Memos, mail and me

Hello Monday!  I've woken with a spring in my step and a smile on my face as I can definitely join in with Sian's plan to share Mondays and Mail.  No scratching around trying to find random pieces of mail that fell onto my doorstep this week, oh no.  This week has seen a few delivery men stopping at my door with exciting packages.  Because the end of February brings with it the promise that March is not far away and with March comes ...

Birthdays!

This package?  Destined to go to my great-nephew on his fifth birthday at the end of the week.  It's great being five isn't it?  So much energy, so much mischief.  He wanted a slinky.  Not a plastic one from the pocket money section of the local newsagent, a big, shiny, metal one.  One that you can leave on the stairs for your sister to fall over on.  One that will scare the living daylights out of the dog as it comes thundering down the steps.  Naturally, while browsing on the gadgets and gifts website I could not resist also buying him a torch projector that will show large dinosaurs on your walls, because let's face it, a five year old boy can never have enough dinosaur paraphernalia.

 

He's not the only one having a birthday at the end of this week either.  My son has cleverly arranged for his birthday to be on a Sunday so can, with a bit of careful planning, start celebrating in advance on Friday evening, and continue on all weekend.  His wardrobe is in need of a bit of a revamp so a browse through ASOS will hopefully mean that he'll have a few new things to wear very soon.  It still seems odd to not having him home for his birthday but I am sure we will make up for it in the next few weeks.  

 

Incoming mail doesn't just have to come through the post though does it?  I met up with my friend who is an author last Monday lunchtime and she had been to a book launch at her publishers where they were given a 'doggy bag' of new books that weren't in the shops yet.  She had far too many to read herself (after all, she is supposed to be busy writing her next novel!) and generously gifted some to me.  The one on the top of the pile here is already captivating me.  A little bit dark, and a little bit mysterious and will apparently ends up a thriller.  I already see a backlog of housework in the offing.  Ironing v a few chapters of a book?  No competition.

 

And there's not just incoming mail.  Oh no, there is outgoing mail waiting to be dealt with.

The wedding invitations have arrived.

We still have to organise the evening reception ones but we do actually seem to have made progress.  Now all we need is for Rachel and James to get the envelopes addressed ... 

Well.  That's it for me.  I feel as happy as a Year 9 student who has, for once, handed in her homework on time, and is relatively happy with its content.   Happy Monday everyone! 

Memos, Mail and Me

She's back!

😄

I hope that Sian doesn't mind me slightly amending the Monday Meme, but the best bit of 'post' I received this week didn't come through the letter box, it was hanging from the rear view mirror of my beautifully repaired car!

 

She looks exactly as she should do, shiny and unblemished. It felt so good to get in the driving seat again and I can assure you that on Tuesday night, when P's friends come round for him for badminton, she will be safely locked away in the garage, out of harms way.  When the guy dropped her off, he asked how the accident had happened and his exact words were 'what an idiot'.  That was the moment at which we bonded, with that mutual agreement that technology is fine, but if you have a pair of eyes in your head and three mirrors in and around your car to see where you're reversing, don't wait for a 'beep' to become a continuous note. 

 

So, half term has been and gone and I need to seriously review the amount of cake and sweet stuff I have got into the habit of eating.  Although, I don't work on Mondays and have plans to go out for lunch with friends today - ok, good intentions will have to start tomorrow. 

Memos, Mail and Me

The mail fairies are trying to tell me something, I know they are.  And it's not just so that I can join in with Sian's idea of sharing what arrives in the post on a Monday.  Clearly, retail therapy is needed and I need to have temptation sent through the mail.

Now, I've never ordered anything from Seasalt and it makes me wonder how much of our information is shared from company to company.  Although, if they didn't share, I might miss out on some goodies ...

 

But with two weddings in the family this year, I think I should try to ignore that 15% discount and free gift that White Stuff are trying to entice me with and be saving my pennies for mother of the bride/groom outfits as a trip to Cambridge on Monday confirmed what I had suspected, this is not going to be cheap!  I decided to do some background research in John Lewis, Hobbs, Coast and LK Bennett and whilst I didn't see any dresses that were suitable - I was very, very tempted by a rather gorgeous pair of shoes.  However, my friend pointed out that it will be much easier to match a pair of shoes to an outfit, rather than start with the shoes and then try and find an outfit that went with them.  I reluctantly had to agree (although they were lovely, perfect wedding outfit shoes and oh so comfortable) don't you hate it when someone talks you out of something by giving perfectly sensible good advice? ;-)

 

There's a new car on my drive

 

Yes, my poor little Mini was collected on Thursday to the intensive care unit of a nearby bodywork repairers.  Fortunately I was at work so didn't witness the sad sight of it being loaded onto a truck and taken away by strangers.  In its place I have a brand new (only 350 miles on the clock) black sports edition Corsa so I am still mobile.  It is nice to drive, the only slight 'oops' moment came when I was driving home from work, went to go from 5th gear to 6th and realised there was no 6th gear!  I saw the guy who reversed into mine earlier in the week and he was again very apologetic and told me that it was the beginning of a series of bad things that happened to him that week, culminating with cracking a tooth and losing a filling while eating his dinner one night.  I tried to sound sympathetic but part of me was thinking that it was his 'just desserts' - literally!

 

Wedding 'props' have begun to be bought

There's more to a wedding than just the venue and clothes and it's high time we started to think about all the little extras that are needed.  Everyone seems to have a personal wedding hashtag to use so that people can upload pictures to instagram and twitter and you can see what your guests were up to, so we are starting to gather together some photo props that people can use.

The bad planning of not looking at what was behind me when I took this photo means that we have the added bonus of seeing what I would look like if I wear a fancy fascinator instead of a hat for the ceremony.

 And of course every wedding has to have a sweet trolley doesn't it?  So we have the glass jars, now all we need to do is think of things to fill them with.   The colour scheme will be vintage pastels so we bought a big tub on flying saucers and some bags of marshmallows - any ideas as to what else we can get?  I have had to hide the sweets we bought as I cannot be trusted not to open the packs and have a little sample when no one else is looking.

So that's a little of me this cold Monday - first day of the half term holidays - which means I'm home all day and those sweets are definitely at risk of  being opened.

Memos, Mail and Me

 Today I have good news, and I have bad news.  There's been plenty of post here this week for me to join in with Sian's Memo's Mail and Me.  So that's the good news

and the bad news?

Someone reversed into the side of my car. 

Three dents and a scratch of paintwork gone.  Which is horrible.  But the worse thing is, it was done by a friend of my husband.  So while I want to weep and wail and scream about the injustice of it all, I know he feels bad and I know it was an accident.  But even so.  HE'S CRASHED INTO MY CAR. 😢  While my husband was a passenger in the back seat.  There's irony for you.   And whilst I know that I wasn't in the car at the time, it was parked, so no one was hurt and whilst he admitted total liability for it, I wasted the best part of the morning of my day off dealing with insurance companies, repair companies and rental car companies, phone calls, on line documents, printing things off - through no fault of my own.  And I have the inconvenience of having to have a hire car and wait in for that to be delivered and my car taken away.  All because someone took no notice of the reverse beeping alarm going off as he got ever closer to my lovely, not even one year old yet, Mini. 

And I looked in Julie's book for wise words and  to see if she had something appropriate to say.  Of course she did.

Wine, that's what I needed.  Well said, Julie. I knew I could rely on you.

But Mr Postman knew I needed something pretty to look at, and look what else arrived

A Boden catalogue

I do like to look at the catalogue and whilst I have a few Boden bits in my wardrobe, I've never paid full price for them!  My neighbour has Boden parties from time to time and it's nearly always at least 30% off and with a free gift so I look and make notes and then hope what I like is still in stock by the time of her party.

Another pretty thing arrived too 

Pink glittery heart stickers to go on the back of wedding invitation envelopes

Now that is enough to make anyone with a slightly bashed up Mini smile again isn't it!