going to get a Costa but that idea went out the window, not a bean of cash in the car or my purse (kids dinner money to blame there!) I also took my book, a long laboured over piece of work, it only serves to make me sleepy.. unlike the author's first offering which I downed in a single Sunday sitting!

It's an odd sensation stopping.. well, when it's because you're waiting to collect someone, you don't really get off the world, more a putting out your foot to slow the rotation of the merry-go-round for a minute or two.

So, I collected Kate from 'tap & cheer' and we wended our way home, via MacDonalds for a fishy meal and chips for me...our Thursday treat.  Unpacked the shopping, swapped a few stories with Pops and spoke to Col.

Now I'm sitting here laughing at how I actually have nothing to do.. well, what I really mean is no-one is here asking me to do anything and I'm not sure what to do with myself. It's a rare occasion to be sure and it won't last. (three phone calls and a snack later I am completing this way out of synch, and proved right!!) 

Mind you, it also made me realise that maybe, just maybe if Col and I had a holiday then the kids might not really notice so long as there is food in the fridge, and www. on the end of the PC lead!

.. watch this space, I'm getting there.. and how it takes me 4 weeks of pondering to book it, beggars belief!

Change is as good as a rest..

.. is the old adage and luckily it seems to work for me. All my pals who watch this space have been telling me to have a rest and a few easy days, but whilst it has been less stressful with less toing and froing, the last few days have been quite busy.

Lovely to say I've seen my grand daughter almost every day this past week and really enjoyed having her about. She is so funny, like a little parrot with a personality, though Zac and I both observed we may need to 'watch our language' when she repeated 'bloody peas' as I rummaged in the freezer at teatime!  At the weekend she spent a lot of time with us and Saturday night I had a real frenzy of activity, getting the house tidied etc so that Sunday I wouldn't be looking around wishing I had done chores before.

She is such a busy bee, the girls, Zac and I (all pretty much Dr Who fans) agreed that Lilly is like a Dr Who character who feeds off the energy of others, renders them incapacitated afterwards and consequently has boundless energies herself!

Jordan has had her top brace fitted and has had a few devilish days, but seems to be coming out the other side now.. she says she has a yearning for a Domino's Pizza.. maybe Falmouth Saturday night, who knows?

Plenty to look forward to at the w/e....Col back from yet another trip around the highways and byways of England & Wales, Kate has long dance rehearsals at the w/e and my great pal Hazel is about for a few days, so I'm hoping a little sortie to take flowers to Mum and a sneaky coffee at the Minack will be in order... mind you, there was a text mentioning a wetsuit and possible donutting.. dear thing, obviously that 60th birthday celebration back in February has addled her brain!

Small mention that it's my Mum's anniversary tomorrow.. two years. I used to wonder how old people could keep track of so many dates like these over the years, as a teenager I couldn't understand the seemingly morbid nature of remembering the days each year, but now I know that when the dates are yours, like children, you can always add another and keep special places for them all.
(funny little pic here from a Christmas breakfast, both on deafult face maybe!!)

That was the week that was..

.. dear JB she WAS brave bunny...has smiled just about all the way through the week despite what must have been a very sore time. Back to school today and normality returns. They've had a sad time there of late, losing one of their popular young PE teachers in a surfing incident the other week. All a growing time for the kids though, interesting to hear them talking about the other staff and kid's reactions and perhaps good time to revisit their own losses and compare.

Not much else to report this week..Ross started his Access to HE course and Zac is writing his personal statement for UCAS application. Interestingly it seems to work against him when he writes about growing up with us running an engineering firm as it's hard not to sound like you're blowing your own trumpet when some kids in the same situation would only have had the chance to sweep the floor!

Kate and I bonded over some online maths homework last night.. but with a trendy 13 year old, I guess that's cool and I should be grateful for these small mercies!

And my interesting fact of the week.. we must be moving in the same vein as the Americans, always bigger and better products.... earlier in the week I bemoaned that medium sliced bread is now the equivalent of 1960's thin sliced.. but yesterday I discovered the latest addition to bread heaven...'doorstep sliced'

Family day..

.. funny isn't it how when something happens in your family and you don't adopt the same old routines, it makes you realise how work and that same routine are irrelevant when you come down to it and in the same way are good and bad for you!.. good to keep you feeling sane, but bad that they feel normal and make you quite disorientated when you step out of them..

I'll explain.. Col and I spent the morning with Jordan who had some pretty extensive orthodontic work done under General Anaesthetic today..it was worse than she had expected, but six hours later she's much better.. though the living through your child being 'done to' is really quite emotional and definitely draining... I have only just got over the odd week last week..and here at 5pm I could crawl happily into my bed again.

And now Cols gone off with Zac to his college parent's evening.. a first for him, but hey, he's an expert in 'A' levels and UCAS points etc now.. after his tour of all England last week!  I usually do the Penwith College thing as I (also) went there.. and how cool that the new buildings are named after local coves.. and Penberth is one of them.. how sad and nostalgic am I!!  It's good though for Colin to go for once and I get to take JB on a tour soon anyways.

I have the babe for the evening, as M&D are moving house and need to get ahead, she's such a joy, more words every day.. even an old hand like me is amazed, but maybe that's a grandparent thing!

Oh and Ross and co arrived home safe from the road trip to France.. like everyone else he's got to settle back down now and start some serious work and studies..well it had to come to him sometime!

Job done!

What a week.. we seem to have been on the run all week, Col on calls and then Uni visits with Zac and me here with all kinds of appointments and then up to Exeter to meet them for the day yesterday.

It was a fabulous day weather-wise and we got a tour of Engineering and lots more around the Uni, it has grown so much (yeah, yeah well it would in 25 years+!) but it had a really good feeling and I think Zac may have it for his first choice!  If so it is purely on its own merits and not on my pressure.. honest.

It would be great though, and things would be so different now to when I went, we could go visit with the girls (well, they would shop and say a quick Hi!) and Col could call in and say hi (or more likely deliver boys toys) when passing. A far cry from being delivered there by a kind Uncle and my Mum getting there once in three years..but things change and we are all so much more mobile today.

I was so so weary when we got in, I think it was one of those weeks where you keep going and keep going, then it's over and you flop. Well, flop I did, into bed, before 7pm and stayed there til 11am today..aided and abbetted by tea and toast from my love, it was just what I needed.  Catching up now, washing and a proper tea, Jordan's favourite too, lasagne, as she reckons she'll be on a diet of yoghurts and milkshakes for a few days after her orthodontic op tomorrow!

Catching up..

.. on blogging news and some sleep.. it was a busy weekend.. no great events really but kept busy doing things we enjoy, but a few early mornings need compensating for now.. yawn. 

Saturday was the dance run and then I went with Lisa & Lilly to take flowers to Mum & Dad. It was a fine day and good to top up the homeland levels over a special weekend..we always comment on the fab view from the Mariner's Lodge corner, Lisa said it's why we live here and why everyone wishes they did too.  We lazed about at home in the afternoon, Lilly ate her weight in nibbles from Nannie's cupboard and discovered that cats can be quite grumpy really when you try to brush them with sand and a stick!

Sunday Col and I got up early to have a few hours out in the boat, we didn't fish much, made out way up to Penberth & Porthcurno bays and bobbed about chatting and enjoying the views from the sea...'There you are,' said Colin, 'you can't say I never take you to Penberth!'  It really is a different view from the sea, and I'm so glad we got the boat and get out that way so often..those granite cliffs seem to recharge my batteries ... maybe I'm a closet pagan and Treryn Castle is my Merry Maidens or Stonehenge?

We picked Col's dad up at 10am and had a run over to the Mount, again really nice to see places from a different viewpoint. I'm even learning to drive the boat, perhaps that'll be my equivalent of those people who take up sky diving at 40?.. well I always said I've lost my 'danger gene' so this'll do me.

When we got home it was Zac's paintball training day, 5 or 6 of them playing down the field.. definitely big boys and their toys.  We took the little ones down and picked some blackberries, well Lilly ate some to be true. I did an early barbecue and by 8pm when the Help for Heroes concert started it felt like we'd really done something that day.

The concert was good, edited a lot I think, wish the comedians got more air time. We were glad we didn't go all the way to Twickenham for it,.. but boy, old Robbie still 'entertains you'.  (Hey, Linda and I were chatting and discovered that we'd both been at Robbie William's Millenium stadium concert about 6 years ago..wonder how often people's lives cross before they actually meet.. the old Sliding Doors scenario I guess..)

Feels the same..

.. even though I've finally arrived in the second half of my century.. God help the kids if I make it for the full second half.. or extra time even!!   I kind of have a thought that we don't really know we're in the world for the first 15 years, so essentially I'm no more than 35 yet..

Zac and I spent the day travelling to and from Cardiff for a University visit.. a bit surreal when you get there and feel like you've been teleported to another country..which I guess you have. It's much more 'Welsh' than I remember it.. perhaps since it now has it's own assembly etc.  

It was a good day, we saw and learnt lots about the University and its armed him with a better idea of what he needs to glean from the 3 he visits this week.. yes, Bath, Loughborough and Exeter by this time next week.  Col's doing the first two and I'm meeting them for Exeter.  I went there myself '79-82 so I have to try hard not to take him on a Exeter equivalent of Mum's nostalgia tour, but hopefully what I can add will help not hinder!

Before we came home, we had a quick sortie into the town, got the obligatory pizza (Italian restaurant not Domino's.. but plenty of them next week!) .. and we had a beer each..me and my 18 year old son eh?!

We were dead beat when we got home and it was hard to be as enthusiastic as a birthday required when faced with a pile of pink pressies..but I tried!... failed miserably amongst people who know me too well, but as I said I tried!

Nice evening..

.. last evening.. we had a barbecue, Col lit a fire in his amazing wood burning basket..made especially for Zac's camp out. It was really good, we sat out til almost 10pm, from dusk til really dark. 

I was really pleased, it's too easy to slip into the same old routine and I love to do something different, especially with minimum of effort on my part!!

  The other evening we spent getting old songs up on YouTube and I got out the layouts below and finished them, great to scrap and chat... I just don't find it easy to settle in my scrap room all alone.. just too much of a social animal...

.. and if all else fails when everone is busy, my guilty TV secret while scrapping is Gok Wan, making everyone Look Good Naked.

May days..

Saturday's session at Just Scrapbooking was really nice, great to catch up with people as the summer holidays are almost over. We all had some recent pictures to use on our multi picture layouts...Linda has done a fabulous one of the Newlyn Fish Festival, I'll put a link here when she posts it on her site.

Summer was the theme and I chose a bunch of photos we'd taken earlier in the year, it had been hot enough to even enjoy the shade of the gazebo Colin put out front. 

Seems a long time since we saw a good spell of weather, and I have a saying....ahhh, Summer, it was a day in May this year...

I was having a hard time deciding how to work all the words in, but I think Linda would allow the few 'chavvy' letters I used, especially as I used sandpaper and chalk in a vain attempt to de-commercialise them!

Great start...

... taking a tip from the way kids run things these days, with their celebrations for birthdays, weddings and the like lasting upwards of a week, I met Linda today for a pre-birthday lunch.  We started with a glass of wine and talked so much we almost forgot to have the food which would soak the wine up before we headed off to the school run..

I told Linda how I'd watched a programme about Liz Smith last night, she is 86 and was on her first proper holiday...a cruise on the Hebridian Princess around the Med.  (for those of you frowning, Liz Smith played Nana in the Royal Family)  Pondering the enslaught of my 50th birthday I had quickly calculated that if I get to 86 I will have the time I've been with Colin another twice over... so that's not bad is it... wonder if he's up to it?

Anyways, the weekend starts here, tuna readied for a barbecue, it's still (just) a summer's day here, so out to eke it out as long as possible!

Spoke to my (always) big brother yesterday, seems Ross and his posse slept the first night in a French field, lost... and had still not appeared at Ken's doorstep 24 hours later...what they need is Google-Kath's maps... I plan Colin's trips away on Google maps to get the least long journeys and am known in the office as Bomber Jones!

Took few photos at lunch.. will add later.. PC and phone software allowing...hic!

ZacMan007 at 18!

.. funny isn't it the names we choose when setting up our first email addresses....we always did call him ZacMan, 18 years ago Zac was not such a well known name for a baby and the closest nickname was PacMan..

The 007 speaks for itself, he used to have designs on being a spy but I think I'd spoil that for him.. bound to tell everyone and blow his cover!   Mind you, he is 007 in paintball terms, just got his first toy as an adult.. a paintball pistol for his birthday present.  I did write 'his first adult toy' there, but that sounded kind 0f 'wrong'!!

So, the day has been rather a washout, thick drizzle and lots of rain all day, so the plan to have a paintball game and barbecue has floundered but we've all been happy to blob out, drink tea and generally have a Sunday.

Ross sets off for a two week camping trip to France tomorrow, in his converted van with three pals.. hoping we may be able to follow his exploits as I follow Kerry's blog... Notes from the Horizon (see right), though I doubt she'll update it much en route!   (especially if the first port of call is my big brother's and he opens the 'wine cellar' for them!!)

By the time he gets back he'll have to hit the ground running, he starts back to work and his Access Course pre-Uni and Zac will have seen at least 4 universities so will have a better idea of where he'd like to end up next year... oh and dear JB will be planning an ice cream and reading week after her big dental adventure!