Treats and Tricks!

Hello everyone, hope that this stormy weather isn't having any adverse effects for you. Very blustery and heavy showers here with spells of bright sunshine - but could be a lot worse.

Thank you so, so much for all your kind comments about my Darling Mum, she seems quite a bit improved today when I visited her earlier so hopefully that will continue as the days go by.

I have spent today (even though it is half term) working on reports and referrals, but now I can say that I am officially on holiday as I have ticked off all the items on my to-do list!!  Hip-hip-hooray!! I firmly believe in that old trick of a to-do list, keeps me on track and I find it so, so satisfying when I eventually tick everything off!

Yesterday I worked in the morning, then took my DD out and about to our local villages on a tea and gift shop tour.  We love to do this when we can, there are so many lovely places and little shops, all so different from the usual High Street fare.  First of all we visited a little tea shop and treated ourselves to a very yummy hot chocolate...after all, it had been a long, hard morning of work...

I love the idea of popping a mini-gingerbread man in amongst the cream and chocolate flake, but a close up made it look quite creepy and Halloween-like, almost like a mummy emerging from its tomb...would be a great drink to serve up on the 31st...

After investigating more local village shops, including a newsagent that sells everything and 2 gift shops we went to the local garden centre, always a treat at any time of year, but they had really gone to town with the Halloween theme...

Onto another village, where my kids have attended school (and DD still attends there). I also attended school there "back in the day".  I loved the autumn colours on this tree.  The old building in the background was a fully-operational mill in my young day, but is now converted into upmarket apartments...

It was so lovely to spend time with DD, we share so many interests, we didn't stop chatting the whole time we were out!

Hope you have a lovely and cosy evening, Helenxx

Happy Birthday DH!

Hello everyone, hope all is well with you and yours.

It has been a busy time here, with my DH celebrating his birthday.  We all enjoyed it as a family, and the bonus of a birthday on a Saturday is that with very little excuse it can turn into a Birthday weekend!

He was delighted with all his presents, and enjoyed a trip to the garden centre for a toasted sandwich and coffee.

We saw lots of lovely Christmas treats

These reminded me of Elf, where Buddy explains his journey to New York thus:

"I passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel".
We were quite impressed by this fine fellow

Well, I cooked DH his very favourite meal, a dish from the Causcaus mountains called Galnesh - here it is in its "waiting to be cooked" stage...

 it got eaten up before I could take any more pics!

And of course there was cake

We always like to celebrate as a whole family, so everyone gets to enjoy the fun.

Its beginning to feel a bit more festive, we have started watching festive films - Elf was duly viewed at the weekend, with Christmas with the Kranks viewed this evening.  We have Home Alone 1&2, Jingle all the Way and Muppets Christmas Carol to look forward to.  And Im going to start my annual reading of Christmas Carol soon - Im a big Charles Dickens fan and have read Christmas Carol every Christmas since I was 8 years old.

Well, hopefully will be back soon to show you how spoiled I have been by my Christmas Swap Partners!

Helenxx

Autumn Views Challenge week 8 and confessions of a new addiction...



 

Hello everyone - am I glad its the weekend!  My regular readers will know that my day job is teaching and this week we had the wonderful news (ahem, sarcastic sneer needed here!!) that OFSTED were going to be around......(cue doom-laden music).  So crafting, time with friends etc had to be put on hold whilst all hands were put firmly on deck with the preprarations.  Fortunately I have experienced these things quite a few times so was well prepared, although they always ask for random last minute bits.  All passed without incident - woop!  So to celebrate my dearest friend Sue picked me up after work last night for an early evening jaunt - more of which later.

 

But lets start with this week's Autumn View:

 

 

 So many leaves have now drifted away, there are still spashes of vivid colour to be seen, but a lot of brown as well.  We are well and truly headed towards the winter.

Well, the title of this post and the news of the OFSTED visit may well have you all worried that I have hit the bottle or some kind of recreational substances - but fear not dear readers!!!!  My new addiction is rather nice (well I think so anyway) as it is collecting vintage pottery!  Im really getting into Midwinter - the autumnal shades at least.  Our local bric-a-brac market can sometimes come up with some lovely finds.  There is a particular stall holder who knows Im into this kind of stuff and puts stuff on one side for me to have first choice of!!  So, yesterday morning, bright and early, I headed off to the market - and what a wonderful collection of things I came back with!

All of these plates are in the Stylecraft shape which I love. 

But then - the ever helpful (and canny!!) stall holder had something else to reveal - some items by a designer I hadnt heard of

Well, just look at these little beauties, in exactly the kind of designs and colours I love....

And with the design called October (my favourite month of the whole year) how could a girl resist?  And I so needed a treat after OFSTED....so they popped into the shopping basket.  THEN....

 

 

Oh my word, how lovely...

And I NEED new dishes.....

Well, I had to call a colleague to help me carry them all back to the office!!  Colleague was completely understanding, having gone through OFSTED as well, but their response was to stuff themselves silly at McDonalds.  Each to their own!!!!

What I love about these items is they work out between 50p - 85p each, so cheaper than IKEA!  I love the designs and that others have used them before.  And I do use them, albeit with care, I never put them through the dishwasher even though, apparently they are dishwasher proof. 

Well, onto the aforementioned jaunt with Sue!  We nipped over to the local garden centre which is wonderful at this time of the year.  I had my smartphone, not my usual camera so the pics arent great but here are a few:

Lovely cheery cylamen

Friendly reindeer

And finally, the garden centre's resident feline friend happily posing for the camera:

We went to the cafe and had some super cakes and coffee.   No photos as both too hungry!!!

And I have one more reason to celebrate - I have completed my final MSc assignment, and only have 11,000 words to do to complete the dissertation!!!!!! 

Have a super weekend!

Helenxx

Autumn in the garden centre

Morning all!

Last Friday I was lucky enough to go out and about for the afternoon with my friend Sue from @home.  We had a lovely hot chocolate in a local cafe and visited some local gift shops.  I cant show what I bought as they are destined for pressies...

But we then visited our local garden centre.  This was the sign that greeted us on our way in

These plants were charming in their autumn colours

Reminded me of the colours Im using for my crochet blanket

These friendly fellows were also there to great us

This chap is obviously a hit with the birds ;)

These fantastic leaves were attached to all the displays - I wish they had been on sale - three together would have made a wonderful table runner as they were massive

All in all a most enjoyable afternoon!  Thanks Sue for being such great company.


Helenxx