Bonfizzle Nizzle

I have always liked to look at fireworks.

But for as long as I have liked them, I have equally hated the loud noise that they make.

I'm a complete whimp when it comes to loud noises - 

even when a car with a stupidly big exhaust drives past and makes a lot of noise I can a little bit scared - 

but that is besides the point.

I remember as a wee girl either staying inside and watching fireworks from the window 

or standing in front of my Dad and making him cover my ears.

But after the fist minute of flinching and wincing at the bangs so loud you can feel them vibrating in your chest on Friday, I was cured.

I think the fact that they timed the fireworks to the theme tunes of Harry Potter (genius idea!), The Pirates of the Caribbean and ET seriously helped, because the melodies distracted me from the actual bangs.

Also, as two side notes, 1. How beautiful is the light from the bonfire?

And 2. After a minor dispute and a quick google search, I can confirm that between Ross & I, I am always right - we have fire on bonfire night because of the gunpowder plot, not because Guy Fawkes was burnt to death as punishment.

If you're bothered he was actually hung, drawn and quarter, which to me actually sounds much worse, 

but please don't sign me up for either.

Weekend in a jar

This weekend I took a lot of photos.
I walked up an down a steep cobbled hill, ate some lemon drizzle cake and went into an apothecary. (Apothecaries are about a million times cooler than regular chemists, because one, they have things in cool jars and bottles and two, saying the word apothecary makes me feel like I'm in Harry Potter.)
This weekend we wandered around a really old cemetery and I took some photos of that too. I'm not sure if the fact that I'm married to a funeral director makes that activity more, or less creepy. I'm going to hope for less, definitely less.
This weekend I may have reignited an old flame. Me and 24. One episode and I'm drawn back in, like a sucker. This is definitely not a good thing, because I have 15 deadlines in 17 weeks. Oh please, kill me now - writing that down makes me want to lock myself in room with my good friends Ben & Jerry and never come out.
This weekend I did a lot of baking and cooking. Pizza, chicken and leek pie, bread, honey bars, brownies and bread. Did I already say bread? I am stuffed until Christmas. Apart from the hole I have for my friends. (Ben & Jerry, I don't go around just eating any old friends.)
This weekend I watched a lot of general conference. (Insert sentences on generally being uplifted and inspired here.) I promise I listened to the actual talks, but one of my favourite things was pointing out every time the Spanish guy mixed up his b's and v's. Oh, and I'm often the first to poke fun at the MoTab, but when they sang I Believe in Christ, I humbled and rebuked. Forever.

This is probably the lamest thing that I have ever written. But I'm tired. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Amen.

There aren't enough days in the weekend

Here are a few reasons why this weekend was the bomb dot com.

♥ Over usage of the phrase 'the bomb dot com' in loud American accents.

♥ Emily coming to visit for the weekend.

♥ All of the TREATS that Emily brought for us.

We would have enjoyed her visit anyway, but treats made it 100x better.

♥ The new season of Modern Family starting.

One question though, WHY IS LILY SO BIG?!

♥ Sleeping in until 10am on Saturday morning.

♥ Hair bows.

And I mean actual bows made of hair.

Emily was accomodating and let me practice on her. 

That there pictcha is of the first draft.

♥ Starting a new book.

♥ Clean sheets on the bed.

♥ Going on a ghost walk in York & Ross making me jump so badly that I cried a little bit.

I am not even joking.

This is how we roll

Sometimes we have family parties.

Always they involve cups of tea for the older members of la famille, 

trampoline bouncing, that may or may not encourage younger members of the fam to pretend that they can fly, 

excellent desserts that I will inevitably eat too many of and end up with a food baby, 

 and some kind of celebratory singing.

(Happy Birthday Chlo!)

On Saturday we had a family party and for the first time ever, ever in our entire family history, we had a pinata.

It's day later now and I'm still left shrugging my shoulders and asking myself why we have never had one before.

Such hilarity.

The babe of the family Natalie took to beating the floor and nearly injured a few people and other members of the family swung the rolling pin so furiously that I think if they'd have been sent to London during the riots they'd have sent the rioters home crying.

I have was the first one to make that poor pinata share its treasure.

(I'm quite proud of that fact.)

Plus, it has sweets as a guaranteed outcome.

Bonus.

Weekend in video

Here's a little something a made earlier.

No biggie.

I had such a good weekend.

Actually, the word 'good' isn't really an adequate description of how much I loved this weekend.

Time with my family, 

good home cooked food, 

a trip to beautiful York, 

(I did get a better picture of the Minster if anyone cares?)

Chinese food, 

BBQ pizza, 

church, 

a cheeky lie in, 

time with Ross' parents, 

the bright colours in the CARNIVAL, 

jerk chicken with rice and peas, 

and a chance to take some photos.

That, my friends, is a weekend that is close to perfection.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday

Yes, that is me quoting Elton John.

I'm all about using lyrics as song titles apparently.

I promise that I'll make it stop soon.

So, like I already mentioned (three times actually) today is Saturday.

That means that its the weekend.

And this weekend is particularly sweet, because its an extra day long.

All praise the hallowed bank holiday.

Whoop whoop.

Ross is on call for work today.

Sad face for him.

But I'm not letting him drag my weekend down with his.

So I've made plans that involve me going to York, 

eating Chinese food, 

seeing my family,

and hopefully getting a better picture of York Minster than this.

Although with the weather today, I doubt that will happen.

No matter, here's to a rockin' weekend.

Boom.

Weekend wrap up in 5

1). A typical gray day in England made more exciting by going go karting.

Apart from it was boys only, so I wasn't actually allowed to go near a go kart.

I spent the afternoon cooing over baby Hudson instead, which was actually very fine by me, 

thank you very much. 

2). We went bowling and because the bowling alley in Grimsby is small/slightly still in the dark ages, I had to play with the bumpers down.

I felt like a proper adult - I normally play with bumpers up, because I am bad (BAD) at bowling.

And then after such a personal triumph, after the game had ended I even bowled a cheeky extra ball down our lane. 

I'm all about thrill seeking y'know.

3). We went to a wedding on Saturday.

Our friends Dave & Rosie got married and it was so beautiful.

I practically ODed over all of the gorgeous cupcakes, flowers, colours and food.

Congrats Mr & Mrs Lawrance. 

4). This nacho salad was as good to eat as it looks.

I think the perfect accompaniment to good food is even better company.

Grays, Boome, hurry your buns up and move over here already.

I'm giddy to have you as possible neighbours.

5). If you can guess what this is a picture of, you can have 100 points.

And what do points make?

PRIZES!

The merchant festival

If you were to ask me what a festival was I would probably reel off some stereotypical rubbish about a muddy field full of thousands of people that like music, lots of portaloos and a bunch of people that rub a face wipe under their arms and then consider themselves to be clean.

Well, Glasgow taught me that that isn't so.

We happened to stumble across a festival whilst we were there last week and there were no muddy fields and everyone seemed quite clean.

For me, the merchant city festival was....

Watching two men throw punches at each other.

A very oddly dressed kid (is he, or is he not wearing pyjamas?!) having a go a weight lifting.

An actual lady weight lifter lifting the same weight as the complete novice kid.

(Said lady weight lifter was wearing red lycra that pulled really tight across her bum when she bent over. She was wearing black underwear. 

Did you want to know that?)

Talented street performers and their unusual interpretations of music.

Coconut macaroons that smelt like heaven.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

Sweets. Mainly fudge.

A kind of flash mob of people wearing lots of bright colours that looked like they were doing the cotton eye Joe, but to Scottish music.

A statue of a man on a horse with a cone on his head.

(I couldn't figure out if it was meant to be there or not.)

Beautiful Glaswegian buildings.

The lunch of champions - smoothies and sandwishes.

Ross' smoothie was called ubbery booberry.

Say that in a Scottish accent and it's the most fun you'll have saying words.

And lots or other things I didn't take photos of.

I promised the world...

....Well, not exactly the world. 

I promised a catch-up of my weekend in Glasgow, so me professing that 'I promised the world' is a little dramatic, but it feels a little poetic too.

And seeing as I run this here blog, what I say goes.

And again, seeing as I run this blog and I want it to be about the photos as well as the writing, I'm not going to apologise for the photo overload I'm about to force on you.