Happy New Year

Hello - I'm back!  I know, I know - you haven't missed me!  But I'm back anyway.  (And I hope you've all managed to find me seeing as how I've changed my URL)

Hope you've all had a lovely Yule/Christmas & a great New Year.

It's tidy-up time after the festivities here in the Draper household.  And boy does it need it....  I've been under the weather the past few weeks & if I haven't had to go to work I haven't been out of my onesie, never mind tidying.....  It's been as much as I could do to sort the dishwasher out.

But thankfully I feel a lot better today, if still slightly fuzzy (& touch wood I'm actually on the mend as there's been a few  times I've thought I was getting better only to be worse the next day...)
I have to admit to not doing a great deal other than 2 loads of laundry & the dishwasher but at least I'm dressed today!  It's a start!

The place really is a disgrace - my lovely Mammy would have had words when I was a teenager (& not pleasant ones either!)  so I really really need to get off my butt.

Thankfully the kids go back to school next Weds/Thurs (depending on the child) - they seem to have been off forever!  And my little Nikki starts full-time!  So that gives me chance to a) start using the Alethea Austin stretch DVD that I bought off my dance teacher & b) make some progress (hopefully) on this place.

I'm also hoping to actually blog a lot more often - partly because (theoretically) I'll have more time & partly because I know I was a lot better at pulling my finger out & getting on with housework when I was involved with forum-land - specifically the Flylady forum...  mainly because I was "answering" to someone!

So I figure if I start posting on here what I hope to achieve the following day, then when I come to do that days post, I can update where I've got up to before posting my next days to-do list (if that makes sense?)

And if anyone wants to start joining in by adding their to-do lists, then feel free!

So here's tomorrow's vague plan of action

Work
Find Nikki's lunchbox (it's somewhere in my bedroom - I may need to call for a search party!)
Clear the rubbish off the kitchen worktop
Clean microwave
Wipe over kitchen cupboard doors
Clear out under sink cupboard
Clean kitchen window
Tidy top of fridge & freezer.

I may even have a play about with the layout on here!

Over to you - what do you have planned for tomorrow?

Back to school

So the kids have been back at school for a week & a half...
That means time for cleaning.  (Sod spring-cleaning - the house needs a good clear out after the summer holidays way more than in the spring!)

Where to start though?  EVERYWHERE is an absolute pit....  I am soooo overwhelmed with it all.

AND I'd like to have the little boys room, the stairs & preferably the living room decorated before christmas... (which would of course explain the bizarre yellow squares all over the stair walls!)

And speaking of christmas - it's time to start thinking about that too....  so far I've got as far as putting together a spreadsheet of who to send cards/presents to...

Ah well - will come back to you when I've got myself a bit more organised!

Mud, glorious mud....

I know it's been over 2 weeks since Download, but I figure we've established by now that I'm a bit of a lazy mare when it comes to keeping my blog up to date....

So, how did my first camping experience since I was a teenager go?

Well, as the title suggests it was a flaming mudbath....
Tramping through 6 inch deep mud for over a mile from the carpark to the campsite is really not fun - especially when it's flowing like a mud river.... mmmmm, nice!  We were quite lucky that our particular patch was uphill - there were people who'd been there for a couple of days who were on lower ground & therefore literally camping in a quagmire....

Our boots!

And losing the tent at the end of the night was really really not fun - stumbling round in the dark for 2 hours or so is enough to make you want to tear your hair out.....  Although, judging by the amount of people in the same situation as us, it wasn't entirely our fault.  In fact I'd go as far as to blame whoever it was who decided that closing off the original route that everyone in our sector had taken in favour of making us go across the actual race-track was a good idea - complete threw us all...

(after this fiasco & the state that the track was being left, they didn't do that again...)

Not sure I'm ever going to do it again - if I do I'll be paying the small fortune to camp in the exclusive area where you can park your car next to your tent!!

But the music made it all worthwhile (& the guest area beer tent - discovering the Velvet Elvis cocktail was an absolute epiphany!!)

We did manage to miss a couple of bands through getting confused over stages but once we'd figured out what we were doing/where we were going, it was all good.

I'm not going to go through them all, other than to say Little Angels were as fantastic as they ever were, but Slash & Metallica were disappointing....

And here's the pics!

Little Angels

Me with Spike from the Quireboys

Tyla

Sebastian Bach

And just to show you that it didn't rain all weekend.....  

Me & himself - no idea who the randoms are!!



Tempus Fugit

So, I thought I'd just write a quick post before I go off to Download....
Then I realised that it's been a month since I last updated - a whole month!!  (not that anyone cares - it's not as if I'm hysterically funny like Stickhead at Slightly South of Sanity; or informative like the organising blog ladies)

Just shows how boring my life is that in the last month, nothing of note has happened...  Just my usual gripes about other drivers (who probably have the same gripes about my driving); kids being, well, kids; work; trying to get my house tidy (I have blitzed the kitchen so it actually looks like a kitchen rather than the tip it was...)

I did go to a workshop by the fantastic Pantera Blacksmith yesterday (& now I ache all over & have my ordinary class tonight, ouch)  The woman is a legend in the world of pole-dance - I'm so glad I got the chance to meet her.  I sooo hope I get to do another workshop with her at some point in the future...

But other than that, it's been same ol' same ol' for me...

But as I may have already mentioned - I am off to Download.  Here's hoping it's not raining.....

oh for goodness sake - more asbestos....

You may or not remember the asbestos saga (hold on, didn't I start my last post like that?!)

To bring you up to speed, we pulled down a fence at the back of the garden last year thinking it was just screening general rubbish (which of course shouldn't have been there in the first place, but hey) only to find sheets of asbestos.  It then took much to-ing & fro-ing to get the council to admit responsibility & come & remove said asbestos & rubbish....

Now when they did finally come, they said they were only allowed to remove the surface rubbish, they weren't allowed to dig...  Annoying, but fair enough.

So, as per my last post, the weather's finally nice enough (occasionally!) to let us get out there & start sorting out the extra bit of garden we gained by removing the fence.  We already found a load of junk last week...

Today, not only did we find a ton of junk buried out there (& a toad!) but yep - more fecking asbestos....
Guess that's more emails being fired off to the council....

Mind you, we've also found bones..... a couple of ribs & either a hip or shoulder socket....  I'm pretty sure they're not human but if we find a jaw bone I'll let you know!!

Sorting the garden

You may or may not remember me posting about finding a load of crap at the back of the garden just after we moved in last year (& the resultant battle to get the council to come & remove it).

Well, we did eventually get them to come & shift it - however, although they took the asbestos & the surface rubbish, they were apparently not allowed to remove anything under the surface, even though sheets of corrugated metal could be seen sticking out from under the soil...

I've finally got round to getting out there to start sorting it this afternoon - my good god.....

In one small section we've removed half a barrel (well & truely rusted away - I wouldn't be surprised if it had been whole when it was buried), several sheets of said corrugated metal, loads of bricks & a scary amount of broken glass (it looks like at least one flaming window's been buried out there...)  There was also an external tv aerial and the door from a kitchen cabinet.... (oh & we found a toad as well!!)

Why would anyone bury that stuff, rather than take it to the tip or getting the council to come & take it away??

No wonder they'd put a fence in front of it.....

Catching up...

I might have been full of the joys of spring last time we met, but golly gosh,it's bloody cold today!!
And what have I been up to since last time?  Well, whilst other people across the country were panic-buying fuel, I was panic-washing laundry....  yep, that's right.  During that brief but glorious hot spell that we had, I was catching up on all my winter  build-up of clothes.  3 loads per day I was getting done.  Which I know sounds a hell of a lot, but there are 6 of us remember & I don't possess a tumble dryer, so during winter &/or wet weather, I can't actually do a lot of washing, cos I've got to wait for it all to be dried on clothes horses/radiators...
The only problem with doing all this washing is that now I've got nowhere to put anything!!

But I'm glad I did get pretty much all caught up cos we've gone back to winter.  Snowing in fact!  Thankfully not as bad as Scotland & Northumbria, but still!!!

What else have I been doing?  DS3 turned 5 on April Fools Day (explains an awful lot about him, that does!) so I've been making mountains of cupcakes for his party that he had..  (delicious, even if I do say so myself!)

And due to the problem of lack of clothing storage, I've started decluttering it all...  I now have mounds of clothes to take to nursery & a shedload of nappies to sell and Freecycle....

hohum, what an exciting life I lead!!!