52 Lists - Things Which Bring You Comfort

Things which bring me comfort...hmm, well there's two sides to that methinks...


The bloggable version

Hot chocolate

A good hug

Books

(I bet you can just smell the cheesiness)



The non-bloggable version

Savings and a pension - neither of us want to be in a situation where it'd be a mad panic if we couldn't pay the mortgage

Stand up comedians - having other people make jokes about all the same things we find funny about society and other people's lives

Medical science and in particular the amazing staff at our fertility clinic - it really is a great comfort to know there's a team of people who are all doing their best on our behalf




What brings you comfort?
(the cutesy version or the honest version, either is fine!)

This post is part of Ema's (Made in Hunters) 52 Lists Project

For a full list of all the other lovely bloggy people taking part, visit Scarlett's site (WorkRestPlayLove) for a nosy!

Here Is The News #10

Blogland Brilliance

Donna shared five top tips for finding bargains in charity shops.

Becky's post on how to write engaging blog content is really interesting, although I think I'm probably guilty of some of these.

Dudley went mud woogling and ended up one very mucky pup!

Elise had a quick trip to Blackpool and took some lovely pictues; we had a week there last year and although it might be run-down and a bit tacky, I love it anyway. Elise's post really makes me want to book another holiday there!


Exciting Events

Jane's Photo an Hour challenge for September falls on this Saturday - I'll be Instagramming my way through the day using the tag #photoanhour, feel free to join in, it's definitely the more the merrier!

This weekend is also Heritage Open Days weekend where thousands of historic venues fling open their doors (sometimes for free) and let you have a nosy. We're hoping to head off to Clifton Rocks Railway in Bristol on Sunday and may well take a look at some other places on the way.

Gemma's organising a Cardiff Bloggers Pre-Christmas Meet Up and Cream Tea on Sunday 26th October (open to everyone, not just Welsh bloggers). I haven't bought a ticket just yet, mainly because I wanted to see who else might be going but I'd love to go and even if I don't know anyone, I'm sure it'll be fine anyway. Although, Angela, Michelle, Chelsea, Lily, SJ, Sarah, Leona and Rachel - it'd be lovely to see you!



Interesting Info

Chocolate teapots apparently can be useful after all!

Photographer Oliver Hellowell takes stunning pictures of all sorts of birds and other wildlife; you can follow his Facebook page here (and he just happens to have Down's Syndrome as well...)

The Guardian wrote about how we're almost nearing our world growth limit. Back in the early 70s a book was published using scientific theories to predict that civilisation would collapse some time this century and funnily enough, the two sets of graphs (the estimates and the real life data) are spookily similar!

How many of these British seaside towns can you name?



This Week's Carnival...

Is actually two Carnivals - one in Colyton in Devon and one in Mere in Wiltshire.



Musical Magic

I don't even know how or what we were talking about to get onto the subject of 80s cartoon, Dogtanian and his Three Muskerhounds but once it was mentioned, we clicked over to the theme tune straightaway!






What's new with you?
 

This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

 

Gallivanting - in Cornwall staying with my sister in law. We booked our tickets for Kneehigh Theatre's show back in March and thought we'd just take our chances with the weather so it was quite the unexpected treat to get one last hot sunny weekend! We went off round Newquay town and Fistral Beach on Saturday morning and did Padstow on the way home on Sunday.

 

 

 

 

Eating - too much food, as always. Pizza Express (with Tesco vouchers) on Friday night, followed by a big breakfast, a pasty and a meal (and cake of course) at the show on Saturday night. Then Sunday was another breakfast, another pasty and on the way home we popped into Maccy D's for a McFlurry.

 

 

 

 

Dodging - the vultures! It always amazes me the amount of people who still walk around waving their ice creams and jumbo sausages in the air - although it does make for quite entertaining viewing!

 

 

 

 

Laughing - at this scrap man's van in Padstow and the very smiley graffiti in Newquay.

 

 

 

 

Wandering - round The Lost Gardens of Heligan. I've never been there before but it was where Kneehigh had their show this summer so we bought a ticket that gave us entry to the gardens as well as the evening theatre show.

 

 

 

 

Being - amazed by Kneehigh Theatre's latest show. It was actually the 22nd production of theirs I've seen (my first one was back in 1996) and they're still spectacular and magical even now!

 

 

 

 

What did you get up to at the weekend?

52 Lists - Morning Weekday Routine

 

 

 

 

My weekday morning routine goes something like this...

 

 

7am - the alarm goes off blaring out Radio 2

 

7.01am - Andrew will hit the snooze button

 

7.15am - the alarm goes off again and I'll get up leaving lazybones in bed for another 15 minutes or so

 

7.20am - off to the bathroom to shower and wash

 

7.40am - I'll organise what I'm going to wear that day (usually a dress, you don't need to worry about colour-coordination then!) and Andrew will just be getting up

 

7.45am - he heads off to the bathroom to shower and shave while I make sure everything I need is in my handbag and try and slap some basic make-up on in an attempt to look presentable

 

7.55am - usually Andrew's downstairs by now and either getting some cereal organised or popping some bread in the toaster

 

8am - I'll come on downstairs, get my coat and shoes on and finish off making the tea and coffee in our travel mugs

 

8.05 or 8.10am - we set the burglar alarm and head on out the door for a day at work!

 

 

 

What's your morning weekday routine like?

 

This post is part of Ema's (Made in Hunters) 52 Lists Project

For a full list of all the other lovely bloggy people taking part, visit Scarlett's site (WorkRestPlayLove) for a nosy!

How I Meal Plan

Yup, I'm one of those very sad people who plan their meals in advance, usually 2 or 3 weeks ahead.

 

It kind of works for us as we only have to do a big shop every few weeks and there's no hassle over what to cook each night as it's all written out (not neatly though) on a weekly wall planner.

 

The way I do our meal planning is probably a bit long-winded but it seems methodical to me and it's worked for the past 3 years so for the moment, my way is the way we're doing it in our household.
 

 

1. First I get my notepad and write down all the dates for the next few weeks. Then I check our monthly calendar to see if there's any days where I know we'll be eating out or on holiday and I'll mark them in my notepad.

 

 

2. Next I give our two freezers and cupboards a quick once over to see if there's anything that needs using up and also what we've actually got. When we pop into our local shop we often end up with a trolley-full of reduced priced goods so even though we might have used up all our 'planned' food, we'll probably have some random stuff in the back of the freezer!

 

 

3. Then I get out my recipe file, a birdie-themed expanding box file from Wilkinsons with plastic wallets holding batches of similar recipes torn from magazines or printed from the internet.

 

 

4. I'll root through my recipes finding things which match what we might have in the freezer or just things we haven't had for a while. I'll try and arrange it so we have easy to make things when I know we need something quickly or something a bit more fancy if we've got people coming round, things like that.

 

 

5. After that, I basically put the pieces of paper in the order we'll be eating them, then write a shopping list from the ingredients on the recipes (obviously crossing off anything we've already got) and then I'll pop what we're eating each day on the weekly planner that lives on my kitchen noticeboard.

 

 

6. The very last thing I do is take the shopping list and visit MySupermarket to put together our online shop (always making sure I'm getting the best value for money). Once that's done we send our shopping basket to Mr T's, choose the cheapest delivery slot (usually the £1 ones late at night) and wait for the Tesco delivery man to turn up!

 

 

 

How about you? Do you plan your meals in advance?

 

Here Is The News #9

Blogland Brilliance

Amy baked the most amazing looking Double Chocolate Cake

Josie visited Oakham Treasures just outside Bristol for her birthday - it's the most fascinating place full of history and nostalgia. We went there on a private tour just before it opened back in 2008 and I keep meaning to go back to take some proper pictures!

The lovely Gemma took part in the Blog Hop questions (the same ones I answered a few weeks ago).

Katie gave her kitchen a fabulous re-vamp - I do like the dinosaur shelves!



I'm excited for...

Our Zoo on BBC1 at 9pm tonight. My gran grew up just north of Chester and then lived a couple of miles away from the zoo from 1955 onwards til she passed away in 2009. Every school summer holiday we had a week at her house and it was always a yearly thing that we'd go for a big family outing to the zoo.

Kneehigh Theatre's 'Dead Dog in a Suitcase' show at The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. We've got tickets for Saturday night's performance and a day round the gardens as well. The only thing we've yet to decide is what to eat from their Asylum menu - at the moment I'm thinking a pulled pork bap or a Heligan ham toastie.



Interesting Info

The UK's worst new building apparently is in Woolwich but one of the runners up (the University one) is at my workplace! (and yup, all of us staff said the same thing when it was being built the other year)



You really should watch...

Last Friday's episode of Channel 4's The Last Leg. I think everyone should really be watching it anyway but last week's episode was one of the best, eyes watering with laughter for most of the show!



This week's Carnival...

Takes place in Blandford Forum in Dorset.
In South West England Carnival is something that very much starts small and gets bigger each week; September sees small processions with small-ish floats, October sees bigger entries and longer parades and by the time November rolls around you're watching a procession with another 150,000 people for a 2-3 hours at a time!




What's new with you?
 

This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

 

 

Wading - through the mud at Great Dorset Steam Fair.

 

 

 

 

Listening - to lots of fairground organs across the site. I particularly like the Victory organ from Holland!

 

 

 

 

Watching - all the engines on site.

 

 

 

 

Riding - one of the fairground rides in the dark! Carters Steam Fair made their 1934 Ark ride into a complete World War II blackout experience on Friday night. No pictures though as they would've all been dark and blurred!

 

 

 

Keeping - warm next to the steam engines late into the night.

 

 

 

 

What did you get up to at the weekend?