Less is not more

Not when it comes to my daughter anyway! This is her yesterday, pretty dress, obviously accesorised with socks pulled up (even though she has refused to wear socks ALL winter) and pink shoes. Added to this the usual bling, two rings, 3 necklaces, Peppa Pig watch and last but not least 3 airclips on each side!










Decking

We are doing what half the rest of the population is probably doing today too, can you guess?! Yes, gardening! Dear husband is out cleaning the decking with a pressure washer (thank you for lending it to us, you know who you are!). Means that very soon we can sit outside and have bbq's in the evening, can't wait! At least if I sit with my back against the rest of the garden I can pretend it is ALL looking lovely rather than just the decking! Oh well, we will get round to the rest of the garden at some point too I guess!



Doesn't the decking look lovely?! It was a 30th birthday present from my pappa and stepmum, and my pappa and brother came over all the way from Sweden and laid it for us. Thank you so so much! Wish you all lived closer! xx

Song


More finds at Handmade and Vintage Fair





Bought some gorgeous bunting made by the talented Henhouse; http://henhousehomemade.blogspot.com/ Might even attempt to make some myself for Esme's room now.



This reminds me of my farmor (granny) and I had to have it, she always used to have 7 different kinds of cakes on the table when we went round, home made of course. In the olden days it used to be tradition to offer your guests seven different types of cakes, maybe now I will become a proper housewife and bake all day!

Only one more thing to show from the fair now but I need to wait for dear husband to put it up on the wall first! Can you guess what it is?!


Vintage and Handmade Fair

Went to the amazing Vintage and Handmade Fair in Chipping Sodbury with my lovely friend Emma at the weekend. Quite a trip, took about an hour and 40 mins to get there but soooo worth it. The stalls were amazing, could literally have bought everything and there were loads of people walking around, with quite a few in vintage clothes etc which was lovely.

I bought a few things and thought I would show them.



Vintage shoes lasts. Think they look sweet just standing on the stairs (ignore the state of the stairs, the decorating fairy hasn't got to them yet!)



Some sweet hair clips.



Hopefully will grow some lovely lettuce to accompany summer BBQ's.

Bought a few more lovely things but need to take photos of them tomorrow in better light before I show them on here.

I'm already excited about going to the Christmas one, I'm sure there will be loads of goodies!

http://www.vintageandhandmade.co.uk/


You learn something new each day!

Just caught the end of Lambing Live and for some reason they were showing the birth of a baby cow. Well I didn't know that they do caesareans for cows! Apparently it is becoming more common too, just like in humans I guess. In cows this is due to the fact that we are breeding them so that they are "meatier" i.e. bigger calves which means that the mummy cows can't give birth to them naturally as easily. Isn't that really sad?

 


Ben the dancing champion!

A couple of weekends ago Ben came home and said that he had won first price, £5, at his school disco because he was THE BEST DANCER! Bless!

Dear husband says Ben is getting his dancing shoes from him, apparently he used to take home first price at his school discos 25 years or so ago! Before getting caught snogging girls behind the school shed no doubt. Thankfully Ben is too little to think about girls for a while yet, I don't think dear husband is ready to talk to him about the birds and the bees quite yet.

 


What a rip off!

How can it cost £71.50 (including car parking) to park at the local train station and make a journey that takes around 1 hour and ten minutes?! No wonder people drive everywhere instead. I can actually FLY to Sweden and back (!) for less than this!

I wasn't personally paying for this as went for work purposes but still, I'm annoyed!

Minimum wage for someone my age is £5.93 so if I was earning minimum wage I would have to work over 12 hours, not even taking into account any tax or national insurance I might have to pay to make this journey.

I think someone is having a laugh at our expense somewhere.


Annie Sloan paint

I have discovered the best paint ever! http://www.anniesloan.com/index.html

It is completely amazing. I bought an old pine table on ebay the other day and have just painted it in their Louis Blue and it is very pretty. I wasn't sure about it and even thought about taking it back and now I'm so glad I didn't. I will show before and after photos once its dried!

This paint is just the best thing ever, no need to prime surface first, it can be painted on pretty much any surface, both outside and inside. Its also very easy to wash off from the paint brush (big thumbs up from me) and will even wash out of brushes weeks after you have left them to dry. Not that I EVER do that of course! Even if you leave the lid off (by accident) it wont form a skin on the top of the paint.

And the final plus is that it is environmentally friendly paint too.

The only downside is the price, it is quite pricey but I have just painted a coffee size table and have hardly used any of it. Plus you only need to do one coat so effectively using half of what you would do with any other paint.

They do a course, in Oxford conveniently, where they show you how to use their products to the best effect, how to distress furniture etc. The next one is in September so hint hint Mr Rae, this could be my birthday present!

Now, Annie Sloan, do you want to give me a job promoting your products?!




Like this song


Paella

I made paella for the first time today. It's turned out lovely if I say so myself! It was really really easy too, no idea why I have never given it a try before.






Pancake day!

When picking up Esme from nursery she exitedly tells me that they made pancakes today. Yes mamma, I had melon and sugar on mine, it was yummy!

He he, bless her, I assume she means lemon rather than melon unless this is some new combination that I am not aware of?!

To be honest, I don't get this lemon thing on pancakes. I'm pretty sure this is not something we do in Sweden? Unless some fellow Swedes can put me right?! Sugar, jam and possibly cream, now that is a pancake!

And just in case you read this my French friend (or your girlfriend might read it and can relay my request!), I am expecting crepes with nutella when I come round to see your new place!


Left overs for dinner!

Had some left over food in the fridge so thought I'd make something with that and it actually turned out quite nice!

Chopped up sausages, fried with chopped up red pepper,peas and green beans and then rice. Sort of like a stirfry. Yummy yummy!




Ikea coventry - never again!

I think I was so traumatised by my trip to Ikea in Coventry that I haven't functioned properly for the last week, hence no blogging! Ok, well perhaps that is making it slightly dramatic but it was pretty bad!

I normally go to Milton Keynes ikea which is about 50 minutes away but thought I might give Coventry a go as it is slightly closer. Never again, the time saved is def not worth it.

For starters, the shop is basically in the middle of Coventry rather than on the outskirts. This means that parking obviously comes at a premium and perhaps that is why ikea's own parking is so badly signposted? We basically ended up at the multi storey car park right next to ikea rather than their own car park. Well not such a big problem on the way there but walking up 11 flights of stairs with two children, a newborn and a trolley full of stuff was obviously not going to happen. 

Anyway, off we walked to the store, had some lunch and then walked round the upstairs bit. The store is all a bit higgledypiggledy (?!) and just not very well laid out. When we came out of the top of the store you have to get a lift to get down a level, well all the lifts we went into took us to all the floors apart from the one we wanted to go to. After asking someone they showed us to the right lift, on the other end of the store?!  

Having finished shopping and paying, the problem was then that there were two adults, two little children and one very small baby, plus a trolley full of ikea stuff, with the car in the multi storey car park round the corner, no lift and no trolleys allowed! So, I went and got the car, drove it round the corner and stopped on double yellows. Yes, yes I should obviously not stop on double yellows but by now it was raining and new born baby was getting cold! And I have to add that it was a one way road with two lanes, so people could actually get past and in to the actual ikea car park. Which most people did.

Apart from the stupid couple who stopped right behind us waiting for us to move, then shouting obscenities at us. Come on, is this the kind of people that live in Coventry?! The kind of morons who have nothing better to do than to whinge all day, probably never done a day's work and are just damnright miserable. Maybe I am generalising, the general popluation of Coventry is probably not being fairly represented by these people we came across but since I have never been to Coventry before they did not leave me with a good impression!

Anyway, I think that might be the last time I visit Coventry! Unless someone can enlighten me and tell me that I was just unlucky and Coventry is in fact a lovely place?


Recommendation!

Someone told me to watch The Killing, a danish series on BBC (sub titled), and so I did. It's amazing!
You must must watch it. You can catch all the previous episodes on BBC iplayer, I watched 3 episodes the other night and just watched a fourth one. It's really well made and keeps you wanting to watch more.

Let me know if you do watch it and what you thought of it!

 


Pappa and kidsen took a lovely walk

Some photos from their day out today whilst I was at work! Looks like I missed out on a nice day!










Lego

These are some of the things my clever stepson has been making. He loves lego and building and creating stuff (that is when he isn't glued to the PSP!). I love the fact that he likes making stuff and is interested in building and being creative. And if you know me then you know how much I hate things like PSPs!







Pottery workshop

I can't recommend this enough really. I had an amazing time and 4 hours wasn't enough time at all. I could have stayed there all day and all night I enjoyed it so much. This was a Christmas present from Dear Husband and I would recommend this as a great christmas/birthday present for anyone really, old or young, male or female. I am def going to do another one later in the year and I might try one of their other courses too.

And even if you don't fancy going on a pottery workshop then a trip to the pottery itself is also fun. It's beautiful and you can walk round inside the pottery watching all the pots being made and even be shown into the clayroom where everything is prepared.

http://www.whichfordpottery.com/

You'll have to wait around 6 weeks to see what was made I'm afraid!

 


Kitchen table arrived!

 



It's a handmade table with two handmade benches to match. Just in the right old farmhouse kitchen table style I wanted! I  thought it was a bargain anyway, at less than £200. I can def recommend the guy making them, he has literally started up just before Christmas and makes them in his garage. He even delivers for a small extra cost up to a 100 mile radius of Birmingham. I am sure he is going to be very busy with these!


Pottery

I am off to a pottery course tomorrow at Whichford Pottery courtesy of my dear husband. This was one of the Christmas presents he got me, he had hidden a copy of the course details inside a flower pot! I promise to show you the results, bad or bad, in about 6 weeks time once the pots have been fired and are ready to collect.

Hope everyone has a nice relaxing evening!


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