gift idea

Thank you for all the compliments on my new coat. I haven't worn it yet but it's been getting very chilly here this week so I don't think it'll be long before I do.

Whilst out on Monday I saw some lovely glass jars in the 99p shop very similar to the one below which I bought last year as part of one of my friend's Christmas gift and I thought I would share with you what I did for her as I was really pleased with how it turned out. I called it a Winter Warmer jar.

The jar is 20cm tall and inside I coiled up a long narrow scarf on top of which I added hot chocolate sachets, some shower gel from Boots decorated with snowflakes, cosy slipper socks




and to finish it off a tub of Vaseline for rosy lips.

I love Christmas shopping trying to find the right thing for someone.

seasonal changes

It's been ages since I able to blog or read anyone else's.
Well it's been nearly a week, but a week that has seen a big change around here.
I have returned to work after being off for 19 months. It was a bit of a shock to the system being back in office mode, but thankfully it's only going to be for 2 days a week so I'm hoping I'll be able to get a good life balance.

Last Saturday I went along to an Autumn Fayre at one of the local church halls. Unusually T and S came along too and once there we met up with my fellow thrifty relatives, my mum and sister.
I really love the illustration on the advertising poster.



This one didn't yield as many goodies as on previous occasions but I did buy this gorgeous winter coat for £2.00. It's from Next and the photo doesn't do it justice, the flecks in it are pale pink just like the lining you can see peeping out at the top.

So I'm getting prepared for winter just as the house was kitted out for Halloween.

For all those who fell in love with S's pink Halloween tights, if I ever find them in grown up sizes I will be sure to buy a batch for us all!

and then when I popped to Sainsburys mid week for the grocery shop I found on the shelves the Christmas issue of their own magazine. I don't buy many magazines but I find this is very good value for money.

This morning it was back to autumn as the 4 of us went out for a walk in a local park which was carpeted in fallen leaves.

Well 2 of us walked, the only 2 mainly ran.

We found some interesting looking fungi.

Then another seasonal change this afternoon saw me back at the very same church hall as last week for a Christmas gift and card fayre.

I can't share all my purchases as I am taking part in my first swap and managed to get a couple of bits.

There was a lady selling off lots of her own old Christmas decs and for 20p each I bought this star and tree. The tree I'm going to paint cream, it's looking a bit worse for wear as it had little mini ornaments stuck to it which have fallen off!

This will look good wound around my kitchen cabinets, well that's the plan at least.

And these I want to hang from the top of a window frame using red gingham ribbon.

I'm having a lovely weekend after my first week back to work. I hope everyone else is too whatever you are doing.

Our Halloween

Our preparations started with me making a few of these ghost lollies courtesy of the fabulous domesticali for our treat or trick visitors.

As well as a few indoor decorations, we had 3 pumpkins outside along with skeletons, bats and spiders.

S isn't keen on the darker coloured witch costumes so she wore one of her pink fairy dresses along with these wonderful tights.

G took them out visiting homes around the neighbour who were participating in the great sweetie and chocolate giveaway whilst I gave out the lollies to our callers. I think we probably had in the region of 45 callers.

The pumpkins are still outside although everything else is packed away now for another year.

Annoying

So this evening I picked up the 2 large bags of clothes I had been accumulating over this past month to take to a clothes swap being held at an arts cafe in town. I had arranged to go with my sister but she had forgotten our arrangements so I went alone. I caught the bus into town and arrived at the cafe only to be told the info on the website was wrong. There were now only seasonal clothes swap evenings and the last one had taken place on Tuesday! Grrrrrrr!!!!!!

I am now home drinking a delicious cuppa and eating an equally delicious and very large cookie and chortling at these photos taken today, annoyance seeping away.

Souper

What a gloriously warm and sunny autumn day we had today.
I took the children to Royal Victoria Country park for a couple of hours.
One reason being we could spend time outdoors basking in this unexpected sunny weather and another was to walk the Hallowe'en quiz trail. Unfortunately this was very basic in it's set up and took very little time to do, but we played frisbee and generally larked about for a while.

This would have been the most perfect spot for a picnic, a bench surrounded by the trees showing off their autumn splendour, but I wasn't that organised today.

I did, however, make a soup for this evening's meal which was enjoyed by G and S. T wasn't feeling too great this evening and didn't have much of an appetite so I can't claim a complete success with it, but I shall make it again.

It was featured in a recent edition of the Sainsbury's magazine and for anyone who may want to have a go....

Chop up 2 large carrots, I red onion, I leek, I large sweet potato and 2 stalks of celery (I left that out). Place in a roasting dish and drizzle with 2 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp maple syrup. Bake in oven at 200c for 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and pour into a saucepan containing 1 litre of vegetable stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Blend until smooth.

I added a few chopped up vegetarian hot dog sausages as these are a huge favourite in our home and can make new things seem more enticing. There was also cheesey garlic bread, scrummy.

mellow fruitfulness

I'm very happy to say my sister loved all her presents. She particularly liked the red skirt and green hat, but her favourite item was the beige cord coat.



One of her dogs also appreciated the pile of goodies, making a comfy pillow out of them whilst C worked her way through opening them all.

Today we went over to the other side of the city to an volunteer run urban farm/environmental type place called Down to Earth. They have a couple of open days a year which we try to go to as these help to raise money towards the everyday running costs.

One of the highlights of the Autumn open day is the scarecrow competition. Here is T with a couple of the entries.

There were guinea pigs and chickens who were happy to be stroked or cuddled and rabbits on leads who were happy to be taken for a little hop around.

For £10 a year you can adopt an animal. We are considering which one we would like to sponsor, my choice is Velvet the cow.

Corn was being sold for 10p a bag and the children had fun feeding the cockerels, geese and hens.

A new addition to the farm are these piglets, they've only been there a week, how cute are they?

This is G and T pretending they are hundreds of feet above a deep ravine and need to keep their balance crossing over a bridge. I'm not sure quite so much giggling would be happening in such an unusual circumstance!

One part of the site is given over to vegetable growing and S was fascinated to see these carrot tops poking out of the soil. Note to self, must try and grow something. I reckon a certain Peter Rabbit would be happy to visit this patch too.

A few days ago I heard and saw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGY5G0lpLNo on the Cbeebies channel and since then I've had the words mellow fruitfulness going round and round in my head. I've copied out the words of the song onto our blackboard as I just love them. I also really enjoyed watching the autumn video that goes with it, all that lush food and the red polka dot plates and just the warm sunny happy glowiness of it all makes me smile.

Wrapping

I could have kicked myself on Monday. I went over to Isle of Wight for the day to visit my oldest friend (we have known each other for nearly 30 years) and I forgot to take my camera with me! If only I had remembered it I could have taken photos of our walk through Cowes little town centre and the little gift shops selling lots of pretty things and also of our walk along the sea front. Will have to do it next time, whenever that happens to be.

So yesterday was a catch up on all the housework, that was after I had taken Tilly to the vets for her X-ray. Thank you to all who wished her well. It has been conformed she has very bad arthritis in both hips, the right being worse than the left. The vet was concerned she may have had ligament damage too but this proved not to be the case. She was very subdued yesterday and enjoyed all the extra snuggles and attention that came her way.

I also wrapped up all my sister's birthday presents. A couple of years ago we agreed to buy each other things that were only bought from charity shops, jumble sales or car boots. We set a £5 limit on birthday and £10 on Christmas. On both occasions I also spend an extra £2 each from both T and S.

Shoe bag 20p, felt cupcake craft set £1, heart drawstring bag 50p, heart underwear set £1, this is new from Primark and so doesn't fit our criteria really but it was so cute I couldn't resist!

Cushions 75p each.

Zara jacket 15p. A button on the front is missing, but it does have a spare on a label inside ready to be sewn on.

Stripey polo top 30p, pink cardigan 25p, rosebud plate 20p, book 40p.

Hat 49p, tshirt 10p, fairy wall plaque 20p.

Red skirt 20p, crochet bag 49p, mug 50p.

Cord winter coat £1.

And a pair of shoes which I forgot to photograph for 50p. Grand total £8.98. I hope she likes them all.

I had a proud mum moment last night when T came home from an inspection by the Royal Navy which had taken place at Cubs. It was an event extra to his normal weekly meet and truth be told he wasn't exactly keen on going, but go he did. It turns out he was the only Cub spoken to by the visitors and Akela said he spoke very politely and clearly apologising for the fact he only had one badge so far, but it was because he had only recently joined. She said he behaved really well and made her very proud too. Well done my darling boy!