My apologetic return to blogging.........

What is it about taking a break from the blog?  A week off over Christmas, turned into a chilled fortnight, which before I knew it turned into a neglectful month!  The trouble was, the prospect of getting back into blogging became like that 'thank you' phone call you should have made a month ago that you know you still need to make but now somehow seems somewhat embarrassing as it's taken so long! (Does that makes sense?)

So, before I unleash my first post of 2011 upon you all, please accept the above ramble as my sincere apology and rest assured I am now back to full posting health!

Where to start? Well, Christmas was quiet but lovely (as always!) with Christmas Eve spent with family, Christmas Day at home and New Year at Steph and Dave's.

[caption id="attachment_494" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Hydrotherapy Pool - Lion Quays"][/caption]

P and I also had a lovely night away at Lion Quays in Chirk, Oswestry just after Christmas.  This was our first visit to Lion Quays and we were very impressed.  Our room booking included use of the main pool and gym but for an extra £15 each we were also able to use the Lion Quays Spa.  I have to say this is the nicest spa I've ever visited and our afternoon there was complete heaven.  The spa included a hydrotherapy pool, steam room, sauna, warm room, experience showers, snow cave (yes, I was brave enough to give this a try) and sun meadow.  There were also many treatment rooms, a bistro and relaxation room with complimentary herbal drinks etc.



[caption id="attachment_497" align="alignright" width="137" caption="Lion Quays"][/caption]

We ate in the main restaurant on the evening and once again we were impressed with the service and quality of the food.  Lion Quays is definitely one for the hot list and we will definitely be visiting again, hopefully in the not too distant future.  Rest assured the seed has also been planted with 'the girls' ;).

The new year routine has now kicked back into action with our first choir rehearsal for both the school and ladies choir last Tuesday.  Both went really well, especially the school choir where we now have quite a few new members.  We've introduced some new choir rules where the children compete against us as leaders to win chocolate at the end of the term.  Week one saw excellent behaviour from the children and concluded in a point to the them but I remain confident that the choir leaders, ie, us, will reign triumphant and the chocolate will be ours :).  The ladies choir went well on the whole but 'Somebody to Love' was a little rusty after the Christmas break.  A little work on this over the next couple of weeks should have it polished and ready for April's concert.

Work is steady but mainly spending our time tying up loose ends before our trip to................wait for it..................Florida! Yes, Florida!  This requires a separate post of its own, but our much awaited holiday to Florida is now only 4 weeks away and I'm so excited I could vomit!  Florida preparations to follow shortly.

An 'A' update

Couple of good bits of news for 'A'.  The dancing exam she took before Christmas saw her achieving a distinction with 82 marks overall and Friday also saw her receiving the achievement certificate at school.  Her teacher comments were that she's "an all round ray of sunshine".......awww, if only she could see her when she's screaming at her brother or unable to get out of bed each morning.  Seriously though, I am very proud of her and pleased that she's settled back in at school after a rough term before Christmas.

After being introduced to the group through one of our course delegates, she's now also joined the group Youth On Stage who put on shows twice a year in the Birmingham area.  We went to see their pantomime before Christmas and they truly were superb, especially considering they range in age from only 9 to 21.  She's loving every minute of the twice weekly rehearsals although she is struggling with the late nights.  None the less, the prospect of performing 'High School Musical' at the Old Rep in May is motivation enough to keep her going.

An 'S' update

Not much going on for 'S' at the moment although he is coming close to the crucial options choices at school.  He's decided he would like to be a sports teacher as his main love has always been sport.  He's now in the process of speaking to various teachers to assess what subjects he needs and which teachers will accept him for their subject.

So there you have it, first post of the year.  Ok, so it wasn't so painful (for me anyway) and now I've broken the blogging 'seal' I should be ok to spout off a bit more frequently.

Now for piccies..........bye for now!

[slideshow]