Hello, good evening and welcome!

So this is it.. the rebirth of my blog habit.. perhaps? maybe? quite likely!
My dear blog friend Karen has been encouraging me the last week or so.. (for encourage read nag) but for the best of reasons! New year, new intentions.. and for me.. a new computer! Yay!

I think I lost some of my blog momentum a year or more ago when we changed our computer station in our kitchen, and then we changed the kitchen too, for goodness sake! We got a new swish house laptop but we didn't like it, all Windows 8 and swiping and losing pages left right and centre. Add to this that I no longer kept my pictures on the computer and took most of them on my phone and it was always easier to Facebook them instead of trying to Blog.. yes, Blogger is for sure not compatible with mobile upload.. well not for me.. maybe that's just a bad workman always blaming her tools!

so.. a new computer.. a new laptop for my work.. to free me up and access my 'stuff' when not in the office. Our clever pals at IT West have set me up so I can 'Teamview' my work station and do all the jobs, just not from there...Perfect for the control freak that I am who wants to still have days away but keep on top of things.. I may even be able to go away with Colin more .. watch this space..x


I have a good feeling about this..there is Bluetooth for pictures.. and ..and.. and..let me try it..since I last wrote properly here are a couple of pictures of our life and times..

August 2014.. Colin's Dad (Pops) turned 80 years old and we had a 'Travel' theme fancy dress, Uncle Bill and Deborah came from the USA and the sun shone.. boy we were busy!

The week after we went with the STS crew and Ross and Jordan to the MotoGP in Silverstone.  Zac had to leave before this, we dropped him at Heathrow and took the Pod to Terminal 5.

A really great guy at the Drivers Centre took us round the F1 centre and we go to stand on the F1 podium, all of it would have been impossible but for the fact we were at the motorbike racing and not the Formula 1.

STS do the F1 Podium!

In September Kate passed her driving test and three weeks later took herself off to live near Oxford with her boyfriend. She found it very hard to start with, and even now when she leaves, but she has got a job and plans for a future up there for a good few years yet!  We are proud of her, she is so young some days but brave and determined despite the difficult days.. like learning that your house doesn't clean itself..;-)

We managed amongst the busy-ness to get a few trips out on the boat, some great fishing (though the spoils are still in the freezer)

And we had a building ..or two.. built in the field..

Oh yes and we took this Selfie in Lanzarote!

and we stayed in a Oxford Prison hotel!

Putting a few things to bed?

Well it was Night 3 this week that I found myself laying awake in my bed. I know I am awake because both my eyes are open.. and focussing!  For two nights it was a case of waking after a few hours, but tonight I did not even settle down for the initial flourish of sleep.  

So I lay there, telling myself I am not worried about anything, that I am not stressed, (just hot and restless) and go through ridiculous relaxation techniques, counting things and trying to list things backwards in the hope I will bore myself asleep or just dive in whilst trying to think who came before who in my list of teachers / school friends or whatever!

So I have come downstairs and had my cup of tea and this time two slices of Jordan's lovely bread and Kernow Inferno's chilli marmalade (ahh, you should not be eating / drinking tea etc I hear you cry, but last time I tried not eating and that didn't work either!)
As the ironing was already done I browsed some friends blogs and Facebook and ordered some bits from Debenhams sale online and here I am.

One of the lists I had in my head... when I wasn't stressed / worried / relaxing (did I mention that!) ...was what I had done since I last blogged and why I wasn't in the habit of writing lately. ... and for sure I should be as Zac has been away about 5 weeks now and will be expecting something here pretty soon.

I decided that the problem is when I lose blog momentum (is that a thing?) I want to write it chronologically and if a lot has happened I don't want to write out of order.
We did some personality testing in our office and it came out that one of my main traits is a 'complete finisher' as I like to see a job done and the box ticked so to speak (sometimes just for the tick as much as for the completion I must confess.)  And in the context of blogging it seems I am a bit like a New Year diary writer; if I lose a week I find it hard to drop back in without infilling the weeks I missed..so I don't!.

(Colin, on the other hand was denoted mainly an innovator and apparently loses interest after the first flourish of creating something, they call it a butterfly syndrome .. but it is good because he has a complete finisher alongside to tick those empty boxes (though currently I am feeling like a complete nagger .. but if nagging the flitting butterfly is how you completely finish then I guess it's okay!)

So, as I lay there eyes wide open I decided I would put the wakefulness to good use and come downstairs to ramble away in cyberspace and try and resurrect my blogging habit.  I have also been feeling a bit neglectful of my Lucky 7's challenge which I have been setting but falling short of entering.. can you see a theme coming here?
In my defence I think I am doing okay at work though, we are busier than we have ever been and in anticipation of a ten day sojourn to the sun I am trying to be extra reactive and not leaving many stones to turn up forgotten promises while we are away. (That's the trouble really, when you and your husband are 'the sales team' and you quite like to holiday together.. no-one to cover up when the things you forgot to do come knocking!)

Okay, if you have hung in here this long I am going to (for posterity and the desire to be chronological) mention what's been happening here since I last wrote.. (refers to phone as it has my diary and pictures)..

Pops in 1997..

August 23rd.. Bank Holiday weekend.. mega 80th birthday for Col's Dad. Uncle Bill & Deborah came from Washington for the week and we had wonderful family times. Zac was here and also lots of other wisitors.. we were bushed by the end of it.. over 5 days we fed 10-20-50-26 and 12 people. It had been a big Tesco shop (and at 11pm and through self serve.. ouchie.. I thought I had forgotten THAT moment!)

August 30th ..we went with a bunch of our people from STS to the Moto GP at Silverstone. dropping Zac off at Heathrow for his next 4 months at sea  on the way was not fun, but we had a great time with him over the summer.

September .. back to school still features here, even though all of ours are finished now. Lilly and Lyla come by on Mondays or Tuesdays and seeing everyone has to fit into school timetables.. also as Ross works at school and April started her teacher training this term.. yay!
I had a Spa Day with April and my 3 girls.. partly for my birthday and also as Kate was about to go off to seek her fortune in Oxfordshire the week after!  She has had itchy feet as mum would call it, for a good while and as her friends are all still at college she wanted to go stretch herself job and life-wise so she also has something to show for the year...she passed her driving test and within 3 weeks she drove 250 miles.. with a friend, but hey, I still balk at the idea of driving past Plymouth!
Jordan has been busy planning her big fairs for Christmas season and doing small markets. I go to Pendeen and run the Saturday stall some weeks and enjoy the trip out west!
Lisa has found a house she is hoping to buy but I am keeping quiet on that as it is surely a spell I don't want to break!

Not much boating this year, although the weather has been so lovely.. tides and work have not been as kind. We did have a couple of cod-heavy trips out to the east.. yes, east! It has not been known before for us to turn left out of the Mount, but the cod must have known that.. but we have them under surveillance now and know where they are lurking!

And we are building a building! Two buildings in fact.. in our field..after much planning and pacing to and fro for Colin and the guys, we are under way!

Anyhow.. it is late and maybe now I have put this list down I will rest easy and sleep. I promise (myself) to write more often.  I think it is because I Facebook pictures that the chat I had here gets missed out.. that and the fact that it is just so easy to keep all the pictures on my phone.. and not quite sure how to get them onto this darned Windows 8 laptop without emailing in bulk.. see, still finding some excuse!

Night all.. xx

7 plus 1 plus 99...maybe!

My weekend:

7 kinds of bread at the Pendeen Market (Saturday)

So we took advantage of some fab weather and a favourable tide and got a few hours 'out West' yesterday.. only ONE place to head when you are in the boat and the weather is fine!

Zoomed in : Penberth (Rowe family?!

I am kind of trying to think of a tenuous link to why this should be a picture for 99!    Maybe there are a number of captions available:

'What do you mean a taxi to Hayle will be 99 pounds?'

'Do you know how many spots are on my dress?'

'How many different ways are there to wear hair extensions?'

'What is an ice cream with a chocolate flake in it usually called.. and why!?'

Blog Hopping! (or in my case 'Blog Hop-eless!!!)

Well this is new to me!

Karen over at memycameraeye has nominated me to take part in a Blog Hop!  I am not sure I can do it justice, but here goes!  The idea is that I answer four questions and then nominate three more bloggers to carry on next week!  I think ideally it is about people who craft but since my scrapbooking and crafting is on a sabbatical at the moment I will try and let you know where I am now and how things were just as I left them!

In case you are coming to me afresh then this is me:  mum of five grown up children (yes Kate, 17 is meant to be grown up!)  Three live at home full-time and one is away working 8 months a year, whilst the last one is married with three gorgeous girls and lives not too far away.
We run a small but busy manufacturing works from behind our house and life is busy, working in our office 5 or sometimes 6 days a week and juggling the wants and desires of family life as well.

I was an avid scrapbooker, especially with the Just Scrapbooking crew over at Newlyn for five years.  I started this just as my Mum went into residential care; she had dementia and was losing a lot of memories and as a response scrapbooking helped me put down on paper some of my own thoughts and memories of my childhood.

About a year ago, life got a little easier, for a number of reasons, our children getting older and more independent mainly, and my husband and I have managed to get out and about for weekends a lot more. The house had a kitchen extension put on (long awaited) and the house was in turmoil most of last year. Also a new baby joined her two sisters to make three grand children under 5 years of age so our free time.. and space to scrapbook was hard to find.. though to be fair the photographic opportunities still pile up! ;-).

Maybe, just maybe , I also am feeling a little less bereft after several years of our whole family really feeling the gap in our lives our Mums left when they died 5 and 6 years ago. Life goes on, memories get easier and you feel less need to be 'in touch' with the old times. Children become adults, children have children, and make new memories of their own and you all move on in the cycle of life.. and it's true, you have to live for now.

Anyway, suffice to say.. life is good, busy but good..  

What am I working on now?

My scrap desk / mess!

Life is so busy with our family, our house and our business that my scrapbooking in 2014 means an untidy pile of things in a specially allocated room.. which also houses the baby's travel cot for when she comes to stay!

I still take pictures with an idea of using them in a layout.. sometime.. later.. when I am not so busy..

I have several projects in limbo with my scrapbooking. An 18th birthday album for Jordan (who turned 19 last December) and an ongoing project to plot Zac's course through his Navigation Officer training with Princess Cruises.  
I also need to organise the albums I have. I used to do annual ones so I could see the progression of my ability and style but then I started an album for Lisa's girls and lost the flow.

How does my work differ from others of it's kind?
I think I have a kind of busy but 'organised' style, even if I try to get away from it. I tend to labour over a technique on one page and then compliment it with a speed scrapped page to lay beside it as a double page layout.. which I love.. did I say that? ;-)

You can see it on this beach layout...we were working with Monopoly pieces and I used the Monopoly Cornwall edition, the place 'Porthcurno'  Lots of layering and I love the sealife stamps.

This is the more formal second page which I use to allow me to include the loads of extra pictures I want.. because making the memory is what it's all about for me.

Why do I create what I do?
So that when I am older and greyer I can pore over the albums and show my kids and grandkids the days we had. I already enjoyed sharing an 18 year album I did for Lisa with her girls..even for me it was hard to look at the little girl doing crazy things and remember that it is the Mum and not one of the children I am looking at....

How does my writing / creative process work?...
I usually get a technique from our class leader and then try and match with my photos.. or develop an  idea from that.rarely I use sketches but when I do I think I should so it more often as I like the effect!
I think when I get back into it I shall look back and find layouts I really liked and use the formats again.

Here are three people you should enjoy reading about ..(so far I am not sure if I can get them to join in as it seems several have already taken part in this BlogHopping)

here are links to my favourite reads anyway:

Jen.. who I met through 365+1 blog

Janice .. who I met at a JustScrapbooking course way back in 2008

Linda.. my original scrapbook Inspiration..

Catch up.. Spring Views and... Foods!

Spring Sky at St Ives

We snuck a trip to St Ives for lunch and birthday shopping for the SIL yesterday and I got my spring images at the harbour!

Spring View St Ives Harbour

 Then the girls came by after they had been out for Sunday lunch, so they were in their Sunday best! ;-) 




Annabelle was hanging out with us and she is so chilled.. well at least when not out to dinner (hence why she was with us!), 15 months now and just cute!

Mischief in a dress x

Just so 'the Big Sister'

Oh and while I am on catch up.. as ever.. here's the great basket of bread I crave (this one from Jordan's St Just market on Saturday.. I went along for the chat and to see how it went along in case I am called in to help someday)

My Food Heaven

Definitely my Food Hell!

...and to round of the weekend a promise of some decent weather.. ?

Media Catch Up..

Well life has been crazy the past few days. It's amazing how disorientated you can be when something as elementary as your desk is changed.. Our server in the office is being upgraded and consequently our own desk computers. My pal Sam, our book keeper, had my desk and I got busy doing other stuff..we were both quite lost, even the view from the desk is different using someone else's PC... oh well, change as good as a rest and all that.. it will be a good precursor for the big upgrade to a decent (not converted shed / farm outbuilding) office later this year I hope!

The wind was promised to return yesterday so we put off a trip out and Lisa and the girls came by, it was very chilled and nice to have them all here. The big girls are sleeping over next week so I am sure Colin will get busy on all the outdoor jobs that day! ;-)

On catch up I have been thinking about Adverts.. I love them and hate them.. I like to avoid them on TV, but I do appreciate a good ad.. Lidl's with the lady who advertises tea but then says she hates tea and loves gin!  Ads are always good if they can be related to someone you know!

My pet hate is the ad in food stores where 3 or 4 different formats of a product make you do so much mental maths it's like a GCSE refresher course.. take these 3 ads for beans from Tesco just after Christmas... I picked up 4 single tins at 50p each, then 6 for 60p each .. but wait a mo.. 7 for £3!!  I was cross enough to photograph the options..

 ....as for my Blog story, it began about 6 years ago as a supplement to my Scrapbooking, telling the stories behind the pictures I had used in layouts.. kind of online journalling..then I joined some challenges and the rest is history. t
Today I write as a diary and to keep in touch with our Zac who is often away as he trains to be a navigation officer in the Merchant Navy... and whooop! he is home in 10 days!! 

Final thought for the day.. Digital or Print..?

The jury is still out for me, I have a magazine each month in print but have failed to read it much the last few months..maybe online issues would be more portable?
I love to take a book on holiday but do like to have the book on my shelf afterwards.. but instead of 4 books maybe a e-reader would be good.. no sun oil on it, sand in the pages and leaving it in the pocket on the plane which was the fate of my last book.
I don't read newspapers really but when I do see online articles it is because I looked it up and not because I am browsing a whole edition..

So as I said, jury is out.. I am going back to Tenerife in March with the 3 youngest and Col, maybe I will be converted then (reading does make me quite anti-social though and as Col is not a great reader (he is a fab researcher though... when on a mission to find a new car / tool / application for manufacturing..) and I hate having my head in a book while he just sits pondering..

Ticking boxes.

I love to get an imaginary list in my head and see the ticks in the boxes. I think I even create a list of things I know I will get done easily just to have that satisfaction!  There is currently quite a list as we leave home tomorrow for the 8am train to London and fly BA over the 'D.C.' to 'visit' with family and friends. I am getting quite excited though I have yet to pack..anything! (Again there is an imaginary list being written)

It's been a busy couple of weeks, Col away on big client visits, a night away for my birthday and several lovely calls from Zac as it was also his birthday on 5th.  He is doing good, looking forward to coming home in a week, meeting us as we land from our whistle stop trip to the States.


Kitchen-gate is almost over, the new one is just about there; carpet fitted yesterday so only some tiling to get done but that doesn't really make it any better or worse does it.  we have decided to re-plaster some of the rotten bits of the old kitchen so that bit has been left 'red' and is a job for October.














The carpet was a bit of a surprise, it's hard to carry in your head how the stripes on a a small rectangle will look in a 4m wide roll.. and we all thought we were in a visual illusion for a bit when it got laid  but a sofa and couple of drawer units will put that right.  I am also very happy that my huge table is now looking much more in proportion down the dining end and who knows it may survive to see another Christmas and another, complete with pva glue and glitter from the sticking and gluing we all plan to do once we are back on lazy mode.. and when IS that?

I shall try and post some of my news as we visit Uncle Bill and Deborah and our great pals Will & Michele in the USA. Well. although it is a break i should get access to some blog time, maybe even chance to share some more profound thoughts of life in a slower (not at home and working) lane!

Oh and I even managed to pre-schedule my challenge post for Monday over at Lucky Snappers.. hope you enjoy xx

PS Nicknames Anne.. ummm.. my best story is of Col's Mum who used to know a guy who worked with his dad as Louie the Lip because he was always in a fight and had a fat lip.  She brought him out a cup of tea whilst they were working and called 'Louie, your tea is here'. 
He didn't answer..she called agin, only to be hushed by ken... mainly because everyone else called him Louie the Lip but he didn't know!

Time flies! Picture heavy post!

I feel so bad for not joining into the challenge I set, I had so much to say about jobs and things and this week I love B&W pictures, Lynne's prompt was so clever.
i have added in some of my pics and hope they link in okay.

But we have just had a really busy time of it. I can't quite put my finger on what we have been doing but here I am two weeks later and no posts with news since 18th..

Soooo.. Kate got her GCSE results!  She did good.  My main aim was for her to get the C or above in Maths & English so she wouldn't have to slog away at these again once she starts the beauty course.  Well there was that B for maths in the bag last November so I was hopeful and sure enough she made the English a C and the box is ticked.   She got B equivalents in double dance and then a bunch of Cs in Science, Textiles and Childcare.  

I am a happy bunny, she had some teen angst (read boyfriend troubles) all through the exams so it must have been her coursework which pulled her through (not like in our day when it meant you had to 'pass' exams and wrote til your arm ached essays for about three hours at a time)

She is fun.. the other day she was saying that we should have a mother / daughter tattoo! So I go along and chat about it, no intention really...but as we left for her results i threw into conversation that the tattoo was a Go if she got an A .. now you have to realise I know how much she studies and my skin is safe!But she did get an A* in one piece of Childcare, I think coursework, but for me it shows that if she ever did want to turn on the exam ability then she does have it.

For now though she has 4 different jobs.. working at the Chinese, the Chippy, an Avon round and a few nights at the Indian which is next to the Chinese.. anyone in her town will definitely look twice when she pops up at the next eatery! She has a good work ethic and will never go without, I am content.

..these pictures of her prom day really do look different in B&W.. I had to use the 'overexposed' edit on my phone so it makes them quite extreme!






We have had the girls over quite a bit, April does a great job entertaining them, home made play dough, gardening, little sleeping beds for Joey the cat (who they were both terrified of a couple of months ago!)

Jordan has done her bit, she is baking Auntie!  Lyla is turning very funny while Lilly is quite mature and takes the big sister (disapproving sometimes) role quiet seriously!







We have eaten outside quite a bit and the kitchen is close (we had a bit of a glitch with the adjustment needing a fresh eye ) and Col just needs to do the plumbing in for me..






oh and here is an alternative August Mount View.. I was down there one evening and they floodlit the castle so this is another sad phone shot!

Just to keep it posted and up to date.. this is the local paper bit about Jordan and her pals..note that she has already inherited the Jones trait of 'relevant information / BS' as her A in Fine Art was an AS and she left out mention of her less satisfying English!  She will go far in sales and blarney xxxx


Lastly these shots of Col & his dad with Annabelle one evening when we had the girls over.. again a not great effect mode on my phone as I have no PC indoors to tweak pics on at the moment!

.. definitely a different viewpoint when you look at the two pictures Lynne x