Merry Christmas

improvements in technology - or maybe not

i can remember being told that in victorian times the toilets on trains were just holes that went straight down onto the tracks and you weren't allowed to use the toilet while at a station. well we are over 100 years since the end of victorian times and i had assumed that technology would have improved.

but on wednesday after i had arrived in king's cross and was walking down the platform to head for the tube i noticed a sign saying "please do not flush the train toilets when at a platform as they flush onto the tracks" and i was a bit shocked. i had thought that nowadays when you flushed a train toilet it would be stored somewhere and then discharged somewhere and taken to a sewage plant - but no it just goes onto the tracks!!!!

not a grinch

I was planning a grinch like post but after some others beat me to it I decided that I would not be a grinch so


Yay its almost Christmas and the people behind us have already got their Christmas lights up!!!

yay!!!!

this time last year!

this time last year...
i was full of excitement

this time last year...
i was boarding a plane in newcastle

this time last year...
i was ushing through heathrow

this time last year...
i was flying to new york

this time last year...
i was loving manhatten

this time last year...
i was with a good friend

this time last year...
i was surprised at the warmth

this time last year...
i was missing andrew

this time last year...
i was standing in line

this time last year...
i was drenched by the rain

this time last year...
i was enjoying the music

a sad sad day!

today i had to say goodbye to my fiesta, and i'm quite surprised at how sad i was to leave it behind. now its not like i lovingly cared for, and washed it every week - to be honest i only washed it four times in the two years that i owned it.

we decided a few months ago to get rid of one car as we weren't using the two cars as much as we used to and it was probably my suggestion to get rid of the car because it will save us quite a bit each month not filling it with petrol, the monthly payments and insurance - but i was still sad to say goodbye to it. i felt like i was abandoning it up in north tyneside.

at the same time as abandoning my car i got to experience a car auction - lots of spides (and a few dodgy looking second hand car salesmen) looking at cars as they revved the engines. i think i was probably the best dressed person there and despite me feeling extremely out of place wandering through a car auction no-one else seemed to notice me - as i waslked in i was expecting everyone to turn and stare (i really didn't fit in - for three reasons 1 - i'm not a spide, 2- i'm not a dodgy second hand car sales man and 3- i was female) but strangely it didn't happen they were all too engrossed in the cars.

building anfield

last week was andrew's birthday, and he requested an anfield birthday cake. i had already decided to bake him a football pitch cake so this confirmed that i had decided on the right cake. here is the result of the cake - complete with a liverpool football team!!!

you'll all be glad to know

I found a coat!!!! and it's purple!!!!

(this was the best picture despite having a bit of the mantlepiece in the corner)

thankyou esther but... (#2)

I don't like the collar

thankyou esther but....

it has a belt and very shiny buttons

long cold winter

i think it is going to be a long cold winter.....

i spent this afternoon trawling round the shops in newcastle looking for a winter coat and couldn't find one...

its mid october and i am still only wearing a fleece or jumper (plus a scarf) when i go out i'm not sure how much longer i'll last

any suggestions of nice coats would be greatly appreciated - especially in red!

I just thought you might like to know

To the girl in the grey t-shirt we saw on Old Elvet on Saturday night, I thought I should tell you (because your so-called friends didn't) that YOU FORGOT YOUR JEANS!!!

cup-a-cake

well done catherine, you are correct!!!! it is a cup-a-cake for holding individual cupcakes without wrecking the frosting!!! how fab is that!!!! The only small problem is my cupcakes appear to be slightly larger than the cupcakes it is designed to hold.

Forgotten

the title of this post isn't actually in relation to the fact that i have not blogged in over a month!

in toronto in july I got very excited when i found this small blue plastic piece of kitchen equipment. i insisted that it was an essential bit of kitchen kit! You may ask what it is (which andrew did when i found it in williams and sonoma) but i think it might be more fun to let you guess.

That Friday Feeling

today really felt like a friday


but it's not


its only thursday so i still have to go in to work tomorrow

Running achievements!!!

I know others who read this blog are training for a half marathon and can run far further than me but I'm proud of myself for these two running achievements.

1. On Sunday I ran for 40mins and my distance was 4.5miles. (At 29mins 08secs my endorphins kicked in and I actually began to enjoy myself.)

2. The Sunday before I went for a short run and managed my best times for a mile
my first mile was in 8min!!!!!!!
my average speed per mile was 81/2mins!!!!!

I'm going running tomorrow after work (unless its a really hot day and then I'll leave it till Friday morning) so lets see what I manage then.

No I'm not Scottish / Welsh / Canadian / American - I'm NORTHERN IRISH

Today I someone said to me

"Its obvious you're Scottish, but which area are you from?"

A few weeks ago when a friend arrived at the house the kids down the road said to him

"we don't know who lives there, but they're Welsh!"

A while ago when I had to show my passport as proof of id in my building society the cashier said

"Its a Canadian passport then?"

And years back when on my gap year I was asked

"you're not from these shores?"

I replied no (because well I'm not from England so technically not the shores in the country we were in at the time) and the next question was

"so what state are you from?"

Amadeus

Merlin

can't even escape it in canada

my northern irish roots were obviously visible when i booked my holiday - i would be abroad over the 12th july even though i don't live in northern ireland anymore. imagine the shock we had in toronto when walking through downtown on saturday 14th july to discover this

your not exactly a looker yourself? are you?

this conversation (although slightly one sided to be called a conversation maybe more of a monologue) overheard in a toronto restaurant last week made me giggle.

sitting at the table next to us were two old men, i'd be tempted to call them elderly but maybe not quite that old. anyway one of them - who looked like he was trying to model himself on peter stringfellow was talking about this fabulous old lady who had lots of plastic surgery and looked beautiful but had a fat an ugly daughter. in his opinion this fabulous old lady should disown the daughter for being fat and ugly!!!!!! i was sitting eating my meal wondering if he had looked in the mirror recently

I'm Back

Well I think the title says it all

finally

at long last

after 5 perfomances

and reading the online cliff notes

i understand the tempest!!!

after the 4th performance that i sat through confused i googled it to find out what was really going on

now i get it and have enjoyed 2 more performances

only 2 performances to go before toronto!!!!!

Spice Girls

Apparently this was not meant to be an insult

While sitting with two of my female friends, Ben came over and said "this isn't meant to be an insult but.... you three and C remind me of the Spice Girls."

This lead to him being asked why? how was it not an insult? and did he want to borrow a shovel?

The European Monsoon, Meese and Snowflakes

apparently this weird wet weather we are having is not unusual and happen every june and is known as the european monsoon. this monsoon brought a herd of meese to my house today.

i didn't have to work for my seventh day in a row because of the flooding and decided to bake meese and snowflakes - and they are very tasty

Danger Night....

at the hopins

when i was invited to go to DANGER NIGHT at the hopins i had absolutely no idea what claire was talking about - after a few moments of claire repeating the phrase DANGER NIGHT at the hopins and me looking back at her blankly she explained its the fair in exhibition park. and the reason for it being DANGER NIGHT is because it was the first night - so everything might fall apart.

So we went with some other friends as well and had good fun, but we all felt a bit out of place - we were all too old, had no toddlers with us and forgot to wear our velour tracksuits!

Midsummer's Night

it was nice to be driving home from work at 9.50pm in daylight. i had just been watching an outdoor, promenading performance of a midsummer night's dream on midsummer's night.

homesickness

its rare hat i feel homesick but today i got it bad. i was close to tears driving home from work missing the friends i had so much fun with last weekend and i probably won't see for quite some time, busy lives and a few hundred miles get in the way.

I'm not lost - just undiscovered

On the way home from work in the car today the song (that I don't know the title of or the artiste) with the line "I'm not lost! Just undiscovered!" was playing on the radio. Every time I hear it it reminds me of a youth fellowship summer outing years ago....

We were all walking from Whitehead to Blackhead lighthouse. Catherine and I decided to take a short cut / alternative route to the lighthouse. After sitting at the lighthouse for quite some time the rest of the group never appeared so we headed back to Whitehead. On arrival at the carpark everyone laughed at us because we got lost - but Catherine and I kept insisting "we weren't lost! just they didn't know where we were! we knew exactly where we were.

Scary - Moi???

I have never considered myself as a particularly scary person, but on Saturday night it transpired that I once was. Even now looking back I don't think I was any more scary or angry that any other teenager. But some people think I was.

On Saturday night while out for dinner with Mr and Mrs C I was being accused of having broken Mrs C's bath 8 years ago (back when Mrs C was Miss T). I have no memory of this event but according to them they (and another friend) had decided it would be funny to put me fully clothed in the bath and when Mr C put his foot on my head to push me into the bath I lost it!!!

My response to this was "well if that is what happened I'm not surprised I lost it"

and in allegedly losing it I allegedly broke the side of the bath.

I still have no memory of this incident (obviously too traumatic for my brain to cope with)

Then Mrs C said "you've got to admit you were kinda scary back then when you lost your temper"!!!!

I won

Yay

I've managed to blog before Catherine and Esther today!!!!

We have to blog everyday from today till next Sunday and I have blogged first today!!!!

The pain of vanitiy

On Friday night we were out at a ball and I wore my wedding shoes (well wedding strappy sandals) and they KILLED my feet.

I have worn these shoes four times in total
#1 wedding day - I wore them all day not a problem
#2 friend's hen night - not really any problems
#3 andrew's work ball - I fell down the stairs in them because I couldn't walk in them
#4 work ball on friday night - I could hardly walk, particularly when it came to walking across the gravel carpark to get to my car (oh I was glad I had brought my uggs to drive in!!!!!

I don't think I'll be wearing them again

Metamorphosis

our back yard is slowly turning into a garden, we now have grass and the beginning of a rockery.

Bored

Match of the day is on and I'm bored!!!

Amadeus

The latest addition to our family was born today, although he won't come to live with us until the end of July. His name is Amadeus and he is a black and white Norwegian Forest Cat. He was only 12hrs old when we met him today.

Introducing

Our new kitten, he doesn't have a name yet, suggestions welcomed.

The last kiss

No-one told me it wasn't a romantic comedy....

Nutmeg

Nutmeg died on Good Friday. The house is now very quiet without her.

That's not how we practised!

Into riff x 2
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Bridge split - men sing bridge, women sing chorus
Bridge split no instruments

well that was how it was meant to go

however

Intro riff x 1
verse
chorus
verse
chorus
bridge
bridge split - men sing bridge women sing chorus
bridge - piano solo (singers standing in mute silence)

As I sat down I muttered to the trumpeter "that wasn't how we practised"

Juicy Moosey

Guess where we were #2

Here are the photos!

Where are we?

Guess where we were on Thursday - here are the photos

language barrier

When I went away for my course for a few weeks, I was exhaust when I arrived, then recovered during he week, but was exhausted again by the end of it.

On the first night I was sitting in the lounge with all the others on the course and two of them were chatting about the desserts they had eaten at dinner time, however I was struggling to understand the conversation, and I only knew they were talking about desserts because I heard the words "lemon sponge" but apart from that I couldn't understand any other words.

I put it down to tiredness

A few days later I discovered they were both from north Wales and Welsh was their first language.

I was relieved to realise that I wasn't losing the ability to understand English.

woo hoo I'm back!

Don't worry!! I am still alive

a week without internet access has left me unable to blog or post photos on Flickr

I returned yesterday to over 200 emails that I didn't read from the durham freecycle site, they still send me emails even though I tried to unsubscribe weeks ago. after I deleted them all I tried to unsubscribe again, and I haven't checked my emails since to see if it worked this time.

I got a catalogue through the post during the week. I was a bit disappointed with the clothes in it, but one page particularly amused me...

I couldn't understand why they had put this dress in the catalogue, or why the buyer for the company still has a job.

The model wearing the dress looks like she's wearing a geometric print sack - so what on earth would any normal woman look like in it. here's the link

St Patricks Day

Its St Patrick's Day today, not that you could have missed it living here in England.

Strangely enough the patron saint of Ireland gets more of a celebration here than their own saint - George (just in case you didn't know who the patron saint of England was) gets celebrated.

I walked passed O'Neils Irish Bar today at about 3.30 - there was a queue outside! with the bouncers saying they were full.

In Newcastle there was a St Patricks party going on at monument

The english seem to be becoming very american with their celebration of St Patricks Day, and unless Northern Ireland has changed since I last lived their I bet lots of English people would be disappointed at the lack of celebrations going on there.

tired tired tired

I've spent most of this week in a little daze, I've been so busy its left meexhausted.

On Wednesday I managed to miss my junction on the motorway on my way to work, i've been driving the same route to work for the past four months!!! but yet I miss the junction.

Well its now the weekend and I've been enjoying being less busy!

Low Speed Police Chase

a stolen jcb digger with a top speed of 20mph led 5 police cars and a helicopter in a 13mile chase. it stopped when it reached a dead end in the centre of darlington

I think the police might have been bored on the sunday afternoon and thats why the five cars and one helicopter were needed.

Hardy north east girl - not quite yet

Yesterday while I was walking into town for my lunch break I had a slightly scary realisation that I was turning into a hardy north east girl!

Why?

Because I had left the office without my coat!!!

But when I was walking towards cafe nero I passed a girl who was just wearing jeans and a vest - I was wearing trousers, shirt and fleece jumper.

So I breathed a sigh of relief that I'm not yet a hardy north east girl

Lent

Lent is officially over!!

Well to me it is!

I decided that it was pointless giving up chocolate, I wasn't suffering, and well I was a bit bored of trying to find other things to snack on. It did take me almost a day to decide to start eating chocolate again, I wasn't just succumbing to a craving, I contemplated it for a long time.

Up to date

My flickr is now up to date with all my photos of the day!!!

Finally!

I've finally figured out how to link my flickr photos to my blog yay!!!

Now you can check my photo a day, although I still have to upload quite a few.

Kirstin standing holding a 4ft pole

Teenage boy sleazely "my stick's longer than that!"

Kirstin, looking bored and rolling eyes, "I seriously doubt that."

interesting

I think thats the best way to describe the past few days

Bit Too Quiet

I've been a bit too quiet on here recently, I haven't really had anything interesting to write about.... and then Thursday happened.....

At work on thursday afternoon I had been out planting trees (52 to be precise) and I went back to the office and immediately smelt smoke!!!! No-one else was in the building (but well there are only 5 of us based there anyway) and started searching for the fire. I couldn't find it so I went outside, found my boss and informed him. He also could smell smoke (it wasn't me going mad or anything). I wen outside to check the back yard and realised the smoke was coming through an air vent. Ran round to the public toilets and discovered a burning toilet roll!!!!!!! I then had to figure out how to put it out, so ended up flinging water across the toilets from the sink to the loo-roll until the fire was out.

I have also now updated my photos on flickr - I did take them each day I just didn't get round to uploading them

sale shopping

I decided today I am really bad at sale shopping

I walked into Next in the Metro Centre and started looking at some nice clothes, and realised I had walked straight through the sale section and was looking at the clothes that were the new season stock.

Oh well

a photo a day!

I've decided to try a take at least one photo every day for the rest of the year.

I'm going to put them all up on flickr and then I have to figure out how to link flickr to here

well here's my first photo