Mondays adventures

Today has been spent quietly getting on with things. The weather is grey and drizzly so I don't feel like having adventures outdoors today.

After the school run I popped to the community pantry. I was pretty happy with my little shop there and it wasn't to heavy to carry home either.  

I will try and show how I used the bits and pieces up over the week. 

 

I've also started a new knitting project. A friend of mine sadly lost her mother late last year, she has been sorting out the family home and several crafty things have kindly past my way.

One of them is this box of tapestry yarns. Each skein is approx 15 feet of yarn and the colours are a lovely autumnal feeling mixture. I've cast on 130 stitches on some size 10 needles and I'm attempted a very simple stripy hat. Each skein lasts about 2 and a bit rows of the hat so I think it should make quite a nice effect once it's finished. 

My only concern is whether who it will fit once it's finished 🤣 with 7 differently sized heads in the household I'm sure it will fit someone though!

X X x

 

Recovery Monday

 

Sorry I've been AWOL. The first bug of the school year hit me hard. Most of the weekend has been spend sitting under blankets and feeling sorry for myself.

Today however I am feeling much better!

On Saturday we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary by watching a film together on the TV and sharing a chocolate orange. We know how to live eh?

Today's grey and wet weather has made me think of winter and the obviously looming Christmas. I found the cutest patten for little knitted stockings HERE. 

I'm planning to fill each one with a chocolate lolly and a candy cane each. I think the children would like them as a stocking stuffer. 

It's a nice activity to do on a soggy afternoon if nothing else.

X X X 

Wednesday wanderings

 

Yesterday ended up running away with me. I was planning for a quiet day because I seem to have a bit of a cold starting. It's not a bad one by any stretch, more of a nuscience than anything.

I'm the morning I did the school run with out much excitement to report. On the way home I popped into Home Bargains as usual to grab some Fairy liquid as they have bottles for £1 again. I like to keep one by the sink and at least 1 in the cupboard ready to replace it. I use a squirm of Fairy and a squirm of bleach to clean almost everything these days. 

I was very happy to find the pumpkin spice coffee I absolutely love was finally in stock. I will try and stock up on a box each visit for a while. They are my little me time treat once I've put the little ones to bed and I've finally stopped mumming for the evening.

In the afternoon I had a message from my Dad inviting me out for a coffee. My mum is away at the moment for a few days at a quilting retreat. I think he wanted a little company. While we were in town I picked up 2 bunches of Gladioli reduced to 70p each in Tesco. Both had barely a single flower out so reducing them seemed a very silly idea to me. I've just looked at them this morning and 4 or 5 flowers have started to bloom overnight. I've mixed the two colours and put half in the living room. The other half I gave to DD1 to put in the girls bedroom room. 

We had a lovely coffee and tea cake in town. Dad's treat which was very kind of him. 

Look at the size of those tea cakes! I'm glad I skipped lunch.

After our coffee treat it was time to collect the children from school. My dad joined me so he knew where each of the children's class rooms are this year. My parents are always willing to walk the children home from school if I'm having an emergency or a schedule clash. 

The children were of course thrilled to see Grandad waiting in the playground and I don't think a single one of them spoke me for most the way home 🤣

X X X 

Lots in Lidls

 

 I know people are complaining about the cost of food for a while but why is no one complaining about the weight of food! 🤣

Honestly my arms are so weak after the years of buggies and trikes that I've quite forgotten how to carry shopping bags any more!

I quite like Lidls because their app often gives me a free bakery item when I shop there. Today I picked a nice chocolate brownie to be my lunch.

I was planning on making hot dogs with half the sausages but the burger rolls were reduced cheaper than finger rolls so we are now having sausage and egg baps. 

Tomorrow will be cheese burgers and Thursday will be toad in the hole. 

I'm hoping to avoid more trips into town until next week and just use the local shop for milk and bread top ups as needed. I can't spend money in the shops if I'm not near them. 

This afternoon I need to try and work out why the dishwasher is beeping angrily at me and possibly doing lots of washing up if ifs broken.

Wish me luck 🤞

X X X 

A New Season of Life

 

You find me at a very odd time in my life. At least that's how it feels. Our dear sweet Baby C is officially a school girl! 

Coupled with DH's shiny new job, I now find myself home alone for the majority of weekdays suddenly. 

Today is my first day alone so I thought it would be a nice idea to dust off this old blog and record some of my adventures. If anyone is still here to read it. 

I started out by popping into the town centre after the morning school run. I needed some breadsticks for a little after school activity and a few things for dinner from Iceland. A random and unpredictable gust of wind just happened to blow me into one of my favourite charity shops and I found a beautiful handmade cable knit cardigan for just £2. It's going to be lovely on the colder mornings and evenings of autumn so I'm quite pleased with my find. 

Once home I sorted the shopping away and hung out the laundry waiting into the machine. It's turned into a warm bright day considering this mornings grey dreary start.

I decided that the garden was the place to be so I set about clearing out this messy corner of the patio. 

I threw away all the rubbish and popped the random weeds into the compost. My compost bin is almost full to the brim with dark healthy compost ready to use so I've taken the chance on some garlic. 

I've had these bulbs of garlic for quite some time and they were looking past their best and starting to show a few shoots. I've planted 32 cloves on the oblong tub. It's not costing me anything to give it a go so if I even get one clove to grow successfully I'll be onto a winner. If lots of them do well I well repot them later to give them proper room to grow. I don't want to waste to much room on something that probably won't work 🤣

While I was moving compost from the bin into my new garlic pot I discovered what I thought was my long dead banana tree! I threw it's remains into the compost bin an absolute age ago thinking it had give up the ghost. Yet here it was looking a little pale from lack of light but standing strong.  I quickly popped him into a pot to see how he does over the next few weeks. I might bring him indoors for the winter just to give him an extra helping hand. 

I also found 2 mystery bulbs that were sprouting deep in the compost bin while I was giving everything a good mix. I popped them both into pots to see what they do over the next few weeks. I wonder what they will turn out to be.

Once I'd finished my gardening session I looked at my newly organised patch of garden and couldn't help wonder if the banana and mystery bulbs were little gifts of encouragement from God. That He was giving me little things to look forward to and to keep me distracted. 

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Let's play in the Carden

 

It's been getting a little bit to warm in the afternoons for the garden, so instead we made our own indoor vegetable carden. We used random cardboard from the junk modelling stash.

First we made our soil using a cardboard tray and some strips of cereal box. We added detail with marker pens.

You can have plants with out seeds! So we then made a little packet of cardboard seeds using teeny cardboard scraps and a toilet tube. The peg holds it securely shut to keep the seeds safe.

Next we made some vegetables for our carden. We chose leeks, carrots, kale and pumpkins. All cut from cereal boxes.

From there our imaginations just went wild. We ended up with a watering can with yarn water attached to the spout, a trowel and fork, a very naughty pink caterpillar who tried to eat our plants and some bug spray to chase him off with 🤣

We still have lots of scrap card laying around so it will interesting to see what else gets added over the next few days.

We have had so much fun making these.

X x X

A little Friday trip out

 

This morning we all got up and headed into the town centre for the day.

We started with a visit to the Library where we read and drew together. The library have recently started making blank birthday cards for  children to decorate and fill out for people in local care homes. The cards are given to people who might not otherwise receive anything on their birthdays which I think is a very sad thought. 

After the library my plan was to treat the children to a Happy Meal in macdonalds. I had not realised however that they now cost £4.39p each!  Instead went into Poundland and looked at their £3 meal deals. I fed all 6 of us happily with 4 x £3 meals and added an extra drink for £1 and some biscuits and crepes for dessert (£1 each)

The whole lot came to just £15 which I think it's pretty darn good for 6 people. 

We are our food in the park with some friends and family before heading over the mobile farm that was set up in the main precinct.

I felt the farm was a little disappointing with just 2 goats and 2 sheep to look at. All 4 animals were looking a bit pestered and fed up with the attention of the crowd around them. Still it entertained the children for 5 minutes until they went to play in the giant sandpit that's been set up for the summer holidays. 

After a good half an hour of sandcastles and burying each other the smallest members of the family were beginning to get hot and tired so we headed home for a quiet afternoon of video games and netflix. 

That's another day of summer in the bag.

So far so good 

X x X