October 13th

Blue skies and fluffy white clouds.  If it hadn't been for the chill in the air, you would have thought it was summer!

October 12th

Another busy week over with - I don't know where the time goes these days.  The weeks seem to be flying past in the blink of an eye.  Autumn is well and truly upon us, the leaves are changing colour and falling from the trees.  It's my favourite time of year.

It's been a good week at uni and I've learnt quite a lot.  I was in the darkroom again on Wednesday printing some negatives and I have to say that I absolutely love doing that.  My pictures are not the best, in fact, I may end up having to re-take them all, but it was still fun to do.  I still have an awful lot to learn when it comes to contrast etc.  Taking pictures with an all manual film camera is hard!!  

Today, I've spent the morning getting some research done in the college library.  I think I may finally be starting to get somewhere with it all :)

I spent this afternoon with my friend Jo who took me to a woodland walk she had discovered last weekend and knew I would love :)

She was right - it was amazing.  There were all sorts of "things" that had been created by the local high school's GCSE art classes which made to decorate it.

Really cool huh?  I can't wait to take Arwen, she will love it there.  Weather permitting, we will go there on Sunday.






















We also found an old ruined church that has been left standing as a monument.  We had to ask permission to wander round, which we were happily given and we wandered for a while, just looking at the decay and wondering what had happened.

While I am not religious in an way, shape or form, I do very much admire the architecture of churches, chapels and cathedrals.  They really are magnificent buildings.





I tried to find out more about it online when I came home, but there is really very little known about it.  The tower collapsed in 1906 and the church became un-used some 30 
years later after the construction of a new building nearby.

Oh what a fantastic week we have just had.  It has been one of the most fun ones of the whole six weeks break I think.  

On Monday, Arwen & I spent the day with her friend Louise & her mum/my friend Liz at Cart Gap beach.  The girls had a whale of a time in the sea while Liz & I enjoyed just sitting on the sanding chatting & watching them have fun.






On Tuesday, we took a trip to Orford in Suffolk to visit the castle keep that is there.  We also walked round the village and went down to the quay.  It is such a pretty little village, very much a fishing village.  The keep was amazing and Billy treated Arwen to a longsword :)  

On the way back, we drove past the biggest field of sunflowers.  Sunflowers are my favourite flower of all so naturally I made Billy stop the car so I could take photo's :)

Wednesday, well Wednesday, as anyone who knows me will tell you isn't my favourite day of the week,  was spent in two halves.  In the morning, I will admit that I was a big grouch and that is how I usually am on Wednesday mornings as it's my designated housework day and I hate doing housework!  Well, that's not entirely true, I hate the thought of doing it which makes me a big grouch but once I am doing it and I can see the results, I start feeling ok again.  In the afternoon, I took our hound Marley to the local woods with Arwen, Asha and our friend Jen.  We love going here, such a beautiful place.  Arwen & Jen walked the entire way round sword fighting with sticks - well, when Marley wasn't trying to grab them that is :)

Thursday was spent at home relaxing, well for a little while anyway.  After lunch, I decided to take a trip to Redwings, a rescue centre for horses & donkeys.  It wasn't very big so we only spent a hour or so walking round, but it was lovely just to get out of the house.

And then yesterday, another fun filled day spent with friends.  Arwen & I went to the Hillside Animal & Shire Horse Sanctuary with Arwen's friend Savannah & her mum/my friend Jo.  Hillside is so much bigger than Redwings but every bit as lovely.  It's reasonably priced too, it cost £10 for Arwen & I, plus she got to adopt one of the animals there for free for a whole year as part of the admission price.  We went last year and she adopted William, the huge gentle giant of a shire horse.  This year she chose Katy the Pony.  We were there for hours and had such a fab time.  The girls loved every minute of it :)

 So, yes, definitely a really good week :)

Hurray It's Friday :)

To say I am pleased to see Friday at last is a understatement.  This week has been long and tumultuous, has left me drained and exhausted both physically & mentally.


However, here starts the weekend and next week, I know, is going to be a much better one :)

First Post

Wow!  This is something I thought I would never be doing again.  Keeping a diary/journal.blog again.  It's certainly been a few years since I last kept one that's for sure.  


I'm not really sure why I decided to start keeping one again.  I guess, if I really think about it, it's because all of a sudden I've realised just how quickly time seems to be going past me and I just wanted a place where I could record what's happening in my life, the lives of my girls, my family etc.  Most of the time, it's really not that exciting but there are some moments or days where things happen and I'd like to be able to look back and really remember it.  Not just from memory as that can often forget or distort things, but from actual writings.  So, this is what I aim to do. 


I guess, I should introduce myself a little to whoever happens by this page.  I'm Sarah, I'm 41, married to Billy and the mum of 4 gorgeous daughters - Josie who's 21, Asha who's 19, Caitlin who's 17 & last but not least Arwen who's 10.  Other members of the household include Marley the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Sirius & Frodo the cats and Spartacus the hamster.  Billy & I have been married for 21 years.  He's such a hard worker and we all appreciate everything he does far more than I think he realises.


In between being a mum, a wife and a domestic goddess, I also help out two mornings a week at Arwen's primary school.  I'm not with her class though, I help the year above her, the Year 6's.  As well as helping out in the classroom, I supervise them at lunch time while they play table tennis and/or hang out.  They are a lovely bunch of kids and I enjoy every minute of it.  I'm starting a teaching assistant's course at college sometime soon so maybe one day I'll get paid for it :)  In the meantime though, I am taking an evening course in how to improve your digital photography.  I am an avid amateur photography and strange as it may seem, often sees a photograph opportunity in nearly every landscape I pass.