A Matter of Choice

Happy Halloween to you all! Yesterday AJ and I took Leo to his first Halloween party. It was a kids party but us being us decided it would be rude not to get dressed up too, any excuse! The party went off very well, there was relatively little destruction and no tears that I can remember, not a mean feat when you consider most of the children there are about 2! The food was great, everyone contributed something and it was all yummy. We took a pumpkin cake, a joint effort between the two of us, I made the cake, AJ decorated it. It also means I get to cross another item off my  101 in 1001 list

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey...... On my birthday in 2003 a small group of us went to see  The Rocky Horror Show . Just before the show started this is what happened..... He had "the ring to prove that he's no joker" Yep, this is the moment where AJ got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! We now have a long running love affair with The Rocky Horror Show, we have seen it many times and even (to my Mum's initial bemusement) named the tables at our wedding reception after Rocky Characters. Our Rocky Fan friends were the "Riff Raff" at the back! We thought about having the Timewarp as our first dance but we decided against it. It didn't stop us later in the evening though. For AJ's birthday in 2008 we went to  Oakley Court Hotel  in Windsor. This is where the film was shot and where the  Official UK RHS fan club  holds an annual picnic. Didn't we pass a castle a few miles back? We went not really k...

Dear Scouts. OH MY GOD please stop with your bloody band practice! I realise that may be a little harsh especially as you obviously need the practice. I can only hope you are just practising for the bank holiday on Thursday and then you will give it a rest for while again. Yours, Emma, with a pounding headache. Dear Leo, I'm very proud that you can walk and run about and I understand that it's very exciting and you want to do it all the time, however please believe me when I say it's time to go in the car, usually we are going out to do something much more exciting than walking round the car park. Oh, and well done for sleeping through the bloody racket the scouts are making. Big kisses, from your loving Mummy xx Dear Sick bug, We are very glad to see the back of you, you were very unpleasant and stole almost a week from us altogether. You are now doing the rounds with other people here - it's about time you gave up and disappeared now. No one li...

Ah, another year older... Two weeks ago I celebrated my 33rd birthday, even though a couple of months ago I had been convinced that I was coming up to my 32nd  (I blame being pregnant and not drinking on my 31st, I think maybe that meant it didn't count as a birthday!) I always like to celebrate a birthday in style....so along with a few friends we decided to go out on the town in Agia Napa. Being "Napa" we thought it would be fun to dress up just to help the celebrations along.  Three of the the party girls! We started off in a karaoke pub, Sam (the one in purple) is a HUGE karaoke fan and is a bloody good singer. I couldn't even tell you how many times she got up to sing, and that's through losing count as opposed to too much beer. I on the other hand would love karaoke if I could sing....or was quite drunk....... Sorry Mum, drinking pints again! Oops! I  ruined  sang "Like a Prayer" by Madonna. Spurred on by that succes...

I nearly passed on this weeks Gallery again this week, the prompt is Red and there were only one set of photos that came to mind. When AJ and I got married back in 2004 I wore red (mainly white - I thought about just red but couldn't resist the lure of the big white dress). I have been meaning to do a "Wedding post" for some time so I'll save the best photos for now and just give you a taster of the day.....

Please bear with me dear readers, all has not been normal in our household for what now seems like a lifetime! After planning to get back to normality after my 3 weeks in the UK and our visitors with us for the following 4 we have been attacked by illness. I started it unfortunately with a cold which I battled through (and managed to drink through the pain on my birthday celebrations...more about that later!) and then kindly passed it to AJ where it turned into manflu :) Just as he was recovering Leo got a sickness bug which he has passed to me, and as of this morning I have now given to AJ. Leo seems fine now thankfully and I'm a lot better but not quite back on top form. Hopefully it won't be long now until all is well here once again.

This week's Gallery prompt is Here Come the Girls . This would normally be a hard one for me as I've got lots of girls  in my life that are very important to me and hundreds of photos from which I could never choose from. However yesterday one of my very best friends went back to the UK after staying with me for a whole month so it seemed apt to use these photos. We met at secondary school, went to college together, worked together after dropping out of college and have been friends ever since. We were drinking partners, still are but apparently can't quite handle it as well these days! We have both got married (were each other's Bridesmaids) and now both have gorgeous baby boys. It's such a shame that we can no longer spend as much time together as our boys would be very close friends (Well, we'd hope so!)  On holiday in Kavos, 1995 No idea what we were doing but it looks a bit suspicious.   Gran Canaria 1996 ...

For as long as I can remember I have been told that "All good things come to those who wait" Do they, or should you get off your backside and go and get them yourself? Looking back over my life so far I have spent a depressing amount of time waiting for something or other. I don't mean buses, or delivery men, although I've done that too! I mean waiting for something to get better or something to happen. It's been various things over the years, as a child I was waiting for birthdays or Christmas or to be old enough to do different things. As I got older I was waiting to find a boyfriend, a better job, to get married and have a baby. I waited for exciting things to happen, like a good night out or a holiday., to live in a better house, I think I was waiting for everything to be "just right" I don't think I always realised I was waiting but I'm sure I've always had the feeling that something wasn't quite right, like I was sure somet...

Today I have finally finished making my 101 in 1001 list, (to see the whole list and find out what the hell I'm going on about click here ) it's been much harder than I originally anticipated! The start date of my list was July 29th 2010, which was the day I got our  Cypriot Residency forms completed . This means that the 1001 days will be up on April 26th 2013. Sounds like a long way away doesn't it, I wonder how many I'll get done with no panic at the end! What things would you put on your list if you had one? Do you have one already? Leave me a comment and let me know, I'd love to see what others would like to do.

When I was 18 my parents gave me a brilliant party, it was held at my local rugby club where I was spending a lot of my time at that point. I had lots of friends there but I was most excited to have my boyfriend there. When we got the photos back (I love my digital camera but I do miss the excitement of picking up a packet of photos) I absolutely loved this one. I thought it was so romantic and framed it in a heart shaped frame that someone had brought me. Every time I looked at it I thought how lovely it was and how he was looking at me with such affection (something I felt at the time didn't happen much!) Some years later in conversation I mentioned the picture and he laughed and said he was just looking at me and trying to get me off him as I was so drunk and falling on him! I was quite upset about it at the time as it was not how I had imagined it at all! He is no longer my boyfriend but my husband and the photo is now almost 15 years old but I still love the ...

Woo hoo! I got my first ever award! It was passed onto me by Marie at  The Things We Find Inside . To accept the award I have to link back to her blog and pass it on to 10 other bloggers. So here we go... (yes I am aware there are only 9, I'm not following that many yet so here are my favourites) It's all about the photos Little Island in the Med Mummy's Busy World The (Nudie) Princes Diaries Pants With Names Mummy Mishaps Lost in translation A Place of my own 3 Bedroom Bungalow And not forgetting..... here is my award.

 This weeks Gallery was quite a tricky one for me, I love a celebration and that combined with my photo obsession meant I had a lot to choose from. Eventually I decided to choose some pictures from Leo's Christening, which was also our leaving party as it was two days before we left for Cyprus. Leo's godparents are some of our very best friends.  My oldest friend Nicola - we went to playschool together and have been best of friends ever since,and her husband Roy - love him to bits too, we've had a great love-hate relationship for years (I love to hate him!) which I've just ruined by telling the world I love him really! Our brilliant friend Martin, who we've known a much shorter time but long enough to know that we will always be good friends regardless of where we live - him and AJ are very similar and we all get on like a house on fire. Although Leo won't see much of them as he grows up we chose them because they are all very important to us.... w...

"This porridge is too hot," Goldilocks exclaimed. So she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. "This porridge is too cold." So she tasted the last bowl of porridge. "Ahhh, this porridge is just right!" she said happily. And she ate it all up. Goldilocks and the three bears  It is 9pm on the 8th September and we are in the "Goldilocks Zone"  AJ has said several times this year that there is no pleasing me when it comes to the weather, I think it's too cold, too hot, too wet etc.. Well I tonight whilst sitting on the balcony I suddenly announced that I was a perfect temperature! He replied with "Not too hot, not too cold" hence the title of this post.  Before my UK trip I would sit outside after a shower and be drenched in sweat in minutes, I realised this evening that after a pleasantly hot but not too sweaty day that I was exactly the right temperature for the first time in ages.  We now slowly on our way into autumn / winter...

The theme of this weeks Gallery is One Day in August. The day was Sunday 29th August, it was AJ's first day off since we got back from England and we took Leo to our favourite pool. It was the first time Leo understood the point of armbands and was happily running up and down in the water for ages. Each time previously he'd been too busy trying to get them off to realise that it meant he could walk around unaided without going under.

I found this Friday follow meme from  My Little Life  and thought I'd join them. You answer the 5 questions then link up so here goes.... 1.What do you do when you have time to yourself? I would say read, as I love reading but in reality I'm more likely to be on the internet, blogging or nosing around on Facebook.  Also as often as I get the chance I'm likely to be sleeping, whether it's an early night or a sneaky nap with Leo - I don't like the fact I want to sleep so much, there is better things I could be doing but hopefully one day I'll be able to do my sleeping all night again without getting up so much! 2.When you look out of your kitchen window what do you see? Technically I don't have a kitchen window, but we do have triple patio doors from our kitchen/living room and from these you can see fields running pretty much to the sea along with the hotels in the abandoned town of Varosha,,I've blogged about it before  here . 3.Who / Wha...

I found a great quote today.... "The grass may be greener on the other side, but you still have to mow it" It's very true, many people move to Cyprus (and other places) thinking that life will be suddenly great, that they will leave all their worries behind and the sun alone will make everything perfect. It is also true that a living in Cyprus doesn't work out for lots of people, I think often for this very reason. I think often people arrive on what they expect to be a permanent holiday, I would imagine that even if you were lucky enough not to have to work and you had the funds to maintain a holiday lifestyle that you would soon tire of it (well maybe not that soon, but eventually!) We never expected to be living like that, we knew with AJ at work and me looking after Leo that it wasn't going to be an option, we have bills to pay, household chores to do and general daily living like anybody else with a mortgage and a 1 year old. We had a month when we...

On the 2nd August Leo took his first couple of steps on his own, he did this on two separate occasions on that day and then nothing more for almost our whole UK trip, well except when no-one but me was looking! I was hoping that both sets of Grandparents would get to see some of his first steps, Leo however had different ideas! But today he walked... across the room and to make it so much cuter he threw himself straight into my arms and gave me a big sloppy kiss. * obviously difficult to get a photo when you are expecting to catch a falling child so I've used one from our UK trip - Leo leading his Granddad up the garden path!

This weeks Gallery prompt is A Photo I'm Proud Of  Here's mine..... This is me in 2008 at the Slimming World Woman of the Year regional final. I came 2nd!!! I had started going to my Slimming World group in 2006 and in two years lost just over 4 stone. I was stunned that I could have done such a thing and delighted to be nominated by my group for Woman of The Year. I even made it into the Mirror newspaper! You can read more about my slimming world story here

Hello there! Are you still with me? I'm back after my UK trip and very glad to be home again. Although it was nice to catch up with family and friends it was a lot harder than I anticipated. Strangely the bit I was most worried about was the flights but they were not that bad. The difficulty came in moving about as we stayed in four different places and Leo didn't know whether he was coming or going! I hadn't realised what a difference it makes when AJ gets home, even if it is usually after Leo's bedtime.  It was lovely to see my parents and best friends, and for them to see Leo. He learnt several things whilst away, AJ could not believe how much he had changed in 3 weeks. He has become very talkative and loving - giving everyone kisses and "high fives"   Another good thing about the trip is that I realised that a lot of the things I thought I was missing are not that important to me now. The things I love about living in Cyprus more ...

To me, a summer holiday usually means beaches, pools, and wall to wall sunshine, this year I'm doing things a little backwards as I'm leaving all of that behind and going back to England for 3 weeks.  Apart from travelling with a 14 month old baby and without the help and company of AJ I am really looking forward to it. I've been here for 8 months now and although it has flown by it does seem an age since I saw my friends and family. It's not going to be a relaxing break as I have so much packed into the time I am there, but when was holidaying with a baby ever relaxing anyway! I can't wait to catch up with my friends and family, and for them to see how much Leo has grown, he is almost walking and is developing a real little personality now, so different from when we left last November. Also (and  I know this sounds very shallow) as importantly I am so looking forward to shopping! I cannot wait to hit Primark, Asda and Matalan, and even shops I used rarely...