A night at the quiz

The Tuesday night pub quiz has been noticeably absent from the social calendar over recent months – it has become a rarity to have enough of us there to form a reasonably-sized team (often just me and Michael) but tonight, nearly everyone from the quiz crowd turned out and we had two competing teams. I was with the “young people” (all of whom are at least 10 years younger than I am!) and although the two teams were pretty evenly matched, we did beat the other team by 1 point (coming joint fourth overall). It was great to see everyone again.

Considerations on creative writing

My creative writing course has now come to an end and I was very pleased to get 77 in my final assignment with some useful feedback on my short story. The level 2 creative writing course starts in October so now I need to decide whether to register for this or not. At the moment, I’m not sure that I will have the time to commit to a more intense course but if I decide against doing it, there are several creative writing groups which met locally that I can join to help keep me going on the writing front.

Feeding the five thousand (or maybe a little less)

Once a year, it’s much turn on the Sunday lunches rota to provide the meal for those living on their own. It’s usually for about 35 people and every year I get to the week before and wonder why on earth I agreed to do this given my tiny kitchen and lack of time. And then I remember that ready-made desserts from the supermarket go down almost as well as home-made ones and breathe a sigh of relief. It went fairly well apart from forgetting milk for cups of tea at the end – fortunately the shops are very close by!

Embracing technology

I have to confess that I’m not really into technical gadgets. I still don’t own an iPod or MP3 player and I only upgraded my mobile phone after 6 years because it was starting to get temperamental. So when Michael arrived home with an iPad a few weeks ago, I have to confess I wasn’t really very interested. Until today, when he made the mistake of introducing me to iBooks. Within minutes, the entire works of Jane Austen had been added to the library and I was engrossed. I might give him the iPad back when I’ve finished them all...

A scrapbook full of memories

I love to keep old letters and cards, theatre tickets, photos – anything that has a nice memory attached. I’ve got better at just keeping a few extra special cards rather than all of them (the others tend to get cut up and put in the craft box for when I’m making cards) – my keepsake box was getting a little overfull. I’ve been busy scrapbooking some of them this evening – it is lovely to look over them all again and re-read what my friends and family have written – it leaves me feeling very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.

Sleep and celebrations

It’s been a lovely evening celebrating our friends Bryan and Nicki’s engagement with a few drinks in central London. It was good to be able to catch up with some of our friends from the quiz team as well – Tuesday nights at the quiz have become an increasingly rare occurrence over recent months as everyone seems to have been very busy. Michael was working late but managed to get to the pub later in the evening where he fell asleep within minutes of sitting down on the sofa (not too surprising given he sat up all night last night working).

Juggling the demands of work and sleep

Michael’s working hours might be frequently long and unpredictable but then there are times when my own are just the same. Yesterday ended up being a very long working day but finished with a lovely home waterbirth just before midnight and a beautiful baby girl being welcomed into the world. My arrival home from work in the early hours of the morning for once coincided with Michael coming home from work – unfortunately for him, he still had to leave at 9am this morning whereas I was able to stay off the pager until late morning and catch up on sleep.

Manic months

June and August tend to be months when I see very little of my husband as he is busy preparing for games conferences, working long hours or is away working on the conferences themselves. Needless to say, I miss him quite a lot when he is away and have tended to struggle a bit during the busy periods – there are moments when it feels like life is always this way and I never see enough of him. I’m trying to remind myself that the manic moments pass and to enjoy the time that I do manage to spend with him.

Meeting the twins

We met Michael’s new baby cousins Seren & Sian for the first time yesterday - Michael and I both left Clare’s house feeling a little more broody as a result! There is something very special about twins (well, I would say that being one myself!) and they are just such beautiful babies. Seren spent most of the time sleeping but Sian was wide awake and very interested in everything that was going on! It was so lovely to be able to have lots of cuddles with them (and not to have to take it turns to hold the new baby!!)

Engagements

Since getting married myself, I find that I have become much more excited and interested in other people’s wedding plans and it is always lovely to hear when friends announce that they are getting married. It’s been a weekend for celebrating engagements. One of my friends announced his engagement yesterday and last night we went to our friends Mark and Ria’s engagement party. It makes me remember just how excited and happy I was when Michael and I got engaged and it is such a joy to be able to share in the happiness of my friends getting engaged now.