Tuesday 30 September 2014

September Mission - The Results!

Mission recap here!

Having had an operation on 3rd September and then spending pretty much the rest of the month recovering I’m afraid there wasn’t much grabbing of life (or anything else) by the round things going on this month!

I do already have a bit of a bucket list though (some more achievable than others!) which I keep in the front of this lovely note/scrapbook gift from Nadine...

 

  • Go to China to see the pandas
  • Storm chasing holiday
  • Break a world record
  • Past life regression
  • Paraglide
  • Murder Mystery weekend
  • Country music festival
  • Helicopter ride
  • Singing lessons
  • Save a life (I give blood but that's it so far!)
  • Follow the F1 season - first class all the way!
  • Watch a sunset and sunrise
  • Take up archery
  • Stay in every room at Crab Manor
I managed to break a world record last year so I’ve already achieved one of them!

 
Speaking of bucket lists, I absolutely love the film so here's a clip for you!
 


And speaking of films I did manage to achieve a bit of DVD/movie marathon doings during my incapacitation (you may or may not remember that these have featured heavily in the diaries in previous years but seem to be lacking this year) before I got utterly bored of staring at the box in the corner!
  • Stand up guys
  • De-lovely
  • Hannah and her sisters
  • Seeking a friend for the end of the world
  • I love you man
  • Traitor
  • Unthinkable
  • 17 again
  • The Joneses
  • 50/50
  • Abandoned (and it should be)
  • Shutter Island
  • Death defying acts
  • Surrogates
  • Invictus
  • Watchmen
  • Series 1 (and half of 2) of Vikings
  • From time to time

Monday 29 September 2014

September Week 4!

Recover from weird phobia Day - Fear of the netti pot, pah, I'm sooo over it! And it's now consigned to the back of a cupboard :-)

Tweet something amazingly funny Day – well that would be this blog wouldn’t it? ;-)

Be 84% naughty Day – only 84%? Why? And how do you measure it?

I may not have tweeted anything amazingly funny but I did text something funny - by accident.

You need a bit of background for this...

Mine Truly makes an awesome cup of tea, so awesome in fact that I have been known to sit at home dying of thirst waiting for him to come home to make me a cup of tea rather than make one myself (I realise that some would suggest this is more to do with laziness than Mine Truly's tea making skills but that's not so - honest...).

It's become such a long-standing 'thing' between us that he even got me these fabulous Bright Side cups for my birthday :-)

 
Anyway, back to the point. Mine Truly had sent me a text on Saturday night asking how my evening at home was going, owing to the rock and roll life style I lead (and the fact that it felt arctic in the flat) I'd pretty much decided to go to bed and read - conversation went as follows...
 
Mine Truly: Hey beautiful lady, how's your night going?
Me: Hey baby, it's blummin freezing here!! Was going to bake cookies (random urge to bake lol) but think I'm just going to take a cup of tea (which won't be as good as tits), a hot water bottle and a book and go to bed!
 
Clearly I meant 'yours' rather than 'tits'.

Monday 22 September 2014

September Week 3!

Develop a weird phobia Day – I already have a phobia about eyes and now I think I have one about netti pots. Thank god the advice was that I didn't need to use one if I didn't want to, having psyched myself up to the task when it came to it I just couldn't do it!

Dance to work Day - I didn’t go to work! I have occassionally in the past found myself feeling like breaking into dance on my way to work early in the morning, the advantage of the past is that is was a secluded and little used path to work - as it's now a busy main road I doubt there's any danger of this happening haha!

Be lovely to everyone Day - this was easy as I didn't see anyone! Except Mine Truly - and I'm always nice to him (well mostly) ;-)

Notice small things Day – my life has reduced to revolving around the interior of my flat, it’s amazing how much you start to notice (that needs doing!) when you’re staring at the same walls all the time!

Sunday 14 September 2014

September Week 2!

Have a doughnut Day - I didn't even get close to this one, sorry! In fact, the closest I got was coming across the photo of Mine Truly's birthday doughnut cake from last month. Given that the majority of my diet this week has, by necessity, been liquid (and I don't mean of the alcoholic variety!) there wasn't any chance of me eating a doughnut!



Learn a new fact Day - I learnt on Wednesday that Tuesday was Wonderful Weirdos Day, how could I have missed this one?!! And Saturday was, amongst other things, Fortune Cookie Day, I didn't have a fortune cookie but it's the perfect opportunity to tell you about the best fortune cookies I've ever had.

  • Your next fortune cookie will be better than this one
  • Help! I'm being held prisoner in a chinese fortune cookie making factory (a slightly inebriated Bernie and I found this one hilarious despite our concern that it might just be true and some poor soul may be counting on us for rescue haha!)
I did have the latter one on my fridge along with these ones...
  • You deserve the very best that life can bring to you
  • Your home is a pleasant place from which you draw happiness
...but it appears to have disappeared - this may have been during Jemima's efforts to climb the fridge at feeding time.

Monday 8 September 2014

September Week 1!

Nothing at all in the diary for this week - good job really since that's pretty much what I did!

Other than moving into the new office premises on Monday and going for my septoplasty op on wednesday of course ;-)

Saturday 6 September 2014

June Mission - The Results!

And this is where it all started going wrong a couple of months ago! I'd been writing my June results post all through the month of June and had put loads in there - then I deleted it by accident. I was so peed off with myself and couldn't bring myself to start again, but, I'm caught up now so here's take 2 (which is an abbreviated version of the original!)...

So, my June Mission was...
 
June Mission

Perfect the art of the Flipside
Turn any situation to your advantage
Love the rain as much as the sun
See the positive on the underside of every
negative

Go forth and ALWAYS see the flipside
 
This month included telling you about The Way of F**k It, a fantastic little book Helen bought me a few years ago, and which led to the whole grounded foot statement thing (in case you were wondering) - anyway, f**k it, read the book, it'll make you smile (and possibly write things on various parts of your body in permanent marker pen).

 
As for loving the rain as much as the sun...I've always loved the rain anyway so this wasn't a problem. For a collection of rain themed songs read this post here!
 
And finally...we were hoping to be able to get away for a short break abroad during our week off in June but finances wouldn't allow. However, the positive of that negative is that we wouldn't have been able to have the great week at home which we had instead, we wouldn't have been able to go with Maddie to have her stiches out or enjoy;
 

  • Harlow Carr Gardens (where we saw some lovely art and learnt a bit about the art of bonsai)
  • Lunch al fresco at Cafe Rouge (in the blazing sunshine!)
  • Free 4 course meal and wine at The Majestic Hotel (with free goody bag too!)
  • Day in London (with £10 upgrade to 1st class on the train)
  • Roman day out in York (where we ate lunch in the most haunted pub The Golden Fleece and then went on the fantastic York Terror Trail - highly recommended!)
  • Walk to Ripley and back (where we ate our sandwiches in the rain and failed to get an ice cream!)
  • Lunch at the Slug and Lettuce
  • A couple of great nights at Charlie's!










 

 




 








 




 
 
And of course June was also the month I saw the amazing Billy Ocean with Bernie (thanks Bernie!) and did my Geordi La Forge impresson haha!

 

Tuesday 2 September 2014

August Mission - The Results!


Recap of mission can be found here!

So, given the fact that the latter half (2/3) of the month it's been tipping it down I actually did quite well all in all - largely due to having booked the first week of August off work!

I didn't manage any leaping in rivers, it may not have been a meadow but Mine Truly and I skipped (don't ask) down a path on a walk round a lake with Uncle Tom and Marley, I did encounter sand (see below) but no dunes to roll down and I did eat alfresco at the So! Bar and also at Zizzi's (they wouldn't allow me to sleep there though - nor were they ameniable to the idea of nakedness!)!

The  first week of August saw us taking off for the tropics of Mattersey Thorpe for my annual hoilday with Uncle Tom and Marley at the beautiful Thorpe House.

 
 
It was incredibly hot and sunny so, not having a garden at home, I made the most of the opportunity and spent the majority of my time getting a tan outside :-)
 
Uncle Tom also took us each out for a spin in his beautiful 1974 Morris Mini Clubman 1275GT. I only covered my eyes with my fingers once I promise!

 
And then we ended our week off with a day out in Liverpool! I still can't quite believe how much we crammed into just one day and am already looking forward to going back for a bit longer to see all the other things we didn't have time to squeeze in! I was impressed with the urban beach though and insisted on grabbing a beer and a deck chair and spending half an hour with the sand between my toes (which I was sure would feature at some point in the diary year!) :-)
 
Itinerary:
 
1) Walk through town
2) Pit stop at Beach Bar
5) Walk round Albert Docks
6) Lunch at The Pump House
7) Bus to Anfield for a tour of the gates and the 96 memorial and a bit of shopping (this does not mean that magnet's going anywhere near the fridge Mine Truly!)
8) Pit stop at The Park
9) Another pit stop and some music history (and a bit of a dance to the live 60's music act!) at The Cavern
10) Dinner at Zizzi's finished off with a Limoncello before heading back to the station
 
 

 

















 
 
 







 
































And then we attempted more outdoor activity later in the month when we took Mine Truly's daughter to an outdoor performance of Romeo and Juliet - and it lashed it down! We stuck it out for just under an hour and then came home again - we couldn't see anything for all the brollys in front of us so we were having to stand (which wasn't doing my back any good) and we couldn't hear anything either for the noise of the rain on our own umbrella, it was crazy haha!