End of the holiday

I decided to do another update before i go back to work tomorrow cos after that chances are i won't be updating very often at all.

Let's see what's happened since my last update? Well there are 2 obvious things to write about - the first happening the day after we got back from Scotland and the other all week!!

Last saturday (23rd) it was Katie's 21st birthday ball with a winter wonderland theme - yes in the middle of august!! In fact it was mainly because of this that we came back from Scotland a day early.

Because i was wearing a large ballgown for the party we got a taxi up there cos i couldn't drive in it. When we got there Katie was greeting people with drinks and we went in to sit with Beck and Dan who had already arrived before us. There were 2 people doing live Entertainment, one was a pianist and the other was a Frank Sinatra tribute act. The piainist was excellent (although for the first part of the night i thought he was a bit lifeless). The other man was good but rather too loud really. He also annoyed Beck cos he kept fiddling with his sound desk - even while he was singing!!

Dinner was supposed to be 8.30pm but Katie said she'd had a power cut earlier in the day so she was behind time with everything so we didn't eat till about 9.30. The food was lovely - she did a hot buffet, carvery style with 2 different meats and lots of vegetables. The desserts were lovely as well - right up to Katie's very high standard :-D

The following day i woke up with my throat like sandpaper which signalled the start of a bad cold which has blighted me since then :-(

I have been swimming evey day even with the cold but the first few days of the week i only managed a few lengths (compared to my normal), i did 40, 40, 50, i managed 64 on the thursday then it was back to 40 on friday cos i had to be out of the water at 8am and i didn't get in till 7.20.

I had my piano lesson on monday evening and although i was full of cold it was still fun. Helen also said that Lisa has just bought a new piano and is thinking of selling her digital piano so Helen asked was i interested as i've been complaining that mine is temperamental. I've decided i'm interested but i haven't committed to buying it yet - she's taking me to Lisa's tomorrow evening to see it.

My mum and I had arranged to go to Haigh Hall for a day out on Tuesday but on that day i was particularly snotty / cabbaged and in the end we didn't go. I spent the day basically vegging in front of the telly and the computer - i even only did about 20 minutes piano practice :-o

On Wednesday i had a busy day - i went swimming in the morning of course then i went to town then we went out for a meal. I was going to town to collect my flutes from the music shop cos i'd had them serviced. When i went for the train it was just pulling in at the station as i got to the ticket window so the man told me to pay at the other end to save me missing it cos the machine wouldn't print my tickets in time :-o I was quite concerned if an inspector got on what would he say. Thankfully none did and when i got to the other end they were fine with it - i just had to go to the ticket window and i was concerned it might cost more, luckily it didn't :-)

When i got into town the music shop was shut but i had the very last bit of my lambanana hunt to do and also buy a few bits and pieces so by the time i'd done that the shop was open - and it's right opposite the train station so that's ok. When i went into the shop the man who actually serviced them was there so he was telling me about what he's done with them and he said if there's anything i can't get used to after a couple of weeks to go back and he'll re-adjust for me so that's good.

When i got to the station to come home there was a man with his dog but the dog wasn't on a lead and kept wandering round all over the place. I was scared it was going to jump onto the tracks cos it got close a couple of times :-o I was glad when they got on the train that came before mine.

We were going out for lunch with Lynne and a daughter so i didn't have that long to sit round before we were going out again.

I'd decided we were going to Southport for our meal and i thought i knew where the restaurant was but i overshot it - oops. In the end i put the sat nav on and it turned out the restaurant was in a bit where i'd stopped to look at the map but it was on the opposite side 8|

We had a nice meal and a nice chat - it's always good to get together.

The rest of the night i spend lazing around and i did some piano practice.

On Thursday i went bowling with Neil. This is the first time we've been and actually been able to take advantage of the 6 games for £6 offer. I knew i was bad at bowling but i didn't realise quite how bad ;-D At one point i got a run of about 4 shots where i didn't hit a single pin ;-D ;-D After 3 games my right hand was getting a bit sore so i decided to swap onto my left hand - strangely enough, even though there was hardly any power in my left hand i seemed to be doing better - i even got a strike with my left hand :-o ;-D

Once we'd been bowling we wanted to do something else so we decided to go to a park. Initially i decided on Stadt Moers Park cos i've never been there either but then i decided we'd go to Croxteth Park instead. I've been there before but i know Neil hasn't

When we got there we found something going on but couldn't work out what it was - there appeared to be some kind of arena set up and there was something indistinct coming from a PA system. We didn't really hang round, we went for a walk and when we got back to that area they were starting again after dinner. It turned out it was the Cross Country section of the Iron Dog competition - part of the World Firefighter Games. We stayed and watched for a while but it wasn't that interesting cos they had to do 2 obstacles in the arena and then they went off round the park to do a 1 mile run with more obstacles. While they were out in the park we were just standing round waiting for them to come back though the commentators were telling us stuff so it wasn't just total silence. One of the last parts of the competition was for the handler to pick up the dog and run 25yds with it. There was a lady with a newfoundland dog, the dog was so big she couldn't pick him up :-o Though her husband went after her with another newfoundland and he managed to pick up the dog and run - all 12.5 stone of it :-o

We went for a look round the shop before we headed off to the other park. Neither of us had been to the other park before so we didn't know what to expect but we reckone it would be pretty big as it had a visitors' centre marked on the A-Z. Initially we went to where it looked like the entrance road was on the map but that turned out to be a red herring - it was tiny little road that didn't appear to lead anywhere :-S We then decided on plan B which was to find the entrance where the visitors' centre seemed to be. Luckily that was more successful and we found the small car park. We headed into the park and discovered it was just loads of trees and paths. We enjoyed ourselves just wandering round and discovering where the various paths led to. Afterwards i dropped Neil at a bus stop to go home.

Friday and Saturday were more or less normal and therefore boring ;-D ;-D

On Sunday evening Sue had arranged a picnic on the beach for CSO members et al but the weather was nasty so one of the other members said we could go to his house instead. I looked at the map but couldn't work out where it was so i put the sat nav on instead. Sue had told me that Chris lived in number 17 but the tomtom didn't believe there were 17 houses in that road - it told me to enter a number between 1 and 16 :-S I figured i might as well just programme number 16 and sort it out when i got there. I got to the road no problem and saw Sue's car so at least i knew i was in the right place. I looked around but couldn't find a number 17 so instead of embarrassing myself by potentially knocking on the wrong door i rang Sue instead, she came out to meet me and said it was actually number 14 although it's on her database as number 17 - i was glad i hadn't knocked on random doors ;-D ;-D

Chris's house has got large french windows in the dining room so in effect the whole wall can open out into the garden which is what he did - we had an inside / outside picnic :-D Alison had brought her dog with her but left him in the car until she'd checked whether it was ok to bring him in. As it happened it was fine for him to come into the garden and he was really nice - i think he was a black labrador :-/

While we were there the weather had dried up and was pretty nice so the vote went out did we want to go for a walk anyway. The general consensus was that yes we would all like to go for a walk. We set off and the group split up unintentionally, i was at the front with a few others - the lead people didn't even know where they were going ;-D

We got to the beach / sand dunes area and kept going. The sun was just setting and it made a very nice picture - i had my camera with me but only by chance, it just happened to be in my bag. We found a stepped 'thing' which i decided was for taking photos from so we did group photos and then kept walking :-) We stopped at a large square thing which we were led to believe was the roof of a sewage treatment works and from the smell we tended to believe it.

We sort of headed back towards the house and the question was asked could we cope with sand on the way back. We all agreed and so the way was led along little tiny paths - often the grass was so high i almost disappeared ;-D Sue was behind me and was laughing, partly at how i was struggling on the paths and partly at how i was disappearing ;-D ;-D I was laughing along with her. Sue also had a torch with her which was very useful and one of the men was laughing saying only she would have a torch ;-D It wasn't until much later i realised i'd also had a torch with me on my keyring but i'd forgotten about it 8|

Unfortunately as i was (still am) full of cold my breathing wasn't particularly easy :-( I'd been just about coping but as we were getting back to the road there was a large sand hill we had to climb up and it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. My breathing got quite noisy and difficult, Sue who was behind me was asking was i ok, at that point i'd got to non-verbal communications :-( Once we were back on the road and the flat i had my inhaler and was able to talk properly again a few minutes later.

Where we came out onto the road was actually really near to Chris's house, in fact i was surprised at HOW close we were. When we got back we all had to take our shoes off and leave them outside cos they were all full of sand ;-D

Once we were in the house, the fact that we were in a musician's house became obvious. Chris started getting loads of different instruments out ;-D It began with swanee whistles and progressed onto train whistle, nightingale whistle, crow call, thunder maker, recorders, panpipes, a strange fife thing, a jingle stick and there may have been other things too, ended up with everyone having an instrument and we did an inprovised piece of music based on the theme of our picnic ;-D ;-D ;-D It was great fun and we didn't end up leaving until about 10.30pm.

Unfortunately Chris lives in the middle of nowhere and country roads that had been good fun to travel along on the way there were distictly less fun on the way back. One thing was though that it was the first time i'd used my main beam headlights on this car ;-D ;-D

On Monday morning i went for a drive to see if it was feasible for me to go swimming before work and also to see if i had enough time between school 1 and 2 to drive AND eat. It seems that both of these things will be possible :-) The only problem was that i couldn't find the first school - i found something at the place where that school is marked on my map but it wasn't what i was expecting to find :-S

The only other thing apart from my piano lesson which i did yesterday was to hoover the car out - how exciting 8|

And then we get to today. I've been swimming again this morning and was intending to do the same as yesterday and go and find my first tuesday school to see if i could do swimming before work. Unfortunately it came on the travel news that there had been a big accident with the related traffic chaos near where i was heading - i decided not to bother!

And that's that for now!!!!