March Scavenger Hunt

We are off out for the day tomorrow so I thought I would do my March Scavenger Hunt finds tonight. So in no particular order we have.....

A Landmark- a t-shirt with the Eiffel tower on it, found in the children's section of BHS.

Half a face- One of a selection of photos in Boots

Square- the Guildhall Square in the City centre, photo of me and S taken by T.

City- another photo taken by T. Our City's logo as seen on the window of one of the council offices.

Words- Advertising board outside Waterstones.

Kitchen- one of my favourite room sets from Ikea.

Fashion- fashion ideas inside my recent 1980 Pink annual purchase. Sequins stuck down the back of tights, top tip for your next night out!

Fancy- used twice in a sentence in a paragraph from my latest book club read. The Confessions of Katherine Howard, wouldn't recommend it.

Morning- on my work day mornings these are the 3 bags which need to be packed and ready.

Road name- very close to where we live, this road is named after Lord Leighton, painter of that very beautiful work of art, Flaming June.

Theatre- We keep the tickets from shows we've been to see and this is one of the first T saw. A friend at school had won tickets to the show and asked T if he wanted to go along.

Buttons- one of my most favourite necklaces.

Many thanks to Kathy for another interesting list. I wonder what April's will bring.

Pink

I am beside myself with excitement.
A recent conversation led me to visit the treasure trove that is ebay.
And it came up trumps.
I can't explain how happy owning a copy of this annual again makes me.

Receiving a copy of Pink at Christmas was one of the highlights for me. I read each one cover to cover many, many times.

When this annual arrived in the post the other day and I opened it up see this first page I was instantly transported back to being 12 again.

Now that's what I call a centrefold pin up!

This may sound a bit daft, but this is almost like sharing pages from my diary here on the blog. I knew these games

tips

quizzes and stories so well. Seeing them again after so long is just so special and it doesn't feel like it's been 30 years! It's like meeting up with a group of friends and talking about the good old days.

North Stoneham Park

Wasn't the weather at the weekend just glorious.

We were able to spend so much time outside, a lot of it in the back garden. On Saturday afternoon we decided a sort out of the shed was needed so everything came out and not everything went back in, there is now a huge pile of rubbish in our front garden awaiting a trip to the tip.

Saturday morning we went for a walk, selecting from the information leaflet stash a fairly local one, North Stoneham park. Now I have to say that although it was great being outdoors in the sun (and the pub across the road where we had lunch was really very nice indeed) it's not a place I would recommend making a special trip too for a family walk destination. There just wasn't much there, not that we need constant entertainment when we are out and about! The leaflet about the park is extremely informative and from a local history point it makes fascinating reading, but the points of interest at the park were very thin on the ground in comparison. Having said that the park is under threat of being developed by the council into housing which would be a huge shame. The fields were buzzing with butterflies and some pretty huge bees and the birdsong was loud and plentiful too. If I were a local resident I would be campaigning not to lose such a site.

On parking the car and walking up into the park the first thing you see is this beautifully manitained war shrine. It was built in 1917-18 by the then landowner John Willis Fleming in memory of his son Richard and 36 other men of North Stoneham who died in WW1. Over the years this fell into disrepair and has been restored in the last couple of years.

The great house which once stood within the estate was demolished decades ago along with summerhouses and lodges. One surviving building is the former coach house. It has been converted into residential housing and it wasn't the nicest conversion either so no picture.

From there it was on to the church. I was hoping for a peek inside to see a tomb detailed in the information leaflet but there was a wedding party gathering so I thought it best to stay outside!

The one hand clock dates from the early 17th century.



In my minds eye I could picture a Victorian country wedding scene here, the lych gate being festooned with flowers and lots of well wishes waving off the newly married couple.

Instead I saw these 3 having a five minute rest. Maybe that should be four as S wanted to bring her new bear Snowflake along too.


This little white earthenware jug caught my eye just as we were leaving the churchyard.



As we retraced our steps we walked past what is shown on the map as Avenue Pond, but there is no access to it as it's owned by the district angling club.

We did notice some of the trees had mistletoe growing on them.


Towards the end of the walk we spotted these plants growing in the next field. I'm not sure if it's because we were getting hungry by then but we did notice how they looked just like sticks of candyfloss, minus the pinkness!

I hope everyone has been enjoying the good weather whatever you've been up to.

Holy Rood part 2

Do you remember this post where I came across some sculptures in our City centre? After looking up details about them on line I found that there were others and so yesterday I went in search of them.

This lady is Dame Claramunda, what a fabulous name, who was a wealthy merchant who lived and traded in the area in the early 1200's. I think I'd like to know more about her.

Next up is an Agincourt Archer symbolising Henry V's troops who set sail for battle with the French from Southampton.


Finally we have a merchant sailor to signify all the traders who over the centuries have bought all kinds of goods into and out of the port. I do like the look on the faces of those sheep!


A little further up from the housing estate these sculptures are on is a another fairly recent addition to the City which ties in perfectly with it's long history with sea faring vessels.

Along the side of a now vacant pub the City have put up a series of panels depicting the history of the QE2. This one below talks about when she left the City for the final time. I was there for that, standing by the shore waving her goodbye. My dad had worked on when he was a young man in the Merchant Navy and so I felt I needed to go and say cheerio to her for him.



The anchor was presented to the City in 2010

and was put on display last year.


Holy Rood church you can be seen here in the background and the engraving on a nearby seat gives a brief history about it and how now after being bombed in WW2 it has become a memorial to the Merchant Navy.

Sunny Daffodils

Daffodils sing out Spring time whether they are blooming beautifully on the mantlepiece

decorating a jug on the dresser


or being worn.

They never fail to make me smile.

Lucky Mummy

A quiet Mother's day or me this year.

Two lovely cards, one chosen by T and one made by S.

Two bracelets from T. He said he couldn't decide between the silver and the red so I ended up with both!



Along with a packet of Maltesers S gave me this DVD which G and I watched last night. I do think that Robert Downey Jr is quite gorgeous and both he and Jude Law are very, very good in this.


Very watchable movie for a variety of reasons.

Random

Today is a bit of a jumble of various items of randomness, some of which I meant to include in other posts.

First up is a pair of pink flowery lace up pumps G bought to give me for Christmas. He hid them in the loft, forgot about them and then rediscovered them when he was putting all the decorations back up in mid January. Hopefully I'll get to wear them soon!

The plate they are sat on I bought for £1.50 from a charity shop, this will eventually be given to my sister once her birthday comes around.

Bargain tights, which match one of our cushion cover spookily well, bought on Saturday. Despite their floral prettiness, unlike the pumps I hope not to be wearing these woolly winter tights any time soon.

Spotted (!) in the 99p shop a summer picnic cool bag which just had to be mine in all it's red polka dottiness.



Talking of picnics we had a mini picnic back at the start of Feb.

Another Vintage fair was being held at the university and as we had found some great things the first time round me and my mum were keen to go again.

This time T and S had to come along too and seeing as they were probably not going to find it the most interesting of trips I thought that as the sun was out a jaunt down the park first seemed like a good idea. I had recently received an email from Nature Detectives with food ideas for a winter picnic which had given me an idea to make things a bit more fun for them.

Nipping into Sainsbury's on our way I bought a packet of their frozen vegetarian hot dogs and the children were most bemused when back in the car they watched me drop the sausages into a flask of boiling water! But when it came to scoffing them later with a splodge of tomato ketchup and another flask full of hot chocolate they loved it!

Without friends...

...there would be no cushion covers.

Let me explain.

My mum has a friend who has a son.

The son had a temporary job in Next a couple of years ago and whilst he was there he was given some curtain fabric samples which were no longer needed. He thought he would make them into something useful, but he never got round to it and during a recent clear out they ended up being passed to my mum.

My sister had a root through and took the ones she liked and I said I would find a home for the rest.

I have a good friend who has really got into sewing in a big way over the past 18 months since she acquired a machine as a present and I thought she might like to do something useful with them.

All of them that is except for two.

There were two I really liked and so when I presented her with the stash of samples I asked would she mind making me two cushion covers, although only whenever it was convenient for her to do so as she is pregnant with her second child and working full time and so has plenty to keep her busy anyway!

In the end they were passed on to her mum to make up for me, who is a real whizz with a sewing machine.

On this plain brown one she reused a couple of the curtain rings and sewed them on by hand using two colours of beige yarn, finishing it off nicely by with a pair of toggle buttons.

The second is grey with tones of blues and the buttons used on the back of this are such a good match and they came from her own button stash.


I consider myself very lucky indeed being able to have such lovely things in our home because of the kindness of others.

Do you like my pom poms?

Whilst trawling Pinterest for party decoration ideas for T and S's birthday the other week there was one thing that kept coming up time after time which I really liked the look of, tissue paper pom poms.

Not only do they look good they are super simple to make, which is a huge plus when you aren't naturally crafty like me.

There are many, many tutorials out there on the internet but I stuck with this one from Martha Stewart.