Another Year Older

Today is my 45th Birthday... god that sounds old.

I have had better birthdays.. i.e. those I have not had to spend in work when it hasn't been a Bank Holiday.

Tonight we are going out for a meal, to Druidston I think, I shall have a few glasses of wine to celebrate but will be saving the major celebrations for the party on Saturday.

Thanks to everyone who sent me Birthday wishes on Facebook and for my cards both real and virtual, they are all greatly appreciated.

May has been a very frugal month blog wise, hopefully I shall feel more like blogging and generally in a better mood in June, sorry if you have missed me hopefully normal service will be resumed in the near future.

Updates

Just a quick update on my friend. She is doing well apparently and responding to treatment. The heart attack was caused by a blood clot and they are treating her with drugs to disperse it which seems to be working. Hopefully she will be back in Haverfordwest hospital soon and I can go and see her.

Exam update on Erin is that she felt her Maths exam went badly on Monday and there were some questions which they had not been taught!!, never a good thing in an exam. It was English Literature today and she was a bit happier about that despite being mega stressed before going in this morning. She answered all the questions (something she failed to do in her mock) although she did add that she has no idea whether the answers were correct or made any sense!!

Tassimo update. The company have now emailed me to inform me that they no longer have any machines in stock so will be refunding my money. It has only taken them a month exactly to let me know this... in future I think I shall just go to a shop and buy what I want, it is much easier.

After tonight I have four days off \0/... unfortunately I shall have to do housework again!

Bad News

I have had a bit of a shock tonight. I received a phone call to tell me that a very good friend of mine had a heart attack this morning and is in hospital in Swansea. I won't go into personal details at the moment until I have spoken to her myself but needless to say it was an awful shock and has left me feeling quite shaken, especially as she is a year younger than me.

It has also made me think about the nature of friendships and how ours has lapsed lately due to work and there never quite being enough time, I shall definately make more effort in the future as hers is a friendship which means a great deal to me... I am wishing her a fast and complete recovery!!

Prom Night

Yesterday being Erin's last full day in school, last night was her "Prom" night, which wasn't really a proper Prom, more like a presentation with a buffet meal and disco. However, it had to be preceeded by all the usual pampering etc which normally goes with this type of event.

I picked her up from school at 2.30pm and it was straight home to get changed then off down to the White Room (beauty salon) to get her nail extensions done!!.. This took the best part of 2 hours then it was straight up to the hairdressers to get her hair curled. Finally back to the house for the make-up and final preparations.

The end result was well worth it!!

Isn't she lovely??... you don't have to answer that.. but I was a very proud mummy!!

A few of her friends then arrived to also get ready and soon they were all preened, primped and glam and ready to go.

Lauren, Nadia and Erin.... not quite sure what Nadia's mum has been feeding her but it works, just look at those legs!!

Anyway off they went to the school where they were all terribly well behaved until 9.30pm, when I got a phone call to collect them all and bring them back to the house so Erin could change out of her expensive dress into another one before they all headed for the only pub in town which will serve them... Shhhhh... don't tell. At 10.30 when I dropped them off outside most of year 11 were queuing outside to get in.

They rolled back to the house about 1am, and despite being told not to make too much noise as Mother had work in the morning, I did have to go down and tell them to turn the jukebox down at 2.30am after a particularly loud rendition of Delilah... good Welsh girls see!!!

This morning I got downstairs about 6am expecting to see a minor holocaust and bodies strewn around but in all fairness to them it was relatively tidy and everyone appeared to have made it to a bedroom... so that is another milestone over and done with!

Where does the time go?

One day you have small, cute, cheeky faced little angel who you have cherished at home then suddenly one day you put a uniform on her and off she goes to the big bad world of school!!

Then suddenly it is 14 years later and you are sending her off for her last day in Secondary education!!

Yes today was Erin's last full, proper day at school. Her GCSE's start on Monday and she only has to go in for them now. Where the hell did the last 14 years go to and why have I got something in my eye???

Gastro Blog

This entry is especially for Jane, who requested I blog about our meal in the Cwtch last night.

We were intending to sample the Springtime Special menu, which was a set meal of Roasted Pepper Soup, Homemade Pembrokeshire Fishcakes and pear, apple and ginger crumble, all for £18 but when we got there and had a good look at the menu we decided to go for the normal menu.

I started with the homemade Pembrokeshire fishcakes, which were really delicious and came with a homemade tartare sauce.

That was follwed by a panfried sirloin steak smothered in garlic butter and served with homemade beef dripping cooked chips, which were just heaven.

Unfortunately after all that we were all far too full for pudding, except Julie who managed a creme brulee with esspresso cream which did look very nice. The boys had a course pork pate to start while Julie (the fishy one) had smoked salmon followed by pan fried sea trout and the boys both had the steak as well.

I did finish off with a coffee and amaretto and as usual we were presented with mini packets of love hearts with the bill.

As you can imagine after all that lovely food, and a fair bit of equally nice wine, we didn't feel like doing very much when we got back to Chris and Julie's and it wasn't long before this happened!

And this!!

So there you have it, a gastro blog especially for the floosy and a gratuitous picture of my breasts for Jessica!!

Enjoying the Sunshine

We have had a lovely time this weekend so far. Yesterday we went out for a run in the cars with our neighbours Dawn and Julian. First of all we stopped at Druidston for some lunch, sat on the terrace overlooking the beach in the sun, then we went to St. Davids where we stopped at The Bench for one of Gianni's special ice-creams. Finally we ended up in Porthgain where we had a drink at the Sloop Inn, sat in the sunshine like proper tourists. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera with me.

Today as it was another lovely day we decided to go a bit further north and head over the Preselis towards North Pembrokeshire. We went to quite a few places we have never been to before, starting with Cwm Gwaun, or the Gwaun Valley which was really beautiful with plenty of bluebells in the woods. We then climbed over the Preselis and came out just above Fishguard with stunning views over Newport beach.

We then decided to go to Cwm yr Eglwys (translates as valley of the church and pronounced eggloose) which is a little bay where the church was swept away in a storm in 1859

All that remains now is the graveyard and the bell tower. It was a very pretty place and I took quite a few pictures (the rest of which are on Facebook). You can see from the next one how close the church was to the beach, no wonder it was destroyed in a storm.

Derelict churches are obvious in vogue for blogs at the moment!! From Cwm yr Eglwys we stopped at a little pub in the middle of nowhere where we had a delicious sunday lunch before going further around the coast via Cwm Tudu (pronounced Coombe Toody) and heading to Newquay (the Pembrokeshire one, not the Cornish one!!)

Newquay is quite pretty, I've not been there before but I thought it was quite touristy, a bit like Tenby of the North and not really my cup of tea, but we did have a nice walk around the harbour where Noel took this pic of me sat on the sea wall.

After Newquay we headed home. It was pretty chilly by this time and I found a blanket in the boot of the car but fortunately Noel didn't get a picture of me with it wrapped round my head looking like something out of the Taliban while we drove back over the Preselis with the roof down!!