Oh what a beautiful morning ....... oh what a beautiful day

Fingers crossed that Spring has sprung ..... what a glorious day, most of it spent outside with the central heating turned off and the doors wide open.

Loads of this done

the last of my daughter's belongings retrieved from the rental house ... most of which were the children's outide toys so they have been charging around the patio having re-discovered their bikes,  scooters and footballs.

A quick visit to the car boot this morning which was packed with sellers and a few bargains to be had by Ellie and me (yes I indulged with the words of my daughter ringing in my ears .... not more crap mum)

Ellie got a brand new with tags Tatty Puppy to add to her collection and yet another Jacqueline Wilson book.  Both items had shop price tags of £12.99 and we paid just £5 for both ..... as we walked around I was explaining to her how much we had saved and we did a little mental arithmetic to work it all out.

I found a sweet little Lloyd Loom type child's chair .... I have just the fabric for a new seat cushion and hopefully this will accompany me to the Northampton Vintage & Handmade Fair in 2 weeks

and then I found a box of Hornsea Fauna figures .... the lady was selling an old collection which were filthy dirty and had been living in her garage for years.  I debated about buying a few and then thought to hell with it and made an offer for the whole box.  There are thirty in all with only six that have slight damage. 

I am such a saddo and love gently washing things like this ..... here they all are waiting to be sorted into keeps and ones to sell.

Now I am gearing myself up to a busy weekend next week ... my first born is 30 on Sunday and I have no idea how that happened .... how can I possibly be the mother of a 30 year old when in my head sometimes I am still 20 myself (although the old bones would say differently).  He travels down from Glasgow on Friday and we are planning a day out in London and a family meal out on Sunday

This is one of my favourite photos of my two boys ..... my sister was getting married at the time and the eldest seemed to have a penchant for being a bridesmaid ..... he even went to the nursery picnic in the park dressed like it.  No adverse effects from this forray into cross dressing which does make me wonder what today's parents are thinking of by encouraging their offspring to switch gender.  He'll kill me for getting this one out and then stamp on me completely when he sees the one I have found for his birthday card ....... I knew they would come in handy one day ;-)

Hope you have all had a glorious weekend too x

A quick visit about a quilt swap ....



Dear Lacey over at Lace Hearts is organising a lovely quilt swap ..... it is quite a simple one with plenty of time to get organised so please follow the link and popover to Lacey's to read more and sign up if you can.

A lovely way to ease out of winter into spring !!

Spoilsports .....

Phew ..... can't say I am sorry to see the end of half term week and I will be so glad to get back to 'normal' (whatever that is) next week.

We started the week with this

 which led to some really reluctant ladies venturing out

By Thursday it had all disappeared as quickly as it arrived .... I love the first day of snow but once the deadly ice and dirty slush appear I've had enough.

I have had a quieter than usual half term with minded children but have had the additions of my daughter and her family moving in with us.  The musical rooms game has come to a conclusion and we are all settled in our new sleeping quarters.  The children have what had become my sewing room, daughter and partner have our room so they are next door to the children and we have moved downstairs.  Method in my madness there too as I won't be the first port of call when they wake up on a morning!

Absolutely no crafting done whatsoever for a fortnight but to be honest I don't have the energy at the moment and I am trying to get my head around where I have put everything in the move around.

Loads of de-cluttering done with bags going to the charity shop, lots of freecyclers collecting more bags and almost £700 raised in Fleabay sales.  Which leads me onto the spoilspsorts title.  This morning we went over to Hitchin for some shopping and my rotten spoilsport daughters wouldn't let me go into the charity shops!  How very dare they ;-)

I did however sneak this one in which was on a stall in the market square

We ordered a cake for the 30th birthday of the first born who is coming down from Scotland in two weeks time and I will share some photos of that then.

I am hoping to pop down to Hexton tomorrow to do a stock take and take some new stock and I really must start thinking about what I will take to the Northampton Vintage & Handmade Fair in 3 weeks time.

Hope those of you with littlies have got through half term with your sanity intact and I will be listening for that big sigh on Monday morning at 9 am when they are all safely in school again. 

Have a good weekend x

Versatile Bloggers

The lovely Carol over at Smile at The Flowers has kindly passed this award onto me and I am most flattered.

I discovered blogland quite accidently a little over 3 years ago and like most of you probably did, I lurked for weeks reading blogs and wondered whether to have a go myself.  I finally decided that even if I talked drivel and nobody bothered reading it was a great way of recording my thoughts, feelings, make and daily life in a way that was far better than the pile of dusty diaries I found in a cupboard while doing my de-cluttering!

There are a few rules to follow having received the award so here goes :-

 

 

 

      1.    In the same post, add the Versatile Blogger Award

 

 

 

2.    In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog.

3.    In the same post, share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself.

4.    In the same post, include this set of rules.

5    Oooh and forward it to 15 other bloggers

6.   Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs.

Random...........

 

 

 

 

1. I can't swim ..... much as I would love to just the smell of  a swimming pool or sight of a large expanse of water gives me the shivers.  I blame this on the older sister of a childhood friend who tried to teach us to swim when I was about 7 years old .... she took us into the deep end and left us!
2. I have never had a bedroom all to myself.  My kids laugh when I say this but I honestly haven't ..... shared with siblings when at home with parents and with husband since then.
3.  My husband and I (said in queenly voice) started going out together on 10 December 1973 while in our last year at High School, married on 1 November 1979 and here we still are in 2012 ..... we've had our ups and downs but hey ho that's life!
4. I eat almost anything as my expanding waistline will testify but I absolutely hate kebabs .... you know the ones usually found chucked up on town centre pavements on a Sunday morning .... yuk !!
5. In a past life I worked for Thomas Cook in the days before computerisation .... they were just introducing Prestel as a source of travel information and I was known as the Prestel Queen.
6. I have something in common with Lily Allen, Mark Wahlberg and Anne Boleyn ..... go on google it, you know you want to ;-)
7.  I have totally surprised myself ..... didn't think I would get to seven !

I follow many lovely blogs but can only nominate just 15 of them for the Versatile Blogger award. I hope you will visit them all, you'll enjoy the experience:-

Cheap2Chic

Clover Cottage

Faith, Hope & Charity Shopping

Highland Monkeys

 Homebird

Hortensia

Lace Hearts

Life on the East Coast

Little Gem's Diary

Menopausal Musings

Mum's Simply Living Blog

My Life in Flip Flops

 Penny Blossoms

Postcards from the PP

Third Age Musings

 

I know some blogs are "award free" so I have tried to check each one and hope I've not included any, apologies if I have and if you are too busy to fulfill the criteria, or don't wish to accept, I really won't mind xx