Adios 2016

Beautiful Bob x

Well I've had a year off. I didn't mean to. Actually, it was a bit longer. I gave up doing stuff!

Doesn't look like much, but the frame was all twisted
and nothing could be done. The other car was fine!

The instigator of my apathy was this back in 2015...quite silly really given that thankfully everyone was safe and it's just a car and it really was a minor thing.
It was the inconvenience and expenditure and well, injustice of it all really that got my goat. I'd saved some money for something nice but had to spend it on a car I didn't want and I lost my lovely reliable car to to the scrap yard all because someone wasn't paying attention. I get it, everyone makes mistakes and in the grand scheme of things this was a small error, but I gave up savings, couldn't get to work for a few days, had to have a hire car to go on holiday and my insurance premium increased, even though I wasn't at fault.

Anyway, then work got really busy and well, when you spend all day on a lap top and even weekends and evenings then the last thing you want to do is have a hobby that involves a lap top!

Then I started 90 day SSS with The Body Coach and followed a strict plan which there was no point sharing the food with everyone, it was weird but strangely very nice. To be honest was just too out of breath to anyway doing the HIIT workouts. It worked, I lost 1st 8lbs and lots of inches, but I now also have a dodgy hip..unsure if the 2 things are related but it does seem like quite a coincidence. I personally didn't find it sustainable after I finished the 90 days, so you can guess what happened, some of the wight revisited!

Then 5:30 one morning in February, I was outside scraping the ice from my car ready for work when a car came down the road, there was a thud and I felt cold and I knew what it was straight away. Beautiful Bob had been run over and killed outright. It was horrible and very sad, our previous cat Polly had lived to the grand old age of 19 years and here was Bob snatched away before he was even 4. He was a very strange cat and I would say a veritable pain in the butt...actually a literal pain in the ankles so I was bowled over by the strength of emotion I felt.

Harry

William

Over the year our pets have mirrored the celebrity world.....first lovely Bob. then William the guinea pig grew a huge tumour, which he had to have removed. He enjoyed a few last summery weeks and then died. Next, we lost Bertie the Goldfish an accidental pet that we got from a paddling pool at a school fete, who we expected to last a couple of weeks but who survived a few years, finally leaving us while we were on holiday. Finally William's brother Harry went soon after.

The garden graveyard is becoming over populated.


In June...we could no longer bear a cat free household and in a moment of madness we bought 2 kittens from a lady who had only just bought them before finding out she was pregnant and due to family pressure couldn't keep them any more. A horrible moment as I left her house carrying the kittens as her 18 month old daughter screamed and cried that I was taking them away.

Meet Ginny and Hermione Minton. The noisy, naughty Mintons, more about them another day.

I overcame my fear of flying and have travelled overseas 3 times with work, whirl wind visits to Frankfurt - where I barely made it out of the airport, Croatia - where I got lost and Waterloo, Belgium - where I clearly didn't understand supermarkets.

Frankfurt

Waterloo

Split

I joined Slimming World and was not sure you were all ready for the potato, mushy pea and pickle combos I was eating to start with. I have lost over 2 stone now and slowly but surely will bundle on to my target whilst still trying to enjoy my family life.

I have been cooking though

Cherry Cheesecake

Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes

Short Ribs

Family Chinese

So here we are at the end of 2016. I've missed the blog. I've thought about changing the name of the blog after all it's been over 3 years since we left the bungalow. I wanted to tie it in with my resolutions but there are too many resolution and "52" themed blogs already out there.

For Christmas I got an Odeon Limitless cinema pass so my New Years Resolutions came out of wanting to get value for money out of this. I've expanded it a bit and hopefully this will be my inspiration to blog at least once a week.

So, my aim for 2017 is

• is to write 52 blogs
• watch 52 films
• read 52 books (think this might be impossible if I do all the other things, but if I can get to more than 20 I will beat  2016's effort!)
• make 52 new recipes
• 52 new things, travel, crafts, theatre, restaurants etc. 

For now I hope you have all had a very happy holiday, a merry Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year.