My Prize is here!!!

I am so excited! The postman knocked the door this morning and handed me a parcel from Amazon. My mind went into overdrive because I hadn't ordered anything for ages! Mr M watched as I dropped the mail onto the table and rushed to the kettle - it was just beginning to boil - and made him a cup of tea. He could tell by my face that I didn't know what was in the package.
I gave him his mug of tea and made myself a milky coffee - usually on a Tuesday we seem to have a fridge full of milk where there is some left over from the weekend and the Milkman delivered another two days worth in the early hours of the morning.
I sat down and turned the package over in my hands. "Open it," said Mr M, "You know what it is."
"Well, " I replied, "no I don't, I haven't ordered anything, so it must be a mistake." He gave me one of those looks, you know, the one where a small part of his brain thinks you are joking while the big part of his brain is amazed that you can forget such an important thing
"What about your Scavenger Hunt prize?" He asked.
A stunned silence as I stare at him and then at the package............. Of course!
and this is what I received

I started reading it straight away but then realised that I have Things To Do, so I shut it carefully, took a photograph of it and now I am telling you about it. Mr M is off to work at 1pm (I hate afternoon shifts) so I can take the time to read and play for a while until I collect Miss Em from school - and then I will have a willing model. It seems to be written in real language, the sort that ordinary people use and not high-falutin' photographic techie stuff so it might even sink in.
Many, many thanks to Rinda for sending this wonderful gift. I am so thrilled by it and I will read it and play I promise.

Me? a Winner?

This is my keeping cool, not excited face

I won a prize! You have all seen the entries I have done about the photo scavenger hunt and you know that it ended last Friday. Well, what I hadn't realised was that there were going to be prizes. I didn't join in for prizes, I joined in for the fun and believe me it was fun.
Anyhooo, Rinda, the lovely lady who set the challenge told us to go to her end of scavenger hunt entry and leave a comment. I really should learn to take in what I am reading because it says quite clearly that she is going to give two prizes. I simply didn't take that as real, I saw it, but ignored it! So when  I read the next entry it was a big surprise to see my name as the winner from the group that didn't get all the items.
The most difficult thing was making the choice of which book to claim as my prize - sigh - I am a Libra and while I don't read horoscopes I do seem to have a few Libran characteristics. The most important one being that I have difficulty making decisions - being balanced like the scales you see, I can't choose one side over the other.
I did what I usually do, I asked Mr M to choose. He said "It's your prize, you must choose" Then he added a few things that would help me to make a decision. Like eBook or real book? "You like to feel a book in your hands" he said. "You like to have a book where you can pick it up and take it with you" he said. "You love the smell of new books, especially those with illustrations." he said.
I chose my prize.
Now I have the excitement of waiting for it to arrive. I will tell my granddaughter and she will then ask every day if it is here yet and so I won't have to ask that question.
It is so exciting, winning a prize. My thanks to Rinda for organising the Scavenger Hunt and for giving prizes. Such a bonus! I am so pleased to have won it, and yet there were so many others who should have won. We'll have to do it again next year when I mustn't win a prize but can still join in the fun.

wouldn't you just know it?

with me ol' banjo

coolio!

The scavenger hunt ended on Friday and one of the items I needed was someone playing a musical instrument. On Saturday we went to our Nephew's 30th birthday party and what did we find there? Well apart from glo-sticks and lollipops that we sneaked into my handbag to bring home for Miss M there were these inflatable instruments. My wonderful husband is proficient in playing any inflatable instrument, as you can see from the pictures.
He also looks good in glo-sticks, although they did scare him on the drive home because he had forgotten all about his glowing bangles and as he changed gear his sleeve moved and bathed the car in an eerie yellow light. Made us both jump, I can tell you.

Oh and for the surprised amongst you who cannot believe that we went to a party. We do try to go every three or four years, just to confirm that we still hate them.

Scavenger Hunt: the end of the chase.

I didn't manage to get all the items listed. I still need four of them.
  7.   A person playing a musical instrument
14.   Someone playing with a ball
16.   A Bride
20.   A swing hanging from a tree (or a hammock)

I knew the bride was going to be difficult and as for the others, well perhaps if I was able to go out on my own I might have seen them. Who knows.

I could invoke the substitute item with this

Mr M is searching for a four-leaved clover. Well that's pretty boring I hear you mutter, a picture of a headless man that she says is searching for a four-leaved clover. What the picture cannot show is the sound of Mr M counting 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, as he searches. This made me laugh so much it's a wonder the picture isn't totally blurred by camera shake.

I would like to take this chance to say thank you to Rinda for organising the scavenger hunt. It has given us hours of fun and a good reason to go out for a little ride in the car. I made an album with my pictures and I might just see if I can't get that last for items before Christmas just to make the album complete.

Scavenger Hunting - another success

1. a clothesline
I have been waiting to capture this picture for a while. It is my clothes line as seen from my kitchen window. As you can see I have a tiny back garden - a real back yard - and I have three chickens so there is nothing green in my garden below chicken head height. Their house is on the right of the picture. They are so used to us opening the kitchen window and throwing them a treat that when the window opens they rush from wherever they are to where you can see them and they gaze expectantly up at us. I rewarded them with a few pieces of cocktail sausage each.
This was one of the few days this year that I have been able to put clothes onto the line and it was so nice to smell the fresh air when I was folding the clothes to put them away. I don't know how people manage without a clothesline. I suppose they must have tumble dryers or they put the clothes on radiators in the winter just like me. This year I have found myself using the clothes airer that we bought 20 years ago, I only brought it out occasionally until this year when it has only been put away because we had visitors and needed the bedroom.
Now I only have four more and just a month to do it. Doesn't time fly?

North Wales and another Scavenger hunt picture

Teething

We decided that we would take Eldest son and family on the Welsh Highland Railway as a treat. Having a Kia Sedona meant that we could get all of us - four adults two children - into one vehicle so we packed up the mountain of stuff needed for a three-year-old and a two-year-old and set off from Rhos on Sea to Caernarvon.
I love engines, Steam engines and some of the early oil-fired ones so this was going to be a really good day with my grandsons. As we got to the railway depot the sun disappeared and it was really quite chilly.
The two year old is teething - those dratted canine teeth - so he had the familiar bright red patches on his cheeks and his fingers were continually in his mouth. He fretted. We discovered that we had missed the first train and had a wait of nearly an hour and a half so we took a walk up into the town. we found a cafe with outdoor seating and had a cuppa where those teeth gradually became more painful. we walked along the streets and looked at a really good fountain

A Fountain

 A FOUNTAIN? that's on the list! I took some pictures while the little one fretted. Then it started to rain. By this time both the boys were heartily fed up with just wandering about. We were all cold and now we were getting wet and we still had over half an hour before the train was due to leave.

The thought of sitting in a carriage with no windows all the way to Porth Madog in the rain lost its appeal so we went to Morrisons for lunch and then back home to Rhos-on-Sea where the little one slept for an hour and woke up pain free and happy

Lunch in the smallest Morrison's cafe EVER!

If you want to see other pictures from other people who are joining in the Scavenger Hunt just go to Rinda's blog  and take a look

scavenger hunt, more success

We went up to north Wales last Friday, just for a few days with my eldest son, his lovely wife and my two newest grandsons. They are age 3 and nearly two and are just delightful. Hearing two little voices calling "Grandpa, Grandpa" throughout the day was just lovely. I digress.
On the way up - we go up the A49 because we can stop in the OK Diner for a meal on the way - we go through Onibury where the main rail line crosses the road. We were behind an ambulance, not any old ambulance but one you can hire. It was driven by a....... no that's another story. We came to the level crossing and the lights were flashing so the ambulance stopped, we stopped and the three cars behind us stopped. There is always a short time of nothing happening at level crossings and suddenly Mr M said "Have you got the camera ready? We need a train." I switched on and pressed the necessary buttons and pointed the camera at the little bit of crossing gates that we could see from our position behind the ambulance. We had the engine turned off and the windows open so we could hear the rails singing as the train came nearer. With a great whoosh of noise it was speeding past the gates. I managed to press the button as the front of the train reached the gates.

Another one to cross off the list!