Chocolate & Vanilla

After 8 months of various amounts of upheaval, the hall, stairs and living room are almost re-decorated. 

After 20+ years of various shades of blue, we decided it was time for a change of colour.

Out went the border and wallpaper, in came the paint and dado rail.  I love it.

Just need some new curtains at the front door and that's the hall and stairs done, but here's some pics in the meantime.  

The only downside of it is that I start craving ice-cream every time I walk in the front door.

 

Thought for the day

The only thing that's left to do is ...

Get another tattoo!!

I had my heart/tree tattoo done for my 50th birthday 2 years ago.  It didn't take very well and I never got around to getting it redone. 

I've been asked if I just liked the design or whether it had a particular meaning.  Well, on a purely practical level I love trees, they look great, they take a long time to develop and mature, they can provide shelter and weather all sorts of storms. They are essential to our whole eco system.  The lungs of the world.  On a more airy fairy level, the leaves of the tree represent the people with whom I commune: my family and my friends. So it's also about community. Past, present and future.

The hearts are one of those love things.  It's what keeps us all together.  I'm not always very good at it, but I try to be and aspire to be better. 
 

The past 2 years I've  been thinking  that I would like some sort of wording underneath it, but wasn't sure what to get. The music of Frank Turner has had an enormous impact over the past couple of years so I chose the line from one of his songs.

Life has a way of devastating us at times.  Sometimes it's hard to bounce back from the things that are thrown at you.  Failed friendship, the loss of dearly loved ones, sickness whether physical or mental.  We've all been there, somehow, somewhere.

I found that it is possible to come through the sadness, and the darkness and the bitterness to find that the sun is still shining up there.  And the realisation that, really, at the end of the day, we have only one shot at things. 

If we can, we might as well make the most of them. 

What else is there to do?

Laura at Mr Personality, Sheffield - doing the wording

Touching up the tree - this was the point where it really started to hurt!

Very pleased with the results

Sunday Special

This years books

Read, almost read, half read and not yet read

The problem ...

with  trying to wring every last bit of goodness out of life, is it leaves you exhausted.

Hearts are flowers

Last one for the night. Just been messing about with some diddy hearts and came up with this.  Still waiting to be stitched (some stems and around the outline) and I think I will make it into a card.

Guess I better go tidy up the devastation I've caused now!

Now for the fiddly bit

Next I had to remove the backing paper from the trunk and each leaf - time consuming and fiddly but part of the process.  I then ironed everything into place using a dry tea towel between the design and iron to stop the pieces from sticking to the bottom of the iron.   I tentatively pulled the tea towel back sure that I had misplaced some leaves, but thankfully everything was where it was supposed to be.

So, now I have my design on my backing material. 

Time to get the sewing machine out!

Change of colour

I wasn't happy with the darker trunk so decided on a pink one instead.

I cut out a large square of white cotton material for my background piece then spent a while arranging the leaves until I was happy that it looked fairly balanced.  I've found that taking a photo of something in progress reveals it's flaws more than just relying on my eye so there was a bit of tweaking until I was happy with the layout. Needless to say I ended up taking loads of snaps as well. 

2 hours later ...

Thought I would try another tree similar to the one I made last year but different colours.  Step one was to draw and cut out some trunk and leaf templates then trace them onto the back of some Fus-a-Web.    I'd already attempted to do each leaf seperately but found the webbing was flaking off.  Second attempt was to trace 10 leaves and cut out the whole block, iron it onto the material then cut the leaves out once they were already fused to the webbing.  This worked much better!!

I then laid the bits out on my ironing board to get an idea of how it would look.

Pinks.

Time for a new project.

Sunday 30th June

So another very eventful week for our family.

Saturday:  Jenny returned home from College which is wonderful.  We celebrated her return and end of college life with a chinese take-away and a bottle of Moet.  We stayed up until the early hours sat in the conservatory, candles lit, playing pass the ipod.  :-). Lots of alcohol drank, great conversation and a background of some great music.

Sunday: Was pretty much chill out day for us all.  I don't think any of the female members of the household emerged before noon. Simon as usual, was up at the crack of dawn.  He rarely lies in.  We all did find it a little difficult to get going though.  Jenny and I did have to squeeze in a trip to Meadowhall  to find her a dress to wear for her graduation on Saturday.  The brief wasn't good.  Long-sleeve black dress, has to be longer than mid-thigh length and sleeves have to go to the wrists.  Urgghhh - impossible to find a long-sleeved black dress in the middle of summer.  We'd been around half of Meadowhall and were just leaving House of Fraser when I spotted a rack of different coloured dresses, spying a couple of long black sleeves peeping out there.  Hurrah!  We got her a nice dress that fitted the brief, and was bargain of the year to boot.  £99 reduced to £29.70.  Jenny was happy, I was happy not to have to look in any more shops, Simon was happy that his wallet wasn't hit heavily -  so mission accomplished!

Monday:  Continuing Becky's tour of Universities she fancies, she and Simon went off to Durham today.  I desperately wanted to go with them - it's so close to my home town and I've only ever spent half a day there.  Unfortunately the open day fell on one of my works days, so it wasn't to be.  She came back feeling that although the university was impressive and prestigious, she would struggle to get an offer as their criteria for acceptance is higher than even that of Oxford.  She's wanting to do PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) and the course requirements are a lot stricter than at any other college also.
 

Becky receiving her award

Our Oscar winner!

They had a quick turn around as Becky had been nonimated for an award at college so we got our glad rags on and wound our way down to St Paul's Hotel in the centre of Sheffield for college oscar night.  She had no idea what she had been nominated for, and when we signed in saw her name was on a sheet headed 'Achievement through enrichment activites'.  She had initiated the reinstatement of the college newspaper at the beginning of the course, and edited the first issue, so we decided this must be what the award was for!  It's been great to see her turn things around considering this time last year she had ditched her A-levels and was heading off for a career as a shop assistant.  She has worked hard this year, and I know she finds college a lot more to her liking than school.  Very proud of her for her hard work and achievements.

 




Tuesday:  A quick tea and change of clothing after work saw Simon and I head off down the motorway to see Bonnie Raitt play at the Royal Festival Hall.  I was thrilled to see the wonderful Foy Vance was supporting again.  He was very chatty on stage and his quick Irish wit had us all in stitches inbetween songs.  He played for just 45 minutes which went in the blinking of an eye and we were sad to see him leave the stage. 

Bonnie was amazing - she played for over 2 hours, again this sped by in no time.  Like Vance, she was in top form and was cracking jokes throughout the show.  I've not seen her like this before (although to be fair it's only the 3rd time I've seen her as she doesn't come to the UK to play too often).  Brilliant night though singing a selection of tunes from across her 30 odd year career.

Hogwarts Dining Room

Thursday:  Another college to visit, this time Oxford, and this time my working week had finished so I got to go on the visit too - yay!  We all piled in the car and headed off on yet another road trip.  Oxford is a nice town, bigger than Cambrige but not quite so quaint.  The colleges, however were another thing, all absolutely amazing.  We started off at Christ Church, very Harry Potter, and apparently some of the films were made here.  Magdalen is Becky's favourite and I have to say it would be a gorgeous place to study.  We then headed off to one of the University libraries for the PPE talk.  The lecturer who gave the talk, so enthused about it that we all decided we wanted to apply!  Becky of course was horrified at the prospect!!  It would be wonderful if she got a place here, but we are all very aware that places are few for this course at all the Universities who do it, and applicants are many, many.  However, as Jenny has proven, there's no harm in aiming high.

Magdalen College

Magdalen College

Manfield College Library

 

Friday:  Jenny was up early to get the train down to Cambridge for her graduation rehersal. She was staying in halls overnight and we left home just after tea and met up with her for a quick drink.  Poor thing was dead on her feet having been in rehearsals all afternoon, followed by drinks with the college Principal then the last of her formal dinners with her college.  However, we dragged her off to the pub and managed to demolish a pitcher of some fruity vodka concoction before saying goodnight and heading to the hotel.

Saturday:  Graduation Day dawned bright and sunny - thank goodness as it was dull as ditchwater yesterday.  We arrived at the college around 9am for the procession which went from Newnham College to the Senate House in the middle of Cambridge.  This took about 15 minutes and it's not only U2 who stop the traffic.  The girls all looked wonderful in their gowns with white fur trimmed hoods. 

We took our seat in the Gallery and had a great view of the procedings. It's quite funny.  The girls were lined up in 4's and went forward to be received by the Principal one by one.  Each quarter stepped forward when it was their turn, and one of the other female officials held out her hand, fingers outstretched to be grasped by each of the graduates to be.  Yes, lots of comments about pulling her fingers were going round and a little stiffled laughter here and there.  There was lots of doffing of hats and lots of Latin, and once again it felt like something out of Harry Potter.  Just the wands were missing  The girls went forward individually when their name was called, and knelt on a red foot stool at the feet of their Principal.  They put their hands together at face level as if in prayer, then the Principal clasps their hands and in latin invokes them as being worthy to become graduates. Or something!!!  We werent allowed to take photos in the Senate House although Simon snuck a couple before the ceremony began.  There are official photos of each graduate so we made sure we ordered one of Jenny before we left.

Newnham's stunning gardens

Afterwards we made our own way back to Newnham for a gorgeous garden party.  It was all very posh, but with very normal people there!  Definitely no 'Made in Chelsea' sorts to be seen anywhere.  I think that has been the thing that has surprised me most about Jenny's time in Cambridge. Everyone we have met have been very normal and down to earth. I'm sure there are some toff types about but we haven't encountered any.  There was a gorgeous buffet and and Brut to drink, and the sun was full out by this time as we all sat on the lawn sipping wine and eating strawberries and cream.  I could definitely get used to this!!  We sat with Jenny's friend Amy and her parents who we'd not met before, a lovely friendly couple who were easy to get along with.  Amy's Dad turned out to be a Leeds United fan, so we left with Simon issuing him an invite to attend a match together next season.

We left around 1pm and headed back home to Derbyshire.  It was quite emotional for Jennifer as she's had such a good time at Cambridge and it really has been like a second home to her.  I know she would love to work there sometime in the future so I did have a feeling of au revoir rather than goodbye.  I'm sure we will all be back.

Once home we all headed our seperate ways, and after a couple of hours rest/sleep we headed off into Hathersage to the Scotsman's Pack for a late tea.  We were all very tired, but thought it would be good to end the day with a nice meal, as a last celebration for Jenny.  As always the food was lovely and the scenery on the drive out there is second to none.  Jenny was given a bottle of Prosecco a few weeks from her Director of Studies, but she's not a wine lover.  I put it in the fridge to drink once we got home after the meal.  We were going to have another 'conservatory night' but some of the family were a little fractuous.  It has been a hell of a week all round again, so we called it a night pretty much as soon as we got home. 

As I headed off to bed I couldn't help my thoughts turning to those who weren't able to be a part of the day.  My parents came from such a humble background, my Dad an electrician's mate and my Mam a cleaner.  They didn't have much in the way of academic aspirations for us, and university was so far outside of their expectations. It would have blown their minds if they knew of Jenny's achievements today.  Likewise Simon's Mum would have been very proud.  Mostly I miss my sister Sylvia who was always such an encouragement.  I'm glad she knew Jenny had got a place at college, but it would have been lovely to have shared the day in some way with her too.  I hope that somehow, they all know and are smiling.

So it's been one hell of a month for us and I'm just looking at my calendar for next week. Apart from work, the blank spaces are looking so attractive. A chance to catch up on the mundane bits of life and get a few early nights in methinks.

Onwards towards July then!

Saturday 22 June

So another eventful week in our lives.  I managed a total of 2 days in work this week - woo hoo.  I didn't start back until Wednesday and had taken Thursday off as leave to head down to Coventry to see the mighty Bruce Springsteen and the E ... Street ... Band.

As always it was an awesome night.  Another mini-Waster meet-up before with Rue & Sarah Waster and Andy D in the orangest pub in Coventry!  After a quick tea we headed off to see the extremely generous and wonderful Nikki Waster who was transporting us to the gig and back.  The weather was torrential as we headed down the motorway, and had subsided to a medium shower when we arrived in Coventry, but I am pleased to say it was dry when Nikki dropped us off round the corner from the Ricoh stadium.

Bruce opened with the sombre Ghost of Tom Joad, a very powerful and moving rendition, but I hoped that it wasn't a sign that we were going to get the whole album!!  Fortunately we didn't and after the very serious start, Bruce began to loosen up.  Early in the set he picked a handful of signs from the crowd to play before announcing that tonight they would play, in its entirety, the Born to Run album.  This was as a tribute to band friend the actor James Gandolfini who had passed away unexpectedly the day before.   We were an appreciative audience although it was a little strange to get Thunder Road, Born to Run and Tenth Avenue Freeze out mid-set rather than nearer to the climax of the night.

Great night all round though, loved every minute and how he and the band manage to keep this going for over 3 hours is beyond me.  He did look excruciatingly tired towards the end, but for a 62 year old fella, that aint a complaint. There was loads of feel good moments, especially during the interaction Bruce had with the audience, picking their songs, getting folks up to dance or have man hugs - very emotional in places.

Friday was back in work with extremely sore knees this standing around watching bands play is really not good for me!!!  Had a phone call from Jenny in the afternoon to tell me she had got the results of her final - a fabulous 2.1.  She was very pleased with that, and we are so, so proud of her.  Its hard to believe that 3 years has passed since we first took her down to Cambridge and here we are, she is coming home today now that her course has finished.  One last visit next week for the graduation ceremony and that's her done and dusted.  A new chapter will begin as we start to look for accommodation for her in London before she takes up her new job there on 3rd September.  Major family changes again.

Today Simon has taken Becky down to Warwick University to their open day as its on the list of places she is considering applying to for her course next year.  She went off to Manchester yesterday and Oxford earlier in the week.  Next week its Durham and another trip to Oxford.  The way the days have fallen I can't get to any so she is going either with Simon or meeting up with friends she knows there. They are then popping over to Cambridge to collect all of her worldy belongings and bring her home.  There's a bottle of Moet chilling in the fridge as we speak.

So to pass the time today as I was intending going to Warwick but car space prohibits it, I've got myself off to the local garden centre, bought a mini (child's size) rake, 2 strawberry plants, mint and marjoram plants and a liner for one of my hanging baskets.  I've been in and out dodging the rain showers all afternoon but have tidied up a couple of corners of the garden, and planted the rest of my bedding plants.  My work is done there for this week.

When potting up earlier in the week one of my planters sheared in half, so I've sunk it in the ground and planted some mint in there.  Hopefully it will contain it and I won't have mint running wild all over the garden. I've put it next to the arbour as it smells really nice.  I used the bottom half of the planter for a marjoram plant, then put some bedding plants around about to fill the space up.  Hoping they will take.

My broken planter recycled

 

Strawberry plants

Some of my pots and Cyril the Snail

View from the house

June : Part 1

So onwards to June which always starts off with a celebration.

'28'

1st of June was our 28th Wedding Anniversary.  Got a dozen gorgeous red roses, and we  went over to Castleton for the night, which was really nice.  The Castle Hotel where we stayed was a bit disappointing, not quite the delight inside that it appears from the outside, but we made the most of it. We did have a lovely meal at the Bulls Head over the road though and at least we didn't have far to walk to our hotel!!

Castle Hotel

The girls exams are all finished and done now. Jenny has finished her finals - woo hoo.  She looks very tired but happy to be all but done with university now.  We have one last trip down there for her graduation towards the end of the month.  It will feel really strange not having to make the journey up and down to Cambridge once a month. She has a job in London to look forward to however, which we are all very excited about and no doubt we will be spending the next couple of months helping her to look for accomodation in the big smoke.  

Becky likewise has finished her exams - yeah! We have  a series of university open days coming up, so lots of visits around the country over the next couple of weeks.  Her list is Durham, Warwick, Oxford, Manchester, York and Dublin. 

First gig of the month was Elvis Costello at Sheffield City Hall. Brilliant night.  He has a wheel of fortune (with selected songs) which he invites members of the audience to come up on stage to spin. He will sing whatever the wheel stops at, unless it's a jackpot, in which case the person who spun gets to choose.  Great night. 

The Elvis Wheel of Song

 

I had a lovely night out at my friend's 30th birthday party last night. The theme was Speakeasy and we were required to dress up in 20's attire.  So we all got our flapper on and had a wonderful time.  The venue was Maison Mesame in Chesterfield.  It was lovely, gorgeous decor, fantastic garden, and the food and service  were second to none.

The lovely Helen

Some Flapper

The weather has been fairly mixed so far this June, but I decided that as we are not likely to see any frosts this side of autumn I would visit the garden centre and get my bedding plants.  Have spent a lovely afternoon in the sun clearing and deweeding the top patio, as well as potting lots of petunias, geraniums, violas and labelia.  I remembered to put the slug pellets on this time so hopefully they will last a wee bit longer this year.

Before

After

2013

So, here I find myself halfway through 2013 without one little post made.  It's all good, it means life has been busy, which also means life has been exciting.

So a quick recap of the year so far.

January saw The Gathering and a meet up of 50 or so amazing people who make up a group called The Wasting Land.  Grown from the early seeds of a website and community called Distant Warning this year we celebrate our 10th anniversary as a group.  The logical place to have a get together was The Gathering, an annual music event in North Wales which celebrates the music of a band called The Alarm and their lead singer Mike Peters.  What can I say about the weekend. It was very emotional.  I'd taken it upon myself to organise a party for us all on the Friday night.  There were a few logistical problems when we got to North Wales, food to buy, a room to set up, all those things associated with preparing for a good night.  So I was a little on the fraught side when things kicked off around 6pm although a few select beveridges helped to chill me out. It was a great night with some lovely folks and something I will never forget.  

The whole weekend was special, as well as the music we did a dip in the sea for the Love Hope Strength charity on the Saturday morning, great way to dispel a hangover whilst raising some cash for a worthy cause. 

Play it Skinny

Mad People

Saturday night's alright...

Chilly Sunday Morning Wasters

February we celebrated Becky's 18th birthday with a trip to Dublin.  Most things that could go wrong, did go wrong, starting with us missing the flight out there early on the Wednesday morning.  Fortunately our car was at East Midland's Airport so it was a change of tack and we headed off to Anglesey to catch the ferry over to Dublin.  After the initial shock of missing the flight, we quickly decided to turn the disaster into an adventure and we stopped at Tesco in Conwy to get  bottle of champagne and some nice snacks so we could toast Becky in the middle of the Irish Sea.  So instead of arriving around 9am in Dublin, we got to our hotel in Sandymount at 7pm.   We had a lovely few days in and around Dublin, got to see Of Monsters and Men a band Becky had wanted to see.  Another band we had tickets for, Fidlar, cancelled their gig, so that was a bit of a bummer as the whole trip had been organised around them. 

RAW at the Guinness Factory

Guinness Factory

The trip home was not uneventful either.  Becky and I flew home, whilst Simon got the ferry back as he needed to pick the car up from Holyhead as we'd gone over as foot passengers.  We did catch the flights back, without incident, but on the train home from Derby Becky asked  if I had housekeys.  I didn't. Simon had the only set we had taken on holiday with us.  This was Saturday and Becky's actual birthday.  We had arranged to go to Fancy's in Sheffield to pick up her birthday cupcakes and to have a spot of lunch but we were locked out of the house.  Our kind neighbours let us rest in their house for a couple of hours while they went to the garden centre, then Becky and I decided to decamp to the pub for some Vodkas.  Becky wasn't well impressed at this stage - she was desperately tired as we had been on the go since 5am - and was going out clubbing with her friends that evening.  As the afternoon progressed she got messages from this friend and that to say they couldn't make it - her birthday celebrations were going down hill very fast.  I felt so bad for her. Simon got home about 3.30 and let us all into the house with our cases, we promptly turned around again and headed out to Sheffield to Fancy's for something to eat and to pick up the cakes.

Happy Birthday Becky

March was predominantly gig month and the busiest month so far this year socially. It started with a birthday gig in Cardiff to see The Alarm.  I've always wanted to do a 1st of March gig in Wales but never managed it so far.  It was great to have a meet up with some of the Wasters as well as a trip to see Simon's Dad.  Wonderful weekend all round.  We also got a chance to present Mike with a cheque for the money raised back in January when we did our dip in the sea.

 

Love, Hope, Strength Wasters

Next up we saw Stiff Little Fingers ably supported by The Men They Couldn't Hang.  Great night.  SLF are a band I have loved for almost 30 years yet this was only the second time I've seen them play.  We managed to get tickets for a warm up gig Kasabian were doing at the Dome in Doncaster.  Another disaster waiting to happen when the tickets were left at home, so we missed the beginning of the gig as Simon had to go back for them.  Then Becky felt ill towards the end of the gig so I took her out into the fresh air until the show had finished. They were so good though, and it was great to see them with a smaller crowd.  We also had tickets for Stereophonics in Doncaster.  I was ill so Becky used my ticket.  Apparently I didn't miss that much!  Finally Black Rebel Motorcycle Club played in Leeds at the end of March.  They have a powerhouse of a drummer and I forgot how the force of it goes right through your body.  It had been a few years since I'd seen them and good to hear their new stuff.

We also managed to fit in a weekend in Whitby with our amazing Stockport friends.  Great weekend with lots of fun and loads of laughs.  The Wigglers did some fantastic cover songs at The Station on the Saturday night - top night.  Loved every minute.

The lasses

The lads

The Wigglers

April was all about kittens.  We got 2 additions to the family called Dandelion and Burdock. They are mad as hatters and have really added an extra dimension to family life.  I didn't think I was ready for another cat yet after Pepper had died, but Jenny and Becky mounted a campaign which involved bombarding me with for sale adverts of the cutest kittens they could find via email.  Of course I capitulated and am so thankful that I did.  We have two of the most insane but cutest little kittens ever and I love them to bits.

I managed to squeeze in another couple of  April gigs seeing Frank Turner in Leeds and Birmingham.  Leeds co-incided with Record Store Day - which saw Becky and myself queing outside Crash Records in Leeds at 5 o'clock in the morning in the pursuit of vinyl.  Madness!!

Another of what was now becoming a monthly event - a mini-Waster meet up at the Frank gig in Birmingham. A great night with Nikki and Simon and copious amounts of Sailor Jerry Rum made for a fun time!

Wasters do Brum!

Wasters do Rum!

Just so you know that the music isn't always about established bands, its good to support what is happening in Sheffield and when I got an invite down to the launch party of The Monday Club's debut album (thank you Jonathan!) I was keen to check them out.  The Monday Club have a great sound, as do The Downtown Roots who were one of the support bands. Was a lovely night and good to catch up with Jonathan again, even if the music took the place of any coherent conversation!

May brought my final assignment for my course - the longest one yet so the most challenging for me so far.  The last block of the course was called Place and Leisure.  It looked at holiday destinations at the turn of the century and now, significant places of interest such as Stone Henge as well as learning what different philosophers deemed to be the best way to use our time and leisure time.  

I've thoroughly enjoyed this year's module - I loved the variety and the challenge that studying various topics brought.  I've discovered things I've never heard of like the Benin Bronzes.  I'm not much of a one for reading about wars, but studying Stalin opened a back door for me to sneak in and gain a better appreciation of that kind of literature also.

May has also brought A level exams for Becky - and Jenny put the finishing touches to her project for her final's at uni, as well as revising for her exams in June.  So a pretty tense time all round in the Woods household. 

We did manage to fit in a visits to Cambridge to do some punting with Jenny, and another visit to Newcastle to see Eileen, Richie, Les and Micky.

Punting with Jenny & Becky

Newcastle with Micky & Eileen

  

My lovely friends, and fellow Wasters Michele and Rev were over from the states.  We squeezed in a late night  meet up with Michele, her husband Dietmer and mutual pal Rue around Manchester Airport the night before they were flying off to Germany for the second leg of their holiday.  So pleased I took the time out to meet up with them, they are so lovely.  Rev was over from Oregon later in the month which saw another mini-Waster Gathering of Rev, Rue, Liz, Glenn and myself and friends Chris, Babs, Bridgett and Terry. It was absolutely wonderful to catch up with our more far flung members of the gang who we don't get to see often enough.

Rockin' Rev (front right), Wasters and Friends

May couldn't escape without us having at least one gig and it came in the form of The Everley Pregnant Brothers who played a cracking set at The Devil's Arse - aka Peak Cavern out in deepest, darkest Derbyshire.  With the lovely Sheila and Paul as company, it was a right laugh and a great way to end the month.

With Shaun from The Everly Pregnant Brothers

Just writing this and looking back at the past six months I realise what an incredibly privileged person I am to know so many lovely, lovely people, and to get to enjoy some of the best of times with them, what an incredible year it has been so far.