Happy New Year

I did it!

I walked 1000 miles this year, what an achievement I am so proud of myself.  

It can’t be...

Is it just me or does the guy waiting to board the plane with us look just like Carl from UP?

I could feel it in my water

We had an amazingly smooth journey to Germany, there was no traffic on the way to Hannover airport.  We checked in seamlessly, zipped through security,  boarding was fast paced, we caught a head wind arriving earlier than expected.  All of this should’ve made me feel happy, it didn’t.  I felt uneasy, it was going too well.  As we hopped off the bus in the car park I found the car first and....  it had a flat.  

GO was straight onto the recovery company, someone would be with us in two hours!  I knew (ish) how to change a tyre I loosened the nuts, GO jacked up the car, and it wouldn’t budge.  Bearing in mind it was muddy, we were travel weary we decided to wait the two hours.

I couldn’t play on my phone because I wanted to save the battery, so quickly I got bored.  I walked around the car park, I must have looked quite shifty.  Bus drivers kept stopping to ask me if I was okay.  I walked along the road to the motorway bridge (my sinlaw told me it was quite a dodgy place and I could’ve been mugged) and back.  Luckily I had left my wellies in the car so I had lots of fun jumping in puddles.  As I got back to GO and the car I checked my watch, is only been gone fifteen minutes.

Eventually the guy arrived and he was there for about eight minutes he slammed the tyre and was able to heave it off.  Just needed brute force.  He had been told that it was a recovery job (GO had said that we had two flat tyres!  Why?). 

All in all a great end to a blah! 2017

I LV BLKPL

The plan was to go to Manchester on an ale trail, when the email came through it wasn’t a guided tour it was an app so GO suggested that we go to Blackpool.  It was the last weekend of the illuminations. 

We parked in our usual spot and got the tram to the south pier before walking back.  We stopped for a spot of salty and vinegary chips and watched the sunset.  All very romantic as the wind was whipping up into a frenzy GO suggested we take shelter in a casino.

New tradition?

Boxing Day/Zweite Weihnachts Tag usually consists of lazing around watching crap, a long walk in the fields and waiting for the curry to cook.  This year we hit The Netherlands, their supermarkets were open (well some were).  It was a long way to travel for some onion soup and Walkers crisps but it was a day out at least.  Mamilein and Papichen were keen to show us the new shop they have found called Dirk’s, I checked the opening times which were 12.00-18.00 and we set off.  

Normally I get excited about travelling to Enschede but I knew that the town would be shut and Papichen doesn’t really like walking around these days.  We did manage to get a couple of cups of free coffee and a sausage roll or two before we headed home for kaffee, kuchen and The Snowman.  Maybe we’ll go again next year, maybe we won’t only time will tell.

Mumsplaining

I’ve invented a new word we’ve had mansplaining now we have mumsplaining, it’s self explanatory but if you wait long enough a passing mum will explain it to you.....

Five days

Well we made it to five days before Mamilein had a meltdown, I fear for her mental state.  She had always been a loose canon but she is getting quite vicious with it these days.  Her main bone of contention (along with the majority of Germans) focuses on the male refugees.  This has manifested itself as anyone who doesn’t agree with her being targeted for a tongue lashing and fictitious sleights.  You can’t laugh it off as she then accuses you of laughing at her, you can’t disagree because then you are sticking up for everyone else.  Do you just sit in silence for eight hours.  Ahh, home comforts.

Murray Christmas

What a lovely day we had, it was such a relaxed day no pressure for perfection.  We had breakfast, exchanged gifts, ate a delicious lunch before settling down with a binge session of The Crown (Mamilein found it boring so left us to watch Frozen upstairs).  We even FaceTimed Biglilbro during the meal to share jokes and play charades.  Mamilein’s Waterloo will go down in history.

Games night

This year more than ever before we’ve embraced board games, we’ve always been gamers (video variety) but in the past few years we like nothing more than popping on some tunes and playing games, Monopoly anyone?

Part of our Christmas traditions in the past few years has been a game or two of Ludo/Mensch ärgere dich nicht, it seems quite innocent but it has the same affect as Monopoly. It can quite rapidly descend into all our war, people taking sides and creating factions.

We did it!

Oh my god it’s the last day!  Two weeks after GO, three days after Southern schools we are on holiday.  Yes we will travel, yes I will have to do some work (some) but my plans are to catch up on some sleep. 

That’s the plan let’s see what happens....

Yomping Around York

“I’ve booked a night in a guest house just before Christmas.”  This sounded like a lovely idea until you suddenly realise that it was the weekend and you hadn’t packed.  Following on from my many forgotten to pack items from our last few trips I was convinced I’d forget something.  Mother Nature had her own ideas...

The guest house was in a little village called Easingwold, it was lovely very boutique.  GO  had booked a suite which was very modern and clean. I’m not one to complain but there was an awful lot of faux fur, a dusty/dirty pink rug and no complimentary shampoo or shower gel.  Other than that it was perfect.  Once we checked in we headed over to an nearby National Trust property, it was a large Manor House that had a special Father Christmas visit planned.  We had a pleasant time and as usual we headed to the cafe, the selection was poor so we decided to skip it.

Instead we headed for a nearby farm shop.  It was quite similar to the Crazy Bear in Stadhampton.  The cafe was very quaint with lots of wood beams, we started chatting about how Oxfordshire was over run with cafes like this but, that where we live, there is nothing.  They have tried to update Gordon Rigg and there is a very, very popular farm shop in Cragg Vale that is ridiculously overpriced.  It started us thinking again about our future plans to open a cafe, guest house or caravan park.  We have always talked about this and had almost forgotten our dreams.  We live in a picturesque area which could become a hotspot and we need to jump I’m the bandwagon quickly.

Let’s try this

I read an article about a woman who had conceived using an internal thermometer, nothing like anything I’d seen before.  It is, as mentioned previously, worn internally, think tampon, and takes  a reading constantly.  We’ve decided to give it six cycles and see what happens. 

OvuSense

8 Days to go

A little trip to Leeds

The benefits of having GO at home on the weekend is the fact that we can go on Saturday day trips.  He decided we should spend the day in Leeds.

Putting up the tree

I had a million and one work things to organise but made the decision to do something for me, I have struggled to get festive because I’ve just been so busy.  Today I decided to get all festive and put up the tree. As much as it’s lovely doing it together with GO, we had so many Christmas’ where he worked that it’s a job I do on my own.  I pop on the Christmas music and a cheesy movie or two (it’s a big job) and get on with it.  

It’s December