Sugar, Digger, Gigger, Blogger...

   

SUGAR:
It's good to be a mum at this time of year.  I love all the fuss ...and the Mother's Day card...and the flowers...and the chocolates!!  Ah, SUGAR!  Love it.

   This year, I was invited to spend the night at my son's flat for Mother's Day too.  He doesn't know how lucky he is to have a flat overlooking the Tyne; watch the boats come in and out; watch the lights from North Shields to South Shields twinkling bright from dusk till dawn.  I never got a wink of sleep - it was all too magical to go to bed.  Thanks, Phil, for the best Mother's Day ever.




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DIGGER:

 

           
As the garden starts to take on all that lovely Spring colour, it's time for the cats and I to get out there, get the gloves on......and do some mucking out.

Oh, what a chore.  But it makes it all so much easier when I have the reds of the Pieris, the whites of the Ornamental Cherry and the pretty cerise of the Camelia to gaze upon as I go.

   

And I did enjoy (praise be to the heavens) a whole weekend of  unexpected glorious sunny weather, me digging out the weeds, me planting summer bulbs - and the cats, Mr Jim (the fluffy black/white one) and Rosie (the tubby ++ one), digging them back up again!
Within a couple of days, my lilac blossoms have made an entrance, my tulips have come into full orange, pink and red blooms - and the clematis is growing and budding at a mile a minute. So, now that my green fingers are working again: onward, Sheila, onward...

      
It's good to get me gardening head back on!       

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GIGGER:

The Gatecrashers were red hot when I caught them at the Rising Sun, Crawcrook, last weekend.  Not only were they fantastic, us girl partners did the 'biz' too!  We grooved together with the 'bum' dance, Nina and I, shaking our booties to increase the wild atmosphere of the gig - and we did - OH YES!

Nick (vocalist and guitarist), Ant (lead guitar and backing vocals), Dave (Bass Guiatar) and Maurice (drums) were on fire.  Nick sure knows how to get a crowd warmed up, sparks flew from that amazing guitar of Ant's, Dave's bass was like an electrical storm of deep thunderous tones - and Maurice was a live wire on those beautiful blonde drums. 

The crowd loved the Gatecrashers:

"Fantastic night - I hope they're back here soon," said one.

"Wouldn't have missed this gig - not for anything," said another.

At the end of the night, they wanted more, more, more - and the guys hit white hot heights with 'Sex on Fire', Nick right there gyrating on the bar to drive the audience crazy.

What a brilliant night - a great night to be a GIGGER, I thought....

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BLOGGER:

Invited to blog for the wonderful North East Magazine, 'North East Life', I have penned a couple of blogs containing super photographic footage for 'The Otters of Otterburn' and 'A Gaggle of Geese'. 

Photos by kind permission of Dave Hildreth and Dawn Boulton - thanks, guys.

The blog, entitled, 'TWIGS, GIGS, HAUNTS AND JAUNTS' is a diary of walks, gigs, favourite haunts and my travels around the locality of the North of England.  Give it a whirl - I hope you enjoy.

Here's the link:

Twigs, Gigs, Haunts and Jaunts

http://northeast.greatbritishlife.co.uk/community/blogs/entries/sheila-newton-twigs-gigs-haunts-and-jaunts/id/381/

Yet another feather in my cap, don't you think?  Another string to my bow!

WRITE ON!! and read on - there's more... 

^^^

I was commissioned by the fabulous Gatecrashers band, to ghostwrite their official website.  What an honour.  It was a real privilege to work with these great North-East musicians.

You can visit their website at:

The Gatecrashers Band

www.thegatecrashersband.co.uk

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Talk to you soon, Constant Reader. 

Hope you enjoyed this installment. 

There'll be another one soon.

In the meantime...

HAPPY EASTER

Go to the link below to colour in your own Easter Bunny (!!)

http://www.toonworkshop.com/free/clipart/cartoon/easter/index.php

It was New Year's Day 2011...

Everybody was hung over - we'd partied at a friend's house on New Year's Eve and come home - me, my husband and our two best pals, Dawn and Steve - to see in the New Year 2011, watch Jools Holland's Hootnany, reminisce about the '80's with TOTP2 and sing 'Auld Lang Syne'.  We'd tippled champagne and I'd made my New Year resolutions - to be a non-smoker by 2012 (I'll keep you posted on that) and to be a better, more prolific, highly-published WRITER (I'll keep you posted on that, too!)

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We set off from North Shields, over the river Tyne to South Shields, to walk in the park and play on the beach.

It was a cold, blustery day - enough to freeze your socks off! So we dressed up warm and cosy to keep the cold out and set the roses in our cheeks to 'bloom' setting.

On Littlehaven beach, there are dozens of statues, made from leather sacking and fired in a kiln.  They're all shapes and sizes and they all have faces with all sorts of expressions on them. They're fun and inviting but they're sort of eerie too.  If you ever get a chance to visit, you really should go.  It's a sight (site!) worth seeing - and so entertaining.

They're situated right on the beach and the waves were almost crashing about our heads - noisily.

The seagulls and pigeons were out in force too, skidding onto the waves, dive-bombing the waters - and scavenging for crumbs and left-over pizzas or Mac-burgers.

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We walked in the park - a lovely, landscaped park - and came upon the duck-pond before long.  The lake was frozen - a veritable ice-rink (Torville and Dean could have done their 'Bolero' here, no problem) and the ducks, geese and swans skated on their rink in ungainly fashion.  We just had to laugh at their antics.  Seagulls, pigeons and magpies joined in with gusto - and we laughed at them too.



Clapping our hands together, rolling them up in a fist inside our gloves, wiggling our toes for good measure we fought a losing battle against the freezing temperatures.  And then we spotted a little tea-shop/cafe on the edge of the pond.

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"Let's get a cup of tea," I said, hopefully.

"Yep!" was the rejoinder and in we went.

It's a grand little cafe selling all sorts of goodies.  We plumped for hot chocolate and a couple of slices of death-by-chocolate cake among the four of us.

We stayed there until we warmed up a little, then wended our way back to the car, Dawn collecting driftwood on the way home (to add to her creative collection - she's an artist, is Dawn)

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At home once more, the preparations began for our New Year's Day gourmet dinner.  Dawn made delicious laksa and a summer fruit pudding: Dave made chilli-and-ginger tuna steaks with noodles - and I laid the table.  Steve stirred the soup a couple of times and played his guitar as his contribution.

It was a great meal, with great company - and we had a ball.