A Ladybird, Walk In The Sunshine & Two Cute Charity Shop Bargains!

What another lovely day, although i agree with my elderly neighbour when we were chatting over the garden fence earlier; this may be our only Summer weather for the year..therefore i'm determined to make the most of it! It would be wonderful if it could last for the Easter hols next week. Mia and I have a few nice things planned; chocolate cornflake nests with mini eggs & fluffy chicks, an Easter tree of catkins in a tall vase decorated with eggs, and some fun Spring-themed art and craft.

Today Baby Boy & I have been enjoying the sunshine in the garden, he is facinated with Oscar the rabbit, and enjoys watching him leap around his run. Whilst he was doing this, I noticed a little ladybird on the guinea-pig pen - i haven't seen a ladybird in YEARS! I took a quick photo to show Mia when she came home;

When she saw it she was horrified..she said "I didn't realise they were THAT big"! Obviously she hadn't understood that the photo was out of proportion and that i'd zoomed in!

This afternoon we went for a long walk and back through the town, stopping at my favourite vintage shop on the way home (how could i not go in?!) where I previoulsy bought my bargain deckchair! This time i can't tell you what i bought just yet, as it was the last couple of items for the Easter Swap!! It's so exciting!! Everything is ready now so I just need to pack it up and post if off to the lovely Saphy ( ) in time for Easter!

We also popped in to the Samaritans charity shop afterwards and i couldn't resist this cute knitted Lion (30p) and what i think is an egg cosy (10p!) -

The Lion is an Easter gift for Baby Boy, it will look great on his shelf in his room with his other knitted toys, and i'm going to put the egg cosy over an Easter Egg for Mia;

You can't go wrong for a grand total of 40p can you?! Mia will love the egg cosy for sure!

Well, i'd better go off to bed now, i love this part of this evening, it's the first "ME" time i have all day, both children are fast asleep and i can settle down with tea and toast and write this blog or catch up on everyone else's! xx

A Lovely Weekend

What beautiful weather we have had this weekend! The Guinea Pigs Dexter & Bracken have enjoyed their large run out on the lawn; probably their first ever time on grass! Being rescue piggies and less than a year old they have been indoors over the Winter and have been waiting for some warm weather. Yesterday they wouldn't venture out of their hidey house at all, but today braved their first steps on to grass - they did look bewilded! I watched from my vintage deckchair;

I've wanted one of these for absolutely ages, but have always just got away on ebay or been just a little too expensive, so you can imagine my joy when i came across this one in my favourite vintage shop in town for just £6!! SIX POUNDS! I couldn't believe it! The canvas is still strong with just a few damp spots which doesn't spoil it a bit; i snapped it up the minute i saw it and carried it all the way home!

Yesterday the weather was just as glorious, so after a morning spent doing the usual household chores and pegging out 3 loads of washing we decided to take a picnic tea and go for a sunny walk up to the Elan Valley Dams. It was a perfect afternoon, i was so glad that we took the camera;

Baby Boy had a lovely time, wide awake in his pram with his little sun hat on!;

On the way back to the car we walked past the old Church, still in use, doesn't it look beautiful!;

This is the wonderful view from the Church; wouldn't it be a fantastic place to get married don't you think? Imagine the lovely photographs;

We took 50 photographs in all, i'm very pleased with them, hubby wants to turn some of them in to canvas prints, they will look wondeful on our dining room wall. I feel very lucky to live where we do, the Elan Valley is just 15 minutes drive from home, and is a wondeful place to walk. We had a yummy picnic tea before heading home, Summer has come early!

I hope you have all had a lovely sunny weeekend too xx

School Days

I have to hand it to him, my wondeful hubby has been amazing whilst i've been at home on maternity leave after having Baby Boy. Every morning he takes Mia up to the Breakfast Club at school for 8.am before going to work, and this morning I just had to smile whilst i watched from the window as they loaded the car - you would think they were going on holiday the amount of things she had to take to school;

The budle consisted of;

1 Violin
1 "Book Bag" containing;
*reading book,
*Homework folder,
*violin music book
*envelope containing dinner money
* envelope containing school trip money & slip
*envelope containing choir slip
* envelope containing cross country club slip
1 Cross Country bag with kit & water bottle
1 overnight case (as Mia was staying over with her Dad)
1 large carrier bag of old newspapers (our neighbours give us these for the Guinea pigs) which the school had requested we bring in for paper mache
1 purse with "snack" money £1.00
Plus the usual coat, gloves, and shoes.

Goodness, what a mammoth task it is the night before to prepare everything ready in the hall for hubby to grab enroute to the car, we'd never get by without the planner on the wall, reminding us which days are choir, cross-country, gymnastics club, girls' football practice..the list goes on!

Still, that said, i think the opportunites that children have in school today are fantastic - we didn't have half as much in our very small, village school in the early 1980's. However, i loved our school, i was reminded of it very recently when i read "Miss Read's Village School" over Christmas;

Although set at least 3 decades before i started school, Miss Read's description of the building was very, very much like our own, even down to the high arch windows which the children were too small to see out of. I can even remember the very old Headmistress who retired not long after i arrived, but whom had been there since the 1950's, and so much of the furniture and equipment dated from that era too. We had no such thing as a "Book Bag", and learnt to read from Ladybird's "Peter & Jane"; in later years i actually bought some of the very same books from the school jumble sale;

And every morning we had Assembly and sang from the classic "Come and Praise" Hymn book;

Just the first line of "Give me Oil in My Lamp" transports me straight back to 1984 and those first lovely school years - we even chose this and other hymns from this book for our wedding!

Sadly today my lovely little school is under threat, yet again, of closure - as with so many small, rural village schools. The building itself has long since been modernised, the adjoining school-house and outbuildings have been demolished, blackboards replaced with modern alternatives, and no hint whatsoever of our beloved "Peter and Jane"! Still, I feel very lucky to have experienced it before it was "spoilt" and enjoyed school days very similar to those described by Miss Read..minus The Cane..thank goodness!!

I would love to hear about your school days? xx

Happy Mother's Day

Finally i'm back online! For almost a month I have been without internet due to our computer well and truly packing up; I cannot believe how cut off from the world i felt - it literally has been my lifeline whilst at home on maternity leave, i missed reading and writing blogs so much! I couldn't believe our bad luck in that after the computer died we quickly decided to order a new one, which had been something on our wish-list for quite some time, only to recieve it via "next day delivery", and open it up, to find that the new computer was what my dad would call, "a dud". It simply would not switch on, let alone do anything else! So back it went, and this time for some unknown reason, it took a further fortnight before a replacement could be sent. But finally, on Friday, it arrived, and i must say that i'm loving the new one, lots of new software to play around with and a fantastic new printer/scanner as well - very pleased!

It has been really lovely to catch up with all my favourite blogs this weekend, and i've been very spolit today for Mother's Day! Hubby and Mia made me a lovely breakfast this morning, and i've had some lovely gifts;

And 3 lovely cards!;

My favourite of all, as always, is the handmade card from school; this term Mia's class are doing a project on the Olympics, so the Mother's Day cards carried on the theme with gold medal made from a cake case! Such a great idea i thought!;

The mini cake has already gone, and this evening we are treating ourselves to my favourite Indian takeaway; i'm already hungry at the thought of a prawn rogan, chick pea side-dish, peshwari naan & plenty of popadoms & dips whilst watching "Upstairs Downstairs".. bliss!

Hope you have all had a lovely day too xx