The One About a French Tradition . . .

For those of you that read my blog regularly you'll know that I spent nearly 8 years of my childhood in France.  We were very lucky on where we lived because there was a good British community in our village, and several families with children of similar ages to us that lived very nearby.  We never really celebrated any of the French Traditions privately at home, but some of our friends did.  My sister and I were invited round one afternoon, on Bastille Day to celebrate with our friends.  Well it was all completely new to us, we were probably 7 and 9 years old ( me being the eldest), and we were wearing hats round the table like you would at Christmas.  Well our friends Mum brings out this special cake and says that there is a coin inside and whoever gets the coin gets to make a wish!  We were quite excited about this having never heard of it before!  Unfortunately because it was such a big cake , and there was only four of us none of us found the coin!

This memory was triggered a few weeks ago (and I can't remember why now), and at the time I couldn't remember what we were celebrating.  Then someone mentioned Bastille Day in passing - and thats when I put it all together and decided this was going to be by next Story for Sian's Storytelling Sunday this month!  Make sure you pop over to her blog to read some other great stories!

The One About Our First Date . . .

In the January of 2009 I read an article about online dating, more specifically Sarah Beeney's website, My Single Friend.  It made sense, you write an online profile, but a friend of yours writes something too, you upload a couple of photos, and then if men looking at it like what they see they can send you an message through the site, and you can reply if you want to.  At the time I was working at a place where I wasn't going to meet anyone, and my group of friends didn't socialise with any single men, and I'm not the sort of girl who goes out on the pull in a bar or nightclub.  Plus, I'm actually quite shy and lacking in confidence.  It took me two months of thinking and deliberating before I broached the subject with my best friend, who then said she was going to suggest it to me but didn't want to upset me!  My mum took a little longer to convince, but I explained how safe it all was and that you get to know each other over email first, then can arrange to meet up if you want to.

At Glastonbury exactly a year later - two days after we'd moved in together

After a couple of dates with men that I just didn't have that spark with, Mark's profile came up on the site.  I emailed him first, and got a response back within a day!  We seemed to have a lot in common, and were messaging nearly every day.  It got to the point where I was excited to get home in case he'd sent me a message!  After 6 weeks of this we decided to meet up, (we would have met sooner but he went off to the music festival at the Isle of White).

At Mark's friend's wedding

Mark suggested that we go and play Crazy Golf at the Trafford Centre.  Now, at the time I wouldn't drive motorways because I was scared of them, and had only driven on them once myself before.  But as the only route to the Trafford Centre was by motorway, I asked my best friend to teach me how to negotiate them before I met up with Mark (that's how badly I wanted to meet him!)  We met up at 11am, and went for a coffee first, and just generally chatted.  All I can remember from that initial meeting was how nervous I was, and Mark telling me how his sister was pregnant with twins and showing me the scan photos!  Then we went off to play Crazy Golf.  Now I'm not very good at Crazy Golf, and needless to say I lost, but we had a giggle!  When we'd been round the course we decided that we weren't hungry for lunch yet, so went and played pool.  I'm even more rubbish at pool, but with this you can always ask someone else to help you line up the shot.  Which I did on a couple of occasions, just to get close to Mark!  I still lost though!

Mark's 30th birthday 'M' party - I was Morticia, Mark was Megatron - and yes he made the costume himself!

Then it was time for lunch, at Pesto, a little Italian place which serves up small dishes like at a tapas restaurant.  Which was new to me as I'd never been to one.  Well, I turned to the dessert menu first, which is something I always do when out - well how else do you know whether to have a starter or not because you want to save space for dessert!  And as I was looking the waitress came along and asked whether we wanted any garlic bread while we waited, which we did, and then we got talking about my love of desserts, and the waitress suggested that we just get a couple of dessert choices rather than a main meal.  And my eyes lit up!  I was being allowed not one, but three desserts, well that was it then - it had to be desserts all the way.  And because Mark could see my enthusiasm he agreed, (I later learnt that he's not actually a big fan of desserts - ever the gentleman).  He let me choose all three so there would be at least one that I like, and he still does this now, if we're out and the menu looks quite dodgy Mark will let me pick two main courses and if I don't like the one I'm given we switch.  (We've only had to switch the once when I ordered the curry in a pub, and it was far too spicy for me, so I had his lasagne instead!)  (Oh and whilst waiting for the food I went to the ladies and sent the obligatory text to Mum & best friend to say that yes I was ok and yes it was going really well).

At my friend Catherine's wedding

After lunch, because neither of us wanted the date to end, Mark suggested that we walk round the shops for a bit, because he needed a Father's Day pressie and card for his Dad.  We ended up choosing his Dad a T-shirt in Debenhams, and do you know what?  His Dad still wears that T-shirt now!

At my sister's wedding

We then went for coffee in Carluccio's, and then it was time for me to go home - I was going out for dinner for my Mum & sister's birthday, otherwise I think I would have stayed until we were kicked out of the Trafford Centre!  Mark walked me to my car and we discussed what our next date would be.  And did he kiss me??? Well I think I might just keep you guessing!

On holiday in Madeira

This post was brought to you for Sian's Storytelling Sunday, why don't you pop on over to her blog and read all the other stories for this month?

The One About the Keys . . .

Back when I was in sixth form, oooh over ten years ago now, my Mum and Dad went on holiday with my brother and my sister and I stayed at home.  Well at 17 and 15, we felt we were too old to be going on holiday with our parents, so instead we had two weeks where we just chilled at home, oh and looked after our cat Poppy.  Oh and before you ask, no there weren't any mad parties.

Mum left us with a fully stocked cupboard and fridge of supplies, but we needed to go out one morning to get necessities like milk and bread.  So because it was a nice day we decided to walk into town to the supermarket to get them.  As we were getting ready to go, as the next day was bin day I emptied the kitchen bin and put the rubbish out.  My sister, being sensible put the alarm on the house and pulled the door shut behind her . . . big mistake!  She thought I had the house keys, and I presumed she had them!  Unfortunately we had one of those doors that once it's closed it's locked tight and you can't get back in.  So, we were locked out!

We did the only thing we could think of . . . we walked round the corner to my mum's friends house and explained our predicament.  They got out their yellow pages, and let me use their phone to ring a locksmith.  (This was well before I started carrying a mobile with me wherever I went - in fact that didn't happen until I went to university!)  So we went back to the house, sat on the doorstep and waited for the locksmith.  Did I mention that it was a nice sunny day?  It would have been a lot worse I think if it had been raining, but then if it was raining we probably wouldn't have been going out in the first place and none of this would have happened!  You could think about things forever going 'what if?' couldn't you?

When the locksmith arrived, his best suggestion was to take one of the window panes out of the dining room, the bay window at the front, for me to climb in to turn the alarm off and get the key out of the front door.  As it was the only option, we had to go with it, and because I was the eldest, naturally it fell to me to do the climbing, although my sister was smaller than me at the time (she's taller than me now!) and perhaps she should have gone in! Luckily my Mum had left us with emergency money so we were able to pay the locksmith.  And when our parents next rang to check in on us, they weren't too cross as all about what had happened.  Probably because with two teenage girls on their own for two weeks, we could have got up to a lot worse!

Thanks to my sister for reminding me about this story today, because I had been really struggling to think of anything to write!

This story is brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday.  Why don't you hop on over to her blog to read lots of other stories today.

The One About the Surprise Visitor . . .

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine came to visit, and to meet Alissia for the first time.  We had a lovely time catching up, then all too soon it was time for her to go.  I opened the front door, and there was next door's dog who tried to get in!  I have never liked dogs, or when they jump at you on your legs.  But with Alissia in her bouncy chair in the front room I had to do something, I couldn't have the dog getting to her.  Millie kept trying to push her way through the gap of the open door, but I managed to keep her at the door, and eventually got her out onto the pavement outside.  Then I started hammering on for next door to come and fetch the dog because I couldn't look after her all day!  Next door eventually came to the door, and said she didn't even realise the dog was out!  It's quite lucky that I opened our front door when I did because we live on a busy street with some little shops, and there are always cars pulling up outside.  Normally the dog is only allowed out in the back yard which is completely fenced in.  So we still can't work out how she got out in the first place!  I really hope that she doesn't try to visit again!  When she's been in the back yard before, and I've had to put the rubbish out she's got in the house and run round the kitchen, and into the front room!  I wasn't best pleased that day, especially as I was cooking dinner at the time.  I have also caught her peeing on my flower beds before now - so she isn't my favourite animal.

This story is brought to you for Sian's Storytelling Sunday.  Make sure you check out her blog where they'll be lots more stories!

The One About April Fools...

When I was seven my family moved to France.  We lived in a three storey house in what the french called a square, but actually it was a triangular shaped pedestrian area, with space for parking underneath the houses in the basement.  In this square there were quite a few other non-french families with children that we used to play with.  There was an American family living next door, South Africans further down our row, a Danish family on the row opposite and a British family at the very end with a little girl in the same class as my sister.

As none of our family were fluent in french we did what most of the other families did and got a satellite dish put on the outside of the front of the house.  I don't know what we'd have done without sky TV, (probably learnt more french!)  Anyway early one morning, on the first of April, when we were trying to get ready for school, the phone rang.  I got to the phone first, and it was the mother of the little girl across the square.  She was ringing to tell me that there was a really big black crow, the size of an eagle sat on the satellite dish outside, and she'd never seen one so big before.  As I was only 7 I hadn't quite put together the fact that the first of April was April Fools day and people would play silly jokes!  So I went running off to tell my mum about the big bird, leaving the other mum on the end of the phone.  Of course my mum soon put me right and explained what April Fools Day was!  I think that is one of the only times anyone ever played an April Fool on me!

This story was brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday.  Make sure you pop over to her blog  to read everyone else's stories today.

The One About the Hairdressers . . .

One of my Christmas pressies from M was a voucher to go and get my hair done in one of the local salons. Normally I would get my hair done in the salon close to my mum's where I've been since I was about 18, but which is a good 45minutes drive away from here.  M's thinking was that once I'd had the baby I would want to get my hair done, but not want to leave baby for long, so this was the perfect present really.  I'd not been to the salon before but I booked my appointment on for this morning, before the voucher could run out.

I got there to find it was run by just one lady, and my appointment was after she had spray tanned the girl before me.  While I waited for my turn, I heard this strange noise that sounded like a bird, but just thought it was the salon owners mobile phone with a strange text alert sound.  But then I heard other noises that could only be coming from an animal that could copy sounds they'd heard off the tv, or from people.

The salon seemed to be split into three areas, with the first area being where you have your hair cut, and where you wait, the second room you go through to is where you have your hair cut, and the last room looked like it was a private area, as there were curtains half blocking the view.  I imagined the bird sounds were coming from the very back room.

Imagine my surprise to find that when I was taken through to have my hair washed that there was a parrot in the second room!  And not only that, it wasn't in a cage, it was free to do what it wanted.  The hairdresser said to me when I went in that 'it shouldn't fly about' and luckily it didn't.  But it did go to the toilet, and all I could think of was what if it had been flying about whilst it did that and it landed in my hair! Needless to say I will not be going back there again!

It was a parrot very similar to this one!

I'm not so sure about the cut either, and she'd cut some of the layers quite short before I could stop her.  So I'm having to clip bits back, and I'm hoping once I've washed it myself that I'll feel a bit better about it.

This is my new hair do, and I couldn't resist having Alissia in the photo too!

This story was brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so make sure you pop over to her blog to read all the other fab stories this month!

ETA: I've since washed my hair and dried it how I normally would, and like it far better now, so all's well again :)

The One About Song Lyrics . . .

Last month I completely missed Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so this time I'm getting a story ready that'll automatically post on the right day, especially in the case that Baby decides to make an appearance!

It was the summer of 1994, and the reason I remember that was because it was the year that Wet Wet Wet were at number one forever with 'Love is all around.'  It was the first summer since we'd moved back from France, and we went as a family on holiday to a caravan park that was near to my Grandparents houses in Hertfordshire.  It wasn't terribly warm or sunny, but then it wouldn't be in the UK when we'd been used to the hot French summers.  The caravan park had a swimming pool, shaped like a key of all things - it's funny the things you remember from your childhood!  But apart from that there wasn't anything else to do there.

When you're on holiday in a caravan as a child you have to amuse yourself, and being well travelled on  caravan holidays my brother, sister and I knew what things to bring with us to keep us busy.  On this particular holiday, I was eleven, my sister was 8 and my brother was 5.  One of things we brought with us was our walkmans and tapes (of course this was well before all the technology advances - they all seem rather old fashioned now don't they?)  Well one afternoon I was listening to one of the 'Now' compilations, and sharing the headphones with my brother, when the Janet Jackson song 'whoops now' came on.  I'd listened to the tape on more than one occasion and was able to sing along to most of it.  My brother listened to the song with me and then kept singing it over and over again because it was quite catchy.  Only he changed the lyrics from 'sorry I can't come' to 'sorry about the eagle!' And no matter how many times we told him what the actual words were he wouldn't believe us!

I'd always had this memory in the back of my mind was trying to tell M about it a while ago because he very often makes lyrics up when he sings songs when he hasn't got the music on.  The only thing is I could never remember the song that my brother kept getting mixed up with.  Then about two weeks ago I heard the song on Smooth Radio and it all came back to me, and I literally ran (well of course I didn't run being pregnant and all, but I got up there as fast as I could!) upstairs to write down the song so that I would remember so that I could tell M.

The One About Baby Swivelling...

So it's the first Sunday of the month, and that can only mean one thing, it's time for a Story for Storytelling Sunday over on Sian's blog.  With it being December, and the run up to Christmas I've been trying to think of something to share that was Christmassy related or a winter story even, but my mind has gone blank, so instead I'm going to share something about Baby Bump.

Up until I was 27 weeks, Baby was lying across me, so at right angles to me.  Then one Wednesday evening I had the most peculiar uncomfortable pains in my bump and couldn't work out what was going on.  (Up till then if my bump felt weird, I just put it down to Baby growing!)

I told my friend the next day who said that Baby had probably been moving inside me.  Luckily I was visiting the midwife for a routine check-up the next day and she felt my belly and confirmed Baby had moved, she was now head down.  This was to be the the start of the Baby's feet digging into my ribs, which is one of the most painful things I've had so far! According to all the literature in my Pregnancy Bible, and the weekly updates that I get, Baby generally does move to that position at 28 weeks in preparation.  So actually our little one was early!

Last Sunday it started again, I was 30 weeks this time, and I could tell she was moving around into a difference position, but not quite where to!  Thursday just gone I went to the midwife again and they felt my belly and confirmed she had twisted slightly and was still head down, but facing to the left with her back and bum sticking out to the right.

Last night - now 31 weeks - the fun and games started.  Baby has had a growth spurt in the last week, as Bump is slightly larger than it should be (son't even get me started on that!) so she must have less room to manoeuvre about in there.  I was just sat watching TV with M and I started to feel movements inside, so I started to watch.  And this time the movements were really strong, and we could see the actual rippling of all the movements as she made them.  It was really uncomfortable, and every time Baby pushed out or prodded me I squealed!  After a while I had to get up and walk about to see if it would lull baby to sleep, which fortunately it did.  Either that or she'd finished!  So I think she's still head down, but facing inwards now, but we'll find out in three weeks at the next midwife appointment, unless she decides to start the swivelling all over again.

So there we go, my Sunday Story is Baby related, forgive me if it wasn't that interesting, but with her being our first I'm trying to record everything!  Make sure you head over to Sian's blog to read today's other Sunday Stories!

The One About the Pregnant Lady on a Mission...

Saturday evening started out just as we'd planned, with me getting showered and dressed up in my pretty dress ready for dinner out with my mum and M for my birthday.  We were going over to our favourite pub called The Crown, so we were going to drive over to Mum's and pick her up then head over to the pub.  As it was we were running late because we had to get petrol, then nip back to the house to pick up something for Mum.

We came off the motorway as normal, spying the bonfire at the pub on the corner of the round about, and were just waiting to turn into the country lane that would take us into Mums little village, when we spotted a queue of cars.  We very nearly took evasive action, but then the traffic in front of us was moving so we turned down the road.  This was a big mistake, we got as far as about three car lengths then stopped.  The pub were hosting a bonfire & firework display evening, but hadn't really sorted out the parking situation.  The people coming to the pub that had spilled out of their car park and decided to park alongside both sides of the country lane, resulting in there only being room for one line of traffic through at once.  The other problem was no-one had left any passing spots.  So basically we were stuck. After a short while M opened his window to see what was going on, and I overheard the guy in the car next to ours trying to go the other way say 'we might as well leave the car here'.  Well I wasn't having that, I was all dressed up for my birthday dinner, and I wasn't going to be cheated out of it.  So I said to M, I'm going to see what's going on (taking my mobile with me).  So off I marched into the darkness to see where exactly the trouble had started.  With it being a country road, there weren't any street lamps at all so I made sure to always walk in the line of any car headlights so that everyone could see me.  As I got further down the road, I came across one lady who was trying to sort out a driveway for people to turn round into go the other day.  So I said I'd go further down to make sure no on-coming traffic tried to get through, and clog the road up all over again.  Even further down the road, cars were doing the sensible thing and turning around, other cars that were still wanting to come through, I had to ask them to pull over to one side to let the on coming traffic pass, the first car was very understanding and realised if he didn't do what I asked he would just get stuck.  The next car who tried to move wouldn't have it, and said 'but I've got to get to Knutsford' well I explained he would only have to wait a short while for the other traffic to come through, but all he did was shout at me.  Luckily he couldn't go anywhere because of the car in front of him keeping to my instructions.  After that the traffic started to come through, and I kept watch for M in our car.  Not so long after he came through and I jumped in.  He said that not long after I left the car, all the traffic had started to move!  I was still really het up and cross about it all, and it took me ages to calm down!!!  Earlier that afternoon, I'd had my pregnancy massage, which was one of birthday pressies, and the masseuse had asked was I going to take it easy that evening!  Well I think that would be a no!!!

Luckily I'd calmed down once we'd got to the pub, and had a really lovely time at dinner.

The One About Names of First Pets.....

A couple of weeks ago M & I were watching All Star Mr & Mrs with Fern and Philip.  You know the one with famous couples that have to answer questions about each other.  Well one of the questions was 'what was the name of your partners first pet?' And this sparked off a whole conversation that lasted all evening.

Well I remembered that M's cats were called Frank & Toby, but M couldn't remember what my cats were called that we had when I was younger.  He was able to name the ones that are still at my mum's now, but then thats easy because we see them every couple of weeks, and anyway they weren't the first pet.  My sister and I got a kitten each when I was about 6 and she was 4.

So then we started a guessing game.  M likes guessing games, particularly if you give clues.  So after a few clues, he got the names of my sisters kitten, 'Poppy.'  But the name of my kitten was far more tricky, there weren't actually many clues you could give.  So this is where the story came out about how we came up with the names for our kittens.  My sister named hers after a character on the Playbus.  So then I decided to name my kitten after a TV character too.  Mine was a boy kitten, which may have helped give you a clue with guessing the name, and bearing in mind I was 6 in 1987/88, that would give you an idea of what TV programmes we would have been watching.  Then, then name started with an 'M', and he was named after a dragon..... in Puddle Lane.

Well needless to say M never guessed the name of the kitten because after doing a search on the internet it turned out that the dragon in Puddle Lane is called Toby! (How weird is that, as that was the name of M's cat), so the name of my kitten was 'Muffin' - gold star if you got it.  And since that evening, I now have no idea where the name came from?

This story was written as part os Sian's storytelling Sunday, (a day late, sorry) so make sure you pop over to read all the other stories!

The One About our Weekend at Wembley...

At the start of August M & his dad went to watch their rugby team in the semi-final.  I had been told that if they won that match the final was being held in Wembley on the Saturday of the bank holiday weekend.  When they came back that evening they were incredibly happy, as they had indeed won the match and were set to play in the final.  So they got straight onto ordering tickets for the final, and a hotel nearby.  I told them that I was coming too, I wasn't going to miss a trip out!

So the weekend finally came round, we set off at 7am in the car (on account of me still suffering from the sickness, and needing the loo fairly regularly!), and even saw a rainbow not far from home.

Which really wasn't a good sign as it meant we were heading into torrential rain!  But we came through it, and remembered to count the Eddie's that we saw along the way (only 18 on the way down).  We had to stop practically every hour on the way down, so we saw a good few service stations!  The first one was really quiet, but the second one was packed with all the Wigan Warrior fans that were travelling down in coaches, and we had passed a fair few coaches up till then.  But this service station was really crowded and noisy, and the queue for the loo's was out the door!  Needless to say we didn't stay too long!

We got to the hotel about 11:30am which, given all the toilet breaks wasn't too bad going.  Only problem was they wouldn't let us in our rooms until 1pm as they hadn't been cleaned yet.  So instead we had our packed lunch in the car park round the back of the hotel.  (This hotel was picked based on the fact that it had free parking for its customers).  Anyway at 1pm, we were allowed up into one of the rooms so that we could get changed and leave the bags before heading off to Wembley.  The room wasn't great, the toilet seat had a chunk missing out of it, the curtains were smaller than the windows, and the room just smelt stale.  But we weren't going to be put off and we set off to find the tube stop.  It was only at this point that I realised that I should have got myself one of those special badges that tells people you're pregnant, and then they (hopefully) give up their seat for you.  But it didn't matter as there was lots of choice.

Quarter of an hour later and we, and hundreds of other fans arrived at Wembley.  It was busy but not too crowded.  And we saw all sorts of things on our walk tot he stadium, people were dressed up as all sorts of different characters, priest, scooby doo, super heroes.  It was mad!  Anyway there wasn't a queue to get in and we were able to get some drinks and go straight to our seats.  Shortly afterwards, the two teams came out, and the game started.

Wigan Warriors scored quite early on, then towards the end of the first half Leeds went on to score.  They scored a try at one point which we thought really didn't deserve to be a try as they hadn't properly put the ball down over the line, but as we came to see throughout the match the ref seemed to be biased.

Leeds then scored twice in quick succession in the second half, and we were all quite tense until our team scored again.  There was one try in the second half that was obviously a proper try, but the ref watched the video play back about 5 times before he awarded it.  We were all getting really very cross with him!  Anyway this try brought our team well into the lead, which meant they went on to win the match!  It was all so exciting!  They let fireworks off at the end, and the team did a lap of the field.

I would go on to give details about our hotel room (which was just as bad as the first room) or the meal out that we had at Weatherspoons (which was just awful), but that would just spoil the experience of Wembley!

This was brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday, albeit a few days late!

The One About Our News...

This month rather than share an actual story as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday, I'm going to share some news.  I'm sure that many of you have noticed my absence from blogging recently, and vague references to being ill, well there is a reason, which can be better shared with the following photograph:

Yes we are now 14 weeks pregnant and very excited!!!!!  Like many other women I have suffered with morning sickness quite badly,  however with me it's more like all day long nausea :(  Apparently this is what my mum had, although hers passed after the morning, but I'm holding onto the fact the her sickness didn't last the whole pregnancy.  I'm really really hoping I'm not in that 1% that has it all the way through!  (Oh and I'm shattered all the time!  I get in from work and just sit on the sofa, studying, scrapping, housework, aerobics, for now has gone completely out the window!)

It got quite spectacularly bad at the end of June, the day after M's best friends wedding when we were driving home.  I was feeling so bad I couldn't eat anything, and didn't drink as much either.  It got so bad that I didn't eat for 48 hours, and when finally somebody actually listed to us, I was admitted to hospital with severe hospital related dehydration.  Hooked up to a fluid and anti-sickness drip for 24 hours.  What makes me really cross is that I went to the doctors earlier that week, to ask for some help, and the doctor, a man, fobbed me off saying all women get it, and you just have to cope with it!  If he'd actually listened to me when I went in, maybe I wouldn't have been as ill as I was!

Anyway, enough of that.  I've now got anti-sickness tablets, I make sure I really really hydrated, and eat small meals, little and often.  And for the most part it seems to work.  I've gone off a whole bunch of things though, hot drinks in particular, I haven't had a cup of tea in two months!!!  And I can't stand the smell of tuna or garlic, and I'm completely off pizza and lasagne!  I've not really had any strange cravings, but I have been eating a lot of mini-cheddars and ice-lollies!

We had our first scan last Monday, and everything seems to be fine according to the midwife.  Baby is currently the size of a peach, and so too small just yet to see the sex of the baby on the scan.  I'm really hoping to find out at the next scan what it's going to be.  I'm not naturally a very patient person, so that waiting is driving me mad!

So with everything being ok, I told work this week, and then our family and friends.  And do you know what it's such a relief to be able to tell everyone the truth, and why I eat ginger biscuits and crackers constantly at work!  (They thought I was really weird before I'm sure of it!)  We only had one person guess, at the wedding, because I was eating nothing but melon!

My mum is so excited, its her first grandchild, she has been knitting for a while, and has started putting together a patchwork quilt of the hungry caterpillar!  And has bough patchwork patterns for all sorts of other things too, including the buffer protector things for the cot.  Which is fab because we'll be able to choose the material ourselves and no-one else will have anything like it!

So sorry for the lack of story but I was too excited to wait any longer to share our news!

The One About The Welly Boots....

My family first moved to France when I was 7, my sister was 5 and my little brother was only 4months old.  We moved into a new build housing estate, with terraced houses which each had three floors plus a basement below.  As we settled into our new home and the village we found that there was a really strong english speaking community.  There were other families in our estate (which we called the square, even though it was the shape of a triangle! The clue was in the name 'Place Blanche de Castille'), with Americans next door to us, South Africans a few doors down, Danish over the way and a British family a couple of doors in the other direction.

My sister and I attended the British School of Paris (although it wasn't strictly anywhere near Paris!) and the school had built up an even wider network.  So each village had its appointed Welcome Mum - who was a parent to one of the children at the school, who would welcome any new families into the area, and arranged social events for the Mum's whilst the children were at school and the Dad's were at work.

That's just a bit of background... I'm sure you want to know where the welly boots come into it???  Well just next to our estate was a Park, and when we first moved there it was still in construction.  They'd put a large pond in, there was another area where they were going to put a clear pool (not for swimming, just deep enough to paddle in when it was hot) a play area, and a seated area.  They had also landscaped the park so it wasn't completely flat, but made up of lots of hills.  As it was still in construction, the grass seed hadn't been planted yet, so it was just earth everywhere.

Well, one afternoon the other children were all going into the park to play, and of course my sister and I wanted to join in.  My Mum put us in our welly boots and gave us strict instructions to stay with the other children.  We got round to the other side of the park, and were quite happily running around with the others, when my sister and I literally got stuck in the mud by the pond!  Our welly boots were stuck and we couldn't move them!  It must have rained the day before and that area hadn't dried through.  Two of the others girls had to lift us out of our boots, and carry us all the way home back to Mum!  From what I remember she put us straight in the bath as our trousers were covered in mud too!

This story was written for Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so make sure you pop over to her blog today and read all the other fab blogs!

The One About Growing Pains...

Growing pains I hear you ask? What are they???  Well this is something that my sister and I grew up knowing, that my mother told us about.  When you are little you get all sorts of aches and pains, and if they were in our legs Mum would say we were growing!  The thing is both M and C's husband had never heard of this before at all!  And the thing is, I still get those same aches and pains, and always believe that they are growing pains.  M will always chime in with how can they be growing pains if you;re not getting any taller???

Well, I have since come up with an explanation (not a proper scientific one I might add!).  We like to watch the programme called 'Inside the Human Body,' and last weeks episode talked about the fact that the only cells that stay with us, and that are never replaced are the heart's pacemaker cells.  So, to me that means that the other cells in our body are continually working to replace the previous ones, and therefore my growing pains, could really be growing pains!

Thought I would share one of the official wedding photographs of Clair & I given that the story is about the two of us!

Not quite sure what we were looking at!

This was brought to you for Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so pop on over to her blog to read the other stories :)

The One About the Different Christmas Dinner ...

Since last months Storytelling Sunday, I decided to have a little nosy on Sian's blog to find out where the original idea for it came from.  Well, because it started with Christmas stories, I've decided to share a Christmas story this month (I know its May, but I can't possibly wait till December to share this story as it has been going round and round in my head all week!).

So... a couple of Christmas's ago, when I still lived at Mum's Christmas lunch was going to be for Mum, my sister C, my brother R, C's partner S (not the one she recently married by the way) and myself.  It was the first time my mother had cooked a turkey, and understandably she was a little nervous about it.  The turkey (which was quite large to feed us all, and to feed us again the day after with some salad) was taken out of the freezer the night before and put in the fridge overnight to defrost.  (Mum had decided to buy a frozen turkey well in advance from the local supermarket rather than having to battle the crowds on Christmas Eve to pick up a fresh one).  On Christmas morning I came down to find Mum mopping the kitchen floor as the defrosting of the turkey had caused the fridge to flood (Mum has always been an early riser, and as I was home for Christmas from Uni, I was still in sleeping in mode - yes even on Christmas Day!).  So the turkey went into the oven slightly later than planned due to the floods.  It didn't matter, it just meant Christmas lunch a little later on, and who minds really, waiting till later for their dinner???

Mrs Beeton's cookbook was consulted and the time the turkey to be in the oven was calculated based on the size of the turkey.  Very sensible I think.  So the rest of the dinner was cooked according to the turkey finishing time.  About quarter of an hour before said turkey was due to be cooked we took it out of the oven to have a look at it.  To cut into it and check the colour of the juices, as you're supposed to do.  The juices, did not run clear.  So we cut a bit deeper into the turkey.  It turned out the middle of it was still properly pink (quite possibly the turkey had not defrosted properly in the oven over night.  Who knows.)  So with the rest of the dinner practically ready a decision had to be made.  Mum has never liked cooking, whereas whilst at Uni I seemed to have developed an enjoyment for it.  Plus that day I was quite level headed and not prone to panic (nowadays I am prone to panic - the other day I got into a complete state because I couldn't find the battery charger for my DSLR), so I took over, (not the whole cooking - I've never actually cooked a roast dinner myself, just the problem with the turkey).  It was decided that we could not eat the turkey with the rest of the dinner because we ran the risk of giving everyone food poisoning, and if we continued to cook it, it would take too long to cook and the rest of the meal ruined.  So I started rooting through the freezer, and luckily Mum is one of those people that buys things on special offer and puts them in the freezer for another day (now that I live with M and am in charge of the meal planning I do it too!)  I found sausages, lots of them.  Enough of them to feed us all.  So using a trick I'd learnt at uni to defrost things quickly, I submerged them all in a bowl of boiling water, they were all still in their freezer bags (I'm sure that plenty of readers would be horrified by this, I know my Mum was, but it works!)  Then I cooked them.  That year was Christmas dinner with a twist, Christmas dinner without the turkey but with sausages instead!  And it's one that I will never forget!!!

For other Stories head over to Sian's blog.

The One About The Lights in Paris.....

When I was 7 my family (including my 5 year old sister and 4 month old brother) had to move to France because my dad's job got transferred over to La Defense, Paris.

Well a month or so before we were due to move we all had to go out to find a house to live in.  So we were booked into this quite fancy hotel in Versailles, with my parents having an adjoining room to the twin room my sister and I had.  I think it was the first time that we had all been abroad as a family (I can't remember going anywhere before that anyway!) I thought it was brilliant, our beds were made for us every day and a chocolate was left for us on our pillows, and we had a fancy bathroom with shiny taps and everything! (you've got to realise our bathroom at home was still set in the 60's with an aubergine suite, so shiny silver was different to us!)  Anyway one day my mum and I were in the bathroom (and because it was an ensuite there were no windows, and you had to have the light on to be able to see anything) I am going somewhere with this, honest! Anyway... we were in the bathroom, and mum had to pop to her bedroom to get something, so because I had finished in the bathroom and because my mum had trained me well, I turned the light off. When mum came back to finish what she was doing she asked me 'why did you turn the light off?' and my 7 year old response.... 'Because I wanted to save the battery!'  And for some reason that story has stuck with me more than the actual house visiting did!

So that's my first Story for Storytelling Sunday which I have found on Sian's blog here, (whose blog I'm loving to read by the way!) through BFS and which I believe happens the first Sunday of every month (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I got lots of scrapping done yesterday, and today I have been out with mum for Mothers Day, so will pop back tomorrow with pictures and details :)