My Kingdom for a horse..............

It has been another glorious weekend here in the Cotswolds, the sun has been shining for days but it's still incredibly cold. I love it, this is my favourite weather.

Mum and I ventured to Stratford-on-Avon on Saturday for her 60th birthday treat. We bought her tickets for "Richard III" at the RSC Courtyard Theatre. It wasn't really Dad's cup of tea (ie. not involving a fishing rod) so I got to go with her - hee, hee! I was a bit unsure about watching a Shakespeare play having had no involvement with him since A Levels. I was a bit concerned that I may not understand it. I needn't have worried, it was fantastic! I'm well and truly hooked. It was the last of eight plays, a series called "The Histories". If you get a chance, get yourselves along there, it was a great experience, truly memorable. We spent the afternoon eating cakes, drinking tea and enjoying the atmosphere. It was lovely to spend time with Mum without any interruptions.

Sunday morning Mum had to go back up North, my sister is due to have her baby any day soon, I'm hoping she'll hang on until Wednesday when we'll be going to my parents for a few days.
Ian and I were supposed to tackle the basement rooms to clear them for the decorators, but after stamping around, shouting at the children and generally being bad tempered (me, that is) we decided "sod it" and went out to enjoy the sunshine instead. Before we went we all devoured the seafood platter Ian bought us as a treat. It was delicious and cost us a lot less than lunch out would have done. The remains are here for your delectation............attractive eh!


We came back and whilst Ian attempted to make some order out of the slum downstairs (before and after pics soon) I pretended to be busy upstairs. We put a bit of Neil Diamond on the ipod and had a good old dance in the kitchen. We (Ian not included) love a bit of Neil, particularly "Sweet Caroline" and some of Jack's dance moves have to be seen to be believed! My children will not dance in public but in the privacy of our kitchen they let rip. Jack must be the only eight year old who can identify Barry Manilow being played in a shop, what am I doing to them??

I'll finish with a couple of home shots again. Since I started the blog I notice things around the house a lot more than I used to. Helps me to ignore the general chaos which is around the place at the moment!

First, I love the colour of this soap and one of my car boot freebies, the saucer it sits on. After it's taken me ten minutes to turn the flipping shower off with the screwdriver (don't ask) it makes me smile to see a nice bit of our otherwise dilapidated bathroom..............

Kit's bedtime toys "put to bed" under the eiderdown on our bed. All around our house we find various creatures tucked in under blankets, tea towels, kitchen roll or whatever is to hand.......

My "granny grater" I bought in London from "Octopus". Isn't she cute? She cost me three times as much as my excellent and practical Ikea grater and she isn't half as efficient, but she's much better looking!.............

Have a great week if you're on half term or not. I'm getting a bit suspicious, my two have been together upstairs for an hour (hence the long post!) and it's ominously quiet! I'll probably go up and find Kit's been bound and gagged by her loving big bro'!

I've been to London - didn't see the Queen though....

Good afternoon readers, here comes another weekend! Sorry for the lack of contact again, but life's been busy here. Mum has come to stay for the week so we've been out and about. The main reason behind her trip here was our trip to London last weekend. We went last Saturday, along with her sister, my aunt, to see "Shadowlands", the story of CS Lewis, at the Novello theatre. It was absolutely fantastic, at least as good as the film. By the end of the play the entire audience were in tears, it was so well acted, and very, very sad. We had a wander around Soho, ate lunch at "Wagamama's" noodle bar (delicious by the way) and just a little retail therapy. It was a lovely relaxing day.

Sunday morning, finances (or lack of) should have stopped me visiting the car boot but Andrea called to tell me how fantastic it was so what could a girl do?? Five minutes, no shower, no hair brushed and I was there. It was a beautiful morning and the car boot was massive, the goodies were never ending. I only stopped when I ran out of money (pretty quickly) but managed to scoop up some great bargains.

One stallholder had loads of linens including lovely old flannel pillowcases that I've been scouring the charity shops for, to no avail. I need them for a certain project I have in mind so needless to say I was in flannel heaven. I bought them all along with some lovely embroidered tablecloths and washed them the next day. The weather has been so lovely I even managed to dry them in the sun. Look at that lovely garden, do you think the National Garden Society would consider including me in their scheme??..........

Now they're all ironed and ready to go...............

I found another old basket and everything in it was free! I'd already bought a tea set from the man on the stall when he announced that he didn't want to take anything home so we could have whatever we wanted for nothing! No hesitation on my part, I filled a box with goodies.

Next I came upon this cute little picnic basket, which was filthy. Andrea could barely disguise her disgust at it but I think its lovely and it looks great now its been washed. Its even got the old paper plates with it, and I love the colours.

The sun shone through the whole weekend and our kitchen looks so lovely when the sun shines in, it seems to glow. I saw the poster on Kristy's blog and had to buy it for Ian for Chritmas, it's so apt for this household!

Finally I'll end with a shot of what my children get up to when I'm not looking. After running the bath for them last week there seemed to be a lot of laughter and shrieking coming from the bathroom. When I went up there was Jack in the bath still in his school uniform! I had to let Kit join him as he was so pleased with himself. Why he did it, who knows, but it certainly made bath time less boring!

Happy Valentine's day to all you romantics out there. Both children went off with a secret choccie loveheart in their lunchboxes today. They'll probably come home and tell me the chocolate was disgusting. Ian's come back from Manchester early, bearing gifts, after we agreed not to, but I'm not complaining. I've got a gorgeous "Benefit" set of toiletries and some lovely foodie bits from Harvey Nichols food hall including the "Pret a Manger" cook book - he knows the way to my heart!

Have a lovely day!.................

Good morning everyone. Hope you've all had a relaxing weekend. We've had a lovely weekend in the VH household. I was out Friday night at a friend's house for a lovely meal, and Ian and I went along to a neighbours to eat on Saturday. Needless to say, on Sunday energy levels were a bit low, I can't cope with two nights out on the trot, it's a sign of impending old age, I'm sure! Nevertheless Andrea and I managed to drag ourselves along to the local car boot early(ish) Sunday morning. We've been regulars for a while, but this is the first time we've managed to go this year. At first sight it looked pretty umpromising, it was absolutely freezing and compared to normal there were only about half the stalls. Looks can be deceiving, it turned out to be a very fruitful visit. Because the weather was so bad, and there weren't many people daft enough to brave it, the sellers were having a pretty thin time, so there were bargains to be had!
This lovely chocolate box with three layers of old buttons, and a sweet little tin jam packed with vintage needles.
A gorgeous fire screen which sits in front of our bedroom fireplace. This was a total bargain for a couple of pounds.

A beautiful little rose print which Kit immediately snaffled for her bedroom. It sits above her cute little rabbit picture from a charity shop. I love the fact that she and Jack love old tat as much as me!

I bought this tool kit a while ago from the car boot for a few pounds. Similar sell in childrens' catalogues for about £30. Jack loves it, he spends hours whittling away at a bit of wood which I remember doing as a child, although I didn't have the proper tools to do it.

We ended the weekend with a walk around Frampton-upon-Severn, one of our favourite places. As you can see on the picture Kit doesn't really understand the concept of walking, she prefers the carrying method, so Ian and I took it in turns to heft her around. Boy, was it cold, the wind was howling, I'm surprised Jack wasn't blown into the canal! There were certainly a few complaints coming from his direction, fortunately the wind carried them away!

This morning's plans have all gone out of the window because Jack seems to have the dreaded lurgy which is going around, so it's feet up, fire lit and snuggle in for the day (for him at least, suppose I'll have to tackle the dreaded ironing pile!)

Keep warm, see you all soon................

Take one sheet............

What else can you do on a cold afternoon apart from grab a sheet and make a tent? For once my two little darlings were not trying to kill each other and played beautifully for about an hour! With the help of a few chairs, a sheet, ALL the cushions and blankets in the house and a bagel with Nutella spread (a new discovery, unhealth I know but truly delicious!) peace fell on the VH household. I did try sitting in there with them, trying to recapture the excitement I felt as a child after building a den, but to be honest it was a bit hot, so I left them to it! Bliss.........

The lovely Catherine at mollycupcakes awarded me this last week.........

I'm very flattered, thank you so much Catherine. If you haven't visited Catherine's blog you must! She sells the most gorgeous painted kitchen accessories and hearts. I can vouch for their gorgeousness having placed an order before Christmas. The only problem is that the wooden spoon is so lovely I can't quite bring myself to use it!

I'm supposed to pass this award on but I can't choose only seven of you, so consider yourselves all included, a cop out I know!

This morning was supposed to be the day I finally started sewing again. Andrea and I have a very busy couple of months coming up, including the biggest fair we've ever done, so I should be creating. However I feel a bit grotty today so I dropped the children off, came back, made a cuppa and sat down for a few mins blogging. Two hours later I'm still here! I think I'm a person who works better with a deadline, it's just that I leave everything until the week before and then give myself a nervous breakdown trying to do it all!

Thought I'd leave you with a couple more gratuitous house shots, I can't put just one picture on so here we go........

Our bedroom fireplace with the disembodied head, she should really be on a wall somewhere but I quite like her in there.

The top of one of our dressers in the kitchen. I love the kitten money box, bought for 50p from the car boot sale, haven't got round to putting any pennies in it yet! The picture behind is Jack's "dream house". Notice it's all alone at the top of a hill, just like his mum he craves his own space and loves his own company, sometimes difficult in our very noisy house!

Right, enough procrastinating. I have and hour and a half to create something before I have to collect Kit, hang on though is that the phone I hear..........................?

Quirky..........

It occurred to me today as I was scrubbing behind the toilet seat with a toothbrush (just one of the many joys of having a 7 year old with a none-too-accurate aim) that there are many bits of this house that exist for no apparent reason but mean a lot to all of us who live here.

For example in our bathroom we have this.........

Don't ask me why he's wearing a cycling hat but I think he suits it, don't you?

When we bought this house we loved the fact that one of the previous owners had cobbled together any old pieces of wood to box in pipes, create cupboards etc. This is one of his masterpieces.........

It covers water pipes running from the top floor of the house and sort of looks like a mantlepiece stuck on the wall for no apparent reason. I can't explain why we like it, I'm sure to some people it looks faintly ridiculous, but then, so is life!

This sits on the shelf on the top floor. Ian gave it to me for our first Valentines together and it's just so cute I had to frame it, needless to say nearly 12 years and 2 children down the line, Feb 14th isn't quite the same!

Jack's room yields all sorts of treasures..............

..................including shells, stones and bits of feathers stuck into white tack (don't ask me why?)

Hanging next to Kit's dressing table is a teddy that Jack made in Year 2 at school, aptly named "fat tummy" by his beloved sister, much to his disgust.

Finally, perched on the living room bookshelves is my little birdie. It took me ages to find a shape suitably bird-like for my Christmas decorations. Most of them looked strangely fishy. Finally I managed to come up with this one and they were one of my best sellers, so I'm rather fond of this little one.

So there you go, just a few of the weird and wonderful things to be found in this house, I'm sure a few more will pop up along the way. See you all soon..........

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

Bicycles, books and blankets.........

There seem to be three obsessions going on in this house. Wherever I go I'm faced with piles of books, blankets in a heap, or bikes. I've just removed one of the aforementioned bikes from our bedroom where it was lounging against the fireplace, not an attractive addition to the decor to my mind. At the last count we had about 10 bikes in this household, bearing in mind we live in a terraced house and have no garage and a pretty small garden, that's a lot of bikes to conceal! To Ian they're a thing of beauty, to me they're an obstacle (apart from my gorgeous "Cameo" of course!) and I can regularly be heard muttering after catching my ankle on one of them.

Blankets are another key feature of this house. I can't resist them and the children seem to be following suit. Kit even has a serious blanket routine at bedtime, where no less that one duvet, one eiderdown and three blankets have to be tucked round her in the same order every night.

This is my latest little bargain, had to have it for the car. It's one of those gorgeous soft blankets, and red polka dot to boot!

Finally, books........All of us love books, they are in every room in this house. We have so many that I worry that one day I'll come home to find the house sunk into the ground under the sheer weight! I love the vintage Enid Blytons in Jack's room almost as much as he does (although Beano is beginning to take over!). Some of them are rescued from Mum and Dad's garage, but I've had to replace most of mine from childhood because most of our toys and books were passed onto our many cousins.

The books we keep on the living room bookshelves include Ian's beloved "Biggles" collection and all the books passed down by his Dad who was a professor of law. Needless to say I'm not often to be found reading "Employment Laws of Scotland" but they mean a lot to us and remind Ian of his Dad who's no longer here.

So there you go, what little obsessions do you have I wonder?.................

Bliss...................

An empty house, a cup of tea, a large (very) piece of cake, the latest copy of Country Living, a warm blanket and a comfy chair, what more could you ask for??..........

Note to self, buy at least 2 packets of magnetic letters in future! Anyhow, happy new year to all you out there in blogland! It's been a while (again!) since my last post, must get into better habits this year.

I hope you all had the Christmas you wished for. Ours was noisy, busy but not as frantic this year. We spent a lot of time together, about 10 days in all and we were still speaking at the end of it, a minor miracle! It was a wonderful Christmas and we brought in the new year playing Pictionary and Articulate, laughing at my dad's artistic skills and the new words introduced to us by the teenagers, plus I did a bit of middle aged lusting after Take That (Howard in particular) at midnight!

Christmas Eve we all ventured to a local church for the crib service, needless to say we were late, and went in the wrong door having to walk past a very large congregation. We even managed to persuade my 17 year old nephew to join us, and it was lovely family event.

The weather was the usual Christmas affair, plenty of grey skies and rain, but we looked out of the window one day to be greeted by this, there is something about a rainbow which is really special, don't know why but I think we all love them.

Yesterday was D-day for eight walls in our street. Before Christmas a row of us decided that we would like to replace our mismatching walls and hedges with the railings that would originally have been here. After much organisation by one of our neighbours Frank (a lawyer and therefore very well organised!) we finally demolished the walls yesterday. What a day it was!

Ian battled through a horrible cold to demolish ours, which turned out to be very well built, if the ugliest in the street. Helen and I supplied bacon sarnies, tea and cakes. Our new neighbour Lynn made the most delicious soup for lunch which we ate in our kitchen. Eight hours later we were still there! Various people would disappear and come back bearing wine, the bottles this morning bear testament to the alcohol consumption! No wonder my head was thumping when I went to bed!

It was a brilliant day, it made us realise how fortunate we are to live in this neighbourhood. When we decided to move here there were a few raised eyebrows and comments amongst some of our friends. Our street is opposite a large council estate with a reputation it really doesn't deserve. This meant that we could afford a much bigger house than those in the supposedly "better" areas. It was the best move we ever made. Ok, financially we could have made more elsewhere but here we have fantastic neighbours, a lot of whom have been here for 30 plus years. There is a real sense of community, people buy here because they want a home, not a pension. Yesterday proved that even more to me, we all sat around and chatted for hours and have made a pledge to have these get-togethers once a month from now on. What a great way to start the new year!

By the way, I came downstairs in peace and quiet to do a bit of blogging. For once my battling children decided to play in Jack's room. Great I thought, I'll disappear and write my post in silence. Ha! Two minutes later, here they are behind me fighting over a piece of string and singing "The Skye Boat Song" - at least Jack is, Kit is just putting words together that make no sense, much to Jack's annoyance. Children - who'd have 'em??!!...............

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