Cuteness personified

Visited Helen, Chris and the kits last weekend. Got to try out my new camera with a different pair of posers!

The gorgeous Rhubarb

Her handsome brother Crumble

And of course I can't leave out my sweetie; Kermie, who strikes a pose for me every time he sees the camera!

Feeling Autumnal...

1. morning fog, 2. Laatbloeiers, 3. Rainbow, 4. Tree of Gold, 5. IMGP7137, 6. IMGP7082, 7. IMGP7078, 8. IMGP7128, 9. Untitled, 10. A little pond in Brown County, Indiana, 11. Old and New, 12. Museum Gardens Holly Berries, 13. Dew in the Hedgerow, 14. Clover After Frost, 15. IMGP7111, 16. Museum Gardens Yew Berries 2
My first Flickr mosaic...
My new camera arrived today so I'm planning on taking lots of photos of leaves and trees this weekend!

I've been tagged...

I've been tagged by Sarah.
Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged.
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

So, let's think...
I am very fussy when it comes to chips (fries) - I only like them from the chip shop and they have to be yellow and mushy. I reject brown chips!

I don't drive.

I am vegetarian.

I don't like camping - I'm a home-comforts sort of girl.

My greatest fear is being buried alive.

I never leave home without my ipod.

My Beatley friends also know me as 'Strawberry'.


I tag: Lisa, Caroline, Emma, Jo, Janine, and Tracy (I know that's only 6, but I read lots of blogs but most of the bloggers wouldn't have the first idea who I am!)


And in other news...
Did this layout tonight of my friends little boy Oliver. Thought I'd share...

Paul McCartney!! [swoon!]

Helen, Janine and I along with some of my other friends were lucky enough to get tickets for Paul McCartney's Electric Proms gig last Thursday. Being the sem-professional gig-goers that we are, we arrived early in order to get fairly close to the front in the almost-all-standing venue. We waited in the miserable grey weather all afternoon, keeping ourselves warm with a couple of mini-bottles of red wine and a sip or two of scotch and coke. But the wait was worthwhile and we managed to get good spots just a few rows from the front. Paul looked fantastic and the sound was much better than it came across on the TV when it was shown later on that night. He played a great mix of Beatles, Wings and old and new solo stuff. Opening with Magical Mystery Tour blew me away - I got quite emotional! It was very crowded though and towards the end got a bit too much for Helen who started to feel faint just before I Saw Her Standing There. I managed to get her to the bar where the staff gave her some water, but the poor thing was too far gone and she passed out completely falling to the floor. The staff were really lovely and helped me move her out of the main hall to a little room where she could cool down and get checked out by a paramedic. She was shaken up - she's never fainted before, and was worried why she couldn't remember what had happened, but after ten minutes or so (and the attention of a very lovely paramedic called Guy!) she was OK and we were able to head back to the hotel. Luckily her timing meant that we only missed the final two songs! It does seem to be a habit though - Helen often get injured when she sees Paul. When we met him in 2000 at a book signing on my birthday (Dec 13) she had spent the previous night in the emergency room having scalded her neck with boiling water. Then we saw his Liverpool concert in June 2003 and she got severe sunburn! I think she may be allergic to Paul McCartney!

Set list:
Magical Mystery Tour
Flaming Pie
Got To Get You Into My Life
Dance Tonight
Only Mama Knows
C'Moon
The Long And Winding Road
Follow The Sun
That Was Me
Here Today
Blackbird
Calico Skies
Eleanor Rigby
Band On The Run
USSR
House Of Wax
I Got A Feeling
Live And Let Die
Hey Jude
Let It Be
Lady Madonna
I Saw Her Standing There
Get Back

Family (and friends) reunions

Well what a fun weekend! We've had the pleasure of a houseful of family and friends. On Friday, Alessandra who was visiting London from Rome came up for a couple of days, and Helen came from Birmingham too so we girls went out on the town. Had a nice meal with Mum and a fun night with the Nottingham Socialising crew at Lurve Shack. Then on Saturday we were joined by Andy and Sam. We had a lovely meal at home and chatted over a couple of glasses of wine, then today made the most of the sunshine and our National Trust memberships by visiting Hardwick Hall. A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend the weekend!

Hot stuff

And I'm not just refering to Vesuvius. We, crazy fools that we are, chose a scorching day to visit the volcano and climb to the top of the crater! Tiring, ridiculously warm, but what an experience! We had a wonderful couple of days visiting the ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as our Vesuvius moment, but we're glad to back in Rome and able to relax for the rest of our stay.
More photos when we get back...

New favourite bed

This is the result of our hard work creating a new flower bed in the garden (well, we needed somewhere to put all the plants we keep buying!)
Off to Blackpool this weekend with the Business Affairs girls, then Rome on Monday. I can't wait... planning on riding 'The Big One' in Blackpool (if someone will ride with me!) and looking forward to getting a bit of sunshine in Italy.
Crazy British weather...

New haircut

Sorry it's a bit blurry - but you get the idea! Finally decided to go and get some kind of structure to my hair on Saturday, and so thrilled with the result. It's a great cut, and for a change, it actually looks like it did when I left the hairdresser when I style it myself!

Busy with Beatle Week stuff at the moment, but hoping to squeeze some scrapping in at some point this week (especially since the rain is keeping me away from the garden...)

But feeling happy. I'm reconnecting with old friends, getting out and socialising with new ones... and now my hair looks good too, things can only get better!

All grown up?

Well, I'm certainly not finished growing up (are we ever?), but I have finished my 'When I Grow Up' book as inspired by Shimelle's class. You can see all the pages on my Picasa web album, but here are a few of my favourites.

Slugger Kermie

I take back everything I ever said about Kermie being a bit stupid: I've just been out on my rounds collecting the slugs which have arrived for their nightly feast on my plants, and Kermie of course turns up to watch. Last week I showed him my paper towel full of slugs and said "this is what you should be hunting instead of mice...". So anyway, tonight I do the back garden and collect about ten, then go through the house to the front, where, surprisingly, I can't find any. So I return to the back garden to deposit my hoard in the compost bin (I'm so bloomin' soft that I can't even bring myself to murder slugs!). Kermie appears in the back garden again, following my torchlight around. I go towards the back door expecting him to follow me back into the house. He doesn't. He's sat under the big apple tree sniffing at the grass, looking at me then sniffing at the grass again. He's definitely interested in something so assuming it's a mouse or a frog I head back up the garden to see and pick him up so he doesn't hurt it. I can't see anything. I shine my torch around the area and suddenly something catches the light... yep, you've guessed it.
A great big fat slug!
That cat's a genius!
Now all he has to do is learn how to open the compost bin and put them in, and all my problems will be solved!

Two peas in their pods...

How exciting! My very first little peas are just appearing on two of my plants! It will only be a few more days and I'll be able to eat fresh peas straight from the pod. I can't wait!

Forget love...

...I'd rather fall in chocolate!!!

Look what arrived today! My chocolate supply for the UKS Mad Hatter's Cybercrop. Now that's the sort of parcel I'm happy to be woken up at 7am to receive!
I know last time I said I was going to come back with my thoughts on Shimelle's When I Grow Up class... well, I didn't come up with too much to say, so I'm going to skip that bit and go right to posting the finished book. Once I've done it. The project bit begins in earnest tomorrow. Off to find some appropriate pics of me as a little (well, younger!) girl now, and will be back with updates as the book progresses.

But maybe I'll just have one of those little Ripple bars first...

When I grow up...

I've signed up for Shimelle's new class 'When I Grow Up', and the first prompt has gone up today. This picture is of me aged about 9. I'm going to have a think about what I thought I would be when I grew up this afternoon and will post more later...

Lifetime ambitions

Saw this on someone elses blog, so thought I'd post my version. Red are things I'd like to do in my lifetime. Green are things I'd like to do this year, Blue are for things I've already done, and Black is things I'll never do…ever!

1. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
2. Swam with wild dolphins
3. Climbed a mountain
4. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
5. Been inside the Great Pyramid
6. Held a tarantula
7. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
8. Said "I love you” and meant it
9. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Surfed the net for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced - kidding!!
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (or…raising children)
97. Picked up and moved to another city to start over
98. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
99. Gone on an African photo safari
100. Ridden a horse

Plug me in...

Nothing very exciting to post about... unless you're Kermie! I managed to get hold of a new remote control mouse for him at the weekend (he destroyed the last one!), so today I am his new (old) best friend (again)! *sigh* I wanna be a cat. Well, at least a cat in this house! What an easy life!

Virtually yours

It's official! I've just launched the latest step in my career as a self-employed adminstrator - my Virtual Assistant website has been officially launched! Now I just have to promote it and get some work!
You can see the website here: www.ninadouglas.co.uk
And, if you know of anyone who might need some adminstrative help with a small business, please point them in my direction!

Elysium

"Except in the Elysium shades of Richmond
there's no such thing as love & pleasure."

Lady Mary Wortley Montague in a letter to her sister, 1723.

My very favourite place to be. Richmond Hill. Inside the park at Isabella Plantation, to be precise. In May when the rhodedendrons and azaeleas are at their best, it truly is heaven on earth.

This layout was based on Mary Anne Walters' sketch in this months Scrapbook Inspirations. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had three photos which would be perfect for it. And I even managed to use some of this months Scrapping Angels kit!

And here are the layouts I did at the Scrapajack crop last weekend.
This was based on a layout in Cathy Z's book Clean and Simple Scrapbooking: The Sequel:

This one contains hidden journaling written in conjunction with the BPS class:

And here's one I did last night, using papers from the March Sarah's Cards kit:

Am busy trying to get my admin business off the ground at the moment. I am trying to design a professional looking website for myself - and it's proving much harder than I expected!

Taking a break from the PC now though - have to make a couple of cards for upcoming birthdays!

Running with scissors

Well we had a fun ol' day in Droitwich Spa at Scrapajack's fabulous crop. I'm posting Jilly's picture of us all because I haven't got round to loading mine from my camera yet! Anyway, we did have a great time and I'm hoping to get down to crop with all the lovely ladies there again very soon.

I started two layouts at the crop, and put the finishing touches to them last night. I managed to do a decent amount of journalling following the advice from the Big Picture Scrapbooking My Word class. Will post those tomorrow as I haven't scanned them in yet, but I'm too tired to do it now!

And the reason I'm so exhausted, apart from the 5am alarm call yesterday, was that I spent most of the day in the garden planting some bedding plants, seeds and generally making it look even prettier! I really love to spend time out there at the moment. It's exhilarating. Fingers crossed though, that I haven't over-exerted myself and put too much stress on my back. I'm quite enjoying being almost pain-free!

Mum and I have decided to join the Race for Life and will be running, or should I say walking, in memory of Dad. If you would like to sponsor us please click here, or if you prefer not to use online payments, email me.

OK, off to rest my weary bones!

Scrapadoodledoo!

I'm off to Droitwich to meet my team mates tomorrow! Had a fun morning with the Nottingham scrap ladies today too. I'm enjoying this little flurry of socialising!
Got to go and get packed up & charge my ipod ready for tomorrow, but will post when I get back!

New beginnings

It's suddenly beginning to look very springlike. After a slight false-start, the bulbs are finally blooming and the garden is filled with the golden glow of daffodils. Blossom hangs from the trees like snow and the insects are awakening from their winter sleep. I saw a butterfly and bumble bee this week - both still a bit early, but a welcome sight in the garden.

I signed up for the My Word journalling class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, and have enjoyed the first week immensely. Although I like to write, I am always worried that my style is too 'samey', so I thought I'd take this class to try and help me overcome that problem. I suppose writing this blog is another hurdle in that, although I know I'm not very good at updating these things so it may be a phase which burns out very quickly. We'll see.

Going to meet my UKScrappers team mates this weekend at a crop. I can't wait. It will be so lovely to meet all those ladies in person at last.