I forgot to mention that last night I bought some wool and a pattern and am now in the process of knitting a cushion cover. It sounds a little artsy-craftsy but trust me it will look cool. I've done 15 rows and that's after ripping out my first four because I forgot how to knit and I had been doing a stitch that was a cross between a knit and a purl!

Dream Catch Me

I have a whole weekend of freedom! I really probably shouldn't but I never get anything done at the weekend anyway and we have a staff day on Monday, so I can do Tuesday's work on Monday night. So, a guilt-free weekend of fun! I've already started it off well by going out to Springsteens tonight. Where we took random black-and-white photographs. I can't put them up here because I left my camera lead somewhere else!

THE EXTENT OF MY WEEKNIGHT SOCIAL LIFE...

This is one of those rare occasions where I have time to actually go out of the house and go to the library to use the internet! Last night I got to Tesco so I'm beginnning to think I'm much more relaxed than I was a month ago. I've just finished Friends series 4 so I'm stuck for something to watch while having my dinner - oh dear well maybe I'll be able to concentrate better on my food...

My weeknight social life consists of trips to the garage and tesco, sending emails and texts...that's about it really at the moment!

Hope you're all well and don't all object to my 'seductive' tea drinking post!

Old Pictures

I found a couple of pictures of me on people's Facebook profiles so I just thought I'd post them up here. A bit vain I know. But maybe not because the 80s attire I wore to Sarah's hen night isn't all that flattering!

















I Love Tea!














Sarah is embarrassed by the childhood photos all around her friend's kitchen...maybe!













A picture of a person taking a picture of a person taking a picture of a person taking a picture of a person taking a picture... you could go on!

I also act my age! How flukey is that! Note to Dermo: am therefore obviously not immature.

You Are 22 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

You Should Be a Teacher

You are patient, optimistic, and good at explaining things. You work well with all types of people, and you are a good role model. Success and positive outcomes are extremely important to you. You are both a good leader and instructor. People look up to and depend on you. You do best when you: - Can see the results of your work - Are able to teach someone a new skill You would also be a good nurse or non fiction writer.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

Well, whaddyaknow? I actually couldn't have fixed this - it was one of those random choose the picture that appeals to you most kind of quizzes!

Your Driving Is is: 82% Male, 18% Female

According to studies, you drive like a typical male. You're reckless, aggressive, and see driving as a game. And while you like to live on the edge a little, you still know how to drive safely.

Do You Drive Like a Guy or a Girl?

In 1985 (the year you were born)

Ronald Reagan is president of the US Live Aid, a 17 hour rock concert broadcasts worldwide from London and Philadelphia, raising $70 million for starving Africans An 8.1 magnitude earthquake hits Mexico City and results in about 25,000 deaths Vocano "Nevada del Ruiz" erupts near Bogota, Columbia causing mud slides that bury two towns American Jew Jonathan Pollard is arrested for giving military secrets to Israel Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader New Coke is released on the 99th anniversary of Coca-Cola The GNU Manifesto first written by Richard Stallman Kansas City Royals win the World series San Francisco 49ers win Superbowl XIX Edmonton Oilers win the Stanley Cup Back to the Future is the top grossing film Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis is published David Lee Roth leaves Van Halen to begin a solo career "Careless Whisper" by Wham! spends the most time at the top of the US charts Elmo is introduced on Sesame Street The Golden Girls and Growing Pains premiere

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

~Wedding Bells~

Yesterday I was at Louise and Stephen's wedding! It was a lovely day, they didn't get any rain and everybody looked stunning! I really enjoyed being there and spent most of the evening up on the dance floor. Unfortunately I brought with me a camera with a dead battery and so I don't have any photos but I'll hopefully get some off somebody else. (Note to self: don't do this again - always remember camera and always charge up the battery.)

While I had a lovely day, it was also a momentus and scary occasion in two ways. First of all, Louise is the first of my childhood friends to get married. Not the first of my peers, but if you take for example Rachel and Statto, I've only really been friendly with Rachel for about 4 or 5 years. I've known Louise at least since we were about 3 if not in creche before that!!! And now she's married! The second reason I was talking with Tim about yesterday was that she is the first of our age group in Campaigners also to get married. I wonder who will be next??? Watch this space (and no that doesn't mean it's going to be me, I just mean I'll post about whoever is next!)

Shine

Not to be left out, I thought I'd better jump on the bandwagon and post about my little bit of graffitti in the dust on the church piano also mentioned on Dermo and Elia's blogs! I never thought it would attract so much attention as I doodled during a Thicket practice over a year ago but I guess no-one else has played that piano with the lid up either in the past year which is why the boys had to photograph it when they found it!!!

Also attracting my own attention today was the new BBC2 teen drama Falcon Beach. I didn't really mean to watch it although I was wondering if it was the new one meant to be based on Friends when it came on. But about five minutes into the programme I thought the scenery looked similar to Winnipeg Beach, a place I visited with Rebecca when I was in Canada! Checking the TV Times I read that it was based in Canada but was supposed to be a seaside town. Other little things seemed familiar and even the licence plates looked like Manitoban ones. Then I saw the church and I looked back to my pictures and it was the same church. Same boardwalk, same arcade, same streets, same water tower. I was pretty sure it had been filmed in Winnipeg Beach and this was confirmed when I watched the credits!! So there you go - I've been to the place where Falcon Beach is set. And I bet none of you have :)

Watch it yourself next time it's on and look out for these landmarks! Salty's is where Tanya tried to get the bus in today's episode!

You are my joy (ode to the beach - that isn't in the title that's just my interpretation)

I haven't posted on this for a while and I won't apologise because I've been really busy and have had a lack of internet. What I will do is tell you what I've been doing - which is working, working, working. And eating. And sleeping (just a little) and doing a few cool things at the weekends (Crazy Golf with the Whitehead crew was very cool). I'm staying up on the North Coast this weekend so will not be doing any crazy stuff but will have access to the beach (joy of all joys - I LOVE THE BEACH!!!).

Why I hate High School Musical

As High School Musical 2 is about to launch (dear knows why), I thought it would be a fitting time to write this post. I have never got High School Musical for 2 main reasons:

1. It's a film about kids making a musical, but in the course of the film the canteen or other suitable place spontaneously erupts with singing and dancing and even the goths, skaters etc are singing away sweetly. And you never get to see the end musical.

2. The kids are 14 and are singing lines like 'I never loved someone who knows me like you do'. They're 14. What do they know about love? When I was 14 I thought I was in love with someone I wasn't even going out with and now I have no idea why. You're not in love at 14 - you fancy someone, you go out with them, you kiss them (that being more politely put than I said to Gayle and Lisa the other day).

That said, a film about actual love is bound to be a better influence on teenagers than the other things they are exposed to nowadays! And the songs are okay I suppose - they're in my head because we're singing them at the Odyssey at Christmas.

Hey There Delilah

I was in Downhill at the weekend with the SWOT crowd. It was very good craic! Here is the group photo, stolen from the Thompsons' blog.

There was also a photo of me playing the guitar on Dermo's blog. I really like this picture for two reasons. Firstly because I didn't know it was being taken, I'm not posing and therefore look really natural. Secondly I hardly ever play the guitar and so I've never had a photo of me playing the guitar before!!! I have no idea what Dave and Elia are doing.

I am still loving the song Hey There Delilah and it was very good that Sam was playing it on the guitar so I got a chance to sing along!

Flickr!

Well, most of my Canada pictures are now up on flickr and the rest are going up tonight. The link is down the right hand side of this page. Enjoy. And follow the instructions below.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

After saying to Cara last night 'no it's okay I didn't GET West Nile Virus', I woke up today with a really really bad headache and I felt really sick until about 9 o'clock. Fortunately I don't have the virus as per the symptoms on the web though so I'm really glad about that. Don't be careless about insect repellent as I was (mosquito bites didn't really bother me that much...) and then you'll not have to worry about such stuff.

No, I haven't put the flickr photos up yet but I will I promise. I'll link to them when I do. I'll also finish the travel journal (below) hopefully tomorrow. Which reminds me - don't forget to keep scrolling down until I do, because I'm dating the entries on the date they were written, not the day they were posted.

Nite :)

Picture

Update to this post - I couln't change my profile photo for some reason, so you're probably wondering what on earth I'm talking about, especially since the latest experiment to try to change it showed me with brown hair. But how's this for a question - should I go back to blonde or stay brown (my natural colour)? Leave a comment as a kind of poll. PS thanks for the Comment Dermo, and you were right it was Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock and it's one of my favourite songs.

My new profile photo - don't worry I haven't dyed my hair again, this was taken 3 years ago when I was actually blonde - I just thought it was a cool picture - and I love swings!

PS to Dermo - I'm still using song titles and that is actually one. Can you tell me who by?

Is it because I'm White and Nerdy?

Have you ever watched the I.T. Crowd? It's hilarious. I wonder if that means I'm a nerd? ... oh forget it, I don't know enough computer stuff to be a nerd! But I DO have a blog, not just a Bebo or MySpace or Facebook or whatever other social networking sites exist (not that I'm knocking them, I do like Bebo).

A note about Flickr ... I'm going to put up my Canada photos on my Flickr site - Laura's Life - becuase Blogger is still not that great at displaying photos, more like putting images into a word document than into publisher or powerpoint! However Flickr sometime messes up the order of photos which are not in a 'set' (and I'm only allowed 3 sets which I've already used.) This is how to view the pictures in order: you will automatically go to the thumbnails page, but you'll proabably not want to view the pictures in that like that, so click on the first photo and then to the right, click view as slideshow. You will see all the Canada pictures from start to finish, then all the previous ones (Barcelona) etc. The only problem is that you can't see the titles. To do this in order, just view the thumbnails page.

You gotta go there to come back

As Elia very kindly reminded me last nite, I also have been neglecting my blog. I blame jetlag. For everything that happens this week.

As many of you know, I've been in Canada for the past week, visiting my friend Rebecca who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was really great to see her because we went to school in 6th year together, but I haven't seen her in 4 years. She's going to be a doctor just like Lisa, who I can't link to because she hasn't got a blog (bad Lisa!). I started a travel journal while I was away, with the intention that I would transfer it to my blog also, so below are my experiences in Canada in date order. Enjoy.

Thursday

Today was our big day trip into Kenora, Ontario. I think I want to name one of my children Kenora so if you object to this, please don't ask me to marry you. We stopped just outside the city to have some pancakes and syrup (well it had to be done!) and Perogys which are Polish or Ukranian and which Rebecca has been wanting to introduce me to all week!

After driving through the prairies for an hour, we finally hit 'Canadian Shield' which is much more hilly and has rocky outcrops and pine trees (it felt a lot more like what I referred to as 'real Canada' ie the stereotypical landscape!)

Gradually the pine forests gave way to small lakes as we drove through Whiteshell and into Ontario. The larger lakes were dotted with holiday cabins. We stopped at a service station in Clearwater Bay to have ice-cream (I had Rolo and Rebecca had Algonquin Canoe).

Kenora itself was very maritime and we had a nice walk by the marina.On our way back we had a picnic in a random campground. We also followed the sign for East Braintree, only to discover that it had a church and 4 houses. We were not impressed.The day we nicely finished off by watching a video. Funny story about that. Rebecca didn't have enough I.D. with her so I JOINED A VIDEO STORE IN CANADA - isn't that hilarious? So far I have accumulated an American Eagle loyalty card and a Rodgers video card.