Posy

Love Gifts

There are many ways to win my heart; goodness knows I have more than enough obsessions - ahem..or delights of the heart as I would rather call them..mmm.  But today I received 2 gifts which were welcomed with equal pleasure.

 

The first gift was a gift of kindling just placed at our back door with no note. It made me smile as many, many years ago I used to find flowers/cards and perfume left on our doorstep by various teenage admirers. Now I'm a middle-age, married woman, it's kindling by an anonymous 'un-admirer!' Ha! But I felt really touched by the thoughtful gesture, especially as we are in need of some good kindling and whoever left it must know my passion for our fire.

My second love gift was from my gorgeous husband - Coldplay's new EP.

 

Gosh, what a day, kindling and Chris. I've only played Prospekts March/Poppyfields and I just love that song..sigh.

Too much sweetness for one day..

Shop Update

 

That was an awfully long "..tomorrow or Sunday" wasn't it?! Goodness, what must you be thinking of me. After my rash promise last Friday to update my shop in the next couple of days, we had a drastic change of plan and decided to drive to Wales for the day to see Tom at his University. Drastic may sound dramatic and to those of you who know me, know that I have a predisposition to being a tad OTT and a bit excitable. But this time I felt fully justified in letting my voice be heard and heard it was!

Poor Tom has been having money problems. Students in the UK are given a loan to cover their fees and a tiny amount in which to live on. Trying to help Tom budget and manage his finances has proved difficult especially when you are 300 miles away and his bank have been making mistakes and you can only speak to someone who is in a call centre not in Tom's local branch; and then they won't speak to you because he is over 18 and it's his account etc. The final straw came when they charged him even more fines for having no money (for no reason) so we decided we would have to go up and sort it out.  Well, I could have run up that motorway I felt so cross on his behalf. So we went to see him, the first time since we left him there in September.  I got more and more excited as we got closer and jumped out of the car before Anth had really stopped, desperate to have my boy in my arms again. It had been so long. Anyway, we sorted him out the best we could but he has to find a job or he will really be struggling. He some some life lessons to learn and it breaks my heart but it will make him the lovely man I know he will be.

Then I had Alice poorly so with one thing and another no shop update - that is till now. It is here  or in my sidebar, with a few goodies, (one of them sort of being in the photograph), so do pop in if you fancy.  Meanwhile I need to get some more logs and try to catch up with the housework. It never ends does it?

Back down to earth

Well that didn't last long. That jubilant feeling of a tidy house turned rather doleful yesterday when I was awoken to Alice and Anth screaming for me as water poured through the kitchen ceiling lights. Yes, Alice was standing in our kitchen when water poured, through the lights,down onto her sweet blonde head. The rejoicing quickly turned to panic as I pulled off the wooden bath panels splintering wood as bits flew past my ears, fortunately found the leak and called the plumber.

 

 So I now have to try and put the tongue and groove back this weekend. But there is something good in all this.  I, who would give anything for what I call a 'bath on legs' (i.e a vintage cast iron would be perfect but I would settle for a lighter and more affordable plastic if I had to) am enjoying gazing through the broken panelling, whilst sitting on the loo, because our bath has a visible leg! And it looks, if you squint a bit, like we have a bath-on-legs! My dream come true. Going to the lavatory is taking me a little more time over the last 24 hours because I'm sitting there and being transported to that wonderful bathroom in my mind with a free-standing bath, a fireplace and wooden cupboards on the wall lined with rosy wallpaper and even a chair.  We have been hoping for years to redo our bathroom as it is showerless and has the much hated green avocado bathsuite which is almost a crime in this country! The lack of shower is hard with 3 teenagers; especially teenagers that want to wash their hair everyday but can you put an electric shower over a freestanding bath-on-legs? I'm wondering if our bathroom, which is only the width of a bath and definately should be in the Guniness Book of Records for being the smallest in the world, would be too small for a bath-on-legs? Anyway, all this talk is material as will have to live with the avocado for a while longer; visible leg or no visible leg.

Thank you for all your lovely comments recently, they're much appreciated. In answer to your questions, my new crystal fairy lights came from Gazebo in Totnes (my favourite shop) but I did find some similar in Sainburys (but not quite as sparkly) for £12. 

Tomorrow or Sunday, I will be putting some new things into my shop; things I've made and some that will be personalized for you to order. I really haven't had much time in the last few months to do all the crafting that I had wanted to do for my little online shop. But I have a few bits and that is better than nothing; and it might encourage me to be a little more bolder at putting my stuff out there. But right, now I'm off the loo to dream some more... 

Cats, Fires, Lights and L & P

You want another picture of our cats and fireplace, Kirsty? How could I resist! This was where Alfie was all day - with me in front of the fire.

 

                     

And some of you may notice my early birthday present - new, sparkly lights.

 

Thank you for all your sweet comments about our home. And Traci - it's a tiny house probably only 8 or 9 metres square which is why untidy me struggles with my stuff. So much stuff.

I also got an early present from Susannah and Dylan (our NZ family) who came to stay.

 

L & P is a wonderful fizzy drink from NZ which I adored when Anth and I lived there in the late 80's. I don't drink alcohol so am partial to a fizzy or 2. We had a Devonshire Cream Tea in front of our fire as the weather was so bad; they had the tea, scones, jam and clotted cream - and I had the L & P!

Sorted!

 

My friends, I am in possession of a tidy house. Yes I know, to my family and friends that will come as some surprise.  After weeks - no months of dodging piles of pictures that are waiting to be hung; tablecloths waiting to join another pile; umpteen bags over every doorknob; fabrics; newspapers; paint pots and brushes; enormous piles of wool, and books (mainly vintage children's nature guides which are totally useless for my teenage family so I'm told. Shame.) Books, that smell old and horrid and make them feel sick.

But with our niece and her boyfriend from NZ coming for the weekend I spent all of Friday making the place acceptable at long last.

Oh the joy. I keep wandering from room to room feeling my breathing slowing down and just soaking up all the tidiness. So what do you do when your house is actually tidy for once? You take photographs of it so shortly, when it all seems to be a distant memory, you can gaze longingly at what it could be if you were that organised, domestic goddess you so want to be.

 

 

 

So that is the downstairs anyway. Upstairs? Well, with 2 teenage girls in the house I can't at this very moment vouch that their rooms will be tidy but tomorrow I may pluck up the courage and check. But for now, just let me have this one afternoon of domestic bliss.

A Few Magazines

 

Yes alas, only a few. I was tad disappointed as I thought I would have a huge tower like last year.  I managed to peep inside some and decided that I wouldn't buy them this year.  I hate that most magazines these days are wrapped in plastic that won't easily, and discreetly be opened for a quick perusal. I have often dithered - trying to decided whether I should risk buying a magazine I haven't been able to see inside.  They don't come cheap either so you don't want to waste your money on a magazine that isn't your cup of tea. Anyway, now the only problem is that I don't want to read them, I just keep savouring the anticipation!

I didn't get around to sanding the kitchen work tops yesterday and am getting fed up with this view..

 

..the kitchen is littered with brushes, white spirit and tins of paint and varnish. There were a few hours yesterday when I wondered if the first layer of varnish was ever going to dry ..24 hours it took and it said 16 on the tin. I really thought I had made a terrible mistake so was enormously relieved when I checked this morning and it wasn't sticky.  It's so hard to have half the kitchen out of action when it only measures 6 feet square!

Oh and I have managed to get my hands on the Vogue I mentioned in my last post. Thank you to all of you who tried to help. I'm now off to watch the news about the US elections.  It's all so exciting and I'm trying to persuade Anth to set up our old portable TV in our bedroom so I can watch through the night. Yeah, I know what the family will say about that...I'm just sad!

Number 2

 

If you look closely at my bedside table you will see my 'new' one.  Yes, I have found another Mary statue and I'm thrilled with the new addition to our home. I bought her from Niki of Nostalgia the other week and knew I had to have her. Niki finds such great things.

 

 

I gaze at her when I should really be sleeping, but can you blame me.

Well the floor painting is finally finished though I have the upstairs bannister's to do after I finish sanding and varnishing our kitchen worktops. Phew!  We had our kitchen done approx 3 or 4 years ago with real beech worktops which I treated with Danish Oil every few weeks and religiously dried after use. I really love them but despite all my TLC over the years they have warped and, in certain places, got really black and yucky with water damage.  I'm so disappointed and cannot stand the unsightliness of it any longer so have decided to sand off what I can and varnish it so it will have better protection. I'll show you when I've finished and hopefully it will be an improvement - well anything will be really!

So it has really been a fortnight of DIY for me and not much else - but the floors are looking wonderful. There hasn't been much time for reading the papers but today I got a wonderful surprise when I peeped into the Sunday Times to see if it was worth buying...it was..I found an article about Cath which I made everyone read

 

and pointed out the part where Cath mentions that her partner Hugh, 'is very supportive, putting up with me as I disappear to car-boot sales instead of making Sunday lunch.' Mmm, Cath and I sound very similar - so similar we must be sisters and need to be reunited straight away!  The article was originally in the October UK Vogue and if anyone has it I would really love to see it as I have tried in vain to find it. I just love the smiley photo of her which probably will make its way to the fridge to join my shrine. I also found an article on India Knight's new bookThe Thrift Book - How to Live Well and Spend Less which I'm yet to read but it looks promising. So that is that for today - can you guess what I'll do tomorrow...it has something to do with Christmas and magazines! It surely is the greatest time of the year, isn't it!?