I am on annual leave this week - I had a lot of time owing and thought I would use this week to get all the Christmas shopping done. So yesterday I drove 20 minutes to a local(ish) shopping centre only to find that I had left my debit card in the pocket of the leather jacket I had worn last Friday when we went out to see Alabama 3 in Sheffield (another story and quite a surreal experience). So had to come all the way home to get it, and go back again by which time all the car parking spaces had been filled up and I had to drive around for ages before trying to squeeze into the tiniest gap ever.
Shops depress me. Even more so at Christmas when there are ten times as many people in them. I much prefer to buy things online (especially eBay). Although saying that, I love the shops you get in places like Glastonbury, the non-chainstore-commercial type of shops that are really different and have character. Plus, I love markets. And charity shops.
I wandered around for about 4 hours and managed to buy 3 presents (plus four packs of smoked pollack from Sainsburys which had been reduced).
We all went out to a gig last night. Mike has also been playing in a band called The Silver Darlings and they had a gig in an arts cafe in Mansfield. I got us lost on the way and we nearly ended up in Nottingham, but it was a good gig and there was quite a bit of interest in the band: people asking if they had an album to sell (which they don't, but they have been considering doing some recording).
And this morning I sit here thinking about all the Christmas presents I need to buy and if it might be nicer to just sit here and browse around eBay.....
Our family playing the Drystone Stage at Solfest 2008 as 'Pale Lilac'.
Beggars Belief Ceilidh Band: (from left) Claire, Michael, Adrian
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Monday, 24 November 2008
Meet the parents
Daughter Nic is coming home today to bring her boyfriend to meet us for the first time. He's half Brazilian/half Japanese and his first language is Portuguese, so I'm hoping he will be able to understand me. I will try not to speak like a tourist.
He's a chef, so I'm under pressure to cook something nice. He apparently cooks a lot of beef so I will probably do some lamb meatballs, moroccan style.
Some of the family have met him already: my parents and sister say he's very nice, smiley, well-mannered so we have heard good things already. Not all her boyfriends have been very easy-going!
Nic wants to bring him home for Christmas so that he can experience one of our traditional family Christmases (he could find us a little weird) so this meeting is really to see if we all get on and think that spending a week together would be a good idea or not!
I'd better go now and clean up...
He's a chef, so I'm under pressure to cook something nice. He apparently cooks a lot of beef so I will probably do some lamb meatballs, moroccan style.
Some of the family have met him already: my parents and sister say he's very nice, smiley, well-mannered so we have heard good things already. Not all her boyfriends have been very easy-going!
Nic wants to bring him home for Christmas so that he can experience one of our traditional family Christmases (he could find us a little weird) so this meeting is really to see if we all get on and think that spending a week together would be a good idea or not!
I'd better go now and clean up...
Monday, 17 November 2008
My New Blog
I have been thinking about doing a blog for a few weeks now, inspired by the number of mums on the Green Parent forum who produce some very interesting ones.
So here's my first post: a bit of a ramble about what we did at the weekend.
Friday night we played a gig in Sheffield. It was a fundraising event for Children in Need and a venue that we've played about four times before - lovely big hall with a stage and they do fantastic pie and peas. It was a Beggars Belief gig but we took the kids along to play with us (James is getting really good at helping unload the gear and set up the PA too so that's a bonus). We made the decision in summer to start including them in the ceilidh band whenever it's a public event, although corporate stuff and weddings will still be the original band. Public events tend to be more family-orientated and more suitable for the boys to involved in.
There were around 150 people there and we had a packed dancefloor all night. And afterwards someone came up and booked us for another event in May, which is positive as with all this credit crunch thing we have had £850 worth of cancellations this month. Got home around half 12 and the boys went to bed while Mike and I stayed up with a nightcap (Jack Daniels) winding down to some music until about 2am.
Saturday.
James woke me up about 8am to remind me that I had to take him to school as he was playing in a rugby match. Went and dropped him off (Mike took Joel to watch him later when the match started - I stayed at home to do some baking because I'm not too sure of rugby rules anyway. James came home delighted because they won 40-0).
The organiser from the gig last night rang up to say thanks for a great do, and to book us for another one at the end of March. Good news, it keeps us on our toes having to learn new stuff as we'll be playing for mainly the same crowd.
Got the Rayburn lit after about 4 attempts because the wood was wet, and spent the afternoon baking with Joel: chocolate muffins and 2 large carrot cakes. This was interspersed with me and Mike taking turns on the computer looking for Christmas presents (we are doing recycled presents for each other this year, so eBay is being well used!)
Later we got ready to go out to a party. We had been invited by a musician friend to his anniversary and he had rung Mike a couple of weeks ago and asked if we would 'do a spot'. So we got ready, got the instruments out, had a bit of a battle trying to get the boys to look half-decent as they didn't seem to have many clean clothes to choose from. Drove to where we thought the party was (a theatre in the next town), couldn't find it, drove round some more around the one-way system, then had to ask someone. Found the theatre, then took another half hour finding a parking space. Got our instruments out and took them into the (empty?!) theatre to be told by the bar staff that the party is next week. Mike was very sheepish about his communication skills on the telephone and got slightly shirty after 20 minutes of teasing by me and the boys. But at least we know where the venue is for next week!
And for some reason, possibly that Mike's home-made beer is ready (albeit a tad cloudy) we didn't get to bed until 2am again.
Sunday
Went to church in the morning. It's quite a liberal, free-thinking collection of people in a community centre, and we took a Pete Seeger song 'Keep Your Eyes on the Prize' which we had discovered on a Bruce Springsteen cd: we played it in a bluesy chilled-out sort of style which sounded really good, as we tend to find that most worship songs sound so cheesy and formatted.
When we got home James cooked dinner (he had found a recipe for a cheesy pasta and vegetable sort of bake that he wanted to do - we're not rigid traditionalists about Sunday dinners). Mike moved the chickens up to the end of the garden and fenced off an area for them to free range in. For the last few weeks they have been free-ranging all over the lawn and patio and there's a huge amount of droppings everywhere, so he scooped it all up with all the leaves that have fallen, and composted it. We are still getting plenty of eggs off of them (2-3 a day, from 3 chickens). I did some tidying up as there have been piles of clothes on the dining table which meant we've been eating in the kitchen around the breakfast bar most of the week.
We had a normal Sunday evening: for us that means getting the boys to do their homework and iron their shirts for the week, then a family viewing of Heartbeat (yes, we know it's so predictable, but it's part of our routine!)
Had an early night (11ish) and did some reading: I'm currently on Margaret Attwood's Oryx and Crake, and Michael is reading Marx for Beginners.
So here's my first post: a bit of a ramble about what we did at the weekend.
Friday night we played a gig in Sheffield. It was a fundraising event for Children in Need and a venue that we've played about four times before - lovely big hall with a stage and they do fantastic pie and peas. It was a Beggars Belief gig but we took the kids along to play with us (James is getting really good at helping unload the gear and set up the PA too so that's a bonus). We made the decision in summer to start including them in the ceilidh band whenever it's a public event, although corporate stuff and weddings will still be the original band. Public events tend to be more family-orientated and more suitable for the boys to involved in.
There were around 150 people there and we had a packed dancefloor all night. And afterwards someone came up and booked us for another event in May, which is positive as with all this credit crunch thing we have had £850 worth of cancellations this month. Got home around half 12 and the boys went to bed while Mike and I stayed up with a nightcap (Jack Daniels) winding down to some music until about 2am.
Saturday.
James woke me up about 8am to remind me that I had to take him to school as he was playing in a rugby match. Went and dropped him off (Mike took Joel to watch him later when the match started - I stayed at home to do some baking because I'm not too sure of rugby rules anyway. James came home delighted because they won 40-0).
The organiser from the gig last night rang up to say thanks for a great do, and to book us for another one at the end of March. Good news, it keeps us on our toes having to learn new stuff as we'll be playing for mainly the same crowd.
Got the Rayburn lit after about 4 attempts because the wood was wet, and spent the afternoon baking with Joel: chocolate muffins and 2 large carrot cakes. This was interspersed with me and Mike taking turns on the computer looking for Christmas presents (we are doing recycled presents for each other this year, so eBay is being well used!)
Later we got ready to go out to a party. We had been invited by a musician friend to his anniversary and he had rung Mike a couple of weeks ago and asked if we would 'do a spot'. So we got ready, got the instruments out, had a bit of a battle trying to get the boys to look half-decent as they didn't seem to have many clean clothes to choose from. Drove to where we thought the party was (a theatre in the next town), couldn't find it, drove round some more around the one-way system, then had to ask someone. Found the theatre, then took another half hour finding a parking space. Got our instruments out and took them into the (empty?!) theatre to be told by the bar staff that the party is next week. Mike was very sheepish about his communication skills on the telephone and got slightly shirty after 20 minutes of teasing by me and the boys. But at least we know where the venue is for next week!
And for some reason, possibly that Mike's home-made beer is ready (albeit a tad cloudy) we didn't get to bed until 2am again.
Sunday
Went to church in the morning. It's quite a liberal, free-thinking collection of people in a community centre, and we took a Pete Seeger song 'Keep Your Eyes on the Prize' which we had discovered on a Bruce Springsteen cd: we played it in a bluesy chilled-out sort of style which sounded really good, as we tend to find that most worship songs sound so cheesy and formatted.
When we got home James cooked dinner (he had found a recipe for a cheesy pasta and vegetable sort of bake that he wanted to do - we're not rigid traditionalists about Sunday dinners). Mike moved the chickens up to the end of the garden and fenced off an area for them to free range in. For the last few weeks they have been free-ranging all over the lawn and patio and there's a huge amount of droppings everywhere, so he scooped it all up with all the leaves that have fallen, and composted it. We are still getting plenty of eggs off of them (2-3 a day, from 3 chickens). I did some tidying up as there have been piles of clothes on the dining table which meant we've been eating in the kitchen around the breakfast bar most of the week.
We had a normal Sunday evening: for us that means getting the boys to do their homework and iron their shirts for the week, then a family viewing of Heartbeat (yes, we know it's so predictable, but it's part of our routine!)
Had an early night (11ish) and did some reading: I'm currently on Margaret Attwood's Oryx and Crake, and Michael is reading Marx for Beginners.
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