Starting to Feel a Lot Like....

...the countdown to Christmas has begun. And I looooooove Christmas. I get soooooo excited when the shops start bringing out their gift catalogues. So far I've got my grubby paws on this little number from a gorgeous bookshop/stationers in St Andrews; two of my favourite things in one place - Christmas + Books; could I ask for more?!

this one from Boots; a bog standard offering, nothing to get excited about but handy for ideas

Waitrose; a bit disappointing at first glance, will have to give it another read to see if it improves

ELC were kind enough to send me this in the post; clearly word has spread about my little catalogue addiction.

Next; only picked this one up this morning so have no idea what's in it/if it's any good

and M&S; again, only picked up this morning but assume will be full of cashmere jumpers and hampers.

How many more will I be able to collect, I wonder? I do hope Waterstones produce one this year, they didn't last year and it is a favourite in this house. Sad, but true.

A Whole Year

I don't want to be morbid and gloomy, but I also don't want it to look as if I don't care or haven't noticed the date. Today it's an entire year since Dad passed away. It's odd because rather than feeling that he's gone for good, it mostly feels to me as if I just haven't seen him for a while, as if he's still there, somewhere round the corner or at home and I'll see him at some point or chat to him, but just not at the moment.

Mostly what makes me sad about him not being here is that he won't get to see Arthur growing up, and Arthur won't know/remember his Grampy - he'll have to rely on us to tell him how Grampy would have a fit if he had to pay more than 50p for a cup of tea, how he'd ask me if I'd brushed my hair before I went out even when I was old enough to be living away from home, how he fussed and flapped over the smallest thing, and how his rewiring skills wouldn't pass muster these days.

Very Bonny Scotland!

Just got back from a week's holiday in Scotland. We had such a lovely time and I feel relaxed and refreshed. I would also claim to be ready to start work again with renewed vigour and verve, but I think that might be a fib, so I shall just work with my normal level of enthusiasm and leave it up to you to decide at what level that might be...

Hubby's parents live in Wigan so we were able to break what would otherwise be a very long drive with a couple of nights 'oop north' on the way there and another one on the way back. We set off on Thursday evening with a fully-loaded boot plus DC and Granny in the back and arrived in Wigan at about 9.30pm. On Friday, International Businessman (a.k.a. hubby) had a meeting in Manchester so Granny and I decided to head into the city too (leaving DC to enjoy some quality time with Grandma and Grandad.) Unfortunately it rained pretty much all day so we were quite literally forced to spend time in the shops. Bum. And to have lunch in Harvey Nicks. Double bum.

View over Manchester rooftops from Harvey Nicks food hall.

Saturday we set off at about 11am for the drive up to Nine Mile Burn, a hamlet about 12 miles south of Edinburgh where we were renting a converted coach house. We had a stop en route in Moffat so DC could stretch his legs and the grown-ups could have coffee and cake, and arrived at the coach house mid-afternoon. Glorious setting up a long, bumpy lane and a lovely conversion, although getting a little worn round the edges as rentals invariably do.

Sunday we headed into Edinburgh to show Granny some of the sights. It was a little damp when we arrived, but luckily soon stopped raining as we walked up to the castle via lovely Victoria St with its boutique-y shops (below), along the Royal Mile (where I spotted Jane from Snapdragon), over to Princes St and then away from the hordes slightly to the rather more up-market shops on George St.

Monday we drove out to the coast at North Berwick. What a lovely, lovely little town. I'd like to move there, please. Or at least have a holiday cottage if you can arrange it? A wonderful beach where life and seaweed could be contemplated, cutesy little harbour and some great shops - what more could you ask for?!

Tuesday we headed out to St Andrews. Again, fabulous beach (where scenes from Chariots of Fire were filmed), magnificent ruined cathedral and castle and more fab shops. I'd also like to move there, please. Or another holiday cottage? Or perhaps I could go to Uni there? It's not too late, is it?! Made me kick myself for the decision I made when trying to whittle down which uni to attend where I resolutely refused to consider anything in Scotland or Wales or any polytechnics. Snob.

Wednesday was Granny's 70th birthday so we had a leisurely walk through the chi-chi Morningside area of Edinburgh before Granny & I headed to the Balmoral Hotel for a manicure before meeting up with DC & hubby for afternoon tea in the Palm Court.

Thursday we headed to Peebles for the day, with a quick stop off in lovely little West Linton so DC could play on the swings on the way home; Friday it was back to Morningside and then on to the Ocean Terminal in the afternoon. Saturday it was already time to bid farewell to bonny Scotland and head home, with an overnight stop in Wigan to break the journey again.

And now we are home :( Time to start planning our next holiday, methinks!

Oh 'eck!

What have I beeeeen and gawn and done now? Only signed myself for my very first swap, kindly organised by Helen from http://craftyhelenathome.blogspot.com/ Eeeek! We had a choice of Hallowe'en or Autumn as a theme; I've chosen Autumn, and if I take today's weather as a starting point, it's going to be a wet and soggy kind of autumnal swap!

Any suggestions of what I can send to my swap partner Tracy at Mad About Bags, will be very gratefully received!

Going to the Chapel...

This past weekend hubby and I had a delightful (and child-free) time down in Dorset, attending the wedding of our very good friends R&G (of Lazyhill fame.)

We left DC at home with Grandma and Grandad on Saturday morning and headed down to our new house in Somerset where we dropped off a car-load of 'stuff' (mostly tools from hubby's allotment, which he has now given up in preparation for having a huuuuge veg plot at the bottom of the garden), got ourselves all togged up and then made the 40min drive to Abbotsbury for the wedding. As usual, we were running slightly late and it didn't help that we also got stuck behind a horsebox on the coast road between Bridport and Abbotsbury, so we arrived in a bit of a fluster, parked up and hurried through the village. As we passed the bride and groom's house so R dashed to the door to wave to us in all her finery and assure us that we had a few minutes to climb up the hill to St Catherine's chapel before she would be on her way.

So we hurried and puffed and panted and sweated our way up to the chapel and, fortunately, had a few moments to compose ourselves outside and take advantage of the cooling sea breeze. The floor of the chapel had been scattered with lavender and rosemary which smelt absolutely wonderful, and the scent was released all the more as we milled around awaiting the grand entrance of the bride. The majority of the service was then performed in the chapel before we wound our way back down the hill and through the village to the church where the 'legal' part of the ceremony was carried out.

Afterwards, it was a mere hop, skip and jump through the churchyard and over to the Abbey House for champagne, Pimms and canapes in the garden before going indoors for dinner. This turned out to be a great opportunity for me to catch up with former work colleagues, some of whom I hadn't seen for about ten years.

After dinner we enjoyed a 'cheesecake' instead of the usual wedding cake, accompanied by special wedding chutney handmande by hubby, using apples from our back garden.

All in all, a fabulous day. And, at the end of it, hubby & I merely had to wobble our way upstairs as we were lucky enough to be staying in one of the Abbey House's lovely rooms. And even luckier than that, we were staying for TWO nights! Which meant we had a lovely lie in the following morning before a great breakfast and then some time spent in the garden enjoying the sun; we also had a little jaunt into Bridport before returning to the sun-drenched garden of the Abbey House for afternoon tea and a spot of reading. Bliss.

It's Like a Little, Teeny Weeny Bit of an Obsession

Feast your eyes on my book shelves. I say 'mine' because these are mine and mine alone; hubby has shelves of his own in the alcove on the other side of the chimney breast. The shelf at the very top, with the clock, contains the books I have recently read (all of the others are in boxes in my Mum's garage); the other shelves contain my unread books. 131 of them. In 2009, according to the sidebar on this blog, I read 18 books; so far this year I've read 13. 131 divided by 18 is 7.277777777...., which means I have over seven years' worth of books to read. Should be enough for anyone, shouldn't it? For the time being, or let's say seven or so years, at least.

So, explain to me then this obsession I have with buying/swapping/getting hold of by whatever means possible (as long as it's legal) more books/reading matter? This week alone I:

bought these three in the Oxfam Book Shop (and the buying of the two by Rebecca Tope will necessitate buying yet another as I will need the first book in the series before I can read these two, of course...)

received this one via a swap on http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/ (highly recommended if you are obesessed with books but don't mind swapping the odd one here and there)

bought this one on eBay

and bought this one in Smiths
Is there any hope for me?

Housey Housey!

We finally completed on the house in Somerset on Friday and hot-footed it down there on Saturday, after cramming the car with all manner of 'stuff'. Perfect timing as it meant we avoided the majority of the Reading Festival and its attendant madness.

We picked up the keys from the estate agent in Crewkerne at about 12.30pm and hurried straight to the house. We were excited, we were nervous, we were having 'wobbles' over whether we had done the right thing, we were relieved that the sale had finally gone through, all these feelings and more, but isn't that what most people feel when they buy a new house?
We spent the weekend 'camping' in our new home, with the minimum of furniture: garden table and chairs, inflatable mattress, microwave & kettle, toys and travel cot for DC, but we had a lovely time. The weather was great, which helped a lot as it meant we were able to really enjoy the fabulous garden.

We discovered we have five apple trees (possibly more, as they are a little overgrown) and picked two large trug/cratefuls to bring back for hubby to make chutney from (we don't know what variety they are but they're not Bramleys, so not sure if we can make pies, crumbles, etc); there are also a LOT of raspberry canes (sadly, all the fruit was shrivelled) and some rhubarb crowns, which made hubby very excited.

We made the most of the village tea room for a lovely lunch, popped into the general store to say 'hello' and then took DC to investigate the lovely park (with fabulous views over the hills) wherehe had lots of fun on the slide. Later on we paid a visit to a house in the village which had been the subject of some extensive renovation work by the architect we are interested in working with on our house; we really liked what he had done, which was a relief!

Saturday evening, once DC had gone off to bed, hubby drove to Crewkerne to pick up a curry from what will be our local Indian restaurant. It was good, not quite in the league of our favourite Indian in Henley, but we'll survive!

Sunday brought more glorious weather and we headed to Bridport for the start of a day out. DC did a marvellous job of falling asleep just as we got there which gave hubby and I the chance to go for a coffee and read our books - bliss. Then we had a wander round the town before heading to the monthly Vintage Market, which was fab! I'm so pleased that our visit managed to (accidentally) coincide with it. We ended up buying an old wall-mounted clock (sorry, forgot to take a photo) which was a house-warming present to ourselves.

Then it was time to head to Abbotsbury to visit our lovely friends R&G at their recently-opened gallery Lazyhill. Just a couple of days earlier I was sooooooo pleased and excited to hear that they had sold the first of my hand-stitched cards, in fact not just one, but two on the same day (and another has sold since)!!! Hooray for all those people with such great taste who choose to visit their wonderful shop and then choose to buy my cards!

We had a lovely afternoon with them, "helping" in the shop, doing some furniture moving, drinking coffee, eating cake, being licked by Martha the dog, and strolling round the village. Below is a snap of the chapel at which R&G will be getting married in less than two weeks - how wonderful is that?! On Monday morning the architect came round to have a look at the house, hear about our hopes and dreams for its future, and to make some suggestions of his own. Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future we'll be transforming this house into a wonderful home. In the meantime, hear are a few snaps to give you an idea of what it looks like at the moment: rear viewkitchenutility roombedroom 1, with wonderful washing facilities and great wardrobe...bedroom 2, with an even better range of wardrobes

Less Wet, More People

The crowds are descending with a vengeance today; the rain, less so.

I do have more photos to show you, but Blogger is playing silly beggars and not letting me upload them.

The photo above is the view from Caversham Bridge at about 2.30pm this afternoon; I was just walking from the bus stop back to our house having had a very pleasant morning in Marlow whil DC was enjoying himself at nursery. First stop on trip to Marlow was a coffee (for me) and tea + sausage sarnie (for hubby) and a read of the paper (him) and Period Living (me) while we waited for the solicitor's office to open. When it did, we shuffled on over and spent the next 40mins or so discussing the purchase of the house in Hinton St George and signing all the necessary documentation to make it ours. We found out later that we have finally exchanged contracts and will complete tomorrow - YAY!

Second stop was Starbucks and a couple of hours spent in the company of my very good friend Liz; we sipped, ate and chatted the time away.

After that it was time for me to have an amble round the shops. And guess who I spotted doing the very same? That bloke of the telly. You know the one. He was in Holby City and then won Strictly a couple of years back (not that I watch it.) Tom Chambers. And his wife. And his parents. I think they might have been following me because I first saw them in a 'stuff' shop at one end of the high street and the next time in a kitchen/cook shop at the other end. Celebrity stalkers, eh?!

Festival Watch 2010

So, it's Wednesday and there are still many, many hours til the Festival actually starts but the hordes have been descending all day long, albeit in dribs and drabs rather than huge numbers. And the rain has been falling in a steady, at times heavy, fashion. The nasty, mean, grumpy old woman side of me thinks it serves them right for turning up so darn early.

Our next door neighbour and some Baptist chums have set up their annual "free squash and religion" stall in his front garden; even that annoyed me as they didn't set it up til Thursday last year and I don't want the hordes to be encouraged to linger near my boundary any longer than is strictly necessary. Grump, grump, grump.

Here are a few photos of the hordes making their soggy way towards the site:

View from Caversham Bridge as DC and I headed home from Rhymetime this aftenoon; can you see the tow path?

Here's a close up. Trudge, trudge. Plip, plop.Here's the Green Bus, disgorging its passengers from one of the off-site campsites about five miles up the hill. Those girls may live to regret the hotpants and wellie boots combo.More tomorrow. Bet you can hardly wait!