It begins with an A...

It’s been a long and busy couple of weeks with no time to blog.
I’ve given blood and had a job interview (which I didn’t get). I’ve handed in another TMA so am now about half way through the course, and had the disappointment of my marked script back.
I’ve had a birthday and become the proud adopted parent of a pair of aardvarks – Kiyo and Misha at London Zoo. I can’t wait to visit them when it gets a little warmer.
We’ve had our first writers group without Anne, where we worked out how to make it work now. Homework to write a piece of flash fiction of 140 characters including spaces! (I must work on that)
And finally yesterday I went to Southampton again for the second OU day school for A363. Only 5 students turned up which was slightly disappointing but did mean we had more time for discussing work.
I wrote a couplet about clouds:

A baby elephant gallops over the hill
Before its gone it’s turned into a ship.

And a four line poem about the shadows of two men who have just jumped off a bridge into a river.

Shadows released,
No desire to be wet.
They sit; waiting
For their owners return.

I will try and blog more often but its going to stay busy for a bit, with exam marks at work coming in and more TMA deadlines looming, and I’m the next chair for the writers group so need to come up with a homework. Blimey!

Things to do when it snows

The snow is still there, but I'm back at work.

It came at a great time, giving me that little bit of extra time needed to finish my next OU assignment. And then I had a little bit of time left over to finish the blind I started over Christmas.

This is for the front door. During the day it lets in sunshine - if there is any, and makes the middle of the flat nice and light. But at night it lets in an evil orange street light from directly out side. Its a roman blind so folds up as you pull the string keeping it out of the way when using the door. And its made from blackout material so I only need the one piece and didn't have to do any clever lining. I have to say I'm very pleased. And thanks to 'im outdoors for his help screwing it to the door.

Snow, just a little bit

I've only been at work 2 days following the Christmas holidays, but already I'm stuck at home again due to the foot of snow that fell over night. Its not too much of a problem - work is quiet and I have an assignment due in at the end of the week.

We got a little bored inside as you can see - the castle is 'im outdoors.

Happy Holidays

Just a quick message to anyone who reads this blog - I hope you all have a wondeful holiday and a stunning New Year. I think this is going to me my first white christmas - 1981 doesn't count!

Even if snow doesn't fall, there is plently on the ground, trees, houses, and cars to look at.

If I don't blog before I'll see you in the New Year.

Star of Wonder

Last night I finally finished the ‘topper’ for our Christmas tree. As we are in our new flat and this is our first Christmas together, we’ve had to buy a new tree and decorations. Although I’ve been looking for months I’ve still not found a ‘topper’ that I like. So I made one.
A little bit of card, PVA glue, tissue paper, wire and some metal leaf and I’ve made what I was looking for.

Also last night we went to a talk about ‘The Star of Bethlehem – fact or fiction’. It was really interesting and I would have happily listened for longer than 40 minutes. The thing that really amazed me is that there are only 4 references to the Star in the Bible and yet it is such a large part of Christmas as we celebrate it now. How many Christmas cards have we received with the star featuring? How many carols will we sing either about the star itself of things to do with the star – We three Kings, Star Carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem to name a few.
To sum up scientist believe there were things happening in the skies around the time of the birth of Christ, so the Star of Bethlehem is fact.
A very enjoyable, if late, evening.

The Last Writers Group

Today was the last Writers Group Meeting with Anne as chair.
A sad day for all. We’re still not 100% sure how we will go forward in the New Year.

But first we had to celebrate the time we’ve had with Anne.
When she first announced that she would have to stand down there were a lot of emails from the members of the group wondering how we could show our appreciation for her hard work. We finally decided that putting together some of the work we had completed under her guidance as a reminder might be nice.
As I had nothing else to do I thought I would take this on.
The selection of poems and short stories which I received were stunning, meaning in the end our little ‘anthology’ is a good 27 pages long.
I formatted it and turned it into a little A5 booklet which everyone was very pleased with.
But even with presenting the ‘anthology’ to Anne and eating many mince pies she still managed to get some work out of us.

First we folded our paper to make 8 squares. In the left hand 4 we wrote nouns, for instance a stapler or a car. In the right hand 4 we wrote sentences beginning with ‘is’ to describe the noun, for instance 'is something to attach paper together' or 'is a vehicle to make me free'.
We then cut the paper in half and gave the sentences to the person on the right of us. Then taking our favourite noun and sentence we started to write.

A bottle of gin is what you get when you stick your finger in an electric socket.
Well that’s what happened to me. Of course I didn’t mean to put my finger in the socket, it was an accident as I unplugged the hover. One minute I’m doing house work the next I find my self laying on the sofa with a strange buzzing going through my body and my husband standing in front of me with a bottle of gin in his hand.
And what I’m really thinking is Silly goat, doesn’t he know that I don’t like gin, why doesn’t he bring the brandy.
But you can’t say that, after all he looked worried. I’m not sure why. It was only a little shock; I’ve had worse off the electric fence before now.

CIW Associate

Over the last 3 weeks I’ve been revising hard. ‘im outdoors has had the sofa to himself while I’ve been sat in the study reading up the course notes from my Web Design course from 2 years ago. (you are advised not to take the test till you’ve completed the course)
Yesterday I finally took the test – CIW v5 Foundation Exam.
This is the first of 5 exams if I want the qualification CIW Website Design Manager and covered Internet Business Foundations, Site Development Foundations and Network Technology Foundations.
Its years since I’ve taken a test and to be honest I found it pretty nerve-racking.
Half way though I really thought I’d failed as there were so many questions which I had to guess.
But in the end I came out with 63/85 – 10 above the pass mark. Yay!
So now I’m a CIW Associate, exciting stuff.

Now the revision is done I can get on with all the other things I need to do, like TMA 02, finish my Christmas shopping and tidy the flat ready for Christmas…

Thrive website finished

Wow look its December and nearly Christmas!
Like you could have forgotten.

Amongst all the shopping for gifts online, odd bits of writing for A363 and revision for my first web design exam I’ve finally got ‘im outdoors website up and running on a proper address. So now you can visit it on www.thrivelandscapes.org. It’s a real relief to have it all finished and it means we can start to think about new business cards – a good start to the new year I think.
One thing ticked off a long list…