Wednesday 27 June 2012

My Hubby….The Teacher!!

Hubby had to go into the university this morning, taking time out from his school placement, which forms part of his course to qualify as a primary school teacher. You may remember my post about his graduation last July…well this past academic year he’s been working on the final part of his teaching degree & at the meeting today he was told that he has passed! Yay!!

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…& not only that, but he’s already been offered (& has accepted) a teaching position at a nearby ‘Primary Academy’ & joins the staff in September…I am so proud of him!

He’s off to China on Monday! He won a place on a university organised trip & now I hope he’ll just kick back & enjoy some much deserved ‘down time’ before taking on the challenges of teaching those ‘little darlings’ next term!!

Oh, & he gets to have another Graduation ceremony too, when he gets back from Beijing!! Watch this space!!

Thanks for stopping by & come back soon! Open-mouthed smile

Thursday 21 June 2012

A Perfect Getaway

Now, I know we’re all different & what’s perfect for one isn’t the same for all, but in my book, our recent week away in Turkey deserves the label ‘perfect’!!  Rosemary, Carol & I flew out on June 1st from Birmingham with no delays & not even a queue for checking in or passport control! That must have been a good omen!

We were travelling to Icmeler. Rosemary had booked the holiday & as our previous Turkish trips had all been to Olu Deniz, we had no idea what we would find. But when we arrived we were thrilled to find that our small, family owned complex of just 24 apartments was situated in the ‘old town’ amongst quiet residential streets. We had driven through the new bustling & buzzing ‘new town’ (just a 15 minute walk away) & were more than happy to have the best of both worlds!

Our apartment was on the ground floor & both comfortable & spotless…in fact, everything about the place…gardens, bar, restaurant, pool…was so well maintained. So, we set about enjoying our week!

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Now, in the UK I rarely drink alcohol…the odd summer Pimms & that’s me done! But when I get to Turkey I love the local Efes beer…it’s so light & perfect chilled in the heat! Along with the locally baked bread I thought I’d make a big dent in my weight loss over the week…but I came home to just a 1lb gain…result!!

On our first night we walked into the new town & discovered a stunning restaurant built around a waterfall. They had an Indian chef & we enjoyed an amazing meal (washed down with copious amounts of Efes beer, of course!)…I loved the simple cucumber heart garnish!!

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The only excursion we signed up for was to the mud baths in Dalyan. Rosemary & I had done this trip in 2005 but Carol was a ‘mud bath virgin’ so it had to be done!! The day also included a trip to a Turkish carpet factory, a three course lunch, & two hours on ‘Turtle beach’. In between all these was a couple of hours ferrying on a river boat…my favourite part! We also got to see the ancient tombs carved high up in the cliffs along the river…& yes, we even saw two of the protected Logger Head Turtles who nest on the afore-mentioned ‘Turtle Beach’!

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The beach is quite unique as it’s really a sandbank between the freshwater river on one side & the saltwater sea on the other! The mud baths themselves had been revamped since our last visit 7 years ago & I have to comment that the mud itself was much less clay-like & more watery, so it wasn’t easy to get coated, but we did our best!!!

15The rest of the week past blissfully, plenty of walking to & from the beach, market & restaurants in the evenings! Days that seemed endless, stretched out in the sun, temperatures soared & frequent dips in the pool were needed. My shoulder was well enough for me to manage a few lengths of breast-stroke!

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I was happy in my natural
habitat & we were well
looked after by ‘Juan’ (no
not his real name!) the
barman who kept us well
supplied with Efes beer at
the poolside! What a
decadent life!!


14All of the apartments were occupied, yet it was always peaceful by the pool. Most of our fellow residents were from the north of England but our neighbours were  couple of very spritely octogenarian ladies from, off all places, Baldock in Hertfordshire! So I will be popping over to them for a cuppa one day soon!

17 Rosemary has a passion
for cats & we soon had
regular ‘guests’ for milk
each morning! We are
early risers so we didn’t
disturb anyone else who
may not have been such
ardent cat lovers! If Ro
could have got away with packing them to bring home with her, I think she would have done!!

18Finally, a couple of shots taken as we walked around & about! As I mentioned, in the old town we were surrounded by local life, from a small holding with hens & sheep (our breakfast eggs came from here) to an orange grove (our juice!) & a small market garden where we could buy fresh fruits on our way to the beach! There were grape vines everywhere, much as we have hedges it seems vines are the natural choice of boundary marker!!

19 A This one made me smile, spotted
outside a restaurant/bar near the
weekly market & obviously aimed
at us Brits! We’d had the good
sense to leave our menfolk at
home & didn’t need to avail
ourselves of this service, but I
can think of many a time here in
the UK where something similar
would go down very well!!

Love the p.s.!!

So that’s a round up of our perfect week…no delay's coming home either, just a very bumpy landing in gale force winds at Birmingham!! It makes a very nice change to report no injuries, losses or disappointments & I hope all of you will be having your own perfect getaways this year too!

Thanks you for stopping by & do come back soon! Open-mouthed smile

Wednesday 13 June 2012

How Long?!!

I generally try to take life one day at a time, but sometimes whole gangs of them crowd me all at once & I have to admit defeat.  Such was the week leading up to my holiday (& this first week back’s going that way too!!) when I had planned to blog ahead so that there would be a timely post on June 1st to share the months early scrap offerings! But did I?…of course not!!!

So, here I am blogging retrospectively & apologies to those parties who expected to see this post on the 1st….!!

5 sketchbook365

5b  Scrap365 junesketchFirstly, this months sketch challenge over at Scrap365 just jumped out at me when I first saw it & I knew just how I wanted to use it!

Actually I think this particular sketch will prove particularly useful as a starting point for many a LO to come!!

Here is my LO…

6 Scrap365 LO from June sketch

The photo of the LO isn’t the best, but it’s the best I can get with the poor light at the moment!! It features my hubby & his fellow graduates after there graduation ceremony last July, just before they all tossed their caps into the air!

3 Hairspray Movie PosterThen of course there’s the June challenge over at ‘From Screen 2 Scrap’…this time it’s the poster for the movie ‘Hairspray’.

The added criteria for extra points are that there have to be ten squares, it has to have a hair theme & it has to be colourful!!

So, I delved back through the archives to find some different hairstyles I’ve sported through the years & came up with this LO…


 

4 Long And Short 
I’m enjoying using the vignette effect in Picasa at the moment…can you tell?!! Why not play along with us this month…there are some fab prizes up for grabs!!

1 6 JuneLastly, but by no means leastly (Is there such a  word?!) is the lovely Dawns Chinese Whispers! This month was a double LO for me to lift. I used to work on double page LO’s quite regularly, but haven’t done so for so long I can’t remember when! I decided to go with an 8”x8” format for a change & came up with this…

2 Scooter Dude

Dawn had pointed out a stamp at the recent ‘Merley Impressions’ crop, which I subsequently bought & was pleased to put to good use achieving a grungy effect for this LO!!

PegsTo finish, just a quickie…I had asked Lee & the boys to keep everything tidy while I was away & Lee even managed to do some laundry (albeit all colours together with biological ‘whites’ washing liquid…but maybe I’m just being picky?!!) & Alex ‘helped’ to peg it all out on the line…or that’s what he says…I’m not sure I’m convinced!…it must have taken all his time to construct this piece of ‘peg art’ that I haven't had the heart to take apart again as yet!

I do hope everyone enjoyed their Jubilee festivities & half term in general…I tried to bring a bit of sunshine home with me but it sort of fizzled out after a couple of days!
Sorry!!!

I will be back very soon with a round up & photo’s of our perfect week in Turkey, once I’ve had a chance to sort through everything & am back into some semblance of a routine!!  I will also drop by to catch up with you too! 

Thanks for stopping by & do come back soon! Open-mouthed smile