wagwaan?

Very moving

I've just watched "Alex - A Life Fast Forward" on the iPlayer about a young lad who had bone cancer and who lived his life to the full. He is such a shining example of "positive thinking" - he used to concentrate each day on what fun stuff he had planned, rather than dwell on the pain or sadness. He said you might as well be happy! Sadly, he died just after his 22nd birthday but what a legacy he leaves.  I know you can't watch the iPlayer if you are out of the UK but maybe one day it will appear on Youtube. There is a very bad copy of the BBC News report on the programme on Youtube but the sound is awful....

Remember: Carpe punctum!!

Some favourites from Glee

I have to admit I've really become quite a gleek. The arrangements they have on the show are amazing, and I'm discovering quite a few songs I didn't know before.

I've always loved "Unpretty" by TLC so imagine my delight to hear this "mash up" on Glee the other night:

 

On the same theme (of accepting who you are), a Gaga song:

 

In the same episode (or was it the week before? darn memory...) I was surprised to hear the Warblers sing a Keane song - maybe they are well-known in the USA after all. The scene this song comes from was so moving, I teared up a little.

 

 

As for this one, did I post it before? I apologise in advance if I did! (my favourite bit starts at around 1:39...)

Guess that's enough for tonight, right?

Saturday

Yesterday I went up to London to check out a room for rent, as my niece is coming to live in London for a year from next month. What excitement!  She had had the information about a room in London N22 from the person who she will be working for, and I thought it sounded worth a visit. 

It turns out to be a room on the first floor of a wonderful Edwardian property, with huge high ceilings and the most superb original features including lots of stained glass windows. The owner lives on the ground floor, there are two double rooms, a kitchen, toilet and bathroom on the first floor, and the 24-yr old drama student son has the top floor.  It is on a quiet, leafy street, about 10 minutes walk from the very bustling area around Wood Green Tube.  I hope it'll work out well for her.

Changing the subject, here's something you probably don't know about me: I love, love, love choral music, especially renaissance music. Well, today I watched a programme on catch up called "Sacred Music: Tallis, Byrd and the Tudors". You can watch it here if you are in the UK.  At one point in the programme, the adjective "celestial" is attributed to one of Tallis's works, and it fits the bill perfectly. He died aged 80, which is pretty good going back in 1585!  All the singing in the programme is by The Sixteen, who are brilliant. I do have a bit of a thing about the Tudors also, and Thomas Tallis was portrayed in the series of the same name, if you watched it.

Before I go, as dinner is nearly ready, I thought I'd show you how well I'm doing reducing my BMI. I'm embarrassed just how high I'd let it get, but look at the progress. I'm really happy, and I'm sure my doctor will be too.

I'm so motivated again, and this time I really don't want to let myself go again. I intend to follow this through to the bitter end (!) and do the maintenance plan properly. 

Nite everyone!

Why the face?

This is specially for those of you who were shocked by my previous post..... See below (16 second) clip of Phil Dunphy from Modern Family explaining text speak.

 

  

 

Ha ha Caro!!  

Comic Relief

Aw, I got a cute email from Comic Relief thanking me for my donation.  It was the least I could do....

I'm just slightly confused as to why the thank you comes from Children in Need... Oh well!

I'm turning into a Gleek

This was just a wonderful episode!  Another Bruno Mars cover...

 

 

 

As soon as I saw it, it reminded me of the wedding dance video that went viral a couple of years ago. Still makes me smile to watch it. Glee even pinched a few moves from them lol.

 

 

What's making YOU happy today?

L'entre-deux-fêtes

So Christmas is over for another year and it's that "in-between" kind of time where the presents have all been opened, the food has all been eaten and, in my case at least, you can't wait for the new year to just be here already! Especially this year, when I and so many people around me have had such a bad time. Roll on 2011. 

We had a rather quiet Christmas. Just the three of us. Oh, and the cat of course, who got a catnip Christmas tree to get his claws into.

Sadly, the OH had flu and stayed in bed most of the day, and I came down with a rather bad cold that kicked my asthma into gear on Boxing Day. Apart from that, we are really well, thank you!

Claire really spoiled me this year. First thing on Christmas morning I croaked that "I must go and make some coffee" but she insisted I open at least one present first.... it was a rather fabulous gift set from that famous Seattle-based coffee company, including 2 cups, 2 gingerbread cookies and a yummy packet of special Christmas blend. Dee-licious.

 

Here's the gorgeous girl herself in her Christmas PJs (hope she doesn't hate me for posting this, but I think she's beautiful. Ok, I'm biased.)

We would have gone out for a walk once the sun came out, but in the end we didn't eat till gone 3pm, so it was getting dark by the time we'd finished. Instead, we stayed in the warm, listened to Christmas carols and watched festive television. 

Also under the tree was another mug from Claire, and I can't quite work out which one I prefer, so I alternate between the two, and the frothy coffee tastes equally good in both...

 

The only other picture we took on Christmas day was of one of the glasses my sister SR sent me - such pretty, delicate things, with gold stars scattered across them. Perfect for a glass of "Christmas drink" like we used to have when we were children (red wine + lemonade)....

Talking of festive television (yes I was, a couple of paragraphs ago), what do you think of this year's offerings?  I have caught the first 2 episodes of the new Upstairs Downstairs on catch-up and loved them - looking forward to more. I also started to watch Just William, which was really promising, but I had to leave before the end to go to a doctor's appointment. Maybe Claire and I will watch that tomorrow. I also planned on watching When Harvey Met Bob, but haven't yet. I hear it was rather good...

Well, that's it from me. I never manage to find a satisfactory way of finishing blog posts, so "toodle pip" and all that :) 

It's Christmas Eve Eve

Right, I have stopped beating myself up, as per one of my recent posts, and therefore refuse to get upset by the fact that I kind of gave up on the #Reverb 10 stuff. I enjoyed it, but really wasn't inspired by all the prompts, plus I don't always turn on the PC and it's too fiddly to post from the iPhone.  I will probably go back through the prompts to see if there are any that take my fancy, but that's for another day.

In the meantime, Baby A's mum gave me the go ahead to post this picture of him wearing our giant, adult-sized, Christmas hat. Such a poppet! 

There was quite a clash of colours in the photo so I thought I'd make it black and white, but then you didn't get the full effect of the Santa hat, so I did a bit of Photoshopping to make it pop. He is so good at sitting up already - just 3 months old. He also loves to stand (!).  Hmm I think he'll be walking early like my nephews did. I have Christmas cards to hand out, so we are having a bit of a get-together around teatime with Baby A's mum and another friend who wants cuddles too.

But first, I have to wrap some pressies as I'm meeting up with my French friend before she goes away on holiday. Oh, and then I have a GP appointment, so it's a bit of a mad rush today. Thank goodness there's been a bit of a thaw, and the roads are much clearer.

I'll just leave you with a video that my brother Jerry sent me. I had seen an excerpt of it recently, but this is the long version. If you are English then they'll need no introduction: it's a take on the good old show The Two Ronnies, with the part of our dear departed Ronnie Barker played by Harry Enfield. (Cue some trivia: I think I'm right in saying that Jerry in fact delivered the papers to Ronnie Barker on his paper round in Pinner, many moons ago. Funny that, because Ronnie Barker always reminded me of Jerry, especially in Porridge!)

 

Happy News

I've been rather busy today, hence my late post, but I thought I'd pop in and show my face. First of all, how can I do a post without mentioning the latest happy news about Prince William and Kate Middleton's engagement finally being official. I thought it was lovely that William proposed with his mother's engagement ring because he wanted her to be included. Awwww. What a lovely young man. I confess I've been something of a monarchist ever since I was little, but I can't give anyone a rational explanation why, so don't ask me!

Changing the subject totally, I thought I'd share this clip from a forthcoming Glee episode. You might have heard about it - it's Gwyneth Paltrow singing Cee-Lo's "Forget You".  I love it. And my favourite line is at the beginning of the clip "what would you know about Cee-Lo? Cos you're like 40".  (I don't know when this is out in the UK):

I'm actually trying to cut down on my TV watching, but I haven't been able to resist the wonderful "Turn Back Time - The High Street".  The latest era was the 30s, which is one of my favourites, and it made riveting watching.  I particularly like catching glimpses of the pretty blue shop "Nostalgia at No. 1" which is run by Nicky of Nostalgia at the Stone House. I've been reading her blog for ages, and it's thanks to her that I had my eye out for this programme. Rather than linking to iPlayer, I'll embed the first part of the first episode that someone has kindly put on Youtube so that my family abroad can catch up with it: unfortunately, BBC iPlayer doesn't let you watch programmes abroad which is really annoying!  Here goes - enjoy:

It's way past my bedtime, so I'd better leave it there. I would, however, like to finish by saying I really feel like I've turned a corner recently, with the fatigue. As I said earlier, I had a busy afternoon and I came through it without feeling exhausted, just nicely tired as if I'd done a full day's work. Let's hope this is the home straight!

Right, if the girl next door could just stop her whooping and hollering I might get a good night's sleep... Well, at least the arguments seem to have stopped. Mustn't grumble.    Nite all :)

Things I'm liking at the moment...

Hello peeps, yes it's me again.  I thought I'd do a little post about some of things that are currently on my radar.

First, a bit of music. I've had this song on the brain recently - Our Kind of Love by Lady Antebellum. I've tried to get a video I could embed, but all the "official" ones have embedding disabled. I don't know why, but that really annoys me!!  Don't they WANT me to do some free advertising for them??  Not the band themselves, I'm sure, but the damn record label :(   I first heard them on an Ellen show, a while back now, and since then Claire has downloaded their stuff too. I'm not usually very "country" but I do like some country music and Lady A are a class act.  

Another country one is the latest Taylor Swift that Claire and I are both kind of addicted to. She is such a sweet girl - long may she remain so!  Trying to embed...  

 

What else? Well I missed the Desert Island Discs with Kathy Burke, and the internet has been down so no listening to it on iPlayer either. But I've found the link and we are back up and working so I shall relish listening to this later - or tomorrow maybe... (that link prob won't work if you aren't in the UK, for which I apologise).  I've never played the Desert Island Discs game have you?  I am completely unable to pick the limited number of pieces of music like you have to; as for ONE book, hell, I have NO idea how to restrict it to one. And ONE luxury item?  Nope, I like my creature comforts like toothbrush and paste, and hairbrush, let alone luxuries!  What about you?

As for TV programmes, we've been watching a lot of CSI but also the lovely Tim Roth on Lie to Me, and tonight there is The Mentalist with the gorgeous Simon Baker, and Medium with the delicious Patricia Arquette. Lucky me :) 

The Mentalist 

Lie to Me (one we haven't seen yet...)

 

That's all from me tonight - I've overdone it AGAIN this week. WHEN WILL I LEARN??  I keep thinking I've understood, that my brain needs to recover, that I can't do what I used to do, but as soon as I have a good (or semi good) day I go and overdo it. Yikes, it's really not sinking in. Oh well, off to watch Simon Baker then BED!