Crap

Apparently I am a crap wife, a crap mother and a crap friend....why do I bother????... I'm probably a crap daugher and a crap workmate too..but I've not had the pleasure of their opion so I can only suppose!!

Quiz Maestros

\0/ we won again!!! 2 out of 2 now and we were rather pleased with ourselves. Our opponents this week were the Rose and Willow and a strange looking bunch they were too... mind you they probably 'thought the same about us. In all fairness they were a good laugh as well, one poor lad (who had green hair) didn't manage to answer any of his individual questions and we became used to the cry of "TEAM" as he threw it open to the others. We won 73 to 51 which was a pretty good result. The questions (set this week by the Ferry A team) were quite hard and in one round on quotations neither team managed to score one point!!

As to my team mates, I am really liking Ianto and Mywanwy, especially Mywanwy, we seem to be on the same wavelength and come up with the same answers a lot of the time. Blodwyn on the other hand is a complete nightmare. Not only does she talk insessantly but she also has an annoying habit of discussing possible answers in a very loud voice before the other team have given an answer, thereby sometimes giving the answer away. The rest of us scribble possible answers on a bit of paper until it is our turn to confer. Also when the question is thrown open to us for 1 point she shouts out what she thinks the answer is before conferring and lost us a few points last night for being wrong.

All in all I am really enjoying being in a real team.

Today I havn't done a lot and tonight Noel and I are going to the Torch Theatre to see Neville's Island which is a black comedy and is very funny (I have seen it before and seen the TV version which had Martin Clunes in it!). Full report tomorrow.

Now I had better go and make some tea so I will appear I have done something today!!

Strange Day

As the title suggests its been a strange day today. It started badly when I woke up with terrible indigestion, so bad I thought I was having a heart attack! I then had some news from Ffion about one of her friends which I am not at liberty to share yet but it wasnt good and I am having to get involved.

Then came the first surreal episode. Ffion's Avon didn't arrive yesterday as it was supposed to, she chased up the courier this morning and they said they had delivered it and left it in the "big green box"!!... we don't have a big green box. Apparently it was a new driver and I had an idea that he might have left it at 3 Castle Hall Road...instead of Drive!! So off I trot up the road to investigate, wearing just my tracky bottoms and a t-shirt. I knocked on the door of No 3 but there was no answer but lo and behold in their garden there was this big green box/garden tidy thingy, so I took a peek inside and there were Ffion's Avon boxes. I thought I had better knock again and speak to them but after four attempts there was still no answer so I just picked up the boxes and headed off down the path. Half way down and my tracky bottoms decided to start slipping down and oh dear...I had no underware on"!! I hope to god the people in the house didnt look out of the bedroom window or they would have seen this strange woman with a bad case of builders bum legging it down their path with her arms full of Avon boxes!!

I took my Mum out for lunch today, which was a nice part of the day. We went to the Corn Store in Pembroke and had a lovely lunch and a browse around the shop. We then went to a local garden centre where Mum bought some pots. She then came home with me and had a coffee and a chat before I dropped her back home, it was really nice to spend some time with her.

So you can see its been a bit of a strange day and now I am off to pub quiz again so time to paint on a smile and try and enjoy it.

Oh yes and I have 6 naked women in my hall getting spray tans.. and Noel has been banished!!

On not doing a lot.

As I suspected at the beginning of my time off I have not actually done much. Yes I have had my hair cut (why can I never get it to look like Mark does!!). Yes I have had lunch with Nicole, in fact I had lunch and a night out and was abandoned!!! I have been positively domesticated on the culinary front and have baked a chocolate sponge; a banana and walnut loaf; made tomato, celery and apple soup; homemade pate and produced various home cooked meals for my grateful family!! I have not had my garden sorted out!! and I am taking my mother out for the day tomorrow, so I suppose all in all its not been too bad.

Today I had a meeting at work at 10am which was pretty mind numbing but will provide me with £100 overtime for sitting and nodding at the right places for two hours. After that I paid a brief visit to St. Tescos before coming home and making the aforementioned banana and walnut loaf. I then retired to my favourite corner of the settee and watched a few things I have on the Sky+. The Ruby in the Smoke, some Primeval and a bit of Cranford (all things I wanted to see in the past but never got round to.)

Oh yes and I have regained my 3rd place in Wales in egg hunting and have over 3,000 eggs!!!

Holiday Complications

Every year the Smith clan and various hangers on decamp to Centre Parcs at Longleat in late November/early December. Regular readers will recall past adventures both gastronomic and alcoholic (who can forget the "Noel asleep covered in red wine" photos from last year!!). Anyway we booked this years break not long after we got back last December and owing to the success of last year decided to go for an 8 berth apartment which would mean the 4 Smith, 2 Southwells and a friend each for the Smith offspring.

First indications were that Erin would take Lal and Ffion would take one of her friends, either Tanya, Alana or Kirsty. Unfortunately it became obvious some time ago that none of Ffion's friends were able to make it. Kirsty couldn't get time off work, Alana couldn't afford it and Tanya has all sorts of pie in the sky plans of moving to London. So in the last week or so Erin as well as inviting Lal has also invited Jess (No not you Jess ).

Now for some background... do you all remember Ffion used to go out with the invisible Dan (nod if you do!!). Well you will also recall that they finshed some time ago. Well in the meantime and after a semi descent interval Dan has started to go out with Lal...... this has not gone down well with Ffion as you can imagine. This has now made the whole holiday scenario impossible. Having Ffion and Lal in the same apartment for a weekend is just not going to work, so today I had to tell Erin that she will not be able to bring Lal with her. Obviously she is quite upset about this but she does understand it from her sister's point of view. I have told her that if she dosn't feel she can tell Lal then I will do it for her but she's not too keen on that idea.... oh the joys of teenage romances!!

So the end result is that we now have a spare place in our apartment. I have told Noel that "NO" Meurig can't come with us, so it just remains to be seen if Chris and Julie can get their daughter Claire, who is just about the same age as Ffion to come. But she is in University in Cardiff and may not be able to make it.... applications on a postcard please!!

Recovery

I managed to drag myself to the hairdressers yesterday in the end but I felt pretty awful, not the best way to feel when you are about to have your hair done. A few glasses of cold water while I was waiting and a bit of relaxation while Mark play... I mean cut my hair and I felt slightly more human by the time I left. (I think the two paracetamol helped as well).

After I left the hairdressers, perfectly coiffed, I had a brief wander around the the shops but only came away with a book from a charity shop (The first in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman). On getting home I put the rest of yesterdays shopping away then slumped on the sofa and remained there for the rest of the day, just watching tv and egg hunting.

I made a simple dinner of rump steak, garlic potatoes and sugar snap peas for tea then resumed my slumped postion on the sofa until we decided to have an early night about 9.30pm.

I was up pretty early this morning... well 8.30am isnt bad for a Saturday. I cleaned up the kitchen then proceeded to do absolutely nothing except watch tv and egg hunt. There didnt seem much point in doing anything else as the weather outside was awful, Noel was in work and I had to go back to bed in the afternoon anyway.

I slept from 2pm to 4.30pm and it was a very deep sleep which left me feeling quite groggy when I did get up.

Tonight I am in work on an overtime shift which is a real nuisance as it is right in the middle of my 14 days off. So far it is pretty quiet. I sent out for a chicken kebab which was very tasty and now we are just moving a couple of ships (real ones JoJo not invisible ones) and it looks like being a steady night. Oh well just think of the money!!

Bluestone

Nic picked me up at about 12pm yesterday and we headed off towards Bluestone. First stop was Macdonalds in Pembroke Docks.. we thought we had better line our stomachs with a bit of lunch. I had one of the new "M" burgers which was really nice. Anyway we then headed off again in search of Bluestone. A good hour and several detours later we finally found it (Nic isn't the best at finding her way around, hence why we once nearly ended up in Dover when we were trying to get to Bexley Heath!!).

When we arrived we checked in and found our accommodation. It was very impressive I must admit. We each had a lodge with two bedrooms, an open plan kitchen, dining, living room and a wet room/bathroom. It was all done out to the very highest spec. I unpacked then we headed to the Blue Lagoon.

It was very nice but a bit boring to look at, not at all like the pool area at Centre Parcs which really is a tropical paradise. We went on a couple of the flumes and in the lazy river and we met up with a couple of Nicole's work colleagues who were also there for the dinner. We had three hours in the pool but there really wasn't enough to do for all that time so after about an hour and a half we got out and got changed and headed for the pub in the "village" part of the complex.

A few drinks later and Noel arrived, he was also very impressed with the accommodation and we popped into Nic's lodge to have a glass of wine before getting changed

Noel and Nic having a glass of wine.

Once we got changed we had a drinks reception at the "Yard" which was in the "Village". The wine flowed freely and the canapes were very tasty, then we were shuttled up to the sports area by minibus for the main dinner.

Svitzer (Nicole's firm) had two tables and again the wine was flowing freely (probably why I feel like crap today!!). Before the meal there was a quick speech from Rhodri Morgan (The Welsh First Minister) then we had the meal. It was very nice, a cauliflower and cheese soup (served in a small cup) then a goat's cheese souffle followed by roast welsh beef. I'm afraid I can't remember what the pudding was (the wine had taken effect by then).

The after dinner speaker was Simon Weston and he gave a very interesting talk on his experiences in the Falklands and his charity work. Noel however didn't find it very interesting and fell asleep which was very embrassing because he snored!!

Simon Weston giving his after dinner speech

At some point after the dinner Nicole must have gone off to bed because we couldn't find her and as we didn't really know any of the other Svitzer guests we headed off to bed as well.

This morning Noel left early to get to work and I was woken up by knocking at about 8.30. I got dressed and went to the door but there was no-one there. I packed and went to look for Nicole but her apartment was empty. I then saw one of the Svitzer party who told me that Nicole had gone... great she'd left me... probably thinking I had gone home with Noel. Luckily the same guy offered to give me a lift back to Milford so I wasn't totally abandoned.

When I got home I had to head straight back out again to the hairdressers where I have been most of the morning.

I am now having a very lazy afternoon watching tv and egg hunting. I still don't feel 100% so its going to be a quiet night tonight.