MeMe time...

1. Started my own blog - obviously!
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain - Ben Nevis might not be huge in mountain terms but it's still a mountain!
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightening at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning - twice...eugh!
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb - fed them and then sent them off to that place where they don't come back...
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon - working up to it - on the 10k's as we speak!
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person - and when at the top heard someone say "is there another way down from here?"...wtf!
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter - frequently, it's how I get to work!
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar - way over-rated
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job - and then had them offer it back to me after they'd been made to eat their words as it wasn't me who'd done the misdemeanour = told them to stuff it!
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life - may have done inadvertently since I used to work for a smoking cessation service and now I do health education
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Rode an elephant

Stuff...

We had snow so we had to go and play in it...


And one small boy is getting much better at knitting...
Apparently he even copies the facial expressions I make when I knit! As long as he doesn't copy the swearing then we're safe enough...for now ;-)

They have absolutely no idea!!!

When I was offshore this week I started working my way through all the remnants of the Sunday supplements, as one does while one is sitting around waiting patiently for what is known as the Paraffin Budgie

to transfer one from one installation to another. Anyway I came across this little piece of advice in the Observer Woman supplement from Sunday the 2nd.

" The thrift guide: How to stop shopping, Eva Wiseman

1. Knit

There's only one way to stay warm in these tough times, and it involves yarn. Learn to knit on youtube.com (there are hundreds of how-to videos), then join a knitting circle. It'll get you out of the house, at least. Go to castoff.info to find your nearest."

Now, Eva obviously doesn't know much about knitting or she would realise that learning to knit does not equate with thrift...well not in my house anyway. It's cheaper than foreign holidays (just) but I know I spend more on my knitting than I do on my car each year though, then again, probably not as much as I spend on my food shopping. Doesn't she know there are tools and gadgets to buy, books and magazines that are compulsory purchases, patterns to download (not all free) and all sorts of pretty wool with which to supplement the habit. No frigging idea whatsoever!!!

See exhibit A below...does this look like a cheap hobby to you?!

A cat would be a much cheaper hobby...;-)

School reunion...scary stuff!

You go back home for the school reunion...

You look around at where you came from...

You look at where you are now...

You know you wouldn't want to relive it...

But it's nice to check it out...

Plus it helps when you know you've aged better than sooooooooo many others...but that's called "being bigsy" back home :-)

Findlay Farm, my house, is for sale...

It's taken a wee while, to say the least, but I have finally got round to putting my house on the market. The "For Sale" signs from Stronachs went up at the top of the road and outside the house this morning and I already had one woman turn up who had been just driving past and decided to come down the road on the offchance! I do know she's unlikely to be my buyer as she hasn't even got her own house on the market yet but at least it gave me a chance to show someone round.

So who wants a tour of my humble abode...here we go! In case you hadn't guessed...here we have the front of the house. Cracking spot on a sunny day, south-facing, and the bit you can barely see at the end of the garden (to the left in left hand photo) is the sunken patio - complete with firepit for the boys to play with!

Come into the hallway and then settle yourself down in the sitting-room. The wood-burning stove is awfully cosy on a winter's night and throws out a fair heat. I have a tendency on leaving the door open and letting it throw the heat out into the rest of the house. It is a lovely spot to sit and knit on the sofa.

What else is downstairs...well my carefully designed kitchen for a start. 12 years in the hospitality trade mean I'm pretty damn fussy when it comes to what I want out of a domestic kitchen. I needed a good layout, loads of work surfaces to enable the use of all my kitchen toys (and I have many...my Kitchen Aid food mixer is my favourite...especially as I got for a 1/3 of the price and brand new - the guy selling it didn't know the true value!) and lots of storage. I also didn't want wall units cos they hem you in and I'm too short to get stuff out of most of them without using a step-ladder!

Then we have my rather good-sized bathroom...followed with a nice and cosy dining room...and the room that is classified as bedroom 4, though I use it as my home office at the minute...

And then we go upstairs to the bedrooms...1, 2 & 3...one of them I use as my craft room...well more of a craft storage room really but they don't use that picture as an advert for this. They obviously don't know about the power of knitting as a selling tool!

And what else do you think people would want to know...well, Aberdeen is the oil capital of Europe and my house gives you an excellent location to make a bit of revenue out of said oil monies as it is next door to the AECC - the location for Offshore Europe, an exhibition which takes place biannually in Aberdeen. The next one is due here in 2009.

I'm in a real golfing spot as the field to the east of the house borders the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club for most of it and then blends into Murcar Golf Club at the other end. Both of these courses are only a few miles away from the proposed super-development of everyone's favourite bad hair tycoon of Mr Donald Trump...anyday now that planning permission will be coming through for his new place! (Ed. And now his permission is through...who knows what this will mean!)

I must admit that my only use of the golf courses is as a way to access what I classify as my own private beach. You launch yourself off the high sand dunes and run at full pelt down onto the actual beach. I tend to "surf" down the dunes. That didn't work so well one Christmas Day when the sand was frozen solid. A bit of a shock as I tumbled down to the bottom!

I'm going to be sad to leave the house as I've known the place for a long time (owned it for 6 years, knew it for 5 years before that as friends used to own it) but life moves on. Once it's been sold I'll trip off down the road to wee Laurencekirk to move in with my honey and his assorted menagerie (4 kids, dog and a cat - only 2 of the kids live there!) and I get to start the house thing all over again as his house is an homage to 1984...avocado ensuite anyone?!

I've been in Aberdeen for 17 years come the 1st of November this year - purely by accident! I arrived here with long-term partner number 1 and stayed on here with long-term partner number 2. I went back to University here. Had 10 different jobs while I've been here. Been ill and got better. Found someone who means absolutely everything to me and off to join him in defining and putting our dreams into action. Even more amazingly they involve the same dreams.

It may take a wee while (credit crunch and all that shenanigans...but then Aberdeen is very different from the rest of the UK when it comes to financial ups and downs) but I'm prepared to wait for a decent return on my investment. Need to fund a future after all...especially if it involves an awful lot of wool, a cracking house and my own alpaca herd!

London...part 2!

And here's what happens when you go to Alexandra Palace! I set myself a budget of £250...carefully saved...honest...no credit cards were hurt during this expedition...cash only...once it was gone it was gone!

I was left with £3 at the end of it all. It was bliss! I made sure that I had plenty of space in my suitcase for my flight back up the road to get all my new stash back home.

London...part 1!

Last weekend meant a jaunt to London to visit Ally Pally. I still have to photograph all my goodies from that but that wasn't the only thing I did while I was there.

There was lots of emphasis on just wandering about...

Then there seemed to be an obsession with photographing food - especially in cakes!
And then there was the most amazing Japanese meal at Abeno near Covent Garden. It was fantastic!!! I am now totally in love with Japanese pancakes. Learning desperately how to make my own now because I'm a greedy wee sod!