World's Biggest Cruise Ship

Last Saturday was quite an exciting day as Nigel and I were spending the night on the Freedom of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4957076.stm

So apart from a hose splitting on nigel's car, luckily just around the corner from our house, we set off and arrived in good time to board.

Oh My God it was huge, I begin to describe just how big it was. I'm sure we didn't see anywhere near all there was on board. Golf courses, ice rink, climbing walls, surfing machine, tennis courts, casino, theatre of course the obligatory swimming pools, bars, shops and restaurants.

It was truly fantastic, we had a lovely cabin with a balcony and once we checked in we unpacked and went exploring, starting at the top on the 14th floor which was a bar.

A few cocktails later, we wandered around the ship stopping occasionally for a drink at various bars before going back to our cabin to get changed for dinner.



The food was superb and after dinner there was a fantastic fireworks display that must have cost a small fortune.


We sat in the Schooner bar for the rest of the night being entertained by a mad Chinese bloke, who was really funny and made us laugh like drains for about 2 hours.

Finally at around 2am we went to bed, sadly we had to be up and off the ship by 9am, which was a trifle early for me but we did make it on time and made our way home.

If you can afford it, the Freedom of the Seas is an incredible ship and has so many amenities you will never be bored!

Oops It's Been Over A Month


since my last blog. Sadly for me nothing terribly exciting has happened, the usual mundane stuff with two exceptions.

The first was a girlie night with my friend Carol who lives in Bucks. I was staying at her place and we had wine and Chinese and spent the entire evening laughing like drains. T'was much fun and definitely needed.

The second was playing in a live poker tourney in Didcot, a charity thing which was designed to make you hand over as much of your hard earned as possible which of course I did :o( the good thing about the tourney was that I got to meet my friend Paul and his lovely wife and kids oh and dog. Sadly another friend that we were both going to meet up with didn't show, which was a shame.

Nonetheless it was only my second live tourney and although I didn't finish in the money, it was still good experience for me.

Peace And Quiet At Last

So the kids are finally back at school after half term and I get to have some time to myself :D Don't get me wrong, I love having them at home, but after a week of them and their friends, who always seem to congregate at my house and eat me out of house and home, by the end of a week I'm ready for them to go back to school again.

So I have been visiting friends for coffee and shopping (notice how I avoid the decorating which needs to be done) and really just catching up with my mates.

Next week I am going to start running and yes Paul I know you have probably fallen off your chair reading this , but my aim is to run at least 3 times this coming week, so i will keep you updated.

Oh by the way, James was Henry II in his school assembly on Friday, which Nigel and I both attended, mainly because it was a great opportunity to embarrass him in front of his friends (my sole aim in life now :P)

Actually he was really good in it and delivered his words perfectly making me a proud mummy :D

Today (Saturday) Nigel took Katie out for breakfast , kind of a Saturday morning ritual for the two of them, and they returned with a lovely bouquet of flowers for me. There was a card with them written in katie's handwriting which read "To Sharon thank you for having a beautiful daughter from Nigel" methinks the little madam is blowing her own trumpet lmao!!!

Sunday Shopping Updated

Julie called me today to let me know that she had been in contact with Trading Standards and was informed that we were totally correct and within our rights to ask for the red top at the lower price.

Apparently a well known store will be getting a visit from them in a few days............

Sunday Shopping

My sister Julie came over today and we went into Harrow shopping. First stop was M & S to bring back some stuff I'd bought Julie for her birthday (which was yesterday by the way) and to change the size of a couple of bits.

While I was there I found a pair of trousers reduced from £39 to £19 - a bargain!!! I also bought a few other bits and pieces.

A quick sarnie and a latte in Marks and we were off to Debenhams, which is where the fun started....

So they had a sale on in Debenhams mainly 20% off but there were some 30% and 50% off things too. Julie found a couple of jumpers in the menswear section that had "50% off the ticket price for today only"on them. Now the price on the ticket had been marked down from £30 to £15 with £15 written on the ticket in red, so as far as we were concerned the price to pay today was £7.50. She picked up 2 jumpers and went to pay.

The price shown at the till was £15 so we queried it and when we explained the young lady agreed and gave us the jumpers for £7.50 so we thought cool that was a bargain and went upstairs to the ladies section.

We picked up a few bits up there and then Julie found a red wrapover top that had the same ticket as before, was originally £15 and was marked as £7.50 on the ticket and so we expected to pay £3.75 for it just like before.

However, the girls on the till weren't as accommodating and despite us explaining ourselves very clearly and telling them that the same thing had happened downstairs, there was no budging them, so we asked to see the manager.

The only manager available happened to be the menswear manager and eventually he arrived on the first floor and instead of admitting that perhaps there had been some mistake labeling, he was a complete jobsworth and refused to accept what we were saying.

So by this time it was the principle of the thing (Julie would have happily paid £7.50 for the top btw) and as he appeared to be a snotty nosed 20 year old we took great delight in telling him that someone from his department had already sold us the jumpers having agreed with us. His face was a picture!!!!

Anyway Julie mentioned trading standards and asked if we could have one of the labels but he refused saying they were debenhams property but agreed to me taking some pics with my phone - which I won't bore you with by the way.

So the upshot is Julie is going to contact trading standards tomorrow and see what they have to say. So watch this space!!

My final great bit of bargain hunting was in BHS where I bought a belt which I thought was going to be £10 but was reduced to £2.50 :D

Retail therapy is always soooooooooooo good for the soul!!!!!

My Week In Vegas

So having disposed of the kids late Monday night, we got up at some ungodly hour on Tuesday morning (6am is definitely ungodly to me!!!) the cab arrived at 7am to take us to Gatwick airport.

The cab driver turned out to be an old friend of my sisters, which was rather weird, so i chatted to him for most of the journey.

Eventually we arrived at Gatwick, checked in and proceeded to duty free, where we shopped, had breakfast and then had to leg it for the plane :$

The flight went by really quickly probably due to the fact I slept for about 6 hours of the 10 hour journey time :D

We arrived in Vegas only to find our limo was nowhere in sight so Nigel had to call the hotel to get them to send it and finally after a 30 minute wait he turned up and drove us to the Rio where we were spending the first part of our week away.

There was lots going on in the Rio and apart from daily free floor shows which were pretty good, they also had Penn and Teller performing there which we went to see. They were very funny and very entertaining and I recommend them if you are ever in Vegas.

I played my first live poker tourney in the Rio while I was there and although I didn't come in the money I didn't disgrace myself coming around 30th out of about 80 starters. Nigel on the other hand finished 4th and in the money :D

Lots of shopping and eating and chatting to my babies on msn. They stuck the web cam on at mum's which was cool cos it meant I got to see them :D:D:D

On the Friday we changed hotels and stayed at the Green Valley Ranch which is a little bit away from the strip but a lovely hotel with lots of amenities.

We met up with our friend Jesse and he introduced us to some other friends of his, one of whom is a high roller and who had the most enormous suite at the hotel I've ever seen! He was having a bbq to which we were invited which was fantastic - there was soooooooo much food that we hardly made a dent in it :$

The following night it was a trip to Circus Circus casino. The casino is pretty grim but they have a superb steak restaurant there and we met up with Jesse and some of his old college mates, 12 of them all in Vegas for the Superbowl. It was a fun evening with lots of banter around the table, I was a little worried I'd feel a bit left out being the only girlie but that wasn't the case at all.

Sunday was Superbowl day so we relaxed during the day and it was back to the enormous suite for a superbowl party and more food and drink. Sadly my team failed to win but a good time was had by all!



Monday was going home day, so we packed all of the presents we'd bought along with what we'd arrived with and set off to the airport with Jesse, who was on the same flight as us but sadly in economy so we didn't see him once we were onboard the plane.

I managed to get a little bit of sleep on the way back, but not a lot. There was a bit of turbulence which kept waking me up but otherwise the flight was ok.

Then when we landed it was a mad rush to get home so I could see my mum and dad before they went off to Spain that afternoon for a month. We picked 2 excited kids up from school, who gave us loads of hugs and kisses and then asked what we'd bought them :S

All in all I had a great time and met a load of new and interesting people and spent loads of money :D

How Remiss Of Me

not to have updated my blog sooner! I would like to say its been hectic but if truth be told I think I have just been a bit lazy! :$:$

So, James, my ickle boy has been walking to school and on friday I let him get the bus home on his own (its the first time he's been on a bus on his own) I think I must have phoned him 10 times during his short journey home, but his little face was a picture when I opened the front door and found him standing there beaming from ear to ear and then talking nineteen to the dozen about his fantastic journey home "it was so cool mum" "we had to run for the bus.......I thought we'd never make it" He was sooooooo excited bless him!

I also let him go to meet some friends by bus on Saturday, yet another milestone completed!!

Now those of you who read my blog will know that my other half has been working hard (cough) on a poker cruise in the Caribbean and while he was away I was going to do some decorating sadly it kinda never really happened, so I am going to have some explaining to do tomorrow when he gets back!! Any good excuses gratefully received! :P

Next week I'm away myself. I am going to Las Vegas for a week with no kids..... yippee!!! While I am there I'm going to a superbowl party as well as partaking of the usual delights Las Vegas has to offer and hopefully will come home richer, but I won't be holding my breath on that one!

That's me just about up to date methinks. Hopefully I'll find time to write another post before I go.