Parlez vous Anglais?

The kids had worked hard all morning

Took the last 10 minutes before lunch to rehearse for a special assembly we're having on Wednesday

We were parading around the room...

... dancing...

... to this...

... and in walked the boss...

... with some visiting parents

Bluddy typical

Have managed to get my work done quicker than I thought

Am now about to take up my place on the sofa with a glass of wine and a bowl of ice cream *yum*

Yay me

From here

1. Have you ever flown on Concorde?
Nope, would've been cool though

2. Do you love or hate flying?
I rather enjoy it, good thing really as it's a necessary evil when you're an expat

3. Have you joined the Mile High Club?
No!

4. Why are aircraft toilets so small?
To avoid people being able to answer "Yes" to the previous question

5. Do you always get sat next to the passenger from hell? Tell us the story!
Yes, his name is Jamie...

I'm sooooo going to take the kids to see this over the Easter holidays

The delightful AJ just told me about Gethin Jones' half-dressed appearance on the front cover of attitude magazine...

... look what I founded on Google

*swoon*

24/3/08
Enough snow already! by sminchin Pro @ 2008-03-24 – 15:02:20
There's a blizzard outside and muggins here has to drive to the in-laws in the next half an hour

*shudder*

These last few days have taught me a lot about driving in snow but I still don't like it much!

In other news - I've just e-mailed my reports to my boss, only 11 days early

Well:
- It's snowing again today - although nowhere near as much as it did this time last year.
- We're not on our holidays yet like we were then.
- I don't have reports to do until next term

24/3/07
Saturday by sminchin Pro @ 2007-03-24 – 22:28:02
A successful day

Got all my work done so I can have tomorrow as a work-free day... the first in I don't know how long

Good thing too, I'd forgotten that Mike has a meeting to go to tomorrow afternoon which means I'll be looking after the boys for most of the afternoon by myself - I guess it's a warm-up for the Easter holidays

Been playing on my DS Lite for a bit this evening, I'm really enjoying Super Mario Bros and I'm chuffed that I've paid off my mortgage on Wild World

Also been watching TV - surprise, surprise - Mike's old school friend Stefan was back on Dancing on Ice and the old favourite of Casualty... looking forward to next Saturday night's TV - bring on the Doctor!

- I've just been playing Wild World on my DS
- Dancing on Ice has just finished
- No more Doctor Who for a while but Robin Hood starts again this weekend!

24/3/06
You give me fever... by sminchin Pro @ 2006-03-24 – 17:52:57
Well it's not me with the fever, it's Jamie (I'd rather it were me to be honest). Came home and he was reading 39 degress so he's high on Calpol and running around the place right now.

Mike's taken Rhys to the doctors to have his appointment with the anaesthetist before he has his adenoids out in a couple of weeks - trying not to think about that to be honest. Mike's bringing us junk food on the way home as a treat for Rhys for being so good and also as a general Friday-night treat.

Really going to have to cut out the crap as I got a new exercise DVD today (one of Angela Griffin's ones from ebay) and it looks good. I really want to shift some weight , hopefully a little before we go home for Easter (it's amazing what the thought of seeing a old boyfriend for the first time in nearly 7 years will do to you) and even more in time for Summer. I hate the way I looked in a swimming costume when we went swimming a few weeks ago. I just have to stop feeling sorry for myself and do something about it.

Had good news at work today, one of my colleagues is pregnant! It's really proved to me how much I don't want another one 'cos I didn't have even the slightest bit of jealousy when she told me this afternoon. I'm really happy for her and her husband. Can't wait to see her getting nice and fat too 'cos she's far too skinny for her own good at the moment!

So tomorrow is Car-day, the bummer is that we have to be at the garage at 8am to pick it up so I lose my lie-in but, to be honest, I really can't afford to laze around tomorrow as I have reports to write

One thing I like about Jamie feeling under the weather is how cuddly he is, he's curled up on my lap at the moment so I'm going to go and give him proper 2-armed cuddles.

By the way, I'm going to phone my Mum & Dad tonight, going to have to tell them that we're staying here for another year - wonder how that'll go down?!

That's a sad one 'cos my colleague (now ex-colleague) lost her baby

So there you go

Hubby's been desperate to go and do some work on the plot for weeks now but it seemed kind of pointless until we had the mortgage sorted

The mortgage was approved yesterday afternoon and at 10am this morning Mike was there with his parents, lots of tools (including a chain-saw *eeeeek*) and a trailer

We drove past this afternoon to have a look, they did a great job, lots of brambles and saplings taken out and it now looks like this

Next we need to get the mortgage paperwork in the post so we can sign it, send it off and get a frankly quite terrifying amount of money in our account. That'll mean we can get the groundworks man to come along and start his work.

Expect many, many more photos over the next few months

We had our mortgage application approved today

*woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*

Party at ours?

Hope you've had a good day

You know in QI when someone says the wrong answer?

Well, that's pretty much what happens whenever someone mentions the h-o-u-s-e word...

*sigh*

Still no news, obviously

I love Wednesdays - think I might have said that before

I only teach for 50 minutes, have a good chunk of preparation time and then get to go home around lunch-time.

Today was even better, the kids were picked up by their Gran so I had a kid-free afternoon. I had a staff meeting, then did some marking while munching on my sarnies before heading back home via the local shopping centre where I just happened to buy a new shirt (€14.90) and a coat (reduced to €29.99 from €49.99 - bargain).

I'll be wearing those tomorrow then

Then there was lots of running around to take Mike to the garage to pick up his car and bring the kids back home.

The car's not fixed properly but it's useable. The repairs to the turbo could cost €3000 so it's really not worth it. The mechanic says it's safe to use as long as Mike treats it gently. It'll keep us going while we do some research for a new one. Cars, eh?

Still no news on the mortgage front, I'm off to lynch our financial advisor

Annoyingly cute, ain't they?

... and my mood has improved dramatically

Spent the afternoon at the Botanical Gardens enjoying all of the Spring flowers that have finally dared to stick their heads out of the soil after this long and bitterly cold Winter

The improved mood means that I've changed my phone settings, I now have this piccy as my wallpaper...

... and this as my ring-tone

Now I'm off to mess with my blog design

We currently have building work going on at school

Cue lots of noise right next to our classroom - the drilling being the worst

Cue the kids in my class coming up with lots of imaginary punishments for the man with the drill

Untiiiiiiiiiiiiil I actually saw the aforementioned man-with-a-drill after school tonight

Damn, he's cute!

Remember last weekend when we went to the car show in Geneva?

Remember we were doing some research for new cars?

Well, Mike's car broke down on the way home from work tonight

The repairs may cost more than the car is worth

Hmm...

*while sitting in the Car Show-related motorway queues on our way home tonight*

A traffic jam is when God puts jam on the road

*while watching a trailer for 'Richard Hammond's Blast Lab'*

I like Richard Hammond's blast lamb

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, bang

He's cute and funny, oh dear, he's going to dominate the world!

We spent a few hours at the car show this afternoon, it was heaving!

(And that's about a quarter of it)

Saw loads of amazing cars...

... spent lots of time looking at this kind of view...

... while getting hot and squashed and ridiculously over-charged for everything

The kids had loads of fun though and we did some good research for possible new cars for us - not in the super-car section though... shame

Was supposed to be going out tonight, have decided not to.

Got rather ill last night, throwing up everywhere. A lot better now but still the odd cramp and mucho tired.

Have decided to put myself first for once. I need to get my energy back for another working week and...

... we've promised to take the kids here tomorrow

Time to start working on my car wish-list?

That'll do for starters

I've had a horrible week...

Completely stressed...

Thought I'd actually have to visit the doctor and get signed off for it...

Anyhoo, much happier now

I have red wine and Fruit & Nut

Anyone would think hubby's been suffering from my bad moods

*mwah* to all

As always, from here

I just laughed very loudly at this - brilliant advertising

Here they are, the lighting's a bit weird as I don't have any of AJ's fancy flash diffusers but I still rather like 'em

Had a mellow day today, meant I kept on top of all my work and didn't have much to do this evening - most unusual

I've been spending my evening taking piccies of my St David's Day daffodils - I'll upload those at some point - and messing around with the settings on my phone

My phone wallpaper is now this:

*all pretty and delicate*

And my ring-tone is this:

*nice and loud*

Contradictory, moi?

Tookened from Ceej

To Do This:
1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

So, my band is called Chatswood

My album is called Part of us lives on

And this is my album cover

Added altogether, it looks like this