Bella, Bunting and the Bucket List....

Thanks for all the Bella and Colin love on the last post. x

Bella actually belongs to George which means I get called 'Granny'....can't say I'm too chuffed about that! Colin is still as mad as ever, he flew right down the garden the other day, crash landing in a bush so it looks like I'll be getting the scissors out to clip his wing feathers again soon.
See, I told you he was a bit of a berk.
Bella (or 'The Belly' as she is known, typical Labrador- stomach on legs) is learning all the good habits from my lovely old black Labrador, Red, who is in turn learning a few naughty habits from his new little sister. You should here the racket Colin makes when they play together in the garden, who new Turkeys made such good referees?

Bella and Red

I quite like having another girl around, it means 'Granny' gets to buy pretty Cath Kidston flowery dog beds and leads and butterfly shaped pink dog toys!

Anyway,I'm trying my hardest to get into the Christmassy spirit thing.

It feels a bit weird to be thinking about Christmas just yet, I feel like this year has just flown by, the weather has got me out of sorts too, one minute it's mild and I'm wearing a t-shirt to garden in and the next it's blowing a gale..last year at this time we were deep in snow! I know it will creep up on me far too quickly, I'll be disorganised and probably skint as usual..especially as we have just had to have a new all singing all dancing economical combi boiler fitted...yikes (I'm sat here sweating cobs and now realise just how bad our old boiler was, I think I need to adjust something to make the house cooler! phewwww )

dotcomgiftshop

Recently I got sent some of this gorgeous Christmas Bunting from the DotComGiftShop 
If you dont know this website already, click the pink link you will discover a whole heap of kitsch and pretty loveliness at your fingertips...Christmas or otherwise. Now I can't wait to string them up. Jolly little houses and snow scenes, I think they have the same sort of look as a certain Mrs Kidston.
I'm going to get some kitsch flocked reindeer lights this year too as they are just my cup of tea..kitsch and 50s looking but without the dodgy vintage wiring!


















I think a certain Bald bloke would like a cup of tea in this mug

and I'm so in love with this framed doggy print.

It was always my job to go to the post Office when I was younger to purchase the 13p dog licence when it used to be 'required by law'.

That'll definitely be on my wish list...pretty please Father Christmas!

Pete and I have been away 'oop north' again for our annual trip to Northumberland to see amazing fireworks, puppy worship (two of my sisters have puppies too) drink far to much frothy coffee and eat waaaay too much cake, oh and to tick something off my Bucket List.

I'm very lucky to have a great family, who mean everything to me.
I adore my 3 sisters and my little brother who I just don't see often enough.

photo:Google

My brother-in-law whom I've known since I was 4, ( he and my eldest sister were childhood sweethearts) treated me to something I've wanted to experience in a long time, an Opera.

photo:Google

OOOOOH posh stuff!! It was at the amazing Newcastle Theatre Grand , a beautiful Victorian place which has recently had a 5 million pound facelift (pity about the new chairs though, they had to be THE most uncomfortable chairs ever in the world..fidget, fidget, fidget)

I went to see Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

 photo: Google

Set in the 1940's, in the hills above Nagasaki, it was beautiful, very moving and you don't need to be fluent in Italian to understand the story of Lieutenant Pinkerton of the US Navy the and his 15 year old Geisha bride to be. The singing was incredible and the parts you recognised musically gave you goosebumps.
Wonderful stuff.
Big TICK of the list that one.

Of course when 'oop north', there is the obligatory shopping to do, especially in the Roman village of Corbridge which has Dickensian streets of stone houses and shops with Christmas windows that might even make old Scrooge smile. I spent some hard earned pennies in one of my most favourite shops.. RE
Giant paper snowflakes to hang in the big window in the dining room, architectural shop letters that will eventually light up and various other bits and bobs came home with us.

Inspired by a local coffee house, I'm going to make a cushion out of (yet another) tea towel, this time from a vintage French map of Britain.
If only you could smell these gorgeous French soaps!

Perfect colours for our 1930s bathroom.

They have some really great, quirky stuff there, far more than on the website.

Unfortunately,November also saw both my stinky boys loose their jobs, so we have been a bit pre-occupied here, I worry myself silly about things and if I'm not careful I get a bout of Shingles or the dreaded Migraines. This month its been the latter. Great.
December is lurking around the corner which as you know,is one of my less favoured months, already we have hospital visits lined up, (lifting heavy mowers into trucks does you no favours ladies!...get doing those pelvic floor exercises!!) and the dentist found something odd in bald blokes mouth which requires a biopsy.Scary stuff. Keep your fingers crossed for him pretty please...he's my rock. x

Cheerio for now x

p.s
Xxx's....for Lynn for her lovely Harry....

The one where I nearly pee my pants...

Now, when lady luck shines down on my little patch, she shines brightly.
Not very often do good things happen in this house but they do happen now and again to cheer up our rollercoastering 'plodding along' lives.
I'm often wary that for the good things there's a bad thing lurking round the corner just waiting for it's opportunity to jump out and scare the pants off me..so the good things make me a little nervous..are you with me?

Well, this bank holiday, my sister from up north and her husband came to stay for a long weekend. It's very rare that people stay here, as our house is a tad small but the eldest stinky boy decided a spot of local stinky boys' camping was called for and we, for once, had a spare bed.

My sister and I are very similar even though she's the eldest and I'm the youngest of 4 girls, we have never had a cross word in 41 years...honestly,not ever, so her visits are always the best fun. As I was working on the Saturday all day, we decided on a National trust trip on the Sunday and the Giant Malvern flea fair on the Monday. All exciting stuff.
So on the Sunday after lots of mooching around the garden,sniffing roses and pointing at plants, eating croissants with proper butter in the (still lopsided and unfinished) summerhouse and chatting about my lovely visit to Devon and caravans and the like, we decided on a visit to
Hidcote Manor.Really it was a bit early in the year to appreciate all the beautiful flowers they have there and it was so packed with visitors we even had to wait until someone left to get a space in the car park .
Now big sisters can be a bad influence sometimes, they encourage you to put bids on exciting things you think you'll never in a million years be lucky enough to win. Before we went out for the day,I showed her something on eBay that was only a few miles from us and still at a sensible price. Something my family know I've hankered after for a long time and can bore people rigid over.

" isn't that just typical, pay day is a week away, my truck needs work for its mot and there that is looking at me at the bargain price of £125." I say.

Now the big sis tells me I should put a bid on it as I'll kick myself if the lovely thing goes for that amount and that she will help me out until pay day. There were lots of 'if it's meant to be' moments, the bid was placed and off we went to that beautiful area known as The Cotswolds...
to see pretty, pretty gardens..
Out for a meal (corr we really are splashing out!) and home again, where the said 'eBay thing' was almost forgotten about.....almost.

When I checked, I almost hyperventilated...noooooo it can't be true?

ME?.. the winner?

The owner of a little blue and cream CARAVAN for a mere £132? nooooo...

the VINTAGE one I had seen earlier???

The vintage blue and cream cheeky little 1960's one all ready to be towed behind The Beastie (my old pick-up truck) and only needing a bit of prettifying ???GORDON BENNETT!!!!Yes, when lady luck shines, she definitely shines very brightly!

A rare day out..

You may remember last year we were lucky enough to be given some free tickets to the Malvern Spring gardening show by a lovely neighbour.I was only watching Gardeners world and thinking how good it looked again last night and a pity that our nice neighbours had moved, when stinky George produced an envelope with two tickets in for the show." from 'thingy' " he says, "who used to live next door, they called round yesterday" (they have since moved to a new house but still own the house next door)
WHOOPEE !
So off Pete and I trundled in my old truck to visit the show only 10 minutes from our home.
There was definately a bit of a vintage/reclamation theme going on this year if you ask me, maybe I'm wrong,but there were more sellers with antique gardinalia and vintage garden bits and bobs and more lovely show gardens featuring old tools and vintage sheds than last year.Lots of alliums, which I always admire, and plenty of themed colourful gardens, I love the combination of dusky dark leaves and vivid oranges that seemed to be used this year...(sorry,the photos are a bit blurry,oops!)

but then again, I love purple flowers and circles used in the garden too, whether its alliums or box balls..or stone balls!But you can't beat a bit of vintage in my eyes, I just love this cute potting shed, with it's old tin signs and antique tools..This lovely greenhouse was just my cup of tea too!I did manage to get some nice old bits and bobs, only a few plants as I thought they were a bit pricey to be honest.Some much needed planters for my lollipop Bays; which have been crammed into their original pots for far too long and fell over if you sneezed near them! an old enamel bucket in the most delicious shade of blue and some Camassias to plant in them, this bargain of a big galvanised trough (£7!) which will weather down nicelyand yet another bargain item, a rusty metal obelisk for my clematis to climb up.It certainly pays to make an offer to the sellers, especially on the last day! last but not least I had to visit The Allotment shop again where I found this little packet of replica gardening ephemera.. It's just fab! I have no idea what I'll do with it all yet, but what a cute and interesting collection of vintage papers, pamphlets,cigarette cards, posters and seed packets.There's all sorts of bits and bobs in there!

You may like to check out the company that makes them...

www.mempackcompany.com

(I think I might get the seaside holiday one aswell)
So anyway that was a rare day out for us and a really good one, so for now, if you'll excuse me I have some balls of my own to trim...(box ones of course)

Over the hills and far away

Happy New Year everybody!

Thankyou for your messages, I think we can officially say that I'm totally rubbish at replying to them..oops, sorry, I did try and reply to lots though, honest!Well, we are home from Northumberland and home to a New Year...Oh how I love that place,the sight of that wonderful range of hills in Cumbria that you have to drive through on the M6 to get there makes me feel in awre of this wonderful, diverse country and it's amazing landscape. We always play spot the highest (barmiest) sheep as we go whizzing past. I get the same feeling seeing those Cumbrian hills as when I come home and see ours. The sky was bright blue and they looked like crumpled velvet as the sun hit them. (these photos were taken on the way back home to Malvern)It was lovely being able to spend a few days with some of my family, walking round the pretty stone village of Corbridge, having the most delicious cream tea at the wonderfully nostalgic Watling coffee house where my niece works and visiting the fabulous shops again..particularly RE , where I spent some of my Christmas money from my dear lovely Grannie on a fab little vintage-style mirror, complete with shabby writing and speckled glass! I was very restrained in RE, anyone who has been there will know what wonderful quirky stuff you can find in there. Old flags,rusty letters,cake stands,vintage eiderdowns and gorgeous cushions, candles shaped like cabbages of all things (and very 'phallic' looking asparagus candle as my sister kindly pointed out..yes, it was us sniggering in the greenhouse part of the shop, a smutty sense of humour runs in our family I'm afraid) The rest of my Christmas money has found its way to America and I can't wait for the purchases to arrive from there..'utterly fab' doesn't even come close to what will be winging its way over at some point.(well, I couldn't spend it all on boring old bills and food could I..?) My sister was looking at the most gorgeous vintage haberdashery cabinet (she's a dressmaker/soft furnishings maker) last I heard it was a perfect fit for her sewing room so I hope that means she's going to buy it...how jealous am I!!
She must have been bonkers having 18 of us to sleep but it was great fun, a few mad family days to forget about the impending court case and all our worries, worries that it seems a lot of us are sharing at the moment judging from the heartbreaking emails I received from some of you last month...and I thought we had a lot of problems..I do hope we all find a way out of our mess with jobs and the doom and gloom hanging over some of us at the moment. I guess we were one of the luckier ones in that Pete still has his job for now.

Coming home from our visit 'up north' we walked into the house and I can honestly say it was colder in than out. The blooming boiler had stopped completely whilst we were away and there were five shivering cats huddled up together on the sofa to keep warm..poor things.(well ok, 4 cats,Winnie is out of shot as she refuses to cuddle up with the other cats..no matter how cold it gets, snooty old thing!)
Two roaring coal fires and lots of cuddles later they finally warmed up, I think it has taken 3 days to heat up the house again, you could see your breath inside it was that chilly! It would have to be one of the coldest winters I can remember having in this house, when the boiler decides to well and truly go on the blink..if the hot water is running the heating goes off and vice-versa..hot-cold showers are not my favourite pastime..if you were walking past our house at the time I apologise for the rather blue language and screams that sprung from the bathroom!
Today it was minus 7 and the pond was frozen over..for the first time in 9 years..not a temperature you want to experience really without heating!! I think I may know what poor old Tracy cupcakes was enduring too..chiiiiilllly.
We've got a new feathered lady who has come to live with us after a very nasty experience with Mr.Fox (talk about traumatised, poor thing) and lots of lovely and very unexpected Christmas goodies to show and tell, as well as a very late tag to do from Happy (loves Rosie) I've also been painting and had a move around on Christmas Eve..yes I know..Christmas Eve, 8pm and I decide to swap furniture about and wallpaper backs of cabinets..barmy. I was making cushions for Christmas presents on Christmas day believe it or not! disorganised ..who me??
So I shall pop back with some more pictures and posts hopefully later in the week.I have a lot of catching up to do with everyones blogs too.
Tomorrow I'm in court with the oldest stinky boy..this is the 'fisticuffs at school with a so-called friend' fight back in May which we never thought would get this far. I hate this part..hanging around in court for hours usually to be told its adjourned or someone hasn't turned up..Talk about wasting taxpayers money..best of luck if they are wanting some money out of us, there's already an orderly queue!

Oh and by the way ..does anyone know a cheap way to ship eiderdowns (over 2kg) outside the EU? If so, I'd be ever so grateful if you could drop me a line..£79 is the cheapest I've found so far....£79!?! sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

Roll up.. roll up..it's the rest of the show!

Having been so obsessed with the vintage caravans, I realised that the rest of my photos of the Malvern Autumn show where a bit boring and very fuzzy..(a bit like my brain!) I didn't photograph the array of gorgeous doggies,nor the alluring llamas and alpacas, not even the lady who does balancing tricks with her pony but I did take rather a lot of photos of chickens..hmm.. I wonder why! (not that I'm obsessed with chickens or anything of course!)

There were frizzy chickens..MASSIVE chickens..now this chap must have been nearly 3 foot tall!

Chickens that looked like they had huge Afro's and chickens with what looked like fake Santa-beards on..(ooooh that photo will make your eyes squiffy..sorry!)

some were for sale so Pete ushered me away quickly from the pens and onto these lovelies..wooden beach huts and garden rooms..Now that's the green I want my garden gate!(more on that later)

aren't they gorgeous? humongous vegetables...seriously, now why would you want to grow a one-ton pumpkin? or a perfect leek the same size as me?..ok so I'm a bit short but it's still a massive leek! or maybe a cabbage so huge you would need to eat it from a wheelbarrow...(think 'spacehopper' size)

most odd, fascinating, but odd..even odder was the man cutting up his perfect vegetables and putting them in the bin.maybe he was sick of the sight of them or just grumpy cause he didn't win first prize or something...what a waste..he could have made soup!

Anyway,I've been given a garden gate in exchange for making a small roman blind...I've always wanted a gate in a wall..you know, one of those ones you want to know what's behind it and where it leads..it will be a painted pale green gate with a knocker and I was hunting for one the whole day here..then I came across this little one.. I think it fits the bill,looks a bit rusty looking and quite appropriate for a garden entrance..I loved the stall it came from,full of lovely vintagey styled things and cute garden items..even the paper carrier bags are fab and the ration-book flyers! They have an online store if you're interested, which shows their wares far better than my appalling photo!I did get some cheeky union jack paper chains (just like bunting..one of those "It's cheap, I like it and I have to have it" things but I don't know where it's going!)and this handy chalkboard for a reduced price..it was their shop 'welcome' board!which also needs to find its' permanent home, I don't think the stinky boys will see any messages if it's left here on the radiator!
The highlight of the day for me was being able to hold this beautiful chap..meet Merlin..Now I can't remember what type of owl he is but I was very privileged to be able to have him sit on my gloved hand. He's 14 and belongs to a friend of Pete's who could see how mesmerised I was by his beautiful amber eyes (not Pete's friends' eyes..the owls' I might add!!) isn't he stunning?
I have also been very naughty this week..I blame it on the girl hormones, (boys don't argue when girl hormones are to blame) I have had a bit of a spend..
Cute tins..I seem to have a thing for vintage toffee tins at the moment.....particularly ones with cheeky little terriers on..how could I resist that sad little face?

or this one..?He just looks like someone has said "walkies"!

A fire bucket ready for the seasons' promise of open fires,both of us being outdoor workers the fires get lit a bit later here as we don't feel the cold so much! funnily enough all those vintage caravans had one of these too!and some pretty stuff..but I'll save that for another time..
Harry had his op and is wandering around with a distinct 'John Wayne' swagger looking a bit forlorn..bless him.Thanks for all your well wishes.The hospital visit was pretty traumatic for him..more so that his silly mother took a turn for the worse.Of all the times, I really could have done without it that day. I was there for him.Not me!
Pete rushed to the hospital to find one very ill person and one very sore person! (We're both milking it for all it's worth though!...well you have to don't you?)

Have a great weekend x