ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY - 53RD OF 2021

 Good afternoon lovely people, I'm a wee bit late, but still time to clock the positives and the grateful moments of the last 7 days. 

So last Friday we had set the table all ready for the big day, I was really happy with it this year and it was a change in colour scheme and matched the room perfectly. 

On Christmas morning we had a leisurely couple of hours opening gifts and it is good to know that I can still surprise him. 

I managed to grab us a Christmas selfie, I don't think we look too bad bearing in mind we were in the midst of cooking for nine. 

Christmas day was lovely, lots of love and laughter around the table, and said 21 year old's fiancée and said neice's other half joined us later in the day. 

They left around 9pm and we decided to leave the tidying up until Boxing day, this is what we came down to on Boxing day morning. 

And in a short space of time it looked like this

and we gave the same treatment to the kitchen

which soon looked much more orderly

Boxing day is known as pig table day at Mums, so we headed over there around 1pm, we had some lovely roast pork sandwiches with stuffing and some sausage rolls.   Here is the hostess for the afternoon

My Mum had been very sensible and got paper plates to save on washing up, here is my sister enjoying her food. 

Mum even cut a piece of her Christmas cake, which was lovely. 

The rest of the week has been something of a blur, my sister and my niece have both ended up with Covid, but touch wood, we are all OK at the moment other than a cold, which we keep testing with lateral flow tests just in case, but it is definitely a cold, however, we are triple jabbed so that may have some bearing on it. 

My Mum had a hospital appointment this week, whilst the cancer in her back is currently OK, the one affecting her middle is what they have defined as 'unstable' so they are giving her one more round of her current treatment and a further scan to see if it is making a difference, if not they will change it.  If you can offer up some happy thoughts and positive prayers at this point, that would be lovely.  

Me and hubby decided we needed to blow off the cobwebs off so we went for a walk locally however, it was mighty blowy. 

We walked around the local village and then headed down to Wentworth Woodhouse, just to give our legs a stretch. 

I've started next year's cards (as I usually do), the current design is Christmas gonk which have been popular this year, they have quite a lovely expression and each one is individual. 

Yesterday we headed to the local panto to watch Aladdin

and today we've headed to Sheffield for Sleeping Beauty

which was awesome

I hope you've enjoyed your Christmas and are looking forward to the clean slate that will be here with us tomorrow.  May I send all my love at the close of 2021 and hope your 2022 proves to be positive and beautiful. 

Hugs

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY - 52ND OF 2021

 Good afternoon tis Friday time for 

Last Friday was the great pre-Christmas clean, now am I talking about my house, nope, me and my sister had already diarised having a pre-Christmas clean at my Mum's house as she is still struggling, however my sister being a single person and a very busy nurse hadn't even had time to put her decorations up.  So Friday was a full on day of sorting not only my Mum's house, but also my sister's house too.  I was needless to say absolutely shattered when I got home gone 6pm.  Hubby also came over for a good few hours and sorted out a new curtain pole (and wooden plinth) for my sister's bedroom and hung some pictures she's had forever but not got around to sorting.  

Saturday arrived and me and hubby headed over to my work place for the Santa boat trips, he was skippering and in an ideal world I was making drinks and sorting out the gallery.  In reality I was upstairs in the office doing work, a final bank run, a reconciliation or two, some other items on the bank, a full back up and then I did some scanning that has needed doing in forever.  Whilst I was pleased with what I got done, it definitely wasn't the planned Saturday that I had. 

Sunday was defined as a day of rest, we decided after two incredibly busy days we were quite literally going to do nothing.  Hubby almost waivered early on, but I convinced him that a day of rest was definitely needed.

Monday and it was my turn to clean my own home, thankfully as we keep top side most of the time, it didn't take a huge amount of time, said 21 year old landed home from his fiancée's house and gave us a hand, which definitely speeded things up.  He'd actually come home to sort an issue with his student finance which was sorted relatively quickly. 

Tuesday and it was Christmas food shop day we were all done at the supermarkets by 9.03am which I don't think is bad going and we got everything we needed bar for one item. My Mum was at the hospital again to be drained, she was a little fed up early in the day as they hadn't got a bed for her or taken her bloods and she was sat in a drafty corridor feeling very cold, but thankfully it all got sorted relatively quickly and she was home again that evening, she's had a couple of 'sore' days but she is hoping to be well enough to enjoy her Christmas day. 

My hubby and said 21 year old took a Christmas gift over to a relative as well, which was lovely, she was in fine form. 

Wednesday and we headed to YSP, a much needed break from the house and some decent fresh air.  I hadn't realised how much I'd missed it

We walked down through the park (the sky was very pretty) 

Grabbed a selfie along the lakeside path

and found a couple of new sculptures we hadn't seen before

The waterfall was very loud as well. 

Thursday we had a sorting the Christmas table day getting everything out ready and then me and said 21 year old decided that we needed to make some name tags for the Christmas table, but they were tiny, so we made some impromptu Christmas gonks each with a name tag on them.  We had great fun creating them. 

And that my lovely people was my week, I hope you have a fantastic Christmas, stay safe, enjoy time however you spend it. 

Much love

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY 51ST OF 2021 (OK LET'S PRETEND IT IS STILL FRIDAY)

 Good morning lovely people tis Friday (OK it is Saturday but let us pretend that I'm not stupidly late). 

time for 

Well as you can tell I've had a mighty busy week, although last weekend we took the time to just stop, having had a few very busy weeks and weekends of it, it felt good just to spend time in our own four walls and enjoy some downtime, which as most of you know I'm not very good at. 

However the positives are, these beautiful roses from hubby 

He did the make ahead gravy ready for Christmas day following Jamie Oliver's recipe, which he then freezes. 

We've had a few late nights at work, but on one of the evenings we were leaving at a sensible time we got this beautiful sky shot

On Thursday I took my Mum and sister to Chatsworth, we had this beautiful view on our way (my favourite view). 

We enjoyed a cuppa outside before venturing into the house

My Mum is struggling again and has to go into the hospital again next week to have some fluid taken off her middle, it is hard for me and my sister to see her struggle, but she is doing amazing nonetheless and spending time with her is such a precious thing for us all. 

I enjoyed spending the day with the two of them and hubby. 

I hope you've all had a grand week, I'm so sorry this is short and sweet, but I've got 6 minutes before I leave to do the Santa boat trips at work.  

I will catch up on blog reading over the next couple of days (I might spend tomorrow sleeping if truth be told). 

Have a fabulous weekend and week ahead you lovely people. 

ROCKING YOUR WORLD - 50TH OF 2021

 Good Morning lovely people tis Friday time for 

So last Friday saw my postponed Christmas wreath class rescheduled, thankfully the majority of the people who had booked on were able to make Friday afternoon, so we headed to the church hall and had a lovely couple of hours having great fun with lots of lovely chat making a Christmas wreath. 

Here is my Mum and sister hard at work! 

On Friday evening we had a surprise leaving do for a colleague who is retiring after 22 years, she had booked at a local venue for a dinner and dance night and we had all booked on without her knowing and arrived early to surprise her and she really was surprised.  It was a lovely evening which I really enjoyed, photo of me and hubby before we headed out, we scrubbed up quite well! 

Saturday we had plans, we had big plans and long plans, what we hadn't planned for was the continuous rain.  Nevertheless, we aren't people who re-schedule due to the rain so we carried on regardless.  We headed out late morning to Kelham Island for their Victorian Christmas Fayre.  It was quieter than normal, but really lovely nonetheless

Hubby enjoyed a pint of Belgian Blue beer made by Bradfield Brewery which is local to Sheffield and I had a very tasty hot chocolate with all the trimmings.  We hid inside out of the driving rain to enjoy, well we wouldn't want to water down the beer would we. 

I grabbed this shot as we were leaving, Kelham Island is based in what was once a heavily industrial area of Sheffield.  It is now the home to a museum celebrating its industrial heritage and is definitely on the up and up when it comes to properties. 

This shot of one of the old furnaces to the side of the building, most definitely shows that slightly inclement weather. 

We headed back into Sheffield and had a wander around the market, which again has been scaled back due to the pandemic, we took a detour off and headed over to Graves gallery, which is above the main Sheffield library.  I had gone to look at the Pandemic Diaries created by a local artist known as Phlegm, for those of you that have followed my blog for a while, it is the same artist that did the Mausoleum of the Giants a couple of years ago inside a huge building that was due to be demolished.  Unfortunately, whilst Sheffield has seen fit to purchase the pandemic diaries which really do summarise the history of what most of us went through last year, it has not seen fit to allow you to photograph the exhibition. 

However, we did see a brilliant other exhibition by a metal artist called Precision as a State of Mind and the artists name is Mark Firth.  My hubby was most intrigued, having originally trained as a mechanical engineer when he was 18 he understood the processes that had been used to create. 

By the time we headed back outside the skies had darkened, we headed inside the Winter gardens for a coffee and a sit down.  

I took this photo which shows the library (with Graves gallery above) lit in blue, the building in the centre of the photo is the Lyceum theatre and you can obviously see the Crucible theatre at the bottom of the photo (famous for the World Snooker Championships, but also a damn good theatre). 

We headed back inside the winter gardens and enjoyed seeing the fairy gardens they had created, I'm sure children will really love to see these as they wander around.

The Peace Gardens had two giant lit pieces, which were out of bounds, but lovely to look at. 

There was also an alpine bar where people were enjoying a drink or two. 

The lit Sheffield sign raised a smile

We then wandered the market, many people had said it was poor, but because it was dark and everything was so prettily lit, we really enjoyed the wander, probably aided by having absolutely no expectations whatsoever. 

Some of the stalls were up by the City Hall, which was different

The tree outside the town hall was lovely

Back towards the crucible I really love the reflection.

Then we headed for some food, we'd booked a table and so whiled away an hour or two enjoying a warm dry atmosphere (had I mentioned it was still raining). 

Then on to our final stop of the day, Sheffield Cathedral for their digital light display known as The Beginning. 

The inside of the cathedral was just as breathtaking

and then we headed home utterly shattered after a very long day, but it had been great fun. 

Sunday morning arrived and we headed to Nostell Priory, unfortunately the reduction in funds for National Trust were fairly evident from the poorly decorated house, but once again, we enjoyed the venture. 

This reindeer retirement village definitely raised a smile

The trees were pretty

Very simply decorated with pine cones and variegated ivy. 

The table upstairs was also pretty and I learned the iced item in the centre of the table is actually a miniature version of the original gateway into Nostell. 

On our way back home we stopped off at a Christmas fayre at Elsecar and hubby purchased a few bottles of his favourite.  They are only available at this time of year and it is genuinely a real sign that Christmas is almost upon us. 

The week has been quite frankly mad, however, when I arrived home on Monday night, I discovered said 21 year old and his fiancee had bought me a chocolate advent calendar (as they knew I didn't have one) and filled it with sweeties.  I was absolutely gobsmacked and love that it is both Harry Pottery themed and reusable as well as being an incredibly thoughtful thing to do. 

The rest of the week has been mighty busy, with incredibly busy work days and collapsing on the sofa evenings.  

I hope you've all had a grand week, I will happen over and have a nosey at your blog posts over the weekend. 

Take care and biggest hugs