Friday 31 October 2008

Happy Halloween

I do love to decorate my porch for Halloween. We usually have a steady stream of trick or treaters from 5 o clock till 8 ish. Looking at the weather, dry and sunny, I should imagine it'll be busy this evening. We are lucky that we live in a very small village and the children know who's doors to knock on. Even I wouldn't knock on my neighbour's door she's way too scary!!
Even a lot of the elderly villagers enjoy it and answer their doors with a bountiful supply of sweets, chocolate and fruit. They love to see the children in their costumesand it has been known for some of them to dress up themselves and join in the fun.



And at the end of the evening the children all troop home with enough chocolate etc to last a month or more.


I had a problem this year as I couldn’t find my box of ceramic decorations. It’s a very large box and will probably turn up tomorrow. So I had to improvise and quickly make some card bunting using my scrapbook supplies.


A very hastily put together gravestone.

This is me on a good day!


And on a bad day!


Jodie’s pumpkin.



Tara’s Winnie the Pooh pumpkin.




I’ve made some spider cakes, pumpkin and witches cat biscuits, with some help off of Lily of course.







Dandy Pumpkin Great is trying to decide which one to have first!


And finally Halloween in miniature.





I must now go and get a little spider ready.
Have fun!

Well there are definately Gremlins about as I have been trying to post this since 3.15 and it's now 9 o clock, part of the font keeps coming out too small to see!

So I thought I'd just as well take this opportunity to update and here's a photo of Lily dressed as a spider, pumpkin pot in hand and eager to get outside in the dark!

She soon caught on to the fact that if you say 'that's my favourite' whatever anyone gives you they are sure to give you more! This probably only happens to 2 year olds.

Yay I think it's working now after retyping one part 4 times. If it took much longer I would've been changing the title to Merry Christmas!

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Rose fest, tagged and winnings

I've been awol, from the computer, for a while as Lily has had a virus, so it's been a few days of vomiting, diarrhoea, high temperature and hardly any sleep. So no time for me to go online, she is better now though so I'm trying to catch up!

When she was ill this wonderful plaque arrived for her. I won this in a giveaway hosted by tcalamity, I was able to choose a plaque from her website so chose one for Lily's room. Lily will be moving into Jemma's old room, hopefully very soon, but at the moment Jemma's 3ft corn snake is in there! We are desperately trying to rehome it as she is unable to keep pets in the apartment that she lives in.

Now for the rose fest.

Firstly I finally managed to get hold of a green and red rose CK bag, this was after visiting numerous Tescos, all over Cornwall.




And here's a few pieces that I've bought over the past couple of weeks, some from charity shops and a car boot. But also some from a jumble sale, that happened to have a very long bric a brac stall. It was the first time that I had been to a jumble sale for about 12 years, I'd forgotten how cheap things were and bought alot of jumble for the fabric, to repurpose.

Rose tea set, gold rimmed.


Plates and curtains


Plant pot and posy.

Small quilt


Fibreglass tray, mats, plate, tray, bowl.

Cups



Pot stand, candlestick, oil lamp, Pyrex.



Raggy doll
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I have been tagged by the lovely Jan from cinnamon cottage to list 7 things about myself, so here we go ....
First the rules are;
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.


1- I hate celery and olives, the thought of either makes me urge and I love cheese, it is most definately my downfall and will devour any type as long as it doesn't have celery or olives in!


2- I collect cookery books and have 933 of them, this total rises just about every week.
my most recent ones this week are 'Cherry cake and Ginger Beer' -Jane Brocket and 'The Good Granny Cookbook' - Jane Fernley -Whittingstall.


3- Staying with the book theme, I probably am addicted to books as I have an awful lot of craft books, Christmas books, poetry books, Fairy tales and childrens books, I just cannot resist them! This Saturday being the first one of the month means book fayre day so no doubt I will aquire a few more.


4- My loft is a tip! I say this as I spent most of yesterday up there looking for my box of halloween decorations and I haven't found them. The reason for it being a tip is I have too many books (see 3), half of my kitchen equipment is up there, lots of baby stuff that I can't be bothered to sell yet, Christmas things (see 6), School stuff (see 7) and things to Ebay but I can't be bothered at the mo!


5- I adore Scotland and wish we could move to the Highlands. I was in my element when we came across Wigtown otherwise known as booktown because of it's 20 odd bookshops, heaven! And I love snow and would definately see plenty there.


6- I love Christmas and go overboard decorating all over my house, inside and out with lots of lights. This is so Mr B can complain all year about the electric bill! I usually do this as near as possible to the beginning of December and take it all down on the 12th night.


7- I very nearly qualified as a primary school teacher. I spent 6 or so years training on the job. First as a specialist teacher assistant and then a foundation degree in education. My mum died and that kind of put a spanner in the works, I couldn't cope with having to write essays etc. And then I was pregnant with Lily and I had about a year to go to qualify.

I will have to get back to nominate as I have a lasagne to cook.

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Tuesday 21 October 2008

Dahlias and more at Eden

Thankyou for all your comments on my last post. I haven't been blogging long but I have found it such a great place to moan or to rejoice, whatever the subject reading comments can always pick you up. Jemma has now hired a car for a few weeks, at great expense, as the insurance company don't provide courtesy cars if your car is a write off. Now she just hopes that the insurance money comes through quickly so she can buy a new car.
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Now for a little stroll around Eden. I've probably mentioned once or twice that I adore going there and have a yearly pass. It still gives me a tingle in my spine as it first comes into view, it is just awesome! Who would believe that these photos were taken on the 12th of October. The weather here has changed since then and the leaves are now tumbling from the trees. I will be going there again on Sunday for the Halloween celebrations so it will be interesting to see if Autumn has arrived in the past 2 weeks.
First the stunning Dahlia's.





Beautiful blue delphiniums.

The name of these escapes me, I have been at toddler group for 3 hours this morning!

Agapanthus

Stocks, the scent is just amazing, this is when you need smellyvision.

And of course we mustn't forget the fruit and veg!
The grape harvest.


Satsummas


Chillies.

Beautiful aubergines, I just love that colour.


St Germans choir was singing in the biome, the accoustics were amazing.

Friday 17 October 2008

So angry but also have some Amigurumi love.

I am so annoyed and angry. Last night my eldest daughter Jemma was driving home from work, in St Austell, when a car carreered across Innis downs roundabout and smashed into the drivers side of her car, luckily she was okay. I know accidents happen but the idiot driver jumped out of his car and did a runner, leaving his passengers to face the music so to speak. Thankfully there were two lovely ladies in the car behind Jemma that stopped and looked after her. And also a May Gurney driver who phoned the police, ambulance and fire brigade, the latter because smoke was coming from Jemma's car but it was only the vapours from her airbags. Mr B. quickly drove down to her as soon as we had the phone call. As you can imagine she was in a bit of a state. The police helicopter and dogs were out looking for the man at that time and of course his passengers played dumb, they didn't know who he was!! We have since found out that he comes from a certain part of society that can basically do as they please. Jemma has had her car, her dream car, for 7 months luckily it was fully comp as it looks as if it will be a write off. And now she will have to get a bus to work, which will take an hour to do a 20 minute journey. She went to work today but they bought her home again as she has a bit of shock, I think, and has now gone to hospital because her right arm is slightly swollen and aching. But luckily, very luckily she is not seriously injured because that's all that matters at the end of the day. When will this government see that sometimes bad people need a kick up the backside and stop all this namby pamby crap? Perhaps then we will get kids to have a bit of respect for others instead of this self centered life that many live! In yesterdays paper I read that Ofsted wants to reward naughty children who start to attend school, as per normal what about the good kids. I'm afraid I think Labour is the worst thing that has happened to this country and to the education sysem but I better not get into politics, I'm just ranting!! Enough said hopefully that rant makes sense and hopefully they will catch the beggar!! Now I've got that off my chest I may be able to sleep tonight.

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Now onto other things Jodie is doing her Duke of Edingburgh award at the weekend this involves walking 24km and camping overnight. I have baked her some fruit cake, flapjack and chocolate mess to keep hunger pangs at bay.




She will be taking landmark photos on her way and wanted something to take with her to photograph. First she wanted Flower,


I don't think so, then she dared to suggest Lamby



- no way!
So I sat and crocheted a hedgehog amigurumi. It's ages since I've done any ami's and I think they are so cute. It looks like I have to do another tonight as Lily wants the icecream one, which is also in Anna Paulo's book.

Have fun Jodie.

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As I sat and crocheted I watched Bobski the builder on Ch4. Did anyone see it? I felt so gutted for the Polish guy, I know people say about the Polish builders undercutting British builders - Mr B. is a builder himself. But does that give people the right to talk to the poor man likes he's a bit of dirt? If I was part of the young couple that employed him I would be too ashamed to walk out of my house today, shocking!!

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Now I mustn't leave Tara out, seeing as I've mentioned the rest of the bunch. I could of posted a picture of her doing the ironing that she was going to do! But here's a picture that she painted in acrylics instead of doing the said ironing!!

And finally I received this lovely hen from Miss Phish as part of the Autumn swap at theshabbychiccafe, isn't it sweet?