a true case of design over substance...........

Our last house purchase necessitated the acquisition of a new fridge. I'd always longed for a pastel blue retro style Smeg fridge freezer and much to my delight Ian agreed and we managed to find a "graded" one with a big discount. Not the best purchase we've ever made, yes it looks lovely but it has to be the most impractical fridge for all but the most minimalist of householders. The bottle rack is a great idea, but does ours hold bottles of Champagne, or even cheap plonk?.................oh no, we have three bottles of ketchup and three of BBQ sauce (we can never remember if we have either when shopping for an impromptu barbeque) The shelves are so squashed together that it's difficult to get at anything, and all the wire thingies have fallen off the door shelves so even a slightly aggressive door opening could end with a broken toe.


In an effort to organise my fridge I bought some lovely polka dot glass dishes from Andrea. I cannot bear to throw away leftover food immediately, I'd far rather put it in the fridge for three days and then chuck it out, makes me feel better somehow! This dish is holding on to last nights leftover mash.....................


I find myself staring longingly into the clean, ordered fridges of friends. Those American style ones with two door and, joy of joys, an iced water dispenser. I'm wishing an untimely death on our poor unsuspecting Smeg and wondering if anyone has come up with a pale blue, double doored, ice dispensing, self cleaning fridge yet!

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

I blinked and August disappeared!..............

.............where did it go? The weather has been mediocre, and that's putting it kindly, but we've had a lovely, and sometimes challenging (very) few weeks. We've managed to do nearly all the things we wanted to at the start of the hols and still squeezed in an awful lot of pyjamas til noon laziness.

We started with a Mums and children trip to one of our old camping haunts in the Forest of Dean, which was a hoot. I think we may even have converted Andrea and although she insists otherwise I think she secretly loved it!

My sister brought her big and little girls down for a week, so there was much cooing and cuddling going on here and we even managed a couple of shopping trips. We had a great catch up and the house was a much quieter place when they left, how I wish she lived nearby!

Our trip to the Isle of Wight was a great success, although we arrived at our cliff edge site and were met with gale force winds and black skies. Trying to put a large tent up in windy conditions, Ian turned into a bossy school master and I spent a lot of time muttering. We did succeed and spent a very sleepless first night as the wind battered the tent. Fortunately the weather improved and we managed a few beach trips. The last night was one I will keep in my memory forever. We were fortunate enough to have a beach just below the campsite so we all went down, had a barbeque and lit a fire with driftwood collected by the children. Warmed by the fire we sat with our friends, enjoyed a bottle or two of wine and watched the children play cricket at the waters edge - pure bliss!

Other than that we've mooched around at home, been for long walks, seen friends and visited the local open air pool. We topped it off today with a visit to No.9 the lovely cafe belonging to Anna. Imagine my delight when I found it was only a five minute trip away. Jack and Kitty highly recommend the waffles, they are huge and cooked to perfection! Anna is a joy and it was so lovely to meet a fellow blogger in the flesh. We will be returning very soon!

Tonight will be spent sewing name labels into new school uniforms and trying to come to terms with the fact that in five very short days my baby girl starts school and I will become redundant. I'll leave you with some snapshots of their summer......................

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.........................................