Other bits and bobs

I have some other bits of non-birthday news.
Firstly I want to congratulate my cousin in Barcelona Gemma Pardo Cruxent on acquiring her first post degree job. Everyone knows it's a slow and painful journey going from graduate to employee, it usually goes in fits and starts, results in many let downs and disappointments, many lessons hard-learned... and no one warns you!!!!!!!!!!!! So anyway, well done Gemma!

Primero quiero congratular a mi prima Gemma en Barcelona por conseguir su primer empleo en psichologia despues de terminar su carrerra. Nadie te dice que sera tan dificil y frustrante conseguirlo, y una vez conseguido solo empieza la diversion! Pero muy bien hecha Gem por no perder tu fe y tu paciencia!!!!!!!

Secondly, after an interview with LANTRA, the sector skills agency for the landed industries I have been offered a 6 month contract which basically sees me through until Christmas. It is more money and in a qay quite prestigious so I am chuffed to bits. We'll see how it works out as it is a long drive away, it's in Stoneleigh.

Un compania me ha ofrecido un puesto de 6 meses trabajando en su departamento de marketing. Estoy muy feliz, claro, aun que sea un viaje mas larga, pero te lo ire contando...

Some very sad news reached me when Mum told me about Vicky Ball. Many of you won't know her but she is from Igualada and an absolutely smashing lady. Well she suffered with cancer for a few years and I found out that she died on Tuesday. This was just so sad, and I just wanted to remember her here, with you. In memory of her I'm going to try and laugh and enjoy life as much as I can because every time I think of Vicky I remember her smiling.
Oi una noticia de parte de mama que me sorprendo y me entristezo mucho. La preciosa Victoria Ball ha fallecido. Fue por cancer y es una gran lastima porque siempre la recuerdo sonriendo y viviendo la vida con ganas y felicidad. En honor a ella, pues, voy a tratar a sonreir al maximo que puedo.

Some obligatory gardening/diy news: Well it wouldn't be the same otherwise! We finished the pantry! The kitchen is officially complete - hallelujah! The floor is done the walls, everything. And the new shelving is very smart - Alex did a very good job. We're going to get a freezer for the space but meanwhile here it is - finally I'm not ashamed of picturing it on the blog! Ok this is not an exciting picture but you can't imagine how please this made me!

And some more diy news, here's a picture of the beautiful hall now that Alex has properly finished the floor we invested in some nice wall hangings to tie it all in together. God I sound like I'm in that TV programme "How not to decorate"!

Claro no seria blog sin noticia de la casa y veras que hemos terminado la despensa (palabra correcta?) y el vestibulo! Finalmente!

Finally, drum roll please... the shallots I planted have just poked tender green shoots out of the earth - they're growing folks! They and the herbs are doing particularly well, although the slugs have launched an attach on my precious courgette plant...

That's about it... xxx

Finalmente, rodillo del tambor por favor, los chalotes que planté acaban de empujar lanzamientos verdes blandos afuerra de la tierra! Estoy celebrando, aunquelos lingotes han lanzado una fijación en mi planta preciosa del calabacín...

Ya esta... terminao! xxx

More Birthday Fun

I had a fab birthday weekend again!
Lisa and Danielle came over, Lisa drove which was really exciting as it was only her second time on the motorway. Anyway, with Danielle navigating they got here and it was the start of a fab night.









Hannah, who is pregnant with baby boy number 2, (CONGRATULATIONS HANNAH!) drove over from Wolverhampton and we all had a catch up and a chat while running around putting on make-up (apart from Alex, obviously!). Nathan and Laura dropped off my present which was a great cd by Jose Gonzalez called Veneer - if you've heard the vodafone advert (I think it's that one) then you'll recognise his music, it's lovely. And Hannah got me a bottle of Baileys, which together with the mini pink champagne and champagne truffles I got with my Bright birthday vouchers means I'm a very spoilt girly! A little of what you like does you good..!








Hannah drove us all to La Plancha in Moseley where we met with Peter and Steve. Since Steve moved to Birmingham I've really missed him, he's so funny and such a nice man! He's got himself a nice new man so that's good as he really deserves all the happiness there is; especially as his work is directing planes safely down to land - it's probably best he's not miserable and distracted! It was great to see Pete too, and when Kate and then Leon arrived it was a real Griffin reunion! So much fun!










Becky, who I did Spanish with, had moved house that day but still managed to come to La Plancha and even brought me a bunch of the most gorgeous flowers!












Nathan and Laura were there, baby Emma was able to spend an evening with granny and grandad, and Hez and Becky came which is miraculous in itself - Hez tends to go awol sometimes! He even phoned me in advance!

Annette, who was my manager at the NEC, came along and brought her significant other, Paul, who I'd not had the pleasure of meeting before. It was so funny because she was surprised at how loud Alex could be when he's with friends! She'd only ever seen him when he was shy and being well behaved before! Annette brought me a beautiful bouquet of pink and cream roses, see? - I love getting flowers!









Then Ben and Cat were there also, which is lovely, and I managed to get around and have a chat with everyone. I think that's it, I hope I'm not missing anyone out. It was a brilliant night. We all had tapas and munched away, and I managed to get them to serve us desert even though the kitchen had just closed! Then bartender Rory made me an on the house special cocktail just for me - yum it was delicious!

I managed to organise taxis and bundle people in, with the help of the manager John, and we went off back home for more fun.

At this point Hannah left us to it, it was midnight and she had to get back to Wolverhampton, it's so lovely how many people made such an effort - I felt very special! Becky quite rightly went back to her new flat to bond with it and Annette and Paul went off too.

Pads had had the house to herself and suddely it was overtaken by about 13 mad and excitable strangers - she wasn't too impressed and rather huffily made herself scarse after a few pats and strokes!

Gradually people flaked and went off home or to bed. Lisa and Danielle sloped off upstairs and got changed into their pj's very slyly, the Nathan was found upstairs on the sofa, asleep, with the playstation controls in his hands!!! Aah, bless. He was promptly taken home by Laura! Ha ha! Next off were Hez and Becky, who decided that taxi's were taking too long and they were last seen heading off on foot. I think I'd better check they got home safely as I got the impression that their idea of the geography was sketchy at best! They have a new home in Bourneville so they should have made it ok! At this point me and Kate were danicing around the kitchen but then the taxi arrived for her Pete and Steve, and that just left me Alex and Leon and Pads. Pads had long ago done the sensible thing and was asleep on our bed, Lisa and Danielle were snoring, so after having a dance with Alex (!) I sorted out the futon and frogmarched Leon to bed. I wasn't so successful with Alex. I managed to wake him up but then he started wittering about having the munchies and I left him to it! As I fought the cat for the duvet the last sound I heard was the gentle humming of the microwave!!!

In the morning Alex woke me up and we had a chat and a cup of tea. Leon Alex, me Danielle and Lisa sat about for a couple of hours talking then I finally got up and made breakfast. MMmmmmm! Lisa and Danielle headed off before breakfast so I suppose that's the official end of the tale. Just picture me Al and Leon munching away on a good old British breakkie before Leon braved the bus journey home!

And there's still the bank holiday monday to look forward to!!!







Bueno, tuve una noche genial celebrando mi cumple con todos mis amigos. Solo faltaron algunos para hacerlo perfecto, pero no puedo quejar ya que ha sido fantastico! Eramos casi 20 amigos, que viajaron de Wolverhampton, todo Birmingham, Coventry y hasta Londres. Eramos gente de la universidad, del trabajo NEC, amigos de la escuela y de siempre. Lo pasamos en el bar La Plancha, un bar de tapas que es muy autentico. Comimos muy bien, paella, langostinos, musclos, ensaladas, champinones, tortilla espanola (claro!), y tantas otras cosas, picando y picando... Tambien comimos postres; tarta de queso, y me dieron un coctail buenisimo porque era mi cumpleanos! Arriba hay fotos de mucha gente, pero tambien regresamos a la casa a bailar y cotillear, y finalmente la gente habia desaparecido por las 3 de la manana! Aunque esto no suens mal para ingleses, es relativamente controlado para nosotros, pero supongo que estamos envejeciendo!

Birthday Girl

It's my birthday! I have had loads of texts and cards and presents. Thank you everyone! Yesterday we mooched around the house and did some diy, a typical saturday really, then in the evening we drove to Stone in the Staffordshire countryside to celebrate the wedding of one of Alex's work mates. It was a great do and I had a dance and a chat with people before heading off at midnight. Because I was driving I didn't want to leave any later, but it was still great fun.
Here's a picture of the place... very grand!










Also I wanted to attach a picture of the rapidly growing Emma, Nathan and Laura's little girl. She's growing teeth, crawling, laughing and generally learning things so quickly I can't chart them all on the blog. But here she is looking fabulous!














For my birthday Alex bought me a gorgeous watch and took me out for a meal in my favourite restaurant, San Carlo's on Temple St, Birmingham. The waiters are all Italian and very friendly, they shook Alex's hand on the way out and shout at each other in Italian... it's great! I had a mozzarella salad followed by tagliatele with monkfish and oysters in a creamy tomato sauce. Yum! Alex had spinach caneloni followed by one enormous grilled sea bass.



Then we dragged ourselves around only the one shop before rather pathetically returning home. Alex is asleep already and I reckon after typing this up I'll head off for a nap too! Aah, bless, look at them both!
By the way, I managed to let the cat slip out this morning when we were just about to go into town and it took us 45 minutes to get her inside again! We tried distracting her, bribing her, chasing her, bossing her about, guilt-tripping her, cajoling her, begging her and ignoring her. Finally Alex caught her and it was game over! What a nightmare!

Hoy es mi cumpleanos, me han envado paquetes, mensajes de text, targetas, llamadas y emails, gracias a todos! Lo he pasado muy bien. Ayer fuimos a una boda en el campo y lo pasamos bailando y charlando. Y hoy fuimos de compras y terminamos con una comida espectacular en San Carlos, en el centro de Birmingham. mmmm, que bueno! Y ahora me voy a descansar un poco, como ves Alex ya esta relajado! (Me va a matar cuando vea este foto!!! he he he)

Cute penguin!

Danielle has pointed out that in November there is a cool film opening called Happy Feet and I am rather excited. I saw the trailer a few months ago and it looks fantastic. Now I know it's in November and that's not for ages, but follow this link to whet your appetite: http://www2.warnerbros.com/happyfeet/
I can guarantee it'll make you chuckle!


Mi amiga buena Danielle me ha avisado quela pelicula 'Happy Feet' sale en Noviembre acqui en Inglaterra. Ya que no me puedo controlar hasta entonces, si hagas click podras ver unos trailers super guay de la peli, para ayudar el avance de los meses!
Os prometo que lo gustaras http://www2.warnerbros.com/happyfeet/

Easter weekend

We finished work on Thursday in jubilant mood - it was the beginning of our 4 day weekend! After a nice lie in this morning we had a productive day. We did two trips to the tip and got rid of the bricks, paving slab and old work tops that had been cluttering up the garden since ripping out the old kitchen in November! Then we visited Sainsbury's, swept the garden, cleaned the windows, hoovered, cleaned and dusted and Alex also did a few hours on the hall floor - it's nearly finished!
Since then we had my uncle David and his fiancee Angela over for dinner. It was a very pleasant evening and I loved catching up. They've asked me to be their bridesmaid next June! Very excited! They live in Plymouth so it'll be a lovely chance for a long weekend getaway as well as a chance to get all dressed up!
I'm off to have a look at cake recipes for Sunday; we're having the 2 sets of parents and Als gran Dos over for Easter lunch.
By the way, if you're wondering whether anything is happening on the wedding front, my job situation needs to be sorted before we make any concrete plans... I'll let you know.

More Gardening News

Well this weekend as part of my 'spruce up the garden' activity I put together this nice little bit of garden furniture and as you can see Pads made the most of a comfy growbag and patch of sunlight!
bless...
Unfortunately for her this has now been planted up with oregano, garlic, bell peppers, courgettes, sage, thyme, mint, tomatoes...

Como parte de mi actividad este fin de semana construi esto para crecer vegetales y hierbas. Pero Pads lo vi como oportunidad para un descanso oportuno!

Spring has sprung

When we bought this house Alex, in his ignorance bless him, wanted to pave over the garden. But I kicked up a fuss and I'm glad that I did!

I was really looking forward to having my own garden and he has warmed to it and helps by mowing the lawn. He also started to get enthusiastic about the idea of growing veg and that's what we're starting to do now. It's lovely, now that the weather is definately more spring-like. Last week I kicked it all off by weeding. I do like a good old weed, muddy hands and the satisfaction of seeing a nice clear patch of earth is my favourite part, followed closely by the smell of it all. mmmmm.

Yesterday we ended up in Homebase. We'd had a few months off the place, but after we moved in it felt like we were there every week for months! Our house is a bit like a Homebase advert, actually, they could pay us to host an ad I'm sure. We'd have to omit the coffee table and wardrobes because they're from MFI, and there's a couple of things from Ikea. But the rest is all Homebase! We went in there for a few plants and ended up with three trolleys full yesterday! I've got a soil testing kit, and I felt rather like I was in the series CSI; I had a pipette and mixed the sample with a solution and then I had to read off the results! Our soil is PH neutral so in theory anything should grow... we'll see.

We were both really pleased to see daffodils springing up at the far end. When we moved in to this house the area around the trees was starved of all goodness and the topsoil was almost gone. So when we dug up the lawn at the front we dumped the turf on this patch around the trees and forked it in as best we could. I dropped some bulbs in and, hey presto, a row of beautiful daffs appeared. Alex's mum and nan gave us some snowdrop bulbs and I've stuck them there too - we'll see what happens!

Back in October when we started the kitchen we had planned to do the floor in the hallway as well. The old lino was torn and worn out and kept tripping me up as it wasn't fitted properly! But flooring can be expensive so we concentrated on the kitchen. Then Homebase cam to the rescue! There's this stuff we used for the kitchen that has worked a treat, and basically it's the same stuff we're using in the hall. Instead of tiles these are shapen like wooden strips and they seem really easy to apply, you just peel off the backs and stick them down! So at 2.30pm Alex decided he was going to get the floor done, and he very nearly finished it, ther's just a bit of edging left to do. Doesn't it look lovely? It really makes the hall feel brighter too. We've painted the walls a light shade of lilac; the paint has a satin sheen to it so that it reflects the light as well.

It's funny how much stuff you accumulate. I din't think we had that much in the hall until we had to move it all into the living room, Here's what the living room looks like now:
!!!
So after our mega-motivated saturday we went to my church with our mate Leon to listen to a concert. The quartet played a piece by Mozart and then some Dvorak, then Anna joined to make it a quintet and they played some Schubert. I have to say Schubert went on a bit! But the one by Dvorak was great, really moody, and layered, and Russian. And we raised £600 for St Basil's, a charity which re-homes the homeless. Our friend Kate works for them and they do great work, so while we were shifting about in the uncomfortable pews for 2 and a half hours we could take some comfort in knowing it was all for a good cause!

Funny old month

It's been a bit of a funny old month. I admit I have neglected the blog somewhat, my apologies. Things have happened that have left my world slightly altered since the last entry, and I've taken a few weeks to mull things over.
So here goes...
Working in a PR agency is exciting, challenging, frustrating, varied, and I have loved it. The long hours were a pain though but there was the hope of progression and the opportunity for creativity, so I just gritted my teeth and got on with it. What few people think about it that PR professionals are linked to journalists. Very often they are ex-journalists, who have sharpened their skills in the cut and thrust of a newspaper publishing house. I had hoped that immersion in an agency would help me catch up on my writing skills, I had banked on this being the case in fact, and I hadn't allowed any room in my head for failure. Mind you that's consciously; subconsciously I'd been fretting for a few months, since Christmas really. Fully aware that if I couldn't write press releases to a better standard quickly then my days were numbered. I had a frank discussion with my managers and about a month ago I handed in my notice.

You only live once don't you?
You don't get given the years to waste them away on sadness, regret, frustration, guilt and self loathing.

My favourite poem:

Rudyard Kipling - If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!

Mi poema favorito:

Rudyard Kipling - Si

Si logras conservar intacta tu firmeza cuando todos vacilan y tachan tu entereza.
Si a pesar de esas dudas, mantienes tus creencias sin que te debiliten extrañas sugerencias.
Si puedes resistir inmune a la fatiga y fiel a la verdad, reacio a la mentira, si el odio de los otros te deja indiferente sin creerte por ello muy sabio o muy valiente.
Si sueñas, sin por ello rendirte ante el ensueño.
Si piensas, mas de tu pensamiento sigues dueño.
Si triunfos ó desastres no menguan tus ardores y por igual los tratas como a dos impostores. Si soportas oír tu verdad deformada para trampa de necios por malvados usada ó mirar hecho trizas de tu vida el ideal y con gastados útiles recomienzas igual.
Si toda la victoria conquistada, te atreves a arriesgar en una audaz jugada, y aun perdiendo, sin quejas ni tristezas, con nuevos bríos reiniciar puedes tu empresa.
Si hasta el pueblo te acercas sin perder tu virtud y con reyes alternas sin cambiar de actitud. Si no logran turbarte amigo ni enemigo, pero en justa medida pueden contar contigo.
Si entregado a la lucha con nervio y corazón, aun desfallecido persistes en la acción y extraes energías, cansado y vacilante, de heroica voluntad que te ordena: ¡Adelante!
Si alcanzas a llenar el minuto sereno con sesenta segundos de un esfuerzo supremo... Lo que existe en el mundo en tus manos tendrás, Y además, hijo mío, ¡un hombre serás!

Despues de unos meses de vacilar y pensar, he decidido buscar otro empleo. Ha sido dificil porque de veras me gusto mucho mi trabajo pero mi estilo de escribir no es lo suficiente desarrollado para este nivel. Estoy pensando como solucionar las cosas, adquirir un empleo que me deja ser creativa pero sin dejarme sintiendo tan estresada - la vida es demasiada corta para esas tonterias.