Rubbish

Isn't it surprising how much rubbish you collect over Christmas! As we will not be having a collection until next Saturday, we will dutifully take it over to the tip tomorrow. On the subject of rubbish I had to go and see the District Nurse at Newington Clinic this afternoon(my burn is getting a lot better) and coming home via Newlands and Dumpton couldn't get over the amount of rubbish lying about especially Fosters lager cans -its a shame they can't DNA them and them dump them at that person's house but then again they probably wouldn't notice!

Just a short explanation of the previous picture - my eldest hadn't consumed too much Tia Maria but had been helping his Dad make a fantastic Christmas Dinner, he hadn't work so hard for ages and just crashed in the back room and I just couldn't resist taking a photo for posterity!

What a Xmas!

And a good time was had by one and all!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Seasons greetings to everyone. I have been up since 5.00am this morning my littleun was desperate to see if Father Christmas had been and of course he had BIG time. We are now in the process (I say we but I have left it to the male members of the family) of building a Lego Castle unfortunately last time we bought a Lego castle my husband spent ages (hours actually) building it and I managed to trip over it and smashed it back into pieces so I have been banned from the Lego making area.

Well I hope everybody has a lovely day with plenty of merry making, I can just hear the first arguments starting so I am of to grill my croissants for breakfast. Merry Christmas.

The countdown continues

Well I know it isn't a Christmas picture but I managed to pour hot baked bean juice over the back of my hand and I have a rather nasty burn, so it is rather difficult photographing anything at the moment. But this sunset on Saturday evening rather took my fancy so I snapped it and it came out quite well.

I suppose I could have snapped the hoards of shoppers at Westwood Cross on Saturday but when I was there in the morning, they wasn't any more than a normal Saturday. My mum works in Ramsgate and she said it has been very quiet all month.



Anyway on a more personal note I would like to say Happy Retirement to my Mum, she is retiring on Wednesday after working for the same company since 1958 (she did have some time off to have us kids but it works out she has given 40 years service). Enjoy yourself!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

I thought this might brighten up everybodies day as I don't think it is actually going to get light today.

I bought this at Bluewater on Tuesday, couldn't resist it. I love colour - I only have three black items in my wardrobe, a Tesco's cashmere jumper, a skirt from Monsoon and a pair of trousers - everything else is full of colour and I think it helps your mood if you wear something colouful - I am actually wearing red stripes today!

Anyway it would have been my Nan's birthday today and she was always given a huge box of chocolates with a padded silky lid with a picture of fluffy kittens or some other fluffy animal, they would last her ages and as a treat we were allowed to choose one - yum! Nowadays people eat chocolates regularly but then it was such a luxury, how things change.

Twinkle, Twinkle

I went on a girl's day out to Bluewater yesterday. There were five of us and great fun was had by all. (Thank you to the driver -Mamma Mia! never sounded so good. He He He)

If you want to grab a bargain you need to get yourselves up there. I bought two tops at 50% off unbelievable. Signs for discounts were going up as we went round which made it quite difficult working out how much you should be paying.

I have been out shopping this morning and getting equally confused, Debenhams have 20% off, M & S have discounted items and it's 20% off tomorrow. Tesco's receipts are quite confusing with vatable and non-vatable items. What a muddle!!!!!

The season of goodwill

Well Mr Darling's Vat cut comes into operation today, should be interesting when I go shopping later because you won't be able to believe the price tags as some shops are taking the cut off at the till and others will show the correct price - what a mess!

Anyway thought I would post a pic of Father Christmas doing his best to cheer things up - I wonder if he will be having problems with his Vat return this quarter.

Guess where I have been?

We zipped over on the Eurostar to Disneyland Paris this week, it was really, really, really cold. We had a lovely time the Newport Bay Hotel was lovely, the staff were very helpful and polite. I am not a big fan of Disney but my hubby said the littleun would enjoy himself and he did - we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride eight times. The only downside was how expensive it was, the exchange rate really did make a difference, some of the meal deal prices changed while we were there.

Anyway I better start thinking about Christmas now. I managed to dig out our wooden advent Father Christmas and filled it with chocolate ready for tomorrow.

Keeping warm

Thought I would show you a lovely warm picture of the bonfire we had a few weeks ago.

It is so cold at the moment - yes I know it is November but it has got cold quite quickly. We had to rummage around at the weekend to find all the scarves, hats and gloves (or should I say glove, they are like socks you always end up with one where the other one goes is anybodies guess!) so we could wrap up and go and see the lights at Westwood Cross, which are very impressive only problem is fake Christmas Trees - give me a real one any day.

Interesting weather!

Isn't the weather interesting at the moment - Saturday night was the coldest this year and as for the strange squally weather today well! Anyway on the subject of weather, why does it always decide to chuck it down when you have to drop off or pick up the kids from school? And why do people not put they headlights on when it rains?

Anyway moan over, I took this photo while hanging out of my sons window (something I wouldn't really recommend when it is hailing and blowing a gale) quite an interesting result I think.

R.I.P

We woke up this morning to find that a fox had got to our chickens. I stupidly forgot to shut the run. One has completely disappeared, one was shall we say in a disassembled state and luckily we still have one but she is in a severely shocked state with a number of injuries. We are taking here to the vets at 10.00 so I will post an update later. I am so upset that it was my fault, my littleun turned round and said 'Mummy accidents happen'

PS. Unfortunately the vet couldn't help the chicken as she had a broken wing and was very shocked so she was put to sleep.

PPS. The fox was spotted in next doors garden this morning so we won't be getting any more chickens just yet we will probably leave it to the spring.

Fireworks

We went to a Firework party on Saturday night. We had a lovely time although we were quite soggy by the end of the evening. I could have posted the usual firework pictures but I was so taken by the graphics on this box I had to show you a picture, somebody had really put some thought into this and the name of some of the fireworks - Captain Thunderbolt, Giant Mutant Lizard and The Mystical Jewel of Cancun - how retro!

Gingerbread pudsey bears

As you can see me and my 5 year old have been practising our Pudsey Bear (Children in Need 14th November 2008 )gingerbread recipe. I haven't made gingerbread for years but they turned out quite well. The cutter was bought from Lakeland Plastics last week for £2.99 with 75p going towards appeal.

We were slightly disappointed when we woke up this morning and they was no snow but we did find some that hadn't melted and it is now languishing in my freezer (we are waiting for hubby to come home to prove it did snow!). I wonder what happened to global warming, obviously nobody told the weather.

Canterbury

Popped to Canterbury yesterday as I wanted to buy a decent set of saucepans and some baking bits. Had a lovely time browsing all the gadgets that you couldn't possibly do without - chicken shaped ice cubes, leopard print cocktail glasses and rabbit shaped salt and pepper mills! Managed to find a really good set of saucepans which I can actually lift, they have a lifetime guarentee (the manufacturers obviously haven't met me) and after trying them out last night I am quite impressed.

Half term next week, hopefully the weather will be dry so we can get outside at least part of the day. If not lots of cake and cookie making. Yum!

Keeping Warm

A couple of years ago we decided to put a wood burning stove in our house. What a good decision that was. During the winter we have it going just enough to keep the house comfortably warm.

As you can see from the picture we have a large wood store outside, which we have delivered in the spring (back breaking work but quite satisfying) They are properly seasoned logs (they have been dried for about two years)so they burn very cleanly and we get a small amount of ash which is put on the compost heap.

One of my girls

This is one of the three chickens that I keep in the garden. They have a large run which is full of bark for them to scratch around in, but if we aren't using the garden (they are a bit messy) I let them out to have a scratch around and get rid of all the bugs.

During the summer I get three eggs a day, but in the winter due to the reduced light levels we only get maybe one or two. Everybody who has tasted the eggs says you can really tell the difference and the yolks are bright yellow without the introduction of colouring which you would sometimes find in some shop bought eggs.

They are really easy to keep, fascinating to watch and I would recommend them to anyone.

Autumn glow

Even though the weather is a bit gloomy today, I spotted my neighbour's beautiful tree. Wow! I am not happy that the summer (such as it was) has gone but seeing sights like this does lift the soul just slightly.

Foggy autumn days

It was such a lovely day yesterday, I had forgotten what the consequences would be. Looked out of the window this morning and got quite a shock - lots of fog. I went to let the cats out and saw the garden was bedecked with jewels. I know when we were clearing the garden up yesterday that they were hundreds of spiders of all shapes and sizes!! but their webs are amazing especially when damp. So there I am in my pj's snapping away for your delectation, its better then watching Star Wars for the hundredth time ( I have a 5 year old who is obsessed and is allowed to watch it every Sunday morning).

P.S Didn't include a photo of a spider as it is a bit early in the morning for that!

P.P.S Well done to ECR for donating money to the RNLI. My dad was on the lifeboats for about 25years and it is a very worthy cause.

A sign of the times!

We had this through the door yesterday - an estate agent having to tell us how quickly they have sold a property and how many viewings and offers were made! Wow, just shows you how bad the housing market actually is!

Summers over

I took these pictures last week at Stone Bay of the removal of the Council Beach Huts by forklift. As you can see it was quite impressive seeing a complete beach hut being hauled up the very steep slope.

They were being stored at Joss Bay car park at the weekend, I would hope this isn't a permanent arrangement, the local fire starters will have a field day!

Photography

My son is taking a photography evening course at the College. This is one of his. I like this, very Ikea - put it on a canvas charge £9.99 we'll be rich! As long as we don't put the money in the bank.

WOW ! What a great day.

We went to the Kite Festival in Margate yesterday - it was fantastic, quite magical. The sun was shining, the beach was extremely clean, their was just the right amount of wind and everybody was chilled and enjoying themselves - not what you expect from Margate at all.

This kite was made up of 60 kites at 3m intervals and including the lead kite was 200m long amazing! We got to make a free kite which we took up to the cliffs at Palm Bay to fly and it actually flew really well. The was also a lot of people trying out the kites that they bought at the festival. I can't wait until next year!

Jasper

As you can see Jasper is getting a lot bigger. He is allowed out in the garden now, so he spends much of it running at full speed around and around eventually trying to climb the tree quite unsuccessfully luckily!
The weather is nice at the moment but I just cannot get warm I don't know what that is all about maybe I'm coming down with something - hope not, as it is the kite festival in Margate at the weekend which I am looking forward to going to see.

Feeling colouful

This is a photo of a little area I have found for myself in my house. I have set up a table for my sewing machine and various other crafts. It is quite nice to have everything in one place.
I have started rummaging through charity shops for bits and pieces. I got a large jar of buttons for £1.00 the other day which I separated into different colours they look quite decorative on my window sill. I also paid 20p for some knitting needles and £1.00 for a bag of wool not sure what to knit yet but it gives me something to ponder on.

Jasper

This is our new cat Jasper we got him from the RSPCA for £70 this includes all his jabs, neutering and microchipping. He didn't have a very good start, they thought he was dead when he was bought in but he has survived very well, he still has a poorly eye but hopefully that will get better with time. He is very affectionate and soppy. My five year old loves him and spends most of his time playing cars with him. Its quite nice having a young cat in the house again as our other cat is nine and prefers to spend most of her time snoring.

Anyway if anybody is interested the Time and Space shop in Broadstairs is having Storm Troopers and Bob Afet (think i spelt that wrong) visiting on Saturday morning, my little-un is counting down the days, I will post the pictures next week.