Reasons to be cheerful....

The last few days my mind has been in slide-show mode.... more pictures than words.. so please forgive my rather silent blog of late..
I think also the mind- numbing tax return has frazzled a few brain cells (all remaining!) so I am fairly monosyllabic and am just managing a few grunts ... Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.

I did however have three good reasons to be cheerful today..

1. My new National Trust Catalogue and Guide arrived.. so I am off for some armchair travel this evening.



2. The first signs of Spring were evident today.. when I discovered that my hyacinth bulbs potted up in November are beginning to show signs of life.. I brought one indoors to force it on and save it from being completely waterlogged outside...



3. My old friends the frogs are back !!!! I spotted three of the little darlings hopping around our garden this morning.. surely it is a little too early for them to be thinking of spawning... I suppose Valentine's Day is not too far off so they are just getting amorous a little earlier this year!



I hope to be back ... bright eyed and bushy tailed... very soon. XX

Howdy..

Today was a day of plans and dreams. A day to tackle some of those neglected corners of my life....but alas was not to be...

I would love to have got out into the ...



Rather than be stuck here ...


....slaving over my tax return...boo hiss!!

Nevermind eh... tomorrow is another day !!

Thought for the day...

I have just come home from an evening of mixed emotions.. and rushed to my blog to see if anyone had called by... and yes my lovely loyal friends have been and left offerings of humour and empathy and so much more...
I honestly don't know what I would do without you all...
Thank you ... is all I can say... I am so touched by your enduring company and words of kindness and friendship..
You make my world go round...

xx

Two Bees...

Or not two bees.. that is the subject!

My man and I share a love of bees... not sure where this comes from and I may feel differently if I was on the receiving end of one of their stings.. but the humble bee is a wonderful thing!
Did you know that a bee hive is a 'hive' of industry with every member having a role to play.. a fairly democratic society I would say....however..15% of bees do not take part in the day to day household chores and choose not to dance or take part with the rest of the colony.. This anti-social behaviour is vital for the survival of the colony as these non conformists go their own way and find new sources of food and habitats. Without 15% of anarchic bees the hive would die!!! Now what does that say for our society??

The Christmas before last .. I wanted to give my man a special gift from our favourite artist.. Cleo Mussi.. so after a few clandestine phone calls and emails I commissioned Cleo to make a mosaic bee for my beloved. I told her of his love of bees and she made a magnificent specimen that I hid away until Christmas day. On exchange of our present to each other .. I discovered much to my astonishment, delight and roars of laughter.. that we had both commissioned Cleo to make each other a bee.. so we now have his and hers bees each with our initials and small symbolic decorations..i.e mine has the initial M and 15% incorporated in the mosaic and his.. a heart and the initial P ... Now isn't that a case of knowing your partner well.. I think so!





This bee theme was presented to me this Christmas with one of my all time favourite books and the first book that I can remember having as a very young child.. 'One, two, three with and and bee'... a classic story for young children about ant and bee and a shopping trip that went horribly wrong (sounds familiar).



This page is so, so nostalgic for me and is imprinted on my memory as one of my earliest...


What is it about nostalgia that can be so comforting...? Is it that childhood was a time of innocence, endless days and no worries... I love it as you already know from my subtitle.. A childhood revisited.

Here are some more bee items that we have collected along the way..
A rather unconventional Valentine that I made for beloved last year..


And lastly.. a honeypot..

A little bit of wonderful....

I virtually swam into town this morning... flippers, snorkel and goggles would have been far more appropriate than my tweedy coat, velvet scarf and leather boots..
I was a very soggy and sorry mess by the time I got home clutching a parcel from the parcel depot that was close to turning into papier mache. Deciding not to walk home after getting a good soaking and missing the bus home by seconds... too old to run for buses these days .. I decided to kill time in Waterstones until the next bus came..

I am always asked what I would like for Christmas and my quick and trusty reply is .." A book token please". This is invariably met with " Really ? " in tones of amazement ! Well .. Yes.. REALLY ! I ♥ books and chose my early profession to indulge in this passion of mine... I became a Bookbinder/Conservationist of Antiquarian books way back in the early 1980's.. It was this apprenticeship that brought me to Bath having applied for a job as a 'Bookbinding Assistant' advertised in the Daily Mail.
I worked in a wonderful 'old curiosity' type of shop... crammed full of dusty second hands books and with a working bindery within the shop.
I was very fortunate to work with such wonderful specimens... old crumbly leather bindings that clothed parchment pages.. vellum covered works, buckram and linen bindings.. I cut my binders teeth on them all... Not literally you understand!
Unfortunately the shop closed down many years ago and after three redundancies in my bookbinding employment I turned my attention to other crafts and have not bound a book since.

So.. sorry .. wandered off there a bit..

Back to Waterstones... I have had a book token burning a hole in my bag since Christmas so I ventured into the wonderful world of Waterstones wall to wall books and seized upon Nigel Slater's new book entitled 'Eating for England' .. .... The Delights & Eccentricities of the British at Table. I shall so enjoy reading this new book of his.. having read his semi-autobiographical book..TOAST.. a bitter-sweet account of his childhood growing up in the 1960's where food was his consolation.. a poignant tale. This latest book of his is sure to be a treat ...anything to do with the British and their eccentricities is a good read.

Next to a jug full of Daffs, a hot cup of coffee and a choccy biccy... who could ask for more !

P.s After reading 'Good Intentions' you will see I am losing the fight with the biscuit tin devil... It was only one choccy biccy M'Lord.

Love and kisses...

Just sending a little love to you all xx

Good Intentions...

Being a new year and as is the custom amongst so many of us to change our lives for the better with the coming year.. I am no exception to this annual tradition and have had many thoughts rattling around in my rather depleted mind these last few days..
I have learnt from several of you of your intentions to slow down and take life at a gentler pace and I would like to put my hand up and join you in this quest..
I fear that we (I especially) try to cram too much into our daily lives and often feel a failure by the end of the day.. by not achieving our tick list of chores or tasks..
So it is one of my many new year resolutions to slow down and take stock of what I 'do' achieve rather than what I 'don't '.

So here we are... another year... another list..
If I only achieve one this year.. it will be something to celebrate.

1. Stop wasting time... it is so precious and I let days drift by without any consequence.. seize the day !

2. Don't take life too seriously... learn to smile more and laugh at myself rather than berate myself for my mistakes.

3. Don't become a slave to my blog... This one is tricky! My blog has given me a purpose and makes my day eventful.
It has brought me more friends and mutual support that I could ever have dreamt of.... BUT.. it should be an occasion to
share the jewels of my life and not all the bric a brac.

4. Don't let a bad hair day become a mid-life crisis.

5. Don't listen to the devil in the biscuit tin.

6. Learn some more Italian.

7. Stop chasing dust.. and let the house clean itself ??????? ( I am the original neurotic housewife)

8. Avoid looking in the mirror from the waist down and neck up.

9. Stop worrying so much. Easier said than done.

10. Yes... very predictable.. lose weight.. My middle age spread is spreading too far and wide !

And last but by no means least...live by the wise words of Bonnie Prudden...

" You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again."

Love in a cold climate...

Thank you Nancy Mitford for giving me the perfect title for this post....

I started off on New Year's Eve with all good intentions for an upbeat start to this year and kick started my new intentions by sorting out the small mountain of bits and pieces, assorted ephemera, vintage puzzles, card games, charms, vintage plastic toys, dolls, books, printed matter, trimmings, ribbons and old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all... and re-housing them in an old chest of drawers that had become Pickle's winter quarters.. well one of the top drawers.. my old knickers drawer in fact. Now that's ruined his squeaky clean reputation.. I fear!

I digress... I spent the day sorting and collating, discarding and boxing others of the multitude of items that I have collected over the last year for my vintage themed box frames and by the end of the afternoon I was feeling very pleased with myself for having finished this reluctant task. Now I am like a child with a new toy box.. I keep visiting my newly filed items and admiring the collection in each drawer...

Old catalogues, comics and many more...



Games galore...



Plastic clowns, flowers and all and all ...



Well that was then and the euphoria of having a good tidy has worn a little thin now so I turned my attention to making some Valentine frames for the coming anniversary on 14th February... these I am adding to my web-shop page at Not on the High Street.. they are made from Victorian/Edwardian Valentines mounted on genuine Victorian love poems and embellished with vintage charms, flowers and buttons.







N.B Many thanks to all of you who gave me your local snow cast... I am happy for all of you who got to frolic in some of this wonderful white weather...
Lastly a HUUUUUUUUUUGE thank you ... for all of your warm wishes for the New Year... They warm the cockles of my heart they do.
XXXX

The calm after the calm...

Well what an anti-climax that was.... I was braced for a winter wonderland today and not one flake, not one measly flake of snow landed on Bath.. well not that I noticed. I frequently peered out of the window expecting to see a flurry though hoping for a blizzard.. mais pas de saucisse! Not a sausage!
Pickles acted as my barometer by going in and out to the garden and coming in bone dry.. therefore I knew that the white stuff had by-passed us once again.. Oh woe is me!
I LOVE snow and find the whole atmosphere of a snow storm very exciting and romantic..
Still ... I live in hope.. there is plenty more winter left and I have known it to snow in May... many years ago.
Those of you who live in privileged places and have found yourself gazing out on to a white washed world.. think of me please.. bereft and snowless and please post some photos on your blog so that I can at least see how the other half live!

Pickles is not fussed either way and preferred to stay indoors .



It is a tradition that we buy our cat a helium balloon each year... no, not to hear him speak in a Mickey Mouse voice .. he loves to jump up and catch the string in his mouth and pull the balloon along... very reminiscent of Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh story...
Unfortunately this year the balloon was short lived as Pickles got rather boisterous one day and wrapped the string around his leg.. panicked and ran full pelt out of the house with balloon attached. Being a helium balloon it didn't take long to detach from his leg and float away over the roof tops... going going gone...

Watching and waiting...

for that first flake... oh please, oh please...