April round up

April has really flown by and it was a great month. Things are getting busier at work, so the days are passing more quickly and weekends have been fairly full. It's so nice that the weather is getting warmer and drier, it means I've been keener to venture outside, away from the fire. We had the roof fixed on the outbuilding too, so we're watertight again, and don't need to worry about any rainy weather forecasts.

Andrew's wanted a dog since I met him (and long before), eleven years on and I think it's about time. As such, we're hoping to get a dog over the summer. As Andrew works from home, it's probably the only time that we'll be in the right situation with time and energy to get a puppy, so that's the plan. We've heard so many horror stories about puppy farms that we're doing our research and getting out and meeting breeders before we make any decisions. We met one breeder in South Gloucestershire at the start of the month, one in Monmouthshire a couple of weeks later, and one in Merseyside yesterday. We've read a lot and learned a lot more by speaking to the breeders, so much so that we've decided where we'll get our puppy from. Eek! We're now just waiting to hear back from the breeder about availability so that we have a date to work towards. I've never had a dog before, so I'm terrified and excited in fairly equal quantities. Yesterday's visit really helped, as we got to meet a variety of dogs, from three week old puppies up to sires and dams. It's still a bit hard to get my head around the commitment of taking on a puppy, but I'm sure everything will fall into place when we get him home. 

We did a detour on our way to the South Gloucestershire breeder to see a friend who's recently had a baby (well, not that recently, time flies!) It was lovely to see them, they're a really happy little family. We headed to Zizzi in Cheltenham after meeting the breeder for food. The restaurant is based in a former church, they've made such good use of the space whilst retaining as many original features as they could. Beautifully done!

We also met up with a friend for lunch the following Saturday, it was just after Andrew had had his eyes tested for the first time since his surgery. He passed with flying colours, I can't tell you how nice it is not to have to drive everywhere anymore!

More recently, we've just come back from a week on the Isle of Wight, it was lovely. Really relaxing but with plenty to keep us occupied. I'll do a separate post about that once I've had a chance to get all of my photos off my camera memory card. It was Andrew's birthday whilst we were away, so I tried to come up with a day of Andrew-type things to do. We went on the Steam Railway in the morning and then took a trip to a windmill in the afternoon, followed by dinner out in the evening. I think the girl did good, phew!

Now onto how I'm doing against my plans for the year...

Read sixteen books
I read 'The Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins whilst we were on holiday. It tells the story of Rachel and the seemingly perfect couple that she sees from the train on her journey into London every day. It was pretty good, but equally not that memorable. I've also got an audio book on my phone which I'm listening too every time I go to the gym. It's a long one though (over twenty hours!) so I don't think I'll reach the end too soon.

Find one hundred geocaches
We're up to 36/100 after a much better month, helped a lot by doing twenty in the Isle of Wight. We did a really nice series of nine near Mottistone which took us through fields of bluebells, followed by a Church Micro at the village church, which was where Benedict Cumberbatch got married. Who knew?!

Maintain Vitality gold status
Well, I did, but they gave us such a poor renewal quote that I've actually moved our work private medical cover to a different insurer. One to remove from the list!

Try three gym classes
Still not made any progress on this one. I've been blaming my ankle and had made an appointment with a physio to have it looked at, but after changing insurer, I'm back to the drawing board. That said, it put up with a lot of walking on holiday, so maybe it's no longer a good excuse!

Meet up with an old friend
I've not had much of a chance this month, with dog breeders and holidays taking up so much of my time. Hopefully things will change over the forthcoming months.

Blog once a month
I'm almost taking this a bit too literally and blogging only once a month, I'm sure that will change when I've got hundreds of puppy photos that I want to share with the world!

Watch a new film once a month
There were a selection of DVDs next to the television in the cottage we stayed in last week. We watched one, Miss Potter, which is about Beatrix Potter. I was vaguely interested as her cottage in the Lake District is in the village that Andrew's aunt lives in, we visited it a couple of years ago. My only issue with the film was that Renee Zellweger plays every English character in the same way, she was just a bit too Bridget Jones-y for me. It was a perfectly pleasant film though.

Take two holidays
First one in the bag! I'm not sure the second will happen, it all depends upon puppy timing. My second holiday may just be puppy maternity leave, but so be it!

Take six day trips
We took lots of day trips whilst on holiday, but I don't think I should really count those. I'm sure there will be plenty more over the forthcoming months.


I'm not really sure what May will hold, watch this space... Work will no doubt be hectic, thank God for weekends!

March round up

March has been a funny month, the weekends and Easter break have flown by, but the weekdays have really dragged. We're leading up to our busy time at work and I've clearly been too efficient and got all my admin out of the way too early. I'm now really looking forward to things picking up, but I'm sure I'll change my mind once I'm in the middle of May! Most importantly, Spring seems to have arrived! It's nice to have lighter evenings and not be woken up so early by the light in the mornings, even the rain seems to be have abated. I just hope it lasts.

Work has been full of mixed emotions, we had two members of staff leave, but have managed to recruit replacements and I've met our Orkney contractor for the first time. She's definitely made me want to plan a visit. I love Scotland but haven't ventured quite that far north before.

In other news, Andrew had his final procedure following on from his eye surgery and has now been discharged. Hurrah! He's finally been able to remove the bracelet which warned him against flying or having a general anaesthetic, which has been on his wrist since New Year's Eve. We went out for lunch in an old haunt in Bristol to celebrate.

Cleared to fly!

I gave HD Brows a go, I wasn't sure they'd be able to do much with me as I'm fairly pale, but I was quite impressed, they enhanced them but without making me look as if my eyebrows had been drawn on with marker pen. I'm now on a regrowth programme, which isn't something that I thought would be asked of me as far as my eyebrows are concerned.

I'm not really this cross eyed!

Most importantly, it was Easter, we took an extra day's holiday for a nice five day break. We fitted in some gardening, a day trip to Longleat (more about that here), and finally finished our understairs cupboard. It was the only part of the house which really needed some work when we moved in, with holes from shelves, tumble dryer vents and who knows what else. It's now fit to store coats and the Dyson. We'd planned to finish it over the New Year, but as with so many things, eye events overtook us.

You can't beat having a boss who buys you Easter Eggs

Before and after

As for how I'm doing against my plans for the year:

Read sixteen books
No progress on this, still at 1/16 I'm afraid. I have made some slight progress by buying more books for my Kindle, now just to find the time to read them. 

Find one hundred geocaches
We've done much better this month, we're now on 15/100 after starting the year on 488 finds. We did them over three days which must show that the weather's improving, if I feel there's a chance of venturing out for a walk without being caught in a deluge. 

Maintain Vitality gold status
At least this is one that I don't have to do anything about until the policy renews in May!

Try three gym classes
No progress on this as I'm still waiting for Vitality to approve my claim for my poor ankle. Honestly, I'm thinking it would have been quicker to be referred to a physio through the NHS. 

Meet up with an old friend
After last month's success it's been a quiet month for catch ups, but I'm sure that will change when the weather improves.

Blog once a month
We had a really good day out at Longleat which I was keen to blog about, honestly the monkeys are so much fun, it's well worth the risk of losing a windscreen wiper!

Watch a new film once a month
No progress on this one, the loss of my work-free Friday afternoons has meant we've not made it to the cinema in March. At home we've watched huge numbers of episodes of House and I was fairly late in hearing about the Night Manager, so we watched that over a week. They definitely left it lined up for a second series!

Take two holidays
I'm really looking forward to our trip to the Isle of Wight at the end of April. We should get plenty of opportunity for geocaching, sight seeing and curling up in front of the fire to read books. I can't wait :) 

Take six day trips
Longleat has been our first day trip of the year, but it was such a good one! I've got a few more ideas up my sleeve which I'm looking forward to over the next few months.


April should be a good one with our holiday, Andrew's birthday and a few other things we have planned. I'm looking forward to fully coming out of hibernation now that Spring is here.

Braving the monkeys at Longleat

Last week over the Easter break, we were both keen to escape chores by getting out of the house for a day. Friday seemed to be the only day with a half decent weather forecast which just left us to decide what to do. Andrew said he wasn't sure whether he wanted to see animals or look around a house, that's where the idea of visiting Longleat came from, it offered both!

We arrived at about 10.30 and queued for about half an hour to get to the ticket booth. We'd bought our tickets in advance to save a little money and soon had our etickets exchanged for paper versions. It was our first visit and we didn't know the layout of the site, but we'd heard that the safari can get very busy so planned to head there first. The safari is a little drive away from the rest of the site, but when we got to the next ticket booths, we were handed a CD and waved through. The CD was quite useful, there is a section about each species of animal that you'll see, you just have to remember to start and stop it at the appropriate times.

Our first stop was in the African Village for a comfort stop after our drive, via the giraffes at the entrance. We then had a wander through the Lemur Walkthrough and the Wallaby Wood before stopping to pick up drinks for the car. With that we headed into the safari park.

Lemurs always look like they're evil geniuses plotting some terrible plan

Andrew still can't drive at the moment and it was only once we'd entered the safari park that I realised how difficult it is to drive and take photos whilst looking out for wildlife, all at the same time. There were plenty of animals to see, we passed zebras, flamingos, tapirs and vultures before arriving at the bit that I'd both been dreading and looking forward to in equal quantities.

We queued for about half an hour to get into the Monkey Drive Thru, as they let a certain number of cars out before letting more in. Within about fifty metres of entering the drive through, we had our first monkey on the car. We got off surprisingly lightly, we had a fairly chilled monkey who seemed to treat us as an open top bus tour, he sat on the roof with the wind ruffling his fur, watching the world go by. He stayed for a while before wandering off. We had one youngster join us and give my car aerial a bit of a nibble, but it just added to the enjoyment of the day. We saw other cars with monkeys peering inside, or others with a monkey on each wing mirror. It was definitely the highpoint of the safari and something I'd be keen to do again, perhaps as a passenger next time though.

Once we left the monkeys, we passed ostriches, camels and rhinos then drove through the deer park. You can stop and buy food to hand feed the deer, but we passed on that and instead headed on to the big cats; the tigers, lions and cheetahs before finishing with the wolves. 

Camel stampede!

Overall we were in the safari park for about two and a half hours, I couldn't believe that we were there so long! We were hungry by this point and so headed to the Orangery Cafe for a sandwich and drink. Afterwards we went to see the other animals in the area. There were stingray and penguins as well as butterflies and even a chance to handle a tarantula or snake if you so wished. The queues for the Jungle Cruise were a bit off-putting so we didn't make it over to see the gorillas or sea lions, but I'm sure we can do that next time.

Finally, we ended our visit with a wander around Longleat House. Visitors are only allowed access to a small proportion of the rooms and, as they tend to be in stately homes, they were dimly lit to preserve the contents. They did however give an indication of the grand nature of the house. With that we stopped for a final cup of tea to prepare us for the drive home.

I'd thoroughly recommend it as a day out, but definitely allow a full day if you want to see everything. We'll be back to brave the monkeys again and visit the gorillas. Now, if I could just find out where the red pandas were hiding, we can see them next time too!

February round up

I'm not quite sure where February went, but I know it wasn't spent writing blog posts. Oops! 

Work has been a bit of a challenge as we had a couple of resignations and so have been furiously recruiting. It's all been a bit frantic, but I think we're almost there. 

My parents did their first house viewing as part of their plans to move closer to my brother and me, it was the first house viewing I've done as part of a team of five! It wasn't quite right for them, but you've got to start somewhere. 

Luckily, Andrew's on the mend. Bizarrely he's been discharged from hospital despite not being fully recovered, but everything is going in the right direction. He's planning to write a post about his operation once he's reached the end of treatment, so not one for those who are squeamish about eyes! 

We also caught up with a couple of friends over the month which has really nice, and is definitely a sign that he's well on the road to recovery. 

Unfortunately in one of the storms we lost a section of roof from one of our outbuildings. Andrew's done sterling work battling wtih the insurance company, now we just need to find someone to do the work. Luckily it seems to be watertight, but the longer it takes, the less sure I am that it will stay like that! It was apparently very impressive when the damage assessor turned up with what was effectively a camera on a very long selfie stick, operated by his mobile phone in his hand. Who needs aerial photos if you can have a selfie stick that extends further than your roof!

Thanks Storm Imogen

As for how I'm doing against my plans for the year:

Read sixteen books
No progress on this, in fact I'd even forgotten it was something I'd planned to do, so I'm still on 1/16. We're off on holiday at the end of April, so I'll hopefully make some progress then.

Find one hundred geocaches
Well, we've made a start! We're now on 1/100 :) The one we did was actually quite fun, there were a number of sections of photographs which had been taken out our local Outlet Centre which you had a locate and then use the solutions to get to the final cache location. We had a false start initially as we'd make a mistake with the calculations. Honestly, you couldn't tell that we're both accountants!

Maintain Vitality gold status
At least this is one that I don't have to do anything about until the policy renews in May!

Try three gym classes
No progress on this as I'm still struggling with my sprained ankle. I've finally got my GP to refer me to Vitality, so hopefully I can get passed to a physiotherapist who can fix me so I can get back to regular exercise.

Meet up with an old friend
One of Andrew's school friends came to see us in February. It was really nice as he spends a lot of time out of the country so opportunities to see him are few and far between. He was passing on his way home from a meeting, so it worked perfectly. We also had a nice lunch in Bristol with a friend I used to work with. It was so nice to go to Bristol for something fun, rather than just medical appointments. 

Blog once a month
I didn't do so well with blog posts in February as in January, but maybe it's settling down to a more sustainable level?!

Watch a new film once a month
We went to see the new Dad's Army film on the day it was released, probably the first time I've ever seen a new film so quickly! Andrew was keen to see it and as it had Bill Nighy in it, I thought I'd give it a go. I'd probably best describe it as harmless. It passed a couple of hours and I even managed to have a nap in the middle without losing track of the plot!

My film viewing for the year to date

Take two holidays
We've booked a trip for the end of April, which I'm really looking forward to. As we're currently looking at getting a puppy, I'm not sure what will happen with our second holiday, it may just turn into puppy maternity leave!

Take six day trips
We've not ventured far from home, but had a bracing walk around Stanton Country Park one weekend. The skies were beautiful, but it was a properly chilly day. I just keep hoping that we'll have one weekend without rain or icy winds!

The blue skies disguise how cold it really was!

It's starting to feel like spring is just around the corner, and I'm feeling a little bit like a caged animal so it can't come soon enough. I really want to get out and about, but hate trudging through mud whilst walking into an icy wind. Hopefully March will bring some weather which will encourage me to get out of the house more!

Baby Foot, the perfect treatment for soft feet

Firstly, if you really don't like feet, stop reading now. No, honestly. If however, you want a treatment to make your trotters softer and something you'd happily let out where other people may see them, then read on.  I read about Baby Foot on Twitter when someone described how amazing but disgusting it was. After some research I decided I had to give it a try and ordered it from Amazon.

Here it is!

The before shot, a bit dry and cracked, in desperate need of some TLC

The box contains some very attractive footwear, containing pads in the booties soaked with the active ingredients. You but the booties on, tape them to your legs and then wait for an hour. The advice is to put socks on over the top, you can walk around with them on, but I'd not advise it, it's all a bit skiddy underfoot. After an hour you take the booties off and wash the product off.

Attractive, huh?!

Initially I thought it might not have worked, my feet felt a bit odd, but that was all. The treatment can take two or three weeks to work, but my feet started peeling after four days, initially on the tops of my feet. After another day things were looking much worse. For the good of my carpets I wore socks 24 hours a day to avoid shedding skin everywhere. I left the skin to peel by itself, I thought if I picked at it to encourage it, it would make it sore. The worst bit was feeling the rolls of skin in my socks as I walked. Luckily, the peeling finished after about a week, helped by a bit of exfoliation.

Not my best look

The end result wasn't perfect, one of my feet still had dry spots, but some exfoliation and moisturiser seems to have solved that. All in all, it was well worth doing, I'll probably do it again when my feet are feeling beyond help again. My only tip would be not to do it in the summer, honestly it needs to be done when your feet are well under wraps for a week or two!

After treatment

If you've tried this yourself, I'd love to hear how you got on.

The real meaning of love

Love's not about giving or receiving the biggest bunch of flowers on Valentine's Day, posting about how much you love your partner on Facebook or being the one to receive gifts at work much to your colleagues' envy. It's not about going out for the flashiest meal or having the biggest white wedding. It's about being there for each other through thick and thin. When things are crappy and the only thing that makes things right is a cuddle, you just know you can get through anything together.  Six weeks on from New Year when I was spending ten hours a day at the hospital, things are on the mend and we're as strong as ever.  

Happy Valentine's Day, Andrew. xx

The perfect comfort food, chicken lasagne

On a hideous rainy day like yesterday, when the rain is horizontal and wind howling outside, there's nothing better than a plate of warm, comforting food. One of my favorites is homemade chicken lasagne, such a favorite that I thought I'd share it. It takes about half an hour to prepare and a further half hour in the oven, but I promise it's worth it.  

The first bit is the boring bit, all the chopping. I chopped up two small onions, two large chicken breasts and about 400g of mushrooms. We normally add a few garlic cloves but had run out, unfortunately. They then need frying up until the chicken had browned and the onion softened. We normally do the mushrooms separately initially as they give off so much liquid and add them over they've shrunk down.  

Next, add a can of chopped tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree and about 150ml of chicken stock. Let it bubble away gently for about five minutes.  

Whilst the pan is bubbling away you need to make the cheese sauce. I leave this bit to Andrew as I am destined to only make lumpy sauces. He melts some butter in a pan and mixes in some flour, warming them until they combine. He then adds a couple of pints of milk gradually, cooking all the time. Once it thickens, add about 100g of Cheddar and stir through.  

You can then start to assemble the lasagne. Pour a little of the sauce into the bottom of the dish to stop the lasagne sheets from sticking. 

Place lasagne sheets on top to cover the surface area. 

Pour half of the meaty sauce onto the lasagne sheets and spread it evenly. 

Repeat the process, add another layer of lasagne sheets and the other half of the meaty sauce. 

Finally, add another layer of lasagne sheets and the rest of the cheese sauce. Top with around 100g of Cheddar. 

Pop it in the oven for about half an hour at 200C until the cheese is golden. 

Ta daa! This feeds two of us for two nights, it's so nice not having to do anything other than pop it in the oven on the second night to warm through. The way we make it, it's about 800 calories a portion, so a great meal after a long frosty walk.

If you give it a try, let me know what you think of it.