If you must

Blah blah blah I haven't updated in ages blah blah blah.

I seem to be in a habit of only updating once every 18 months.

Let's get back up to speed...

We've spent a lot of time getting the house and garden in shape. Still have a long way to go.

I keep changing jobs! First to a youth charity, then to a local authority and now to another role within the same local authority.

We don't get back up to Cumbria anywhere near enough which makes me sad.

Married life is still amazing and I can't imagine life without being married to my wonderful husband.

Pictures to get us  all up to date...

It's been a while...

Good grief, it's been a long time since updating!

It's a few days over 2 years since moving to Essex. That's as long as I lived in Manchester for, almost as long as I lived in Carlisle and longer than I lived in Kendal. It's also been about 18 months since I last updated on here which is mad. Also it's interesting that the last post was on St David's Day as this year's St David's Day was interesting for a whole other reason...I GOT MARRIED! The last time I posted on here I wasn't even engaged and now I'm a Mrs. Crazy stuff. I will post lots of stuff about the proposal, wedding (suffice it to say it was an awesome party), house buying and married life in due course but this is really a catch up post while I'm off work with the lurgies and watching It's A Wonderful Life.

And what better way to update than with photos?!?!

Home is where the heart is so home is in your chest

Happy St David's Day!

 

I've decided that this shouldn't just be a day for Wales, this is a day to celebrate all the Daves in your life. Unfortunately I've realised this just after my very own Dave has gone home. I'll have to remember to tell him this next year...

 

Things in Essex are going well. It's been a little bit difficult adjusting to the new job, location etc etc but I'm settled in now. The job is so much stressier than my lovely old one which means that when things are going well I'm really happy and proud of the work I'm doing, but when things get hard, it can be difficult. Luckily I get on really well with my colleague in the north of the region and we've both come across a lot of similar problems and stresses - so I suppose at least it's not just me. I'm still really enjoying meeting so many people - internal politics and in-fighting aside - and I'm really enjoying hearing why people chose to raise money for my charity.

 

Outside of work, I'm seeing a lot of Dave which is SO COOL. It's still so exciting not having to do long distance, and we see each other most days which is just so great and so much better than Skype.

 

My big project at the moment is crochet. At Christmas my aunt taught me how to make a granny square. So rather than start small, I decided to start making a huge double-bed sized blanket of amazingness.

 

 

This is early days of the blanket in January. Its now big enough to work as a blanket in it's own right now which is great as I can keep warm while working on it. Crochet is very addictive and I've had to take it on the train into London a couple of times for bonus crochet time.

 

Dave and I have also been doing a lot of baking of late and now that I have all my recipe books back from mum and dad's house I'm sure we'll be doing event more. The best ones have been:

- banana cake

- jammy thumb-prints
- rock cakes
- muffins

- PANCAKES

- lemon fairy cakes

 

At the moment I'm experimenting with sour dough and making a Herman cake (link here). Will update on how that goes.

 

I've been spending far too much time of late watching Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog and Avatar: the Last Airbender and I recommend you all do too. I have also finally watched all of Firefly, and (about a decade too late) I can't quite believe that they cancelled it mid-series. It was so very good. 

...

Oh no, it's been a long time since I last updated again!

 

In my defence I'm busy getting fully stuck in with the new job, which I'm starting is a huge lot of work (in a good way. It's just that there's so much to do as no one has been doing the job full time since summer at least). It's great though and I think the people I work with in the office are getting much less suspicious about my role, so that's wonderful!

 

D's been to visit a couple of times and he's moving in less than a fortnight which is so great (but pretty busy for him having to move at pretty short notice)

 

I've started going swimming a couple of times a week which is great because I'd really missed going swimming regularly for the last couple of years. I'm

 

We're still on the look out for a church, but now that we'll be living in the same town, I think (hope) that this will be a lot easier. I'm finally going to the local Methodist church this Sunday which I'm really looking forward to.

 

It snowed here the other day. Only about an inch but everyone went crazy and forgot how to drive so it took a long time to get into work.

 

I promise I will do a proper update soon :)

Gifts and the raft.

I suspect it will be diffcult writing a blog entry while a needy labrador is sitting on me, and I'm waiting for a cake to bake but I'm willing to give it a go.

 

I've been living in Witham for about a week and a half now and its all going well. It's very different to Kendal but it seems like a nice place. D came to visit last weekend and we had a good explore of the area.

There's a town nearby on the Blackwater estuary called Maldon which is one of my favourite places in the world. I have lots of memories of sunny summer days spent there with Grandma and Grandad, playing in the tidal swimming pool and at the fairground next to the Hythe and when I was a bit older, going for walks with Grandma and her dog Lucy. D and I went for a visit last weekend and it was a bit different to how I remembered - the swimming pool is now a pond; the fair is now a play area (no trampolines!) but its still a lovely place to go for a walk.

We also found a really nice walk along the river in Witham with lots of little fields and wooded areas. I'm hoping the weather improves sometime soon so that I can have a proper explore of the fields and footpaths around my house.

 

Today I went on a bit of a nostalgia trip and visited a lot the places in Chelmsford that we used to go to when we'd visit Grandma. I started with Hylands Park which is just brilliant and there's so much more to it than I remember. It's an 18th century country house with landscaped gardens. The parkland is lovely. Especially on a muddy, rainy day when your walking boots decide not to be waterproof anymore.

 

 

Work's going well. I've got three weeks of induction to start off with which is great in terms of meeting staff and things but it still feels slightly like being chucked in at the deep end. I think this is mostly because I'm a bit daunted by the amount of money I'm expected to bring in. But it seems good and I think the change from youth work to fundraising will keep me motivated for a while.

and so

I have moved! I am now well and truely residing in Darkest Essex which seems quite fun. All I've really done so far is unpack the car, make the internet work and find out how to walk to the train station from here. I think the town looks nice but it was really too  dark and foggy on the walk to the station.

Keswick & boring moving stuff.

The move is creeping ever-closer...

After my initial burst of activity (packing some stuff, moving some stuff to the parents, buying a new car, writing the old car off and finding a new place to live), I've not really done anything for a week or so and I still need to work out how to fit the rest of my worldly belongings into a Nissan Micra - I have a policy of "if it doesn't fit, it's not coming". But equally I'm a total hoarder so I should really start packing and make a more concerted effort to sort my things out.

I think now I'm on the home stretch, I'm less stressed out about the move and am focusing less on what I'm leaving behind.

Last weeked was hard, however. D came up to visit and we met up with some of my friends from Lancaster, Carlisle and Kendal. We went to Keswick on the Saturday and met up with my friend Jenny and her lovely dog which was amazing - snow on the hills and lots of fun exploring around the Bowderstone and tea at Temporary Measure - but I felt bad that I've found all these really incredible places around the county that I want to share with D  and, well, everyone in the world really and I might not get that chance. I know we'll be back, but coming up to visit for a few days at a time means that the little places might lose out to big day trips.

But that's fine. Because travel is fun, especially jaunts up and down the country to visit friends. And I'm starting to get really excited about the new job and the move. As work Oop North is quietening down it's giving more time to think about possible shenanigans with the new job. I don't think I'll really appreciate exactly what the new job entails until I've gotten started but from what I know of it so far, it's just really exciting. And as much as I hate leaving places that I love, I really love moving to new places and all the possibilities that come with it.

Guy Fawkes Night was excellent. This is the view of the castle fireworks from my roof. Lovely stuff.