I guess this may become a regular feature as there aren't enough hours in the day some days. The yarn came from my mum, and was originally picked up in a charity shop for 50p for the whole (slightly knotty) bundle. Not yet sure what it will be used for. ... read more
Growing crochet
The pile of squares is growing and I'm also starting to get some ideas about how colourful this blanket is going to be eventually. The only problem I have is now that the weather has become all autumnal I've really got the knitting bug - with three projects currently on the needles! Think I may have taken on a bit too much at the moment and that's not taking into account the Christmas decorations that I've started to make to sell either! ... read more
Childhood TV memories
It may be seen as being controversial by some but we do allow Little Miss C to watch television. We try to manage what she watches quite carefully and it's certainly not on all the time, but we do find that sometimes she needs something to calm her down and 20 minutes of watching something she likes seems to do that. She can be running round like a loon and getting all frustrated because it's chucking it down with rain outside and I won't let her out into the garden, but just switching on Mr Tumble or similar can calm her down and when it's finished she's quite happy ... read more
Avon calls on you to Bake for Breast Cancer
Nearly 48,000 women in the UK are affected by breast cancer every year. There are very few of us who don't know someone effected by this awful disease or other types of cancer. All of us want to help find a cure, but for many of us the best we can do is to donate money to the scientist who are working hard to understand the disease better and to develop drugs to fight it. You can help to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer by hosting an Avon Pink Pamper Party and Avon have made it even easier to raise money through a bake sale with their Crusade Baking Set. The set ... read more
Vintage girl guides
Little Miss C pulled open a drawer in the study earlier and in doing so found Mr C's old Scout camp badges (and some swimming awards - I had no idea I'd married a man so talented!) and it got me thinking about my time in the Brownies and Guides. I still have all my old badges from my three years in the Brownies and year in the Guides. I went away to camp a couple of times and was quite jealous of the camp blankets that some of the older members had with their many many badges on them. In my attempt to be like them I started collecting sew on badges from pretty much everywhere I ... read more
Why books?
Someone referred to me the other day as someone who blogs about books and I suppose that had me puzzled. I do blog about books, but hadn't really realised just how much I blog about them until I looked back at my blog myself. You see the thing is that books are a big part of my life and always have been. As a child I used to look forward to bedtime as that was when I could curl up with a book and enter a whole new world. When I started this blog I was commuting into London daily and had loads of time on the train to read and was getting through books at quite a rate. Since Little Miss C ... read more
Supersoft Kids and the Smurfs
My first of the Supersoft Kids range was our postman handing over a very sodden package (inside one of those "Royal Mail are sorry plastic bags") and saying "I've no idea what this is,but it's damaged and smells delicious!" I was kindly sent the Tropical Surge 2in1 shampoo and conditioner and the accompanying detangling spray to try and the postman was right, it smelt delicious - something like the sort of cocktail you might enjoy whilst lying in the sunshine on a sun-kissed beach - not the kind of thing I'd expect to think of when washing Little Miss C's ... read more
Treasures from Trash
With it being holiday season Little Miss C and I are really doing the days out thing at the moment and our adventures this week took us to Luton and more specifically Stockwood Discovery Centre. If you're local and have not been before then it is a lovely free day out. The museum is vast, covering a wide range of exhibits from farming machinery to horse-drawn carriages, and there's also a lovely cafe, playground, grounds and the wider Country Park to explore. The reason that took me to Stockwood this time was having heard about the Treasures from ... read more
Watching the units…
A couple of months ago I had a bit of a winning streak and was lucky enough to win three different blog competitions within the space of about two weeks. It was probably all my good luck for the year used up in that fortnight, but still, at least I got some good luck! One of the prizes that I was most excited about came from the My Zero Waste blog and was an Owl Wireless Electricity Monitor. I've been after an electricity monitor for years (in fact since first starting on Green forums and blogs back in 2006/07) but the cost of one always put me off. When you look at how much ... read more
Gran and her biscuits.
When I started blogging here over three years ago I had no idea if people would actually read my blog or not. I certainly had no idea what would be popular with readers and I'm still amazed when I see what people searched for to come across my blog. There is one post seems to attract more hits than all the others though - Gran's Ginger Biscuits. Now I know that they are completely delicious, but I didn't realise how many people were in search of ginger biscuit recipes! I've had some lovely comments and messages from people saying how much they like them, so if you ... read more