Today is my 41st birthday (a whole year since this) – so whilst the theme of the gallery this week is ‘Mothers’ – it’s also pretty pertinent, as without mine – I wouldn’t be celebrating today!
I love this photo of Mum taken *a few* years ago (and clearly not by me!). It also highlights how important it is to keep photos. Nowadays we can take a quick snap with our phone whilst out and about – but back in the 50s it would have been much more of an ‘event’ – but so lovely that Mum still has lots of photos of her youth. I save mine onto the computer and then weekly to an external hard drive – just to ensure I don’t ‘lose’ them.
So this is a post to say ‘Thank you Mother’ for having me 41 years ago (she was in labour from 9 ’til 5 – perhaps I should have been called Dolly?!) and for everything you’ve done since and still do for me now. She was round after school yesterday performing hair cuts for our youngest girls!
This is my entry for this week’s #thegallery over on The Sticky Fingers blog – do go and see how others have interpreted the theme of ‘Mothers’.
I nearly headed this up as 11 March 1970 something – as it’s my birthday today!!
But this is not a birthday related Wicked Wednesday – it’s a snot related one. Honestly – I don’t know who she would get the idea off to stick a tissue up her nose to stem the flow………
This is my entry for this week’s Wicked Wednesdays over on BrummyMummyof2’s blog – do pop across and see what rubbish pictures others have posted!!
This time last year I was about to be 40. I have had friends who have not looked forward to the big four-oh at all – but I fully embraced it (in fact I’ve milked it for the entire year) and the highlight was a party for lots of family and friends at the fabulous Chateau Impney hotel.
I ummed and ahhed about inviting the kids along – but our family is HUGE – and sometimes it is really nice to celebrate with fellow grown ups – so it was adults only!
With my sisters and our parents
There was a massive cross section of people there – from my parents siblings in their 70s down to my 18 year old cousin – and pretty much every age in between!
With my sisters and cousins
There was obviously food and drink:
Stunning cupcakesHazel and Alpesh enjoying the food and fizz!
And we had a disco and a photobooth which were both great fun – and the fabulous Sharon took loads of photos as keepsakes.
Friends and family flew in from Germany, France, Northern Ireland and even Chicago – which made it super special.
A selection of ‘Pink Ladies’Sam and Dan
I was ‘slightly’ nervous of my husband’s speech (so deliberately did mine afterwards so that I could apologise if needs be!) but I need not have worried – he was wonderful and didn’t offend anyone (although I look slightly incredulous on the photo below?)!!
There was some fabulous dancing – the dancefloor was full all night – ‘Never Forget‘ with my sisters being a highlight.
Sadly the re-enactment of the lift from Dirty Dancing that the husband and I did wasn’t captured on camera, as it was a sight to behold (and amazingly my boobs stayed in my dress!)
Talking of my dress – the girls at Timeless Couture made me a fabulous couture dress. I’d gone to see them not expecting to be able to have a strapless gown given my ‘ample bosom’ – but they also made me an AMAZING corset which held everything firmly in place!! On top of the gown I had a fabulous sparkly waistcoat which I loved. I’d planned the evening to be Downton Abbey meets Reflex – and I think we achieved it just in my outfit!
It was a BRILLIANT night – and I am a little bit disappointed that I’m not having a party for my 41st in a few days.
LOTS has happened in the last year – very sadly one of my friends passed away suddenly a few weeks later, there have been serious illnesses to friends and their children, a couple of relationship breakdowns – and lots of other trials and tribulations. It makes you realise you need to ‘carpe diem’, celebrate what is important to you and tell the relevant people that you love them, as you never know what the future holds.
Thank you to everyone for making it such a wonderful occasion. I love you all.
I have loved the previous 2 books by M J Arlidge about DI Helen Grace – so was pleased when this popped up on my Kindle (I’d pre-ordered it when I read the previous book ‘Pop Goes The Weasel‘ last year).
Here is what the Amazon blurb says:
“A young woman wakes up in a cold, dark cellar, with no idea how she got there or who her kidnapper is. So begins her terrible nightmare.
Nearby, the body of another young woman is discovered buried on a remote beach. But the dead girl was never reported missing – her estranged family having received regular texts from her over the years. Someone has been keeping her alive from beyond the grave.
For Detective Inspector Helen Grace it’s chilling evidence that she’s searching for a monster who is not just twisted but also clever and resourceful – a predator who’s killed before.
And as Helen struggles to understand the killer’s motivation, she begins to realize that she’s in a desperate race against time . . .”
You would not need to have read ‘Eeny Meeny’ or ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ (although I would highly recommend that you do!) before you read this – it would stand alone – but I very much enjoyed revisiting DI Helen Grace and some of the other characters. It definitely builds on the prior books so there would be ‘spoilers’ if you tried to read them retrospectively.
I’ve actually got to like Helen more with each book – I guess as we get to know her better and understand her more.
It’s a twisting and turning thriller as usual – and again set in Southampton (my stomping ground for Uni – which I think I must remember with rose tinted glasses, as the area I lived in again is described as rough!!) The stories interlink both in terms of historic crime, current crime and the personal lives of the protagonists both police and villains. Lots is interlinked and only concludes right at the end – but I was pleased the loose ends were all tied up.
I didn’t feel this was quite as gory as the previous books – but maybe I’m just becoming immune to it, as I’m a fairly recent convert to thrillers!
This – along with the other books in the series – would make great TV dramas (unsurprisingly given Mr Arlidge is also a script writer – I was slightly over-excited to spot his writing credit in the last series of Silent Witness on BBC1!)
I was pleased to see that this is no longer a trilogy and I have pre-ordered book number 4 for later this year!
I was lent this in a proper, old fashioned book format by a friend – and a number of friends had really enjoyed it. On Facebook it had a bit of a ‘marmite’ response from people – either loved or disappointed (when I posted a photo of it – with my non-alcoholic beer – whilst chaperoning some ten pin bowling 11 year old girls!!)
It’s not a new book (first published in 2011) and has been made into a film (starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman no less – thankfully I had started reading before I knew this, so had already imagined the characters in my head -and they definitely weren’t Colin and Nic!).
This is the Amazon blurb about it:
“Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine’s life.”
Initially I was really interested in Christine’s life – waking up each morning having forgotten the last 20+ years. Imagine how horrific it would be to wake up each morning and look in the mirror and see your Mum looking back!?! Christine then starts to keep a journal so that she can remember things she’s discovered about her past and isn’t starting from a blank page (boom!) each day.
The middle section of the book is supposed to be this journal – and I found this section dull and repetitive and it REALLLLY DRAGGGGGED. Now I guess that is kind of the point – as it’s exactly what Christine was having to do by re-reading about her life each day – but I didn’t enjoy this bit at all (but I am really impatient!)
The final section picked up again – and was ‘edge of the seat’ exciting (so I read late into the night to finish it!) I really enjoyed how it all concluded.
So I guess it wasn’t ‘marmite’ for me. I neither loved it nor loathed it – I just kind of liked it. Not sure that will ever make the strapline on a book cover….
Having said that – I have downloaded ‘Second Life‘ which is the new book from SJ Watson published a couple of weeks ago (and only £1.88 on Amazon at the moment!). Partly because I found out that SJ is from the Midlands and we have to support our own! Oh – and I was surprised Mr Watson is a bloke – I guess because he wrote so well about being a woman. But then if people write well about murder you wouldn’t expect them to be trained killers………..
Now I am cheating slightly – because I didn’t take the photos I’m about to post! We had a family photoshoot in the Lickey Hills the Autumn before last – and the photos taken by Sharon Papper were brilliant. Quite a few were in black and white and I immediately thought of them when the topic came up.
It’s also pretty rare to have photos of all 6 of us, so lovely to look at them, and see how much the kids have grown since then.
This is my contribution to this week’s Photo Gallery – do go and see what others have posted.
I had heard a LOT of hype about this book – it has been nominated for many different awards, and a number of friends had raved about it too, so I had high hopes!
This is what the Amazon blurb said:
“Meet Maud.
Maud is forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and doesn’t remember to drink it. She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognizable – or her daughter Helen seems a total stranger.
But there’s one thing Maud is sure of: her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of it.
Because somewhere in Maud’s damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old mystery. One everyone has forgotten about.
Everyone, except Maud . . .”
It is written with Maud as the narrator, and moves between the current day – when Maud is an old lady in her 80s and suffering from some sort of memory loss, back to when she was a young girl in the Second World War – when she was completely lucid, albeit young and naive. Maud is convinced her friend Elizabeth has gone missing in the present day – and is properly obsessed by this – but at the same time she is recalling how her sister Sukey went missing at the end of the war.
It is very cleverly written – and the way the author deals with Maud’s memory loss is brilliant. For example when she can’t remember the word for a specific item then she will describe what it’s used for. Both this and the obsessive behaviours Maud portrays, the ‘interesting’ clothing choices and the way her daughter Helen has to pick up the pieces reminded me very much of a friend whose mother had vascular dementia and she blogged about it.
The modern day story line and wartime story line both conclude well within the book – and the language is beautifully used.
But….
I’m not sure what I expected, but I wasn’t totally wowed. As I was reading it I didn’t think ‘just one more chapter’ which I often do with books. It was good – but didn’t blow my mind as I had thought it would. Didn’t quite live up to the hype in my book.
I have blogged before that I haven’t represented my country at sport – but even that could overstate my love of things sporty. At school my best friend was off being BRILLIANT at hockey / tennis / skiing – in fact, anything vaguely sporty that she turned her hand to – whilst I was really good at quadratic equations and playing the flute.
Since my Uni years I’ve worried about my weight (although looking back at photos of then – WHY??) and have been anything from a size 8 up to a size 18 and everything in between, with 4 pregnancies thrown in too.
After my second child I discovered ‘The Idiot Proof Diet’ (basically low carb-ing) and was really successful with it – hey, I even appeared on the ‘before and after‘ page of the associated website. To be honest, right at this moment I’d take the ‘before’!
But children 3 and 4 and associated 5 stone (yep – count ’em!) weight gain means I’m up near the top end of the last 20 years weight-wise.
I’ve always adopted the Meghan Trainor approach to size:
“Yeah it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two But I can shake it, shake it like I’m supposed to do ‘Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase All the right junk in all the right places I see the magazines working that Photoshop We know that sh*t ain’t real Come on now, make it stop If you got beauty beauty just raise ’em up ‘Cause every inch of you is perfect From the bottom to the top Yeah, my momma she told me don’t worry about your size She says, boys they like a little more booty to hold at night You know I won’t be no stick-figure, silicone Barbie doll, So, if that’s what’s you’re into Then go ahead and move along”
But – it’s not ‘all about the weight’ (do you like what I did there?!) – it is about my health and fitness. We’re just back from an amazing family holiday at Bluestone in Wales – where we did loads of brilliant activities – but they nearly broke me. I am black and blue from clinging onto a cargo net for dear life – partly fear of heights, partly fear of being pretty damn close to the weight limit for the equipment. In one way (the shallow way) it’s the fact that I don’t like the size of myself in the photos I can see from our trip – but more importantly, I have 4 fabulous kids who I want to be able to be ‘Woodland Warriors’ with in years to come, without nearly passing out having walked up some steps through a forest.
And maybe if I write it down here, I have to stick to it?
I am really lucky in that as my own boss I can factor exercise into my daily life – I do pilates once a week (which in 2 years has sorted my dodgy back out amazingly) and I have PT sessions twice a week, so the exercise side of my fitness should be covered. However, I’ve been told that 80% of health / fitness / weight loss is what I put into my mouth – and I am the only one who can take responsibility for that. So that means healthier food, limited booze and really grasping the nettle (perhaps to make some nice tea?!?)
This was supposed to be a photography feature – as usual with The Gallery – but has turned into a bit of a heart to heart with you all – sorry!
Dumpy and determinedReady for yoga
Do go and see how others have interpreted ‘Health and Fitness’ – hopefully with much better photography than me!
The first photo is a bit of a cheat, as I’ve already used it when blogging about our fab trip to Bluestone over half term – and starting an A-Z of where the 3 year old has a strop!
But that’s not the full story!
She then fell asleep in the changing rooms …..
And had to be carried home by my brother in law – who wasn’t very impressed when my sister made him stop and have his picture taken as she was a dead weight!!!
This is my entry for BrummyMummyof2’s Wicked Wednesday – do go and look at other people’s rubbish family photos!!
This Price is Usually Right 