Breakfast Pizza

One side effect of stress, for me anyway, is that I lose my appetite. I noticed first fourteen years ago when I managed to "survive" on just a snickers bar.  Now that I have "come back" I found my mojo/appetite.  My first thought was breakfast, I had seen something online called a breakfast pizza.  It piqued GO's interest and before I could say yummy he had made it and it was delicious. Another breakfast meal to add to our repertoire.

Looking good

Stress, anxiety and sickness have their benefits.  I have managed to lose enough weight to fit into a pairs of jeans two dress sizes below my usual size.  Woohoo I am awesome.

Happy New Year

I've been away for a while

I have not been at my best recently, work and home have been quite stressful.  At school we are constantly being scrutinised and before we are able to make any changes everything has been changed.  We are under intense pressure as if the school doesn't pass the Little Grey Men inspection (whenever that may be) they will be put into a category. I'm trying to remember that I want to put myself first this year.  It is very difficult and I can feel myself starting to shut down, I have no enthusiasm for the work, I don't eat, and when I get home I make a nest and fall into it.  I'm usually asleep by half eight.  It has had an impact on my life as a whole, I am feeling run down and seem to pick up every bug going.  The last thing on my mind is to fill out our adoption workbook (all 60 pages and 110 boxes).  Yet we are being pressurised by the council to have it all completed as soon as possible so they can hit their targets.  I understand that everyone is under pressure but I am finding myself rebelling against it.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I am not happy about the attitude.  I have tried to explain that in the future being a full time teacher may be too difficult and that supply offers some security and flexibility but our SW just keeps saying I have to stay at the school because I need to get maternity leave.  I don't agree, I think that   I need to give my time an attention to our child/ren and put their needs first. Well we will see what happens.

Bewtwixtmas

Posers

On top of the world

We had time between Christmas and Baby bro an Sinlaw going to visit his best friend down south. Neither had ever been to ours, since the move, so we took them on a world tour of Yorkshire & Beyond.


Emmerdale and the Salts Mill

Emmerdale was on BB list of things to do ever since I found the place last autumn. We got chatting to the post mistress/tourist information who told us where everyone lived and sold us a guide (I didn't have any money so I couldn't pay) which we followed.

Emmerdale

Salts Mill was a joy for me, it always is, I'm not sure it was really their cup of tea. Although they spent ages in the antiques shop.  On our journey back we stopped off in Harworth which was lovely, cold and slippy, but lovely.  We even had the chance to play heroes when an old lady "lost" her husband and we helped her track him down, he was in the pub, only joking he was at the bottom of the hill, couldn't be bothered to climb it probably.

York

Good Time had by all

We had a long day in York, after much deliberation we decided to take the train, which made for another early start.  We planned a route around the city making sure to include all the shops on everyone's list (there was a long list).  We took in the sites, made a stop in Diagon Alley/The Shambles,  babybro is obsessed with a cream tea he once had in Oxford that was in his words amazing (it was from a Beefeater in the city centre).  I found a quaint antiques shop cum tea room which had space (a great find in York). It was almost perfect for him then he realised that the scone had raisins in and was instantly disgusted, I can't blame him.  We took in a Chocolate tour, which included making our own chocolate lollipops, mine was the best obviously.   We wanted to go into the Minster but we had run out of money... okay we're all too tight to fork out for admission,  I knew that in Canterbury there is an evensong service which is opened to limited amounts of the public. We decided to hang out in the pub, such a hardship, and wait for the service to start.  I was hailed a genius as we all squeezed into the pew and had a relaxing half hour of song and worship.

Blackpool

All great stories begin with; I was watching TV and I saw something exciting.  We were watching the hunted program where people try to stay off grid and undetected by CCTV cameras and what not.  Last year one episode had the contestants hiding out in Canterbury with some Christ Church students and this series two contestants were in BLackpool.  they were in a huge World buffet restaurant and were nearly caught by the plods.  My first thought was, I haven't been there, I want to try a world buffet, so we went and it wasn't bad.  Not haute cuisine and some things were quite soggy, but all in all quite tasty.  Obvs when I heard that Sinlaw had never been to Blackpool I immediately decided that we should go, and we did.  it was pretty dead, but the good old fashioned amusements were open.  We spent £10 and had so much fun.  I even won a Mario.  It was the claw game, Bb had been trying for ages to win something, GO said "they are such a con no one ever wins".  I agreed, but thought, what the  hay, let's have a go.  First coin in and less than a minute later I had won"  I was chuffed to bits, I even had a group of young Japanese students come up to me and congratulate me as they had tried to win it.  In hindsight I should have given it to them but I was too high on my win.

Football - them not me though