New Year New Start.

I decided to create a reminder of 2009. I woke up this morning thinking about the other blogs I've been reading over the year and felt a little sad that I might not have a record of the things that went on during this year. I'm not a great blogger and tend to let it slide. I just find I have so much going on in fits and starts through throughout the year that when it's quiet fine but then all of a sudden I have so much to do I don't know where to start and end up getting nowhere. I'm sure its the same for everyone but for me it seems to affect my ability to keep this blog up to date regularly. Nonetheless, I know I would love to have a record to look back on to remember the things I'd probably forget otherwise. So with no more waffling, this is a quick glimpse of 2009.



January mornings seem to be light and bright a sign of an early Spring in Preston. February brought an amazing Valentine Proposal where Neil went down on one Neil and asked me to reaffirm our marriage vows - Luckily I said yes as he had it all planned and ready to take place 2 weeks later. March and the service took place - bizarrely both Neil and I were far more nervous than the 1st time 10 years earlier. A great service with our closest family and Friends followed by a lovely week off work visiting Harrogate, Arnside and Skipton.



April brought Easter and this gorgeous bunch of White Tulips, May was spent building this Jigsaw with Jamie and planning the many camping trips we had decided to do this summer. A sunny June Sunday afternoon was spent on an unexpected lovely boat trip down the canal. It was amazing the different perspective you get sitting on a boat, the world seemed to slow down so much. We sailed passed one cottage by the water where the garden was surrounded in beautiful foxgloves, you have no idea how disappointed I was that that photo did not come out.


July and August were spent mostly camping around the country, we went to The Lakes, Derbyshire, The Wirral,Cornwall, Northumberland and Norfolk camping - quite a few miles. September I went away on a girls weekend with the women from our local church - a great weekend near Appleby in an amazing Barn conversion which had it's own sauna, great weather, a chocolate factory nearby, loads of good food and wine and a really lovely relaxing weekend. October was Neil's birthday - another lovely day. Only one more year for him to go before he reaches the big 40.

November and we finally bought a fire for our fireplace. We've wanted a fire for years, the house being over 130 years old gets so cold in the winter even with central heating on. And finally we have a gorgeous fire to match the house. I can't begin to say how fab it is when it's on so cosy and warm, the photo doesn't do it justice at all but I'm sure I'll have loads more photos of it soon. Then December brought thick snow. I've lived in this house for over 20 years and in all this time I have never ever seen snow here as thick as this winter. As Preston is near the coast we get tons of rain and even when the whole of Lancashire is white somehow in the past it's missed us out. That being said this year it seems the whole of Preston went snowman crazy. The last photo was the Hector the snowman built outside our front door 2 days before Christmas. No Neil is not in shorts, it's his pyjamas rolled up and was half past 11 at night. It was an opportunity that just could not be missed.

So that's that for 2009, I wonder what 2010 will bring. Hopefully a year full of fun and colour. I've got a college course to finish and who knows where that might lead. Neil will hit 40 and is getting very itchy feet to retrain for a new job. Jamie will be 10 in August and will start his last year in Primary school how can that be possible.. This year I'm incredibly thankful for the holidays we've managed to enjoy together throughout a quite busy and chaotic time at work. I'm so happy I have a lovely husband who is quite happy to show his emotions by being tearful throughout the whole of our vows service that had been six months in secretive planning. It's been a great 10 years of marriage so far so long may it continue. Without a doubt I've woken every morning so thankful that Jamie is my son. He is a joy and even though he is growing so fast little glimpses of childhood are still showing for example his sheer happiness at receiving a letter from Father Christmas this year. When Jamie burst into tears opening that letter on Christmas morning I don't know who was more emotional me, Neil or his Grandma. It will be forever a memory to cherish. So all in all a mighty fine year on the whole.

All good wishes for 2010

xx

Back to work.

Jamie went back to school last monday all suited and booted with his new uniform, haircut, shoes and pencil case. Pencil case shopping used to be one of my favourite parts about going back to school - that annual trip to woolworths to get a new bright and shiny pencil case filled with even brighter and shinier new felt tips - got to say Jamie didn't seem to get the excitement so maybe it was just me being an odd child or perhaps it's the fact that the thrill of shopping at Asda can't outweigh the wonder of woolies - who knows.

Anyway now that Jamie is back at school and we seem to have got back into the routine of earlier bedtimes (well almost), homework and spelling practice, it's that time of the year for me to go back to work. But before I do that tomorrow morning I thought I'd spend my last day finishing off a blanket I've made for Jamie (I'll photograph it when it's done - promise), and thought I'd post just a couple of photos as reminders of the lovely weather we had during some of the school holidays.

Check out the beautiful blue skies and clear water all taken in Nortumberland which is very quickly becoming one of my favourite places.

Being back at work in September means to me that I'm also getting my head round the fact that summer is coming to an end and the run up to Autumn, Winter and Christmas seems to be getting slowly underway - I say this as I've noticed that my mind is more and more turning to ideas of how to make the house look colourful and cosy through the autumn or what to make for Christmas presents. Summer seems to be fading away into the memory banks for another year.

Have you noticed how it's getting darker earlier already despite the fact its still sunny during the day. Last night it was pitch black here by half seven. I feel some cosy nights of crocheting might be in the offing. Check out the 'Do you mind if I Knit' blog - really really must work out how to put a link in a post - she has just finished the most amazing scarf that I am going to have a go at next - (hence me rushing to finish Jamies blanket) it's just perfect.

have fun

Janette

x

Now for something completely different.....

For a long time now I've been a fan of the art journals produced by Debra Cooper which you can see on her blog - theres a link on my sidebar - a little imagination. I love the haphazard nature of the pages- the different sizes and patterns of them.

I realised a longtime ago that I am a notebook junkie, I can spend ages in shops looking enviously at the fresh unused notebooks just waiting to be filled with 'stuff and nonesense'. OK I know I'm odd but well there are worse things to be addicted to so I'm not going to lose sleep over a bit of a notebook love.

Anyway, today I was sitting at the dining room table trying to think of something to do. Then using the journals as an inspiration I came up with my own version to use as a notebook - Maybe not as colourful and fab as Debra's but nonetheless I'm quite chuffed with mine.

It was really good fun I just mixed up scraps of paper, recycled envelopes from junk mail and left over materials and then stitched them together without planning what to put where really. I just played about to see what I could come up with and now I have an unusual original notebook to scribble down my thoughts and ideas etc etc.

I feel this could be highly addictive.....

Keep having fun

Janette

x

Autumn Fruits

hi,

Firstly, sorry for the photos the colours are a bit bizarre but thought I'd post them anyway. Hey ho, it looks like Autumn has definately arrived, it's blustery here - good drying weather my mum would call it - a bit pointless though as I've not done any washing today - there always seems to be something far more interesting to do than laundry, and today me and neil have been busy with these:

Our lovely neighbour down the road has a friend who has a damson tree in her garden and shared her crop with us. So today we have carefully pricked through two pounds of damsons carefully with a fork and added to that....

gin!! well to be precise 2 bottles of gin and a bit of sugar. Then place in a rumtopf and leave for a minimum of 3 months!! Looks like we'll be having damson gin at Christmas. We still have another 2lbs of fruit left some of which we're going to turn into Jam and some we're going to freeze and then use for crumbles when it's a bit colder and wetter and miserable out and we're in need of a cheerful pudding. Yummy!!

Enjoy!!

Janette

x

Birthday celebrations

The weather on Jamie's birthday was awful so we ended up having a chilled out day with Jamies latest favourite film Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets - I know it's been out for ages but Jamies only started enjoying the stories and films over the last couple of months so its all a bit new to him.

Anyway we had a lovely day and celebrated his birthday just us together - me, Jamies dad and his grandma. We had all the required elements, presents:

cake:

Neil made the brill cake for Jamie - it's a chocolate cocacola cake courtesy of Nigella. It sounds disgusting but is really nice. I'll hunt out the receipe if I can in a couple of days...

and cards:

Isn't the card from Jamies Auntie Carol fab - she makes fantastic cards and other things - jewellery, altered art etc. If you like you can have a look at more of them on her blog http://carolands007.blogspot.com/. She's very talented.

Today the weather was much better (well it didn't rain!!) so we went with some of Jamies friends to the beach at Lytham st Annes. It's been a lovely day, we picniced, built sandcastles and had a wander up the sand to the waters edge - 25 minutes each way - the tide is so far out it's barmy!!

Anyway, collected a whole carriers bag full of samphire so that was a tad exciting - (We've bought samphire from Booths our local supermarket before and paid about £3 for a poxy little tray full - about 200gs such a shame I don't know a nice restaurant who would've bought the bag off me - I could've made a mint today).

More fun than that though was that as the beach is big and quite quiet we were able to fly our kite most of the afternoon - what fab fun, can't wait to go again for more of the same.

Tomorrow at my other sister in laws and nieces for a sleep over so that's going to be fun. After that it's the run down back to normal every day life I suppose, must get Jamies hair cut for school, buy new school uniform and spend the last couple of holiday days trying to get back into some sort of normal sleep routine. What a shame, I love the school holidays can't believe the six weeks has flown by so fast - soon be countdown to Christmas!!

take care

Jx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIE

My baby is nine tomorrow and he is soo excited. Isn't it great how kids look forward so much to their birthdays??? (once the countdown has got down to 'one more sleep' that is. When he's saying 'its my birthday in 237 sleeps it's not quite so exciting I have to say.



I love the way Jamie is completely convinced he'll wake up tomorrow so different from today - afterall nine is so much more grown up than 8 isn't it!!



Not got too much to say today as it's late and no doubt we'll be woken up early tomorrow, so I've posted just three photos of Jamie taken over the summer months. I really must keep up with photographing him as he changes so quickly and soon enough he'll be far to cool to have photos taken by his mum won't he. But in the meantime tomorrow will be Jamie's first day in the big adventurous life of a nine year old, I'm so glad he's still young enough to want to share it with us.




Take care

Janette
x



Just wanted to add that the picture above shows my attempt at being the ideal mum - home baked gingerbread biscuits which I decorated last night before bed - how good is that - just call me Nigella!!

Oh it's raining again...

Oh well it's been raining in Preston again today is the summer over I wonder?? Jamie and I decided to have a wonder up the canal this morning just for a bimble and so I took a couple of photos to show the different ideas people along here have for their gardens..

Jamie ready to set off - I do hope he grows out of the hoody hip hop phase he seems to be enjoying soon...

Our garden is one of the smallest on the canal and as you can see from the picture on my last post we have built a decking area leading to the water. Because neither of our neighbours on either side of us have done anything with their land at the bottom it feels really private and secluded when your sat down there. I love it and am often found down there daydreaming in my own little world. We have plans to put tubs of flowers on the decking next summer and perhaps having some fairy lights along the fence which I think will look magical in the evenings.

These gardens are sloping quite steeply down to the water and many people are lucky enough to own boats (we're don't). Can you see the pirate flag flying on one of the gardens. Quite a few of the gardens along the canal have gone for a beach or pirate theme and this one....

has gone the whole hog and done their garden as a beach bar. Each to their own but not my taste really but then if we were all the same it would be a strange world wouldn't it.

And then a bit further along another garden, this one has been left to it's own devices and looks a bit like a flower fairy forrest - it never seems to matter what time of year it is there always seems to be some bluebells happily growing amongst the trees - really pretty.

So that's it for today a quick bimble up part of the canal.

Hopefully the weather will be a bit more cheerful tomorrow, in the meantime I'm on the search for a good local Chimney sweep as we are looking at getting a real fire or a multi fuel burner put into our lounge talk about excited - if all goes to plan I'll be counting down the days till we can sit by a cosy fire...

Ah well that's all for now.

take care

Jx

Oh my word its been such a long long time....

oh dear, apologies first - I'm so sorry for deserting blogworld for a few months, I don't really know why it was for so long. I felt I had nothing to say for a couple of weeks and then I seemed to lose my crafting and blog mojo which turned into months and before you know we're into summer and a late summer at that. Sorry for bailing out - I have been lurking in the background of many of you but just couldn't think of anything worth saying, so please forgive me. Anyway, after a lovely holiday in Northumbria I've now heaved myself out of the chair at the bottom of our little garden and want to say hello again.

so HELLLLLLOOOOOO....

We've had a blur of a few months blurred because the weeks have just sort of merged into each other at a whizzy speed but at the same time not doing very much really. We have had a couple of camping trips - Eskdale in the Lakes in June - very very pretty and very very hot!! Callow top in Derbyshire with friends - very very pretty and very very giddy - basically down to me regressing back to childhood with my school friend. Abbey Farm near Parbold also in July - very pretty but very very stressed due to new camper being used for first time, along with towing for first ever time and getting lost on way - despite site only being 20 miles from home!! Then away in Cornwall for a family wedding - very very pretty but very very wet - complete mud bath by the time we packed up. But last week was easily the best we had a gorgeous gorgeous week in Northumberland camping near Bamburgh where the beach looked like this....

We've never been up north so far before and boy what a surprise. I had heard it was a lovely part of the country but I never expected it to be so beautiful. The countryside, the villages and the beaches all gorgeous. These beaches were spotless, the sand powdery white and the sea so clear absolutely fab. On top of this some of the best castles I've ever been too, although my favourite by miles was this one ..

Alnwick Castle - amazing castle and gardens, so much to see. We bought a combined 2 day ticket meaning we could take our time looking around. Obviously the fantastic weather helped but even so I'm sure it would be brilliant there even in the rain ......

One day last week we went to Lindesfarne, they say that if you visit that island you never come away the same as when you arrived there. I loved the modern celtic style art there that has been inspired by the Lindesfarne illuminated gospels, and for the first time in ages couldn't wait to get back to pick up my pens and paper, wool and crochet hook - yippee I'm back. Boy can you tell I've been smitten by the whole Northumbrian experience.

By the way I've also been reading the Dawn French book dear Fatty while we were away - (first book I've read in months too - what's been wrong with me I wonder), anyway what a fab book makes you laugh out loud!!

Anyway time to go and this time I promise to be back soon.

Janette

xx

Easter holidays...

Hello,

Well it's the start of the school holidays and me and Jamie are having a fab time - so far. We love the holidays, it's a chance to chill out and just enjoy being out of the normal routine. Today has been spent scootering to the shops, wondering back along the canal, lots of fresh air finished off with a good dose of Preston rain meaning a mug of hot chocolate once we got home. Oh for the memories of yesterday when the sky looked like this....

This is our forsythia in full bloom, I love the way it looks against the blue sky. Really lovely don't you think.

Last weekend we went to Bakewell for the day - what a pretty little town full of streets just like this one. We loved it there although we did get ripped off in the sweetie shop when we asked for 2 lots of 100g of boiled sweets to be given 2, 1lb's worth. It was all very chaotic in the shop and even when I handed over the money and thinking that was very expensive (it's the most I've ever spent in a sweet shop lets just leave it at that shall we!!) I didn't say anything (don't know why) . It was only afterwards when it dawned on me what had happened that I couldn't help but wonder if the lady in the shop had knowingly weighed out more than she should to see whether we would say anything or not. I'm not normally suspicous but there was just something about her attitude that's made me wonder. Never mind though, there'll be enough boiled sweets in our house to last quite a while anyway.

Saw this cushion in a shop window while we were there which I loved. When I saw the £200+ price tag I thought it was for the chest of drawers, it was only later when I realised it was for the cushion. I loved it but not that much. Anyway I took the photo as inspiration to make a similar one for our bedroom as it doesn't look that difficult does it.

Above is my latest Work in Progress photo. I've made these hexagons following Lucy's attic 24 instructions. I'm very pleased with them. I've decided to turn it into a cushion cover. The photo below doesn't do the colours of the cotton I've used justice though because of the bad light this morning. In reality the colours in the photo above are much nearer the truth. Very cheerful and just right for our green lounge. It's definately a marmite (love or hate) room and with the addition of things from my new obsession of crochet it's definately not going to get any less bright in the near future.

Next up I think I'll tackle the ripple blanket - should keep me busy for a while.

I hope you are all having some fun too.

Take care

Janette

xx

Throwing a sickie???

No, I've not really blagged a day off work I am actually sat on the sofa acing from the ends of the hair on my head to the tips of my toenails. Jamie as very graciously shared his germs from the last few days and with me and whereas he was up and happily bounding into school this morning I have struggled to crawl all the way from the bed to the sofa full of the cold that just does not seem to want to get lost for good.

Anyway, today I've decided to focus on things to be thankful for....

I'm thankful that the view from the back of my house looks like this.....

Especially when the view from the front of my house is this......

I'm thankful that in Preston there are views like this ......

I'm thankful I have a family who don't moan and groan continuously when the view inside our house looks like this....

especially if I've spent farrr to much time (and money) with this....

I'm thankful we have booked a holiday to go here.....

And I'm especally thankful that we are staying in one of these ....

so that's that for today I'm off now for a hot lemon and to be honest I'm enjoying the peace before the boys come back from work and school.

Hope you all keep well, take care

Janette

xx