Spawn-taneous

Posted on April 4, 2010 by lindaharley

After a rather rainy Saturday, Easter Sunday dawned bright and sunny, so I took Max to our favourite walking place, Drumkeeragh Forest.  And we had the place to ourselves, so he could gallop and hurtle to his hearts content.  It was still cold – patches of snow lay unmelted in the shadow of the stone walls, and many of the puddles where the sunlight hadn’t yet hit were still glazed over with ice.  As Max lolloped along the gravel paths, his breath steamed out on either side of his head, and his tail was wagging in an almost circular fashion – he looked like a fire-breathing gyrocopter!

Now, a dog’s sense of hearing and smell is orders of magnitude better than a humans, but their eyesight is worse.  On more than one occasion, Max has leaped on what appeared to be solid ground, only to land with a splash, and emerge with a rather indignant look on his face, shaking off the excess water.  He did this again today, and once I had stopped laughing, I went to explore where he’d jumped, and found a little pond full of frogspawn, a sight I haven’t seen in years!  Spring is definitely on  the way, snow notwithstanding.

Here’s a little montage of today’s signs of spring, along with some photos taken last week with Roger’s new camera. Music is by Clannad.

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Frog blog

Posted on March 14, 2010 by lindaharley

I spotted this little fella yesterday while walking Max in our favourite spot, Drumkeeragh forest.

a tiny brown frog on some stones

Little frog

He seemed quite friendly – Max hardly paid him attention, but I watched him for a few minutes before he hopped off and hid under some grass.

a brown frog hiding under some grass

bye bye froggie

We had a lovely walk: it really is our numero uno walkies destination, and well worth the 20 minute drive it takes to get there.  The weather was glorious: blue skies and wonderful welcome sunshine after all the cold and snow we’ve had.  And I came up with a plan – I’ll draw a map of this place, with our favourite routes, maybe little illustrations of where we found wild raspberries, and where the clearest streams are. Oooh, I love a good plan!

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It’s not untidy!

Posted on March 5, 2010 by lindaharley

A friend had been admiring the pictures of my new flat BEFORE I’d moved in, and had asked if it was still that tidy.  Well here’s how it looks this evening.

A living room with lots of items scattered around it

My lounge, my life.

I think I taught myself to look at untidiness a different way when the kids were younger – instead of seeing mess, I chose to see evidence of painting, homeworks, reading, music making etc.

So this isn’t untidy.  In it I can see:

1. Lovely tasty lemony olives as snacking material while I cook.

2. A Stig soap on a rope – bargain at the supermarket, early birthday present for Harry.  Stig themed presents are a long standing joke.

3. Dance Direct catalogue – for Jem and I to pore over all the lovely leotards. Next audition for Bird College in April.  Booked cheapo Ryanair flights today – under £90 for 3 of us.

4. Champagne – to take to my sister’s tomorrow for my niece’s birthday, where my parents will also be.  Sis is now a short bus ride away.

5. Cardboard boxes for when I move on again!  This place is a 6 month rent. which gives me time to sort out what the future holds, and do some unhurried property hunting.

6. Chief, our cuddly dog.  One of Matty’s presents to Jem – soppy gits the pair of them!  It’s no substitute for Max, but he’s quite nice to cuddle up to of an evening. Without a TV we watch quite a few DVDs together, which is so lovely, even if its only on a teeny pink portable set.

7. A fruitbowl containing both plastic and real fruit.  The plastic fruit was acquired from eBay to make a Carmen Miranda style hat for Jem doing a Caribbean number, where she sings “At the Copa, Copacabana, the hottest spot north of Fermanagh”.  Ah how we laughed!  And I’m always encouraging the children to eat more real fruit…

8. The balcony.  Well, it’s what estate agents call a “Juliet balcony”, meaning it’s patio doors with railings, but no actual outdoor space.  Having said that, I did open the doors this evening to enjoy the dusk falling through the trees, while I enjoyed a chilled white wine leaning on the blacony rails.

We’ve been here a month now, and it’s just so stress-free.  Jem, Matty and I all get on really well together, and no-body’s overly bothered by the odd bit of mess.  I’m re-learning how to cook for myself, so shopping trips aren’t totally smooth yet, but we’re getting there.  Jem seems to live on cheese, bread, ham, bacon, potato waffles, pasta and tomato sauce.  Could be worse, I guess!

Have just asked them what they think.

Jem: ” I love it – it’s just so calm”

Matty: “Amazing!”

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The Gambia

Posted on March 2, 2010 by lindaharley
a beach with palm trees

the view from our hotel

Gosh I’ve been back from the Gambia nearly 3 weeks now, but what with moving house, involving loss of internet access, I haven’t had much of a chance to get caught up on blogging. Those of you familiar with h2g2 will have been able to follow the journey of the 7 bikers in the Rear View series in The Post,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A63617682

and what a real adventure it turned out to be, incorporating minus 10 temperatures across France, broken ankles in Spain, delays due to tyre changes, and ferries, and visa applications. Roger aka Thunder has done a detailed report on
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218794

I’d agreed to be one of the WAGs flying out to meet the guys – in the end there were only 2 of us, myself and Katherine, and we were on the same flight to Banjul from Manchester.  We’d booked on a cheapish package, as that was the best way to get flights, and were coached to our 2 star hotel, which lived up to its billing.  The rooms were basic, but it did have a lovely pool and a poolside bar.  We also found, braving the bumsters outsdie, that the view of the setting sun from Solomon’s Beach Bar down the road was wonderful, and that the mezze served by Shiraz, the resraurant opposite, was delicious.

We were picked up at 6 am the next morning by Musa Bah, so famous he even gets a mention in the Lonely Planet guidebook.  He parked at the eerily scray ferry terminal and left us while he went off to sort tickets (ie pay some bribes so that we could have a place in the queue).  It was a ferry journey like no other:  almost 3 hours we’d spent in teh queue, eventually being squeezed onto the boat with no room to open teh door to get out.  I was glad I’d bought some peanut brittle last night in teh shop, and I shared it with the others as a sort of apology for breakfast.  Barra, on the northern shore, was even dustier and more bustling, and we failed miserably in our attempts to buy some beer to take to the guys.  We stopped for lunch in Farrafenni, a border crossing which was just so unlike anywhere else I’d ever visited in my life that it rendered me speechless. Katherine and I took one look at the flies buzzing round the meat in the chop shop, where one knife and one chopping board was being used for everything, and ordered omelettes.

We continued down the dusty wide road, African scrub to either side of us, goats and cows crossing in front of us, and very frequent police checkpoints.  A few hours later Musa turned off the main road, and announced that the next part of our journey would be by boat.

a little boat on the River Gambia

N'fally's boat

N’fally was a sharp-eyed captain, and enjoyed pointing out local wildlife like pythons and chameleons, while we soaked up the sparkle on the river, and felt like we were in The African Queen.  On the far shore, we waited to see what our next form of transport would be – and Roger arrived on the back of a little 125, accompanied by a horse and cart!  Katherine took the pillion position and Rog and I and all the luggage piled onto the cart.  We trotted off to Sambel Kunda, waving and smiling to the many children who greeted us as we passed.  SK is home to the Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust, which is the charity co-ordinating the fund raising for the new Calum’s Road, but which also carries out veterinary and educational work in the area.  The 7 bikes were parked up outside the buidling, which had no electricity, a little bit of running water, but plenty of cold beer and warm welcomes.

Bikes in Sambel Kunda

More later….

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Trapped!

Posted on January 30, 2010 by lindaharley

The door of an underground car-park, stuck 2/3 way down

I’d just been congratulating myself on being such an efficient Little Red Hen: having to move all my stuff from the big house to my new apartment, and pack every box myself, carry it down 3 flights of stairs, load it into my tiny car, and then carry it up 3 flights of stairs in the new place…

To be fair, Jem and Matty have been wonderful, M especially as he can carry the heavy boxes, and also being 6 foot 5 is great for fixing lightshades etc 😉

Anyhoo, went over today after lunch with the penultimate (I hope!) lot of kitchen jars, all the bits and bobs off my desk, and my concertina file of documents. (And my Scrabble dictionary, so all my opponents should make the most of this opportunity!)

The underground car park door opened OK with my remote, I unloaded all the boxes, a passing resident asked if I needed help, I smiled sweetly and accepted his offer with the heavy stuff, and he introduced himself as Tommy, from a flat 2 floors down.

All the boxes safely inside, I set about unpacking and re-arranging. Jem, as I said, has been an absolute star, and donated her iPod base unit to the communal living area, so I slotted in my newly re-found big iPod (the Shuffle lives in my handbag) and the first song it chose was “Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing”.

I sang along as I hammered the feet into Jem’s computer desk, and re-arranged the position of the shoe rack in my bedroom, thanking my lucky stars yet again fro finding such a beautiful and LARGE apartment.

Still singing, I stacked some empty boxes to take back with me, and went back down to teh car park.  The roller door was stuck about 2/3 way down.  I pressed the remote button.  Nothing.  I got out and pressed all the buttons by the side of the door – no response.  Luckliy, I’d recently imported all my contacts into my new iPhone, so I called the owner of the apartment (no reply), and then the letting agent.  They in turn got the maintenance people to ring me, who asked if I’d pressed all the buttons.  Ok, they’d send someone out but it might be an hour before they got to me.

Time passed.

I listened to the radio – Dermot O’Leary was on.  I thought I’d send him a text about my predicament just to pass the time.  He played me a dedication! Paulo Nutini, too <wow>

Time passed.

Tommy re-appeared, leaving out some rubbish.  He tried pressing all the buttons, too, and nothing happened, though we had a nice little chat.

Time passed.

Another resident appeared, and started putting a suitcase into his BMW. I explained that the door was stuck, but he said “Oh it’s done this before, I managed to get it to open” and he proceeded to press all the buttons…and to my amazement, the door opened!  He wasn’t able to tell me what the magic sequence was, sadly, but Freedom!

I’d been planning on taking Max for a last walk together.  It is undoubtedly strange being in this position: tonight is quite possibly the last night I’ll spend in the big house.  And while I’m pretty sure I’ll see Max again, and take him for walkies, we don’t really know what shape the future will be.

Jem is sooo looking forward to leaving the big house, and absolutely adores the new place.  I feel sad that she feels no regrets at leaving the big house – doesn’t want any reason to come back her and doesn’t want to see Roger again. But am so impressed at her positive attitude to moving, fresh start, her helpfulness and cheerfulness.

The owner’s just phoned me as I’m typing this, very apologetic about the inconvenience.  He’d just been round himself and apparently the door is stuck again, so maybe he can put some pressure on to the maintenance crowd to get it sorted.

Meanwhile, I’m off to The Gambia tomorrow, where it’s currently 40 degrees!!!

Still singing “Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing”….

Filed under: buildings, kids, Lisburn | 2 Comments »

Scary Musical

Posted on January 23, 2010 by lindaharley

Jem’s latest production was Scary Musical, an innuendo-laden spoof of High School Musical, with some hilarious pastiches of Fame, Grease, and Saturday Night Fever thrown in along the way.
a flier for scary musical

The lyrics are very clever – I particularly liked “It doesn’t have to be hard if we come together – if we all lend a hand, job done, we can pull it off….”

I’ll leave the choreography and …erm…actions to your imagination!

A very talented cast – I recgonised most of them from other MT4UTH and McMaster shows, and I thought to myself “Ah yes, the usual suspects”. And then I thought, yup, those are NI’s stars of tomorrow. And what a great bunch they all are. Remember my name!

Filed under: Dance, kids, Musicals | 2 Comments »

New phone, old phone

Posted on January 19, 2010 by lindaharley

Having been distinctly unimpressed by Voadafone’s customer service last year (new handset, had problems, replaced with reconditioned handset, had different probelms, repeat several times until they refused to replace a non-functioning handset…) I’d vowed to wait out my contract with them and then treat myself to an iPhone!

And here it is.

An iPhone, its packaging, and an old fashioned dictaphone Now, I wouldn’t normally class myself as an early adopter, but I’m the first person in my office to have one!  OK, 2 of the guys have Blackberries so it’s not like we’re completely last millennium.

I’m a bit old skool at times – you can see an ancient dictaphone in the background, which I carry in the car with me.  I use it to make a note of any songs on the radio I like, so I can download them later.  I use it to record directions to somewhere I don’t know (I did have a SatNav but it got stolen out of the car).

And of course I used my old phone to take a photo of the new one!

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2009 review

Posted on January 1, 2010 by lindaharley

Started the year with walkies on the beach, and enjoyed Scottish Dancing at Burns Night.  Jem auditioned for High School Musical and MT4UTH.

In February Max had to go to the vet’s for his shoulder to be X-rayed, and Jem went skiing on a school trip.  In March we went to see Flashdance, and Jem sang I’m Still Hurting at her school concert.  During April we went on a bike weekend to Kesh, and saw Evita.  At Easter Jem went to a course at Bird College, and was awarded the hardest working student cerfickatick.  I went to a weekend Scottish dancing course in my alma mater, Coleraine High.

In May, my nephew did well with his goats at Balmoral Show, and I received my favourite text of the year from my sister: “Cld u get some cabbages, and if so cld u bring 6?”  We went to the North West 200, which was badly disrupted by accidents and weather.  We went to see Fame and Cabaret, and I ran a 10k run for action cancer.  At the end of the month my son turned 18; we celebrated with a family party in the Hilden brewery, and I made a montage of photos from throughout his life.

In June, Jem got to meet the President of Ireland, and appeared as Martha in High School Musical.  In July, we went to see Never Forget, and Evelyn Glennie, before heading to China for an amazing trip.  The high point for me was seeing that glorious diamond ring of the eclipse, although dancing on the Great Wall was rather fabulous, and the whole trip was truly magnificent.

In August, Jem appeared on the stage of the Grand Opera House in Godspell, and my sister described her when she dances as looking as though it’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever been asked to do. She got her photo on the front of the local paper.  Mum and Dad celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary, and we had a wonderful party with cake and a song wot I wrote: I’d converted some old camcorder tapes onto DVDs for them, and had fun making covers and and labels.  At the end of August I rode my new bike, Zucchero, to Skye, and only dropped it once!  And was able to pick it up myself. In Skye we visited Calum’s Road, where R and a group of about a  dozen bikers will be setting off next year to ride to The Gambia.

In September Harry started university, and Jem auditioned for Guys and Dolls. She also did a photo shoot for the pantomime, and her picture was used many times for publicity.  We looked after my sister-in-law’s dog, Mack, when she had to have breast surgery.

During October, Jem played the Narrator in her school production of Blood Brothers, and had her Just Dance audition.  I visited old friends in Luxembourg and Frankfurt.  November brought parents evening, where for the first time I got nothing but glowing reports!  She then totally wowed the audiences with her charming portrayal of Miss Adelaide .  In December we went to London and saw Legally Blonde, and I decided to do something about the 2 stone I’ve put on since I stopped smoking 2 years ago, and re-joined the gym.  I also decided that the deteriorating atmosphere at home, which had included many flouncing outs, 3 day sulks, and a laptop flung across the room, was untenable, and I found a little apartment for Jem and I to move into in the New Year.

I’m approaching the new decade with a positive attitude – I will lose some weight, I’ll be visiting The Gambia in February, and help Jem get through her GCSEs.  Come September who knows where we’ll all be!

Filed under: China, travel, video | 1 Comment »

Frosty Forest

Posted on December 24, 2009 by lindaharley

Managed to take a good action shot of Max today!  This is rather an amazing achievement, as usually by the time I have lined up the framing background, called Max to me, and pressed the button, he’s way past me.  Honestly, I have a gazilion pics of the tip of his tail.

But today, in gloriously snowy magical Hillsborough forest, I captured this moment.

Max running in Hillsborough Forest

Run Max, Run!

I do so love the forest at all times of the year, but the current cold snap renders it a truly magical kingdom, where showers of crystal tumble upon you as you pass, and your shadow is as tall as the trees.

hillsborough forest in snowI know we’re all waiting for the thaw, so that traveling arrangements can get back to normal, but I’m carpe diem-ing, and making the most of the wonderful scenes that we currently have.

Filed under: Dogs, Lisburn | 1 Comment »

Christmas in London

Posted on December 15, 2009 by lindaharley

Just spent the most wonderful weekend in London and am so proud of my little darlings – well, not so little these days!  Harry’s just finished his first term at Central, where he’s one of only 4 students doing theatre sound.  He’s absolutely loving being in London (and what 18 year old boy wouldn’t!), but I was caught unawares by one of his comments about what was so great about life in the capital city: he said, no-one had once made a remark about his appearance.  OK, I know Norn Irn is a bit conservative when it comes to its inhabitants, and sure, people with blue dreadlocks don’t merit a second glance in London.  I just never realised my tough gothy heavy metal loving son was so sensitive about  jibes at his long hair and baggy shorts.

I’m so proud of this young man, who’d previously dropped out of school.  But, inspired partly by our lunch with an astronaut at KSC last year (thank you Storey Musgrave), he decided to follow his dream, and secured himself this rare opportunity by portfolio and references.  He was working with Pink last week.

Jemima had a ball.  Which was just as well, as it was her treat for getting such great feedback from her teachers this year!  I’d asked her “Would you like a puppy? A pony? No? OK how about a weekend in London…” and was bowled over by her exuberant acceptance – literally!

We gave a standing ovation to Legally Blonde, we shopped at Harrods and bought her Christmas pressie of a lovely new red coat, we ate Chinese food in Chinatown, joined in the carol singing at the tree in Trafalgar Square,  ice-skated at the Tower of london, and drank mulled wine watching the street theatre at Covent Garden.

It’s looking likely that the pair of them will be here next year (Jem’s sent off her audition applications to Laine and Bird today), and I just wonder – should I join them?

Filed under: Christmas, kids, London, Musicals | 2 Comments »

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