Monday 16 January 2012

That Christmassy thing

 
I made my first ever Christmas New years cake (with a little help from Delia)

 So off it goes, yet another year whizzing by, taking the craziness of Christmas with it.
I have big plans for this year as I feel I completely wasted the last one. Faffing about,fretting and missing opportunities because of  having the curse of  zero confidence making me not go for a job I really, really would have liked (like, since I was 5 would have liked) arrgh! I could slap myself with a big wet fish sometimes. I should have a degree in procrastinating.

the kitschness tree
Anyway, back to Christmas, I got to choose my own stuff this year, with Pete working away so much it was a case of oooh look what Father Christmas bought me, isn't she he clever knowing exactly what I like?!

My manifesto for 2012, a present from myself!
Everything was covered in pine needles this year too, Harry and I bought what ended up to be the worst tree in the world, 5 minutes before the garden centre closed on the worst, most rainiest day in the wrong car (the little white car instead of the big beasty truck)
Bella ate most of the plastic or wooden baubles at her eye level, producing sparkly, polystyrene dotted poo the following day (she is currently on a mission to eat as many different things as possible, including my spectacles!) Every time we shut the door, drew the curtains, the wind from wagging dogs' tails (and possibly the wind from dogs bottoms for all I know, too) seemed to make a mass of needles drop off it..heaps of  the things! The dogs, cats, presents, floor, us..we all got covered in prickly needles. I even found some in my knickers for goodness sake!
The poor, sad tree was a bunch of brown twigs by New Years Eve.
We have bought a pretend tree for next year in the sale, a bargain at £30 instead of £100 (crikey aren't fake ones expensive?)
I shall really miss the smell of a real tree because to me that is the smell of Christmas. Never mind.

Basil got in touch with his feminine side and helped me wrap presents
Before Christmas, whilst out on a jolly but insisting he wasn't drunk (yeh right, do kids forget we were 19 once?) George tripped off the curb and badly hurt his ankle.He was whisked off to hospital in an ambulance and the first we new of  it was him waking us up at 4am trying to get up the stairs on crutches. His ankle was 3 times its size and bruised up to his knee but wasn't broken like the paramedics thought. He said the pain was worse than when he broke his collarbone...or his hand (3 times)..or his other ankle...or nose or his finger for that matter...and he couldn't put any weight on it at all for 2 weeks. He was due to start a new job fitting solar panels to roofs the following Monday.  Talk about unlucky!!
So once again I have been the 'fetcher of things' for his lordship.

The boys asked for strange things for Christmas, George asked 'Santa' for "a bed that wasn't someone else's or that some granny might have died in"
George doesn't 'get ' the vintage thing.
Okay then, looked like a trip to Ikea for Santa (with George and his crutches in tow). His room has been revamped, it's all grey and white and retro-modern and parents are banned from it. My only imput was the Orla Kiely bedding which really looks rather nice and was very much approved of  by stinky George and stinky, furry pesky Bella.We moved some metal locker cupboards from Harry's old room and swapped the shabby vintage linen blinds for some smart white wooden ones.
  George bought a chair and the bed and Santa bought the side cupboards, funky plastic lampshade and various other bits and bobs. Ikea beds are HUGE..even the little ones are huge!
Are Swedish people all really tall as well as gorgeous?
The ouchy looking outline of Lady Luck
Harry asked for some money towards a tattoo, sounding like a complete hypocrite I begged him not to have one, gave him the lecture of  'its for life'  but he went ahead anyway. He likes vintage things like we do, old cars, pinups and polka dots and often I hear old 50s tunes coming from his ipod. He's 18, doesn't live at home anymore and as much as I protested I didn't really have much of a say in the end.
It's just as scary when your kids grow up y'know...

I was given a lovely woolly pompom hat and scarf from George..
my new woolly hat!(and rather dusty mirrors!)
 and Harry and his girlfriend gave me some lovely vintagey type things like a large green metal number 2 and an I grew up in the 80s CD..he thought it was hilarious that I new the words to most of the songs....bring on the disco!!
Well this month, like probably the rest of the UK, has been incredibly tight money wise, so imagine my utter delight when I won a phone in competition on the radio this morning to have a bill paid....a £99 and 44p bill to be precise!!
I must have sounded like a dithering, dribbling, gibbering wreck, and their pronunciation of my supposedly  German sounding double-barrelled surname was hilarious, still, who cares? They could have called me Mrs Mashed-Potato for all I'm bothered!
A good start to the New Year and hopefully how 2012 will go on.
Pete's mouth is all okay too, yay! Although the lovely Italian mouth specialist actually made me snort with laughter at his demonstration of how the saliva glands work..yep we can see from 4 foot away that bald blokes work properly, hmm, thanks Pete! (she says wiping a shot of saliva from her eyes)

Happy, Happy New year to you all...cheerio for now.  x

14 comments:

  1. Happy New Year!!!!

    Your cake looks stunning. I am with you also, if there was a degree in procrastinating, I would get one too. My aim this year is to just go for it and stop thinking too much about it. Let's hope it works out for us both!

    Your tales of the stinky boys made me laugh. My eldest one just turned 12 and I dread the teens coming!

    Have a super bright sunshiny day!

    Vanessa xxx

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  2. Thanks Vanessa! good to know I'm not alone on the faffing front, I definitely need to do less thinking and more doing too ;)

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  3. The cake looks amazing, well done! It could qualify as you monthly make for January!

    Dogs and non - foods! We are amazed when poop scooping at some of the contents! Dropped an unopened oxo cube this morning and jack wolfed it down! lol!

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  4. Liking your new manifesto. Dithering is my speciality too. Just DO it needs to be my motto.

    I cannot be doing with real Xmas trees. We have a very kitchy looking silver tinselled affair which we reel out year after year. There's always Xmas pot pourri or some such thing if you miss the smell!

    HNY!

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  5. So good to see a post from you, Sairer. Happy New year, glad it seems to have to started on a good note for you. Eeek, that tattoo looks painful. Yes, I am dreading Harry (mine!) growing up, I am such a control freak!
    Hen xxx

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  6. Hi,I love real christmas trees but cannot cope with the mess,so we got one that is as near real as it can be and then I burn candles,insence,and oils and have pot pourri around the house which all smell of christmas.Your sons tattoo looks very sore but very nice.Love your hat and scarf they look very cosy.Well done on winning on the radio.Love Jill xx

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  7. Oh I do LOVE your posts,you make me smile every time I visit you.
    The pine needle thing is very familiar.Thankfully Bella is past the chewing everything stage(although she does love grabbing any tissue that she can get hold of and ripping it up).Last year I decided we would splash out and buy a fake tree,a good one that LOOKED real,but when I got it back in the house,and decorated,I hated it,too uniform,no pine smell,what was I thinking of?!
    So this year the fake one stayed in the loft and I found myself a lovely Nordman fir,non drop.
    Mr Boo was not best pleased! :0)

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  8. I got some christmas tree yankee candles, I miss that pine smell. Trouble is they smell a bit like my toilet cleaner!

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  9. Love your blog and all the dottiness in the background. I also have a 19 year old that manages to the same mad accident prone stuff. And also have been woken at 4am - to pick him up from the hospital. Hope your new year is a great one.

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  10. i do love your posts they really make me laugh.....you should have a column in the paper...... am tempted by a fake tree myself this year, thanks to the kids we paid £60 and it didn't smell that great, maybe it was left in a barn with the animals before we got it ....cant you buy pine smell in a can these days anyhow... keep up the good work x

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    1. Thanks Els! x
      We had one that smelt a bit wiffy once too, I kept thinking the cats had peed somewhere..

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  11. Happy New Year! Your post made me smile - and you handled the whole tattoo incident very well I thought! You can get pine scented oils which you could burn next year - it will be like having the real tree but without the hoover-damaging mess! You look gorgeous in your hat btw XX

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    1. aww thanks cathy, dont know about the gorgeous bit tho.. more like concentrating and a bit dim..you should have seen the outtakes..eek!!

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  12. Just had a good giggle over your latest escapades!! I heard your name read out on the radio y'day and cheered! - well done hun and lets hope it's the start of a very good year for you all!!!! love and hugs - give Basil a hug for me too Jakixxxxxx

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