5th - 11th November

A short post this week as the end of it got a little weird.

This week I have been

Watching - Rocky trying to adjust to wearing his cone. He had the snip last week.

I took him back to the vets today, all is healing well and he's allowed outside once again.

Celebrating - with a sparkler. G's sister's birthday is on 5th November. As you can tell from the photo this year was a special one for her. 
Family friend L (along with her son, daughter and son's girlfriend) created a wonderful two tiered bonfire cake and they also made this Guy and box of fireworks. Included were a set of mini sparklers, one for each guest at her celebratory birthday meal.

Trying - to look fierce with the help of these fangs. On November 8th 1847 Bram Stoker was born, so with the help of these photo booth props left over from Halloween we channeled our inner vampire.

Extraordinarily Grateful - to our wonderful NHS. 
When I woke up yesterday morning G told me he had been awake for a few hours with chest pains. What kind of pains I wanted to know. Not worrying pains he said. 26 years ago he had a viral infection which affected the pericardium and he said it felt similar. So he rang 101 for advise. They said because the pain had been there for a few hours they were sending an ambulance to check his heart. It arrived shortly afterwards and an ECG was done. The results were leaning towards another incidence of pericarditis but they took him to hospital so he could be thoroughly checked and the option of a heart attack ruled out. Thankfully after having various tests and seeing a cardiologist this was indeed the conclusion so 12 hours later I collected him from the hospital. He has some medication and needs to rest. 
Here's to a less dramatic week ahead.

15th - 21st October

This week I have been

Wearing - a little blue combo of a crown patterned top and a bunting strewn cardigan after the pregnancy of the Duchess of Sussex was announced.

Feeling - a little blue at times too. Wednesday was the birthday of T's brother L who passed away a couple of years ago. When the children were little this would have meant a day trip to London for us all to catch up. Now being older and mobile T drove himself up to Norwich, staying for two nights to see his birth siblings and spend time with them.


Trying - not to succumb to the temptation of snuffling a cake (or two) on Chocolate Cupcake day and so deciding to go down the brooch route instead.

Grateful for - the comments left on my last post which contained messages hoping we were all over our various bugs. Much appreciated.

Watching - The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. G and I have watched 3 episodes of this so far and we are hooked. It's written by the creators of The Gilmore Girls and I loved that long series so it's really no surprise we are enjoying this one.
Rocky adores Graham and ignores me most of the time, but whilst we were watching this TV show last night it seems my lap was the spot he preferred. Look at the size of his feet!

Eating -  steak and chips. Can't remember the last time I ate steak. We are lucky enough to work near some fab bars and restaurants and so a little gathering was organised for after work midweek. What a treat. 

Loving -  this late Autumn sunshine. To make the most of it the 3 of us took ourselves out for a walk on Saturday.
We took the train to Shawford and then walked the 3 miles along the Itchen Navigation trail into Winchester.

Over the years we had done various sections of this trail, which takes you past some beautiful river views, 

and this time we also took in St Catherine's hill. A walk up the hill is on the agenda for another day.

Hoping -  for a little colour in the front garden come the colder months after I potted up this colander and a terracotta planter with winter pansies. 

24th September - 14th October

I've not been around much as things have been busy plus S was off school for one day not well, G had a birthday and then I managed to catch a bug which had been doing the rounds at work.

So from the past few weeks I have been 

Wearing - brooches to go along with the theme of the day. 

There was the Coca-Cola can for Crush a Can Day

and this strawberry for Strawberry Cream Pie Day.

Reading - the next book from the Maisie Dobbs series. This is the one I have enjoyed least so far. I have the next couple on my book shelf and the later ones are on my Christmas wish list. G is aware!

Enjoying - messing about with a fake felt beard for Lumberjack Day

My mum and sisters were coming over and so I asked them to wear their best check shirt and we each had our photo taken whilst modelling the beard.

A few days before hand it had been Elephant Appreciation Day so we went out in the garden and played the Elephant Game. 

Watching - talented people at the theatre. My birthday present to my friend T was tickets to see Women In Power. It's a new production, a collaboration by some very well known women and we were thoroughly entertained by the fabulous cast who acted, sung, played instruments and danced non stop for 90 minutes. 
The second trip was with G and some friends to see Austentatious. Each night the performance is different as each performance is improvised by the cast. They had us in stitches and I would thoroughly recommend going to see them if you ever get the chance.

Loving - that Rocky is settling in so well and finding his own favourite places. This was where he liked to settle down a few weeks ago. Lately he has made the top of the freezer his own, he likes to keep and eye on us and he is quite close to where we store his food!

Buying - little china treats from TK Maxx. I went in to look at the Halloween offerings and was very restrained and just bought one little bowl. 
Just the right size for chocolate based treats.
I was unable to resist adding to my mug collection with this slightly wibbly wobbly one. With the stars and Joy decoration it does have a festive flavour but, I will admit now that it hasn't been stashed away to be used later, it's been used daily since purchase as a little Joy everyday is a good thing I think.

Doing - a jigsaw. I found this one whilst having a tidy up. I think it was one of G's stocking filler gifts.

It's made up of 250 pieces and so G and I raced through it in no time at all and it's now sat in a bag ready for the charity shop.

The theme is sweets from the 1970s and although there were lots of things we recognised there were also quite a few we didn't.

Visiting - an exhibition named We March On all about the history of Southampton Football Club. I'm not footie fan but I still found it all very interesting. The Saints are G' team and so we went to see this on his birthday.

Wondering - if this is really what I look like? To mark World Egg Day a plan was hatched(!) between me and my colleagues that we would each decorate an egg in our likeness. Due to being unwell last week I completely forgot about it until a colleague sent me a picture of hers the night before we were due to take them in. I was feeling tired and not at all in the crafting mood but felt like I should make the effort. I'm glad I did, we all had a giggle and it made our Friday a quite eggscellent day.

17th - 23rd September

This week I have been 

Listening -  to Second Thoughts on Radio 4 extra as I walk to and from work. I loved the series which ITV made although I have no recollection of the series Faith in the Future which followed on from it. 

Cooking - more new recipes. The syn free carbonara was a hit with all of us.
Yes I can confirm the rare occurrence of us all eating and enjoying the same meal did happen once this week.
On Thursday I cooked Chinese lemon chicken and left Asian BBQ chicken marinading in the fridge on Friday morning for G to cook for him and S. You can tell he dished up this meal, look at the amount of chicken on his plate!
Both were given the thumbs up and will definitely appear on the new menus. All can be found on the slimming eats website which I thoroughly recommend.

Thinking - about organising a family outing just before Christmas to see the new Mary Poppins movie. I love Mary Poppins and am so excited about seeing the new movie. 

Wearing - lots more scarves this week due to the change in the weather. Plus the one which was called into action to help us with our latest sleeveface creation for country music day last Monday.

Feeling - so pleased for working my way through a huge to do list this weekend. With G working, the weather being rubbish and S full of cold and staying in her PJs I had no choice but to be indoors and so used the time to get lots of little bits and pieces done.

Watching - the return of Strictly. I'm ready for this year's competition to commence and once again become immersed in all the glitter and sequins.

August

So here we are at the end of August. 
Just another couple of days left before that first day of school feeling hits and S stands by our front door for the traditional photo shoot and heads off on the start of a new academic year.

The weather has been good during the summer break. S has been out and about meeting up with friends at local parks, she's been to the cinema a couple of times, mooched around town, been trampolining, met my mum for lunch, had friends to stay and gone on a sleepover.
Plus in the middle of the holidays we had our own holiday when we took the Eurostar to Belgium.

I have well and truly fallen out of the blogging habit this month which is a shame as it meant I have missed the 10th anniversary of when I started recording our lives here at Jumble and Jelly. Although I don't post as regularly now as I did when the children were younger I can't imagine stopping because it's so lovely having a record of us and the things we do.

I am borrowing an idea I have seen on Pinterest and decided to write a round up of August using a series of prompts. An idea I can see me taking forward into the next decade of blogging.

This month I have been

Reading 

A French Affair by Katie Fforde. I took this away with me and read most of it on the train journey to and from Brussels. I wanted something which would be light and easy to read and I thought the title was very apt seeing as we had to travel through France.

How did it take me until I was 50 to read this book. I loved it. L-O-V-E-D it.

Watching


Serendipity, a fluffy rom com with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale as 18th August was Serendipity Day.

and Forgetting Sarah Marshall as it was Mila Kunis' birthday on 14th August.

Trying

To make a jelly in a seaside sandcastle bucket for Sandcastle Day. 
But the darn thing didn't fully set and ended up a quivering heap on the plate!

Cooking

I made lemon rice pudding meringue as a nod to Lemon Juice Day.
I made S some macaroni cheese and bacon sandwiches.
I also made honeycomb lasagne and ham and mustard hash. The lasagne will be making another appearance but the hash won't as although G liked this S didn't.

Eating

We made sure we included raspberries in our picnic lunch in Antwerp as this was the closest we could get for Raspberries and Cream Day.

Belgian fries. G liked them, S and I weren't that fussed. But the waffles. Well what can I say, we all loved those.

Drinking

Watermelon Day was on 3rd August and so I made sure to have some in to make a smoothie with it. I know this should probably be obvious because of it's name but I didn't enjoy it in a smoothie as it made it too, well, watery!

Doing

Silly things with my lovely daughter. It may not look it in this photo but she was laughing as much as me and G whilst we were posing for this!

Going

To Belgium. We stayed in Brussels and had day trips to Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges. We had a great time and I would thoroughly recommend a trip to Belgium to anyone considering it. 

One evening a couple of weeks ago we met up with some with friends and we took ourselves off to a local green where we enjoyed fish and chips for our tea. Their younger children played with S and we sat around chatting about this and that. A perfect way to unwind after a day at work and spend a relaxing summers evening.

On a great clue solving day out to Lymington. The treasure trail took us around the town as we worked our way through the puzzles. We got the answer wrong, but we didn't care as we had great fun trying to solve the mystery.

Loving

Rocky.

Let me introduce you to the latest member of our family.
He's 18 months old and needed a new home. How could we resist?
He was already named Rocky and of course we had to keep it but within a day or so we were calling him Rocky Road. Due to the fact he is always around your feet, especially when you are trying to walk down the stairs he is now being called Rocky Road Trip Hazard.

Feeling

Annoyed is how I was feeling a week or so ago after I discovered that now S's school will only allow girls to wear on of two 'official' style skirts I am expected to pay out £22.50 to purchase one.
The reason this new school uniform rule is being introduced is because other girls were wearing skirts which were too short and didn't comply with the rules. So now the school have decided that all girls have to wear one of the skirts they deem as acceptable. Never mind that many girls did wear skirts which were within the uniform guidelines. It makes me so cross.

Wearing

A dress which matched S's drink

and a bottle green scarf in homage of Word Scout Scarf Day.

Thankful.

This month marked the 10th anniversary of when we lost our dearest Dad. It feels utterly impossible that so long has passed since then. I still miss his dreadfully but will ever be thankful that he was my Dad.


Wondering

If I would find a lion suitable to photograph on World Lion Day and then finding this smiling face on a door not far from the apartment we were staying in.

Listening

I bought this Shaky album for 1 Euro whilst we were in Ghent. Bargain I'd say.
We used the cover for this year's take on Vinyl Record Day.
And in case you are wondering, yes that's me knelt against the washing line support in our back garden.

Although it hasn't happened as yet, in actual fact we're off to it tomorrow evening, G and I will be listening and warbling away when we go to Sing Along with Grease. Can't wait, what a way to end the month.

Yorkshire Puds All Round

For Yorkshire day there could only be one choice.
Mind you I could eat them every day.

Sunglasses

Today the sun shone and whether I was inside or out I was sporting a pair of sunglasses.
Sunglasses, inside?  I hear you say.
Yep, today my sunglasses brooch was a must as 27th June is Sunglasses day.

And because I've had this song going round in my head all day I'm going to share it with you too.

Bestie

When I saw that today is Best Friends Day I knew in an instant who this post was going to be about.

Before starting senior school you get to go on a taster day.

A day to look around the new school, meet the teacher who will be your tutor group leader and most importantly see who your class mates will be.

T and I met that day in July 1980.

We looked for each other on the first day of the new September term and the rest, as they say, is history.

We shared so much during those senior school years. This is us, aged 15 I think, after we had made ourselves ready for an evening up at the Top Rank.
T doesn't know about my blog and so I don't think it's fair to post a picture of her which is why she has a cat face!
We have only ever fallen out once.
And that was my fault and it involved me being stupid about a boy and not valuing our friendship enough.
She is the one I asked to speak to social workers on my behalf when we needed character references before we adopted and she was the one who at my dad's funeral when it all got too much for me came over and hugged me tight.
I am honoured to be able to say T is my friend.

Quite Simple

to celebrate Hug Your Cat Day when there is a Melvin

and a Malcolm both ready to oblige.

Oatmeal Cookie Day

A break from our New York adventures to mark Oatmeal cookie day.

I like these days of the year connected to baking, it makes me look through all the recipes I've collected and bake something.

These are Spiced Oat Cookies and are made by creaming 4oz butter and 3oz soft brown sugar. Gradually add 1 beaten egg. Stir in 7oz self raising flour, 1tsp mixed spice, 6oz oats, 4oz dried fruit and 1tbsp milk. Make a fairly stiff dough and roll into balls. Flatten balls to about 6cm on baking trays and bake at 160c for approx 15 mins.

I baked these once we were home after a short walk around the park.
Whilst there we were joined, briefly, by this pair of ducks who waddled together in front of us in perfect unison.

S was off as soon as she spotted a fallen log which acted as a bridge and gave her access to go exploring 

The most perfect sight were the bluebells, there weren't many, but they were so pretty.

A walk in the park, spring flowers, tea and biscuits, a good Saturday.

Eiffel Day

Today is Eiffel Tower Day. The day marks he completion of the tower in 1889.
So now you know, what will you do to mark the occasion? Wear an outfit which has a dash of French chic about it, cook coq au vin for tea or croissants for breakfast, maybe even book a trip to Paris ?
Me, I think I'll watch the Maigret episode I recorded on Sunday evening and maybe indulge in eating an eclair.

Puddles

Today is

Step in a puddle and splash your friends day.

I kid you not.

Maybe if I had a rainproof outfit as cute as this one I'd go out there and jump in a puddle myself.