december 15

Blimey. Where did that month go? Where did that year go? Does it go faster the older you get? 
Thought so.
Have a good night peeps, we're off on our usual NYE pub crawl x

bloody buggering mountain bike

There's a battle raging in our house this winter.
It's between me and THE MOUNTAIN BIKE. And the mountain bike is winning. Hands down.
The other half has 3 other bikes which he seems happy enough to keep in the garage. This one though, the sacred, fabulous, amazing, bloody expensive sodding mountain bike is apparently too good to leave in the garage. It's preferred position is propped up against the wood burner in the dining room. And it doesn't like to be alone. It likes to be surrounded by it's friends - mucky old rags, citrus degreaser and muk-off bike spray. It also has a regular visitor to stay over with it in the form of a gigantic bike rack thing. It occasionally hangs on it. In mid air. IN. THE. DINING. ROOM.
And it's really pissing me off. 
The other half knows it pisses me off. I've had several meltdowns over it in the last couple of months. 
He puts it in the garage to shut me up. For one or two nights. Then he rides the bloody thing again, it gets covered in mud and we're back to square one. Back in the dining room for some prolonged polishing and TLC.
I don't know how much more I can take. I'm even considering moving into the garage myself. It is driving me mad :(
Any solutions most welcome people....

merry christmas!

Hope it's a good one people xx

advent 24

Woohoo! Advent 2015 over and out! We did it!! Happy Christmas Eve people xx

advent 23

I've kind of finished work. But kind of planning on doing more bits.... I'm working on a Christmas book at the mo and really not loving the idea of doing it in January so it would be nice to get it finished while everything's still a bit festive...I'll see how it goes...
More urgent is a shopping trip with the big one this morning. Oh joy of joys, that's not gonna be in the least bit stressful is it....

advent 22

Nearly done, it's my last day on the Dotty Wren advent today....SamePictureDifferentBlog...still...

advent 21

Ahhhh I caught up on some of my sleep :) Stayed in bed till 10! The kids are still asleep! I do love a late night but I hate getting up early. And you can't do both can you! Not at my age!

advent 20

The AdventEnd is in sight....woohoo...

advent 19

Yay! It's the weekend!

advent 18

The little one finished school yesterday, the big one finishes today. Bring on the Christmas lie-ins woohoo!

advent 17

Secret Santa is a crap idea. That's all I'm saying.

advent 16

Another meal out tonight...with my charity buddies...and one tomorrow...with the girls...I'm feeling ever so slightly out-of-christmas-control...

advent 15

The little one has to be at school by 7.30 on a Tuesday and Wednesday. We leave the house at 7.15 'cos the traffic is crap at that unearthly hour. It was a bit of a novelty in September.
This morning it was pitch black. And cold. And raining. And we are all knackered.
The novelty has worn off.
Roll on the school hols!

advent 14

I didn't have enough sleep this weekend.
That is all.

advent 13

Whose idea was it to have the Scouts Christmas Fair at 10am the morning after our big night out?

advent 12

Went out last night. Christmas night out with the girls. Going out tonight. Other half's Christmas do. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...where's the paracetamol?

advent 11

So we put the tree up last night. We had a lovely family evening with mulled wine and Christmas music. We looked at all the old hand made decs the kids have made over the years and smiled with a warm soft glow.

Not really. The other half was still at work. The big one hid upstairs. And the little one got bored soon after we hacked the bottom branches off to get the damned thing to fit in the holder. I grappled with the tinsel whilst making tea* and chucking the ball for the dog who was bored and not at all happy with my attention being elsewhere. No-one said it looked fabulous. Indeed no-one even seemed to notice the giant pine in the corner of the room. With a wonky star on top. 
Just a typical tree trimming event then.

*tea if you're from Yorkshire and not posh/dinner everywhere else in the world.

advent 10

Good job advents aren't a depiction of real life. Today would be dark, wet and grey. And a bit miserable. With a smattering of grumpy faces.
We'll go with the idealised version I think...ho ho ho.

advent 9

Nothing to say...gotta work....determined to have time off over Chrimbo...must. get. it. all. done....

advent 8

I'm still not feeling very Christmasy. The whole thing is rammed down our throats from the beginning of September so I zone out and pretend it isn't happening. It annoys me. Did I mention it?!
Anyway I'm thinking that now it's like only just over 2 weeks to go I better get my arse into gear and find some christmas spirit. Fast.
Ho ho ho.

advent 7

Monday morning...zzzzzz....that is all.

advent 6

We changed broadband providers this week. The lady said we should be ok with 40GB for our normal monthly family usage. Our new service started on Monday. I got an email on Friday saying we had just about used up our monthly allowance. In four days. FOUR DAYS! Turns out the kids don't understand normal family usage. They'd been downloading I'm a Celebrity in HD. And watching crap on YouTube. And Netflix. And god knows what else. I had to phone up yesterday and increase our usage to "unlimited". 
Bloody kids! What's wrong with a nice game of Monopoly these days? And BBC1?

advent 5

Ahhhh Saturday :) I stayed in bed till 10am! Get me!

advent 4

I'm on my way to London. On a train. Going to a design meeting. 
I say that like it's easy peasy just nipping off to London for the day on a Friday. And if you saw me you'd think 'there goes a chick who breezes off to meetings in London like all the time". You would not be aware of the military operation it has taken to get me here on A FRIDAY!  Or the list as long as my arm for them to follow while I'm away. This trip to London  means that for a kick off the rest of my family are gonna have to be responsible for dragging themselves out of bed this morning. I've had to equip the big one with a key so she can lock up cos she'll set off while the other half is walking the little one over the moor for his lift. I've had to equip the little one with a key because he'll arrive home when the other half is leaving work EARLY to pick the big one up from school. I've had to rope in my mum and dad to take the little one to scouts cos the other half can't possibly miss football on a Friday night. I've had to make the other half miss the pub after the football so he can collect the little one from scouts. Scouts isn't a simple matter either. It's non uniform night in exchange for a chocolate donation to the Christmas fair. So I've bought the chocolate and left it on a pile along with the permission slip for camp, a tenner for camp and non uniform clothes of a suitable nature so that he doesn't end up in age 6 jeans and a pyjama top. And if the big one remembers to take the ingredients for cooking that I bought in an organised manner on Monday it will be a small miracle! 
The only good thing about going to a meeting in London on a Friday is that tomorrow is Saturday and as such I will be staying in bed till at least lunchtime to recover from my 5am start today. 

Anyway... back to the advent....here's one I prepared earlier...'cos I'm dead organised like that...

advent 3

No time to bore you with any of my moaning today....here's day 3...still on it...must do some proper work now....

advent 2

Forgot to say...we're doing another advent between us over on our dotty wren studio blog...it's my turn today...SamePictureDifferentBlog...

advent 1

At the end on November 2012 mine and Lizzie's agent went bust. To "cheer us up" she made us do an advent calendar on our blogs. And it did the trick, we were super happy by Christmas....

Since then everyone and their dog has done one. I didn't know whether to bother this year. It's one of those things where the fun goes away if you're expected to do it....and do it in a fabulous way so it's like the best thing ever, better than all the others out there.
Then I got a grip and decided no-one really gives a toss do they? It's just a bloody advent, no-one cares! No-one's even looking!

So....here we go again....day 1...