Manchester Uni

Holly and I have come up to Manchester to stay with my sister. For me it is just a couple of days; long enough to say hello and make a visit to Manchester University as this is one of the places Holly is considering.

And this is why I LOVE staying with my sister!



She has a fab kitchen, full of space, colour and light. A place to sit and chat, to drink a glass of wine whilst preparing dinner and the only place for breakfast. In the morning the sun streams in and it is just the perfect place to sit at the breakfast bar, reading the paper and drinking coffee. Oh yes...I forgot the smoked salmon bagels! I can't stay too long there because I ALWAYS put on weight!!



So today, we set off on the train because my nephew Josh is infatuated by trains and head for Oxford Road where the main campus is situated.





Whilst Eileen and Josh head for the museum, Holly and I pick up a tour guide and take a look at some of the buildings. Unfortunately we can't go inside the Med School for security reasons but we are able to pick up a more detailed prospectus. We wander around some of the Victorian buildings and take a look in the main Uni library before heading back into the centre of Manchester, to do a little shopping before heading back home. Holly finds a new suit and a couple of blouses which will be perfect for her work experience in Tameside Hospital the following week. I can't believe how grown up she looks.



It is then time for me to head back down to London as I have day full off meetings tomorrow. But would you believe it the train I need to catch is seriously delayed, so I will miss my connections and my ticket is only valid for that journey! So it is back to the Virgin staff to negotiate a new route which gets me home, but very late, and I finally get to bed around midnight.

Where has the time gone?

It is so long since I posted last, I had trouble remembering my password today. I knew I wasn't going to be good at this blogging lark!

So I have so much to catch up on and lots of back posts to make...

Today is a day off - yay!! In fact I don't go back to work until Tuesday, so four whole days off! And I have so much to do but the most important was not to get out of bed this morning...well only to make tea, then another trip to the kitchen for coffee and toast. I laid in bed until 10.30am hours listening to Robbie Williams and other stuff on my Nano...how lazy is that?

So now I am feeling guilty about the jobs I should be doing lol.

My baby comes back tomorrow...well 2.30am to be precise. She has spent the last 10 days in Spain with her grandparents seeing the sun,which I think for those of us left in the UK have forgotten what it looks like!. Then she has to get up for work at Willow Tree Crafts before heading off to Manchester this evening for a couple of weeks work experience. The first week looking after my nephew Josh, the second week working in a Tameside hospital with a Consultant specialising in Diabetes I think? Something for her CV. My sister is going to go through the various University Medicine Courses with her as she needs to decide where to apply fairly soon now. We are going to look at Manchester Uni on Monday.

Some recent LO's from the current Scrapbook Inspirations.

Cornbury Music Festival

I had such a great time seeing The Proclaimers in Bournemouth I decided to go and see them again. They were playing at the Cornbury Music Festival in Oxfordshire, so it seemed a good idea to spend a few hours there and meet up with my brother and his wife in the evening for a meal seeing as they had just come back from Mauritius. It took a while to persuade Roy to come along so we were kind of late getting there...and I won't describe how long it took us to walk to the entrance, then to be directed to the ticket office, then to be directed to the cash machine as they didn't actually take credit cards! But eventually, like 1 1/2 hours eventually we got in! We wondered around and listened to a couple of bands I hadn't heard of, then made our way back to the main stage for The Proclaimers. I managed to squeeze my way to the front (no mean feat), and take some photos with the D200! What a difference using something other than a snapshot camera....although I think it took about 10 minutes before I was told to put it away as telephoto lenses meant it was professional - huh? I think the guy took pity on me and told me when he went, he couldn't see what I was doing! So I got to take some more of the guys. They were brilliant though...I love their music and seeing them live is kind of like the time I used to go to gigs in London as a teenager, so much more fun than being in a large venue, seated miles away and watching dots.













We then left early to meet up with Mike and Ann at pub a few miles away. It was great to catch up with them after their holiday and swap gifts. They bought me lots of little bits, lace, material, ribbons, 'body tattoos' and forehead charms that they thought I could use on my scrapbook pages. How cool is that? I was able to hand over the album I made in Donna Downey's class at ScrapFever earlier this year. I haven't really done much with their wedding photos so it was nice to be able to give them something.