Weight Watchers, Make-a-Wish Charity Evening at the Rovers Return and beckoning summer!

Week one of the Easter holiday draws to an end, but no Sunday night blues, as there is another week to go. Sorry to brag but after 16 years of the rat race, I’m still yet to get over the novelty of working term time only.

A few exciting this to share with you:

Cake Action at the Rovers

I have been invited to put my cake making skills to good use for a charity evening in aid of the Make a Wish Foundation.

Friends from 3sixtymedia, Susanna Rowlands and Matt Carruthers (pictured left), are scaling the heights of Kilimanjaro January 2011. I’ll keep you updated with training progress and why they have chosen to undertake this daring feat, but in the meantime can invite you to the aforementioned charity evening. The Rovers Return replica bar at Granada TV, Manchester is the venue for the evening, 22nd April; tickets are available for £5, email mattyboymatt@hotmail.com.

I’ll get more detailed information posted this week.

Weighing Bananas – to skin or not to skin

Okay I know it may sound odd, but I have a weighing dilemma. This will probably mean nothing to you unless you are a Weight Watcher (or fellow Fat Club Member as I like to call us), and non-dieters may wish to skip to the next section, who actually weighs the banana with the skin on?!

16 years ago (ouch!) I was told by my first ever leader, to weigh with skin on, however the points tracker has a medium banana at 100g.... if you can really find a medium sized banana that weighs 100g with the skin on you are a better hunter than I!

Last week I selected a medium (as I honestly believe it to be as it wasn't small and there were much larger ones available) left the skin on and cut it in half, that was still 104g.

To be honest I have been giving them the wide berth, as you do not get enough return for your points. But at desperation point I have been over cautious and weighing with the skin on, and resenting them greatly!

I will check with my leader when I get back off holiday next weds and update with the official 2010 approach!

Little People - Entertaining but exhausting

I love my sister Lucy’s children inside out and back to front, she has two girls, Jessica 9, Emily 6 and a son Callum who is 3 but looks about 5! The girls have stayed with me on a number of occasions, usually with the aid of my other sister Sophie, or my fiancé Rob. This week however Callum was joining his big sisters for the first time.

Thursday, we visited Reddish Vale Farm in Stockport. I would thoroughly recommend it. The farm is open to the public Apr-Oct, at a fairly priced entrance fee, children over 3 years £2 and £3 for adults. We were greeted by friendly staff and went straight to the nursery section where we were able to pet 3 week old lambs, chicks, ducklings and baby bunnies, all available for purchase… so we need name suggestions for a grey and white bunny!

Other facilities are bouncy castles, climbing frame and a toy tractor zone that is very similar to bumper cars. There is a good-sized coffee shop with indoor and outdoor seating, although we only grabbed an ice cream on the way out to have on the drive home.

Over the two days, we visited 3 play parks, a Crown Carvery (great value for a family approx £3.59 a head) and two other centers. The first for Friday was Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary in Rossendale; they only ask for a mere 20p donation for parking, so please spend some money in the gift shop, they deserve every penny you can spare. We had a wander round cooing at the numerous cats, dogs, rabbits, donkeys and horses, but you can book dog walking sessions, the surrounding countryside is a perfect setting for a stroll with a rescued pooch.

Next on the schedule was one last stop on the journey back home, a place I have been a few times for lessons and have been waiting for an opportunity to drag the kids along. I am talking snow play on a sunny day, the Chill Factore at the Trafford Centre. £6 for 30 mins snow play may not sound too unreasonable, but when there are 3 kids to pay for, it soon mounts up. Children must be supervised, but here is where Chill Factore redeem themselves, it is only £1 for the accompanying adult, something other venues could learn from. Half an hour was just enough time as little Callum was freezing and I was developing a rather sensitive head. We ditched the snow boots with good intentions of warming our bodies with hot chocolate, at least until we got to Fredericks Ice Cream parlor en-route to the coffee shop. Heaven in a tub.

We hit rush hour on the return to Hazel Grove, it was 1800 by the time I got home, and the headache had developed into a migraine during the 2-hour drive. I was overjoyed then to find Rob watching TV from our bed. I dropped a couple of Anadin and climbed into bed with that combination of hunger and nausea that accompanies the start of a migraine. 3 hours later I awoke, groggy, but no headache, starving with no intention of leaving the bed…. Hello Zaidys?….. Chicken kebab and garlic bread in bed, how decadent?

And finally, summer is officially here in Stubbins

It is officially summer when I can sit on my bench at the front of our house. Yesterday morning I enjoyed a cup of tea and a nice chat with neighbour John. Last night we had vintage cava and G&T’s on the bench, oh yes, summer has arrived, and long may it last.

Clare x

Wedding Accessories

My new subscription of Vogue landed on my doormat yesterday, and in that, the answers to my bridal lingerie choice.

A full page advert for Myla London. The Meredith balcony bra, waspie and mini, gorgeous. The order is being placed once I am fully measured, although I am rather upset that the stockings shown in the photograph are not actually available from Myla, they must have been a provided by the stylist. The stockings appear to be champagne/ nude sheer leg with a very deep smooth satin top. I found a similar pair by Charnos, after 2 hours of trawling google images, but the satin welt doesn’t seem deep enough. I ordered them just in case, but feel this may be the start of another obsessive investigation. I emailed Myla to kick start the enquiries, fingers crossed!

More on accessories, I found a fascinator last week at Boundary Mill, ivory and guinea fowl feathers. I snapped it up with Mummy’s approval. Never one for the traditional style veil, I have always loved the small birdcage veil hats that you see in old movies. These bird cage veils are seem to be rather popular with brides, so I am considering the addition of a white/ ivory one for the walk up the aisle.

For the bridesmaids and usherettes I am thinking, fans, parasols and wrist corsages, not all at once, one or the other. The junior bridesmaids are in white, they would look rather cute with green parasols. The senior bridesmaids are in green, the maid and matron of honour are in a colour of their own choice, so the white paper fans would look pretty, and would serve purpose should the weather predictions hold true. And lastly my usherettes are choosing their own style of white dresses, should each wear matching wrist corsages, that would offer some continuity. I stumbled across a collection of delightful handmade silk corsages and button holes (pictured) from Emerson Made whilst browsing for birdcage ideas on Wedding Obsession Blog, definitely food for thought.

Clare xx

Rescued Corrupt xls, Highly Visual, Prof. Brian Cox & iphone Points Counting

WEDDING.xlsx

There have been a good few tears shed since Sunday. I was firing up the macbook to show the wedding budget to my parents when I discovered that the whole file had become corrupt. This is the spreadsheets to beat all spreadsheets, it trumps my Money.xls which has become my lifeline, and rains on my Body.xls which tells me when I should be menstruating and how my weight is doing.

This spreadsheet has been the main focus of my spare time since, well the day following the proposal. I am talking guest list, names, addresses, email, invite status, are they parking, camping, coming for the full day or evening, are they an adult or child? Another page contains all the suppliers, and a comprehensive budget, costs, monies paid, monies due and deadlines. There are pivot tables that show me the totals at a click of a button. So when the little error message blipped on my screen, my 4 month organising spectacular came crashing to a big fat stop, I was quite inconsolable.

We tried allsorts, bought file recovery software, I accidentally wiped Rob's Microsoft Office, all with no result. So there were a few more tears, then I felt quite ridiculous, while my friend is worrying about her ill father, and our sister-in-law is sick while expecting twins, I am sobbing my heart out over a spreadsheet.

So what if it cannot be recovered, I can start from scratch. I have decided that it was a well needed wake up call. Being such a control freak, I was convinced that I could do all this wedding planning on my own, and in truth, I am struggling, and I'm tired and this damn chest infection just will not shift. So I am calling in the cavalry, I am giving lists of jobs to Rob. Good Friday I will spend the whole day with Mum, sharing all the info to date.

I emailed the spreadsheet to James in IT at work, just on the off chance. He has only bloody fixed it!!! The pivot tables no longer work, but the vital bits are there, all the addresses are back, I can once again see who has RSVPd with a parking request. James is my hero and everyone should know it!

Highly Visual

Check out the movie trailer on you tube I must have seen it 15 times and it still makes me laugh. I cannot wait for the next installment. Watch this space for updates.

iPhone Weightwatchers

So I'm very excited about all the applications that are available to the iphone, one for my periods, a countdown to the wedding and one to track my running. So in that I am back counting points with Weight Watchers, I was searching for a points app, a quick calculator or quick tracker. There is nothing available on the apps list, and the Tracker cannot be viewed through Safari on the iphone. After an email enquiry to Weightwatchers, I have received a reply. The tracker is created in Flash, therefore will not function on many of these remote devices, but they are looking at developing technologies to work with them, unfortunately there is no timeframe set for this. In the meantime I am tracking my weight (as well as on eSource)on the iphone free app Target Weight, a clean looking easy to use weight tracker with graph, BMI calculator and target date. The only complaint you may have with this, would be if you wanted to see your weight in stones, this only does kilos or lbs, but it really is not hard to convert your stones into pounds, either that or drop into 2010 and start using kilos.

Final thought

As I type this, I am watching Prof. Brian Cox on BBC2's Wonders of the Solar System. Just had to hit record on the Sky+ as this requires my full attention, so I will rewind a re-watch later on this evening. I know I am coming into this series rather late, and yes Chris Evans has been banging on about how fantastic he is for weeks, but not only does this look terribly interesting, but Brian is rather easy going on the eyes. I could have done with him for a science teacher when I was at school, rather than Dobber Donnelly, I may well have paid more attention in class!

xxx

Buddha Lounge, Boundary Mill, Afternoon Tea and iphone Easter Eggs

Spoiled rotten!! I was presented with a cup of tea in bed, along with my birthday cards. We are saving for the honeymoon so had agreed not to waste money on birthday presents for each other this year. Rob wanted to get me a token gesture, and as anyone who knows me will know, I am a sucker for chocolate. In that I was born on Easter Monday, my birthday usually falls on or around the Easter period, so I tend to get at least one Easter egg as a birthday present and I certainly never complain.

This year was no exception, Mr Hallam had purchased a large Thorntons egg, yummy, I particularly love the Continental selection, so thought I'd sample taste for my birthday breakfast. Rob wanted to tuck into the egg, and as I cracked it open I noticed an addition, something wrapped in kitchen towel. Assuming it was a selection of chocolate bars, I eagerly opened the parcel, laughing to Rob about how cute he was to add extra bits. The paper fell away, it was not a selection of chocolate bars after all....... it was an iphone!!!!!

Rob had painstakingly heated a knife and sliced (hacked) into the Egg, placed the bounty inside and sealed it all back together. Could I be marrying a better bloke? I think not.

The whole day was lovely, Mum and Dad came over and we had afternoon tea in the Spread Eagle in Sawley near Clitheroe. Would thoroughly recommend it, finger sandwiches, clotted cream and jam scones, moist lemon drizzle and ginger cake, and an Eccles cake. Although I am not a fan of Eccles cake, Daddy is so they came home wrapped in a serviette for later. We were actually a little early for afternoon tea, but they are so welcoming and accommodating, they bent the rules for us. I have eaten here a few times, so can also recommend the Meat Platter, in fact if you just want a drink it is worth coming the the Spread for the location and decor alone. We moved on to Boundary Mill to look for wedding outfits for Mum and Dad, and I ended up buying my bridal headpiece, eek!

Tabatha, Graham, Brad and Bernard joined us for the evening. We had the early sitting at the Buddha Lounge in Ramsbottom. Always greeted with a lively atmosphere, we were seated in the window and served efficiently. The food is beautiful, I had the succulent chicken parcels in pandan leaves, followed by Massaman Curry with coconut rice and for desert, I had to have the Movenpick swiss ice cream. I was a little worried that we would be rushed in that the second sitting is at 21:00, but we were never pestered, even though we didn't actually ask for the bill until just after five past.

I had a wonderful day, despite turning 32, and would like to thank peeps for coming over to spend time with me, and a big thank you to all the lovely cards and messages I have received.

xxx

Pink Floyd tribute act Manc Floyd

Another project I have been working on recently is the website for is Manchester based Pink Floyd tribute band Manc Floyd. My cousin Phil is the drummer so you might think me biased, but when I was invited to photograph their debut gig at the Met in Bury, I was blown away.

Although I do not profess to be an avid fan of Pink Floyd, in that I do not own any of their material (yet) I do have fond memories of cruising around the country roads between Mellor, Marple Bridge and Glossop, in the back of Jim Brough's customised Toyota Tercel. There was usually a few pubs involved to add to the haze, but we would have The Dark Side of the Moon on tape playing through the car stereo and I would be transported to some higher plane.

So back to Manc Floyd, mind blowing! My fiance Rob has never really come across Pink Floyd, but was so impressed by the tribute band's performance, he bought Dark Side of the Moon on CD the very next day. Since then I have been developing the website for Manc Floyd and it is now live, although still in it's relatively early stages. The site will be posted with forthcoming tour dates, and you can follow the band on twitter, you tube, myspace and facebook.

The next gig is on the 1st May at the Moses Gate in Farnworth. See website for further details.

Clare xxx