Polly's Got A Shoe Competition...

Well, I've been away for a few days, not in real life but here on the blog! After a ridiculously long disappearing act I promised myself and anyone daft enough to want to read my posts that it wouldn't happen again...

So, I've been hellishly busy with admin work for my Scout Group. After a short summer holiday we're due back this evening. I've been e-mailing registration & group application forms to parents in the hope that they'll print them down and return them this evening completed. Hopefully they'll do exactly that and the usual chaos of the first night back will be reduced dramatically.

I've also lost my mobile phone. Or should I say I left it at my Assistant Cub Leader's house after a brief planning meeting. I also left my reading glasses and my wallet, in fact the whole of my handbag and its contents! What an inconvenience. It would only be a twenty mile round trip to collect it, but I'm sorry guys in this day and age there's no chance of that happening when I'll be meeting up with her again tonight.

I've been like a man without arms since I mislaid the blessed thing. I've been forced to clear my desk off so I could send webtexts and e-mails to the parents and other members of the scout group, my family and the Offaly Dyslexia Group. Oh, and I've also been suffering with my body again! This time it's principly my back, but it's been bad enough to prevent me from attending meetings and having to make my feeble apologies...

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now just to lighten the mood I've just entered a competition and so can you! It's a fantastic prize and if you enter it and don't particularly like your prize I won't object in the slightest if you give it to me!!! Yes, ladies it's a pair of shoes! Not any old shoes though, it's a pair of Claremont 1930's Vintage Oxfords... (aren't they to die for?)

Would you like a closer look? So would I, so please think of me when you enter the competition as these shoes are well and truly my style. When I'm not busy being a scout or slouching around in jeans I love to dress nicely, preferably wearing shoes which are similar to these...

Actually, my dress style is somewhat schizophrenic as I'm a great advocate of comfort. I often dress purely for comfort which means there is little evidence of style, one way or the other it's more a case of dressing down rather than up. However, if the occasion requires or I feel like it I'm just as likely to appear fully made up and dressed nicely but comfortably!

I love it when people take a second look at the other side of my dress sense. The shock in their voices and the fact that it makes me feel like a million dollars, it's so gratifying. It's comical, to say the least. When I'm not wearing a pair of jeans or hike trousers I can usually be found wearing styles which may be current, but take their inspiration from vintage fashions.

Be the eighties, seventies or forties I love to 'dress up' as you can tell from this St Patrick's Day Parade photo...

Polly's At It Again - Rope Ladders and Blog Waltzes...?

Yes folks, it's fast approaching that time again! Claire from Waltzing Mouse Stamps is running her monthly blog hop again, only in her case it's more of a waltz...

I missed last month due to my committments with Scouting Ireland. I spent the weekend camping in gorgeous weather conditions out on the lovely Charleville Estate near Tullamore, Co Offaly.

Setting off from the den with great intentions and no firm venue for our camp, we started off with just five scouts and two leaders. Having arrived up at the castle and been given an impromptu tour of the place we still had nowhere to camp, because our kindly hosts already had an event on that night. Seems that the spirits aren't too keen on the company of young people during a paranormal investigation!

Eventually we struck gold! The land owner of the estate allowed us to use what is affectionately known as The Shinfield. So called because my partner in crime somehow managed to rip his shin open in this very spot this time last year, resulting in a scar that took well over three months to heal...

Thankfully this years camp took place without any great drama's, and my partner in crime's shin remained intact. The scouts and leaders spent many happy hours setting up camp and gathering wood of all shapes and sizes, stacking most of it in preparation for this years County Challenge in an adjacent field. They even brought some of the smaller stuff back to our camp so that we could use our alter fires to cook on and practice making rope ladders...

Funny thing is that this all started off quite innocently. Within a couple of days it transpired that for the County Challenge I was to take charge of the rope ladder base, whereby I taught the scouts how to prepare and make one. This entailed engraving their names onto the logs that they prepared and it was very much a challenge! Over the course of the following weekend I taught 85 scouts how to do the honours...

I should have some nice pics later on, if I can locate the disc and figure out how to upload them. As some of you already know, it seems that I blew my mother board up so am having to reinstal all my lovely programmes onto my son's pc and the laptop. Of course that wouldn't be much of a problem, only I seem to have mislaid some of the discs in amongst the chaos that I like to refer to as my filing system. (Cough, splutter, blush...)

Polly's First St Patrick's Day Blog Hop With A Mouse That Waltzes...

Just in case you're wondering about the title, tomorrow is St Patrick's Day! Yippee, it's a national holiday here in the Emerald Isle - the children have the day off school and we celebrate by turning out for parades all over the country. Tullamore is celebrating in a very special way this year, with the Tullamore & Ballykillmurray Scout Troops joining forces to march in the parade...

Hopefully we should have a good turn out for tomorrow, I just hope & pray that the weather holds out and blesses us with a little more sunshine and a lot less wind than we had today. Boy, it's been cold here which has come as a little bit of a surprise after the temperate Spring weather of the past few days...

This year the town is filled with Scouting memorabilia, with exhibitions in the Bridge Centre and shop fronts all over the town. It promises to be quite spectacular, combined with the huge effort going into the parade. Teams of scouts have been beavering away (excuse the pun!) for months preparing for this week and so far it's looking pretty good. I can't wait to see the end result tomorrow - must remember to bring my camera.

So what's the big deal and why are we pushing the boat out? Well, this weekend Tullamore will be descended upon by delegates from all over Ireland attending Scouting Ireland's National Council which opens on Saturday. A second parade comprised of Scouts from all over the Slieve Bloom Scout County and the South Eastern Province will welcome our Chief Scout Michael John Shinnick following his arrival on a narrow boat at the Tullamore Heritage Centre on Friday evening. For us scouters this is the big parade, with St Patrick's Day conveniently offering us the chance to practice our marching skills - shhh, don't tell anyone!

For those of you who are not in the know, the Slieve Bloom Scout County comprises counties Offaly, parts of Laois and North Tipperary. It is so called because the geographical area covered by these Scout troops is dominated by the Slieve Bloom Mountains...

Regarding the rest of the title, tomorrow is also a big day in the card maker's world, especially those who have fallen prey to the extraordinary talents of one Ms Claire Brennan, who just happens to reside on these Emerald shores in the county of Antrim. Being that Claire is both patriotic and creative she decided that tomorrow would be the perfect excuse to bring crafty folk from all over the world together and celebrate together.

Why not drop in again tomorrow and find out what this is all about. If you're lucky I might even have some photo's of the parade for you and of course a nice St Patrick's Day card for you too...

Have a good evening, Slán!

Polly Pierce

Hand Made Greeting Cards & Wedding Stationery From County Offaly