27 October 2009
23 October 2009
Wrap Up
This week I've had a late breakfast of a big latte and even bigger almond croissant
loved London more than I ever have before
travelled over 300 miles for work
been inspired by this lady to try harder with my makeup
decided I don't love London at all anymore
{it took me two and a half hours to drive 15 miles}
started Water for Elephants
watched the West Wing
found out Mr B has a mini man crush on Sam Seaborn
almost finished my giveaway parcel
it's been hectic.
What have you all been up to this week? I'm counting down the minutes until I can nip home, pour myself a glass of wine, paint my fingernails and change into my pjs. Have a lovely weekend everybody!
20 October 2009
Visitors
This weekend the original Mr and Mrs B came to stay. We don't get to see them often so it was highly anticipated and looked forward to. It didn't disappoint.
We introduced them to Thai food... it was a great success. I ate delicious chicken satay and missed Bali. We visited Hampton Court, the home of Henry VIII, ate meat pie, wondered at the amazing gardens, visited my parents and had afternoon tea at the Grosvenor and paid £30 for the privilege of parking there, oh I do love London prices!!
It was over far too soon.
19 October 2009
16 October 2009
It's your lucky day
Seminyak Beach. June 2008.
You're my giveaway winner!
Thank you so much to everyone for taking part.
Happy Friday!!!
13 October 2009
Looking up
I didn't get the job I went for last week. I was upset. I felt knocked.
But then another opportunity came along. I was interviewed. I liked it there. I'm waiting for the outcome.A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy
photos of the Muhammad Ali Mosque at the Saladin Citadel, Cairo
09 October 2009
Drum roll please
As a big thank you to all of you
for making this last year on my blog so
engaging, fun and utterly wonderful
I'd like to giveaway a few of my favourite things!
No, not snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
~though that would be really very lovely~
but...
Getting the girl by Markus Zuzak, unusal and stunning pearl earrings from classic designs, english tea, dr feelgood balm by Benefit and a print of one of my photos (to be chosen by the lucky winner).
Leave a comment here to enter
You have one week!
07 October 2009
I've signed up...
will you?
You either take a roll of film, or buy a disposable camera ~it has to be something that you have to develop~ and take photos just for your swap partner. When the camera or film is finished, send it to your swap partner. You will receive your partner's film or camera to develop, and post the photos on your blog for everyone to see of course!
Click on the button above to go over to Rhianne's blog and sign up. I can't wait!
You either take a roll of film, or buy a disposable camera ~it has to be something that you have to develop~ and take photos just for your swap partner. When the camera or film is finished, send it to your swap partner. You will receive your partner's film or camera to develop, and post the photos on your blog for everyone to see of course!
Click on the button above to go over to Rhianne's blog and sign up. I can't wait!
02 October 2009
There is a house in New Orleans
Inspired by Nicole's touching lovestory series I thought I'd ask my father to tell me his lovestory. These are his words.
I met your mother in early January 1965 at Sonnenberg House in Germany. Sonnenberg House is an international conference centre set high in the Harz mountains in central Germany above the village of St Andreasberg. It was the second Sonnenberg conference I had attended; I had attended my first one the previous winter when I was in the upper sixth form at grammar school. This time, like then, I had stayed with a host family in Hamburg during the week before the conference after which I took the train from Hamburg to Bad Harzburg (the nearest railway station to Sonnenberg) in time for the start of the conference on 6th January.
It was there outside Bad Harzburg station where we – some of the British group – were waiting for the Sonnenberg bus, that I first encountered the Dutch group who were also travelling to the conference centre. Hearing Dutch being spoken in such a confined space as the shuttle bus and so close at hand and with such vivacity and enthusiasm by the teacher-training students from Arnhem, was an unforgettable experience! What a strange sounding tongue; how do these folk survive without developing serious throat problems later in life? But, strange tongues aside, there was one student among them that I had already noticed…
She was tall and slender, with curves in all the right places and great legs… but above all it was her vivacity, openness and graceful ease of manner that really caught my attention.
The conference itself was most enjoyable. The majority of the participants were German, largely final year gymnasium students from the Hamburg area. There were Dutch and British in about equal numbers and a smattering of Austrians and Swiss. In all there were about a hundred participants, but notably none from Eastern Europe.
It was there outside Bad Harzburg station where we – some of the British group – were waiting for the Sonnenberg bus, that I first encountered the Dutch group who were also travelling to the conference centre. Hearing Dutch being spoken in such a confined space as the shuttle bus and so close at hand and with such vivacity and enthusiasm by the teacher-training students from Arnhem, was an unforgettable experience! What a strange sounding tongue; how do these folk survive without developing serious throat problems later in life? But, strange tongues aside, there was one student among them that I had already noticed…
She was tall and slender, with curves in all the right places and great legs… but above all it was her vivacity, openness and graceful ease of manner that really caught my attention.
The conference itself was most enjoyable. The majority of the participants were German, largely final year gymnasium students from the Hamburg area. There were Dutch and British in about equal numbers and a smattering of Austrians and Swiss. In all there were about a hundred participants, but notably none from Eastern Europe.
The theme of the study conference was ‘The Contribution Europe can make to the Development of Tomorrow’s World’. Most lectures were given by eminent German professors and academics (simultaneous translations via headphones were always available) with the occasional lecture delivered in English. One lecture I do remember was given by Dr Jef Last of the University of Amsterdam on ‘Russia and the West’.
There was ample free time between lectures to talk, make friends and to explore the local area. I was able to hire skis to ‘langlauf’ through the local hills and forest and down to the village sometimes. Sonnenberg was deep in snow and the landscape was at its most beautiful then. There were also organized visits to local sights and places of interest including the charming and historic town of Goslar and the not-so-charming Iron Curtain which cut through the Harz mountains just a few kilometres to the east of Sonnenberg.
I first spoke to your mother in the little library at Sonnenberg; I was leafing through a German world atlas in which on one map the pre-war frontiers of Germany were given and pondering the unusual and sometimes funny German spellings of geographical names – Miland for Milan for instance. We talked but not so very much –your mother’s English was very good but unpractised and I as usual was quietly reserved. But there was something; something happened… I felt her presence, her proximity beguiling: I was intrigued and excited by the encounter. Perhaps I did not know then how auspicious that meeting would prove to be. We found ourselves in the same discussion group later in the conference which gave your mother more opportunity to practise her much-easier-on-the-throat foreign languages - and for me to check out those legs again. (And you must realize too, of course, that any girl who can divert my attention away from looking at maps has to be very special indeed!)
Sonnenberg conferences always include an International Evening – usually towards the end - when everyone is expected to put on a performance or take part in an entertainment of some kind. I remember doing a sketch which was a telephone conversation with an imaginary German friend in which I tried to explain to him the game of cricket. I think it was quite funny and it went down well. Hans, one of the Dutch students, wearing a black leotard, black top and black bowler hat, performed a very clever and masterful mime act. Richard, my grammar school colleague, who was doing a third year in the sixth form in order to take the Oxbridge entrance examinations, sang The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals to his own guitar and wearing a blue sailor’s cap which he had purchased in Hamburg. It’s funny the things you remember… and it’s funny the things you don’t remember: I don’t remember what the Dutch group’s contribution was exactly, except that it was loud (ie involved a lot of singing and dancing) and was, in true Dutch fashion, ‘in your face’… I think I must have been concentrating on one particular female participant rather than enjoying the wider performance.
It was a special conference and a special time. The atmosphere was warm, friendly and good natured. The centre itself was bright, warm and comfortable. The lectures and discussions were stimulating and challenging. It was so good to have the opportunity to meet students from other countries. The deep snow seemed to isolate us from the rest of the world and help us focus our thoughts on the business of the conference.
I recall little about the journey home; it remains hazy, perhaps because I didn’t really want things to end then. I know that I and a number of the British party travelled together with the Dutch group by bus and then by train as far as Hanover where our paths finally separated, those returning to Britain having to catch a later boat train to the Hook of Holland.
I knew then as I returned to my undergraduate studies in Cardiff that my student grant would in future have to support the regular purchase of stamps by the dozen and writing paper by the ream.
I had fallen in love.
There was ample free time between lectures to talk, make friends and to explore the local area. I was able to hire skis to ‘langlauf’ through the local hills and forest and down to the village sometimes. Sonnenberg was deep in snow and the landscape was at its most beautiful then. There were also organized visits to local sights and places of interest including the charming and historic town of Goslar and the not-so-charming Iron Curtain which cut through the Harz mountains just a few kilometres to the east of Sonnenberg.
I first spoke to your mother in the little library at Sonnenberg; I was leafing through a German world atlas in which on one map the pre-war frontiers of Germany were given and pondering the unusual and sometimes funny German spellings of geographical names – Miland for Milan for instance. We talked but not so very much –your mother’s English was very good but unpractised and I as usual was quietly reserved. But there was something; something happened… I felt her presence, her proximity beguiling: I was intrigued and excited by the encounter. Perhaps I did not know then how auspicious that meeting would prove to be. We found ourselves in the same discussion group later in the conference which gave your mother more opportunity to practise her much-easier-on-the-throat foreign languages - and for me to check out those legs again. (And you must realize too, of course, that any girl who can divert my attention away from looking at maps has to be very special indeed!)
Sonnenberg conferences always include an International Evening – usually towards the end - when everyone is expected to put on a performance or take part in an entertainment of some kind. I remember doing a sketch which was a telephone conversation with an imaginary German friend in which I tried to explain to him the game of cricket. I think it was quite funny and it went down well. Hans, one of the Dutch students, wearing a black leotard, black top and black bowler hat, performed a very clever and masterful mime act. Richard, my grammar school colleague, who was doing a third year in the sixth form in order to take the Oxbridge entrance examinations, sang The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals to his own guitar and wearing a blue sailor’s cap which he had purchased in Hamburg. It’s funny the things you remember… and it’s funny the things you don’t remember: I don’t remember what the Dutch group’s contribution was exactly, except that it was loud (ie involved a lot of singing and dancing) and was, in true Dutch fashion, ‘in your face’… I think I must have been concentrating on one particular female participant rather than enjoying the wider performance.
It was a special conference and a special time. The atmosphere was warm, friendly and good natured. The centre itself was bright, warm and comfortable. The lectures and discussions were stimulating and challenging. It was so good to have the opportunity to meet students from other countries. The deep snow seemed to isolate us from the rest of the world and help us focus our thoughts on the business of the conference.
I recall little about the journey home; it remains hazy, perhaps because I didn’t really want things to end then. I know that I and a number of the British party travelled together with the Dutch group by bus and then by train as far as Hanover where our paths finally separated, those returning to Britain having to catch a later boat train to the Hook of Holland.
I knew then as I returned to my undergraduate studies in Cardiff that my student grant would in future have to support the regular purchase of stamps by the dozen and writing paper by the ream.
I had fallen in love.
01 October 2009
Eventful
So far this week has been eventful. I've spent most of it feeling sick with nerves of one sort or another.
It's been good my first job interview for over 3 years was a roaring success! And that night Mr B took me to the pub for drinks and dinner and chat! Second stage is on Monday - please keep your fingers crossed for me.
and bad some very unwanted and sinister attention from a creepy neighbour resulted in Mr B calling the old bill. Mr B also presented me with a personal alarm. If I ever have to use it you all will hear it I'm sure. Even in the US.
and there have been changes in my current place of work. I'm now even more keen for this new job to work out.
Oh and one of my headlight bulbs has blown.
The Pyramid of Khafre, Giza, taken with my Holga, just because I can't have naked posts
It's been good my first job interview for over 3 years was a roaring success! And that night Mr B took me to the pub for drinks and dinner and chat! Second stage is on Monday - please keep your fingers crossed for me.
and bad some very unwanted and sinister attention from a creepy neighbour resulted in Mr B calling the old bill. Mr B also presented me with a personal alarm. If I ever have to use it you all will hear it I'm sure. Even in the US.
and there have been changes in my current place of work. I'm now even more keen for this new job to work out.
Oh and one of my headlight bulbs has blown.
The Pyramid of Khafre, Giza, taken with my Holga, just because I can't have naked posts
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