Flat on my back with frozen brussel sprouts

Its been quite some weekend. I've driven along the coast, been to three different UK airports, hired a car, driven over the Yorkshire moors, attempted a 26 mile walk (failed) and acquired a puppy. All in 48 hours. The net result of all this activity is that my back has ceased to work. I am flat on my back with a number of prescription painkillers coursing through my veins and a bag of frozen brussel sprouts pressed against my lower spine. Oh and a large glass of pinot grigio by my side - I figure it can only help at this stage. I felt strangely proud when the osteopath told me that I had a "serious injury" as all the sighing/moaning/yelping/whinging I have done over the last two days seems totally justified.

Oh and the daughters have been so totally wound round my little finger (cos I arrived home with a puppy and mother adoration is running at an all time high). They have been happily picking things up from the floor (an area which is currently unreachable), fetching things (including the pinto grigio) and generally looking after me.

As for the puppy; he is just adorable. He is going to fit right in being just as bonkers as the rest of the family. We bought him a big, comfy, expensive bed and he chooses to sleep here:

Yup. That's the bin and the glass recycling that he is crashed out next to. Which I think only goes to prove that his spiritual name and henceforth his blog name is CHAR-DON-NAY. I shall soon be checking the puppy manuals as to how to train him to open the wine.

What did blog camp ever do for me in the style of Monty Pythons Life of Brian "what did the Romans ever do for us"?

 So what did blog camp ever do for me?  Well knowing how we all love a list here goes:

• I learnt lots of blogging stuff that a newbie like me is too afraid to ask; like about sitemeter and how to cross out because I had a carefully prepared list that I went through item by item Polly remembered to ask.
• I remembered what it was like go away sans children, sans partner, sans friends; an experience I will defintely be repeating.
• I said yes to an opportunity that presented itself and my life became richer for it.
• I got to laugh till it really really hurt and then just a little bit more.
• I learnt a whole bunch of random stuff - how to sip tequila under instruction from extranjera; that I always have my mouth open in a photo; and I am rubbish at throwing sticks at other sticks or whatever that Danish game that I suck at is called.
• I got to feel like this about a whole bunch of people I had never met:

Connected

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

• And not just about those I met.  There are real people behind each and every blog to paraphrase Polly.
• I started to get really excited about taking photos and now need (NEED I TELL YOU) a decent camera.
• I learnt that sometimes when you are having an amazing time the days can stretch out so that you feel as if you have been away from your real life for a gloriously long time.

So yeah, what did blog camp ever do for me I ask you?

(Clearly not how to write a short and snappy title for a post....)

A blogging journey

Sometimes its weird where life takes you. How seemingly small decisions can take you off in a completely unexpected direction.

On 21st April I started blogging. Exactly two months later I was waking up in Denmark on the final day of blog camp. The bloggers who I had met less than 48 hours before were real. Not only that but they were just like the voices I had read in their blogs; creative, talented, funny, intellecutal, interesting.... and did I mention funny?

I started to blog just for me. I didn't expect anyone to read what I had written. Even when I started to discover other blogs and found moments of perfect clarity I didn't expect julochka to first joke about blog camp and then to make it a real offer. I didn't expect that there would be room for me when I surprised myself by saying that I could go. And then I ended up in Denmark and the rest is history.

So I hear that Blog Camp 1.5 UK is in the offing.... so I will be grabbing

the camera

the converse

and the wine

and I will be turning up. I wonder what is going to happen next.....?

Blog camp words

I am sitting at home in my blog camp t-shirt, which typically arrived whilst I was away, so that I can preserve the blog camp feeling a little longer.  My brain is a jumble of images and a riot of thoughts and I am much too tired to sort it all out following the tequila several late night intellectual discussions.  All I have at the moments is words and phrases and some photos.

Copenhagen in the sun and rain

Sunset on the lake

Axes were present but not used.

Colour everywhere.

Creativity.

Tequila and tiaras.

Its been a real blast.  Keep checking the blog camp blog over the next few days for more....

Psst....wanna know a secret...?

These guys are are great. I have laughed a lot, drunk too much, eaten well and slept in the blue room.....Blog camp rocks. Seriously.

5 (random) favourite things

I was tagged by the mere mortal Molly at ohfortheloveofblog with her 5 random favourite things meme. So here goes:

5 favourite films:

1. Lost in translation
2. Husbands and Wives
3. Now Voyager - I'm a soppy romantic at heart.
4. La Vie en Rose - I sobbed through the sub-titles.
5. Little Miss Sunshine - the weird dysfunctional family feels like home.

5 favourite songs:
This is hard. I tend to like whatever I last heard. So these are favourites because of the associations they have for me...

1. Doorbell - White Stripes (cooking Christmas dinner a few years ago when all the family was together)
2. Money Money Money - Abba (youngest sings "if I found me a healthy man" which seems like a good plan once you reach 40)
3. Got to be a hustler if you want to get on - Sue Wilkinson (early on with Prince of Darkness going through his record - yes I do mean record - collection and playing them all)
4. Common People - Pulp (just because the song is brilliant)
5. Park Life - Blur (lying on a beach in Greece)

5 favourite crushes

1. Lance Armstrong - weird but I have a thing about cyclists.
2. Prince of Darkness - I know I know. Get a life girl.
3. Daniel Craig - yes I so would.
4. Almost any man in a uniform - watch out sailors.
5. George Clooney - boring but true.

5 favourite books

1. Love in a Cold Climate - Nancy Mitford
2. Crossing to Safety - Wallace Stegner
3. Love in the time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Choderlos de Laclos
5. The Night before Christmas - Clement C Moore (only to be read on Christmas eve!)
   
   

5 random favourite things

1. my tattoo
2. pointless little notebooks - I buy more than I know what to do with.
3. pinot grigio - you didn't think I would leave it off did you?
4. fish, chips and mushy peas
5. my shelf of random stuff - see below. It looks like crap but it all means something to me.

I am tagging a random 5 of my regular favourite reads:

Iasa at Blissfully Unaware Lounge Singer, RxBambi at A Day in the Life of a Would be Bambi, Jules at Just Jules, The Fragrant Muse and Jelica/Ruslan at Budapest Bits

My last will and testament

Wednesday is the day that stepson #2 comes over to spend the night. I really look forward to it. He is a very entertaining 15 year old who gets on really well with eldest daughter. Plus they make me laugh by doing crazy stuff like msn-ing each other in the same room.

So today we are talking about blog camp, whilst I am also trying to make some valid points about internet safety:

Me (to stepson): "If I haven't texted your mother by Friday evening you can assume that I have gone to stay with axe murderers. Please instigate a search party immediately."

Stepson: "If you haven't texted won't it be a bit too late?"

Me : " Well .....yes maybe.... but you can at least come and recover my body..."

Eldest daughter: "Mummy..."

Me: "Yeeessss.....?" (sensing the direction this conversation is going)

Eldest daughter: "If you do die can I have the puppy?"

Me: "Well ....ok"

Stepson: (sensing an opportunity here) " Well can I have half your money?"

Me: "Only debts there my boy" (I say rather smugly, thinking I have foiled him)

Stepson: (without hesitation) "All your electrical equipment then?"

Me: (giving up) "Deal."

So thats all sorted then. I can rest easy in my bed tonight knowing that my affairs are in order.