April Scavenger Hunt

I haven't managed to collect all the items in the scavenger hunt this month and so I am posting a day early. I am pleased with the ones I did get, though I blame the weather and the various hospital visits for lack of opportunity to complete it in full!

So here are the 9 out of 12 I did do.

Spring- spring flowers in town, planted out as a Union Jack in honour of the Queen's Jubilee. I love this so much I have started to use it as the wallpaper on my laptop.

Multi-coloured- multi-coloured plastic eggs hiding Easter chocolate treats.

Sticky- S had a sticky face after eating this candyfloss.

Direction- we went bowling during the school holiday back at the start of the month and so here we have the lane markings pointing in the direction of the remaining pins which will hopefully soon be in a downwards direction!

On the move- the sun was out and it was so warm when I came home from work on Friday I didn't want to waste it so S and I went down for a walk along the shore. The Queen Mary was on the move out of the docks, no doubt to somewhere an awful lot warmer.

Smile- smiles all round on Saturday afternoon when Saints were promoted to the Championship! This was hastily snapped off the TV.

Rock- half a stick of rock which was in the fridge. Part of a thank you present from our neighbours to us for feeding their cat when they went away.

In/Out- I was so pleased with this one which again I took during the school holidays. Some of the tulips are in bud and some are out in bloom, some in the sunlight and some out of it.

Tangle- this is S's hair brush, we use a tangle teeser as recommended by the hairdressers for her lovely curly hair. Apparently it was a product idea which was rejected in the Dragon's Den but which the inventor has gone on to be very successful with. Certainly works for S.

The ones I didn't get were 'amazing', 'can't live without' and 'indulgence'. All of which I could say there are plenty of on this blog already, they can be found within the hundreds of photos of my wonderful little family!

A Right Royal Cuppa

Could not resist buying this box of tea bags from the 99p shop today.

No idea what they taste like as yet but I think I shall have to use my red, white and blue teapot when it's time to make a cup of tea or two.

Anyone care to join me?

Who's in the Box?

As a little treat for having to under go his op G ordered himself a new guitar. It arrived in a big box on Tuesday and so it was here for him when he came home on Wednesday. 

As we all know cats love boxes, 

but Malcolm wasn't the only member of the household who couldn't resist a little investigation!

Unfortunately although G did get to try out his new toy it was a brief experience as he went back into hospital on Friday morning. He was in vast amounts of pain and had to have a MRI scan to check that the discs hadn't re-ruptured or that any other various horrid things hadn't happened. Thankfully that all proved to be tickety-boo and so it is a case of getting his pain levels under control. Hopefully he'll be home tomorrow or Tuesday. And hopefully today the flat tyre I got yesterday can be sorted, just when I really need the darn car too!

My Resistance is Low

I have had a very lazy morning. I didn't intend to but I was using you tube to do a bit of research (term used very loosely) and found myself hopping from one music video to another. 

The reason for going onto you tube in the first place was the Pink annuals I have recently bought  from ebay. Inside there are photos of singers I remember, like Leif  'I was Made for Dancin'' Garrett and there were photos of singers I couldn't rememebr such as twin brothers Billy and Bobby Alessi. You tube seemed like the best idea and so I went and found out what they had sung  back in the late 1970's.

Which led then to music video hopping and 2 hours of wallowing in nostalgia. 

When I was younger and we would go and visit my grandparents I would take myself off to my aunt's bedroom and look through all her singles. She had 100's of them, working on the record counter in Woolies did it! This is the one song I LOVED and I would play it over and over and over again. 

Today I have listened to it over and over and over again and here it is for you to listen to too. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

New Chef on the Block

T has discovered cooking at school, although there they call it food tech, and he is really enjoying it.  When he was younger we would occasionally make some cakes or biscuits together, it wasn't something he wanted to do very often, although he has never had any problem with eating any baked goodies!

Yesterday he ought home these little beauties. 

4 rock cakes which were de-lic-i-ous.

T asked that if G was able to come home from hospital today (which he was, hurrah!!!) could he cook us something for our evening meal from a recipe book all pupils had been given at school. We decided on pitta bread pizzas.
He did really well and we all thoroughly enjoyed the results.

Today he made macaroni cheese which is his absolute favourite and he snaffled that as soon as he got in so no idea how that tasted but we did all have a slice from this scone round when he made that just before half term.

I'm very much looking forward to his next food tech lesson.

Thank You

Some paper DaffodilsI made at Easter, inspired by this post, to say a  big thank you for all the good luck messages left for G for his operation today. I have spoken to him twice and he's doing fine. Just need to wait for the morning and the surgeon to do his rounds so G can find how long he has to stay in for.

A Different Week

I can't believe that Easter Sunday was only one week ago, this has been a very long week. I have taken very few photos and so all the photos in this post are of the goodies I either bought today at the car boot or yesterday at a jumble.

Enamel mugs 10p each, glass jars 20p each, button 10p, glass tea light holder 50p, Christmas sign £1

The plan for Easter Monday was a family day out in London. S and I would then travel home, but G and T would stay as they were booked into a hotel in Covent Garden for the night as a visit with T's brother R was arranged for Tuesday. The weather was so awful on Monday and G's back so painful that in the end it was decided that only G and T would go to London and they ended up leaving the mid afternoon. S and I stayed at home and made sparkly nail varnish from a kit she had for Christmas.

Long sleeved top £1

Tuesday worked out pretty much as planned. G and T met R in London and had a lovely time. T had a piece of homework to do over the school holidays about someone he admires and he decided to do it about R and all the things he has achieved which we found very touching.
S loves spending time with my mum and so she was more than happy to have Nanny to herself for the day whilst I went to work.

Skirt for S 50p.

On Wednesday I had planned to take S to her opticians appointment, take both of the children to see the Prow to Stern Titanic layout in the park and then it was off to Salisbury so they could stay with Grandma for a few days. I had been unable to get the day off work on Friday and also on that day G had a pre-op assessment to attend at the hospital as he was due a back operation on 19th of this month.
S and I did go to town for the appointment and then the park but there was no trip to Salisbury. When G arrived home on Tuesday there was a message on our answerphone asking him to call the hospital urgently but by the time he got the message there was no-one available to speak to. He rang them first thing Wednesday morning to be asked did he want to go in the next day for his op. After a quick discussion between the two of us he rang them back and said yes please.

Green skirt 25p, grey cardigan 25p, check shirt 25p, grey top 25p

So instead of me having the day to catch up on housework with T and S away, we were all up early to wave    G off with lots of good luck hugs and kisses as he got into a taxi at 7.10am to take him over to the hospital. As he hadn't had his pre-op assessment that was done first thing and he then text to say he was last on the list so expect no news until later in the afternoon.
Thinking ahead I had been online the night before and bought a murder mystery treasure trail based in the nearby market town of Romsey. I thought this would be a good thing to keep us busy as we would be concerned about how G was doing and I didn't want us to be hanging around the house 'just waiting.'
Unfortunately we managed half a dozen clues before I could tolerate T's behaviour no longer. I know that may sound intolerant of me when he was obviously worried about his dad but honestly his attitude and whole demeanour from the moment he had woken up so was aggressive and disrespectful. I cut him some slack because of the situation and had a chat to him about it but there came a point when it was just too much. I hope we go back and finish it another time!
Back home a couple of hours after we had set off with not much achieved I received a text from G to say he would be coming home. There had been two emergency cases flown to the hospital by air ambulance and they weren't able to operate on him because of those. Although we were very grateful that he wasn't one of those cases it was none the less frustrating as you go through the whole build up of getting yourself ready for the procedure. So he was back home with us by tea time.

Skirt for me £1

Friday was work for me and with no pre-op assessment for G he was home with T and S instead. He had a phone call from the hospital and has now been told his operation will be on Tuesday.

It's been a strange week, lots of plans made, changed and then changed again. All in all not one I would like to repeat in a hurry.

Mug 10p.

Titanic Remembered part 2

I was back in town on Wednesday with S for another Titanic event I had seen advertised which I was really looking forward to. In one of the City centre parks the dimensions of the Titanic had been measured out  so as this advertising poster showed you could walk from Prow to Stern and get a feel for the size of it.

Here we are starting at the stern, the central white symbol and the ones slightly in front to the left and to the right show the placement of the rudders.

Hanging from 7 lamp posts were luggage tags, one for every person on board.

S and I read a fair few of them and I took photos of some, one because the  person shares our surname, a few because of their age, their occupation (or lack of one), their address as one lived in Oxford Street where we were for the other Titanic event at the weekend and another lived in a road just round the corner from us. Click on the photos to enlarge and read.

There is a photo of where three of the lifeboats were on board which I have forgotten to include, but in each lifeboat there was a sheet of information about the number of people saved.

Also tales of bravery

and stories of some of the crew such as Violet Jessop

Some of the rooms were also mapped out to show their position and points such a the ship's wheel, the crow's nest, the Captain's lounge and the Grand Staircase.

One of the most poignant was the Marconi Room.

Although I did find this interesting I also felt that it could have been done better. The information sheets were just on plain white sheets of laminated A4, surely it would have all looked a bit more professional if more effort had been made with the presentation and maybe the inclusion of the White Star logo at the very least. There was no information about which deck the rooms which were outlined were actually on, so although we know the position of them we don't know where they were in relation to anything else. Information boards with designs for the ship on would have been helpful for bringing the whole thing together. For part of the City's 100 year commemoration the idea was a really good one, but my personal opinion is that it fell a bit short of what it could have been.

Titanic Remembered

There are a fair few events happening in Southampton over the weekend and the coming week to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. This afternoon it was the turn of Oxford Street, which contains a few buildings with connections to the Titanic. Leaflets were available showing the Street how it looked at the turn of the last century with information about which businesses were in the buildings still standing today.

The first business we walked past today was giving away free candyfloss which went down very well with S!

As S and I approached I remembered that J, the partner of my friend P, worked here and we arrived just as she was getting changed into her evening dress. Very lovely she looked too.`

Live music was provided  by these two DJ's. They had their records and player and speakers set up like a stage set with vintage bikes and suitcases piled around

plus this beautiful curvy old car. They were very friendly too chatting with people who wandered over for a closer look.

The London Hotel is on the corner of Oxford Street and was built in 1907

but it's The Grapes which has a place in the history of the Titanic. Apparently six crew men were drinking in the pub leaving getting on board ship to the very last minute. Just before midday they dashed across to Dock Gate 4. There was a railway line to cross and three men managed to cross it just in front of a train and made it on board. The remaining men, three brothers, let the train pass and by the time they arrived the gangplank had been pulled up. Not doubt very disappointed to miss their job opportunity but then very relieved when the news broke a few days later that the Titanic had sunk.

As we were stood chatting consulting the leaflet and looking around us a chap came over and explained that the restaurant we were stood outside wasn't included on the leaflet but in his days in the Merchant Navy, back in the 1960's, it was an outfitters. He said that you only got paid at the end of each trip and so to get some money before you went you would request an 'advance note' for £30 or so. This would then be taken to the outfitters where it would be used to buy something of small monetary value such as shoelaces and then  with the change you had more than enough for a good night out before sailing! I know this isn't a good photo but I had never before noticed this print running around the bottom of the shop. Unfortunately an air vent has been fixed over what would have said 'Liverpool-Royal Albert Docks.'

This face is next to one of doors of this shop.

There were various people wandering around in period costume but I only managed to snap these two young ladies who I thought looked very elegant. G thinks they looked a bit spooky.

In one of the restaurants someone was giving a talk on fashion's of the day which I would have loved to have  listened to but unfortunately we were too late to hear it.

Lots of the businesses had joined in with this day but a fair few hadn't which I think was such a shame given that this part of town has so many close associations with the Titanic and the history of many major shipping lines.

Making

Ever since seeing photo this photo on Pinterest I have been on the lookout for a suitable top and tie so I give  this idea a whirl. Last week I was lucky and found the grey top on the reduced to £1.00 rail and the tie came in a bag of donations I was sorting.

I have to admit to being really pleased with how it's looking, not being the most talented or patient crafty person around. It's all just held in place with pins at the moment as I don't have a sewing machine. The tutorial uses a button to secure the end of the tie, I may do this or perhaps use a brooch.

S was busy in her own creative way on Monday, first of all we baked these mini muffins. We used milk instead of buttermilk and golden syrup as we didn't have any maple syrup. The recipe made up 24 delicious bite size mini muffins which are best eaten the same day or the next but definitely no later than that. She also made this jellyfish, it was all her own idea to use a hole punch enabling her to thread pipe cleaners through as she wanted it to have ears.

Finally is a little brooch I made the other week. I bought the belt buckle from the Vintage fair I went to, back in February, for 50p. The pink material was from a baby dress I had bought ages ago at a jumble sale because I liked the pattern and the button was from my button box. Just noticed the colours match S's jellyfish, maybe we should attach it for a bit of recycled accessorising.