All the trees are brown

apart from the green fabric ones.

Who doesn't love a helter skelter?
We spotted this in Salisbury on Saturday as we made our way to our lunch date.
It's my mother-in-law's birthday today and we all met up in Salisbury for lunch. 
And very nice it was too.

I Have .......

.......... finished this month's book club selection in record time ahead of our next meet up. I found the storyline of Tideline quite disturbing and it made for a very uncomfortable read which is why I wanted to get it read and out the way. 

Saying that it was a good book and I'm sure will provoke much chatter for our group.

........... been in love with Marilyn Monroe since I was a young teenager and have watched many of her films and read stacks of books about her life and untimely death. Earlier this year G and I watched My Week with Marilyn and I have just started to read the book the movie was based on, a birthday gift back in July from G.

.......... received a parcel in the post this week from a fellow blogger. I bought a beautiful crocheted poppy from Mitzi who has been busily working away and raised a fantastic amount of money for the Royal British Legion.

.......... watched something I originally recorded from the TV in September 2013. Quite why it took us so long to watch The Wipers Times I'm not sure. If you didn't see it and it gets repeated then try and watch it, you won't be disappointed. An added bonus for me is that one of the leading actors was Julian Rhind-Tutt, swoon.

.......... been enjoying wearing my new (to me) red shoes. A local church held an autumn fayre a couple of weekends ago and I paid £2.00 for these. I have since found something very similar on line for £45.00 so I'm pleased with that bargain.

 And they are very comfy.

.......... picked up the latest free magazine from the Co-op and decided we need to try the chocolate mince pies. I'm not a huge fan of mince pies but surely with the addition of chocolate these have got to be a winner?

Activites

As well as being preoccupied with leaving one job and starting another and all the other things which were happening which kept me away from blogging we were busy doing some fun things too.

One Sunday me, G and S went for a little explore in a copse we have driven past umpteen times but never investigated.

We were delighted to find an oversized chair

and table. G is 6ft 5'' so that should give some idea of how big these two items of furniture are.

When I was little this whole area was trees and fields but has since been built on with a relatively new housing estate, it must be handy if you live there now having this copse on your doorstep. A green space to go and stretch your legs in and do a spot of squirrel spotting, we saw loads of them scampering around.

This is just one of the jigsaws we've completed recently. On the days when getting outside isn't an option a jigsaw is a good indoor activity.

Not an activity but an event from September, my nephew's 21st birthday. 
What to buy was a mystery. 
Pinterest provided the solution.
I bought a black umbrella from the local 99p shop and packaged up £1 and £2 coins totalling £21 in pieces of paper and attached them to the umbrella with lengths of cotton. I then wrote on a tag Save for a Rainy Day. 
He was a bit bemused when I gave him his gift but pretty pleased with it once the penny dropped.

S and I have been to our first ballet performance, we went to see Coppelia.
It was billed as the ideal family introduction to ballet and it was indeed perfect. The ballet is in three acts and during each intermission we discussed what had been happening in the story. It took a lot of concentrating for S and I think her attention would have wandered with anything more in depth. The costumes were beautiful and the grace and elegance, not to mention strength, of the dancers made it a spectacular experience.
We had booked the tickets months ago and originally we planned it would be me, G and S who would be going. 
G didn't join us in the end because he took T to Norwich instead.
The end of October is his brother L's birthday.
T, G, L's adopted mum and T's birth siblings met up at the crematorium as they wanted to take L some flowers. T had been wrought with anxiety about the visit for a couple of weeks beforehand but G described the day as being filled with a few tears and lots of laughter as everyone supported each other.

Last week being half term meant it was time for our annual trip to the country park for their Halloween trail. T didn't join us this year as he has been volunteering in a charity shop on a Sunday afternoon for the past few weeks and he offered to do extra shifts whilst he was off. S bought a friend along with her and neither of them liked the huge spider hiding in one of the trees!

The Reindeer Are Creeping In

I've made one or tow of Christmas related purchases in the week or so and well it just seems such a shame to put them away for a few weeks when they'll be out soon anyway.
A white wooden reindeer decorated with red polka dots and a jaunty gingham bow, love this the most

and a new cushion in the style of a vintage Christmas card. Just right for snuggly winter evenings.

Birthday Goodies

Being a Sunday we would normally try and pop to the local car boot, but not today, the rain put paid to that.

This means I don't have any new bargains buys to share so instead I thought I would show some old ones. 

These were accumulated over the year for my sister C's birthday in October.

Also given but not included here is a new Cath Kidston mug (£1.50) and a black jacket (20p).

The purple jacket was £1.00 as was the stripy jumper and the green enamel bowl which my sister is going to use as a planter in the garden.

The measuring cups were £1.50, never used still in their box.

Grey t-shirt 50p, book 30p and vintage postcard of Errol Flynn £1.00. My sister has a bit of a thing for him and I was so pleased to have found thisin a charity shop in Salisbury.

The Home & Garden tin was 50p and will also be used as a planter in the garden. The fabric letter 'C' was 50p and this was spotted by the children at a car boot back in the summer. The grey woollen waistcoat is my favourite buy. It's a Fat Face one, it still had the tags attached and was only £1.00.

Thank you for all the lovely messages left on my post yesterday. It's good to be back and I'm making my way round visiting everyone and catching up on all your news and adventures.

So Wrong

Vegetables which definitely belong on a pizza are peppers and mushrooms.
Vegetables which definitely don't belong on a pizza are Brussels sprouts and cabbage.
Fact.

Hello there!
Well that wasn't supposed to happen.
My blogging has been a little erratic for the majority of 2014 but I didn't intend to miss out a whole month.
I will need to do (yet another) catch up post but am hoping that normal blogging with soon resume.
I've missed being here.
Fact.

September So Far

The start of September always means the start of a new school year. 

And this September meant the start of both children going into the upper years of their respective school.

At S's junior school the children stay in the same class from when they begin in Year 3 until they leave in Year 6. However late last term a decision was made by senior staff that, for various reasons, the classes would be mixed around so when S returned to start Year 5 it was with some children she knew and some she didn't. So far things are going well and S is especially pleased that each Monday until the beginning of December part of their day includes a swimming lesson.

T went back to school a day later. Year 10 pupils didn't have to be there until 11am, unless they had volunteered to be peer mentors for the new Year 7's. T is a peer mentor and so had to be at school 10 minutes earlier than normal. He was really looking forward to receiving his name badge, maybe that's why he looks for happy in his back to school photo!

The weekend after the return to school we did something we haven't done for ages, we went for a walk. 
Of course if you're going to go for a good long walk you need to make sure you are fully nourished before hand. We thought going to the local Harvester for one of their new all you can eat buffet breakfasts would be just the ticket. It certainly did the trick.
We have walked other parts of the Itchen Navigation trail and decided to try and complete another section of it. We chose to do the Otter Trail but in order to get to the start of it we had to walk part of the water vole way which we had done last May. 

S liked the look of this rope swing we saw on the opposite bank

and along the way we met a herd of friendly cows grazing in a field

and at a small holding we laughed at a litter of piglets who were racing each other to get to mum for feeding time

and of course we saw ducks, though maybe not the kind you would normally expect.

Blackberries were in abundance but our energy levels weren't. It had been so long since we'd been out for a decent walk and it was such a hot day that when we stopped for a drink and G consulted the trail map and he saw we could miss out a mile or so of the 6 miles we had planned he suggested we tweak our route.

Once agreed on this amended course we set off across a deserted field towards Otterbourne Woods. Our walk had been lovely and picturesque up until that point. The path in the words was horribly overgrown with snagging brambles and made for a bit of a disappointing and prickly end.

Allbrook Lock is where the Otter trail meets the Water Vole way and the water rushing downhill was a sight to see.

We made our way back into Eastleigh and discovered a new coffee shop, one to try another day. We liked the colourful chairs on the pavement

and I spied a fab wooden crate inside used to display fruit for sale. Although Grandad must have his veg patch in an exotic place judging by the contents.

The other note worthy occurrence in September has been I have been offered a new job.
There are lots of reasons I have wanted to leave my current job. I was so excited to have started it last November, full of optimism for a new challenge after 22 years in the civil service, but it just wasn't to be. Mid October I will be starting work as a receptionist within a doctor's surgery. I'm expecting it to be an extremely busy working environment which I'm used to. One thing which I'm not used to though will be the occasional working alongside a family member as my sister works there too. Could prove to be interesting........