Hooligans

Our house sometimes seems like an extension of a rescue centre.
 I've made some hasty decisions in the past (ducks and a turkey to name but two) which later turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Unfortunately  the words 'I'll have them/I'll do it'  fall a bit too freely from my lips some days and I then spend my days worrying about the hasty decision I've just made and its consequences.
Colin is now living as a pet on a small holding. Apparently he is in love with a pea hen and there will soon be lady turkeys for his entertainment too. Poor Colin, his very loud calling out for a lady turkey (every 5 minutes from dawn til dusk) was getting him nowhere.

These two little cuties are our latest rescue.
A farmer was going to drown them if nobody had them, so a friend of a friend of a stinky boy took them all and has been looking for homes for them ever since.
I seem to remember saying ' Okay, just one, not a black one (we've had 2 in the past and I fancied a change)and not a girl'
So here are Olive and Florence ( I know,she's not a caravan or a short-lived stripey hen but I do SO like that name...) both black and both girls..and just incase you didn't notice already, there are two of them.
  Ho hum.
 Kids are very good at persuading parents. They should take GCSE's in persuading, they'd all pass with an A*.

Olive and Florence spend their days climbing up inside the curtain linings, leaping across chairs and tables, eating plants and smashing ornaments often with an excited brown Labrador not far behind them.

 And there was me thinking how boring life was becoming...!

cheerio for now x

P.S thanks for your messages on the last post, I've been a bit down in the dumps lately and a bit lost for words too, so sorry if I didn't reply..you must think I'm being very rude indeed!  xx

Spring stuff...

   Ooops I did it yet again, disappearing off without telling a soul. Naughty me.

squished bears

 Whilst I'm at home making myself poor by visiting eBay far too often (urrrgh hands up who else is sick of the flipping rain?) I thought I'd better stop by and poke my head round the door.
I have been busy with general stuff, visits from 'up north' sister..a sister who likes to walk and walk and walk (and then eat cake just like me) and a little brother who isn't quite so little anymore (dont know where he got his tall gene from) came to stay all the way from Canada.
There's been Stinky boy taking his RAF Airman's test ..and passing!

all new chickypoo pen

 There's been a spot of decorating and lots of repairing stuff (mainly the chicken run as I fell over in it whilst wearing my  pyjamas and spotty wellies, doing a spectacular roll in the mud and snapping off all the posts..Bald bloke found it highly amusing, being covered in chicken poo, I less so) Oh and our chicken run is in the FRONT garden....
Changing the little white car for a more 'manly' slightly bigger black one, (boys and their cars, honestly) I have the most 'manly' vehicle of all but nobody wants him as he leaks on you when it rains, smells like a wet dog  most of the time and has bright orange arches.
  Poor old thing, good job mummy still loves you Beastie truck.

Beastie

 There's been the getting of super-duper new glasses after Bella decided to eat mine.
Bella likes to eat stuff don't you know.  Blind as a bat for 3 months, I was.

geeky chic?

 There's been some injuries, namely from over excited hounds smashing into my calf at about 30 miles an hour. It felt like no pain I had ever felt..ever. Like being punched very, very hard with a red hot bowling ball. Yow! The dogs were fine, incase you were wondering.   I wasn't.

Harry (looking a little bit deranged), Felicity and Patricia (he named them!)

 There's been Birthdaying, corrr I was very, very spoilt this year with lots of unexpected surprises, two new chickens to replace some dear old girlies and a Cath Kidston holdall filled with pretty stuff  and Bald bloke bought me a birdbath. Reeeeesult!!)

Just need a weekend away now

 And lastly there's just been the general dog walking and gardening that I do anyway.

Nothing much very exciting really but I know you like to know, just like I do on your blogs.

Spring is definitely in the air amongst all this rain because I'm getting that nesting urge again. I really do have distinct need to decorate at the moment (lack of the big funds unfortunately stops me) I would love to paint the hall and have new blinds, have those much longed for shutters in the lounge and knock a big hole in the wall to make our teeny lounge bigger. I have so many ideas I have to write them down in a book before I go to bed to stop my head exploding in the night. It's quite interesting looking back through it and thinking "oh I'm glad I didn't do that" or "yes I did that and it worked out OK"
I wallpapered a  couple of walls a several months back and I love wallpaper, really love it, but every time I use it, I have a uncontrollable urge to paint over it a few months later.
About 10 years ago our bedroom originally had Cath Kidston pale green and white teeny polka dot wallpaper, it was really lovely but I got bored with it and painted over it in blue on a whim, much to bald blokes dismay. (that meant different curtains and bedding, you see)
 Then I acquired two rolls of Cath Kidston Paris Rose paper. How I loved this beautiful rosy paper with its nod to the 1950's but I actually prefer the red version if I'm honest.

nope, way toooooo rosy

 I papered the chimney breast in the dining room but once again, not long after,out came the paint. The same thing happened in our bedroom, a couple of  lengths of rosy loveliness and then having just decorated and 'de-boyed' Harry's old room in readiness for my sister coming to stay, I splashed a couple of coats of  my favourite Farrow and Ball blue over Cath and her rosy kitschness.Well, the paintbrushes were out so why not?... CRIMINAL isn't it? Especially as you can no longer get Paris Rose. A new old mirror (99p from eBay..bargain!)  and a shifty round of 'stuff' and I can sleep at ease without the rosiness shouting 'LOOK AT ME!' all the time.

my 99p vintage mirror!

 I just might wallpaper the inside of the wardrobe doors with the leftovers though, we'll see.
Now I know I must turn away and not be seduced by pretty wallpapers. I'm a plain and simple paint person and that's all there is to it. However I did see some fabulous pink 70s wallpaper on a trip to Tewkesbury recently and it keeps popping into my head niggling at me like a Labrador wanting it's dinner. Hmmmmm, I wonder..

cheerio for now x

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

Unimpressed

Red, Basil and Daisy are completely unimpressed by 'Colin', the crazy acting, odd looking, beeping, peeping, gobbling turkey (yay, I got one at last!!!) he sounds like a futuristic ray gun, "peeeawwwww peep!" until he hears a passing siren or a child crying or a screech of tyres, then he does his proper "gobble gobble" turkey noise.
Colin came from a teeny cottage tucked away in the Forest of Dean. A lovely little old couple kept them because they liked them along with lots of other creatures feathered and furry. I promised not to eat Colin and he came home sat on the back seat with me. We got some very funny looks when we stopped for petrol and he peeped out the window.

He looks like a miniature ostrich who's wearing their intestines as a neck warmer and he acts (endearingly) like a bit of a berk.

The ladies like him and he rather likes them.
Happiness.

However, Daisy has found the highest place in the house and gone on hunger strike and Basil is just plain horrified at the other new arrival at Shabby Towers.
They are completely unimpressed by the new 'thing'

Basil could win the X-factor with all the wailing that's going on.
Red, who at first couldn't even bear to look at the new 'thing', has finally come round to the idea...

and the humans at Shabby towers are all in totally besotted and in love....




.....with Bella.

A testing time (with added expletives)

Hello again, I guess you all get by now that I nearly peed my pants when I won that caravan then?(totally irrelevant silly cat photo of Basil in his 3D specs)

Blimey I'm getting more and more rubbish at this blogging lark these days and I wont even get started on my message skills..(lovespangle the reply to your eiderdown query is underneath your message on that 5 million eiderdowns post, I couldn't reply to you any other way!) oh and hello to all these new people that have suddenly found me on here! Also, I'm so sorry to the lady who sent me an email about the underground map cushions, I appear to have lost it somehow but they are teatowels I bought from an online London gift shop for a couple of quid..Google should help with finding those, if not Rockett St George has a rather fabulous underground map ready made one..(ooh I love that website)(photo borrowed from google)

Harry has the green one and it's really,really lovely (if a weeny bit expensive)

Right, it has been one of 'those' months..yep I knew it was too good to be true..I did say though didn't I? really I'm a size 10 underneath ..it's just the layers of thick skin I seem to have developed that makes me the mahoosive size I really am.Harry's naughty ginger bunny got taken by a fox one evening.Poor old Eddie, he was a nice bunny and we had had him for quite some years. I used to stroke his nose every morning which I really miss doing.It makes me sad to think of it as he was so friendly he would have no doubt gone up to the fox to say hello. The Fox has been snooping about since so we are extra vigilant in case he fancies a chicken dinner.Apparently the stinky boys need to 'mark' our territory to deter them..ewww!
Recently, quite out the blue and for no apparent reason,my debit card kept being declined,not funny when you have a weeks shopping bagged up in your trolley at the supermarket or you need petrol and your husband works away all week. Turned out some w*nker had cloned it and was swanning around using my name spending my hard earned spondoolies on wallpaper (£249 worth) and various other extravagant items all over the world totalling over £800. Luckily my bank had spotted it before I had and recognised that my identity had been stolen and I didn't lose any money.They blocked all the fraudulent activity as well as mine.Now we are getting strange phone calls instead from foreign sounding people that put the phone down when you start questioning them.ARRRGH.They obviously still have some of our details like our phone number and my kids names who they keep asking for.I wish they would just bugger off and leave us alone.
To top that thrilling week off I had to go in for a hideously painful biopsy which hurt so much this time it made me cry, the nurses thought I was going to pass out as I think I went rather pale afterwards.Harry and his girlfriend came with me to the hospital, just incase I couldn't drive home. He made me cringe with embarrassment as he asked in a very loud voice in the waiting area 'Mum have you just had a Chlamydia test?' I think that was the only 'girl thing' he could think of at the time!! Erm, no Harry I haven't!
It's times like these that I really miss Pete being around.Sometimes only a nice big man-hug will do to make things seem better. Teenage boys look at you as if your demented if you ask for a hug and tell you to 'stop being such a girl'. They just loiter a bit longer than usual to see if you're ok and make cups of tea. Tea solves everything in 'girlie world' (then they leave all the washing up for you)

Then...yes, there is more.. both the truck and Pete's car failed their MOT's within a week of each other..my truck which is normally fine, needed £500 worth of bodywork doing which the nice chap kindly let me pay for in installments, Pete's piece of sh*t Peugeot which is 12 years younger than my pickup truck has failed each year, it rattles and smokes and this time was the last straw. It really has been an sh*tty awful car and you wouldn't think it to look at as he kept it immaculate. So for our 13th wedding anniversary after doing lots of sums and umming and ahhing we did something rather scary, we bought a new car. A little pearly white sporty looking new car with less than 4000 miles on the clock and £35 a year road tax. I'm not really a fan of new cars but I'm quite taken with this one.It looks quite cheeky. Hopefully it's a reliable one. I'm especially impressed on how far you can go with just £10 of petrol! I dont think the boys were too impressed though. I was told it was 'ok, but a bit gay'. Strange how that word has changed meanings over the decades from meaning 'pretty or pleasant' in my parents generation to 'rubbish' in my childrens' via homosexuality in mine, a lady I used to garden for used to tell me I had a 'gay face' I was never quite sure how I should have reacted to that but seeing as she was well into her 80s I took it as a compliment! Anyway, I'm sure though I can live with the fact that my new car is a bit 'gay' even though it's probably very politically incorrect to say so.(no offence meant and I do tell them it's inappropriate to use that word for that meaning before you all hunt me down with dogs and pointy sticks)

The two stinky boys had some sad news too, when one of their young buddies was killed in a very tragic motorbike accident.If you live in Worcester or Malvern you may have read about it in the papers. I think it is every mothers nightmare to lose a child so suddenly.Pete and I have both lost best friends at a young age and it was sad to see them feeling the same way we did all those years ago.(another irrelevant Basil photo)

Last night I felt really unsettled, Wednesday evenings always seem to be horrid, we both seem to get 'middle week syndrome' but this one was particularly bad as I was tearful, irritable and comfort eating like it was my last day on Earth, I hadn't a clue why but I didn't go to sleep until after 3am but was woken up with a phone call early in the morning. Pete had had his lorry trailer broken into and some of the contents stolen, he woke up at 2am to find a Van pulled up along side and a gang armed with knives,slashing the side to get at the pallets of..wait for it...orange juice... inside. Stupidly he tried to get out of the cab to see what was going on, all bleary eyed and half a sleep after 15 hours of driving from one end of the country to the other.The gang saw him and tried to get at him in his cab, luckily they didn't as they would have wanted to make sure he couldn't get to the panic button they are fitted with and gawd knows what they would have done to him..six armed men against one. Scary stuff. The worse thing is that it's a sackable offence if your lorry is broken into, they have to get to a proper truck stop before they run out of driving time and the one he got to was full up so he was turned away. He's worried sick, so I hope Mr. Stobart understands his predicament. I guess you become tuned in to each other after 20 years and maybe that was why I felt like I did..who knows.Poor old Pete.
I'll be glad when he gets home on Friday.It's been a very long week indeed..

So, anyway, would you like to see inside 'Florence'..my vintage caravan?
There is quite a bit of painting to be done, some rewiring, a new floor, the glass replaced on the toilet window and all the soft furnishings, so it won't be even attempted for ages, we've got a whole list of other jobs to do first..(namely finishing that summerhouse, which Pete has now dismantled, leveled the base and put back together again..yay!)
There were all sorts of bits and bobs in it, loads of brand new cushions which all didn't match and weren't to our taste, infact everything you see in these 'before' photos came with her..

YIKES!!

needless to say,lots went to the charity shop and the poo stained porta-loo (urgh) went to the skip. After a clean and a clear out she looked just a weeny bit better..for now


The cute yellow frosted glasses were lying in the drawers, I think they are called 'sherbert' glasses or something.

She even had the original 1960s awning in a cupboard, as well as these odd bits and bobs;

A full first aid case, a working retro clock and a box of robin starch from the 1960s.The Bush radio was unfortunately well beyond repair.
There were also some strange framed modern prints of spacemen landing on the moon, so I'm guessing 'Our Flo' must be as old as me!
The recent paint job is really ropey, someone has practically troweled the varnish and paint on inside and out, we will just sand down and paint the inside all white to start with with add some nice little lights and some pretty floral curtains or maybe some gingham curtains or even some retro curtains! I can't decide.
I'd also rather like some bright coloured Formica worktops and a checkered floor. Still, I mustn't complain, It's just a few little jobs and for what we paid for her, she's pretty much ok otherwise.

I'm trying to wean myself off Cath Kidston at the moment, I loved it when it was something new and quirky back in the early 90s but now it seems like the world and his wife owns a bit, it all seems to have become a bit cheesy and mass produced.
That little original 1950s fabric washbag in the photo below is one such design that was tweaked and re-introduced by Miss K 40 years later.
Currently I'm going cold turkey, but it isn't working very well as I bought that scouty looking campfire/caravan badge blanket recently especially for Florence. Oops.As proof of why you should never throw anything out, I've found I'm drawn again to the things I liked 20+ years ago, 1950s things again and it was funny that I was only thinking how I'd like to hang an old swimming costume on a vintage Butlins coat hanger in the bathroom..I have some serious bathingsuit love at the moment...these two are recent finds to add to my old collection

and I was also thinking how I'd like to get some of my 1950s fabrics out the loft to sew some more funky atomic cushions when the most fabulous magazine fell onto my doormat with just such articles..
I'm absolutely loving Homes & Antiques magazine at the mo, I've been buying it for quite a few years and it just gets better and better each month (they are the fourth people to have asked me to do a housey feature thing but the house is really too unfinished at the moment..but how flattering is that?!!)Righty oh , I best go..especially after such an eventful bunch of tales I've left you with.. blimey what a misery guts I must sound but I'm quite a cheery person in real life -honest!
Hope you all at least have a good month!!x

Quackers

I must be bonkers, I'm a sucker for a creature sob story, especially when it involves 'dispatching ' of the said creature unnecessarily.Which is why these 3 funny young things have taken up residence in our already chaotic home..

Lily, Stanley and Hilda...



Stan is named after Stan Laurel as he's the dopey comedian. Have you ever heard of a duck that's afraid of water?..we have to actually put him in the paddling pool and he then does somersaults and flaps about having a marvelous time making the clean water nice and muddy! Lily is the white Aylesbury and Hilda a mix between the two. They do a little dance when they see each other, bobbing their heads up and down whilst walking sideways and making a noise that sounds like laughing. Stan the man who resembles a walking stick (he's a runner duck, the chappie in the middle) seems to walk an extra 10 steps for the others one which is rather funny to watch...we call it 'timmy tiptoes', something Harry used to do when he was about 3! Luckily we had a house already which is ideal for them to sleep in, the difference between them and the chickens is that you have to tell them to go to bed, the hens go to roost at dusk by themselves..but with these 3 characters we have to say "come on, go to bed now " and in they go making a bit of a song and dance about it.
I dread to think what my lawn is going to look like this winter.They have a plastic apple shaped sandpit for a pond at the moment but more water seems to end up over the sides.
The dog wants to play with them, the rabbit isn't quite sure of them,the hens just follow and stare at them and the cats are rather cautious too, but me.. I'm already in love with these dear funny little ducks...I really must be quackers.

p.s..thanks for putting up with my stupid face for so long...I think some of you must have very dirty computer screens after those nice comments you left!! lol

D is for Dog

Well I stopped faffing about and painted those two wooden dogs last night. They do still need a bit of adjusting as I don't like the ball and the eyes and some of the furry lines,but hey-ho they are only test dogs.
This is Archie..the bigger bossier dog and he wants to play ball..(Except his ball looks a bit like a pumpkin at the moment!)
I would really love to keep those little vintage blocks at the bottom;but, I'm too precious and didn't want to ruin the set so they are bluetacked on for now, making him a bit like a peg rail.
Then I had the idea of these toadstool pegs I used to hang my Christmas cards from last year...so he becomes an instant notice hanger-peg thingy for all those important messag..um..cute postcards.Then this is Wilf; long lost cousin of Stanley (his claim to fame)He too may end up with pegs..although his eyes need to be sorted out, he looks a bit worried if you ask me.
I think it's all down to this book, My favourite from when I was little and we visited my other Granny.A rather well read 1949 edition of Ginger's adventures that belonged to her.
Little tan and white scruffy dogs are just so cute.Oh dear, someone's feeling left out..and big stinky black dogs are cute too.yep, I thought that would make him smile.