It's the end of May already!!!!

Where is the year going to?!?!?!?!

It only seems like yesterday, that we were shouting Happy New Year!!!!

What have I been up to for the last 10 days???

Well, we have eventually booked to go to the Gloucester Retreat with Scrappers Unlimited, having worked out how many holidays we would have left, and if the Egg Card would stand it!!!

My DH works at Vauxhalls plant in Ellesmere Port, and the Company have announced that they are to go from 3 shifts to 2. Which means they have to lose 900 jobs. As my DH is 52, he has put in his request for early retirement, we have worked out how much he would get, and after paying of the mortgage (it finishes anyway in 2010). We will continue to pay the endowments so that our funds will be "topped up" again in 2010. He will probably look for a little part time job "to keep him going", it isn't worth getting a full time job, because the tax man would take too much!!

I have completed an album for my God daughters' little girl Olivia, a bit like a brag book for them to record her first twelve months.


































On Saturday, Chris and I went to Bodelwyddan Castle, as the North Wales Flower Festival was being held there.

We were very disappointed as we paid £7 each to get into what was in effect a market, with a childrens' fairground!! We left the event and went into the castle for a coffee. Whilst in there we noticed a signpost to the walled garden. When we got there, the sun came out, and we took lots and lots of photos of flowers, which is what we wanted anyway, but we could have got them for free!!!





These are the three favourite photos of the day!!

I can't believe that it has been over a week since I last came on here. I have won first prize on UK Scrappers with my photo of the mandarin duck I took at LLangollen on Good Friday.

Aprils' theme was patterns, and the colours on the duck were truly beautiful. It wasn't until I upoaded it that I thought that I could enter it into the competition, never thinking that it would actually win!!!!

The prize arrived on Monday, and it was fabby - lots of papers, fibres, embellishments of all sorts!!!

That makes three prizes this month, and I don't usually win anything as a rule.

I went to the Wirral crop yesterday, and we do a monthly challenge, this months' challenge was "Long lazy days" We all vote for our fave LO, and I won this too!!! Can't believe it, maybe I should submit a LO for publishing!?!?!?!?




















My God daughter, had a little girl on the 1 May, and I was emailed a photograph of her, and decided to scrap it yesterday, thought you might like to see it

I have tried three times now to attach the photo of the layout I won "Best of the day" with, hopefully this time it has worked!!!

It was National Scrapbooking day on Saturday, and the girls at the Wirral Crop decided to have a 12 hour mega crop!!

We had a fabulous day, we ate plenty, chatted plenty, scrapped a little!!! There were three challenges throughout the day, with prized for the best LO. Raffle prizes, and prizes for the best LO and card of the day.
Our lunch was provided - and boy, what a lunch that was!!! Cream cakes for afternoon tea, and we had a choice of Chinese, Indian or English takeaway for dinner. By 7pm I was stuffed!!!

We were all asked to put what we thought was our best LO of the day onto a table, and we all voted as to which one was our favourite!!

I was busy packing away all our stash ready to go home, and heard my name........... I had won the Best LO of the day prize, which was a 6 x 6 album, papers, embellishments and fibres to start me off!! (I have attached a picture of the LO for you all to see)



I was absolutely gobsmacked!!!! All I have to do now is decide what I am going to use it for!! It will be a challenge, as I usually do 12 x 12 LO's. Maybe I will make an album of our holiday to Center Parcs in July, or our holiday at Thorseby Hall in August, I really don't know!!!


Chris and I have joined the Gym!! We went for a look around on the 1st and had our inductions recently. So I am starting off very gently on the exercise bike, doing 5 minutes 4 times a week, and building up the time I do gradually. I don't want my knee to flare up again!!

I then do some upper body work on the weights, just to burn off some more calories, and then finish it off with 20 minutes in the hydrotherapy pool.......bliss, this is my reward for joining the gym...........never thought I would see the day!!!!

Went back to the physio yesterday, and she seemed pleased that there has been a little improvement in the movement in my knee. She has given me some more exercises to do, and said that to begin with I should just walk around in the water, and if I want to try to swim then just to use front crawl kick (gently) for a while. I cannot do breast stroke just yet as this would twist my knee joint and it would hurt!!

Will keep you posted on the exercise and weight loss, the weight loss seems to have slowed down, so I had a blood test today, and she is testing my thyroid as well as everything else!! Having an MOT blood test!!

Lost 1.75 lbs this week

Just weighed myself, and I have lost 1.75lbs this week!!! That is 24.5 lbs since January!! Mini target of 35 lbs by the end of June.

Went to the Drs on Tuesday, she said she would be happy to sign me off for another 2 weeks, but I told her that I would only worry about the work that will be waiting for me when I got back, that I suggested I ask my boss for part time for the next 2 weeks. If my knee starts feeling better, I can always extend my hours gradually. She said that she would allow that, but if my boss said no, then she would sign me off for 2 weeks.

Boss said yes, so I am working 10 - 2 for the next 2 weeks, must say I could get used to these hours!!

2 more days until the Wirral 12 hour crop on Saturday, National Scrapbooking Day!! We are all so looking forward to it!!!

Anyway, got to run...............ok maybe not run, perhaps just limp! As I want to get some photograph paper on my way to work.

Hopefully I have managed to attach a photo of the LO now

WOW!!!!

I have just found out that I have won second prize in a LO competition set by Chrissie of Scrappers unlimited over the Bank Holiday Weekend!!

We had to do a LO featuring ourselves in our teenage years!! As there are not many photos of me during my teenage years, as our photos are on slides!! We also had to use heat in some way on the LO.

I made a heat embossed background on plain pink cardstock, and layered a number of oddments of basic grey papers, and hid some journalling under the quote using hinges.

Unfortunately, I am unable to upload a photo of it at the moment, but will try again later on.

Whilst at my friend Chris's house last night, we were doing a little bit of experimenting with our scrapbooking skills, and I managed to do two kaleidoscopes using 4 photos, and 4 mirror image photos. I think only one of the photos has posted, I will try again later with the other one.

All I need to do now is do a LO using one of them. I might leave that to do on Saturday, at our Wirral crop - 10am - 10 pm.

We are all so looking forward to it, we have all been so excited for the last few weeks.

We know what papers we are using for the challenges now................all I need to do now is find the photos I am going to use, and I will be OK.

Dragon fire

Dragon fire

Sorry I haven't been on my blog for months, but I chickened out!!

Plucked uo the courage to come on-line again after my friend Chris persuaded me to.

A lot has happened in my life since January. I have had to have an operation on my right knee, an arthroscopy, to repair a damaged cartlidge, and to re-shape my thigh bone at the knee joint, due to arthritis damage. That was on 8th March........... went back to see the specialist on the 22nd March, and was feeling fantastic so went back to work the following day.

As the weeks went by I was in more and more pain, until it got to the point 2 weeks ago when I was in agony!! I thought that it was just me being a "whimp" and refused to give in to the pain, but in the end, I had to go to see the GP and she referred me immediately back to the consultant. So there I am sitting in the hospital waiting room a week today, waiting to see the consultant, thinking the worst (as you do)!!!

He was wonderful, he looked at the offending knee, and said that the joint wasn't infected (thank goodness) and said the he thought that my brain still thought that my knee had an injury and my body was trying too hard to repair itself, and the knee was being supplied with too much blood - which was making it swollend and hot!!

He proceeded to give me a painkiller and steroid injection in my knee, and told me to rest it for the next 48 hours, and to see the physio later in the week.

I went to the physio on Thursday, and she has told me to take it easy for a couple of weeks, and the only exercises I could do were exercise bike, and basic physio exercises.

So on Saturday Chris and I went off to join the gym and we had our health checks this afternoon, I have to go to my GP (again) to get permission to exercise, as my BP was high - I knew that it would be, it always goes up when I am nervous, it is normally well controlled with medication!

So I will be ringing for an appointment in the morning. I really want to start exercising as soon as possible.

I have also lost 23lbs since Christmas, which is fantastic, seeing as I have been relatively imobile for the last 2 months!!!

I have prattled on so much that this is getting a bit long, so I will carry on this story at a later date - see you soon