it's taking me ages!!

I am steadily working my way through our holiday photos and hopefully will have something to show soon. It seems to be taking forever but Photoshop is doing most of the work - well, I still had to choose the photos. A big job in itself!

I'm leaving the making-the-photos-the-right-size and editing them to Photoshop. I made an action to do it because I'm lazy! For those of you who don't use PS - it's like a button I click and PS does the work for me!

It's still taking forever but I keep thinking how long it would take me if I had to do it all myself! I'd probably stop after day one! LOL

I'm up to day four now - only 4 more days to do. You never know I might get it finished today - but don't hold your breath! I am lazy after all! :oD

we're back!

We had a wonderful time in Ireland but are glad to be home. I have a ton of photos to load to the computer and then decide which ones will show off Ireland at its best. It might take a while but I will get to it in the next few days!

Breakfast this morning was back to the 2 slices of fruit loaf with marmalade and a mug of coffee. A HUGE difference to what we've been eating for breakfast in the last week - grapefruit segments, a glass of orange juice, a "full Irish breakfast" consisting of 2 slices of bacon, 2 sausages, a slice of white pudding, a slice of black pudding, (Douglas doesn't do white/black puddings so he got 3 sausages), beans/mushrooms and a fried egg followed by toast - 2 slices each - with butter and jam and a pot of coffee between us.

Crumbs! No wonder we didn't eat much for the rest of the day! Also, no wonder I didn't lose that half stone I was hoping to! Mind you, I didn't gain anything so that's not so bad!

all our bags are packed …

Well, we're all packed and ready to go. Ireland here we come! Yay!!

I looked at the weather forecast for Cork and it's sunny with showers for the next 3 days - just like home! Highest temperature expected is 16ºC, lowest 6ºC - just like home!

We made the most of our toast and coffee this morning as it'll be our last uncooked breakfast for a week. We'll be getting a full Irish breakfast - NOT like home! :oD

I stood on the scales this morning to see how much I put on/take off whilst we're away. I lost half a stone - 7lbs - whilst we were in Paris last year. I'd be delirious if that happened again!

Okay, so this is Anne signing off until we get back. Be good! :o)

going to Ireland!

Douglas and I are heading to Ireland on Friday for a week. Southern Ireland to be exact. We're flying into Cork and then we're hiring a car so we can tour around a bit. We're staying in one B&B for the whole week but we have great plans to see as much of the countryside as we can. I can't wait!

We - actually, that's not true - Douglas decided we're not taking the computer. My poor wee blog will be quiet for a week! But never fear! I'll take tons of photos and bombard you with them when I get back.

slow but steady

I went swimming yesterday. It was my first time on my own and it was important to me that I enjoyed it or I'd start to find reasons not to go. I did enjoy it!

Maybe it was because there were only 3 other people in the part of the pool where I was - there were more swimming in the fast and slow lanes but in our wee bit there were only the 4 of us. Very nice.

I stayed in swimming for 20 minutes - a great improvement on last week when I could happily have stopped after about 5 minutes! My shoulders were much looser so I only stayed in the jacuzzi for about 5 minutes. Then showered, dressed and home.

It only took about an hour and 20 minutes so it's not exactly taking a lot of my time. Another bonus! If it took hours to get there, swim and get back, I think I'd think twice about going.

I've told myself not to expect miracles. I can't expect things to right themselves in a week or even a month. I HAVE to take things slowly but steadily and then, hopefully, I'll be able to look back at how I am now and think "Yikes! I remember when I looked/felt like that! I'm much better now."

Not being too patient, I want that looking back time to happen soon! :o)

back door photo 31 May

A busy photo today!

And whilst I was out there enjoying the sun, I caught this shot. Rosie was watching bees and Joanna joined in with her. I don't know why but I love it!

I made a start

This morning, Joanna and I joined a gym. I don't intend to use any of the gym equipment (yet) but I do intend to use the swimming pool. After we got all the details sorted and paid the money, we went for a swim.

Jings! I was aching after a couple of lengths - and this wasn't even full pool lengths. Oh well, I've got psoriatic arthritis so I'm not going to get down on myself because I'm a bit achy. I just have to keep going and, hopefully, in a few weeks/months, I'll be swimming more and more lengths before I start to ache. After the swim, I sat in the jacuzzi for a while and that made the aches loosen up a wee bit.

Then this afternoon I had my first appointment with the physiotherapist. She was delighted that I had decided to go swimming - I can't do my joints any harm in the pool so the more I do, the better. She showed me quite a few exercises to do to loosen up my shoulders and arms and to strengthen my back muscles. And others to make my thumb loosen up and a few more for my legs and feet.

None of these exercises are difficult and I intend to do them as often as I can. It's up to me to get this body working again and today I made a start. Good for me! :o)

snail, lilac, gravel and a train!

I went outside this morning to take a photo of this snail as he wandered up the wall -

And thought I'd take a photo of our wee lilac tree which was taken from a cutting of my Grandad's lilac tree. My Grandad died in 1969 - mum has kept the tree she got from the original cutting and has passed several cuttings around the family. The photo shows some of the gravel Douglas put down at the weekend.

And, as I was outside, I heard a train coming so I finally managed to take a photo of the back garden with a train passing by - it's the navy and pink thing you can see through the trees!

a couple of bears!

We were all on the iChat again last night and all of a sudden Joanna - on the left - and Debbie - on the right - turned into a couple of bears! :oD

random pics of Rosie

I coudn't think of anything interesting to blether about today so I went and dug in that bottomless pit of a photo folder on my computer. Here are just 3 that caught my eye of one of my favourite subjects to photograph - Rosie.

This is the day we got her. That red ring was about 4" across so you can see how teeny tiny Rosie was!

I'm pretty sure she was put up to this!

And this is just what she looks like when she just wants to sleep without some fool sticking a camera in her face!