Titanic

As Southampton was the city the Titanic set sail from on her maiden voyage and as most of the workers on board were from the city we have quite a lot of memorials and important buildings connected to this tragic piece of history.
Today in town was a short ceremony to mark the unveiling of the restored memorial to the engineers who died as they selflessly continued to work at their posts as the ship was sinking. This memorial was originally unveiled to a crowd of thousands who had gathered for the event in 1914. It's obviously taken a bit of a weatherbeating in that time, by clicking here you can see how it was looking until recently.
There was only a very small crowd today (and there were TV cameras too) even so I wasn't able to get a clear shot, but here is a taster of how it looks now,with just a smidge of a huge Union Jack flag which was used to shield it until the grand unveiling, but which kept billowing up in the stiff breeze!

If you ever visit the City I would recommend doing one of the Titanic walks by the local guides. I did one earlier in the year with my sister. In fact if you visit I might be able to rememebr enough to take you on one myself, followed with tea and cake of course!

Saturday afternoon walk

This afternoon we went and explored an area near where we live. A couple of hours out in the fresh air helps work up an appetite for tea.

No injury, just a squashed blackberry!

warmer clothes

It's been such a treat to have the sun back again this week. But first thing in the morning and in the evening there has been a bit of an autumnal nip in the air.
To coincide with this reminder of the seasonal change a couple of days ago I receieved the latest edition of the Joe Brown catalogue in the post.
I do enjoy a browse through this catalogue, lots of lovely clothes in styles and colours I really like, but being the skinflint I am I don't like paying their prices.
If money were no object I would definitely be purchasing this cute hat and gloves set


This fabulous coat

and this entire outfit.

I'll just to have to keep my eyes peeled in the charity shops in case others buy them and get bored!

crafting lovelies

I fell in love with this necklace made by happylovesrosie when it first appeared in her shop. When she had a sale a few weeks back this happily co-incided with my mum giving me some money for my birthday.



I don't think I've shown this before. I made it one evening from felt and an old pillowcase. I had a couple of compliments about it when I wore it on a jacket to my book club.

Last, but my no means least, is a lovely poinsettia bracelet modelled here by S, a gift from Diane, along with 2 candy canes, sent to be used as decorations on my stockings. Thanks again Diane.

2 years

Miss you. Every. Single. Day.
Love you. Always.
My Dad. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ouch

A quieter week so far as there has only been S at home with me. T has been staying with Grandma for a few days and is due home today.

S and I have done some baking, been cutting, sticking and colouring with liberal amounts of glitter, danced, played in our secret den (under the duvet on my bed), shopped for school uniform and each morning she is having a 45 minute swimming lesson. Yesterday afternoon I took her to an indoor soft play centre. We'd only been there for just over an hour when I heard her crying very loudly. She had trodden on a bee and been stung on her big toe. Ouch!

photo source

Cosy

We've been having a bit of a change around here at home.
Pieces of furniture have been moved from one room to another, been taken upstairs, bought back downstairs and gone upstairs again, much to G's annoyance as he's been the one doing most of the lifting and shifting!
Our home is a little 3 bedroomed terrace built just over 100 years ago. There isn't much in the way of storage space and so what furniture we have needs to made the most of.
One thing I have yearned for for ages is a small sofa in our dining room.
What I would actually like is a huge farmhouse style kitchen/dining room that has room for comfy squashy sofas, but as that is not an option G and I chatted about what we could try to do.

Once decided and out on our first joint shopping trip to look for the new furniture we found EXACTLY what we wanted! I couldn't believe our luck. In a second hand furniture store was this green sofa, perfect in measurements and colour.
Complete with a fabulous crochet blanket, I bought in the charity shop I volunteer in for 25p, it has proved in just a couple of short weeks to be a popular spot with the cats, perfect for G to relax on when he comes in from home and chat with me whilst I cook



and a great spot for magazine reading with a hot drink and a cake. This is a museli cake from a batch I made yesterday, not a success and not one I'll be making again.

Not a great photo as I needed to be quick but talking of cosy, just how snuggled does Melvin look in his new favourite spot outside. Nestled in the clematis that trials over from next door to our garden on a piece of trellis G put up.

So cute.