Family Shenanigans

It’s hard coming up with blog titles sometimes! Anyway, here’s a few random snaps I thought I’d share with you.

Our bird table only caters for small wonky birds these days (more…)

The spinning lady called me back! She left a message. I don’t think she was stifling her laughter. I can hold my head up high now as I collected some more wool last night and I now have pretty much a whole carrier bag’s worth – woo hoo!

(more…)

It’s Tana Ramsey week, this week in our house. I’ve been trying to inject some enthusiasm into creating our meals ever since Mr. P figured out that I’ll be dishing up 17,500 family meals over the next say, 16 years.

So, I’ve been cooking from different recipe books from the library and borrowed from friends. So, we’ve had Nigella week, a few Jamie weeks, a retro Linda McCartney week – loved the 80s fashion and food styling photos in that book, Lorraine Kelly week, quite a few Annabel Karmel weeks and as for Hugh Fearnley – well he pops up all over the place. My criteria for a tip-top cookbook is not so much that it has to have recipes for wholesome family food that’s really quick to prepare, but that it has loads of mouth-watering pictures. No pictures. No go. I’m even down-hearted now if there’s only a picture every other page. (more…)

I was going to show you my wool:

but there’s a problem uploading images at the mo, for some reason. Will insert it when I can…

Still no answer from the spinner lady to my email or tel message. Perhaps she’s still rolling (or spinning) about on the floor laughing at how little wool I have and can’t get to the phone / computer.

During one of my rare ironing incidents the other day, I was looking for a means of occupying R and aware that it couldn’t be “ironing like mummy” because she doesn’t have a mini iron / board (funny that??). Came up with the idea of tying up a bit of string to make her own mini washing line which she absolutely loved. She spent ages figuring out how to hang her dollies’ clothes with the mini pegs. I was so chuffed that I came up with something so simple and engaging instead of turning on the telly. (more…)

Inspired, by this blog, I’m officially on my way to being Felicity Kendall / Barbara Good from “The Good Life”. I’ve got half a carrier bag of stray sheep’s wool! The sheep in the next field seemed really cross that R & I were stealing the fleecey bits their neighbours had left behind on thorns, brambles and fences. They were Baa-ing really loudly and pacing backwards and forwards indignantly. I tried explaining respectfully “look, you and your friends don’t need this wool any more and us humans can make things out of it to keep us warm.” No effect. Still more staring and aggressive baa-ing. I tried the diplomatic route, “What lovely wool! Thank you very much”. More narky baa-ing. R started crying, so we packed up (not before “mummy get’s this big fluffy bit over here” though). No. The sheep didn’t win actually. We were going in for our lunch anyway, OK?? (more…)

I spent a very dreamy day pottering and pootling around yesterday. It is the second day I’ve done this, this week. R was in nursery both days and I just faffed about doing nothing in particular. This is my idea of heaven. I felt so terribly guilty about it though that I couldn’t relax 100% and confess to jumping to attention a few times Mr. P came down from his office – making out I was being busy! I was recently saying to a friend that the sort of “day off” I crave is being at home doing absolutely zilch and how nice it was too. I spent some of the time eating, some of the time looking out at our birds and animal neighbours, much of the time thinking and alot of the time on the computer reading and writing about random things. This is the story of my life: to the undiscerning onlooker, it may appear that I’m a lazy bugger yet really I’m ever so busy mentally. Yeah right! (more…)

I dunno how to listen to music anymore.

I have a CD player in the car but I never seem to want to listen to the CDs that are in the glove box.

I have an old but good set of NAD seperates and excellent speakers on which to listen to CDs and the radio and could probably plug new fangled things in to them if they weren’t stacked up unplugged in Mr. P’s office awaiting new shelves in the lounge. We’re looking into a radiator cover with matching bookshelf above. A local man may make it for us but sadly he’s had a death in the family. I expect it’ll be a while before the official “stereo” system is back in action. (more…)

We’re off to see Grandad in Cornwall tomorrow so t’will be quiet round these parts for a few days. It’s such a long car journey from here that I’ve decided to try the train for a change. Wish me luck for the 8.5 hour haul with toddler. Should be fun! J – you’re a trooper taking the 2 boys to europe by train, here’s me twitching about making it to cornwall!

Thought I’d share pics of some “treasure” we found in the garden the other week:

My cyberfriend over at The Cottage Smallholder left me a comment saying she’d “tagged me for a meme”. Eh? ???

Oooh eck, I think I’m in this blogging thing over my head. What does all this mean? I wikipedia’d it and ferreted around for a while and concluded that she had been most kind in including me in a game of virtual playground tag involving answering interesting questions about oneself and giving your blog a bit of a plug at the same time. Nice one! Here’s the meme – y-thingy-mabob:

What I was doing 10 years ago:
Trying to set up a theatrical agency in the front room of our house in Coventry

On my to-do list today:
Well now, I unexpectedly find myself with a bit of “me time”. R has started Tuesdays at nursery today and she’s now in the “big girls” room for 3 year olds which is the one before they start school (I’m trying not to get emotional). So she’s not here. Mr. P has taken a v well earned day off work and has gone fishing, so he’s not here. I have the house to myself which is a very rare occurrence. Trouble is, there’s the weekend away’s washing to do, the whole house needs cleaning and tidying and various piles of clutter need sorting. Obviously I don’t want to do any of this housework, so the rest of the day will probably be spent faffing about at the computer, followed by a huge wave of guilt for not having done anything constructive. (more…)

I know it’s not really still easter but we were celebrating it again with family this weekend. We ate some of these…

admired the view…

and built him…