Busy

And this is why!

Finally, hurrah, they are both at school.  The down side of the smallest small being there is that it's only 3 hours a day.  So my toiling up and down the road has increased from two trips to three.  It really disrupts the day, I can tell you.  And the poor little sausage doesn't even get to stay there for lunch, she has to walk home first - cue a tanty immediately we get through the door.  I am knackered, she is knackered, we're all sick of it - except - SHE LOVES SCHOOL.  I am so pleased, and she is coming on a treat.  Roll on next term when she is there properly, all day.

I finally made something/Winners

Look, a project, finished and all, AND I managed to ravel it - my scarf project. It's only taken me about a year to figure out the system, also, I've been busy with other things. This project was a birthday gift for a 6 year old - I'm sure we'll be seeing more of it once the weather starts closing in!

And, the 2 people who made lovely comments will both be receiving a stained glass bird in the near future! Thank you. Susan, please could you let me have your snailmail address?

Back to school tomorrow - hooray - can't say I'm not looking forward to it because I would be lying! I have discovered, however, that last year's trousers will need a small sewing adjustment - into shorts. The boy has grown without me noticing (whoops!) The small child is looking forward to attending her first ballet lesson, and the big child is looking forward to 'not being at home and seeing his new teacher'. Me too!

Have a great week!

Chickens In the News!

Oooh, my chicken pics have made the news! OK, it's a small story, but my proud girls deserve a bit of promotion, don't you think? Click on the title to see those feathery stars of the very small screen.

And, I know, I'm sorry it's chickens again, but life's been a bit poopy lately - trekking up to school and back with No 1, and down to school with No 2 is rather taking it out of me - and as we say here, I just want to lie like broccoli when I actually get in the house for more than 3 minutes. So, it's chickens, or nothing!

Maybe some crafting later in the week. If I can get off my sorry ass and do a picture or two that is.

First Day at 'Big School'

(Otherwise known as Reception) Oh happy, happy day, he's back at school and absolutely loved it! I'm totally exhausted from all the walking, but he was very excited to start this morning, and see all his pre-school friends again. God knows what they did today - have you tried to find out what they do? - I just get 'nothing much', until next week, when this week will suddenly be re-lived in full and glorious technicolour!

Road Trip

Well, it's taken me a while to get back to posting, I can only say that life's been getting in the way! Also, I've really been too tired to do much more than read other peoples' blogs. And dream.....

Anyway, the one day road trip to the old homelands was very enjoyable. Firstly, the traffic - it was amazingly good - 3 hours each way, which considering the fact that I have known it to take me almost double that when the children have been on board in the past, was really quite an astonishing feat. Anyone outside the UK will laugh at the thought that driving 150 miles one way could take that long, but if you live in Dorset and want to go anywhere further than your local town, you will understand just how far away everything is from here, including the motorway (grimace), but it does keep us nice and rural y'know! Secondly, my little burdens were actually well behaved, civilised and didn't require potty stops every 2o minutes like they do normally as soon as we get into the car. Thirdly, the weather was so fine - the best we'd had in ages in fact - we had a bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds and SUN (yes, really). And it nearly was warm. Almost like Summer, in fact!

And of course seeing this little fella (George, 6 days old) and his family was so nice,


and then this lot :



(Sammy and 2 of her 3 burdens) for lunch, playtime and catching up on 3 months of news - including the addition of burden no. 3 (see below), was just fabulous. And the children all got on, and (mostly) ate the food they were given, and played nicely together.


A good mental health day for me, at the very least and of course, the last time we can take off like that with very little notice because tadaa - my little boy starts full time school next week (phew). Although there was just one disadvantage - my back/leg complained viciously for a week after, about the unacceptable task of sitting in a car and driving for such an outlandish amount of time!

Eco friendly and all that

Been revisiting a few eco sites today, and I'd like to share a few. My personal favourite, which helps me de-clutter and boost my karma '} too, is freecycle - it's going global, you are sure to find a local group, check out the main site here, and my local here.

Recyling plastic bottles is a big job in our house, as we get through a lot of milk - which nowadays, even if you get it from the milkman, all comes in those big plastic tubs. There's only so many mini plant waterers you can make with these, so most go into our local council's recycling scheme. But plastic water bottles get re-used here (we don't really like the bottled water, but the empties are useful for thirsty toddlers when you're out, so now and again we buy some) and here's a company who are encouraging the use of tap water, together with recycling at the end of a bottle life cycle. They're also selling their own bottles which are made with a non-leaching plastic material - always something that has worried me about using plastic bottles for any length of time. I will buy a couple as my toddler is due to start Reception next month, and they have to bring "a clear plastic bottle of water" to school every day (why you can't use an aluminium one I don't know), and of course, if one has it, the other has to too!

And finally, I've found a new one, where a whole family is trying to reduce their waste to zero - good for them, I hope they succeed. Check out their site, my zero waste - there's lots to see and do!

Just a quickie

First - apologies for not posting lately - we've had the most ghastly, hideous awful cold here and we're only just getting better after 2 1/2 weeks - not, of course, Teflon boy (my dear husband) because he never gets our germs. Bad tempers and whingeing all round, especially from me! Anyway......

Bubble jet set, it's marvellous stuff. I made labels (for the stupid uniform my 4 yr old has to wear come September time) because I'm too tight to buy them :) and test printed a couple of pumpkin pics from earlier in the week too.

It was easy to use (and because Mum and Dad bought me some Reynolds Freezer Paper, bless them) thus, I had everything I needed to make printable fabric successfully.

Here are my labels (after I cut out the first 8, I realized that they would fray because I am a dufus and forgot to leave seam allowances)















so then I found some iron on stabiliser and did the rest properly :











And then here are my little pumpkins, which might turn into a purse or pillows, or something useful...