Rocking Your World Friday - 4th of 2019

Morning lovely people, tis Friday time to clock the silver linings and special moments that made the week worthwhile

So first up last Friday me and my lovely Mum went for a makeover, its actually more of an excuse for the make up counters to get you spending more money, but we had a lovely hour, trying out different products and make up and both came away with a bundle of goodies. 

Unfortunately, I didn't engage brain and take a photo, but we had a lovely time regardless. 

Then my niece came over, I was working but she wanted to do some work on my needle felter, so we had great fun, nattering and working albeit on very different types of work before her Mum came to collect her. 

My sister stayed for a coffee, so that was lovely, she was heading into 3 night shifts and wasn't looking forward to it as she knew they were short staffed. 

We enjoyed some blue skies at the weekend, which was lovely, it really made me feel much more positive. 

I got my certificates through from some management diplomas I've been working on which was great. 

I clocked another 9 days of green on my Fit bit, alas, I won't manage it this time, yesterday was a really hard day for me, I won't beat myself about it, but needless to say I am a little disappointed with myself this morning. 

Sunday saw us out for a walk, which was great

Stopping at the pub half way

Back home we made tea, showered and changed and I put on my new PJ's that hubby bought me for Christmas.

I worked from home all day Monday and was back in work on Tuesday

Work means evening walks again

and the occasional moonlit night

But I did manage one in sunshine on Wednesday when I left early so I could get my walk in before we went on our date night. 

Wednesday saw us pre-theatre dining and then theatre.  We had a lovely evening, albeit that it was highly amusing, not necessarily for the right reasons. 

I've taken to documenting parts of life through poetry, inspired by my wonderful Godfather, who we lost before Christmas.  

Please don't feel you have to read them, they are just part of who I am at the moment as I'm wrestling with life a little. 

Date Night (Part 1)

It'll be fun we said 

A meal out, trip to the theatre 

Nothing finer

We're booked in early and shown to our seat 

Ambient music sets the tone 

A Christmas song raises a single quizzical eyebrow 

End of January, strange music choice

We order our drinks 

They serve them to the table behind 

Hubby waves to let them know there error

Sorry she stutters almost serving the drinks on our laps

There's two table 15s

We order starters and mains

Bread arrives wrestled between two spoons by the young waitress

Sorry she says as they are launched onto our plates

We smile politely 

We sit chatting preoccupied by life at the moment 

Giant trays of food are brought to the nearby counter 

We've ordered salad and goujons

Two piping hot bowls of soup rise up from the tray

Inexperienced hands tilt the bowls so the contents slide onto the oversized lip

It's coming our way and hubby is oblivious on account of having his back to them

Holding my breath, the soup goes on a detour to its final destiny 

We munch through starters when they finally arrive

Plates are whisked from the table before we are even finished

Hubby grabs the bread as the plate hovers in mid air

With both hands the remains disappear into his mouth

And he grins 

Main arrives in silence 

We glance from the plate to each other and back again

Funny looking lamb (they've served us with salmon) 

We explain we've both ordered lamb and the plates are whisked away

In silence 

Soon after our main arrives and we eat, it's delicious 

"Drinks from the bar?" We are asked 

More water would be nice,  

Confused she walks away disappointed muttering she'll get someone to sort 

Obviously not her 'job' tonight 

We sit waiting for the dessert menu

It arrives in the form of a person

She stutters and stumbles

We can barely hear what's on the list

We order 'pear' and 'cheesecake' as they are the only two items we could make out

She asks us to repeat 

The larger of the two arrives on a tiny plate and vice versa

Both with a tiny jug of cream

I glance thinking I will have to be careful not to knock over the cream

Hubby's frangipane proves tough 

The cream jug lands on the table no longer upright 

forming a creamy white pool in the middle of the table

We look at each other, we leave it 

watching it slowly move towards the edge 

In some sort of silent poetic performance 

We consider the napkin but eventually agree to lay two clean paper tissues over the offensive sight

As a detective would cover a body on a TV show 

The cheesecake has a virtually impenetrable base

Using a mix of brute force (in a controlled manner)

I work my way slowly through dessert

Desperate for it not to split with the pressure and fly sideways in the process 

Or worse still, break the plate

Fork marks score the biscuit base, as a stonemason would chisel a stone 

It would have been easier to eat the topping and pick up the biscuit base but where's the fun in that

Once the plates are finally empty hubby moves the tissues around trying to soak up the cream

We look at the large smear that remains on the table 

Finally it's resolved with the use of a large overbearing napkin

Minutes later you wouldn't even know

To finish the meal we order coffee

Hubby decides he needs to remain alert

After all we've got a Christmas play to watch 

And I've already mentioned it's the end of January

He decides a double shot cappuccino is the way to go

I order regular

They arrive 

One in a cup and one in what appears to be a giant soup bowl 

The caffeine is going to keep us up til one 

Hubby pays the 'balance' of the bill

(As the ticket price included most)

We leave a tip balanced in the centre of the table 

Maybe not for the service

But the entertainments been great!

Date Night Part 2

There is something special and magical about live theatre

Gentle bubbles of conversation fill the auditorium 

The large red theatrical curtains cover the stage

We find our seats there is plenty of space around us

The couple in front chatting as we all settle into our seats

She's doing dry January

She declares "never again"

I tell her I've been teetotal since last March except for the bottle of wine we shared in the summer in Stafford 

She looks shocked and says she's disappointed that the weight hasn't disappeared 

She mentions she's eating more cake since she stopped drinking and that might have something to do with it

The curtains open 

Row 'C' has at least six late comers 

All dressed in thick winter coats 

There is a kerfuffle trying to get to their specific seats

Ironic in a rather empty auditorium 

They eventually arrive at their chosen destination

Bemused I note the show has continued on regardless 

They sit all tightly packed in their thick duvet like coats

Afraid to move 

Afraid to cause more of a scene 

Or heavens forbid be more entertaining than the players 

The scene in front of us is one of Christmas 

There is a TV and an overbearing uncle narrating its contents whilst thumbing through a television guide 

The owners of the house bickering at each other 

A young married couple are struggling to deal with their children 

Not that we ever get to meet them 

She's heavily pregnant with a giant lumpy cushion 

Her other half suddenly resembles our 18-year-old son 

(Whose home alone ordering a meal deal with domino’s blatting things on the xbox)

Until he speaks of course 

The play unfolds 

38 year old spinster desperate for love (or sex)(or both)

Her author friend (uninterested in any sort of relationship)

Arrives and takes a shine to the lady of the house

The drunk Aunt like character constantly succumbing to near fatal accidents in the kitchen 

The drunken arguments over snakes and ladders fails to ring true

monopoly would have been more realistic but they would have erred into trading names

and we'll I'm assuming the budget didn't stretch

Closure of the giant red curtains signals a time change

They open and close acting out various days over Christmas 

At half time, hubby stretches his legs whilst I sit in bemused silence 

Two ladies arrive on stage and start pulling raffle tickets 

It's not part of the play 

A bottle of wine

Chocolates or a meal out are on offer 

The wine and chocolates get snapped up 

So, they confirm the meal vouchers isn't just for one 

Although I'm sure she mentioned a cricket pavilion 

They thank us for our custom

They've been going 70 years and started out as an operatic society 

(I'm grateful they've stopped singing)

Apparently, their next play is Ben Hur

Complete with chariot racing

Hubby has returned and looks eager to see that

The farce alone has to be worth it

He looks more than confused when they mention the 

Sea battles and lets me know there weren’t any in the original

The second half starts and my mind wanders

I realise the clock in the foyer that I assumed broken

On account of it reading ten past nine when we arrived

Was giving the end time of the show 

I glance at my watch a little after 8.20pm

I settle back into the play 

Half expecting the heavily pregnant whinging female to go into labour 

I'm not sure we've found the plot yet

The baby never arrives, actually the labour never starts

Instead we have a knife and a gun

And a shot 

All because he's wearing a female balaclava 

I'm still confused

What is a female balaclava and how does it differ from its male counterpart?

The doctor (also responsible for the puppet show)

Which I forgot to mention

(Included a tedious conversation between the pigs one of which is called ginger and the postman 

And the none talking pet dog of the wolf 

The family traditional boxing day puppet show is a cause for constant discontent)

Diagnoses death as a result of the gunshot 

Until the patient stirs and you realise his doctoring skills are as useless as his puppeteering

The curtains continue to open and close 

The clock reaches ten past nine 

But we seem to be playing into overtime 

The plot still missing 

Two further time lapses before the cast appear bowing on stage 

We clap in sheer bewilderment,

I remember laughing and smiling,

My poor brain confused with the Christmas jingles it has running through it,

I’m sure it was great

We exit stage left, pursued by no one but the freezing cold air,

We head to the local supermarket and park in the brightly lit underground carpark

We need a few bits and hubby declares he needs a beer

On our way to the entrance an old chap says something

I assume not to us, I don’t know him

But he repeats a little louder ‘Sorry?’ I say

He’s holding a carrier bag on its side and slides out of it a glass lidded casserole dish

“Would you like to buy some salad”

I’m already shaking my head

“No thank you”

Hubby asks as we stand on the silly travellator (incapable of using our own legs to travel up to the shop floor) what he’d said

“Did we want to buy some salad”

We shop quickly, the store is virtually empty but at that time of night it always seems full of odd people.

I’m sure they’re not odd, well unless they are trying to sell salad.

We head back to the car park, bags in hand

I purposefully peer left and right as we enter the parking garage

“What ya doing?”

Hubby asks

“Looking for the man with the main course”

It takes a second for the penny to drop and he grins

Come on lets head home.

Thursday was a hard day overall and I'm still struggling a little with things, but I'm OK and everyone I know and love is OK, so I'm piecing things back together again albeit slowly. 

I intend on a little self care today, which in my book is a shower and then crafting for the rest of the day. 

I hope you've had a grand week, if you fancy joining in pop a post together, pop back and link up so we can come and visit. 

Rocking Your World Friday - 3rd of 2019

Good Evening lovely people I hope I find you well, tis Friday time for 

So it has been a funny sort of week if I'm honest, a very mixed bag.

First up we managed a daylight walk which felt novel given how many we've done recently that have been in the dark evenings!

We had a lovely jaunt out on Saturday as a family back up to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, said 18 year old hadn't been recently and needed some new artwork for his current art brief so it worked really well. 

There was a live performance occurring at the 'coffin jump' art installation.

And she went around twice 

Said 18 year old hadn't seen this giant piece 

And he loved the new tower piece which wasn't as misted as the last time we saw it. 

I managed a little late night crafting and yes that is Christmas cards you lovely people! 

The working week has been very busy and rather bitty but good overall.  

I even managed to take Wednesday afternoon off and then we had a girly afternoon out to see Mary Poppins, it was my sister's childhood favourite (and we watched it so many many times) that I felt it would be a lovely idea to go and see the sequel together and then invited my Mum and niece along which was lovely.  We managed to have a coffee in Starbucks afterwards and had a bit of a catch up.

Then I find myself back at Friday and yes I did nearly forget I'm having major issues with blogger on my phone and it stopped me uploading photos which is my main method of uploading to this and obviously my brain decided it didn't want to play as I leapt up half an hour ago to get this sorted.  So apologies for my tardiness I will try harder next week. 

I hope you've all had a grand week, if you fancy joining in pop a post together (which I've bet you've already done), come back and link up and I will try and visit, but it is likely to be tomorrow now. 

Rocking Your World Friday - 2nd of 2019

Morning all tis Friday time to clock the silver linings, positive moments over the last 7 days. 

First up me and hubby have started putting my Fitbit through its paces, in essence I'm trying to achieve all the elements on the front page by the end of the day to get a totally green day, this in turn has meant some early evening walks, which in the UK means very dark walks. 

But this has led to lots of chatting and planning, which is brilliant and occasionally we wander across other things.  At the beginning of the week, the nativity seen outside our local church was still on view, so I grabbed this snap one evening. 

Next up this little Christmas gift from hubby makes me smile every morning.  Anyone who is a Fantastic Beasts fan will note that this wee fellow is a Niffler, known in the film for being attracted to all things shiny and pretty.  He is a trinket stand, so at the end of the day I put my jewellery from the day on him.  In the film he often stands stock still with the jewels over him, so as to disguise what he is up to, so this pose is rather humorous I'm sure you will agree. 

We had a wander around the local shopping centre and came across this commemorative statue which notes down the lives lost in the Manchester arena bombing, I'd seen the statue on a couple of my instagram feeds, but this was the first time I'd seen it in person, a very poignant piece of sculpture which made me rather reflective. 

Next up we have been treated (up to now, the weekend, not looking quite so calm), to a relatively calm period of weather, which has meant lots of local walks. 

On Sunday we took the bridlepath walk up to the next village again, grabbed a coffee (pint for hubby) in the beer garden and then walked back, catching the gorgeous golden hour light. 

As you can see it was a real treat. 

We even managed a golden hour selfie

The view was breathtaking if I'm honest and was just what I needed to reset myself ready for a rather busy work week. 

The pretty farmhouses on the way up were beautiful

More sunset and sky photos

The weekend also threw a curve ball in that both our main TV service and broadband went down, so we planned a board game/card game night.  However, it came back up before the planned evening, but we went ahead as planned anyway.  

The game in question is cards against humanity and is definitely not for the easily offended, for us we take it relatively light hearted but there are times when the cards don't make sense and the dilemma is to google or not to google.  Sometimes you wish you didn't know the answer after you've googled.  As said 18 year old got a new set of additional cards at Christmas this led to an evening of googling again and don't just think it was that side of the table that were googling!

Now I thought I'd share a few photos of things I made at Christmas, I couldn't share them on here or online for fear of the recipients seeing them. 

First up, this year's jars were not cookies (that I've made year on year) but brownies.

I've yet to get feedback as to whether they were any good. 

I save my coffee jars all year and then wash them in hot water and pop them in the oven to sterilise, I put the plastic element of the jar into boiling water, air dry them and then put them back together before filling with the layered contents.

I covered the jars in festive papers and put instructions on the jar of how to cook, they always go down well with the recipients and it is a quick and easy homemade gift.  

Next up were token Christmas gifts for my work colleagues, this year inspired by Pinterest, I made sweetie Santa sleighs and once completed wrapped them in cellophane and tied with a ribbon.  Everyone was very happy to receive them, I had a few spare which made up as stocking fillers at Christmas. 

Finally a gift I made my brother.  We've had this clock case in the house forever, it came from a charity shop years ago with an overwound clock, the case was mahogany in colour. 

It did actually make it as far as the 'tip' pile in the porch (minus its clock parts that said 18 year old had commandeered) when I considered that it really was too good to not use. 

So with the help of hubby who sanded the item for me (I have a sandpaper phobia) and some acrylic paints I managed to make it look like this.  I would never profess to be an artist, but I really enjoyed making it, he is an avid fan and has lots of items that can sit inside the case. 

This week saw me completing my tenth Christmas journal.  I finished off the entries, added a few more photos, popped in the Christmas cards I'm saving and added some embellishments to the pages.  Very happy with the finished item. 

In fact that day was brilliant as I was feeling very festive, I finished my journal, made a start on Christmas cards and had Kirstie's homemade Christmas playing in the background! 

Back to work has meant that my photo a day has proved more difficult than expected, mainly because when I'm at work I rarely move from my desk, so there are no decent photo opportunities, as you can see from the next picture, which was my photo on Tuesday! 

So I had the same problem on Wednesday, so decided to share a collage of my green fitbit days as a bit of additional motivation for me.

Then last night's photo after a rather fraught week overall at work was yet another evening walk photo, I'm hoping for something with a little more daylight in it today! 

So there you go, a busy week overall, first one back at work and well into January already.  I hope you've had a fabulous week, if you fancy joining in, pop back and link up and we can come and visit. 

Rocking Your World Friday - 1st of 2019

Good Morning lovely people tis Friday time for 

Well you join me at the beginning of 2019, the whole year spread out in front of us, clean and tidy and new.  Like others I've done the reflective side of things looking back over 2018 but I'm also ready to start anew, afresh, ready to enjoy the year ahead.  Unlike previous years I have made pledges that are more akin to being achievable

I would like to 

• Travel and visit new places
• Try/learn new things
• Enjoy nature
• Live in the moment
• Become a fitter healthier me and
• Find some new music to enjoy

So on with the last 7 days

I have a few final photos from Yorkshire Sculpture Park to share, the Jaume Plensa head is always spectacular to see in person

The view of Bretton Hall from across the lake on the day was lovely 

We walked across the remains of a bridge over the water, at the moment it is just a slow trickle into the lake, but at other times of the year it can be more free flowing. 

We decided to go straight across at the bridge, not an area we normally go down, but we wanted a good walk.  This is the path down to the old shell grotto

And here we are inside the shell grotto, very few of them survive unfortunately but the building is still intact. 

The view up the valley from part of the walk reminded me that we are in the middle of winter, given how bare the trees are.

It was much quieter on this part of the walk as dogs aren't allowed due to the wildlife in the area.

Up into the park, there is a new sculpture. by Kimsooja, she is due to have further work in the chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park that we have to look forward to. 

I took a moment to enjoy the view across the lake towards the red path as I sat in the Greek temple folly

Another shot of the new sculpture

This week has been another busy one, we had a walk around Worsbrough dam, we enjoyed just chatting and listening to the birds in the trees.

I grabbed a selfie as we were walking around, it was a mighty cold day, but we were well wrapped up

The sun over the water was lovely too, I needed to be by a big expanse of water for a change (we are a little far from the coast unfortunately). 

There were very few people about as we were there early

New Year's Eve was mighty quiet as said 18 year old was working, however, he called just before midnight and was on the phone as hubby let the New Year in as normal, leaving the house and the old year by our secondary door and re-entering with the New Year through our primary door, bringing with him a large lump of coal to keep us warm, some money to bring prosperity and some bread to ensure we always have food.  It is something we've always done since I was little.  

Post New Year we had a meander around some shops, I picked up these three easy reads from the Works for £3 each.

New Year's day is a day where we don't venture out in the car (old family superstition that I still have in my head), however that didn't mean we didn't venture out.  We decided to walk to the next village, it isn't far but there are no pavements on the road and the road is a national speed limit, so not much fun for pedestrians with cars whizzing past at 60 miles per hour. 

However, there is a bridleway that leads to the same village, unfortunately it can be a little waterlogged and obviously the horses churn up the land, but we put on hiking boots and hoped we would manage. 

It was a fantastic walk 

These are the fields we past on our way

A New Year's Day selfie

And our halfway point happened to be a pub as hubby wasn't driving he enjoyed a pint of Old Peculiar and I enjoyed a latte, sat out in the beer garden. 

The sun soon started to dip down.  

But we managed fine on the way back

Back home I enjoyed another coffee and a slice of hubby's Christmas cake which was been particularly good this year! 

I've taken to writing poetry since the New Year, inspired by my lovely Uncle Chris who passed away before Christmas. 

I managed another one at Chatsworth that we visited for the final time this year with said 18 year old and his girlfriend

My favourite piece this year is definitely the sleeping snoring dragon in the entrance

I also loved the Princess and the Pea story in the oak panelled room next to the chapel. 

The elves and the shoemaker story

And the veiled lady, looking beautiful in her current position

The trees in the painted hall were beautiful

This decoration really caught my eye. 

The theme in the painted hall was Wizard of Oz 

The snowman peeping over the balcony

And hubby, said 18 year old and his girlfriend in front of one of the beautiful trees

We had a really lovely day.

Yesterday was more of a tootly day, but I'm grateful that my winter flower pansies are flowering and don't seem to mind the cold.  I did a bit of weeding at the back of the house and grabbed a photo of their happy faces whilst I was out there. 

I also really enjoyed just sitting and having a cuppa with hubby, sometimes it is the simple things in life that make me grateful. 

So that's the week that was, I hope you've had a grand week, if you fancy joining in pop a post together, pop back and link up and we will come and visit.