8th May 2008 and I have no computer again!

I am so mad my laptop has died on me again!

I have had it home for about 2 months this time and all has been well - when out of the blue for no reason - it just failed again. Its the same problem as before - the graphics card. This is the 4th failure in as many months and to put it mildly I am really cheesed off. The warranty runs out in October and as it keeps failing there is no reason to suppose it will sort itself out by then - so I can see that I am going to be computer-less come October.

A word of warning - don't ever buy a Fujitsu Siemens computer (our Sony & HP ones seem to be much more reliable).


Anyway enough of that - today's photo - is a very rare photo of Ross - he never lets me take any of him, but he passed his driving test today (4th attempt!) so he knew he would have to let me take one. Not a particularly good photo as he wanted to dash back to work at PGL so it was a very rushed photo session.(it lasted 1 whole minute as he got into the car and drove away!)


Its a bitter sweet moment. I am so pleased for him to have passed his test, its been a very frustrating time, as he is a very good driver, but has had the examiner from hell the last 3 times - he failed last time because he took the 3rd turning at a roundabout instead of the 4th exit even though everything else was fine. But my brother was killed at the age of 18 in a car crash due to his own inexperience, so I am rather nervy at the thought of Ross being out on the road on his own now. We would not pay for his lessons until now - he is 22 - when we thought he had the maturity to drive. Trouble is, its not always the fault of you on the road - there are plenty of other nutters about!


I am going to miss that little Ka though. We bought him the car at Christmas and hoped he would be driving it much sooner than now. So I have been using it everyday and I love it. I much prefer it to my huge Nissan Primera - it was great when we had 4 children at home but now it is just me out & about - it is too big and uses too much petrol. We have got to get Jess driving in the summer so think we will be investing in another Ka for her so I should get chance to drive one again soon.

7th May photos and a glorious day out

I have had a lovely day today - went out with Ali & her mum, Cherida, to Horseshoe Crafts, at Ellesmere. I wanted some Penny Black stamps - so I have bought 2 and hope to use them to make lots of cards.

I also picked up some Stickles glitter glue, Penny Black stickers - never seen these before
and some inks & 4 sheets of 12x12 papers.

After visiting this craft shop we stopped of at the mere at Ellesmere. It was a beautiful sunny day so it was really enjoyable to sit by the lake and watch all the geese, swans and ducks.

6th May photo & summer is here!

In the summer we always eat outside and today was the first day this year we have done that - so today offically marks the start of summer. So what better photo to choose than us eating our tea outside this evening.It was still so bright and sunny when we ate that the photo is a bit washed out.
I bought a Xyron laminator today as everyone seems to put laminated cards in caches and we want to do the same. Will have a play with it tomorrow and see what masterpieces I can come up with. Ohh and while I was there this Basic Grey collection just happened to pop into my basket as well!

I took these photos today planning to use one of them as photo of the day - but will post them anyway. They show Liam walking home from school - not very exciting but the end of an era for me, as he leaves school next week and that will be my connection with schools finished. Its quite sad as I have had children at school since 1988 when Eleanor started at nursery school - so thats 20 years of my live being ruled by the school hours and holidays - but no more.

I think it deserved a commoration in some little way.

The photos were taken with the 18 zoom on my new camera and me standing at the top of the street as I was sure he would not indulge me in the crazy idea - but he is even grinning in one pic - when he catches me at what I am doing and clearly thinks "I have got a lunatic for a mother!"
He did even allow me to take this one outside the front door.

5th May photos

Much better photo today as we were able to get out and have a lovely walk over the Stiperstones today.It was a long walk so we were out for about 3 - 4 hours so we got plenty of exercise and the views were just beautiful.


It was a long walk to the first cache (Whinberry Pie at Cranberry Rock) Steven found it straight away - which was very annoying as Thelma & I could not find it 2 weeks ago - in fact we were looking in the wrong place.

He then went and found the second one at Sheppard's rock - so easily that I think he must have the right analytical brain for this game because Thelma & I had not been able to find this one either. Again we had been looking in the wrong place so I wonder if her GPS is a bit out.
What was very exciting was the discovery of 3 travel coins! We had not found any of these before so we were very chuffed. When we tracked them on Geocaching.com none of them have been over to the East of the country so we have 4 to take over there when we visit Jess.

4th May daily photos

Well what a disappointing day. Was anticipating a day out in Wales - to Aberystwyth to take in some coastal walks and pick up a few geocaches along the route - we had it all planned and I thought I would be showing a stunning photograph here of the Welsh coast.

But no - we woke up this morning to a huge thunder & lightening storm with torrential rain - so we decided it was better to stay at home. So Steven went to work and I got on with mundane job of ironing. I did take a photograph of all my ironing - but how boring is that!

So here is the best I can do for today - my new printer:-

I have been after a new printer for ages for my craft room. I had an old HP one in there which is fine for just printing out documents etc. but it did not do photos well at all, so I had to keep running through to the computer room and use that one which was a real pain. Anyway I was in Staples the other night looking for some storage for my card stock (see below) when I saw their special offer £50 off if you trade in your old printer for a new one. Well they had the one I had my eye for £99 (should have been £150)so I went home - unplugged the old one and went straight back and am now the proud owner of a HP C6280 and so far its fab. It uses the same inks (363) as my other one which will make life much easier.


The storage solution is brilliant. MaryAnne on UKS started a thread about these file holders which are just the right size for 12x12 card stock. My card stock was stored neatly in really useful boxes, but it was a pain to actually get to it - I had to rifle though them as they were piled on top of each other - so even though it was tidy it was a nightmare. I bought 2 of these from Argos for £9.99 each (they were too dear in Staples) and filled them up straight away so had to go back and buy a third. They fit beautifully on top of my Expedit unit and its much easier to find what I need. I have put up all my unused monthly scrapagogo kits as well - which freed up some space for other things. Once my photos are finished I will be so organised - there will be no end to my scrapping creativity thank goodness as it has taken a bit of a back seat lately.

3rd May photos

Today's photo is of Steven with another geocache find - on Haughmond Hill.

In fact we found 2 today. The first one was Berwick Tunnel. This was a very easy find but there was a treat in the cache - our first travel bug.


I got really excited but Steven had no idea what I was on about. We tracked it when we got home and it left the USA in 2004 and has travelled over Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. It has not been over to the East coast of England yet, so we plan to take it to Norwich when we go to visit Jess at the end of May. He is talking about us getting some of our own now!

As we did not do any walking to find the first cache, we went to Haughmond Hill for a stroll and for Steven to find the cache there, he found it straightaway! - it took me and Rachel a while to locate it - perhaps men have better brains for this kind of thing. He enjoyed the walk here and we stopped at the cafe in the car park for lunch, so all in all a very civilised visit.

2nd May photo

I love art and have lots of pictures hanging in our house. Most of them are prints but one is an original so I have chosen this one as today's photo.


It is by an artist called Brian Judd and Steven & I just fell for it in an art gallery in Bournemouth - it was quite expensive but we do get a lot of pleasure from looking at it . It takes pride of place over the fireplace in the front room. This room desperately needs decorating and when we can find the funds to do it, we will choose the colour scheme to work around this picture!

Most of our other piantings are by an artist called Berrens, who paints views around the Italian lakes.





I also have one by Caneletto - whose really detailed paintings of Venice are divine. I think I would like to get some more by him and bigger as well as this one is only quite small and I really like to see the finer detail in his paintings.



Now this wall hanging here is not done by a great artist but me! It is a huge clip frame which hangs in our hallway by the front door - hence the light on the photo. I made it about 10 years ago as I wanted to be able to see the photos of the children - not have them hidden away - see I had the makings of a scrapbooker even then!

I collected all the best photos and then cut them up to focus in on their faces and I think I have produced a masterpiece and everyone that visits always comments very favourably. The trouble is - I no longer have the negatives, many of the photos have faded from their placement by the door and I have cropped them so tightly - with scissors that when I have tried to scrap some of them - I have found it quite difficult and as these were the best photos so the one I have kept the scissors away from are not ideal to use on the layouts. Never mind we live & learn.