Notes of Life

Apart from some blood tests at the beginning of the week, all in all it’s been a quiet week. Even the Wii Fit hasn’t seen me for a couple of days.

Yesterday I took a trip in the car with Dad as we needed to mark the mileage on the directions sheet for the motorbike run next weekend. We started in Montgomery, headed over the Long Mountain, up through the Stiperstones, onto the Long Mynd, down to Bishop’s Castle and across to Lydham. There are some fantastic views from the Long Mountain, Stiperstones and the Lond Mynd (as I’m sure Mountainear will agree), but unfortunately we had to time it too, so there was no time for stopping to take photographs. It was sunny over the Long Mountain, but rained for the rest of the way so some of the views were a bit “moody”. When I’ve got a free day (and maybe when the price of petrol comes down!) I’ll take a drive following the route, but stop for photos, then I can share the magnificent views. I feel lucky with all this countryside practically on the doorstep!

Other than that, I’ve been writing reviews on DooYoo. I’ve got enough DooYooMiles to redeem a 2nd £10 Amazon voucher, although I’m nearly halfway to a 3rd, so may wait to redeem £20 in one go.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a photo of a flower from Mum’s garden (I haven’t a clue what it is). Again, it’s a white flower on a black background… although I’ve just noticed it’s off centre!

No single subject today, just a mix of stuff.

Roses

As if the flowers in the garden weren’t enough, I went out and bought some flowers to photograph yesterday. I’d had this idea in my head for weeks of white flowers on a black background. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a couple of large sheets of card (around A1 size) - one white, one black. Yesterday, I finally found the flowers I was looking for - a small bunch of white roses for £3.99 from the supermarket.

I had a play around with positioning and took around 75 photos in total. I uploaded my favourites to Flickr. I’m happy with the results and Mum’s happy with her free bunch of white roses!

Birthday Meals

It was my birthday on Friday and it’s pretty much been a food-birthday. On Friday evening my parents took me out for a meal at The Stiperstones Inn. We’ve been there a couple of times before and it’s definitely a place I’d recommend. We’d booked our table in advance, which turned out to be a good idea as the pub was quite busy (it always seems to be, despite it’s location). Our table was in the little room at the back, which is nice and cosy. I decided to be naughty and ignore my food intolerances… For the starter I chose Brie Wedges with Cranberry & Port Sauce and it was delicious! For my main meal I chose Breaded Plaice with Chips & Salad. The Plaice was huge and took some eating! I didn’t have a dessert, but Dad chose Whinberry Crumble. The Whinberries are picked locally (it’s what the Stiperstones are famous for) and the crumble homemade, making for a delicious pudding. I know I ignored the intolerances for the evening, but The Stiperstones Inn does mark the menu letting you know which meals are gluten-free, dairy-free etc - something which other places should take note of.

Last night, Sarah and her fiance Paul treated me to a Chinese for my birthday. They chose to go to my favourite Chinese take-away in Churchstoke for the food as my stomach can tolerate it, where as I’m usually ill if I go to the take-aways in town. The food was delicious. Sarah & I swigged peach schnapps & lemonade, while Paul has his beer. We sat gossiping and watching The Dresden Files TV series. All in all it was a great evening. Big thanks to Sarah & Paul!

Writing Reviews and Making Money

I’m a regular visitor to the Money Saving Expert forums and at the end of May I came across a recommendation for the DooYoo review website. After being a member of DooYoo for a few weeks and writing 19 reviews, I can certainly recommend it (I think it’s mainly for UK users though).

You get dooyooMiles for writing and rating reviews (with 150 words or more). Once you get over 5,000 dooyooMiles you can donate to a charity of your choice, over 10,000 dooyooMiles (and above that amount can be redeemed in increments of 5,000) and you can redeem them for Amazon vouchers (10,000 = £10) or if you get 50,000 dooyoomiles or more you can redeem them for cash.

You get 500 dooyooMiles per review written and 15 dooyoomiles when reviews are read. You can also get bonus dooyooMiles along the way too.

I’ve been a member since the end of May and have already redeemed 10,000 dooyooMiles for a £10 Amazon voucher, as wel as being on my way to the next.

I’ve reviewed online shops, cameras, hotels, travel companies, books, DVDs and more. All it takes is a little of your spare time.

A funny title for a post, I know, but it’s the name of the plant pictured below.

Mum & I popped down to the village WI coffee evening on Thursday. I must admit it’s not my ‘thing’ (especially as I can’t stand coffee), but you never know what you’ll find there. We found this plant for £1 (Bargain!) along with another. I thought it was quite photogenic so last night I set about doing a mini-photo shoot.

Today Mum, Dad & I went to visit Nan & Granddad. I’m pleased to say Nan is doing very well with her new hip and she has already been for a walk up the street. She doesn’t like the crutches she’s been given so she’s using a walking frame more, but already she’s moving about a lot faster than she was before the hip replacement. Once she’s had her other hip replaced I’m sure she’ll be completely back to her old self! It’s wonderful to see her doing so well.

Following on from (last) Friday…

Saturday morning Chris & I got up early and hailed a taxi to Euston to catch one of the few trains to Milton Keynes that morning. We caught up with Erykah, Sathy, Nicky, Cryssie, Lyvvie and Sylvie on the train platform and all piled into one carriage with our tonne of luggage.

Once at MK Chris & I made our way up to the Jury’s Inn Hotel to see if we could leave our luggage there until we could sign in. Thankfully, they’d got a room ready and we were allowed to sign in so we could take our bags up to our room. We then headed up to MK shopping centre and Collectormania.

At some point, while dodging the crowd, I nearly walked into Leslie Phillips! A little while later Chris got his autograph and a photo taken with him. June Whitfield was signing next to him.

Chris & I got James Marsters’ autograph (again!) as well having our photos taken with him. He wasn’t feeling good as his arm was hurting, but his day wasn’t about to get better… Apparently he got groped sometime after that.

In the afternoon Chris & I headed back to the hotel to rest our sore feet. We watched some TV and talked before going to look for something to eat.

We ended up at the Chinese restaurant up the street from the hotel. The service could have been better, but the staff were polite and the food was lovely. We then went back to the hotel bar for a drink where we bumped into Nicky & Erykah. After a chat with them we ended up at a party in a hotel room on the 2nd floor with them and a few others! There was drink, food and lots of talking. We were quite loud so everytime there was a knock on the door I half expected it to be the manager! Chris & I departed a bit before midnight as we were expecting another early start in the morning.

Sunday morning the alarm went at 6.20am, but I reset it for 7am as I was far too tired to get up. We made it up to Collectormania just after 8am where there was already a huge queue just for virtual tickets for John Barrowman & Eve Myles (Gwen in Torchwood). My virtual ticket for John Barrowman was #280-something and I know at least 1200 were given out… possibly more than that!

A bit later on Chris’ husband Ron met up with us having driven down especially to give us a lift home. We went for a drink in Costa Coffee and while sat down Kai Owen (Rhys from Torchwood) walked in. He recognised Chris & Ron from the previous weekend and had a quick chat with them before dashing off.

Throughout the day we had our photos taken with John Barrowman, James Marsters (again) and Eve Myles (Ron also had a photo taken with Eve as a treat for his birthday). I also got Kai Owen’s autograph as well as John Barrowman’s. This time James was sat on a stool for his photo sessions due to being groped the previous day. As I saw first hand, he was also groped on Sunday. James was getting upset at this and who’d blame him! I’d be surprised if he agreed to do photo sessions again, unfortunately for him, he’d got more photo sessions on Monday (I assume they went ahead, but I was at home by then).

After a bite to eat and collecting our photographs we headed up the motorway in the direction of home. Unfortunately, the weather seemed to be getting worse the closer to Wales we got!

By the time I went to bed it wasn’t just the weather that was bad… I didn’t feel too good either. Still, I did have a great few days away.

Following on from Wednesday to Thursday…

Friday morning I made my way to Euston to meet up with Chris at midday. I decided to take the shorter route from Wembley by using the overground train to Marylebone station. After we’d sorted out a train ticket for Saturday morning we made our way to the Farringdon Travelodge to book in early. We wanted to have a rest and take our time getting to the gig that evening.

We joined the queue outside Union Chapel in Islington for James Marsters’ gig around 4.30pm. The queue wasn’t as long as I thought it would be at that time (possibly due to the threatening rain clouds). We said hello to those we knew in the queue and settled in for the wait (at least it was dry this time!).

Sometime later a couple of Italians came and stood by the queue in front of us. I wasn’t sure if they were just talking or if they were trying to jump the queue. I mentioned it to Chris and we asked the people in front of us (I think they were German) if they knew the girls. They said no. Chris asked the Italians to go to he back of the queue, but they refused. The people in front of us asked them too, but still they refused (in Italian), so Chris went to the front of the queue to ask for help (well, imagine if others tried jumping the queue, the rest of us would end up at the back!). Again the Italians refused, so somebody else arrived to translate and the unhappy Italians were ushered to the back of the queue. I guess it’s just us Brits (and some other mad Europeans) who will queue for just about anything!

When we were finally let into Union Chapel, Chris & I managed to get seats 5 or 6 rows from the front an had a gret view of the stage. Although, to be honest, I think wherever you sit in Union Chapel you’re likely to have a good view.

The support act was a solo artist called Benmark. I’d never seen him before, but he certainly got the crowd going. Everyone seemed to like his music (including me) and many went up to the stall to buy his CDs (and meet him) after his set. He’s definitely worth checking out!

James Marsters got a huge welcome when he arrived on stage. He was off-key a couple of times, but otherwise it was a great performance. The crowd was even louder than last year and he even gave us an extra song after a request was made… He’d missed out a popular song on his setlist and the audience wasn’t about to let him forget to play it! No broken guitar strings this year either! All in all, a wonderful gig.

Chris & I headed to the nearest pub for a drink before heading back to the hotel. We had an early start the next morning!

Saturday to Sunday up next!