"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Confucius "Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." Louisa May Alcott
Friday 24 December 2010
JK Wedding Entrance Dance
I tried to add this to the other blog, but for some reason it is not working there - and I have now managed to send them about half a dozen emails saying there is a new post! But it is not embedding...
So thought I would try here, and it seemed to work fine, but now that I have added words to it, I wonder if it will?? And I think I will leave it up as I do really like it!
Candy Man
Happy Christmas Eve!!!
Having lied in bed for an hour this morning with my eyes closed, I started to hear some noises. I thought it was probably an animal on the roof outside my window. But did just wonder if it might be ma scrabbling at my door so gruffly called out 'hello'!! No reply so I decided to drag myself to the window to open the blind not expecting to see anything and indeed I didn't, just delighted to see the snow again.
I decided to tumble back towards bed and put the radio on on the way back. I wanted to listen to Chris Evans Breakfast show on radio 2 as he had been on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? last night and lost a lot of money and knew he would have hated it and would be talking about it - which indeed he has been!!! Poor poor thing!
But as I put the radio on, it was the very first bars of the Candy Man!!!!! Now the Candy Man has become to me, as it has to a large part of the country's population, a highly significant part of my week. Chris Evans plays it after the 8o'clock news every friday. I always aim to be in my classroom by that point and turn it up loud and dance round the classroom to it! It is so completely uplifting.
So it was with utter delight and awakening that I heard it this morning - what chance that I put the radio on at that exact moment and it's a Friday! A super special Friday! A turned the radio up very loud but felt that wasn't enough so ran all the way down the stairs, but the tv on, found radio 2 and danced all around the lounge!! Brilliant!! Love it!!!
And here it is for you to enjoy to :-)
01 The Candy Man
I had looked previously to try buy it on iTunes but had not been able to find the version that Chris plays. And I have never really bought much on iTunes before. But today I looked for it again, failed to find it, decided to look on amazon, bought it, downloaded it and have been listening to it! Joy!
Having lied in bed for an hour this morning with my eyes closed, I started to hear some noises. I thought it was probably an animal on the roof outside my window. But did just wonder if it might be ma scrabbling at my door so gruffly called out 'hello'!! No reply so I decided to drag myself to the window to open the blind not expecting to see anything and indeed I didn't, just delighted to see the snow again.
I decided to tumble back towards bed and put the radio on on the way back. I wanted to listen to Chris Evans Breakfast show on radio 2 as he had been on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? last night and lost a lot of money and knew he would have hated it and would be talking about it - which indeed he has been!!! Poor poor thing!
But as I put the radio on, it was the very first bars of the Candy Man!!!!! Now the Candy Man has become to me, as it has to a large part of the country's population, a highly significant part of my week. Chris Evans plays it after the 8o'clock news every friday. I always aim to be in my classroom by that point and turn it up loud and dance round the classroom to it! It is so completely uplifting.
So it was with utter delight and awakening that I heard it this morning - what chance that I put the radio on at that exact moment and it's a Friday! A super special Friday! A turned the radio up very loud but felt that wasn't enough so ran all the way down the stairs, but the tv on, found radio 2 and danced all around the lounge!! Brilliant!! Love it!!!
And here it is for you to enjoy to :-)
01 The Candy Man
I had looked previously to try buy it on iTunes but had not been able to find the version that Chris plays. And I have never really bought much on iTunes before. But today I looked for it again, failed to find it, decided to look on amazon, bought it, downloaded it and have been listening to it! Joy!
Wednesday 22 December 2010
Go go blogging
I am very proud that yesterday morning I created a new blog. It is for a group of friends as a way for us to stay in touch. It was great fun for me to do and made me think I am technologically capable. The biggest thing I was unsure of was how to make it so that all four of us can contribute. Fingers crossed that I have done so and I am hopeful that the blog will be used by all.
Interestingly while looking at things on the settings for the new blog, I found lots of things that had arrived since I last searched for ways to do things better on this blog. I am hopefully going to make some changes to this blog now - primarily the photo at the top.
Here's the photo of the blog as of today, before any changes. For posterity:
5pm Have made some changes. A different picture for now. Don't think it will be up for long, but at least it's slightly thinner! Also made a little progress with pages, though not quite where I want to be yet.
Interestingly while looking at things on the settings for the new blog, I found lots of things that had arrived since I last searched for ways to do things better on this blog. I am hopefully going to make some changes to this blog now - primarily the photo at the top.
Here's the photo of the blog as of today, before any changes. For posterity:
5pm Have made some changes. A different picture for now. Don't think it will be up for long, but at least it's slightly thinner! Also made a little progress with pages, though not quite where I want to be yet.
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Photos of the year - week 45
Monday 13th December
Tuesday 14th December
Spotted by one of the class outside the classroom window. I love stopping lessons (at least at the end of term!) to look out the window, or just have an awe and wonder moment. Is it a red kite? There are lots of them that fly over school.
Wednesday 15th December
Thursday 16th December
Friday 17th December
Recovering from illness to make muffins for John.
Saturday 18th December
What an exciting encounter :-)
Sunday 19th December
Walking in a winter wonderland.
Snow again!
It came!!!
After many disappointing weeks hearing about snow across the country and a third of schools having snow days, I was left feeling hard done by! There was plenty of speculation as to when and if we'd get snow, then the day after term finished, It came!!!
I woke up Saturday at a sadly standard time for the start of the holidays, looked out the window in the dark, but nothing. But then by the time John arrived at 8.15 for us to get the train to Birmingham, it had snowed and settled and was still snowing. Thinking back, this was only 48 hours ago, it's amazing really how much has happened since then. I feel this has the potential to be a loooong post, done in segments. I might even headline it to give me some structure and incentive!
Fighting Talk
A few weeks ago John sound out he had got tickets to watch the live recording of BBC Radio 5Live's Fighting Talk at the NEC in Birmingham (held there ahead of Sports Personality of the Year). I was very excited to see it in action - I do love behind the scenes looks at things! So with snow on the ground, we got to the station and got on the train to Birmingham International.
I had never been to the NEC before. Fighting Talk was taking place in a Conference Room. Reading the website we were pleased to discover you could walk inside from the train station to NEC, though we did realise they didn't mention just how far the walk would be. And as Simon, the producer-come-wannabe-stand-up-warm-up guy, said, he was surprised any of us had made, not because of the snow, but because he's never walked such a long way in the country while remaining inside a building!! We realised we were on the right track though when the 5Live signs appeared! Our tickets were no guarantee we would get seats, as they give out more than they have expecting people not to come. So we were pleased to arrive just before 10 o'clock and not find too many people waiting! The audience were primarily male, probably in their 20s and 30s. Everyone seemed quite calm and quiet in the bar area we were waiting in. On the way in to the waiting area, they gave us a piece of paper with the the question - who is sports greatest Brummie? or maybe vice versa?? We could fill it in and they used our answers in the golden envelope round!
Doors opened at 10.15am and there was a bit of a dash at that point and we ended up getting seats on the front row, a little to the side. They were awesome! What a close up view of the table we had. There were 5Live bags on the chairs for us with a pen inside - ooh, I do like a freebie!
All of a sudden it seemed, about 10.40, we spotted Collin Murray in the room chatting to the audience on the other side of the room. I felt as terrified as at a Disney character breakfast wondering if he was suddenly going to pop up in front of us and I wouldn't know what to say! Fortunately he didn't! We had fun watching the people busying about on the stage and getting things ready and we wondered who they were.
Then the aforementioned Simon, came to do his warm up act and introduce Collin and generally set up the show. Collin then came on and seemed so at ease which impressed me greatly! They did a 'defend the indefensible' with four members of the audience - apparently to check the sound levels, which I am doubtful of, but like the idea! Collin wrote the questions for them while he was asking them questions and getting to know them which I thought was very clever!!
Then with not long to go before 11am - I was getting somewhat anxious - Collin introduced the panellists to us. There had been a change to the publicised ones which didn't really make a difference to us. I didn't really know any of them. John Rawlins was the only one I knew I had heard on fighting talk before. First up was Dougie Anderson who is now one of my favourite people! Then John, then Steve Bunce who scared me a bit in his large appearance and I thought I wouldn't want to meet on a dark street, but then I felt quite warmly to him when the final guest appeared, Bob Mills, who I couldn't look directly at for quite a while as I was so intimidated!
L to R Bob Mills, Steve Bunce, Collin Murray, (John Rawlins not visible), Dougie Anderson
The show was great and very fast paced. I marvelled at the show they put on. Although they all did have notes, they appeared to perform off the cuff rather than read, and they all seemed very intelligent and quick witted people. We did excitedly find a copy of Collin's script after the show which we took home (!) and he did have everything he was to say written down. I liked seeing what happened during the news and sport and travel reports (pic on right). I heard Collin asking through his headphones and looking up at the producer booth what the 'out words of the sport' were going to be, so he would know when to come in - they were Newcastle!
After the show finished Collin asked the audience if we'd like some more! So they all just sat there and the microphone went round the audience and they asked questions and answered in ways they wouldn't on air. I thought it was really generous of them to give us some extra!
After the show, some people went up to the desk and asked for autographs. I thought they would be the sort of people that wouldn't really be that keen on the autograph thing, but again they were all so generous. John bravely asked Collin for a photo and he couldn't have been nicer and I think my quick snap turned out great :-)
What a time! Thank you John.
Now it's snowing!
Time to venture back through the NEC corridors to the station and we could see out the windows how much it had continued to snow and was still doing so. We were ever so lucky with trains. We got to the platform with fingers crossed that there would be trains and within about 5 minutes a train appeared for Oxford that had been half an hour delayed. We got on it and stood. The journey back was slower than normal; there were a few occasions when we were stationary wondering if the train would start again. But it was beautiful looking out of the windows at the white world.
Back in Oxford the snow had continued to fall and we couldn't really believe how deep it now was.
We had a novel humous toasted sandwich and a warm cuddle before deciding our next plan of action. We felt cars were too snowed in, so the conclusion was walking.
Poloar Expedition
We layered up extraordinarily. I just kept adding more and John ended up with 8 items of my clothing on! We were in touch with John's parents who were driving a van down from Leicester with things for John's new home. We set out with the plan being John and I would walk down the Botley Road to McDonalds at the end and they would come off the A34 to pick us up before returning to the A34 and round to John's new flat.
We (or at least I!) proudly loaded our bag with provisions onto the sledge and trekked off through the snow.
The sledge moved like a dream - it was hard to imagine there was anything on it - I was often afraid things had fallen off! We even had a little go at pulling each other along on it - great fun! Though harder work when the snow was not yet compacted! We did get some funny and some friendly looks! The man in the photo on the right had skis - so then we felt a little inadequate! It was tiring and we were pleased when we reached McDonalds, though confused the doors were locked...
Having made it to McDonalds, we could tell that the queue of cars to get on the A34 was just not moving. Phone calls to the transit were made and it was decided it wasn't worth them coming off the A34. So we took some deep breaths and retraced our steps and continues on through town and out the other side up Iffley Road and to John's sister and her husbands house. Boy were we glad when we made it there. Though that is when we discovered I had dropped John's phone so it was back we went hoping to find it - fortunately we did.
Strictly Sleepover
We arrived back at the house at the same time as John's parents rocked up in the van. And that was 15minutes before Strictly Come Dancing Season finale was due to start and John's sister had a fabulous meal prepared for us ready to eat - it was all just what was needed and so good. I really enjoyed how much all of us were into Strictly and how detailed-ly we were discussing it in between the shows. We spent a much needed cosy evening there and though there was slight talk of venturing out, no one was really up for it! We made arrangements for all 6 of us to sleepover! I was lucky enough to get a bed!
Making a home
In the morning we braved getting the transit van out and headed up to the new flat. We unloaded through the snow- quite surreal! Two trips were needed and I was given permission/ I pleaded to stay behind and start unpacking the first load and finding homes for things. I did have a stressful time with valances though!! John's Mum had brought down a fantastic casserole which we all ate together with more unpacking going on.
Carols by Candlelight
In the evening John and I went to the Carol Service at his church. I was thinking lots about the Habs carol services at St Martins in the Fields and feel I am now at the stage in my life where I can enjoy carol services because of the nostalgia they bring from having had to sing in them for years! I also decided during the course of it, that my favourite Carol is O Come All Ye Faithful. And Chris Evans has just said on Radio 2 that that is everyone's favourite!
Happiness
We bypassed the mince pies and mulled wine afterwards and walked back to mine. We went down the route by the river and it was our own wonderful winter-wonderland.
After many disappointing weeks hearing about snow across the country and a third of schools having snow days, I was left feeling hard done by! There was plenty of speculation as to when and if we'd get snow, then the day after term finished, It came!!!
Fighting Talk
A few weeks ago John sound out he had got tickets to watch the live recording of BBC Radio 5Live's Fighting Talk at the NEC in Birmingham (held there ahead of Sports Personality of the Year). I was very excited to see it in action - I do love behind the scenes looks at things! So with snow on the ground, we got to the station and got on the train to Birmingham International. 
I had never been to the NEC before. Fighting Talk was taking place in a Conference Room. Reading the website we were pleased to discover you could walk inside from the train station to NEC, though we did realise they didn't mention just how far the walk would be. And as Simon, the producer-come-wannabe-stand-up-warm-up guy, said, he was surprised any of us had made, not because of the snow, but because he's never walked such a long way in the country while remaining inside a building!! We realised we were on the right track though when the 5Live signs appeared! Our tickets were no guarantee we would get seats, as they give out more than they have expecting people not to come. So we were pleased to arrive just before 10 o'clock and not find too many people waiting! The audience were primarily male, probably in their 20s and 30s. Everyone seemed quite calm and quiet in the bar area we were waiting in. On the way in to the waiting area, they gave us a piece of paper with the the question - who is sports greatest Brummie? or maybe vice versa?? We could fill it in and they used our answers in the golden envelope round!
Doors opened at 10.15am and there was a bit of a dash at that point and we ended up getting seats on the front row, a little to the side. They were awesome! What a close up view of the table we had. There were 5Live bags on the chairs for us with a pen inside - ooh, I do like a freebie!
All of a sudden it seemed, about 10.40, we spotted Collin Murray in the room chatting to the audience on the other side of the room. I felt as terrified as at a Disney character breakfast wondering if he was suddenly going to pop up in front of us and I wouldn't know what to say! Fortunately he didn't! We had fun watching the people busying about on the stage and getting things ready and we wondered who they were.
Then the aforementioned Simon, came to do his warm up act and introduce Collin and generally set up the show. Collin then came on and seemed so at ease which impressed me greatly! They did a 'defend the indefensible' with four members of the audience - apparently to check the sound levels, which I am doubtful of, but like the idea! Collin wrote the questions for them while he was asking them questions and getting to know them which I thought was very clever!!Then with not long to go before 11am - I was getting somewhat anxious - Collin introduced the panellists to us. There had been a change to the publicised ones which didn't really make a difference to us. I didn't really know any of them. John Rawlins was the only one I knew I had heard on fighting talk before. First up was Dougie Anderson who is now one of my favourite people! Then John, then Steve Bunce who scared me a bit in his large appearance and I thought I wouldn't want to meet on a dark street, but then I felt quite warmly to him when the final guest appeared, Bob Mills, who I couldn't look directly at for quite a while as I was so intimidated!
L to R Bob Mills, Steve Bunce, Collin Murray, (John Rawlins not visible), Dougie Anderson
The show was great and very fast paced. I marvelled at the show they put on. Although they all did have notes, they appeared to perform off the cuff rather than read, and they all seemed very intelligent and quick witted people. We did excitedly find a copy of Collin's script after the show which we took home (!) and he did have everything he was to say written down. I liked seeing what happened during the news and sport and travel reports (pic on right). I heard Collin asking through his headphones and looking up at the producer booth what the 'out words of the sport' were going to be, so he would know when to come in - they were Newcastle!After the show finished Collin asked the audience if we'd like some more! So they all just sat there and the microphone went round the audience and they asked questions and answered in ways they wouldn't on air. I thought it was really generous of them to give us some extra!
After the show, some people went up to the desk and asked for autographs. I thought they would be the sort of people that wouldn't really be that keen on the autograph thing, but again they were all so generous. John bravely asked Collin for a photo and he couldn't have been nicer and I think my quick snap turned out great :-)
Now it's snowing!
Time to venture back through the NEC corridors to the station and we could see out the windows how much it had continued to snow and was still doing so. We were ever so lucky with trains. We got to the platform with fingers crossed that there would be trains and within about 5 minutes a train appeared for Oxford that had been half an hour delayed. We got on it and stood. The journey back was slower than normal; there were a few occasions when we were stationary wondering if the train would start again. But it was beautiful looking out of the windows at the white world.
Back in Oxford the snow had continued to fall and we couldn't really believe how deep it now was. We had a novel humous toasted sandwich and a warm cuddle before deciding our next plan of action. We felt cars were too snowed in, so the conclusion was walking.
We layered up extraordinarily. I just kept adding more and John ended up with 8 items of my clothing on! We were in touch with John's parents who were driving a van down from Leicester with things for John's new home. We set out with the plan being John and I would walk down the Botley Road to McDonalds at the end and they would come off the A34 to pick us up before returning to the A34 and round to John's new flat.We (or at least I!) proudly loaded our bag with provisions onto the sledge and trekked off through the snow.
The sledge moved like a dream - it was hard to imagine there was anything on it - I was often afraid things had fallen off! We even had a little go at pulling each other along on it - great fun! Though harder work when the snow was not yet compacted! We did get some funny and some friendly looks! The man in the photo on the right had skis - so then we felt a little inadequate! It was tiring and we were pleased when we reached McDonalds, though confused the doors were locked...Having made it to McDonalds, we could tell that the queue of cars to get on the A34 was just not moving. Phone calls to the transit were made and it was decided it wasn't worth them coming off the A34. So we took some deep breaths and retraced our steps and continues on through town and out the other side up Iffley Road and to John's sister and her husbands house. Boy were we glad when we made it there. Though that is when we discovered I had dropped John's phone so it was back we went hoping to find it - fortunately we did.
Strictly Sleepover
We arrived back at the house at the same time as John's parents rocked up in the van. And that was 15minutes before Strictly Come Dancing Season finale was due to start and John's sister had a fabulous meal prepared for us ready to eat - it was all just what was needed and so good. I really enjoyed how much all of us were into Strictly and how detailed-ly we were discussing it in between the shows. We spent a much needed cosy evening there and though there was slight talk of venturing out, no one was really up for it! We made arrangements for all 6 of us to sleepover! I was lucky enough to get a bed!
Making a home
In the morning we braved getting the transit van out and headed up to the new flat. We unloaded through the snow- quite surreal! Two trips were needed and I was given permission/ I pleaded to stay behind and start unpacking the first load and finding homes for things. I did have a stressful time with valances though!! John's Mum had brought down a fantastic casserole which we all ate together with more unpacking going on.
Carols by Candlelight
In the evening John and I went to the Carol Service at his church. I was thinking lots about the Habs carol services at St Martins in the Fields and feel I am now at the stage in my life where I can enjoy carol services because of the nostalgia they bring from having had to sing in them for years! I also decided during the course of it, that my favourite Carol is O Come All Ye Faithful. And Chris Evans has just said on Radio 2 that that is everyone's favourite!
Happiness
We bypassed the mince pies and mulled wine afterwards and walked back to mine. We went down the route by the river and it was our own wonderful winter-wonderland.
Monday 20 December 2010
Photos of the year - week 44
Monday 6th December
Driving to school, prettily surrounded by frost.
This was at lunchtime - amazing how a lot of the week was spent, with frost covered trees. Apparently heard it was something to do with the power station putting more moisture in the air.
Wednesday 8th December
Wednesday 8th December
Thursday 9th December
Friday 10th December
Saturday 11th December
Sunday 12th December
Friday 17 December 2010
Ill again
I don't know whether to post now. I am feeling quite down. I have been a bit ill this week. Today is the last day of term and instead of being at school handing out Christmas cards to children and listening to Christmas music and being merry, here i am lying in bed.
I have a hard time mentally adjusting to being ill, i have decided. I spend a long time wrestling with just how ill am i and am i being a huge fraud and should i just get on with it.
Anyway, i don't want to dwell on what has lead me to this point, it's more that i want to get myself out of this lethargy.
i just decided to take a photo booth photo of how im looking right now to break up this post and i think the results were really funny!!!
So i started wanting to take a photo with just my current facial expression as i have been typing and here is the result:
I thought this looked so hilariously dire, that it made me smile so i took another one while i was smiling:
Can you see the smile??? this made me smile even more including feeling up to my eyes, so i took another one...
At least it made me think if that's the best i can do its prob best not to be at school!!
So plan of action for today, in manor (hehe, actually mean manner i think!) of snow day post.
I have a hard time mentally adjusting to being ill, i have decided. I spend a long time wrestling with just how ill am i and am i being a huge fraud and should i just get on with it.
Anyway, i don't want to dwell on what has lead me to this point, it's more that i want to get myself out of this lethargy.
i just decided to take a photo booth photo of how im looking right now to break up this post and i think the results were really funny!!!
So i started wanting to take a photo with just my current facial expression as i have been typing and here is the result:
So plan of action for today, in manor (hehe, actually mean manner i think!) of snow day post.
- shower
- write christmas cards
- make muffins
- go to town?
- enquire about money
- get replacement cirque tickets
- put laundry away
- make paper chains.
Saturday 11 December 2010
Photos of the year - week 43
Monday 29th November
Tuesday 30th November
The best layer of snow we got in this cold snap. Very sadly no snow days :-(
Tuesday 30th November
Thursday 2nd December
Friday 3rd December
Saturday 4th December
Sunday 5th December
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