Monday 18 March 2024

Me on Monday 18 March

 So my first post as a pensioner!  I'm happy to report that it doesn't feel too bad so far - my friend Sally sent me a great card which said 'People our age are so much older than us' which summed it up so well.  



As often happens, things did not go completely to plan and I didn't get to have my lunch out with Jon as he was unwell.  Their family have all succumbed to a virus which gives you a high temperature for 24 hours and then three days of total tiredness, Max and Olive have been sleeping for over 12 hours every night!  So we have postponed as I don't really want to share their germs.

We went for cake and coffee at Rachel's which was lovely and she has passed a book onto me that a friend lent her. It is so good I read it for two hours without break while Paul watched the rugby last night so I am almost half way through!  I shall give a proper review on my book reading post at the end of the month - I just hope it continues to be as gripping for the rest of the book.  

I don't actually have too much planned for this week but need to pop out and find a couple of gifts to go with the children's Easter eggs.  I prefer to buy them a token small egg and a book or something rather than a huge chocolate egg-stravaganza 😉

I'll need to conserve my energy for a bumper batch of childcare at the weekend involving a sleep over with Max and Olive on Friday and an evening of babysitting on my own the following day.  Followed by a Sunday of doing very little I hope!

How's your week ahead looking?  

Monday 11 March 2024

Me on Monday 11 March

 Hello! Here we are on yet another Monday. 

When I left you on Friday I was nervous about the craft afternoon. I should not have worried, they were a lovely bunch of ladies and they were very complimentary about my crochet! It turned out I knew three of them, although I hadn’t seen them for about 20 years when our sons all played football together. So we had a lot of mutual friends and quite a few years of catching up to do. 

Friday evening at the Lost in Music concert was wonderful.  So much fun; I knew all the songs and remembered all the words so had a marvellous time singing along!



There was a lot of Earth, Wind and Fire, Gloria Gaynor, Diana Ross - all the classic disco sounds. There was a lot of dancing in the aisles 😊

Now in case you’re wondering about my daughter’s World Book Day costume, she did an amazing job. She ran into town and found a fleece hoody with teddy bear ears on the hood, and a pair of fleece leggings in the same colour greatly reduced in a sale. She popped into Poundland and found a red dog collar, tweaked the ears of the hoody into a more canine shape and used a brown eyeshadow to paint a patch over one eye. Apparently Rosie couldn’t believe her eyes when she came into class, not only was the secret reader her mum, but she was dressed as the dog in the story!

This is my birthday week, and on my birthday my son is taking me out to lunch. One to one time with your kids when they are grown up is precious and I’m so thrilled that he’s organised it. I feel very blessed.  So this is my last pre-state pension post - Doesn't that make me sound old?  I certainly don't feel like a pensioner so I'm convincing myself that you are only as old as you feel 😉



Friday 8 March 2024

Let’s sit and have a cup of coffee

 


Thought I would share a picture of the lovely coffee I had when we last went up to Cambridge, sadly my barista skills are not to this standard!

Just a quick post today as I have to leave for my crafting lunch in an hour.  I am ridiculously nervous about it, the sensible side of my brain is saying 'don't be silly, it's just a group of craft loving ladies getting together to share their interests' and the other side is saying 'but I only know one other person there and I have no idea how these things work, do we just sit there and knit/sew/crochet?  Will they be comparing work? etc etc'. I haven't even got together all the things I need to take with me.

So let me just share an amusing thing that happened to my daughter this morning.  Actually, I think everyone else is finding it more amusing than she is.  At the school that her children attend, the reception class finish each day with them all sitting on the mat and listening to a story.  Every now and again there will be a 'secret reader' who will be one of the children's parents.  The idea is to surprise everyone so it has to be kept secret.  My daughter put her name down to join in at the beginning of term and today is the day that was allocated to her.  She's chosen to read one of Rosie's favourite books 'Ruffles and the teeny tiny kittens' about a puppy who has four little kittens come to stay and how they upset his routine and want to play with his most favourite thing which he does not want to share.  

Now, yesterday was World Book Day, but at this school they have their 'non uniform' days on Fridays so the children have all dressed as their favourite book characters today.  As my daughter took Rosie to the door, all dressed up in her Isadora Moon costume, the teacher took her aside and whispered 'What will you be dressing up as?' What?  'All the teachers have dressed up too and I'm sure you'll want to join in'. 
What a panic.  Of course she hadn't realised that she would be expected to dress up, and she certainly doesn't have a dog or cat costume hanging around at home!  It will be interesting to see what she can pull together!  

Thanks for popping by!

Monday 4 March 2024

Me on Monday 4 March

 Welcome to the start of a new week.  I've got a nice relaxing day ahead of me, which is well needed as we had all the family here yesterday to celebrate a hundred years of birthdays, and here's a cake to prove it!


I had the same problem with those chocolate numbers that I used to have when using alphabet stickers on scrapbook pages, you never seem to have quite the right ones that you need and have to improvise - with an 'o' in place of a zero in this case!  It was a bit of an early celebration; my son's birthday is tomorrow and mine is a couple of weeks time. 

I'm trying something new on Friday.  A friend of mine is hosting a crafting lunch with a group of people she used to work with, kind of a 'knit and natter', and she has asked me if I'd like to join them.  I was so pleased to be invited but as it is getting closer I'm wondering if my crochet will be up to their standards of crafting!  I'm sure it will be fine.  

Then in the evening I am going to a concert of 70s music with my daughter.  I'm so looking forward to it but what a dilemma, what should I wear?  Ideas will be gratefully received!

Have a good week x 

Friday 1 March 2024

#WBOYC February 2024

 


It's a leap year so we get an extra day in February, although it's still the shortest month of the year.  What was on my calendar?  

F

Finally finishing my Wasgij jigsaw.  It is really hard to complete a jigsaw when you don't know what the picture is!  (Confession time, I did have to google the solution to get started but from then on I tried to do it without any further clues)



E

Easting and drinking, what a good job I didn't make any new year's resolutions to eat sensibly and healthily all the time!  Nine meals or lunches with friends.

B

Booked a vineyard tour.  Jon and Sophie bought us a voucher for a vineyard tour, wine tasting and sharing cheese board as our Christmas present so as soon as the 2024 dates were released I booked us in for a few months time.  I didn't even know we had a vineyard anywhere near us!  I will report back when we have been.

R

Resisting the urge to do my crocheting as quickly as possible (my usual way of working) so that I can properly enjoy the process of making my next blanket.



U

Unsubscribing from marketing emails.  You know how you get 10% off your first order if you subscribe to online companies?  Then they bombard you on almost a daily basis trying to entice you to buy things you really don't need.  So rather than have temptation filling up my inbox, every morning I am unsubscribing to each email I didn't really want to receive and boy has the amount of emails I am receiving reduced and now I only see special offers from companies I really want to buy from!

A

Ashamed of the state of my nails, honestly they have never been in such bad condition.  I haven't had a professional manicure for so long.  This was well overdue and I am now loving my nails and waving my hands around as much as possible so they get the attention they deserve! They even match the jumper I was wearing to the appointment.



R

Researching somewhere to go for a long weekend with Coco once the weather settles down and spring arrives.  We narrowed it down to the Kent coastline and now have a cottage booked for a few months time.

Y

Yearning for a rest after half term childcare duties.  Either they are getting more energetic or I am getting older 😉

So that's it for another month.  Thanks to Deb at the other Deb's World for organising this round up and let's end on the 1 Second Everyday video of the month.




Monday 26 February 2024

Me on Monday 26 February

 It's all back to normal this week with half term being over and childcare back to its usual (shorter!) hours.

So tell me, did you start today with breakfast cereal?  I ask because today's historical info is that this is the day in 1852 that John Harvey Kellogg was born.  Little did they know how his humble cornflake would change the breakfasts of so many generations! My cereal of choice this morning was a bowl of his company's Fruit'n Fibre, with a generous helping of sliced banana on the top.  

Was last week good for you?  I started mine with meeting up with my friend which was lovely.  Then a whole day of Leo and Rosie where we enjoyed making things with some air dry clay and they then had great fun constructing a den out of four dining chairs, every cushion we possess and all my crochet blankets.  It kept them quiet for ages 😀



I managed to get a bit of crochet done this week while binge watching One Day on Netflix.  I had already read the book so was prepared for how it ended, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We finally sat down and browsed the Airbnb site to find somewhere to go in this country with Coco in May, so if anyone reading this knows the Whitstable area in Kent, let me know any places we should visit while we are there!  

So how is this week looking?  Well later today we are planning a trip to a gallery near us where Paul's art teacher has a painting in an exhibition.  Then not too many plans for the rest of the week other than meeting up with some people I used to work with for lunch on Thursday.  I will have done my Zumba class earlier in the morning so won't feel guilty if I succumb to a dessert!

February seems to have gone in a flash and March is just around the corner now - spring is on its way! Have a good week x

Friday 23 February 2024

What I've been reading in February

Both books this month were recommended by Gail at  Is this mutton?

First up, The Secret Pianist by Andie Newton



This is set in the French town of Boulogne sur Mer during the time of the German occupation.  A British RAF plane comes under fire while flying over the town and forced to abandon its cargo of spy messenger carrier pigeons.  One of the birds is found by Martine, one of three sisters living in the town.  She is excited about the opportunity to feed information back to the English but her sisters Gaby and Simone are hesitant to draw attention to themselves.  

Gaby comes to the attention of a German Commandant who orders her to teach his daughter to play the piano.  When their neighbours discover this, they are tarnished with the 'bad French' reputation for supposedly assisting the Germans.  Martine convinces her sisters that they must take advantage of having a means to give information to the British to locate German U boat pens.  They find a way to disguise messages on sheets of piano music and release the bird at the dead of night.  But have they been successful in their plan to help the resistance or put themselves into greater danger?

I really enjoyed this book.  It was well written and I have a vivid picture of the sisters in my mind as I read the story.  You find yourself emotionally involved in their plight and the narrative really takes you to occupied France and the difficulties for the people living in the small towns.

📚📚📚

The next book was very different, My Sister's Baby by Louise Guy


This is the story of three sisters. Mandy suffered learning difficulties following a childhood illness which meant that her parents had to pay her far more attention growing up which has led to a strong feeling of resentment from her sister Toni.  Liv found herself in a life threatening accident which resulted in the need for a kidney transplant. Her sister Toni was the only member of the family to be a suitable match and she did not hesitate to be her sister's donor.

Toni and her husband have been unsuccessful in having children despite rounds of IVF and Liv would give anything to be able to help her sister just as she had helped her when she needed a kidney.  So when Liv finds herself in a situation where she could help Toni fulfil her dream of becoming a mother, she breaks all the rules and decides to offer Toni a baby to adopt.  The baby is born at home with the help of a doula to avoid questions in a hospital and in order to make it look as if baby Ruby is Toni's actual baby, she falsifies the birth certificate by entering the wrong names of the birth mother and father.  

Things then start to go wrong, Toni is not finding motherhood as fulfilling as she expected, she is constantly worried that Liv will change her mind and ask for the baby back.  Not only that but she finds it hard to bond with the baby and cannot wait to return to work.  Not long after, the secret of what Liv has done is discovered and Liv finds herself being blackmailed.  She can't tell the police as that would mean admitting the fraud she has committed.  

I have to be honest and say that I figured out the story behind Ruby's birth before it was revealed but it didn't stop me enjoying the book!  My heart went out to Mandy who is aware that she is seen by some to be a burden and how her sister Toni dislikes her.  I didn't like Toni especially regarding her treatment of Mandy and how she quickly decides that after all these years of being desperate for a baby, motherhood is not for her after all.  Her lies to her family and husband trip off her tongue too easily.

I enjoyed both books, thanks to Gail for the recommendations!