Spread your wings and fly away

after reading a post by an esteemed member of our community, I have to say I so agree with his last post, which was along the same lines as I was thinking as I was trawling through the help blogs the other day. I was amazed at some of the questions that were asked, as well as the lack of an acknowledgement when they had been replied to unless it was to abuse the team.

So thank you to Rampie and the rest of the blog team who put up with so much for so little in return.

but I have looked and looked and yet haven't found the answer to the question.........

So many of you have tags at the top of your blog - home, archive, calendar, imprint etc etc, little tags that take you somewhere or nowhere at all rather than at the side.

How do you get them there?

Thanks in advance x

5th October 1909 in the county of Willesden in Middlesex, Alfred George Laid and his wife Ellen Caroline Laid, had a baby daughter who they named Ellen Alice.

Ellen Alice, known as nell to all that knew her, didn't have the easiest of lives. Like many of that era, she grew up too fast having to leave school to look after younger siblings, 9 in all, before getting married just as world war II was declared and watch her husband leave these shores to join the navy. During the war she was a fire warden, amongst other things, as well as having to look after her mother in law and her sister's children.

At the age of 36 she gave birth to her first child, then went on to have another two. Struggling to make ends meet, she worked as a cleaner to try and eek out the small wages her husband was earning as a carpenter/decorator, looking after another child after another sister had passed away.

She watched her children grow up and get married, become a grandmother and lose her husband after a long illness. She carried on working until she was 75 then had an active social life until she became unable to look after herself at 95 and came to live with her daughter.

Next Sunday, the family, friends and careworkers are coming together to celebrate my nan's 100th birthday. This week will be busy with purchasing food, making endless lists and making sure that she has a great time. Yesterday was spent shopping, ordering a cake from Costco and deciding what we need to buy. I have a list of things that I will be supplying, pasta, rice and potato salads, a quiche and some drumsticks to eat, while mum will see to the meats, rolls and green salad. Hubby is ferrying people to and from the station and picking up the balloons! I have ordered banners, bought some cheap wine glasses, mum is supplying wine. Sister is trying to prepare the house for the invasion. We await the arrival of the message from the Queen which will later be framed and kept for prosperity. We all have our jobs to do and feel as though we are running out of time.

I wish we could hold it in the local hall but unfortunately we can't as Nan is now bedridden, so my mother has borrowed a gazebo in the hope that people will not linger around in a living room, made tiny by having a hospital bed in it. I have no idea where we will be putting the food as yet, afterall the tiny kitchen is full of things that are needed to make Nan's life comfortable. These are minor things really in comparison, the main thing is nan has reached a milestone, something which she never really wanted to reach as she never wanted to live past 60. When that day came she went out and got her ears pierced!!

Whatever happens, we will have a great time celebrating with her, even though she probably will not have a clue what is going on, but there are not many that can say they have reached this great age.

So in answer to my previous post, I need sun, we need people to go outside and enjoy the garden as the house is too small for the many that have said they will join us in celebrating a life well lived

Please, I don't care how you do it or whether you believe in a higher power or not, but can I just request that you pray, beg, hope, anything that we have good weather next Sunday?

Pretty please?

Thank you x

18.7% of my friends list I have met.

That makes 81.30% I haven't met.

Hmmm really need to get a life

Well one plan is done for tomorrow for a lesson I will not be supporting in as I am going to the zoo! Only have the rest of the week's plan to do now, but think I will do it sometime tomorrow. Son has kindly laminated a lot of pictures for me to use and now going to sit here watching the telly and cut them out.

Must remember to make the book as well!

Oh and do some work on my HLTA folder as I start the course on Monday.

Oh and do some ironing!

Oh and.....................

You can see where this is going can't you?

Damm

Hubby went to footie yesterday, leaving me and the kids to fend for ourselves (YEs am touting for sympathy here ), so I updated eldest's cv for him again having found a great site on the internet that was full of phrases that you should try and include for example: good interpersonal skills - works well with others, motivates and encourages, emotionally mature; calming and positive temperament; tolerant and understanding,reliable and dependable in meeting objectives - hard-working, just some of a few that I managed to slip in to make it sound good! I then filled out a couple of application forms for him as well (with his help of course though my handwriting is neater than his) and we headed into town to drop them off and flood the shops with copies of his updated cvs.

The kids and I had a meal at the nearby Beefeater and booked eldests birthday meal in NOvember. It was a nice evening spent together doing our own things but chatting every so often or commenting on what was on telly while I attempted to sort out the computer in the dining room that is on a go slow - it takes 5 minutes for it to realise that I have switched it on! Think I have found the problem one of the children downloaded something and it clashed with one of the other programmes

By midnight hubby still hadnt arrived home and I was getting a little worried but couldn't stay up much longer so went to bed. He had gone to the footie by train with his mate to meet up with the others. He didn't get home till 1.30 this morning.

What had he been doing? Apparently trawlling through London visiting pole dancing clubs and strip clubs. His tales of his exploits this morning were hillarious, the Eastern European woman who had had a boob job but the scar was very evident as she danced as was the appendix scar on another. He refused to pay for a lapdance more interested in the one that was on the pole and what she was doing though the one that came on afterwards was so skinny it looked like her underwear was two sizes too big and didn't leave a lot to the imagination.

Coming home the train was full of people that had been to see the last night of the prom, waving flags and sharing their sandwiches with the commuters, singing land of hope and glory, hallelujah and Our House by madness!

I was less than impressed by his late night which is why he has spent today making up for it all - housework has been done, some chocolate consummed all while I sat with my feet up and being waited on hand and foot. His mates are less than impressed he told me where he had been, they wouldn't dare tell their wives/partners, good job things like that don't offend me, I guessed where he was anyway and he always comes home and tells me - honesty is a good thing in a marriage.

In a week that has been very hectic at work, with planning I have to do for various groups and for a child with SEN needs that I am working with, plus coursework that has to be completed before next week I don't think that I have enough energy for much more.

So for now I will browse blog and see what you have been up to before I settle down to the paperwork!

Hope you are having a good Sunday!

p.s. apparently the bars they went to were called Browns and a sports bar in Liverpool street near the station - well they had to console themselves somehow lol!

Taking a 5 minute breather to try and catch up with posts etc.

Excuse me if I go missing inAction, have so much to do and little time for fun!

Will try and update when not so hectic

As lovely as it is to have a field bordered by some trees that separates us to the side of the house, at times the trees can be a dammed nuisance.

Take this morning for example.

Looking out of the side window onto the field and hubby spies the fox and calls me over. At first we are unsure why the fox seems to be standing as still as a statue then we notice that a cat is on the bed of dead grass and leaves that the fox had made for himself at the beginning of spring. The cat stares back at the fox obviously having no intention of giving up this prime spot, afterall it is right by some trees that has some tasty birds occupying it at various times of the day.

The fox walks round the cat. He stops and stares again, walks round some more the stops and has a little scratch. He then decides to walk away from the cat, pretendig it is not there in the hope that the cat removes himself from his bed, but when it is obvious that this ploy is not working he comes back and stares at the cat again.

The cat stares at the fox, settles down in the bed and begins to calmly washing himself.

The fox shakes his head and moves closer, at which point the cat sits up and glares at the fox, making the fox jump back a couple of centimetres in surprise.

The fox decides on a second plan and walks all the way round the field, taking his time, ignoring the cat who settles back down into the bed and waits for his dinner to fly past.

The fox, after having done a circuit of the field comes back and tries another tactic, if you can't beat them, join them and manipulates himself into his bed in the hope that he can push the cat out, but the cat has obviously anticipated this and hisses at the fox making him fall back a bit.

At the moment the pair of them are in a staring contest. The fox wants his bed, the bed he made for himself, one where he can be seen by our dogs and knows that it will annoy them if he sleeps there. However the cat is refusing to relinquish this spot and is sitting upright staring back!

Unfortunately due to the trees bordering our property, pictures cannot be taken as they are not coming out clearly which is the annoying!

I got up early today as it was the first day back at work. I did my exercises straight away - 6am saw me jumping round the living room to the Wii fitness thingy for a grand title of 19 mins which is all I had time for as I needed to get ready, drag youngest out of bed and over to his nan's so that I could go to work.

Made up for the rest of the exercises by walking round and round the school, several times, for the new TA inductions.

I was sick of my voice by the end of it!

I have a timetable, it is full on but keeps me busy so that should be good hopefully! I should have finished at 3.30 today but didn't actually leave school until 5.25 as I had to attend a meeting and catch up on some paperwork lol!

So I feel as though I have been back for weeks already, in fact it feels like I didn't leave and have a holiday

Just managed to feed myself and youngest leaving the others to feed themselves as no one could decide on what they wanted and I really cannot be bothered to fuss over them today have too much work to do.

Did I say that this was the first day back at work?

Hope your day went as well

Hubby stood on the scales yesterday, and then groaned loudly, at discovering that during his time off work he had put on half a stone.

I have put on a lot more, the healthy eating plan having gone out of the window despite me exercising. So we have made a pact. Over the next five weeks to get back on track, exercising each day and watching what we eat, supporting each other in our plan to lose some weight.

I bought this at the weekend to do alongside this and this which I have already. Hubby and I both enjoyed doing the first game which is mainly boxing and you can feel it in your arms afterwards so hopefully it will be tightening up the muscles in them and of course you work up a sweat as well! There are several sections you can choose from once you do the basics which teaches you the punches that you do in each section.

I like variety when I exercise and I like the Wii so it is ideal for me

I have coursework to do which I don't want to do but it needs to be done and I have to go back to work on Thursday! There is too much to do before I go back and I have very little inclination to do it either which doesn't bode well. It doesn't help that youngest doesn't go back until Monday and Eldest on Tuesday!

AH well such is life.

Have a good day everyone!