The Reindeer Are Creeping In

I've made one or tow of Christmas related purchases in the week or so and well it just seems such a shame to put them away for a few weeks when they'll be out soon anyway.
A white wooden reindeer decorated with red polka dots and a jaunty gingham bow, love this the most

and a new cushion in the style of a vintage Christmas card. Just right for snuggly winter evenings.

Birthday Goodies

Being a Sunday we would normally try and pop to the local car boot, but not today, the rain put paid to that.

This means I don't have any new bargains buys to share so instead I thought I would show some old ones. 

These were accumulated over the year for my sister C's birthday in October.

Also given but not included here is a new Cath Kidston mug (£1.50) and a black jacket (20p).

The purple jacket was £1.00 as was the stripy jumper and the green enamel bowl which my sister is going to use as a planter in the garden.

The measuring cups were £1.50, never used still in their box.

Grey t-shirt 50p, book 30p and vintage postcard of Errol Flynn £1.00. My sister has a bit of a thing for him and I was so pleased to have found thisin a charity shop in Salisbury.

The Home & Garden tin was 50p and will also be used as a planter in the garden. The fabric letter 'C' was 50p and this was spotted by the children at a car boot back in the summer. The grey woollen waistcoat is my favourite buy. It's a Fat Face one, it still had the tags attached and was only £1.00.

Thank you for all the lovely messages left on my post yesterday. It's good to be back and I'm making my way round visiting everyone and catching up on all your news and adventures.

So Wrong

Vegetables which definitely belong on a pizza are peppers and mushrooms.
Vegetables which definitely don't belong on a pizza are Brussels sprouts and cabbage.
Fact.

Hello there!
Well that wasn't supposed to happen.
My blogging has been a little erratic for the majority of 2014 but I didn't intend to miss out a whole month.
I will need to do (yet another) catch up post but am hoping that normal blogging with soon resume.
I've missed being here.
Fact.

September So Far

The start of September always means the start of a new school year. 

And this September meant the start of both children going into the upper years of their respective school.

At S's junior school the children stay in the same class from when they begin in Year 3 until they leave in Year 6. However late last term a decision was made by senior staff that, for various reasons, the classes would be mixed around so when S returned to start Year 5 it was with some children she knew and some she didn't. So far things are going well and S is especially pleased that each Monday until the beginning of December part of their day includes a swimming lesson.

T went back to school a day later. Year 10 pupils didn't have to be there until 11am, unless they had volunteered to be peer mentors for the new Year 7's. T is a peer mentor and so had to be at school 10 minutes earlier than normal. He was really looking forward to receiving his name badge, maybe that's why he looks for happy in his back to school photo!

The weekend after the return to school we did something we haven't done for ages, we went for a walk. 
Of course if you're going to go for a good long walk you need to make sure you are fully nourished before hand. We thought going to the local Harvester for one of their new all you can eat buffet breakfasts would be just the ticket. It certainly did the trick.
We have walked other parts of the Itchen Navigation trail and decided to try and complete another section of it. We chose to do the Otter Trail but in order to get to the start of it we had to walk part of the water vole way which we had done last May. 

S liked the look of this rope swing we saw on the opposite bank

and along the way we met a herd of friendly cows grazing in a field

and at a small holding we laughed at a litter of piglets who were racing each other to get to mum for feeding time

and of course we saw ducks, though maybe not the kind you would normally expect.

Blackberries were in abundance but our energy levels weren't. It had been so long since we'd been out for a decent walk and it was such a hot day that when we stopped for a drink and G consulted the trail map and he saw we could miss out a mile or so of the 6 miles we had planned he suggested we tweak our route.

Once agreed on this amended course we set off across a deserted field towards Otterbourne Woods. Our walk had been lovely and picturesque up until that point. The path in the words was horribly overgrown with snagging brambles and made for a bit of a disappointing and prickly end.

Allbrook Lock is where the Otter trail meets the Water Vole way and the water rushing downhill was a sight to see.

We made our way back into Eastleigh and discovered a new coffee shop, one to try another day. We liked the colourful chairs on the pavement

and I spied a fab wooden crate inside used to display fruit for sale. Although Grandad must have his veg patch in an exotic place judging by the contents.

The other note worthy occurrence in September has been I have been offered a new job.
There are lots of reasons I have wanted to leave my current job. I was so excited to have started it last November, full of optimism for a new challenge after 22 years in the civil service, but it just wasn't to be. Mid October I will be starting work as a receptionist within a doctor's surgery. I'm expecting it to be an extremely busy working environment which I'm used to. One thing which I'm not used to though will be the occasional working alongside a family member as my sister works there too. Could prove to be interesting........

Random

The weeks of the school holiday are slipping past and so it's about time I made a quick record of the things we've been doing.

Last weekend G, S and I went for a walk round the Common, we've been to visit friends who have recently acquired three chickens, I've been out for the evening with friends having a good catch up, G's mum and sister and family friend J came to visit yesterday, me T and S went to a mid week car boot sale where we sold lots of their unwanted bits and bobs with varying degrees of monetary success and G's been to hospital to have two teeth removed.

Ouch.

T has been going out and about with various friends and last weekend he went and stayed with Grandma, so he's been off doing his own funky thing and keeping busy.

S has had friends D and M over and gone to play at R's house twice. She spent the night at my mum's last Sunday due to G's aforementioned early morning hospital appointment. 

So there has been plenty going on, but not many photo opportunities.

Instead I'm going to share some random things from the last week and a bit.

I read ages ago, possibly on Pinterest, about how if you store your jumpers and cardis in drawers in a rolled up fashion rather than a piled on top of one other fashion it's easier to see what you actually have when you open the drawer. It sounded like a good idea and something I always planned to do but never got round to.

Until now that is.

 I sorted through my three drawers in about 10 minutes.

An unexpected bonus is that I now have more room so can buy more cardis.

Our walk around the Common also included a pitstop in the cafe for lunch. The staff are friendly and helpful, the food is reasonably priced and tastes good and if you have a milkshake you get rainbow drops sprinkled on top.
What's not to like.
As you can see S liked it so much she couldn't wait for me to take a photo before she demolished half of the topping.

Last Saturday G and I played this trivia quiz.
I read out the questions he answered them. There was some really obscure stuff in there. One answer he gave made me laugh so much my tummy and sides ached, I could not stop laughing.
The question was 'Which actress played the part of Alf Garnett's daughter in Til Death Do Us Part and what was her character called?'
G answered (with absolute certainty) 'Well the actress was Uma Thurman'
I know it doesn't sound like something that would set you off laughing so much you felt like you'd never stop but G saying Uma Thurman instead of Una Stubbs and the difference in the two actresses just set me going. 
One of those 'you had to be there to appreciate it' moments I suppose.

I like the smell of cucumber, it is one of the smells of summer, but I can't stand eating it. I feel like I would enjoy it because it smells so fresh but I am a fussy eater and textures as well as tastes are an issue for me.
When I saw this in Tesco I thought I'd give it a go.
Verdict : Let's just say I won't be buying it again.

A birthday brooch sent to me by G's niece.
The next best thing to real cake, one you can wear.

One afternoon S had been playing with her Barbie styling head and as the hair had become a bit tangled she washed it through in the bath and left it in there to dry.
Only T didn't know about it and when he went into the bathroom later on that night and turned on the light all he saw was a head in the bath.
Apparently it freaked him out a bit!
Maybe I'm just cruel but I would love to have been a fly on the wall to have seen his reaction.

It was one of those boring jobs this week, taking the car for it's MOT. Whilst it was being tested S and I went over to the park and that's where we found our first conker of the year. Not very brown and shiny but still a happy find if you like conkers as much as I do.

Lastly another brooch and another birthday present from another member of G's family. This one was given to me by D when she visited yesterday.

Lucky me.

The Past Week

My last post recorded our summer holiday up until last Wednesday so this one is from Thursday until today to bring us right up to date.

T has pretty much been doing his own thing. He has been spending lots of time with H and I'm thankful he has made such a good friend. H is a very calm person and has got T to relax a little and chat which is A Very Good Thing.

However, T did come out with us last Thursday. My sister was off work for the week and we arranged for her and mum to join us for a picnic at RVCP.

We spent three hours in the sun eating, drinking, playing with the bats and balls and general larking about.

I'm really pleased with these photos, I hope my mum and sister will be too.

S's friend D came and spent the night on Thursday and Friday morning we trotted into town for a couple of hours at the girls request.
Later on in the day I took them to a local fun fair. S wanted to try the bigger rides but was worried about how fast and scary they looked. That's kind of the idea I told her. With a little cajoling she decided to give the umbrella chairs a go. When it started to tip on it's side and she came whooshing down that first time I thought she was going to cry, the next time she came round she was grinning from ear to ear!

And this is the ride she went on next. You sit in a little car and travel up the inside of this tower coming down on the track to then do a circuit of a very small rollercoastery type of arrangement. I predict no more sedate fun fair visits for S in the future.

The three of us spent some time in the garden on Saturday playing games. In this one G and S each both had the same measuring jug containing the same amount of water and washing up liquid. They were then both given the same mini whisk. The first one to whisk up enough bubbles until they rose up and spilled out the top was the winner.

I made S a big bubble wand and a batch of bubble mixture and with them we made these enormous bubbles. Oh it was a lot of fun but also a bit frustrating as it was breezy and they popped too easily. A stiller day would be better for giving this a go. We still have mix left so we'll try again soon.

Sunday was a day of two halves. The weather was wet and windy as forecast but then it cleared up and the sun came out. Bored with being indoors I suggested a short wander along the shore. I had to go out anyway for bread and milk so why not grab the sunshine whilst it was there and have a stroll.
We parked the car at one end of the shore and walked to the other where the ice cream van is situated.
Our mission was to buy a jazzer.
What's a jazzer?
This is a jazzer. 
A vanilla and strawberry whippy ice cream complete with, sauce and sprinkles, a flake and a giant marshmallow.

We stood by the shore enjoying our ice creams and lollies when we noticed that over to our right where the docks are there appeared to be some very dark clouds making an appearance and you may just be able to see in the top left of the photo that there was a lot of rain falling from them.

OK time to make a dash for the car. This is just about half way back and rain had started to fall in big fat drops. See how dark those clouds are but notice how clearly you can see the tower blocks.

We ran the last 100 metres or so so we could wait it out in one of the shelters along the shore, along with another family and a little group of dog walkers. It was absolutely lashing it down now and we could hardly see the docks to the right of us

or the tower blocks which were now behind us. Need to say we were soaked as although we were inside the shelter the wind whipped the rain sideways into us.
S was still eating her jazzer though, she's made of strong stuff! 

As quickly as the clouds arrived they were gone again and five minutes later it was back to sunshine and blue sky and normal visibility.
The rest of the day was spent indoors! Card and dice games and more sedate activities was the way to go.

A few weeks back I bought an old, but still boxed and never used, plastic syringe biscuit maker from a charity shop and on Monday we gave it a go. There are different discs which pipe out different shaped biscuits such as stars and flowers.

Some of them came out perfectly formed,

others less so!

No photos from yesterday. 
T was out with H again and S had L round for the afternoon.
Today both T and S are out with friends.
I'd like to say that I have been busy and achieved lots seeing as my presence hasn't been required as much by either of the children but it seems the less I do the less I want to do. I haven't been totally lazy and have ticked a few things off my to do list and more or less kept up with the housework which always seems to slide during the 6 weeks, but there is a nagging voice in my head telling me I should be making more of this 'extra' time. I'm off to vacuum the stairs, maybe the sound of the hoover will drown it out!

Sunday to Wednesday

Needless to say that since our return from Norfolk I've been busy with the usual post holiday mountain of washing and ironing but there has been some other more interesting stuff going on too.

Sunday was a bit of a moochy kind of day for all and involved nothing more strenuous than trip to the supermarket for me and S whilst T went off into town to meet up with a friend.

There was yet more shopping on Monday. T was having a friend stay over and I had promised them some suitable snacks for their planned movie watching so they joined me and S.

 As well as the essentials a couple of pink sparkly items made their way into the trolley. The hula hoop and baton were put to good use in the garden in the afternoon.

The pink theme continued in the afternoon with a bit of baking, a strawberry yoghurt cake which came out the oven looking more like a discus than a cake but tasted ok.

Both children were occupied with friends on Tuesday. H was still with us and just after 10 we picked up S's friend R and headed off to the park. They had a great time messing around in the playground, although S is getting too big for some of the equipment.

Whilst they were busy I took the opportunity to sit down with my new diary and a notepad, taken in the floral bag which was a recent birthday present from my mother-in-law, and I caught up with a bit of list writing.

The girls got along really well until the middle of the afternoon and so I stepped in and suggested they make some fruit and oat balls which I had seen in the free Sainsburys magazine. Just a few ingredients were needed, bananas, apple sauce, oats and cinnamon. They were super quick and easy to do. Our mixture was a bit sloppier than it should have been as it wasn't possible to roll it into balls so we just scooped it out and made cookies instead. All were eaten with exclamations of how tasty they were.

Next I made them each a bubble snake. It was an instant hit. R kept popping into the house to say how much fun they were having which was a delight to hear. 
In the end we didn't take R home until nearly 9!

Today we have been to the library, had a really good result at the charity shop and then we got a bit crafty. I have a transfer sheet of Sylvanian Family characters which I ironed on to a t-shirt and then S coloured them in. 
Meet the Badger Family.