A little blip

Offline for a few days as my poorer has died. I can't access my emails so leave any messages on here or facebook. See you soon Vicki xx

Photo Scavenger Hunt - April 2011

Hello

Another month, another list. Taking part in this, certainly makes me look at more surroundings a little more closely and also to (and I hate this phrase) sometimes 'think outside the box' to find all the headings on the list.

Here are my pics for April 2011;

My breakfast - Homemade Smoothie & Hot Cross Buns go together perfectly

My camera - a little inexpensive Pentax Optio E90 - we go everywhere together

A church - not sure of the name but it was in the middle of Orford village.

A cross - St Georges, St Patricks or St Andrews - you take your pick.

Eggs - mini ones on the top of Easter cakes

My keys - more keyring than keys! Just 2 keys - one for the door and the other for my bike lock.

A shop - I spent far too often in here - buying pretties, browsing and just nattering to my friend who owns it.

St George - he's the Patron Saint of Scouts - so here's my Explorer Scout looking smart before his parade.

A statue - outside an antiques shop in Orford.

Not quite William Shakespeare - but my William.

Something yellow - daffs - just a shame the season for these was so short this year.

April showers - I am so glad I took this pic right at the beginning of the month - I think its the only time its rained here in Suffolk this month.

Thanks Kathy for keeping me alert again this month - I wonder whats in store for May??

xxx Vicki xxx

A new royal family.......

A wild nobility - we are the family

If you're a certain age you'll know those lyrics - otherwise you'll just think I've finally gone mad ;) My boys are the latter. The reason? Adam Ant has been announced as an act at this summers Latitude Festival - boy was I happy when I spotted that the other day!! The first record I ever bought was an Adam & the Ants single - think that was over 30 years ago!!

Well today was back to school for Little Son - not exactly happy about this when he left this morning but much happier when he came home a little while ago - thank goodness. Big son has enjoyed his final day of hols - looking after a cousin this morning and then an afternoon attached to his Wii - teenagers ;)

Back to my last post - I saw my sister yesterday - she loved her pressies - especially the ring :) As the weather stayed nice, we ended up over @ her partners house for a BBQ in the garden. He owns a very old mini-motorbike from his childhood - my little nephew loved this even though it wouldn't start;

Of course, he was thrilled that his oldest cousin (big son) was at the party and wouldn't leave him alone;

When I was in town this morning, I popped into the shop that stocks some of my makes - wanted to see if I'd sold much over the holiday period. Excellent news - I had and I left with a wad of cash and a request to get making. I'm struggling at the moment to find odd cups & saucers but one charity shop had a couple of small tea plates that will work fine with the car boot cups from the weekend;

I found another cottage tea plate too - not sure what I'm going to do with these - I suspect a new collection might be happening;

Lastly for today - I found a new swap involving one of my favourite subject matters - buttons - over here.

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

The one with chocolate bunnies in

Good afternoon

I hope everyone is having a lovely Easter weekend? and its as sunny & warm where you as it is here in Suffolk. A lovely weekend so far - we've been out in 2's, 3's & even a 4! The boys are attempting a world record in how many easter eggs they can consume in a 48 hour period - least it means the chocolate mouse won't find any lurking in the cupboard next week when they are back at school ;)

Sadly all that is left of these 2 is their little gold bells - being worn by the boys on their wrists - least it means I can hear where they are!!

Someone asked on my last post what a diabolo was - well its 2 sticks connected by a piece of string which you use to juggle an eggtimer shaped piece of plastic - or something very similar to that. Little son has been busy practising whenever he's had a chance this weekend;

Up in the air

Catch it and get it spinning fast again

Throw it up in the air again - repeat until you drop it and then start again!!

We visited a massive carboot sale this morning (well 3 of us did). I've never so many stalls in my life and we didn't quite get round them all - the ones we did see had a few pretties on them;

A jug to match the plate from my last post.

Two pretty cups to turn into pincushions at some point. I can always find odd saucers but odd cups are hard to come by.

Its been a busy weekend for birthdays - yesterday was my little brothers turn (actually he just turned 24 and is not so little anymore) - tomorrow its the turn of my closest sister. When I was blog hopping a few days ago, I found something lovely on Lakota's blog - I just knew that it would be perfect for my sister. Sadly the necklace was out of stock but they had a ring in the same design;



I am glad her birthday is tomorrow - if it had to hang around any longer, I just know I'd end up keeping it for myself. Its so apt for her as she's the Deputy Manager of a charity shop in town.

As well as a few thrifted treats and that ring, I've also made her something too. Like me she loves things hanging from every handle/hook;

Upcycled ribbon, some vintage linen (too damaged to keep whole) and some red gingham.

Lastly I've just got to tell everyone the best news - I've won a giveaway - over @ Jackie's. I've won a bear especially made for me :) I can't tell you how excited I was when I read that post - in fact my happiness may have included a small happy dance!!

Right I'd best be off - I've roast pork in the oven - suppose I ought to sort some veggies to go with that!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

xxx Vicki xxx

Just having fun in the sun

Good afternoon

Isn't the weather fab? Perfect for the school hols - amazingly the bedroom hobbits have spent loads of time outside;

Testing a trampet for MrVV - little son also got to be the model for the eventual ebay listing!!

Big son is rather used to the full sized ones they use at school - this wasn't as much fun for him.

Busy doing nothing except - enjoying the sunshine, reading and listening to ipods.

He didn't notice when I snuck up on him later on ;)

Practising more diabolo skills - he's getting quite good -we  might even attempt to video him at some point.

Action shot with diabolo in mid-spin.

I had a lovely more yesterday with my school friend and her children. Her son hit it off straight away with little son and her daughter was pleased to find I had my 9 year old niece here. The 4 of them had a great time running about outside - playing hide & seek and a games which involved all our wooden sword collection!!  Lisa and I chattered for England - lots to catch up with after 20 years! You know someone is a good mate when even after that time there are no embarrassing pauses and you just feel like you are picking up from a conversation had yesterday.

The postie knocked this morning with a couple of parcels - one was a birthday swap parcel for Sophie which they'd really not left her enough time to collect - I shall try again and re-post it tomorrow. The other confused me (it doesn't take much). It was from Kandipandi - she won my recent giveaway (so I'd sent her a parcel but wasn't expecting one back) and had sent me one of her lovely thank you cards AND a pretty lavender heart too as a thank you;

Lastly for today, I ought to show you the result of my visit to 4 charity shops this morning - one pretty tea plate - where are all the pretty bargains at the moment????

Right time for half an hours deckchair sitting with a cuppa before I need to think about feeding these growing boys of mine again - trying to get some proper food into them before they consume their own body weights in chocolate over the weekend!! They came away from my Grandma's this morning with a huge tin of chocolates to share!!

xxx Vicki xxx

Your Country Needs You.....

To bid on this wonderful ebay listing - here

 

This Royal Wedding Party have been knitted by a group of friends on an internet forum. It is being sold to raise money for the Japanese Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund - all proceeds are going there - all the ebay fees/postage/material costs have been born by the group who created these wonderful pieces.

If you've family who are Royalists - wherever they are in the world this wonderful collection could be theirs.

BTW my role in this is purely advertising - I couldn't even begin to understand this sort of knitting pattern - plus the wedding is only 2 weeks away - I'd have needed a lifetime to just have produced one arm!!

Go on bid - you know you want too :)

xxx Vicki xxx

Celebrations

Good evening

No not the chocolate sort but April celebrations. So many things happening in one month;

Easter - which means we need an Easter tree;

A mix of branches from the garden - cherry, silver birch, hawthorn and a stray shoot from my pear tree.

St Georges Day - all 3 menfolk took part in parades today - had to be this weekend as the churches are busy with something else next weekend!! Big son finally got enrolled as an Explorer on Friday night (seemed to involve hanging upside down from a climbing frame!!) St George is the Patron Saint of Scouts - so all scout/cubs/beavers/explorers are asked to re-do their promise each year.

THAT Wedding - the shelves looked so bare - they've had cards hanging on them since December so it seemed the best place to hang my red,white & blue bunting;

I think I'll look out for some other suitable bits to display this week - I know I've some UJ paperchains somewhere in the house!!

Friendship - one of my best friends from my teenage years is coming to visit tomorrow. We lost touch for 20 years but thanks to the magic of facebook we've got in contact again and she's coming with her children for coffee tomorrow morning - so I thought we'd need cakes!!



Spring time - the cherry has now fully bloomed - earlier than last year.

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

Ne'er cast a clout till May be out

Good evening

Oh that saying has a lot of truth in it - especially this week. After the warmth of Monday/Tuesday, its steadily got cooler and if it drops another degree then my socks will be back on and I shall be considering having to wear a coat!! I do the same every year and rush to wear my summer clothes- perhaps one year I'll listen to my Grandma and her collection of sayings/old wifes tales.

As its been cooler the past couple of days and as the boys are pretty self-suffcient in the hols, I've had time to myself, for knitting - patriotic bunting triangles - just one more blue one to go;

When I've had enough of that - I've a new book that I'm rather loving - saw this when buying music books for little son on Amazon and somehow it ended up in my basket!!

I am convinced that the weather has changed as MrVV & Little Son have their first marching practise session tonight for a band engagement at the weekend. Little son has never marched AND played before so it could be interesting. If it had been warmer I would have gone to spy armed with my camera - but its quite chilly and thinking of raining - so I've opted for indoors and relative warmth!

How are the school hols going for everyone?? Like I said the boys don't really require much input these day - as long as the fridge, cupboards and cake tins are full and the internet is working they are happy. We've fitted in some of the 'maintainance' appointments that are easier to do during the hols - both now have smarter haircuts and little son is collecting his new specs next week.

Tomorrow we're off to see family and my youngest niece who is celebrating her 8th birthday - hopefully there will be cake. The boys are off with MIL and their oldest cousin for a lunch out - lucky things so I'm tempted to drag MrVV to Aldeburgh for a fish & chip lunch.

Here's hoping the sunshine comes back for the weekend.

xxx Vicki xxx

A weekend and a winner

Good evening

Forgive me for being such a bad blogger at the moment - tbh its been far too nice to be indoors these past few days so I'm horribly behind with everyones blogs and commenting - sorry.

The lovely weather from last week continued. We collected one slightly tired and pink cheeked small boy from school on Friday afternoon. He'd had a good week but was glad to be back to his bed and to my cooking!!

Saturday we all - all 4 of us! - headed to Southwold. The promise of ice-cream even lured big son from his room. Armed with 4 cameras we headed off;

A rare family photo ;) - I'm not quite that fat - I just have the bag with all the camera cases/spare batteries and of course pennies for ice-creams! Though at Southwold prom prices pennies won't go far - you definitely need pounds! We discovered the cheapest place for ice-creams was the cafe at the front of the Pier.

The men all decided to take a picture of one of the oil-tankers moored off the coast - I thought 4 identical pics would be boring - so I snapped the 3 of them taking pics and still got the tanker in the background ;)

Despite its expensive ice-creams, Southwold is still my most favourite seaside place - looking forward to visiting again soon so I can have my first paddle of the year.

Of course if I want to build a castle then I might just need a new spade ;)

Sunday morning 3 of us were up bright and early - we headed off to the bootsale leaving big son asleep. We left him a note on the toaster so he'd know where we were. Little son has mastered the art of haggling and managed to knock a couple of dvd sellers down to £1 per dvd - one happy boy with 2 new films to watch. I managed a few little bargains for myself;

A ladybird book - one I've wanted for a while. Just need to wrap up warm one night and try and work out the stars in the sky. I was also lucky with my flower press - brand new, the box hadn't even been opened - just £1.

I spotted this next item on a stall and nearly didn't ask the price - it looked one of those ones where everything was expensive - however this wasn't;

I've had a quick look online and as far as I can tell, its a Victorian pewter pincushion - mine for just £1.50!! If anyone knows anymore I'd love to hear from you.

Sunday afternoon, MrVV & I headed out alone for a walk - we decided to go somewhere different so his camera could get more testing - Orford. Quite a pretty little village and somewhere that apart from school trips I've not been for ages.

We didn't go in the castle this time just around the outside.

I loved this sign outside one of the pubs near the Quay;

Right onto business - my giveaway. Wow thank you to all those who entered - I got writers cramp when I wrote all those names on slips of paper. These were put into a handy mixing bowl (a clean one);

Only one person could be the lucky winner and the one pulled out by little son was;

Well done to Kandipandi who wins all the treats and a few more later additions. If you could let me have an address and then I can get your parcel off to you this week :)

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx