We're having a great time!

Just a short catch up......

The weather has been perfect this week - until today (insert sad face). Glorious sunshine, not too hot to be uncomfortable, it couldn't have been better. We had the mother of all downpours last night, according to Mark who heard every drop I think - I only heard it when I went to bed, once I was asleep never heard another thing! Today has been mostly cloudy but with some sun later and we had a barbecue this evening.

On Tuesday morning the skip arrived and, even though Mark had said he wouldn't start on the basement until Wednesday, by Tuesday evening the skip was almost full and the basement half empty! Now, the end of the week, there is only one small part to be sorted, then we'll move my scrapping stuff back into the house. Mark's sorted out the contents of a couple of toolkits so I have everything I'll ever want to do it myself! It looks better than it has for nearly three years. He's done a few little jobs around the place, there are just a few more to be done over the weekend.

We've spent most mornings on the beach, returning home for lunch, and then going down to the community pool. Evenings have been spent at the little fairground, the craft fair and general wandering around the town. Yesterday Robyn made a friend on the beach, Rosie. Life is so strange! Rosie and Robyn are exactly the same age, born 9th April 2000. Rosie has a brother Tom and her dad (Simon) is a single parent like Mark. The parallels between these two little families are amazing. Mark and Simon got on so well we met up last night to take the children round the fair and then into the town for drinks and slush puppies! Simon's parents live in El Portet, I met his mum Judy while we were at the beach. Unfortunately Simon, Rosie and Tom went home today. Always the same isn't it?

This morning was market day, for once I wasn't there at 8 a.m., more like 10.30! Very crowded. We followed that by a walk round town and then called in at the supermarket. How I am longing for the beginning of next week when things will quieten down - the Brits will have gone home ready for school starting next week, the Spanish month long August break will be over, similarly the French. (I wouldn't want to be on the motorways this weekend!) We can have our town back! It will be interesting to see how busy the beach and town are come Monday morning!

More next week!

Made a decision

Not going ahead with Derek's memorial service after all. Can't face it. This week I should have been choosing hymns, readings and prayers for the service and instead done just about all I can to avoid it. Can't put my finger on just one thing and say that's the reason, it's several things - maybe too long a time between his death and now, maybe I think I've done pretty well to get where I am now and am afraid this event will pull me backwards. Whatever it is, now I've made the decision I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.


I've only been able to speak to two of the children about it (the other one is on holiday in Menorca) and they agree that if I don't feel able to do it then I shouldn't. They also said that the last thing Derek would want is for me to get myself in a state over it and this week I feel that's exactly where I've been heading.


That's not to say I don't feel guilty about it - I do. Feel like I'm letting him down. Letting people down in the UK who would have liked the chance to say goodbye. But in the end it's down to me. That's it - decision made. Hope now the bleak mood of the last few days will lift.

Mark and Robyn arrive tomorrow for nine days - YAY!! Early start for me - getting through the motorway section around Alicante at that hour of the morning has been a nightmare the last few trips. Warned Mark to travel light now that the airlines are pretty vicious in sticking to baggage weight rules! He's bought Robyn a new case - a pink wheely thing, can't wait to see that coming down the ramp!


Very breezy day today but better than yesterday when the cloud was thick and didn't lift at all. Hope the breeze dies away and the sun carries on shining for the next ten days at least!

See you!

More visitors on the way

Hopefully Mark and Robyn will be arriving on Monday so I'm taking the time now to catch up on a few computer things including this blog.

I say hopefully, because Robyn currently has tonsilitis but I'm crossing my fingers that whatever treatment she's on will kick in in time for her to have a comfortable flight (i.e. no ear problems taking off and landing). Robyn hasn't been here since Christmas, Mark's last visit was February when Derek died - I really hope we have some great weather for them - it's been quite mixed this week and the temperatures have dropped a few degrees. After the awful British summer I would be so disappointed if it stays like this - and so will they!

Back at the ranch here things have been very quiet. I've done a bit of scrapbooking but no layouts finished yet so nothing to show. I'm of a mind to move my scrapping desk and stash into the house. When Derek was here going down to the basement for a length of time wasn't a problem - now I have to take the phone and two mobiles, switch on the baby alarm so I can hear if anyone rings the gate bell, lock doors etc. etc. It's a bit of a nuisance and I think it's put me off scrapping properly. I have an enclosed naya off the main bedroom upstairs, I think I'll get Mark to help me move everything up there.

Poor lad, the list of things I'd like him to do is growing ever longer. I've ordered a skip for Tuesday morning, getting rid of the junk in the basement is top priority. Whatever doesn't get done I'll ask my friend K. to do, a bit at a time.

Spent a frustrating hour this afternoon searching for a CD I could swear we had - or it could have been a DVD. It's Meatloaf, the one with 'Bat out of Hell' on it, I can't find it anywhere (heard the song on the radio this morning and desperately wanted to play the CD, DVD whatever it is). Off to surf the net shortly to see if I can find it and then, if there's time, get someone to get it for Mark to bring with him.

Right, leaving it there for now - probably won't post again till Mark and Robyn have gone home, so it's bye bye for a couple of weeks.

I'm a happy scrapper....

Quick update on the box frame - I've repositioned the flower embellishments. When I added the photo it didn't look right. The layout is really meant to take a portrait orientation but my photo is landscape. Rotating the whole layout didn't work either so my alternative was to swap the flowers!










The next one is done from a Pencil Lines sketch - as soon as I saw the sketch I knew what I wanted to do. I turned it into a double layout and will put the two halves in ordinary flat frames or even box frames.









Received a stash parcel from Kimmy this morning - with that, the scraps from the weekend classes and the goodie bags Anke gave all participants I was quite a while putting it away! Still have some to do but tiredness overtook me and I just had to take a siesta!

Short today but I've told one or two people the LO of Derek and me would be on the blog today.

Byeeeeeeeee!

Weekend workshops......

Spent the weekend at Anke's 1World Scrap shop this weekend. Ramona Brinkmann (from Germany) was our teacher and we did three workshops over the two days. Saturday's classes were making a mini album in a box (morning) and a box frame layout (afternoon). Sunday's class was making cards. Here's what I did:



Mini Accordion Album in a Box : This should be fixed into an 8 x 8 decorated box but there was a mix up over numbers and a first time scrapper would have been left without the album and box so I passed mine over to her. I made up my own accordion album from chipboard but there was no box so I'll get that later. I know what to do with it and took a picture on my phone to refer to later! (Can't believe I forgot my camera this time!). When I get the box and complete the album I'll post a fresh picture.



Box Frame Layout : I love this! Ramona loves handcutting and there was a lot of that for this project. It is NOT my favourite technique by any means, I find handcutting tedious and I'm not neat! However, I'm pleased with the result and this will, I think, be the first ever piece I'll put out on display. I need to find a suitable picture for the centre of it and add a title if I choose to. I may try this kind of project again.



The final (Sunday morning) class was to make cards. For this we used very colourful double-sided cardstock quality papers rather than card blanks. Very easy to do and we managed 11 cards in just under three hours.



I loved these classes, Ramona is a very relaxed teacher and extremely patient. She and Anke spent Saturday night at my house to save Anke travelling back to Valencia and Ramona's parents having to collect her to go back to their holiday apartment in Calpe, as they needed to be at the shop early enough to clear up from the day before and set out for the card class. Saturday evening a group of us went into Javea for a meal - great evening and it was almost 1 a.m. before we arrived back here! Haven't been out that late for a very long time.

Anke provided lots of goody bags and refreshments throughout both days. Some of the fellow class members were familiar to me from the Rusty Pickle/Ranger Inks weekend, others were new.

Needless to say after a weekend of heavy scrapping I was shattered last night. I'm going back to the shop later today to (hopefully) collect my album box and maybe make a few more purchases, there's lots of lovely new stash coming in as a result of Anke's trip to CHA 2007.

Rest of the news? Very little actually. My foot is nearly healed but not quite and I've found it aches when I've been on it too much. Might be a little bit of nerve damage, will see how it goes. The weather has been stiflingly hot so I've hardly been out and about except when absolutely necessary!

I've got my satellite fixed! I thought I'd have to subscribe again to Sky because I was getting virtually no channels at all except Five and it's variations, not even BBC and ITV. Turned out my dish had shifted a bit (no mean feat as it's a 2.4m dish!) because of the palm tree behind it. Those branches are really strong and were enough to move it by a few millimetres, sufficient to lose the signal. Now I have BBC and ITV and for now I'm quite happy with that. The offending tree has been severely cut back and I'll be keeping a close eye on it. In fact I'm tempted to get Mark to help me cut the remaining branches. The tree is only decorative, it doesn't provide shade because it's not in the part of the garden where we sit out or near enough to the house to shade a window for instance. I think I could lose it quite easily!

Finally we've settled on a date for Derek's memorial service - 9th October. Now the family and I have to decide how we want the service to go.

Right, going to leave it there for now, I didn't get any chores done this weekend so that's my first job today before it gets too hot (not that it makes much difference, I'm soaked already!).