Friday 30 August 2013

I'm back.........just wish we had booked for two weeks!

Got home early hours Tuesday morning after spending a fantastic week on board Thomson Celebration Cruise ship. You could not fault anything. Cabins were cleaned 3 times a day, choccies left on your pillow at night( the kids liked them when we brought them home), food on tap 24 hours a day and lovely it was too. Crew on board could not do enough for you and the entertainment team were very good. As I said it was meant to be a cruise to Egypt and the Holyland, sadly the Egypt part was cancelled and we docked in Rhodes instead, which I might add was very lovely. We got off ship and spent the morning wandering round the Old Town....very pretty. Wednesday we were at sea all day and I got sunburnt....ouch! It hurt! It was soooo hot you couldn't sit in it for long, so we would sit along the side decks as they were more shaded. Thursday we docked in Ashdod Israel and went on an all day excursion to Jerusalem, beautiful place to visit so clean.

Andy standing at Mount of Olives and looking over Jerusalem. We also visited the Western Wall and placed prayers in the wall itself.

The wall itself was not very wide but very tall, a serene place to visit. Next we went to Bethlehem, which is divided from Jerusalem by the wall of Palestine.
It has check points and boarder guards too. Bethlehem we visited the old town and the church of The Nativity.
Doesn't look much from the outside but is stunningly beautiful inside, the photo was taken from Manger Square.
Saturday we visited Larnaca Cyprus, very hot and we stayed for a couple of hours in the morning because by lunch time it was far too hot to be walking about, the sweat just dripped off you.
Sunday our next port of call was Alanya Turkey were it is said the castle in the port was a gift from Mark Anthony to Cleopatra. The view was again stunning. We had an excursion to Side and saw the temple of Apollo and it was then onto the waterfall of Manavgat.
Monday we docked back in Marmaris Turkey were we left the ship at 12noon to get our flight home. We had a jam packed week where we travelled over 1000 nautical miles and visited 4 different countries, took over 400 photos and have some lovely memories. Just wish we had booked for two weeks not one, I can see now why people get hooked on cruises. Ok so we didn't get to do the Nile cruise we originally booked(maybe next year !), but we are so glad we did this cruise.

Well I think I've let you all into a sneak peek of our holiday, just to say if you want holiday ideas try Thomson Cruises, they know how to do it.


                    Janina xx


Sunday 18 August 2013

Today's the day......

I'm almost packed , as we are off on our long awaited holiday today. We catch the 1.43pm train to London and then onto Gatwick where were are booked into a hotel for tonight, as our flight is at 8.45am tomorrow....didn't want to get up at some un earthly time in the morning to travel down to Gatwick, just realised we'll still need to be up around 5am to get the shuttle bus to airport!!!!! It'll be a lonnng day.
The Egypt part of the holiday has been cancelled and we will now be going to Rhodes and then staying two days in Israel instead of one day. What ever I'm looking forward to it and all those wonderful photo ops.
It'll be a packed week of sight seeing and photo taking.LOL

Well until next week.

             Janina xx

ps Had a lovely day at the Papermaze crop yesterday.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Nelly has gone....!!!!

Nelly being my car! Infact all our cars have been called Nelly mine was Nelly 6, a Vauxhall Astra which we bought in 2002 when she was a year old. When hubby bought a new car in 2007, I kept Nelly so that all the 3 children could learn to drive, well the last Emily has just passed her test (first time too) so Nelly has now gone onto pastures new.....well one of DS friends infact as she still has life in the old girl and is a pleasure to drive. It'll take a bit of getting used to going back to juggling one car but the cost of running two cars has got silly. I've told hubby I need it for Ally Pally twice a year and to go to my monthly crops.
Well two weeks today and we'll be cruising from Turkey to Alexandria in Egypt....I'm so excited now, 3 more nights to work and then nearly 3 weeks off, heaven! Ordered our spending money today.
Bramford monthly crop was on Saturday, another good turnout of ladies scrapping and card making. Septembers crop is Saturday 7th 9am-5pm. All welcome. I've finished the October crop kit today, we'll be using Glitz 'Sunshine in my Soul' papers. Novembers kit we'll be using Teresa Collins papers which is a brand we have'nt used before.




This is a recent layout I did using the freebie papers from Scrapbook  Magazine issue 73 I think. A really cheap LO and one I was pleased with. It's a photo of Emily when she got her GCSE results.
Well DS 2 will be in soon from work wanting his tea.

                        Janina xx