I sang? In front of 1000 people? Oh my!

Thursday was the last day of school for the term, and at BTG (the school where I work) the staff put on a panto for the student. In other words the staff dress up ridiculously and make fools out of ourselves. This year was Jack and the Bean Stalk, with some liberties taken. There was Jack and a giant and a beanstalk and a cow ... but there were also prisoners and a fairy and lolly pop ladies and school girls and an X Factor excerpt - it all got a bit confusing!

Vicki and I

The PE department - Teon (a prisoner) Tyrone (a school girl) and Kelli (another prisoner)
Chaos before the "show"
(Starting with Vicki's ponytails) Vicki, Dominic, the top of Rob's head, Teon, Brendan, Ken, The yellow arm of Mary B, Pink hair of Tyrone and Simon is front and centre.

The prisoners all had to preform a talent so the Giant didn't eat us for dinner. Clare, Cate and I sang Santa baby ... in front of the whole school! I'm still slightly perplexed by the whole event. How they got me to sing ... in front of people I still don't know. (I try to reserve my singing talents to the shower!) Regardless, the students seemed to enjoy it and the staff that preformed had a blast. Defiantly a success!

The only proof I can find of me being on stage. Pictured with some other frightened prisoners. (I'm the second from right just by Ahmet, Ed is hiding behind me, then there's Simon, Teon, Geoffrey, Kelli & Claire.)

Tis the season...

..for Christmas parties!!!!! Friday night was my first Christmas party. Clare and Rob's parties always amuse me as there is a great divide: Clare's friends on one side of the room, Rob's on the other side. This time one of Rob's friend's braved the great divide and survived. Next party I reckon I might even chance the divide!
I was only able to stay a couple hours, but I had a good time while I was there. I love Christmas time!!

Clare and I

A weekend in Paris - the original one

I had the most AMAZING weekend! The MOST amazing time!!! I went to Paris – the original one!!! I’ve lived in England for almost 10 years now and I had never been on the continent. Paris is less than 2 and ½ hours by train away from me, but I’d never been. It’s always been something I wanted to do, but never done it. So when Matt surprised me with a trip to Paris, I was gob-smacked! I had the BIGGEST smile on my face that I couldn’t get rid of! The down side to going to Paris was a 5:30am start on Saturday morning, but I really didn’t care – I was on my way to PARIS!

I met Matt St Pancras train station where we caught the Eurostar. I’m certain my over excitement was annoying to witness. Poor Matt had 2 days of a scarily grinning Karen. After a short trip to the hotel to drop off our bags, we went to Bastille (if I remember correctly Bastille is an area of Paris where the French Revolution started) where we had lunch in a lovely little French cafe. The weather was a bit miserable (ok more than a bit - it was cold, windy and rainy) but my smile was not dampened in the slightest - I WAS IN PARIS!!!! After lunch we braved the weather for about a minute to run across the street to another little cafe where Matt had been before to get some coffee and cake. Matt's much more familiar with Paris than I (what am I saying - he knows his way around Paris - I didn't know a thing about Paris!) and I was just blindly following him as he showed me around (he made a great tour guide).

We went to the Notre Dame Cathedral,

the Louvre (the hotel we stayed at was very near here),

and ended Saturday's sight seeing walking up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triumph. As we walked up the Champs Elysees evening fell and the Christmas lights we switched on. Let me tell you - the French know how to do Christmas lights! City of Lights is right!

view from Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triumph

in front of the Arc de Triumph

I was pleased to find out that you could go up the Arc de Triumph ... not as pleased to know there were 274 steps to climb to get to the top though. Arg, what a work out!

Matt climbing the stairs - we were around stair 80 here

The view from the of the Arc de Triumph was worth every stair! It was breath taking!
the Champs Elysees from the top of of the Arc de Triumph

The visibility due to the night and bad weather wasn't spectacular, it was spectacular!

The Eiffel Tower from the top of of the Arc de Triumph

Cold, wet, hungry, tired and in Matt's case pain (he had twisted his neck funny/ trapped a nerve on the train ride to Paris - he was a trooper and I can't remember him complaining once, but you could see he was in quite a bit of pain), we looked in vain for shelter in a taxi. After walking back down the Champs Elysees we managed to find a free taxi who took us back to the hotel.

view of some of the lights from the taxi - the lights were amazing!

We took advantage of the spa at the hotel in hopes of curing Matt's neck (see above). The pool was luxurious and the massage after was just divine! I've never had a proper massage before - it was just so amazing! I was so relaxed at one point I forgot I was in France having a massage. Matt asked me if I enjoyed the massage to which I responded with a goofy grin and a "uh huh". Divine. De-vine!

(Hotel pool)

Sunday was cloudy, rainy and cold again - but again it didn't matter as we were still in PARIS! And, and, AND we were going to the Eiffel Tower!

The imposing structure itself - hidden by the clouds when we arrived

Matt's not a huge fan of photos, but he tolerated my picture snapping quite well.

At the bottom of the Eiffel Tower before going up

Matt preferred this picture "moody Matt" - I prefer the smiling version (above), what do you think?

on the elevator going up the Eiffel Tower

view of military academy(?) from the top

as you can tell from my hair, it was pretty windy at the top!

Me at the top (if you squint really hard and look to the right of my left ear, you'll see the Arc de Triumph

Back on the ground I was trying to get a picture of the Eiffel Tower, but I was teetering very close to the edge of the road with cars coming by. This is the kind of picture you get when you hear "quick, move, move now" as Matt tried to save me being splashed by a passing bus.

Attempt number 6 - How magnificent it is! (the structure, not my picture)

After the Eiffel Tower it was to the train station via the Hard Rock Cafe (I accidentally started a bit of a collection of hurricane glasses from the Hard Rock Cafes, so it's something I have to keep up now). We were at the train station in plenty of time, but due to my incredible time wasting skills were were told off by the lady on the gate. This was a new experience for Matt as he's normally hours early. Sadly enough this is a normal occurrence for me while traveling. I push the time limits a bit too much!

I had an incredible time! I'm still smiling!!!

This was actually the first photo I took in Paris (right outside the Notre Dame) Can you see the banana Christmas tree - I thought it was hilarious!

Celebrating Friendship

A few years ago at Camp Shamrock (a summer camp for the youth) during a bible class, we asked the campers to draw a picture of "something they couldn't live without". As I started to think about it, I struggled to think of something I literally couldn't live without. There's obviously the more "shallow" mod-cons that I love and don't like to do without - bed, shower, central heating, car etc. There then the deeper thought of loved ones, for instance a newly wed that summer drew a picture of her husband. At that time I had recently been through the breakdown of my marriage - I knew I could literally live without my ex-husband because I had to and I was. Likewise, as much as I love my family members and friends, if someone passed away, I knew that I would be able to live without them - I would be in pain, but I would still be able to live. So what couldn't I literally live without? After a bit of time I decided that I couldn't live without my support network: my family and friends spread out in the States and the UK - I don't think I could make it through life all alone in the world.


I enjoy life and God has truly blessed me. I'm happy and content. Over the last few years though, I've had a lot of "less happy" times. Sometimes it's hard to find anything good with through all the rubbish around you. My friends and family have supported and helped me through my rougher times and I wanted to say thanks. This all sparked my Wednesday evening gathering to celebrate my friends:

I wish I could have invited more people, I wish I could have had all of my friends and family together, but distance and time prevent this. I did have a good "gaggle" of ladies that turned up and created a fun and memorable evening. Most of the people that descended on my flat were from work. London being London with it's busy and time consuming transport system, a lot of people found it easier to come straight from work. So from around 5pm people started showing up (if you can imagine me running around like a headless chicken trying to get ready - there was much of this going on).

A few early arrivers

I got home in time to have a shower and get dressed before the buzzer started ring with arrivals. Which was great - there's not a lot worse than waiting around for people to arrive. Plus I had lots of extra hands to help me prepare food and such!

Mary watching the stove for me

Amy, Helen, Cate, Mary, Vicki, Jess & Tesca enjoying a good natter before dinner was served

Dinner was Mexican Hats - a childhood favourite of mine, and a great / easy meal to prepare for large groups of people. Mexican Hats are basically a Tex-Mex build your own salad. Yum yum!

Mary & Becky building their Mexican Hats

I found it slightly amusing that the conversation pretty much died as soon as people had food to eat. (I also found it complimentary that the food was good - either that or it was so bad that people struggling so much to eat it that they couldn't make conversation at the same time. Hmm. I'll stick with the complimentary version!)

Hayley, Jess, and Claire
Amy, Helen, Cate & Mary (sheesh, I think Mary managed to sneak in every photo!)

Tesca, Amy & Helen

Food eaten there was more chatting - there were 18 women in one room what else would you expect?!

Cate & Clare

Vicki, Kelli & Mary B

Lindsay & I

Something else I was amused with, and loved, was that we ended up in one big circle instead of little groups here and there chatting amongst each other.

Starting at the bottom centre (with Tesca's back): Tesca, Claire, Helen, Cate, Clare, Vicki, Kelli, Mary B, Becky, Hayley, Lindsay & Jess

This gathering/party originally began as a champagne & cake party, so after the Mexican hats had time to settle, it was onto the champers. I love and am equally terrified of opening champagne bottles ...

as you can see from the face I pull while opening a bottle

pouring champagne

still pouring - it takes a while to pour for 18! (You can also see the scrummy chocolate cake at the bottom of this picture.)

It was a fabulous evening with the girlies, and to top it all off as I took out the rubbish around 1:30am it was snowing! I LOVE snow! What a wonderful end to the evening. Now Thursday morning was slightly less wonderful - I was seriously sleep deprived! (So sleep deprived, in fact, that I was asleep in bed before 9pm! That never happens to this insomniac!)

To my family, friends and support network that are too far away to have come Wednesday night:

Thank you! Thank you for being a part of my life!! Thank you for your love and support! I love you and miss you often!

An unexpected great night with a friend

My friend, Mary, is just a ball of energy and fun! I needed to go to a shop in central London and as Mary travels through central London to get home, we decided to go for coffee first. Coffee had, we went in search for the shop. I had assumed Mary would leave me to shop and she would head home, but to my delight she decided to join me on my shopping expedition. I had printed a map from Google maps (wonderful map finder if you've never used it) and we were off. I hadn't noticed when copying and pasting the street address from the shop's website to Goggle maps that the street address had changed from 20 street name to Flat 20 street name. I didn't notice this til we ended up next to a block of flats.

Mary thought the shop might be in the block of flats ("like a Tupperware party" says she), so she rang the flat intercom to ask. Imagine the man's surprise when she asked. Oh what fun!!!

We did eventually find the shop, which didn't have what I was after. Grr! After failing to find said item in two other stores, we gave up and decided we needed food.

The restaurant we wondered into had tables covered in paper and crayons - so we had fun being artist! Mary was impressed with my ability to draw block letters upside down:

a bit of photo rotation for you - this is our art work "right side up" - our initials

Art work done, I decided Mary would make a good Rudolf, so I tried to give her a red nose

What a great Monday evening we had. Girlie chit chat, shopping, colouring and heaps of fun!

A full weekend, with some productiveness

Friday as I was coming inside after lunch I suddenly felt very ill. It was a very odd feeling and not nice, so I left work not long after school finished. I just wanted to be at home in my comfortable surroundings and in a hot bath to feel sorry for myself. Roll on a few hours I did feel a bit better, I'm still not 100%. But as I had plans to meet my friend, Matt, in the Palace (three time in one week that I went out locally - this never happens!), I pulled myself together to make myself presentable and schlepped outside in the cold wet weather. We decided to try out a new-ish restaurant that turned out to be quite nice. After dinner we were planning on going downstairs from the restaurant to a cocktail bar that we'd been to before, but it was pretty full so we decided to wonder out in the cold and find somewhere less busy. On a Friday night this is a pretty impossible task so as my flat was near we went back to mine for a "night cap" ... being the very exciting person I am, once I was home I just fancied a warm cuppa tea. How sad.

Saturday morning was a pretty lazy one, but annoying too. I was pretty tired after a late-ish night and a phone call from my sister at 2 in the morning (got to love it when your phone breaks the peace and calm of the night). I refused to get out of bed when I woke up as it was 7:30 on a cold Saturday morning and my bed was so warm and comfortable. I managed to get back to sleep for an hour around 9, but couldn't manage to drag myself out of bed til noon.
Saturday afternoon I managed a bit (small bit) of Christmas shopping before Lindsay, my ex-flatmate, and her boyfriend, Adam, came round. I always have fun with this pair, as the picture below shows they're just full of fun!

They left after a yummy dinner of pizza we had delivered (I've been craving greasy pizza for ages!). I then spent a good hour on the phone with my Nana and Papa (my grandparents) chit chatting about life. I feel like I probably yakked their ears off, but they seemed to be enjoying hearing about the mischief I get myself in. After hanging up it was onto the internet to search for tickets to the States for Christmas. I was planning on staying in England this year as I've been to the States SO much this year and I need to give my finances time to recover from my jet setting activities. The phone call in the wee hours of Saturday morning from my sister was to let me know that my grandmother and aunt would be going to my parents' for Christmas. I can't remember a Christmas where this much family would be getting together, so I couldn't miss it. Searching for affordable tickets to take an international trip this close to Christmas wasn't so easy (my sister helped find the cheapest flight actually - such a good bargain hunter she is!!) Flights booked it was off to bed for this old gal - in bed before 11pm on a Saturday night, I really am getting old!

Sunday was a pretty productive day for me. My bed's been driving me crazy since before moving to London (over 2 years ago) because some of the slats under the bed are broken and the keep coming off the mid-beam. I decided enough was enough after a handful fell off again at the weekend, and I braved Ikea 3 weeks before Christmas. Luckily enough it wasn't as busy as I had dreaded, but I still managed to waste 3 hours there. I did get a few things that were needed (and wanted) including my bed slats, a chair cover, some picture frames, a bin for the kitchen, and storage box for under the bed. On the way home I stopped to get a Christmas tree - it is the weekend after Thanksgiving thus it's mandatory to get the tree. Clare came by not long after I got home to move the rest of her stuff out of the flat (sniff sniff), but it was still good to see her (as brief as it was). Sunday evening was super productive for me though: I organised the stuff under the kitchen sink (so I could put the new bin there), I changed the slats on my bed (now this was a sight that should have been videoed and put on YouTube for the world to laugh at: at one point the super king sized mattress had fallen on top of me and pinned me to the floor, until I regained my balance and lifted it off me Heman style - too funny!), changed the chair cover, fixed the couch which has a wooden base and one of the slats had broken (do you see a common theme with broken slats?) fixing it involved nails and wood and hammering, framed and hung the pictures from Ikea, organised some of the shed in new plastic boxes (in case the new shed decides to leak as well), got out my Christmas decorations and started decorating and got my Christmas tree up (the tree is still naked, this is my task for this evening after grocery shopping). See what I mean - I got a lot done! In the process of "doing" all this stuff, I managed to trash my flat, so my flat looks a tip at the moment, but at least it's a festive tip with all my decorations up :-)

Evenings in the Palace

Normally when I go out with friends I tend to meet them in the city, or go out near work, but the part of London I live in (Crystal Palace) is just full of restaurants literally five minutes from my flat. This week I decided to take more advantage of the great offerings on my doorstep!

Tuesday after work Clare (my flatmate) decided she wanted to take me out to dinner. How sweet is she!!! She had some sad news for me - she was moving out. Sniff sniff!!! Clare moved in two months ago and it was always only a temporary residence for her, but I enjoyed sharing my flat with her so much! She was a very kind and courteous flatmate, and so sweet to. She was also my fashion sense - for some reason when she moved in I was unable to find an outfit that I liked, so she helped me with my fashion. What am I going to do now?!!

We went to a lovely little Japanese restaurant just up the road from the flat where I got Clare to try some sushi and we sat on the floor (as you should in any good Japanese restaurant!)

Wednesday I had planned on going into the city after work to buy something at a particular shop, but in all honesty I couldn't be bothered to trek into the city in the dark, freezing weather for one item. Luckily while I was waiting for my car to defrost so I could go home I struck up a conversation with a work mate, Tracy, and we decided it would be a good idea to go out for dinner. It was pretty early and as we hunted for a restaurant, we found that the majority of them weren't open yet. We ended up at a local pub - it's been that long that I've had proper pub food that I forgot how much food you get for your money. I was STUFFED as we left!

Tracy wasn't so fond of the idea of her picture being taken

There was some grey electrical tape left on our table from the previous occupants. I decided to make good use of it by making a cutlery holder. My antics never cease to amaze me.

Tracy was kind enough to indulge a pit stop at the grocery store across the street from the pub and even helped me carry the groceries home - good friend!!! Once we got back to my flat Tracy decided I wasn't utilising my lounge space well enough. I agree (it's a pretty big space, but it looks very small) but have never been able to rearrange my furniture in a satisfactory way. So we decided it would be a good evening activity to rearrange furniture. You couldn't plan an evening as random! But I love random unexpected fun!

December's here, Christmas is near!!!

Get Your Own Free Hypster.com Playlist.

So much for healthy eating!!!!

I just devoured about 5 pounds of chocolate (ok maybe not that much, but it was a really huge chocolate snowman. I'm tired of a vegan, wheat-free, sugar-free, caffeine free menu. I finally gave up. It's December after all. I'll get back into my healthy eating once the holidays are over!