Great expectations!

I hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday.  It is utter bliss not having to do the school run or go to work.  Lazy mornings, not getting up early and spending time in your dressing gown.  No rushing around, lovely lovely.  My Mum and I went up to Marlborough (lovely market town, Kate Middleton went to school there, very posh) on Boxing Day to mainly get out of the house.  The sales had started, but there was no rushing around for parking spaces, hardly any traffic on the road, it was great.  Plus I picked up a few bargains in the sale...I love the January sales.  However, I don't get up at silly o'clock to bag a bargain.....I go online instead!

I watched Great Expectations, somehow the story had escaped me.  I vaguley remember watching it as a kid, I think I was a bit scared, you know weird woman living in a spooky house.  What a great story, I loved it.  May be one day I will write something vaguely worthy of being a s successful as that.  That Charles Dickens, bloody good writer.  Any way, festive greetings to one and all.  I am going to enjoy the rest of the holidays, may be a little more retail therapy, and pottering around.

Happy New Year, I hope 2012 will be fabulous for you all!

Driving home for Chirstmas....nightmare!

I drove back to the homeland last weekend to celebrate 2 birthdays and to pick my Mum up.  It normally takes me 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Peterborough.  I was driving with my 2 bored Children in the back of the car.  Who were constantly asking me can we go to Mcdonalds.  They were totally oblivious we were lost somewhere in Buckinghamshire.  I got past the M40 and one of the roads I usually go down was closed.  I followed the diversion which took me through lots of fields and a lovely little village called Croughton.  I made it back to the usual road, only to find the next road was closed.  I again followed the diversion, and regretted the fact that I left my sat nav on the kitchen side.  Hindsight is such a beautiful thing!  My Husband said to me my sat nav is on the side if you want to take it.  Yes, it was a good idea, however, in my hurry to leave, I forgot it!  Not something I will do again in the future.

So picture this, me driving down the country lanes following the yellow diversion signs, until they end!  Yes, they end, and I am somewhere near Milton Keynes.  I have no clue where Milton Keynes actually is.  This is not the first time this has happened.  Are the people who put the signs out having a laugh or do they start it and then think home time now and do half a job?  Luckily, I have something called common sense.  I kept driving and came across a sign for Northampton and knew I could get to where I was going.  Unbelievable, if you are going to put a diversion up, please do the job properly!  In the end the journey took me 3 hours, deep joy!

Breakthrough filming!

I was really chuffed that the Charity Breakthrough for Breast Cancer asked me if they could come to my house and do a short piece of filming.  Of course I had to bring forward my hair appointment.  No-one wants to see bad roots.

3 guys came from the Charity to do the filming.  They bought me a lovely bunch of flowers and were fantastic company.  They all have lively and vibrant personailities.  I had a fantastic few hours with them talking about my journey through breast cancer.  It seems like along time ago now (3 years ago).  breast cancer is not an easy thing to go through but hopefully other Women can see me and think if she did it, so can I.  I remember when I was going through it I looked at Kylie Minogue for inspiration.  I thought to myself if she can do it so can I (and look stylish and gorgeous whilst going through it).

The message Breakthrough want to get through is that they need the continued funding for finding a cure for breast cancer.  They do a phenomenal job, funding research to banish it.  I truly believe that one day it will not exist, or if it does there will be a simple treatment to get rid of it.  One of the hardest things about cancer is that there are still so many unanswered questions, what switches on or off for that matter.  Breakthrough funds the scientists to find out these answers and so that one day we can combat the disease.

Thank you Breakthrough for giving me the opportunity to talk about my experience and to hopefully spread the message of why you are so important to many Women and their survival through Cancer.  Let's face it most of us all know someone who has been affected by cancer and some of us may not realise the important work that Breakthrough does.  80% of women who have Breast Cancer now survive.  They are making leaps and bounds to a Breast Cancer free future, but they need the continued support of sponsorship and fundraising.

Supermarkets you have been found out!

I was really pleased today that supermarket pricing has been looked into.  I blogged about it ages ago, and how frustrated I was with them trying to blindside us.  We are all not stupid.  I was in one of the aforementioned the other day, and there was a branded tin of biscuits that was now the bargain price of £5.00 instead of £9.90.  Who do they think they are kidding they were never £9.90 in the first place. 

They are ceasing on the fact that everyone loves a bargain.  It is truly missleading and not only on biscuits.  Many a time I have seen dishwasher tablets that were £9.00 marked down to the bargain price of £5.00.  These supermarkets have got too big for their boots and need a large dose of honesty.  I look forward to reading their report.  We are constantly bombarded with advertisements of price watch this and that.  One of them offers you can go home and do a price checker and if it is cheaper they give you the difference, who can be bothered to do that?  Just price your products right in the first place.

Another supermarket always gives you silly little pieces of paper with offers on.  I always lose them or forget about them.  Why don't they put their offers straight onto the clubcard and if you met the criteria you get the deal and if not it expires.  Really a quite simple idea and with all the technology around today very easy to do and better for the environment.

Supermarkets have become giant marketing machines, but us the general public are getting wise to their shananigans!

Bereavement

This week my dear Aunty died.  It was the most sadest moments of my life so far.  She was a major player in my life, not a random Aunty that you never see.  She was the matriarch of our family and the glue that held us together.  She has left a huge void.  Luckily, I managed to say goodbye to her.  On Monday and Tuesday I cried almost all day.  I thought I was never going to stop.  I got myself to a point when I felt sick and if I did not feel sick my head was throbbing from all the tears.  She is the first signaficant person in my life who I have lost.  My Father died when I was 6 years old, however, unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure of spending much of my life with him.

It makes you realise all we really have is each other and our time.  I am so glad I spent a lot of time with her and made the effort to see her when I did.  I know now these were precious moments.  I know it sounds ridiculous but I never thought she would die.  It reinforces the fact that none of us know what is around the corner so we have to live out lives right every day, and treat each other with kindness and respect.  The tears are getting less and less and I am now trying to see the positives.  I was very lucky to have such a wonderful and generous Aunty.  Whenever, we went to her house it was like a party.  Plentiful food and drink and nothing was any trouble.  One thing that does make me sad was my Aunty and my Uncle are/were very generous to people, however, the favour was not always returned.  For her 60th birthday, we celebrated it in style and spoilt her, I am so glad we did.  Grief is not easy to deal with but everyday it will get easier.  God rest her beautiful soul.

X Factor - boredom factor!

I am finding this year's X Factor simply boring.  I like the new judges line up, but I look at the acts left and I don't see anyone who is a world wide star.  In all essence it is not a singing competiton it is an entertainment programme.  Look at the previous contestant debris, last year's winner Matt Cardle has just released his new single and album.  I suspect if I look on itunes now it is not even in the top 100.  He sang his new song on the show that was written by Gary Barlow and it was rubbish, he could not even make it sound good.  Nevermind, at least he has his paint and deocrating skills to fall back on.

What I don't understand is who votes for these people.  The phone lines are really expensive, so who is voting?  I think whoever is voting is not the same people that buy the music.  I have started to feel sorry for the contestants as the majority of them are being set up for failure. 

I prefer watching the results show on Sundays.  However, I must say when the world class acts come on the stage you can see why they are in the position of world domination.  It makes the contestants look like glorified karoke singers.  I am not sure about the longjevity of how long it can go on. 

New carpets...lovely!

Tomorrow I am getting new carpets in my house.  I am ridiculously excited about this.  I have lived in my house for 2 and a bit years.  In my lounge I have a red and yellow mexican style large rug in the middle that does not go with anything.  It is covering up the distgustingly stained carpet that I think used to be some sort of muted biege.  Where we have taken out the old ceramic fireplace there is a gap in the carpet which shows some lovely black floor boards!  Great for spiders or other horrible insects to crawl up in the Winter.  Best of all underneath one of the sofas is a piece of carpet over the bare floor boards.  The reason there is a large section cut out of the carpet is because the last resident in the house (Mike - God rest his soul) died on it!

We thought it was strange when we looked around the house and the Estate Agent was vague about the last occupant.  After we moved in our neighbours told us that he died from a brian hemorrage in the lounge.  Everything then made sense, bare bit of floor boards in the lounge where the guys who do the cleaning must have taken it out.  The door that looked like it had been mended after a forced entry.  We thought it had possibly been burgled before.  The poor fellow lived on his own, he was only in his thrities and he had ear ache for a year.  The Doctor kept giving him antibiotics!  My friends think it is hillarious that the carpet has not been changed yet.  Everything has to happen in it's own good time.  First we had to decorate then we decided to have an extension, neither very condusive to having new carpets.  I hate horrible carpets, but alas they are the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

My poor house had been neglected for years.  I feel that we have bought it back to where it should be.  It has given me so much pleasure reinvigourating it's proud soul.  Still more to do though!  When the new carpets are in tomorrow I will roll around on them.  The house will feel like it is truly ours, we have definitely put our stamp on it.