Cats and Bags

On International Cat Day I give you our two beauties.
Melvin and Malcolm.

Jamaica

Jamaica gained it's independence from the UK on 6th August 1962.

I shall will leave you with Harry Belafonte singing about leaving his little girl in Kingston as we go off on our travels for a few days.

It's Pants

Does anyone else buy new undies to take away on their hols?
Recently when out shopping to choose new ones for me and S I popped an extra pack of these basic black pants in my basket to send off to smalls for all as my way to mark underwear day.
I blogged about this charity earlier in the year when I had some bras to send off and I think it's such a wonderful organisation it deserved another mention.

Cheers

I thought G would like to do the honours today.

After all International Beer Day is much more up his street than mine.

He was more than happy to take part and indulge in a bottle of beer this evening.

In other news, I have been lucky enough to receive some lovely things in the post recently.
The first was a parcel from Kezzie. 
It was a delightful surprise not least because it contained 2 more books by Jacqueline Winspear featuring her 1920's super sleuth Maisie Dobbs. The third book Kezzie sent because she had enjoyed it so much and thought I may do too. It's the Diary of a Provincial Lady and has the prettiest of covers. The final item is the sheep wreath which Kezzie bought with the seasonal changing of my mantle-piece in mind. So very thoughtful. Thanks again Kezzie.

My second piece of post was an envelope of hand made loveliness from Simone at Linden Grove. I was the lucky winner of her recent 1000th post giveaway. Simone is multi talented when it come paper crafting and that can easily be seen here in the wonderful array of goodies she sent me.
S has her eye on the wish bracelet and I shall be saving those gift tags for some very special presents. Thank you Simone.

The kindness and generosity of bloggers never ceases to amaze me.

Watermelon Day

Oh to have been able to sit in the garden enjoying a balmy summer evening whilst sipping on my watermelon drink. 

Loving my watermelon t-shirt the most.
I found this a couple of months ago and although I have been itching to wear it I thought it only right that it's first outing should be today on the official watermelon day.

So summery.

Colouring In

Hands up those who remember spending hours as a child colouring in squiggled doodles like the one below.

I would sit with my sisters and our huge selection of pencils and felt tips colouring in these random shapes to our hearts content.

Colouring in for adults has suddenly become a big thing these past couple of years with thousands of books out there to choose from. 
I am all in favour of this. 
I have never lost of my love for colouring in.
I enjoyed it as a shared activity with both my children when they were younger, trying not to get too bothered when they went outside the lines!

Last Christmas one of my friends gave me a colouring in book and some pencils.
She knows how much I value spending my half hour lunch break in the park as often as the weather will allow.
I really treasure the calming effect being outside brings and she thought an added stress busting activity would be for me to do a spot of colouring.
A really thoughtful gift.

With such a pretty book I had plenty of choice when it came to selecting a page to lose myself in on Colouring Book day.

Go and grab yourself some paper and pencils, you won't regret the time you spend absorbed in this most simplest of past times.


I have listed below my list of days to celebrate in August.

A couple may change due to other commitments and as of next week we are away for a few days so my posts may be a bit more sporadic, but it's all supposed to be a bit of fun and I don't want to get caught up in setting rules for myself about these things.

I hope you can join me as August unfolds and if anyone chooses to join in on any given day please let me know, I would love to hear from you.

We've already had

1. Yorkshire Day
2. Colouring Book

and ahead of us is 

3. Watermelon Day
4. Beer Day
5. Underwear Day
6. Jamaican Independence Day
7. Raspberries and Cream Day
8. Cat Day
9. Rice Pudding Day
10. Rhonda Fleming's birthday
11. Pakistan Flag Day
12. Vinyl record
13. Alfred Hitchcock's birthday
14. 3 hour rainbow seen in North Wales in 1979
15. National Day in Liechtenstein
16. Tell A Joke Day
17. Thrift Shop
18. Patrick Swayze's birthday
19. World Honey Bee Day
20. Amy Adam's birthday
21. Usain Bolt's birthday
22. Honor Blackman's birthday
23. Gene Kelly's birthday
24. National Waffle Day
25. Sean Connery's birthday
26. Alison Steadman's birthday
27. Bat Night
28. Bow Tie Day
29. Mary Poppins movie released in 1964
30. Toasted Marshmallow Day
31. Burger/ Eat Outdoors Day

Blue, Green and White

When I was researching the daily activities for my year long challenge some days lent themselves to more than one idea .
Take Yorkshire Day today. 

Say Yorkshire to me and the first thing I think of is Pudding.

So an evening meal with Yorkies was certainly my favoured option but with G and S off to Salisbury today to visit grandma and eating lunch out I wasn't going to come home from work and set about cooking another meal.

The Yorkshire flag is a white rose with green leaves on a blue background and so I used these colours in what I wore today. 
My white flowers are more daisy than rose and please ignore the wet spots on the front of my cardi from where I splashed myself when I was doing the washing up! I didn't realise they were there!

The other nod to Yorkshire is my choice of brooch.
Both G and I love cricket so of course I needed to wear a Dickie Bird.