Age Concern

Off to Newport again this morning to do a few hours at Age Concern. Today I was emailing all the information about Silver Star to different schools on the island, adding any new contacts Ellen had acquired into her address book and updating their spreadsheet. I'm going back on Tuesday to sort out my application to be a volunteer, then they can start giving me petrol money.

We'd popped into Morrisons yesterday when I bumped into one of the teaching assistants from Sandown High, Mrs Lowish- she also helped out at Lake middle when I was there, then moved over to Sandown high the same time as me, she's really lovely and will always stop and have a chat- she told me that Sandown are having a mufti day for Age Concern this Friday, Elena had also told me earlier that day.

Matt picked me up at 2 o'clock and we went back home for some much needed lunch. For the rest of the day I read some more books, as I really couldn't be bothered to do anything else. I've now finished The Spiderwick Chronicles, Mum bought them for me for Christmas and I was positive there were only 4 books, had even looked it up on the internet, but now I've read them there is a 5th one, aargh! I might see if I can read it online or pop into the library perhaps. They are good and a bit different to the film, but very quick to read. I've just started The Little White Horse, which so far seems really good, but I think this one will take me a bit longer to read.

Catch Up

Wednesday, 21st January 2009

I had a great time shopping with Mum and Elena yesterday. Mum bought me a lovely soft "highlighter pink" hoodie from New Look and I bought myself some brown boots, they go really well with my beige trousers and look fab with jeans.

After watching Big Chef takes on Little Chef I have really fancied some scrambled egg, so for tea tonight Matt made some, with a little bit of cheese and marmite on toast, yummy!

It was the final episode of the Little Chef program as well tonight. Heston came back, got the Popham branch refurbished and ready to run.I'm very happy to say it did really well, everyone loved the food and the decor was great, they even had singing toilets and urinals! The idiot at head office has said that he'll review whats happening and whether or not it'll be rolled out to all branches after 3 months!!

Mum & me in NewportElena & me in Newport

Thursday, 22nd January 2009

I spent about 6 hours at Age Concern today (wearing my new boots). I found out that all Age Concerns are registered as local charities, meaning all the money they raise in their area they get to keep, so all the money the island raises stays on the island, how cool is that. They provide 9 essential services to the islands elderly and need to raise a further £140,000 to carry on. In order to do this they have come up with the idea of "Be a silver star day", they are trying to get businesses and schools involved in some sort of mufti day where people wear something silver.So today I was helping Ellen sort out who would take part.

After having some lunch back at the flat Matt and i decided that we'd go for a walk along the beach. We went down Fisherman's steps and this time instead of turning left towards Sandown we headed right towards Luccombe. We went around the point and up and up some wooden steps where Matt showed me an amazing waterfall. We carried on up some steps made of mainly mud and a bit of wood. Through Luccombe woods and then back down to the flat, it sounds quite a short way, but it really wasn't and walking up muddy steep steps almost killed me, I thought Matt might have to carry me back, lol.

Tree trunk on the beach

Steps up to LuccombeSteps with waterfall behind them
Waterfall coming through part of the walkwayWhat looks like a castle tower in someones back gardenA gorgeous little thatched cottage in Luccombe woods
The thatched cottages gate

Friday, 23rd January 2009

Went round Mum and Dad's at for 10 o'clock today to take delivery of their new fridge/ freezer. Thought I'd have a quick shower while I was there, as its lovely and warm and powerful, which beats the cold drip at the flat hands down. Had to leave the bathroom door open though as I was really worried the delivery guys would turn up.

I waited till 1 o'clock and thought I'd make myself some lunch, managed to make it to the kitchen when they actually turned up! Sod's law or what. Lol. Well it was certainly a bit of a palaver trying to get it in the house. Eventually, after a few phone calls to Dad, we put it in the conservatory. When I opened the patio doors one of the blokes looked in and said "Hey love, I think you've got a bit of a problem... I think your bird's are dead!" In the corner Mum and Dad have got a lovely cage two pot budgies in.

After having some soup for our tea Mum, Dad, Elena and I made our way to Red Funnel in Cowes. Then made our way up to Auntie Claire's, 250 miles inn Derbyshire. We arrives there around 10.30 ish , and soon went to bed as we were all shattered.

It has been raining quite a lot on the island, this picture was taken rinning down the curb from our driveway

Mum and me in their new monster fridge freezer

Saturday, 24th January 2009

We went to see Nana-Jean in hospital today, she looked well, tiered but well. We stayed there for 2 hours and then on our way back to Auntie Claire's we popped in at Sainsburys. It was huge, they even sold clothes! Mum and Dad got Nana some books as she had finished all the ones she had with her and was rather board.

After having some pizza we went back to see Nana for an hour, well we got to stay a bit longer as one of the ladies who had kept everyone else awake the previous night had died whilst we there in the afternoon, and she was still there when we left that evening!

On our way home we picked up a Chinese for our tea.
This house is down the road from Auntie Claire, I love it, if it were on the island it would be perfect.

Sunday, 25th January 2009

Dad woke us up this morning so we could get ready to go back home. We set off at 10.30 and by 12 o'clock we were at Teresa's!

Teresa made us a lovely cup of tea and some hot cross buns, we all had a good old natter, and at 1.30 got back in the bus to travel back down to the island. When we were stood in the kitchen Max came in with my glasses on upside down, he's so cute.


I managed to forget my sunglasses, I didn't realise until about an hour later when the sun was shining in my eyes! Teresa is very kindly sending them back down to me.

We got the 6 o'clock ferry back and on our way home picked up the Indian I had ordered, banquet night at Taj Tandoori, you get a starter and main meal with either rice or naan bread all for £8.50, bargain! Matt met us back at Mum and Dad's, it was really nice to see him as I'd missed him so much. I know we only spent 2 nights apart, but it was really weird not waking up next to him.

Monday, 26th January 2009

8 o'clock this morning Matt dropped me off at Mum and Dad's so I could get a lift into Newport as I was going to spend a few hours at Age Concern again. Ellen was going to a couple of schools today- Sandown High being one of them, Elena's school- to give an assembly, so I finished around 12.30. Today I updated her spreadsheet of all the people she had contacted.

Whilst waiting for Matt to come pick me up I had a wander around the shops. Which is horrible when you have no money as your always guaranteed to find really nice things, well I thought I was very good, I only bought a book. There's a new film coming out on the 6th February, it's called The Secret of Moonacre, and it's based on a book called The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. I think it's along the same genre as Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling is even quoted on the cover saying how she adored the book.

Didn't really do much fro the rest of the day as I felt really tiered.

Tuesday, 27th January 2009

I fancied some scrambled egg on marmite on toast this morning, but we had run out of margarine, and I've found that marmite is a real pig to spread on toast with out butter. So I thought I'd pop down the shop and get some, only when I got into Shanklin did I realise that I had forgotten my door key to the flat, and it's on one of those automatic locks! Matt was in but he hadn't slept well the last couple of nights so he was still in bed and his mobile in the other room. I don't think I've ever known anyone so difficult to wake up, but once he's asleep that's it, he's out of it! There could be an earth quake and I don't think he'd wake up. Wish I was like that, all though Mum is much worse than I am.Lol.

So I thought I'd go to Tesco's get the butter and some soup for tea tonight. I text Matt to say when he got my message to phone me and then went to Mum and Dad's. Mum was just coming up the road as I put my laptop back in the car, so I spent a bit of time with her, had a cup of tea and a chat.

Once back at the flat I read a few books. I read The Tales of Beedle the Bard and 2 and a bit books of the Spiderwick Chronicles.

Wednesday, 28th January 2009

I opened the front door this morning to find it was really foggy, I thought I'd take a leaf out of Mum's book and get some pic's of the island in all the fog. So on my way to the job centre in Ryde I drove round the boating lake, usually from Ryde you get a cracking view of the mainland, no such luck today, you could just about make out Ryde Pier!

In the job centre I bumped into Lyn P, who left Woolies in the summer to work at the job centre, Kerry and one of the Sue's from Shanklin. Kerry told me that Laura, another lady we used to work with who left last year to move to the mainland, is coming down to the island on Monday to meet up with everyone, so I might go and meet up with them.

In my wisdom I thought I'd drive up Culver on my way home to get some more picture's. Well the fog was even worse up there, I could barley see where I was going!

Popped into Mum and Dad's again today, where Nana and GrandJack were supposed to be bringing Jack and Jordanna round to see us, but for some reason they didn't, they didn't even mention it! Had a letter on the side when I got in, my last pay slip and P45 from Woolworths!

Mum and I talked a bit about her upcoming holiday to the Maldives, I hope they have a great time.

Other than that haven't really done much else today, but best get an earlyish night as I'm at Age Concern again tomorrow.

View from Ryde boating lake, where you can usually see the mainland

Very foggy road up Culver
Culver monumentSheep in one of the carparks up Culver

Snooker and Inauguration

Ok well first of all I have to say sorry for not doing my blog for the last couple of days, but to be honest I haven't really done that much.

Ronnie O'Sullivan won his 4th snooker masters on Sunday, much to Matt's delight, it was a cracking game.

On Monday we went to Margaret's, the local snooker hall, to have a game or two, unfortunatley I am absolutley terrible! I am so bad that the only time I could make the cue ball hit any other ball (which was very rare) the other ball would shot off in completly the wrong direction, leading to me not scoring any points. I'm also vertically challenged so being able to reach some of the shots on such a big table was really hard. Matt very kindly took me home after about 45 minutes as I couldn't bring my self to carry on playing, well actually I flatly refused. When I look back now I can kind of see the funny side, but at the time I just wanted the earth to open up and swallow me!

The problem is I find things so embarrasing, evreryone tells me I shouldn't that I should just carry on and not let it affect me, which sounds easy but it really isn't. I really wish I didn't feel like this but it's just so hard. When it happens I alwys feel like I want to drop dead, melodramatic I know but thats how it makes me feel. I hate the thought of people laughing at me and Matt tells me that they aren't and to just ignore how I feel, which I know again sounds easy but honestly it isn't. I know when I look back that people aren't laughing at me it's just so hard to control at the time. I really wish I could explain it better as no one understands when I try to tell them what it feels like.

Well after that we came back to the flat and bummed around for the rest of the day. Mum emailed me Lisa's Christmas thank you letters, so I finished off mine and sent them back to her, now we can get them printed and sent off.That night we watched a program called Big Chef takes on Little Chef, it's about Heston Blumenthal taking Little Chef back to it's former glory.

Everything about the higher management screamed out Woolworths, which I think rather annoyed Matt as he was sat there trying to watch it and I kept saying Woolworths this and Woolworths that, OMG I sound like Triggy aargh (a woman we worked with who did everbody's head in). The top man of Little Chef wants to change everything completely but he's not listening to needs or wants of his customers or staff (they don't even have some sort of pan to cook scarmbled egg in they have to cook it either on a griddle or in a microwave!), to be honest he was a complete idiot, which seems to be a general job description for higher management!

The more we've watched it the more it seems Little Chef are using this as some sort of advertising ploy, but I personally don't think it's giving them the sort of publicity any company needs, as I think they are just showing their customers that their opinions dont count, but hey that's just my opinion.

On Tuesday morning I got woken up by my phone going off, which scared the living daylights out of me. It was a lady called Ellen from Age Concern, who runs the events department, phoning about the voluntary work that Amanda from Edutainment had set up for me. So I start on Thursday, I can't wait it'll be great to have something to do. I just hope I get a paid job soon as I really can't wait to be earning some money again. There's just nothing around at the moment, unless I want to be a carer, which I really couldn't do, and I have a lot of respect for those who do those jobs.

After prising myself out of gorgeously warm and comfortable bed, and then out of a beautifully warm bath, I watched a couple of films. The first one was Spiderwick Chronicles, I got it free in May when I went on an Entertainment Roadshow for Woolworths. It was quite a fun day out, no general public for one thing, it's a shame there won't be another one.

I had volunteereed to drive, as the roadshow was up in Reading. On the day I met Carrie from Newport, Emma from Shanklin, Shapla from Ryde and Kathryn from Cowes at the end of Ryde Pier, it was really nice to be able to put faces to the names and voices I had often spoken to over the phone. We took the Fast Cat over to Portsmouth and then made our way to the Portsmouth store where I had a hire car waiting, paid for by Woolworths. It was a lovely new black Vauxhall.

Once we had managed to get in the car,as there was no key hole, and then slowly negotiated my way out of the car park, I really didn't want to scratch it and who ever had parked the car in the first place had parked it right in front of a Bifa bin and someone else had parked stupidly close at the other end, we set off for Reading. The car was certainly differnt to drive, for a start it had 6 gears and the indercators were on the opposite side to my Corrola, which I didn't find out until going round a round about with my windscreen wipers going and people honking their horns at me. The stalks where also touch sensitive, so you only had to tap them to get them to work, I'm used to having to pull and push mine, so that was a bit of a problem to start with.

Now I should say that my only other experience of driving on the mainland (other than the one time I had a potter around Portsmouth with Matt), it took me half an hour to get out of Southampton. After taking the wrong route, due to talking to much and not paying enough attention, then ending up in the city center continuosly missing my turning and subsequntly leading to Mum having to get out and asks some blokes in a garage for directions.

Well this time we did take the wrong route out of Portsmouth, but after asking some guys at a petrol staion, who had very strong Indian accents, for directions we found the hotel. The next problem we had was that we had to park in a car park in a shopping precinct, and we couldn't find our wait out from the shops, so we had to ask a member of staff for directions in there as well! Can you tell we don't really leave the island much, lol!

Thankfully there was still some breakfast left, the hotel had made us croissants with cheese and tomato, very yummy, and much needed coffee, as to be able to get to the meeting, which started at 9.30, we'd had to be up at 4 am!

Well it all got under way. There where Ent. Spec's. there from 3 differnt areas and one of the first thing Andy, the souths EUK rep, did was to give an award to the best Ent. Spec. from each area. Cowes won from our area. They got t-shirts and dvd's, everyone was rather jealous of the free dvd's.After a lot of boring chat we broke up for lunch, provivded again by the hotel. I had Cottage Pie, veg and olives, weird mix I know but I love olives, and a fruit cocktail for dessert.

After lunch we spoke to a rep from Nintendo, who was useless, his response to anything we asked him was "it depends upon the demand", I'm not to sure if he realised that the demand for anything Nintendo is huge.We also spoke to a rep from EA games, he was great, he could give us decent answers to all our questions and gave us a free demo of spore creature creator. Then just before we left Andy handed out a goodie bag of dvd's to each person there, well except those that had won the award for best ent.spec. as it was the same dvd's! We got 27 Dresses, Spiderwick Chronicles and Gavin and Stacey season 1.

Well the journey back was terrible. We got so lost it was unbelievable, and to make matters worse we'd had a phone call half way through the day to say the ferries had been cancelled as the weather was really bad!I still don't know how we managed to find our way back, we just kind of stummbled across differnt places we recognised and ended up in Porstmouth!We dropped the car back off at the Porstmouth store then went back to the Fast Cat, where thankfully they had resummed service. Back at work the next day when telling Cat about what happened and what we came away with well she wasn't to happy. Cat had gone to the roadshow the previous year where they didn't get any food and only came away with a catalogue!

Anyway back to Spiderwick Chronicles, I think Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland) is a fantastic actor. He plays Jared and Simon Grace, twin brothers, and if I hadn't looked it up on IMDb I would still think that he had a twin in real life, even Liam thought it was 2 people, which I think shows how good he is. I hope when Daniel Radcliffe can pull it off when he has to do it for Harry Potter. I also watched Penelope with James McAvoy (Chronicles of Narnia, Atonement) who I think is a great actor and very good looking.

Around 3 o'clock I made my way over to Mum's, driving down to the high school and back first just in case Elena was still walking up. When I got in however Elena was sat on the settee and had been for about 10 minutes! Mum was watching the latest episode of House, and had also just put some washing on, the previous night Dad had fitted some new shock absorbers as the old ones had had it. It was still rather load when I walked in but once it had got more into the cycle it quietened down loads.

We were supposed to go to Newport today, Mum had invited me in her last email, but I hadn't read the email, which was sent Monday night, until Tuesday morning, so I took the tomorrow in the email being Wednesday. We have now decided to go on Wednesday after Elena finishes school, just so we have a bit more time.

Elena made me some of Dad's wonderful chicken soup and homemade bread, it was so tasty. We sat and ate it whilst watching Poirot, one of my favourite tv programs. Dad came in just after 5.30 and I asked him if I could get a lift in to Newport with him on Thursday morning, as parking is quite expensive, well not as bad as on the mainland, and I have no idea about how long I'm going to be there. I had a quick look on the Cineworld website to see if we could go and watch Inkheart after Dad finsihes work on Wednesday, only to find out that it's only playing at 4 cinemas on the mainland now, I'm so gutted as I really wanted to watch it and I know Dad did too!

When I got back home Matt had made tea, chilli con carne, and we watched the next installment of Big Chef takes on Little Chef, which was even worse than the previous one. Heston has actually walked out now as Little Chef won't commit to anything he asks, furthering both his and my thoughts that it is just a marketing scheme, but we'll see on the next episode, perhaps they'll prove me wrong.

Tuesday also saw the inauguration of Barack Obama, I hope it goes really well for him, but it's not as if he can do a worse job than Bush is it!?!

Well that's it for now, I really need to go and have a bath and get ready to go shopping