Brummie Blogger

Gatport Airwick

As it's known in the family. That's what my brother Michael refers to Gatwick as, and if it's good enough for my lovely brother, it's good enough for me. Yesterday Stephen and I went to work as normal, with the plan being to get home by lunch time, finish packing, clean the house, and head south to do twilight check-in and settle in at the guest house where we were staying overnight.

Like all good plans this one went slightly wrong. I picked that day of all days to get a blasted migraine. I got home from work and stayed up for long enough to get the hand luggage sorted whilst waiting for online check-in to become available, and once that was safely done at 1pm I took my meds and went to bed for two hours. The drugs eased the migraine but didn't shift it completely. I had no choice, however, but to carry on with the last minute packing. Stephen had done all the last minute cleaning including two loads of washing and we were on the road by 6pm, two hours late.

Then the weather kicked in. It was raining buckets and there was a 50mph limit on the motorway so not only were we late setting out but we were slower getting there. Our plan to stop for dinner on the way had to be cancelled and we just carried on slowly but surely, hoping that we wouldn't meet any stationary traffic. I had an anxious eye on the clock which seemed to be moving much quicker than we were. I knew twilight check-in closed at 9pm so we needed to be parked at Gatwick by 8.30 to be sure of making it in time.

And, we made it. Just. We parked the car at 8.27 and were in the queue for check-in by 8.40. Phew! Then we got stuck behind the people who hadn't done ESTA. Oh dear. They obviously had no idea what it was and must have just been nodding and smiling every time they'd been asked if they'd done it. Hopefully they've managed to get it sorted by this morning.

So, we got our bags dropped off, we already had our boarding passes printed from online check-in earlier in the day. Then we headed for Costa for a brie and cranberry panini (me) and a BLT (Stephen) and lattes. Then a five minute drive to Springwood guest house where we found ourselves in the most beautiful warm room.

We've always been happy with the rooms we've had here, but this one is by far the nicest. That bed was so comfy, the room is spacious, and so beautifully decorated.

That's the desk I'm  sitting at now using the free wireless internet, which is very fast, by the way. And the bathroom? You could throw a party in the bathroom!

It's a huge walk in shower with one of those big square shower heads. Lots of lovely hot water. Fantastic.

So, Yesterday started off a bit rough but improved to the point that after taking more meds before going to bed I woke up this morning without a migraine.I've now had a lovely shower and a very nice breakfast and am now enjoying the internet while waiting to be chauffered to the Gatport Airwick for our 1pm flight.
 

Planning ahead

A few years ago I got it into my head that for our next big wedding anniversary I'd really like to do an Alaskan cruise followed by a trip over the Rockies. In my head it was a train ride over the Rockies but over the years that's developed into a road trip as the scrapbooker in me needs to be able to stop and take photos and a husband driving a car is much more likely to do that than a train driver. It's been one of those dreams, you know those dreams that you can think about for hours but you never think will actually come to pass, expecially with the current economic climate.

Then, a few weeks ago, Disney announced that one of their cruise ships, The Disney Wonder, would be doing Alaskan cruises in 2011 from May to September. Our Anniversary is during the very last cruise. And, we could use our Disney Vacation Club points to pay for it. Suddenly it was looking very possible.

Could I really just book a cruise for two years ahead when I hadn't even finished planning next year's holiday yet? What if our financial situation changed? What if? What if?

I dithered for a couple of weeks, while doing extensive research online into the Disney cruises, the staterooms on the ships, the Alaskan cruises in general, the rough cost of flights etc. etc. Then, I took a very deep breath, phoned member services and booked it. I got the date I wanted and the exact stateroom that I wanted. When I put the phone down I just sat there slightly stunned. I had just booked a 7 night Alaskan cruise. I was going to Alaska! Holy cow!

This is our itinerary

I think I may have told everyone I came into contact with over the next couple of days. My colleagues were getting slightly worried that I was going to keep up that level of excitement for the next two years. I have now calmed down slightly, luckily for them and for everyone else that I know.

What I need to do now though, to ensure that this is a holiday of a lifetime, is to plan for all I'm worth. The rough plan so far is to fly into Vancouver and have a few days there before the cruise. Then after the cruise we'll drive to Calgary and fly home from there. I need to plan the route we take from Vancouver to Calgary to make sure we take in as many highlights as possible and do the research to find out where to stay along the way and for how long. We'll probably take three weeks to do it all. Possibly a few days more.

Once I've got a better idea of our route across the Rockies I'll blog about it, with some notes about the places we plan to visit. I also need to pick shore excursions for our cruise. I've been looking at some typical ones and they're amazing. The things you can do! Must start saving my pennies...

Four days to go!

 Let the packing commence.

Shopping for clothes

This is something that I tend to avoid. Mainly because I have to do it in person, as in actually go to the shops and try stuff on. I much prefer do my shopping on the internet but clothes just don't seem to fit me so internet shopping isn't really an option for that. Also, when I do find clothing that fits me and is comfortable, I tend to keep it. For years. So, I don't need to go clothes shopping very often. Usually a quick trip to Matalan once a year to top up on plain t-shirts will do me. Mind you, having now renovated the bedroom so that I have sufficient space to hang all my t-shirts up in one place, I can see that I don't actually need any more t-shirts ever again. Seriously.

Problem is, I have just lost a bit of weight, and need some clothes that aren't quite as baggy. We've been in the loft - and by we I mean Stephen - to retrieve the case full of clothes that were too small and 'would never fit me again'. They now fit and some were slightly too big. Yes, you may have detected a slightly smug note there. Sorry. After going through that lot, and discarding the seventies and eighties fashion disasters, I still needed a few things to manage with on holiday, the main items being a couple of pairs of trousers and a navy cardigan to tie everything together. Boring, I know, but necessary.

So, off to Tesco as I had some vouchers to spend. As I'd hoped I got two pairs of trousers, one navy, one grey. They'll go with my existing shoes, blouses, jumpers, and t-shirts. What's more, they're a smaller size than I've worn for over 20 years and they made me feel rather good. Not too expensive either.

 Great. Next I just needed to find a navy cardi and I could call it job done. There was a slight lack of Navy Cardigans though. Plenty of other woollens, including a rather lovely jumper which I fell in love with. I didn't need another jumper, I wasn't shopping for a jumper but it was so long and slim and it looked so lovely over both the navy and the grey trousers...

 Then I found some cardigans. There were some really nice ones with a three-quarter sleeve, almost like a batwing. Part cashmere so very, very soft. Fairly short, buttons at the bottom but loose at the top. Lovely. Just what I'd had in mind.

Hmm? Oh yes, it's grey. Not navy. Wondered if you'd notice that. But it was so pretty. And soft. And it does go so nicely with the grey trousers. Not a problem, anyway. I had more vouchers for Debenhams so we were headed there next. 

I always find Debenhams confusing. Why can't they just put all the dresses in one place, jumpers in one place etc. You have to really search to find anything with all the separate shops in there. Strange place. What was even odder was that we bumped into a woman there that we'd been chatting to in Tescos. The two shops are ten miles apart and the woman was a complete stranger. Bit 'twilight zone' if you ask me.

But we did find one bit that had some lovely clothes in it and I fell in love with this one jumper. I know, I know, I wasn't looking for a jumper. I didn't buy it. I went upstairs and looked some more for a navy cardigan. Then, when I didn't find one, I went back downstairs and bought the jumper instead...

Oh come on! Look at it. It's gorgeous. How could I resist? And that is actually a lousy photograph. I hadn't realised how tricky it was to photograph woollens. Look at it on the website here. That is a much better photograph and that is what it looks like on. All sleek and slimming, and clinging in all the right places.

That was Thursday. Friday I had to go back out to do more shopping. This time for undies. While it was very nice losing some weight off my backside, I also lost some of my, umm, cleavage. This meant buying some new bras as mine just don't seem to fit right any more. First thing in the morning found me in M&S. Over an hour later I emerged with a small selection of colours and styles carefully chosen to fit all occasions. Then it was back to Debenhams where finally I emerged with...

Drum roll please

Oh yes, it's a navy cardigan. Very plain, very boring but it'll do the job. It is soft and it is quite pretty. The buttons are nice. It's just hard to get excited about a navy cardi.

Blogging for Scrapbookers: Prompt four was to blog about a life experience you consider to be boring and as I dislike shopping I reckon this'll do nicely for that particular assignment. So, two jobs done. One cardi purchased and one assignment completed. I reckon I've earned some chocolate.

I'm inspired

I must be feeling inspired by this class I'm taking. Either that or there's something in the water today, as for the first time in quite a few weeks, I've not only started a layout but I've sat down and finished it as well. Not only that, but I'm now blogging about it and I'm about to post a photo of it. It's a flamin' miracle!

I had a good think about yesterday's day two prompt, but to be honest I could have quite happily sat all day looking through photos trying to find 'just the right one' to do the assignment with. When I read today's prompt, I knew straight away what I could do so I thought it would be better to do that and be caught up than get even further behind. When I do come across that perfect photo for day two, I'll just do that day's assignment then.

So, today's task was to incorporate a list onto a scrapbook page or your blog. I do have rather a lot of Disney Photopass photos from last year still waiting to be scrapped, and I'm running out of ideas of what to do with them. A list sounded a splendid idea so I've picked a photo that has a nice background showing The Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom and made a list of things we like to do in that park. I'm feeling very 'Disney-ish' at the moment so it seemed appropriate. The best bit is, I can repeat the process with photos from the other three parks so that'll be a few more layouts completed in double quick time.

 

The list says:

• Riding on Dinosaur
• Eating frozen bananas
• Watching the tigers
• Going on Safari
• Walking round The Tree of Life
• Visiting the Gorillas
• Looking for Pooh and Tigger

Paper used is all Basic Grey Marrakech, stickers are BG Marrakech, Prima and Mustard Moon.

Taking a class

I found out that my friend Bev was taking an online class called Blogging for Scrapbookers, which is being run by Shimelle. It sounded intriguing so I went over to the website to see what it was all about. I liked the look of it. I really do need a kick up the backside where my scrapbooking is concerned and I haven't been blogging much lately either. So on Sunday afternoon, Stephen signed me up as my birthday surprise.

No, it wasn't me that was surprised. It was Stephen - I didn't tell him until today. He was very surprised, but when I thanked him and told him how much I was enjoying it so far he just smiled and conceded that he did have very good taste when it came to getting me presents.

The classes started yesterday but as I was a bit late signing up I didn't get my first prompt until late on day one so I'm a day behind now. I'm hoping to do two days in one on one of my days off this week but if not, I won't stress about it. I'm off on holiday while the class is running so I'm bound to get rather behind then - I can't see any scrapping getting done while I'm away although there'll be plenty of blogging. Plenty of blogging!

So, on with Day One and my intentions for the class. I'm hoping to blog daily but I won't worry if I don't. I'll try to do something, even if it's just a few lines. What I'm really hoping to get from the class is to get into the habit of blogging more and to start Scrapbooking again. I know blogging is a very useful tool for scrapping, which is one of the reasons I blog so much on holiday. When I come to scrap the holiday, I can pretty much cut and paste the text to use for journalling and I have the dates/times/places all there without the need to look anything up. Plus the sense of fun and adventure and awe is still there when I blog about a day feeding giraffes or going up in a helicopter so I hopefully capture that in the post, and then in the scrapbook page too. What I need to do, is learn to do that all year round.

As requested, I've taken photos to document my working space. I have a long, narrow craft room. I Surf and blog at one end, and scrap at the other. I also scrap in the middle as I have another desk, but that's taller and is used mostly for stamping and painting as I prefer to stand for that.

This is my Blog space. Note the essentials - Ipod, coffee, Winnie-the-Pooh mouse mat, selection of dictionaries and reference books.

 

This is my Scrapping space. Most of the storage is on Ikea units, and is out of sight on the right. Sewing machine strictly for scrapping only. I hadn't realised how untidy it was under the desk until I looked at the photo. Maybe I'd better tidy that up a bit...

There, I can feel all virtuous now - Day one task complete. Maybe I'll even do a scrapbook page for it at the weekend when I've more time.