Whoa there January ..... where have you gone???

I think I must have blinked and missed it!    January is almost over and I notice I missed my 3rd blogiversary and this is my 301st post.  Must admit that it has been tricky because my DD2 has commandeered the lappy to do her college work on and I have had to put up with my eldest daughter's IPad which I think I hate with a vengeance, so uploading photos etc has been a nightmare.

Life at Lala's is about to turn upside down, albeit temporarily, as my DD2 and her family move back in with us for a while.  They have been renting privately for a couple of years now and with trying to juggle working, college studies and two young children they have absolutely no cash left to save at the end of each month.  On top of that the boiler in the property has been playing up since before Christmas leaving them with no heating or hot water and the landlord just seems to be ignoring the problem .... most unsatisfactory and the littlies are suffering because of it with coughs and snotty noses that don't seem to clear. They will be able to save enough for a deposit on some new shared ownership houses close to us hopefully.

So phase one of clear the clutter has begun.  Several bags of excess crafty bits and pieces have been freecycled and good old Fleabay has been used again today.  Still got loads more but hey ho tomorrow is another day!   I still have stock for the Vintage & Handmade fairs ..... my next one is booked for 10th March in Northampton and a new venue for 1st April in Buckingham.

Country Matters at Hexton is going from strength to strength and another bag of handmade stock will be making its way down there at the end of this week.

I can't look too far ahead at the moment because it looks like my husband will be having another spell in hospital .... he has had problems with his replacement knee and is being investigated for a bone infection .... x-rays, blood tests and radio-isotope scans have been done and we wait for his next consultant appointment on 23 February to find out how they are going to proceed.

To make me really feel my age my eldest reaches another milestone birthday in 5 weeks time .... how did I get to be the mother of a 30 year old????  Seems like I was only 30 myself a few years ago ;-)

It's a cat's life ......

I've always maintained that I'm coming back in the next life as a tom cat ..... what a life he does lead eating and sleeping then more eating and sleeping ....

Oliver conked out in the heat this afternoon

I've been a bit of a slack blogger again and although I have been reading everyone's posts and leaving the odd comment here and there I just haven't found the motivation to post myself.  Is it just me or do you find that real life gets in the way sometimes and there just aren't enough hours in the day?

We've been trying to spruce up the hall, stairs and landing a bit with a coat of paint but that has to be restricted to the weekends when there are no little people here ... the emulsion is all done and I'm trying to keep up with the glossing but with 6 doors and a wooden staircase it's a long job.  The smell of the paint this weekend mixed with the heat was unbearable.  I found some Jack Vettriano prints in the charity shop some time back but the frames were ugly so they have been given a simple spray of black paint and now they have a new home on the stair well.

Crafting has been continuing and I've been finishing some orders received through my Folksy shop and via the recent V & H fairs that I have been part of .... here are some finished pieces

A blue themed single patchwork quilt in a mix of vintage Laura Ashley fabrics matched with some contemporary cottons from Patch Fabric & Haberdashery

alphabet letter cushion for a Christening gift

 hand stitched hexagon patchwork quilt to take to the next Vintage & Handmade Fair in Olney

to decorate a new born's bedroom

some peg bags for a special lady who has embarked on a new venture here

The first batch of Gooseberry Jam has been made ..... my gooseberry bushes were transferred from my dad's allotment to the bottom of my garden some 15 years ago when he had to give it up following a stroke.  They still bear some lovely fruit every year (apart from the time my OH was let loose with some secateurs that is)

A smidgeon of bargain hunting has been going on but my car booting forays have been cut short by babysitting duties and the lousy weather we were experiencing up till yesterday.  I did manage to find these ....

The cutest miniature sewing machine ...... it has been handmade and is actually musical and when wound it plays a tune, the little treddle goes up and down and the little cotton reel turns ...... how could I resist???  It only stands around 6 inches high and the detail is just perfect.

A vintage hexagon sewing box containing vintage hexagons that someone had started to work on .... maybe I'll get around to finishing them.

Back to the fairs ..... on 9th July at a new venue in Olney, Ann & Trevor are organising another of their fantastic vintage & handmade fairs.  If you are in the area please do pop along ... there will be loads of vintage goodies on sale, some lovely sellers (most of whom as lovely bloggers too) and naturally oodles of tea and homemade cakes.  Olney itelf is a lovely market town with lots of history, shopping & antiques.

Life's Ups & Downs

Have you ever wanted to wave a magic wand to make someone's pain go away??

That's just how I felt last night when I had a visit from a young friend of DS1 whose 20 month old daughter has just had major surgery to remove a tumour from her little tummy.  Brave B has lost a kidney and a small portion of bowel and now has to undergo weeks of intensive chemotherapy but she is one amazing little girl.  As I sat with her dad last night listening to the events of the past few weeks and looking at photos of her pre and post op I was overwhelmed and found it very difficult to sleep last night.  She had 6 pints of fluid drained and a 6lb tumour was removed .... that's the average weight of a new born baby and just doesn't bear thinking about ..... the chemo will also result in her not being able to have children of her own but there she was a week after the op smiling and riding around the hospital playroom in a Little Tikes cosy coupe car.  She is a little fighter and an inspiration and her dad is hoping to start fundraising soon for Cancer Research and the marvellous ward that has looked after her at Addenbrooks and I'll report more on that at a later date.

On to another little lady now who had a lovely birthday yesterday with lots of pressies, visitors and a tea party at nanny's house

This is the card I got for her at the Berkhamsted craft fair last month .... the lady who makes them was sitting knitting these tiny little people and they are so cute ... she doesn't have a website but I do have her e-mail address if anyone is interested.

The noise in the house was too much for  Binks who retired to the garden for some recreation and a nap!

Juggling

Pause for thought on this lovely Sunny Sunday

I have noticed that some of the younger members of the blogging community, those with a young family mainly, seem to be having a tough time of it lately. Some words of advice from someone who has been there and got the t-shirt .... stop trying to juggle so many balls at the same time because eventually you will drop one. I went through the same thing when my brood were younger, part time working to put food on the table, university to try and catch up on what I thought I had missed out on (turned out not to be true), looking after the children, household chores, helping at school, running the PSA, on the governing body at school etc etc

One day somebody said to me you are always running around ... and I was .... no time to stop to think .... I then decided to take a step back and re-assess all that was going on in my life and came to the conclusion that I had to lose some of the balls before I dropped them. So I gave up the uni, governorship and scaled back on my involvement with the PSA ... there then seemed more hours in a day and life was not so much of a whirl. If I felt like sitting down and doing nothing I did.

Lecture over ladies, I hope you will take time yourselves for a re-assessment of your lives ... have a great Bank Holiday weekend.

TGIF

We come to the end of yet another week ,which has flown by, as I write the old man is at the hospital (third time in a week) - this time for his gammy knee. Too much football in his younger days and manual work have taken their toll and his left knee is basically knackered. He had keyhole surgery last November to clean it out and the doctor wants to start a course of injections to replace the missing cartilege - he won't replace the knee yet as he says he is still too young at 51. On top of that a routine hearing test last year followed by an MRI scan has revealed what they think is a cyst close to his brain and he has to have a CAT scan next week to determine just how big and where it is situated. This is worrying me the most - he hates hospitals. Also his brother died at age 59 of a heart attack and his sister aged 54 died two years ago with leukaemia so this is playing on his mind. We are polar opposites - I try to keep positive and am a cup half full type of person whereas he has negative tendencies to say the least at always looks at the bad side - how the hell we have been together since school sometimes surprises me (30th wedding anniversary in November this year) but we have and have raised four great children and are now blessed with two grandchildren and another on the way in July.

To add insult to injury he is employed by General Motors and we all know what trouble they are in at the moment and there are so many rumours flying around about whether they will close the UK plants. But hey ho life goes on and we get these things chucked at us now and again. Not the end of the world but a possible change. Sorry to be a bit of a doom monger but I feel better now it is off my chest. More positive blogs promised for the weekend. XXXX