Saturday 30 January 2016

Isy Suttie - The Actual One Review



A What's Good to Do Review

January has been a quiet month for reviews and then this week we have been to two shows! On Thursday evening we went to The Lowry to see Isy Suttie and had a really good night out. 

Isy Suttie is an award-winning comedian, writer, songwriter and actress. The Actual One is her new show about that moment in your late 20s when you suddenly realise that all your mates are growing up without you - featuring stories, songs and readings from her new book of the same name. The book was available to buy after the show and there was also the opportunity to meet Isy and buy a signed copy of the book.

Mark is a fan of Isy so he was really looking forward to the show, he even missed Scouts so we could go! I wasn't familiar with her work but I really enjoyed the night and look forward to seeing her again. 

Before the support act, Harriet Kemsley; Isy came on stage to introduce herself and welcome everyone to the show, I thought this was really nice and added a personal touch to the show. 

Isy talked about past boyfriends, friends settling down, parents and her teenage years growing up in Matlock. Being a similar age to Isy meant it was easy to relate to many of the situations she found herself in. She was very good at involving the audience and there was plenty of laughter throughout the night.

I really liked the style of the show, as well as being a comedian Isy is also a talented musician and songwriter and played songs she had written about her life. The night flowed well and was very well structured and the songs linked the different subjects together. Isy is also an excellent singer and used a lot of different voices which added humour to the performance.

Including the support act the show lasted about an hour and a half including a short interval.

We had a really good night out and I would certainly recommend that you go and see Isy at one of her performances of the tour.


5 out of 5


Sunday 17 January 2016

Snow





















Luke was very excited this morning when we woke up to snow and was out playing in it by 8.15!! The fields had plenty of snow so Mark came up with the idea of pulling the sledge behind the quad. He fastened a couple of plastic sledges to the wooden sledge so that everyone could have a go which was much more fun. I sat behind Mark watching for people falling off and we spent a fun morning riding around the fields in the snow. Once we got back there was a big snowball fight and everyone built snowmen.






Sunday 10 January 2016

Mending the fence


When Luke checked the sheep yesterday he discovered a low bit of fence that the sheep were very interested in! Rather than having to find escaped sheep Luke and Mark decided to mend the fence this morning to keep the sheep in our field.


Luke's UFA gloves kept his hands warm and they soon had the fence mended.


Luke then drove the quad bike back home, unloaded the trailer and then washed it before taking it back to the shed.



Friday 1 January 2016

Cycling


We have managed to fit a couple of bike rides in this week. William was brave and went out in his shorts but the rest of us wrapped up well. Today was a lot colder so we all needed plenty of layers and windproof jackets. 







December



December was a busy month and I didn't manage to blog very much. Here is a quick review of everything that happened in December.

It has been incredibly wet and whilst we didn't get flooded we had a huge pond at the top of the drive for 5 weeks and finally after many calls to the council they came to unblock the drains. There was that much water there was no where for it to go and our drive became a river for a few days. The constantly flowing water has done quite a lot of damage and Mark and Luke have been filling in pot holes when the rain subsided enough to get out and do some work.  


We had our annual family Christmas party and were entertained by Grandma & Grandad's version of The Gruffalo which was renamed "The Truffalo!" Lois stepped in at the last minute to play the mouse and did a great job. Unfortunately Martha couldn't come as Ambleside was badly flooded with a lot of roads closed so she missed the party and a few others were ill but the rest of us had a great time. Now the family is getting quite large Uncle Frank hosts it in a local village hall which works really well


 

We got our bikes out again to deliver the Scout Mail, we had the odd roads to do with lots of house names rather than numbers so decided it would be easier to deliver the cards on our bikes. It was nice getting out again but we did get quite wet as it started raining when we were half way through.





I was really late putting the decorations up this year but managed to find a nice tree on the Sunday before Christmas. It looked lovely once it was decorated. We had a full house on Christmas Day and our new tablecloth made the table look nice and festive. We had turkey and I made stuffing and cranberry sauce to go with it.












We braved the floods and drove up to Ambleside on Boxing Day where we had a lovely lunch at Rachel's. Instead of crackers she had made fabric bags with gifts inside which were lovely and much nicer than crackers. I think I will do this next Christmas so will be on the look out for little gifts in the sales.

After all the rain it was nice to get out on our bikes on Tuesday, whilst it was cool it wasn't too bad once you got going.




December ended with a party at Grandma's with all the family. We were home well before midnight but Luke wanted to stay up to see the New Year in so we watched tv in bed until midnight and then he went back to his own bed. William preferred to spend the rest of the evening playing on the Xbox!