I'm loving today......................

.............the abundance of spring flowers everywhere at the moment.

.....................and being able to enjoy them even more with the doors flung open

....................which in turn means the children spend all their waking hours in our little garden entertaining themselves, which therefore means a tidier, if much colder, house and dirty handprints over every surface.

.................enjoying the peace and quiet of the post school drop off and washing the breakfast dishes. Particularly loving my red mixing jug, used every morning in the pancake ritual.

.............changing the bed and relishing the anticipation of climbing into freshly pressed, line dried sheets, particularly this delicious new polka dot purchase from good old Dunelm Mill.

..........which goes perfectly with the new lightweight summer eiderdown.

.............grabbing all those wrinkled tomatoes from the fridge and oven drying them on a low heat with thyme then bottling them with basil ready for the tomato tart later this week.

All in all a quiet but productive morning spent at home, a less quiet afternoon spent at school, but more of that later..................

ps. Forgot to say, thank you all for the fantastic comments about school, seems like I'm not the only one who has a bee in her bonnet about the starting age. I did enquire about starting Jack a year later but was told he would have to go in at Year 1 -does that make any sense?? Kit's actually a bit happier this week, we're looking forward to the Easter break so much.

Jack sends a big thank you for all your lovely comments about his circus, he's thrilled.

Good mummy has left the building, naggy old crone is back in town!!

this week...........

One of the greatest stress busters...............bed dancing. Guaranteed smiles all round!

Children bring an unbelievable amount of joy into your life but boy do they make it guilt ridden and emotional at times. After a remarkably smooth transition into school life Kit suddenly started to cry every morning before going in and not wanting to leave me. I know, common sense tells me that how a child is one week will have no bearing on how they are the next but she was worrying us. Suddenly our happy, giggly little girl had become quite unhappy and clingy and wasn't really able to explain why. We think it's probably the realisation that full time school will be the reality for the foreseeable future, quite a lot for a four year old to take on board.

I have a huge problem with the age we send our children to school in this country. Both my children are summer babies which makes them very young for their year groups. Whilst Jack has managed pretty well Kit seems very little amongst her class. I really think that four year olds are too young to begin full time education, I'd be more than happy to have had mine at home for another year. Almost all of the children in Kit's class are tired, emotional and grumpy, why are we doing this to them at four?

Ok everyone, rant over. Still with me? Good, let's have some pics. Whilst having a crisis of confidence this week and feeling the full force of good old parental guilt, I thought I'd make an extra effort to be a nice mummy and not the ranting old bag I'm prone to be, and then I thought I'd take photographs to show the children when I revert to normal, to prove that it actually did happen..........................

Firstly, the good old no-bake cake making. One of the family favourites is good old fridge cake.........which was supposed to be the biscuit substitute for the week but only lasted three days. I mix a 100g bar of milk and one of dark chocolate, add a large lump of butter, two tablespoons of golden syrup, all the broken up biscuits from the bottom of the tin, smashed up, a bag of maltesers, again smashed up, and whatever nuts I have to hand, this week it was pistachios. Its truly delicious, go on......try it, the nuts make it positively healthy........

Next, cornflake cakes for the school cake sale. Always a firm favourite and ones that I vividly remember making as a child. Mum would keep adding more and more cornflakes, we wouldn't believe that the chocolate would cover them but it always did.

Of course we had to try the eggs, just to make sure they were edible. I'm glad to report that they passed with flying colours!

Jack's been creative with a few old loo rolls, making his own mini circus.............

..................before going outside to practice his fire making skills, under my watchful eye. Damp twigs do not make the most ideal kindling but to give him his due he perseveres

meanwhile, conforming to the female stereotype perfectly Kit stays inside practicing her stitching............after helping Jack to waft the flames to life that is.

My creative urges were satisfied with a simple little project, 60 bookmarks for the new cookery book we've produced for the PTFA funds.......

At this point I feel should own up to yet another guilty pleasure.................ironing. Yes, you did hear me correctly, I do actually quite like ironing. Oops, said it again. Before I come over as all 1950's housewifeish let me confess that I'm totally crap at all other domestic duties but ironing I'm quite happy to do. I actually iron very few of our clothes so it only takes a couple of hours in the week, so it's on with the radio and I can happily drift away. And when it's something as delicious as Kit's bedding I'm quite content.

So on that slightly sad note I'll leave you for now. Have a great week.......................x

sunny sunday...........

What a lucky lady I was this weekend. After breakfast in bed the rest of the family piled into our bed to watch me open my lovely presents which included this..........

...........and this, which I've had my eye on for ages..........

I was also handed these fab cards which will be treasured forever...................

Sunday morning means my regular car boot trip, the sun this weekend meant that it was huge and busier than I think I've ever seen it. It wasn't a particularly fruitful trip but I did manage to pick up this sweet little blanket which will be perfect for our camping trips later this year.


The afternoon brought a trip to one of our favourite NT haunts, Hidcote Manor, the most beautiful garden in nearby Broadway. As soon as we arrive the children are seized with the desperate urge to run in any direction. The gardens are set out in a series of rooms and are a delight to visit at any time of the year. Although it is always busy there's plenty of space and it never feels crowded. We followed our little guides on a very fast and furious trip around the different "rooms" loving their enthusiasm and delight at each discovery. Each time we visit, this long avenue just begs to be raced along and this time we weren't disappointed. Whilst we took a moment to catch our breath the two of them disappeared into the distance and then returned at a much slower pace.

We had a much deserved snack break on my favourite bench under the Wisteria which is a sight to behold later in the year...........


.................and we admired the gorgeous flowers, in particular the hellebores, tulips and primroses.

...............and we finished it all off with tea and chocolate cake in the cafe. Perfect, worth all the sleepless nights, anguish, guilt and mess that having children brings. Spending time with my little family is (mostly) the best thing of all.

Before I go I have to mention this film. We watched it this weekend after seeing Kristin Scott Thomas nominated for an Oscar (or Bafta, can't remember) for it. It was superb, you have to see it!

See you later in the week, let's see if I can make it two posts this week.............

crochet paradise...............

.............well, how fantastic has this weather been?! After a frantic two day post weekend clean (kids, mess, food, toys etc...) the house is more sparkling than usual and I had an hour to sit out and enjoy the sun with the afternoon play and a bit of this..........

...............another round cushion in the making, this time as a gift for mum, It was so fantastic to sit outside, listen to the birds and enjoy the sun on my face. Isn't it great to be outside again, the children are barefoot in the garden once more, filthy feet are the order of the day.

As usual the garden is not looking at it's best. Having neither gardening skills nor knowledge means that plants do not thrive in my care, there are bare spots aplenty where there should be flowers. However some of the bulbs I planted in autumn are beginning to show and today I noticed this little lonesome beauty nestled amongst the weeds.............

..........more of which are dotted around the house, courtesy of good old B&Q which had a great offer on.

............and of course, the hyacinths keep on going, this one is particularly fragrant.

Did you notice that new mug up there?............yet another to add to my rather large collection, along with the Portmerion one I bought last week it's fast becoming a firm favourite, it's the perfect size for my cuppa. We had a girls only shopping trip to Bicester Village last weekend and of course the first stop had to be the Cath Kidston outlet store, from where said mug was purchased along with a couple of other goodies, including 3 metres of the most gorgeous dress fabric.........now all I need is a seamstress to run me up a tea dress.

I also bought this bath bar, much to Ian's delight. As he put it :: "Will that be going in the bathroom cupboard along with the other two you bought which drove you mad?" No, no, no, this one will be different, it's light and won't chip the bath every time the children knock it off. Besides how lovely my soaps and new flannel look on it. So I have to remove it and replace it every night, no matter, it gives me pleasure to look at it, this is the PERFECT bath bar and here it will stay....................

..........(if you look closely you can catch a glimpse of our horrific shower and revolting loo in the background - yeuch!)

Enjoy the sun everyone..........................

and then the sun shone...........briefly

Our yearly race going guests arrived today which means five days of cooking breakfasts for five people every morning, by the end of the week I'll be happy never to see another sausage. It also meant we had to do the BIG clean up over the weekend. This generally only happens if we have visitors and normally can be confined to only a couple of the rooms, however having the entire house full of people means that we have to clean the whole lot, no mean feat when it's usually only treated to the odd blowing away of dust and half hearted hoovering. Possessing a crap hoover which will only work with a hand held attachment means that I do most of my cleaning on my knees, and yesterday, whilst the sun was shining, this gave me a whole new perspective on my clean and shiny(ish) rooms. I rushed off to grab the camera to catch the moment and to remind me that sometimes the house can look pretty nice, even the horrible bathroom............


..............what you can't see is the completely foul, cracked toilet with duck tape trying, and failing, to stop the drip, or the mouldy old shower cabinet. This picture makes me love my grubby old bathroom a little bit more, I've no choice really, it'll be another year before we can update it.

Now this room, our bedroom, I do love, especially when it's cleared of all the usual family stuff. It never looks like this, there's always a pile of washing to be put away, numerous children's books and toys lying around, and all the other detritus we can't find a home for seems to gravitate towards here and stay for months. Now it's calm and peaceful, but for how long?...........

A peek into Kit's room. I like this "through the door" view, it means I can hide the mess behind said door, isn't blogland a wonderful, make believe place, you can pretend to have a lovely tidy home because nobody can see round the corners!

Finally a glimpse of our sitting room. The console table was dragged up from the basement sewing room single handedly by me which involved lots of muttering, bad language and mild panic as I realised how heavy it was. It used to be a dark brown but looks so much better in the pale pistachio colour. Notice yet more hyacinths waiting to burst forth............

So there you go, another post about not very much at all. I'm just pleased to have a tidy house, enjoying that clear brain feeling and kidding myself it'll last - hah! I give it three days at the most!

See you all soon...............x