I love Royal Mail (and ebay)

More postal delights today:


These Thickers cost me £6.68 including P&P - that's a bargain in anyone's book. If that book is a scrapbook that is. If not, you are probably thinking AND......???? or something suchlike.

Dipping in and out of challenges - here is a sketch challenge from Pickleberry Papercrafts:

Although not a big sketch fan, I quite liked this one. This is my interpretation:

We have decided to let Poppy have one litter of kittens, and now this ginger Big Balls Billy is hanging around trying to play hide the sausage with her.

Handsome devil huh?

In other news, Mark has lost heart with the pigeons and has made noises about giving it up. Great. He has thrown himself into this hobby, heart and soul for 6 months and I feel pretty depressed that his enthusiasm has dimmed so quickly with this. His mate Tom has given up, and it is Tom who first fired up Mark's enthusaism for it. Tom has split from his partner over the last couple of months too and seems to be veering off the rails with drink, drugs and women. Mark has found this depressing too, and coupled with Tabba the evil bird killer getting a few pigeons lately, including chloe and a couple of Mark's favourites, he is disillusioned. I also worry about Roger's future then....I have hand-reared this bloody bird and nursed him back to full health, and now I don't know where he will go.....

And just because....

I like this pic of Oliver. Taken recently on a little walk out to the park - it is probably over-lit, or whatever people who actually know about photography would say, but I don't care. It is sunny, and smiley and he makes me happy.

March-ing onwards

March-ing, MARCH-ing - the month of March, see what I did there? Play on words - cool, huh.


Have been busy all week making my Mother's Day gift and watching season 5 of House. Not necessarily in that order. Think this series of House is the best I have seen, but that could have something to do with the fact that this is the first series that I have watched completely sober. Not drinking alcohol has been far, far easier than anticipated, and now 2 weeks have passed, I am both delighted and relieved to report that clearly, drinking alcohol is, for me, a habit and not an addiction. I will not have any wine until April, and now know that I am in control of what I drink. Feel like this is the year I am conquering my demons, and it is feeling goooooood.

Got these babies in the post Saturday morning:

Got the thumbs up from brother Rich, who, despite being a total twat about a lot of things, is pretty trendy. Also got the wowsers at work from the girls who are all younger than me and therefore clearly got more of a finger on the pulse than I.

Glad to report that Roger the pigeon has improved tremendously and now looks like a real pigeon instead of a sorry lump of stubby feathers. He can feed and water himself now, so that is one less crappy job for me, but I still have to do pigeon poop patrol after the morning wing stretch and walk around, and my living room carpet now boasts an interesting pattern of clean light beige spots surrounded by the rest of the normal mid-beige.

Managed to get a perfect box to house my MD gift:

I only had to cover the 'L'Occitane' writing on the sides, et - voila. I made 10 blank greetings cards for her to give to other people and some first class stamps. I know it seems a bit of a weird pressie, but thought she would like to have cards and stamps available on demand....

Hope I don't get one of the buggers back for my birthday.

Here are the cards we gave to our Mothers:

And that concludes this weeks creativity slot.

My maths book has arrived, and I am disturbed to note that I already have a few sums I cannot solve even with the answers. Sometimes I just look at it, and I just don't get it. I could ask Mark, but then he is pissed with me and has been for an entire week now, so he is not Mr Approachable at the moment. What have I done to upset him this time? Hmmmm, who knows. Answers on a postcard please. Think it is one of those straw which broke the camel's back jobs, so this could relate to several years of fairly innocuous crimes and I may have snarled at him just once too often last week. C'est la vie. Will even out soon and then I can start a whole new batch of heinous crimes which I will no doubt pay for in 2018 or thereabouts.

Finally, I thank my lucky stars that I did a spellcheck before posting this, as I had written 'a lot' as 'alot' again, and this would have sparked a barrage of abuse and a long lecture on grammar from my old school buddy, the formidable Miss V......

getting to somewhere and other stories

Had a fab time at the Exeter crop last Saturday. Likely I won't be able to make it again until April now. :(

I have done a couple of layouts lately. Love the colours of this, as it happens, and am especially pleased to finally get to use one of the Karen Foster shirt labels I have had in their pristine packed since I started scrapping 3 years ago!

I completed this layout for a challenge on the Indigo Mill website:

The photo is of me, about 4 years old (and the original photo is in colour, might I add) standing on the bank of the river Exe. I had my whole life ahead of me.....

The challenge was to create a layout using your favourite poem/song lyric, but I have taken that as OK to use a piece from a book as well... The big 'J' journalling card hidden in the layout tells this story:

'This passage is from Alice In Wonderland. I have loved it for years. Twenty years ago I bought a poster in a kind of 'vintage style' with Alice and the Cheshire Cat having this very conversation. I thought it very poignant and loved the idea that you would get somewhere if only you kept going. That poster is still safely stored in it's cardboard tube in immaculate condition in the loft, and been carted around from relationship to relationship, house to house and now it is the right time to get it framed and get it up on the wall. I have walked for long enough to get to my somewhere.'

'Cheshire Puss, would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where-' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

'-so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.

'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat.

'If only you walk long enough.'

I feel all a-flush with my 'achievements' this week - I decided to give up drinking wine for a month. Now, I know that probably doesn't seem like a big deal for most people, but I am a heavy consumer of white wine. We are talking 4-6 bottles a week here. It's got out of control, I think, and while I don't want to/intend to give up wine completely, I do not want to be consuming it as I have been, so I am reigning it in now. I have felt a bit fed up with myself because of the alcohol for a while to be truthful, and felt a bit of a 'prisoner' to it. Think it is a habit, rather than an addiction - I don't get the shakes/cravings but I am sure my moods have been affected one way and another. This is the first time I have ever wanted to stop, and the first time I have stated my intention to do so.

I began on Monday, and actually, I feel 'free'. How bloody stupid I am to have got myself so 'wrapped up' in my wine drinking that it feels strange to not have wine by my side of an evening. The evenings seem longer, and I can get lots more done.

I have also decided that I want to learn something. This is partly because I genuinely enjoy 'learning' things, partly because I now find myself with a couple of hours to kill each week whilst at one of Oliver's activities and partly because I think it will be good for Oliver to see me tackling something new/educational. To this end, I have chosen maths. I hated maths at school. I truly believe I don't have a 'maths brain' (left and right sided brain people and all that shit), which is why I struggled to grasp many mathematical concepts but I also believe that I wasn't helped by being badly taught at high school and the fact that my closest friends were mathematically adept girls and surged ahead of me. (you know who you are ha ha...)

Anyhoo, I have talked to the Great Kimbo, knower of all things, and I have ordered a maths text book from which my niece managed to pass her IGCSE at age 14. If it's good enough for her....

I then intend to take an IGCSE in maths next year. I feel very buoyed up with the whole scheme.

Hells teeth, haven't ever blogged this much at once... will be updating soon with my alcohol-free stories (bet that will be fascinating), pics of Roger the recovering pigeon and the all-new all-shiny bedroom for Oliver. In the meantime, here is Poppy the naughty kitten, too big for her box. Literally.

no scrapping to be seen

After many weeks of apportioning blame and flinging accusations of idleness at each other, we have finally gotten around to decorating Oliver's room.

The red is the current colour, we have had to paint the walls with 2 coats of fungicide, scrape and sand the rough bits and then do 2 coats of PVA. Now it can be painted. I really do feel as if I know this room like the back of my hand.

I have another pigeon refugee - this is Chloe, Rogers sibling. Chloe can actually feed and water herself, but their mother hasn't returned from her training flight from Exmouth, so Chloe needs caring for until she is a bit bigger. She spends her day coiled like a spring in her box, waiting for me to put my hand in so she can peck me and give me a severe flapping. Nice. Mark thinks Roger has some pigeon disease (ends in -osis) which affects his nerves and could go on for many weeks. We nearly got Tom (pigeon buddy) around yesterday to wring his neck, but I had the final say on the death sentence and I wimped out. He is definately not on top of things - he falls over alot and looks pretty pathetic but it is the patheticness which makes him so loveable. If I thought he was in pain, I would get him done over straightaway, so hold your barrage of abuse you animal lovers out there...

And finally.... Oliver has just come in with this bunny in his 3D glasses, speaking like Michael Caine and saying 'well, the encyclopedia book was invented in 1977...' which made me fall about laughing. What goes through their little minds.....

Roger and ramblings

Meet Roger:


Mark brought this scrawny little babe in from the Pigeon loft Tuesday morning with a torn underwing. He made me feel very motherly, so I have hand-fed and watered him, and called him Roger. He repays my kindness by chirping endlessly through all the good bits on telly and shitting on my carpet.

My sis-in law came around yesterday for a cup of tea and a go at me for not blogging more often. In fact, I do believe that if I had blogged lately, she wouldn't have bothered to pay me a visit at all ha ha. Here's the thing: I love the whole concept of blogging, and I love a bit of blog-hopping as much as the next cyber-gal, but it does kind of kill the art of spontaneous conversation as you end up repeating yourself and not even managing to be as interesting as your own cyber-self. . . .

My friend informs me that there are plans afoot to add a lift to Haytor to enable access to disabled people. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) She is convinced this is true, and is (pretty justifiably I think) outraged at this. Whilst I fully appreciate the need to make 'life' as reasonably accessible as possible to the disabled population, does this type of thing qualify as 'reasonable' access? Methinks not - since Haytor is a geographical monument which has been there for millions(?) of years and therefore cannot be likened to adding a slope to the local greengrocers for disabled entry!!

I think this country is heading towards mindless positive discrimination. Worse, in my mind than your common or garden discrimination, since there is a big helping of hypocrisy in there too.

During her ranting and raving, my friend, who shall remain nameless to protect anonymity, said - and I quote - 'why don't disabled people just realise that life has handed them the shitty end of the stick and just get on with it.' Whilst I saw where that fitted in to her argument, I couldn't help staring at her in open-mouthed astonishment that she'd said it out loud. So callous.

Well, that will do for now. Better try and pull a decent meal out of the ether for Mark tonight, since last night I handed him a tin of beans and a bag of frozen chips before buggering off to work all night. Tsk tsk. I fear I am failing in my wifely duties.

Finished my layout for the Indigo Mill challenge:

The challenge is to create a layout based around a conversation. This is a conversation Oliver and I have on an almost daily basis:

O: Love you.

M: Love you too.

O: Love you more.

M: No, you don't.

O: I do! I really do!

anyway, I wanted to record this particular conversation as he really believes it - he truly believes his love for me is the greatest love ever, and far surpasses mine for him. I just smile away, because I have the trump card - I am his mother, and in time, when he has children of his own (hopefully) he will feel what I feel and know I was right all along - I love him more! HA! I win.

Off to the cinema this morning, working this afternoon and out for a nosh up for nephew Jack's 18th tonight. Phew.

good giveaways

Well I gave in over the cobwebby corners and hoovered looking up. Thinking of rebelling by not bothering to hoover looking down for a few weeks...

I have nearly finished a layout for a challenge, so nothing to post there. Have been a-blog-hopping and seen two lovely bits of blog candy, this on Jacque's joie de vivre blog:

and this on Pinkpuds blog:

Bugger all chance of winning it, what with hundreds of hopefuls, but think my chances are slightly increased by actually entering, so have done so.