French Knots

Birthday Giveaway!

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! I have been enveloped in good wishes,kind thoughts and treats by family and friends ( including a trip to a tasty tapas bar with friends who made sure everyone in the place knew I was 40 with balloons and enthusiatic 'Happy Birthday' singing!) so I thought I'd spread the love a little.

Please leave me a comment on this post, just say hello if you don't usually like to comment, and I'll draw a winner next Wednesday  for some handmade goodness from me.

Thank you to everyone who gave me camera advice too, hopefully you will see an improvement in the photos around here as my new one arrived this morning

It is a Finepix S5800 ( happily the link button has mended itself with the newest typepad changes, though the spell check doesn't work any more so please forgive any mis-spelt words!) which is just what I wanted - more functionality than my old camera but small and lightweight too, and a brilliant price, perfect! Thanks to Sara eden  for her feedback on it. Then I discovered my brother has the same camera too, we all have such good taste!

 It arrived while I was in the shower, so I scared the Parcelforce man both with my enthusiastic grabbing of the box and my state of undress. No....., I had my dressing gown on, otherwise he'd probably still be collapsed on the path in a state of distress...I am 40 now you know!

Grown up now?!

Wonderful! A wonderful family celebration. If last weekend was the adult/coupley celebration this weekend was all about celebrating my birthday with the children, My Little Helper woke up at 6am as he was bursting with secrets and surprises.

Present opening was followed by breakfast in bed and when I went downstairs the house was decorated with birthday balloons and bunting. The Big Sister had a sore thumb from 'tying so many balloons!' 

One of the surprises was a trip to see Afrika!Afrika! an amazing show with energetic dancing, amazing acrobatics, vibrant costumes - all from a ringside seat for a wonderful view of the performers, many with rippling muscles and rather small costumes! What a birthday treat!

 

The chandliers were really unusual

creative recycling.

A family dinner at the Italian round the corner was followed by cake - oh my goodness.........

a chocolate truffle confection topped with tiers of marshmallows with some super cute candles chosen by Mr FK.

A lovely family day drew to a happy close as the sun finally came out and I celebrated the beginning of my fourties with a glass (or two!) of wine.

When I down loaded the pictures I found a few extra shots from My Little Helper

his cute self portrait and can you guess what this is......

well, it's his seat from the restaurant! What a star!

Clickety click

Regular readers may remember I learnt to knit earlier this year and got hooked on sock knitting. A few weeks ago I discovered a really easy pattern for a hat, a satisfying, snuggly, bee hive of a hat.

that looks great in all sorts of colours. Obsessive, hummm, yes I seem to be! I need to move on to something new as I now have lots of socks and lots of hats. Something simple,small and portable, hand warmers perhaps? Any suggestions knitters??

This was the scene a couple of evening ago

yes I know it looks like a sheet pegged up on a bit of wire in the bay window but it is actually our home cinema! Mr FK had a snazzy projector from work and hooked it up to the dvd player, once it got dark we hardly noticed the creases on the sheet/screen!

Hope you have great plans for the weekend either doing exciting things or relaxing and chilling out. I think I will be doing a bit of both -Sunday is my 40th birthday and there are plans afoot but I have no idea what they are. But I'm sure they will be fab, the children have been whispering in corners and I'm not allowed in the Big Sister's bedroom. Good, means she'll have to tidy it herself!

See you next week in a whole new era of my life!

A weekend away

Mr FK had clients to entertain at the bike racing at Knock Hill, near Edinburgh, on Sunday, a great excuse for us to get away together....but requiring some planning.

Friday 9am leave home( near Manchester) :: drive to Anglesey ( yes I know it's the wrong direction!) :: arrive 11am :: drop off children with Grandparents :: 1.30 get back in car and head for Scotland :: knit a lot :: 8pm arrive Edinburgh :: drink wine :: go to restaurant for curry :: find it is on fire ( I kid you not!) :: road closed :: go elsewhere to eat :: drink more wine :: go to bars :: drink more wine :: 2.30 collapse into bed 

Saturday 10.30 wake up :: wish had drunk more water and less wine :: 11.30 full breakfast for medicinal reasons :: read papers :: see a weird play at the Festival :: visit craft fair :: see hilarious stand up Pam Ann, 'Terror at 41,000 feet' :: go for tapas :: no wine, can't face it! :: midnight bed

Sunday 8.30 leave for racing :: arrive with tens of thousands of bike fans :: try not to show ignorance of all things motorbiking :: enjoy looking at all the men in leathers :: watch warm up races :: 12.30 eat massive 3 course lunch :: watch some more racing :: chat to other guests of MR FK's company :: 3pm force self to eat cakes ( just to polite you know) :: hope racer taken away by air ambulance is ok :: return to Edinburgh :: watch The Deceased and As Good as it Gets ( yes we like Jack Nicholson) :: fall asleep 11pm

Monday 7.30 leave Edinburgh :: drive home via Wales again!  

Phew, glad we don't do it too often!

The tiny room we watched the play in, felt like we were on stage too.

Lovely, and unexpected, views in central Edinburgh

 

Crossing the Forth Road Bridge

Men in leathers whizzing round very, very fast.

Cheddar

We had a relaxing week away in Somerset, despite a fair bit of rain we really enjoyed ourselves.We stayed on a great site with a huge adventure playground for the children, a swimming pool( My Little Helper complained the water made his eye bulbs sore!) and even hedges between each pitch to give some privacy.I love going on holiday in the caravan, it reminds me of making dens when I was little and is such a relaxed and laid back way to see different parts of the country.

Delish scrumpy on the cider farm with a HUGE roast dinner in their farm shop/cafe.

rain beating on the caravan roof, while cosy in bed

going cross country as the satnav took us down lots of little lanes in the middle of nowhere, a great way to explore

watching sweets being made, amongst the sweet sugary smells and of course buying some to try

spicy barbecue roasted veggies

the amazing Gorge, hideously touristy at the bottom but further up, unspoilt and wonderful

underground, a whole new world to explore, shaped by water millennia ago

 

We're back!

Well, where were we before a week away in Somerset intervened?

Ah yes, sports day and the end of term

a couple of birthdays, so I now have a 5 year old and a 9 year old,oh how the years are racing by ( too fast!)

and a wonderful day out with friends at the Tatton Flower Show. A mooch round the Country Living Pavilion, the amazing show gardens, the back to back gardens that are more realistic but no less breath taking, a tasty picnic lunch and of course some slug food..I mean plants to take home. The weather was lovely, sunny and breezy just right for a flower show so the new wellies were not required.

A wonderful relaxing day, a perfect way for 4 Mums to get ready for the long summer holidays. The children broke up the next day and then we were off to Cheddar for a week. More on that later as I have almost 700 of your posts to catch up on and I can't wait to see what adventures you've been having!

Hmmm

Could I have some advice please? I'm thinking of getting a new camera for my fast approaching big birthday, I see some excellent photography on your blogs and wondered what sort of camera you all use. I don't think I want a big digital SLR as I used to leave my old SLR at home all the time as I found it a bit cumbersome to juggle with bags/children etc but the photos I take with my little point and press digital lack oomph and I'd like the colour to have more depth and punch. Yes I know I could go into the camera shop but it always seems to be staffed by 12 year olds who make me feel like their aged mother!

 

Look what I won from the amazing Vintage Magpie, she has worked some mysterious magic to print on fabric to make the gorgeous applique. I think I'll put magic fabric on my birthday list too, along with some more Lime Basil and Mandarin Perfume from Jo Malone, about 100 books from my Wish List and of course I could do with some more yarn, fabric, buttons and lace....!

Off to the Tatton Flower Show tomorrow so please keep your fingers crossed for a fine day!

Button Love

I'm sure, like me, you have jars of buttons that you hoard and save because they are pretty and we have a compulsion to buy them at car boot sales. I steeled myself and managed to use some up this week making pictures for presents in shadow boxes.

Half the fun was sorting out the buttons from their jars and playing with patterns and colours, hopefully they wont be an unwanted reminder of advancing years!

Have you seen the giveaway of the century over at http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/2008/07/win-this-quilt.html?? The most amazing quilt, in wonderful colours will be given to one incredibly lucky person. Go and take a look.

I was wrestling with Typepad again, trying to make the link thing work - it was so easy before and even though I follow their instructions it's temperamental now, and unusually for me I had a look at my stats and where people had come from to visit my blog. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at one search that had found French Knots 'What makes big knots on your head go down'...What the...!?! The mind boggles!

Have a lovely weekend, I'll be off car booting to replenish my button stash!

Coming up roses

How scrumptious are these? After getting soggy feet at the school fete the other week I decided some wellies were need, pretty ones naturally seemed best and a quick browse on Ebay found a shop selling these cheerful boots.

And so appropriate as I want them in case it is chucking it down on Thursday next week when I'm going to The RHS Show at Tatton. A group of us are going and I'm looking forward to the show gardens, courtyard gardens, back to back gardens, ogling the £10,000 playhouses for the palatial back garden I don't have, coveting the entire contents of the Country Living Pavilion and lugging home lots of luscious new plants. So even if it rains I'm going to have a super day.

Thank you for all the allotment advice! I think I'm going to make some raised beds if only to break up the huge expanse of plot and will be taking my journal with me to Tatton to note down ideas too. The children are keen to get things growing - My Little Helper wants to grow potatoes so he can make chips!

A little sewing done too, a laundry bag obviously but only for clothes that are not too grubby as it's too pretty for anything mucky! I recycled an old heavy cotton sheet and a sweet little embroidered mat, with a bit of thread that matched the original hand embroidery quite nicely, it was soon done. I get so much satisfaction from repurposing old things into something new, in fact my husband has a new shirt that I've got my eye on, once it's worn out of course, it will make lovely patchwork or bunting.

And for a friend who gets married soon  

 her 'something blue', the nicest garter around!

Off to try out my wellies whilst laying carpet on the allotment......if I'm standing on the carpet they wont get dirty!

Oh my!

Well I need a new hobby don't I ? I sit around with so much time on my hands, so what I need is this

It might look like a sea of weeds to you but to me it is the result of patient months on the waiting list - my new allotment!  

Whilst dreaming of tasty fruit and veg to come I am rather daunted by the state of the plot. I'm not sure how I'll get it from waist high weeds and nettles to a productive plot, raspberries, strawberries, peas and potatoes, a patch for herbs, flowers for cutting...I have lots of plans but need a fairy godmother to wave her wand and banish the weeds for me!

My thoughts so far are -

Don't cry!

Cover it with carpet so the weeds don't get any worse and new ones are smothered.

Just try to get a small area cultivated at once- weed a small patch and get it planted so I feel I'm making progress.

Find a no dig method of vegetable cultivation so once it's clear I don't have to keep digging.

On the plus side it is right next to the tap so easy for watering,there are some black and red currant bushes  and I thought it would be next season before I got to the top of the list so can make some sort of start this year, there are lots of friendly people on the site who will be great for advice..... speaking of which if anyone has any tips for a new allotment holder I'd love to hear them.

Guess what I'll be doing this weekend...........!