Wish you Were Here?

As we've finally found a hotel with WiFi which has justified me lugging my netbook around 1/2 of Greece (information addiction is a terrible thing), I thought a quick mid-holiday update was in order.  Mostly I've done lots of lying in the sun, cocktail drinking,  tacky souvenier buying and  far too much deep fried cheese eating but I have also managed to keep reasonably up to date with my LSNED and the travel journaling has contined (realtively) a pace. 

We're starting the UK leg of our tour in a couple of days so will maybe be able to catch up more comprehensively then, in the meantime I have a few(straight of out the camera) pictures just to set the scene.  I have around 700 photographs in the bag (not all fisheye) already so there'll be lots of scrapping to do when I get home which makes the idea of coming home that little more bearable.

I'll get back to 'getting away from it all' then...

Preparations and a Welcome Return to Form

I think this will be the last time I manage to post anything before fleeing the country, and I’m actually strangely relaxed about the whole thing. This morning I even spent a few minutes scoffing coconut cake (balanced breakfast - coconut is a fruit, right?) and reading a few chapters of the adorably un-PC ‘Five Have Plenty of Fun’ – George has just been kidnapped by some wayward gypsies and Anne has to wash up and make beds while Julian and Dick look for clues.

Tonight I need tidy up for the house-sitters, sort out the clothes I want to take with me, probably get those clothes clean and dry and burn a load of CDs of old Russell Brand podcasts for in-car entertainment, so come to think of it, I may not be quite so relaxed later. My holiday crating kit for my travel journal is all packed and ready to go though, so you can’t accuse me of having my priorities in the wrong order!

Last night was spent largely attempting to apprehend a mouse which one of the cats kindly brought into the sitting room. It was scurrying about all over the place and despite successfully trapping it on about 5 occasions, it escaped and so continues to elude us and our (humane) traps. Hopefully he’ll be locked up nice and safely in a little box tonight waiting for a ceremonial release in the garden, otherwise I’m not sure how we explain it to the people taking care of the house.

However, inspired by the beautiful ScrapaGoGo kit and the Martha Stewart punches that landed on my desk yesterday I managed to take a step away from the real-life game of Mousetrap, get over myself and do some scrapbooking. September’s kit is probably my favourite ever – the combination of wood grain, butterflies and rusty brown/minty green tones is a perfect reflection of what I’m all about at the moment. I didn’t really even mean to put this layout together, it just sort of happened as I was sorting through the yellow box and seeing what looked nice together and then I thought I might as well see it through to its logical conclusion.

Everything on here is from the box, except a few tiny bits and bobs which are included because I can never quite work exclusively from a kit and I rarely make anything that doesn’t have at least a dash of Cosmo Cricket on it. If, you can spot where I’ve used each of my new punches on this layout I’ll award ten points to Gryffindor.

That's all for now, I'll catch you on the flip side dudes, or alternativly insert other faux-cool sign off of your choice.

Learn Something New Everyday #15, #16 and #17

Ooh, I think I almost fell behind there but I may just have caught it in time.  Not that it matters really I suppose, because while I will still be learning things over the next couple of weeks, I don't think I'll be able to post them until I get back.

On the 15th, I leant that a happy dog is the very best welcome home you can have (thanks Karen).

Yesterday, I learnt there is an awful lot to learn about digital photography - a 3 volume book of instructions  on how to take better pictures arrived and it's going to take a while to get through them all.

And today, I've realised that packing light is defintely easier said than done. Travel hairdryer? Eeek.

Hope the rest of everyone's LSNED goes well and lots of useful lessons are learnt.  Can't wait to catch up with everything in October.

Scrapper's Block

I tried to scrapbook tonight - I've been thinking about it all day and couldn't wait to get home to start but somewhere between home and work, something went wrong and suddenly I felt all anxious that whatever I did wouldn't be right and I couldn't bring myself to actually cut any paper.

Hopefully it's just a passing phase and while I can't scrapbook, I can work on photography instead. I've been really enjoying my new 'semi fisheye' lens that I got for my birthday and have got some great pictures, particularly of the animals so far...

And of course, some of us at the beach too...

In LSNED terms, yesterday I learnt that carrots you've grown yourself taste better than anything you could ever buy at Tesco. We had our first roast dinner of the autumn last night and believe it or not, the carrots were the highlight! Today I learnt that you won't get what you want if you don't ask - I saved myself £200 of additional Easy Jet fare to make changes to our booking just because I asked them nicely. Hurray for good manners.

Learn Something New Every Day #11 and #12 {and another catch up}

This has been a really lovely weekend. We've been relaxing after last weekend, spending time with the dog and cats, watching the X-Files and getting into the holiday frame of mind ready for next week. The weather has been beautiful throughout and although, I would have preferred it to been lovely last weekend, the sunshine on my skin was certainly a very welcome end to the summer.

We has a great time at Michael McIntyre on Friday night and I realised that watching stand-up comedy, particularly live is one of my very favoutite things.

On Saturday, I went shopping for holiday clothes and found that it was much harder than I thought to find nice summery things to wear in September. Although there were lots of lovely jumpers, boots, cardigans and bags, sunglasses, straw hats and cropped trousers were rather thin on the ground. I did manage to find a few things though so we're almost good to go on the packing front.

I've also got up to date on my LSNED pages, including the missing page for 7th. I think the page for the 10th (at the bottom) is my favourite so far. It's fairly simple but the photograph speaks volumes.

Learn Something New Every Day #9 and #10

I don't actually have any pages to share today but hopefully I'll be able to catch up over the weekend.  We're off to see Michael McIntyre tomorrow night in Plymouth but the rest of the weekend should be a relaxing one, with just a little light shopping planned for our holiday although I'm not sure how I rate my chances of finding shorts and sunglassess among the lovely autumn-y clothes in the shops.  While we're on that subject, I bought a lovely new coat today (in Asda of all places).  It's a sorted of 'muted jade' colour and has frills on the bottom.  See how pretty it is?

Anyway, the reason I've been falling behind on my pages is that I accidently got involved in another project, planning and creating a travel journal for our holiday next week, inspired by the tutorial Shimelle did on Ali Edward's blog.  I plan to do a daily entry and a title page for each place we go using a record card like the one  for Greece (where we're going first) which I will decorate with pictures, tickets and other things I pick up while I'm there.

Which leads me to what I learnt yesterday - sometimes planning for a trip is as almost as fun as going on the trip, based on a very satisfying shopping trip to Staples to buy a sketch book, artist pens, watercolour pencils and record cards.

Today, apart from buying a lovely coat I learnt that absolutely everything looks better in the sunshine except for windows which just look dirty.

Random Picture of the Week #6

Monnet's Garden, France - June 2007

Learn Something New Every Day #7 and #8 {and a catch up}

Today I am not really on top of my game - I woke up with a migraine and while it's starting to retreat with the age old remedies of drinking full sugar coke, lying in a darkened room and lots of drugs, I still feel a bit weakend. Nonetheless, learning something new has not been completely of the question as I was delighted to find out that Dawson's Creek has stood the test of time and is as enjoyable now as it ever was.

Yesterday was my first day back in real life after the party and while it was lovely not to be up until midnight dusting and vacuuming, I did a touch of light cleaning and in the process I realised that cleaning as you go is highly underated because it is SO much easier that having to tidy up loads of stuff in one go.

I haven't managed to put together a page for the 7th yet, but I have't posted my pages for the last week yet so here they all including a fiddled with version of my page for the 1st because the more I looked at it, the more I didn't like it anymore.

Learn Something New Everyday #4, #5 and #6

I've had a truly lovely weekend of drinking, silliness, cake, presents and lovely friends and although there has been little time for scrapbooking, it doesn't mean that I haven't been learning things along the way.

On the 4th, I learnt that you're never too old to have a birthday cake in the shape of a pirate's ship and that I'm very lucky I have such good friends who also know that.

On the 5th I learnt that it's easier that you think to get lost in Devon, especially when you're in a maize maze. I also learnt that when in said maize maze, wellies are not a bad idea as there is a strong liklihood that your flipflops will get stuck in the mud.

And today I've learnt that after a weekend of fun, there is nothing better than relaxing in front of Sunday night telly in your pyjamas and enjoying the last of the birthday amaretto.

Learn Something New Everyday #3

No page to show for yesterday as frantic party preparations have taken up all of the day and much of the night.  This will also have to be a quick as there is still quite a lot to do before I can hop into bed. 

However, while I'm enjoying a small glass of amaretto in front of The Mighty Boosh as a reward for my hard work thus far, I wanted to record what I have learnt today so I don't forget it during the excitement of tomorrow!

Whilst tidying up the bedroom, today I have learnt:

a) How many clothes I actually have
b) How long it's been since I've even worn at least 1/2 of them
c) That its going to take me about 6 months to get them all sorted out and hung up
d) Buying new clothes is not always the answer to not having anything to wear.

So I'm signing off for the last time as a someone in their 20s - I'll be back on Sunday with details of the celebrations and what I learnt while the party was in sesssion. 

Hold tight, I'm off to get 30.

Learn Something New Everyday #2

First of all, here is the page I put together for yesterday - I kept it fairly simple and managed to restrain myself from cluttering the page with too many words. Luckily I shared the full story here yesterday so it should make a certain amount of sense and the pictures demonstrate the fact that the cakes weren't homemade didn't stop people (in which I include myself) enjoying them.

As for what I've learnt for today, its slightly less profound but is likely to come in handy over the coming winter months. When it is pouring with rain and blowing a gale, there is NO POINT in drying and straightening my hair because I arrive at work looking like a damp spaniel anyway. Clearly it would be better not to bother and enjoy an extra 10 minutes in bed, particularly when it is cold and wet outside.

Is there a theme developing here? I don't think this class is meant to be 'things I would rather stay in bed than do'. Really looking forward to checking out lots of other pages but will have to wait until tomorrow evening when hopefully the house will be in better shape.

Learn Something New Everyday #1

So here we are then, 1st September. It's officially autumn (in my book), I wore a coat, albeit a short sleeved one (possibly the most pointless garment in the world) and real shoes (not flipflops) today for the first time in about 4 months and I paid extra attention to the world around me in order to try and learn something new. This is what I learnt:

When you are stressed and busy, it is OK to take short cuts. No one expects me to be a Martha Stewart style domestic goddess except myself and sometimes you have to admit you can't do it all and LET IT GO.

For my birthday last year I made beautiful pink and yellow cupcakes to take to work for everyone to celebrate with me.

This year I'm older (obviously), busier and consequetly tired-er (and worse at grammar) and staying up all night baking just because I think people expect it of me is madness. So instead, I've chosen to buy lovely M&S (made with free range eggs - this is VERY important becasuse of this) tray bakes and have a full night's sleep instead.