February

The month flew by and now here we were scarily flying through Holmfirth in Dani's little car 'The  Princess Pussy Wagon' to The Crossroads pub where tonight's dinner was to be held. It was eerily quiet inside, a little smelly and I was being  blinded by seventies style carpet that I was pretty sure decorated my Grandma's home in the eighties.  Our expectations of the venue were low and my dinner of roast turkey did indeed remind me of my traumatic Sunday dinners as a child, being force fed cauliflower and trying to hide watery carrots in my pocket. To sum it up the place wasn't that 

 great but the company was making up for it...we somehow ended the meal discussing passport photos...I had just had a rather fetching one done that could confuse passport control into thinking I was Cher. Phoebe pulled out her driving licence to reveal that she was in fact a Russian murderess and Danielle revealed that she had no eyes and a squashed head. We dissolved into a fit of giggles as we posed seriously next to our pictures trying to avoid the impending task of presenting our terrible themes. I was embarrassed, it was clear the task hadn't had the desired effect and we had all struggled to find something different to do with our days. It had only reminded me that life is hard when you have to balance work with family life and it's difficult to find time for yourself to do something different each day.

But I was proud of the girls...they tried really hard and some of the different things they did each day were interesting and fun...my favourite was Phoebe's picture of herself in the shower wearing a new, flowery shower cap! We agreed that it wasn't the best task but I think the girls understood why I chose it. Routine isn't always a bad thing and there's no shame in watching Come Dine with Me every night if you want to, but it has taught me to get out there and try and do something different every now and again, probably not every day but whenever I can.

I don't think we'll be visiting The Crossroads again, Amanda's pursed lips were enough to show her disapproval. But for the friendly staff and the most basic of basic food it's the perfect place to take your Grandma. Maybe one day I will visit there again, if it's still around when I'm eighty...it could be my something different to do that day.

Catherine

February

For the past month the girls have been filling in colourful  journals trying to do something different with each day...and do you know what it's really hard! I hate this theme...my something different so far has been doing puzzles at work and eating porridge for breakfast! I'm finding it really difficult to think about what I can do different and then by the time I've thought of something it's the end of the day. Things are really getting me down at the moment and I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to complete this theme...should I give up? It's really not as uplifting as I thought it was going to be...it's pretty depressing really.

Catherine

February

Every February I find myself in the same place, slightly flabby wearing my high-waisted jeans to try and keep my muffin top disguised. It's only February, I'm still wearing misshapen, giant woolly jumpers  so there's no need to reach for the Jillian Michaels DVD just yet. But at this time every year I start thinking about the year ahead and how I'm not doing anything different to last year, I'm still just eating, sleeping, going to work and then coming home and watching re-runs on the TV. When my husband sat down to watch 'Come Dine with Me' one evening and declared we'd already seen this one but 'leave it on it's a good one!' I realised that something had to be done about my monotonous routine and I needed to inject some life into my days...I needed to do something different.  My husband the other night decided to shake things up a bit, turned off the TV and pulled out the Scrabble board (I know we're wild aren't we?) it threw me completely. Turning the TV off was almost liberating...I felt like I had actually done something with my evening...I know it's only a game of Scrabble but it was fun,  my husband and I actually had to converse with each other and I learnt some big words. So it was there and then whilst playing scrabble that I got the inspiration for the next theme 'Do Something Different Today."

Catherine

Welcome to the Intellectual Dinner Club

An Idea is born...

On Friday 17^th October 2008 our four ladies had just enjoyed a delicious meal and in the warm, relaxing restaurant basement they decided that this was something that they should do on a regular basis.

In the eighteenth century a group of women who became known as “Bluestockings” created an intellectual community whose purpose was to merge the scholarly and the sociable. In this spirit they would dine out and choose a theme every month, they would then each present their individual interpretation of that theme to the others, and so the Intellectual Dinner Club was born.