one good apple

It’s been ages since I’ve been back to Yorkshire and this half term I was really ready for it.  School’s been pretty rubbish lately for various reasons so going home to see my mum and get pampered has been a light at the end of the tunnel.  Anyone who thinks teachers have it easy could not be more wrong.  So, I left John and the rabbits to their own devices in Liverpool and skipped up the motorway to car boot sales, family days out at museums, all you can eat buffets in pizza hut and trips to the bank holiday markets. 

There must be something about the Yorkshire air but whenever I’m home I sleep like a baby.  Maybe it’s because I know that when I have to get up my mum’ll wake me and if I want a cup of tea or a sandwich my stepdad’ll make it for me.  And there’s never an unexpected gap where the toliet roll should be.  I’m not suprised my sister only moved fifteen minutes away, there’s something very comforting about being near your mum isn’t there? 

Whilst rummaging through the drawers at home I found some old photos that mum and I spent a whole evening uploading.  Me and mum,

my dad and me

and me again, stuffing Seabrook crisps into my mouth like there’s no tomorrow and sporting a rather dapper pair of shoes. 

And that hat.  I had a lot of clothes with my name on but apparently that hat cause quite a lot of trauma one night when we went to the opening of our new village hall only for the wind to blow my hat off into the night.  My dad searched frantically for it and even went back out the next morning to scour the fields for the thing but to no avail.  Maybe somewhere in North Yorkshire there is a sheep that goes by the name of Emily and has some very snazzy headwear.

It’s been a hot and humid day today, no sunshine but lots of heat.  And then this afternoon the heavens open.  Thunder rumbling, lightning flashing, rain pouring down in torrents.  And all the time, it’s still warm and mild and this makes the rain refreshing.  Everything perks up a little, ourselves included and we hang out the bedroom window just watching the rain and counting the gaps between the thunder and the lightning and making sure Donald and Enid aren’t too freaked out by the whole thing.  Warm rain is one of my favourite things in the world.  Just the smell afterwards is worth it, when the whole place just smells green. 

And the rain really meant staying in this afternoon so I finished off a piece of embroidery for John.  He loves astronomy and I found this sweet little pattern from The Flossbox on etsy.  I found some cheap canvases in town a couple of weeks ago so just fixed the finished object to the back of one of them and hung it in the living room.

I loved embroidering this and John enjoyed telling me exactly what colour every planet and moon and satellite should be.  A good team effort.  I’ve ironed the pattern onto some plain terrycloth which I think I’ll make into some kind of little bag.  You can never have enough bags.  I’m also in the midst of making a leaving present for one of the girls at work who’s leaving in a couple of weeks.  I do not want her to go…

I’m going to enjoy the rain a little more and get ready for school tomorrow.  And eat a chocolate brownie x

When I was a kid our babysitter used to live across the road from us and she wasn’t your typical teenage girl.  She had three kids of her own who were old enough to be left on their own when she came over to mind us.  When I was about eight or nine her daughter must have been about sixteen.  She was into The Cure and had this amazing Robert Smith hairdo, all black and long and spiky.  Of course I didn’t know who Robert Smith was, but I was in love the haircut, hers and his.

And so it was that when I went for my regular haircut at our local old ladies salon I asked my mum to ask the hairdresser (you could not imagine how shy I was as a kid…) to do my hair like Ruth’s, which in turn would make it like Mr Smith’s himself.  I’ve never to this day figured out whether my mum didn’t know what I meant, the hairdresser didn’t know what my mum meant or my mother used this unique opportunity to get the haircut she thought I should have.  But when I left the hairdressers that day I left with what could only be described as a short back and sides.

Now, I’ve never been one of those girly girls.  I like dressing nice like everyone does but I’m not big on make-up unless it’s a night out and I was never one of those young girls who insisted on having hair down their back even though it was straggly and split.  But that haircut.  Boy, that haircut.  I cried.  And cried and well, you get the picture.  Ever since then it’s been safe haircuts all the way for me.  Always below the shoulder, sometimes a fringe but always one that I could pin back and get rid of if I wanted, boring boring boring.  Then on Monday my friend came round to cut my hair and I thought to myself, well it could never be as bad as that hairdo could it?  And so I went for it.  It’s by no means a short back and sides, it’s a bob.  A lovely, shiny, curls under without me asking bob.  According to one of the kids I’m an Indie Cindy.  I am unfeasibly happy.  So happy in fact that despite the fact that I am an intelligent, professional woman, I have written an embarrassing amount of words about a haircut.  I’m going to hang my head in shame and think about what I’ve done.  And make you wait for a picture x