Christmas in Churchstoke

I was woken at 7am by my mum's cheery "Happy Christmas" as she waltzed into my bedroom and announced it to be present-opening time. We all congregated in the lounge, some more awake than others, and proceeded to open our presents in turn.
Breakfast next and then off church by 10.30am. Grandad also came (which he never normally does, so that was very cool). Sang lots of carols (yay!) and was generally quite amused by my brother offending a lady in front of us (who had enough hair to completely obscure our view), and a man on the other side of church who chose to sit with a sheet draped over his face!

After church, Ben (brother) and I delivered a Christmas meal (made by a catering team at the church) to an elderly couple in town. We drove round for quite a while trying to find the right house (my brother's spatial skills seem to be no better than mine!), but found it eventually.

Went home and had a FEAST! The jokes and charades in our crackers amused us for quite some time - especially hilarious when Gran tried to act out 'Lord of the Rings'; she's quite often the source of amusement, harsh I know.
Then we retired to the lounge for more presents and the Queen's speech - which gran and grandad found incredibly interesting (see photographic evidence).

A couple of our neighbours came round in the evening - ate more food and had a good laugh...also watched the Vicar of Dibley (hooray for Geraldine and her man!).
After everyone had left, Bethan, Ben and I stayed up late chatting and eating Roses.
xx

Christmas north of the border

Good Day,

As yet there has been no snow (although the weather forecast says that we may get some tomorrow.)

Christmas started at the early hour of 9am when Tim and Lou woke up and decided that it was stocking time (we open our stockings first thing and leave our presents 'til after church) after that we all got ready and went to church - two streets away; a couple of people were wearing kilts but they probably make the pews even more uncomfortable to sit in!

The talk was on light and we sang lots of carols in interesting accents, there's nothing quite like Scots singing the last verse of In the Bleak!

We decided to have a light lunch and then have Christmas dinner at dinnertime so we opened our presents first; I got some new posh perfume, some books, lots of money, a maglite and other things.

After lunch we wrapped up warm then went for a brisk walk, it was so cold my face froze up (we have pictures but I can't get at them 'cos Lou forgot the USB cable)

A dinner of beef, Yorkshire pudding and Christmas pud followed, then we played scrabble (I won the first game with a total of about 220, yes I am a genius, and very lucky, using all 7 letters up on my last go with herpatic- something to do with herpes), yeah! I have to have some fun somehow as I have no friends and no where to go, the scrabble will probably be the highlight of the week!

Just before I went to bed I managed to break the cold tap in the bathroom, it wouldn't stop 'til my dad got up and fixed it! Oops!

See you at the weekend

Fran
xx

Christmas in the Land of Brum

Christmas Day in the Rose household always begins with Church, where four of us made up half of the music group! Having not played my flute for almost 3 months now, I almost collapsed after my descant in 'O Come, All Ye Faithful', being so out of puff! But thankfully, I recovered in time for Christmas lunch, pictured!

After lunch came presents, as my Dad and I were out-numbered, wanting to go for a walk before pressies!




I was very excited by a fluffy dressing gown, wellies and a map of the world :) We also got lots of boxes of Roses chocolates from various friends. It happens every year...Roses for Roses...very funny. But very yummy! :D

The rest of Christmas was spent trying to keep Oscar the cat from eating the leftovers, trying to win at the Game Cube (I always come last), playing Cranium (also came last, lol) and watching Vicar of Dibley, which was so funny! :D

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!! :D
See you at Lewis'.

Lots of love, Sairie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Christmas Day in Frome

So...someone suggested we blogged our Christmas days' so here is the exciting installment from Frome!
Well finally we decided to break with a longstanding household tradition and lie in on Christmas morning!! Hurrah!! The girls in the house were thoroughly enjoying having a relaxed morning - the boys on the other hand were grumpy and moaning about how unfair it is they had to wait till after church to open presents! (imagine the sacrifice mum and i have made for the past gazillion years - waking up early and then trying to be excited and happy whilst opening presents - mornings are not a good time for either of us!)

Anyway we were a bit mean and ganged up on mum in church - heckling from the congregation as she started her sermon - "what signs are there that it's Christmas day?" - some kid shouts out "presents!" , mum says "yes thats right" we all shout back " Not in our house there's not!" then mum explains to the church that for the first time ever we've decided to wait until after church to open presents, so the whole congregation starts booing and hissing! Hilarious!!

So after the service had finsihed, and we'd thought about the signs that were around in the lead up to Jesus' birth, and how despite many of the signs pointing to a royal birth and a prince, Jesus' death where he wore a crown of thorns was what made Him the Saviour of this world, we went home and opened presents.

Dad as usual managed to guess every single one of his presents (though he did own up to having seen an email about his Hot Air Balloon trip by mistake, which is how he "guessed" it) I was the most suprised and shocked when on opening a present that appeared to be a dictionary, found an envelope with a Hot Air Balloon pass in it as well!! So dad and i are going on a flight in a big balloon sometime soon!!! How cool!

The rest of the day was spent eating, watching endless Christmas TV, doing dad's jigsaw puzzle and playing Uno (which for the first time ever mum actually won!!)

Hope you all had good Christmas's too.
The Hannah Lady
xxx

The run up to Christmas in Scotland

Firrrstly Aye wooood liike tae congratulate Miriam on her ceke beeking pro-ess, tha luuks liike a sound ceke.

The fog has chased me to Scotland and is currently sitting on the silvery Tay. I've been practising my scottish accent (only in the privacy on our home, in case I get beaten up) but Tim says it's not very good whilst refusing to do one himself.

As my old MP at home is Mark Oaten, and Mim's is Lembit Opik, my money is on the next parliamentary scandal involving either Lou's, Sarah's or Hannah's MP (or all three).

Tim (my bro) is sitting next to me and is almost as tall as me, unlike anyone else in this place; in church this morning it seemed like the only two people taller than me were my dad and grandad, yes, I'm a 5'7" giant!

Last week I spend my time wisely, wasting tax-payer's money on making 'Do Not Feed The Animals' signs for the fence round the paras' compound and creating an amazing revue. I think for the New Year weekend each house/ small friendship group should do a sketch/ revue item.

Merry Christmas, I hope you've all been good enough for Santa to visit this evening.

Fran (and Tim)
xx

Sponge success

Hip Hip HOORAY! I made my brother a birthday cake and it actually worked - yes, it rose to a magnificent height! Just look at the air in that sponge! Wonderful :)
I was so proud, my family didn't really understand my excitement, but then they haven't had to endure a countless number of dense sponges in the past!!

(This is the best photo of my cake, but not the best of my brother...sorry, cake wins!)

The Dispersion

The Heathfield Girls have all dispersed... I (Fobbs) was the first to leave with much grief and saddness... but to show our true colours we enjoyed a beautiful time of song and dance together which (if I'm anything to go by) left our voices in a less than perfect condition for the Carol Services yesterday and our bodies in a rather sore state.

Packing is underway for the big adventure which begins tomorrow... China- here I come!!! I have found out today that I am to be 'The attraction' at some of the Christmas parties I shall be attending... can't wait to see their response to me!!!! Ha ha ha:)

Ur beautiful...

...Ur beautiful, ur beautiful its true! :) xx

Heathfield Loving

The Hannah Lady and Miss Fran

Christmas

December has been a busy month so far in Heathfield road, Hannah and I have returned from our travels and so fill our time wisely by reading in lectures and stealing sutures from clinical skills sessions.

Towards the end of November Hannah informed the Heathfield Guys that they would be providing us with Christmas dinner. Being good sports, they didn't tell her where to go, and dinner was held in honour of Christ's birthday on Tuesday evening.

Preparation started early (so that as much rum as possible could be injected into the pudding) and Luke created an amazing feast for our pleasure and delight.

After a small amount of trouble with the furniture (we removed some table legs) we sat down to eat some lovely smoked salmon. Some of us had more than others (uuurgh, it's not cooked!)

After the starter we moved on to the main course. The turkey was yummy, as were the potatoes and everything else; even the sprouts managed to taste good! Following on from this course we were treated to a presentation prepared by Mr M Bater on Christmas, although we are still not sure what role Maggie Thatcher plays in it, possibly she is what happens if you're naughty!

Miriam made a lovely cheesecake and Frannie made an awesome Christmas pudding, which we resisted the temptation to set alight in the usual Christmas tradition for fear that the house might actually burn down due to the excessive amount of alcohol she had been pouring into it over the previous two weeks!! Fran and I also managed to turn the ready made custard lumpy - however no one seemed to notice!!

That paragraph was written by a different housemate, can you work out which one?

After pudding came cheese and biscuits with coffee and mincepies, and port of course. Last, but definitely not least for Hannah, came the present opening (the real meaning of Christmas!....or not!)

Before we were allowed home Mr Bater tried to hug us all, even the waifs and strays known to many as Beth and Isobelly Smelly couldn't escape his clutches!

Finally...

Luke, we salute you for your amazing cooking abilities! Bachelor of the Year award goes to you.

Merry Christmas!!

Fran (and Hannah)

xx

Bathroom clean-up

Us ladies at 38 Heathfield Road are not generally known to be house-proud. Many have called our residence "homely" but never clean or tidy. And quite rightly too.
For instance, over the last few months we've had an increasing number of small back spots appearing on our bathroom ceiling (see photo).

Slowly but surely, more and more of these delightful micro-organisms surfaced on our ceiling, and had started to freak me out a little as they descended down the bathroom walls - invasion!! :O

As I have so few lectures this year, and as I will always choose cleaning over studying, today I decided to tackle our little Aspergillus monsters in a brutal but necessary attack.

The first stage of the attack was to remove all of our toiletries from the bathroom to a place of saftey - by the way, all that junk really out to be sorted through one of these days. Then, armed with a step-ladder, bucket of water and a j-cloth (and with musical encouragement from Snow Patrol) I scrubbed as much of the fungi from the ceiling as possible. I then simply painted over what I was unable to scrub away, using a roller and an artist's paintbrush (that was the only brush I could find).

The whole process took a couple of hours (as I thought I'd best clean the rest of the bathroom while I was there), but I'm sure you'll agree the effort was certainly worth it (refer to second photo). Now we have a sparkling-white ceiling and I am happy :)

Mim xx

Ladies' night out

This Friday Beth and I went to a guest night (she was my guest)

Unfortunately due to my fluctuating size I failed to fit into either of my ball dresses (one was too small and the other too big) and had to borrow Hannah's £7 from the charity shop one.

The preparation for the evening became even more difficult when I realised that my face was covered in insect bites picked up in the placement B&B. Luckily the lady at Boots painted my face for free.

Beth, as always, looked beautiful.

Soz (on the right) shared quite a lot of port with me, hence the colour in her cheeks.

Beth met lots of my friends and everyone had a good time.

At the moment the house is full of people, Hannah and I are both back from placement and have catch-up lectures. We are having a house meal this evening and making pizza together.

Fran

xx

Beware...there is a thief amongst us

I have just come back from a random little supermarket adventure in the rain with one of the heathfield guys (who shall remain unnamed).
This particular heathfield lad has , I am afraid to say, fallen into the ways of crime - having placed his bar of chocolate on the check-out to pay for it, he walked out of the store and climbed into my car with a bag of bananas in his hand which , apparently overcome by the distraction of being in my wonderful presence, he had forgotten to pay for!! Tricky!

The Spinster Song

I am not a child!
I am not a little girl!
Am I just a face amongst the crowd?
Will you see me..... as a woman?

A beautiful song I think you'll agree!

Well done to Mal Pope who so beautifully depicted the feelings of Christian spinsters in his musical 'Amazing Grace' set in the 1904 Welsh revival...

Medical one-up-manship

As many people will possibly already know, sneaking a look into my medical notes makes for interesting reading....

When other people get a bit of a bad belly on travelling, I develop dysentary.

While others get let off school with a bit of a tummy ache, I get rushed into hospital with appendicitis.

A bit of a head cold for normal people quickly mutates with me into viral meningitis.

At the moment I have had a grotty cold and a rash for about a week. Upon visiting the doctor this morning (and getting a second opinion from another Dr in the centre) I have been informed that I probably have chickenpox (again) and have to take the rest of the week off, avoid pregnant women and small children, and go back tomorrow for a futher opinion from the big boss Dr who knows about dermatology.

You may well ask why I didn't go to the doctor a week ago, if I had, the chance of spreading an infectious disease round South Wales would have been lost and, as everyone knows, if things go away within a week they weren't that bad anyway.

So... anytime you're free do pop along to ours for a cup of tea and some varicella zoster, the spots really are very fetching. Also if you've seen me recently and you might be preggers, do see a Dr. Ta.

Fran

xx

Heathfield Hobbies- what ever next?!

A worrying array of activity has been entering the house recently... it all started off with Mim investing in some knitting needles and wool... but things took a new found low when Sar discovered the delights of 'Map Analaysis'. This involves sitting and analyzing the numbers of the motorways in Britain. The photo speaks for itself- the sense of delight on her face was overwhelming. PLEASE, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, HELP!!!!

BABIES!!

My medical studies have gotten a whole lot more exciting and incredibly, overwhelmingly amazing this week! For the first time EVER i am loving medicine, I'm going in at stupid o'clock in the morning and staying in till ridiculous o'clock in the early hours (like 4am).
What brings about this sudden change of heart? (the clue is in the title of the blog)
Yes its BABY week!
I actually get to see babies being born! It is the most incredible experience ever! (has it put me off having babies...NO! has it made me more broody than usual...YES!)

One thing i have discovered though is that i don't handle shift work very well, especially doing nights and then continue having to get up early for the rest of the week...my poor housemates had to suffer the evil glares of a very sleepy zombified Hannah-Lady this morning (don't think Sar has quite accustomed herself to this weird state of mine yet!)
I did however manage to handle the scary consultant lady who keeps having a go at us because our consultant doesn't teach us (is that our fault - NO - he is a loser!) even in my tired state! Wohoo! One up for me the humble med student!

I'm going to go nap now to try and catch up on sleep! If this blog makes no sense - its cos i'm sooooooooo tired.

The Hannah Lady
xxx

The modern version of Catherine Morland

The learned and well read amongst you willl realise that the title contains an allusion to a book by Jane Austen called Nothanger Abbey. In it Catherine Morland, the antethesis of a good heroine, is scared out of her wits by an overactive imagination and too much reading.

I'm currently in a (mental) hospital called St David's, as a student, not a patient, although that might change as the weeks progress. St David's is an old victorian mental asylum made out of dark stone on the top of the hill away from the town behind a stone wall where the sun never shines and it is always gloomy. Everytime I go through the gates I get scared, very scared.

When I return to my lonely B&B, situated up a very dark single track lane overshadowed by trees I am still scared. I think that there is a monster in the bathroom and the rain taps on the windows as if someone is out there!

Apart from becoming worryingly edgy I have been trying to contain myself by switching on the bathroom light, flinging wide the shower curtains (the landlady come in and shuts them completely everyday when I'm out so you can't see into the bath at all...at least I hope it's the landlady) and telling myself in my head not to be so stupid. I'm still convinced that the man who lives across the hall is an escaped convict but I might deal with that fear soon.

Moving on to happier things, I'm very glad that Sarah has now posted on the blog although I am puzzed as to which anonymous person has commented that she rocks. The list of possible authors is very long, but not particularly distinguished.

Yes they are my wellies in the picture but it's not me wearing them... the mystery continues...

I'm currently so desperate (for company) that I'm missing everyone, even the boys across the road who made me cry!

Fran

xx

Welsh Weather

Hello all, I feel that my first blog should be filled with effortlessly witty and clever comments, but I can't think of any so I'll just talk about the weather.

Pictured is a crazy member of our house (guess who??).......crazy for two reasons:

1. liking gardening; and

2. liking gardening in the rain.

Myself, having recently recovered from getting a cold after walking in the Beautiful Brecon Beacons in the pouring rain on Sunday, am not a fan of the Welsh weather. Much prefer the weather in Birmingham, where the sun forever shines :)

Nevertheless, I have to admit that rain can be fun, especially when being half soaked by a coach on North Road. Oh how we larffed.....heehee :p

love Saire xxx

Crummy Cake- AGAIN!

Mim has been back in the kitchen attemping for the millionth time to rectify her Victoria Sponge making skills... but to no avail.

However hope is on the horizon: The Hannah Lady and Fran have discovered that Delia's Complete Cookbook recipe (which Mim has faithfully followed) is deficient in eggs.

Perhaps joy amongst the Heathfiels Girls will soon arrive.
Lx