April Scavenger Hunt

I haven't managed to collect all the items in the scavenger hunt this month and so I am posting a day early. I am pleased with the ones I did get, though I blame the weather and the various hospital visits for lack of opportunity to complete it in full!

So here are the 9 out of 12 I did do.

Spring- spring flowers in town, planted out as a Union Jack in honour of the Queen's Jubilee. I love this so much I have started to use it as the wallpaper on my laptop.

Multi-coloured- multi-coloured plastic eggs hiding Easter chocolate treats.

Sticky- S had a sticky face after eating this candyfloss.

Direction- we went bowling during the school holiday back at the start of the month and so here we have the lane markings pointing in the direction of the remaining pins which will hopefully soon be in a downwards direction!

On the move- the sun was out and it was so warm when I came home from work on Friday I didn't want to waste it so S and I went down for a walk along the shore. The Queen Mary was on the move out of the docks, no doubt to somewhere an awful lot warmer.

Smile- smiles all round on Saturday afternoon when Saints were promoted to the Championship! This was hastily snapped off the TV.

Rock- half a stick of rock which was in the fridge. Part of a thank you present from our neighbours to us for feeding their cat when they went away.

In/Out- I was so pleased with this one which again I took during the school holidays. Some of the tulips are in bud and some are out in bloom, some in the sunlight and some out of it.

Tangle- this is S's hair brush, we use a tangle teeser as recommended by the hairdressers for her lovely curly hair. Apparently it was a product idea which was rejected in the Dragon's Den but which the inventor has gone on to be very successful with. Certainly works for S.

The ones I didn't get were 'amazing', 'can't live without' and 'indulgence'. All of which I could say there are plenty of on this blog already, they can be found within the hundreds of photos of my wonderful little family!

A Right Royal Cuppa

Could not resist buying this box of tea bags from the 99p shop today.

No idea what they taste like as yet but I think I shall have to use my red, white and blue teapot when it's time to make a cup of tea or two.

Anyone care to join me?

Who's in the Box?

As a little treat for having to under go his op G ordered himself a new guitar. It arrived in a big box on Tuesday and so it was here for him when he came home on Wednesday. 

As we all know cats love boxes, 

but Malcolm wasn't the only member of the household who couldn't resist a little investigation!

Unfortunately although G did get to try out his new toy it was a brief experience as he went back into hospital on Friday morning. He was in vast amounts of pain and had to have a MRI scan to check that the discs hadn't re-ruptured or that any other various horrid things hadn't happened. Thankfully that all proved to be tickety-boo and so it is a case of getting his pain levels under control. Hopefully he'll be home tomorrow or Tuesday. And hopefully today the flat tyre I got yesterday can be sorted, just when I really need the darn car too!

My Resistance is Low

I have had a very lazy morning. I didn't intend to but I was using you tube to do a bit of research (term used very loosely) and found myself hopping from one music video to another. 

The reason for going onto you tube in the first place was the Pink annuals I have recently bought  from ebay. Inside there are photos of singers I remember, like Leif  'I was Made for Dancin'' Garrett and there were photos of singers I couldn't rememebr such as twin brothers Billy and Bobby Alessi. You tube seemed like the best idea and so I went and found out what they had sung  back in the late 1970's.

Which led then to music video hopping and 2 hours of wallowing in nostalgia. 

When I was younger and we would go and visit my grandparents I would take myself off to my aunt's bedroom and look through all her singles. She had 100's of them, working on the record counter in Woolies did it! This is the one song I LOVED and I would play it over and over and over again. 

Today I have listened to it over and over and over again and here it is for you to listen to too. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

New Chef on the Block

T has discovered cooking at school, although there they call it food tech, and he is really enjoying it.  When he was younger we would occasionally make some cakes or biscuits together, it wasn't something he wanted to do very often, although he has never had any problem with eating any baked goodies!

Yesterday he ought home these little beauties. 

4 rock cakes which were de-lic-i-ous.

T asked that if G was able to come home from hospital today (which he was, hurrah!!!) could he cook us something for our evening meal from a recipe book all pupils had been given at school. We decided on pitta bread pizzas.
He did really well and we all thoroughly enjoyed the results.

Today he made macaroni cheese which is his absolute favourite and he snaffled that as soon as he got in so no idea how that tasted but we did all have a slice from this scone round when he made that just before half term.

I'm very much looking forward to his next food tech lesson.

Thank You

Some paper DaffodilsI made at Easter, inspired by this post, to say a  big thank you for all the good luck messages left for G for his operation today. I have spoken to him twice and he's doing fine. Just need to wait for the morning and the surgeon to do his rounds so G can find how long he has to stay in for.

A Different Week

I can't believe that Easter Sunday was only one week ago, this has been a very long week. I have taken very few photos and so all the photos in this post are of the goodies I either bought today at the car boot or yesterday at a jumble.

Enamel mugs 10p each, glass jars 20p each, button 10p, glass tea light holder 50p, Christmas sign £1

The plan for Easter Monday was a family day out in London. S and I would then travel home, but G and T would stay as they were booked into a hotel in Covent Garden for the night as a visit with T's brother R was arranged for Tuesday. The weather was so awful on Monday and G's back so painful that in the end it was decided that only G and T would go to London and they ended up leaving the mid afternoon. S and I stayed at home and made sparkly nail varnish from a kit she had for Christmas.

Long sleeved top £1

Tuesday worked out pretty much as planned. G and T met R in London and had a lovely time. T had a piece of homework to do over the school holidays about someone he admires and he decided to do it about R and all the things he has achieved which we found very touching.
S loves spending time with my mum and so she was more than happy to have Nanny to herself for the day whilst I went to work.

Skirt for S 50p.

On Wednesday I had planned to take S to her opticians appointment, take both of the children to see the Prow to Stern Titanic layout in the park and then it was off to Salisbury so they could stay with Grandma for a few days. I had been unable to get the day off work on Friday and also on that day G had a pre-op assessment to attend at the hospital as he was due a back operation on 19th of this month.
S and I did go to town for the appointment and then the park but there was no trip to Salisbury. When G arrived home on Tuesday there was a message on our answerphone asking him to call the hospital urgently but by the time he got the message there was no-one available to speak to. He rang them first thing Wednesday morning to be asked did he want to go in the next day for his op. After a quick discussion between the two of us he rang them back and said yes please.

Green skirt 25p, grey cardigan 25p, check shirt 25p, grey top 25p

So instead of me having the day to catch up on housework with T and S away, we were all up early to wave    G off with lots of good luck hugs and kisses as he got into a taxi at 7.10am to take him over to the hospital. As he hadn't had his pre-op assessment that was done first thing and he then text to say he was last on the list so expect no news until later in the afternoon.
Thinking ahead I had been online the night before and bought a murder mystery treasure trail based in the nearby market town of Romsey. I thought this would be a good thing to keep us busy as we would be concerned about how G was doing and I didn't want us to be hanging around the house 'just waiting.'
Unfortunately we managed half a dozen clues before I could tolerate T's behaviour no longer. I know that may sound intolerant of me when he was obviously worried about his dad but honestly his attitude and whole demeanour from the moment he had woken up so was aggressive and disrespectful. I cut him some slack because of the situation and had a chat to him about it but there came a point when it was just too much. I hope we go back and finish it another time!
Back home a couple of hours after we had set off with not much achieved I received a text from G to say he would be coming home. There had been two emergency cases flown to the hospital by air ambulance and they weren't able to operate on him because of those. Although we were very grateful that he wasn't one of those cases it was none the less frustrating as you go through the whole build up of getting yourself ready for the procedure. So he was back home with us by tea time.

Skirt for me £1

Friday was work for me and with no pre-op assessment for G he was home with T and S instead. He had a phone call from the hospital and has now been told his operation will be on Tuesday.

It's been a strange week, lots of plans made, changed and then changed again. All in all not one I would like to repeat in a hurry.

Mug 10p.