11.11.11

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Today is special - it's Remembrance Day here in the UK - we hold a two minute silence at 11:00 to remember the men and women who have died in the service of their country.
In the last couple of weeks many people have been wearing poppies sold by the Royal British Legion - they are celebrating their 90th year of helping with the welfare and support of injured troops and their dependants.
Many other Commonwealth countries will be remembering their fallen today.
I'll be at work at 11:00 and hope that we'll be able to ignore the phones and observe the silence there and to reflect on the bravery shown and the sacrifices made by so very many people.

Today I have also been invited by Beverly to take part in another sort of celebration of the date (a palindromic occurrence that hasn't happened for 100 years (the date not the invitation!)).  She asked us to share 11 photos, 11 things to do before the end of the year and 11 things that we've read/seen/experienced during 2011.

11 Photos from 2011 - more or less one a month
Ranging from a Mother's day text to a  rooftop sculpture in Italy,
from 100 years of theatre  to our first home-grown peas!

As for good intentions ... they mostly revolve around Christmas: make more than two Christmas cards, post our Christmas cards in plenty of time, make some frozen Christmas pudding, make an early start on Christmas shopping (please stop feeling smug if you've already done all of yours - I call Christmas shopping in November very early!), clean the oven in advance (I don't want guests to see the state it's normally in) and invite family to spend some festive days with us.  The non-Christmassy ones are as follows ... plant some more peas and onions for next spring, tidy up the rest of the garden, de-clutter the downstairs rooms, finish off the year's bookkeeping and get myself organised for a Blogger's retreat at the end of the month!

The 11 things that have happened during 2011 ... well I blogged about quite a lot of stuff:

• I helped start a local crop which is going from strength to strength (we hoped for 8 members and have 20 on the books)
• I found out about the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog and became a Master Forger
• I took a Shimelle class called Blogging For Scrapbookers and "met" lots of new blogging buddies
• I was selected as a contestant in the UKScrappers Scrap Factor contest and made lots of "hybrid" pages including these
• Our Silver Wedding Anniversary was celebrated in Barcelona with the family
• I started regular work at the local theatre
• No.1 Son gave us a few extra grey hairs but we could see the funny side!
• I made him a Smash book and what's more he used it!
• A year of blogging was marked by my first giveaway
• We had a few days away in York 
• We started growing some fruit and veg and have actually harvested some crops (including the peas above)!

Pop over to Beverly's at BE Glorious to see what other "elevens" have been shared and perhaps share your own too!