Bugs and flowers

Im a bit poorly, Lucie bought a sickness bug home from meithrin, and all the girls in our house have had it...so far. It seemed to go through the children quickly, but is lasting longer for me. I am hoping I am over the worst of it.

Anyway, Last weekend we went to stay with hubbys Auntie and Uncle in Hertfordshire. We also have a friend who lives nearby, who Hubby was doing a gig with on the Saturday night, but me and the children enjoyed spending time with family who we don't get to see very often.
The children had great fun, they especially liked storytime and piano singalongs with Auntie


watering the vegetables in the garden, (does he look like he is up to something? seconds later he turned that hose on us and we were soaked!!)


And going on some nice walks, which invariably involved collecting conkers. On the Saturday afternoon we went to Hertford town parish church to a flower festival.


There were so many lovely autumn colours and the children enjoyed searching for hidden church mice, all with different names, and they loved the miniature gardens made by the sunday school children from the church.




They wanted to make gardens too, so on Monday back at home, we went and collected some (mostly wild!) flowers (weeds),soil and moss and they had a go.



This was Esmes finished garden, I shall add more photos on flickr later, especially of the original gardens, most were done by older children and some were amazing!!!

here I am!

Ok, that was a bit of a break, but its nice to have a break sometimes. I have still been doing stuff, although admittedly not loads, but the back to school thing, getting back into a routine, is always a struggle.

So, I have lots of things to show, hopefully in the next few days. Firstly, I have actually made something!! I know, its been so long, and it was only an evening project, but it feels nice to be making again.


Esme has to take 20p fruit money into school each day, to buy fruit at break time from the school shop which is run by older pupils. In the first week, she seemed to mislay this money, be it in a purse or an envelope with her name on. So, I made this little purse, so she can wear it across her body all day and not lose her money. It fastens with velcro 'Mum, my friends don't believe you made it beause it has velcro on...' and has a strawberry button on the front and an apple on the back. I made it by hand, not bothering to get out the machine for such a small job.The purse is small, Esme can just get her hand in, it is lined in spotty green fabric, and the predominant red matches the school uniform. She loves it, and as yet has not lost a penny from it!!!

at the library

As my youngest has begun Meithrin (welsh playgroup) this month, on Monday mornings I am a lady of leisure. After a quick stop in town with a friend(it was breakfast time!!!) I had intended to go home for an hour, but on passing the library decided to go in and have a nice quiet morning reading their magazines.

I walked in, grabbed a couple of magazines from the shelf of current copies, and sat down. Seconds later a librarian walked over to me and said 'can I get you a cup of tea or coffee, we are having a coffee morning' to which I replied 'oh are we? how lovely, could I have a black coffee please?'. And so, the rest of my morning was spent sitting in almost-silence in the company of newspaper reading pensioners, enjoying free magazines and coffee.

A nice way to start the week, I think!

Two posts in one day - makes up for all the days I miss huh?

day out in Bath

The collection of a new ebay purchase, a 3 wheeler pushchair to replace my old broken-on-holidays one, meant a happily impromptu trip to Bath at the weekend.

We were on a cost cutting mission - free things to do while you are waiting for a pick-up time to arrive, so we headed over to Victoria park. Its lovely, big with lots of room to run around, and we even managed to avoid the man-made climbing/slide 'childrens area'. The children played in the trees and on the big stone gateways, chased each other, lay on the grass, and collected the first signs of autumn.





Of course we had to have a little trip into the shops, for drinks and cake, and we managed to find this beautiful little shop that Julia had told me about after her last trip to Bath, it has a cool wall of cuckoo clocks, and loads of pretty things. I was very good and just looked around, but I can tell I will be heading back there again!

the end of the holidays

Ahh, thats it, they have gone back to school (kicking and screaming, in the case of my eldest child!).Now I have to just tidy up all the holiday mess...or perhaps I will just sit here with my back to it, that sounds like a better idea.


We had a great holiday last week, first to the Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham, where we like to go every year, and then on to Woolacoombe in north Devon. It was lovely to spend time with friends on both holidays, and to catch up with an old friend and her lovely family too at Greenbelt. We had fantastic sunny weather and I am now nicely bronzed.


North Devon must be the fudge capital of the world, and it seems most of my photos are of shop windows. Yum, and we did buy a fair amount too!



Nougat cakes - looked amazing!!