The Perfect Sunday Speed

If you’d like your snails with more of a sense of urgency then check these out

 

Lists-a-go-go

I love lists. I spend my life making lists. On several occasions I’ve actually caught myself making lists of the lists that I need to make. Is there a job I could do making lists? I drive Mr. P insane. I’m like Monica from friends except without the team of comedy scriptwriters. Anyway, I’m wondering if I can enliven my posts with some listy action?

I like the idea of those “10 things that make me happy today” lists. They’re uplifting & thought provoking but somehow not quite me. They don’t allow for my sardonic streak. (can anyone even think of 10 happy things - a day for goodness sake?)

I’m more with the “let’s talk about what’s good but lace it with a nice dollop of mockery” gang. I felt so at home working in Birmingham with the self deprecating humour of the brummies. Who else would create the most passionate and upbeat website about their home city and call it “Birmingham: It’s Not Shit.”? Hilarious.

So, how bout a list where the good stuff and the not so good stuff is all jumbled up – much like it happens in life? So here goes:

10 erm “things” about our Greek holiday.

 

Back n Bloomin!

Well, I’ve been distracted from blogging by some lovely extended birthday celebrations (yes, it was a big one, no don’t ask!). We only went away for a few days but when we got back to the garden, it was as if we’d been away for a month. The buds that had started to appear on the apple trees have bloomed into a wonderful sight.

I was lucky enough to get a new camera from my family that had been on my wish list. My other all singing all dancing fuji cannot be beaten but it’s bulky slr-type lens means it’s no good for sticking in your pocket for a day or night out. Now THIS one. Well it’s the size of a waffer thin mint but seems to do most things the other one can. Thanks to my family for indulging me. Like I say, it was a big birthday and no, you still can’t ask the number! So, even though it was nearly dark, I was keen to put the new camera to the test and take a snap of the blossom. Quite a challenging shot. No light as I say and I don’t know what all the buttons do yet as it’s only just out the packet. Did get this one decent shot which I like coz it’s a bit surreal with the blue sky and the moon. This was courtesy of a clever little function where the camera takes one shot without flash, closely followed by another with flash so you can compare and ditch the one that’s no good. Great if you’re like me and a) don’t know much about the science of photography and b) are completely indecisive.

 

Snaps & Snippets

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

 

Cookbooks

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.

 

I’m “IT”

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.

 

Scuse me for being a bit rushed…

…I’m part way through my impromptu evening of choco-shenanigans (of course my spell checker underlined that).

I keep hearing a little tinkling, as if Heidi is going to walk round the corner with her goats. I investigated it earlier and it was the sheep butting something metal on their feeder and it sort of clangs like the handle wacking the side of a metal pail. Now I feel a dimwit typing this because I’ve just finished uploading some snaps from the camera and I realise I was talking tinkling tosh! The tinkling I just heard was the video I took of R painting and cleaning her brushes in the jar of water. Scuse me for tangling up my tinklings!

Here’s My “Sheep of the Day” pic:

My long-lost Brother is journeying to see us in mid wales from Scotland via a long family tour, hitting various points on the south coast (of England!). Not such a major endeavour you might think. Except, there are 5 of them altogether in a small tourer including 2 teenagers, a toddler and an afghan hound. Oh and a working gas hob. If they haven’t combusted either spontaneously or otherwise before they reach us, it’ll be a miracle. We’re the last stop on the tour. It’s a belated easter gathering so I must make truffles. Then we’re off to visit Mum for another (even later) belated easter and if there’s one life lesson I have learnt from my amazing ma, it is – go nowhere without chocolate. So, I’m making choc easter cupcakes too…

Blogging or chocolate? Blogging or chocolate. Need you ask? Chocolate wins. Laters… x

 

Ironing’s Never Been So Much Fun

I’ve not posted for a few days. I’d been doing it late evenings when I have my best “me time”. Last week I’d had a bit less “me time” as I was going to bed / getting up earlier for my new morning jogging regime (haha! Still can’t quite believe I can say me and jogging in the same sentence) .

Last night I found a new distraction. Ironing whilst watching iplayer. I tell you it’s all rock n roll round here. Ironing’s bad enough. Made slightly more bearable by watching telly. 9 times out of 10 you’re just watching whatever mindless drivel is on at the time. But NOW, wey hey. I know I’m probably slow on the uptake compared to you other cyberkooks but my new laptop lets me choose what I want to watch whilst doing the most boring job on the planet.

When I worked at the BBC a few centuries ago, I went to a seminar hosted by a man who had just met with a fella none of us had heard of at that time - Bill Gates. Apparently Bill had said that the media was going to change beyond all recognition in the future. We wouldn’t need to buy newspapers to read the news, we would call up whatever news or entertainment content we wanted to consume and watch it not on screens but on other convenient surfaces like our fridge doors or kitchen tables. Sounds like he knew what he was talking about that Mr Gates. I bet we’ll be hearing more from him soon

Who would have thought, when I was a fresh faced and eager media miss in those days, that I would be reaping the rewards of that technology in quite this humdrum way. Where’s Mrs Gates when you need her, to come up with some way of deleting the need for ironing?

 

Embrace the Clutter!

I was going to blog about what a nice mother’s day I’d had with lovely hand picked daffs, home-made card, butterfly cakes and all my chores done for me but then I thought again. I did have a lovely time of course and I thank Mr P and lovely R for indulging me. But I might be giving the impression on this blog that my life is all about cake, flowers and sunsets. I’ve carelessly forgotten to mention something that plays a major role in my life - CLUTTER!

It’s all quite easy with blogs and facebook etc to portray a heavily censored and dolled up version of our lives isn’t it? Our own brand of “spin”. So for a change, I thought it would be nice to share with you some of the chaos that is to the left and to the right of the neatly framed photos. Let’s celebrate good old fashioned household clutter! Why not?

 

playing with blogging

I just came across the blog of someone I know and have been inspired again to have a tinker with mine. Bear with me while I carry on figuring it out. I only hope I can go in and delete these boring ramblings once Ive got something more interesting to say. Just off to try and upload a photo…

xmas deco with lovely blue sky