Then Sye dressed me up as an African Woman against my Will (honestly!) and we made cinnamon & whole nut cookies:
Me as an African Woman.
Cookies Up Close.
The completed cookie batches.
The idea Sye & I came up with was to make these cookies to give as homemade gifts to family & friends for Christmas. I don’t know about Sye’s family & friends but all mine that received them said they were delicious.
Yule kicked off the festive period with a relaxed gathering at Chrys’, with tasty food, wonderful company and making of festive wreaths. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling well as I’d caught a bug before finishing work for the festive period, so by the time it came to making wreaths in the evening I was shattered. In true Yuletide spirit the group banded together and made me a wreath which was so kind of them to do.
Christmas day soon came around and I cooked Christmas dinner for Steve. I was so impressed with myself, but only thought after dinner that I should have took a photo. Dylan & Russell my cats enjoyed the day. I bought them a Crinkle Bag. They love the sound of it along with the cat nip bag sown on a string inside:
Oh a crinkle bag!
OMG there’s catnip inside!
They discovered some wrapping I’d left out and decided to put it on their head and walk around bumping into the walls. After a while they sussed out that if they put their paw in front on them to feel for walls they wouldn’t bang their head. They spent the rest of the evening taking it in turns to play “blind cat;” so should have got a video but at least I got a few photos:
I will not put my head in the wrapping….
Ah I can’t see!
I also got a number of wonderful presents including various DVD’s, smellies, gift vouchers and a beautiful Yankee Candle.
Boxing day concluded my festive celebrations with a visit to mum & Ian’s with Steve. Albeit brief it was good to see everyone and know that they had a good festive period to.
Another year passes us by, time flies by so quickly doesn’t it? For me this year has been a mix of passive times with periods of immense activity. In January I bought myself an iMac (see iMac Part 1 & iMac Part 2), promising myself to write creatively more often. In April I went to watch Steps to relive my youth with mum, Ian & Jodie.
(Above left to right: Ian, Mum & Jodie. Steps Logo on MEN screen. Jodie & Mum.)
In May I had two weeks of annual leave and celebrated my birthday at Alton Towers. If you’ve never been to Alton Towers…you must go; it’s a brilliant day out. During my time off I also visited Chester Zoo for Steve’s Birthday and visited Steve’s family in Hastings.
(Above left to right: Steve in Giant Turtle Shells. Two Cheetahs sunbathing. Me, Steve’s Friend & Steve in Masks at the gift shop.)
My Degree in Nursing results were released in June and I got a Upper Second (2:1) Honours. I felt a sense of achievement and a sense of relief that it was finally over after I previously had to put the final module back a year.
Sye came to stay in July for the Summer. With his arrival I felt a renewed level of motivation to get things done. He returned to Uni. in Salford in the Autumn, it was good having him to stay but I am glad that he’s back where he wants to be.
I had a day trip to Liverpool in August with my good friends Chrys & Simon. Chrys being a proper scouser (minus the accent) showed us round the beautiful city and for the first time I understood why people love the city: the architecture, the culture (music) and the seemingly relaxed nature of the people.
Just before the day trip to Liverpool I started experiencing some severe back pain. After seeing my GP I had an x-ray, was given some painkillers and was referred to Physio. My back’s still causes me some grief now, but the combination of co-codamol and physio exercises have massively reduced the amount of pain I experience.
Having continued to blog throughout the year including several book reviews, I was surprised in September when I had caught the eye of a Publicist (who works for several publishers). This Publicist, from Publishers Group UK asked me if I would review one of their books. I had a bit of a confidence crisis, as I had absolutely no confidence in my writing but Sye encouraged me to go for it. So I did…
The Publicist was that pleased with my review that he sent me another five books to read and at one point stated “a career as a book reviewer beckons!” This was a huge complement and has given me a little more confidence around my writing.
About a week or so ago, I was approached by a Publicist Manager for Headline publishers who have asked me to review a copy of Fuse the second book in a trilogy.
Among my plans for next year is to develop my writing further. But for now I’m focusing on Yule and Christmas. Things are changing this Christmas; for the first time ever Mum is working on Christmas Day, I am off work for the whole Christmas period and I am going to attempt (with Steve) to make Christmas Dinner. Ha ha should be fun at the very least.
I’ve just had two weeks off work on annual leave. It gave me the opportunity to spend some precious time with family & friends and take some much needed time for rest & relaxation. The time off has been full of good times including:
Alton Towers – For My Birthday
For my Birthday Mum, Ian, Steve and myself went to Alton Towers for a day of thrills, frights and fun. I wanted to go as I’d never been.The weather remained dry all day, but had dark grey clouds in the sky and the temperature dropped in the afternoon. Steve and I managed to get on:
Th13Teen, my favourite ride. It was a thrill and fright ride. Loved it and would have liked the time to go on it again…and again.
Air, is a fast hurtling-towards-the-ground-to-your-death before quickly turning away type ride. I had this image of test dummies coming back without legs, arms and a head from some rollercoaster that I saw in the News ages ago. I didn’t like it.
Nemesis, a complete thrill ride. Loved it and would go on again.
Nemesis Sub-Terra (new for 2012) – really disappointing. If I’d have known it would be like that, I wouldn’t have bothered.
In the afternoon we all visited Hex and illusion type ride which left me with a head ache. We also visited the aquarium, which I was personally disappointed by as it was too small and people were touching the fish even though there were signs asking them not too. Alton Towers is a massive place and we didn’t manage to get to see everything, even using the Sky Ride. So I’ve put together some tips if you’re planning a visit to Alton Towers…
Alton Towers Top Tips:
When buying tickets, buy online. There are two reasons for this. Firstly you wont have to que when you get there. Secondly we saved loads of money by buying them a week before.
Download the Alton Towers app as it’s really useful for a map, live wait times and other info.
Take an extra £6 for parking. I was surprised to see they charged for parking.
Go on the ‘big’ rides in the morning. It will save a load of time queuing in the afternoon.
Take packed lunches, otherwise you’re going to spend about £20 each on lunch.
If you’ve got someone whose not going on the rides then they can hold your bags. If you’re all riding, the rides have luggage storage for while you ride. Plus there are some lockers near the Air ride.
We didn’t get to see everything, so consider two days at the theme park. You can buy a ticket for another day at a reduced price both online and on site.
Baby Ethan’s Christening
Baby Ethan is my Nephew and I was honoured to be asked to be his god parent at his Christening. Although I’m Pagan and it was a Roman Catholic Christening I like the concept of a god parent. Someone whose there to support the parents and be there for the child. Ethan was christened, sleeping through most of the service and then there was a celebratory party. It was a great day and although being a god father is a big responsibility, I hope to do Ethan and his parents proud.
Chester Zoo & Tea in Chester – For Steve’s Birthday
Steve, two of his friends and myself went to Chester Zoo for his birthday. Click on any photo for full size image. We had loads of fun:
In the giftshop, we found masks :).
Steve’s a Giant Turtle.
I’m a Giant Turtle.
I noticed a significant reduction of the animals in Chester Zoo, we started in the side of the park with the Zebra’s (all three of them) and there were a lot of empty enclosures. The enclosures were of a high quality (as always), even if we couldn’t see the animals because of poor design:
(Spirit of the Jaguar Enclosure. Bushes made it difficult to see the Jaguar’s.)
However here’s some photos of the animals we did see:
Elephants.
Zebra.
Rhinos.
Cheetahs.
Flamingos.
Tigers – sun bathing.
Penguins.
Mother and Baby Chimp.
Giraffe’s.
Ducks. We saw a lot of them, some exotic, some not.
These Dinosaurs looked….plastic.
Flying Bird Dinosaur.
T-Rex Dinosaur and baby.
We went for tea afterwards in The Slug and Lettuce in Chester town centre. We all had a great day, made more special because it’s was celebrating Steve’s birthday.
Visiting Steve’s Family in Hastings
For my last weekend off Steve and I went to visit his family in Hastings. It was lovely to see them all, and I would like to thank them for giving me somewhere to stay. We had a day out in town and I got to spend some time on the sea front. It was glorious weather and I had to walk up and down the entire sea front repeatedly to get a photo with no people on the beach, but I managed it:
Lots of Sunbathing
Throughout my two weeks, we’ve had some fantastic weather and I’ve used every opportunity I can to bask in the sun. The result: my face, neck and arms are lobster red. In a few days they’ll turn into tanned skin.
As part of my Christmas presents last year, mum bought me a ticket to see Steps with her, Ian and Jodie. We got into town early and grabbed a bite to eat:
Mum & Ian (1) – with Flash!
Mum & Ian (2) – without Flash.
Me being sophisticated drinking coffee. Later I spend some time peeing while the warm up artists were on. Luckily they were terrible and worth missing.
Me.
While Jodie’s off powdering her nose, me & Ian fight over her bag. We stop to pose for a quick photo.
Jodie’s back and posing for a photo with mum.
Mum, Jodie & Ian.
Mum, Me & Ian.
I decide to be cheeky and mess up mum’s & Ian’s hair (forgetting that Ian doesn’t have any). Mum retaliates as a photos taken.
We got to the Arena and took our seats. There were two warm up acts, both of which were shockingly bad.
Ian, Mum & Jodie.
The audience go wild as the Steps logo appears on the screens at either side of the stage.
Five tubes that Steps were rise up and into on their first appearance on stage.
A vault with countdown clock on. The graphic was completely on a back screen.
The vault opens.
Steps appear on stage.
The graphics screen at the back of the stage. The screen lit up, in combination with the lights made getting photos really difficult.
Steps appear on stage. We were treated to a few Steps classics with dance moves using the back screen as a Just Dance type game.
Steps – Dancing & Singing in boxes.
Backing Dancers – Playing with Fire, while Steps sing.
To give you a feel of the hyper-active, excited atmosphere of the audience, I took a short video:
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Then each member of Steps did a solo song. First Lee, singing a mix of a few songs. His performance was excellent, and there were even screams when he ripped open his shirt:
(Lee performing with his shirt open.)
Next was Faye:
(Faye performing.)
‘H’ sang Don’t Stop Believing and did some clever stuff by making it look like he was interacting with the big graphic screen at the back of the stage:
(H performing. With his use of the graphic screen, I struggled to get a good photo.)
Lisa sang next, singing a mix of different songs including her track ‘Lately‘:
(Lisa performing.)
Claire sang her solo last. Claire had put on weight, but looked better for it. Unsuprisingly she sang an opera type song (having been on Popstar to Operastar):
Then it was time for my favorite Steps song: It’s The Way You Make Me Feel. I couldn’t help feel disappointed, rather than just having H singing the male lines of the song both H and Lee sang them. There voices didn’t feel like they became one. I would have preferred just H to sing to be honest. Still the costumes lived up to expectations, see below:
Lee in his mask and suit.
H in is costume. Claire, Faye and Lisa wore corset type costumes. All keeping in the theme of the orignal music video.
H closer, a photo of the side screen.
Steps then went on to sing Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart
Steps stopped to say Thank you’s – mostly to the audience for supporting them. They even posed for a photo:
Then they slowed things down with a few of their ballot type tracks. What amazed me was that the audience sang along, louder than Steps at some points. The audience singing in mass made me aware of how many people related to the words in Step’s songs.
(Steps sitting on the stage singing some of their slower tracks.)
Steps brought back the hyper-active, excited atmosphere of the audience with Stomp and some other songs. Here’s some photos:
Stage for Stomp.
Stage for another song.
Stage for another song.
Steps on Stage performing Dancing Queen.
Then it was time for Steps to take a bow and leave the stage:
For their encore they performed the only track they hadn’t performed so far: Tragedy :
(Leaving the audience on a high.)
For me it was a bit of nostalgia, re-living my teen years. But Steps stated that they were back – so they may well release some new music. I hope they do, I really enjoyed myself and had forgotten how much I enjoy a bit of cheesy pop.
I would like to apologise for quality and size and of the photos. I should have taken my camera rather than used my iPhone, this would have improved the quality of the photos. I’ve also had to significantly reduce the size of the photos to save on disk space (see More Disk Space). But if you’ve not got tickets to see Steps, don’t worry as the tour DVD is available to pre-order here: Steps – The Ultimate Tour Live [DVD]. Also you can order the live concerts on CD here: Steps Live! 2012 [CD].
Are you a Doctor, Nurse, Healthcare Assistant or Other Healthcare Professional? Or a Student?
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My dear friend Roy decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and enlist in the Royal Navy.
I wanted to maintain our friendship, to continue to support Roy, to make him laugh and to entertain him. So I came up with the idea of sending him a weekly email on random topics.
These emails were on a variety of topics, always being entertaining, sometimes being interesting, sometimes funny and occasionally being serious.
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This book contains everything that you need to know about mental health and mental illness. Mental Health Wisdom is divided into three sections.
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Mental Health Wisdom contains everything that you need to know about mental health and mental illness.
Mental Health Wisdom is divided into three sections.
Understanding is section one and is all about the facts of mental health.
In section two, Empathy Through Lived Experience, the author shares his personal experience of mental illness.
Life Hacks is section three. It’s all about self-care and quick and easy ways to improve your mental health, prevent mental illness or relapse of mental illness.
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