Saturday 30 June 2012

Girl's eye view

Tall Girl loves to steal my camera and take happy-snaps around the garden. I thought I'd share some of the best of today's with you...

























As you can see she excels at the close-up.

xx

Friday 29 June 2012

An actual stall at an actual craft fair!

Look! I actually did it. I made stuff and put it on a stall. Actually my Mum made it look so fab before I even got there. She is also manning it while I run about to and from school for various Smalls activities. Her mobile has run out of juice so i'll have to wait til she gets home to find out if she sold anything.


You can see her books at the front. Two poetry collections and a novel. They all look good together.


I was a little distracted taking the pics because Giant Baby is not too well. He has what the doc described as unexplained spots. Not chicken pox as I suspected at first, but enough to make him a mummy's boy today.



I stole the children's little chair to use as a prop. I think it looks cute and gives the whole thing some height.


I am so relieved that it looks ok. I just hope a few bits sell. Next time I go over there I'll try and take some pics of the other stalls because they were all beautiful.

Off to make a cuppa now. Would you like one? Milk?

xx





Monday 25 June 2012

Pretty packaging

Today has been all about the wrappings. This morning I went to buy some paper bags from a lovely lady who runs a haberdashery stall in the market. I thought I had better get some for my craft stall and rather than buying 500 in a job lot she let me have a handful. Much more suitably modest for my crafty ambitions!

Then this afternoon I set about packaging some of the smaller bits and pieces for display on the stall. I am very chuffed at how they turned out.


Earrings,


cuff links,


broaches,

 
and hair clips.

I hope other people think they are as pretty as I do!




xx

Friday 22 June 2012

Two of my favourite things

Today I want to tell you about two of my favourite things.

The first is when the Smalls, without any prompting, behave in a lovely friendly way to each other and make my job very easy. They are usually pretty good, but the time straight after school can be tricky when they are tired and need some chill out time.

Yesterday when we got home I brought a sleeping Giant Baby in from the car and unusually he stayed asleep.


Tall girl then announced that she had chosen her school library book specifically because she thought Tiny Boy would like it, and she intended to read it to him immediately.


She was quite right. He really liked it and they had fun learning about trains.

The unexpected peace and quiet that ensued was well timed because I was feeling a little under the weather. I took myself upstairs and changed into comfy pjs and slippers.

Lovely!

The second of my favourite things is a regular Friday morning date with a bunch of lovely ladies and their babies. I say babies, Giant Baby is the youngest by a couple of months. We got to know each other through a mixture of aqua natal classes and what is commonly known as boob group. We meet at a different house each week, or sometimes at a cafe, and busy ourselves with pleasant chatter, coffee and large quantities of cake.


Today's gathering was hosted by a baker of most excellent goodies, and on offer was cinnamon, walnut and courgette cake, which sounds a little weird but tastes divine.


I have to confess that I don't actually partake of the coffee, not being a fan, but prefer a nice cup of tea, or two, instead.


Really the perfect way to spend a Friday morning!

xx



Wednesday 20 June 2012

Squeezing in the making

My Mum is on holiday this week which means I don't have my usual two mornings without any Smalls. J has also been away with work AND the dishwasher isn't working. All these things are conspiring to make making time a bit scarce. Normally this would be fine but I am trying to build up a bit of stock for the craft fair venture which kicks off in a couple of weeks.


It will be a mixture of biggish sewn things and


small crocheted things. If I can ever get my act together. Today in desperation I put the Giant Baby in front of Mr Tumble for half an hour. I think I might try that trick tomorrow too!

xx

Sunday 17 June 2012

Racing for Life

I stepped out of my comfort zone in a big way today. I am not, have never been and never will be a runner but a few weeks ago sanity left me and I signed up to do the Race for Life. The train of thought is now lost to me but included things like 'get fitter', 'good to do something different', Cancer Research is a good thing', '5km - how hard can it be?'...

So, over the last few weeks I have been reluctantly going for runs, accompanied by radio 4 pod casts on J's MP3 player, begging everyone I know for sponsorship and actually getting a bit fitter!

Today, supported by J and the Smalls, my lovely friend Sonia and her family, we went all the way to Edinburgh by car and bus and were greeted by this amazing sight.


Yup, somewhere in the mist is Arthur's Seat and we were going round it. And up a considerable bit of it.


Here we are waiting a little apprehensively for the start. At least I was apprehensive. Son has done a marathon or two in her time...

My mission had been to run the whole way. A mission in which I failed quite spectacularly. The first 2km were even more steeply uphill than I had been expecting and after about 1.5 I was beaten and walked for a bit. After that I managed to run most of it with a few wee stops to remove jumpers and sort out shoe laces. Son did her best to spur me on and I did my best not to collapse in a whimpering heap.


Here we are just before the finish.


And again a few seconds later once I spotted J with the camera.


Finished in 38 minutes. Short-lived running career firmly behind me!


I am pretty pleased with myself for going through with it though, and for raising £242.00 at the last count for an extremely worthy charity. If you want to add to that total you can do so by clicking here.


And this is why it was all worth while.

xx






Saturday 16 June 2012

Big Day for Tiny Boy

Tiny Boy was 4 on Thursday. He was supremely excited and loved everything about the day. The weather was great so the NEW TRAMPOLINE got half an hour's use before school!


He also received a play mobile camper van which was a huge hit. His obsession with all things camper van and caravan is a little infectious and I have been wondering if there was a way... In the mean time we'll make do with this:


Really you see, I only want a camper van if it could be as pretty as this one!


Thursday was also Torch Day in this neck of the woods, and it went past about 50 metres from our house. We had great fun watching the police motor bikes even if the actual torch was a bit of a blink-and-you've-missed-it.

(Not the actual torch!)

xx