Well I had an early start yesterday and plans to help Youngest which did not happen then I had to get to Eldests for work and when I got there he was out on a Fire call. I had customers to deal with and then a rep for one of the companies we use and deliveries it was rather hectic. He got back and then had to go out and help Partner with a new fridge being delivered. He got back and we had some lunch and he had just begun sorting out one of the jobs when he got another fire call. It was quite high into the Peak District, a moorland fire.
This is on the way to the fire.
This is when they got there. There were ten Fire Engines there, two water carriers and the water helicopter.
This is the crew who went. They were taking a break at this point. Eldest is in the middle.
They did not get back until 8.00pm and one of the engines stayed on site and they have been back to it today as well.
Youngest started his new job today, here he is waiting to go in at 8.00am this morning. We are sure he is going to be very happy here.
Little man, having taken his Sister’s to school this morning, having his second breakfast of the day; a croissant. It has been very warm over the last two days and today it has been the hottest so far, so he was in his summer outfit, looking very grown up!
DH had to go to the Lake District today to see a customer so left home at 5.00am. I was up as well and by 11.00am it felt like it should be about 3.00pm! I have been working all day getting various jobs sorted so I liked that I got a lot done but I am soooooo tired now!!!
Not that we have been to Church today, too many jobs to do! There was no post yesterday either because I went to Partner’s home and spent the day sewing with the Girls. I was saying that it is quite hard explaining something which you do automatically because you have been doing it for so long. Anyway they did very well, we made tote bags, and they sat and listened and did very well with the sewing. I had already cut out the squares 5″ x 5″ squares and once they had completed the top I brought them home and I quilted them and made them up this morning, beginning at 4.00am (I am going through another one of those phases of waking up anywhere between 2.00am and 4.00am!). Here are some pictures of the day.The Girls above sewing and playing with the fabric.
Me making sure Eldest sews in a straight line below.
Here are the bags completed, above is Eldest’s and below is Youngest’s.
It is a Missourri Star Quilt Company pattern from one of their YouTube tutorials. I found it quite a while ago and have made quite a few of these now, including one for myself. I also adapted the pattern for the Christmas presents I made for the market totes for DH’s Cousins and my best friend Jayne, below. I want to make one of these for myself and I think Partner and Fiancé would like one too, I am going to add them to my ever growing list!!!!!
Today I have been at Eldest’s garage working, as well as cleaning there and tomorrow I have all my home jobs to do, as well as washing & ironing to get done and grocery shopping too. Tomorrow I will show you Jayne & My lunch on Tuesday. It was okay but I don’t think we will go again. Happy Thursday everyone.
Saturday, yesterday and today it has been quite windy, so March is definitely leaving like a Lion this year. Although we have had some sunny days but it has been quite cold at night still.We put the hour forward on Saturday evening and I am already feeling tired! To be honest I was feeling tired anyway but not having that extra hour, oh boy! Coco is all confused of course as she is expecting breakfast and dinner at certain times and now it is an hour ahead!!!!
We had some very sad news that a very good friend and swimming colleague, Gail, passed away on Thursday last. She and her husband had just come back from a holiday in Scotland and she did not feel very well, she went to hospital and they did all they could but they found she had pneumonia and despite best efforts passed away. The above picture was taken at Youngest’s 18th Birthday party and we have known Gail and her husband, Pat, since Youngest was five years old and Eldest was nine which was when we first joined the swimming club. She taught Youngest to swim and then when he was 14 he started working with Gail on poolside when he was doing his teaching courses.
Gordon is doing really well with his training and here he is with Blaze on the bedding which was on the floor waiting to go in the washer. We can’t decide if Blaze wanted to cuddle with him or he was just holding Gordon down!!!! They are doing really well together and we think that Blaze having been with Coco for as long as he was he is quite happy with Gordon although he does put him in his place when he gets to be a bit of a nuisance! DH and I puppysat him yesterday for a few hours whilst they were out and he was very good.
DH was away on Friday night and at the swmming event all day Saturday and got home about 8.30pm. I had a lovely dinner with Youngest & Fiancé on Friday night and then spent all day Saturday quilting. I have now completed all my blocks and just need to get them put together.
As promised here are the pictures of my Spring flowers in the garden:
Of all the Spring bulbs I love Daffodils the most. I just love the big yellow flowers. My violas from winter have come back strong and I chose the lavender coloured ones last year. I am not sure how long the bulbs will last because our soil is so wet during the winter and quite often the bulbs just rot but I will plant them again this year and hope they come up.
It has been sunny again today but not that warm, Coco doesn’t mind though as she has her thick winter coat still. She is now booked in for a Spa Day on April 11th.
It was so cold this morning I had a hot chocolate in my Christmas Mug!!!!
This week is busy but quiet if that makes sense. I am at home today and tomorrow with our work and out on Wednesday with Eldest and Thursday I have home jobs to do because Friday we are babysitting Little Man for his Mummy who is going back to work. The weekend is completely free, I know don’t faint! There are loads of things to do at home so it will be pick a job and get on with it. The weather is supposed to be nice all week so we could do a bit of gardening and a few jobs inside too! In fact every weekend in April is free so we are going to make use of those free days to get as many jobs done as possible.
Also we have the Easter long weekend in which we are going to paint Youngest’s room to create the guest room. we will probably use it because we also need to paint our bedroom as well. At least we won’t need to use the air mattress in the sitting room like we have in the past. In fact we could have a winter bedroom and a summer bedroom if we really wanted to! I suspect we will be fighting Coco for possession of it!
Have a wonderful week you lovely lot and I am hoping to post every day this week!!!
You all know that I love books and of course on Instagram I follow lots of Publishers who give previews of new books to be published and I also have found quite a few people who review books and give their take on whether they like them or not, five star reads or not. Of course one of those books which some people have raved about and others who have said they do not like is Colleen Hoover’s book “It Ends With Us”. It is not a book I would normally go for because of the subject matter but I think everyone now knows about this book because of the film from the book and the hoo-ha around it with Blake Lively suing Justin Baldoni who in turn is suing her!
I personally don’t like Blake Lively, having first seen her in the film “A Simple Favor” with Anna Kendrick who I do like, which is why I watched the film. Ms Lively came across in the film as arrogant but of course that is the part, however it now seems that her personality is like that in real life! I have always liked Ryan Reynolds until I heard about the accusations being levelled at him with this whole mess of suing and counter-suing. I am sure it will eventually be a he said/she said trial but Ms Lively reminds me too much of Amber Heard and THAT trial.
It also now appears that People on Instagram talking about the situation are being cancelled or having their accounts affected because of reviewing the various articles/filings etc. If this is the case how much influence do Lively & Reynolds hold that this can be done? Going back to the book it was promoted as a love story and yet it is not, it is more about domestic issues and so some people have read the book not knowing this and have felt that it should have trigger warnings on. I believe, as I have not seen it, the same happened with the film with Ms Lively promoting it as a romance and Mr Baldoni talking about the domestic issues. From what I have read and seen about the controversy, I am leaning more towards Mr Baldoni than the other side!!!
I do have this book on my TBR shelf which is about a struggling writer, Lowen Ashleigh, who is asked to finish the remaining books of author Verity Crawford who is unable to finish them due to an injury. Lowen starts to sort through the notes and outlines of the books hoping to find enough material to complete them but then finds an autobiography which was never intended to be read, revealing secrets which need to stay hidden. Should Lowen reveal them to Verity’s husband or keep quiet? I rather like the sound of this but have not got around to it yet.
In the midst of all this of course we have Meghan Sussex’s (!) new show on Netflix! I have, again, not watched it because as far as I am concerned she burned all her bridges when they left the UK and all that she and he said about The Royal Family was disgusting. The bits of “With Love, Meghan” I have seen, again on Instagram, have been shall we say cringeworthy. Taking pretzels from the plastic bag they came in, putting them into another plastic bag which she then labels for a guest at the “fake” house. What about all their eco stuff, using plastic bags and the fact it is not filmed in her own home but a hired one I mean really?
The programme has been resoundingly given a negative by all who have watched every episode including Gwyneth Paltrow yesterday morning with her take on how to make breakfast in your own kitchen, with your dog and coffee in a cup with your initials on it!!!!!! I did laugh at that as it came across as genuine which Mrs Sussex does not!
As you know I do not read the news at all because it is so depressing but these two TV/Film things have been keeping me entertained!!!!!! 🙂
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We, of course had a busy weekend with Eldest, Partner & Little Man coming to see us for lunch on Saturday and staying for a while which was lovely to see them. We spoke to Youngest & Fiancé as they were busy over the weekend too. I did get a few jobs done but not all of them so will be doing the rest this coming weekend. DH is away Friday night setting up for all day Saturday swimming event in Leeds! I am going to have dinner on Friday night with Youngest & Fiancé and their new addition to the family:
Please meet Gordon, their West Highland White puppy who is ten weeks old!
He is so cute! We have not seen him yet but I will see him at the weekend. He is having his first set of vaccinations tonight and then the second lot in a fortnight and then he will be able to meet Coco and Honey. We now have three dogs in our family and two cats! Blaze has taken to him really well, after being with Coco for so long, which is making life a lot easier for everyone. He has been named after our friend Gordon who, with his wife Corinne, lived in Scotland both of whom have sadly passed on now. Welcome to the Family Gordon!
I hope you lovely lot had a wonderful weekend and a great week to come.
Today is #TBT, Throwback Thursday, and of course I love looking at Pictures. One of my jobs during the decluttering is to tidy our existing photo albums and make sure I have written in all of them but we also have a clip box full of pictures from DH’s family and also from my family. My intention is to get them put into photo albums and write who they are on them for our Boys. We got DH’s father to write on the back of the pictures who everyone was, after I inherited my family pictures I can guess who some of them are but quite a few I don’t know them at all. They are all obviously related to me but not where they are in the family tree.
Anyway one of the best inventions over the recent years has been digital photographs so we can store them on the computer and of course look at them when we want to. Below are a selection of pictures taken during March, April & May between 2006 and 2010 when the Boys were between 10 & 6 to 14 & 10!
The above three were taken in Scotland around the Easter holidays.
This was in London in 2009 on the London Eye.
This one above is on the Pirates of The Carribbean Ride in Disney World 2008
The above one is at our Villa in 2010, the year of the Ash Cloud! You can tell they are swimmers!
We loved going away with the Boys at the Easter holidays. It was a great time to go because Christmas was always so busy and at Easter the weather was getting better and we were ready for the break. It also worked out well being about three months between Christmas and Easter and then three months between Easter and the summer holiday in Scotland and then three months between that and Christmas. As they got older we have not been so much, only on odd occasions and we are not going this year but maybe next, we shall see.
Coco also came home in April 2022 and this is how tiny she was!!! I cannot believe that she was ever that small!
Happy Thursday everyone. Today I have home jobs to do and shopping and tomorrow I have a Birthday cake to make and also have a day off as it has been a hectic few weeks and the weekend is due to be busy again as well.
They have gone! Youngest, Fiance and Blaze have moved into their new home. It started on Thursday with them getting the keys so cleaning was done first and then the move of all the furniture and things they have bought. By yesterday they were all set up with a few jobs left to do like finishing putting their clothes into the wardrobes.
The home is lovely with a sitting room, kitchen with a dining area, garden and garage with three bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. It is also very near to some of our friends and also next door but one to some friends of theirs.
Of course their room here is now empty and Coco has taken to playing in there with her tennis ball! We are going to paint it over the Easter break and then get furniture for it and set it up as a guest room for Youngest & Fiance or Eldest & Partner, who have also said that it can be for when Little Man can sleep over. Of course they will all be fighting over it with Coco who no doubt will also lay claim to it!!! I think I will be having a waiting list.
Of course I did not get anything else done at home over the weekend for us including the cleaning, washing & ironing. We also had a swimming event on the Saturday night, locally fortunately, but DH and I did not get home until 11.00pm! It has been one of those weekends. I am glad to be at my desk today working!
It is a fairly quiet week but next weekend is busy again with DH out on Saturday at a swimming event all day, which is the same for every weekend in March (!), and Sunday the family are all here as it is Fiance’s Birthday a week today so we are celebrating on Sunday instead.
This is where I will be spending Saturday and the other days that DH is swimming, as I have two quilts which need to be completed by May! I also have a few others which need to be completed this year too. I am sure I will find time to get them done.
I am sure that Miss Coco will be helping by keeping me company whilst I am in there and she loves my chair.
We are all getting used to it being just the three of us at home. Eldest asked me how long it has been since it was just DH and I and I said well how old are you? That is how long it has been since we have been on our own and this year it will be 30 years!!! OMG where has that gone? I will have to get used to buying food for just the two of us and also not cooking huge amounts as again just the two of us!!! I am sure I will get the hang of it although it will take a while for me to get used to it just being the two of us again.
I hope you lovely lot had a wonderful weekend, a great week to come. I am hoping to be back to blogging every day now.
Little Man is One! Where did that year go to? I know we say it all the time that the weeks fly by and they do but I think it is because we are all so busy. When I was little I always used to think that February was the longest month ever, even though it is two or three days shorter than the other months! We are already into the second week of the month. Any-who Little Man had a lovely Birthday.
He loved his Hedgehog cake which I made, although by the time I got it there it looked more like a Ware Hedgehog!!! He loved the chocolate buttons though.
Three Generations and Uncle too.
Daddy built him a Busy Board, they had a nice piece of wood left over which he waxed and then attached various things to it to fiddle with which Little Man loved.
Grandad & Daddy helping with one of his new toys.
The other job for Saturday afternoon was to tidy his room out and get it organised and also set the cot onto its lowest level as he is getting tall! The picture below is where he is in the cot in his dressing gown after his bath.
Tidy room ready for Little Man.
He settled down really well and did not wake up until 5.00am the next morning.
One of the gifts we got him was this Farm set up which makes noises and songs and you can pull and push things and twist them and he loved it. The mat he is on was one of our gifts from Christmas.
He loves it.
It was a really busy weekend. DH was out all weekend at the County Swimming Championships that went off well with a few issues but not too many. At least it is over for another year. This coming weekend we have a weekend free which will be great and on Friday morning DH and I are going out for breakfast which will be lovely. We have a few jobs to do which we can get done but it will be so nice not to have to be anywhere specific. We will need it as the following weekend Youngest & Fiance are moving in to their new home so it will be all hands on deck for that! This week is quiet work wise and I am keeping up with the work and also home jobs too. During March DH has swimming events every weekend so I will be able to get quite a bit of quilting done!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a great week to come.
Goodness it has been a busy few days at the end of January and beginning of February. Wednesday January 29th was the start of the Chinese New Year and 2025 is The Year of the Wood Snake!!! So what can we expect from the Wood Snake?
A time for wisdom, patience and careful decision making.
A time for shedding bad energy, letting fo of the past an releasing unrealistic expectations.
A time for personal growth, deeper thinking and thoughtful decision making.
A time for adaptability, long term planning and personal development.
A time for new opportunities for growth and change.
So this sort of fits in with my year of decluttering and sorting things out! We shall see how things go this year.
Saturday February 2nd was Ground Hog Day and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow when he emerged from his burrow so we are in for six more weeks of Winter! It has been quite cold over January and this week it is meant to be in the minus digits most days, so I think he is going to be correct!
So in true Year of the Wood Snake style we have a lot happening at home. Youngest & Partner got engaged and today Youngest started his new job which he is looking forward to! Then at the end of February DH and I will become empty nesters as they are moving in to their new home!!!!! I mean how many things can happen in the first two months of the New Year?!!! They are both looking to being in their own home and have been busy buying things for it. I remember when DH and I got our first home and all the fun of buying things to fill it and they are doing this now. Of course DH and I have been roped in to help them move in with some of their friends too.
They asked what would happen to their room here now? We will decorate it and then fill it with a bed, wardrobe, small dressing table and box so that they can come back and stay for the weekend if they would like or Eldest, Partner & Little Man can also stay if they want to as well.
DH suggested that I move my sewing things in there and then have the smaller room as a guest bedroom but it is smaller and we could do it, but I quite like the smaller room to sew in. One benefit is that the guest bedding will be brought out of the attic and also we can use the wardrobe in there for our seasonal clothes so something else out of the attic!! Of course I am sure that Coco will claim the new bed as hers as soon as it is set up! In fact it could be Coco’s bedroom!!!!
It is going to be very different just DH and I again. We have, since the Boys were adults, had the occassional weeks or months where we were on our own at home because they have been away with the various other halves at times so we have experienced it a little bit but then Eldest came home, Youngest was here so we were back to how it was when they were little. We have not been just the two of us since Eldest arrived which will be twenty nine years but I am sure we will get used to it and of course we have little Coco at home.
I did get some quilting done over the weekend but I cannot show you just yet as they are gifts. I have next weekend to do some more quilting and the weekends when DH is out doing the swimming compere I will be quilting. It was a good weekend to be in as the weather was cold, grey and raining!!!
Happy February you lovely lot and have a great week.
It is with great pleasure that DH and I announce that Youngest and his Partner got engaged yesterday!
As the picture says; She Said Yes!!!
DH, Eldest, Partner & I all knew what was happening yesterday whilst we were all at work and on tenterhooks waiting for them to get home and it was a relief when they did and she had said yes!
Here are a few more pictures of the day, The weather was absolutely amazing which was a relief because when I was driving to Eldest’s work early yesterday morning it was thick fog here in Derbyshire!
Next weekend we will all be going out for dinner to celebrate. It will be quite a while before the wedding as they are busy saving for their own home and other things but they are engaged.
Today, back down on earth, I have home jobs to do and tomorrow DH and I are starting the de-cluttering of our home! He keeps putting it off but I am determined that by this time next year it will all be done and we will have a very tidy, less cluttered home with nothing in it that we don’t absolutely love, want and need! This has come about from seeing other people doing this on Instagram but also having had to clear out my Grandparents and my Parents homes when they had passed away, know how much of a difficult, time consuming job it is. One which I am not going to pass on to our Boys to do when the inevitable happens.
I am hoping to get pictures of how we do as we go along. My aim is to donate as much as possible, recycle things and if not those two, then it will go to the tip,
I hope you lovely lot have a great Friday and lovely weekend whatever you are up to.
It has been one of those weeks, well two actually, since my last post on October 1st! How are we in Week 3 of October already? The weeks are flying at the moment. I am finally getting over my various illnesses and the tablets are starting to help which is one good thing. Still have a few things to get sorted but hoping it will soon be gone. I have warned everyone in the family that if they start with the sniffles to stay away from me!!!
When you have children you think how difficult it is when they are babies because they can’t tell you what they want or what their problem is. Then as Toddlers that brings a whole other set of issues and don’t get me started when they become Teenagers. However when they are officially “grown up” ie eighteen and over their problems become big, adult problems but you as Mom and Dad are expected to be able to sort it all out like you used to when they were little. I will say though that sorting these problems out takes a whole lot out of you! We are all fine, which I am very thankful for, but it has been a hard two weeks!
Anyway I missed Book Club Friday so thought I would do it today before another week has gone by!
I have just started to read this. It is not a long book but I liked the write up it had and I have not read one of Joanne Harris’s books in ages, the last one being “Chocolat”.
Tom is a photographer living and working in London at a little camera shop of which he lives above. He loves taking photographs of things which everyone else would normally ignore, like the homeless man with his possessions in a cart. However it is when he develops his films that he starts to realise that there is a hidden, magical world just out of reach but it is beautiful, dangerous and definitely menacing! Tom realises he needs to find The Moonlight Market hidden in the secret Heart of London where you can buy anything and where you may also find love. Tom knows that something is missing and The Moonlight Market just might be where he finds it.
If you like fantasy books with Faeries, kings and queens then you will love this book. I have only just started to read it but so far it is promising.
This was one of the books I had taken away with me in August for our vacation and started it. It was one of those books which I started, then put down for a bit, then picked it up again. However I did not finish it. I found the writing to be too “flowery” without actually telling the story or as has been coined recently; there was too much “word salad” in it! It has now moved to my donate pile!
Yesterday I had to go up to Eldest’s garage to sort out a parcel and some other jobs as he had been out on a fire call since early in the morning. This of course threw my day out so today I am catching up. Yesterday morning when I was at my desk Coco was in her basket which is next to it. She has a habit of making a mess of her quilt which is in her basket and ends up sleeping on top of it. I did not see that she had her head out of her basket and I moved my chair and trapped her head! She yelped and got out of her basket but at least she was okay. I went over her to make sure she had no cuts or anything and she didn’t, SO I am now straightening her bed every time she gets out of it to make sure it does not happen again. The above picture is after I had sorted her quilt out and as you can see she is now all in her basket snuggled.
Today I am catching up with all the jobs I should have done yesterday and have a whole weeks worth of ironing to get done too! Over the weekend we did get our garden and home jobs done. I bought some “everything friendly” liquid to clean the patio and stop it going green. After all the rain we had last winter the patio was green instead of cream! I won’t know for a couple of days if it has worked or not. If it doesn’t I will have to find something stronger!
Saturday and Sunday evening it was the swimming club’s in-house championships where the swimmers compete for the Club Trophies which are then presented just before Christmas. We had some great swims, a few Championship records smashed and nothing went wrong during the two events! Next weekend DH has two swimming events, one on Friday evening and one on Saturday evening but we have Sunday freen. Our weather has been very Autumnal over the last couple of the weeks but at the end of this week it is going to be mild again! I prefer at this time of year for it to be cold which then hopefully kills off all the bugs we catch!
I hope you have had a good two weeks and I will try and keep up with my posts. Happy Tuesday you lovely lot.
Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx
Coco’s new toy which Eldest & Partner bought her. She loves it and it is big enough to double up as a pillow!!!
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