blimey it's cold!...........

Hello everyone, and a very happy new year to you all! Did you have a good Christmas? I have been lurking in the few spare moments I've had so I have caught up with most of you and it seems, apart from the dreaded lurgy which struck a few of you, a fab time was had by all.

We had a lovely time. A very quiet Christmas with just the four of us, highly unusual but very enjoyable nonetheless. It meant that we actually had time to play with the children and go on bike rides and long walks. It did us good to have that concentrated time together, no stress, little food preparation and plenty of sitting by the fire.

Christmas morning was a joy, look who arrived.....................

..................from Father Christmas (via Nicky at the Vintage Magpie). How cute is she, Kit loves her - nearly as much as I do!

There was much frantic ripping of paper................

..................squeals of joy, and strumming...........

The weather down here has been perfect for long wintry walks. Boxing day we shrugged off our Christmas Day stupor and went for a lovely walk around the local racecourse, one of our favourite haunts. It was cold, very very cold, but a beautiful day and the perfect antidote to all those choccies, sausages and turkey!

New Year was a much more raucous affair with friends and family gathered here to see in 2009. Plenty of food, bubbly, laughter, singing and story telling, the perfect way to see in the new year.
Yesterday saw me having to drag two very warm, sleepy and reluctant children from under the covers to start the new school term. Fortunately for me there was something outside to tempt them..............

..................before they were even dressed and in the low morning light they threw on coats and wellies over pyjamas and were in the garden building a tiny "snow hawk" and throwing snow at the open doors, ie. into the kitchen!

Whilst they were at school I cleared the house of Christmas clutter, boxed it all up and put it away until next year. Now for the big clean up, sigh................

My brief stint at a working life is over, I enjoyed it but have to say I'm glad to have a bit of time to myself in the house again, like the rest of you there are a million and one things to do, now where to start?

And no, I haven't forgotten the great button maker give away. I shall be back later in the week with the winner....................

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye..............

So, the rain still pours down, but undeterred we are packing for our camping trip to the Isle of Wight. Every year we go away for a week with some special friends who moved away to Dorest four years ago. We will not be thwarted by the weather, our upper lips are well and truly stiff (if a little soggy) and we sail on Monday. Don't laugh, that's just plain cruel!

Whilst trapped indoors we have been enjoying the obligatory games of hide and seek, although Kit doesn't quite understand that the whole point is not that the seeker chooses your hiding place. The children have squabbled, cuddled, laughed, cried, secretly pinched each other when they don't know I'm looking, read hundreds of books and tonight enjoyed one of their favourite rainy day activities - potion making.

It's a very simple notion, give the children free reign over any dry ingredient in your cupboards and let them create. Mine always head straight for the chilli flakes and honey - yum. We also have to add water, milk, vinegar, a few herbs from the garden.............in fact anything they can lay their hands on. Tonight it was dumped in the toy mixer and, well, mixed. It's then decanted into a jar and has to be given a name, "ansuke" was tonight's choice. Two very happy children, and with the only rule being that everything has to go back into the cupboards, a very happy mummy, although I did decline the tasting offer, tempting though it was!

I'll be off the scene for a couple of weeks, so enjoy the rest of the hols and please can someone do a sun dance for us, rain coats are just so unflattering!

Do eleven broad beans constitute self sufficiency?..........

...............oh, and a few very small carrots tasting peculiarly soapy?

Now, I'm not known for my green fingers. Optimistically I planted some carrots, broad beans, rocket and had some tomatoes donated by a sympathetic friend. We've had the results of the beans, all eleven them and very delicious they were too. The rocket was gone after two salads and of course I forgot to sow any more seeds. The carrots are strange. The tomatoes are more hopeful, I'm quite proud of them. However, I don't think I'll be adding myself to the huge waiting list for a local allotment because a: I'm a realist and actually quite lazy, and b: I'm a crap gardener. But I tried...............


We did get a few apples from our little apple tree.................


..............and this little beauty has been the star of the garden this year, ie. it's still alive! Unfortunately we can't eat it.

Kit is showing the same gardening skills as her mother. This is her "remedy" for an ailing rose that I was trying to save. Firstly cut off all the remaining leaves, next behead the rest of the flowers in the garden (very few), oh and the odd tomato, and add. Water profusely and wait...............I'm not holding out much hope!


We've been slightly more successful in the baking department. Using the childrens toy mixer we made pancakes, lots of them. And they've all gone, yum, yum!

More later in the week.........................................

The best and worst of times.............

Another long absence, my sincere apologies. I'm sure some of you must have thought we'd sailed to France and decided never to come back, we were sorely tempted, let me tell you!

I've ummed and ahhhed about how to phrase what happened to us over the half term break. In some ways I was reluctant to blog about it because it's very personal, hence the long absence. Unfortunately when we were on the way to the ferry we received the news we'd been been dreading, that Ian's mum had taken a very serious turn for the worse. We turned back and Ian drove straight to Scotland whilst I went to my folks up north. Sadly Helen died that night at 10.30pm, but Ian made it in time to be with her. Although not completely unexpected it was a very sad time for all of us, Helen's children in particular.

Helen was a truly remarkable, brave, selfless and lovely, lovely woman. It was a privilege to have known her for the past 12 years, and she was the best mother, grandmother and friend you could wish for. She will be very sadly missed by us all.

We decided to still have our holiday, a week later, the day after the funeral. We thought it was probably the best remedy for our little family. It was a good decision, we had a truly lovely time, chilled out, played together, read lots and drank lots of French cider, it was the tonic we all needed.

I'll be back later this week, there's so much to catch up on.

Julia x

Who ate all the Mini-Eggs?.............

Good afternoon everybody and I hope a good Easter was had by all. Vast amounts of chocolate have been consumed in this household, purely for medicinal purposes you understand! Kit and I have been suffering from the dreaded lurgy this holiday which just seems to be leaving us now. It has not however stopped us from enjoying the few days off.

We ventured out on Saturday to give our new ebay bargain (99p!!) it's first outing. Don't you love it, it smells a bit suspicious but once you get over that it's fab! We stuffed the box with ham and egg (adds to the aroma beautifully!) sandwiches and chocolate cake, filled the flasks with hot coffee and went off to Minster Lovell for a picnic. We hadn't banked on how cold it was so we managed to sit in the car and eat our goodies before dragging the children down to the ruined hall in the bitingly cold wind only to immediately turn round and head back to the car for more cake!

Easter Sunday we had a leisurely breakfast after our garden egg hunt. We lit the fire and treated ourselves to croissants in front of it. Before you picture the idyllic family scene let me tell you it involved one very sulky 7 year old who was having a terrible time trying to stand his Easter chicken up for the photo shoot, whilst his father tried to hide himself behind the crossword! Never mind, I enjoyed my breakfast at least!

We had a lovely Easter lunch with friends, followed by another egg hunt and a very lazy and relaxing afternoon doing absolutely nothing, something I excel at!

Finally, today everybody is back at school / pre-school so I have the house to myself. It's tidy and there's nothing I need to do for the day so I'm catching up.

The garden is starting to spring into life. At last my camellia has flowered. Each year we get loads of buds which then seem to shrivel up and fall off before blossoming, however this year having moved it to a more sheltered position we've been rewarded with theses lovelies......

Tonight it's book group night. Last year six of us, three of whom I'd never met before, decided to start a small group. It's been a great success, it's made me read books I'd never would have chosen and although I haven't enjoyed all of them it's been great to discuss them with the others. I didn't want to be part of a high brow, literary group, I think there's too much intellectual snobbery about literature when really reading should be about pleasure. I did however want to challenge my brain slightly and I can confirm it still works! It's a very diverse group, so we each bring something different to the discussion including a lot of laughter about life in general. Tonight we're going out to eat to celebrate a 40th birthday so after a couple of bottles of wine there may not be much book dissection!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Happy, happy Christmas!

Well it's been a long time! I have been lurking and checking in with you all whenever I've had a spare minute and it's been fun watching you all preparing for Christmas. There seems to be a common theme running through all the blogs I read, NONE of us are ready for Christmas!

How did it get to 7 days before the big day?? Last I knew it was the beginning of November and all of a sudden Christmas is upon us, HELP!

Since I last posted, an eternity ago it seems, lots has happened. The craft business is going from strength to strength, it took off better than we could ever have hoped, thanks to some well timed fairs and parties. Not that it's all been plain sailing, we had one totally disastrous fair that we know never to do again, but you learn from experience and although it was a bit depressing at the time, the next one was the best we've ever done, which boosted our confidence and our Christmas shopping fund! It seems from reading other crafters' blogs that we've all had our fair share of c*****y fairs, with the usual "you could make that" muttered to friends and looks of dismay when you tell people the price - how rude people can be!

We've had tremendous support from partners, husbands, children, neighbours and friends, really unbelievable, without them we couldn't have got through the past two months. The last order was finished last night so I can breath a huge sigh of relief, put anything I didn't sell on the Christmas tree and open the wine (again) - Hurrah! Andrea and I treated ourselves to a trip to Bicester Village (without children!) as a reward and spent a few happy hours shopping (there's even a Cath Kidston discount shop there!).

Christmas preparations are now well and truly under way in this house, there seems to be a bit of a bird theme going on! My family arrive on Sunday for about 10 days so we need to de-clutter in a big way! This house will be bulging at the seams, but I can't wait. I love Christmas and I love having family around, there will be plenty of chocolate, nuts, turkey and alchohol consumed - once I've been food shopping that is! There are lists everywhere, things that need finishing, wrapping or buying. The basement bedrooms have been cleared, we're still waiting for the building work to be done after the floods, but they will be prettified for Christmas in order to put up the 6 extra people.

We must be the only family with a special "Beano" bauble, courtesy of Jack! I've taken about 263 photos of the tree and they're all terrible so I've settled for a close up of one of our homemade decorations.

Thanks to everyone who sent get well wishes to Mum. Her operation went well, nothing nasty was found and she's well on her way to a full recovery. As usual she kept the full extent of the problem to herself until after the op, but she's well and looking forward to Christmas, making her famous sausage rolls in huge quantities for her grandchildren. It's an enormous relief and means that we can look forward to next year with excitement instead of worry.

It's been a great year on the whole, we've had some fab holidays with good friends and family, watched our children grow and change, laughed, cried, talked, danced, argued and shouted (and shouted again - if only our kitchen walls could talk!) a lot, picnicked with grandparents, and made some difficult choices which have turned out to be the best decisions and made us much happier in the end. A typical year in any family I would think!

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a fantastic 2008. Enjoy, try to relax, and spoil yourselves a bit, and no running off with Santa - his work/life balance is not good! My thoughts are with all of you who've lost someone this year, gather those that matter around you, close the door, light the fire and enjoy each other.

As a postscript I just had to show a couple of photos of some of the lovely things I've received from a couple of you lovely folk out there..........

Firstly, ages ago I won "Little Pinkie" over at Suzie Sews and he now lives proudly on the old coffee grinder (out of grubbly little fingers reach!). How cute is he - don't know why I've decided it's a he, it seems that all our soft toys whether they be pink, green or yellow are boys! The coffee grinder was a "must-have" purchase after our Featherdown Farm hol, the kids love grinding the beans, great, as long as you're not desperate for the next caffeine hit! Anyway, thanks a million Suzie, here he is at last!

Next I received my Christmas order this morning from the lovely Catherine over at Molly Cupcakes, with a few little extras thrown in. I can't wait to give Kitty the baking set in her favourite colour, or to use the red spoon. All of her stuff is just lovely, you have to visit! I had the great pleasure of meeting her when she came to collect a vintage ironing board I had for sale, and she is as lovely in real life as on her blog!

Phew! Well done if you're still with me! All that needs to be said now is HAPPY, HAPPY CHRISTMAS, see you in 2008!.................