Day 59 + 1! - EXTRAORDINARY

Our word today was extraordinary - meaning beyond the ordinary or the norm. A difficult one for a photograph in an ordinary day!

Then as we had lunch with 2 friends I thought about their lives and how different our retirement lives have been. Whilst we have taken up hobbies and slowed down and taken ordinary holidays abroad, further afield but ordinary, they have had some extraordinary adventures all over the world.

They started by travelling on their boat with a flotilla of 30 boats for 2 years following the trade winds. They then sailed together across the Atlantic and kept their boat on the East coast travelling as far as S America and north to Nova Scotia. They have finally brought the boat back to the UK last year but I am sure their sailing days are not over yet . Last week they returned from an exciting month long expedition on a ship to the Falklands, S Georgia and finally to the Antartic following part of Shacklton's route.
Then tonight the sunset from our patio was one of those not to be missed skies... not an ordinary sunset

Day 59 - GREY

On picking the prompt up 1st thing this morning I just knew that with tongue in cheek I would show you how I cover up my grey hair LOL!! I have been using this hair colouring since my teens when I decided not to be a mouse colour but more a dark blonde. I am now lighter blonde but definitely not a dumb blondeand nor am I grey!! Note 100% grey coverage :)
Well today was our DGD day with us and she had to share us with a decorator, a plumber and 2 men who brought us industrial dehumidifiers and boy were there a lot of things to find and pick up and what a lot of NO's from us too! We are very exhausted too!!

and Suzie today we have had MIST and CLOUDS and quite a grey day too LOL!!

Day 58 - TREE or MIST

We had a choice today whether to photograph mist or a tree we will visit later this year.

I chose our willow tree which we bought to stay in a pot and then moved it into the ground as it was getting too big for the pot. We put this tree in the wrong place and in summer it hangs over our patio and path and can be very annoying! Each year DH who is no gardner but loves hacking down trees and shrubs!!!! always gives this poor willow 'short back and sides' but this year he seems to have missed doing one side LOL!
I did take a photo of part of the view of the town from our patio door and then later saw that the slight mist had cleared so did the comparison as a collage!

Our decorator has arrived even though we still have some damp around and took all the wallpaper off the walls and the insurance comapny have offered us a cash settlement so we feel a lot happier tonight!

Day 57 - LIGHT

As soon as I saw the photo prompt today I thought about several things involving light but not the obvious ones'
I am a Christian and so should be a light in this world for God but sadly, I haven't felt like His light, more a poor reflection, a shadow for a few weeks, looking inwardly at my lot and not thinking about others.

Then my next thoughts were, "is there a light at the end of this tunnel I am in? Yesterday I was being very positive but woke today very down again. Why? Well DH was grumpy so apart from church which was very uplifting it hasn't been a wonderful day. We are OK now and looking forward to a nice evening together round our dining room table!! or maybe watching TV in bed LOL!!
I still hadn't done my light photo when I walked in our toilet as the sun was low and saw this lovely reflection of light on the tiled walls, that is what I should be ....not a poor relection!

and why was I fed up today? Well upstairs was getting as bad as downstairs with boxes everywhere. We had decided since we could do nothing downstairs to tackle the spare room and move the units which also needed repairing, here is the room before all the DGC toys and books were put away, we still have all the boxes from the hall, and some from living room and diner here too but the units are now repaired and you can see the spare room bed :)

I guess there was a light at the end of that tunnel!!

Day 56 - SATURDAY or show us rain

It definitely is Saturday in our house as this is the cooked breakfast morning which DH makes and then washes up to his CD's playing very loudly. He sings along too!!
I am glad we had an alterative to rain today as we live in SE England which is going to soon be a drought zone since we have had so very little rain this winter

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This is a picture I took several years ago when we did have quite a bit of rain!

Day 55 - CLOUDS

Suzie asked us today "what is clouding your skies today?"
I didn't want to continue with 'clouds' in my life and since today the sky is just grey, I looked amongst my photos as I am always taking sky phtos!! Here is one showing a brilliant blue sky between the clouds and the sunshine lightening the clouds too.
It reminds me of the saying "every cloud has a silver lining" and that is how I am now tackling our home problem from now on. I will have a newly decorated living area, new carpet and furniture and curtains to match. Someone asked me the colours, well a kind of mushroom colour and cream

The continuing saga of our home!!

Well tomorrow our 3 piece suite and stool goes to a good home :( I just love the colours we have had all our married life but since the water leak we have decided to change the colour scheme and since a new carpet was chosen we have now decided on a new suite too. Tomorrow our Suite goes and for the next couple of months we just have a dining room table and chairs LOL!!
Wanted to share a photo of how the lounge diner looked before and now (bottom Left) before the furniture goes.
We hope to have a decorator in on Monday to start on removing the remaining paper and paint on the skirting boards. We will feel that we are now making progress how ever slow !

Day 54 - IN THE DETAIL

Thanks to Kim's blog today I realised I find detail very important too, I really cannot show you our living area yet but unlike Kim our bathroom and toilet make over went very smoothly and 8 years on I love the bathroom tiles detail we chose and have coordinated the blue with blue tiles and all our mats and towels are this colour blue. I have noticed this winter that the blue has changed in bathroom shops to a turquoise blue :(
Off now to the next saga with our living area...watch this space :)

Scapping challenges for February

As promised here are my Lo's completed so far.
This was a class kit that I didn't go to so I completed it at home and it fitted Feb weekly challenge week 1. I have been wanting to scrap my lovely friends I made on UKS in 2008 when we all did with many others an Anna Bowkis 365 challenge of photos and journalling for the year. That year we meet twice and have now had 4 retreats as well as several group meetups and have become good friends IRL. Quite an achievement for a group of strangers in Jan 2008!!
The February House challenge was a colour combo of Spring colours so this simple LO is of my friend Carol and I at a Cardinal Colours retreat in Eastbourne in 2010

Last week's weekly challenge week2 we had to use the colours black and red and several photos. I often try to do a holiday LO to try and build up those albums!

At the moment a lot of my scrapping time is taken up with 2 CJ's I am in and a jigsaw swap for our 365 next retreat in March. We have now formed a social group called The Crumblies and continue to chat a lot daily!!

Day 53 - ORDINARY

Well today has definitely been an ordinary day for both DH and myself.
I went as usual to SW this morning after changing our bed and getting the bedlinen washed. I was very pleased to have lost another 4lbs so 1st 1 1/2lbs off in 7 weeks and I am back in my size 16 clothes again!!
Then later than usual I went on the computer for my usual fix of UKS chat before lunch. I tried to upload here earlier this afternoon but phonecalls, getting the washing in before it started raining and a visitor stopped me and now it is time to think about the evening meal. An ORDINARY day!
Just had to show you all a college of a few photos I took yesterday of our youngest DGD and DH together at the end of our day with her. She just adores him and he her, she is the youngest of 6 DGC, the oldest two now being 16.

Now I must get some more photos uploaded to show that I am still scrapping!!

Day 52 - SKY HIGH

Had this photo already stored away so very apt for today's word SKY HIGH. I am certainly not feeling sky high but better than yesterday.
Hope everyone has a better day and less fragile? Amazing what a good night's sleep does for you, today is another day!
We have our DGD Xanthe every Tuesday so better get going or she will be here!!

Day 51 - FRAGILE

Sadly I seem to be in a fragile state of mind about a lot of things at the moment. Which isn't really me!

I have a huge problem with Picasa which seem to have a virus of it's own cropping any photos I download or scan and cannot solve the problem. It has also cropped and rotated 1,000's of photos in the programme too from 2006! (not all of them but selected what it fancied!)
Then there is Blogger whatever has happened to Google and blogger LOL!!

But my worst problem leaving my very fragile has been since our water leak 2 weeks ago and has continued to get worse with insurance claims, car insurance claims and finally the plumbing problem, 'the icing on the cake'!

Last Thursday, when a plumber arrived to do a HALF day's work but left his 2 'helpers' in their early 20's and disappeared and never came back to check their work! To add insult to injury his invoice was emailed to me on Thursday night as I was in full ranting at how our house had been left when they finally went after a FULL day here. The plumber finally returned this evening and is coming back on his own on Wednesday to sort out all the problems

Here are the photos of some of the things wrong

Left with big holes where they put new pipes above the ground. This is our lounge diner our only room, note we have no carpet!! The walls and skirting are still drying out
This is the modern way of leaving this ugly feature in the middle of the hall radiator for draining off water (it is being removed on Wednesday!) This has also been done on the lounge radiator too!

This is a hole in our back bedroom carpet which was made when they dragged one of the beds which I had been told didn't need moving during the day unbeknown to us!!

Under this carpet which had not been fitted back into place we found broken floorboard and splinters of wood, nails from taking the floorboard up and a black pug!!

This is my craft room carpet not been fitted back as it was!!

There were several other issues including radiator not moved to allow for boxing in the pipes and things left behind in the loft and header tank not covered again

Anyway roll on Wednesday so I may not feel so FRAGILE!

Day 50 - FASHION

I definitely don't follow fashion these days though I did in my teens with Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton clothes and Cilla and Sandi Shaw haircuts and who remembers beehive hair and winklepicker toes on shoes LOL.
Now it will be my DGD Amie who I suppose follows fashions at 15yrs. I cannot say I like the boobs showing and such tight short skirts but not quite 'Fat Gypsy Wedding' gear!!
Here she is on Christmas Day Two years ago with me

and another Christmas when the hair style changed and the peroxide blonde disappeared for a while!!

I really feel my age with youngsters around. How sad is that!!

Oh and yes Suzie the vacuum is still at the top of the stairs and I am scrapping today :)

Day 49 - DOMESTIC

Our photo challenge today was to show 'domestic'. Well we have been out all day and came in tonight to find the vacuum cleaner on the landing where I left it yesterday when I was feeling domestic!!
We had a great day at Beachy Head Hotel meeting 3 other couples from our cruise holiday last year. We were table 15 for 14 days and this was our first meeting since last August. We arrived at 11am and finally left at 4pm. We all got on so well once again, with plenty of chat and banter. We have arranged to meet again in the summer. Hope the weather is better then. Today was so windy and wet!!

Day 48 - ABSTRACT

I do not understand a lot of Abstract art of today, but when I was teaching primary school aged children in Art we had to study some famous artists for the National Curriculum.

One of the most successful for them to copy or use as a base for their own art design was Mondrian whos based his work on squares and rectangles and the colours, blue, red, yellow, black and white

We also looked at Wassily Kadinsky paintings and they really enjoyed them too. He was a musician inspired by marks connected to music and colours by feelings in the soul on listening to music

This painting is called On White 1923

Day 47 - What is in your handbag!

Today was what was in my bag well here you are, I didn't tidy it so as you can see I have to rummage for things!!

my new pink phone

Pink purse

Makeup bag

tissues

diary

pens

shopping receipts
senior bus pass

money off vouchers

wet ones

Day 46 - BLOOM

I guess most peeps wil have lovely blooms from yesterday. I do usually have flowers but with our upheaval I don't want flowers and there are none in the garden either after the snow!

So like Suzie I have gone "off piste" I remembered in my craft room this lovely dish which I seldom use but should...as I am always looking for my 'blooming glasses' LOL!

Day 45 - CANDLES

Happy Valentines Day, these are the candles I get out each year for our special meal!!

Day 44 - FRIENDSHIP

This was quite difficult cos for me DH is my friend, so are my sons. All the lovely ladies on UKS that I talk to daily are friends too.
But I chose my IRL friend Carol who saw me through my divorce 33 yrs ago and then I saw her through her DH's tragic death at Easter 2 yrs ago. She is always there for me and I am for her :)
Here we are in Eastbourne at Cardinal Colours retreat 2011

Day 43 - FROM YOUR PAST

I have had this perfume since I was a teenager! I still wear it and love it!

Day 42 - Portrait of a loved one!

Well it just had to be my lovely DH as a portrait of a loved one.

It is our second marriage, and Peter's wife died when they were in their forties. We will have been married second time round for both of us 27yrs this coming Oct LOL!!

Who would have thought at 40yrsold and 50yrs old we could have clocked up all those years! we have had such a wonderful marriage and life together and hope for further happy years!

I couldn't take a photo of him tyoday as we are pretty sad about our leak(s) and our lovely neighbour dying so suddenly on Wednesday but this is a lovely photo of him that I have tweaked on holiday last August

Thank you for such lovely supportive comments from total strangers xxxxx

Day 41 - HEART

Yesterday I went into M&S abd vought a meal for 2 for Valentine's day. We have eaten the steak and side dish, frozen the starter and the dessert!!
These chocs have been sitting in the kitchen (part of the meal deal ) and I am feeling very down today so have eaten 6 chocolates leaving the chocolate hearts showing LOL!!

Day 40 - COMPACT

Dictionary definition- closely or neatly packed together.
I thought about the Russian doll that I use to have and gave to my DS where one doll fits into another doll, then I remembered the photos I took when we visited St Petersburgh last year! A very compact stall of Russian 'dolls'!
Here is a more modern set, they even had Christmas tree sets!

Day 39 - Fence

Here is some fence I took with other snow pictures, as you can see our snow has hardly gone although the main roads are clear there is still a lot of snow and a lot of ice around on the outskitrs of our town!

Day 38 - DAMAGE

Well today's photo was easy, thenk you Suzy! The continuation of our underground water leak is that we took up our carpet to expose the DAMAGE!

We have had the pipe capped from the boiler to the downstairs radiators so now we are without heating daownstairs and outside this morning is -8C!!

Day 37 - PACKAGING

The continuing saga is that today we lifted our lounge diner carpet 33' and during this time our new curtain material arrived all neatly packaged up...don't think we will be making these yet!!
Here is a view of part of our room tonight, we now have no heating to downstairs radiators as the pipe has been capped to prevent further leaking under the concrete floor!! We now await the insurance assessor for buildings!

Day 36 - RUBBISH

Having made a huge warming stew with lots of vegetables to day I looked for the RUBBISH and found DH had thrown it outside ready for the compost, to cold and thick snow to go there today!!
Our plumber has been and yes the pipes to the radiator are leaking, could be one leak or several as the screed would have in time corroded the copper piping, the carpet has to be totally taken up in a 33' lounge /diner and eventually the hall carpet as the pipes lead to the radiator there and the small bedroom carpet upstairs to try and feed a new pipe system from small bedroom radiator to hall radiator

Tomorrow I contact the insurance company next!! Don't think February 2012 is going to be a good month for us!!

Snow on 5th Feb 2012

The SE of UK finally has seen some snow!! These are the scenes for our patio door and front door and bedroom window. So pretty to look at but glad we haven't got to go out in it!
Church service was cancelled this morning due to the roads impossible to drive!!