Recently returned

Just back from Spain ... well, more like I'm back from Spain since last Sunday but the fug of post holiday blues has stopped me writing anything about it. However, having dragged myself away from the teetering edge of the pit of despair I can tell you that I had a fantastic time.

Between strolling along the waterline ...

finding iconic restaurant signs ...

spending time with friends ...

and dreaming about how I was going to get home, there was also time for some pretty delicious food. Hilights included tellines, razor clams pan fried with chorizo, pan con tomate y jamón, trinxat with griddled belly pork, zarzuela, Catalan broad beans - with botifarra negra (black pudding) and belly pork, escalivada and the odd dish of seafood paella.

Scrapbooking

So, this weekend has mostly been about re-getting to know Photoshop Elements. Playing around with scraps and layers and making new headers, desk tops and just putting pictures together. VERY THERAPUTIC! I need to go and do something else now before my eyes turn square.

12" x 12" square in fact!

12" x 12" with knobs and bows on.

But hey it's keeping me off the drugs and the alcohol!!

snip snap

snip snap, originally uploaded by Laquet.

I have a newish blog.
One of those take a photo everyday for a year blogs.
Unfortunately my unorganised arse failed at the first hurdle i.e. I didn't get my act together in time and only started it on January 4th, so I'm going to have to keep going beyond the 31st of December.

So pop on over to ~ Laquet ~ Snipped and Snapped ~ if you get a chance, leave a comment - even if it's only to suggest something I could snap ;o)

Sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon part 1, originally uploaded by Laquet.

Sunday afternoon part 2, originally uploaded by Laquet.

Sunday afternoon part 3, originally uploaded by Laquet.

Ruth and I play this game whereby we pretend that we don't care who wins when Wales and Scotland play in the rugby. And I suppose I don't mind as much if Wales lose to the Scots/French/Irish as I do when they lose to the team that my husband supports. But I do care, so whilst I sipped hot chocolate with her this afternoon and wandered around the marina and admired Upnor castle ... I surreptitiously checked the Internet on my faux crackberry.

1 down lads ... I'll leave the rest unsaid eh!?!

101 words

Monday, snow ... school open. Journey home tough ~ Gravesend whiteout. Gillingham clearer. Bully Simon into clearing path, he'll be pleased come morning. Tuesday call during commute, school closed to children – site unsafe, staff in. WTF?!? Ice everywhere. Wednesday children in school stuck inside – miserable. S vomits into beads during session. Asleep at 7:30 on the sofa so awake early – need new job. Thursday semblance of normalcy. Friday thank god – lunchtime stopping an escaping child, theme tune to Escape to Victory inside my head. Lock up – know how to turn off alarm if called out … unfortunately! Outside it’s snowing – NOOOOOOOOOO!

I ♥ Faces 3 :: Joy

Can't you hear her laughing from here? We were invited to a Hindu wedding celebration in Durban and this young lady was dancing for us. Her pure enjoyment of the music and the moment was evident in the great big smile plastered across her face.

I think bringing good friends together for food, laughter and conversation is always a joy. We were at a restaurant in Brighton called Mascara, Simon and Ahmed ordered the Mechoui - the look of pure glee that appeared on their faces as the lamb was served along with individual carving knives was priceless! Pure caveman "ugg, me man, kill meat!"

I ♥ Faces 2 :: Anything Goes

It's week 2 of a new Internet photo sharing contest I ♥ Faces. I truly do ♥ Faces as long as we're not talking about pictures of my own face. So eventhough this is officially week 2 here's my first entry.

I ♥ Faces - Kids :: Theme - Anything goes

I took this photo at a feeding station in KwaZulu Natal for Aids victims and orphans. Some of the kids we saw were being raised by their grandparents and/or their siblings. Some of them were eating their only meal of the day. There was a strong feeling of hope everywhere.

France looked pretty

In the sunshine ...

and in the mist.

Ugandan stars

The post-man knocked yesterday morning with a parcel that he'd been trying to deliver since Wednesday morning - too big for the letter box AND when I went to the delivery office on Thursday morning untraceable. "We'll deliver it on Saturday they said." And they did - that in itself is enough of a reason for a post ... the Royal Mail do what they say they're going to do. I could end this right here if it wasn't for the fact that the parcel was full of loveliness that I really must share it with you.

Firstly there were the stamps ... this told me that the parcel had come from Lizzie aka Gandalady in Kampala. Pretty stamps too an Ixora Hybridia aka pretty red flower and a crocodylus niloticus aka the Nile crocodile. Anyone collect stamps anymore? You want these? They're purdy! Then there was the actual contents of the parcel ...

Yep my stars have arrived, all the way from Uganda ... here they are hanging on my "badly needed varnishing until Simon broke a chunk out of you putting a new door knob on, now badly needs repainting bedroom door." Do you like the knob though? Nice and shiny isn't it? Anyway, I first saw the wall-hangings - that's an alright name for them Lizzie - in this post all about Lizzie's Internet shop Sweetshop and instantly fell in love with them. The site is a portal for Ugandans to sell clothes worldwide "giving a fair wage and job opportunities to Ugandan tailors by helping them access the Western market." And with my stars came a note from Eva, the sister of the lady who made my stars.

I don't know whether you can read what it says - it was difficult knowing which setting to choose on the camera so here you go ...

Jo,
thank you for supporting my sister who made the stars, it's a great pleasure becasue she has no job but with your buying the stars she can earn something to continue with life. please introduce the stars to your firends so they can also order so she can get more custom.
God bless you
Eva.

So that's exactly what I'm doing - introducing you to my stars ... "Stars, everyone. Everyone, stars! Look, pretty beads and shells! Loveliness!"

What are you still doing here? Go and buy some!

Weekends rock

Off to have a nap ... wish I could do this midweek!

Food+photo=fabulous

Stolen from Croque-Camille a food+photo=fabulous meme.

The rules are as follows ~

Type your answer to the following questions into Flickr search
Using only the first page of results, pick an image
Copy and paste each of the URLs in the Mosaic Maker and display your mosaic.

The Questions:

What is your favorite restaurant?
What is your favorite type of cuisine?
What is your favorite comfort food?
What is your favorite childhood food?
What is your favorite dish to prepare for company?
What is your favorite wine?
Who is your favorite chef?
What is your least favorite food?
What is the most adventurous food you’ve eaten?

My answers ... 1) Hollywood Bowl 2) French 3) sausage and mash 4) nana's soup 5) lamb and fig tagine 6) merlot 7) Jamie Oliver* 8) tripe 9) mopane worms

The Mosaic:

The credits go to ... 1. Los Angeles and Hollywood, 2. Vieux Nice, 3. Bangers and Mash and peas, 4. Nana's Soup House, Wedgewood, 5. Lamb Tagine with quail eggs, 6. The Eye Of Wine, 7. Torta di Nada, 8. pigs in their own blanket, 9. Meet Mr. Mopane Worm

* Yeh I know, I know BUT he's made cooking much more interesting for the young - and his mozzerella stuffed lemons are gorgeous!!

Monday, Monday

Gosh, is it Monday already?
Kenny commented on it but has anyone else noticed that some sneaky whatnot is actually speeding up the clocks over the weekend and then slowing them down again on a Monday. And at the same time, he also turned the taps (faucets) to full today making a July day feel more like early March. We sent 120 5-7 yr olds and their helpers to Broadstairs this morninig, to play on the beach ... they came home like little ice-cubes, true soggy but still ice-cubes. It's global WARMING guys. Shouldn't that mean WARMER - 'cause you seem to have got that one wrong.
Camera still at school - will try to organise myself this morning, i.e. put it into my handbag for tonight ... until then, what school trip days used to look like.

Collage Photo Meme

I stole this meme from Mercedes ... I can't remember how I got there but it seemed like fun. BTW, how does she get half the post to not be there until you click on the read more link. Do you know what I mean?? No I don't think I do either ;o)

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

THE QUESTIONS:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name?

Eh voila! Pretty 'cept I can't see all of the lovely Mr Jackman. Credits in the comments box.

Me working - honest

Me working - honest, originally uploaded by Laquet.

I know it looks like I'm sitting outside in the sunshine, playing in a pretend kitchen but honestly *smiles smugly* it's work!! I really must go and do the ironing now.

I don't have such a bad old commute to work

... well in the summertime at least!

PhotoHunt :: I spy

themes · home · participants

Ok, you can see the little yellow bird - that's easy. But can you spy it's nest?





Clicking on the picture enlarges the image making it much easier to see the dangling round nest.

Old photos

I spent this afternoon cheering over the Welsh win at Croke Park and scanning old photos - both gave me joy but for different reasons.









It cracks me up that in 2 of the 4 photos I'm eating ... some things never change. AND I'm dressed in white - that's not happening these days with my propensity for dropping food ~ my mother was so trusting.

So far removed from picture perfect

My parents came for the night. They've gone to Wales for a few days. They've borrowed my camera ... I feel bereft! I can't wait for them to come back ALREADY!

PhotoHunt :: Classic

themes · about · participants

As well as taking part in NaBloPoMo, I have been dillying and dallying and finally decided that I am going to try to do PhotoHunt every Saturday. Well, we'll see wont we? I can only succeed or die trying ;o)

We spent time during a residential trip rock pooling, there was no "worried about health & safety" bureaucracy, the children were fully briefed and full of the excitement/enjoyment of it. We left 2 hours later, tired but enormously happy. It was a truly classic British summer's day!

p.s. Those are the white cliffs of Dover there guys!

Desktop Free View Meme

Gabrielle saw this on Rosie's blog and I stole it from her! That's right nobody tagged me - theft!

Here's what you need to do:
A. Upon receiving this tag, immediately perform a screen capture of your desktop. It is best that no icons be deleted before the screen capture so as to add to the element of fun. You can do a screen capture by going to your desktop and pressing the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key). For Macs, press shift-option-3 then look for the .png file on your desktop. Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and do a Paste (CTRL + V). If you wish, you can “edit” the image, before saving it.

B. Post the picture in your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop just below it if you want. You can explain why you preferred such look or why is it full of icons. Things like that.

C. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktop as well.

D. Add your name to the list of Free Viewers below with a link pointing directly to your Desktop Free View post to promote it to succeeding participants.

The list of Free Viewers so far is:

iRonnie - I Set No Corner
Thess - Thesserie
Rebecca - Skippy Heart
Knoizki - A Dialogue With K
Beng - Kauderwelch
Tina - My Good Finds
Rachel - Heart of Rachel
Alice - Hello, My Name Is Alice
Julia - Julia's Books Corner!
Darla - Nichtszusagen
Marg - Reading Adventures
Holly - What Were you Expecting?
ames - Thrifty Reader
Dev - Good Reads
Rosie - Nobody asked me...
Gabrielle - Diary of an Adult Runaway
Jo - Chez le laquet!

And here's my desktop (click on the pic for a bigger version):



God, it's tidy isn't it? Only 5 icons - can't be doing with icons everywhere. Someone once told me it makes the PC run slower and I don't know whether this is true or not but it has stayed with me. I don't even know why I have the Norton 360 icon there because I can access it through the tiny icon next to the clock. MiniReminder is a little bit of Freeware that remembers important dates - birthdays, anniversaries, meetings etc. and gives me a countdown to them - excellent as I am so bloody disorganised, well except for my desktop of course.

I took the photo on my free school trip to KwaZulu-Natal in October 2004. We stayed at the Oyster Box hotel in Umhlanga Rocks - fantastic, if you ever get the chance I totally recommend it! Like totally dude!* I got up very early in the morning, went down to the beach and took a series of about 50 shots of the water, sand and rocks. I particularly like this one though because of the trickles of water through the sand. The rest of them are here if you'd like to see them.

The folders are where I collect photographs - website scroll is for school photos to go on the school website that I maintain. Want to see? I'll send you a link. The frames folder is for photos to print off to put up around the house - I have some swanky new brushed aluminium frames from Ikea on the bedroom wall that I am currently filling. So there you are, that's my desktop. Much tidier than my real desktop! You so dont want to see a photo of that!

I'm am going to tag (because I haven't tagged anyone in such a long time) Fizzy, Lisa and Ms Mac** ... because I just like Gabrielle, am very nosey have a need to know! Let me know if you do it please :o)

* Where did those totallys come from? And don't even get me started on the dude!
** When the op is over and he's recovering, hope it all goes really well!