a sudden onset of middle age

Having been nagged from several quarters lately about my lack of blogging, thought I'd update. Most often, the reason I don't blog is because I've got so much to rant about, I just don't have he time to get it all down! Also, don't really like picture-less blogging. (Sorry Nessa if that hyphen is in the wrong place)

Okaaaaay - firstly, let me draw your attenion to the 'Save me' link on the left. This is to do with the current ban on hunting in this country, and the fact it may soon be under scrutiny due to political changes. The fear is that the law may be repealed. Anyhoo, check it out, think this is important.

The next rant comes from today's guest publication: 'The Manual Of Getting Fucking Old Suddenly', which I seemed to have opened without realising.

I decided (clearly without giving this due consideration to the lengthy consequences) to take Oliver swimming. What I didn't bargain on was the sudden need to visit M&S for a new swimming cossie and the hour in the bathroom spent hacking back the undergrowth with razors, scissors and depilatory creams. Phew. It's all a bit exhausting to tell you the truth. And another thing: I bought a swimming costume. From Marks & Spencer. With tummy control. Middle aged, that's me. (hyphen needed??) The days of purchasing a bikini from New Look with detachable straps are long gone then...... AND another thing - the other day I needed a new moisturiser. Post purchase, I wound up standing in the bathroom staring in disbelief at a bottle of oil of Olay with spf15 and smelling like my Mum. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, I just didn't imagine turning into her for at least another ten years.

This is the costume I plumped for:

Looks kind of sexy on her huh? Now imagine a polar opposite and you're on the right lines of how I actually look in this....

After huffing, puffing and sweating in the changing rooms to try on 3 of the buggers, I was rewarded by a concise and matter-of-factly stated observation from Oliver: 'Mum, I think you look better with your clothes on.' After delivering this killer blow, he then stuck his thumb back in his gob and settled back to relax for 5 minutes leaving me to contemplate my cellulite.

And so to craft:

Last weekend was the UKS cyber-crop. A monopoly theme this time. I took part in the Mystery Kit and pre-cop challenge, and did 2 other challenges at the Exeter crop:




And this morning I seem to have a flea bite on my arse. Little feckers.

chocs away squadron leader

Easter is now upon us, and the inevitable pressure to go and 'enjoy' various Easter activities. Here is Oliver 'enjoying' his Easter egg hunt with the Beavers.

Actually, that's probably a little unfair, since this face was just to spite me for insisting he be in my photograph. In reality, he very much enjoyed this particular egg hunt. Those in the know had their cars waiting for them at the top of the mountainous climb - those not in the know (that will be me then) had to turn around and retrace our steps the twenty miles (at least) back to the car park at the bottom. By the time I climbed wearily into the car, I had backache, a bad temper and needed a big poo.

Poking about on blogs I have found this one, which has some chic cards and sexy blog candy:

What else....hmmm... Oliver decided a couple of weeks ago that he would ride his bike, and at last 'got it'. This has sparked a sudden interest in family activity and we have been out a few times for bike rides. It also sparked a sudden panic in buying a bloody bike, as neither Mark or I actually owned one. Mine is quite embarrassingly girly, but has a basket on the front which I am inordinately excited about. I feel very academic zipping around with my basket. Tres Oxford. Never mind it always has a bottle of manky squash, my phone, my camera and Oliver's discarded coat in it, the feeling of intellectual superiority prevails. Think we need to get Oliver a bike with gears as he has to get off and walk every time we hit a minor incline. I was startled to hear him talking about when 'we were bike riding in Holland'. Turns out he meant Haldon. (it's a nearby forest, for you non-locals). Ah bless.

This is the River Exe, incidentally, as Haldon forest does NOT have a river running through it.

In scrap world, I have decided to attend some of this years Scrapaholix retreat in nearby sunny Sidmouth, and to this end, I will be spending a lovely sunny (don't bank on it) Saturday at the Sidholme Hotel scrapping my little heart out with good company (surely) and good (hope so) food.

Scrapping achieved: this layout inspired by a challenge over on Indigo Mill. The challenge was to scrap the story of your name, but since mine is pretty dullsville, and the story behind it is non-existent, I have scrapped the story of Oliver's name. Marginally more exciting to me as I had some input there. In short, practically the night before he was born, (as prepared as ever) we cobbled together a list of names on a scrap of paper which we both found barely acceptable. These names were all girls names as I had it fixed in my mind I was going to have a girl. On the back of this scrap was one boys name - just in case. Oliver. You know the rest.

Other news: bashed out another hour of maths on Wednesday, and find that I get fractions, but decimals are a bit of a mystery to me, although they shouldn't be. I have asked Mark to help me with this, so I am looking forward to the look on his face when he wonders how I have got his far in life not really understanding 'to the power of ten' ha ha.

Do I like this look?

New blog look - not sure I like it, but I am fed up with messing around with it for now.

Just read (within 48 hours) a good book:

It's about a teenage girl who goes out one night, gets drunk, gets brought home by her father, there's a row, she passes out in her room, wakes up the next morning and the whole family have disappeared - mother, father and older brother. Fast forward 25 years and her family seem to be trying to get in touch.......MWAH HAH HAH HAH. It's very readable. Got to be, for me. If I don't like the writing style within a few pages, I won't stick with it. I would be the crappest member of a book club ever. I suspect there would be limited discussion on impressions of the first two pages.....

And I have just started this:

recommended by a friend. Oh dear, they're the worst sort of books usually, because you feel hugely obliged to find it as brilliant as they do. And I rarely do. However, this is bloody HILARIOUS and I have lol'd alot over the first three chapters. This passage had me sniggering away:

'Not even every parent I knew telling me that the baby would totally disrupt my life prepared me for how much the baby would totally disrupt my life. It was like having your most difficult and demanding relation come to stay with you for ever. In fact, it would have been easier to put up with my ninety-year old great aunt coming into our bed at three in the morning: at least she might have gone back to sleep for an hour or two.'

Many a true word and all that.

Am approaching the end of March, and the end of my alcohol ban is in sight. Whilst I will be pleased at the thought of a nice glass of chilled white in the evenings, I now know it doesn't dominate my life as I feared it did - I am freeeeee!

On the down side, I have compensated the lack of alcohol for sugar in other forms. My lifelong love of all things savoury has diminished under the powerful urge for cakes and biscuits. I now have an extra layer of flab to deal with. I just cannot seem to manage anything in moderation, sigh.

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.....