Adam has a new job

Hooray hooray!!

Adam has a new job.

It is very difficult to find work at the moment, and it is even more difficult for some people athan others, so I am even more pleased that Adam has been successful.

He has been looking for a while now and although he hasn't been successful up till now, I think he has found a good niche now.

He has a full time job as a cleaner in Rookwood hospital. Rookwood is based in Llandaff in Cardiff so it is on the right side of Cardiff for travelling, and it is the spinal injuries unit for this area. It is one of 12 specialist units across the UK, and in addition to spinal injuries it is a rehabilitation unit, so that there are a lot of long term patients rather than people in who are ill for a short period of time. Mike's partner Karin is a nurse, and her mum is also a nurse and used to work there and says it is a lovely hospital to work in, really good atmosphere and very nice place to work. His shift is 7am-3pm 5 days a week, so he will avoid all the rush hour traffic which is a good thing and makes the journey so much easier.

He has finished at Cowbridge school yesterday, because next week is half term so he isn't in work, and he starts in the hospital next Friday.

So hooray for Adam. We are all delighted.

Wedding!

I am now terribly excited and starting to get a bit nervous as our wedding is now less than a month away! After a frankly hideous month or so at work I finally have some time to actually spend doing wedding stuff and finish getting everything sorted out. Carl to his credit hasn't been the useless groom that I seem to hear talked about a lot - he's done loads and is at this very moment sorting out our cake of cheese (that's as opposed to a cheese cake). All I have left to do is sort out what I call niff naff details like favours, centre pieces and flowers - oh and of course tone myself up so I look like Cindy Crawford or one of the female Strictly dancers by the big day :)

Can't wait to see all of you who are coming and for those of you who aren't and have asked about wedding list details, we have our list with Trailfinders and would gladly accept any contributions to our honeymoon trip to South Africa! Almost more excited about that than the day itself to be honest! We're flying to Cape Town on the 30th December so will have New Year's Eve out there which should be fun. We're then aiming to squeeze in some cricket, some sightseeing, lots of wine tasting and some safari action. As someone who usually goes camping in the UK on her holidays I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to the sun. Details are here:

https://secure.trailfinders.co.uk/WeddingListService/contribute/WedGiftform.jsp

And the ID for the list is: 5B2EJ9

In the meantime, hopefully I've managed to avoid turning into this:

Love Kate xxxx

some photos of the area around our neighbourhood at this time of year. Notice the magic carpet one walks on.

Parrot Fun (Uhem!)

I've decided, from looking at the Lincoln pictures, that I've definitely missed out. It looks like a lovely place.

However, the true reason for my blogging here is this clip which, I think you'll agree, is extremely funny... sadly you may not be able to see it if you're not in the UK.

More anon... xxxx

Lincoln

Well, I am beginning to feel a bit sorry for Kate so have decided to put some more modern pictures up.
We have just returned from a weekend in Lincoln. Lincolnshire is famously flat so we laughed when we found a street sign called "Steep Hill" - we weren't laughing when we had to climb up it!

Lincoln is very pretty. The cathedral is amazing. It was the tallest building in the UK until the 20th century and you can see it from 17 miles away. It has a famous imp in it's stonework.

We didn't manage to spot him until a family going round at the same time paid to have the spotlight shone on him! It is amazing what stone masons could create.
Lincoln castle is also very impressive. We walked around the walls and the Red arrows happened to be practicing at the same time. Lincoln castle used to house the town prison and during the 19th century they decided on a policy called separate imprisonment which they copied from Quaker example(!) in New England. It meant that the prisoners were kept in solitary confinement and if they came out of their cells they had to wear masks. They had to attend chapel which was laid out like a lecture theatre but with individual cells and they were only allowed to take off their masks once they were locked in. Seriously, I don't think it was the Elizabeth Fry branch of penal reform.

We also had a trip to the coast which is lovely. Huge beaches, vast salt marshes and miles of dunes with hardly a person in site. Here are some Pictures.

Hairdresser Helen

Love those giraffes, Alice!
Anyway Helen talking about her talents as a hairdresser led me to dig out a couple of examples. Also I will be missing the Hen night so this is a small embarresment for the blushing bride at the same time.
Rather clumsy images as the scanner at work only produces pdfs and the help that I found suggested using something called Scribd.
Enjoy!
Kate 2
Kate

Not meaning to hog the blog, but...

... lookie lookie at this wonderful site. This is one of the great things possible with the existence of the internet...

:oD xx

Hair Despair (Oh yes, you know from the title it'll be great!)

I have known for a long time now that I am not gifted in the ways of vanity. By this, I mean that there have been certain things in terms of make-up and preening ones hair that have totally passsed me by. It took me absolutely ages to master simple make-up, after some horrible clown-like experiements. And now it would seem I have a new lack of skill to add to my incompetencies.

Today, before settling down to apply for some library jobs, I went to Boots (chemists) with a gift token given to me recently for my birthday. With it I purchased a curling iron/brush/thing. Fairly dull, you may be thinking, but I was curious to see whether I might be able to achieve curly hair (I can almost see Frances's look of distain at me now! :oD)

So when I got home I decided to try to curl my hair. It was baffling. I was feeling quite positive about the whole thing when reading the instructions, which made it sound very easy indeed. I then proceeded to get the curling iron stuck in my hair, over and over again, and pulling it out of my hair in a somewhat panic-stricken fashion. Not only is it fiddly to try to curl the back of one's hair, but it also gets extremely hot! I looked like a haystack with glasses on. My hair was sticking out in all directions: not the pre-raphaelite look I was really going for!

Surely this is not the usual experience of curling one's hair. If it is I'm sure hairdressers would have been sued by now!

Anyway, I did apply for a job today in spite of the trauma...

I really do need a job!

More anon.

Lakes Continued

The Lake District is a fantastic place. I absolutely love it especially when it's not raining. If you want to see our photos they are here
Anyway I am going to do this like an award ceremony.

1. Most appropriate family name. This house
was on Peggy's Hill!

2.Best Lord of The Rings name. The Jaws of Borrowdale! We climbed Castle Crag which is one of the teeth

3. Champion urinator. Helen. Seriously, it's like a super power. Any fern and she's in and out quicker than a Jack Russel cocking his leg.

4. Most like a Mountain Goat. Mike (closely followed by Erin). He was always sure footed and in the lead sometimes running up mountains and advocating running down them too.

5. Most ubiquitous intellectual. Wordworth - the poet who stayed in, built or wrote about almost every building and landscape in Cumbria.

6. Tufty award for road safety. Trev for managing not to squash the red squirrel that ran in front of the car.

7. Award for managing a challenging walk while having a streaming (literally) cold.
Alice.


8. Billy Bunter award for secret stash. Trevor. On these walks we shared the carrying of the picnic (except Helen who was eating astronaut food as part of her diet and was admirable in her adherence to it when all around her were scoffing cream teas). However, we noticed at the top of Skiddaw, our mountain and most hard work walk, that Trev had a Snickers bar and a packet of crisps he was keeping to himself.

9. Biggest challenge to Cumbrian Plumbing. Kieran. We thought it was only Greek plumbing that couldn't handle him.

10. Bravery in the face of freezing water and very stony ground. Erin, Mike, Boo and Kieran for swimming in Derwent water.

11. Best tea. V. hard competition, but probably the tea shop in Hawkshead. Lovely cake. Helen paid even though she was strictly adhering to her diet.

12. Worst tea. Grassmere. We went into the teashop at 4.40 when they closed at 5.00. They cleared up noisily around us and made us feel really rushed and we had just climbed a mountain we deserved that tea and cake.

13. Worst dressed for climbing a mountain. Erin. The weather was quite nice at sea level but a cloud engulfed the summit and there was a howling gale. We were all badly dressed but Erin had shorts on.



Anyway, I had better stop now. Brilliant holiday.

Lakes

Here we are in the Lake district. I went up to join Boo and Trev last weekend for a few days. We had a lovely time, going for a boat trip on Windermere on day 1, with a bus trip to Hawkshead as well, then on day 2 we got a bus to Grasmere and walked back. The weather turned very kind on the second day as you can see from the picture. Later on we even got the jumpers off and were in shirt sleeves!

It was great.

The youngest trainspotter...

I do like to keep up with current news stories and while browsing through today's most serious of items this one caught my eye. I am both amused and worried... but mostly amused! This is a story about a train enthusiast.

More anon!

E Bay

If the expression "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" is actually true then we are a Richard Dawkins kind of a family. Erin is spectacularly untidy, really, even by the standards set by our family. However, she has hit upon a novel and profit making way of tidying her room. Instead of putting her clothes in drawers and wardrobes she is selling them on E bay! You must admit that's smart. She's already made about £100.
Actually, we were all fascinated to see that somebody called Steven had bought her pink stiletto shoes.
Now all she has to do is not buy any more clothes with the money she makes

Who are those people in my picture

I expect you've all seen this. A couple were posing for a picture on the timer in Banff when a curious rodent took a look

Hamlet

Last weekend I went to London with my lovely friend Emilie and some of her other friends to see Hamlet. I got to go for free because somebody else dropped out (excellent for me) and was really looking forward to doing something vaguely cultural for once. It was also made more exciting by the fact that Hamlet was being played by Jude Law. Jude Law, if you don't know, is a film star, bit of a play boy but generally agreed to be really rather nice looking. Here he is:

I thought I was going to the Donmar Warehouse but it was actually part of the Donmar's year long residency at the Wyndhams Theatre which is a very different venue! I don't really go to the theatre as much as I'd like so am not qualified to be a critic at all, but I do know Hamlet pretty well having studied it at A-level. I've never been to one of these 'star' plays where they have someone ultra famous in the lead role and pretty well nobody else you've ever heard of in the rest of the cast, so I was interested to see what effect it had on the play overall. They also did it in modern dress which some people have an issue with. I don't if they do something with it but more on that later. My unqualified opinion was that Jude was actually pretty good. He was a troubled and dramatic Hamlet rather than a cocky or a funny one, which is fine I think as that is one interpretation of the character. What I did find was that he out-acted everyone else in the cast. The only other person I thought was any good at all was the guy playing Polonius who did the flappy Dad/politician bit really well. Penelope Wilton was Gertrude and alright, Gertrude is a bit of a rubbish part overall I think, but she didn't bring much to the stage at all. Having said that I've never seen a good Gertrude so maybe it is just the part.

The scenary was very dramatic and looked like the ramparts of a castle which was quite mean and moody and felt right for the play but I had an issue with the costumes, or lack of them. They were in modern dress, which is fine, but all the clothes were black or grey which just gave no interest to the eye on stage and made it all feel a bit oppressive. At the beginning when they urge Hamlet to 'cast off his inky cloak' I was thinking that it would make no difference as everyone else was dressed like they were going to a funeral as well!

However, that aside I did really enjoy it. I'd forgotten how many famous quotes come from Hamlet and let's face it, when Hamlet looks like Jude it doesn't really matter what he's wearing :)

Here is what The Independent thought of it (they're a bit harsher than I was I think):

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/first-night-hamlet-wyndhams-theatre-london-1696528.html

A lovely day was then finished off by wine and grub at Pizza Express and left me thinking I must make more effort to get tickets to things like this. I also managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the Liberty's haberdashery to get bits for customising our wedding invitations - it's like a treasure trove in there I could've spent hours digging around!

Love Kate xxxx

Momento

We have just had a lovely walk from Great Chesterford to Saffron Walden across footpaths. It is a sunny walk and we got to a staggering 90 metres at one stage! Can you imagine? When we got there there was a thoughtfully placed bench. I love it when people put benches in parks and on footpaths so that their loved one, dog or whoever can be remembered fondly by them and appreciated by those who want a sit down and a chance to admire the view. However the plaque on this bench was thus!

What's all that about?
The little plaque next to it had been scratched out but you could still read:
To David from Gertrude. Happy Birthday!
Clearly somebody really didn't like David. I wonder if we will ever find out who.

Fat cat.

This is Maru a japanese cat who is obsessed with boxes. Brilliant! This is totally what the internet is for!

Day out in Warwick Castle

Here we are at Warwick Castle. All the Martins and partners, plus Kate, Brian and I had a get together in the middle(ish) which was Warwick Castle. The weather in our lovely sun drenched island was - wet actually. It rained, significantly for most of the day. However not all day - here we are during a dry bit outside the orangery.
Here is Alice shooting a bow and arrow. Underneath are Mike and Kieran shooting bows and arrows. Alice was actually better and got more arrows into the target.
Here we are trying on hats in the castle. All very entertaining.
Here we are having lunch. There aren't that many picnic benches, and very few under cover, so we sat on plastic bags for our picnic. We has a really good lunch, and not much overlap of food. Kate is not here because she got stuck behind a horse box and then a caravan, and then had no change for the car park, and then having got change, the machine ate her money and she had to phone the car parking people. I think she needed gin when she arrived, but had to make do with food instead.
We had a really nice day. The castle is a bit too 'hollywood; and doesn't actually feel really like a mediaeval castle. Having done lots of castles this year and spending a lot of time in a medieval castle at St Donats we consider ourselves pretty up on castles. There were some things that were excellent - the trebuchet firing a fireball at the end was brilliant. Lots of things like the fighting, the jousting (which actually was rained off for us but is usually there) and such like would be great for kids, who seemed to be having a great time. However it was heaving so you were in queues a lot of the time, and in wet weather the restaurants were insufficient for the numbers, but we were unfortunate with the weather.

Picnics

Yesterday we went for a picnic in the grounds of Anglesey Abbey. It is not in Anglesey and it is no longer an abbey but that aside it is very pretty. Our companions for the day were Andy and Phyll, Greg and Charlie. I was getting serious picnic envy over their picnics. Home made quiche, and lemon drizzle cake and cold sausages and their seats were more comfy too!
Aside from my envy we had a lovley day and I remembered why two year olds love picnics. They can run around for the entire meal, eat with their fingers and pretty much get away with eating only cold sausages and crisps! Happy days.

Graduation

This week we went to Erin's graduation ceremony. This is the second graduation ceremony I have been to (I didn't actually go to my own) and they are interesting to compare. Kieran's was at Bath. Bath University is on a 60s campus on the edge of a beautiful historic town. Erin's was at York. York University is also a 60s campus university on the edge of a beautiful historic town. The difference between them was that Kieran's ceremony was in Bath Abbey whereas Erin's was on Campus. There are advantages to both. Obviously Bath Abbey is lovely but goodness the pews are hard. The thing is Graduation ceremonies are just a little bit boring. Obviously you are proud and eager to see your little darling get their piece of paper and you are a bit interested at seeing their friends get theirs but other than that you don't really care. The advantage of having the ceremony in a lecture theatre was that the chairs were comfier and you could see better. So comfy in fact that I was dozing off during the medics receiving their degrees. Mind you I woke up when I realized there was a new Dr Shipman in the world!
I was very impressed with the chancellor at Erin's. It was Greg Dyke who is a TV bigwig here. He gave a really good speech and he managed to look genuinely pleased for each student. Whether he is still as pleased by the end of the 8th ceremony on Monday who knows.
I think the best thing about having the ceremony on campus was that Erin got to see her freinds doing different subjects who were at the following ceremony whereas at Bath it all sort of petered out. Still Bath is a spectacular setting.
Students who are graduating now have grown up with the Harry Potter novels. Kieran started out the same age as Harry and by the last novel Erin was the same age. So everyone quite likes wearing the robes because they look like wizards! I noticed that the PhD students have to wear very silly medieval hats at York. I'm hoping they do at Southampton too as I shall definitely look forward to seeing Kieran in a silly hat in a couple of years time when he gets his doctorate!

Rest stops

At the moment I am typing this in shorts t shirt and walking boots. I have just aquired some new boots and I have two weeks to ascertain that they are perfect for my awkard feet therefore I need to wear them inside.
The reason that I need new boots is that we are going on a holiday in the Lake District later this year and although what I have now is OK for Essex I think I need something more supportive and comfy for hillier terrain.
Trev and I are toying with the idea of climbing Scar Fell Pike (for those who don't know it is the highest mountain in England). My friend Sally, who has climbed it and with whom I often go walking so she knows my fitness levels, reckons that if we are feeling uninjured at the time and after we have had a week of getting hill fit it is doable. BUT the thing that always puts me off on these long wild walks is going where to wee. There are no conveniences and there are precious few trees on these fells and there is a surprising amount of people on popular walks like this. It is OK for men they can just go against a rock but for ladies it involves squatting and I inevitably get it on my shoes and the chances are if it's quiet when I start a coach load of boy scouts will appear before I finish. I think when we we climbed the Old Man of Consiton (3rd highest) I just didn't go. Maybe the effort meant I reabsorbed.
Am I the only member of the family who worries about things like this? Probably. Hey Ho (ooh by the way, Helen, we're not expecting you to do this walk)