...drive in Winter weather! (Sorry couldn't resist!)
We are having the worst Winter weather for 25 years and today I ventured out in it for a driving lesson. Some folks might think it rather mad but I felt it was a great opportunity...there will eventually be a time when I get caught out in the slippery white stuff on my own and I would rather my FIRST time be sat next to someone who knows what they are doing, or what I should be doing. It was a bit scary at times but mostly not the horror I thought it was going to be. I learned about getting the speed up on the downward part to make it back up the hills ( something I would have chickened out of if I was on my own and it was the first time I was out in it ), I learned how to get out when stuck in a rut in the snow by inching forwards and backwards continuously. I also learned that my instructor is way better at making a snowball than me!...in my defence, I did not have gloves on!
All in all it was a good experience and I am pleased to say the only casualty was one of my false finger nails...I just hope I lost it lobbing a snowball back and NOT in his car or that would be a gross find when he next hoovers it out, eek!
I do hope I can remember all he taught me today and it keeps me safe in the future.
Save driving and keep warm everyone.
Edited to say when I went out again it was quite scary when I didn't have the guts to get the speed up when approaching a hill...we slid all over the place, but somehow I managed to get to the top, only just though. It was a BIG learning experience and yes now I know that sometimes you just HAVE to do things even if it scares you. Phew!
Doxie :o)
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Quality friend time
Last night ( or early this morning ) we came back from a super evening round at my friend's new house. After a delicious dinner we retired to the sitting room for some serious catching up and general silliness and laughter.
I did wonder if we might have to stay the night...the weather was so cold and icy when we came to leave in the small hours the car doors were stuck closed...when we did get in and got moving there was sheet ice all over the place. We did get home safely, no thanks to the local council who had yet again failed to grit the very steep hill we had to get up to get home. :o/
My friend did say something which quite upset me when I got to thinkng about it...she told me that when we stopped spending lots of time with other on a regular basis ( We used to see each other a few times a week, but had a change of circumstances ) she felt bereft. Now that is strong wording and I know she means what she says because of the type of lady she is. Isn't it sad that life should get so crazy that we let really important friendships and fun times get squeezed out. Yes I missed the 3 of them terribly but if you are like me you never think that other people could possibly be missing your company as much as you are missing their's. I think there is a lesson to be learned here, and I will try my utmost this year to always have a date set in my diary when we will next be seeing my much loved friends.
Keep up with those who are special to you, just knowing some people makes the world a better place, and you always feel better for seeing them. life is too short to let these friendships slip.
Take care all,
Doxie
I did wonder if we might have to stay the night...the weather was so cold and icy when we came to leave in the small hours the car doors were stuck closed...when we did get in and got moving there was sheet ice all over the place. We did get home safely, no thanks to the local council who had yet again failed to grit the very steep hill we had to get up to get home. :o/
My friend did say something which quite upset me when I got to thinkng about it...she told me that when we stopped spending lots of time with other on a regular basis ( We used to see each other a few times a week, but had a change of circumstances ) she felt bereft. Now that is strong wording and I know she means what she says because of the type of lady she is. Isn't it sad that life should get so crazy that we let really important friendships and fun times get squeezed out. Yes I missed the 3 of them terribly but if you are like me you never think that other people could possibly be missing your company as much as you are missing their's. I think there is a lesson to be learned here, and I will try my utmost this year to always have a date set in my diary when we will next be seeing my much loved friends.
Keep up with those who are special to you, just knowing some people makes the world a better place, and you always feel better for seeing them. life is too short to let these friendships slip.
Take care all,
Doxie
Friday, 1 January 2010
Best Wishes for 2010
Well it's here finally! Happy 2010 to all.
Our lovely neighbours invited us in to see in the New Year. They thoroughly spoilt us with homemade cooking and lots of booze. I took a few homemade bits around too and by the end of the evening or should I say 3.30am when we left we were stuffed but happy. :o)
It's funny how you can live right next to someone and not know that they share the same interests as yourself. It seemed what ever subject came up, it was something we had in common. Life is so busy, usually we just find time to say a quick "hello" on the doorstep or drop a parcel off...these guys live right next door and yet we didn't know that we spend alot of weekends doing the same things or at least dreaming of doing the same things. I feel a New years resolution coming on...get to know the neighbours better and make time to spend some leisure time together!
On the subject of resolutions, I wonder what you dear reader have set yourself up for? Myself, well it is a bit of a one off for me...by my birthday I want to have a six pack and ask one of our portrait photographer friends to paint me in light and take a pic as a record that once in my life I looked after myself!!!( okay you can get up off the floor and stop laughing now!) The day after I will start letting it all go again probably, but I know from experience that when I am working out I feel at my best, I have boundless energy, my skin clears and I feel like a teenager, pain free and care free...which begs the question, why don't we keep these things up? Oh if only I could answer that.
I do feel that this is THE year. I will hopefully have passed my driving test which means I can really start being me! I am so looking forward to having that independence, and I can't wait to pay back all the little kindnesses that friends have shown to me...I will enjoy kidnapping them for the afternoon and taking them out for surprise dinners and such.I will be able to persue my business plans which I have been playing with for the last couple of years. I will be able to start running again, sounds odd I know when you don't need a car to run, but this means I can drive to more scenic and suitable places. I plan to entertain at least once a month, with certain changes we have been making this seems very do-able.Life begins in 2010.Happy happy, happy!
Doxie
Our lovely neighbours invited us in to see in the New Year. They thoroughly spoilt us with homemade cooking and lots of booze. I took a few homemade bits around too and by the end of the evening or should I say 3.30am when we left we were stuffed but happy. :o)
It's funny how you can live right next to someone and not know that they share the same interests as yourself. It seemed what ever subject came up, it was something we had in common. Life is so busy, usually we just find time to say a quick "hello" on the doorstep or drop a parcel off...these guys live right next door and yet we didn't know that we spend alot of weekends doing the same things or at least dreaming of doing the same things. I feel a New years resolution coming on...get to know the neighbours better and make time to spend some leisure time together!
On the subject of resolutions, I wonder what you dear reader have set yourself up for? Myself, well it is a bit of a one off for me...by my birthday I want to have a six pack and ask one of our portrait photographer friends to paint me in light and take a pic as a record that once in my life I looked after myself!!!( okay you can get up off the floor and stop laughing now!) The day after I will start letting it all go again probably, but I know from experience that when I am working out I feel at my best, I have boundless energy, my skin clears and I feel like a teenager, pain free and care free...which begs the question, why don't we keep these things up? Oh if only I could answer that.
I do feel that this is THE year. I will hopefully have passed my driving test which means I can really start being me! I am so looking forward to having that independence, and I can't wait to pay back all the little kindnesses that friends have shown to me...I will enjoy kidnapping them for the afternoon and taking them out for surprise dinners and such.I will be able to persue my business plans which I have been playing with for the last couple of years. I will be able to start running again, sounds odd I know when you don't need a car to run, but this means I can drive to more scenic and suitable places. I plan to entertain at least once a month, with certain changes we have been making this seems very do-able.Life begins in 2010.Happy happy, happy!
Doxie
Sunday, 27 December 2009
I just can't stop...
...BAKING
Since my new cooker finally arrived I have been on a baking binge.I have baked every day and generally several times a day. Everyone must have baked goods...not because I am good generous sort, but because otherwise I will put on a stone in weight at a rate never known to man.
I gave up "real" baking long ago in the old cooker, it was just too discouraging. I would follow the recipe but more often than not it would not come out right, the result usually more charcol than golden brown. With the new cooker there have been no horrors AND I am trying new recipes with success first time around.If there is a baking heaven I am in it. I am thrilled with this new cooker and it has made me realise that the problem before was definately not me but my old and ancient cooker.
To make life even more rosy I have invested in a new utensil which is making pastry a breeze...a pastry cutter! For years I thought they were a gimmick...well to anyone that has not used one they most certainly are not.No more pastry under the fingernails, no more aching hands if the fat was too hard when you were trying to rub it it. What you have is a cleaner and lightning quick way of making pastry. I have started making 2 batches at a time.
I plan to start putting some of the recipes I am enjoying online. Most homely folk will have baked the same things over and over I am sure, but you never know there maybe someone out there just starting out. :o)
Since my new cooker finally arrived I have been on a baking binge.I have baked every day and generally several times a day. Everyone must have baked goods...not because I am good generous sort, but because otherwise I will put on a stone in weight at a rate never known to man.
I gave up "real" baking long ago in the old cooker, it was just too discouraging. I would follow the recipe but more often than not it would not come out right, the result usually more charcol than golden brown. With the new cooker there have been no horrors AND I am trying new recipes with success first time around.If there is a baking heaven I am in it. I am thrilled with this new cooker and it has made me realise that the problem before was definately not me but my old and ancient cooker.
To make life even more rosy I have invested in a new utensil which is making pastry a breeze...a pastry cutter! For years I thought they were a gimmick...well to anyone that has not used one they most certainly are not.No more pastry under the fingernails, no more aching hands if the fat was too hard when you were trying to rub it it. What you have is a cleaner and lightning quick way of making pastry. I have started making 2 batches at a time.
I plan to start putting some of the recipes I am enjoying online. Most homely folk will have baked the same things over and over I am sure, but you never know there maybe someone out there just starting out. :o)
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Even newbies can be useful
This week we had something that I have been both dreading and looking forward to in equal measure...Quiz night at the Photographic Group. Dreading because most of the people that go are professionals or retired professionals and I was envisaging not being able to answer a single question. I was however looking forward to it in the hope we were bound to learn something...Oh for silver linings!
We split ourselves into teams of 4. By fluke, the way it happened our team was made up of the youngest members ( gee how good it feels to include myself in that description LOL ).We had the pleasure of joining up with 2 others we had not yet had the chance to mix with so it turned out to be fun from the start. Thinking of a name was easy... how could we resist "The Nippers"?
Most of the questions seemed very obscure EVEN the general knowledge ones that were supposed to act as a warm up at the start. With the threat of loosing out to a team of more senior folk we were tempted to use some pocket electronic technology but we refrained and used our brains instead.
After 2 hours of scratching of heads, working out sums and scribbling diagrams on paper the torture was over ( almost ) and it was time for scoring. Much to the delight of the room it came to a play off between The Nippers and The Oldies (a team to our left)... we both had a grand total of 31 points. Then came my biggest moment in the history of Doxie Quiz nights...Thank goodness for being a newbie and a beginner as this means some of the basic techno stuff is still lingering in my brain from the last manual I've read. The deciding question...
" What does AEB stand for?"
The most confident I had been all night I answered "Autoexposure Bracketing" and "hurrah!" Team Nippers won the night!
It was my lucky night...We not only won a team prize we could split but I also won a raffle prize. To top it off, a lovely gent K had printed off some pics from a private portrait session we'd done with him. All in all a jolly good evening. :o)
Doxie the satisfied!
We split ourselves into teams of 4. By fluke, the way it happened our team was made up of the youngest members ( gee how good it feels to include myself in that description LOL ).We had the pleasure of joining up with 2 others we had not yet had the chance to mix with so it turned out to be fun from the start. Thinking of a name was easy... how could we resist "The Nippers"?
Most of the questions seemed very obscure EVEN the general knowledge ones that were supposed to act as a warm up at the start. With the threat of loosing out to a team of more senior folk we were tempted to use some pocket electronic technology but we refrained and used our brains instead.
After 2 hours of scratching of heads, working out sums and scribbling diagrams on paper the torture was over ( almost ) and it was time for scoring. Much to the delight of the room it came to a play off between The Nippers and The Oldies (a team to our left)... we both had a grand total of 31 points. Then came my biggest moment in the history of Doxie Quiz nights...Thank goodness for being a newbie and a beginner as this means some of the basic techno stuff is still lingering in my brain from the last manual I've read. The deciding question...
" What does AEB stand for?"
The most confident I had been all night I answered "Autoexposure Bracketing" and "hurrah!" Team Nippers won the night!
It was my lucky night...We not only won a team prize we could split but I also won a raffle prize. To top it off, a lovely gent K had printed off some pics from a private portrait session we'd done with him. All in all a jolly good evening. :o)
Doxie the satisfied!
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Angry Doxie
I am a thoroughly fed up Doxie. I have had no cooker since Saturday morning. A new one was delivered and the old one taken away but they delivered the wrong cooker, grrrrr! All the paperwork refers to the one we choose, a black one, but they delivered a graphite one which has a different code so goodness knows how they managed that. The delivery men said they'd leave the graphite one just incase they had trouble getting hold of the other one ( I think they knew something about the company we didn't!). They suggested that we ask permission to open this one and use it if we had to wait for the black one.
This will be our 4th night without a means of cooking hot food and they will not give us permission to open it. I have had to throw food away because it had gone out of date and that really hurts.
I have stayed in for two re-deliveries and they just did not turn up even though they had CONFIRMED by text and voicemail. You wouldn't think we were in such a deep recession would you with the lack of customer care these places have.
I wait to see if they can actually get their act together and deliver it tomorrow as that is the latest delivery date. I am considering asking for my money back seeing as they have not delivered the goods I ordered, have caused me to be out of pocket and going to one of their competitors instead.
Watch this space. I am angry...infact DS said when he heard my telephone call to the so called customer services he had never in his life heard me so angry.
Doxie Grrrrrrrr !!!!!
EDITED TO SAY IT HAS FINALLY ARRIVED AFTER WE STAYED IN 6 TIMES FOR DELIVERY!!!!!!
This will be our 4th night without a means of cooking hot food and they will not give us permission to open it. I have had to throw food away because it had gone out of date and that really hurts.
I have stayed in for two re-deliveries and they just did not turn up even though they had CONFIRMED by text and voicemail. You wouldn't think we were in such a deep recession would you with the lack of customer care these places have.
I wait to see if they can actually get their act together and deliver it tomorrow as that is the latest delivery date. I am considering asking for my money back seeing as they have not delivered the goods I ordered, have caused me to be out of pocket and going to one of their competitors instead.
Watch this space. I am angry...infact DS said when he heard my telephone call to the so called customer services he had never in his life heard me so angry.
Doxie Grrrrrrrr !!!!!
EDITED TO SAY IT HAS FINALLY ARRIVED AFTER WE STAYED IN 6 TIMES FOR DELIVERY!!!!!!
bye bye birdie
My pet birdie passed away during last Monday night. The saddest thing is that when I put him to bed that night I said to him
"I haven't got any pictures of you, I must take some tomorrow."
Tomorrow never came for birdie but I guess if I did have pictures I would just be looking at them now making myself more sad. He had a good 15 1/2 years so I guess I mustn't really be sad. He never had a day's sickness either so that is a blessing.
Bye bye birdie aka Screecher Creature, I shall miss our little chats and your cheery songs.
Doxie x
"I haven't got any pictures of you, I must take some tomorrow."
Tomorrow never came for birdie but I guess if I did have pictures I would just be looking at them now making myself more sad. He had a good 15 1/2 years so I guess I mustn't really be sad. He never had a day's sickness either so that is a blessing.
Bye bye birdie aka Screecher Creature, I shall miss our little chats and your cheery songs.
Doxie x
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