Expanding my horizons

Just after finishing my Friday blog post I ended up rushing to Basildon to support someone attending Crown Court. Now 27 years ago when I did work experience in the 6th form...(Pause to take in the fact that it is 27 years ago. I feel old. Sigh) ... anyway a while ago I did a fab work experience with the local Voluntary Services group and ended up visiting all sorts of places including the local Magistrates (where some of my brothers friends were up on charges. Interesting) and Crown Court. But I haven't been in one since.

I found it totally overwhelming and I was all at sea and nervous. "Just go in and nod to the Judge and DO NOT talk to him" I was told. The case was delayed and I was the ONLY person in the room who wasn't a barrister or in the dock for 40 minutes. Now I know what it is like going to Church for the very first time... it was an interesting experience. The upshot of the case is that I will also be experiencing prison visiting as well. This is one of the great things about being a Minister - you get to do surprising things. Most of which, sadly I can't write much about in order to protect other people!

On Saturday I went to Alexandra Palace and Sue and I walked and shopped. We live near enough to drive and there is a hidden little car park right by AP which we used again. We said hello to Sue W on the Scrap Revolution stall and then did the work our way to the front system. I think next year we will do the "pick your fave stalls and visit them first" system as it didn't work so well this time. I thought there were more scrapbooking stalls and more people too. I had a teeny meltdown when choosing Nestabilities (just couldn't decide!) but recovered well. Huuuuuuuuge queues at Scrapshed and if I didn't have a 5% discount I would have given up. I came away with stamps; buttons; nesties and a modest amount of papers. We did have fun! It is only something I want to do once, not twice a year though.

Harvest service was lovely on Sunday and I FINALLY did my ironing which is a major achievement! I also had a little crafting time and so made two commission cards. The first uses a square corrugated kraft card; BG Granola; distress stickles and an owl button. The letter stickers are MM.

The other uses a white square card; BG Scarlet's Letter; Fiskars border punch; thicker numbers
and Docrafts ribbon.
I have also been getting on with holiday album. You can see how it works with the photo/journalling pages as well as the traditional 12x12. The only problem with the photo pages is that I haven't worked out how to hide the back of the page.
Papers are BG Lime Rickey; letter stickers are Doodlebug
the shadow on the layout is cos I had put it in the album and couldn't be bothered to get it out and photograph it properly. Norty me! And yes, that is a circle shaped photo. I was a little stuck on this layout until I saw one in Scrapbook Trends july which I lifted. Papers are 3 Bugs with lots of extra sharpie. The BG rub on tree (obviously today BG has to get in somewhere on everything I do) is cos I managed to cut the tiny scrap of blue paper in the wrong place and had to hide the join with something. Stickers are Doodlebug and MM tiny alphas. Again.
Do have a close look at that beach and the number of bins. It was almost scary!

Right, wonder what other new experiences I'll have this week?