Monday 28 January 2013

My week

Last week has been busy, on Tuesday I started an art class at the parish centre of the church were my mum goes. She has been going for years to it and its something that I have been interested in. They use lots of different art mediums and this week we were using acrylics to do a colour wheel by mixing the 3 primary colours, it helped me to understand more about mixing colours and different shades and tones. I really enjoyed it and I'll be going again tomorrow.
On Wednesday I had a go at mixing colours, so I drew out the picture of Max I had done again and tried mixing the exact colours needed for it. I had a go but I think I'm a bit better at drawing than painting, but I don't think it's too bad for a first go.

On Friday at work we had some people from 'Wild wings - birds of prey' who came to school to do a talk about owls and show us some, I just as excited as the children! When they asked whether any of the staff wanted to hold one I nearly jumped off my seat to do it! I held a Barn owl called Ella. She was beautiful, when you stroked her feathers on her chest she nibbles your finger with her beak, she sort of nuzzled into your finger. They also got her to fly from one side of the room to the other she was so graceful. They also had a tawny owl, an European eagle owl, a spectacled owl and a scops owl.

On Friday after work my mum came around for tea and ended up getting stranded here because of the snow we hadn't realised how much it was sticking by the time we went out it was about 6 inches high, we tried to drive her back but the car was sliding around so we had a sleep over!
By Saturday it had stopped and we were able to take mum home and go sledging!

And today I started a yoga class...who knew yoga was so hard!







Monday 21 January 2013

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

It's been snowing this week so what better time to go for long walk up Pendle Hill in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire.
We found a circular walk starting from the picturesque village of Barley on www.trekkingbritain.com, it is a five mile walk with an ascent of 330 metres.
The weather was light snowfall and there was quite a lot of snow on the paths too so we bought some cheap ice grips that you put over your shoes these helped a little bit but not that much, Matthew lost one of them completely and all the studs off the other one, he also slipped twice. I on the other hand didn't fall but did slip a bit.
We walked firstly along the side of lower and higher Ogden reservoirs then up towards the top of the hill. Then we slowly and gradually climbed the hill to the top. We saw some people who were on there way down who advised us to wrap up because the wind was bitter up there! They weren't wrong we stopped just after to have a quick drink of coffee from the flask and a piece of homemade chocolate brownie it tasted so good. We put or heads down and carried on walking up the hill. We couldn't see the top so we just kept assuming that it was just over the next brow, we felt a bit nervous not really knowing how far we had to go the snow was getting deeper and the wind was stronger. The only thing that was stopping us from turning around and going back was that we could see other people ahead of us.
As we reached the top and we spotted the triangulation point on the summit the wind was knocking me sideways and the right side of my face was numb and the snow was stinging my eyes but we made it! Unfortunately there was not a great view from the top but it was a great sense of achievement.
As we set down the hill along some very steep and slippery steps the wind eased a bit and we could see the view of white fields and the reservoirs we had walked past. It was beautiful. The walk then led us back into the village were we went to the Pendle Inn pub in Barley for our tea. Despite the cold we really enjoyed the walk, we want to go back when we can go actually see where we are going!







Thursday 17 January 2013

January blues

Last Monday I was back at work and looking forward to it, the good thing about working in a school is your never too far off your next holiday and the holidays you get are good enough that when its time to come back I am ready for it, unfortunately all over Christmas I have been fighting off a bad cold and come the end of my day on Tuesday I felt so ill with flu like symptoms, headache, aching and high temperature, so I had to be off work because I felt so bad on Wednesday and Thursday I went back Friday because I felt loads better but I still have the cold! It's horrible I can't seem to get rid of it.
It's not just being ill that gets me down this time of the year it's everything, the weather is cold and miserable, the days are still relatively short, when I take max out in the morning it's so dark it's like the middle of the night and my thoughts turn to spring and summer and holidays and that's stressful, because I have in my head all these things I want to do but trying to plan and to make them into a reality is hard.
On Sunday we woke late which put me in a bad mood straight away because I felt like we wasted the weekend but we took Max out for a walk just around longsight park near us and it really did do me good to get out I felt loads better and it started to snow, it didn't last very long but it made everything look pretty for a while.
I need to keep reminding myself of my resolution to make the most of every day and to try new things and this is what I've managed so far:
1. Read 'One Day' by David Nicholls (which I've been meaning to do for months!)
2. Watched 'The Hobbit' at the Cinema (which we were supposed to see over Christmas)
3. Did some drawings of Max

but I don't think January will ever be my favourite month of the year... Oh well roll on summer!



Wednesday 2 January 2013

2012 and My New Years resolution for 2013

Last January I was feeling depressed that our first go at IVF had failed I didn't feel like anything in my life was moving forward. I don't know what happened but sometime in February we started to do more things, plan activities for the weekends it probably came from trying to take our minds off things, but we started to feel better and soon after this we made the decision to have one more try at IVF even tho this time it would cost us £3500, luckily and very kindly Matt's parents paid for it, this time we decided that we would wait and do it in the summer holidays this meant I didn't have to take any time off from work and it was less stressful.
In the meantime we continued having fun doing walks, visiting new places and camping. In August we had IVF and it failed again, it was upsetting but we had to make a decision we could carry on trying but have no kind of life scrimping and saving and it might still never work or we could make the most of what we've got and actually it had been pretty good just the two of us.
Then shortly afterwards we said we'd look after my sisters dog, Max who we ended up keeping and I cannot tell you how much he's changed our lives he gets us out, he's waiting when we get home and its lovely to have something to care for.
2012 has been the best year for a lot of reasons most of all realising that what we have isn't all that bad after all. In the words of one of my favourite films 'It's a wonderful life!'
As well as all that its been the best year to be British with the diamond jubilee, the Olympics and the Paralympics it's been amazing, 2013 has a lot to live upto!

I want to make sure that in 2013 I make the most of every opportunity. I want to make sure that every weekend I do something note worthy that I can put in my blog. It doesn't have to be out somewhere, it could be a craft that I wanted to do, a book that I have read, a recipe that I have tried but most of all I want to do new things.
Here are some of the things I'd like to do:
Travel
Camping
Knitting
Walks
Hiking
Climbing
Swimming
Cycling
Body boarding
Cross stitch
Crocheting
Crafting
Baking new things
Cooking new things