6 Weeks, 6 Reads

So, surprise surprise, I'm a tad behind on the old 6 weeks, 6 reads challenge! It's not too bad: I've nearly finished book 4 and we're in week 5, but I do need to speed up a bit. The problem was this little baby:

I finished the Horse Whisperer a bit early actually (very good book, not really much romance, hurray!) and so started this brick a day before I planned. OK, so it was 750 pages long, but I had a 10 day holiday planned with hours sat in the car, relaxing on the beach, no housework once the kids were in bed etc to fit plenty of reading in so 750 pages shouldn't really be a problem...famous last words!

The hours in the car were spent either listening to the dialogue from Alvin and the f***ing Chipmunks playing on constant loop on the kids' dvd players in the back, or directing Rob as the sat nav had a meltdown when we were only 60 miles down the road. So, not much reading in the car (ever tried to read a political thriller with a cartoon chipmunk squealing in your ear?!). The beach was OK for reading but I seemed to spend most of my time desanding things (some because of the coastal breeze blowing the sand everywhere but most from my son deliberately dumping it where he knew he shouldn't!) And as for once the kids were in bed, well I thought I could just take myself off to bed and get through a good chapter a night, completely forgetting how much I hate 'public' beds and so therefore not wanting to venture in there any more than I had to. So, I got home with only half the book read. However, I have had a good run at it and got it finished it on Saturday.

Phew!

I picked this one up straight away:

which had to be my next choice as apparently the library want it back and so I'm rattling through it and hopefully will get it finished tomorrow (and back to you asap Mr Librarian I promise!). Kind of liking the concept of this one: a guy goes to a dinner party as a guest of a guest (ie doesn't know the hosts) and halfway through dinner gets up, goes upstairs and barricades himself in the spare room, not coming out for months! Not quite sure where it's going, there seems to be lots of random people popping up in it but I'm hoping for a nice surprise as to why the main character did it (so far I've no idea!).

So that leaves 2 books in about 11 days. Hmmmm, do Xander's books count? ;)

6 Weeks, 6 Reads

So the summer holidays are well and truely underway, we're a good week in now and it has been hectic so far but good to have a break from working.

I decided to challenge myself this holiday but in a good way to keep those brain cells going (6 weeks of CBeebies was soon going to kill them off!). As many of you know, I'm a bit of a book worm - I ALWAYS have a book on the go. The trouble is I'm quite a slow reader; not sure why, maybe it's my complete inability to concentrate, but I have always been a bit on the laid back side when it comes to reading. So, this summer I've challenged myself to speed up a bit. A book takes me between 2 and 4 weeks to read so this summer I want to read an average of one a week - 6 in 6 weeks. I know this may not seem too speedy to others (yes I'm talking to you Mrs Readthewholetwilightsagainaweekend and you Mrs OhI'mjustpopping outsidetoreadawholebookwithmybrew (you both know who you are, seriously, how do you do it?!)), but to me it's quite the challenge.

So, a week into the holidays and I'm onto the 2nd book, go me! OK so the first one was only 200 pages long but I decided to ease myself in gently and actually did it in 48 hours. It's this book leant to me by Mrs OhI'mjustpoppingoutsidetoreadawholebookwithmybrew (think she'd read it in the ad break on Corrie or something!):

Now the whole wave of books about children getting hurt just isn't my cup of tea, but I trust Mrs I'mjustpoppingout...'s judgement so gave it a go, and I loved it! Quite harrowing but there was just something about it where you had to keep reading to check she was OK (true story about a girl kidnapped by a paeodophile (sp?) in Belgium).

Currently I'm reading this book that I got for Christmas (yup, I'm that slow a reader!):

Now, on the front of this it says it's full of romance...oh dear, I don't do romance. I do however LOVE Jojo Moyes so I feel like I have to give her a chance and so far I'm quite liking it (maybe because the romance hasn't surfaced yet?!). The target is to finish this by Wednesday when I will start on a BIG read to take away on holiday (Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest - 3,000,000 pages!) but we are driving to Cornwall so will have an hour or 20 to kill.

So there you go, I've blogged it so I now have to do it so you don't all think I'm a big fat liar and stop reading my blog forever! Will keep you posted...

S.O.S. Save Our Surgery

You may have noticed the little widget to the right. Some of you will have seen my links on Facebook and I apologise for repeating myself but this is a cause that really affects me and many people I know.


They are talking about shutting children's cardiac surgery in Leeds. You may remember that there were a high number of deaths during children's heart surgery at another hospital and this prompted a review. The result of this review is that the government will shut some of the 11 children's heart centres in the UK and make less larger centres with all the expertise in this area. Not a bad idea until you consider the impact...

There are 4 million people living within an hour of Leeds, 14 million within 2 hours. When 1 in 100 babies is born with some sort of heart defect, that's a lot of people...and Leeds is currently closing in 3 of the government's 4 alternative plans. Wherever these units shut it is going to affect people - heart patients, relatives, friends - but a quarter of the population? I am failing to see sense.

I have had a child in hopsital. Some of you may remember how ill Emily was as a toddler and she had to have lung surgery. A horrible time for us and the people around us, but what if we'd had to drive hours to see her? That is what these parents and families are facing.

And then today I got an email from my cardiac nurse saying that the government had refused to take into account those of us that are adults but see the paediatric cardiac teams due to our conditions being congenital (both my cardiologist and surgeon are paediatric, I look very silly in their waiting room!) when considering shutting these units. However, if the children's surgery ward goes then so do the surgeons, the cardiologists and the lifeline to people like me. In October 2008 I had an emergency operation in Leeds within 2 hours of them diagnosing my problem, if I'd have had to be transferred to another hospital, well....

So if you could click to the right and sign the petition? Whether we can change the government's mind I don't know, but I need to say I at least tried.

Thank you.

Cool Moon!

We were so lucky yesterday. For once there was a galactical event and we actually saw it! Usually we have cloud cover when anything happens but yesterday morning we had beautiful clear skies and so got to see the first winter solstice lunar eclipse in 372 years. How cool is this:

 Unfortunately, a house got in the way before the full eclipse, but I love how much of it we got to see. I even woke Emily up as she just had to see it!

 Then we had the news on where they were talking about the eclipse and they said you could also see Venus in the east. So we ran through to Emily's room and looked out the window and there it was!

 OK, so it's not obviously Venus from the picture but the fact that you can see a planet 93,000,000 miles away is a bit cool!

The moon created more photographic opportunities when it came up again last night. I just love how my camera captured it: first one for all fans like me of a good old end of the world disaster movie:

 And then for any Twilight Saga fans out there:

We're Back!

Finally, after what seemed like a decade, I have my pooter back! Hurray! Brand new hard drive is now installed and we're just going through the task of reloading all the program files. Luckily the PC guy managed to save all my photos and documents. Phew!

So, what's been happening? Well, Rob has gone back to work and is doing better. He's seeing the surgeon again in 2 weeks so hopefully we'll then find out if the 2nd op is going to be pre or post Xmas. Just in case it's pre I'm busy getting Xmas stuff done so I have December free for hospital visits, making him cups of tea etc etc. I have the majority of presents bought (and wrapped!) so we're making good progress. The kids have written to Santa! OK, so that's more to do with me not being able to keep up with 'I want that' in every advert break on kids' tv so needed to get this stuff written down than being organised.

I've finally got a job that I officially start this week. Already been in to do some cover work but don't properly start until Wednesday. So it's going to be all go round here!

The kids are the usual (won't elaborate on 'usual', they're doing my head in this morning!). We seem to hardly see Em with her hectic social life. Xander won Star Of The Week at school before half term and is loving going full days.

Right, better fly. Busy Sunday what with Halloween but hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with spooky pics!

Missed you all! x

Normal Service Shall Resume Shortly...

We're having a few technical issues over here at the Garlics. In short, the computer's kaput! Off to see a man about a hard drive tomorrow but for now we'd like to apoloise for the loss of service and hope to resume normal bloging shortly...

Cool Blue

On our way back from Viva las Cleethorpes on Wednesday we called off at The Deep in Hull. It's a really good place but my favourite part is the jellyfish, they just fascinate me how you can see right through them. I also love how the Deep display them in ultraviolet light and got some excellent pics:

Looks fab doesn't it?

Gremlins!

Now, as you will probably know, we don't mind the odd pet around here, always have a cat or 2 on the go and we seem to adopt endangered species like nobody's business. But just of late, we seem to have some unwanted pets, these little critters:

It's the only explanation I can think of for the run of, ahem, blips we've had around this house lately. First of all, all year we've been getting power cuts due to the grill and the dishwasher, the pair of them just throw the whole fuse box out. Rob talked to a nice electrician and he said it was down to 'cack' on the elements. So, the grill is no longer used and I'm down on my hands and knees every couple of weeks scrubbing the dishwasher element to try and keep it clean enough to actually clean the dishes!

Then a couple of weeks ago the cooker hood went. It was a simple fuse that blew but where would the fun have been in just replacing the fuse? Of course it's blown the whole blooming thing so now we can't use the cooker hood and I have to open every door and window when cooking; fine for now but won't be so much fun in January!

And then the biggy, the boiler finally gave up 2 weeks ago. We've been expecting it for a while but when it finally went it managed to flood the whole bloody garage at the same time. So, a week of trailing to my sister's for a shower and boiling the kettle to wash up but finally we got a new state of the art boiler. They'd ruined the bathroom floor but we went to B&Q and bought a new one and Rob got set to laying it. OK, so all is now well...

...until Rob broke my coffee maker! Aaaarrrggghhhh! My one sanctuary in the world! TBH, you can't blame the poor guy for knocking the jug off, he was probably that frustrated with the house that Jack built that I suppose it's easily done. We email where we got it from to ask for a new jug, they no longer do it but we can contact the supplier direct and ask them to post one out...the supplier's in China!

So, we order a new coffee maker, and add some 'accidental damage' cover on it (it'll be our 4th coffee machine this year!). So, last night I feel all calm that our woes are over and go and take a nice warm bath in my lovely new hot water in the bathroom with my lovely new bathroom floor and dream about freshly brewed coffee again...

Drip...drip...drip...

"Rob!" calls I, "could you just pop in here, I'm sure I can hear dripping."

In comes Rob, opens the bathroom cupboard where we are greeted by a new, 1 week old boiler water fall! WTF?!!!!! Out of the bath jumps I and grabs any towel I can find "Save the floor, save the floor" yells Rob as he runs down the stairs to phone the plumber.

So, 10.30 on a Friday night big plumber bossman comes out to take a look:

"Well, I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news" says he.

"Oh f***ety f*** f*** f***!" thinks I.

"You have got water...cold water...but there's a fault on the boiler and we need the manufacturers out...who aren't open on weekends...or Bank Holidays".

Oh deep joy! Could it have happened 24 hours earlier? Oh no, like I said, no fun in that! So for the second time in a fortnight, we're back to boiling kettles blah blah blah!

But, not one to be brought down, I decided to take my mind of the little gremlins and relax with a spot of crafting. I need to do birthday cards for a couple of Xander's friends so I decide to do some name cards. I type out the names, switch on my lovely pink Craft Robo, press the button to load the paper...and nothing...nada...diddly squat! I did what you should do with all high tech gadgets: I turned it off, turned it back on again; I called Rob in, he turned it off, turned it back on again. Nothing!

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So if anyone sees the little gits after midnight, shove a pork pie in their gobs will you and rid me from all this madness!

Mighty Oaks From Little Acorns Grow

That saying seems so apt at the moment. There's been a lot of comments about how much the kids are suddenly growing in the past couple of weeks. Em positively looks like a teenager with her new hair-do:

You see how she's working on that teenage look?!

And as for Xander, well he's going through that transition from toddlerhood to boyhood now. A baby no more, sniff!

Anyway, in a growing kind of theme, we've also been busy making other things grow in the past few months. Now, green fingered I ain't; I look at plants and they shrivel and die! But we've been working hard this year at growing a few things and the kids have got really involved. Back in March/April, they got some of those little 'Grow Your Own' seed kits and we set about planting the seeds. They sat on our windowsill until they were a few inches high and we planted them out in the garden:

OK, this is where my lack of plant skills came in and I let Rob take over! The kids had put too much in for evil garden woman to destroy all the seedlings! So, once they'd grown a bit more Rob got them in the ground and made sure they were watered.

Lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago we had this! The green beans were whoppers!

OK, exciting bit now, so me and Xander went out there and picked some for fear of a beanstalk growing and giants coming down to find our golden egss!

And, this is what I love, Xander won't touch a green bean bought from a shop...but he blooming well will if he's grown it himself!

Bonus! Cheap organic veg that the kids will eat!

Watch this space for potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries and, sniff, still ever growing munchkins!

And....Relax!

I've had the most fantastic weekend!

On Friday, I dropped Xander at school and headed off to the Dales on my first ever scrapbooking retreat. It was for the girls at my local crop but as I've only been going for just over a year it's the first chance I've had to go. It's also the first weekend I've had away on my own in nearly 5 years, so I was SO looking forward to it.

Our crop leader Kirsty organised it and not only did a superb job, but also surprised us with treats on our beds and little crafty kits. She's one in a million that girl!

We got stuck in straight away to some scrapping and it's been non-stop crafting all weekend. It's also been lots of naughty food, wine, chatting and cheek aching laughter!

TBH, I've not really done as much as I could have probably got done with 48 hours of pure scrapbooking time, but who cares?! I've had a lovely chilled weekend with no 5am alarm calls, no 'Muuuuum, he just hit me!' etc etc!

Most are still there crafting away until tomorrow but I did come home today. It was lovely having a break from the kids but it was also lovely coming home to them, I really really missed them but feel all the better for having some quality mummy time.

I'll photograph and upload the stuff I did later, which includes my new craft obsession that Kirsty taught me; but for now here's a pic of me and all the fabulous girls that made my weekend so special!

The Book Club

Remember last week I was discussing my love of books? Well, I finished the Louis Drax book last night and it was fantastic, such a page turner. I'd definately recommend it to anyone.

I got to thinking about some of the books I'd enjoyed lately and remembered this post by my blog friend Kim at the beginning of the year. I loved that she did a list of her favourite books. Since then, I've read 2 off the list (one I'd already read) and really enjoyed them and have just ordered another one from Amazon.

Anyhoo, I thought it may be a good idea to do as Kim did and list some of my favourite books. I always find recommendations are so much better than reviews! So here's some that I can remember:

Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson - full of wit and humour and a brilliant main character. I love Kate Atkinson stuff anyway but this has to be my favourite and I must read it again soon!

The Ship Of Brides by Jojo Moyes - I loved this book so much that I bought it for both my mum and mother-in-law for Christmas. A story about a ship crossing from Australia to England post war, containing women that had married English service men who had been stationed in Australia. I've read everything else Jojo Moyes has done since and her novels are fantastic, but this will always be my favourite.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - There are so many emotions you go through with this book but that is the appeal of it, you get so involved that it's a bit of a rollercoaster. It's the story of a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany and all the things a child had to go through at that time. A brilliant story but also a big eye opener about what the Jews went through.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters - I think this was the book that made me love WW2 fiction. The story of what it was like to go through the bombing raids in London in WW2. Beautifully written with great characters.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - A shocking and controversial book about a school shooting. If you have kids it will scare the cr*p out of you but is probably also a must read. A jaw dropping ending too.

Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale - I so related to the character in this. An artistic woman that is struggling with all the emotions in life. I loved how Gale unravels the tale bit by bit to keep you guessing.

Random Acts Of Heroic Love by Danny Schienmann - Not some chick lit book like it may sound. It follows the stories of 2 men, one has just lost his girlfriend in a bus crash and is struggling to come to terms with it; the other is a soldier in WW2 (you see, that war obsession again!) who is thinking of his love back home and what he'd do to see her again. The story is amazing, then you read the author's notes at the end and you realise just how extraordinary it is.

Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes - I read this for my English GCSE and it's been one of my all time favourites ever since. It tells the story of a scientific experiment performed on a retarded man to make him intelligent. What I love is it's told by the man himself and is written how you'd expect him to write so can be quite challenging at first (think about trying to read a young kids work with all that phonetic spelling!), but as the experiment takes place the writing becomes better and finally quite academic. Brilliantly written!

And for a bit of fun:

The Dirt by Neil Strauss - The official biography of Motley Crue, brilliant if you're a fan but such a good read to non-fans who ever wondered whether all those rock star stories were true. Shocking and not for the easily offended but I've reread it a few times, just to check I wasn't seeing things first time round!

Mort by Terry Prachett - Reread this recently and still loved it! The character of Death has to be one of the best and funniest characters ever written!

Right, that's it for now (until I suddenly remember more!). Let me know if you've read anything you think I'll enjoy, always on the look out for a new read! Oh and thanks Kim for the blog inspiration on this one!

Counting Your Blessings - Part 3

Today, we are being thankful for literature, or more specifically FREE literature (or at least very cheap!).

I was sat in bed last night with my latest book which I just love (you know the kind when you're really angry with yourself for letting your eyes droop 3 pages before the end of the chapter? In fact, you actually resent sleep on the whole as that's 8 hours you can't read!),

and was thinking how great it was that, in this world where you get nothing for free, you can still read books FOR FREE! And actually, unless the only book shop within 100 miles is WH Smiths you can actually buy books pretty cheaply, especially if you live in a town like I do where every other shop is a charity shop.Even if you do pay WHS prices, when you think of pence per hour of entertainment, even that's cheap.

So today I am counting the blessing that I can indulge in something that I love for very little outlay. I am also keeping everything crossed that, after last week's budget, my local library stays free for a long time to come!

Counting Your Blessings - Part 2

Today we are thanking whoever it was that invented the good old scanner. Without which I would not have had hours of fun the other night looking through 20-year-old photos, then scanning them and uploading to Facebook!

I don't care whatever anyone says, I loved how I looked back as a teenager and I'm thankful I had the stubborness to pursue it no matter what anyone said! I showed Emily these pics and she said 'Wow Mum, you looked cool. Can I dress like that when I'm 16?'. That's all the approval I need!

So today's blessing counting is for the ability to stick to your guns and the technology to relive it 20 years on!

Holidays - Credit Crunch Styleee!

So, this time last year we were busy packing to go here:

(***SNIFF*** Love that place!)

This year, er, not so much! Today's financial climate doesn't exactly bode well for yearly Carribbean holidays, but when you're given lemons, make lemonade! As regular readers to my blog will know, I am THE bargain queen; I love to sniff out a good deal. So when the holiday problem posed itself, I came up with a plan.

I always shop at Tesco, mainly for these. I see it as my way of gaining something back from a company who earn billions out of us every year and I even paid my tuition fees for my degree with them. Anyhoo, I sent off for some vouchers to Whipsnade Zoo so last week we headed down south. A quick stop to see Rob's Grandad on the way, then we booked in to a Travelodge on their £29 a night deals (FYI, go for Premier Inn's deal instead, much nicer). After staying there the night we headed to the local Tesco for some sandwiches and other pic-er-nic stuff (and to earn more points! ;) and then went to the zoo...FOR FREE!

Not sure this guy was impressed with us invading his space though:

After the zoo, we headed into London to stay for a few days with Rob's sister (thanks for having us Zo!). Zoe had to work the first day so we headed into 'the smoke' and did all the free sightseeing stuff it had to offer. We even got free sunshine!

For lunch, more Tesco vouchers, this time eating at Pizza Express, and blooming yummy it was too. The kids love PE as they get grown up 'Bambiccinos'!

More pics to come later, I need to do a slide show as there's so many.

So, when we got home I got to thinking about just what I'm going to do with those little angels of mine over the summer holidays; that's 6 very long weeks if you have nowhere to go! I looked at a caravan for a week - £750! :o I looked at our beloved Center Parcs - a 4 night break was £950! :o :o I'm sorry but there's absolutely no way I'm spending that much to stay in this country!

So, I did what I always said I'd never do, and went out and bought this:

That's right, we now own a tent; you know those bits of material with no bath, loo etc?!

Do you know what's even more disturbing? I've got a bit excited about it! Just this morning I was out buying tent peg mallets and camping toasters!

You can just picture the scene now can't you:

Watch this space....

Bachelor Of Wizardry

I got my official graduation picture through the other day. Not a bad pic actually, much better than my 1994 one!

Xander looked at it and said "Mummy, you are a wizard!". I like that, Louise Gillard - Bachelor of Wizardry!

Birthdays, Stars & Sunshine

I'd like to thank whoever ordered me this absolutely beautiful weather for my birthday, best present ever! We're in the middle of a heatwave here which means I've got to spend my birthday weekend basking in the sun.

First of all thank you to everyone for the cards, presents, texts, emails and Facebook messages; I'm a very lucky girl indeed! On Friday I got up and opened my pressies then me, Rob and Xander headed to my favourite place Costa for breakfast. Cake for breakfast, well if you can't on your birthday then when can you?! Then the boys left me to shop for the morning which was lovely; I don't get to shop much unless it's for food or kid's stuff, so having some pennies to spend on me was pure heaven! I got some lovely shoes and a bag to match and a couple of other bits. Then, when Rob had taken Xan to school he picked me up and we went to Nando's for lunch. Thanks to the weather we got to sit outside which was lovely. Then it was off to the pictures (Hot Tub Time Machine - a definate no-brainer but lots of 80s rock on the soundtrack for me!) before coming home for surf n turf on the BBQ.

I had a lovely surprise on my birthday too, when my son came home from school with this:

He got Star Of The Week and was chuffed to bits with himself. Mummy was very very proud!

Yesterday the sun was even hotter so we packed up a pic-er-nic and headed out for some quality sunshine. We had lots of lovely food:

And basked in the sunshine in beautiful surroundings:

Rob and the kids had a bit of a kick-about while I chilled in the sun:

We then went for a walk round the farm to see all the animals and found ourselves an escapee goat:

It did get a bit too toasty though so we headed home and got the paddling pool out, where the kids invented their own waterslide and practised their daredevil stunts:

So, we've woken up to another schorcher. However, the weather's going to break tomorrow so today will be spent taking full advantage of the yellow stuff before it goes into hiding for another 12 months! So, BBQ's out, suntan lotion is at the ready and most importantly, Mummy's sunlounger is out and ready to be chilled on! Well, I am a lot older now you know, I need to take it easy!

The (Not Completely) Blackbird

I've been meaning to blog about this little guy for a while now.

For the past couple of months, we've had a fairly rare visitor to our garden - a black & white blackbird. At first we thought he was just a fledgling who still had his baby feathers, but as the weeks have gone on he's grown and kept his colouring.

We've been feeding him and his friends every day and they sometimes sit on the decking waiting for their bread (think the word's got round that the cats are far too fat and lazy to go hunting birdies these days!).

So here he is, though a little blurry (he's a numble little monkey!):

Swot - The Partaaaay!

Here's a few pics from the party that my parents threw for me on the evening of my graduation. A good time was had by all though there were a few sore heads the next day (especially mine!):