Meteor Watch

I like to look at stars, so when I read that we were passing through a decent meteor shower on 11th August and for the next couple of nights, and as we were having a pretty decent run of good weather, I decided I wanted to go somewhere dark and see what I could see.

On Monday 12th, I texted my brother Jim, who also likes to look at stars and knows much more than me, to see if he wanted to go somewhere dark after work too.  Around 10:30 that evening Robert and I went to pick up Jim and Liz and then we drove up to Crown point and parked near the singing ringing tree (actually, that reminds of something Robert and I did on week two of my summer holiday. We went up to the singing ringing tree for the first time and took lots of nice photos).  There were already a few cars there with people gazing up at the sky.

Jim got us all looking in the right direction, and even though there was some cloud around, there was enough clear sky to make it worth it.  Now when you're looking up at the night sky, you need to get your night vision working and the last thing you need is car headlights in your face.  Unfortunately, other people insisted on using their headlights to see where they were going or where they were parking without any consideration to those of us who were trying to look at stars.  Some of us were more irritated by this than others.  I won't say who was most irritated by this but I will say that most of the derisive comments were being said in a Scottish accent and a healthy dose of Southampton.  I was quite concerned as sound travels well on the hills at night and I thought people would hear them, and some of the people up there looked a little too "Burnley" for my liking, and as it got later, I don't think they were all there to look for meteorites.

As it turns out, this was also a good night to see the International Space Station.  I'd looked for this a few times when it was supposed to be visible without success.  What I needed was my big brother to be there and point it out to me.  We saw it bright and clear travelling across the sky at around 11pm.  We also saw two other random satellites while we were out.

We also saw the meteorites that we had gone there to see.  Every time we saw one we all whooped and Liz and I threw our hands up.  I saw twelve all together which is the most I have ever seen. Some of us saw more than others and there was a thought put forward that if we didn't all see them then they weren't really there.  I'm still saying I saw twelve though.

Thanks to Liz's blankets we kept fairly warm, and Robert provided the Galaxy, Milky Way and Star bars to eat. He thought he was being clever bringing activity related confectionery. I think it was about midnight when we got home.  I loved it.  No photos to post though as it's a bit difficult to photograph meteorites when you don't know what half the buttons on your camera do.

What I Did on my Summer Holidays - Week Two

So my laptop broke and had to go to laptop hospital and I've only just got it back, and now I can't really remember what I did in week two of my summer holiday.  I do remember that on Monday I went to see Kirsty in her new flat in Preston, which was nice, and on Tuesday I waited around again for my precious to be returned from the garage and the hire car to be picked up and on Friday I spent five and a half hours creating a new window display in the shop. Apart from that I seem to have completely forgotten everything else.  This all leads to a rather boring blog post.  Sorry about that.

What I did on my Summer Holidays - Week One

I knew my two week summer break was going to be different this year because we now have the shop and Robert couldn't take any time off so I would be spending most of it on my own, but I was still looking forward to it.  Doing my own thing, driving around in my lovely little car with the roof down as the weather was being so good.

So just how wrong do you think I could be?  On my first day off I was driving to my dad's house I stopped behind a car who had come to a halt to let someone out of a side road.  The person driving the car behind me didn't stop and ran into the back of me. They damaged my precious and later that day I found out they'd damaged me in the form of a touch of whiplash.  Plan 1 and plan 2 out of the window.  Plan 2 had been to get back to the gym and do some swimming every day as I hadn't been for a few months and thought I would take this time off to get back into the habit.

OK, so not a lot of damage but it still meant being without my precious for a week.

On Monday, I had to attend a speed awareness course because a mean policeman had said I had been naughty and broken the speed limit.  He was actually correct, I had been driving over the limit, which is not something I normally do in town, especially on that road as I know they often patrol it with mobile cameras.  In my very shaky defence I would like to state that it was Robert's fault that I was speeding.  A few weeks earlier, I had got home from work on a Friday evening after having already done several errands on the way, and was starting to pack as I was going away for the weekend.  I had to iron some clothes so put the iron on and then couldn't understand why it wasn't ironing as well as it normally does.  When I looked at it more closely I could see that it was cracked and broken at one side and the foot plate was loose. I was in the house on my own, so I texted the two likely culprits and asked them who had broken the iron.  Robert replied that he had broken it three weeks ago, but it was still working and as I hardly ever do any ironing, he didn't tell me.  I mean, fair play to him for doing most of my ironing, but at that moment, when I needed it, it wasn't working and it was - in my opinion - his fault.  So I had to get into town and buy a new iron before the shops closed, which is why in my angry and rushed state I was going faster than I should have been.

The course itself was quite interesting, but it was a very hot stuffy day and I had painful whiplash, so I wasn't a very happy bunny at the end of it.

On Tuesday, when the weather was still glorious, I had to spend my time waiting in the house for the garage to come and pick up my car to repair and for the courtesy car to be dropped off, so that was a waste of a day, and now I had to drive around in a little Vauxhall Corsa instead of my lovely convertible precious.

Wednesday was an ok day as Katy and I went shopping so that I could buy her a new dress for the formal dance at this year's EFY.  I also wanted to buy a present for Bekah's baby, and we had fun going "Oo" and "aah" over all the cute baby clothes and toys, although I didn't end up buying anything as I had something in mind and couldn't find the perfect version of it.

Thursday was Robert's birthday.  He had to work in the shop, but Katy and I went over for the afternoon and then had dinner at the restaurant next to the shop which was delicious.

My yummy dinner.  Well...everyone photographs their meals these days don't they?

For the evening entertainment, we went to see Evita at the Lowry theatre in Manchester.  I had seen this advertised in January and thought it was perfect timing that it was in Manchester on Robert's birthday, so I bought the tickets and had kept it a secret until he opened his card that morning.

Marty Pellow was playing the part of Che and he was pretty good.  Don't know the other two leads playing Eva Peron and her hubby, but they were also very good.  Really enjoyed the performance despite getting hotter and hotter in the theatre as the evening wore on, and the programme was too heavy to use as a fan, even though Katy did a good job with it.

Along with what I was up to this week, there was also a trip planned for my dad to go down to London with Bekah and Kirsty and to meet up with Kim there and to take my dad to see some of the things he never got to see when he lived there as a child.

Kirsty, dad, Kim, Bekah

All was going well, but on Thursday Bekah had texted me to tell me that she was feeling particularly unwell with the baby sickness and had nearly fainted in the street that morning.  As a mum and a daughter this worried me as Kirsty had come home due to work commitments so my 86 year old dad was left to deal with an unwell pregnant granddaughter.  I talked to Robert and we decided it would be a good idea if I went down and spent the rest of the week with them in case either of them needed anything.  Bought the train ticket late on Thursday night and hot footed it down to London in the morning.  Bekah then asked if I'd mind if she went home as she really wasn't feeling well, so this left me and my dad together in London.  We took a lovely leisurely stroll along the South bank and saw some clever (although perhaps also a little mental considering the temperature) guys doing sand sculptures.

Dad preferred this one because he could see what it actually was

We stopped at the book market for a good rummage and dad bought two books.

You've got to wonder what this is all about.

Then we carried on our wander back up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square and sat down for a while doing some people watching.  As we passed the end of Downing Street dad asked "so this is where that man on a bike got into trouble?"

Current fourth plinth sculpture

Dad had decided that actually he thought he had seen everything he wanted to see and asked if I minded if we went home on Saturday instead of Sunday, so I ended up being away for less than 24 hours.  Still good to go and I got to catch up with Kim on Friday evening at dinner.

At Euston station, waiting for the train home

So that was the end of my first week.  Only one of the things I had planned for the week actually happened but there you go.  Life happens.

Catch Up Time

Well so much for my good intentions to blog more this year.  Where does the time go?  As I haven't written a post since April, here is a quick round of up the last couple few months.

Katy went on a visit to France with school in March.  Although technically this was before my last post so shouldn't really be counted in my catch up, I decided it ought to get a mention.  She tried her hand at archery, and informs me that she really wasn't very good at it but did enjoy feeling like Katniss Everdeen for a little while.

She also visited Mont Saint-Michel which looks like a pretty cool place and is allegedly the inspiration for Diagon Alley.  One of these photos is a bit blurry but I included it so you can see why it looks like something out of Harry Potter.

Coincidentally it was in the news today as it was totally cut off from the mainland by an extreme high tide for the first time since 1879.

The shop is doing well.  Can't believe it's really only seventeen weeks since we opened, it feels like we've been doing it forever sometimes.  Robert is loving it and is getting to know his regulars and becoming involved in Clitheroe life.  We decided early on that we would allow dogs in the shop and now it has become a bit of a thing.  We have an album on our Facebook page of all the dogs that pop in with their humans. There are some cuties in it.

A young girl left her teddy in the shop the other week, and he became a feature on Facebook for a few days until she came back to claim him.  Robert took photos of it around the shop and added captions to them.

Having been in a sweetshop for over 24 hours Teddy was worrying about his weight, but as you can see he's still a perfectly healthy 27 grams 

Katy turned 16 in June and we got a little childish.  A couple of her friends came over the night before and were watching a video and enjoying some snacks.  Robert and I had gone to get a bite to eat and then popped into Tesco for something (I can't remember what), but while we were there we picked up some party poppers and silly string and launched a surprise attack on the girls when we got back.

Katy and the Alices

We had a gluten free cake made for her by our neighbours in the Courtyard in Clitheroe, which went down very well.  Spot the reference:-

As I said, that was on the night before.  On her actual birthday, we went to Windermere for the day.  You may or may not know that Katy is going go college in September to do catering.  Her goal is to become a pastry chef.  She had asked for money for her birthday this year so that she could go to the Lakeland shop to buy baking equipment.  She came out with three bags full of all sorts of things and couldn't wait to get home to start using them.

Of course, when in Windermere you have to take a trip on the lake and feed the swans.

Next in chronological order was mum's 93rd birthday.  What do you get a nearly blind, diabetic, dementia suffering lady who doesn't even really know it's her birthday?  Why a cake of course.  Actually Kirsty provided the cake.  I love this photo.  She didn't manage to blow the candles out on her own because she just couldn't get close enough to the cake

We've become a bit Americanised over here and now at the end of year 11 we have proms.  Don't think we knew proms existed when I was at school (ok maybe a slight exaggeration, I'm not quite that old).  Anyway, Katy's prom was at the beginning of July and we made quite a few preparations.  Of course, the outfit  had to be bought and we really enjoyed shopping for the dress and all the extras.  I had already decided it was probably time for Katy to try wearing contact lenses and prom seemed a good time to debut them.  Bekah came home and helped Katy get ready as she's not yet proficient in the art of doing her hair and makeup and really appreciated her big sister taking time to be here and help.

Prom prep

I know I'm a little bit biased, but I think she looked just beautiful on the night.  Several of the teachers didn't recognise her.

It was a bit of a magical mystery tour for them, as they had to go to school and get on a coach all together, and they weren't told where they were going.  Personally I think this was a good move on the part of the school as then the kids couldn't rock up to the event having already perhaps indulged in a little naughtiness for 16 year olds.  Of course, this did mean they didn't get the chance to really make an entrance with their arrival at the prom, although some of the parents did drop their kids off in what they considered to be a suitable fashion.  There were several parents doing fake coughs and mumbling such words as "pratt" when one young man got dropped off by his dad in a Lamborghini.  Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with expensive cars, but when you're revving your engine and acting like a jerk, then people are going to laugh at you.   Anyway, Katy had a great night at The Pines Hotel in Clayton le Wood near Chorley, and the whole meal was gluten free, so she didn't need a special dinner because she's special needs :).

So that brings us pretty much up to date, apart from the latest news that Bekah is going to be a mummy.  Which I suppose means that I'm going to be a grandma.  Hmm, not sure I like that title.  However, I am very excited about the baby.  She had her twelve week scan today and was given a due date of 4th February, which is my dad's birthday.  It would be nice if it arrived on time.  Since we found out, I've said I think it's going to be a boy.  Robert thinks it will be a girl, so we'll see whose intuition was working properly next year.

Should Have...

How many times a day do you say to yourself "I should...."?  What I'm talking about is all those times the voice in your head says "I should have done....", or "I should have said....", or "I should be....".  Now just maybe this is not a regular conversation you have with yourself, but if you are like me, then until you think about it you may not realise exactly how many times these thoughts go through your head.  And when they go through your head, what does it do to you?  Does it make you feel inadequate, or less than you think you should be?   Does it result in you feeling anxious or stressed at all?  So why do we do this to ourselves, because let's face it, we are doing it to ourselves.

Who are you comparing yourself to when you think you should have done something better?  Who do you think is judging you and your actions each day? I'm not talking on a spiritual level here, because that's a different conversation entirely.  It doesn't really matter what the source is, whether it stems from a need to please our parents and have their approval, or a need to feel that you are as good a mum/wife/friend as other people you know, or think you know.  I have my reasons for thinking the way that I do, but here's the thing, we have no idea what other people are really thinking of us.  We do not live in their homes and we are not inside their heads, so even though we may take a guess at or make assumptions about what other people may think of us, then unless they have said something straight to our face and in complete honesty, we just don't know.  So why waste time and energy on worrying about what anyone else may or may not think about you, because in all likelihood it will not be accurate.

Did you know there is a name for these thoughts?  They are called automatic negative thoughts.  They pop into your head before you have time to stop them, and they happen a lot without you realising how often unless you make yourself aware of them. That's all well and good knowing they have a name, but how do you stop them?  How do you stop the self criticism and judgement?  How often has someone said to you "don't be so hard on yourself", and how often have you thought that it's easier said than done and not really paid any attention to the advice?  I know I have.  Last year someone told me to have self compassion.  This changed things for me.  It was saying the same thing as "don't be so hard on yourself", but it was different somehow.  It went deeper and made more sense.  It clicked with me when nothing else had.  The next step is to challenge our automatic negative thoughts.  Ask why you are having those thoughts.  What could you do to change those thoughts and how can you change the outcome?  This can be exhausting at first because you find yourself questioning everything you do because until now you hadn't realised how many of these thoughts you have on a daily basis.  But I can assure you that it gets easier and quicker once you get into the swing of it.  The answers come more easily.  Stop yourself when you can hear the "what ifs" and "I shoulds" creeping in and change it to a positive.

If a friend came to you and told you how bad they were feeling about themselves, what would you say to them?  I'm sure you would be supportive and try and remind them of all the positive things they have done.  All the things they are good at, or how much progress they had made with something.  Have you ever thought of doing that for yourself?  You can you know.  Be your own therapist.  Tell yourself the things you would tell your friend.  It works.

I used to worry endlessly and spend many hours replaying in my mind things that I had done or said and coming up with what I wished had happened instead of what did happen.  But I don't do that any more.  I have learnt that if a situation doesn't go the way that I hoped or wanted, then I quickly review it and decide to do it differently next time, and that's the end of the conversation I have with myself. I have also learnt that if something doesn't go right, then it's not always my fault and that other people also have their own issues and don't always behave in a way that makes it easy for me to achieve what I want to achieve.  Learning this was also a pretty big step for me as up until recently I always assumed that everything that went wrong was down to me because it must have been my fault that someone else behaved the way they did.  It must have been what I said or my tone of voice, but actually, some people just don't listen properly no matter what you do. 

Here's another thing that has helped me over the last year.  Everyone is an individual and you have to respect that and let them be who they are.  Now, you may be saying "I know that, it's obvious, I learnt that years ago".  Well I'm admitting that I don't think I really did learn that before now.  Not to the point where I can now look at other peoples' behaviour and genuinely think that I don't know why they behave the way they do or say the things they do or why they live their life in a particular way, and I don't need to know why because I don't know what has shaped them, I just need to be happy with my behaviour towards them.

I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and we ended up talking about whether we felt like a grown up yet.  I told them that although I don't feel like a grown up, I do finally feel different than I used to do.  I started to say something, and they thought they knew what I was going to say and ended my sentence for me.  I then told them what I had actually been going to say.  This conversation was another reminder to me that whenever we think we know what is going on in someone else's head, then really we don't.

So why am I waffling on about all this stuff in my blog today?  To be honest, I don't really know.  I just felt I had to after a few conversations I had had with people recently.  None of this stuff is original thought.  I haven't come to these conclusions myself.  I had to be taught these things because I had got to a stage where I  really needed to learn them.  Up until recently I had not really paid any attention to things like this because I figured I was a fairly intelligent person so I should be able to work things out for myself.  But if you look at that last sentence, this was part of the problem.  Notice the use of the term I should.  This was me judging myself for not being able to sort out my own issues.  I had to learn that it is possible to change the voices in my head and it wasn't all down to me to do it, because someone else had more answers than me and they could help me.

Do I get it right all the time now? No, of course not.  I am still a work in progress; a masterpiece that is not yet finished; a symphony that is still being written.

Candycopia

On our route into town we pass a row of new business units, one of which is still up for rent.  Back in January when we were driving past we started talking about what kind of business could rent the final unit and do well considering what was already there.  It was just a conversation for the sake of it.

A couple of weeks later on Valentines day I was sitting at home messing around on my laptop and waiting for Robert, when he burst into the living room, knelt down in front of me and said "you know that unit that's up for rent?  Well I rang the letting agent about it, and it's too expensive, but there is another shop for rent in Clitheroe that's not too expensive.  What do you think?"  My initial reaction was "Are you totally insane, don't be ridiculous, going into business is far too risky, you know I like the stability of a regular wage at the end of the month and what on earth kind of business would it be" I should hasten to add that this was all in my head, and a very watered down version actually came out of my mouth a few seconds later. In fact, what I just typed is probably also a watered down version of what really went through my mind in those moments before I spoke.

We didn't have any plans for a romantic Valentines day, and after getting a take away meal, we spent the evening going through possible business ideas.  By the end of the night we had decided on an old fashioned sweet shop.  Let's face it, neither of us are strangers to sweets so we felt we had some expertise in this area.

Robert has always wanted to work for himself and with the voluntary redundancy package BT were offering, it finally seemed to be the right time to take that leap, so the next few weeks were spent researching and planning and making decisions.  We went to take a look at the empty shop four days later on our wedding anniversary.  It was located right opposite the sixth form centre in Clitheroe and was a decent size, but would need quite a bit of work to make it into what we wanted.  Robert met the owner and told him we wanted the lease.  The owner decided that he didn't want to rent to us as we were a new business, so within a day Robert had found another shop for rent, and it turned out that this one was in an even better location and would need much less work doing to it.  We applied for the lease and it was agreed, which is when things really took off.

Naming the business led to a few differences of opinion as to what did or did not sound right, and I even resorted to an on-line random business name generator.  Eventually Robert came out with Candycopia while driving to Manchester one afternoon, and this one stuck.  The sweet shop was named.  Most people seem to like the name, but I've had to explain it to a few people.  Choosing our colour scheme was fun, but didn't really take too long as aesthetics is something we usually agree on quite quickly.  The logo was also easy as last year we had a graphic designer work on a logo for another business idea that didn't get off the ground, but we were able to use elements of that one for the new business.

Because of Robert's job with BT selling advertising and eCommerce to businesses, he had a lot of contacts and knew just who to call on for help with everything we needed for the shop from the nuts and bolts like shelving to helium balloons for opening day, and if there was anything else we needed, we just searched on-line. The internet is an amazing tool.

It's fair to say the last few weeks have been hectic and stressful and at some points it felt like we were going to run out of time as we had decided on an opening day of 30th March, Easter Saturday.  There have been some long days and hard work.  We have been helped along the way by some friends and family which has been much appreciated.

My personal achievement was making the candy trees for the window display which I enjoyed and I have had some really nice comments about them.  People have even asked if I am going to make them to sell.

There was one day, I can't quite remember when, that it hit me that all this hard work and planning towards opening day was not the end, and that once that day was over with, we had to do it all again and again and the next day and the next.

The day before opening, I spent most of my time running around getting last minute things, while Robert and Katy and our wonderful helpers were at the shop loading stock onto the Epos system and putting it on the shelves.  It was 2am before we left that night, which was better than the 4am that someone had predicted, and we planned to be back by 7am to finish everything off before the big opening at 10.  I got three hours sleep, which quite frankly is an afternoon nap for me, not a full night's sleep, and I'm still trying to recover from the lack of sleep.

Robert's 92 year old nan was visiting from Southampton, and we had asked her to do the honours of cutting the ribbon.  Lots of family turned up for the big moment, and I would like to say right now how grateful I am that they were there to support us.  I really do appreciate it and I know it means so much to Robert too.

On the dot of 10am on Saturday 30th March, Candycopia opened for business.  In just six short weeks it had gone from an idea over dinner on Valentine's day, to reality.

There is still more to do, and ideas we have for expansion.  It's quite a journey we are on, and a new chapter in our lives, but hopefully it will have a very happy ending.

The Splits Challenge

On Saturday 9th February I was at home watching Cirq du Soleil with Katy and Robert and was amazed at the flexibility and strength of the performers, so I posed the question on Facebook if people thought it was possible to learn how to do the splits at the age of 49.  Most people were positive and told me that anything was possible.  Someone suggested it should be my party piece on my fiftieth birthday.

I decided to Google it to see if there were any online tutorials on how to teach yourself to do the splits.  I wasn't disappointed, and found quite a few.  All of them assured me that with the right stretches and some dedication I should be able to do the splits within about six weeks.  Now I'm not very good at dedicating myself to anything unless it's eating, so this would be quite a big deal for me, but challenge accepted.

Day one stretching and I can't hold any of the positions for more than ten seconds.  I did lunges, making sure my knee and ankle were in a straight line, and then straightened my front leg and brought my head down towards my knee.  One of the stretches to do is to sit against a wall and stretch your legs out.  The aim is to get your body flat against the wall.  On day one my body is still 50 cm away from the wall with my legs stretched as far as was comfortable.

Day two and I did the same stretching as yesterday, but I also discovered something.  I am no good at pointing my toes and it gives me cramp, so I am going to try and fix this in the time honoured tradition of good toes naughty toes. Challenges now equals two; pointed toes and the splits.

Day three and I've been helped along by my sister in law who sent me a link to some really good stretching exercises.  Today I managed to hold some of my stretches for 20 seconds.  One of them required me to use a block to support my front leg while I stretched my back leg.  My jewellery box came in handy for this. I hope it survives the next few weeks.  I stretched until I smelt pancakes cooking.

Day four and short of time so stretching was done this morning while drying my hair.

Thought I'd better post a photograph of my current lack of flexibility so that I can chart my progress.

The Start

Day five.  Valentines day.  Didn't stretch.  Ate chocolate and ice cream instead.

Day six.  Had every intention of stretching today as I had a day off work and my only plans were to wait in for some furniture to be delivered and then have lunch with my sister in law.  Furniture was delivered by 08:30 so my next stop was the gym, then home for a shower and out for lunch.  As it turned out, lunch started at 12:30 and didn't finish until 17:00.  Obviously we weren't eating all this time, we were chatting, but it kinda put a big dent into any stretching time.  Also, I was full of this.....

When the waitress brought this to the table she said "my hand kinda slipped and it's bigger than it's supposed to be.  I had to sneak it past my boss so he wouldn't see what I'd done".  My sister in law and the people on the table next to us expressed their doubts about my ability to eat all of this and how long it was going to take.  The man said "we come here every week, so I'll see you soon".  It took me a while but I managed it.  Anyway, between lunch being rather extended and my extremely full stomach, stretching did not happen.

Day seven.  Today I stretched.  I think I've made a little progress. I could hold my deep lunges a little longer and they didn't leave my muscles complaining quite so much, and I could get my forehead a little closer to my knee.  This was done just after having a shower, so I hadn't been downstairs yet.  Ususally when I first go down the stairs in a morning, I feel a little stiff and I have to hold onto the bannister and the wall on the other side.  Today it was much easier.  Maybe there's something in this stretching lark.

So this is the end of week one. Hopefully next time I will be able to report further progress.

My (Les) Miserable Journey

The first time I heard any music from Les Miserable was about 20 years ago, and I had no idea what it was.  I friend of mine was putting on a concert in Chorley and needed a few extra voices for some of the bigger numbers and "Do you hear the people sing" was one of them.  She sent over the music for me to practice and I fell in love with it the first time I played it, without knowing anything else about it.  It just gave me chills and nearly brought me to tears every time I sang it.

Shortly after this the stage production came to Manchester and I just had to go and see it.  I went on my own one night because no one else was interested in going to a musical.  This was the first time I had been to a theatre in years.  I was entranced from the opening bars, and I still say that the Jean Valjean in that production is the best I have heard.  I had never seen anything like it before and I still haven't. The way the barricades appeared on stage and the sound of the trumpets as the soldiers call to the young revolutionaires are two of my favourite moments.  Javert singing Stars and Valjean with Bring him Home.   I was in tears at the end, and I wasn't alone.  That final scene moved me so much.  The staging of it; the music; the feelings I had for the characters after watching them for two and a half hours.

The next time it really affected my life was about eight years later when the production came to Manchester again. Rebekah was ten years old and we heard about them having open auditions to find girls to play the young Cosette.  As you probably know, Rebekah has been a pretty good performer from a young age and jumped at the chance of being in a professional production.  The auditions were at the Bridgewater Hall and the first thing you had to do was pass the height requirement test.  There were people on the door with a height marker and as the girls entered the building they had to be below the line.  Some poor things got turned away because they were too tall.  Rebekah was just short enough.

There were several rounds of auditions on the day with successful girls getting called back.  Rebekah passed the first round and then we found out we needed a passport size photo to go on her audition form, so we had to leg it into Manchester centre to find a photo booth to have one taken.  I still carry that photo around in my purse.

She did very well and got down to the final six girls out of several hundred.  Unfortunately she didn't make the final cut.

When the production opened, Robert and I went to see it. This was our first theatre experience together. Something we didn't get to repeat until many years later, but now we go as often as we can.  Of course we scrutinized the performance of the young Cosette on the night, and I know my Bekah could have been just as good if not better.  Once again I cried at the end, and this time Robert was crying with me.

Four more years and it touched me again.  BASICS theatre school were putting on the school production for their show that year.  All my girls, apart from Kirsty, have been involved in BASICS, and Rebekah was thrilled to get the chance to be in it.  She didn't get a principal role, but even so she gave it her all in the chorus.  These are just teenagers, albeit talented ones, but not professionals and not fully mature.  Having said that, the show was wonderful with some excellent performances by these young people.  Yet again I cried at the end.  This time it was also because I was so proud of the kids that I knew.

I've had the opportunity to perform some of the music several times myself in concerts with different choirs I have been involved in.  I still find it some of the most moving and stirring music I have ever heard.

With apologies to my older girls, Katy has been quite spoilt since they left home, simply because we have a bit more cash available these days, so she gets to do things that they never did.  I do feel bad about this sometimes, but what can I do?  When they were young, we were pretty skint.  I mention this because we took Katy to London to see Les Mis, about 18 months ago during their 25th year in the West End.  The whole trip was a surprise.  We didn't tell her where we were going or why.  When we got on the train at Preston she figured out where we were going but still didn't know why.  We went out for something to eat in Covent Garden and then walked to the theatre, still not telling her where we were going.  We were a bit early for the performance so as we walked down Shaftesbury Avenue we went past the theatre and carried on walking.  Katy was very confused by this time as she had started to think we were going to the theatre but couldn't work out why we were going past them all.  Eventually we turned round and went back and in.  She was literally jumping for joy when she finally knew.  This time I didn't cry at the end.

When I heard that they were making a film of it I was very sceptical.  How could it possibly live up to the theatre experiences I had had so far?  Then I started to hear snippets of it and again thought maybe I would give it a miss as the singing was just not going to measure up.  But of course it was Les Mis. so I couldn't resist, especially after I found out that all the singing was done live rather than recorded in a studio and added to the soundtrack later.  The actors sung to a piano track as they were filmed and the orchestra was put in post production.  Of course it had to be experienced in Imax.

It was better than I expected it to be, although I still don't know why on earth Russell Crowe was cast as Javert.  His voice was just not on the same level as everyone else.  Katy was unfortunately sitting next to someone who couldn't help himself from singing and whistling (yes whistling!) along.  I was singing along in my head and I think I noticed every time they had changed the words around or missed a bit out.  I didn't love everything about it and it had its faults, but on the whole it was a success.  I didn't cry, but I could hear people who did.

Am I at the end of my Les Miserable journey, or will it continue to be a part of my life?

A Subtle Shift

When my older three girls were little we didn't have cable TV, just the normal terrestrial channels.  There were many good and not so good programmes for them to watch, and for me to endure.  Then along came cable and a whole new world of children's entertainment.  This was fine for a while, but then Katy got older and discovered all the America shows aimed at teenagers.  I'm talking about iCarly, Wizards of Waverley Place, Victorious, Sweet Life of Zach and Cody, Sunny with a Chance etc, etc, etc.  They were loud and annoying and were on endlessly.

When I got home from work she would be watching them, one after the other.  Switching channels every half an hour to catch her favourites.  Now this is her house and she needs to have some freedom to watch her choice of television, but each day I would get to a point where enough was enough and I had to make her switch it off.

A few months ago, I came to realise that when I got home tired and hungry at 5:30 each night, I was no longer being bombarded with American kids being, well, America.  I'm not entirely sure when the shift happened as it was like when you suddenly realise that annoying headache has gone. You're not sure exactly when, you just know it's not there any more.

Now when I got home she was watching shows like QI, Top Gear or Friends, and a current favourite Man versus Food.  I feel this is a big step in her development and can only be a good thing.  Although I have to admit I did get converted to iCarly, and missed that one for a while.

Christmas and New Year

Two days before Christmas a friend asked me what we were doing this year. I said "nothing much", as I usually do, on the assumption that my life is uneventful and pretty hum drum.  Then I thought about it and realised that actually we were going to be quite busy this year.

Christmas eve was the Taylor family annual "let's eat lots of food and watch all the kids have fun" party.  This is always a good time.  All the cousins get to be together and us adults get to watch them being cute (even the teenagers), and have a laugh with each other.  This year my two bigger girls, Kirsty and Rebekah, were able to be there, and it was nice to see Kirsty connecting with Richard's oldest daughter Ciera.

Big Girls and little cousins

Katy and some little boy cousins

Katy and some little girl cousins

Christmas eve also saw the start of our advent calendars.  I had decided that I didn't want chocolate ones this year and when I saw the Lego advent calendars in the shop I couldn't resist.  I was supposed to buy one for the three of us at home to share, but I came out of the shop with two.  We really enjoyed opening these each day and adding to our Lego Christmas scenes. Although Katy was a little disappointed to be honest.  Her calendar was called Lego Friends but it only had two people in it.  Mine and Robert's was full of little people.

Katy's calendar day 1

Our calendar day 1

The completed calendars

Christmas day was a little different this year as Kim had decided to go to Australia with her boyfriend.  When Katy found out about this she declared that Kim had ruined Christmas.  Then it was my turn to have this accusation laid on me as we bought an artificial tree this year instead of a real one for the first time since I left home 29 years ago.  There was sound reasoning for this decision and all the girls did admit once it was decorated that it was a good tree despite not being real.

The tree that nearly ruined Christmas

Kim was replaced by Robert's brother Edward at our house on Christmas day.  My girls had been threatening to call him Kim all day but I don't think they actually did this to his face.

We started a tradition a few years ago to try and do something different with the labels on everyone's presents.  So far we have had baby photos, dates of birth, anagrams and dingbats.  The first thing everyone has to do is figure out what the labels mean and then decide which label is theirs before they can begin opening presents.  We stumped them for a while this year, and it was Edward who figured out that the labels were name meanings.

Googling their names.  You can see Katy's arm going up as she found out her name
meaning.

Opening presents always takes a while at our house, and some of the presents are well packaged/disguised with bubble wrap.  This delighted Kirsty and Edward in particular and produced one of my favourite photos this year.

Never mind the presents that people spent money buying us, just give me some bubble wrap.

Katy has a little bit of a penguin obsession at the moment, and I think it's fairly safe to say that this was her favourite present this year.

Awesome penguin onesie.

++++

The oldies at Christmas

Bekah.

We managed to speak to Kim via video chat on Facebook.  It was about 9:30pm in Brisbane and she was all full of Christmas dinner and nearly ready for bed as her body clock was still struggling to adjust to the time difference.

Boxing day was Jim and Liz and the boys day.  I had made the mistake of buying Robert presents he actually wanted this year, one of which was Risk Lord of the Rings edition, so the boys spent quite a large chunk of the afternoon playing it.  Liz, Katy and I retired to the lounge for a girly chat and had a go on one of Robert's other presents which was a quiz that you could play on his iPad with individual buzzers for each player.  It was pretty good, and we got quite competitive.  We also went back to their house to take their dog Copper out for a walk and when we returned, the boys had just finished playing their game. 

Kim's present to Robert was a magecube which is basically a cube made up of little magnetic balls that you can manipulate into all sorts of shapes.  It comes in a tin in a perfect cube shape, but when Kim got it, she couldn't resist playing with it and then couldn't get it back into a perfect cube shape.  She gave up and just rammed it back into the tin in a cubish shape.  I think we all attempted to get it back into a cube, but Matthew succeeded (with advice from Jim). Good times.

The next few days were something quite new for us.  Robert's sister Sarah and her husband had been given the chance to go away for a few days for free, and she asked us if we could look after her three year old, Darcy.  Being the youngest of five children and not having any little cousins around, I've not had a lot of experience of looking after other peoples children.  Now, I know what to do with a three year old, it's not like I'm too old to remember, but it's something different when the three year old doesn't belong to you, and she's never spent so much time alone with us before.  As it turns out it she was a delight to have around.  We raided the loft to see what toys we still had up there, and a large box of Barbie dolls and various Barbie paraphernalia went down a treat.

Katy and Darcy and Barbies

Apart from a couple of meal times when she declared she didn't like the food before she had even tasted it, and having to use some bribery and distraction techniques, all was good.  When coming down stairs on the third day she declared "this is the best Christmas ever". OK so she's only three and doesn't have a lot to go on, but it was just so darn cute.

After Darcy went home we had an evening to relax before heading down to London on New Year's eve.  Ever since they started doing big firework displays from the London Eye we had wanted to go down and finally decided to do it this year.  Thanks to Rebekah working for the IHG hotel group we get a discount on rooms, so can afford to stay in some of the nicer hotels without spending too much.  I know this is only a job while she is at university, but she can never leave.

The drive down was no fun as it rained quite heavily most of the way, but by the time we left the hotel to get in place to watch the display it had stopped, and despite the forecast saying it would rain again later, it stayed dry for the rest of the evening.  We didn't manage to get down to the riverside as we weren't there early enough, but we still managed to see most of the display and were next to Big Ben to hear the chimes at midnight first hand.

It was about 1:30am by the time we got back to the hotel and we were all feeling a little peckish, so decided to indulge in a little room service.  We had some very nice burgers.  Proper beef with shredded bacon and cheese, cooked like a burger should be cooked.  

By the time we woke up later that day it was nearly time to check out.  It was a little colder than the day before, but it was a beautiful sunny winter's day, and although we were tired on the drive home and had to make a few stops, we still managed to arrive safe and sound just after 6:30.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that Christmas and New Year were a lot of fun.

Resolutions for 2013?  To carry on being awesome, and blog more often.