Boys!

"It will be cold when you go to Scotland, make sure you buy a nice, warm, sensible hat"

Not quite what I expected him to buy ......

A new image

Today is so grey and damp and dull and miserable that I felt the need for change. The need to brighten myself up and get a little 'oomph' back. So having left work at 12.30 I jumped in the car and went to the hairdressers. You know how you sit there and they make polite conversation and then you get to the 'So - what are we doing with your hair today?' bit - and all bravado about new looks and wanting to look a little bit like some celebrity disappear? Well today I decided to go with the 'Suppose I said you could do what you want to it, what would you do?' And this is the end result:

I must have had about 4" cut off the back and 2" off the front and loads of layers in between. Please bear in mind that after leaving the hairdressers I had to battle wind and rain without an umbrella so it's not as pristine as when I left the salon but I'm pleased I took the plunge.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change? I'm open to suggestions as to what I could do next!

Been travellin'

Oh my goodness, didn't the round the world blog work well? I'm so impressed - what a great idea that was! So interesting to see so many different parts of the world, so many varied lifestyles with one common interest - scrapbooking!

I have been overwhelmed by the kind messages left on my blog and will be replying when I have time but today is so horrendously horrible weatherwise that we are decorating our hallway and I don't think my poor husband will appreciate me spending the next hour on the computer while he singlehandedly does the wallpapering.

Today I have also made my Christmas pudding and here's the proof!All ready to go into the steamer for 8 hours. Started it off last night and had the annual 'make a wish while you give it a stir' tradition. When I was little my mum used to put little charms into the Christmas pudding. They were shaped like little horseshoes and four leaf clovers etc. I remember them so well, they used to come sewn onto a cardboard sheet and it was my job to cut up pieces of greaseproof paper to wrap them in individually and drop them into the pudding mix. Haven't seen them in the shops for years so maybe I am showing my age by mentioning this! My mum always made several puddings for various members of the family, she was such a good cook and enjoyed her baking. When she died, it was hard for my sister and I to have to cook our own puddings, it was just another one of those moments that brings home to you the little things that you miss. Do you know, we have NEVER found her pudding recipe! We have scoured her cookery books and found many recipes with tell tale signs of having been used - splashes of mixture sticking pages together - and pencil alterations to quantities or timings but we cannot find the one recipe she used. Even if we found it, I'm guessing it still wouldn't compare to hers though!

Blogging around the world

Hello! How nice to see you, I'm guessing that you have come to me from Jools' page. That's quite a journey so come in, settle yourself down in front of the fire and I'll put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Sorry, but you are a bit early to try out the sloe gin I started making recently, that won't be ready until Christmas, but you know you are more than welcome to come back now you know where to find me.

You saw the front garden on your way in, but if I open the curtains you'll be able to see the back garden too. The tree on the right has lost all it's leaves now but at the beginning of autumn it was beautiful, full of burgundy coloured foliage. We've still got 5 koi carp in the pond but the herons have had a banquet this year on the golfish we had, we've lost about 9. We've had the pond about 10 years and this is the first year that herons have bothered us, I think the koi are too big for them and too quick at diving to the bottom.

So now you have seen what I see when I open the curtains each day, and I don't want to rush you but I know that Sian is waiting to see you. In fact I think I'll join you, we can find her together. All I know is that she lives in a very tall house, with The Accountant, The Tall One and the Small One. Let's go .....

My first award!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to Rachel who has given me this award


Don't worry, there is not a tearful, long acceptance speech on the way and hopefully no wardrobe malfunctions while I am up on stage collecting it! I am so touched and grateful.
Now, the spirit of the award means that I have to share 5 facts about myself that others may not know so ....
1. I have danced on stage at the Royal Albert Hall. I would like to thank my partner, Martin Stringer, for learning all the steps that our teacher Mrs Bishop taught us in country dancing at Churchgate Street Primary School so that we did not make fools of ourselves. This fact goes back to 1966!
2. I used to have an imaginary friend called Zolly Watson. She lived in the playhouse at the bottom of the garden when I was about 6. We used to play there and our favourite snacks were lucozade and chocolate digestive biscuits.
3. I met my husband on a blind date. 29 years of marriage later .....we're still together!
4. My perfect dinner would start with champagne and end with chocolate. With some kind of lamb dish served in between.
5. I am absolutely petrified of lifts. Would rather climb 8 flights of stairs. My motto is 'Tis better to arrive breathless than a tearful, nervous, trembling wreck. And think of all those calories you are burning!

So, now I am going to continue the award giving ceremony by giving the award to some of my favourite blogs out there.
Robyn, Denise, Claire, Amy, Sarah, Sian
These people are personally responsible for keeping me away from doing the ironing, making me late preparing dinner and generally distracting me from doing anything remotely related to housework.
I know that some of these have already been nominated this award but I just wanted them to know that they're in my favourites list! I would also nominate Rachel who nominated me but I'm not sure if you are allowed to go round in circles!

Sweet Delights

Oh I'm in a mess. Icing sugar over my dress and a tell tale sign of melted chocolate around my lips. The laptop - which was on the breakfast bar while I was cooking, looks like it's been out in a snow storm and I hope icing sugar doesn't affect the inner workings of it. It's not my fault. I blame Mel. It's strange but anything that leads me off the straight and narrow of the Rosemary Conley healthy eating plan is almost always someone else's fault. Well if it isn't Mel's fault, it must be Rachel B's.
You see Rachel B did a post about some fudge she bought which looked fabulous. Mel wrote a comment on the blog which mentioned 'no boil fudge'. Which immediately got my attention because I love fudge but my recipe involves boiling for about 20 mins which inevitably leads to 3rd degree burns on my arms where the melted sugar spits out at me while I stir. So I contacted Mel through her blog and today she sent me the recipe. In fact it would seem that Mel is quite the cook, she even has a seperate cooking blog .
So I got to business as soon as I got home and the fudge is chilling nicely in the fridge at the moment. It cuts into 32 pieces which roughly equates to 29 pieces for me and one piece each for the rest of the family :-)
Thanks for the recipe Mel!

Then and Now

Today's task is to look back a year and see what we were doing and how things have or haven't changed. If I look back to a year plus a day I come across this . My daughter's graduation from Sheffield Hallam University. She had just got a 2:1 in Business and Marketing.

So pick up your remote controller and press fast forward to today. If someone had told us that 12 months after that day she would be ridiculously happy working 10 minutes from home in a hair salon I don't think either of us would have believed it.
For 12 months ago she had just landed a fab job in Covent Garden, London working for a prestigious media communications company working on global accounts. What the 2008 'us' didn't know that over the next 10 months she would narrowly escape redundancy, tire herself out in commuting, become bored with the job, and basically become so unhappy it impacted on many parts of her life and in all honesty, made her ill.
She's now retraining, back at college one day a week and working in the salon for 4 days. With a great bunch of friendly people, using her artistic skills and learning new things. A huge decision to make, and I am sure a fair few people thought 'what a waste of a degree' but I can tell you that what really matters is that I have my happy daughter back. She is well and content and keen to start the day again.
And of course, so many free haircuts - she looks quite different!