This morning we went to see the house that we’re in the process of buying. It was fun measuring walls and seeing everything for the second time. It’s a cute house with scope for doing work to it. Just need to decide what to do first!

Here’s me outside! The sold sign is up - it’s official!

Here’s part of the garden that we share with 3 other houses - perfect for future Mosaic gatherings and for mingling with our  new neighbours

My head is full of plans and furniture ideas and an excitement - I want to make that house a home!

Tomorrow we’re going to Starbucks to hang out with some new friends, then Mosaic gathers at our house to have food and hear about our vision. There could be up to 18 people!

Right, I’ll get back to Saturday night TV… Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

What have I done today? I’m in ‘recovery’ mode but I’m more of a do-er so I’m starting to feel like I’m mainly sitting around. I’m sleeping off the anaesthetic, rinsing my mouth with mouthwash so my stitches stay clean, taking painkillers, being brought stuff by Sam. Oh..and eating mashed potato and soup. I can’t open my mouth very wide and can’t chew so my meal options are limited! I just ate a banana by scraping bits off and pushing them through my teeth. I’m worn out now.

I have, however been thoroughly looked after by my wonderful husband, have been visited by friends and family and am surrounded by flowers which make the lounge smell lovely. And I watched all of the Remembrance Sunday service on TV and felt glad to be alive. It’s all about perspective.

Thanks Sam for making sure I’m well looked after, doing so much for me and for making me smile when I’m being miserable (even though it hurts my swollen mouth!). Thanks for saying I’m beautiful even when I looked like a bruised chipmunk! Thanks for reminding me that it’s a good thing that my nasty wisdom teeth are gone.

Here’s to more sitting around and the prospect of a more varied diet soon….

Last night we celebrated Bonfire/Guy Fawke’s/Firework Night in style. We went to the house of our Friend Emily’s parents. They live on a farm in Lancashire. There were lots of people, lots to eat and loads of fireworks!

We took some pictures so you can be in on the celebrations too…

The Bonfire

Sarah and Emily drinking punch by the fire

The food - treacle toffee, bonfire cakes, black peas (a new delicacy to me - apparently well known in the county of Lancashire!), hot apple cider, meat and potato stew and pickled cabbage!

Sam and Ryan playing Chinese Checkers

Outside for fireworks

Me and Sam with our bonfire toffee lollies

Fun with Sparklers

(Ooh, the concentration!)

All in all, a lovely way to celebrate bonfire night.. I think it’s one of the best time of year to bring communities together. Every village, town and city you look over, fireworks light up the sky from every street. Can’t wait til next year!!

It’s nearly Bonfire Night! I don’t have a lot of time for Halloween. I get sweets to give trick or treater but only so they don’t do anything horrid to our house or car! But…..I love bonfire night. So many childhood memories of being amazed by the bonfires and fireworks, eating treacle toffee and waving sparklers!

When you think about what we actually celebrate, it’s a bit weird. We burn an effergy of a Catholic guy who tried to blow up the houses of Parliament 400 years ago! I remember being told the story every year in school. To be honest, I didn’t pick up that Guy Fawkes and his men were the baddies! I thought it was mean of the king to have them tortured and burned to death. I thought Guy Fawkes was like Robin Hood or something! Thinking about it now, if someone tried to blow up the government today, the ‘baddies’ would be the people doing the blowing up!

At the moment, I’m sitting in our lounge and all I can hear is fireworks. Families lighting them in their back gardens, getting friends round, wrapping up warm. The unfortunate thing is that young people get hold of them and light them all over the place. There’s firework debris on our street and lots of people get injured. (The government might ban private use of fireworks). It’s still amazing that tomorrow night has been celebrated every year for over 400 years.

We’re going to a firework party tomorrow night on actual bonfire night. We’ll stand well back! Can’t wait!!

Today, we’ve had a relaxing day. We started off with a morning reading the papers and drinking tea in Starbucks then went to a reopened museum opposite. It’s been being refurbished for 3 years and I’ve walked past it all that time waiting for it to open! The building is beautiful so we thought, on it’s opening weekend, we’d go and have a look. It has a mixture of the history of Sheffield and general world history.

I loved the exhibitions and felt so proud of this city and my part in our community here. I took some photos with Sam’s phone. Thought I’d share them…

Coffee and reading in Starbucks

The Museum

There were loads of people and activities for kids

A model of Sheffield. You can press buttons and things light up! How exciting!

It’s definitely my home

I don’t think they found this in Sheffield…but you never know..

I’ll have to go back. It has a shop and Cafe and art gallery and so much more to see, AND it’s only a 20 minute walk from our house!! AND it’s free! AND it’s right opposite Starbucks!

I recently did the Strengthsfinder test again and one of my stengths came up as ‘Context’. That’s needing to know where you’ve come from to know where you’re going. I love the history of people and to see the history of the people of my city is brilliant.

Anyone who comes to visit…now you know where we’ll take you!

Last night was our first Coffehouse Book Club at our local Starbucks. You can never be sure who’ll come along, if they like the book, will people talk to each other?! All my questions were answered when 25 people came to sample coffee and talk about the book ‘The Island’ by Victoria Hislop.

I had lots of fun in our group. There was a mix of people from people I used to work with, people Sam used to work with and people I’d never seen before. There were people who came because they’d seen the poster, people coming because they’d just started jobs in Sheffield and didn’t know anyone yet, people others had invited, a cross-section of ages and gender.

I loved having something to talk about to new people over coffee. The feedback so far has been really positive. One girl left and said “Thank you! This is brilliant!! I’ll be back!”. Others felt that a month was too long before seeing people again. We’ll be trying to get people connected to one another in between times but because they want to, not because we want them to!

I can’t wait til the next one! I feel like this is something this city needs and have already seen the beginnings of what I know will become a beautiful community…

Here’s some photos..

It’s been a really lovely week. Not just cos I had 2 1/2 days off work but because we had Steve, Deana and Max Watson to stay all the way from Colorado. We had so much fun showing them around Sheffield, our attention being drawn to things that we thought were normal or had never noticed before! I loved seeing my own city through Steve and Deana’s eyes as they took photos of things I just walk past everyday. Doors, buildings, bins, phone boxes, fountains,  cars, dogs, people!

Thank you Steve, Deana and Max for coming to stay with us! We had such good conversations and shared more stories. I love it how I feel so connected to people we met online! Wish you could have stayed for longer!
Here are some of our photos….

Dinner at our house

Steve’s first taste of Marmite on toast for breakfast

In Sheffield city centre

In Chatsworth House gardens (Go Max!)

Dinner with pieces of Mosaic

I am often known for over-using the phrase “How exciting!” but this weekend I have used it and meant it!

We had a Mosaic team away day with our newest additions Emily and Ryan. We went out for the day in Buxton. The weather is being unusually warm for this time of year which only makes things better. We had so much fun, eating, chatting and dreaming about all Mosaic could be. We planned parties and events and I loved hearing everyone’s ideas and dreams and seeing gifts being used. It makes me even more excited about the future and sort of scared in a “anything could happen” kind of way!

My second thing to be excited about is we had a bookclub team making-of-bookmarks session to give out on the night. Only 2 weeks to go!!! Can’t wait to see who shows up. I’m enjoying the book. We all ate cake and drank tea as a reward!

My third thing to be excited about is that Steve and Deana are coming to stay on Tuesday!!! Yeah!!! I’m getting stuff ready and thinking about what we can do when they’re here.

Sam has horrid toothache at the moment. Not nice for him. It ruins the enjoyment of tea and cake. Hope it gets better soon. He’s watching Ryder Cup highlights to cheer himself up!
Ryan, Sam, Chantelle and Emily in Buxton

How exciting!!

We’ve had a brilliant long weekend with my family celebrating my brother Russell’s Graduation from Oxford Brookes University and my other brother Oliver’s 17th birthday in London. It’s been nice to have a weekend full of celebrations and food and treats. My family are very good at celebrations. I was really proud of my little brother to be graduating having achieved so much and of my other brother for getting to grips with having Diabetes and beginning his A level studies as well as having the lead role in “The Pirates of Penzance”. He’s a talented one.

To celebrate Oliver’s birthday, we saw the West End production of “Wicked” on it’s 3rd nighht of previews. It was awesome! The audience were so full of energy and excitement. There was no polite clapping between songs - there was yelling and ‘whooping’ and an amazing standing ovation at the end. I felt the energy of the crowd as well as the emotion of the performers and it moved me to tears. If you get a chance, go and see it!!

Now we’re home. With lots of good memories, looking forward to the week ahead.

All our family celebrating Russell’s graduation

We gave him a standing ovation and made a lot of noise!

Dinner out in the restaurant that used to be a prison!

Happy birthday Oliver!

Sam and I have just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. Time’s gone so fast. We’ll probably say that every year! We celebrated it last Sunday with a meal out and a chat about our highlights and lowlights of the last year. I’ve loved the last two years. We know each other better and differently than before and have been on lots of adventures. My hairdresser asked if I was happier than when we got married or the same or not as happy. I said that I’m still happy - happier in fact -but about completely different things and in ways I couldn’t have imagined about things I couldn’t have predicted then.

Thanks Sam for two years of adventures and for being there whatever my mood and whatever our circumstances. This week you have been brilliant throughout assignments I wrote, snotty noses, me stressing about mess, and losing sleep as a result of your wife’s bunged up night-breathing!! My life is so much better with you in it. You give me a perspective on life and myself that I would never get on my own and strengths that go so well with mine!

Here’s to more adventures to live and experience together. I made a good choice. I love you!!