Three days...

Hello! A quick coffee and a ginger snap for me before Miss T and myself return to our marathon clean-up. I have been cleaning my house for three days so far and I have not finished yet. Three days! Horror!

I should say here that this is more in the nature of a Spring Clean, rather than the weekly (fortnightly!) flapping of a duster, but even so. I am Astounded at the amount of broken, unused grot we have knocking around. And the dust... goodness, all I can say is that I am glad Toot has just given me a decent hoover!

Anyway, today has been devoted entirely to the boy's room, because frankly, by yesterday afternoon I just couldn't face tackling it, so I cleared all the 'easy' jobs instead. I have sorted everything into boxes- cars, action figures, hats, marbles, Top Trumps, explorer stuff, dressing up, weaponry (I have tried to hide that box), remote control toys, Playmobil, Lego, Meccano, magnets, drawing, pants, socks etc.

It will last precisely four minutes once they are home from school. In the meantime I intend to revel in a tidy room.

While I was sorting FHB's bookshelf of doom, I found a little ID card that he had filled all his details in on.

Aah, I thought.

Then I turned it over...

Translation: To Mummy   I'm a beast   I should be punished

Me: Small sob

Am now wondering whether we are the most horrid parents ever, or whether the FHB is one seriously clever boy.

Have a lovely day...x

Crochet catch-up

Hello there! My house is in a right old mess at the moment, but instead of doing the boring stuff, I thought I would start with all those half finished WIPs.

There is this:

Still hanging around. Must get cracking on it as I would really like to wear it this Spring.

Then there is the giant's beret (pouffe cover). Still waiting for its last few inches and a liner. It is getting urgent too as the bears have finally split all the seam of the pouffe and popped the buttons off.

And my carry along WIP:

This is going to be a blanket inspired by this one. It is acrylic for ease of washing and drying, and will be about 1.4m x 1.8m. It was going to be a lot bigger, but I really don't have that much staying power!

There are so many things I want to start too, like the Summer Breeze  cardi, and something involving Japanese flowers, like this from Attic 24. Then there are two small person's birthdays coming up, Mother's day, a lion, a shrug, a cardi for Miss T, a zippy hoody for the FHB before he goes and grows again, some skull bunting which is just ace, not to mention all the non-crochet stuff I'd like to make too, like some dresses for my girls, another blossom blouse, a dress for me, some cotton pyjama bottoms for the boys in my life, some new cushion covers (always ongoing), a boy quilt that is cut but not pieced, a bag....

Must dash, I need to get cracking...x

In which we realise that six is quite grown-up

Well hello! It is a pleasant and peaceful Sunday here in the house of bears. W and FHB went out this morning for a bike ride so I did a little baking:

And a little crocheting:

There is a lamby stew in the slow cooker, a child friendly film on the telly, and a living room full of small children doing (as Mouse put it) different things, together:

FHB (age 6 1/2) was found playing a Star Wars game on the laptop.

Me: Oh, I didn't know we had a Star Wars game on the laptop.

FHB: I downloaded it.

Me and W (together): You did what? How?

FHB (smugly): Oh, I just went onto Bing and typed Star Wars Clone Wars into the search bar and up it came.

Me (part horrified, part impressed): Well, guess we'd better sort out some parental filters then.

Apart from the thick patina of dirt that I now need to deal with following the excavation of two small dinosaurs, the world is my oyster today.

Look I have even had time to finally take some photos of my lovely magnolia:

And to enjoy the fruits of my earliers labours, with a cup of weasel poo coffee in one of my brand new charity shop cups (that Papa and Toot treated me to yesterday- thank you!)

To cap it all off, Miss T has just done a wee in her potty! Yay!

Happy days...x

Impromptu picnic

Yesterday the sun was shining and W was working from home, so when we picked Custard up from school at lunchtime we went straight down to the beach for a spot of lunch.

I LOVE doing this! I just feel better all over for an elicit hour breathing fresh sea air and getting covered in sand.

My camera, on the other hand, did not fair so well. Poor thing. It is only six months old, but I think I am going to be saving up for another one soon. The button has pretty much given up working (I think a Child may have had something to do with this), and it is full of sand under the slide up cover. It is definately not a happy bit of kit.

I have informed W I will be borrowing his camera for a bit, at which he looked slightly horrified and asked why I wanted to ruin his too. There's spousal support for you.

I am not good with cameras. Or watches come to think of it. Or mobile phones. Which I find quite weird, being someone who has never lost my keys or purse in my life.

I guess we all have our issues...x

Sunshiney flowers

After our few days away, Miss T and I returned bearing these:

A thank you gift from my lovely sister-in-law, after I pointed out that we have never made it to their house during sunflower season. (This is a great tragedy because my brother-in-law is a champion sunflower grower. Last year they had a tunnel of them!) And indeed, they are just my favourite flowers ever! They are looking very fine on my dining room table, shoved in a two pint beer stein (Goodness knows where all the vases have gone).

These come close to sunflowers for sheer happiness value:

Two bunches from Toot and two from W, plonked in the blue jug from Toot's loft. They are making me feel extremely pleased.

And I didn't miss the magnolia flowering! It is It was so pretty! I would show you how pretty, but Somebody small and male, who likes sticks, has bashed all the petals off. Hopefully the rest will come out soon and I'll get a snap for posterity.

Oh well. It is just not worth getting upset about, is it? And I'll tell you what- it's a lot easier not to get upset when the sun is shining, even if a small-boy-who-is-big-enough-to-know-better did wake us up at five this morning by sitting in the middle of our bed staring at us intently like a weirdo. Happy happy!

x

Babysitting

Hello! The sun is shining and all is well. Miss T and I have spent the last three days at my sister-in-law's house, looking after my Niece-who-has-no-plan, my Naughty Nephew and OK, while my brother-in-law ran the Rome marathon.

We have had a great time, despite the fact that Miss T and my Naughty Nephew are the same age and equally wilful, thus behaving at all times like evil twins. They both repel and attract each other like small, sticky, violent, magnets.

Anyway...

Here's a bit of what we did:

So lovely!

Hope you have had a wonderful few days too. x

SprIIIIIIng!

Today we wore T-shirts on the beach and dabbled our toes in the sea. We had raspberries and tea, Hula Hoops and ice cream, kicked the football about and collected stones.

Then we came home and had lunch in the garden.

Oh yes, Spring has sprung, though I've got no photos to prove it, because I'm rubbish! x