30 Years Young!

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June 1992 –  Britain was in the middle of a Recession; the controversial Book “Diana: Her True Story” was published; The Queen celebrated 40 years of her Reign and Margaret Thatcher entered The House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher.  It was also the Month that DH and I started our Business! 

So after the past two years of being restricted in get togethers with family and friends we decided to host a dinner and celebrate our 30 Years in Business.

Whilst planning it, I kept everything crossed that the weather would be fine as I wanted us to eat outside.  Although our dining room is large, it is not large enough for fourteen to sit down and eat.  The weather was good, although a little cool but at least it did not rain!

Our Table ready for our guests.

Of course as well as food you have to have plenty to drink!

More pictures of the table.

We had Drinks and Hor d’ouvres from 5.00pm onwards, followed by Dinner.  One of our friends gave a toast and thanked us for the evening and DH responded, giving a quick resume of our 30 years, which when you look back has certainly been interesting, stressful at times but thoroughly rewarding as well.  Especially as we were able to have the Boys and I was able to be with them whilst they will little, take and fetch them from school every day and also be at home with them during the holidays.  Something we definitely would not have been able to do had we had jobs working for other people and that has definitely for me been the best bit of it!

So never mind H.M. celebrating 70 years of work, the important celebration was our 30 years in Business!!!!  Although DH and I will be extremely old if we do celebrate our Platinum Anniversary, DH would be 104 and I would be 96 (which is how old the Queen is now).  I think I would like to retire before that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is the first day of our Long Weekend and again I am hoping that the weather is kind and we can get some jobs done in the garden and our home.  We have quite a few busy weekends coming up with swimming events, Carnival in the Village back for the first time in two years and some family things too.  I think our first free weekend is middle of July!!!  Not complaining of course as it is so nice to be back to normal again!

Happy Thursday Everyone! 

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

London All Dressed Up.

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London is putting on it’s finest for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee being celebrated this coming weekend.  Here are a few pictures of the various decorations.

Oxford Street & Regent Street adorned with Union Jacks.

Big Ben has had all the scaffolding removed in time for the Jubilee after it’s £80m restoration over the last five years.  Interestingly Big Ben actually refers to the Bell in the Tower which was originally called The Clock Tower when it was built in 1834, but renamed The Elizabeth Tower for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012.  Anyway it looks splendid in the Spring sunshine!

The Goring Hotel ready for the Jubilee.  We had a wonderful Afternoon Tea here with dishes from the original Afternoon Tea of 1953 when several Royals from Europe stayed here during The Coronation. 

Lots of shops, offices and buildings are also decorated to celebrate 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II Reign.

We have Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off as a Nation to celebrate and there are lots of street parties happening.  DH is commentating on the Beacon Lighting event happening in our area and on Sunday there is a village event on the Park where he is again commentating.  I am hoping that the weather is going to be kind and we can get some gardening done and finish off the final bits of Spring Cleaning. 

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

London Day 2.

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Tuesday evening DH and I went to The Globe located on the other side of the River.  Shakespeare’s Original Globe Theatre was built in 1599 by The Chamberlain’s Men Playing Company, on land owned by Thomas Brend. It sadly burnt down in 1613 but a new Globe was built in 1614 but closed in 1642.  This new Globe was built 750 feet from where the 1599 Globe was built and opened in 1997.  All the Globes were built as a Wooden “O” with a 360° auditorium with no roof over the central yard and stage.  There are galleries and if you can get a seat under one of these it does give a bit of protection from the weather as performances go ahead rain or shine. 

Our seats and you can hire cushions to make it a little more comfortable! 

The beam work which forms the next gallery up.

The Stage is set and the audience standing in the yard.

DH and I went to see Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII” with a modern twist and it was very good but also very cold!!!!

The outside of The Globe.

We had had Afternoon Tea at our hotel at 4.00pm with a business colleague and so had dinner when we got back to the hotel after the play.  It was a long day but really enjoyed it and we had to be up early on the Wednesday for the flower show.

Tomorow I will show you some pictures of London decorated for The Jubilee!

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

Busy!

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So another week flew by and we were all busy!   Monday last week I was sorting out things for the weekend just gone, as well as grocery shopping and getting ready for DH and I being away in London.  Tuesday we headed off to London leaving the Boys to look after Miss Coco who had a terrific time with them whilst we were away.  We had a business meeting on the Tuesday but Wednesday we had tickets to go to The Chelsea Flower Show. The first time we went was in 2019 and really enjoyed it.  However we were quite disappointed this year as all the designers had seem to have forgotten it was a Flower Show!!!

Warning Picture Heavy Post!!!!!

All of the above pictures are of the Main Show Gardens and as you can probably tell, they are all alike.  In fact they had all gone for a theme of re-wilding and I really feel that they are not gardens.  Also you can see there is a lack of flowers! 

The most flowers and colour were on the Vendors’ stands and the best one was the above; a company selling greenhouses!  Obviously they had incorporated the Platinum Jubilee theme. 

The following were all taken in The Grand Pavilion where the stands were by various Nurseries/Garden Centres etc.  Again not much colour.

My most favourite of all Cottage Garden Flowers, Delphiniums.  I just wish we were able to grow them at home but the slugs and snails just love them and nothing we do stops them!

This Garden had Doctor Who’s Tardis on it!

Another Cottage Garden favourite of mine, Fox Gloves.  Now the slugs and snails don’t eat these so I am trying to encourage as many different fox gloves to grow in our garden.

Beautiful Lily Of The Valley plants.  My Grandfather had them growing under the fruit trees in his garden and the smell was wonderful when they were out but again they will not grow in our garden at all!

Another stand of Delphiniums.

This was another Vendor’s Garden and was my favourite.

This was the most colourful of all the show gardens but very much still on the wild side.

Always when Chelsea Flower Show is on the Shops of Chelsea join in and their Flowers were amazing.  Pictures are from The Chelsea in Bloom website.

I will show you some more pictures of London tomorrow.  Will we go back to Chelsea Flower Show next year? Not sure.  The whole point of Chelsea is for Designers to show you spectacular gardens and for you to be able to take a part of it and incorporate it into your garden, slugs and snails willing.  In fact we have more flowers in our garden at the moment than Chelsea had!!  Here are a few I took before we went away.

My Chive Flowers came out whilst we were away. 

Our pink Rhododendron is in full flower.

Our miniture Bell Rhododendron.

The Weigela

The Poppies have done well this year.

The Blue Bells and Geums have also done well.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a good week to come.  We have an extra long Bank Holiday weekend this coming weekend for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.  I will be back tomorrow with more pictures of our visit to London.

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

Here We Go!

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So sorry for no posts for a while.  Coping with not having Treacle around has been hard and we have also been very busy with work.  Although we do not directly have anything to do with the Ukraine it is having an affect on other aspects of the business and there has been an uptick in work, which is great but busy.  Spring Cleaning is going slowly due to tidying up as well so that is a little behind. 

We had a family discussion over dinner one evening regarding our “empty” home after Treacle’s passing and we all agreed that we will never replace Treacle but feel that our family would like another dog, especially as I am at home all day and feel it the most.  We then discussed what sort of dog, a smaller breed, a rescue etc.  However once you have had a few of a certain breed I feel you tend to get drawn back to that breed.  Airedales first came into our family from my Grandfather who bred them and my first instance of them was when my Mom had her Airedale, Kelly. 

Anyway the upshot of all this is say hello to Miss. Coco!

First night home and in her basket.

DH & I collecting Coco.

Coco & Eldest, a new playmate.

Youngest and Coco, another new playmate!

Not long before she was on the Boys beds!

This step is a bit high!

This outdoor life is all very tiring for a young Puppy!

Fluffy Toy!

Coco’s Mom, Luna!

We picked her up three weeks ago which have passed in a flash and of course it has been very busy.  House training is going well but have the odd accident but it has been nice weather so been able to have the back door open all the time which is helping and it is a good time of year to be doing this.  Coco is very keen on emptying her toy basket and taking all the toys into her basket which then means she cannot get in, so we have a great game of putting them all back and her emptying it again.  She has now had her second set of injections so after ten more days will be able to go outside although we are not keen on the lead at the moment!  She is booked in for a puppy socialisation day at the beginning of June.

I am with her all day of course but have left her for a couple of hours here or there in her crate and after a little bit of crying she settles down and goes to sleep which is good.  The Boys have been great helping out when they are home and of course playing with her.  DH and I are away next week in London so Youngest is having the week off work to look after her and Eldest is helping out. 

Treacle was a huge part of all our lives and we will miss her forever but the Boys have never known our home without a dog and really noticed it whilst we were away and of course because I work and at home all day it was really empty for me, so Coco came home.

So I will hopefully now be back to blogging every day after the initial chaos of a new puppy!!! 

Being in London next week is part business and part social, so will have lots of pictures to show you especially as London is gearing up the for Queen’s Platinum Jubilee so I suspect it will be very colourful.  Also DH and I are hosting a dinner for fourteen at the end of May so will have pictures of that too.

I hope you lovely lot are all well and had a good week.  It’s Friday!  Have a great weekend.

Hugs & Love, Susie, DH, Eldest, Youngest & Coco! xxxxx

Plans.

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On the back of yesterday I have been making plans for my Spring Cleaning!  DH helps out, especially with the moving of the furniture and it does go quicker with the two of us and I have lost a weekend.  So the plans are getting up early this weekend and next to get all the jobs done! 

I will be getting all the extra washing sorted out too, cushion covers, curtains, throws, bed protectors etc washed and out of the line.  We are due to have a warm and sunny weekend. 

I also use it as an opportunity to declutter things.  If I haven’t used it in the past year I recycle it to our local charity shop.  When my Mom passed I was still living at home and I had to find certain legal papers and it was an absolut nightmare.  My Parents had lived in our home for twenty five years and I don’t think my Mom had ever thrown anything away.  Then when my Grandmother passed DH and I had to clear her home out and she had lived there with my Grandfather and her mother, so there were in effect two homes.  It took us weeks and weeks to get it done so I am determined that I will not have that happen in our home. My good friend Susan has had to go through the same thing and has also vowed to declutter her things too!  Perhaps we should set up a Blog Hop of decluttering!!!

Of course we have lots of boxes in the attic stored with the Boys baby things and toys which eventually will go to their homes when they have them!!!!!

For me the Spring Cleaning is one of those jobs I hate to start and really get cross doing it, but absolutely love it and how our home looks once it is done!  But isn’t it the case with any big job?

I have resorted to my list making, so I don’t forget anything and of course using my Spring Cleaning lists which you can find on my side bar.  It really does help to have it all written down and tick it off once you have completed a task, I love ticking things off!!  You can’t guess that as a little girl I loved stationery, notebooks and lists!!!  It really helped when I was studying for my exams, I had notes and lists pinned up all over the place. 

How is your Wednesday going?  Thursday tomorrow with home jobs and Friday I am getting a start on things and grocery shopping of course. 

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

My reward when all the Spring Cleaning is done; a cup of tea and an hour to read!!!

 

A Strange World.

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Instagram is a funny thing.  It can give an unrealistic view of people, places, things but it can also inform if you use it in a certain way.  I have Instagram and of course a lot of the things/people/companies I follow, besides friends, are book publishers, restaurants we have been to, stores I shop at, crafty things and of course Airedales. 

However I did discover an Instagram account by a Lady who lives in Derbyshire, not far from us, who absolutely loves the 1940’s, she and her family live like it is the 1940’s!  I have gone through quite a few of her posts and am amazed by the detail to which she mainly goes to, to recreate the era.  From dressing in the style of the era to doing her hair like the old film stars of the time.  Where they live is also decorated with things from the 1940’s, albeit with the odd modern touch of a flat screen TV. 

The lady does not work and stays home with their two very young children and cooks, cleans and shops like they would in the 1940’s.  It is very admirable that she shops locally and trys to reduce the amount of plastic that they have and buy fresh rather than do a weekly shop, which we are all trying in some way to do.

There are quite a group of these people living like this and they are called “the Young Revivalists” and often go out at the weekend to events which show life in past eras.  Our local Steam Train centre does quite a few of these events.  These young women are going back to the days of the men go out to work and the women work in the home.

I find it fascinating in some ways.  Haven’t we all at one time or another wished that we could not always be reached on our mobile phones, or thought that life was simpler years ago but of course life was also a lot harder too.  As you know I spent all my school holidays with my Grandparents.  My Grandfather was born in 1897 and my Grandmother in 1904 so were young in the Roaring Twenties (they actually married in 1929 and there is another story about that I will tell you in another post!). 

Now my Grandmother was a stay at home Mom and she taught me how to sew, cook, bake, clean the house and all the tips and tricks that her mother had taught her.  I also used to help my Grandfather in the garden and learnt alot about plants and growing things from him.  So you could say that my Grandmother lived the life that these women are re-creating.  However when my Mom was off and married my Grandmother bought a shop and ran that for fifteen years until my Grandfather retired from work and my Great Grandmother had her shop until she retired in 1967.  So they were both modern women of the day.

I think to aim to do things around your home, like baking, sewing and shopping to try and reduce plastic waste and all that is a good idea but I don’t think I could live like it is the 1940’s no matter how much I would like a quieter life!!  There was an experiment done by one of our TV companies quite a few years ago now where they took a modern family of six and put them in a house from the 1900.  The house was returned to its original fixtures and fittings from the year it was built and the family had to live there for three months.  It was an excellent programme seeing them cope with things like no washing machines, cooking on a range, only gas lamps or candles for light and walking/cycling everywhere and shopping locally on a daily basis a there was no cold room/store and definitely no fridge!!  Look out for the show which is called “The 1900 House”

I do follow the Derbyshire 1940’s Lady to see how she does things and copes with living like that in 2022, whilst I am using all my modern things. However she does use her mobile phone to upload pictures to Instagram of her 1940’s life!!!!

I hope you are having a very sunny Tuesday. 

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

 

Happy Birthday Dad!

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It is my Darling Dad’s Birthday today and he would have been 98.  I actually found the above picture in a box of slides that I inherited when my Mom passed and had the picture printed out from it.  Yes that baby is me and it was taken in the garden of my Grandparents home on my Christening Day!   It was obviously a busy day as I look fast asleep!!! 

I have lots of other pictures of Dad but they are all in the attic and it is one of those jobs I need to get around to, sorting them out into albums.  In fact I have a box load of pictures that I know are relatives of mine but have no clue as to their names or where they were taken. 

I will offer all who read my blog this piece of advice; put the details of the pictures on the back of the photographs then future generations will know who they are, even if they never make it into photograph albums.  In fact DH’s Dad was moaning one winter that he had nothing to do (he was a great outdoorsman) so I said he could spend his time writing on the back of all the old pictures of who everyone was and where it was taken.  He spent quite a few happy hours doing that and now that he has passed at least we know who the relatives are (they also need to be put into albums!).

Of course it is all now digital and stored on the computers but I have started, when I get the odd few minutes, to put notes with the stored ones too so that our Boys will know who the people are and where they were taken.  Another job for the winter evenings when it is cold and dark!!!!

Anyway Happy Birthday Dad, love you to bits.

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

Treacle and Us!

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This wonderful little girl would have been 14 yesterday and we miss her terribly!

DH and I got back from our shortened Easter break on April 23rd and from the Monday we seemed to go back into manic mode!  My freezer broke so I had to get a new one and fortunately it was only a two day delay before it was delivered, I had a dental check up, DH had an event on the Friday night, set up on the Saturday morning for a swimming event on the Sunday and then we were off to the wedding.

The weather was good for the wedding and the happy couple got married at the Registry Office in Lichfield and then a reception at a local country pub.  We expected to have dinner when we arrived but it turned out that there was a buffet but it would not be until 9.00pm and this was from 3.30pm!  DH and I had to leave as he was up early on Sunday so ended up having a takeaway!!  There was also another swimming event on the Monday at a different pool, so DH and Youngest had to move all the equipment and add more on the Sunday night for the Monday event (it was a long weekend for us). 

This week has also been the same, despite it being shortened by one day, and this weekend DH and Youngest are again out all weekend at another swimming event!  I am trying to get some Spring cleaning done but to be perfectly honest do not feel like doing it!  I know it has to get done but my enthusiasm is non existent!  In fact my enthusiasm for anything at the moment is missing!

We have some nice weather over the next few days with some warm sunshine which is nice as it has been so cold.  Especially as the cost of heating our homes has shot through the roof recently.  The whole current situation is getting hard for everyone at the moment with rising prices, household bills being more expensive, food prices are ridiculous and now talk of a recession.  Just to add to the misery of the last two years!!  I am thinking of taking to my bed and not coming out again!!!  To add to everything I was at my desk working this week when up the bird feeder pole this scampered!  They are not my favourite animal.  We have mice in the garden and they are fine but rats no you can keep them.  Possibly because Treacle is no longer out in the garden it has become brave.  She always knew that something was living under the steps in our garden and we think it now might be this!  Hmm not sure what we are going to do!

SO how was your week?

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

Angel Treacle.

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DH and I got back on Saturday from our break in Scotland and it was nice to have a break but we were/are still missing Treacle.  The Boys were at home and they certainly noticed how empty our home now seems. 

We have had many wonderful and heartfelt emails and comments from friends, followers and readers who followed Treacle’s Wednesday Wag and loved seeing her on the Blog and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

A good friend of Molly, our wonderful friend in the US and her Mom Sue, contacted me to do a Memorial Pin for Treacle and she has done an amazing job and it is on her blog which is for our fur babies who have passed (the links are at the bottom of this post.  Here are Treacle’s two pins.

Ann asked me to send her some pictures so I chose the the above one which was Treacle modelling one of my quilts.  Especially as this is supposed to be a quilting blog!!!  The one below is the picture that Youngest took at Christmas last year with the new lens he bought me, which is wonderful and Treacle was his puppy.

Ann, thank you so much for doing this for us.  Here are the links:

https://blog.catblogosphere.com/

https://blogvillepotp.blogspot.com/

https://ourrainbowfriends.blogspot.com/

I hope you all have had a good week, I have been busy trying to catch up with work and home jobs and should be all straight by the weekend.  DH & I are going to a wedding on Saturday and really hoping that the weather is going to be kind.  It is a long weekend for us here in the UK but DH is out at a swimming event on Sunday and Monday so I am going to be busy starting my Spring Cleaning!!!  Oh joy! 

Take care all. 

Hugs & Love, Susie xx