Time for a Birthday Post
Aug. 13th, 2009 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zahrynI'm not posting pics in here (except one) because they're all on Facebook and too large for here, I can't be bothered to re-size them all either so only my favourite one will go here.
That said, there's a write-up of the birthday weekend behind the cut
That was such a brilliant weekend!!
Friday I got home in plenty of time, I got the house tidied up, bed made, dishes done and kitchen clean, packed a bag for both of us and loaded everything into the back of Gordon. Mr Red weas running late becasue his boss waltzed in at the last minute and had him start booking hotels in outer mongolia (or somewhere like that) for today!! Even so, we were on the road by 18:00 and it was a very nice drive south, the evening was warm and the sky was blue, and apart from a couple of hiccups due to absent signage we made very good time. By the time we arrived at the Bat & Ball, it was close to dark, and our first impression wasn't very inspiring, there were a lot of people in the pub, and there was very loud music from a violin/guitar duo, although the place looked nice enough and the people were friendly.
John showed us to our campsite, and we hurridly got pitched, it didn't take long , we packed all the food and overnight bag into the tent, put the chairs up outside and were pleased to discover that in the lower field we couldn't really hear the music, surrounded by trees, and as far away from the entrace to the field as we could be.
Once pitched, we headed for the pub, we bought pints of Sussex and found a seat outside to enjoy the warmth of the late evening, a smoke and a pint was very welcome, and we even realised we were enjoying the music from outside. You could still hear it quite well, there was quite an eclectic mixture, from "Paint it Black" to "Molly Malone" and all sorts in between, and we enjoyed a relaxing couple of hours before heading back to our tent for the night.
I was allowed to open my first birthday present when we were ready for bed (it was 00:34 on my birthday by now) and Mr Red had bought me a Saab Tax Disc holder, in fashionable black for Horace smile.gif I had been planning to buy one for myself so that was a lovely surprise. We both slept pretty well, warm as toast and dry as a bone, although we did get woken quite early by the kids from the tents around us. Fairly standard for camping, it's difficult to sleep in when you have no control over your surroundings. We got up and made a cup of tea to have with chocolate brioche for breakfast. I was allowed to open my second present from Mr Red which turned out to be a puppy in a box biggrin.gif I've been hassling Mr Red for a while about getting a puppy, and his comment has always been that in the house we're in now, the only puppy I'm getting is a dead puppy in a box!!
It was really nice, just chilling and reading our books, keeping the relaxation going. We hung out until we were both washed and dressed, then packed up a dew-dampened tent and packed up the car. The weather was gorgeous, the sky a beautiful blue
We drove to the next campsite, and again apart from a slight delay caused by heavy traffic on the Pevensey roundabout, it was a really nice trip, the sun was blazing and the sky only had a few white fluffy clouds in it. We got to the campsite and booked in, Fairfields farm has quite a nice location, it looks pretty urban from the front, but once you're into the site it's wide rolling hillside and seagulls. We had the option of any of the pitches without electrical hook ups, so we drove through the main campsite first, but it all looked really shoulder-toshoulder busy, there was maybe one pitch that we'd have been ok with, but we drove through to the overspill field and found the perfect spot. Right against the back of the field against the fenceline, with the fire blanket station on one side to stop anyone getting too close, we parked Gordon on the other side leaving us a goodly bit of privacy and got the tent pitched again. In that location it was dry again in no time with a nice breeze blowing along the field. We unpacked most of the stuff from the car and then got ready to go.
It only took about 30 minutes to drive from the campsite to St Leonards-on-sea, however, I'd not printed out a map (because I've been there before) and coming from the opposite direction to normal just completely threw me. We spent about half an hour turning around and trying new routes, until eventually we found the right road and arrived. Then the drama started. Beth & Simon had broken down at Clackett Lane services, their car wouldn't start and so Dad left Mum at Grandmas in Hastings and drove up to collect Beth & the boys while Simon got the car sorted out. It turned out he'd put petrol into the diesel tank, but surprisingly the car had been fine from their house near Oxford, all the way down the M40 to the M25. Dad brought Beth and the boys to AKays where we had arrived at about the same time, then went back to Grandmas to collect her, Mum and their chairs etc.
The party was lots of fun, I got to monster my two neffys quite thoroughly, Freddie is talking quite well now, although he still calls me "Auntie Namy" but it's sweet. All the family were there, including my cousin Richard and his wife Kate with their new baby James. We BBQ'd and ate a lot, drank more, had wonderful birthday cake, made smores over the hot coals and talked ourselves hoarse. I do enjoy all my family getting together, even though I don't always look forward to it beforehand.
Me and my boys, ready to blow out candles, Alex on your left, Freddie on your right:
Of course, during the party there was the inevitable present and card opening. I did amazingly well, the surprise massive present from Mr Red turned out to be a beautiful blue bicycle, all flat-packed and in a box.
I was totally overwhelmed, really not expecting that at all and it was a brilliant stroke of inspiration on his part. I also got Season 1 & 2 of "Allo Allo" on DVD. I've always loved that series and can't wait to own them all. My parents bought me my favourite perfume, "Romance" by Ralph Laurent, I can't usually afford to buy it for myself so I keep it to wear for special and ask for it as a present when I start to run low, my cousin Katie also bought me a Lush tin perfume called "Karma" which smells lovely, and Jenny bought me a lovely sunflower, which is a bit wilted after it's weekend in Gordon sad.gif hopefully we'll be able to revive it with the big drink I gave it last night when we got home, and some fishy water. I also got my Ukelele, and a book of "learn to play the Ukelele" which confused matters for a while since it's American, it labelled the strings differently and then gave all the chords and pitches different names sad.gif I have put it aside until I have a bit more of a clue, then I can practise the songs by reading the music and ignoring the finguring diagrams smile.gif Still brilliant though.
The cake was quite outstanding, AKay had it made by the woman across the road and asked her to "put a fish on it" this was the result:
Time passed very quickly, I managed to get some quiet time to have a go at my sister about her complete lack of communication, and we agreed that I would take a day off during the summer holidays and she will bring the boys to spend the day with me, visit our house, go into Stratford with me and catch-up generally. Before I knew, it was after 8pm, so we said our goodbyes and drove back to the campsite. We were back in time to see the sun go down and sat with our smokes and beers, looking out over the field, enjoying the peace and just being together. A thick mist started to creep across the field and stole over our tent and the overspill field, some when we'd finished our beers we packed up the chairs to keep them dry and got into the tent all snug and warm. I was asleep in no time, Mr Red tried to read for a bit but the lamp wasn't good enough so he turned it off and went to sleep.
Sunday we managed to sleep a little later, but only until just before 8am. We got up and put the kettle on, had a nice cup of tea and a slow wake up, we had Alpen bars for breakfast and then a bit of a read. The people next to us were hardened fisher and camper people, 4 of them had come back to their tent during the late evening of the night before, they sat up chatting for a bit and then went to bed. They'd got up really early to go fishing on Sunday morning before the sun came up and as we were starting to get dressed and think about packing up they got their tent down and left!! The weather was looking a bit changeable and since the tent had been soggy with mist and dew when we got up, we'd left it to dry out in the wind and sun as we were having breakfast and more tea, it was dry quite quickly so we decided to bag it up while the sun still shone rather than risk it getting wet, then we carried on sitting, chatting and watching the people around us packing themselves up. One big group of three families had every comfort conceivable, it must have taken them a full day to get everything set up. I hope they'd been there for a while to make it worth the effort, since they started packing up before we even got up on Sunday morning, and didn't drive away until we'd packed everything up, packed the car and were sitting having second breakfast!!
We decided to have a nice leisurely drive home, so we left at about 11:30 and made our way home. On the way we stopped at the Bernard arms for a sunday dinner, beer and a sit out in the garden.
While we were sitting there we heard the most amazingly loud revving sound and tunred around to watch a little old lady trying deperately to get her car turned around in the carpark to get back out onto the road. It was quite comical, she had her little old man sitting next to her and it must have taken 5 or 6 gos to get turned around, with lots of revving each time she took the handbrake off!! When she finally got out of the carpark, she turned towards Aylesbury and I said to Mr Red that we'd let her get on ahead a bit, to get through Aylesbury before we risked catching her up. We then drank our pints, leisurely ate our tasty dinner, finished our drinks, Mr Red had a smoke, we chatted briefly with the very smiley lady and then got back on the road. We both had to laugh outloud when we got to Aylesbury and ended up behind the same little old lady who still didn't seem to have much control over her car.
We also followed a beaten up, homemade-looking Mazda pick-up, with no roof and no suspension for a little way. It was funny to watch its occupants bouncing around like mad with every little dip in the road, and the guy driving keept steering around the bigger bumps laugh.gif when they eventually turned off the road the poor guy had a heck of an effort to turn the steering wheel...no power steering either apparently.
We made good time home, unpacked the car and I started sorting and putting away. After a bit of that I unpacked the Ukelele and started to tune it. It took a little while to get it right because a) the strings were stretching and 2) I was using the pitch pipe and an online tuner to get it right and they didn't agree on the string notes sad.gif I started on the lessons online and was getting on really well, I've learnt how to strum a Uke properly and have learnt two of the main chords (D and F#) I'm starting to learn to read music, although it's not as straightforward as I would like, I will get it eventually. I am going to need to build up some serious calluses on my fingertips though, since after opnly 30 minutes of practise it felt like the tips of my fingers weher on fire. So 30 minutes practise a day until it stops hurting, then an hour everyday and we'll see how that goes. Once I'd had a bit of a play with the Uke, I decided to unpack my new bike (ostensibly to make sure the box went to the recycling) but then started actually putting it together. Mr Red came in to take part and we got it all assembled with very little in the way of actual work.
We took it outside and I had a bit of a ride around, it felt really strange, I haven't been on a bike for a number of years, I felt too close to the ground, a bit wobbly and as though the pedals were too close to the saddle. It makes a bit of a clicking noise when the left pedal goes down which is likely to be gear-related and the gears need some tweaking because the top and bottom are both really stiff, but it's great and exhilarating to be back in the saddle. Speaking of the saddle, my first investment will be one of those big padded seat covers, my bum just can't get on with those little skinny seats biggrin.gif I did get a bit puffed, but that is the point so I didn't feel bad.
So, my birthday forms the start of my new regime, I will be moderating my intake of meals, cutting out all snacking and keeping the drinking to a once a week thing apart from special occasions. I will be upping the ante on the exercise as well to help offset the fact that I know sometimes I will fall off the waggon. I'm not using the word diet because it freaks my brain out, just a change in habits, making sure I bring lunch everyday, starting to buy apples to eat if I need something mid-morning, keeping to my strict timings, no lunch before noon and no dinner before 6pm. I'm hoping that this will just speed up the weight loss without being too dramatic. Can't wait to get out and about on the bike though.
That said, there's a write-up of the birthday weekend behind the cut
That was such a brilliant weekend!!
Friday I got home in plenty of time, I got the house tidied up, bed made, dishes done and kitchen clean, packed a bag for both of us and loaded everything into the back of Gordon. Mr Red weas running late becasue his boss waltzed in at the last minute and had him start booking hotels in outer mongolia (or somewhere like that) for today!! Even so, we were on the road by 18:00 and it was a very nice drive south, the evening was warm and the sky was blue, and apart from a couple of hiccups due to absent signage we made very good time. By the time we arrived at the Bat & Ball, it was close to dark, and our first impression wasn't very inspiring, there were a lot of people in the pub, and there was very loud music from a violin/guitar duo, although the place looked nice enough and the people were friendly.
John showed us to our campsite, and we hurridly got pitched, it didn't take long , we packed all the food and overnight bag into the tent, put the chairs up outside and were pleased to discover that in the lower field we couldn't really hear the music, surrounded by trees, and as far away from the entrace to the field as we could be.
Once pitched, we headed for the pub, we bought pints of Sussex and found a seat outside to enjoy the warmth of the late evening, a smoke and a pint was very welcome, and we even realised we were enjoying the music from outside. You could still hear it quite well, there was quite an eclectic mixture, from "Paint it Black" to "Molly Malone" and all sorts in between, and we enjoyed a relaxing couple of hours before heading back to our tent for the night.
I was allowed to open my first birthday present when we were ready for bed (it was 00:34 on my birthday by now) and Mr Red had bought me a Saab Tax Disc holder, in fashionable black for Horace smile.gif I had been planning to buy one for myself so that was a lovely surprise. We both slept pretty well, warm as toast and dry as a bone, although we did get woken quite early by the kids from the tents around us. Fairly standard for camping, it's difficult to sleep in when you have no control over your surroundings. We got up and made a cup of tea to have with chocolate brioche for breakfast. I was allowed to open my second present from Mr Red which turned out to be a puppy in a box biggrin.gif I've been hassling Mr Red for a while about getting a puppy, and his comment has always been that in the house we're in now, the only puppy I'm getting is a dead puppy in a box!!
It was really nice, just chilling and reading our books, keeping the relaxation going. We hung out until we were both washed and dressed, then packed up a dew-dampened tent and packed up the car. The weather was gorgeous, the sky a beautiful blue
We drove to the next campsite, and again apart from a slight delay caused by heavy traffic on the Pevensey roundabout, it was a really nice trip, the sun was blazing and the sky only had a few white fluffy clouds in it. We got to the campsite and booked in, Fairfields farm has quite a nice location, it looks pretty urban from the front, but once you're into the site it's wide rolling hillside and seagulls. We had the option of any of the pitches without electrical hook ups, so we drove through the main campsite first, but it all looked really shoulder-toshoulder busy, there was maybe one pitch that we'd have been ok with, but we drove through to the overspill field and found the perfect spot. Right against the back of the field against the fenceline, with the fire blanket station on one side to stop anyone getting too close, we parked Gordon on the other side leaving us a goodly bit of privacy and got the tent pitched again. In that location it was dry again in no time with a nice breeze blowing along the field. We unpacked most of the stuff from the car and then got ready to go.
It only took about 30 minutes to drive from the campsite to St Leonards-on-sea, however, I'd not printed out a map (because I've been there before) and coming from the opposite direction to normal just completely threw me. We spent about half an hour turning around and trying new routes, until eventually we found the right road and arrived. Then the drama started. Beth & Simon had broken down at Clackett Lane services, their car wouldn't start and so Dad left Mum at Grandmas in Hastings and drove up to collect Beth & the boys while Simon got the car sorted out. It turned out he'd put petrol into the diesel tank, but surprisingly the car had been fine from their house near Oxford, all the way down the M40 to the M25. Dad brought Beth and the boys to AKays where we had arrived at about the same time, then went back to Grandmas to collect her, Mum and their chairs etc.
The party was lots of fun, I got to monster my two neffys quite thoroughly, Freddie is talking quite well now, although he still calls me "Auntie Namy" but it's sweet. All the family were there, including my cousin Richard and his wife Kate with their new baby James. We BBQ'd and ate a lot, drank more, had wonderful birthday cake, made smores over the hot coals and talked ourselves hoarse. I do enjoy all my family getting together, even though I don't always look forward to it beforehand.
Me and my boys, ready to blow out candles, Alex on your left, Freddie on your right:
Of course, during the party there was the inevitable present and card opening. I did amazingly well, the surprise massive present from Mr Red turned out to be a beautiful blue bicycle, all flat-packed and in a box.
I was totally overwhelmed, really not expecting that at all and it was a brilliant stroke of inspiration on his part. I also got Season 1 & 2 of "Allo Allo" on DVD. I've always loved that series and can't wait to own them all. My parents bought me my favourite perfume, "Romance" by Ralph Laurent, I can't usually afford to buy it for myself so I keep it to wear for special and ask for it as a present when I start to run low, my cousin Katie also bought me a Lush tin perfume called "Karma" which smells lovely, and Jenny bought me a lovely sunflower, which is a bit wilted after it's weekend in Gordon sad.gif hopefully we'll be able to revive it with the big drink I gave it last night when we got home, and some fishy water. I also got my Ukelele, and a book of "learn to play the Ukelele" which confused matters for a while since it's American, it labelled the strings differently and then gave all the chords and pitches different names sad.gif I have put it aside until I have a bit more of a clue, then I can practise the songs by reading the music and ignoring the finguring diagrams smile.gif Still brilliant though.
The cake was quite outstanding, AKay had it made by the woman across the road and asked her to "put a fish on it" this was the result:
Time passed very quickly, I managed to get some quiet time to have a go at my sister about her complete lack of communication, and we agreed that I would take a day off during the summer holidays and she will bring the boys to spend the day with me, visit our house, go into Stratford with me and catch-up generally. Before I knew, it was after 8pm, so we said our goodbyes and drove back to the campsite. We were back in time to see the sun go down and sat with our smokes and beers, looking out over the field, enjoying the peace and just being together. A thick mist started to creep across the field and stole over our tent and the overspill field, some when we'd finished our beers we packed up the chairs to keep them dry and got into the tent all snug and warm. I was asleep in no time, Mr Red tried to read for a bit but the lamp wasn't good enough so he turned it off and went to sleep.
Sunday we managed to sleep a little later, but only until just before 8am. We got up and put the kettle on, had a nice cup of tea and a slow wake up, we had Alpen bars for breakfast and then a bit of a read. The people next to us were hardened fisher and camper people, 4 of them had come back to their tent during the late evening of the night before, they sat up chatting for a bit and then went to bed. They'd got up really early to go fishing on Sunday morning before the sun came up and as we were starting to get dressed and think about packing up they got their tent down and left!! The weather was looking a bit changeable and since the tent had been soggy with mist and dew when we got up, we'd left it to dry out in the wind and sun as we were having breakfast and more tea, it was dry quite quickly so we decided to bag it up while the sun still shone rather than risk it getting wet, then we carried on sitting, chatting and watching the people around us packing themselves up. One big group of three families had every comfort conceivable, it must have taken them a full day to get everything set up. I hope they'd been there for a while to make it worth the effort, since they started packing up before we even got up on Sunday morning, and didn't drive away until we'd packed everything up, packed the car and were sitting having second breakfast!!
We decided to have a nice leisurely drive home, so we left at about 11:30 and made our way home. On the way we stopped at the Bernard arms for a sunday dinner, beer and a sit out in the garden.
While we were sitting there we heard the most amazingly loud revving sound and tunred around to watch a little old lady trying deperately to get her car turned around in the carpark to get back out onto the road. It was quite comical, she had her little old man sitting next to her and it must have taken 5 or 6 gos to get turned around, with lots of revving each time she took the handbrake off!! When she finally got out of the carpark, she turned towards Aylesbury and I said to Mr Red that we'd let her get on ahead a bit, to get through Aylesbury before we risked catching her up. We then drank our pints, leisurely ate our tasty dinner, finished our drinks, Mr Red had a smoke, we chatted briefly with the very smiley lady and then got back on the road. We both had to laugh outloud when we got to Aylesbury and ended up behind the same little old lady who still didn't seem to have much control over her car.
We also followed a beaten up, homemade-looking Mazda pick-up, with no roof and no suspension for a little way. It was funny to watch its occupants bouncing around like mad with every little dip in the road, and the guy driving keept steering around the bigger bumps laugh.gif when they eventually turned off the road the poor guy had a heck of an effort to turn the steering wheel...no power steering either apparently.
We made good time home, unpacked the car and I started sorting and putting away. After a bit of that I unpacked the Ukelele and started to tune it. It took a little while to get it right because a) the strings were stretching and 2) I was using the pitch pipe and an online tuner to get it right and they didn't agree on the string notes sad.gif I started on the lessons online and was getting on really well, I've learnt how to strum a Uke properly and have learnt two of the main chords (D and F#) I'm starting to learn to read music, although it's not as straightforward as I would like, I will get it eventually. I am going to need to build up some serious calluses on my fingertips though, since after opnly 30 minutes of practise it felt like the tips of my fingers weher on fire. So 30 minutes practise a day until it stops hurting, then an hour everyday and we'll see how that goes. Once I'd had a bit of a play with the Uke, I decided to unpack my new bike (ostensibly to make sure the box went to the recycling) but then started actually putting it together. Mr Red came in to take part and we got it all assembled with very little in the way of actual work.
We took it outside and I had a bit of a ride around, it felt really strange, I haven't been on a bike for a number of years, I felt too close to the ground, a bit wobbly and as though the pedals were too close to the saddle. It makes a bit of a clicking noise when the left pedal goes down which is likely to be gear-related and the gears need some tweaking because the top and bottom are both really stiff, but it's great and exhilarating to be back in the saddle. Speaking of the saddle, my first investment will be one of those big padded seat covers, my bum just can't get on with those little skinny seats biggrin.gif I did get a bit puffed, but that is the point so I didn't feel bad.
So, my birthday forms the start of my new regime, I will be moderating my intake of meals, cutting out all snacking and keeping the drinking to a once a week thing apart from special occasions. I will be upping the ante on the exercise as well to help offset the fact that I know sometimes I will fall off the waggon. I'm not using the word diet because it freaks my brain out, just a change in habits, making sure I bring lunch everyday, starting to buy apples to eat if I need something mid-morning, keeping to my strict timings, no lunch before noon and no dinner before 6pm. I'm hoping that this will just speed up the weight loss without being too dramatic. Can't wait to get out and about on the bike though.
