Seasidey Stuff

A few weeks ago ~ when the sun was a little bit shinier that it is now ~ we headed out for the day to the Seaside on the East Coast of Scotland. Our first stop was at St Abb's Head which is a National Nature Reserve looked after by the National Trust for Scotland. We had never visited this lovely place before and were very glad that we decided to stop for a look. There are some fantastic cliff top walks and the sea views are beautiful. Definitely well worth a visit if you are ever in the area and as an added bonus there is also a little craft type village there with a little tea shop, an art gallery and a wool shop too.


After all that lovely fresh sea air we were feeling a little bit hungry so we decided to drive to Eyemouth for a traditional fish tea. Freshly caught battered fish, chips, mushy peas and bread and butter all washed down with a lovely hot cup of tea. Not very healthy, but very tasty indeed!


Still keeping with all things seasidey......... I just have to show you the picture that I treated myself to a few weeks ago. I absolutely love this seasidey picture which is a print by the very talented artist and fellow blogger Julia Crossland. You will also see on my mantle that there is another little picture there too ~ that one was made for me by daughter and I love it just as much!


Lastly, but by no means least, I'd like you to meet my very new helper ~ Ollie the Socktopus as I like to call him. This fantastic little chap came from Ikea for the grand sum of £4 ~ a bargain in my mind! He will be extremely useful in the wet and windy wintery weather for helping me to dry little bits of laundry ~ mostly socks (hence his name) and small peoples pants......... I'm not quite sure that his little peggy legs would be up to carrying pants any bigger than this!!

I hope that you enjoyed my seasidey trip. I'm off on another watery trip now ~ the school run in the pouring rain! See you all soon :O) xx

Halloween Happenings

We spent last weekend in the beautiful village of Alton in Staffordshire, attending the wedding of my younger brother and my very lovely new sister-in-law. The ceremony itself was in the registry office in Burton on Trent and then it was back to my Dad's pub ~ The Royal Oak ~ for the wedding reception. The weather actually decided to behave itself for once and was absolutely glorious and the sun came out to shine on a very perfect wedding day.


On Sunday ~ which was Halloween ~ we ventured off to Scarefest at Alton Towers which was fabulous! The spooky atmosphere and the special effects were amazing ~ the Towers were all lit up in their very spooky splendour and ghostly images were projected eerily across the night sky.


There were also lots and lots of different Halloweeny decorations dotted around the park to add to the spooky Halloween atmosphere.


We had a fantastically spooky Halloween evening and the children are now at an age where they are getting just that little bit braver with the rides that they will actually go on! Although, it has to be said that I just can't do the rides that go spinning around and around and around! I actually can't even bear to watch the children on them without feeling very dizzy and wobbly indeed!!



I hope that your Halloween weekend was as wonderful as ours :O) xx

Happy Swap

I am a very bad blogger! x 100
I am a very lazy blogger! x100
I am a very neglectful blogger! x100

I have been such a very bad, very lazy and very neglectful blogger recently and decided that some kind of punishment was in order ~ I decided to give myself lines to write! Only, I also thought that you might not like the idea of having to read each of these statements one hundred times so I improvised ever so slightly!!

Thank you all so much for your kind Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary wishes ~ from almost a whole month ago! ~ they were all very much appreciated indeed :O)


Now, before any more time passes by I really do have to tell you about the Happy Swap that I took part in a good few months ago! Apologies to the lovely ~ and very patient ~ Louise for the very long delay in blogging about this!!

This Happy Swap was organised by Lisa and I was paired up with Louise, the idea behind the swap was that you were to send a little package to your partner with things inside to make them Happy. I sent Louise a colourful gardening book, a rosy Cath Kidston wash cloth, a flowery toast stamp and a big bar of chocolate which you can see here ~ minus the chocolate!!


Happy things that were sent to me were a very pretty wash bag, some beautifully fruity bath time treats, some lovely stationery ~ notebook, pencils and erasers ~ and some very yummy and colourful skittles which I absolutely love and didn't share at all!!


Thank you so much again Louise your parcel made me feel very Happy indeed :O) x

Family Celebrations

Hello ...........I'm back!

I haven't disappeared of the face of the earth at all!! I didn't quite mean to be away from Blogland for quite so long, but sometimes life has a habit of taking over and some things just have to take a bit of a back seat for a while! I am so glad to be back though and am looking forward to catching up with you all again.

It is a day for celebrations in our household today!

My little girl is eleven today ~ I really can't quite believe that it is eleven years since she was born and whisked away into intensive care in the Special Care Baby Unit. I didn't even dare to dream about birthdays then and just took each day as it came ~ but here we are celebrating her eleventh birthday. The time seems to go by so very, very fast once you have children. One minute they are tiny and helpless babies and the next they are nearly all grown up!

It is also our wedding anniversary today ~ I have been married to my wonderful husband for TEN whole years. We decided all those years ago that it would be a very lovely idea to get married and have our daughter christened on her first birthday. A little bit unconventional perhaps, but it makes today a very special day indeed!


Here we are looking very young indeed outside the beautiful church in Dirleton, East Lothian.

We took the children and some of their friends out yesterday for a Birthday Day Out ~ swimming and a Chinese Buffet lunch. Then it was back home for some Happy Birthday chocolate cake and a bit of a play ~ which involved much charging about the house, with lots of LOUD noise going on too!!

The celebrations today should hopefully be a much quieter affair and it will be just the four of us enjoying a civilised Birthday/Anniversary dinner. Although, at the moment I'm not quite sure what that dinner will be ~ because as usual I am Mrs Very Unorganised and have yet to go shopping for the necessary ingredients! :O) xx

Back to school

My two small people went back to school today after a what seemed to be a very quick seven week Summer Holiday ~ I'm not quite sure where the time went to, but it certainly zoomed by at a very alarming rate indeed!

We were all up bright and breezy this morning, trying very hard to get back into some sort of routine. Breakfast, teeth cleaned, little faces washed, new clothes to put on, packed lunches made and new school bags packed.


Off they both trotted, looking very happy and cheery in their brand new school uniforms and their beautifully shiny new black school shoes ~ which will no doubt be scuffed to death by the end of the first day back! Thank Goodness for Scuff Coat is all that I can say about that!!

I delivered them safely to school this morning and am now sitting with a well earned cup of tea and enjoying the peace and quiet ~ Ahhhh...........Bliss!! There's nothing quite like coming home from the school run and being able to do whatever YOU want for a couple of hours. No constant cries of MUM!, or I'M BORED!! to be heard at all. It goes without saying that I will miss them terribly ~ but I can't tell you how nice it is to have some ME time back again.

I know that most of you still have a few weeks of your Summer Holidays to go and hope that you all have a very lovely time :O) xx

Holidays ahead

I'm so excited!

I've got 3 whole weeks of time off work ahead of me ~ and after the last few weeks that I've had at work ~ I must say that I really am in desperate need of them!

I usually only work a few hours a week, but have been covering for holidays and other absences and as a result I have clocked up an extra 40 hours in overtime over the last couple of weeks. At times I have been stressed up to my eyeballs! Who ever said that libraries were supposed to be nice quiet places? A few days ago I even had to call the ASBO people out to deal with some horrid teenage trouble makers!!

We are not actually planning to go away anywhere very far due to the house selling situation ~ but I am looking forward to spending time with my family and having lots of days out and about........


I'm planning on reading lots of rubbishy novels and looking at lots of crafty books to try and get some new ideas together for future projects. I've got lots of ideas whizzing about in my head already just now but I'm really struggling to find the time to get them all done.......... Maybe one day!!



I have also got to keep adding to the pile of Summer Garden Grannies...... I would love to get this project finished whilst we are still in Summer! and ...........Yes, I do actually mean this Summer!! I really do want to make a start on a Lucy style Granny Stripe blanket but am not allowing myself to buy the yarn until I am nearly finished with this one!

I hope that you are all enjoying your Summer Holidays and look forward to catching up with you all very soon :O) xx

Sunday viewing

Last Sunday the boys of the household set off on a bit of a Boy Adventure which they had been planning for ages.

They went off to visit Bo'ness and Kinneal Railway ~ which is Central Scotland's Steam Railway situated by the Firth of Forth. A real boys day out ~ lots of fun for the small boys and nostalgia by the bucket load for the big boys!


They took a ride on a beautiful old steam train to Birkhill station.


Where they also took a tour of the Birkhill Fireclay Mine.


Through the entrance and into the dark depths of the mine ~ definitely not my cup of tea! Far to dark and claustrophobic for my liking!!


Back up lots of steps ~ you can just spot a small boy charging up in front of everyone else!


They also met a lovely old doggy, who seemed to belong at the station. They nicknamed him the Dog Master as he parades up and down the platform barking at all the trains and being friendly to anyone who stops for a chat.

Little Miss Madam and I were left to our own devices at home. We normally would have planned a girly day out doing a bit of shopping, but as our house is still for sale we had to stay in ~ just in case there were any potential buyers looking to view our property on the Sunday afternoon. FAT CHANCE!! Nobody turned up!!

To alleviate our boredom we decided to do a bit of Sunday viewing ourselves and settled down with a new DVD ~ St Trinian's 2, The Legend of Fritton's Gold ~ which we had treated ourselves to especially for the occasion. We had a lovely afternoon cuddling up on the sofa, eating lots of yummy snacks and with the added bonus of no small boys running noisily around interrupting the film ~ Bliss!

Hope that you all had a fun filled weekend too ~ whatever you were doing...........:O) xxx