Summer Wrap Up and Shop Update

I never really did get the hang of Summer.  Some people are so organised and go into it with a handful of kids and plans for days out and holidays and trips to the beach and they do this with a clean house, a well stocked kitchen, a mountain of stuff in a rainy day box and with a camera in hand so they can show you how much fun their beautiful kids are having every day.  I fail on just about every level.  I end up running head long into it without so much as a notion scribbled on a napkin let alone a plan and my camera has been plugged in for use the last handful of times because I just don't seem to have gotten round to charging the batteries yet ...

Summers are disorganised chaos here, put it that way, but despite lots and lots and lots of rain we've still had plenty of fun.

I can't quite believe we're into the home stretch already.  Just two short weeks and Chloe will go back to school.  This week is the start of her crash course swimming lessons so even though it's tipping it down again ... oh aye it is .... I've actually got something planned, so there, neener neener and all that:)

She starts swimming classes in school this year and although she's pure water baby (it could have gone either way, I love the water, her dad ... not so much) and she's very comfortable in the water so should take to swimming, the last time we had regular access to a pool we didn't seem to get too far beyond this;

See, having far too much fun and none of us thought to maybe whip the armbands or rubber ring off her and see what happened.  With a bit of luck this week will give her a good start at least and then the school swimming lessons will take over and, save us all, I'll even dig the swimwear out and take her myself a few times.

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The shop has been quite tricky to manage this year too.  Way back at the start of Summer I was asked by Folksy if I'd like to be one of the beta testers for the new plus account.  Stupid question .... of course I would.  I figured it would be a great incentive to keep me on track and let me add lots of new stock ahead of Christmas.

Christmas is never a bundle of laughs for crafters, even if we're just making for friends and family as gifts we somehow manage to think we've planned a butt load of time to get everything done and still end up sitting hunched somewhere under the world's smallest table lamp, with the sewing machine on a towel so we don't wake the family at 2am.  I loved the idea of a head start!

 

And cue Summer when I typically get nothing done.

I have managed quite a bit though ... I've surprised myself, but then I've had a huge amount of help from my mum and dad this year as they've whisked Chloe away almost every weekend to let me get on with a few things.

I've really been enjoying making the Kindle cases over the summer, they're a great size so I can cut a few at night ready for sewing the next day, and they're easy to pack away if need be without anything getting so badly out of order that I can't find where I left off.  I'm looking forward to getting back to some larger projects once Chloe's back to school and I've more time and space to play with.

In the meantime I have been motivated by the plus account and have added lots of lovely new kindle cases.

Kindle Case in Coffee House Canvas

Kindle Case in Cherry Blossom

Kindle Case in Harlequin Kaito

Kindle Case in Honey Gold and Flambé Pink - New Season

Feel free to click over for a browse, these are only the very tip of an ever growing iceberg!

The quick as a flash holiday recap

There'll be more, I promise, but I'm still tired, still ignoring the laundry and still enjoying being home with my husband.

We baked in the sun, me more than anyone else but sure what else is new.


We played at the beach and carried half of it back to the apartment.


We relaxed in the pool.


We got bored of relaxing and had water fights instead.


We fed the lizards vanilla wafers in exchange for photo ops. Probably not their natural diet.


We walked up them thar hills.


Almost to the top!


And in amongst the few dozen or so very long walks, park visits, zoo visits, pool days, beach days and a few other days I'm having to look at the photos to remember, we found some time to just chill out.

What a difference a few days make

Sorry, I know that last post was a bit grumpy.

It was panic, maybe, at least I think that's what it was.

I'm all better now though, I promise.

All my outstanding orders are cleared and I was even able to just faff around with a couple of new things yesterday.

I made a new cuff bracelet and I'm really trying not to keep it for myself ... might have to make another one though:)


We had mad hair day on the last day of school. I even found the time to customise Chloe's shop bought wig with a big blue bow which she told me made the wig cute but not mad, so I flung every drop of glue and sequin I could find in the house at the thing until it was deemed suitably mad. I know you can't see the bow but my lovely husband doesn't take photos with me blogging in mind. He'll get there though, won't you husband?



Chloe's really starting to rub off on me as far as the holiday goes. She is so excited and now we're down to our last 3 sleeps she'll be nearly impossible to contain. So I'm just going with it, letting her rub off on me and getting a bit excited myself.

It helps that I've found the time to iron everything and the cases are packed, well except for the couple of things that are still drying after being hammered by hailstones on the line yesterday. Do you think the weather knows it's May?

Anyway, the point is I feel much better now. I'm all cleared up and don't have that panicky feeling that I won't get finished in time and I'll let someone down.

Now the only thing left to do is get Chloe back for her last day of school on Thursday and try to find some way of tiring her out enough to get her into bed really early on Thursday night because we have to get up at 3am for our flights on Friday morning and I don't know if I've mentioned it before but Chloe getting out of bed early in the morning makes Kevin look like a precious little angel. Does anyone have a treadmill I can borrow?

Passing the buck

So I'm getting more than a little bit concerned about our upcoming holiday (if you missed that post by "our" I mean Chloe and I, Robert will be living the life of a bachelor for a fortnight).

The thing is Chloe is very independent for a five year old, you could never describe her as being clingy or attached to my apron strings. She's also very familiar with the area we live in and the town as a whole, because I don't drive most of our time together is spent locally so she always knows exactly where she is. If anything this has made her even more independent and I'm confident enough in her ability and the fact she has some common sense that I let her have a lot of free reign, or at least what she considers free reign.

I let her go into shops by herself while I wait outside and I don't make her stay within arms reach of me while we're out and about. She's always in sight but for instance I'm fine with sitting outside The Streat having a coffee while she plays in the square with whatever kid she's just met for the first time. Plus we've more safety nets in place than I could even list here, if we were to become separated Chloe knows exactly what to do and where to go depending on what part of town we're in whether it's the statue in the square, my old office or any one of dozens of shops staffed by people who know her and know my number.

Giving her so much leeway also makes it a lot easier on both of us when I have to take it away for one reason or another. Like if we're at the museum, obviously they don't want kids tearing all over the place and because it's a one off thing Chloe's happy enough to stay within arms reach without being frustrated or getting an attitude. She always knows it will be business as usual once we're home again.

The problem, and I know this is a complete cop out, is that I've always passed the buck when I need to reign her in for while, "the museum don't allow kids running around", "Kids have to stay with their mummy in the supermarket, the manager says so!". You get the idea. It never started as intentionally lazy, we just genuinely only visited places with rules about kids to begin with, but sometimes for the sake of a quiet life I have stooped to blaming someone else for her having to stick by me.

I know, trust me I know!

Only now we're off somewhere for two weeks to a place neither of us have been before, we won't know anyone from Adam and I can hardly tell her the entire country wants her to stay close, can I? She just isn't that gullible.

I've tried explaining that she'll have to stay a lot closer to me than she's used to, and we've had lengthy conversations on the subject where she'll spend a good 30 minutes agreeing that it's much better and much safer to stay close, only to walk away after we're finished talking and casually fling a comment like "sure the pool's not far away", or "Aimee's been before, I'll stay with Aimee" over her shoulder. Aimee's 8 by the way. I've visions of much frustration and tantrums on both our parts. I may need a holiday to recover from this one.

This post was called something else, but then my mum called ...

And we all know by now that my mum's a bit like deja vu in the Matrix, every time you see her it means she's been in fiddling and changed something ...

Anyway. This was supposed to be a post where I would ramble on for a few paragraphs reminding everyone about the time my mum said she was going to take Chloe on holiday with her, she even went so far as to tell Chloe that. A couple of years passed where my mum would book a holiday, Chloe would ask if she was going and be told she was a bit young to go this time and to be honest I'd kind of written the idea off as one of those things on my mum's 'to do' list that she would never actually get round to doing. So I stopped worrying about it.

Then she calls last week (this would be the first call that would have resulted in the original post, but there's been another since then).

She's booked a holiday in June and she's already booked and paid for Chloe to go and I need to get her passport sorted out. Next comes two days of me panicking because "June" is what's commonly referred to by mothers, fathers and most importantly Head Mistresses as "End of Term". It's when all the good bits like assessments, class transfers and class induction days happen.

Brilliant!

Anyway, long story short, I got my knickers in a bit of a twist for no reason because her teacher assured me that if there was a good time to take a child out of the class (not that there's a great time) it's the two weeks Chloe will be away and she'll be back in time for all the changes which happen in the last two weeks of school.

Mind at rest ...

Then my mum calls again!

I should quickly clarify something before I go, my mum, dad and Chloe were going on this holiday with my aunt and her daughter who is the same age as Chloe and they get on like a house on fire, but

My dad booked the holiday and opted for one large room. My mum didn't find out until the confirmation arrived. Now while it's entirely reasonable for five people to share a room if you're one big family, when it's actually two families sharing you kind of like to have your own space and a bit of privacy.

So my mum called and changed it to two smaller rooms, which means paying for another adult whether one goes on the holiday or not*.

So I'm off to Fanabe in June:)


Woohoo. I feel a lot better about Chloe going on holiday now knowing that I'll be there too, but I do still feel a bit rotten about Robert not going even though he's says it completely fine by him and he can man up for a fortnight. He'll likely even enjoy a small dose of bacheloritis for a while. Hopefully I can get past the feeling that I'm running off and abandoning him for two weeks.

A dip in the pool might take my mind off it:)


* Yes it sucks but that's how package holidays work here and it's the biggest reason that I never book a package, I book a flight and figure out the rest myself at some stage. Basically package holidays are set up and price on even numbers of people travelling (except 3, 3 works for them). So if 2, 4, 6 or 8 people are off on holiday it's all good and you only pay for the number of people going, but if 5 people are going then you have to pay for six because the tour operator wants the most money possible for each room. That's just the way it is. One day I hope to make my mum realise that she hasn't spoken to a holiday rep in 7 years yet she pays through the nose every year for the sake of having access to one.

Catch up

It has been yet another week of solid activity around here.

I spent most of the week in a mad flurry of food shopping before the long weekend, sorting sponsorship forms for Chloe's sponsored bounce (99 bouncy castle bounces in a minute), cooking a couple of extra meals for the days when I'm completely zonked over the long weekend and unsuccessfully dodging big fat rain and hailstones.

Saturday didn't see any time for relaxing either. Robert had planned to take us to The Outlet in Banbridge for a bit of retail therapy (I must look absolutely dire if he's offering to take me clothes shopping). Banbridge is about an hour away by car and of course every parent knows that means ten minutes of "mummy, look at the cows/sheep/horses" followed by 50 minutes of "mommy, are we there yet/there yet/there yet".

We had a pretty good morning all in all and managed to pick up a few bargains and I nabbed two gorgeous pairs of trousers from Olson for £10 each reduced from £85 thank you very much:) I got my long craved for Starbucks.

It's strange that one thing that really isn't that great, I mean lets be honest here, Starbucks isn't exactly something to write home about there is a lot of much better coffee to be found, but even so the only thing I've missed about working in Belfast is a venti latte with 3 extra shots and a cinnamon whirl drizzled with lemon frosting. I'm telling you, I forgot just how big those cups really are.

We eventually drove home around 1pm and stopped at a cafe to pick up some lunch because Robert wanted to treat me by not having me cook lunch (I think he might be cheating on me), arrived home and had just settled down to eat when the phone rings and it's my mum checking we're home. I told her we were and would call round as soon as we finished eating.

Ten minutes later the phone rings again and Chloe answers it. She listens to my mum for a few minutes before hanging up and announcing that my dad is on his way to our house with our new sofas and to have the old ones in the driveway and ready to go to the dump. And then she added "You just can't get a minutes peace around here", which just goes to show how much running around we've done this week.

So I have my new sofas, I can finally start decorating the living room and I'm sitting here now waiting on a handful of people turning up to collect a few things I've popped on freecycle to make a bit of space.

But at least I did manage to find some time to make three badges for the Folksy Badge Competition with a chance to win a year's free listings.




Which reminds me, I just can't believe that my tiny little baby girl who was born less than a minute ago will be finishing P1 in four weeks. Where has this last year gone?

How to have a preferrably forgettable day at the beach

Start with a beautiful little five year old girl. Ideally the little girl should not have been entirely 100% health wise lately and if possible, should have had a slightly broken but not entirely awful sleep the previous night. Your own sleep should also have been broken resulting in you waking with the mother of all headaches.

Take two paracodol.

Enjoy a relaxing and rather lovely morning at home and pottering in the garden, rush at the last minute to chuck your whole world into a bag.

Take another two paracodol.

Take the bus. Take the mid week bus in the middle of the day to a small seaside village. Take the bus commonly referred to as the bouncy bus, the old bus or the hole in the hedge bus when both you and the little girl have been known to suffer from travel sickness.

Arrive at the beach when the tide is well and truly in, leaving yourselves only stones and rubble to play in.

Take one 500mg paracetamol.


Explain to small child the idea of "sea glass" and "sea pottery" to make the whole tide being in thing more fun (and possibly profitable too)

Marvel at how quickly the little girl, having heard only the word glass, can fill a bucket with the arse ends of empty Old English bottles on what appears at first glance to be an immaculate beach.

Walk a long way.



Stay long enough for the tide to be well and truly out.

Bring crap to eat instead of real food, because you had lunch at home and have a lovely dinner in the crockpot, so you'll only need snacks.



Stay long enough for the sun to begin setting and a very slight chill to rise in the air.



Bring everything apart from the kitchen sink because you figure that when nature gives you grit betwixt your toes, she also provides a conveniently located (if a smidgen on the cold side) body of water to wash off in and a blanket because of how glorious the weather was before you left the house.

Build a sand castle with sand too wet for castle building.

Walk down to the water's edge to wash off and half way there tell the little girl to watch out for crabs.

Carry the little girl and the rucksack containing your whole world and the bucket and the spade and two pairs of shoes the remainder of the way to the water's edge.

Repeat only travel in the opposite direction.

Fail to take into consideration the fact that slightly sleep deprived and not 100% health wise little girls will be more acutely aware of the chill in the air.

Arrive at the car park just in time to get a signal on your phone for what you realise to be the first time since you arrived and receive a text from your husband saying he will be one hour late to the beach.



Sit down on the grass and add all available layers to the little girl, including wrapping her in the towel and then spend the remainder of the hour looking at the lovely car park with its freshly painted lines while the little girl snores peacefully in your arms.

Take two more paracetamol. Come to the conclusion that someone has swapped out the meds for tic tacs.



Wish you'd stayed at home where you could be snoring peacefully too.

Hope the little girl forgets about this day at the beach and remembers all the lovely times we've had at the beach in time for our summer holiday. A full week camping ..... at the beach!

Coming around

I almost hate to admit it but I'm really starting to get excited about our little camping trip. Maybe not the seaweed baths, but the camping is starting to sound good.

It'll come as no surprise that I love the sea and being anywhere near it, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still the big jessie who will run like the clappers out of the ocean if a bit of seaweed wraps itself around my ankle. I'm not sure why, it could be a genuine fear of seaweed because my brother once slapped me around the side of the head with a handful of the stuff. It could be a fear of something completely different, perhaps because of the time my friend (?) dropped a huge dead jellyfish on my chest while I lay sunbathing. Who knows! Come to think of it, it's amazing I like the beach at all.

My biggest concern about camping was the space. Chloe does like to have her own space and I had visions of arriving down there, pitching the tent, managing to get through one cramped night and then her insisting on going home and refusing to enjoy the rest of the holiday if we insisted on staying, but I don't think that's going to be a problem.

I mentioned we have a brand new two man tent, still in the packaging (and I'm glad to hear we're not the only ones btw), but Robert decided to crack it open yesterday and pitch it in the living room. It's big! Really big, the three of us had no problems at all fitting inside it and it's pretty comfy in there.

My mum has said we can take their four man tent with us, so any worries about having enough space are gone. Now all we need is a Chloe sized sleeping bag.

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In other news I've been busying myself making new stock for my very depleted Folksy shop. I promise to try not to plunder the shop stock for local orders, as I've been guilty of treating my shop as more of a catalogue for local customers lately, but I'm going to make more of an effort to keep the two separate.

I've started with some lovely new brooches (if I do say so myself) and you can find them in the usual place.

Some assembly required

Well there's no getting away from it now. This morning I provisionally booked and paid the deposit for our holiday in the Summer.

Yup, we're going camping! We finally decided on Ross's Point near Sligo last night. Not that it was too difficult a decision, I mean look at the place.


I haven't been camping in a long time. Put it this way, the last time I went camping the ordeal involved actual tent poles of the variety required to, you know, hold a tent up. There was no such thing as these new fangled poppy up jobbies you can get now. Not in our budget anyway.



The strange thing is that we do have camping equipment. New camping equipment! But Bob and I have never been camping together. The whole caboodle's up in the roof space. tent, sleeping bags, camp stove, camping mattresses, you name it and we have it.

And my mum does too and she's never been camping either. Does camping equipment come free with houses or something or is it just one of those things that people accumulate over the years without ever realising it? Or is this some weird phenomenon specific to my family?



Well whatever the reason, it will all find itself put to good use this Summer.

Hmm, three people huddled in a tent and one of them will be a five year old. This could be fantastic or it could all go horribly, horribly wrong.

Homework

We're properly back into the swing of the school term again around here. That morning routine comes back all too easily and all the little joys and pleasures that go with it. For instance my little darling who will inhale full loaves of toasted bread during the holiday, almost needs to be force fed three cornflakes during the school term. Go figure.

I have to say though, it has been a very slow grind getting back into the habit of completing homeworks. I'm not sure how it works everywhere else or even at other schools in the UK, but basically every Monday Chloe brings home a homework schedule listing four tasks, each to be done on a different night in whatever order happens to take your fancy.

Four nights of homework sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. They're quite small things and are designed to fit around that week's homework theme, phonics, math, story, learn through play etc, so more often than not they're things like bringing something to school which is blue or reminds them of the story or starts with the letter 'M'.

Anyway, way back before Halloween (you know, a couple of months ago) I thought it would be a great idea to suggest that if Chloe needed to take anything into school as part of her homework, we would make it and not only that but we would try our best to make them using as many recycled things as possible. We started off well making a pumpkin and some leaves and dandelion clocks from scavenger fabric and yarn for her Autumn table.

I'll admit though, what started out as an innocent enough idea is becoming more and more complicated with each week. So far we're sticking to it but at this rate Chloe will have a pretty substantial collection of little bitsy things lying around school, all destined to arrive back home again at the end of term.

This week's homework is based on phonics or more specifically 'M' and 'R'.

I'd like for you all to meet Morris.


A bit of string a few tiny scraps of leftover felt and the most ill conceived jumper I've ever bought (white on a 4 year old, I never said I was clever). He's pretty cute I think and he's only a couple of inches long so he fits in her pocket.

Now we just have to think of something for 'R' bearing in mind that it's already Wednesday night and they need to be ready on Friday morning. Of course, the obvious choice is a rabbit, a little finger puppet variety, but she was bitten by her cousin's pet rabbit at the weekend and has gone right off rabbits, though I'm sure that will only last a week.

If it wasn't for the fact that Chloe's sock creatures have now ascended to "collectible" status and reside on a special shelf all of their own in her bedroom (seriously, they get one hug per day because she says they're "precious") she would have taken theothermousie's Itty Bitty Pirate Kitty in to school. I mentioned the idea, because seriously how many bonus points is the kid going to get for bringing in something that doesn't start with 'r' but instead says "Arrrrrr" but she was having none of it. Apparently, her teacher might lose her kitty and that would never do!

So any ideas? Because I can't think of another (simple, two days people) thing to make that begins with 'R'.

Do you think we'd get away with sending in a raft?

2010

That's twenty ten by the way not two thousand and ten. You have to say it the first way, it's the law! But here we are again, the dawn of not only a new year but also a new decade. I'm very happy to say that this Christmas was by far better than last, but more about that later.

This year has been very strange for me and a lot of it has come with a pretty steep learning curve.

I started 2009 freshly unemployed with a four year old who, lets be completely honest here, I didn't know an awful lot about. I know that sounds rather odd, because I'm her mum and all but still up until January 2009 she spent ten hours a day, five days a week in childcare and she spent time at my mum's house most Saturdays and Sundays. Apart from when she was sick, a little tiny baby before I went back to work or over holidays we'd never spent more than a few awake hours together. We had our good days and we had our bad days. Though I'm happy to say, mostly good.

In March I finally decided that I'd give my own business a whirl and opened a shop on Folksy. I'm really rather pleased with how my first year has gone and I'm looking forward to next year.

My little girl started school this year too.

My little experiment (that you may or may not remember) failed miserably after some horrible weather. Well it was horrible for Northern Ireland anyway!

And then before we could say Bob's your uncle, along came Christmas and here we are at the New Year again.

As years go I'm very happy and overall I'll be popping 2009 into the good year pile.

All I wish for you this year is that you find and are able to hold onto whatever it is that makes you smile.

Happy New Year everybody.

How to get Murphy on your side

(without him even knowing it)

A little more than five years ago now I was a bit miffed. Well quite a lot miffed actually.

The husband and I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to get pregnant for just over a year.

Just over a year in earth time, but not GP time. You see had I been an average woman, in that particular calender year I would have tried and failed to get pregnant 13 times. But I'm not an average woman, quite a bit below (or above, never really figured that one out) average so in that particular calender year I tried and failed to get pregnant a mere 10 times.

Silly me.

Now, not being particularly well known for my patience, I hatched a cunning plan to make Murphy's Law work for me.

I sat myself down and thought about it. What are the things a pregnant woman shouldn't do?

Well they're not supposed to fly or at least not before 12 weeks anyway. Ok, so I'll book a holiday, but where to?

Well, pregnant women aren't supposed to drink alcohol either or not copious amounts of it anyway.

They shouldn't really carry heavy things either, so that would be mammoth shopping sprees out too.

They should eat a healthy and balance diet, so nine months worth of burgers smothered in blue cheese would be off the menu.

A four hour horse ride into, oh I don't know say the bottom of the Grand Canyon would probably not be the best idea in the world for a pregnant woman.

So......

Vegas then!

I settled myself down in front of the laptop, bank card at the ready and booked a one week trip to Vegas which was due to fly out in exactly 12 weeks. I wrote down the addresses for completely inappropriate places like Margaritaville and advance booked helicopter flights over the strip.

Twelve weeks later I stepped on a ten hour flight, ten weeks pregnant.

Murphy me old son, you done yourself proud!!!

Sure, it was a bit of a gamble. I could have blown £1100 on a holiday and had nothing to show for it but a few holiday snaps.....

But....




I think it was £1100 well spent, don't you?

Paddling Pools and Panic Shopping

I can't believe its almost July already.

And just because a) I was always THAT girl in the office and, b) its a little bit funny, I provide you with the following information;

It is exactly 26 weeks to Christmas!

We'll just let that one sit there for a second while I hide behind this scatter cushion.

Anyway, that means I have now been at home, looking after Toots full time for half a year. Its been a hell of a half year. Mostly good, occasionally a handful, sometimes a hair pulling situation.

My own hair obviously, don't even go there.

I know I haven't been around a lot lately but I have been busy elsewhere. I needed to finish a custom order which is finally complete, absolutely gorgeous (if I do say so myself) and sent off in the post. I also had a couple of other surprise projects to finish up and I'll hopefully have them done and ready to go by the end of the weekend.

And I've been spending a lot of time with the family outdoors. The weather here has been fabulous and its set to reach 30C next week so I'll have to prepare myself and everyone else for that. We don't do that kind of heat here, there's something very unnatural about 30C and there not being a plane ride involved.

The Irish melt in that kind of heat.

We've been to Stormont Park, the beach, where Toots fell face first into a huge wave and didn't freak out, and we enjoyed a nice day in Bangor for the husband's birthday.

Well nice until it turned frantic as I had to run off from the Pickie Fun Park into the centre of town to try and find a new outfit for Toots after she assumed I was my usual organised self and had packed her a change of clothes and she belly flopped, shoes and all, into the paddling pool.

Such a pity I wasn't organised that day. And that's why you should always pack a change of clothes for your kid, cause you never know.

And you might want to chuck a clean t shirt in the boot of the car for your husband while you're at it because while you're running like a headless chicken through a packed town with your mobile phone tucked safely out of earshot in your bum pocket, your daughter will climb (saturated) from the paddling pool and give your husband his big drippy birthday hug.

I wish I'd seen more of the world

This isn't a problem for me.

If I popped my clogs tomorrow I'd be very happy that I had seen as much as I possibly could on my budget.

I travelled a fair bit when I was younger and before I had Toots. I wasn't single, but I usually travelled alone. I preferred it that way. I've been to Egypt and Vegas with the husband, but before that I went to Turkey.

I booked a holiday for four. It had previously been booked by a family who had to cancel at the last minute so I managed to get the whole thing for £119 per person for two weeks. I put a postcard in the window of my local newsagent and three weeks later I met the three girls at the airport I was going to spend the next fortnight with in Turkey. It was one of the best holidays I've ever been on.

I've been to Amsterdam as well as Gouda in Holland. I've visited Barcelona, Kos, Cyprus and Nice to name a few, all alone and they were some of the most enjoyable times of my life.

I loved to be able to just do my own thing every day. To not have to fall in line with what somebody else wanted to do. I could go anywhere I wanted or nowhere at all. I could eat whole roasted cloves of garlic in France and not concern myself with offending anyone.

Is was pure bliss.

On the other hand, the husband has been to Egypt and Vegas with me and to California, San Francisco and Vegas with his brother before he met me.

He's never been out of the country on is own.

In the past year, the husband changed company vehicles. He didn't notify the tax office and neither did his employer until last month and because of this he received a substantial rebate as well as having to pay no tax for two months until the new tax year begins in April.

I have been trying to convince him to use some of that money and take himself off alone for a couple of weekends. He loves his food and I think it would be great for him to spend a few days sipping wine and eating fresh seafood around some of the less touristy, coastal areas of Spain or Portugal or a week relaxing in Sicily.

Nothing would make me happier than for him to have some time to himself, to never look back and say "I wish I had...".

He thinks that he will feel guilty travelling without his family. He thinks that he will miss us and won't enjoy himself. I'm trying to explain to him that this is the point. This should be an opportunity and a time for him to be completely selfish and think only of himself. He spends so much time working for his family and doing everything to please us that I think its very important for him to have something which is just for him and him alone.

I fixed a lot of his wants over the years. He wanted to learn to fly and I arranged two lessons. Paying for him to get his license would have been a bit of a stretch but as it is he has spent two very happy hours flying over the Mourne mountains.

I never object when he buys something for himself whether its a good bottle of whiskey or a games console. In my mind he works hard and he deserves some down time and something to enjoy and look forward to.

However, I just don't seem to be able to talk him round to this idea at all and I can't understand why.

Who, given the opportunity to travel, wouldn't grab it with both hands and run.

I'd really like to know what everyone thinks about this.

Would you be happy for your husband to go on holiday by himself? Would you encourage him? If you're a man, would you go if your wife encouraged you?

And if you're a woman, would you be tempted to go and leave the hubs to fend for himself at home with the kids?

The Honeymoon - Part 4 - Lower Nile

Its quite difficult to write a post about Cairo, which is probably why it has taken me so long.

The problem is that for the most part cameras are off limits without a special permit or licence.

This is the part of Egypt where I would suggest you buy a stack of postcards. Not to send to anyone but to fill in the gaps in your photo album later.

I can only suggest you visit, Cairo, Giza and the rest of the Lower Nile are absolutely breathtaking.

One word of warning though. If you happen to be in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus or any of those places and are offered a "day trip" to Egypt, proceed with caution. There's nothing actually wrong with the trip, they are very well organised. But they are organised in such a way as to make you part with your cash as quickly as possible. You will be taken to Cairo Museum for about an hour.

It has been said that if you were allowed 1 minute to look at each artifact it would take over 9 months to see everything.

You'll then be ushered on to Auntie Betty's jewelery shop, Uncle Jim's papyrus shop and well you get the idea.

You'll see very little of Egypt on one of these tours and there is a lot to see...


We were there for one week and I would have been happier with a few months. This photo was taken from the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. While we were at the Mosque the Muezzin began calling and out of respect I didn't take any more than a few photographs facing away from the Mosque.

One thing I will say is that if you plan to visit any of the many mosques in Cairo, please cover up. It doesn't take a lot to show some respect and a pair of trousers and long sleeves aren't really going to do you any harm. One girl in our tour group was a bit put out by the fact that all the women entering the mosque were told that they would have to wear a heavy cloak except me. Bear in mind that this was the same girl who put her bloody shoes down on the ground beside the fountain so that she could get her camera ready. And the same girl who eventually had her camera confiscated because she couldn't switch off the flash. I swear there's always one.

Anyway, obviously the first thing you will want to see on arriving in Cairo are the pyramids.

Surprisingly enough you can't really see them from anywhere in Cairo. The city is so built up and more than a little polluted that you will have to get a bit closer to really appreciate them.

One other thing. People in general are a little jaded by the pyramids. You've seen them everywhere, TV, magazines, postcards and it does ruin it for you a little.

If you see them from a short distance, you get your typical holiday snap idea of what they look like.


Off in the desert, the middle of nowhere, these giants rise out of the sand.

Want to see them from the other side....


This was our hotel and yes that is a swimming pool and a golf course right at the foot of the Giza plateau. This view almost ruined it for me. I knew the hotel was close, but I never thought it was that close.


You will need to get right up close and personal to get a true idea of just how big these things really are.


Each stone was about five feet tall, although I think they are a bit smaller closer to the top.

There is a tour inside one of the pyramids, but as I've mentioned before we arrived in the middle of a heatwave and on this particular day the temperature reached 63C. The tour guides recommended to everyone that whilst the tour was still running nobody should take it. It is very cramped and claustrophobic inside the passageways and a few people had to be carried out while we were there.

Instead we headed over to see the Sphinx.


It was and probably still is undergoing a lot of restorative work.


Also on the Giza plateau is the Solar Boat Museum containing the oldest boat in history. The boat was used to transport Cheops body and then buried with him. Its in pretty good condition, don't you think?


We were also able to get to Memphis during our stay in Egypt. Memphis is now a city built over ruins. Of course, archaeologists would love nothing more than to flatten the city and start digging, but the people of Memphis are firmly standing their ground.

As it is today there are a few uncovered statues to be seen and a large alabaster sphinx.


There is also a Colossus of Ramses II in Memphis. It would stand over 14 meters high if it wasn't lying down, obviously.

Some of the other things we were able to visit, but unfortunately weren't able to or just wouldn't stop what we were doing to photograph...

The city of the dead is probably not what you imagine it to be. A huge graveyard now filled with life. In the 1960s due to a great housing shortage for lower income family and immigration from the country and outlying areas, the tombs and mausolea were transformed into homes. You'll see little children playing football and using headstones as goal posts. In fact many of the headstones have been used in the building process. Its a spectacular place to visit and spend some time and well worth the trip to Cairo on its own. Its a very strange experience to see so many living share space with the dead.

The Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar is an amazing place. Its actually a large group of separate bazaars which have grown and enveloped each other of the years. The poor husband couldn't get me to stand still love enough to take any photographs, but the colours and smells are breathtaking. Each bazaar sells vast quantities of a different item. Gold (sold by weight, silver and leather, carpets, copperware, spices, perfume, cloth and fabric, food, sheesha and street after street of belly dancers outfits. It can seem a little overwhelming and a bit scary when you first enter the bazaar. It covers a very large area and is extremely crowded in very cramped streets (no more than a few feet wide) but there is some method to the madness and its actually quite easy to find your way around once you've had a quick dash around the market. A word of warning, avoid the centre of the market, its the area where you will see a lot of tour buses parked and hawkers trying to sell "real essence of Chanel No:5" and some poor saps desperate to buy it. Also don't go into any shop with a hustler. They stand in the bazaar telling everyone they can get you local prices on everything. The store owners know them on sight and hike the prices to pay their compensation. Never pay more than a third of the first price you are given. Seriously, sellers actually look disappointed for a second if you don't haggle.

The Hanging Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary is the most beautiful in Egypt and well worth a visit. It is nicknamed the Hanging Church because it is built over the bastions of a roman gate. It is decorated inside with decorative cedar panels and a large marble pulpit supported by twelve columns. No matter what time of the day you visit the church is always filled with people but something about the place quietens the usual chatter and noise you will hear at other sights and you feel like you could very well be there alone.

I'm going to have to leave it at that because I'm very tempted to sell the car and book a couple of flights and that just wouldn't do at all.

The Honeymoon - Part 3 - The Valley of the Kings...and Queen

You can't spend any time in Luxor without visiting the Valley of the Kings

The first stop on the tour was at the Colossi of Memnon. They're 18 metres tall, although its difficult to tell that from the photogragh. They are all that is left of the Temple of Amenophis III (Amenhotep). The Temple itself was destroyed by earthquake and the Colossi cracked. We were told that after they cracked they would "sing" as the sun rose in the morning. Unfortunately Emporer Septimius Severus attempted to restore the Colossi to get brownie points with Memnon and now thy are silent.

Not a great job on the restoration either.


After the Colossi we were taken to the entrance of the Valley of the Kings.

That would be our guide pulling faces at some of the stupid questions people were asking about "slaves".


We only visited one tomb while we were in the valley. KV8 the tomb of Merenptah. He was the successor of Ramses II.

I think.


A sarcophagos...

This is a list contained within almost all of the tombs. It details who worked on the project, how long it took, all the consumables used during the time such as food and clothing and it gives details of how far people travelled to help with the build.

Again everything was protected by glass and no flash photography was allowed so it was quite difficult to get anything bar dodgy slightly blurry photos.

I mentioned a Queen didn't I?

Just the one mind you.

The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir al Bahri or Dejesr Dejesrn meaning Most Splendid of all.

It is a masterpiece to say the least.

Three levels carved into the face of the mountain. It isn't in the Valley of the Kings, its quite close to the Valley of the Nobels though.

She became ruler of Egypt after her husband, Thutmose II died.

There are very few images of Hatshepsut left intact at the temple. Her son, Thutmose III was made to wait 20 years before becoming ruler of Egypt because she refused to marry him (as you would)(bear in mind her husband was her half brother)). When he came to power he destroyed all of her cartouches and images so that she would be forgotten.


One of the intact images is in the Sanctuary of Hathor standing between statues of Hathor and Amun-Ra, although this room is closed to the public she can be seen faintly through the gates.

Unfortunately the top terrace was closed for restoration while we there but the view from the second terrace was hard to beat.

The second terrace was also undergoing a lot of restoration and probably will be for a long time to come.


One of the reliefs in the temple...


And we haven't even got to Cairo yet ;)