two wheeled wonder..............

Can somebody explain to me why our (or is it all?) children become hysterically giddy at bath time each and every night. Or why wearing a pair of green pants on your head whilst chasing your older brother round the bed is ever a good idea..............it always ends in tears! Phew, kidlets are now safely tucked up, the cider has been poured and peace and quiet has descended upon us.

So, how are you all? Enjoying the long weekend? Ours has been stretched out by a couple of days, Ian took two days off last week and we managed a trip to Malvern without children........bliss! We had a civilised lunch, wandered around the bookshops and antique shops without the need for eyes in the back of our heads, and enjoyed a leisurely coffee. Forgot the camera of course, but Malvern is a lovely place, views to die for and fantastic people, well worth a visit.

The rest of the weekend so far has been a quiet one. A trip to Burford for lunch yesterday, where I met the lovely Rachel from Rubyred. It's always so strange when you first meet a fellow blogger, almost as if you belong to a secret society, but within seconds we were chatting about blogland and everyone within it.

Today will be marked down in our family life as a momentous one. Kitty took the plunge and this happened...................


............a cautious start


..................a helping hand from Daddy


.................and she's off!


.................one very happy little girl and two ridiculously happy and proud parents.

Meanwhile big brother whizzed around the park, darting amongst the trees and working up an appetite for ice-cream.



Living here for a while means that we take this park for granted a little. Sometimes familiarity means that you don't notice just how beautiful a place is. Today whilst I waited under this tree, guarding Ian's bike and cameras whilst he chased Kit round the lawns I realised again why we love living here. This particular park is within five minutes walk from our front door and it really is a lovely place. Huge trees, two wonderful lakes, a few animals to feed and a pretty tea room make it near perfect really............



I had to finish with these pics of our own Gok Wan, confident of her own style and becoming more stubborn about it each day. This girl knows what she wants to wear, and she doesn't want any of it to match................

What's a mother to do?? And look at those little stripey legs finished off perfectly with gold shoes and an Ikea shoe horn used as a walking stick. Love her to bits!

rock and roll......

I couldn't resist taking some sneaky pics when I saw this...............

You can't get Jack near a disco but give him a bit of Green Day (his choice, not mine, I'm just not that cool) and his best buddy and he really lets rip. I love that these two are growing up together, neither of them fits into the mould but to me they are just perfect and watching their friendship evolve is a joy.........................

onwards.............

So, what do you do when you no longer have childcare as your main occupation? Flit about town gaily, meet up for coffee, read the books you've never had time for? No, you clean. At least that's the plan.

I'm not a naturally tidy person, my house and life is haphazard, disorganised, cluttered and untidy. No more. I'm to become a domestic goddess extraordinaire. In order to fulfil this role I had to buy a new piece of enamelware, I know it's a shoe cleaning one but it was cheap and it does the job. I have visions of myself floating about the house with my dusters, polish and rubber gloves, people marvelling at my gleaming taps, dust free mantelpiece and polished floorboards. Hah, who am I kidding, all I've managed so far is to tidy the tea towel drawer. Can't fit the rest in between coffee drinking, cake munching and blogging. Only don't tell, or I might have to get a job - Ian is showing a worrying interest in the positions vacant board at Sanisbury's, and it's not because he's always wanted to operate a checkout!

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!

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

Lazy days.................

We've had a lovely lazy weekend. The weather has been a bit hit and miss so we haven't strayed very far, only to the park and a Beavers session. Ian's been away visiting his mum who has recently become very ill so it's been down to Mummy to entertain the troops - gulp! Fortunately we were rescued by friends both yesterday and today who came round for a play.

This afternoon, hoping to keep my bottom on a chair in the garden for longer that two seconds I set my children the "pirates" challenge we used to play as children. Get from one end of the garden to the other without touching the grass, using anything you can find. They loved it, kept them entertained for ages until Jack fell off the extremely precarious bridge he built using plywood and an old seaside bucket. I did try to explain the structural failings of the design but he wasn't having any of it! One lesson learned - mum knows best!

One thing very seldom heard in this house is the dreaded "I'm bored" phrase. I don't know if it's just that my children at nearly 8 and 4 are too young for that yet, but at the moment it isn't an issue. I made a decision when Jack was a baby that our children would not watch television. Most people thought me totally weird for making this choice but I stuck by my guns, and at times I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I knew that because I'm all for an easy life, if I started to let television creep in I would all too easily allow it to become a babysitter so I decided to not have it at all.

Many people told me that Jack would suffer among his peers at school because he wouldn't know about "Pokemon" or "Power Rangers" but that hasn't been the case. Ok, so he doesn't know the latest tv craze or any of the characters but he seems to manage without them. His love of books, lego and the great outdoors keep him more than entertained and although he doesn't have tonnes of friends he has enough to keep him happy.

Now they are both older we have brought a Friday night is tv night rule into play where they can choose a dvd or to watch something on tv. More often than not the tv is only on for half an hour and then they drift into the kitchen to see what I'm up to. I do wonder sometimes if they will grow up to be telly addicts because it was denied to them as children but at the moment it seems to be working for us so we're sticking to it. As parents we seek to do what we think is best for our children and this is one thing we thought was important, to bring our children up to have a thirst for knowledge, a love of books and the ability to entertain themselves.

Thought I'd end with some garden pictures. I'm no Percy Thrower, in fact I've killed off more plants than I've nurtured but my little (and only) bed is surprising me this year. I planted a few perennials without much confidence last year and most of them seem to be returning apart from two geraniums (I thought no-one could kill a geranium!) and the lupins. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months.

I keep my herbs in an old tin tub, I love picking my own from the garden, makes me feel all virtuous! We haven't got a patio at the moment (we did have a scary quote recently, so it's gone on the list of things to do) so I'm struggling where to put my pots. The railings are halfway through at the front of the house, I'll post some pics when they're finished.

Hope I haven't put you off with the whole television thing, I debated about posting it but it is an important thing in our house and part of our life so I decided to take a risk.

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

A woman's work is never done!.......

Not only do you have to make the tea....................................


....................you have to do the dishes as well!...........................


Hope you've all had a lovely, sunny weekend. Keep those comments coming, I'll close the giveaway on Thursday.

Taking after Mummy......

Don't you love forget-me-nots? They take me back to my childhood when the garden was full of them. They are, however taking over my small bed and every year I have to haul loads of them out!

It's been a creative few days here in the VH household. Last week the weather was dire so the children and I decided to be crafty. Now I have to tell you, quite often the words "can we paint?" fall on deaf ears in this house, I try to avoid it at all costs, the mess and most of all the clearing up afterwards put me off, cruel mother that I am. So in order to avoid poster paint armageddon we had to come up with an alternative. Inspired by all the fabulous blogs I read we borrowed a few ideas and here's what we did..........



I asked both of them to draw anything they liked. Jack chose a seaside theme and Kit chose a party scene complete with flags (bunting) and her new baby cousin, my sister and her big cousin.


They then had the choice of any fabric from my massive scrap collection (can't bear to throw even the tiniest bit away!). They decided where each piece would go and I then bonda-webbed them on and machine stitched around each piece. We stapled them to cheap canvases from the craft shop, et voila, Jack and Kitty now have their very own masterpieces in their bedrooms...............................


They're both really pleased with the results and I love the fact we've got a permanent reminder of the stage they're at at this moment in time. We've got loads more ideas in the pipeline!

Last weeks car boot purchase (found by good old Andrea) has become Kitty's new throne in the kitchen. Deciding we didn't like the orange pine effect we thought we'd throw even more colour into our already rainbow like kitchen and painted the new addition bright yellow, Kitty's favourite colour in the world.

Of course, we couldn't leave Jack out of the equation so his old chair got a coat of "letterbox red" and it looks great. As always his beloved weekly copy of "Beano" waits for his return from school.

I often wonder what my children will remember about their childhood home and whether it will influence them as they grow up. Will they become staunch "minimalists" or will they embrace colour, clutter and general chaos as I do?? Sometimes even I think there's too much in this house, it does make for much more cleaning, but I can't help it, it seems to be an inbuilt desire to surround myself with stuff and my entire family have the same affliction. May as well give into it eh!......................

Before I go, a lot of you asked which books we have been reading in our book groups. Here goes.......

The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards - nice, easy read.

The Collector by John Fowles - bit disturbing, not one I'd have chosen but really enjoyed it.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - a great book I thought, bit depressing but thought provoking.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson - my choice after reading "life changing" type reviews about it. Didn't change my life one iota, but a nice, gentle book.

Nana by Emile Zola - A hard book to get into but once I did I really surprised myself by loving it.

Hope this helps those who asked, have a lovely weekend everyone, school holidays start tomorrow, yippeee!.............

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!

Welcome to the world.......

This gorgeous little bundle arrived on Saturday 1st March at 10.10pm weighing 8lb 4oz. Say hello to my new niece Olivia. Mum and baby are doing brilliantly, my sister is such a natural mummy, Olivia is a lucky, lucky girl! Her new dad is thrilled to bits too. So starts a new life............ Needless to say Jack and Kitty are thrilled with their new cousin and lots of kissing and cuddling went on during our visit. It was sad to leave them knowing we won't see her for a couple of weeks. They both made cards for her but only Kit would let me take a photo of hers, don't you love the hair on her baby!...........

I received these in the post this week. I ordered them from applehead after seeing them on another blog (sorry, can't remember which one). They are so cute, this one is my particular favourite, I love the red polka dot dress. I love the fact that you discover things through other peoples' blogs that you wouldn't otherwise know about.

I treated myself to this button box from good old Cath Kidston a couple of weeks ago. Mum and I spent a relaxing hour sorting all the buttons out and it will really help not having to root through jars to find the right button in future.

Mum found this little shelf unit in a charity shop for me, a coat of paint and it's a great place to put just some of the old tins that litter this house. I have so many, but all of them are used. The problem is that I forget which one holds the particular thing I'm looking for so I waste so much time looking through all of them. It's hard work being a compulsive hoarder y'know!

This is the ferry which capsized near Heysham and then floated into Cleveleys where it is now beached. We went to have a nosy on possibly the coldest and windiest day of the year. Jack was fascinated, the picture doesn't really show how big it is, but the waves were lashing against it and it was a pretty strange sight.

Finally a plea for some advice. I 've finally mastered Bloglines (I think) but I can't leave comments on blogs straight from it. Is there a way to do this or do you have to go into the blog separately? Any help will be very gratefully received.

Also, I've been tagged to do the archive meme, I haven't forgotten I promise, I will try to get round to it asap!

Have a great week everyone, I'm endeavouring to catch up this morning..................

Out of the mouths of babes...........

Yesterday evening, whilst snuggling into my rather ample, "oooh go on pass another chocolate brazil nut", post Christmas tum number one son remarked :

"Aaaah, pleasantly chubby" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think it was meant to be a compliment!

Pass me another hot cross bun please, real butter not olive oil spread if you don't mind!...............

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!.................