22nd - 28th October

This week I have been

Dancing - to the Bay City Rollers.

Well these days the only original Roller in the band is lead singer Les McKeown.

I went to see them on S A T U R D A Y night (if you know their songs you'll know why I spelled it that way!) with my sisters, it was part of their birthday gift to me.

I had an amazing time.

To be dancing away to all my favourite songs whilst Les McKeown was on stage singing them was just the best.

I was lucky enough to find this fabulous transfer on E-bay which made just the most perfect t-shirt.

Making - a new necklace. This was an illustration from the front of a vintage sewing pattern. I just love her hairstyle.

Wearing - it was Pumpkin Day on Friday and so there was only one choice of brooch.

Eating - to carry on with the pumpkin theme I made us pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. S wasn't keen but G and I enjoyed ours with yogurt, fruit and a drizzle of maple syrup. Delicious and really filling.

Reading - a Christmas book. Saturday afternoon I was in the mood for something festive. I had a few books on my shelf to choose from and went for this one as it looked like a short read. It certainly was as I finished it on Sunday afternoon. By this time I had been out and bought myself another new Christmas mug, it was only 50p from a charity shop so how could I have resisted?

Watching - The Bishop's Wife. It was Elsa Lanchester's birthday on 28th October which provided us with the perfect opportunity for another viewing of this superb movie.


Celebrating - my sister's birthday on 24th. She knew about two of the items of clothing as she had chosen those herself but everything else was a surprise. As you probably remember we spend £10 and all items must come from a car boot or charity shop.
All of these items come to £9.97 in total.
The mug, Gisela Graham mini heart dish and the cupcake decoration were all £1 each. The coaster, cushion cover and paper decorations were 50p each.

This long length grey and pink cardi which originally came from New Look was £1 and was one of the things C has picked out.

The hand made top on the left was one of my favourite buys for her, it reminded me of a gingerbread house! This was £1.

The plain grey jumper was the second item she had chosen and was 50p.

The red glass dish was 50p.

The snowflake jumper was £1, the book was 10p, the jug was 50p and the white deer brooch was new and 87p.

August

So here we are at the end of August. 
Just another couple of days left before that first day of school feeling hits and S stands by our front door for the traditional photo shoot and heads off on the start of a new academic year.

The weather has been good during the summer break. S has been out and about meeting up with friends at local parks, she's been to the cinema a couple of times, mooched around town, been trampolining, met my mum for lunch, had friends to stay and gone on a sleepover.
Plus in the middle of the holidays we had our own holiday when we took the Eurostar to Belgium.

I have well and truly fallen out of the blogging habit this month which is a shame as it meant I have missed the 10th anniversary of when I started recording our lives here at Jumble and Jelly. Although I don't post as regularly now as I did when the children were younger I can't imagine stopping because it's so lovely having a record of us and the things we do.

I am borrowing an idea I have seen on Pinterest and decided to write a round up of August using a series of prompts. An idea I can see me taking forward into the next decade of blogging.

This month I have been

Reading 

A French Affair by Katie Fforde. I took this away with me and read most of it on the train journey to and from Brussels. I wanted something which would be light and easy to read and I thought the title was very apt seeing as we had to travel through France.

How did it take me until I was 50 to read this book. I loved it. L-O-V-E-D it.

Watching


Serendipity, a fluffy rom com with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale as 18th August was Serendipity Day.

and Forgetting Sarah Marshall as it was Mila Kunis' birthday on 14th August.

Trying

To make a jelly in a seaside sandcastle bucket for Sandcastle Day. 
But the darn thing didn't fully set and ended up a quivering heap on the plate!

Cooking

I made lemon rice pudding meringue as a nod to Lemon Juice Day.
I made S some macaroni cheese and bacon sandwiches.
I also made honeycomb lasagne and ham and mustard hash. The lasagne will be making another appearance but the hash won't as although G liked this S didn't.

Eating

We made sure we included raspberries in our picnic lunch in Antwerp as this was the closest we could get for Raspberries and Cream Day.

Belgian fries. G liked them, S and I weren't that fussed. But the waffles. Well what can I say, we all loved those.

Drinking

Watermelon Day was on 3rd August and so I made sure to have some in to make a smoothie with it. I know this should probably be obvious because of it's name but I didn't enjoy it in a smoothie as it made it too, well, watery!

Doing

Silly things with my lovely daughter. It may not look it in this photo but she was laughing as much as me and G whilst we were posing for this!

Going

To Belgium. We stayed in Brussels and had day trips to Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges. We had a great time and I would thoroughly recommend a trip to Belgium to anyone considering it. 

One evening a couple of weeks ago we met up with some with friends and we took ourselves off to a local green where we enjoyed fish and chips for our tea. Their younger children played with S and we sat around chatting about this and that. A perfect way to unwind after a day at work and spend a relaxing summers evening.

On a great clue solving day out to Lymington. The treasure trail took us around the town as we worked our way through the puzzles. We got the answer wrong, but we didn't care as we had great fun trying to solve the mystery.

Loving

Rocky.

Let me introduce you to the latest member of our family.
He's 18 months old and needed a new home. How could we resist?
He was already named Rocky and of course we had to keep it but within a day or so we were calling him Rocky Road. Due to the fact he is always around your feet, especially when you are trying to walk down the stairs he is now being called Rocky Road Trip Hazard.

Feeling

Annoyed is how I was feeling a week or so ago after I discovered that now S's school will only allow girls to wear on of two 'official' style skirts I am expected to pay out £22.50 to purchase one.
The reason this new school uniform rule is being introduced is because other girls were wearing skirts which were too short and didn't comply with the rules. So now the school have decided that all girls have to wear one of the skirts they deem as acceptable. Never mind that many girls did wear skirts which were within the uniform guidelines. It makes me so cross.

Wearing

A dress which matched S's drink

and a bottle green scarf in homage of Word Scout Scarf Day.

Thankful.

This month marked the 10th anniversary of when we lost our dearest Dad. It feels utterly impossible that so long has passed since then. I still miss his dreadfully but will ever be thankful that he was my Dad.


Wondering

If I would find a lion suitable to photograph on World Lion Day and then finding this smiling face on a door not far from the apartment we were staying in.

Listening

I bought this Shaky album for 1 Euro whilst we were in Ghent. Bargain I'd say.
We used the cover for this year's take on Vinyl Record Day.
And in case you are wondering, yes that's me knelt against the washing line support in our back garden.

Although it hasn't happened as yet, in actual fact we're off to it tomorrow evening, G and I will be listening and warbling away when we go to Sing Along with Grease. Can't wait, what a way to end the month.

French Fry

Thank you all so much for the lovely messages you left about our beloved Malcolmcat.

Blogland is full of such supportive friends and each comment was so very much appreciated.

It really is about time I did this post about the week leading up to my birthday and the final daily round of daily activities.

Friday 13th July was French Fry Day and I went for (slightly) healthier option and had a bag of these with my lunch rather than skipping along to the nearest takeaway and snaffling my way through a portion of deep fried fries!

Sunday 15th was another weird and wonderful day. Who would have ever thought there'd be a Gummi Worm Day.
From Pinterest I found instructions for making 'dirt cups', which is just Angel Delight and crushed Oreos layered in a glass dish. Jelly worms were added to look like they were slithering out of the earth.

For Ginger Rogers' birthday on 16th July G and I watched Shall We Dance. The story line was ridiculously flimsy but the dancing was sublime, especially this roller skating scene.

Next up are three food based days. Tuesday 17th was Peach Ice Cream day. I made some ice cream and up until now I had completely forgotten it's the in freezer what with everything that's been going on. I guess we should try some soon!
Wednesday 18th was Hot Dog Day so this meant there was only one choice for our evening meal. 
Thursday 19th was Ice Cream Day. I knew what I wanted to do for this day and because I didn't want to run the risk of it being a cloud free day I made sure I got some photos a little ahead of time.
G and I were very pleased with our efforts.

The day before my birthday I had intended to mark by jumping.
I knew there had been a photographer called Phillippe Halsman who at the end of photography sessions would ask his subjects to jump and he would snap them as they did so.
He believed this act would reveal more of the genuine character of a person than the polished and styled one they may want to project to the public.
I think this is such an interesting idea.
I may not have found the time to physically jump but I spent all day metaphorically jumping for joy at all the surprises my work colleagues laid on for me.
I arrived at work to be greeted by colleagues singing Happy Birthday and my desk covered in banners and primary coloured paper decorations, cards and presents.
As the time ticked round to lunchtime they surprised me further when a table full of food suddenly appeared and we all enjoyed a buffet of party food. 
One of my colleagues is an extremely talented cake maker and she made me this vanilla sponge cake. I told her it was the prettiest cake anyone has ever made me ever.
What a lovely lot of colleagues I have.

Rest of May and the Start of June

Paper Airplane Day was last weekend, 26th May to be precise.

S was away on a school trip, having a wonderful in Paris, and so it wasn't until midway through this week we set about playing a target practice game with planes G talked us through folding into shape.

Tuesday was Biscuit Day and so there was only one choice of brooch, it had to be my jammie dodger.

Quite a while ago I found the most perfect accessory to wear to mark the anniversary, of when the Great Clock on the Elizabeth Tower first started to work, 31st May 1859. This was originally a pendant on quite a long chunky chain which I wasn't keen on. I asked G to do a little work on it so I could wear it as a brooch instead. Unfortunately I asked too late and so the brooch back I had stuck on the back didn't have long enough to set. Never mind.

I can't believe we are going to be turning over the calendar to June tomorrow!
In the evening I shall be watching Some Like It Hot for many reasons.
1st June is Marilyn Monroe's birthday, the 3rd June is the birthday of her co-star Tony Curtis and later on in the month, on 22nd, it's the birth date of the film's director Billy Wilder. So that's 3 of June's days in one go.

James, Fred, Irving and Florence

We've had the chalk out again, this time it was for marking the birth of J.M Barrie on 9th May.

G  drew me a set of fairy wings and a wand so I could pretend to be Tinkerbelle from Peter Pan.

Thursday and Friday were rolled into one with the viewing of a truly dreadful movie called Blue Skies. This movie was selected for Fred Astaire's birthday on 10th and Irving Berlin's birthday on 11th.
Irving Berlin wrote some wonderful songs but the threadbare story which was used to string them together in this film was uninspiring to say the least.

Another birthday for 12th. 
I'm sure you can guess from this photo whose it was.
A lady with a lamp.
Yep, it's Florence Nightingale.

Today is Hummus Day and I had bought the ingredients to try making my own for S and I to have for lunch, but she was invited for a sleepover last night and didn't come home until early afternoon. They will keep and I'll do it another time.

To finish off here is a photo of S after she came home from youth club on Thursday having just become this year's Duck Race Champion.

Running....

.....out of time to blog.

..... to catch up with myself.

...... as in proper running, in proper trainers and getting all proper hot and sweaty.

Surprisingly all the above apply to me during this past week.

Of course the running out of time one isn't any real surprise but I should explain more about the proper running.

G and I decided that enough is enough.

We are both overweight and not very fit.

Regular exercise in some form or another needed to be introduced into our lives.

With a little help from Mr Google I found a 12 week plan on the NHS website.

What attracted me to this was the way it's set up.

It's a combination of the Couch to 5K programme and a set of Strength and Flex exercises.

It's a gentle start on week one to get you going and then each week gradually builds towards upping your fitness level.

We are right at the start, just two days left of week 2, but so far so good.

And I love it that we are doing this together.

So there we have it.

Having to make the commitment to finding the half an hour needed each day of either the Couch to 5K or the exercises has meant that blog time (writing and reading and commenting) has had to take a back seat. As has the ironing, shame that.

I'm sure I'll get the balance right at some point.

Before I get myself changed for tonight's exertions here is a round up from the past week.

Do you remember the scene in Grease when Rizzo throws a pink milkshake over Kenickie and says 'to you from me Pinky Lee'. Click here to remind yourself if you don't.

Pinky Lee refers to a comic who had his own show in the 1950s and his birthday date is 2nd May. As I love Grease so much I had to go with this film reference and so I wore a pink milkshake brooch.

Thursday 3rd was Garden Meditation Day. I haven't a photo to show me sat quietly enjoying being outside in the garden but I do have a photo of our new fence.
One of our neighbours had a huge pile of planks of wood and decking that he no longer wanted. G asked him if he could take it off his hands. Of course came the answer and so during the past couple of weeks G and our neighbour's daughter K have used it to construct 3 new fences between our gardens.
They are a bit cobbled together and have a certain rustic charm to them but they are perfectly adequate and they are very proud with their handy work with wood which would have otherwise been scrapped.

May 4th is, of course, Star Wars day.
Behold three slightly wonky looking Wookies.
You may remember that this Chewbacca headband was G's table present last Christmas. I knew it would come in handy at some point!

The wonderful Richard E Grant celebrated his birthday on 5th May. I know, without a shadow of doubt, G would have chosen to watch Withnail and I but as he was at work I went with watching Twelfth Night which also tied in with Shakespeare's birthday the week before.

On Sunday we were up bright and early to go to the first car boot of the year. It's a little later than normal but the wet weather meant that the field has been too muddy.
As it turned out the field was still too muddy.
To get to the car boot you need to travel down a long twisty road and as we approached it we saw a ridiculously long queue of traffic. 
Temporary traffic lights we thought, but with the help of Facebook G was able to ascertain that people were getting stuck in the mud and needed to be towed off site by a tractor. Later on in the day we saw someone we knew who told us they had sat in the traffic queue for an hour before they arrived at the booty. 
Once we found out the conditions I turned the car round and we went for a walk in the woods instead.

Sunday was Beverage Day and many varieties of drink were consumed to keep up our liquid levels on such a hot day. Tea, coffee and squash mainly as although I had planned on opening the home made sangria we were given at Easter to have with our evening meal I forgot. I blame the heat.

On Monday I woke up with a hideous headache, so it was just as well I hadn't opened the sangria as it could have been even worse.
Monday was Cosmopolitan Day but I couldn't contemplate alcohol so G made us a delicious strawberry and banana smoothie to enjoy instead.
I spent most of the day in the garden, first off planting up some geraniums and then just lounging around. I had a million things I could have done but decided my time would be best spent doing nothing.

For VE Day on Tuesday I turned to my Marguerite Patten Victory cookbook and baked eggless chocolate buns which we enjoyed with custard.

In other news S is still continuing with her therapy sessions and although they are hard work they are making a difference.
Excitement levels are growing on a daily basis as S's trip to Paris edges nearer.
G and I have booked a night away in Somerset whilst she'll be away having fun.
T is still job hunting, he has had a couple of interviews but no success as yet.
Last weekend marked the fourth anniversary of when he lost his beloved brother L, always such an incredibly difficult time.
Malcolm cat was chased by the dog of one of our neighbours.
They never put them on leads when they take them out of the house to load them in the car to take them for a walk, one of them spotted Malcolm and that was that, he went off after him and the owner couldn't get control of him. Luckily Malcolm was quicker and more nimble but I was fuming at their lack of responsibility.
Melvin cat has been unwell and had to spend a couple of days in the vets. Fingers crossed he is now well again. One afternoon he decided that the way to lay was with his paws between a watermelon and the wicker fruit basket. He stayed like this for ages and then rolled over so his head was resting against the melon like it was a pillow.

That's all for now, I'm off to get my trainers on.

No Charge

Hello! 
I feel like I've been away from Blogland for ages.
I've had an issue with my laptop charger, as in it wouldn't charge my laptop.
Thankfully a new one was ordered and it was delivered yesterday.
Hurrah for that.
The amount of times I thought to myself 'oh I'll just look online and see......' and of course I couldn't.
First of all it was annoying and second it was surprising the amount of times I thought it, just goes to show how easy it is to find out what you need to know, it's all just a couple of clicks away. When the internet is accessible that is.
So here's a few days worth of goings on from when I last posted.

Friday 29th April is the birthday of Leslie Phillips. G bought me his autobiography for Christmas a few years back and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Mr. Phillips has such a distinctive voice and he has managed to make the word Hello well and truly his.
The long running Navy Lark is something I discovered through BBC radio 7 and  it was this programme on radio 4 I chose to listen to.

Saturday 21st was Tea Day. Let's face it there are hundreds of ways by which to celebrate this day. Holding a tea party, wearing a tea dress, trying a new variety of tea. I decided to bake a cake because after all tea and cake are a match made in heaven. I chose to make a banana and butterscotch loaf as I have had the recipe in my 'to try' pile for the longest time and it had been Banana Day on the 18th and so this tied in well.
Although it looks ok in the photo, it wasn't up to much and it's not one I shall be making again.

Although Sunday 22nd was Earth Day we had to wait until Wednesday evening for the activity we were going to do to mark the occasion.
We went along to our local nature reserve and took part on a bat walk. We learned about the bats we have living close by and as dusk fell we were able to see the bats flying around over the pond and just above our heads. It was fascinating stuff.
No photos of the evening, just one of the three of us as we set out from home.

On Monday I took myself up to bed a little earlier than normal and settled in with my book as it was World Book Night. This gave me the perfect opportunity to make sure I had enough time to finish off my latest read. 

When I was part of the library reading group we read The L Shaped Room which I did enjoy but I also found it a difficult read in places as it was set in the 1960s and attitudes towards certain members of society weren't at all accepting.
The Backward Shadow is the next part of the story and there is a third and final installment which I shall buy once I had read a few more of the books which are already sat waiting on my book shelves.

Tuesday was a fail. It was the birthday of Barbra Streisand and I had been planning something like this but I haven't found anything in the charity shops which I could use so this day will have to be set to one side for now and I'll try again.

Wednesday was Admin Professionals Day and as that's the work I do I emailed my lovely team of co-workers and asked if they would like to have a buffet for lunch so we could celebrate ourselves. We did and very nice it was too.

There's a little catching up for us to do for Thursday and Friday.
April 26th was Hug an Australian Day and I had a little craft project in mind for the three of us to do. S has youth club on a Thursday which means she's out at 6pm. Since going back to school this term she has been taking part in an extra science lesson on a Thursday which means by the time she came home there just wasn't time this week to do it. However with the youth club premises being used as a polling station next Thursday we'll be able to do a little craftiness then instead.
April 27th was Marine Mammal Rescue Day  S has dance each Friday and so again our time is limited. With this in mind I had planned for us to have a quick game of 'pin the fish on the sealion's nose' but unfortunately I had to work later than normal and so time ran away for us again.
It's set up ready for us to have a game this evening, once S comes back from the dance competition she's been at since 9.30 this morning.

28th April is known as Sardinian people's day. The flag features red and white and so I made sure I was wearing something with these colours and the bow on the side ties in with the blindfold.

To round off the weekend we shall we sitting down to watch The Seven Year Itch.
Today is the birth date of Tom Ewell which gives me the perfect reason for another viewing of this wonderful movie.
Mr Ewell plays the role of Richard Sherman, the neighbour to Marilyn Monroe's character known simply as The Girl.
When G and I went to New York as his 50th birthday gift from me the one and only thing I wanted to do was go and stand on the same spot of Marilyn. 
And I did! It was an absolute thrill to be somewhere when I knew she had once been.