My Birthday!!

August sees my birthday and this year I reached 45, which makes me see 50 looming ahead (shrieks with horror!!) - although life isn't too bad and I feel I have really achieved this year and then come September I will be starting out on the next stage of my life - putting those achievements into some sort of practice!!

So for my birthday I really didn't want to do too much and we decided we would have a meal - the three of us, which is the way I like it.  We went to The Navigation in Cosgrove (where we'd had a lovely meal for the Flower Club Annual Dinner) and we had a very pleasant evening.  What could be nice than sitting by a canal watching the boats going by, enjoying a lovely meal and watching the sun set.

The food was nice - except for the ice-cream which was divine.  Jamie had a burger which he felt was good, Mike the pie (and felt a little short changed) and I had a steak which was nice and cooked just the way I liked.  But the ice-creams and sorbets were to die for!!  It is unusual for me to have ice-cream for desert but the choice of flavours attracted me (they have at least 10 to choose from) and I opted for the raspberry sorbet, mango sorbet and walnut ice-cream and they were all wonderful.  Jamie had chocolate and it was very chocolaty and really really yummy - they were all really superior ice-cream and well worth a try if you are ever passing that way!  I was indulged and had an Irish coffee too so after a couple of glasses of wine was quite jolly by the time we left!!

The place was also full of Jack Russells well there was one in the beer garden and one in the bar - the one in the bar was lovely a really unusual brown colour for a JR and as friendly as friendly could be and I ended up having a really long chat to her owner and doting on the dog all the time!!

I really didn't want anything for my birthday as I had indulged myself at the flower show in Harrogate and bought a couple of bits for my floristry and flower arranging so I suggested a couple of small crafting bits which Mike and Jamie could get me - real indulgence pieces which I probably would not normally have bought but they are lovely and just what I wanted and I have a few pictures of them in a following blog.

Ciao

Sue
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Reading challenge 13/16 - currently reading If I Was by Midge Ure

Some More Scrapbooking

Jamie and I have been scrapbooking again - here are some pages we've done over the past few days. Jamie's scrapbook is due to be handed in at school next week so thankfully he is just about finished it.

I've decided to give the UK Scrappers 'Scrap Like You Mean It' (SLYMI) Challenge a go and although they're now into week 22 , it gives me something to get my teeth into. To complete them all by the end of the year will be my goal. The current challenge is from a sketch with the theme of minimalism - so here are my pages .........

Cute - using a super picture of Jamie, I'm really pleased with this and the combination of colours, really works well, this is now one of my favourite pages. The paper is from one of the MME kits, the red strip Basic Grey.

Doug - another Doug Aldrich page (yes I know - but he does it for me!) I turned the sketch around, I like the stitching under the photo (well rub-on) but not as keen with the way I did the journalling. As a style I like the minimalist approach for some layouts, when the picture is striking and you want to really highlight it or you have some fantastic paper.


Then I did another couple of pages in a minimalist (ish) style using one of the MME kits.

My Husband - love this one, just a great photo of Mike and the masculine colours work well too.

The Way You Look At Me - one from our wedding day, with a bit of a private joke between Mike and I! I like the rounded corners, and I just think the MME papers look so classy. So for about £4.50 I have got 3 layouts and I still have some tags and journalling bits left over, pretty good value!

Finally Argostoli Ice-Cream - a page about our holiday last year when we spent the day in Argostoli and ate some of the best ice-cream I have ever tasted, the journalling reads,

"Saturday 19th July, 2008, Argostoli, Kefalonia. We spent a lovely day wandering around Argostoli, the capital of Kefalonia. Jamie is stood outside a bar on the harbour side where we sought refuge from the heat and enjoyed several cold drinks! Mike and Jamie are taking a rest on a bench, hats, sun-cream and water was essential. Later we had some of the nicest ice-cream I have ever tasted. A truly lovely day. "

Another green page, I do love my green, but with lots of layers of paper, I had a go outlining the title and am quite pleased with the result, I will use that technique again. I guess this layout reflects why I like scrapbooking so much, I get to tell the story of that day and just add that bit extra to the photos.

Ciao

Sue

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Reading challenge 0/16 - currently reading Only Dad by Alan Titchmarsh
UK Scrappers - SLYMI challenge - 1/52