A Bit of a Round-up

I've been completely out of Blog land for the last month or so - just been too busy with the kitchen re-fit and all the decorating. You really do realise just how much stuff you have when you need to clear a room out. I seem to have done nothing but shift stuff from room to room lately! But it's all finished now and I'll put some before and after shots up at some point.

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I received a lovely present from Raina last week. She had mentioned that she was going to send me a little something as a 'cheer-up' following the sad demise of the Go-Go. I received the most beautiful necklace which Nipper has taken rather a shine to due to the iridescent beads - he's fascinated:

And also.........hand knitted socks! Gorgeously soft cashmere socks which fit perfectly:

I was overwhelmed. So much time and effort goes into anything hand made. I don't think I could ever let go of a pair of my hand knitted socks. Thank you so much Raina for your very thoughtful and generous gift. It certainly was a fabulous 'cheer-up'.

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Speaking of the Go-Go....I got an 'offer' from my insurance company for the write-off of the car.....£150, less my excess, so £50! I was rather cross at this to say the least! I got online and found half a dozen Micra's similar to mine with values ranging from £300 to £600 so downloaded the adverts and sent them, and a rather snippy letter, off to the insurers. Sure enough, ten days later I got a revised offer of £400, so result! However, I think I'm now going to equate insurance companies with 2nd hand car dealers and estate agents!

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I think it's about time I blogged some awards. Some of these are from before last Christmas so apologies all round!

Both Linda and Caroline awarded me the Premio Dardos award:

I'm afraid I can't remember specifically what it's for and when I tried to translate it I came up with 'prize darts' which wasn't really any help! But thank you Linda and Caroline!

The lovely Mel Mel (private blog) gave me the Hot Blog Award, which speaks for itself, and also the Marie Antoinette Award for being 'real':

This one was a little bit tongue in cheek as she passed it on to me after I'd regaled her with tales of all of us being up all night with a nasty tummy upsetting germ - and you can't get more real than that I guess!

Kitty passed along the Best Blog Comments Award:


And Linda very generously passed on the Lemonade Award:

for blogs which show attitude or gratitude (which was very kind of her since I hadn't blogged the first award she gave me!).

Having left it so long to blog them there's no way that I can list and link to everyone who deserves these to be passed on. So if you follow me, or are on my blog list, or have ever left me a comment then please consider yourself awarded with any or all of the above.

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I've also been tagged by Sara and Linda.

Sara tagged me for 'six random things about me' but as I did one of these before I thought I'd do a 'six things which get my goat!' instead, so here goes:

1. Since I started driving Nipper to nursery 4 times a week I'm noticing other people's bad driving habits (no doubt I have plenty of my own!). Top of the list has to be people who don't bother to indicate, especially at big junctions and mini-roundabouts. This leads nicely onto number 2....

2. People who decide to ignore the rules regarding who has right of way. This is another mini-roundabout problem and also crops up a lot as there are lots of parked cars around here.

3. And another driving related one - people who park across my drive, especially as the whole rest of the street is empty but they can't be bothered to walk the few extra feet! It's become so bad now that we have applied to the Council for a marking to be painted across the driveway. Hopefully people will notice that, though why they can't see the driveway in the first place is beyond me. (Mr Earplugs has been getting a tad stressed about this as he's worried that I might go into labour early and someone will be blocking the drive).

4. Irresponsible dog owners. Don't get me wrong, I quite like dogs ,but have never owned one and don't know much about looking after them. But I do know that I wouldn't let my dog jump up at strangers, nor would I let it off the lead in a park where there were lots of small children playing. Miss Muffett was slammed into a wall when she was about 5 years old by a dog which was charging around the entryway to the park. It might not have been so bad if the owner had come over and helped but he just walked straight past and didn't say a thing. I had plenty to say! I've also had clothing ruined by dogs jumping up and scraping their dirty paws down my clothes, and had a picnic in the park spoiled by a roaming dog which figured it was a slap up meal just for him.

5. This one could be tagged on to no 4 really - dog mess on the pavement! It's a nightmare when you tread in it or get it stuck around your pram wheels. If a dog owner can't be bothered to pick it up then at least get them to do it in the gutter where it's less likely to be trodden in!

6. Another driving type one - cyclists riding on the pavement at break-neck speed. I have every sympathy with people wanting to ride on the pavement as the roads are so busy. Unfortunately a lot of them forget that pavements are supposed to be for pedestrians. I've been hit twice by cyclists zooming along and zig-zagging through people, and we had a scary near miss with Miss Muffett when she was small.

Linda tagged me with a 'Reading' meme:

Who is your first favorite author and why?

I think this would have to be Enid Blyton. I read the 'Wishing Tree' books, then the 'Mallory Towers' series, and of course the 'Famous Five' books. I think I liked the 'mystery' aspect of the Famous Five.

Do you still consider him/her to be among your favourites?

Not really, though if I was a kid again I'm sure I'd still like the 'Famous Five' and I do still like mystery novels.

Who is your all time favorite author and why?

I loved 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte, which we studied for 'A' Level, probably because it's set close to where I grew up and the language of the characters is real . That really appealed at the time as I went to a grammar school and there were very few kids there with a 'local' accent.

Do you still co nsider him/her to be among your favorites?

Absolutely.

Who is the most recent addition to your favorite authors and why?

Probably Jodi Picoult. Her books often deal with difficult subjects and she looks at them from all angles.

If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth?

Probably Jodi Picoult as I haven't read all of her novels yet. I love Sue Grafton's 'alphabet' series of crime novels. I also really like Nicci French but have to be in the right mood to read them. I like a good crime/thriller/mystery novel.

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Pregnancy Update:

I have only 5 weeks to go now! It has come around rather quickly, especially since I thought I had 2 more weeks than that. I've been feeling a little bit under the weather with tiredness, dizzy spells and breathlessness, and feeling a bit twitchy about the upcoming c-section. I figured it was just down to being in the latter stages of pregnancy and chasing around after Nipper (not to mention no longer being a spring chicken - lol!) Turns out that I'm anaemic and have been having the classic symptoms. So it's iron tablets for me from now on which means I have to also limit my intake of milk, tea and eggs. What'll I do without my first cup of tea of the day??

Everyone keeps commenting on how small I look (even though I feel like a whale) so I thought I'd put a recent photo up alongside the one taken at 25 weeks to see if there's much difference:

I guess I am bigger, though I don't look much bigger considering 10 weeks have gone by. Let's hope I don't get too much bigger then over the next 5 weeks.

(And this has got to be my longest ever blog post - congratulations if you made it all the way to here!)

A Bit of a Round-up