Peaceful but norty Sunday

Well I have survived our triple grands sleepover last night ..... just!   I gave the parentals strict instructions that my house was to be a child free zone from lunchtime and they duly obliged and collected said offspring.  Peace reigns .... bliss.

Still no crafting done today but some more de-cluttering ..... I am making a rule for myself that for every item I bring into the house from now on one other thing has to depart and so today I have freecycled a wooden swing crib that I used for my brood (it must be 30 years old as I bought it secondhand in 1981!) .... a lovely excited lady came to collect.  She is going to dress it ready for a new grandchild and she was over the moon .... it was a lovely feeling to know that someone else was going to treasure it as I have and what use was it to me stuck in the loft.  A single bed frame and knitting machine found new homes yesterday so I am learning to let go.  I am also waiting for my OH to notice that the pile of bricks that have lived on the front garden since the wall fell over some 5 years ago have disappeared ..... he's been out today and another lady who posted a wanted for bricks has been to collect them.  She is making a allotment area in a disused part of a friend's garden.

My washing machine decided to play silly devils on Friday so DD1 and I popped to the laundrette this afternoon and whilst our machines were turning we went to Asda for a few supplies for dinner.  Along the ethnic aisle we spotted this and just couldn't resist  .... a friend of my daughter's gets married this year and she's going to pop this in with her hen party delights.

I also spied these in the children's section but as they went up to a size 6 again I couldn't resist ..... CK eat your heart out and a fraction of the price.

So Mother Nature if you are thinking of chucking some more of the white stuff at us over the next couple of weeks I'm ready for you.

A quick visit

Just a brief post today .... this week has been manic in my house and I am so glad we got through it.  On top of all the usual madness we had the house move of my daughter and family to cope with then Ellie's little op on Thursday (which went very well however we are still waiting for her volume to go down!)  She has been diagnosed with a hearing problem ... apparently we can all start to hear noises at around 20 decibels but for her it reaches 40 in her left ear and 70 in her right.  Which goes a long way to explain why she is so loud and always has to have music and TV turned up so loud we all jump out of our seats.  Fingers crossed that the grommits do the job.

After minding children all week I am on a busman's holiday today and have all three grands staying over tonight .... I spent the morning getting my old bunk beds out of the loft for them but it was a good excuse for a pre-Spring clean and I have Freecycled several things today before I did my usual and stashed them away again.  De-cluttering is the watchword for the next couple of months .... I am a clutterholic and it's got to stop!  Well it's got to decrease at least .... I can't give it up completely .... can I ??

Not much time for crafting this week .... I've got a mountain of strips waiting to be turned into string blocks and another pile of fabric waiting to be stripped.  After todays tidy up in the small room where I've put the bunk beds the crafting corner is much more organised so I am looking forward to spending lots more time in there next week.

Sixty Minute Makeover Eat Your Heart Out and The Blogiversary Winner Is ......

Wow what a week it has been.  One of my daughters moves house on Wednesday and she was lucky enough to be given the key so that we could get in and do some decorating .... this time last week when I first saw the house it was like walking into a time-warp .... all 80s terracotta and brown everywhere making it look so dark, full of dust (it hasn't been lived in for around 8 years) and with filthy carpets in every room except the living room.

We rounded up family and friends and between us during the past week we have stripped walls, sanded, cleaned, painted and I finished the wallpaper hanging this morning in Ellie's bedroom.  Another friend has laid new carpets today and the children's bedrooms are all ready for them.  How on earth that TV programme claims to do a makeover in 60 minutes is beyond me!!! There is no way and if it was looked at closely it must look a right minging mess.

The house now looks totally different, although it is mostly magnolia and white paint it is clean and fresh and ready to become their home, hopefully for quite a few years to come.  Princess Ellie Cakes is sleeping over with us till the move so I asked her to do the for my 1st Blogiversary Giveaway. 

I have had a lovely time reading all of your comments and seeing the diverse tastes in music we all have or had at one time .... music opens up the old memory cells and I hope you will all agree it has been fun!

I am now pleased to announce that the winner is

Jak over at Winter Tells

Well done Jak and if you would like to e-mail me on debra.brown11@virginmedia.com with your name and address I will pack up your parcel and post it off this week.

Thanks to all of you for entering xx

Nearly didn't make it !!!!

Well of all weekends to have a mishap with the laptop.  Yesterday I foolishly left a part drunk cuppa close to it and puppy came bounding through and you can guess what happened.  I was having palpitations ..... how would I communicate with my virtual world of lovely friends on this my 1st Blogiversary??

Following some drying out I was relieved that it still booted up but the inbuilt mouse was refusing to play.  A quick trip to Argos this morning to purchase a wire free mouse has done the trick and I'm ready to roll again.

On this day exactly one year ago I sat down and contemplated what I should write and wondered whether anyone would want to share my little piece of the planet.  I know there are a few of us who started at the same time with the same thoughts and some of us have since managed to meet in the real world.

I have been listening to the radio a lot this week whilst sitting at my sewing machine putting together the strings for Loft Creations challenge and the station I chose was Gold .... it is amazing that music can stir so many memories stored at the back of our minds.  I was a teenager in the 1970s and my very first music purchase with my pocket money was in 1972 when I bought this

Bit risque I know and I trembled at the thought of what my dad would say.  It was the era of skinheads, reggae and ska and I loved it (wasn't a skinhead myself BTW!)  I used to play it on one of these

A Dansette record player

I still have the old Dansette and LP in the loft along with all my other albums and singles and it is the only thing I have left to play them on.  How we have progressed in 40 years (is it really that long ago????) .... now at the click of a button we can download just about everything.  The only places to buy music in those days was Boots and a little music shop which originally started selling instruments and then progressed to singles and albums.  Off we would trot with our pennies and then you could listen on huge headphones before you purchased.

On this my first blogiversary I am having this giveaway

A mix of handicraft items, some vintage and some new ..... a floral cross stitch that I made last year, some Cath Kidston Oilcloth already cut into bunting size flags, three pretty pink vintage dressing table cloths, one of my handmade heart hangers and a cute print by Faye Whittaker called My Pal ... a gorgeous study of a child and his dog.  I am going to pop them into a vintage look biscuit tin for the lovely winner and the draw shall be at this time next Sunday.

In return I would like to ask you to do a post about what your first album purchase was .... were you a teen of the 60s 70s 80s 90s ...... and will you admit to recording Top of the Pops off the radio at this time on a Sunday afternoon????  It would be lovely if you could place a link to my blog too.

Thank you all for such an enjoyable twelve months and may we all have many more xx

Mummy's Little Soldier

For those of us of a certain age this TV programme will bring back some memories .... it ran on LWT from 1968 to 1972 and I suppose it is not PC enough to be repeated these days.  One of the characters was Frankie Abbott, who thought he was a tough guy but was really a little pussy cat ruled by his over-protective mother.  'Mummy's little soldier' she used to cry and was always wittering on about her fallopian tubes and other ailments to keep her Frankie at home.

Well my little soldier is flying the nest (again!) and leaves us to move to Nottingham on the 1st February.  It was ten years ago when he first flapped his wings and went to work in France on the PGL Activity Holiday Centre in the Ardeche in France.  I remember well our journey down to Dover with him and I felt just like Mrs Abbott at that time and was worried sick about my little soldier.  He looked so young and forlorn sitting in the ferryport waiting for the rest of the group he was travelling with and it was so hard to tear myself away.  I remember blubbing in the car all the way from Dover until we reached the M.1

Since then he has come and gone ..... my boomerang boy .... the last time I thought great I will gain a room but that was short lived .... DD2 had my lovely Ellie and then when they moved out last year old boomerang boy came back again!

Sounds harsh but this time I am definitely going to reclaim the room .... plans and ideas are whizzing round in my head .... I'm going to turn the house upside down this year .... it is in drastic need of a facelift but it will be on a very tight budget.  I have loads of books for inspiration and of course there is blogland too.  I hope to do it most of it by recycling and buying second hand.  If I slack please feel free to give me a boot up the you know where ;-)

And I've got past my Mrs Abbott stage .... I have to accept that my boy is a man and the apron strings have to be cut.

Question of the day

Conversation with a four year old on the way to school this morning

Child:  What are those birds flying up there?

Me:  Seagulls and crows

Child:  Crows like fish don't they?

Me:  I think it is the seagulls that prefer fish ..... the crows will eat bugs and worms

Child:  What's a bug?

Me:  All the creepy crawlies on the ground like ants

Child:  Is a ladybird a bug?

Me:  Yes

Child:  Are ladybirds all ladies?

Me:  mmmmm ..... well you don't get manbirds so they may  be

So there is the question of the day people ...... are ladybirds all ladies?

Thinking Ahead ....

Okay that's enough snow talk for one year