The Honeymoon

It seems like such a long time ago, but its not actually over yet, more of that later..

We had organised the timing of the wedding to fit around D's working times and he had been very lucky to be able to book a chunk of time off in August. We have, for the last several years gone to Amsterdam for the August bank-holiday weekend (in the UK) as there is a great (for us) arts festival on at this time. It is all free and there's some really wonderful and weird stuff going on. 

So, we decided that we wanted to get married on the saturday before our 'usual' Amsterdam weekend. We have been so many times now that we have been lucky to find a lovely apartment in a great location and when we got there this time the owners of the apartment had even bought us this..

Anyway, that was the second part of the honeymoon..for the first part D's brother and his mum had for our wedding present rented us a classic car for a couple of days (an Etype Jag, and a beautiful thing it was too)..I'm not really interested in cars but even I could appreciate this one..and they had also booked us a night in a lovely country house in Yorkshire..want to see some photos?

 
This is the gable end of the hotel, the gardens were beautiful and we had a lovely sunny and dry time there so we sat and had a picnic we had taken on the first day just enjoying our surroundings. The first floor window you can see was our bathroom window, you cant see the bedroom one but its to the right of the bathroom.


I have also added pictures of our room, it is likely to be the most luxurious hotel room we ever stay in and I would really recommend the hotel!

Amazing room

More amazingness

Really wish I'd moved that charger lead now! Strawberries and Champagne..mmm









  It was a lovely relaxing couple of days and will always be a fantastic memory for us..as will the second part of the honeymoon which was our stay in Amsterdam. 

  As we have been many times I suggested that we try and do some different things than just our normal 'stuff'. I did a little research before we went and came up with visiting a Jenever bar-the equivilent of Dutch gin..except this place has hundreds of different types

http://www.wynand-fockink.nl/en/home-en 

it might look like a bit of a dodgy e-mail link but believe me its not! These are two of the drinks we tried, D had an old jenever and I had a raspberry one. I can't say that I liked D's but mine was amazing, as were the two that the bar man made for us next. The drinks are served in a tulip shaped glass and filled to the very top, so full that you cannot lift it and you have to bend over a take a sip also known as 'bowing to the barman!'

Not sure who Deryck is...

We also went to a lovely rooftop bar on the top of a big department store right across from the royal palace and sat enjoying the sun. 
We went on the ferry across to the old harbour and generally relaxed and recovered from the stress of the last few days. 

So that was that..we had jokingly called our honeymoon(s) our mini and midi-moons...as we were hoping to get to New York again next year..however, things have taken a bit of a different turn and D is going to Wisconsin at the beginning of November for a couple of days..so, we decided to see what we could afford and arrange and we are going to New York next week and then onto Wisconsin...for our maxi-moon!


 

Final wedding 'bits'

I cant believe it was only or indeed was as long ago as a month..five weeks..

In my defence, I have been absent (again) as I have had a horrible virus that D then got straight after and we have both been wiped out..so I'll try and do the final bits of wedding stuff and get it out of the way.

We had a really fabulous day, I had got up to the Registry Office last time, with our choice of readings and music.

Following the ceremony, we came back to our home and had food, drinks, champagne, cakes etc with our family and friends. This was exactly what we wanted..the whole idea of a big party, with a disco and all that goes along with it would simply not have been us. So, instead people came here and we had a room with 'normal' food-what I mean by that is the normal buffet type food you would expect. (we had this provided by caterers who were here when we got back from the ceremony). It was great to not have to worry about it. We also had the wedding cake positioned in this room. D's cousin made it for us, I know I have talked about this before but she did a truly amazing job-bringing the various parts up to the house and assembling it all the afternoon before-even needing step ladders to put the last tier on!

She would probably want me to tell you that the cake was intentionally wobbly! Rather than a traditional bride and groom topper we had an Alice in wonderland themed 'Eat Me' topper to go with all the other Alice themed things like 'Drink Me' labels on the champagne and beers, a dormouse in a teacup, a 'mad' chandelier made of teacups and a flamingo, a mad hatter hat with 'in this style 10/6', bunting made from playing cards..ooh and some large white pom-pom 'roses'..some which were partially painted red.

In the next room-where we had music (our own playlist of songs that mean something to us, or just that we really like) we also had another cake, and I'm really upset I didnt take a picture of this one. It was three tiers of cheese decorated with figs and grapes.

In the next room, we had a sweet bar-again no picture, what was I thinking!! About a dozen jars and bowls with a variety of veggie sweets-I decided to forgo a colour theme as there were a lot of veggies attending the wedding-my husband (!) included.

Outside we had a small gazebo with bottled, canned and home brew  beers again, no picture. 
We had great weather-even though thunder had been predicted, it was beautifully sunny all day until about 9.30pm when there was an almighty thunder storm and the beer tent/gazebo had to be abandoned until the next morning when we found it wedged inbetween various walls!

All in all it was a great day, and pretty much exactly as we wanted..if I could have changed anything I would have made it longer!
And here's one of our favourites from the big day..

Next time..the honeymoon..!

What a day...

The last time I posted it was all about how stressed I was..and I have to say it only got worse! But, it was so worth it. We had the most amazing day, it was honestly exactly what we had hoped for. I had decided to just accept whatever weather there was on the day. The day before my weather app was telling me there'd be thunderstorms at 11am, 1pm and 3pm. We were getting married at 2.15pm so I was convinced it would be dramatic at the very least. I couldn't sleep the night before and got up at 4.30am..by 5am the rain was pounding down in the dark..and again I just thought we'd be getting married in the rain but that the important thing was the service, not the weather going in and out. Well, there was no rain, no thunder..until 9.30 that evening! It was a beautiful day weather-wise and it just added to the day. We had friends and family around us, there were tears at the ceremony-not just ours! We were complimented on our music choices: as it was in a register office we weren't allowed anything religious or with religious wording-this didn't affect our choices as we aren't religious but it did mean D decided to be abit pedantic at a previous appointment and ask could we have 'God only knows' by the Beach Boys? He was told that the Registrar would have to think about it. We never found out! 

Our choices were: 
For my daughter and I walking in 'At Last' by Etta James-raised a laugh and a few tears.
For signing the register: Perfect Day by Lou Reed- the original album track.
For us walking out as bride and groom: Couldnt Love You More by John Martyn. 

We also had a reading by D's cousin. She did a great job and again we were asked about it afterwards, where had we found it, who was it by etc. Luckily she had brought several copies and was able to give them to people who asked. We are not overly comfortable in expressing ourselves in public way and this reading seemed to fit us and our feelings:

Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. 
It is loyalty through good and bad times. 
It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
Love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past. 
It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. 
If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack.
If you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.

by Laura Hendricks

Thats enough emotion for me for one day...see you soon x

Wedding cake..and other stresses

So, one of the first things we looked at when we set the date was what were we going to do about a cake. They are horrendously expensive and to be honest I don't like fruit cake and D's not THAT keen so early on we decided we would be having a sponge. We then thought about buying a few tiers (three maybe) and doing something fancy with it in terms of decorations and toppers. Then, I saw it, the naked cake. If you have no idea what that is, have a look at this..naked wedding cake

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks and a lovely cousin of D said she would be happy to make us a cake-within some boundaries. We have done a test run, she made three tiers in an afternoon and they tasted amazing! However what I haven't mentioned is that by this time we had gone totally mad and bought some tins to make a'wobbly' cake.

At this point we felt it was only fair that we went for the easier 'cover it in buttercream' option. That was until I was looking at the photos I took of the cake a few days later. I realised all the edges were really sharp..and thought how great it would be to have a 'wobbly' naked cake. The compromise has been that I will still make the huge amount of icing flowers to decorate it incase the cake doesnt come out of the tins as well as the first time. So, thats what I'm up to alot of the time now..I have four colours of icing flowers and have made the first colour (pale blue) and started on the second colour (purple). This is a small section of the blues, not a great picture (they're in a tupperware tub with rice on the bottom and a tatty piece of greased-proof paper at the under them) but you get the idea. I am finding though that making something that you are hoping wont be used is a bit of a bummer..and makes it even more boring than normal...

Right I can hear the icing calling me..

Be well x

Two weeks today...

...will be our wedding day!

We only set the date in January so it was done fairly quickly in comparison with some, it worked well for us as I hate things being dragged out.
I had totally intended that I would use this blog as a way of documenting the lead up to our 'big day' but actually I have kind of retreated. Retreated into a haze of pinterest and pukka pads (or the WHS version). I have loved my pad, I have used each section for a different 'bit' of the wedding and it has worked really well-I am normally very unorganised so this has helped a huge amount. I made a section for guests, a section for food (and drink) and a section for stationery- where I included discount codes. We used a site called Zazzle and found the quality and delivery to be great.

These are the save the dates we sent, and a theme began to emerge.
We also used the same website for our invites and again were thrilled with the results. (I'm only saying this from presonal experience and have not received anything to promote them)

We originally said we wanted to do things in a way reminiscent of days gone by where everything was home made or done in a way that wasnt frivolous (or spending for the sake of spending). We have also been extremely lucky in that some family members have stepped up with offers of things such as doing us a playlist for when we come home for the reception, making the cake, making cupcakes and painting us a back drop for our 'photo booth area'. However, we did stick to what some would call a tighter budget, including having the reception back at our house. We have tried to stick to a budget of around £2,000 with the occasional bigger spend on the way, and also were able to buy things each week so that we wouldnt have as much to get all in one go.

As we are having a 'small' wedding we decided we would splash out a little and get caterers to do the food and also have 'silly extras' such as a photo booth - not an actual one but an area with a backdrop and props. These are the things we have gradually stocked up on, hats, scarves, things on sticks..you get the idea.

We also didnt particularly like the idea of getting favours for the guests-with 40 ish guests it could easily have added £100 to the budget for something that would be difficult to get that would suit everyone. We decided to do a sweet bar. Many people follow a colour theme with these, again we decided to be abit less focussed on this with the only condition being it would have to be all veggie. We will have several veggie guests so it will be good for them not to have to worry. We had a couple of containers, not many so I was permanently on the look out and got a selection with things like sundae dishes and jars from various places including Wilkinsons and these from Ikea

I hope that hasnt been too boring and hopefully I will be back to waffle about the likes of dresses, suits and cat outfits!

Be well x

quick helloooo

hi..its been too long, no really it has...
I have no excuse other than life and the fact I've been really feeling a bit down & a bit overcome...with life, and weddings..and stuff..

So I'll just quickly pop in and tell you something highly amusing (to us). Last night we had what is known in the UK as a 'chippy tea'. It had been a long day with lots of stress and not much actually being achieved. The main stress was that all of this involved a certain wedding dress. I will probably blog about this later, so onto the main event.

We got home from manchester and D offered said 'chippy tea', I asked for a potato pie, chips and gravy...mmm gravy, a thing the north was built on. He brings it back and I open it up and it was a meat pie...'aah well, I'll just eat the pastry and throw away the dense ball of 'meat in the middle' I thought.
The tray was on the table, with aforementioned tennis ball sized chunk of 'meat' in it, suddenly Slinky Malinky, the most cosmopolitan of cats (one of his particular favourites is mushroom curry) jumps up, sniffs and steals the meat...it was almost as big as his rugby ball shaped head!. He jumped off the table, landed near Cleo, she dared to look at him so he growled-shockingly as we have had him over 10 years and he has never before growled, and then, even more shockingly he hissed at her before running away with his prize! He ate the whole of the inner pie with no help from anyone else-I had thought maybe I should chop it up-like you would for a toddler but actually after the growl/hiss incident I wasn't getting near to that bad boy!
So, thats it, my beautiful furry baby has turned into a northerner...

Sad news...happy news

For quite a while now Flossie Chicken hasn't been 'quite right'. She has NEVER laid the right sized egg..think on the small side of bantam egg. She was a big girl but this last few weeks she went so thin...and stopped laying at all. She was wormed monthly and had lots of healthy treats but she was just a skinny girl. She could race around the garden and made regular escapes but she was just thin..
On Saturday evening I went out to make sure she had gone to bed-we had made a new table to put their house on-same height and everything, but she seemed a little put out by this. So I went and checked and she hadn't gone to bed. She was hunched up under the table, not in an odd position, just in a 'bugger off and leave me alone I'm going to sleep position.' So I put her to bed so that her and Mrs P could share each others body heat in the night. On Sunday morning Flossie was laid on the floor in the run...stiff. She was probably less than three years old, no age for a hardy chicken like her. But as I said she'd never been 'right' really. She'd had a good last day, they had a lovely treat of plain yogurt, strawberry tops and over ripe blueberries-the blueberries that she very sneakily grabbed out of Mrs P's beak as she was trying to eat them...this was laced with their regular dose of worming tablets to make sure they had them..she was then given free run of all the garden as we were working in their run so could keep an eye on them. She did her usual trick of following me down the 2 sets of steps when I had to go in the house..and also sneaked to the bird table to steal any leftovers the Great Tits had thrown on the floor. I'm sure I'm trying to convince myself |I did all I could-shes only the second of five chickens that have seen their days out with us that has died without assistance and although I tell myself maybe I should have taken her to the vets, I know she had a good life and death and unlike the others I had before her, she never knew life in a cage...RIP Flossie.

So, we couldn't leave Mrs P on her own, chickens are flock animals and need to be together, so we went and got a new pair-so that if one of them pops off, we will still have 2. Meet Hattie and Gracie.

This was within a few minutes of them arriving. They are still a bit stunned at this point. Mrs P was being particularly arsey with them even when she wasn't in the run with them she was squawking and making herself known. There have been a fair few scuffles-strangely all involving Mrs P jumping on them and pecking them in varying levels of severity. We are used to this now, its what they do, its horrible but its how it is! They were better yesterday (Monday) and I am sure today will be even easier.

Hope everyone is well..x

Fantastic art exhibition starting soon!

hi,
just a really quick drop in from me...

A cousin of D's is having his very first exhibition and at quite a prestigious northern gallery- The Salford Art Gallery.
The exhibition starts on 2nd May and runs until the beginning of September.
There's a link to the poster here >>>     The Now The North

We have been lucky enough to be able to see some of the finished artwork and it really is fantastic. Many of Hugh's paintings are of city scenes that will be familiar to those living around the Manchester area

City scapes

but there are also a few that are more rural and just as beautiful.

Landscapes
 I think this one may well be my personal favourite!

If you are nearby and at all interested in art I am sure you would not be disappointed in a visit to see this very talented guys art!

What I did on my Easter holidays..

The short answer to that would be "not much"! Except when you stop and look at it actually there's actually a fair amount been done, only it's maybe not as exciting as I was hoping for.

I have got lots of seeds planted-tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, all things I have had an amount of success with but this year I have tried some new things including sweet corn-first sprout pushing through this morning, brocolli and cauli-they came up in about 4-5 days and there are millions of them! Peas and beans doing well and some butternut squash. On a more flowery note I have planted a full packet of sweet peas that are doing very well-they will need to be put into bigger pots this week..they are very important as we want the flowers for the wedding reception..I will be planting another packet of them in a week or so to try and stave off any emergencies.

We have bought three raised beds, two small ones and 1 larger one-I'm not too sure about the longevity of the larger one even tho the wood was supposedly treated to give it 'long life'. (I was going to insert a picture here but the only one I have of our veg plot looks terrible and the raised beds aren't even on it so I'll wait til i no longer feel ashamed of it!)

We did manage an afternoon out and a lovely one it was! On Easter Sunday we headed over to the Yorkshire sculpture park  and had a couple of hours there. The weather was lovely and I had cobbled together a small 'picnic tea' and a flask of nice coffee which made it extremely good value for money! You don't have to pay to get in just for parking which was £5 for up to 2 hours or £8 for the whole day, I would much rather have done the whole day thing but by the time we got organised and got there it was 3pm!

I especially liked a Barbara Hepworth piece and again was rather taken by this Anthony Gormley-we have been to see his installation on the beach 'another place' and really felt quite moved by it.

 So, that was my Easter, what about yours?

Glass- things that make me happy

Something that I have really loved as a thing of beauty for quite some time is glass. I began collecting in a small way pre children so a loooong time ago!

The photos I have taken are not great-again having to use my camera phone doesn't produce the greatest results. Anyway, when we moved to our home last year it was fairly obvious to me that the place to put all my (not a huge amount of) old bottles was on the 'Lancashire range'.

 As we have such horrible wall paper in that area of the house I had to put some plain paper behind the bottles to stop anyone viewing them from being dazzled! (I apologise if anyone has and loves this wallpaper, I am sure if you have chosen it you love it, however, we did not choose it and definitely do not love it and it just doesn't 'go')

Some of these bottles are old photographic ones, used for holding developing chemicals. One is etched with 'Developer Number 1', another with 'Developer Number 2' and the third from the same amateur photographer has a raised line with the words 'Acid Line' on it. I know where these came from-an old lady who's long dead husband dabbled with photography and it makes me happy to think of him in his shed or bathroom with these beautiful glass bottles.
The other bottles are ones that I have picked up over the years and I tend to go for interesting ones with a label or some writing etched or raised in the glass.
I wonder what 'Flowers of Sulphur' were-scrap the query, theres 'POISON' in raised letters on the neck of the glass...hmm
,  I am sure that I know what its neighbour held, each edge has raised lettering spelling out "Favourite, Daddies and Sauce'. There is also a small bottle of Lung Tonic. Its quite sad that these days our bottles of sauces or medicines are simply that, a bottle with something in it, not things of beauty anymore.

We regularly travel to Amsterdam-if once a year can be called regularly, the fact we go on the same weekend each year makes it regular for me I think! Each time we go anywhere I like to bring 'a thing' back as a reminder of a happy time and one year we went to an eclectic shop near Keizersgracht and I was happy to see they had lots of glass-modern but I was drawn by the colours. I got 4 of these balls-one has fallen down from the window so it missed having its picture taken, that'll learn it! When we go to Amsterdam we only ever take hand luggage and I can remember wrapping these glass spheres in socks and then t-shirts and hoping for the best before placing 2 in each of our duo of rucksacks. Happily they survived and now I see them several times each day as the hang on either side of the french doors and it often makes me think back to the city that I love so much.

Winters walk.

In an effort to try and help my mood I have decided that I really need to start making an effort to go out more. Where we are it is easily possible for me to see no-one from one day to the next-other than D. This is mainly because of the layout of the house but also because where we live is a quiet area. With this in mind i decided to go for a short walk this morning-no matter what. I have taken a small amount of pictures but they really arent very good but sadly this is all I can manage for now!
It was absolutely bitter today and I was confident I had chosen the right time for me to be out: a hail storm had just paid and I could see brilliant blue skies when I set off.I decided to start off with the hardest bit first, I walked up the steep hill-very very steep past the golf course.I peered over the wall and I could just spot some snow still lingering. I do love the look of a golf course but its such a shame they are usually such private places with no-one else allowed in.

I carried on, down the lane a little while...The golf course is on the right of this picture just over the wall. It might look like this rather uncared for road is full of potholes but no, its just a dirt track-no tarmac here! At this point, the hail started again, and boy did it come down, my hands were freezing, if I hadn't been able to see them I would have disputed that my fingers were still attached, it was so painful. I turned around and headed for home, but instead of heading back down the oh so steep hill, I thought it would be better (more interesting) to head back at right angles down a 'path' using that term loosely that runs between two fields. In the summer the fields had some young bulls in and I was wondering if maybe there would be some more livestock but no, just empty fields, for now.

All the time the hail was still hitting me quite painfully and because I had decided to go this other-very muddy path I had to take it slowly as I was slipping quite a lot. At one time my boot came off, luckily I noticed before I put my foot back down! Oh how we would have laughed about that tonight when I told D.

Now this last, even more rubbish picture is where you will need you very large magnifying glass and even larger imagination! If you look kind of in the middle and to the left ever so slightly there is a pale coloured building, it's not ours, but if you move you eyes slightly to the right theres what is an obscured by a tree house, that's where I live. The walk has reminded me why I love where I live, even if I don't see other people much. Being in a semi-rural area, with neighbours (very nice ones) around us and countryside like this right outside our door is wonderful.
My walk left me feeling ready for the day and I came back and have washed the bathroom, scrubbed the horrible showerscreen..seriously cant wait to rip all this out, but for now scrubbing and cleaning will have to do. Anyway, whe I had finished that I felt invigorated and decided to go downstairs and have a go at some more tissue paper pom-poms. I'm making some for the wedding. However, as soon as I sat down at the (very messy) dining table that I use as my HQ for all things makey I suddenly had company...company of a furry mewy kind.

Slinky, in the middle started off at the other end, then he moved onto my ripple blanket and then started backing up into Cleo who had positioned herself next to the iPad..as he moved slowly further back (towards me) she moved closer to me. So, I have come upstairs on the PC to complete this..closely followed by Slinky, aka the Singing Cat. Hes had a quick burst of something from one of his favourite power ballads and has now settled himself down under a huge groundsheet on the floor (don't ask)..when I say settled, hes moving around and is sighing a lot. Its a hard life when you are such a beautiful boy.
Right I better get back to it..those chickens wont let themselves out

Be well all x

Wedding stresses and dresses

It's now officially less than six months to D (or W) day, and yes, I am getting very stressed about the whole thing. We are having a 'small' day. In theory I was imagining around 20 guests. We are now up to 42...the registry office seats 40. I am spending some time each day hoping that maybe some of our guests will have a holiday or another, more important wedding to go to. I hate the idea of being the centre of attention, I would like it to be just me and D and some random witnesses or just witnesses who mean lots to us. I would also be happy to go away and do the deed-I have done the whole wedding thing before, however, D hasn't, his mum has never seen him do this and I couldn't take that away from her-or him.

So, where are we up to? 42-ish guests, all pretty much D's family, many of which are now friends of mine. We are having a registry office wedding and then our friends will be joining us back at the house for champagne, probably some cocktails and food.

A nice simple day, so what on earth am I stressing about? Well, there's the cake...I REALLY and I mean REALLY, REALLY would like a naked wedding cake, if you don't know what I mean look here: Naked cake
I really don't like the whole fruit cake, marzipan etc. so this seems like an ideal choice. It also seemed fairly obvious that it would be easy to make...except I don't really bake, but as a number of people have said, it's only a Victoria sponge, multiplied by several. I was up for doing this til I read last night that it would need to be assembled on the day. When I told D this he put his foot down and said no. No I am not allowed to make the cake-he knows how stressed I get over stuff and this (probably correctly) would be a step too far on the morning of the wedding. I a looking at other options, including an iced cake :0( we could buy different tiers, with different fillings, still iced though..hmm.

We are now in the process of buying 'stuff' for the wedding. We are also having a 'sweet bar' as an addition to the buffet, just as abit of fun..like the 'cheese-cake' we are also having. Cheesey!
This is a particular treat for D-he's abit of a cheese monster on the not-so quiet!

So...my main stresses are-getting food ready for the 'not so big' day. Sorting a cake, we have agreed to bite the bullet and buy a ready made cheese cake-it will be slightly dearer but not enough to make it a ridiculous spend. Getting decorations ready-I've bought the tissue paper and am going to have a go at making some Pom-poms...Oooh, did I mention the photo-booth?

(not so) happy Friday-emotional baggage discussed here, please move along..

I was planning on joining in with the whole happy Friday thing starting from this week honestly, I was! Except this last couple of days have been not so happy until it kind of got unbearable last night. I heard D come to bed, and I couldn't get back to sleep so I got up (it was about 2.20 am). I decided not to go and get in the spare bed so I came downstairs and put the TV on. I made myself a coffee and got a piece of (stale) cake. I just got sat down when I heard a noise, it was Cleo cat on the other side of the door. "Aw..." I thought, she's come to keep me company, bless her. I opened the door and she shot in and climbed straight on top of the TV recorder thing...hmm. I started watching something on TV, then another, and another until I looked at the time and it was nearly 6 am so I climbed back upstairs and got in the spare bed. I was woken by D at just after 10.15. He had thought he'd heard the TV on when he'd been up going to the loo during the night but had thought it wise to leave me alone.

This is where it gets to the unhappy bit...

Something I haven't shared here is that I am seeing a counsellor, working on my 'stuff'. It's been a long time coming and now the time is finally right, I am ready. But it has also got to a point where I am at the feeling worse before I get better bit. And it's shit-sorry if anyone's offended by that but it truly is. I get to sit in a small room with someone who's not much better than a complete stranger and talk to him about every nasty horrible thing that's happened. Some of them so nasty and horrible I couldn't even say them out loud last week, I had to write them down. Then I get to go home and feel terrible all on my own-last week even more so because D was working away for 6 days. So last weekend past in a haze of misery, tears and bacon buttys. I went out looking at wedding dresses but couldn't enjoy it as I was on my own, and also I just know I'm going to struggle to find one I like.

I have been to see my counsellor again, this week there were tears during the appointment when I told him I don't feel loved, or cared for. And today I have managed to tell D exactly that. It can't be easy hearing the person you love, say that they don't feel loved by you but he took it. And when I'd finished he told me just how much he loved me.
I'm still feeling numb, and on my own....but I'm trying to hold onto the fact that just because I feel it, doesn't make it so.

It's finished.....well...

Well, when I said finished, it IS finished apart from 2 sides of the first border and 4 sides of the second...and all the ends sewing in. However, the first border will take approximately an hour to finish the second will take a couple and I am gradually doing the sewing in. We do not have any guests booked in at present so I am happy to take this at a nice and easy pace! As long as its done in the next week I'm happy!


In other news, we have set the wedding date...its in a few months...this summer..just need the divorce to come through now..bugger!

Singing cat

I'm fairly sure I have mentioned before that our beautiful boy Slinky likes the odd song, usually at night but more recently just whenever the fancy takes him. The fancy usually takes him several times a day now and as long as he can't see you off he goes. When I say 'as long as he cant see you I really do mean this, he will go and look at a wall and sing, as soon as you make any noise he will stop and 'mew' instead. At first D thought it was some sort of separation anxiety but he now does is when we are less than 3 feet from him so it seems less likely!








Anyway, at weekend we called at a local antiques centre and while I was looking in a cabinet I spotted this:

A cat teapot, but not any old cat, a singing cat....more importantly, it even has the same face the Slinx 'does', he also puts out the bottom of his jaw, pushing at far forward as he can before he gives it what we call 'the whole Whitney'. I can honestly say that if this wasn't £78 I would have been bringing it straight home with me. A friend suggested I should have tried to knock the dealer down but to be honest unless they were prepared to drop to single figures its very unlikely I would have been in a position to put my hands in my very long pockets sadly. Next time we call in at the centre I will be looking to see if it's still there and if there's any decrease in the price!

Blanket....quite a big one!

Getting ready to block

I think I mentioned in my previous post that I was in the middle of making a large blanket-if I didn't I am. I started it in November I think, (it was after I'd finished D's mums Christmas cushion because I remember thinking how I'd swapped one project with lots of squares for another!) I remember saying I wanted something 'big' to keep me going. I think by that I meant to make myself feel productive and also to focus my mind. At first I was really productive, making lots of the little squares at a time, sometimes I'd do a large amount of the Middle circles maybe 20ish, then I'd do the next couple of rows on the 20 and then start again and the next couple of rows-I hope that makes sense. At other times I'd just do the squares from start to finish. I know I ddn't work out how many little squares I'd need until I was quite a way in.

Then December came and I found myself feeling really down for various reasons: the weather, lack of light, money worries for Christmas... It's really quite a long list to be honest. in my mind I was going to spend quite a long time over the Christmas break with this blanket, in reality when December 28th came around I had to really force myself. I remember thinking that I may not enjoy it but I was going to bloody well do it! Not the best motivation really but as the days went on I came to like it a little, then a little more and now I'm really looking forward to finishing it-not to get rid of it but to see it in place.

Cleo 'helping'

It will be going on the bed in the spare room-it still makes me happy that we have an actual 'spare bedroom' by that I mean one that's set up as a bedroom and is available for use at any time. Before we moved we had a tiny spare bedroom which D also used as his office/study/studio but in our new home he has all these things in a big attic room just for him, lucky boy!
Anyway, I had been hoping to get the three first rows finished by last night-a tad ambitious, but I have got rows 1 and 2 done and am 2 squares into row 3. The squares are all done-but they need some of their edges doing-they have three rows around the edge, I have been blocking them when I've done the first row and then doing the next two and attaching them.

One of the things i really love about making blankets is that once you get past a certain size, they warm you up and keep you cosy while you are still making them!

Hoping you and yours are all well x

And a Happy New Year!

Hi- I am of course aware that I haven't been here, lets both pretend that I have been here as regular as clockwork..and move on, thank you very kindly! If I am honest I started to really struggle before Christmas which became really clear when I couldn't even be bothered to pick up a crochet hook or a ball of wool, everything and I mean everything became too much of an effort. To the extent that once D had gone to work I would go back to bed and easily sleep for another 3-4 hours. However, I feel slightly better most days and I have taken up the hook again-I am nearly finished on quite a big project-I will take some pics this afternoon..I promise!

And what have you been up to I hear you say..well, wellity, wellity, well...we had Christmas, D's mum loved her cushion (in Delft colours) or she made noises like she did, who knows.
We have both been ill, various flu and non-flu type viruses (virusi?) but we have come out of the other side now thankfully. D has also gone back to work now, he gets three works off for the Christmas break but a fair amount of that is used up by working from home-so not really 'off' for three weeks.

For around a week now we have been getting snow, the top photo was (i think) about 3 days ago. We live on quite a steep hill which isn't that clear from that picture but what is clear is that you cant really see anything into the distance-normally we can see rolling fields, trees in the distance, windmills turning...and you know what..I love it! I haven't been out in days but I do love it! The chickens however, not so keen and I cant say I blame them, the floor is nasty, wet and cold, the ramp to their house is cold and icy, they just keep sitting in their eglu peeping out.

These are the steps up to our garden, the bushes are laden with heavy snow-yesterday snowed non stop until about 5pm. Getting up these steps didn't feel too tricky, there is ice under the snow but it feels 'OK'. However, having to bend myself almost double to get under the branches while wearing my pj's, dressing gown, thick socks and walking boots wasn't the most fun so far in 2015!

And this is the view coming down:

That does look a little tricky I admit but it was fine, even the wobbly step!

Have you got snow, or are you in the middle of summer right now?

Take care x