ELEPHANTS!

Elephants have always been part of my life. (sort of)

From the age of ten I went to every Coventry City home game with Sale, my mate.The elephant features on Coventry City's badge and there were plenty of those around on bags and tracksuits etc etc. I don't know why they had to change the badge but the elephant is even more prominent now!

 As teenagers we would all meet up "Under the Elephant" in Coventry's new precinct.

Even  Coventry's swimming pool was built in the shape of an elephant (sort of...ish)

But I suppose my REAL love for them came when we started adopting MALAIKA, who had been orphaned, rescued and then cared for at the Daphne Sheldrick Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya. Our Best Man Mike Daly and his wife Sharon bought the adoption for our twinnies' 6th birthday and we renewed it every year until she died.

I have built up quite a collection of elephants now, (well...Cub has been collecting them for me on his travels) so I need to make a record of which ellie came from where!

Beautiful marble ellie from Columbia from Cub, I LOVE this one.

From RHODES from Em and Ian

Elephant Island, MUMBAI from Guy

CLOCK from NixenPixen

I heart the 4 fridge magnets below.

Top left -from Hong Kong, from Dave Chan, 

Top right-from China from Pixen

Bottom left-MADE WITH THE RED DUST

Tsavo East Park, Kenya, from Judy

Bottom right-from ANGKOR WAT, CAMBODIA from Cub

Hong Kong,China,Kenya,Cambodia

From Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from Cub

URUGUAY from Cub

Whistling ellie from EGYPT from Cub

L LOVE this Thailand ellie's face

from Thailand from Cub

When I go to open the fridge I see "You stuff,You puff" but I also see "Proud to be a little wrinkly" and "Smile if you know you are special"

Wow look at this beautiful fridge magnet from Guy's trip to BOSNIA!

I was touched and flattered that he even thought of me while over in Bosnia.

Thanks Guy!

Above and below... from Irene

From Kay

This was a birthday card from Jean

and a paper clip from Natasha

Natasha saw this in Oxfam

EmmaOlivia made me some very solid paperweight type ellies at Uni!

How cute are these! I TOTES HEART THESE!

Mother and Baby Ellies in Glass by EmmaOlivia

From SOOOOOOOOOOOOOZE

This is bigger than it looks! And heavy! It was from Husb.

This was from Hurghada in Egypt, from Cub

Lyn Kini's pottery skills

ZIMBABWE (with warthog!)

The hand blown egg, above, is one of my FAVOURITES partly because the adorable Mark carried it back from his home in Zimbabwe on his lap - an 8 ish hour flight, praying that it wouldn't break. It is even more special to me now after Mark's life was cut tragically short with his death at the age of 41. I actually have a large selection of ele-tee-shirts from Mark from his trips home to Zim.

The warthog was Mark's favourite, he sits amongst my ellies.

The gorgeous ZIM MARK

I wish I could ask him what this one was made of, I am sure it was a really special stone, it is very heavy anyway.

ZIMBABWE

Bath from Em and Ian

Bali from Sooooooze

From Jenny, Rowton Hall, this feels so nice in my hands

From NixenPixen and AndAlbert

A pen from Portobello Market LONDON from Cub

A Bali picture from Sooooze

Another birthday card (I FRAMED IT!) from Jean from South Africa

Cushions from Neil and Lisa

Fabric Ellie from Cub's visit to South Africa

My book case shelves are pretty full! I need more shelf!!!!

David's 60th

Irish David (shamrock) who has a part share in a canal barge but a full share in his "Dommie-dog"  spaniel, lives by the sea (over the hills where the seagulls live) and loves cooking. Well he is SIXTY today! Happy birthday David!! (heck what a lot of Davids in this family!) 

I hope he likes his chopping board.

CHRISTMAS 2012

It turned out to be a bit of an Orla Kiely Christmas!!

We had a lovely time, making the most of having the whole family together and playing some hilarious games. We didn't actually need to play games to have a laugh though, things just happened, one of the funniest was when Husb got stuck to a melting snowman, he was traumatised  by that snowman for days afterwards =)

(Trust me... you had to BE THERE! Very funny. I'm laughing just typing this)

Looks like a Dali exhibit now!

We had plenty of rain...

The cycle path

and we got soaked at the Chester game on Boxing Day but blimey there were FIVE goals to celebrate so that kept us warm

Chester 5 - 0 Droylsden

plus Cub had his ritual BOVRIL and I took my flask of tea!

Meanwhile the mighty SKY BLUES were battering Stevenage, Diddy's old team. He actually played for Stevenage 1988-1991, whover would have thought they would be in the same division as the City? But we won't dwell on that.....

Boxing Day saw us crown a new champion in our annual PERUDO challenge!!!

Martin-the-Bus!! HE DID IT!!! HE WON!

It took a lot of concentration and it was very nearly all too much for him...

but he got there in the end! WEYHEY!!!!!

(and I think Katy was impressed!)

We saw the film Life of Pi , which to be fair, I really enjoyed, but it was a bit odd in places and no way should Pi have survived that long...

We also saw James Bond in SKYFALL at last, wow what a quality film that was. 

This week Husb and I went to see One Man Two Guvnors in Llandudno.... what a funny, silly, hilarious, clever slapstick of a play that was - SUPERB!

After 25 years of teaching jumpy uppy downy aerobics, I have finally discovered the joys of a proper sports bra, my shock has never been so absorbed, so much so I went straight back over to the Choaks and bought 6 more of them as they were so drastically reduced in the sales.

The day we went to hit the Choaks sales we only saw ONE person we knew AND IT WAS AN OLYMPIC MEDALLIST!!!!! Beth Tweddle! (She said hello)

I now have a completely safe and functional whisk for baking, after Nem's health and safety boyf condemned the other one to the bin (whoopsie!!!) and we are still cooking in the dark as we have been for the past week, since the kitchen light has blown, but all in all...

IT WAS A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS! Thanks to everyone who made it so!

P.S. You don't want presents when you are 92 so Edna's "present" was lunch out.