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

red................

During the school holidays the children and I naturally spend a lot more time together at home and the big benefit is that I haven't got the time to do any housework. This is the last summer holiday where Kit is still a pre-schooler so I'm determined not to spend the time hoovering and getting cross about the mess created by two little people. The sun has been shining all week and it's been bliss. The paddling pool is out and the water is now a beautiful sludge green, although the children don't seem to care. We've had trips to the library, the local lido and the park and generally enjoyed each others company (and got on each others' nerves quite a lot). Being at home so much makes you take notice of all the little details around you and I've noticed just how much red has crept into our home, from tea towels.................................

to stuffed pears.....................

from tins holding embroidery threads................................

to tins there for no purpose other than being pretty....................

from Kitty's first wellies that she wore constantly........................

to a Greengate cruet set...................

from my old ironing board and apron.................

to the children's rice bowls..................

from Kitty's new dress....................

to my favourite summer food, avocado salsa..................


The sun is still shining today (hooray!!) and we're off to a neighbours tonight for a barbeque. I'll leave you with a picture of something else we've been up to this week....................

..................henna tattoos.

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

Have to start with a picture, here's the children's favourite meal - jambalaya - cooked in my latest car boot treasure. You'll either love it or hate it!

Claire tagged me about a week ago with the following :: write a letter to yourself at 13. After reading Claire's fantastic and very funny letter I was, to be honest, a bit daunted. But here goes :

Dear Julia,

You're now older than your mum, and you'll never believe how quickly the journey here has been. It won't seem like five minutes since you were sitting in your Laura Ashley bedroom, listening to Paul Young and gazing at the ugly bloke from Depeche Mode adorning your walls.

With 40 fast approaching you'll find yourself in the midst of the most contented time of your life. Casting off all the insecurities of your twenties you'll enter into motherhood in your thirtieth year (no party then!) and finally find the "career" that has eluded you so far. It won't be highly paid, fast paced or earth shattering but it will bring your more satisfaction, happiness and fulfilment than any bonus ever could. Enjoy your midday lie-ins, they'll become a thing of the past, as will going to the toilet alone and leaving the house in less than an hour.

Give up now on the "Princess Diana" haircut, it does nothing for you and the amount of hairspray you're using will be contributing to global warming (don't worry, you'll soon be learning about that). A healthy diet does not consist of chunky Milky Bars and chipsticks. Appreciate what you've got and know that you'll never be a size 10 again, but also that you won't particularly care.

Try not to get too upset if the Valentines postie at school never delivers that huge cardboard card from Sean in the second year, by your mid twenties you'll have had your fair share of boyfriends and you'll have forgotten all about him. In the summer of '96 a man sporting a rather suspect purple and jade green fleece will laugh his way into your heart at your first meeting. 12 volatile but happy years later he will still make you laugh and look after you like no-one else could.

Friendships will come and go. You'll learn that some women never actually leave the school playground. Let them go and instead concentrate on the steadfast ones, those with whom you share your highs and lows, your tears and laughter, those who make you a better person, the ones you couldn't imagine life without.

One of your greatest pleasures will be your home. Just as it is now, it will be a bolthole, stuffed with your ever expanding collection of other peoples' cast offs, a place full of laughter, noise, tantrums and eighties music.

Try to understand your parents and their concerns about your whereabouts, their hopes and fears and their expectations. The screaming fits won't change anything and it will all become very clear later in life and you'll repeat the whole experience with your own children, but they won't have the freedom you do.

You'll still recognise yourself at nearly 40, there'll be a few more lines, and your skin won't quite exude that healthy glow without a bit of help, but overall you'll do. All around you women (and some men) will be injecting themselves with toxins, waxing away all body hair and lifting, removing and tucking in various bits of their bodies but you'll embrace you late thirties, with its' receding gums, grey hairs and wobbly tum and laugh your way through it, looking forward to the next 25 years!

love from Julia

Now I have to nominate some blogging pals so it's going to be Lucy, Fiona, Steph and Carol. Over to you ladies, if you feel like it..........

I'll end with a few shots of our French holiday which feels like a million years ago. I didn't have a chance to tell you much about it but one of the highlights was a trip to Honfleur, just looking at these houses made me want to move there..............

See you all later in the week............

tagged again...............

Lovely Lucy over at attic24 has tagged me with the "5 facts about you" tag, so here goes.......

:: along with most builders but almost nobody else I take sugar in my tea. I love these sugar cubes we got in France, they have the exact quantity of sugar..............perfect.

:: I briefly attended university after a gap year in which I worked in both insurance and banking, exciting eh! I decided in my infinite wisdom to do a degree in social work a long way from home, it didn't work out, I was working in a grocery shop by Christmas. Still, at least I got free satsumas!

:: I wet my pants in New York. We arrived carrying two incredibly heavy rucksacks and I sat on a very low wall and couldn't get up. I laughed so much I lost all control..........and that was before children!

:: I have to have my chocolate straight from the freezer, even slightly gooey, melted chocolate makes me feel queazy. My teeth won't thank me for it in later life, I'm sure.

:: My brief glimpse of a career in the late 1980's came when I moved to Middlesex (the nearest I ever got to London) and worked for a large multinational company. It didn't last long, the relationship I was in broke down and I scuttled home to my parents quick sharp. Get the impression I'm not really a high flier?!

So, there you go, a few snippets about me. I forgot to pass on the garden tag so I'll lump the two together and ask Lesley, Suzie, Claire, Anna and Sairer. Choose either one girls because I know some of you have already done one...........................

See you all later in the week!

Room with (not much of) a view..........

So, it's Saturday morning. Ian's away, Jack's gone up the road for a drumming lesson, Kit's asleep in our bed feeling not entirely chipper, the breakfast dishes are still on the table and I've got 5 mins to fulfil (one of) my tag duties, the view from my kitchen window. Here goes, don't get too excited..................

As you can see the gazebo is still up from Kitty's party and will probably still be there come September. It's a nice place to sit in the shade from the sun - pah, what sun. Handily it also shelters you from the rain, jolly useful in the current weather we're enjoying.

As I've said before we live in the middle of a terrace of Victorian houses so we don't have a large garden. Our kitchen is nearly the full width of the garden so it doesn't have any windows down the side, it's sort of slotted between our neighbours' houses. The view from the french windows is of the whole garden, warts and all. It has two sheds, both of which are full of bikes, paint, garden tools, you name it, a large climbing frame and slide which dominates the view and numerous gorgeous bits of brightly coloured plastic.

I've been admiring all the other gardens on view whilst visiting other peoples' blogs and feel mine is definitely lacking. Basically, I'm not a natural gardener. I'm full of good intentions but I never actually see them through because in reality I can't be bothered. I want a garden to look fab without any work and it's not going to happen. I kid myself that I want a huge garden so I can wander around wearing a floaty skirt collecting vegetables and flowers but I'm more likely to be sitting in it with a cuppa and a good book ignoring the grass waving around my knees and the dandelions peeping at me from the flower beds. I have attempted to grow some broad beans this year but I swear I can hear the millions of aphids gorging themselves on them laughing at me so I've given in!

That being said I do like Jack's little apple tree next to the bench, the only tree in the garden, it's got a few years to go before I can hang a swing off it! I also like my lanterns dotted about the place. Actually I quite like the whole garden because most of the time it's filled with children's laughter and mess, the grass is dead in quite a few places where various toys have sat for weeks, and it's lived in and loved by both my children, what more could I want really?

Finally, at last vindication that I alone am saving the planet. Now I have an excuse for sneaking out of the house on a Sunday morning, unwashed and at an unearthly hour, sporting my eco bags. I'M BEING GREEN, Country homes say so - Hurrah!

Pride comes before a fall!...............

Hello all, hope everyone is well and the rain here in the UK isn't getting too depressing. Wednesday it poured all day and was horribly reminiscent of last year when we suffered terrible floods over here.

Anyway, onto more fun and mildly amusing news. Yesterday was our summer sale, held here as I mentioned in my last post. Wednesday I frantically tidied away toys, socks, cuddly toys and all the other bits of crap that normally litter our house in order to be ready to set up all the stock on Thursday. The day was slightly manic because we had Kit's sports day and Jack's friend to tea, but other than that was going pretty well. Until, that is, I went along to sports day and with last weeks 2nd placing in the mother's race still glorious in my mind (there were only 5 running mind you!!) I lined myself up with about 20 other parents and sprinted off....................only to stop after three steps having either pulled or torn a muscle in my calf and in agony. Nobody really noticed me trying to hop off the race track, other than to advise me to move along because I was in danger of being mowed down by the returning sprinters!

Friends who were watching the race realised that I wasn't joking as I hobbled back to the classroom looking more Thora Hird than Zola Budd, wondering how on earth I was going to get home on my bike. Having never injured myself in sporting activity before, as I avoid exercise at all costs, I had no idea what had happened. Thank goodness for my lovely friends who drove me home, rubbed tiger balm into my calf, cleaned the kitchen floor for me, made my lunch and took Kitty off my hands for the afternoon. One of them who's about 6 months pregnant wheeled my bike home with her pushchair strapped to it - I hasten to add I didn't ask her to do so, she just turned up. When things like this happen you're just so glad to have good friends like that and I'm really grateful to them.

Anyhow the sale went on, I sported a delightful blue support bandage and dragged my gammy leg behind me like an extra from Michael Jackson's "Thriller". And what a success it was, the Pimms went down a storm, the rain held off and we had a great night. So great that I felt justified in treating myself to a few goodies from Andrea and Liz.................................

................the most gorgeous Greengate quilt which I have been after for ages. Andrea has a couple more of these reduced from £150 to £100 so if you fancy one give a me a nod.

Liz makes the most glorious handmade brooches and so far I must have bought at least eight of them, I just can't get enough, they're pinned to everything. Sorry about the odd view, blogger has decided to turn some of my photos around and I can't work out how to put them the right way up. I made a few of these little fabric coasters which went down well. I have a few left so if you'd like a set (4) they're £5, drop me a line if so.

Andrea has taken Kit off for the for day so I'm off to put my leg up, eat the leftover meringues and read my latest Country Living. It's hard being injured y'know!

Have a lovely weekend!

Confessions of a bag lady.................

Hello,my name is Julia and I'm addicted to shopping bags...................

Seriously, I can't resist. I've got the whole lot, jute ones, fabric ones, ones made from recycled bottles, you name it I've bought it. I pretend it's because I'm an eco warrior but really it's because they're irresistible. I've never been bothered by handbags, I'm the sort of person who's far too disorganised to have more than one bag on the go at once and I also feel a bit sorry for the one that's been replaced by the new bag on the block. Labels don't concern me and I couldn't justify the cost of a designer bag.

These are the current favourites, both a couple of quid and so much more attractive than plastic bags don't you think?

But the overall winner has to be my good old string bag. Not the prettiest but it fits into any bag and you can squeeze loads into it. It's also worth taking out just to embarrass my gorgeous teenage niece who looks like she wants the ground to open up and swallow her whenever I take it out in the shops!

Did I mention they're also great for car booting, believe me you won't believe the goodies I've crammed into them. This is one of the latest acquisitions, 50p from a lovely man (didn't fit in the bag though!) A coat of paint and a scrap of oilcloth and another addition to the VH household is born.

A couple more things before I go. I've been tagged with the view from my kitchen window by Emma but it is absolutely pouring down here and has been for days, so I haven't forgotten and will participate as soon as the sun comes out, if it ever does!

Lastly I thought I'd mention that Andrea and I are having a little summer sale here this Thursday evening. We've also invited another lovely lady who makes the most gorgeous felt brooches. Really it's just an excuse to get together, eat strawberry shortcake and drink Pimms but any of you who are nearby and would like to pop in, drop me a line.

Better go, I should be cleaning and sewing. Bye all!