On Friday K’s outfit arrived at last for her Christmas party at the day care centre. She was so exited and of course after hastily unpacking it, she had to try it on.

I expected that I was going to have to make some massive adjustments as it was pictured being worn by a rather tall looking man on the website where we ordered it from, but to my amazement the trousers aren’t too long after all so that is one job less.

The sleeves are a trifle too long, but in order to shorten them, I will lose the green ‘cuff’ so I don’t quite know what to do about them at the moment.

We sent for a large size, and although she has lost some weight, the top only just fastens. It is only very thin material as well, so as it will probably be quite cold she will have to wear some clothes underneath the outfit.

As you can plainly see she is pleased as punch and is now requesting some green pointed toed shoes to go with it!  Hmm, costly business, this fancy dress partying!

TG 

K and I have seen some wonderful news to cheer us up during these cold winter months!  We’re getting our new swimming baths at last!  Hurrah!  And even better, they are going to be built just a ten minute walk away from where we live!

Of course there have been plenty of objections about its siting but luckily this proposed siting has been passed.  The new swimming baths is to be placed where the tennis courts are currently in our local park.  Its an ideal spot to be honest as it will then be incorporated into the area which houses  the bowling green and the crazy golf.  The tennis courts don’t get used much so I am not sure what the plans are regarding the provision of tennis facilities.

We are over the moon!  Honestly we were going to get a new swimming pool ages ago way back when we governing our own local area and had our own  mayor, town hall, etc. Then we were ‘swallowed up’ into the greater ‘Calderdale’ Authority and H received the new swimming pool instead of us whilst we had to continue with our old Victorian building which became over the years too hard to maintain. Its been a bone of contention every since by the residents of this little town!

So practically a stones throw away!  We can’t wait to go swimming again so this is excellent news!

TG

Today, well this morning actually, we ventured out (me very reluctantly) in weather that I tend to refer to as ‘Wuthering Heights’ weather, windy, gusty, rain squalls, etc.  Just to cheer myself up a bit I took the camera along even though we were only going down to just do some shopping at Tesco’s.

Took a few panoramic pictures of the park which I should really have taken the other day when it was sunnier.  The trees are now really shedding their leaves, the ground was covered with them, and K and I ended up with very muddy shoes as the park was like a quagmire, made worse no doubt by the fact that it doubles up as a football pitch for the local teams.

It was like walking in a bog in some areas, and made me regret taking that route through from the tennis courts entrance.  K plodded on behind me trying to negotiate the best route through all the mud.  She also had another practice at vaulting over the log for the video we intend to create sometime in the future.  We didn’t need all that much shopping and were soon exiting Tesco’s and making our way to the bus station.  On the way there K bought herself a steak pasty for her tea from Greggs.  She loves them and when she warmed it up this teatime it smelt wonderful!  I can’t have anything like that, worse luck!  I sat down to a salad instead!  No wonder I am wilting with all the lettuce leaves I eat!

So, a horrible day weather wise, dank, dark, dismal, dreary, depressing, daunting, drab, and I am glad to be indoors!  We are off to the hairdressers tomorrow, just for a wash,cut and blow dry, although in my case, I probably won’t be having much cut off, it is still very short from my last visit.

Keep cosy and keep warm won’t you? 

TG 

I haven’t been posting as much recently  because there really hasn’t been much to post about! This time of year is always a little bit of a downer for me, I don’t like going out in this horrible weather, in fact, I do a sort of semi-hibernation!

Yesterday turned out to be a lovely day here, and I was annoyed with myself for not going out armed with my camera, as when we did venture out for some shopping in the late afternoon, the trees in the park were looking at their best all decked out in some fabulous autumn colours.

We have recently sent off for a Elf outfit for K who is going as one to a fancy dress party at the day care centre in December. The theme is obviously  Christmas or Panto.  We decided on the Elf outfit because she already has an Elf hat complete with Elf ears sticking out.

It takes an awful lot to motivate me in winter time I’m afraid so my posts will probably be few and far between as there really isn’t much to post about, and I don’t like posting about mundane subjects such as what we ate for dinner etc.  I will try and keep up with all of your posts, but if I don’t comment then do please understand the reason why.  I can’t really do much about my SAD unfortunately as now that I am on these tablets for my heart, I am not allowed to take any anti-depressants.

Just wish that we hibernated instead of choosing this time of year to go plodding around busy shops doing Christmas shopping in such atrocious weather!  I vote we move Christmas to the summer when its warmer (well supposedly warmer!) or of course I suppose that I could always move down under to Australia!

TG   

Wondering where I’ve been? No? Oh well never mind! Well actually I have been pretty busy this week with other things.                                                                                                                             We began the week by doing a practice photo shoot on our way down to do the shopping on Monday.  The plan is to do a sort of film of K taking off the opening sequence of ‘Last of the Mohicans’ where Daniel Day Lewis and the other two Indians are chasing through the trees hunting a deer. Its actually called ‘The Hunt’ on my music CD of the films soundtrack, and K will be playing the part of Hawkeye.

Of course we will need a toy rifle for her to carry, and we have been discussing her wearing a long black wig to give more authenticity!  So we did a sort of practice run on our way down. I intend to make the finished article with Movie Maker some time in the future.   She absolutely loves doing anything like this, she is a born actress, and it broke her heart when she didn’t get past the audition for another year at ‘Mind the Gap’.  It broke mine as well. Down’s Syndrome people do seem to grasp the whole acting idea, and they do tend to be very good at it.

When I finally finish it, I will post it up on both Flickr and probably Soapbox as well.

I also had a big pre Christmas clearout of accumulated objects which seem to have multiplied over the last year or so, and ended up also having daughter do the same in her bedroom. (She does seem to hoard stuff like plastic bags, bus tickets, pieces of paper containing bits of writing, pens etc, but  I was horrified on Tuesday when I found loads of plastic bags full of clothes stuffed under her bed!) 

So I took them all out and placed them on top of her bed for her to sort through and hang in the correct place, her wardrobe. I was really annoyed about this, as it isn’t long ago that I had a big tidy in her bedroom and had asked her not to accumulate bits of paper in her drawers, wardrobe, etc, but as usual my pleas had been ignored. Her bedroom is far too small to allow for hoarding stuff, so I had to be firm about it.  

When she returned from day care, I helped her to sort it all into a big black bin bag. Of course she spent the entire time we were sorting things out with a face like thunder and bottom lip extended, but I ignored it!  Anyway as luck would have it, she needed me to burn a CD that someone had lent her so she couldn't get too angry about the enforced clear out!

I had already done a similar drastic tidy of my bedroom on the Monday, and disposed of anything that I don’t use/need anymore.  Most of my clutter consisted of old universal remotes and a different assortment of leads for the computer and so on.  By doing my own clear out on the Monday, I had managed to pre-empt the dustbin men who visit on a Tuesday morning, but as I didn’t find the mess stashed under K’s bed until Tuesday, her discarded things are now waiting in the dustbin outside for collection.

So that has really been all this week, oh yes!  Today I finally managed to see the Physiotherapist on the correct day! (to assorted gags and leg pulls from the office staff) She has given me some more Pilates exercises to do and marked my next appointment in very big numbers with  a square around it!  I will put it in my calendar and also as a reminder on my phone and then I really have no excuse to plod down there on the wrong day have I? 

See you all later and keep blogging!

TG 

All of my readers who read this blog will no doubt remember K and I tearing around West Yorkshire (well bit of a overstatement I know but it felt like that at the time and anyway, I always exaggerate!) searching for a larger size of the dressing gown that I bought my Grand Nephew last year?  (Unfortunately I am not able to refresh your memories via a link to the relevant post as LJ won’t allow Windows Live Writer to use links to your previous posts, and Windows Live Spaces only allows links to the last 20 previous posts and as the blog in question is much earlier than 20 posts ago, you will have to just trawl through to find it, sorry!) 

Remember how we searched every Mothercare shop within a 50 mile radius for said dressing gown (told you I exaggerated didn’t I?) and were unsuccessful in finding it?  Well when my niece paid us a visit last Friday she informed me that we hadn’t purchased it from Mothercare after all, it was in fact bought from Boots! (No wonder we couldn’t find it in Mothercare then, we would have been searching forever for it and so would the helpful Mothercare staff!)  

Quite why I had assumed that we had purchased it from Mothercare I haven’t a clue although none of you will be surprised at this mix up of vendors in my memory as you should all be perfectly well aware by now that as far as recollection and memory go, mine is far from reliable!  Besides which in my lousy memory's defence, we had bought it from Foster Square Shopping Centre which contains both a Boots and a Mothercare store, so I have concluded that it was an easy mistake to make on my part.  

So yesterday K and I set off to Huddersfield in order to purchase the dressing gown.  Huddersfield because my niece had stated that this is where she had spotted the dressing gown in question in that particular branch of Boots.  We walked down the cat steps to catch the bus and it was a very pleasant day weather wise, sunny, blue skies just perfect for a trip out.  On arriving at Huddersfield we began by having a quick peek in Dixons or as it is now called CurrysDigital, for a nosy at the latest AV equipment and then we made our way to Boots.

 The children's clothing department is upstairs in this branch,  so we rode up the escalator and soon found the dressing gowns. Hmm. Not quite the same one I purchased for him before. The previous one was all blue and these were blue and white stripes! There were a few left of the all blue ones but they were not in the size that my niece had requested I buy. So we bought one of the blue and white striped ones instead. Then we continued to W.H.Smiths where we also purchased some ‘feely’ books as well for him to go with the dressing gown. I love these for small children!  I used to buy mine books like this when they were his age, as I think that its important to foster a love of books and reading early.  You can’t begin soon enough in my opinion!

We were going to return on the train, but on reaching Huddersfield station and trying to buy our tickets, we were informed that they were only running buses from Huddersfield to B! Why I couldn’t quite fathom, as the lady in the ticket booth mentioned something about Bradford Interchange being closed which does go someway to explaining why we are currently having trains running through B to Blackpool North and York, although she said that they aren’t stopping there. Damn!  K and I had discussed having a day out to Blackpool in order to do some Xmas shopping!

To be quite honest with you I didn’t grasp any of her explanation as to why this prevented us from catching a train to B and why they were running buses instead, so we then had to retrace our steps to the bus station and catch a bus home.

so a successful dressing gown quest at last! Hurrah! That’s one Christmas present out of the way! 

TG