Happy New Year

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Windows Again!!!

This time Windows Vista! Now to me the word Vista says beautiful or a far reaching view. Obviously Microsoft and I differ on what this means...

Windows Vista is installed on my lap top. First of all I couldn't use Photoshop Elements on it and had to wait whilst Adobe quickly produced the latest version that was compatible with a Vista 64 bit system (thank you Adobe). I thought Wow great! when it arrived, now I can do all the things I want on my lap top! Maybe not after all, I noticed when trying to introduce my photos to my lap top that there wasn't enough room for them to fit. After a bit of an investigation I realised that my machine had been partitioned but the documents had not been directed to the partition.... OK I thought I can redirect the documents. The photo part crashed half way through, so I deleted the photos and redirected the empty file which worked. Now photoshop won't open because it thinks there is a corrupted catalogue file... so I can't import all my photos!

Now my lap top is only useful for browsing the web and sending email!!!

I am quite good with computers, it makes me wonder how people who don't know anything about installation and programs would get on. Way to go Microsoft!

I think I will wipe it clean and start afresh with XP.

Windows Installation!!!

Or should that be windows non installation? Not the double glazed variety this time, but Microsoft!!

Three attempts and still not working properly... The moral of the story for me is that I think I should have gone for a nice day out whilst it was being installed ;-) I was trying to do lots of things with my photographs and slide shows and non of it got done!!!

Glass of wine needed I think ;-)

Kirs... A Fairy Among fairies...

For Christmas day I would like to share with you the beautiful magic garden that my lovely friend Dani created for me :-) I will meet you there later ;-) :-)

Kirs... A Fairy Among fairies..., originally uploaded by CasallArt.

Christmas Day Corner

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The red balloon diaries *8

I would like to share this image taken by Catherine Ingram. She takes some beautiful photographs and shares some wonderful inspirational thoughts on flickr. I particularly like her red balloon diaries series! More of the red balloon diaries set can be found here.

Sending you all my love at Christmas but especially to my friends who choose or have to be alone. I am with you in spirit and will be raising my glass to you!!!

'CHEERS'

The red balloon diaries *8, originally uploaded by cattycamehome.

So this is Christmas...

...nearly ready!!!

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Time to Reflect...

...on 2007 and wish for a happy and peaceful new year.

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Amiens Photo Gallery

Finally I have managed to get my Amiens Photo Gallery together. Photoshop Elements was fighting me, it kept giving me an error message when I tried to create a panorama. To get it to work I had to uninstall the program and delete all instances of current and previous versions of the program from the registry and program files!!! Before I did all this I had to make sure I had backed up all the photographs and the catalogue.

Now I am wondering if I am going to have to go through the whole procedure again on my laptop computer???

Oh! and I seem to have volunteered to do another slide show of activities that led to the success of our campaign!

Another Busy Week

Well what was going to be a quiet Monday evening turned out to be quite busy. Some of my Trade Union colleagues in another department held a meeting yesterday to find out what their members wanted to do about proposed compulsory redundancies. There was a last minute plea for a slide show of campaign events to show to people as they arrived at the meeting, especially as we had just had our success! Well I had already got one mostly completed it just needed a few additional photos adding and some captions so people knew what was going on. Oh yes and it needed upbeat music adding... So that is how a spent my evening.

The meeting went well hundreds of people turned up and and so did the local radio and papers, so I spent Tuesday evening gathering together photos and press articles to share with the members today.

I was so tired this morning I managed to sleep through the alarm!!!!

If you are curious to know more you can check here.

Cheers :-)

Today was the day for putting up Christmas trees! Mmm not really in the mood, but it needed to be done ;-) Somehow there was a big mix up and the wrong size tree got put up in the dining room! So sit back and think mmm this makes dining in here so cramped - Aaaah! What to do next?

OK move the decorated tree to the sitting room and start again with the proper tree in the dining room... wrong colours but I am thinking it is a good omen for next year ;-)

So wishing all my friends a wonderful festive season :-) Love to you all xxx

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Hiding Ted or is that Ted Hiding???

He was looking rather cute hiding in the Christmas Tree in the hotel where I stayed in Amiens. I am sure he wanted to sneak into my suitcase ;-) :-)

Hopefully I am going to get chance to put MY tree up tomorrow!

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Save Sapphire House Campaign Montage

A montage of some of the many campaign activities that we organised and took part in to keep the jobs and expertise in Sapphire House. Although we are pleased and relieved that we won this campaign, our colleauges in other departments are still facing threats of privatisation, outsourcing and relocation.

Soon to be in Dreamland

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Good news at last :-)

Today after a long campaign it was officially announced that the jobs at Sapphire House are not to be moved to Bristol after all. The organisation will now join with ABRO, and the unique expertise will not be lost. It is difficult to explain how this feels after such a long time, but this is the right decision for everyone.

Part of our campaign was a Wrekin climb on 10th December 2005 which resulted in ABRO jobs being retained in Telford. Now almost 2 years to the day it is announced we will join with them!

"Together we are stronger"

More information on todays announcement can be found here.

And more photos of the Wrekin Climb event can be found here and here.

A Welcome Sight

Well I have just got back from a nice weekend break to Amiens for the Christmas markets. I can't say I was very inspired by the Christmas market and neither was anyone else who went. Not very Christmasy!!! The company was great and so was the food so it was good fun anyway. The weather was very windy and rainy (and at times sooo cold I needed my Eskimo coat ;-) ) but thankfully we managed to have nice crossing both ways and dodge the worst of the weather.

And it's always nice to see the white cliffs of Dover after a coach trip to Europe :-)

PS: A package has arrived from my Secret Santa ;-) I haven't investigated it yet!

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Secret Santa Update!

I have been so busy for a couple of days so I haven't been able to check before now! But now I know that my shopping on line for the BGG Secret Santa was a success. The company were wonderful with lots of sweet messages and well someone loves their prezzies soooo much they think they must have been a good boy!!! Makes me feel happy :-)

In addition to that, I recieved a strange email from a board game company I have never used, saying my order was on the way to me.... I guess I must have been a good girl too ;-)

PS: I have managed to get my Christmas cards written too...

Eskimo Weather

I am not sure if this is scary or I am looking scared!! It was supposed to be taken outside with yesterdays Oak tree in the background, but it was far to wet, windy and rainy for that! Well the coat is a treat for myself for when I next go away for a few days to France ;-)

If you click on the photograph and scroll down the page, you can see a mosaic of all the other shots I took. They make me smile :-)

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The Four Seasons

Here together the four seasons of 2007. Isn't nature amazing!!

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Autumn View

I have taken a picture of this lovely Oak tree in each of the seasons this year, so this is the final one of the series!

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