A wiser woman

Well yesterday was a whole lot better than I thought it would be. The two guys running the 'Speed Awareness' course were great and extremely informative and helpful.
I got caught on a fixed camera in a classic situation. Entering a town/village, down hill, round bend - camera! I was stranger to the area and watching for road direction signs while trying to keep up a conversation with my American guest, just picked up from Bristol Airport. So demands on my concentration were high, and speed limit signs were lower down on the list. The double flash got my attention OK and I was there at 36pmh in a 30 zone :( Guilty!
Fortunately attending the course avoids getting the penalty points on my licence and the knock on effect of carrying them for 3 years, affecting insurance premiums. Attending this course is only an option on first offence on a clean licence, and will not be offered again for 3 years, so any more offences will incur the penalties.
It took me about 1 hr 35 mins going and 1 hr 45 mins coming home as I stuck religiously to the limits LOL I had to drive to Taunton for it as the courses are held in the area the offence occurs. Let that be a warning to all who travel around. Especially if you live in East Anglia and get caught on camera in Cornwall! Or live in Hampshire and get caught in Scotland! You may then choose to take the points as courses are not held at weekends and taking time off work, plus the travel could add up to an expensive day out.

I got home in plenty of time to get to the pub for the quiz. We ate dinner there first, then settled down for the quiz. Mike, who runs it, had changed the format and it threw many of us. We managed to pick our worst round for the joker so threw away 8 points as a result! It was not our night and we finished an ignominious 8th place. We really struggled with the picture round and did not bother submitting the music quiz sheet as it was so bad. So we slunk home with no money AND no chocolate *sob*. The pub was packed too. The final insult was a relatively new team won the 'Play Your Cards Right' type game. The Jackpot was up to £250 but thankfully they stopped before the final card and took £200 offered by Mike. At least it means the new jackpot starts at £50+ rather than £10.
I slept like a log last night. Had a busy day :)

Today is the delivery day for my new pc with a delivery slot time of 7am - 6pm :( I got Jen to wake me up early so I was awake at 7 and up and dressed by 10 past. *yawn* Not used to being up and about at this hour - well I am retired and don't often need to be up and around that early. I'd definitely find it tough to get back into 'work mode' if I had to work.

My dry mouth is reminding me I need a coffee. Not had one yet this morning :( I am nothing without a large coffee. I use a pint mug in the morning :) saves coming back for a second mugful until much later :)

Have a good day today whatever you have planned. xx

Soft rabbit

The rabbit stew was delicious. I got carried away watching X factor and wasn't watching the time so it had about an hour longer than I intended LOL but the meat just fell off the bones. It was scrummy! I have another 2 meals left in the pot :)

When you coming over Chris?

I'm a bunny boiler!

It's on! The rabbit stew is smelling delicious. Onions, carrots, leeks, a whole rabbit (jointed) all simmering away in a big pot, flavoured with Knorr stock cubes and some herbs.  Even the dog is sniffing the air and licking her lips, although none is destined for her dish. The rabbits are fresh caught on local farms, snared at the burrows. At least I don't have to worry about shot pellets :-)
I went shopping earlier to get new suet cake holders, and stock up on suet cakes. This time I am reinforcing the holders with wire to help stop the squirrels nicking it again. I will put the new one up in the morning as I need daylight to do it.
Tomorrow will be interesting. A little while ago I got caught on a speed camera near Bristol and I am attending a 'speed awareness' course in Taunton of all places tomorrow. This is instead of getting points on my licence and worth it to keep it clean. Only trouble is it's going to take me about 1.5-2 hours to get there. I'll be looking out for speed cameras on the way LOL I hope I'll be back in time for the pub quiz in the evening.

Shhh don't tell anyone but I am enjoying the X Factor. I love Matt, Mary and Rebecca although I expect Mary to finish 4th or 5th. I think Matt will win, with One Dimension second and Rebecca third, but we'll see how it all pans out nearer Christmas. I just pray Wagner does not win.
On the other hand I cannot stand 'I'm a celebrity' - it is 'reality tv' at its very worst as far as I'm concerned. I think I'd prefer unknowns to do it, Big brother style, or not at all!
I was surprised and delighted about a week ago to see two pipistrelle bats swooping around my house and my neighbour's at dusk. I have no idea where they are roosting, could even be in my attic as one of the small fillets in my fascias has come loose. I hope so! I love bats! I will leave them well alone.

Almost time for Strictly Come Dancing - don't care who wins, I just love the costumes.
I hope you have a good week ahead. xx

Jeanette... was that chorizo in the hole? or English sausages? You are in Spain - it should be paella! ;-)

I was robbed!

It was there when I went out. Came home and it was gone. Stolen. I checked all round the garden in case the thief had dropped it but not a sign. It could have been two of them! I've seen them lurking around, checking out the safe times to attempt the theft. Now I'll have to go buy a new one :( I know the thieves - both of them, bright eyes, bushy tails, and smart grey fur! Squirrels have nicked my suet cake holder, along with the nearly new suet cake in it! The tits will be hungry. I'll have to go get a new one tomorrow before they stop calling.
I have a lonely sunday ahead of me - no James coming to lunch. He's off to London for the day!
At least I won't have to cook sausages and mash! I might 'treat' myself to a frozen roast chicken dinner for one! really push the boat out! LOL
Or maybe have my rabbit with loads of veggies, onions, leeks, carrots, swede. Let it stew for a few hours until tasty and tender.
I hope you enjoy your sunday. If you spend it with friends or family, enjoy their company and give them a hug before you part. xx

Oh my aching legs

Last night was just brilliant. We had a full house, even had to bring in extra chairs. Vin Garbutt was the star, a unique performer, not the best voice in the world, but what a presence and personality, and such a genious song writer. His stories had us in fits of laughter. Supporting him was Nigel Waite, a local singer-songwriter who writes from his heart and beautifully. The phone has not stopped ringing all week with people desperate to get tickets at the last minute and one or two getting cross when told we were sold out. If you are that desperate to see someone then book early! We only have a small venue, and even great big theatres and concert halls have a limit as to how many seats they have. When they are sold they are sold.

I am only just getting moving and feel a bit stiff and achey today. I have a car full of sound gear to deliver back to John's soon. Just need one more coffee! The dog was very good and managed to hold on from 6pm until I got home 12.15 am. I think she was a bit fed up with being left alone so long and I had to spend 15 minutes making a fuss of her and playing with her before we headed to bed. We both slept well.

Have a good weekend whatever you're up to xx

that's MADAM Chairman to you!

Today was weird and vanished in a puff of wind (knew I should not have had baked beans again!) Did some emptying out and clearing out, making space to get desk out of Jen's room and make space for it in the lounge. I then thought of popping over to John's to use his PC while he slept (night shift this week) That did not go too well, struggled to get flyer updated and did not get round to printing tickets :-(
Came home and took Honey walkies. Wet with big puddles everywhere but managed to arrive just after a heavy shower and got back to the car just as first spots of next one arrived. It was very wet underfoot.
I did a quick shop at Tesco Express on way home so there was something in the fridge for Jen to cook/heat up for herself when she got home. She was coming home after I'd gone out. Passing ships syndrome! She'll probably be off to work before I surface in the morning and she's off to Salisbury straight  from work so I won't see her again until Sunday night.

Tonight I was in the chair for Wimborne Folk Club. It's a singaround/anything goes night. Everyone is welcome, to listen, sing, play an instrument, read a poem or tell a joke. I forgot my bag with my poems in, so I told a few bad jokes instead. We had a nice mix of performers and had a great evening.

Probably won't have time to blog Friday so see you Saturday xx

Late Wednesday and struggling

We went out Monday night and I forgot to turn off the pc before I went. Oh BTW we came third in the pub quiz, just short of the prize money. However we did win 2 lots of chocolate.
When we got back, Jen went to plug in her iPod to recharge it and found the pc with the black start up screen showing devices - the one you get before windows starts up. I switched off and back on and it did the same thing - it could not see the hard drive :( I have taken it to a very nice man who said he will do what he can to retrieve the hard disk  data but it might be the drive that's gone kaput *sob* All my folk club stuff is on there - mailing list, web site pages, posters, tickets etc. Plus all the fok festival stuff for the programme, website and flyer. If I've lost all that I am in deep doo-doo. Hours of work. Not to mention thousands of photos. Didn't I take a back up? well funnily enough last week I bought a 500 gig plug in drive for that exact purpose. But it's still in it's box *more sobbing*
The good news is that Christmas has come early (YAYYY) and next Tuesday sees the arrival of my new PC. It's an all singing all dancing hi spec gaming machine. 1 Tb hard drive 4 meg Ram, dual core processor, Nvidia graphics. It's Win 7 so will take some getting used to. My old pc's are Win Xp . I've skipped Vista LOL.

However there is the thorny problem of siting the new PC. I had planned and reserved a corner of the lounge for the desk, currently taking up too much space in Jen's tiny bedroom, destined to be the home of the PC I was going to buy for Christmas. However there are 2 things standing in the way of that arrangement. 1 we can't get the desk out of Jen's room - too much stuff on it and around it right now - so major clear out needed there. 2 I have stacked boxes of sorted out stuff into the empty corner of the lounge so that will have to be shifted to make room for the desk LOL so the next few days will be busy. It's a bit like those sliding squares puzzles, you need an empty space before you can start shuffling the bits around. So first step is to create a space! Easier said than done in my house - our new by-word is DE-CLUTTER! But we're not very good at it :( How am I writing this blog? I'm using the crap old slow PC I had virtually abandoned in my bedroom. I've managed to get it connected to the internet and it's working, but a little temperamental.
I love this blog site because it auto saves every 2 minutes so if this pc decides to do one of it's random auto restarts I won't have lost anything!

Today was a sh.t day weatherwise with rain in varying intensities all day, and gusting winds. It wasn't too cold but very depressing. A good duvet day - except my dog beat me too it! She spent most of the day on MY bed curled up in a nest made from MY duvet - spoilt dog? oh yes :) but she is a greyhound and feels the cold and hates getting wet (apart from racing through puddles!)

Now it's Thursday and I need my bed. Someone is warming it up for me :-D
no - not some hunky man (shame!) - just Honey hoping I'm not coming to bed at all tonight!
Night night all xx
PS thanks for comment on last blog Jeanette - I've replied