Taekwondo grading

A couple of months ago I started doing Taekwondo again and today was my long awaited Taekwondo grading. It has been such a long time since my last grading that I managed to get myself really nervous, which was not good as I made loads of mistakes because of it. Rich was watching while he waited for his grading and he said that I seemed to do well - so hopefully I'll have passed anyway.

Rich had a much tougher time with his grading as he had the honor of being graded by the President of the TAGB who is a 7th Dan. Mr. Oliver made Rich work for his grading by asking Rich to do twice the amount of patterns (like a Karate kata) than normal. Poor Rich. I think he did well managing to remember them all and I'm sure he will have passed fine.

Keep your fingers crossed for us! We will find out our results next Tuesday, so I'll let you know how we did then.

Hello baby Maia!

My close friend Karen has just given birth to a beautiful baby girl. Sadly she isn't going to be called Jessica Ruth as I had hoped, but Maia is just as pretty.

Hello Maia! I'm looking forward to meeting you in October...

Free food!

Our friends seem to be queuing up to cook tasty dinners for Rich and myself. On Sunday (13th) Rich and I went to visit Steve and Matt at their new flat in Purley. After admiring their flat (especially their outdoor/not outdoor balcony) we sat down to a very delicious Sunday roast which was followed by one of Matt's famous fruit pies, this time it was apple and blueberry. We then had a few hands of the strange card game called 'Fluxx' which is confusing but good fun.

And if a free Sunday roast wasn't enough, Rich's sister Cara and her boyfriend Nick invited us over for a tasty vegetarian meal. We had a mushroom strogonoff (creamy) and some very dinky little 'custards' that Cara had lovingly made. Anyone else fancy feeding us? Please?

Katie's baby blanket

After many hours of frantic crocheting I have finally finished making Katie's blanket - sorry for the delay Katie!

Look at how lovingly it has been put together - and such nice colours too!

Rich helped give me the push I needed to get it finished - he has decided that he would like me to make him a cover for his Nintendo DS lite, which I wouldn't start until I had finished the blanket. Now all I need to do is find a pattern for making the cover...

DS lite cover now completed (see photo on the right) - doesn't it look good?

Richard Bradbury's summer party

The long awaited Bradbury party was finally held today. Even though Mr. Bradbury couldn't get hold of the gazebo that he wanted to protect his guests from the predicted rain it didn't matter as the weather stayed fine for the whole evening. My sparkely lights also made an appearance and added to the party atmosphere.

What with giant Jenga in the garden, tasty barbecue food and a really nice fruit crumble (I managed to sneak in 2 portions) the evening was a lot of fun. My congratulations go to Steven and Katrina who got engaged that evening (not at the party though), I'm really happy for you both!