Tag: general chit chat

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dear diary :: rain, rain, go away

Honesty

As a few people are joining in with ‘white month’ theme – here is my contribution of the beautiful white honesty in our garden…actually this was last years as it is biennial but I so love the picture I thought it deserved another airing.

Of course it was always going to rain in buckets yesterday as I had a hair appointment booked for the afternoon – I looked like a drowned rat when I got to the hairdressers and then again after I left and reached the car park, so much for the new hairdo – but at least my hair is cut into something resembling a style now – not much different to normal, a little shorter but far easier to manage. I would take a picture but I am still drying out!

Yesterday morning elder daughter arrived again with little Freddie – it was beginning to feel a little like ground hog day that I keep on reliving. DH stayed home and amused little Freddie whilst we went down to see the florist and order a few stems of the hypericum berries, eucalyptus, thistle and a deep purple lisianthus. We will eek these out with a cheaper bunch of cream flowers; roses maybe or chrysanthemums and alstroemeria from the supermarket. The lady who runs the shop is always so helpful especially when you are working to a budget. I can collect them on the Friday before the christening to make up the posies for the Sunday so the flowers will have nicely opened by then.

Once back at home I did a little mise en place – chopping veg, making the breadcrumbs and grinding the nuts for the nutloaf so that DH could cook and assemble it as per instructions whilst I was out at the hairdressers – it is now in the freezer. That was excellent team work – he also made some more leek and potato soup with the left over veg and halloumi bake for tea whilst I managed to sew up the raglan part of the jumper. He then spent the rest of the evening recovering.

Not a lot happened in the pantry yesterday. DH had to have a trip to the other side of town for low tack masking tape – not easy stuff to find – some of it is rubbish and still sticks like glue and fetches the fresh paint off when you remove it so it was worth going further afield to get the better one.

Today we are aiming to go to Sheffield, weather and flooding allowing – they have had it bad again and I heard some people got stuck in the Meadowhall shopping mall. I need to sort out Sweetie’s birthday present and card – I never intended to leave it to the last minute but it has ended up with Friday being the only free day this week. I have to try and give equal amount of time to my two daughters so that both the events they are planning get sorted; so today I won’t be seeing little Freddie and will be turning my attentions to little Sweetie and her birthday on Sunday. I still need to squeeze in some time to mix the buttercream for the cake ready to take with me.

Phew a granny’s life is never done!!

My mum had a better day yesterday thank you – woke up fine then went off colour again mid morning but OK when I rang in the evening – but still no bloods taken – maybe today. My sister is going in daily and cooking a meal for her – in return we are collecting her daughter (my neice) from Sheffield uni on Saturday and taking her with us up to North Yorkshire to save my sister the journey. It will mean an extra hour or so onto our journey but it is the least we can do to help out.

If the rain continues we may have to hire a canoe!

This may be my last post for a few days while we are away – it gets tricky to do very much when we are staying at my daughter’s house. So have a lovely weekend everyone and I’ll update you when we are back if I don’t get to pop in before that. Stay warm x

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dear diary :: a sunny day

Today I woke up to the sunshine streaming in through the window – such a stark contrast to yesterday. I had breakfast and drove up to my daughter’s house once again to look after little Freddie. He is just a delight and at that age when he is trying to make sense of the world and is fascinated by the smallest thing that catches his eye.

After lunch we had a walk in the park today stopping for a cup of tea and a piece of parkin at the local cafe just to refresh myself before the walk back again – it takes some stamina up and down the hills here – I had a good workout!

Once Freddie was back to his house I returned home about 5.30pm and decided on baked potatoes and salad tonight as it seemed a bit late to be attempting a new recipe. Not so much cooking is taking place here at the moment – I had intended to do a lot more – hopefully this is just a blip.

Yesterday, I said I would let you know what I borrowed from the library.

I am still reading a few I had taken out previously but added these to the pile. I started on the Christmas Reader last night – it is a compliation by Godfrey Smith of poems and excerpts of stories with a Christmas theme, the first one being the carol singing evening written about by Laurie Lee in Cider with Rosie. An English Christmas by John Julius Norwich is a similar book – in fact some of the stories and poems used are the same. It may seem a bit early to be reading such a book but I know I will not have time as we get nearer to Christmas and no doubt they will not be available to borrow soon – all the Christmas craft books are already out on loan.

Enough by John Naish is just what it says on the tin and talks not just about enough stuff but enough of many things like information, food, work and happiness. I feel we are overloaded in today’s world with all the above and making decisions is becomming increasingly difficult because of the numerous choices available to us. I am interested to know what he has to say on each of the topics.

The White Robin by Miss Read is my cosy up, feel good book – transporting me into an idylic country village where life is predicatable and slower and there is a sense of community.

Hell Week by Erik Bertrand Larssen is a book I have read before and is for anyone looking to change aspects of their lives. It is not however for the faint hearted as the changes are all done very quickly in one week – hence the title as he almost guarantees doing it this way will be hell, but worthwhile. I may not want to apply his extreme measures, one of which is rising at 5am everyday, but some of the ideas are good and adaptable. There is a planning and preparation stage to undertake before throwing yourself into ‘hell week’. With a tight plan of action you propel yourself from where you are now to where you would like to be in a matter of days. He makes it sound hard and easy at the same time – commitment it seems is the key to success. I am re- reading with the intention of getting to grips with this retirement of mine before I end up just sailing along with the wind completely off the course I was hoping to be on!

I also found these two craft books – I have made a couple of Artist’s books in the past – mainly the concertina style but would like to do more. The one called Bound by Rachel Hazell is such a lovely book in itself.

Last weekend I sat and entered receipts and balanced statements in readiness of looking at my finances for September. I know we had a very cheap two weeks at the caravan but on arriving home we did a major shop and bought a few things so have probably exceeded the pension income for the month once again. I will do a tally at the weekend.

Tomorrow is our lunch date with some old friends, so an early start to the day. I decided on the bulbs as a gift as I already have these, I bought them for myself whilst in Sainsbury’s on Monday – mixed tulips – and they will make a nice little gift.

So that was my day – I hope you enjoyed yours – I am just going to have a lovely pedicure and settle down to watch the Apprentice before bed.

Night night x

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dear diary :: colds, babies and rain

Quite a combination for a dismal Tuesday and the first day of the new month. Elder daughter was still not well today – struck with the cold that is doing the rounds. She was very hot and flushed when I arrived to help with little Freddie and just wanted to go back to bed to nurse her sore throat. I can still remember quite vividly how hard it is to look after a young baby when you are feeling under the weather and all you want to do is crawl away and sleep.

Freddie of course was delightful, we played all morning – he can sit up now without wobbling but hasn’t yet mastered crawling – which is just as well as at least i am not having to run after him. He ate most of the pureed sweet potato for lunch – though a lot of it ended up on either me or the floor. He then had a little nap (me too) and afterwards we set off in the drizzle for a walk to the Co-op and back to get some fresh air. Luckily, I didn’t have to get him in or out of the pram- they all seem so complicated these days I am frightened of pressing the wrong catches and buttons and propelling him out into space.

He was still all snug and warm when we got back home but I was quite wet through.

I think I might just be needed again tomorrow – when you are not well it can be difficult to sleep at night and then mornings can be pretty awful – she does look a bit worn out and perhaps just needs a little ‘me’ time and another duvet day. DH will stay home and get on with the pantry. He did mutter something about needing to go back to Ikea for the under shelf strip lights that they do – it is not his favourite place but we will get a free drink if we go during the week – not that there will be much of the week left as we are going up to Settle on Thursday to see some old friends. We have been promising to go all year and of course the minute I make a firm arrangement illness strikes. I am hoping my daughter will be well enough on Thursday to cope without me.

My friend suffers from multiple allergies including the pollen from flowers and eats a very strict diet as many foods upset her. I want to take a little gift as she is providing lunch for us but can’t take a bunch of flowers or chocolates so I am wondering what I might get for her. I was thinking on the lines of a little dish perhaps, there are some nice ones around at the moment and there would be nothing to spark off an allergy with pottery; or maybe some bulbs for the garden as they have just moved into their new house (outdoor flowers are OK).

When I got back home at teatime I had to have a quick tidy round the house – not that it improved it very much – everywhere is such a mess with the contents of what was the downstairs cloakroom littering up the dining and living rooms. Then upstairs we have carpets pulled back and washing drying on the airer in the bathroom. Going up to my daughter’s house is a bit of a relief.

Have you had more rain? We have acquirred a bit of a water feature under our front window where the pebbles are and all the roads around here are becoming like rivers there has been so much rain, I was having to naviagte the car through the floods lying at the sides of the road by virtually driving down the middle. This rain must stop soon our garden is becoming quite waterlogged and I need to get the furniture dried and put away.

I didn’t mention my new library books that I borrowed yesterday – but maybe I will save that for tomorrow ….and yes I have got another Miss Read book – ‘The White Robin’ – I might even read a bit tonight though I rather think I will be asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow – for anyone with sleeping problems I can recommend looking after a baby for the day – I am quite worn out.

Night night x

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dear diary :: rainy days and Sundays

Yes, I know it is really rainy days and Mondays in the lyrics of the song but today suits the song very well. What else do you do on such a wet weekend but grab your camera and go outside and take photos. Such an abundance of raindrops, dripping from every leaf and berry and glistening like tiny jewels.

Inside, is a different story – dry and cosy but oh so dismal. I spent an hour or so switching over beach pebbles and shells for a few discreet pieces of autumn decor. One or two pine cones, a few little dried pumpkins, my favourite seasonal cushions and pictures and before I finished I replenished all the tea lights and candles in the holders. I have some lovely wooden candle holders which add a nice warmth to the room this time of year.

Whilst taking these pictures I smile to myself …. just out of shot is absolute chaos in our house – we may be doing the pantry conversion from the smallest room in the house, the downstairs cloakroom, but every room in the house is now upset. To get more lighting and sockets fitted DH had to pull back the carpet in the bedroom above….I could have guessed…have been here before – so all the furniture had to be taken out and temporarily put where we can.

Despite all the mess – I made more, and have been crafting over the weekend – remember this knitting….

With the help of this book I found called Simple Knitting by Erika Knight I finally manage to finish the knitting part of this little hooded jumper and have only to sew the seams together now. Whether it will fit little Sweetie is another matter – I rather think it might be passed straight on to little Freddie – do you think the colours too girly? I can’t decide.

The four teatowels below came in a pack from Sainsbury’s in the sale. They are a good weight of cotton with a slight linen slub or waffle and my idea is to turn them into place mats. Two tea towels will cut down to make 2 place mats. So the striped grey will be backed with the plain grey and the dashed white backed with the plain white. We only need two mats most of the time being on our own now, so they will do us fine. I will need to buy some heavier vilene interfacing to sandwich between the two layers so they keep a good shape – but it is shopping day tomorrow so I can get some in town. Next time you see these I hope they will be made and on my table.

I have also been having a bit of a play around with ideas for Christmas presents and cards. So out came the sketch pad and pencil – had to dust it off a bit! In April I bought 5 of these calendars on stands for around £2 each, from Sainsbury’s clearance sale, with the intention of designing and printing my own calendar pages for 2020 and switching them over.

The original calendars had some quite nice little line drawings so I had thought about doing a simple lino cut print reflecting each of the months but time might be short now and twelve is a lot of designs to work on and print.

Calendar

– so I decided to look through my sketch book for drawings that could be adapted.

This is still an idea in the making and I will have to do a few mock ups first to see what might work. I am no artist but some of the sketches will pass….I think. Whilst I had the sketch book handy I scanned in a few pages of drawings – these were mostly done in the days when we had more time and well before the grandchildren arrived on the scene!!

I keep intending to try to get in the habit of doing a sketch each day so that I might improve, but am not sure how I would fit it in.

And what better to occupy my time on a cold and miserable day than trying out a new recipe. I have been wanting to try this recipe for a long time – I think it is from Good Housekeeping magazine. I didn’t quite have all the right ingredients so had to improvise.

I just happened to have chestnut and ordinary mushrooms but no dried ones and I used a vegetable stock cube rather than the yeast extract, but it still tasted fine – in fact it was really delicious – but be warned I made two strudels from the mixture – the second one was much smaller but there is ample filling.

Mine doesn’t look quite as good as their picture – the cooking time seemed rather long and the crumpled filo pastry that you lay on top caught a bit whilst in the oven…. and the sesame seeds didn’t seem to want to stay on top. I might do this bit slightly differently next time or even use a different pastry, puff pastry perhaps.

I will add the recipe to the list in a day or two. For now I will have to close – it is my brother’s birthday today and I need to go and surprise him with a card – then I have a big mess to clean up.

Hope you all had a brilliant weekend despite the rain. x