Amaryllis

This is an amaryllis my brother gave me. It's an amazing plant, not only did it produce seeds which I've planted & they're growing but it's just bloomed for the third year running.

A lot of travelling & some boots

Today J was invited to spend the day with one of his new friends. This friend lives 12 miles away so we all set off with me navigating. We found it alright and his really nice parents asked us in. They live in a huge house - it's got 16 bedrooms, but they're ever so nice & not at all snobbish. In fact they worked really hard to be able to afford it. We ended up staying over an hour drinking tea & chatting & looking round house. Then we decided to explore nearby town, went into a pub for lunch, looked round several charity shops, a bookshop & a supermarket. By the time we got home it was only an hour until we had to leave to pick J up. On the way we came across a car stuck in the ditch. P & several other drivers stopped & managed to get it out, turned out to be someone P knew from village. This was the same road on which we had an accident several years ago, ours was a bit more dramatic though, not only in ditch but smashed car & broken glass everywhere & me with badly bruised arm. Could have been an awful lot worse though. Half way through out of control car spinning across road I started praying & suddenly felt like arms were round me holding me. P felt the same. Someone we knew who saw our car in ditch but didn't know it was ours said she'd really prayed for the passenger because they must have been so badly injured.
Anyway then we got lost in my effort to use 'short cut' through country lanes & it's 7 o'clock & we've just got back & I feel like taking J to his friend's has taken all day. Still he had a really good time.
I'm quite pleased because my new brown boots have arrived. My winter wardrobe only works if I have brown boots but the ones I had were falling apart. (The other boots I got recently are grey). I looked on ebay & found these ones which were brand new & they fit! So that's good.

Eyebrows

I just want to clear up something that seems to have caused a bit of confusion. A while ago I said I lived with three males. Well one of these three wonderful males is the hamster.

This morning I got up early & made an anniversary card for my Dad & his wife. Then I drove J half way to school, delivered something for P in the village & raced home as the car mechanic was coming to pick up the car for its MOT. I left it outside with a note saying 'please take car' while I had a bath. I emerged to find it gone. After our theft experience I'm just hoping it was the mechanic who took it.

Then Sophie picked me up for the housegroup. There wasn't much to talk about as there wasn't a sermon on Sunday just a family service. We had a reading from Ephesians about gifts. I don't know if I'm paranoid or something but when we have housegroup sessions about gifts no-one ever says to me 'Oh you've got such a wonderful gift for so and so...' so I end up feeling like I haven't got any gifts. I have got some though, they're just a bit hidden at the moment.

At the end I stayed behind while Emma, who's a beauty therapist, waxed Sophie's eyebrows. This quite amazed me because I just didn't know that people had their eyebrows waxed. How is it I'm so much out of the beauty scene? Should I get my eyebrows waxed too?

Robogator

Here he is - the 'robogator'. This was before his accident. He is on my new rug which is currently my pride & joy. I'm still trying to come to terms with one of my friends calling it 'retro'! I just like orange ok! And apparently it's coming back into fashion.

An optional Mum and a burglary

It seems that my opinion that the unity service was 'brill' was not shared by everyone as when P was in the queue at the post office on Saturday he was accosted by someone from the Anglican church who complained the music was too fast and loud for that sort of service, this fast and loud music having emanated from our church band. Oh dear. Seems quite a few people from other 2 churches didn't find it quite their cup of tea. The thing is though when we've gone to unity services in their churches they always just have the normal service they would have had anyway irrespective of some bits not being in accordance with everybody's beliefs. I'd thought this service was quite a good 'middle ground' with contributions from all 3 churches. Is there any way of satisfying everyone? Or should it be about satisfying us? Should we perhaps be wondering if God enjoyed that song that was giving glory to Him, or was He just thinking the music was too fast?

When P got home from this J called out:
'Dad can you come and see what I've done with my robot? Well, Mum can come too but she's optional.'

After lunch P popped down to the shed and discovered that it had been broken into and some tools stolen. Apparently some of our neighbours had an almost identical theft. The insurance will pay up but it's still a lot of hassle getting quotes & buying new stuff & our premiums will go up. And it's really not a nice feeling that someone has been on your property nicking your stuff.

French evening

Today I felt really tired & at 11.00 decided I just had to have a nap before lunch. At 3.15 P came home early from work & woke me up! And I was having such an interesting dream!

J's piano teacher is now teaching from home instead of coming here & he lives quite some distance away, it's quite hard to know what to do long term as it's a lot of time & money to get there but he is so good with J and ever so nice (P says him being nice has nothing to do with it). Anyway P had these vouchers for a French restaurant in town which were almost due to expire so we decided to go there afterwards. This was where my French let me down because I ended up with cheese on toast and chips (with a little bit of smoked salmon). This was on the menu, in amongst all the main courses - 'croq au saumon fume'. I suppose I should have remembered from holidays in France that 'croq monsieur' was a sort of cheese on toast thing but I envisioned this thing as a salmon and cheese croquette. And then it arrived - two slices of cheese on toast sandwiched together with a bit of smoked salmon in the middle. And J kept nicking my chips.
P had a really nice chicken & mushroom dish & J had lemon sole which he loved.
The deserts were just wonderful - J had chocolate ice cream & lemon sorbet, P had lemon tart & I had a trio of creme brulee - vanilla, dark chocolate & fresh raspberry. Creme brulee is always a bit of a risk cos I love it when it's creamy & hate it when it's slimy but this was creamy...

(I won't mention hooking a ladies cardigan on my wheelchair & dragging it off with us as we went past).

Frosty Monday

J got a lot better over the weekend & went back to school this morning. Very frosty & roads icy. Yesterday we had a brill Unity Service with the churches meeting in the village hall instead of in a church as usual. One of our local churches has this heating system that scorches your head while your feet turn to ice & the other has the world's most uncomfortable pews so being in the village hall with comfy seats was bliss. As well as that it was a really good service & loads of people came.
Some days I just don't seem to have a grip & this is definitely one of them. I'm quite gripless. Have spent most of the morning surrounded by paperwork I'm trying to sort out. Yawn, yawn, yawn.