Easter

It's Good Friday today. I stayed in bed till lunch time, then went out for lunch with Mum, Dad and Granny. Then I walked the dogs (Tarka plus a visiting poodle!), then came home and have spent the rest of the evening watching the entire series 2 of Ultimate Force which I found in a charity shop the other week!

Well I did say it's 'good' Friday!! Today has been good!!

This Easter has been quite relaxed for me. I bought my Easter eggs weeks ago when they first came out and at £1 each, special offer instead of £3 each. We're only buying small ones this year and only for the kids. So no last minute dashing out and spending a small fortune on whatever is left, which is my usual thing at Easter, all the while berating myself for not taking advantage of the earlier special offers...

Sunday we're all going to Mum and Dad's for lunch. I don't know what we're having but it will be gorgeous because Mum's cooking always is.

I took last Thursday off work which has given me a 5 day break, just what I need, as from Tuesday work will turn into chaos and mayhem....

YAY!!!!

The Abercrombie hoodie was still there!!

And now, it's MY Abercrombie hoodie!!!

(paid full price for it though, I was hoping it might have been reduced by now.)

Reading = :-( Abercrombie = :-)

Well, after all that I haven't done any more reading! I just can't seem to get started on 'The Lord of the Rings' but I don't want to give in and start one of the other books either. *sigh* I'll just have to sit down and make a start, and hope that once I get going I can get into it a bit.

There's a shop in a local town that sells second hand but 'nice' clothes. You know, the things that are too nice and worth too much money to give to a charity shop. It's a 50/50 shop, so the shop takes 50% of what the clothes sell for and the owner gets the other 50%. Well, in this shop there's a gorgeous Abercrombie hoodie which I've got my eye on. It's £20 which is a bit over my budget for a hoodie really, but, well, it is Abercrombie...

Anyway, at badminton last night the treasurer decided we had enough money in the kitty to each have a free term. So, now that I don't have to pay £30 for badminton..... yep, you can see what I'm thinking!!

So, it's been in the shop for 2 weeks now, what's the betting that when I go back on Saturday to buy it, it'll be sold? Yeah, that's the kind of luck I have.

I'll let you know!

Reading

I've been trying to get back into reading recently.

I started with 'The Hobbit'. I really want to see the film when it comes out in December but thought I would read the book first, since books use your own imagination and once you've seen a film, you tend to rely on the film's visuals instead of creating your own.

'The Hobbit' was OK. I've never really been into that type of book before so it was a new genre for me. I can't say I loved it, but I did finish it so that's better than hating it.

Then I read 'One Day' by David Nichols. I'd heard good reviews of this and again, it's been made into a film which I might try and get hold of if I can find a copy second hand. I did enjoy this book, and it had a twist at the end which I had to read about 3 times before I could believe what had happened!!

Next on my list is 'The Lord of the Rings', for the same reason that I read 'The Hobbit' really. I have got the DVD's waiting to be watched so I need to read the books first. I suspect that reading the books and then watching the films will probably take me up until Christmas - just in time for 'The Hobbit' film!

I have also got 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjama's' and 'The Time Traveller's Wife' waiting to be read as well, so I probably do have enough to keep me going for the rest of the year! I bought those because again, I have heard good reviews and I thought I might need something to break up 'The Lord of the Rings' with!

I got all of these from charity shops including the DVD's. I prefer to buy books rather than go to the library because I hate feeling pressured by time limits to finish a book. Yes, I know you can renew library books, but it's just something else to remember to do and I struggle to remember the stuff I must do, let alone adding extra things to the list. Brand new books always feel like a waste of money when there are millions of unwanted books waiting to be read, hence looking in charity shops. Sometimes it takes a while to find what I want, but there are now charity bookshops popping up in bigger towns, rather than just a single shelf in a regular shop.

Here's a taster of 'The Hobbit' which will be released in December 2012.

Two years

Two years today since I last held my girl, since I last brushed her coat and since I told her I loved her for the last time. 

Two years that feel like yesterday and forever, at the same time.

Pippa

30/05/96 - 22/02/10

Nothing's forgotten.

Nothing's ever forgotten.

Random events

I have a few unrelated things to blog so this post might be a tad random in places...

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I have just got back from the South East Berks Gang Show, which my friend's little boy (sorry, young man!) was in. It's the third one he's done and so the third one I've seen, and the standard is amazingly high! I went with my sister and Nephew#1 who loved it!
http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/5069/shows/south-east-berks-gang-show.html

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I had an email from an old friend in America. She and I worked on Scout camp together in 1991 and 1993, and we've kept in touch albeit sporadically. She was writing to let me know her mother is ill with a terminal illness. It's news like that which makes me take stock and appreciate what I have got in my life. This little saying popped up on another friends facebook today, and it definitely applies to me these days.

I'm going to make it my new mantra.

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On Monday I helped another friend with a house clearance. An elderly family friend has passed away and her parents are executors, so she was doing some clearing of stuff for them and I gave her a hand. The old man had lived locally to me and my friend and her family now live some hours away, so she stayed with me Sunday night and we did some clearing on Monday. It was lovely to see her and catch up, it's been almost 2 years since I saw her last! We got a lot done too which was good.

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I didn't run for 2 weeks. There was ice and snow one week, and then I had other things on the next week. I went to track yesterday though and it was hard work.... got to get back into it! Hopefully we've got some better weather coming now that we're heading into spring, it's definitely a much more pleasant hobby in the summer and I'm actually quite proud of myself for sticking with it through the winter months! I do need to push myself though as I have definitely plateaued, I doubt that right now I would manage the '8 in 80' I did back in October!

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Yesterday was my sister's birthday! Happy birthday sis!!

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My brother and sis-in-law got another dog! Can't remember if I blogged it, but the old dog died before Christmas. They have got another collie, this one is a 2 year old bitch called Trixie and she's a total sweetie!

This is her picture off the rescue website, she's much prettier in real life and just wants cuddles all the time!

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So, I think that's it, but if not I'll be back to edit this post over the next day or so I'm sure....

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Just another February....

Can you believe February is half way through already? I can't.

We've had snow this week. That means I haven't been running for a week now because I'm too scared to run in the snow and too lazy to dig the treadmill out from under the boxes of car boot stuff.

At the end of January, I went to see Blood Brothers with my friend. It was her birthday present to me, and it was fab! I have seen it before but a long time ago, and I was surprised how much of it I had forgotten. I made some popcorn to take. I love toffee popcorn and wanted to make my own instead of buying it. It took a few goes but I finally got it almost right.... one more try and it'll be perfect I recon!