Being Auntie

Saturday was an interesting one.
The Rams were playing Bolton wanderers in a pre-season friendly and Ange had 4 tickets. I sort of waded in and suggested she take DD with the spare ticket and offered at the same time to babysit for DNiece. DD was on babysitting duty in the evening as they were all off out to celebrate Debz' birthday. (I opted not to go - maybe i will post about that at some time in the future)

I was a bit worried as DNiece can sometimes be very clingy to mum sometimes and as I don't see her as often as I would like I don't think she is totally comfortable with me but I needn't have worried. Having DS with me helped as she loves him and was quite happy playing on the slide with him. We had a little game of kicking the ball to each other and playing skittles with the Fruit shoot bottles then we went inside.

We played Pe-Po for a long time then while I was in the other room she fell asleep on the floor by the front door and that is where she stayed for the entirity of the footie so it meant I could more or less listen to the game on the radio. She woke up about 20 minutes before they came home and i have to say it was the easiest babysitting job I have had.

When they returned from the match (Derby won 2-0 by the way) DS and I made our way home as they were all getting ready to go out and I wanted my tea.

It was really weird that it was the second night this week that DS and I had been the only ones at home. Of course it should have been only me but for some reason DS didn't get a place at camp this year. That would have been really weird...
So I let DS stay up later and we watched Bring it on together...I have seen it loads of times but it is a really good movie and we seem to be having a bit of a season of Kirsten Dunst at the moment. Bring it on again which is the sequel is also surprisingly good although Kirsten isn't in that one.

Passing on my knowledge

I am so proud that DD has taken up my favourite pass-time of collecting autographs.

She received her very first reply this week to a letter that she sent to Actor Peter Wingfield.



It is made even more exciting by the fact that I was her age when I first started collecting.

I DID IT!!!!

Over the past 36 hours I have had next to no sleep at all and have been sat here cussing and fuming at stupid technology.

I bought a Netplug networking kit to try and put an end to all the fighting over who's turn it is on the computer all the time.

The box says you can be up and running in 10 minutes...YEAH RIGHT!!! After 12 hours of nothing and doing a system restore about 4 times I gave up whilst mumbling under my breath and swearing never to try again but you know me...Of course I had to have another go.

This afternoon while everyone was out I tried it again and God knows what I did because both computers are still saying it's not workig but I can get internet and MSN on the other PC in the dining room now so WOOHOO!!!

I did want to reformat that PC and put XP on it but after all that trouble I don't think I will bother now, it is fine as it is...

Burn baby burn

Every year I assure myself that I don't need sun cream yet every year I end up in agony.
Last year I went to Rhyl to see James Fox in a summer festival and came home burned all down one side of my body.

On Sunday, I went out with the family to the annual Co -op Fun day at my local park. For years we have been going to it. For the first 5 years or so I would be up at the crack of dawn on the Sunday morning to help fetch and carry and set up the Gazeebo. Since the kids left infants though and I have drifted away from the school I have been able to go down there and relax and have fun with the kids.

There was lots of rides and stalls for DNephew to spend his mum and dad's money. He dragged DS on the fun house and on the bouncy slide and on some other ride. DNeice was very happily sleeping in her buggy for most of the afternoon but when she woke she was over the moon with the new cuddlies that Ange and Debz had won for her.

There was also an arena where lots of activities took place.
There was the Stannage family. Young Aaron Stannage who is only 10 years old jumped his motorbike over a ramp and then over his mother. His dad Mark Stannage then set himself alight before jumping from a great height.
Then there was Bob Hogg and his sheepdog that likes to round up ducks and DNeice's favourite which was the Battling Cumberland Giants. She was clapping and cheering along (Until some very rude people came and stood in front of her.

We left eventually as it was just too hot and everyone's leg/feet were aching.

So I got home to find that I have burnt my arms and my forehead and nose and worst of all the top of my head which makes it very painful for brushing my hair.

It was a great day out though and I love spending so much time with my family...It should be like that more often!!!

School's out for Summer

Friday the kids broke up from school for the 6 weeks holidays.
It has been fantastic weather over the last few weeks but today the storms came.
I had arranged to go see DN in his last swimming session as I always wondered what they did in play lessons. (besides, Ange still had my phone and I wanted it back)
It was as hot and humid as it has been which made walking to town really hard.
After swimming, we went and stood in the foyer of the sports centre and that is when the heavens opened. There was crashes of thunder and the lightening lit up the sky. We weren't going anywhere...
We waited for about 20 minutes but the storms weren't letting up. We all decided to just brave it and go. So we got drenched just walking to the top of town - You can imagine that by the time we arrived back home we were absolutely soaked to the skin.

The storms lasted about 2 hours and now it is just as hot and sticky as it was before the storms.
Good news is at least the children will have some great weather for at least a small part of the summer.

Twinkle, Twinkle little star

Another chance for me to get all soppy and show off how proud of my children I am...

Last night was the school concert, We wouldn't normally bother with these things as it is a long trek up to school at that time of night but I was glad to go as DS was playing his Clarinet. I also invited Ange & Debz along and even DNephew came too.
As you know it was absolutely Scorchio last night and I had already changed clothes twice so it was a rush to get my clothes washed and dried and I wanted to leave in plenty of time so as not to have to walk too fast otherwise I knew I would be soaked and uncomfortable again.

There wasn't a very big turn out to watch but it wasn't really surprising as although there is lots of bands and musical groups, they more or less consist of the same few children.

The precedings were started as always with the school Steel band. I say as always as they are the school's pride and joy. They are well known in the city and have a great repuation. Most of DD's friends are in the Steel band but I think that has a lot to do with the fact that it was started the year they started at the school so who knows what they will do when this lot leave the school.



DS' first appearance came half way through the first half when he took part in the woodwind band playing the school Ballad (which was written by the music teacher) and the Gypsy dance.


There was a 20 minute interval so peeps could re-hydrate and go for wee/smoke breaks. During the first half we had also been treated to piano solos, guitar, Violin solos and the school choir.

The second half began again with teh Steel band and then before the woodwind section came out again, the teacher called out DS to the stage. I was quite surprised as he stood up there all on his own and played a superb solo piece - Twinkle Twinkle little star - He was very nervous but he was excellent. I had a big lump in my throat at that time and when he finished he got a great round of applause and some cheers and whistles too. I know that would have done hin the power of good as sometimes he just has no confidence in himself at all.

There was a bit more choir and guitar and the whole thing was finished off as it started with the Steel band and their signature tune which is the school song again written by the teacher himself.

We came away at about 8.30 and it was a lot cooler walking home than it was walking up there.

Guard the boat, mind the tide... don't touch my dirt

I promised myself that once i got some money this month I would treat the kids and take them to the pictures as a reward for what an excellent year they have had. I also promised that I would not be tight and I would push the boat out and buy actual Cinema popcorn (Without having a mental breakdown when I saw the price of it)

It was a bit hard to get organised as DS had an opticians appointment at 4.20 and I knew that if he had to have new glasses then we might not make it. I also had to negotiate getting DD home before 6 without giving the surprise away.
DS did have to have new glasses but they wouldn't be ready in the usual 1 hour so luckily we were out of there by 5pm. When I got home I rang DD and told her she had to come home.

We got to the cinema in time for the 7pm showing of...Yes you guessed it...Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.




It took me a whole year to watch the first film as we had watched half of it at Shona's house when we stayed there in 2004 for MML but we didn't get to watch the rest of it until much later when I was able to borrow it from a friend. So this time I decided we were going to watch the entire film altogether.

Before you ask, YES I did nearly have a coronary when I found that 1 bag of regular Popcorn is £3.55!!!! I had promised though so I gritted my teeth as I passed the cash over to the cashier. A whole McDonalds Value meal costs less than that, No wonder people prefer to take their own treats to the cinema these days.

The movie was fantastic. I thought it was a lot funnier than the first. Johnny Depp has to one of the greatest actors of today. I absolutely love Captain Jack Sparrow! You do forget that it is even Johnny under there.

Of course, after we see a movie I always ask the obligatory question of which is your favourite scene and we were unanimous on our answer this time. It had to be the Water wheel scene - in fact the whole of that sequence with the chest and the heart.

Pintel: [watching Norrington, Will and Jack fight whilst Elizabeth is screaming] How'd this go all screwy?
Ragetti: Well, each man wants the chest for hisself, don't 'e? Mr Norrington, I think, is trying to regain a bit of honor. Old Jack's looking to trade it, save his own skin. And Turner there-I think 'e's trying to settle some unresolved business twix him and his twice-cursed Pirate father.

I also loved the swinging cage scene too.

I couldn't believe it when the credits rolled though and DD said it was 9.45pm I knew the movie was a bit longer but I didn't realise it was that long. We stayed through the credits though because on Radio 1 entertainment news they had said there is a scene at the end so we waited and waited and those of you did the same will know what we were rewarded with for staying. The people sitting behind us had heard me say about the scene at the end and so they stayed too but weren't too happy LOL!

When we got out of the cinema it was getting dark but it was still so warm. We decided that we would walk back home and get some food from a local take-away.

It was well after 11pm when the kids finally got to bed but it was well worth it.

One Year on

Well what a milestone this is.
It was One whole actual year ago that I posted my first ever Blog entry.

What a year it has been and as I read through previous entries - What a load of tripe I have written on some occasions. Sometimes I wonder why I do bother but there have also been some great memories some good laughs and a lot of tears shed.

I don't want to Babble on as it is just way too hot to sit here tapping away on my keyboard but I want to thank everyone who has stuck with me. I have a few regular readers that I want to say hello to and I want to say congratulations for sitting through all the crap that appears on these pages from time to time.

As summer is upon us the blog is going to be more dis-jointed than normal as I fight it out with the kids to get on the PC at all but hopefully there will be a few exciting adventures to tell you about and maybe a few interesting piccies if I can get the actual camera to work...

Stop delivering these letters to me

For a while now I have been getting these letters that are addressed to someone else.
At first I just returned them straight away but I realised that the postcode is wrong and is actually the code for the opposite side of the street. So as the IR aren't getting it that this person DOESN'T LIVE HERE, I am now considering actually knocking on all the doors across the road to see if I can find the right person.
Ridiculous that they don't know their own address though...I also got a few letter for someone else with the same Postcode so someone is obviously really mixed up.

Going for Gold

It's that time of year again when all the children donn their PE kits and have a go at School Sports day.
DS opted not to take part this year but DD was put forward to compete for their house in the Shot Putt.
How proud do you think I was when she brought home her Gold medal?!!!
She won points for her house too and the house was the overall winner at the Sports day.
An excellent end to the year if you ask me what with her getting a level 7 in her maths SATs too

Must try harder

Well I have done my first actual radio show review for JKandJoel.net.
I was covering the Tuesday Drivetime show and you can find it here.

It was bloody hard work though. I never realised how hard it would be and I am not sure if I am up to the job for Thursday...I definitely think I need to try harder next time. It is hard to be honest and informative at the same time.
Maybe after I have had a few goes I will be ok...Let's hope eh?!

My reward for switching

Remember ages ago when I got so mad with British gas that I switched suppliers there and then?
Well the other day I recieved a check for £12.50 from Energyhelpline.com
just for using them to switch..It was a very big and very welcome surprise I can tell you!!!
So you should pop across and see if you can save any money at all by using them to switch. They have a great comparrison for fuel suppliers as well phone and broadband suppliers too.

Additions to the website

I have now added an Astrology page for all kinds of lovely little things including your Daily horoscope, Chinese astrology, Palmistry, Numerology and even a neat little Love compatibility test.

Check it out here

An evening out for a Proud Mummy

Friday night was presentation evening at school and to my surprise, I received an invitation to attend, through the post. I wasn't surprised that one of my children was getting an award, I was surprised as I didn't know they had a presentation evening.

The presentation itself was at 7pm but the evening was to begin at 6pm with a buffet and drinks.

We arrived alittle before 6pm and I was glad we did as it meant that we could grab ourselves a table. Later arrivals just had to stand precariously around the room. I was so relieved that I had decided not to dress up as there weren't many people dressed up and it was way too hot for that.

They had the School Steel band playing (Don't they always) and we were enjoying it so much that the Assistant Head had to come and tell people that the food was there for the taking. Of course DS didn't waste any time and was front of the queue.
There was 100 pupils and their families and masses of food. There were also glasses of wine for the adults and orange juice for the children. After DS came back with his mountain of food, DD and I went to get some food too. There was so much to choose from like little cheese sandwiches; sausage rolls; cheesy rolls; pizza; mini quiches; tuna sandwiches; egg and cress sandwiches; little salad cobs; cucumber sticks; carrot sticks; cauliflour; broccoli; other raw veggies; chicken nuggets; vegetable nuggets; onion bajis and then there was a huge plate of little cream cakes of all varieties as well as a huge basket of fruit.

We sat down with our huge plates of food and listened to the band. At this point I suddenly felt very lonely. Lots of people were milling about chatting to other parents and I didn't know anyone. I did spot someone that I know. Her daughter was in the year between DD & DS but they were all in the same gang at infants school. We always used to walk to and from school together and they only live in the next street yet I haven't seen her for over a year. I kept trying to catch her eye and eventually managed to catch her as we were walking into the hall.

We took our seats and the presentation was immediately underway. DS was 3rd and they were speeding through it, I didn't even get a chance to clap him as he went up as I was too intent on making sure I could get a picture. There was a big massive screen in the corner (Which reminded me of being at a football match) and as the child came up to the stage their name and the award information came up on the screen. Unfortuantely I didn't get to photograph that as it was so quick. As I mentioned earlier, there were 100 children receiving awards so it went on for quite a bit but I knew quite a few of the children so that was nice that I could at least applaude other children I knew.



The guest speaker for the evening was Alan Brown. He is a former pupil at the school and is now known for being the executive producer on such shows as The Apprentice and Dragons Den to name but 2.
Even I found him very inspirational as he talked about his time at the school including a story about Brian Clough which brought a tear to my eye. He went on to tell about how he ended up working for the BBC and a small event which happened at school which mapped out his whole future for him. I was quite emotional and excited at the end of his talk.
When Alan finished, he was asked if he would do the big unveiling of the plaque to officially open the new hall as they have recently had it refurbished.

Drive-by plug

So I have been a little distracted the past few days and haven't been posting as I should.
The fact is that I promised to get my site re-launched by the 1st of this month and I was nowhere near getting it finished. Bloody coding issues and the fact that it looked great in firefox and crap in Internet Explorer.

Anyway, it is half done so if you wanna look at it the address is www.freewebs.com/jembieram
I am trying to get myself a domain name, I even bought one but having trouble getting it directed at the site itself, think I have been conned to be honest...

There are lots of new features on there, Daily laughter column, Daily recipe with a main and a dessert, 2 free ecards pages where you can send as many as you want (Please do that as I could earn money from it ;-) ) There are also 2 t-shirt/Gift stores (As well as my JembieCreations store) one is a random store with all sorts of designs for just about any tastes and the other is a specially selected Summer store. Oh and don't forget my daily updated celebrity news pages.

Still to come is CD and DVD stores as well as a little general shopping portal to cover anything you could possibly want.

More updates to come.

Thank You!!!!

I can walk again

I haven't mentioned this before as I didn't think that anyone would want to know but for the first half of this year I have been practically crippled by a huge verruca on the middle of my foot. The doc refused to do anything because he said that the location of it would mean they would make it worse.

I tried some of that Watner stuff that cost £12 and was supposed to freeze it off but it did nothing.

So a couple of weeks ago I bought some Scholl verruca gel just out of sheer desperation.
HOORAY!!!!! it worked. The horrible painful little bugger has now completely gone and I can walk again. It is going to save me a hell of a lot of money in bus fares although now I can't use it as an excuse when I don't want to go out...

Hot! Hot and even hotter

Saturday was the school Summer fair. It was very hot and there was the England game to look forward to but I wanted to go up and support DS as he was performing in a little drama display. He also had some artwork displayed that I wanted to go and see.

I got up there a little later than planned as I had gone to draw some cash out the ATM and there was none there. Iwasn't happy so I came home again to find out why.

I was a little disappointed with the fair as last year they had a huge field full of stalls and events but this year there was hardly anything.
It had been Enterprise week at school and there were lots of projects that the children had made themselves with a little competition to see which group can make the most money.

There was a book stall; a stall selling little handmade bugs; a cake and biscuit stall; A basketball game; a jewelry stall; a couple of tombolas and a barbeque.

I stayed to watch DS in his little play but It was so hot I just couldn't cope with it anymore plus the added fact that it isn't fun just wandering around on your own with no money and being eaten alive by midges.

I took a slow walk home in time for kick-off

They think it's all over...yada yada yada

I could post a whiny "Why we lost" entry or a moany "Bloody England" entry but I am not.
Along with most of the country I was hiding behind my cushion as our boys stepped up for the penalties but I guess it just wasn't to be.

They played like heroes in the second half with 10 men. Well done to Owen Hargreaves for being the only player to play like he meant it and the only 1 to score from the penalty spot...My new fave England player from now on!!!

The worst thing for me about when England go out of a tournament or when England lose a match even is that now for the next 6 weeks they will be tearing the whole thing to pieces analysing every little thing about it. The media won't be able to move on, they can never let it lie. Right up until the next tournament they will be picking at the team when they should just be looking forward.

I am not looking forward to Moyles in the morning so maybe I will find some other breakfast show for the next few days.