Road Trip ....

So its Easter weekend and I thought a good time to go and get mom and bring her down to visit for a week or so.
My wonderful dad passed away last October from the Big C - I can't talk about its too soon maybe given time but not for now.
Any how, mom is now living with just the one male in her life, Leo the dog so on Thursday evening I made the trip(which should have taken about 3 hours but actually took 5 hours) to go fetch them.

The motorway was full of travelling canoes, bikes, caravans and cars literally stuffed full of children, duvets and various other things obviously required for an Easter week away in the lakes which is A) where mom resides and B) where every single person in the UK appeared to be going via the M6 on Thursday afternoon.

Now, I drive everyday for work, (sales) and so the motorway is my second home, but it never fails to amaze me the amount of people that get on the motorway and leave their driving skills and brain cells behind on the slip road.
I had to suffer middle lane hoggers, brake happy burks and my personal favourite, I'm not a policeman but I think I'll act like one because I don't like the way you are driving people....the list is endless and they were all out in force on Thursday.

I was planning on getting to mom's at a reasonable time to eat but the M6 had other plans and so I found myself having to stop at the services to grab a Costa - other coffee is available, and a sandwich / salad - this was determined by the quick calorie count I made whilst admiring all the things I couldn't eat.
It was at this point I encountered my next most annoying thing in life - a female scout !

Now I'm all for female solidarity and all girls together - women empowering women , etc. ....Nothing annoys me more than a woman diss'ing another woman just because they can, but female scouts I just don't get.
Now this may be because I'm a guide leader I just don't know, but there is  perfectly good organisation for girls/women to join its called GIRL guides because the other option is BOY scouts which quite frankly as the cuprinol advert says it does exactly what it says on the tin !

Anyway rant aside I'll get back to this particular 'scout' who was technically not in the que at the Costa counter her male counterpart was, but she decided she was 'with' him and jumped in front of me - even though she ordered and paid separately to him. I stood in line said nothing waiting my turn. And for anyone that knows me knows that in itself was no mean feat !

She was one of those people that had something to say about everything, and wanted everyone to hear it if they wanted to or not, she had the obligatory scout top on stating her name on the back and some camp somewhere she had been on and a necker of some sort, attire that she seemed to think was exclusive to her and no one in the history of the world anywhere owned any items remotely like this .... in a later blog I will reveal in all its glory my collection of said aforementioned items - although guides attire and not smelly BOY scout ones.

Anyway said 'scout' proceed to tell the whole of Costa and most of Scotland, whom I'm pretty sure could also hear her, all about her gluten allergy and how she needed to be soooo careful about what she ate or her tummy would never forgive her and blah blah blah ..... the whole time she's looking up and checking that she has a captive audience holding the whole que up .... I for one was only listening because A it was hard not to and I'm partly deaf and B  because we were all wondering what the hell it had to do with the coffee she had just ordered and would you please shut the *@#$ up and MOVE before I started preaching to the world about my allergy to her !

She did eventually move along although she did forget to take her chocolate brownie with her and the barrista had to go after her to take it .... I'm pretty sure there was gluten in that brownie - in fact I'm praying there was gluten in it and it kept her up all bloody night !

Anyway that aside coffee and salad was bought and aside from the incident with the lost fork in the car (once back on the road) and the having to eat my salad with my fingers I arrived at mom's in one piece.

After an overnight stay we made the return journey back down the M6 which mercifully was pretty uneventful and so mom and Leo have come to stay...

I shall keep you all updated as it what we get up to this week as there is plenty planned so stay tuned for our mini adventures.

K
x

Cats the musical

A few weeks a go I went to see the travelling performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.....

I loosely knew the story of the Jellical ball and the general synopsis of the show so was confident that I would enjoy this as I'm a great musical fan and a big theatre goer.

I've previously seen Mary Poppins, Wicked, Oliver, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Hobbit, Oklahoma, King and I, Dirty Dancing among others - there's a theme here as you can see so I'll just throw in various Shakespeare plays in Stratford at the amazing court yard theatre and the newly opened rebuilt theatre on the river bank in Stratford. 

Anyway back to Cats.....

It was on at the Wolverhampton Grand a place we have been many times and enjoy visiting, its very comfortable and easy for us to get to and park so a good choice for us.

The show itself was well produced the actors and actresses' were great, fantastic singers and dancers and the costumes were brilliant no complaints at all about the show in general but boy did we struggle with the actual story .....

There was no real plot to follow so to be fair we struggled , there was a lot of characters introduced who sang and danced and the ever elusive Macavity ....... at times it was like we'd fallen into a parallel universe with the aid of drink or ...... lol

We hummed along to the half time interval and trooped out to get our half time refreshments and do a quick google and wikipedia check to try and fathom out what on earth was happening but more importantly what was going to happen in the second half !

I've never ever left anything half way though but this is the closest I have got to doing just that. Its not that it wasn't good, as I said the singing and dancing was fabulous but we just couldn't follow it at all. So off we went dutifully back to our seats when the lights flashed to alert us to the start of the second half. 

We struggled on and hummed along and followed a little better thanks to wikipedia and the familiar refrain of Memories.

 It was disappointing at the end when we were expecting a big reveal of the cat chosen to be reborn but nothing happened and was a major anti climax really.

Overall it was a good night out - would I go again to see Cats ? then sorry no I wouldn't but its hasn't put me off the theatre at all not a bit in fact I've just found out Wicked is touring next year ......:)    

K

x       

Olly Murs

Well what can I say ... on Tuesday I went to see Mr Murs at the LG Arena in Birmingham and had a fantastic time.

He was charming , funny entertaining and most of all has a great voice live which the X Factor proved.

I can highly recommend going to see him if you ever get the chance , he comes in a close second to the amazing Mr Buble (who I also have tickets to see in June )

In true 40 something style me and the Sis had t'shirts printed up ....

He did get very close to us but I'm not sure he actually did see our efforts in the end lol

He did all his old songs, Heart skips a beat, Thinking of Me and his new ones and ended with Troublemaker which really bought the house down.

So don't forget if you get the chance GO he is brilliant and well worth the money....

I can 't wait to see what's next in my exciting year of being 40 - think its true what they say life really does begin at the big 4 - 0

K

x

Birthday Shinanigans

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been a bit lax its been bedlam here at 40something house - as always.
Last weekend I went to Birmingham for 24 hours of madness with my little sister and some of my friends.We had some hoodies for the occasion which I did myself by ordering the diamanté logos and names off the internet from Diamantés R Us  they ironed on really easily and meant we got blingy hoodies for a fraction of the cost if we'd bought them all finished for us.

We stayed at the Staycity Apartments in Birmingham which were really nice - great for a group of people they sleep up to 5 in a 2 bed which is what we had but I think they could easily have taken another 2 people as long as you don't mind sharing that is ! There were 2 double beds and a sofa bed which could comfortably have taken 2 people and the bed in the one room was enormous and slept 3 easily ....as we found out !

We checked in at the apartment around 4pm after a delay which was soon rectified and they even refunded us 30% which paid for our champers later but I'll come to that.
We had a lovely meal at the Garden House a Chef and Brewer pub on the Hagley Road  and my table had been decorated with confetti and balloons and banners thanks to my daughter.
The food was excellent and I highly recommend a visit if your in the city, the bubble and Squeak starter was divine and the gourmet burger excellent and I was thoroughly stuffed after a glass or two of red wine.

  We went back to the apartment and put on our pj's and mixed up some cocktails and had a dance round the apartment before we got ready to hit the town.
once ready we headed out to Marco Pierre White's champagne bar at the top of the Mail Box , the views were amazing  and we spent all of our refund on a bottle of champagne which at £62 was not cheap but a special treat none the less....
We then went along to Duelling Piano's on broad street which is a club type place where they have 2 piano's on the stage and you fill in request cards for songs and they take it in turn to play your requests fighting to get you to pick them to play your song. We requested a few songs and they finished the night with my request Mr Brightside which got everyone up dancing.
All in all we had a fantastic night which was finished off the next morning with a lovely breakfast in Frankie & Benny's in Walsall, I can't wait to do it all again in July for Jo's birthday :)

Hope you enjoyed this weeks blog

Kx

Aarrgghhhhh

Hi there ,
 What a week it's been.....
 Work has been manic but I tied up some good deals that will see the benefits next year, I love my job -most days ..... I work in sales and have an area to cover which keeps me very busy.

This week I've also played Netball twice, made 18 juggling balls, baked cakes gone shopping been to a guides meeting, met friends for coffee, helped a friend in need, had a manicure and facial, cooked tea every night, taken a child to A&E and done loads of paperwork related to rainbows... All this with the aid of NO alcohol ... Just a normal week for me!

So where to start ... back to netball with England Netball http://www.englandnetball.co.uk/my-game/back-to-netball
Was brilliant, in fact so good by Wednesday night Chloe and I were in a team called Pick & Mix and playing in a league- we lost 17-16 but came back from 11-2 down so very chuffed with that but boy did I forget how fit you need to be - the fact that twice I was asked by a twentysomething if I was ok was a little denting on the ego but I got through it and came off full of enthusiasm to go again - which is better than Chloe, who came off with an injured finger which it transpired was actually a fractured knuckle - so telling her to man up half way into the game didn't go down well .... Bad mom !

Also on the downside.... who knew you can't have nails longer than the top of your fingers for netball and oh did they check ! I felt like I was 9 again and Miss Sandland (anyone who went to Leighswood school will remember her - best netball coach ever) was checking my nails in PE - I had flashbacks to enormous navy knickers and and yellow PE tops. So it was declared they were too long and the clippers came out - I nearly cried as I hacked the top off all my beautifully manicured long black shiny nails .... Lord help my manicure lady Nessy I thought when she see this, but all fixed now and if I'm going to be the oldest netball player on the block - well in this house anyway -I'm going to have to get used to my ultra short nails - the sacrifices I make for my art .....

This week I also got my party dress for the weekend - as part of my year of celebrations, which has included in the first month; afternoon tea with my good friend Jo-Jo , Girls Aloud with my little sis Angela , a meal at the curry house and lots of pressies, this weekend I have booked an apartment in the city centre and a bunch of us are having a mad 24 hours and going out dancing ect but i'll save all the info for my next post... We have hoodies and everything ... More about my hoodie fetish in another post ....

So thanks for reading .... If anyone is! Please feel free to leave comments, insights, thoughts or questions , no negatives please if you have nothing nice or positive to say be quiet or STFU in basic terms.
Stay tuned for more 40something ramblings....

K
X

Apartment update

Had some bad news our offer was rejected - booooo
On the upside we tried again with a revised bid so please all go back to crossing your fingers .... Yayyyyyy

K
X

The start

Hi this is me.................
on Feb 7th I turned 40 and decided to write a blog about a year in my life.....
I'm not special, I have a regular job, I'm married to a great man Kez and we have 2 wonderful daughters, Chloe 16 and Chantel 20.

I have a busy life I work full time, I'm a rainbow and girl guide leader I have a pathological inability  to say no to anyone hence I'm usually on the go - but I love it (most of the time) ......but I will moan on here about my lack of time lol.

As with most things in my life I was late starting this it was meant to start on my birthday but hey ho !

I love baking and crafting and try to keep fit and on that note later this week Chloe and I will be going to a back to netball session run by England netball, I love travel and holidays and Lanzarote and Greece are my favourite places.

This week Kez and I put an offer in for an apartment in Lanzarote which is very exciting for us so fingers crossed for that one.

Right so that's it for my first post on my new blog....if anyone is reading it - which everyone in my house doubts then I hope you enjoy a year in the life of a 40 something...
see you soon

K
xx