The opportunity!

So, not much news from the Zone so far this week. 

I spent the weekend getting very inky and painty and had a thoroughly lovely time immersed in raspberry vodka and mojo magic!!

I watched girly movies whilst I sprayed and splodged and cried at all the slushy parts and ended up wiping ink across my face and looking like a painted warrior - it was a good job no-one came to the door!!!

I popped out to the shops and bought some discounted arty stuff and a new jumper in a sale, and got thoroughly soaked in the rain. 

I played with my neighbours new kitten who has discovered I am good for cuddles and have a good lap for sleeping on, and I soothed my broken heart and tortured soul the best way I know how - alone, with just me!

There were no photo opportunities to be had, but that didn't matter. New opportunities for adventure have  presented themselves, and as they say - as one door closes another one opens. No buses or trains involved but there might just be a plane............?

xxx

The Bank Holiday one!

Hello all, apologies about the last post but it needed to be done! NOT that is has made any difference mind you - the sad individual it was aimed at still seems to be lurking about, checking up on me and noseying about my life! 

It's really quite pathetic and I have no idea quite why the need to do it? Is your own life so sad and dull that two years on you still want to know what I am doing?

 

Anyway, in the meantime I have been very busy with my life although am now limited to what I will share here - shame really!

There has been a lot of work and I survived my 22 day run - obviously, but it has meant a severe lack of scrapping!! Due to the not-so-great BH weather this weekend I am in the process of rectifying that now but have also discovered a new love of Art journals. I blame Kirsty Wiseman and her fab two classes Feel and MIMM. She has a new one out by the way - looks awesome but I really need to finish the others before I sign up to anything new!!

So the last of the LO's from Devon camping. It feels such a long time ago now! I was meant to be going on leave again now, but life/things got in the way and I have postponed things for a couple of weeks - but fear not readers, its all good - I have a truly AWESOME adventure heading my way very soon!!

Right - off to make stuff!!

xxx

We interrupt this broadcast.....

For a public service announcement!!!!



You, yes YOU, the one in Horley looking at this on your Iphone!!

You know who you are!

Seriously? You STILL hanging about like a bad smell, desperate to know what I am doing with my life??

Seriously???? - FOXTROT OSCAR!!!!

In the Midnight Hour!

Strange things have been going on in my head this week! It has been spectacularly quiet on nights and my daft old brain has taken itself off in flights of fancy and day(night)dreams!!

In the absence of the possibility of being whisked away by a lover to Zanzibar I have consoled myself with a celebrity crush instead!!

Swoon!
How hot is he?
To accompany my romanticisms I also revived some eighties/nineties music classics and could be heard humming to both Fleetwood Mac and Savage Garden with an earphone wedged in my left ear! The tunes I remembered from my teen years reminded me of youthful wishful dreams of a love yet to come and made me feel all warm and tingly, although I have to say did interfere with me trying to sleep the next morning!!!
:)

I spent many hours spending imaginary money on craft supplies, which did materialise into the real thing on a couple of occasions and now have some new inks and journals winging their way to me! Why is it I always get the urge to be creative at the most innapropriate times, and then when I have free time can't seem to find my mojo ?

I also scoured t'internet looking for a good deal to be had for a holiday next week while the twins stay at Grannywens. I long to go to Corsica but don't have quite enough holiday tokens to manage it - it's always so expensive when travelling by oneself! The flights to New York are ridiculous at the moment although have a place to stay on arrival, and even new fave Nice seems to be just out of my reach!
Oh what to do?

I think also because I have been spoiled for company on my last few trips, both at home and abroad that I am now also a little reluctant to travel by myself? I enjoyed the fun and banter of my companions as well as the opportunity to have real live people in my photographs.
I do have itchy feet though and need to make the most of my week while the boys are being looked after.

Maybe I will take the advice of Anonymous and find myself a train? Surely a train would be fulfilling, fun and adventurous all in one, giving me just what I need??? As for getting off a bus too early. Well I never actually managed to board the one I wanted! Not sure it has left the depot yet and I can't seem to get any response when trying to contact the bus company!!!

Buses!

So, not much to report so far this week.

1. Apart from my death defying cycle in to work where more people tried to run me off the road in half an hour than they have in all the last two years put together!! Made my life flash in front of my eyes on more than one occasion I can tell you!!!

2. A drive to Luton and back in the wee hours................for nothing!!!!

3. Nothing to report on the hottie front other than to say men really are like buses aren't they?

My only problem seems to be the one I  really want to get on hasn't arrived yet,  another that I used to want to get on is always full and another one is going in the completely wrong direction so deffo wont be getting on it!!
What's a girl to do?
Stay on her bike I say, although see point 1.  - not always safer!!!

It all seems to have gone rather quiet but I guess that is due to me working the twilight hours!! Although I am excited to report that a very old friend from my past is coming up to town next month and wants to get drunk with me!! Always a good sign, although I think in bus terms its possibly a substitute driver situation!!?

My near death experiences made me ponder life in general and my severe lack of love life as I trundled up the M1!  I came to no great conclusions other than that it sucks! Having spent a long time carefully putting my poor fractured heart and soul back together I thinks its about time someone came and swept me off my feet before I really do need  to get a bus pass!!!
And yes, the cute guy in the van this morning, who winked and smiled at me even though I look a complete wally in my cycle kit, will mean I go to bed with a smile on my face!!
xx

Parlez Man-glais???

Understand/speak men that is!

I don't. Never have. Not sure I ever will!

They really do speak a different language to us girls don't they!!!!

While it has been a very strange long hard week for some I have basked in the gloriously delicious saucy flirtations of the hottie in a little bubble all of my own. Well, actually I thought we were in it together which was rather nice! It has been really rather intense and awesome and has made me feel things that I probably haven't felt for a year or two now! I swear that yesterday I was getting to the stage that if he had leant over me or brushed against me once more then I was actually going to lick him!!!

So why is it I now feel slightly deflated after he left this evening?

Aside from the fact that I won't get to see him for a while due to my night shifts next week, the last text he sent me was in a quite different tone to the those of this week and he apologised for being "Off colour"! 

What???? 

Apart from a little blue, as in blue movie, I thought he was in spectacularly fine form and anything but off!!??? Maybe I had missed something? But there we have it you see. Apart from the obvious possible misinterpretations of tone from a text message,  and my typical woman's prerogative of reading far too much into absolutely everything, men really do seem to be on a different planet!

I don't know?  I think I'm just going to have another beer!!!

xxx

Food for thought!

Hello Campers, its been a funny old week hasn't it, what with the riots and looting and interesting conversations with people I know, I have had a lot to think about!

Amongst all the hideousness and violence there seems to have also been lots of love and caring.

This has been amongst people I know, colleagues and complete strangers - its been very heartwarming! 

I loved how people came together and helped clean up after the looting. 

I loved the goodwill messages and keep safe comments from my friends and colleagues on the front line! 

Even the hottie at work who was a bit distant for a few weeks seems to have had a tlc injection which he has been sharing with me - love it!!

So, what's next?

About twenty days in a row at work for me  - a week of night duty and no days off for a while! It's gonna be a long weary slog and the hottie is going on holiday so no frolics to lighten my day and make me smile either 

:(

I will be back with some LO's to share and will try to find some stories along the way - will also share some more of these pics

See you on the other side

xxx

Trees, ponies and snores!!!

Hello, hope you all had a great weekend and that the weather was kind to you?

We had a great weekend camping in the New Forest, very different to the last adventure but then I was with very different people. We were literally camped under all the trees in the forest, it was a shame there were so many people and the park staff weren't too bothered when our neighbours thought it would be ok to ignore the rules and pitch less than a metre from our tent!

The snoring was like something we had never heard - even worse than mine!!!

The weather was kind to us and we only had a couple of visits from hungry nosey ponies, one who tried to go in the tent  but it was all part of the experience. After a hilarious BBQ on Friday night, on Saturday we walked through the New Forest into Lyndhurst. A pub lunch, a mooch round the shops (found a great craft shop) and a stop at a different pub for refreshments on the walk back pretty much filled up the day, before BBQ number 2 and lots more (alcohol) fun!

I met some great new people, and was a little sad when everyone else had to rush away after we packed up on Sunday :(

So as I was so near I decided to pop by and visit Grannywen for the rest of the day rather than head straight home. I took her for a little trip out to Wimborne and I found some bargains in Fat Face which cheered me up no end :)

It was a great weekend - I always LOVE camping although I didn't take as many pics this trip as I intended. I will share the ones I took in a LO soon. Today has been spent at home, washing and putting my kit away 'til the next trip, and trying not to think too much about acorns, planting and clearing weeds and stones from the past. Nice analogy Anonymous, and again I agree, preparing the ground is essential but for that poor little acorn alone in the dark its still a strange place to be. 

Perhaps we should meet for coffee and you can impart some more of your wisdom???

xxx

Tie a yellow ribbon round the old...........

Well I'd prefer pink or red and white polka dots actually but thats by the by.
Why would you want to tie a ribbon round an oak tree in the first place??
I guess you need the oak tree first and talking of oak trees whilst I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment Anonymous (well part of it anyway) surely you have to tend and water the acorn to encourage it to grow strong? You can't expect to just chuck it in a pot or the ground in case it goes rotten or Mr Squirrel runs away with it and stashes it in his winter larder for later?? Surely any good gardener knows that??

Very philosophical though - like it!

It's amazing what you can tell about people by what they say. Everyone has their own outlook on life and this view is conveyed in the comments they make. Take my friend Nat for example........now I know what she does for a living so I know she is a smart cookie, but to say she comes across as a bit of an airhead at times is an understatement!! She makes comments which can be exceptionally dimwitted but that's her and we love her for it! She played a joke on us when we went camping last time and pretended that she had caught the wrong train down to Devon. Now of course we all believed her because that's actually the kind of thing she would do, luckily she hadn't on that occasion!!  Her text messages however were quite convincing and very Nat!!

And me? Very honest and open. You can tell by most of the stuff I write here! What you see is what you get and the hopeless romantic in me lets my heart rule my head every time! A bit of a dreamer and always manages to think of the witty retort long after I have replied to something!!?

Nat and I are off camping again this weekend. This time with three other girlies so should be good fun! No men to distract us or do the chores for us this trip!  Sadly Nat won't be doing any more drunken Justin Timberlake style dancing either as she is off the pop for a bit while she trains/detoxes to climb Kilimanjaro - I am sure the rest of us will make up for it though so watch out New Forest, here we come!!

xxx

A little less conversation, a little more action!!!?

So - Sunday was spent with the owners of these fab feet on a photography lesson with the gorgeous Kirsty Wiseman. We had a great day which with any group of creative types/women involved much laughter and rude comments!!! Have made some seriously great new friends - ( hi Fiona, Keilly and Rubina xx)

There was much input on rules of 3rds, radials, asymmetry and depth of field which was all explained very clearly and of course we had lots of practice as we mooched about London's Embankment Gardens. 

Many of the shots were quite different to the normal pictures you would see here on my blog but it was a great day nonetheless. We spent a lot of time taking pics of each other, something I don't do very often - PEOPLE in my pics - yep!! And I learnt a lot about how best to do it - now I just need some more willing models to practice on!!

Monday was HUGE shock to the system getting up at 0515 to start back at work and by the end of yesterday I needed to get a bit squiffy on the sofa at home with Mojitos to recover!

The weather has been so nice, but too nice for going to work. 

No eye candy yesterday either to cheer me up???

:(

I have also had an anonymous comment made about my "D**E". 

I am sure it is meant in the nicest possible way and the "lol" wasn't meant to be as in - you, on a date, you've got to be kidding??? But I thought I would explain about it a little more as I kinda brushed over it in the last post!

Its been a long old while since a seriously hot, well mannered, (did I say he was hot?)  man has asked to spend some time with me and I got a little over excited maybe. In my simple world that counts as a date! But to be honest, as I said we did have a lovely evening, cinema drinks and dinner, but I came away a little confused that perhaps it was actually more platonic than I had considered??

Having now been asked "What film are you taking me to next then?", I can only consider that it did actually go quite well and I am not so strange that someone would want to spend quality fun time with me after all. I am still no closer to knowing if this is purely a meeting of like minded chums or the slow beginnings of something a little more meaningful and of course am far to shy to ask!!!

To be honest its quite infuriating but all good things to those who wait I guess, and boy have I waited!!!

So, my dear anonymous commenter - any thoughts???

My LO btw is from our camping trip in Devon a few weeks ago.

 Did I mention that it was awesome??

Would have been even more awesome if the seriously hot man had been there too!?

 - he'd have fit right in !!

:)