Another new layout and a poem

Oh dear! I think I'm becoming addicted to making these blog layouts lol. Here's another one and I don't really suppose anyone is using them ha!

Here's another poem I like.
It's called Pippa's Song by Robert Browning.


The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn
Morning's at seven
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven-
All's right with the world!


Lovely!

New blog layouts and headers!

Snag if you like them.

How strange!

I was reading the newspaper the other day and found out that the new Poet Laureate is a Scottish woman. I read her poem Last Post and just loved it. It got me thinking about the poems I read when I was doing my English G.C.S.E. at college over 10 years ago. I read a poem about a young girl wondering about her mother as a young girl, before she was born . I loved that poem but couldn't remember who the author was so I googled a few words from the poem and found it. It's called Before you were mine and guess what?.......It's by Carol Ann Duffy the Poet Laureate. How weird is that?  Anyway I thought I'd share the poem with you. It actually brings tears to my eyes when I read it.


BEFORE YOU WERE MINE


I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff. The three of you bend from the waist, holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement. Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows the right walk home could bring. I knew you would dance like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it.

The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh? I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics, and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree, with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?

Cha cha cha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement. Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.


This is the other poem called Last Post. Kids! If you read this I want her poetry for Christmas. All of it!!! LOL


LAST POST


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.


This poem brings a deluge of tears. If only this could be true!

My mum is a fruitbat!

Went to town today with my daughter and mum to do a bit of Christmas shopping. I didn't buy much because my back was hurting so bad :-( My mum is so funny though. We've been invited to a 60th birthday party on New Year's Eve and it's a Pirate's & Sailor's fancy dress. Mum bought a stripey top and she's going to make herself some baggy pedal pushers. She said she was originally going to go as a Robin. Lucia and I looked at each other and both said "what's a Robin got to do with pirates"? Mum said " well it's Cock Robin and he was killed by Jack Sparrow"! Oh my Goodness we were almost on the floor laughing. My mum comes out with some corkers I can tell you lol. Love her.
I made another December desktop with Amanda Fontaine's artwork for a change.
Snag if you like it x

This is so funny :-)

My nephew just sent me this in an email. I've never seen it before and found it very funny. Hope you do too!


The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English'.

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of 'k'.. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'...

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl..

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Great start to the day!

Just got back from A&E (accident & emergency for my American friends, our equivalent of your ER) Hubby didn't sleep a wink all night due to his wrist being swollen and painful. He broke a bone in it years ago after a car accident and any time he puts any strain on it he suffers. He's been making some shelves for daughter number one's bedroom and now he's paying the price. The Dr was very nice and gave him anti-inflams and pain killers and had the nurse bandage his wrist to give it some support. Hopefully he won't be too much of a pain in the neck for me today lol. Very sympathetic aren't I? I've even got to cook the dinner so I'm not a happy bunny. Get better soon Aniello! lol.

We went to town yesterday to watch the lights switch-on, but ended up coming home early and missing them. It poured down and I managed to last an hour then gave up. I didn't fancy catching pneumonia for that lol.

Watched X-factor last night and Joe was fantastic. So was Stacey but I think Joe had the edge. His performance is here and Stacey's here if you want to watch them.I'm a Celebrity was good too. Aniello and Mario played poker and lost stooopid men! £40 would have bought me a nice Christmas pressie lol.

I'm going to make a couple of layouts today and maybe another desktop background so will post them later.

I made a couple of layouts the other day as well so here they are if you want to snag them ;-)

Christmas lights

Off into town to watch the Christmas lights switch-on and to see santa and his reindeer.
Be back later with pics;-)

Hospital today and injection time :-(

I hate going to the hospital but had an ap with my RA specialist so it was important that I went. He's going to let me get back to how I was with no steroids and give it a month, then I'll be having an assessment to see if the injections are doing any good. I'm ok at the moment but just waiting for all my pain to come back. I did my injection an hour ago and for some reason it didn't hurt as much as it usually does. I think it's because I was so engrossed in watching I'm a celebrity that it had warmed up to room temperature. Must try that next time I do it in two weeks time! Hope I can sleep tonight because I hardly slept at all last night and felt very shaky all day today. I bought a few bits and bobs today for Christmas. Can't wait to go propper Christmas shopping though with my mum, sis, and oldest daughter. We always have such a good laugh :-)

Welcome to Tuesday and a new desktop background☺

Going to go and do a bit of Christmas shopping today. I'm getting worried because I haven't bought much yet and I've usually got a lot by now. My dad and stepmum were going to go away this year for Christmas but he's just been round and informed me that they're coming to us now because it's too expensive lol. I said "well we're more expensive than a hotel" haha! So we have an extra two again for Christmas dinner argh!
I made another December desktop background snag. Save to your hard drive.
See you later and have a great Tuesday!

PTU scrapkit by Irene V Alexeeva . Her blog can be found here

New December desktop background

Snag if you like. Click on image for full size and save to your hard drive.

Another week begins☺

Well it's Monday again. Where are the weeks going? Soon be Christmas and I've hardly bought any pressies :-0 We had a lovely day yesterday. We went to Aniello's brother Enzo's for lunch and then had a couple of games of Konkay ( a card game similar to Rummy) Aniello won both games lol. Enzo and Janet were going out later so we left and went round to his nephew Ciro's. Had another couple of games of cards there and Aniello won again! I won the last game so it was all good lol.
Going to see my baby girl Lucia now but before I go I thought I'd post a pic of my best friend Linda on her visit to Australia to see her kids and grandchildren. Looks like she's having a ball!
See you later x

Happy Sunday☺

No time to play today because we've been invited to lunch at my brother-in-law's. Have a nice Sunday :-)

Welcome home troops☺

Today hubby and I went into town to welcome our troops home from Afghanistan. It poured with rain and we got soaked, but it was worth it to show how much we appreciate them risking their lives to keep us all safe from terrorism. I couldn't take many photo's because of the rain and so many people but what I did manage to take are here.

I just made a new tag without a tut this time woohoo! Snag if you like it :-) Click on tag for full image and save to your hard drive.

I want to put my decorations up!

Don't know why but I feel all Christmassy today and have a strong urge to put my tree and decorations up lol. I can just imagine my kids faces if I did. They'd be mortified. I compensated by making some Christmas tags instead lol. I mostly followed a lovely tut I came across. I'm going to make a desktop calendar for December now. I've been very lazy today as regards any housework. Just played in my PSP and Facebook ;-0
Here's the tag I made and a link to the tut.
Tut here

A nice day out☺

We paid a visit to a National Trust property today for the first time since we became members in July lol.

What a nice day! Went to a place called Dunham Massey in Cheshire and it was lovely. Unfortunately the house was closed. Won't be open again until February, but we had a lovely walk around the Winter Garden and saw the deer. It is rutting season so we only saw 3 young ones as the others were kept away from the public so as not to disturb them doing what comes natuarally ;-) We had our lunch there and I bought a great cook book full of traditional English recipes. I may even start cooking again! Got myself a lovely tin of biscuits with the 12 days of Christmas on it. It cost me £7 but I couldn't resist it because it's so Christmassy. The visit has given me a taste for days out now so we will be visiting a mill next time and they show you how to make cloth.Should be good.

Going out for a pizza tonight so we've had a full day.

Some piccy's here if want to take a peek :-)

Blog Layouts and Headers I made

Feel free to use these. Just click on pic for full size and save to your hard drive.

   

A sad day :-(

I'm so upset! My baby boy has moved back to his own house today. I should be happy that he's moving forward in his life but I'm going to miss his cheeky humour and his cuddles. I know I'll get used to him not being here again.........after all he's not lived with us for the past 7 years....... but 2 months of his company was wonderful and I can't help feeling like I've lost something. Hubby's upset too! We have our lovely daughter moving back home soon though so that's a bonus :-) Can't wait so hurry up Lulu!!!!!

Rememberance Day :-(

Today!

We remember all those who have died for the sake of our freedom from tyranny and oppression! Aniello and I went to our first memorial service at our local cenotaph. It was wonderful to join with hundreds of people to give thanks and remember the sacrifice our heroes made and are still making for us today! God bless them and their families.

The Poppy wreaths at the Cenotaph

More photo's here

Yesterday!

We went for a nice drive in the countryside and ended up in the centre of Great Britain! There is a tiny village called Dunsop Bridge which it is claimed is the exact geographical centre ( but there is another contender for the title, the town of Haltwhistle in Northumberland ). The 100,000th BT telephone box was installed in Dunsop village to commemorate the fact that in 1992 the Ordnance survey officially recognised it as being the exact geographical centre of Great Britain. More info here We then drove on and found an inn called Parkers Arms and had lunch there. When we stepped inside our first thoughts were to walk straight back out again. The inn was very scruffy and didn't really seem very appealing at first, but on spotting a couple of newspaper cuttings about how great the food was we decided to give it a try. I'm so glad we did. The landlord made us so welcome. He lit the log fire and some candles and the food was delicious! It is closing on Monday 16th November for a refurb but I hope they don't go too mad and take away the character of the place. They re-open on the 13th December just in time for Aniello's birthday the next day, so guess where we'll be going to celebrate it? More info here I love my green, beautiful, rainy country lol. There is nothing nicer than a run out into the countryside and a stop at an inn. What  a fab day!

Me in the rain :-)

More photo's here

It's the week-end ;-)

We're off out in a while. How hard it is to think of a day out somewhere that doesn't cost the earth! Ah well I'm sure we'll enjoy it wherever we end up ;-)
I thought after Bonfire Night that we wouldn't see our little squirrel nutkins visit our garden again, but she was here this morning digging up and burying her nuts as usual. I love to watch her. Who needs a TV? lol. Shower time so bye for now.

Lucia's success story :-)

Tomorrow marks the 4th anniversary of my daughter Lucia's gastric band operation. Since then she has lost an amazing 12 stones in weight and looks wonderful. Here is her story if you'd like to read it. Well done Lulu! I think it's time I had it done too ;-)

Here's a pic of my gorgeous girl taken last month in Italy x

What a night!

We had another great night last night. The Bonfire party went well yet again and everyone seemed to have a good time. What a mess the fireworks made though! Thank goodness we were lucky with the weather. It was raining off and on right up to the last guests arriving then stopped for good. Wish Aniello would buy more of the pretty fireworks though and less rockets. I didn't take many photo's of the fireworks because the camera couldn't focus on them. Thanks to my daughter Lucia for doing the cooking and my son Mario for helping his dad clean the garden this morning. Thanks to my other daughter Antonella for the sweeties. I love all my family and friends. You are THE best!

The boiler's fixed and we're nice and warm again thanks Mark :-)

Here are a few pics from last night.

I'm sooooo colddddddd!

Well we still have no hot water or heating. The boiler man came 3 times yesterday and again this morning, and now we've been told it needs a new motherboard. I thought only computers had motherboaards lol. He's off to Chorley to get one so fingers crossed we'll be warm by this afternoon!
I have a splitting headache today and hope it goes by tonight and isn't one that lasts a couple of days. It's Bonfire Night tonight so preparations are under way for a party woohoo! We usually end up with about 60 people and rain is forecast so I'm just praying it stays away. I don't want 60 people all together in my house lol. Not much time for playing today. Got to go shopping now so see you later :-)

Today!

Got to psyche myself up ready to do my injection, ouchy! I HATE doing them. Thank goodness it's only once a fortnight. I just couldn't face them every day. Going to do it later when I feel a bit braver :-(
Hubby's getting excited 'coz it's Bonfire night tomorrow and he loves it! He's busy preparing his display.
It's the one day of the year that I have to do the cooking urgh! Mind you daughter number one Lucia usually does most of it hehe. Sorry Lulu ;-)
We were going out but have to wait in for the boiler man to come and fix the heating. No heating or hot water for 2 days now! You don't half miss it when things go wrong.
My best friend is off to Australia today, to spend 3 months with her children and grandchildren who all emigrated there a few years ago. I'll miss her but I wish her a wonderful time!

Oh this is so touching!

I can guarantee a tear or two after you watch this!
Click here

Freaky weather!

Woke up to thunder & lightening this morning. Then later on we had a shower of hailstones. What's going on? It's windy and depressing out there so I'm staying in and keeping nice and cosy. Well as cosy as I can with no central heating brrrr. The boiler's broken and won't be fixed 'till the electrician gets the part and some spare time to fix it. At least we have a living flame fire in the lounge!
Had a nice time last night at........Margaret's surprise birthday do! That was the secret from yesterday's post lol. I took a video of her battering the pinyatta. I'd never even heard the word until yesterday! Think she enjoyed herself lol.
Video's here if you want to watch ;-)
Been making tags today and visiting my groups. I love to learn new things and wish I could find some really good tuts on how to make scrap kits. Ah well I'll keep searching the net.
I'm already feeling the urge to change my blog layout but I shall resist! lol

Feeling very tired today

For some reason I feel totally drained today. Maybe too much computer time lol.
I watched a great film last night called Dreamgirls with Beyonce in it. She was very good but Jennifer Hudson~who came 3rd in American Idol~was fantastic! She even won an Oscar for best supporting actress. Loved it and I may watch it again just for the songs!
I've just started watching a new series on channel 5 called Flashforward, recommended by my son Mario. Looks very promising!
I'm out tonight but can't say where just now because it's a surprise and if there is actually anyone reading this it may just leak out if I post it lol.

Last night!

What a fab night Halloween was. The kids all looked wonderful in their costumes and it was just lovely having all my family together. Scrooges is a cool wine bar with a great atmosphere. Love it there! It's a wet and wild day today so I won't be going anywhere. Staying in nice and cosy and maybe get the creative juices flowing and make something.

A few of my fave pic's from last night :-)

Me as grotbags lol

Lucia, Mario, Laura, Seonaid and Antonella

Laura, great make-up!

Me and my two daughter's Lucia and Antonella

Antonella and Laura

Lucia

Me with my three babies Lucia Mario and Antonella :-)

My three with their nana (my mum)

Mum, me and my sister Carole

Me and my gorgeous nephew Rida

Hubby Aniello :-)

Mum, me, my cousin Kerry and my sister Carole

Bad two face Mario

Good two face Mario

My kiddywinkies

Rida and his nana

Lucia with her dad

Seonaid and Antonella with her dad

Scary Mario

Lovely Lulu

Lucia and Batman Phil