The COOLBOXUK Site: July 2007

River Photos

Here are the promised photos of the river Thames on Friday. Not so bad here after all...

Okay so far...

Just a quick update on the flood warnings and then I'll grab my camera and wander down to the river to have a look. According to the reports, the Thames peaked here at Chertsey last night. I haven't had any disaster news from anybody I know yet, so I assume it wasn't as bad as expected. Certainly around here we are dry so far. That doesn't mean the worries are over, though, because the river will carry high water for at least a couple of days, so heavy rain would still be a problem. Luckily it's been more or less dry for the last days, although there's clouds going over now which do look like more rain. I'll see if I can get a few good shots of the Thames now...

Meanwhile, some more completed LOs of the Fizz kit - thos of you who've known me for long enough might remember those trips...

The 2 pages above are a LO about my first holiday here in England: the summer after I arrived
I did an Outdoor Bound and Expedition First Aid Course in the Lake District and these
photos were taken during the final 2-day trek test. Everything used is from the Club Scrap "Fizz" kit.

These ones are even older - both pages are a LO about the New Year festivities we had in
Senegal during a holiday in 1988-89. Materials are mostly from the "Fizz" kit again,
plus some peel-off letters from Crafts Creations and aubergine background paper.

Getting worried

I'm starting to get worried with all this flooding here in England - it doesn't seem to want to stop! I do hope it won't hit around here, but the Thames will not doubt bring down a lot of water in the next days from those flooded areas in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and although all the flood relief schemes are open, if it rains more on top of that (and there's another bad one forcast for Thursday) I'm sure it'll flood Chertsey, at least partly. The area where we live has not been flooded before according to the records, but I'm sure neither have a lot of the places who are under water at the moment! This year really is exceptionally bad - it must all have to do with those dreaded climate changes. I'm not quite sure what to do - should we take some stuff upstairs, just in case???

Anyway, I just realised that I never showed all the finished LOs I made with that FIZZ kit I ALSed a few posts back. Well, here are some more.

Both pages above are one LO: a shopping village in Bali. Everything used from Club Scrap "Fizz" kit.

Both pages above are one LO: a Barn Dance I organised for church last year. Again, everything used is from Fizz kit.

Finally some rest...

Boy, it has been a hectic month since my last entry. First I had Mum over from Germany for 2 weeks - she is a full-time job, since she doesn't speak any English and always assumes she must be the centre of my attention 24/7! The lack of sunshine and suitable weather made things worse as we were confined to indoors sightseeing most of the time (she insists that we have to "see things" every single day of her stay - I honestly think she comes to see England more than me...). She came on the 16th of June and stayed to the 1st of July, and the 2 weeks after that, starting right from the 2nd of July, I took part in the Cathedral Summer School in Guildford, which was workshops etc all day most days and evening programme some days. I must say that some of it was very interesting and should be useful within our own church here in Chertsey, too, but I have to yet do a writeup to present to our vicar... Then, we also went to Kevin+Tracy's wedding over in Dartmoor (Kevin is Sean's cousin, and both of them are canoeists, so we know them quite well). Whyever they decided to get married so far away I'm not sure - it was a horrendous drive and we got there just in time for the ceremony which took place in a special room at their chosen hotel. Again, the weather wasn't brilliant but at least it didn't rain and we got to take some photos outside (see below). There was a lovely meal and in the evening a Ceilidh (Scottish Party Dancing) which I thoroughly enjoyed! We stayed the night and had a nice little walk the next day before driving home.