Domesticali

Look at photos of flowers.

Breathe.

Erase all thoughts of passport related stress.

Two visits to the Post Office, three forms, two sets of photos. Does it really have to be this hard?

 

Diary consultation

This year, I really did try to enter the 21st century and use an electronic diary. But d'you know what? It hasn't worked out. I keep dropping balls. There was the birthday party I unintentionally forgot, the double booking of two important events and the offering to help a friend out on a day that was already busy.

Not like me at all.

So it's back to the big old diary on the kitchen counter - so what if I have to wait till I'm home to consult it. You can't stick washi tape on an elecronic diary. Or hedge your bets about when something is happening with judicious sprinklings of question marks. Sometimes, the low tech ways are the best.

And please, do not ask me how many cricket fixtures there are shoehorned in between now and the end of July. I may be the only person left in the UK praying for more rain.

Good things from yesterday

::: Ric Rack the colour of sunshine :::

::: Quince Jelly :::

::: Meeting Sue :::

Nice things often happen in threes, don't you find?

A List of Pleasing Things

• The glorious day today, which absolutely confirmed that winter is behind us now. Hooray.
• A lovely reminder in the post from Rebecca to make the most of life (and a nudge to give free motion embroidery another go).

• Lunch this week with Monica and Kristina - it was just a sandwich, but sharing it with friends made it special.
• And subliminally, that lunch lead to the urge to make flatbreads for dinner tonight - very good they were, too. Thank you Jamie Oliver.

 

 

• Photographs from the dress rehearsal of the school production of Great Expectations (Mark is Wemmick). The children look incredibly unlike themselves and totally in character - looking forward to seeing it on Friday night.
• Reading Nancy's post and recognising the perfect vehicle for the miscellany inhabiting my brain this evening - a list of pleasing things indeed.

Eleven things

For Elizabeth, who asked so nicely. Answers to her eleven questions:

1. If you were invited to make a piece of art, what medium would you use?

Paper – there’s something so soothing about cutting, folding and sticking. I think it brings out my inner toddler. And if it all goes horribly wrong, it’s so easy to scrumple it up and begin again.

2. What clothes are you most comfortable in? 

Scruffy, baggy, old ones. I am one of those people who comes home for the evening and immediately takes off their day clothes and puts on ‘loungewear’. Only that word seems to conjure up visions of wafting about in White Company cashmere, whereas my reality involves ancient flannel trousers and a sweatshirt dating from the late 1980’s. I am very loyal to certain items of clothing. They become like old friends.

3. If you had an unexpected afternoon to yourself and not a care in the world, how would you spend it?

I would visit somewhere new – a garden might be nice, this time of year, or in the autumn some woodland with a nice tea shop. Perhaps a gallery in bad weather, or exploring a new city. I don’t mind doing that sort of thing on my own. Particularly if I have my camera. It’s a treat to just let my mind wander free and see different things. 

4. Do you have things you "don't do" and if so, what are they?

Insurance renewals. I could do it, I just don’t want to. So I shan’t. I also try at all costs to avoid mowing the lawn, but that is because hubby laughed at my efforts when I last did it. If he didn't mow, I would dig up all the grass and just plant more flowers instead.

5. What do you panic most about losing?

My sense of taste. I lost it for about a month one Christmas a few years ago and I was utterly devastated. I could not believe how down it made me feel and what a soulless experience it was to eat without perceiving flavor.

6. What is your favourite quotation?

Far too fickle to have just one favourite. Whatever chimes with me and what I am doing or feeling at that moment. The last one which caught my eye says “No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch” -  running motivation. It spoke to me.

7. What is your ideal holiday?

I am still searching for it. But I suspect I cannot afford to go, or that it is already fully booked by people who are more organized about planning these things than we are.

8. If you wear lipstick, what shape is the end, once it's no longer new?

I never wear lipstick as it makes me feel as if I have a cartoon pout. It is with high heels on my list of things I will master when I grow up. Does chapstick wear in the same way? If mine is in a stick, it has a flat top. If it comes in a tiny pot, I use it from the middle until a hole appears at the bottom, then work my way out to the sides.

9. Do you have a habit you would like to drop or one you would like to adopt?

I would love to be compulsively tidy.

10. What everyday article would you most miss if it were suddenly unavailable? 

Cotton buds. Must clean my ears every morning.

11. What is your favourite perfume?

After being a 'seldom without it' perfume lover, I gave up wearing it when I was breastfeeding and have never really got back into the habit. Perhaps I ought to address that. I favour clean and green sort of scents – currently have some Eau Dynamisante, which I like because it doesn’t smack of trying too hard.

Those were good questions - I'm meant to make up some of my own and tag some of you, but, I haven't. I've also used some exceptionally randomn photographs. Clearly, today is all about channelling my rebellious streak.

Dispatches from off the sofa

So, the Couch to 5K project? Still running (though there was a little hiatus in that extremely icy weather a few weeks back). It's not fast, it's not pretty, but it is getting outside and putting one foot in front of the other. The programme has you repeating each run three times, before moving up to the next level and every time I go to the next step I am terrified that I will not be able to complete it.

But to my surprise, I have managed and am enjoying it. Half an hour, alone in my own headspace. Time to look at the clouds and the trees and the sheep and the birds. To smell the earth, warming up steadily each day. And an endorphin enhanced sense of having achieved something afterwards.

Coffee Lady taught me a name for myself - a self-quantifier. But if taking a photo on my run, or ticking off the completed episodes in a podcast is what it takes to keep going, there is no great shame in that, is there? Small steps, little goals, tiny triumphs.

A little flat

There is a custom at the boys' school for taking in a little treat of the cake variety to share with your classmates on your birthday. Johnny's usually falls during half term, but rather than miss out, I thought they could be a cheering treat for back to school.

It was only as I was getting them out of the oven that I realized that taking cakes in on the first day of Lent probably isn't my finest hour, timing-wise. Oops.

They weren't my finest batch of cakes either. I'm blaming it on the February blahs. But it's nearly March. Spring is just round the corner, so I am attempting to chanel my negativity into getting ready for it. I've cleared out the cupboard under the sink, the airing cupboard and purged one wardrobe.

And during the purging, I was thinking about only surrounding yourself with things that make your heart glad. Life is too short to be confronted on a daily basis by things which make us feel grey. The spaces that make my heart lift are the ones full of tiny touches - where nothing is so insignificant that it cannot be sprinkled with a little care and cheer.

And so some of our wire coathangers got the joy treatment by covering them with fabric. It's so simple - just a little bit of double sided sticky tape and a torn strip of scrap fabric wound round and round. Is it a transformative change? Not a big one. But they do make me feel the tiniest bit brighter.

Unfamiliar habits

This view is not the norm - I must have been about seventeen the last time I ran seriously. And by seriously, I do not infer any enormous commitment on my part. But at my school, we were all obliged to run cross-country, the season hot on the heels of the hockey one, which thankfully left me with enough residual fitness level not to disgrace myself.

But it has never been something I would choose to do for my own enjoyment. Give me a team sport and I'm a happy camper, appealing as it does to my social side. But somehow the opportunities to play with others seem to drop away as we get older and lives get busier with jobs that mean travelling and offspring to factor in. Team sports require commitment and juggling of schedules and I guess at some point it all got too much hassle.

Couch-potatodom seemed so much easier to squeeze in. But I have Lina's post to thank for a bit of an about-face on the matter. She was talking about a running podcast C25K. I actually misinterpreted it as running  about 25 kilometers (c.25K - see how important punctuation is?) when I responded to her in awe. And then I went to check it out.

Without that panic inducing full stop, the podcast's full name is Couch to 5K - a running plan for complete beginners. It's free and in a moment of impulsiveness my urge to join in overcame my laziness and I downloaded the Week 1 plan and put on my trainers. The cheery woman was very encouraging and only required me to actually break into a run for 60 seconds at a time. You can do just about anything for sixty seconds, so I did. Around the deserted Recreation Ground where I thought there would be no witnesses to my bizarre stop-starting and increasing levels of sweatiness.

And I managed the 30 minute cycle just fine, no collapsing or gasping like a guppy. And the endorphins must have kicked in, because I didn't feel ashamed when I bumped into a neighbour and my postman on the way back home and had to explain what I was up to.

Thirty minutes does not a runner make, I know. But I've also learned this last year that if you build something into your routine for long enough it becomes a habit. And I also know that when I have a challenge in front of me, my stubborn streak kicks in and sometimes I surprise myself. We'll see if this is one of those times. Don't suppose anyone else wants to join in do they? Just 60 seconds at a time.

String Theory *

In the universe, there are forces so great that they are impossible to resist. Gravity, the smell of bacon cooking and string.

Those who know me tolerate and pander to this particular foible.  Hubs found me a vintage twine cloche just before Christmas, and the string that Monica brought back from Stockholm fits perfectly inside and in my living room.

See, decorative function. Because string is pretty. This spool I made from a piece of driftwood we picked up on holiday, and when I see it, it makes me happy on so many levels. Form and function.

But it doesn't have to look fancy -  I am just as content with the utility versions. They seem to hold in their orderly wraps such endless possibilities.

I could show you more - the hairy nutscene stuff that I own in 6 different colours, the big rolls of baker's twine in red and green, the teeny tiny spools of cotton string in ice-cream colours, the Bonne Maman jar in the kitchen jammed with two varieties of indestructible nylon stuff.

When Tess asked recently what we have lots of, but can never resist, I had to think carefully about it. But really, the answer was staring me in the face all the time. Answers are like that sometimes.

*  String theory attempts to provide a complete, unified, and consistent description of the fundamental structure of our universe. My theory is simply that you can never have too much string in the house.

Where I'm from

It's the simplest of opening conversation gambits really. 'Where are you from?', but it has always been a totally loaded question for me. Up until I was 22, I had never spent more than 3 years living in the same place - different countries, different continents. I'm not exactly your typical english rose to look at either, so people are often curious. And because of the lengthy explanations required, both geographical and genetic, it has become an innocent query which I loathe with a passion.

But we've lived in Oxfordshire now for 17 years. My children were born here - it's certainy where they are from. And today, when I saw this video (on the Abingdon Blog) and heard the song (which I'm a little in love with), it made me look at where we live in a warm and rosy light.

Here's to enjoying the rest of the weekend where you are today, never mind where you came from.

Look what landed today. Like a little snowflake of happiness.

Emma made it - a dolls house doily, and some Silverpebble magic.

Changing hours

Today we are back in term-time routine and really noticing the impact of the hour change. A glorious sunrise was a wonderful reward for the early start.

But coming home from school in the dark was not so good.

I'm thinking it's time to break out the sparkly white lights. One tiny way of making winter a little more palatable.

What I do all day (ish)

9.10    Quietly sitting in front of my computer screen, I come across a post from Sue about how she spent her day. I giggle at a good 'korma' joke and feel slightly guilty about the household chores I am not tackling.

9.15 Empty the tumble drier of the stuff I 'fluffed' yesterday afternoon. I like drying on a line, but am addicted to tumble drier fluffiness, so all washing gets a 10 minuite tumble after the line. Yes, I realize this is slightly obsessive behaviour, but it's small beans on the potential OCD spectrum, so just let me enjoy it.

9.16 Add the stuff to the unfolded pile of clean, dry, fluffed laundry on the sofa. Really must fold it.....

9.18 Bring in the washing from the line that I left out overnight acidentally. Note it is slightly soggy from the dew. But my 10 minute tumble will deal with that. Ha! See you mocked my habit, but it has genuine purpose now. Stuff it self righteously into the tumble drier.

9.21 Put the kettle on. Load the dishwasher while it boils. Feel smug at my multitasking skills. Ignore the fact that if I wasn't such a slob, the breakfast dishes would have gone into the dishwasher straight after breakfast.

9.24 Decide I need to ramp up my 'domestic goddess' quotient after confession about breakfast dishes, so take a new box of tissues out to put in the car. In a fit of non-slobbishness, I clear all the used tissues and other rubbish out of the car. Also two baseball caps from the hot weather. I think it has passed. I shove them in the cupboard under the stairs (the caps, not the rubbish) and close the door very quickly, just in case the suff in there makes a bid for freedom.

9.27 Make 'special' coffee. My reward for not being at work near any coffee shop temptations which would cost me a small fortune in feeding my caffiene habit. Note with relish that hubby has not stolen my favourite coffee mug for his morning tea, therefore leaving it clean and ready for me. Decide this is the omen for a very good day.

9.32 Realize that writing down the stuff I do all day is going to be a big job. So I really must go back to the computer and begin typing while I sip my coffee. Sorry, dry dishes on the draining board, you'll just have to wait.

9.33 Wonder about going back in time to begin my story of the day with waking up. Decide it's not a pretty sight - who wants to share my classic battle cry of 'Would you please get off the toilet and get dressed'. Perhaps we'll abbreviate to get up, shower, dress, wake kids, madke breakfast, yell, leave the house, drive 25 mins  (bloody traffic) to school, remember we have left reading book behind but hope turning up in the right clothing cancels it out, scrabble in glove compartment for Jeans for Genes money, deposit kids, drive home.

9.40 God this drivel takes a long tome to write. Bored of typing. Look outside to see if I should put next load of washing on the line. Big grey clouds - mmmm maybe not. But 'fluff' cycle has ended - could just stick it straight in the drier. Ponder, indecisively.

9.42 Look back at post. It has no photos. Boring. Also, not even an hour of my life has passed and I've already written 554 words. 555 now. Decide this is not such a good idea for a post. Also, If I hit publish soon, I can catch Woman's Hour on Radio 4 while I finish clearing the kitchen and making chicken stew for dins. Slurp coffee. Blow kisses to you. Jenni Murray here I come...

Follow your nose

Hacking away at the buddleia which will not die the other day, I sniffed something on the breeze. And following my nose, found my neighbour shearing her lavender bush. Straight into the compost bin. No no nooooo! She looked rather oddly at me as I begged for her garden waste, but handed it over all the same.

And so was born a little shoal of lavender fish. Thereby scratching my creative itch, justifying my Pinterest habit and breaking the sewing drought round these parts.

Plus my wardrobe could do with a little sprucing and pruning. And having a good smelling shoal to pop on the hangers might just inspire me to do something about it. The Changing Room helps too - a safe little corner of Flickr which encourages me to confront the reality of how I dress. In the anticipation that what we pay attention to, we tend to improve on.

Because left to my own devicies, I don't really pay much attention to the reality in the mirror. Or the mirror at all, really. One drunken student evening, my pals gave me some extra bushy eyebrows with a marker pen. They had to confess around 3pm the following day, because I still hadn't looked at my own reflection and noticed. I'd like to think that things would be different nowdays, but perhaps not.

So, what is your Autumn wardrobe crying out for? Do you think a spell in the changing room is in order?

Playing catch up

Real life has a habit of running away from you, especially in these dog days of summer. And I cannot string together a coherent narrative of the last couple of weeks (well, not one that isn't tedious in the extreme), so you have a look at a few piccies and I'll be brief:

Monica is a good shopping partner in crime - I might have gone for safe and boring, but now I shall be lofty and elegant (and hopefully refrain from waddling like a duck, which is my usual 'heels' mode).

There is such joy in subversiveness - Kristina spotted this at Wisley. We didn't do it. Scouts honour.

When it comes to macarons, my willpower evaporates. That is why my photo shows fewer of them than Alice's....

An unanticipated 600 mile road trip can be vastly improved by listening to a good book whilst driving. I was shattered though.

Oh and then hubby came home and we went on holiday in a Yurt. But that's a whole other tale.

Trying new things

In spite of not being the sort of person who tends to spend much time in beauty salons, there's been something I've been dying to do ever since I heard about it. 

You know what that is, don't you? One of those fishy pedicure tanks. Full of starving Garra rufa, just waiting to feast on my tootsies.

How was it? A bit tickly - it felt like something vibrating against your foot and you could definitely feel when the larger ones slurped on. Luckily, I am not squeamish at all about having my feet touched. But I am very glad to have gone to a nice new nail place (called Pinkies - no website, or I would give them a shout out, because the owner, Kelli, was absolutely lovely) whose tanks were spotlessly clean. Some of the mobile versions I've seen popping up in shopping centers have been absolutely minging - I can quite understand why they have been banned in parts of the US.

And afterwards? Well, my feet felt nice and soft, but they were very soon back to their usual selves. Honestly, the endless foot filing and lotion slathering maintenance required to wear my Birkenstocks without shame has me almost looking forward to the return of sock season.

Take time

Contemplating the beginning of half term and the end of May and wondering how it slipped through my fingers so fast. Our perspective of time is often very skewed - the agony of watching the clock hands move through a double Maths lesson or the blink-and-it's-midnight sensation of a good evening out.

Tuesday was one of those speeded up days, but a glorious one, meeting Kristina for a coffee at the Nordic Bakery and then a scoot over to Loop.

To fondle the squishy yarns and loose ourselves in the woolliest of rainbows.

It was my first visit to Loop in it's new location (if you don't count the 5 minutes spent with my nose pressed up against the window the last time I passed by, finding it shut) and they've put their extra space to excellent use, with oodles of new temptation.

Resistance was futile, so despite the fact that I have two unfinished projects on the go, I succumbed.

Destined to become some new Toasty fingerless gloves (planning early for Autumn this year, clearly).

Then there was a walk through the perfect blue sky of the afternoon.

And somehow, even though the day flew and I had to scurry on home to pick up the boys from school, in the little spaces between the eating and shopping and chatting and wandering, there was time to rediscover a little bit of the essence of me that gets buried in the everyday bustle of life.

Misplacing that kernel always makes me feel inexplicably sad and adrift - I wish I understood better when and why it happens, or that I could find a safe spot for it, so it was always to hand. But then, I suppose I never have been a 'place for everything and everything in it's place' kind of person. And perhaps there's joy in the rediscovery of chancing upon it again.

Anyway, all I know is that it's back. And I'm grateful.

 

 

 

One-in, one-out

The principle of something in, something out seems, intuitively, to be a sound one. You know what I mean - if you wish to eat cake, you should probably move your backside from the sofa and expend some energy to compensate for it. When you buy new books, your shelves will thank you if you manage to pass on some of your old ones.

But I am at a loss to know what the universe requires me to part with in order to make space for  the milk glass cake plate that begged to come home with me this week.

 Does tossing three bags full of redundant summer clothing count? The purge felt really good, though the orderliness hasn't stopped me from feeling somewhat unsettled. There seems room in my days for more at the moment, I am just at a slight loss as to exactly what fills the odd shaped, term-time only, space. 

Because shopping, fun though it is, is not the answer.

 

Decorating inspiration

Much as I can admire a sophisticated neural palette and aspire to one of those pared down, Scandi-chic interiors, my reality could never live up to one. Because I am a sucker for the sheer joy that colour can give. Such exuberence, such energy.

And anyway, my children would out my true interiors inspiration

"Mummy! You've bought Teletubbies cups".

Unintentional, but clearly true. Sigh, so sophisticated.

Wedding weekend

That was a good wedding weekend, wasn't it? I didn't have huge plans - Hubs and the boys were headed off to Wales, camping. So I had a date with the sofa planned and then after the balcony moment, a whizz down on blissfully empty motorways, to visit my folks.

But clearly, more elaborate celebrations were happening everywhere. Fabulous Flowers had the most amazing floral bicycle basket going on. Actually, I could cheerfully photograph their shop window every week - their displays are so incredibly creative and joyful.

And my neighbours had rustled up the biggest Union Jack I have ever laid eyes on! Clearly they were celebrating on a grand scale.

But I was content to sit quietly, glued to the TV coverage, with my box of tissues by my side. Regardless of your position politically on the Monarchy, these are historical occasions and I feel honour bound to soak them up. I think it's probably hereditary.

When Charles and Di got married, my Dad had just relocated to Nigeria, but my Mother refused to fly out to join him until after she had seen the wedding. Similarly, for Andrew and Sarah, we returned to Saudi Arabia the very next day with all the comemorative newspapers and a video of the ceremony in the hand luggage, so all the poor folks on our compound who had missed it could see the wedding. Seems funny in these days of internet streaming - overseas seemed so much more remote then.

And given that we are all in a wedding mood, the winner of the Dorset Cereals giveaway - well, it had to be Nancy. It's hard to top her answer: 

Life's too short not to say Yes! when he asks you...or in my case "are you serious?! Ooooh yes!".

 Send me your address details Nancy - much cereal coming your way!

 

Guilty as Charged

Blog abandonment. It's true - I've been neglectful. But we've been busy.

Busy playing cricket in the garden.

Busy making believe (Sir Johnny, Knight of the Backwards Cycle Helmet - captured by his own hand in photo booth)

Busy creating.

Busy walking in the sunshine with friends.

And I'm totally unapologetic about my absence. Because when April is so glorious that it feels like July and the blossom is as stunning as I can ever remember it being, and the children are home from school, it's pefectly okay to be busy grabbing each moment with both hands and squeezing every last drop out.

Life is too short to dwell on the things we don't manage to do.

 Or, for that matter, to eat the same boring breakfast every day. Which I haven't been, thanks to the lovely folks at Dorset Cereals who sent me a case of their new Good Honest Crunch. Though if truth be told, I've been eating almost as much of it straight up as a snack and as an addition to plain yoghurt as dessert. It is really good.

Would you like some to try? I've got a case to give away, and possibly even some of their lovely new crockery, which pains me as I really really want it for myself. But hey, life's too short not to share the good stuff, right?

So, leave me a comment on this post completing the phrase "Life's too short..." and I'll pick a winner after Easter.

If you want some inspiration (and a second bite at the cherry) you can take a look at the life's too short page on the Dorset Cereals website and enter there as well. Good luck!

Sunshine

Doesn't it make everything feel good? The last week we've been basking in the unexpectedly glorious weather. And I haven't even started sneezing and snuffling in earnest yet, so I've been outside enjoying it!

We pressure washed the garden furniture and got some oilcloth for the tabletop, so al fresco dining is in full swing. In the face of some exceptionally lurid choices, I went for the restrained oilcloth option. We're attempting class in the garden.

And what could be better to nibble outside, than a slice of Lemon and Thyme loaf? It tastes like sunshine.

The recipe is from  'Cake Days' - the new Hummingbird Bakery book (my Mothers Day present). It is drenched in a tangy syrup made with lemons and lemon thyme and is sublime. And a great preventer of scurvy - go on - feel the health benefits!

What Your Stuff Says About You

In the library recently, I came across a book called Snoop. The author, Sam Gosling, is a psychologist who, for the past ten years, has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves though their homes, their work spaces and what they wear.

I am totally fascinated by this stuff - being one of those people who is always interested at what is in a stranger's shopping trolley or the glimpse into a lighted house from the train. While at the same time, somehow failing to control in any way the personal image I project. 

Once in a while, I am aware that perhaps the signals sent out by my grubby car, with it's back seat full of children's abandoned reading matter, the occasional stray sock and a torn road atlas, might not really be sending the message I might choose to the universe. But on the other hand, it does clearly telegraph 'don't bother breaking in, if you are looking to find an expensive executive laptop in the boot'. 

But as I was hanging out the laundry in the beautiful sunshine this week, I did take pride in my still-pristine kitchen linens, kindly sent to me by Al at All Tea Towels. Though I am not at all sure what my selections from his range say about me.

The red one is well within my comfort zone - cotton, bright, straightforward. The second, a nod to the acknowledgement of political trends (mixed with irony - surely one would knit one's own tea towel? Or boil the stains out of an old one and patch it). And the third? A very grown up linen choice (and yes, I do like oranges).

One day, I will grow up and develop a coherent personal style, where I know exactly what sort of tea towel expresses my personality best. But for now, it is enough to know that they are very very new, clean and unsplattered. What are yours saying about you?

Feeling thin skinned

The phone rang this evening and when I answered it, there was a man with my name and address who knew that we had had a (very minor) car accident the other week. He wanted me to tell him the name of the person involved in the crash.

In the past couple of weeks, I have spent a disproportionate amount of time on the telephone dealing with this. It should have been so straightforward - someone ran a give way sign and hit the side of hubby's car. The lady was terribly apologetic, properly insured and happy to admit liability. Problem solved. But these things are always a hassle to sort out. Not least because hubby made the claim and then disappeared off to Australia leaving me to sort out the repair and getting a hire car. But no matter. Accidents happen, right. They are a pain to deal with, but it was all very low speed and nobody was hurt.

So why, does some company want to know the name of the person involved so that they can make an automatic claim for whiplash compensation. Which would be delivered straight to our door. And double why, when I decline to play along, does the person from the call centre far, far away feel intitled to snap "The hell with you" and hang up on me.

And the biggest mystery of all is why I end up sitting here feeling teary about it. I'm clearly in need of thicker skin today.

Drying day

Hung out my first load of washing this year. Sunshine - yaaaay!

Also learned a new trick - if you fasten the poppers on the duvet cover before you wash it, then socks and other small items don't become lodged inside it. Amazing given how long I have been doing laundry, that there are still improvements to be made. I wonder what else I haven't cottoned on to?

 

All things orange

I think my current crush on orange dates back to when we acquired Reggie. He is unashamedly ginger and has the thickest fur imaginable on a short haired cat. And as he struts around our home, I notice how he enhances the place, with a little orangey injection into his surroundings.

And then I was aware of it infiltrating my wardrobe - slowly, but surely. Because it's impossible not to feel happy when you're wearing orange.

And today it was in the kitchen. Especially in the big bag of seville oranges I brought home to make marmalade with. And when it was done, the sticky jars echoed the dropping petals of the tulips bought last week and the much loved casserole dish.

There are worse colours to have a crush on, but it hasn't always been orange for me - the phase before this one was turquoise blue (the early motherhood years), and before that, forest green (career girl) and way back in my student days, it had to be red. The palette of my life, the rainbow years.

 

Small shiny things

For a brief moment, this morning, a beam of sunlight shone into the living room, making the shiny things in the cupboard sparkle.

The things I couldn't quite bring myself to stow back in the loft with the rest of the Christmas decorations. Everything got put away slightly earlier than usual this year, because our tree developed a squeam-inducing aphid problem and I wanted it out of the house. See, plastic fantastic has it's advantages. 

And I am sort-of pleased that real life has resumed - it was time. Though I am conscious that while hubby and the boys return to the routines at work and school, I actually continue in much the same vein as in the holidays - pottering, cooking, occasional light housework duties, just with an added chauffeuring requirement. It's not a bad job, is it?

Antiquing

Our last family home was a Victorian semi - original plasterwork in the hallway, tiled cast iron fireplaces,  in short, lots of character. We will gloss over the copious amounts of artex and the two tone pink bathroom suite - it wasn't totally without flaws - there had to be something, or we'd never have been able to afford it.

When we outgrew it, we searched high and low for another period property, something with a little soul. For a year. And then I got totally fed up and just really needed to move. So my lovely Estate Agent sent us to look at a new-ish build place and we had to admit, it ticked all the boxes but the 'period' one. And somehow when weighed up against the shiny newness of everything, and the fact that we gained more bathrooms than we used to have bedrooms, and the amazing fact that we could actually afford it, 'period' didn't seem too big a sacrifice to make.

And this house has served us well - with space for another baby (and visiting grandparents) and little maintenance required. In the eight years we have lived here, it has provided exactly what it promised on the tin. But just recently, I have been yearning a little bit for my loss of 'period'.

Not that I'm quite ready to up sticks and move again (though Hubby keeps hinting). He has big plans for a Grand Designs style building project. Which mostly involves him handing a plot of land and a pot of money to me and leaving me with all the work while he just vetoes any decisions he doesn't like! Perhaps I will be ready to take on the challenge, in a while, but not quite yet.

However, I thought a spot of Antiquing might scratch the period itch. Ooh, hark at me with all the vocab! I sound like I know what I'm talking about, which is far from the case. You are more likely to stumble across Ikea circa 1996 in my house than priceless antiques, but I'd happily change that. 

So I persuaded hubby to take the day off and we headed down to the Newbury Antiques Fair. I was channelling my inner Artemis, and hoping for great things. Great BIG things, even - so much so, that I persuaded him to remove the extremely heavy back seats from the car so we might be able to transport home something large.

Hmm, turns out perhaps I was a teensy bit over optimistic. Not that the fair wasn't fab, but my purchases were pretty compact.

Five tiny little tin baking cups. Wonderful, but not necessitating the removal of seats. Though I did get a little closer with the Transport Commission signage. 

But, to be honest, in spite of being a heavy lump of wood, that would have fitted in the boot too. He wasn't too grumpy about it  - a child free lunch in a lovely pub will generally guarantee good humour. And at least one of the purchases proved to be a perfect size for my intended purpose.

 

The word on the street

On the way to school in the car we listen to the local radio station. There is a quiz at the moment - answer ten general knowledge questions in one minute to win a big prize. I like to shout out the answers, mostly because the boys are still just young enough to be wowed by my feats of general knowledge (let's be clear, it is only their youth which allows this) .

This morning, they said 'You should go on the programme Mummy, and win the big prize'. 'Noooo', I explained, 'I'm hopeless when they ask questions about boy bands and Coronation Street'. 

There was a thoughtful pause. 'Is Coronation Street the one with the colourful monsters?'. This had me stumped for a moment. Then the penny dropped.

And speaking of the word on the street - there are two things I've been asked to mention.

First, Trash wanted me to help publicize an open invitation - she is organizing a blogger's craft get together extravaganza somewhere in the Midlands in October 2011 - there's a poll on her sidebar so she can get an idea of how many crafty bodies might like to participate. So you might want to cast a vote if you think you'd be interested.

Second, I've been doing the odd bit of paid market research with a company called Code 3 (mine was involving chocolate treats - yee ha!) and they have given me the opportunity to sign up any of my chums who might be interested in being paid to take part in similar research events. In the interests of full disclosure, I need to tell you that if you sign up and get selected for a market research interview, they will give me an Amazon voucher. All you need to do is enter my name (Ali Hudson) on the 'how did you hear about us' box on the registration form here.

Right, that's quite enough advertising for one day - onwards....

 

 

La Revolution

How, how has it taken me this long to figure out that I can sew name tapes onto socks with a sewing machine?

5 pairs of school socks, 2 pairs of white socks, 1 pair of rugby socks (2 socks per pair) multiply by 2 boys= 64 name tapes. That's a lot of saved effort.

Just don't factor in the 7 school years before I thought of it and sewed them all in by hand. It's never too late to figure out something new.