A piece of my morning.......

Picture the scene ~ we are in the car going on the school run.

We live in the country ~ so we were driving along the small country roads.

The children are all chattering away about this and that ~

Lauren "Look Mum!!!!!"

Me "What sweetheart?"

Lauren "There's a quad bike"

Me (supressing much laughter!!) "No darling ~ that is an invalid carriage!!"

The whole car bursts into laughter!!!!! (Lauren included!!)

I think that she may need a trip to the optitians ~ it was very obviously an invalid carriage and there was a very old man driving it ~ at about 1 mile an hour!!!

At least that cheered us up and made us all laugh on this grey and wet September morning!!! XX

Help I cannot sleep!!!!!!!

It has been a busy few days ~ the children are back at school ~ which means we are back to the term time routine (which I hate!!!) ~ making lunches ~ cleaning shoes ~ ironing uniforms and doing homework (the kids of course....not me!!) ~ we are also on a time limit in the mornings ~ as we have to drive to the school and get to lessons before the bell goes at 8.50am ~ so every morning at the moment is a little bit mad!!

It would be alot less stressful if my sweet lovely children actually got up when they were asked, got showered when they were asked ~ got dressed when they were asked (get the picture) ~ but they don't !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The mornings are a rush of me shouting (tee hee) ~ and usually being ignored and rushing about!! Roll on half term in October!!

Matters are not being helped at the moment by the awful weather we are still having (I know that it is nothing compared to the hurricanes etc in other places!!) ~ but I just hate getting soaked day after day and I am not liking the wet and wind swept look at all ~ it is doing nothing for my hair ha ha !!!!

I also seem to have lost the ability to sleep this last week. There was a time when I would lay my head on the pillow and the next thing that I knew the alarm was going off the next morning!
BUT for the last week or so ~ I have been going to bed and lying there ~ just not able to sleep. I could understand if there was something on my mind (in which case I do usually lie awake!!) ~ but there is nothing at all on my mind ~ so it is a mystery!! I got so fed up the other night that I actually got up at 1am and made the childrens packed lunch and then went back to bed ~ this was not the best idea as I was exhausted when the alarm went off at 6am!
Any one with any ideas of how I can bring the sleep back into my life ~ then let me know ~ all suggestions gratefully received!!!!

The rain has also killed our carefully planted and much looked after carrots ~ I think that they have got totally water logged in their pot and are not looking well at all! The children haven't noticed yet ~ so maybe I can come up with a cunning plan to save that situation!!!????

Weigh in day tomorrow and this week has been the hardest so far ~ the smell of freshly baking bread in the supermarket on Sunday morning nearly sent me totally crazy! I must admit that I nearly gave in to temptation and bought some ~ but I didn't ...... the diet angel won over again (thank goodness).

Lauren went back to her dance classes last night ~ she did her tap class and her new modern class which she loves. On Wednesday she has hip hop classes and on Saturday is Ballet, so it is all go. Dan also goes back to Judo on Sunday ~ so we are going to be quite busy!!

I am totally loving driving the new car ~ the bunny hopping has finished, I have the hang of driving it now ~ it is still very quiet and I keep thinking that we have stalled ~ but apart from that it is great ~ I actually enjoy driving on the school runs now (I must be mad!!) ~ the children like to argue about what seat they are going to sit in, but they have a choice of 6 ~ so they are taking it in turns to sit in each of them!

I only have about 20 pages left of Breaking Dawn and I am so sad that I am at the end ~ I don't want it to finish. I noticed online that the film is out in November (not sure whether that is the UK too, or just the US) ~ I cannot wait to see it ~ so that's something to look forward to!!! XXXX

Forever 19.........

This time of year is always tinged with a feeling of sadness ~ a memory of time gone by ~ an event in my life that changed me forever ~ a memory that no matter the years that have passed ~ will never ever fade away......

My first real love ~ I was 17, he was 19 ~ a young british soldier ~ one barmy hot summer of fun ~ before he was posted to Northern Ireland..........2 months in ~ he was killed ~ shot while on foot patrol ~ my young 17 year old life came to a halt ~ the carefree fun 17 year old I once was ~ was no more ~ death knocked on the door of my life and changed it forever.

I still think of him often ~ still have his photo ~ still to this day cannot help but wonder what would have been ~ could have been ~ had he lived ~ had our lives taken another path.

I look at his photo ~ and while my life has moved on ~ I am now 38, older ~ wiser? with children and a 'grown up' life ~ he is still that young british soldier ~ smiling from that photo ~ happy carefree and forever 19...............

Bye Bye FiFi ~ Hello Bella!!!

We were very excited this morning ~ I had to brave the rain and clear out the old car ~ which we had affectionately called FiFi over the years (it is a Renault ~ therefore French and the kids decided that it was a good name!!).........

Then it was time to head off and collect the new car......

Here are some final photos of FiFi ~ as we were braving the awful rain this morning!!!




The children were quite funny ~ they have become quite attached to the old car and were sad to see it go!! I am afraid that I cannot get emotional over a car ~ although it has done us well over the years!!

And (drum roll please.......) ~ here is our new car........................................

My nice shiny black car!! I did want to call the new car Edward (as I am now a totally addicted fan of the Twilight books!!) ~ but as all our cars are usually girls (tee hee )~ we have called her Bella!!!!!! (I know ~ we are a very strange family ~ we always name our cars !!!!!!)

So far I have not driven it far ~ we bunny hopped out of the garage forecourt (ha ha ) ~ then I had to go to the petrol station (where I had some trouble getting the petrol cap off !!) ~ then we drove straight home (about 4 miles!!) ~ so I am not used to it yet!! I kept putting the wind screen wipers on instead of the indicator and when we came to a junction, I thought that we had stalled as the car was sooooo quiet!! We are going out a bit later to town (where I have to park the thing tee hee!!!) ~ and I will have a bit of a drive around to get used to it!!

I am very pleased with it and the children are very excited about it all ~ they wanted to stay out sitting in it when we came home!!!! I will update you all later on how the parking goes!!! XXXX

Just typical!!!

I sat here last night in my pj's (I know ~ I am very sad ha ha !!!) ~ all snuggled up on the sofa ~ with the fire going ~ all warm and toasty ~ ready and waiting for Ugly Betty to start!! I have missed this show so much over the Summer ~ while it was side lined for Big Brother (which was a big load of rubbish!!).

At last 9pm came and the titles started ~ oh how I have missed you Ugly Betty ~ the show started ~ and then DARKNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It took me a minute to work out that the power had gone ~ I thought that maybe using the fire had caused a fuse to click off ~ but it was soooooo dark ~ and when I looked out the curtains ~ there were no street lights ~ no lights in the other houses ~ it looked like there was no power anywhere in our little village ~ probably thanks to the storm we were having!!!

So, I missed Ugly Betty (boo hoo) ~ I will have to try and watch a catch up episode !!
In my boredom I went to bed (with a torch) and read quite a bit of Breaking Dawn ~ by torch light ~ I haven't done that since I was a child ~ reading under the covers with a torch (although I didn't have my head under the covers last night ha ha !!!!!).

There was still no power when I finally went to sleep at 11pm .

It is back on now, thank goodness ~ if you saw the state of my hair this morning ~ I would not be going anywhere ~ without the use of my precious hair straighteners!!!!!

Well, I am just off out to clean out the old car and take all our stuff out of it ~ I have to collect the new one at 10.30am ~ and all 3 of us are excited!!

All I have to do now is get used to having a 7 seater and of course driving a different car (no problems there ~ I have driven lots of different cars over the years) ~ it will be the parking of said new 7 seater that will be the problem ~ I am the worlds worst parker EVER ~ ah well ~ we will just have to park at the very top of the multi storey for a while, when we go shopping ~ where no one else parks (tee hee!!!) . I am sure I will get the hang of it eventually...........I will hopefully be back later with some photos of my new baby (car that is!!!)XXX