Burns Night Supper

Another fairly busy week filled with gardening and shopping. On Friday we held a Burns Supper for a few friends so I spent the day cleaning and tidying the house, shopping for food and extra plates and peeling and mashing 10lbs of potatoes! Actually it was Nick that mashed the spuds.
The evening went well with plenty whisky brought to sample.
The haggis, neeps and tatties went down a treat and I think everyone had a good time and seemed to appreciate Nick's reciting of Burns poetry with Scottish (!) accent.
Needless to say Saturday was a quiet day of lounging and jigsawing and eating leftovers!

Weekend in Eufala

Last Wednesday saw me helping out in a public garden for the first time, it was quite nerve wracking being told to tidy up certain areas. It's easy to do in your own garden when there is no pressure on how it looks but when it is a garden that people visit it's a bit scary, what happens if I pull up a plant by mistake? Thankfully, all went well (at least no one said otherwise) and I plan to go back again this Wednesday. Also I helped tidy out weeds at Blount Park today, an altogether much easier task as the area was small and just had pansies and weeds in it, so no chance of mistakes there then.
On Thursday I was back at classes and learning all about soil (specifically soils of Alabama but I'm sure the knowledge will transfer back to Britain.) Then Thursday night Nick and I were on base for a Sponsor Appreciation Evening where Tim & Deanna were awarded a plaque for their services. Being complete dullards, Nick and I forgot the camera to record the event, sorry.
On Friday, Kate had invited all us Brit ladies round for a morning of card reading and a spot of lunch. What fun we had. I had a lovely reading full of good luck and Kate reckoned I was coming into money so should buy a lottery ticket but Alabama doesn't have a state lottery.
However, we were going to Lake Eufala for the weekend which borders Georgia and Georgia runs a state lottery so needless to say we drove across to Georgia on Saturday to buy a lottery ticket. Unfortunately my numbers didn't come up!

The children had been happily playing on this small sandy area in front of our cottage for some time when I looked out of the window and saw the above sign in the distance and said to Nick, I think that sign says something about an'alligator retreat'. I shot out of the cottage and raced over to discover that it did indeed mention alligators! Luckily it was a fairly cold day so none of them were out basking in the sun, thank goodness.

We spent the weekend going for walks, bike riding and throwing balls around and just relaxing. It was a lovely cottage but I think the general consensus was that we all prefer Oak Mountain State Park to this one.

We drove home on Sunday in time to celebrate Australia Day with all our Australian and International friends and then came home to relax before another busy week.

5 months left

Last Monday Lily had her first lesson in Baton twirling and seemed to enjoy it, today is a holiday so no lesson again until next week for her. I had my first proper gardening class on Thursday and learnt all about plant biology, had a delicious lunch (laid on by previous novice gardeners) and then learnt some more and came away with another test to complete for this coming week. I did very well in my first test, but apparently we weren't meant to google our answers. Oops! I scored 88 but we sit the test again at the end of the course to see how much we have improved/learnt, so there may not be much improvement by me. I reckon I answered more than half of the questions without help though, so that was pleasing.
It was Kate's birthday on Friday and Ray had asked me to organise a surprise party for her on Friday night so that was fun. We were all hiding in their kitchen with our cars parked around the corner when they got back from shopping and then the kids blew the surprise just as we could hear Kate saying to Ray that she thought there was someone in the house! We had a great evening and got home around 10pm to put the kids to bed.
On Saturday we had a fairly relaxed day and then went round to Olivier & Amelie's for dinner and a wine tasting. So it was another late night for the children and again they went to bed around 10pm. Then we had another relaxed day on Sunday. Tom, Lily and I went round to Dorothy's for a visit and a catch up with all their news before coming home in time for me to watch the Golden Globe Awards Show. One of two must see tv events for me, the other one is of course the Oscars. Speaking of Oscars, I need to say a big congrats to Euan and Emily on the birth of Oscar (Thursday 14th Jan). Well done both, look forward to meeting him on our return to the UK which is only 5 months away now!
And today is a holiday, the sun is shining and we have just met some new friends (always within 6 months of leaving everything falls into place and life is great!). They have lived on our street for the last 8 years and have a boy called Ken who is 9 so Tom has gone off to play with him for an hour or so and Lisa & I have swapped phone numbers. We were both bemoaning the fact that its so difficult to meet people and to know if there are children in the house because no-one plays out front.

A Belated Happy New Year to y'all

Gosh, it's the 10th of January already, what's been going on so far? Let's see, we had a very quiet New Year's Eve and had a nice roast beef dinner on New Year's Day. I went for a run on the 2nd in the freezing cold, we have been having exceptionally cold weather as well, with overnight lows of 20F/-7C and daily highs of around 1 or 2C/34F for the last week or so, very tiresome. Even the locals are amazed that the cold snap has lasted so long, it is very unusual.
Enough about the weather, what have we been doing? Well, we had Tim, Deanna and the kids over for lunch last Sunday, needless to say that degenerated into a very long and boozy lunch for me and Deanna so there was no run for me on Monday! Then on Tuesday it was back to school and work for Tom, Lily and Nick and personal training sessions and the library for me.
On Thursday I had my first Master Gardeners meeting and came away from that with a very large folder and a test! I haven't done it yet but I have looked at it - not very confident, I think I might need to google a lot of the answers! Oh dear.
School was cancelled on Friday due to the threat of snow (it didn't materialise) so my carefully organised coffee morning was slightly disturbed by children in attendance! Saying that, we all had a bit of a catch up and ate cake (fruitcake-healthy) and chocolate (terry's choc orange - not healthy but very delicious). On Friday night, Nick and I went round to Mary's for pizza and to say goodbye to a couple of the people Nick works with, then on Saturday both Tom & Lily had parties to attend so we chauffered them around for the afternoon and then had a quiet night in.
Today we have been round to Tom & Sian's for a very delicious lunch and are now getting the children ready for bed and another week of school. Goodnight all.