Oh my time is flying now - in eight weeks time I will be Mrs Andrew Hartley - woo hoo . I just do not know where the last couple of months have gone but it is not very long now.

We are getting there slowly with wedding plans and everything is coming together but I still have a lot to do which is ok but it would be so great if everything can be organised by the end of this month.

I will post a picture of the wedding invitation that we made and talking of pictures, I have some others to share too.

At the weekend, we are going shopping to purchase Andrews suit and if we have time I need to purchase his wedding ring too.  Also next week I am going shopping with a friend to buy the accessories needed to go with my wedding dress and then that will be me almost done.

The main thing I need to concentrate on now is putting together the "Order of Service" and I have a lot of work to do here but this will be fun so I have about three weeks to put this together before sending a preview to the Pastor so that he can go through it and make sure that there is nothing that has been missed.  I am sure that changes will need to be made a couple of times before this is actually ready to be printed.

We have a set of Unity Candles which are lovely and we will be lighting the candle as part of our service.  Unity candles are not as popular over here but thankfully my local Christian Bookstore was able to find a supplier.  These took less than a week to come through.

So basically everything is coming together quite nicely.

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On a different note, health wise I am still not brilliant but I have an appointment to see the Gynaecologist next week so hopefully he will have a better idea of what is going on.  I do hope so as I can't continue on with the problems I have been having and this has (a) been getting me down and (b) caused a lot of friction between Andrew and myself due to "hormonal issues". I am also fed up of feeling so exhausted most of the time but hey ho.

Well I need to get back to sleep as it is 4.15am - on this note, have a blessed night

Yesterday Andrew & I met up with a girlfriend of mine whom I have not seen for over 20 years now.  I first met Sheila when I was 16 at the train station of the town where I used to live.  Sheila resided in St Lucia at the time and we met up periocially during the next few years and then we kept in touch via email and telephone. 

Sheila now resides in America and has been there for several years - she has been of tremendous support to me over the years and is a great friend whom I love to bits.  Sheila arrived in the U.K. on Friday and her husband is arriving I believe on Tuesday. 

Andrew and I drove up to St Albans (a lovely old historic town but sadly I did not have time to take any photos).  We spent the afternoon with both Sheila and her friend Marie - here are some photos. 

Sheila & her friend Marie

Sheila & Page

Sheila, Andrew & Page

Andrew & Page

We had such a wonderful afternoon where we went to a local Waffle House for lunch before going back to Marie's for tea & toast before heading back to Hampshire.  We are hoping to see Sheila again this week especially as I haven't met her husband yet ,so it would be wonderful if we could catch up again before they head back to America.

Have a blessed SONday

Well things have been a little crazy these past few weeks to the point whereby I have not been up to doing anything very much at all.  There is so much going on right now that I have found things a little difficult to cope with.  I have felt so tired, drained and my moods have been extremely low - I have also discovered that I am aenemic and hence now on iron tablets twice a day.  I have had to attend a scan at the hospital and have now been referred to a gynaecologist to find out what is going on with me physically and so on.

Things as you can see have been a struggle and as I am not up and running with my internet provider, I have found it a little difficult to get online at times but I hope this will be rectified within the next couple of weeks.

Our wedding plans have not progressed brilliantly either and I have

yet to do the invitations.  We have a lot of work to do over the next ten days or so and so I do need to pull my finger out here.

I also need to change my diet in some ways and start to eat a more balanced diet so I have worked out a menu plan for this month and from now on if I can do the following then I will be getting somewhere. I have worked out that menus during the week will be fish twice a week, meat/poultry twice a week, vegetarian twice a week with the one day left, being a "leftovers" day.

I am also trying to drink more fruit/herbal teas and water and this is the difficult part but I intend persevering with this.

I was going to post the whole of this months menu plan, but this isnt working out correctly - I will add weekly menus instead.

I will leave this for now and hope to start reading some blogs as I have been awol for so long :(

Today has been quite a busy one as I spent this morning doing some cleaning and then I made a birthday card for Nellie's daughter (Nellie is my next door neighbour in Somerset).

This afternoon we went over to a garden centre which was massive and busy - the weekends I should think must be absolutely packed and not the best time to go.  This is a fabulous garden centre and I couldn't believe how reasonably priced most things were  - I was very impressed. There was also a food hall there which was quite impressive but then after wandering through the food hall, I spotted this, which admittedly the photo is not very clear but......................

A whole section of American foods, of which I was in my element.  There were so many different foods from Graham Crackers, Orios, Stove Top Stuffing (though there was just the cornbread Stove Top Stuffing only - which was the only item I purchased), Orios, Cherios and so the list goes on. I will definitely be returning to this garden centre again.

We then went to another garden centre on the way back which has its own Pet Centre and oh my - there were the most gorgeous rabbits that I have ever seen and these ranged from short haired to long haired to a huge (what I would call) Floppy Eared Bunny.  Threre was also a parrot section and some of these were out of their cages.  One of these was the most gorgeous soft pink colour and this one took a shine to my lilac jacket big time. As cute as this parrot was though, it was having one of those "biting everything in site" kind of days - but it was so cute!

This evening I quickly made supper which was chicken and white wine risotto (which I had taken out of the freezer in the morning), falafels and purple sprouted broccoli - the meal was fairly quick, nutritious and very yummy.

All in all, today was really nice and the weather was awesome, not too cold but wonderfully sunny.

It has been unfortunate that I have not been able to blog on here as much as I thought I would be able too - there has been so much going on and I guess I have also had a small amount of "writers block" too.

I believe I have mentioned that I will be moving - well this is definitely going ahead at the end of March where I will be moving back to Hampshire.  I am going to look at a room in a Christian home on Friday in the morning which sounds ideal and this would be great if this came through and I didnt have to look around anymore for accomodation!

I have also not been a 100% healthwise and waiting for some blood results to come back on Thursday of this week.  I also have to go back to the doctor this morning so I have been a little bit all over the place of late.

I am so looking forward to moving back to Hampshire and to going back to my old church which I have missed big time.  A lot of my friends from church are back in Hampshire too.

I just wanted to add a brief catch up and I will try and post again within the next couple of days or so plus try to get back into a regular routine on here - so please bear with me!

I am back home and back online again - woo hoo

The first few photos are from the Saturday before Christmas, where I met up with friends Margarita, Aris and Aarti - we had such a fun time and it was great seeing them again.

I have no idea what I was laughing at here:

These next few photos are of my Sister and family:

It was also a friends 40th birthday and I was so pleased that I was able to attend.  Louise is a friend whom I first got to know 3 years ago when I resided in a small village in the heart of Hampshire. This lady is very bubbly, outgoing and she has a lovely heart:

Louise is pictured her with her brother (holding the birthday cake), and her husband:

So,here are a few photos that were taken over the Christmas period - this was an awesome time and I was so pleased that I was able to spend time catching up with family & friends.

This is just a brief post as I am still away and having to use the internet at the library but hopefully from next week I will be able to start posting a little more regularly on here. 

Christmas was very blessed and I spent Christmas Day with my sister and her husband, my sister's daughter and her family and my sister's son, his partner and her father and brother - so there were eleven of us for lunch.

Christmas morning was very relaxed and we had lunch around 2ish - turkey and all the trimmings plus yorkshire puddings (yum). For dessert, my sister had made a Christmas pudding which she set alight with brandy, a French cheesecake, white chocolate mousse with cardommom in (this was "heavenly") and finally a fruit terrine which I had made.  We relaxed after lunch with coffee before opening gifts where we were all very blessed. Early evening we played the game Trivial Pursuits which was fun and we split into two teams for this - a brilliant game! The remainder of the evening was spent relaxing and I arrived home around mid-night.

Boxing day we went to see the "Crookham Mummers" - this is a local Boxing Day tradition that has been going on for many many years. This is play based around King George VI (or it could be the V) and I will go into the story at a later date, but the Crookham Mummers travel to public houses in local villages around Fleet and tell this famous story which lasts for around 1/2 an hour.  I believe that there are other local "Mummers" groups dotted around England.

We then went to a public house for a drink in a village a few miles away - this is the same public house next to what used to be a cricket ground where I used to watch cricket matches during my late teens. Cricket matches are by the looks of things, no longer played there as the area seems to be fairly overgrown. The Barley Mow (which is the name of the Public House) is now very upmarket....

we went to my sister's in the afternoon where I met David's (my Sister's husband) daughter and family for the first time - they live near Hanover in Germany.  We had a wonderful afternoon where we caught up on news, had a delicious meal of cold meats, salads etc. My sister then played a few Christmas carols and other songs on the piano - all in all a very relaxed day.

The one thing that I did miss though more than anything was the real celebration of Christmas, which was celebrating the birth of Jesus. Spending time with my family though was very special and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them.

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I am hoping that from next week I can start to blog a little more on here plus I am also hoping to share some photos which as usual, I took quite a few . I am still in Hampshire and will be returning home for a brief period...........

I trust you all had a wonderful and very blessed Christmas

This has been a horrnedous week in regards to weather as up until today, it has been severe winds and the rain has been unbelievable - those mixed with hail at times - not the best mixture :lol

I am still without internet access at home and this will continue until this coming Saturday by which time I will be on my way to Hampshire for the next three weeks - I am so looking forward to getting away for the Christmas holidays

Yesterday, church was very good but the sermon was brilliant and I will be downloading this onto my computer especially as it was for me veyr relevant.  I will be writing on this probably tomorrow now. Basically, it was all about getting back into the Word of God and the issues of purity etc. We were also advised to make ourselves accountable to someone in regards to getting into The Word daily and I have made myself accountable to a friend and wife of one of the church elders.  I am meeting up with her on Thursday for coffee so she has said that she will be asking me then how I have been doing and vise versa - this is a really good discipline to have!

This week is fairly busy, I have started writing an article that I need to get done and I have kind of planned my afternoon now so that I get this finished today. Tomorrow I need to do some cleaning and start writing another article etc and then Wednesday I have some baking to do.

Thursday I will be out for the best part of the day but I will also do a quick clean of my apartment and then Friday I am off to Sussex for spend the night with my Greek friends before heading up to Hampshire on Saturday morning.

Saturday evening I have been invited out to a Christmas meal with a friend and this is through their work so I am looking forward to this - not quite sure what I am going to wear though, but I have some kind of idea now.

As you can see, I have a lot to get done this week but it will be fun. I am praying that the weather will be nice on Friday/Saturday as I really do not relish the thought of travelling in awful weather - not my idea of fun I must say.

Have a wonderful blessed day................

At the moment I am without internet access so I am using one of the library's pc's.  I will get my internet back on I hope by the end of next week but I won't be accessing my account very often as I am returning to Hampshire on 15th December. 

I stayed with a friend for a few days and returned home late yesterday afternoon.  I decided over the weekend that I wanted to go back and the friend whom I was staying with said that I could stay as long as I liked but I knew I had to get back but checked that it was ok to return to spend the Christmas period with her and that was fine. Jane will be going to London & Mildenhall on Christmas Eve for a couple of days so I will be going to my sisters home (which will only be around 10 - 15 miles from where I will be staying in Aldershot).

It was so nice to catch up with some of my friends and then church on Sunday was just fantastic. The worship was just so awesome (as I expected nothing less to be honest).  We sang some old worship songs and then a couple that I didn't recognise but the Holy Spirit just took over.

I then went with my old Life Group leaders to a Christmas party in Fleet (in which all the Fleet lifegroups took part) and that was great fun, and again it was so nice to catch up with so many people.

On Monday I went to the Christmas Prayer Breakfast near Guildford which a friend of mine runs.  There were over 90 people there including some unsaved husbands.  Juliet and her team had done a fantastic work in putting this whole Prayer Breakfast together.  We had a wonderful breakfast of various cold meats, cheeses, croissants, fruit salad, yoghurt and so on.  Three people shared stories etc before we headed into a time of worship.  The whole atmosphere was brilliant and you can definitely feel the Lord's presence. 

The prayer breakfast is normally for ladies and is run at two different locations fortnightly but this one was a special one hence husbands were invited too -a fantastic turnout , which was just awesome.

A friend took me back to Aldershot and bless Ursula as she then treated me to lunch not that either of us could eat very much after the wonderful breakfast.  This time together enabled us to catch up & spend some time together.

Tuesday Juliet and I headed out to a small village called Runfold near the town of Farnham and we had lunch in a cafe which was part of an antique shop - this shop was just awesome. I managed to take quite a few photos and I did check beforehand with the Manager that I could take these - though I kind of put my foot in it when I mentioned what I needed some of the photos for and one of the phrases I used kind of came out wrongly much to my embarrasement & a few of us ended up laughing, hey ho!

All in all, I was pleased of the rest and catching up with various friends.  When I return next week I have a lot more catching up to do which includes going up to London for a visit and possibly to Sussex to stay with Margarita & her partner - this was a friend who used to live in Taunton but she & Aris moved to a small village in Sussex - it will be so good to catch up with them.

I am really hoping that my old church will be doing something special on New Year's Eve - they normally do something and/or the local lifegroups end up getting together.  I know that the pastors/elders are envisaging the church moving into a new season in January - exciting

I need to head back home as I need to start putting an article together.  When I can I will add some photos from my trip. I will try and get online for a short time tomorrow.

Have a wonderful blessed day