Stronger.

I haven’t got a stronger photo today Just one of those days I guess. I can’t even think of what I might of taken had I been mindful of my day. It was Store Forum today which I loathe, I would have a clause in my contract if I could to excuse me from the process. It has a really good place in the culture of the store and I can definitely see the benefits, but I just find it hard to deal with issues on a formal basis taking 2 hours rather than sorting things out informally. Fortunately we have fostered a culture that we deal with things informally so not much ever comes up that we don’t know about or aren’t already dealing with, but I guess I feel apprehensive about what might come up. So I guess I feel stronger for it being over!

Borqna asked for photos of the minibook that caused my desk to look a dive yesterday, and I couldn’t say no to that could I?

Ali and I took a trip to our park in June, we needed some fresh air and as the sun came out in a rare June appearance we popped out. It is called Bicclescombe Park and is about a ten minute walk from us. I used to play tennis here all summer when I was 14 and 15, and I might have fallen in love with a boy that second summer whilst we played

We played Pooh Sticks, we had an explore through the trees and wilder areas and Ali tried to climb a tree. Lovely. There is a lovely play park in there as well, but he forgot about it and after 20 rounds of Pooh Sticks, I was pretty glad about not having a lengthy session on the swings as well!

My favourite photo of him, yes I did share it on that day as well ;

The front cover.

Apologies for not having a new photo, rubbish. I am quite disgruntled

Dive.

Whizzing through this evening..........
My desk after last night making a minibook is a dive.

Heavy.

Quite.

An apology for being missing again, I cannot wait for Thursday and my holiday starting

I’m just off round your blogs 366’ers to catch up.

If you want to see some photos from the Olympics they are here and here. Thanks for looking.

Rings.

So from the previous post, the chimneys sank as the rings came together. Such a great moment. Superlatives don’t do justice to how I felt.

Well done Mr Danny Boyle, I thought you were brilliant anyway, I can recall other heart in mouth moments, Leftfield soundtrack playing over the Trainspotting movie that I also was in London to watch and can remember the tube system being plastered with pictures of Renton and co. Slumdog Millionaire, genius. Olympics Ceremony, just sensational, thank you very much indeed.

Fire.

As you might remember, I was lucky enough to attend the dress rehearsal on monday.
Here is my photo of the fire starting with the chimneys rising. My heart was literally in my mouth. So amazing to see them rising up like that. The lady next to me and I were clutching each other’s sleeves at several points, pointing aspects out that was happening all around the stadium. We were both in tears at the end of this sequence, there were 1000 drummers, about 100 of which were stood right in front of us facing us as the rings came together repeating the same amazing beat. On the tv they had a soundtrack over it which muted the effect, but I hope you can imagine the vibration that sent through the stadium. Hair on end moments.

As I am doing this late, I know that the next prompt is rings, so I will pick this up in that post

Infinity.

Summer season has kicked in with a vengeance this week. We have an infinite amount of cages at any time in the warehouse and a definite amount of staff to deal with them. When I devised the summer plan for this season, I did as usual and took last years sales and increased them by the percentage we increased last year. Logical maths, yes? Well this first week we have increased by a further 10%, coupled with a few temps leaving early for one reason or another (one of the lads who is very good has had the chance to go on an archaeological dig for a month before heading back to Uni, which is a fabulous reason!) which has left us with a real headache, so I have spent 48 hours recruiting, inducting and processing onto the system another 12 staff. Phew, my only downtime was to go for a jump in the waves again before heading to the sofa to watch the olympics ceremony all over again.
Here is the corridor which is usually clear and which is continually filled with the stock needing to go out at the moment.

Multiples.

Multiple waves made for excellent fun.

Feeling hot and bothered we all piled down to the beach for a jump in the waves. Bliss. The boys were very good and waited to have their photos taken before we left the camera with Nanny who was just paddling as we went in. They both get braver every year and it is great to get in there with them.

1,2,3.

3 new purchases came back with me from my little jaunt to old london town.

Desk Tidy, it is clear and goes round so it counts as an exciting-ish new toy , Official programme to the Olympics and an official London 2012 notebook as well.

My 1,2,3.

Nine.

I applied to be a GamesMaker for London 2012 Olympics in November 2010. I have been waiting ever since, convinced that I would get something, even if it was just a day’s litter picking. (I am so nosy interested in how things work behind the scenes) Up until last month, they were saying that they might still find me something…..but it wasn’t to be. I have been quite upset about it, until they offered me a ticket to the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony
Nine hours pretty much precisely it took me to get from Susi’s house in Milton Keynes, across London, (in a random, “I come from North Devon where a roundabout is quite the thing”, fashion. I suspect there was a quicker version as I am almost positive I went through Embankment twice ), walk to the Olympic Park, basically go Ooooo for 5 and a half hours and then retrace my journey. Journey back much easier apart from Central Line being down and Stratford Station (nearest to the Olympic Park) being closed! Had to hoof it to West Ham which took about 25 minutes, wished i’d worn some trainers
Anyway, I had the most amazing time, Danny Boyle has done us proud and I wholeheartedly recommend that if you were any doubt as to whether you would watch any part of it, then make sure you do, it is spectacular and funny and oh so very british I have so many photos, but Danny Boyle came out to thank us for coming, tell us a bit about the show and also to ask us to not post photos until friday. You know what, I don’t think the BBC are trawling my blog for breaking news, but in the spirit of reciprocity and getting a £2000 ticket for £0 I will as they asked #savethesurprise.
Here is the entrance instead to the Olympic Park.

The iconic rings.


The Orbit, I wanna go up!

The outside of the stadium.
More on friday But seriously, watch it. ( Hint)

One.

One long journey to Milton Keynes to my friend Susi's house! However it was enjoyable as I had Mum's car which has air-con (how very modern lol) so the heat didn't get me :)
Radio 4 is fab on a Sunday, well it's always quite fab, but especially so on a Sunday!
Have had a lovely time since I got here just thinking of turning in for a very long sleep :) I took some photos of my road trip.....

Three’s a crowd.

Thank you so much for the lovely comments I had today about my brother and my being missing in action. You all totally rock as my older kids might say

I wasn’t inspired today for a good photo so i’ll pop it here and get it over with If you read past it I can promise Lauren with pink and purple hair!

Three chimney’s on one of the houses across the road from our house. I would like to say that my house is similar, but sadly not

Lauren could not wait to get home from school yesterday to dye her hair pale pink and pale purple for the summer holidays

All done.

I actually love it, much better than the bright red she went for last year which she now classes as chav-y. She has been ‘allowed’ to do this on the understanding that by the first day of term it is dyed back to it’s natural dark chestnut brown. She is happy with that as it will be two years until Prom and wants it long and dark brown for that. It is like de ja vu as I did the same, except we didn’t have lovely colours like this, I literally just dipped my head in a basin of Sun-In. Not nice. A Phase.