Dragons Den

OMG!  Our local Starbuck Barista is on Dragon Den with his band Hamfatter kicking some ass and getting a deal with the Dragons….go SB’s boy!!  Check it out here

Pondman

My friend Vero posted this the other day and I’ve been meaning to link to it.   One of her friends found a letter from the former owner of his house at the bottom of the pond they were taking out.  The letter is more than a little mental!

I love being British sometimes - we are nuts Check out the letter and the even funnier replies to Vero’s blog here

Finished

So I finished work today……

I know I’m going back to do the odds and sods of contracting a day here and there, but it won’t be the same. I’m going to miss my job so much, I was really lucky to have a job where I was left to it and I ran a network/IT system exactly how I liked. I worked really really nice people in a good atmosphere, and jobs like that are incredibly rare.

I know with all mergers there are changes it just seems sad that in the merger my company has been in so much was sacrificed in the favour of the new company

Shed Needed

Just before Christmas I had a long and tedious meeting with our parent company, it last all day and it was a 4 hour round trip. When I got home, I was incredibly stressed and shouty at my lovely family, including Mini Geek. That’s when I realised I’d finally turned into my mother at her worst. She used to come home and scream at us all for no reason and take her bad day out on us. I walked into work the next morning and resigned.

A bit drastic I admit, but having read Sheye’s blog recently and Elise having died last year has made me realise that life is too short We don’t need the money so much that I need to be that miserable and we have to be that stressed as a family. 2008 is going to be a year of happy and calm!

I finish on the 8th Feb or thereabouts (I have loads of holiday left from last year - I have no idea how?). I’m more than a little apprehensive but I’ve decided to finally work for myself, I have a few ideas so I might just try them all! If I have to I can always go contracting but I’m doing that only in desperation come midsummer. It’s going to be much easier to make a go of it now MiniG is at school full time than when she was a baby, it gives me a good 7 hours a day to work without interruption.

Anyway I was looking around the house and Paul works out of the spare room and if John is round they work out of the dining room. So I’ve decided to have my own work shed, I have fantasies of sunshine, cream paint, Cath Kidston cushions, flowers and my iBook. I’ve just found a rather fabby blog called Shedworking which has some great ideas.  I’m also inspired by  Tumbleweed Houses, they are tiny and gorgeous, I wish they were in the UK and about half the price!

The wireless broadband works to about halfway down the garden, so all I’ll have to do is have some power run down there. Might be able to do solar power as that part of the garden gets light year round. Paul thinks that I’ll spend all my time working on the shed…he could be right

Happy New Year!

How is it nearly 2008??!

Millennium New Year we were on a really crappy train coming back from London and Comedy Jim pointed out that as kids we imagined that we’d live on the moon , driving flying cars and eating food in pill format.

2007…..yeah still not doing any of those things

Other than that gripe 2007 has been an eventual year if nothing else, Paul’s become a Director and completed a 10k run, Mini Geek has started school full time and learnt to read and well I’ve managed to end the year without a job!

Happy 2008 to all of you and I hope you have a happy and wonderful year x

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas Everyone!  We’ve had a lovely day, we bought mini geek a digital camera in the hope that she’ll leave our iPhone’s alone (some hope!).  But she’s been taking pictures for England, I’m so proud

This year it’s been great Mini Geek has bit of a phobia about animated films and anything she’s not seen on Cbeebies or Nick Jr. However today we managed through cajoling and hiding under a blankie with her - to watch the end of Finding Nemo, the whole of Polar Express (which is awesome and I have no idea how we’ve missed it!) and the Christmas Dr Who !! And best of all, she loved every single moment of them

Anyway here are  some of my favourite Xmas pictures from this year:

Our House on Christmas Eve

My parents cottage on Christmas Eve

Reasons not to be Cheerful…

Work SUCKS!!

My car has died and it’s still at the garage 3 days later.

Betty has been ill now for over a week and is now throwing up and has a runny tummy :(  The vet doesn’t know what it is, and it’s now cost me nearly 200 quid

The washing machine seems to have forgotten how to spin, so all my washing is coming out sopping and I have no where to dry it

I have no cover for geek child’s first day of the Xmas Holidays and I have no holiday left from covering the other 18 weeks

I have no wine!!

…..one reason to be cheerful my baby girl told me how much she loves me when I had a melt down earlier

Remembrance Sunday

For my Nanna’s Uncles:

 

Private John Criddle

died 30th September 1915

aged 35

Battle of Loos

&

Alfred Alexander Criddle

died 22nd September 1918

aged 35

Buried MIKRA BRITISH CEMETERY, KALAMARIA

 

And to my Nanna’s Dad  James Easter who survived the Somme and died from the side effects of Mustard Gas in the 50’s

 

For my friend

I found out today one of my friends had passed away, she lost a long and courageous battle with Lymphoma.   She’d fought with great humour and bravely.  She always was willing to listen to problems and gave me some great advice about being a Mum and life in general.

She will be greatly missed and my thoughts are with her husband and young son.

These are for you Elise