Blog neglect

Well I have been neglecting my blog again, but I do prefer to look at everyone else's than spend time on my own and I have been a bit pre-occupied lately with the news that my mum has spotting on her lungs and liver, so she is having various tests to see if they can find a primary cancer, which is taking a long time. It must be over 4 weeks ago when they gave her the initial news and she won't know anything now till the 3rd of September. She doesn't drive so I have had to go on the appointments with her, tomorrow she has an MRI on a lump on her leg that has been there for 3 years, which the GP said was harmless but the consultant after seeing her 4 weeks ago was appalled that it hadn't been looked further into, so all we can do at the moment is wait and pray!

On a lighter note, I went to a lovely Wedding on Saturday in a village about 3 miles from where I live. The reception was held in a big garden belonging to the neighbours of the bride and after a shaky morning regarding the weather it turned out to be excellent. Here are a few pictures.



The lovely couple

Two of my boys

My boys, in-laws and gorgeous nieces

Father of the bride



Twin of the bride and chief bridesmaid

Hubby and I



Gorgeous flowers in the garden

Sunshine and flowers

Well the sunshine has finely smiled on us in the north, although it is still very cold. I've booked our holiday this year early thinking that May time has been better in the last few years than in August but typically it is cold this year. We never have any luck with the weather and holidays. We have a week booked in a tent in Brittany in a couple of weeks in one of those super camps so I am praying it will warm up by then as the only reason I'm going is for all the outdoor pools for the kids, followed by a week in Cornwall on the way back. I've still not been able to do much in the garden with all the rain but I'm loving watching all the birds nesting which I will write about in the next post.

The May Day Camelia's have done fantastic this year. Last year the flowers didn't open at all so I was wondering if they were on their last legs and was thinking of digging them up, but this year they have been better than they have ever been.

The last of the tulips.

Anenome from some bulbs planted in the autumn.

Lots of blossom on my apple tree this year. It has nearly faded now though.

Can you see the bee going in for a feed?

 I'm hoping it will stay dry for tomorrow so I can get the grass cut again and take some better pictures of the birds.





New old shelf

A few weeks back I won an old shabby shelving unit on ebay that had come out of a shop. I left it outside for slightly longer than hoped due to all this rain, so some of the old paint had blistered but I managed to rescue it before it got too bad. This is it before.

I'm in the process of decorating this room, hence the shabby looking floor. I can't decide whether to carpet or paint the floorboards white for a change. This is the shelf up on my kitchen wall with a few things in so far.

I painted it in an eggshell chalk white. You can see the holes where they have had hooks in the front to hang things off when you see it close up. I was thinking of filling them but I think I shall probably be putting more holes in eventually to hang cups off so I'll leave them for now and just say it's part of the charm of the shabby chic look.

 I'm off to do some tidying now ready for tomorrow evening when I am hosting a Murder Mystery Party as part of my birthday celebrations.

Flowers in the house

Well like most other places in England it's rained most days since Easter. I did manage to get the potatoes in on the best day so far but for the rest of the time I have had to make do with the flowers around the house to cheer me up.

Over the last couple of months I think my hubby has brought me more flowers than throughout our married life. He has been working 12 or more hours a day for 7 days a week for the last six weeks and is so tired when he gets in he usually just disappears upstairs to relax for the rest of the night, so maybe it's to make up for the lack of time he's been spending with me, but I'm not complaining!

These were fair trade roses and the best roses I've had for a long time. In recent times the roses seem to droop and dry out before they have even opened but I loved all the layers to these roses with their delicate petals.

I've had mini daffodils reduced to 50p on my kitchen windowsill, (sorry about the ugly tap) and my fireplace.

I thought these little easter cactus' were great for £1.50 each so I bought one of each colour and then went to buy some little pots to put them in. They didn't have the pots in the colours I really wanted but I think they still look really cute. When I bought them none of the flowers had opened but are now in full bloom, despite the gloomliness of my dining room.

These next pictures have been took with my semi-professional canon, which has a shallower depth of field, I think that's what they say anyway. It tends to focus on one area and so everything else ends up fuzzy but I quite like the effect of it. As I say I'm no photographer.





I think I'll leave it there for now, I just hope the weather picks up soon. I am having a  joint birthday party on Saturday with my mum as she was 68 today and I will be 40 next Tuesday. I was hoping for a garden party but I can't even get out to cut the grass at the moment.



    

Meringue

Last night I made a pie for tea and had some pastry left over so I decided to make some lemon curd tarts with the homemade lemon curd a neighbour had given me a while back. I then thought it would be nice to turn them into little lemon meringues, something I hadn't made before. So after cracking two egg whites and checking how much sugar to put in, instead of guessing, I whisked them up with a hand whisk and added the sugar as soon as it started to peak. I think I should have whisked it slightly longer as it tended to go a bit more runny after I had added the sugar, but I was so concerned about over whisking, as all my cook books said not to over whisk. Anyway for a complete meringue novice I don't think they turned out bad and everyone enjoyed them. With the left over meringue I just dolloped spoonfuls onto some baking paper, which would have been fine, despite being a trifle flat, if it wasn't for the fact they stuck to the paper and to eat them you either have to break bits off the top or eat them with the paper. I was so looking forward to having them sandwiched together with some double cream, maybe next time!

Sorry for the inferior photo I'm not very good and need to learn some techniques, I tend to just point and shoot, much to my husband's disappointment.



The evils of mobile phones

Well I've had a rather disappointing day, the weather has been cold, dreary and wet since the kids broke off and I really need to get out and plant my potatoes and sort out my little veg plot. I stupidly tripped over myself (floppy slippers to blame) and hurt my arm, my husband is working 12 hours a day 7 days a week so just wants to stay out of the way upstairs when he gets home, and my tele, that is only two years old and has already had one new power board replaced, will not stay on for longer than 10 minutes. What's this got to do with mobile phones you ask, well to top it all off I have found out that my son has gone over his phone contract this month by £90, making the bill £108. What a shock. I bought the phone myself on a contract because at the time it was Christmas and we had no savings for Christmas presents so I bought the phone as it had a free ipod with it, which my son had asked for for Christmas. After a year of hardly using the phone myself  and the fact that son no.2's pay as you go phone had broke, I thought he would make better use of it. The contract has 300 texts a month, which was ample enough for me as I probably didn't even use 10, so I thought would be ample for him. Well I certainly was wrong. In 1 day he used over 100 texts and had gone over his limit in 4 days. I think at the time he was texting a girl who he liked. She had been trying to go out with him for a year and he hadn't been interested but decided at this point he would go out with her, hence all the texting. The day after he said yes she told him she didn't want to go out with him anymore.
 My eldest son has always been really good keeping a track on his and never really going over more than a couple of pounds. Since I gave son no.2 the phone I kept reminding him to watch his texts as his friends are texting him all the time, (they must have unlimited texts). The problem was, although the network text you to say when you had used 75% of your usage, they never text to say when you had used it all and we weren't sure how to check exactly how much usage he had left. So I am now in a quandary, I think he has gone over again this month but not near as much. Should I take the phone back for myself and give him a pay as you go or should I give him another chance now he has realised how easy it is to go over and hope that he is more responsible and keep a check on it?

So I have sent all the kids up to their rooms and before I came on here sat down with this,

and a bit of this,

Let's hope for a bit more sunshine tomorrow!!

I'm back

Well it has been some time. I was going to start a whole new blog but decided to just change the name on this one instead and pretend I'm starting from scratch. Although I haven't written anything on here, my list of blogs I read is expanding daily and I seem to spend far too much time oohing and aahing over other people's pretty houses and gardens, dreaming of moving to the country and thinking of what I can make and do, instead of just getting on with it. I hope this time I can keep this up longer and manage to find some blogging friends before I give up again. So to start I wish you all

A Happy Easter

 Can you see the chicks?