4th january photo

Today's photo is of my walking boots - which is going in the category of 'modes of transport' - Well they transport me to lots of places.

I have more or less got my list of photos to take each month sorted - will try and add it to this post later.

Sorry for such a short post - busy day ahead.

January 3rd photo

An early photo today as we have had a magnificent frost, so had to go out in the garden and take some wintry shots. I shall post 2 photos as I have not quite finalised my list of photos to take each month - so these can either be weather or garden or nature - just giving myself a few options!Our wintry back garden - will be nice to compare this in the summer.
Could not decide which of these cobwebs to use!

what am I reading?

Today's photo shows the book I am reading at the moment - I just love it. I had it as a Christmas present from Steven . I did not realise just how clever Oscar Wilde was - he was a genius really. I must admit that I have not actually read any of his novels - but I am very inspired to do so - so have added a few to my Amazon shopping basket.

oh my poor neglected blog...

Well Christmas preparations got the better of me and I neglected everything else - sorry. Well a new year and a new start - hope to do better. Here are just a few Christmas photos:-

Steven & the girls on Christmas Eve.

Jessica & Eleanor in front of the tree.

here 3 of the children are all snuggled up in bed together - its Christmas eve and they always go to bed together so that they can open their stockings together. Ross will not join in the fun though.

me & jess

Eleanor & Jess in their new matching PJ's

In an effort to keep inspired I am following the 'take a photo a day' project on UKS. The plan is that we take a photo a day throughout the year - I tried this once before - just for a month and could not even manage that - so I am not hopeful- but I like a challenge. Here is today's photo:-

It is taken on Earls Hill today and the trees are all covered with dry snow - so it was gorgeous. Steven and I went geocaching up there today as we had never been there before.

Just a quick update on the kitchen saga - the sink and taps were fitted 3 days before Christmas - so at least we had water. The kitchen man is coming on Monday to finish off the units and work tops and then depending on how much money we have left I can have either a new fridge freezer or extractor fan- I need both really but don't think that the funds will stretch that far. Once everything is back in the kitchen - I am hoping to start scrapbooking again. I feel a little nervous as it has been so long - hope I have not forgotten how to do it.

As it is New Years Day I should really post my resolutions - just one this year - loose weight. This time last year I had lost 5 stone in weight - I have put most of it back on so I have no option but to diet again. I am not starting just yet - need to be able to function in the kitchen first and rid the house of all the junk - so I am hoping in about 2 weeks.

a few night times photos from Oxford visit

its a bit late I know but I have only just downloaded these photos from my phone. They were taken last weekend in Oxford when we went in at night for a meal.

First of all Cornmarket Street all nice and Christmassy and the second two are the fab MalMasion hotel. This is the old jail which has been transformed into a gorgeous contemporary hotel. The rooms are the old cells! - sounds awful but it is in fact really nice. I would love to stay there.

wow I have scrapped!

Can't actually believe it - but I have done a layout. Its not brilliant by any means but I have scrapped so I am pleased.

The house is filthy, I still only have half a kitchen - new cooker, some units and a sink - but that is still not plumbed in so we are having to get water from the downstairs cloakroom! I am having to stay in today to wait for more kitchen units to be delivered, so had a tidy up of Ross room and was about to put away a Scrapagogo box - when I thought blow it - lets use it! So this was flung together quite quickly .
This will be it now until the new year as Jess comes home from Uni tomorrow and the plumber and kitchen man are hopefully coming back next week sometime - so then a mega re-organisation of the house and kitchen, then Christmas. So I think my total for the year will be 87 layouts. I will not have reached my target of 104 - but then I did not expect to have been in such chaos for so long. Will try to do better next year.

a few days in Oxford...

Yes Steven and I have been away for a few days in Oxford. The aim was to walk along the Oxford Canal taking in Geocaches as we went. Even though Eleanor has been at University here for 6 years now - we have never done the canal walk - so thought it was about time that we did and the timing was just right as the geocacher who laid most of the canal geocaches is going to be re-located to Bristol in the New Year so these are all going to be archived!

We stayed at a Travel Lodge at Pear Tree and on the first day we walked North up from Wolvercote to Kidlington. This was mostly through countryside - though we did have to walk under a motorway - which was a first for us. It was rather wet and miserable but we are hardend geocachers so stuck it out!Monday was a better day - with blue skies - it was a bit chilly though - my gorgeous husband pinched my hat and gloves because he had forgotten to pack his and I could not stand to hear him moaning about his cold hands and head - at least when he was warm he was cheerful!

The second day we started at Worcester Street Basin (well what was the Basin - its now a car park!) and walked northwards up to Wolvercote and back again. This part of the canal runs through residential areas - old traditional Oxford houses and brand new modern apartments. I kept wishing we were rich so that we could have an Oxford house backing on to the canal.

Most of the caches were traditional ones but one was a multi cache and Steven snapped me trying to work out the maths! I got my sums right and located this cache easily. The lock and the bridge here are gorgeous.

We managed to do 21 geocaches - 3 had been archived since I printed out the details so we wasted some time looking for these non existent ones. We found all the others easily though. They were all mostly micros but we did manage to come home with 4 TB and geocoins - none of whom have been to Shropshire so I will have fun moving them on.

We had hoped to do some Christmas shopping but we ran out of time so will have to try next weekend - we have not done anything Christmassy yet due to the stress of the kitchen. There is a man down in the kitchen as I write putting in some units along one wall. The sink has not arrived yet and we still have another 2 walls to do - but its a start.