An audience with Fany Geek Shnicky

Wedding Night is the new book from my favourite author Sophie Kinsella, I love her shopaholic series and her other books she has written, like twenties girl to name but one.

I will buy any book by her and never disappointed, however this book really let me down, I love the idea of bringing two different sides to the story, the tale of two sisters, one sister, Lottie is a head of herself and thinks her man is going to propose, he doesn’t, she then gets married in the space of 48 hours to her first love Ben, they whisk themselves away to Greece and what comes next is very funny, then their is the other sister, Fliss, she is a mother of one, going through a divorce, concerned for her sister, she flys out to Greece to save her sister.

The book is written with one chapter in the head of Fliss, the other in the head of Lottie, so you have two different story’s going on, which ultimately ends at the end of the book with them meeting and everything being hunky dory but it does get confusing at times, trying to remember which story you are following and which sister your head is meant to be picturing.

While it was very funny in places, some parts were very far fetched even for me to imagine, I know, we are meant to go off to a special place when we read books and not think about ‘would that really happen?’ But speaking from someone that is trying to write a story at the moment, I did find it difficult relate to this one, it all happened far to quick, this book was a bit of a let down for me, I wasn’t interested, I skimmed most of the pages and half way through, I just wanted to get to the end and see what happened, so I did something I never do, I skipped quite a lot of the book to get to the end and read the last few pages.

What I did find though, Sophie is writing another Shopaholic book, so that pleased me at the end of a book, I wished I had borrowed from the library.

This isn’t a reflection on Sophie, as I mentioned I loved all of her past books, like the undomestic goddess and remember me, but this fell flat for me and I can’t wait for shopaholic in Hollywood (yes they are as far fetched as you can get but I still love them, maybe it’s because I actually love the Becky Brandon character, maybe it’s because she has had several books? Maybe because it’s written with just Becky at the helm of every chapter? ) I think that’s perhaps why I couldn’t get into it, the ever changing characters per chapter, so much crammed in.

So, it’s now 31st January 2014, one month ago I stopped using facebook, I deactivated my account and haven’t looked back

As you may recall, the husband and I run a charity called Autism All Stars in Kent (a branch if a wonderful charity called Autism All Stars) and we have a facebook page to put news etc on, so I am not sitting here claiming I have gone cold turkey because I haven’t.

We have an app for the page, so I don’t actually have to go on to facebook to access it, we have a facebook account for events etc too, I did stray on it to put two pictures on, of our son in his doctor who costume (the people I have on it would get it), but I posted and left.

I haven’t missed the dreary day to day rubbish of it, making up stupid status’ to make us more appealing, or cryptic messages about something just to gain messages of “what’s happened” and then not telling us the reason for this status, hello?!! Don’t give us a bit and not be prepared to finish it through!! Or the videos!! Yes you want to recreate ‘that’ Disney video of the girl who was going to Disneyland, everyone wants to recreate it but it’s never going to happen and your never going to have three million hits on your Facebook video

I miss putting photos up for all the family to see, it’s up to my husband now to do this and I have to say he did quite well when we had our recent trip to cardiff

I did pop on his account the other day because I needed some information on our sons school and cadets, I did look at some of the messages left and I immediately got annoyed with myself, I vowed to let my husband look now, if I don’t see it or he doesn’t look then it doesn’t matter, we didn’t have Facebook ten years ago (did we, I have no idea?!) it’s like owning a mobile phone, you couldn’t get me fifteen years ago if I was out or whatever, so your have to wait until we are face to face or use the home telephone to tell us

I vowed to give it up to spend more time as a family but do you know what’s happend? One son got a mobile for Christmas so he lost and then their are the games consoles, I’ve stopped and they started, I had to beg for family time this evening!

I have began writing a story, it’s quite good but then it wasn’t just Facebook it was the iPad consumption, I’m still spending quite a bit of time on it but I ask first if everyone is ok with it, I don’t think they even notice anymore!!

I think I am better with out Facebook, I have got more jobs done round the house and I don’t know other people’s business which got me down sometimes, as everyone puts how great their lives are on Facebook don’t they, they never say “I’ve got no money and we had a crap Christmas because of it” do they.

Now, I might bore some of you with this and some may think she is a tad sad to get so excited with something like this but this was a huge deal for me, well for both of us but for me personally it was something I never thought in a million years we could ever pull off and so successfully. (We were so wrong!!)

Everyyear, me and the husband say "next year, we will do a float" and everytime we walk off, it happened for ten years, last year we took the plunge and took part in the school entry but as we walked off that nignt, we looked at each other and both said at the same time "let's do it!". I spoke excitedly as we walked back, I had images of a load of doctor who's' walking down the street with torches, celebrating 50 years of doctor who, never once imagining that anyone would ever come. So we set to work and with the help of some fantastic people, cosplayers started to say yes, but as I am a very negative person, I still had in the back of my mind "what if" but then as the months went on, more people came on board, not just doctor who characters, but batman, joker, the grinch to name but a few, we couldn't believe it. We seemed to get to September and then october hit, then we only had a few weeks left before the big night, we had secured sponsorship, we had a lorry, we had a design in our head, we had characters, we were set but then, with one week to go, our design took a turn for the worse, we couldn't get anymore material for our 'vision' we had already began to build it, we had to think of a plan b, we didn't have one!! But we sat and looked around and saw all the carpet tubing we had lying around (as you do) and the husband got to work making some rather awesome fireworks out of them, we didn't have a spare room to make things, so our dining room became our workshop, and our kitchen, lounge, hall..... We had booked the local community centre for all the costumers, we bought lots of food and basically drained our pockets but we wouldn't have it any other way, the day came and it was a whirlwind from start to finish, thank god for McDonald for breakfast that's all I can say!! The day finally came, it was a whirlwind from start to finish, people arrived, people ate, they walked and do you know what, when I was walking out in front, I looked round and their they were, the doctors with torches....

Apart from one hitch, it went brilliantly, we won best newcomer, best adult float and our joker won best adult costume, followed by coming second overall, and coming runner up in two other category's, so for a first time entry, it was brilliant but I wasn't about the winning, we just wanted to raise some money for autism all stars and have some fun.

About a year ago, we watched an episode of 'the middle', a tv program about a family in America, a family of five that is so much like us, it could be a documentary!! We watched the programme, where the mum of the family was upset because she had so many plans for summer and they did nothing in the time they had off, I was reminded of this episode during the summer break, because like frankie, I had huge plans for the summer and three weeks in, we still hadn't crossed anything of my mental list. I began getting upset and angry that we wasn't doing more with the children but then the husband told me, I could spend the rest of the time crying or just get on with it, so I decided to wipe the tears and get on with what we had. I had a few things I wanted to do, go to London, eat a cream tea, go to the seaside, go crabbing plus other bits and bobs, I see pictures of other people's great holidays and days out, watching and looking at their memories of summer 2013, so that's why I decided at the start of the summer to take a photo of the boys everyday in the same position, I wasn't really taking many imaginative photos but it didn't matter, I had a visual memory of my boys everyday during the summer. I may not have had my cream tea, our visit to London or go crabbing but we did go to the seaside, we have walked miles and miles, seen bits of Kent and Surrey we would never have seen, taken up a hobby and have spent time as a family, playing poker and just being together and do you know what, we have hardly spent a penny of any of this, the boys may not have had an actionpacked summer but the two eldest have been boating every week, been camping with cadets and have sat around campfires, we have sat and watched marathon episodes of castle and have eaten junk food, we've had a couple of cinema trips that have cost next to nothing and a lovely afternoon out with my sister, we have been swimming and went fishing in the local river one evening. Looking back on summer 2013, I don't look back like other years upset that the holiday is over and the boys will be back at school and everything will be back to normal because it will never be normal again, we have our new hobby that takes us walking for miles, it's keeping me fit and I am walking places and walking miles like I never thought possible, I am looking back on summer 2013 and thinking "you don't need to spend loads of money for memories" because that day at seaford, I had everything I wanted and more and we didn't spend a single penny.

Hello and welcome!! Who are we you ask? We are a small branch on the growing tree of Autism All Stars Foundation UK. Let us introduce ourselves properly, I am Alison and my husband is Andrew, we are a husband and wife team, who has three children, three very different sons, two of which are going though ASD testing. We have been married for fourteen years but have known each other for twenty three years, this makes us feel old, despite only being thirty four years of age!! We approached Autism All Stars late last year, we approached them because we were entering the local bonfire parade and wanted to raise money for a local autism charity, although our children are not diagnosised we still wanted to help where we could, in may this year we attended some classes for parents going though ASD testing and be both realised there is a real need for help in our area, so this is how we grew, we asked Helen, the founder if she wanted to branch out, for which she accepted and we found a name for our support groups and website: The Sparkle and Shine ASD Support Group. Over the past few months we attended various fetes and have set up two support groups, one in Edenbridge and one in Sevenoaks, to start in September. We also had our official launch in July, the turnout was more than we could ever hoped for and the time we had was not enough.

Well, it wouldn't be right not to blog about this, the husband has been saying for ages we should try this but I had always been a bit dubious about it, probably because of the word 'walking' was mentioned, however after reading about it myself and then pretending the idea was all my own, we downloaded the app and set off to find two local ones. Brilliant!! We followed the clues of the first one but not knowing what we was looking for, we are not sure we found the right thing, the second one was more oblivious and was ecstatic when we found the cache. So we cracked it, so off we went to Hever, Henry's country!! I was in my element being a huge Tudor family fan and answering questions I was a very happy bunny, hopping from one foot to the next like an excited little girl, the husband thought I looked sweet and funny all rolled into one (I rarely get excited), the first one we found was easy, the second not to much, we ended up in a field with deer in (they were well hidden, we only saw the tops of their heads when they ran) miles from the location, we went home, refuelled and started again, we found it (and not where the coordinates took us), it was soon becoming dark but that wasn't to stop us, we carried on until it was very much dark.

The next day, we decided to (of course) do a six mile mini hike, to find 21 caches, like you do, 24 hours after discovering a really good hobby!! We started at 2.30pm and finished at 8.30pm (we did get caught in a downpour for forty minutes and like the pros we are, didn't take any coats!) my feet ached but I was happy, we had been a family for an entire afternoon and evening. So now, five days on, guess what we are doing now? A 100 geocache challenge in one weekend for autism all stars!! We are going to find 100 around Sevenoaks, tonbridge and the surrounding areas!! Wish us luck!!

Yesterday (Sunday 7th July) I attended London film and comic con, we didn't attend last year as too many guests and not enough money, this year however, quite a chunk of Deep Space Nine was there, having got the husband the boxset for Christmas last year and watching the entire thing in a few months, we decided to go. We've saved long and hard and if we met everyone that was on our wish list it would have been hundreds of pounds but we decided against this as, yes the mum from ET still looks like her but it was just the mum (and brother was there too) from ET, Kenny Baker was there again too as was all the other convention stalwarts (my son has a fascination over Kenny). Entry tickets were bought weeks beforehand, to save time, money wasnt taken for over a week, then the tickets never arrived, why did I buy early bird tickets before hand? To save time at the venue. So we get to the day, the hair has been sprayed pink, a spot has shown up on the side of my nose and I have one photoshoot booked with daryl from the walking dead, we arrive in time, to see him and Lori outside and chewy from Star Wars, we get in with good time but was shown a desk to get tickets...why when we were already in? That took over fifteen minutes of flaffing about, only to be told "we don't have entry tickets here, you will have to go out to a guy out the front".. me:"do we have to, we are already in here" The girl shook her shoulders and said it would be ok for us to stay in, what a bloody joke! (I will be going for a refund on my postage costs btw!!) So we were in, all around us were awesome costumers and plenty of stalls, we split up, my friend went off for a photoshoot with the bird from judge dredd, not that one the other one who played mama, the two kids went off on a gaming bus and we went to get VQ tickets for the DS9 crew, but all open Q's brilliant, we get the kids back and meet Avery Brooks, wonderful man and such an Honor, we meet Nana Visitor, again lovely woman, nice chat and great hair, Armin Shimmerman and his wife Kitty were funny and pleasant, Rene (odo) was a bit, well money making in my opinion but still great to have met him, Nog, Garrick and Rom were fantastic but my best guest was Alexander Siddig, chatted for ages and was everything I wanted the experience to be. It was time for my photo was daryl (Norman Reedus) I couldn't ask for a better photo, my smile was good and Norman was just lovely!! But that was it, all our guests were met and we had done it all quite quick, my friends still has some shoots to do, so we took a walk around the dealers stands, too much over priced crap, badly printed mugs, t shirts that look like they would fall apart or the print would come off quite quick (apart from one company, we know there clothes last!) and fridge magnets that quite frankly I could make better (printed photos on just a clear bit of perplex, charging over a fiver for!!), the boys were happy on the gaming bus, so the husband and I gawped at the costumers, all hot and awesome! We decided after the last shoot to leave, just after three in the afternoon, this is unheard of at a convention but now showmasters have got there acts together with photos, you don't have to wait around for hours on end, we were home by four thirty. So, the problems: Tickets: the year is 2013, not 2003 anymore, payments can be instant and fast, not with showmasters though, you can order as many tickets as you want online, don't worry if the money isn't in your bank, they don't take it straight away, yes that's right, they have minions to do it by hand, which can take up to a week to do and then it doesn't to through so you have to wait another week and then not even receive your tickets deposit paying for recorded delivery!! Lighting: a yellow tinge was all over the place and made me feel sick at times, all the photos have a tinge too, I can't wait for earls court to be knocked down and showmasters use a different venue to be honest!! Not enough big draw guests: this is just a picky one and personal choice for us, sure there were game of thrones guests and david hasslehoff but they didn't draw us in and at £30 for David and another £30 for Norman, it soon adds up, maybe we've dont conventions for a while, we like having money far too much, not like two years ago, money wasnt so tight and we would just spend every penny, I even came home with my birthday money, we came home with over £130!! No bloody chairs, I don't like sitting on the floor!! Get some chairs around the place!! The good things: Photoshoots work better (but I miss Malcolm he did a great job, the new guy, not so much, he just seem to get annoyed it wasn't going quick enough) More space, and cosplayers had there own areas, great to go and get pics Gaming bus!! All in all, it was an ok day, not a blow you away day, glad we came home with money and I will treasure my photo.