Celebrate #6

It's time to ....

with Lexa Cain and her wonderful crew - who this week have a fabulous giveaway!  You can join in too - just click the button above!

1) This week, Hubby and I have been going out to the comedy festival in the nearby city. We have some old favourites as well as getting to see up and coming funny folk and in these dark winter nights it's a good thing to get out and about rather than stay on the sofa!

2) Storm Doris was not as bad as I had feared and we got away quite lightly - just a couple of slates off the roof - so I'm happy the roofer was already booked to be coming over Mid March!  Thank goodness we had also got the trees successfully pruned in Jan as I think a few branches might have come down and caused damage.

3) Completed my set of the last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant from a local charity shop.

I had picked up Against All Things Ending in January (in another charity bookshop) but of course I couldn't remember which one I'd bought and they all have very similar looking covers in gold/silver hues (a lot more similar than this picture shows!!).  I hadn't realised that the last series was a set of four so I thought I was buying the complete set and would find out which was the duplicate at home so you can imagine my delight when I found out it was actually the third book in the series and I'd found the other three.

The original series was bought for me as a 16th birthday present by my parents

and I can remember being blown away by the quality and force of the writing - I cried quite regularly throughout their reading.

I bought the second series (the same year) with prize  money I received from my school as the top student award and read them through my summer holidays before going off to my new school and "A level" study.

I hadn't realised another and final series had even been written between 2004 - 2013 so I am looking forward to beginning these 30 years later than the first two series!!

Here's hoping others have had a very good week too - filled with surprises and rekindlings of special memories - let me in on what the week has had in store for you - you know I'd love to know :)

Celebrate #5

Another week seems to have whizzed by so catching up with everyone via the ever lovely

led by Lexa Cain and her two co-hosts Tonja Drecker and L.G. Keltner.

My week has had its ups and downs - 

1. The exams are over but boy was the first written one really HARD - I truly do not know if I will have passed it and they have both now been sent off to London to be marked (and there was I thinking that they'd be marked on site and we'd know results by the end of the day!) however I do know that I passed the afternoon's practical assessment with flying colours so that is a big relief at least.  Now just have to keep my fingers crossed for the rest!

2. Have taken it upon myself to organise an event to promote local societies and clubs in the deprived area that I do a lot of my Nordic walking.  

This will be a first for me and so equipping myself with an email list of possible clubs etc I designed a poster, wrote an invitation email and sent it off only to have back as my first email reply one that basically said that this venture had been tried before and was doomed to failure. To say I felt slightly deflated was a bit of an understatement!!  However, my email back said I was happy to learn from past experiences f they had any advice to offer - which led to a contact phone number, a chat on the phone and, once they had established I was trying to do this with a budget of nothing, an offer of help and support to promote the venture to the wider public - so it all ended well and during the week other emails have come in to book their free tables for the event so this week I will be trying to expand my list of potential bookings as my aim is to get approximately 40 organisations to attend (10 so far).

3. Expecting visit from No. 1 son and his friends next week has now been put on hold partly by his work and partly by the cost of insurance for the car he was hoping to get (and drive everyone up here in).  As a young driver in London the insurance is astronomical (even my insurer asked me if I'd like to sit down before he read me the quote - £2500!) so he will have to work out if it is truly worth owning a car for traveling out of the city - he obviously takes the tube/bus or bike for inner city journeys.  The upside for us is that we have other friends (from our uni days) coming up to visit this weekend so the turnover of rooms will not be quite so frantic and we'll see him sometime in March after he's had time to think the car thing through properly.

Here's to everyone else and their week gone by and the week on the horizon - hoping that all has been going well or at least balancing out OK - leave me a comment below because you know I'd love to know :)

Celebrate #4

So sorry to be posting this late but I really do want to stay connected to this lovely linky and hopefully next week I will be on time!

I want to say a BIG thank you to all those out there who sent me good thoughts on how to sleep well on the run up to exams - I am very happy to report that I have found it much easier to sleep than I thought I would and hardly any exam dreams - so restful nights :)  Exam is tomorrow so watch this space for news on whether I'll have something to celebrate on Friday!

This week I have cause to celebrate -

1: I organised the first Cinema Club for those of us who often don't go to the movies - the Silver Screen is only £3 and you get a cup of branded coffee and biscuits included so what could be better? I know it is advertised for those over 55 but no-one stopped me (I probably look haggard enough at the moment!!) The film was The Girl on the Train and it was so much better than any of us thought it would be so a great start to this new venture.  Twelve of us went and for some it was their first trip to the cinema for years - it's just nice to go with someone else so you can discuss the film afterwards - so we'll definitely be going again!!

2: I attended another sports' award evening - this time to take part in a Q&A session up on stage on women going into coaching in sport.  Yet again something I never thought I'd be part of if you'd asked me this time last year!

3: Some lovely weather I feel blessed to have been out and about in - I know it's been snowing a bit over the past few days but nothing too bad and they say this week the weather will get warmer again. My pot of mini narcissi (which were only buds last Saturday) all came out during the week and are now brightening up the downstairs loo.

Here's to everyone - let me know how the week has treated you and what has made you stop and smile - you know I'd love to know :)

Celebrate #3

It's so simple to join in with this lovely weekly get together hosted by Lexa Cain so why not join the fun yourself and press the button below?

My reasons to celebrate this week are:

1.  The snowdrops are out in my garden and they look so beautiful.  I am now wondering if the bulbs I planted last year will come up this spring - no signs yet.

2.  My revision is going well - I think - just another week left so I am going back over everything hoping some more will stick and I will get more confident before the exam.  No doubt those awful exam nightmares will kick in some time this week - so any suggestions for a good night's sleep will be most welcome :)

3. More new people coming Nordic walking and really feeling the benefit.  It is such a good feeling to know you've enabled someone to walk twice as far as they have in a very long time, enjoyed talking with new people and have got to feel really proud of themselves and what they've accomplished.

This week, Lexa has been asking about housework - I think this pretty much sums up my thoughts on the subject!!

Here's hoping you all had a lot more in your life to celebrate than housework - you know I'd love to know what you've been doing so leave me a comment below :)