roman holiday

As is our somewhat newly acquired tradition, my mum and I went on holiday together again this year.  Holidays with your mother might sound like an unappealing proposition but (and I know we all think this) my mum is like no other and therefore rather good fun to be around.

We saw all the sights.  We ate our body weight in ice cream and pizza and pasta.  We consumed unhealthy amounts of red wine.

We got in for half price at the Vatican and saw a beautiful Caravaggio / Bacon exhibition at the Villa Borghese. 

Rome is a beautiful city during the day time.  We left the wind and rain and cold at home and spent five days in the sunshine.  People in the rest of Europe always look so much healthier than their British counterparts and after visiting Italy in October it’s easy to see why.  I mean, plants don’t thrive in the kind of weather we experience for most of the year here so why should humans?

Anyway, less of all that. 

One of the big things that struck me about Rome is that it really isn’t a modern city.  That sounds like the most obvious thing to say, and of course it is.  What I mean is that walking round the streets I felt like I was still in the 1950s.  The signs and shops fitted in with the surroundings.  There wasn’t a giant supermarket on Villa Internazionale and I can well imagine that, had it been in Britain, Tesco would have managed to work its way in there somewhere.

Can I just say: Dear Rome, I very much enjoyed walking round your ruins, standing for hours staring at your beautiful ceilings and making myself fat on your wonderful food x

the flower girl

Well, hello there.  I’m back from Rome safe and sound and have plenty of photos to bore you with.  But for now, two photos from John’s sister’s wedding a few weeks ago.  Remember I’ve told you about John’s mum’s shaky health in the past, including her many heart attacks and miscellaneous ailments?  Well none of them were present when John’s sister threw her bouquet for the ’single’ girls.  As the brother of the groom commented, look at her go…

For those of you who haven’t guessed, she’s the lady in polka dots with a steely glint of determination in her eye x

shamless sister promotion

Firstly, thank you all for your kind words on my last post.  I’m certainly looking at the horse appraisingly if not quite back on the saddle yet.

And now for some shameless promotion of my sister’s new etsy shop,

I think my sister is rather ace.  She makes hand-made cards for people who wouldn’t ordinarily buy handmade cards.  This means lots of manga and skulls and cute little Japanese inspired stuff.

Can you see why I couldn’t get my head round our hardly selling anything?! Positive thoughts, positive thoughts…

Go and totally check her shop out, you won’t be disappointed.  Feel free to buy as much as your heart desires.

In other news, I have one more day at work until half term and I will be spending tomorrow afternoon watching my sixth form students horror shorts and giving out what we decided today to call ’slightly overcooked love’  or ‘boiled love’ rather than the tough love that tends to upset.  And then on Sunday I’m off to Rome for five days which all in all means that I really haven’t got anything to grumble about… x

craft fair rejects

Is it a craft show tradition that your first one should be a complete and utter failure?  Someone say it is, because mine was, it was on Saturday and boy, it stank.

Of course it didn’t help that even though we’d booked it on the understanding that it was a handmade christmas craft fair only to find out that of the 20 plus stalls there only three were selling handmade and the rest antiques and mass produced chintz.  Or that the organisers of the fair were charging people to come in and so discouraging a number of people from even coming in to look. 

So we made enough between us – my mum, sister and I – to buy a Chinese for us all before John and I made the tiring trip back to Liverpool at 8 o’clock.  A Chinese is all well and good but it hardly compensates for weeks worth of sewing and embroidery through rain, shine, work and the flu.  I guess it was just completely the wrong market.  Wrong stalls, wrong location, wrong organisers.  We know for next time.

So the question now is, what next?  There’s a couple of fairs in Liverpool next month and in December so I may give them a go.  It’s just so gosh darn disheartening to not even have people stop to have a look, just to walk straight past. 

I’m just feeling blue I think because that craft fair came on top of a £250 catalytic converter, a rubbish time at work and John sitting on our bed this morning to have it collapse under his and Donald’s combined weight.  Still, everything I failed to sell has now been listed on Etsy and tomorrow after all, is another day.  I just hope it doesn’t rain x

(I’ve just re-read what I’ve written I realised I sound an awful lot like Droopy Dog.  To paraphrase another cartoon dog’s friend, good grief.)

five a day

I’ve finally come up for air after the week that felt like three squeezed in back to back.  The inspectors came, inspected and left again, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.  Teachers are a rare breed.  We tend to think, as a rule, that our job is one of the hardest in the world and that anyone who isn’t a teacher just doesn’t understand this.  Don’t get me wrong. it is difficult and demanding and frustrating and without the opportunity to hop on the internet to do some shopping at work whenever it takes your fancy.  But it also throws up some of the most sublime conversations you could ever experience.  Such as one I had with the boy who couldn’t spell GCSE last year and who was researching Michael Jackson as his famous figure who should be brought back from the dead (don’t ask…),

Me: How’s your research going?

Him: I’ve found out that The Jackson Five was started when Michael got a load of his mates together to start a group.

Me: Oh, right.  How many people were in the group? (I know, I know, but sometimes I can’t wait to see what tumbles out of his mouth)

Him: I think there were seven.

Me: Oh.  So why are they called The Jackson Five?

Him: I’m not sure.  It’s weird isn’t it?

Anyhoo, on to the crafts.  I’ve made some more keyrings for the etsy shop and a craft fair that I have coming up in York in October.  So, some keyrings for the fruit bowl,

 

and some mid-90s mixtapes,

Oh, I loved making mixtapes when I was at college.  I’d spend hours on the front cover and figuring out what went where and counting the second between tracks.  Heaven x

 

on the beach

My mum’s been going through my granddad’s old slides and this is one of the stranger ones.  Cows on a beach?  Who’da thunk?

I’m still alive and making things, busy busy busy.  My school got the Ofted  phone call today, we’re being inspected on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Wednesday is also the day we’re being visited by Ed Balls.  That’s Ed Balls the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.    Oh and tonight I’m on a hen night.  Goodbye  weekend, I hardly knew you.

Hangovers and visiting dignitaries permitting, I do have some more photos to take and goodies to show you so hang on in there it’ll be worth it!

And I’m sorry to all you grown-ups out there but, like it or not, Ed Balls is a funny name, regardless of the outstanding job he does in the very important office he holds…

open all hours

See, I told you I’d be back didn’t I?  I’m coming to the end of my six weeks summer holiday and if I’m honest, up to last week I didn’t have a whole lot to show for it.  Usually I start the summer holidays with a to-do list; things I want to get done that there won’t be the time or light for come September.  Not so this year.

There have been a lot of changes in our household over the last few weeks though.  And even though they haven’t been the easiest changes in the world to deal with (I’m being very cryptic here aren’t I?), they have had very positive side effects that have led to some pretty grown up decision making and the eventual launching of a mortgage fund with fingers crossed and wood touched for a move nearer the north for us this time next year.  And in an effort to raise house funds we are both getting crafty.  My end of the bargain has been refreshing the Etsy store and preparing for Christmas craft fairs galore. 

So below are some pictures of my new listings, I’m unlocking the shop door, flipping the open sign and inviting you all in to browse to your hearts content,

Wall hangings – things you hang from the wall,

Magic 8 ball keychains,

with your choice of answer on the back,

Fruity keychains,

Record player badges

and of course, rabbit ones too,

There’s more over in the shop, go check it out!  This weekend we’ll be raiding the car boot sales and eating Mr Whippys for dinner, I’ll regale you with our finds on the flipside x

oh to live on…

A walk in the mountains last weekend with my boy, my sister and man’s best friends,

We went to Llanberis and the fairly grey weather made the mountains look dark and brooding, like something out of middle earth.

My sister was up visiting for the weekend and in the tradition of Withnail and I, we went to Llanberis by mistake.  We’d planned on going somewhere with one of those typically impenetrable Welsh names that was halfway between Bangor and Conwy.  When we realised we were almost in Bangor we took the first turn off with the sign of a mountain on it that we found.

We ate fish and chips and ice cream, watched the steam trains pull into the railway and tried (mostly in vain) to control two very excited mutts

Then it was home, tired, muddy and very content x

slight return

To those of you lovely people who are still bothering to check in with the tardiest blogger in Liverpool; fear not, I will be back by the end of the week with much to share.  Thanks for hanging in there! x

beware the hulder

I have been shoddy.  No surprise there right?  Aaaaaages ago the lovely Laura from Dropstitch sent me this gocco print in thanks for uploading her some English instructions.

“These mountain trolls I have been telling you about sometimes marry, but very seldom because there are only a few troll women.  They are the most horrible, ugly old women, like witches, but they know a great deal of magic and are, therefore, very powerful.  However, as they very rarely appear, it is not at all likely that you will ever meet one of these old troll witches.  But it is quite likely that you may one day come across one of their daughters, who are called hulders.  Walking through a clearing in the woods where some cattle are grazing on a summer’s evening, you may see a very beautiful young girl; so beautiful that you will stop to gaze at her.  She may be a hulder.  If she is, beware, for you must not talk to her, for anyone who says a single word to a hulder immediately becomes her captive.  Young shepherds were often so entranced by the beauty of one of these young girls that they would long to walk through the woods with her and talk to her and hold her hand; but if you wish to remain free you must remain absolutely silent.  This was often very difficult for the poor shepherd boys because the hulders appeared to be so really sweet and lovely and promised the shepherds mountains of silver and gold.  If, under this temptation, the shepherd broke his silence, he was forced to follow his enchantress into her mountain home, and the moment she got there she changed into her real self – and oh, how hideous she really was!  Now I’ll tell you a secret, there is one way by which you can always discover a hulder: if you walk behind her you will find that she has a tail – a cow’s tail – and this she simply cannot get rid of or hide!”

From ‘Norwegian Fairy Tales’ by Gert Strindberg

Laura works wonders with a gocco, much more than I’m able to and she’s one of the most generous and enthusiastic bloggers out there.  She hasn’t even mentioned how long it’s taken me (and it is a stupidly long time) to publicly thank her for this print that is now hanging happily on my living room wall next to a picture of a mournful dog.  Thank you very much Miss Donald x