On Saturday night Mr C and I opened the bubbles to celebrate: on Friday we finally sold our flat! We are now officially out of the housing market and watching the daily economic turmoil around us we couldn't be happier.We had big plans whilst we were on honeymoon earlier this year that we'd come home, sell our flat and buy somewhere bigger so that could think about the next step of being able to start a family. Unfortunately reading newspapers on the plane back made us realise that the economic situation had changed somewhat in the month we'd been away and things weren't going ... read more
Simple Knot Newborn Cap
On Saturday evening I got my sewing machine out - something that doesn't happen as often as I want, mainly due to us only having one table in our flat that is often in use for other projects, or just for us to eat off! The thing driving me to make the extra effort this time was wanting to take part in Mama to Mama's first project to sew these caps for newborn babies in Haiti. They're incredibly simple to make and two caps can easily be made from one adult sized cotton t-shirt. In fact, the hardest bit of the whole project was turning the top of the cap inside out!If you ... read more
Charity Shop Treasure
I love poking around the charity shops and trying to find a bargain, and Saturday was a pretty successful day in that regard. The bundle of goodies above came in at a grand total of £3.98! Two mixed bags of yarn, an embroidery hoop and a brand new copy of Alexander McCall Smith's Love Over Scotland (still with an original £6.99 price sticker on it). A pretty good haul of treasure for just an hour or so of hunting! ... read more
Waddesdon Rubber Tree
I've been meaning to blog about our trip to Waddesdon Manor for a while now, but as usual life keeps overtaking my plans. I must however make time to tell you about this fantastic tree that we found in the grounds. This fantastic sculpture was made up using recycled tyres and inner tubes as part of the June 2008 MAD about Waddesdon festival. Ann Carrington was the woman behind the tree (along with some help from local schools I understand) and reading her website and various press articles it seems that she makes a habit of using recycles materials in ... read more
SouleMama’s Mama to Mama
I've been a reader of SouleMama's blog for several years now and love the way in which she mixes her love of crafts with her growing family. I've read her book The Creative Family from cover to cover and can't wait until I have my own family so that I can try out some of the things that she does with her family.I do want to tell you though about her latest initiative: Mama to Mama. I've always wanted to use my sewing and knitting "skills" (if you can call them that!) to help others and this is exactly the sort of thing that Amanda is ... read more
Completed Cosy
By now all the knitting is complete and my sister's birthday gift wrapped. I'm pleased to say that I've finished the tea cosy, and in time for when I see her on Friday evening to celebrate her birthday! (Apologies for the photos not being that great - I've just not been home during day light hours this week and my photography skills in artificial light aren't all that great!)I'm thrilled that the small tea pot I bought in St Albans over the weekend fits fantastically well (and goes with the colour scheme rather well). Now I just have to hope that my sister ... read more
Engleby – Sebastian Faulks
I'm not too sure where to start writing about Engleby except to say wow! By far this has to be one of the best books I've read in recent years and so, so different to No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series that I've been recently enjoying.The book is all written in the first person by the character Mike Engleby - a slightly awkward man who is always aware of his struggle to fit in with his surroundings. He takes the reader through his time at public school, after arriving there from his small terraced home in Reading. We then follow him to ... read more
Time flies when you’re busy
I'm not too sure where time is going to at the moment. So much seems to have happened since the weekend, in addition to two full days at work! Mr C and I are in the middle of selling our flat at the moment. Sadly, the current credit crunch means that we're unable to buy our dream home in which to start a family and instead we're taking the slight different move of renting our flat back from the people who are buying it from us. We figure that this should leave us in a better position to rejoin the housing ladder once everything is sorted. This means that there's ... read more
Outdoors on a grey November day
It's quite a typical grey November day here in St Albans. Mr C and I headed out, armed with cameras to the local WWA reserve in the hope of spotting something interesting. Despite all the bird watching tips picked up from watching the BBC Autumnwatch this was the sight that greeted me whenever I pointed my camera in the direction of the bird feeder! Very wet underfoot from all yesterday's rain - but at least it gave me another excuse to wear my wellies! ... read more
Morality for Beautiful Girls – Alexander McCall Smith
For those of you that are not fans of Alexander McCall Smith (if that's possible!) then I promise to read something else next!Morality for Beautiful Girls was the first in the pile of books from my colleague L that I read, mainly being as it was the first chronologically (she couldn't find the original book when she first delivered my package to work). Once again it's a fantastic book, possibly not my favourite though. Much of the attention is on Mma Makutsi and we learn about how she came to be appointed to be the Assistant Manager (and then Acting Manager) of ... read more