It's Official - I'm a Gleek!!!

I give in, I admit it, I am sure there is some kind of treatment programme but I can't promise to go and take part. I am loving Glee far too much. Oh if only we had had Glee Clubs when I was at school, I would have been in there.

I did take part in everything remotely "drama" at school, I was in every single school show that was put on, I strutted my stuff, sung my heart out and made a complete arse of myself at every opportunity and loved it... yes you heard me, I loved it!!

Having said that, I have since stolen every single piece of evidence that my parents ever had that I took part in these events. These have been ritually burnt so that my kids will never find them.

We missed Glee when it was on television so we thought we just had to get the boxset when it finally came out. Absolutely brilliant stuff, following the dramas of Rachel, Mr Scheuster, Finn, Quinn (if I ever have twins I know what I will be calling them!) and the evil Sue Sylvester, one of the funniest characters ever, her one line put downs are just so funny.

And the voices, wow the voices, some seriously powerful voices that just blew me away, I actually had shivers down my spine when listening to some of the songs, Mercedes (Amber Riley) in particular has this powerful belter of a voice that just stops your breath!

The only bad thing about this series for me was that it ended. I was so sad that there was no more episodes on the disc!  Roll on series two, I still haven't managed to put it on the sky box so we'll be buying it on DVD.

If you are a Glee virgin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2FMdOLyRcA enjoy!!!

Glee Links:

http://www.e4.com/glee/

http://www.facebook.com/Glee

Get the DVD here:

Cleopatra's Daughter

I picked up a copy of this book during a visit to Tesco, it was one of those impulse purchases that so often happen in that very dangerous shop.  One of those "oh I go in for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread and come out having spent a £100 on a ton of stuff I didn't intend to!" moments. 

The cover was what really attracted me, I am a sucker for costumes. I thought the title might be a bit of a play on words as I didn't actually know that Kleopatra had any children other than her first son Caesarion. But once I read the back I thought oh hang on maybe she did... and sure enough having since googled it Kleopatra did indeed have 3 more children with Mark Antony before it all went tits up for them. 

I found the book fascinating, from page one I was hooked, drawn into the story of Selene, Kleopatra's daughter and what happened to her after her parents died. 

The first thing that struck me was the selfishness of her parents.  Mark Antony killed himself in the traditional Roman fashion of stabbing himself with his short sword because he thought that Kleopatra was dead (but he didn't actually wait to find out...numbnut!) and then Kleopatra killed herself with a cobra. Traditionally this is thought to be because of the grief of losing Antony but the reality is more likely to have been because she didn't want to be enslaved by Caesar and paraded through Rome in chains.

But it did mean that she left her three surviving children Kleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus to the mercy of Caesar and to the most likely fate of slavery. 

The book follows these three children and what happens to them and is truly rivetting, the descriptions of their journey, the life they lived and the intrigues that surrounded them.  Michelle Moran manages to weave a convincing story as well as drawing in real historical facts and events into the story.

Definitely one I would recommend you read if you like history and a good story.

Steam Rally - Stoke Goldington 9th May 2010

My husband suggested a day out at a local Steam Rally, as the weather was really quite nice and I have never actually been to a steam rally it seemed like quite a good idea, or at the least an opportunity to get out in the sunshine and spend a bit of time together. 

I had the most fantastic day,  I was shocked by the sea of cars in the huge field that served as the car park for the event... this was a country event on a scale I have never seen before. But that's what happens when you are a city girl by birth.

Once we were in past the entrance the first thing I noticed was the helicopter buzzing around, I was seriously tempted by the idea of a ride, but the queue was huge and there was just so much to see I didn't have the patience to wait!

The event was laid out in sections, with small steam machinery being the first section we had to walk through.

Walking up through the market stands I bumped into Therese from Baby Dimples Reborn Nursery pushing her gorgeous coach pram with one of her dolls in it, doing her bit to spread the word about reborning! It was fantastic to see a reborn artist out and about showing off their work, we spent some time chatting about the art and it was fascinating to see how many people came up and peered into the pram looking at Therese's work.

I loved seeing all the craft work on display, there was just so much to see, the beautifully handmade bird houses made a fa ntastic display in the sunshine, I was so tempted by the birdhouses but then I thought, hang on, three cats and a captive audience of birds??? Possibly not the cleverest idea I've ever had so maybe not.  Anyway the birds are so scared of our cats they won't even come into the garden to take the seed we put out for them!

 

Inside the craft marquee were a range of stands from homemade sweets, jewellery and cards to traditional crafts like basketry, woodworkers, cider makers and honey. 

It was fascinating watching people working at traditional crafts, it's great to see that people are still managing to make a living at these crafts and keeping them going in a world where mass production has taken over.

I saw and fell in love with a beautifully crafted wooden apple which I just had to have.  Heavens knows what you do with a wooden apple, apart from wipe dust off it from time to time but it was so pretty I just had to have it. 

I also came home with a hand turned white and lavender pot that is going to live in my art room and hold all my paint brushes.

There was just so much to see and do, we wandered amongst the restored vehicles, tractors, steam engines and crafts for hours and there wasn't a moment that I felt bored or uninspired.  All in all a brilliant day and I can't wait for next year. 

Photo Gallery   Please enjoy!

Beautiful Wicker Dolls Houses

The Tudor Wife

I love to read, as a child my father would say that I would read absolutely anything, including the back of a cereal packet if I got desperate, and he was right.  I was quite voracious in my appetite for books, I think by the time I was 12 I had worked my way through the kids section of our local library, Jubilee Gardens in Southall and was working my way quite happily through the adults section.  I think the ladies at the counter were often quite shocked to see me trundling up to the counter 2 or 3 times a week with my allocated 10 books.

I've just finished "The Tudor Wife" by Emily Purdy. Brandypurdy.com/ Essentially this is a historical fiction novel, it's the retelling of the Anne Boleyn and Henry the VIIIth story, following Henry's chase of the very unwilling Anne, a very well known historical event but this time told through the eyes of Jane Parker who became Lady Jane Rochester when she married George Boleyn, Anne's beloved brother.

I found Jane to be a thoroughly unlikeable character, right from the start she comes across as an obsessive character, the subject of her obsession being George Boleyn, in modern day terms she would have been thought of as a stalker or even a bunny boiler such is her need to control and own George. Jane doesn't seem to understand that George's lack of love for her is George's fault and seeing the closeness of the relationship George and his sister Anne have decides that Anne is to blame for her not being able to make George love her and takes her chance then to revenge herself upon Anne whenever she can.

Given that the historical facts do indeed show that Jane Parker was one of the chief witnesses that Henry and Cromwell used to get rid of Anne, she is the principle witness and accusor in the trials that brought about Anne's death, accusing Anne not only of having affairs with courtiers but even going so far as to accuse her sister in law of having an incestuous relationship with her brother George. It is quite easy to imagine this story being quite accurate. 

Jane herself comes to quite an unpleasant end being beheaded herself in the same way she helped to have Anne's head lopped off  and when that part arrived in the book... at the end... funnily enough... I found it very difficult to raise any semblance of sorrow for the character.  My first thought was "well you had that coming love!"

Come on You Saints!!!!

My husband talked me into going along to a rugby match, it was my first time, he'd asked me so many times I thought "what the hell, why not"

So we trot off to The Saints Rugby ground in Northampton, the grounds is called Franklin Gardens because apparently originally it was a civic public gardens. You have to wonder whose brilliant idea it was to get rid of that (yes that is sarcasm).

I was shocked at just how many people attend a rugby match, it was just this sea of people heading towards the grounds. I was even more surprised by how many women and girls were there, all in their Saints shirts, I felt quite out of place in bright pink... I must have clashed terribly with the sea of green shirts.



I'm not entirely sure who these guys are supposed to be, but you have to admire their courage in being prepared to walk around dressed as complete numpties.






My husband had been telling me about this stand, Hog Roast, his dad had tried it at a previous match and pronounced it delicious, so we duly queued up with quite a lengthy crowd, the smell from the roast was tantalising and I could feel my tummy rumbling. It was like it was screaming, bring on the pig people and do it quick!!





We were presented with a soft roll just stuffed and brimming over with roast shredded pork onto the top of which was piled strips of crisp pork crackling and then was topped off with spoons of apple sauce...

Absolutely divine! Bliss in a Bun!

The rugby match itself was going to have to be good to top the food.

And it was... it was loud, 15,000 people in the stands all singing the Saints Anthem, When the Saints come marching in, which was really nice, harmonies and everything, but I did have to question which bright spark felt the need to add "oi oi" to the end. Why????

I loved the mascots though, they were so cute, they had a boy and a girl version of the mascot walking around and waving to the kids and posing for photographs. Bet the poor lad who got stuck with the girl costume was hoping his mates didn't see him dressed like that.

Unfortunately the Saints kind of gave it away in the end and failed to convert a try (so I am reliably informed) and we lost by 1 point. Gutting, specially as there was a very vocal opposition supporter right in front of us who felt the need to poke fun.

I took loads of photos of the event, well you have to when it's your first ever live rugby match!

Final Score - Northampton Saints 27 - Saracans 28

I can't say that I have been converted into a mad rugby fan, but I did enjoy the event and would definitely do it again.

But this has got to be my favourite moment of the day, look at that face, that is one happy man, he's having a great time... good food, sports and he got me to go to a rugby match. Good times!!!

What's That All About?

What is it about a skip? Obviously when you have work done at your home you generally have to have some way of disposing of all the accumulated crap that gets produced by the job.

When the skip showed up on the first day of the job I have to admit to being a bit surprised by the size of it, I thought to myself there will just not be that much rubbish coming out of this... but now I have worked it out it's quite possible that they don't order a big skip by accident, that maybe just maybe they know what will happen once it's outside your house... that the skip gremlins will sneak along in the dark of the night and chuck their crap into the skip you are paying for!

One night we went to bed and the skip was half empty when we got up in the morning it was full to the brim, we'd inherited someone's broken down washing machine or is it a dryer? Some empty boxes that weren't anything to do with us and assorted other junk dumped by people in the dead of the night.

Why do people do that? Would it kill them to knock on the door and ask? It's not like we bite... well actually I do but only when asked nicely! It just seems so sneaky to me to creep around at night just to dump stuff in someone else's skip, specially when the local dump is a 10 minute drive away.

I was glad when they came and took it away in the end, I would have been mightily pissed off if they had said "sorry we can't take this because it's been over filled."

Dream Office - Part Four

Finally my art room is finished, after several days hard graft painting the walls and the ceiling, it has to be said the ceiling was the worst bit, specially when my husband got a bit of an electric shock from the lights when he took them down to let the ceiling be painted... lesson learned... turn off the electricity even for the simplest of jobs, it's not worth the panic attack. Several days later his fingers were still slightly numb and covered in odd white spots!

I am loving the white walls, I was worried it would look really clinical but the addition of a cream roller blind and touches of colour, like the bright hanging pots on the wall, from Ikea stop the cold feeling and the brightness of the walls really does take advantage of the daylight available in the room, making it a pleasant working environment even late into the evening.

I'm trying to be careful and not rushing to bring every bit of craft stuff I own into the room, it's so tempting but if I do that I will just be surrounded by "stuff" and then it will be too difficult to sort it out. We've put in two white Billy bookcases from Ikea and a sofabed and I can see where I will be putting my filing cabinet, which will one day be modgepodged... it's on the list of "to do's".. once I finish the rest of the house that is!

And I think there is going to be one more bookcase in the room... trust me, every shelf will be filled, I have so many art and craft books it's untrue and I can't wait to unleash my creativity, however that is going to have to wait until the practical stuff gets done... oh the trials of the frustrated crafter!