My Inner Martha

This weekend I unleashed my inner Martha again. I know I'll never be like her but sometimes it is nice to try. 

For some time I had some slate samples on my kitchen table; the tiles didn't make the grade for the bathroom but as with everything I couldn't bear to throw them out. Thank goodness I found a small piece of turquoise felt as I was tidying up my fabric stashes last week. With the help of a bit of PVA I now have some lovely coasters for my new look lounge. 

After making a few bracelets for the updated Busy Betsy shop I made a yummy coffee and walnut cake from the lovely Sainsbury's Cook Britain cookbook. It was my first attempt and I was rather pleased with the recipe; it looked and tasted exactly the same as the one in my favourite deli for a fraction of the price. The down side was that I ate a third of a cake over the weekend. With Mini Betsy complaining that I do not do enough exercise I felt rather guilty and only had salads for lunch. However I do feel that soon enough there will be plenty of times that I will be working up a sweat as this morning I received a rather unexpected call: 

After having been on a waiting list for nearly three years I am finally the proud landlady of an allotment!! I made Mini Betsy very happy today, she can't wait to take our tools and plant seeds. Unfortunately that is a long way off. The lovely ladies at the allotment gave me some magazines to study and on the first page I read that potatoes need to be in by or around 1 March. With all the weeding and clearing rubbish to do I think I might miss that deadline this year! I will need a lot of advice (and help!) so if anyone can point me to some good blogs I would be most obliged. 

Now to finish of the day, feeling rather pleased with myself I just made a feta and mushroom parcel, ready to go in the oven and to be enjoyed whilst watching the fabulous Mr Selfridge. After that I shall delve into some gardening books.

This was one very pleasant and surprising weekend!

Three down, three to go

And with that I mean the weeks of the summer holidays. I cannot believe that we are halfway there. There are always lots of mums moaning at the start of the holidays saying that six weeks is too long: they all find it a drag and kids get bored. I absolutely love it! So does girl monkey although boy monkey loves school so much that he misses it. The solution is a bit of home schooling to give him structure in the day and we are all happy.

So far it's been a "staycation" but with an international feel. The six weeks started of so nice with plenty of sunshine, the Manchester Mela, a visit to Roman Chester and lunches at Cafe Rouge. We've packed in plenty of picnics in the park and especially the dinner time ones had a calming effect on all of us. The days when the sun wasn't out we had plenty to do inside; the monkeys love making up things so we had a home cinema and French cafe to name a few. The hospital one was a good one although I was really not well and in bed but it gave the kids an excuse to do something different. We always like home cinema: curtains drawn, drinks in bottles and a big bag of home made popcorn all go down well. To fill the time the monkeys made tickets for the film, arranged the seats in the lounge and put stickers on, created a counter to sell sweets and crisps and it all made for a fun time. A lot cheaper than going to the cinema and a good way for them to practice a bit of maths and earn a few pennies as I wasn't allowed in without buying a ticket and sweets!

I have always liked the idea of home schooling as I do not always agree with the standard state school education but at the same time I wouldn't like to take the little ones away from their social life at school which I believe gives them a good grounding for secondary school. However the summer holidays are always a good opportunity to do more at home and the monkeys came up with a brilliant idea: "French Cafe". We had a cook, a waiter and a very smart guest. We prepared a french style lunch with pate, cheeses, baguette, salad, jus d'orange and salade de fruits. It was a great way to learn about home economics, table settings, geography, to practice french words and maths.

In the holidays I don't really have the time to do any crafts but I started on a quilt for girl monkey.

Both monkeys are a bit too young to get involved although they helped me choose the fabrics. The theme really is Dutch fabrics and turquoise. I've sewn the squares on and am now hand quilting with apple green, I think it is going to be very nice.

I am writing this as I am still in bed (oh the joys of summer holidays!) before going to Oulton Park race course to see Mr G. do a crash course in skidding. If any of you are looking for something different to do in the South Manchester/Cheshire area, there is a lovely place called Coffee au Clay where we went yesterday. This is a lovely light and bright cafe with good coffees and cakes and nice pottery items to paint. The monkeys had a ball choosing items and colours and it is so well organised and presented that it made for a very relaxing experience (most mums do not associate paint with relaxation) and I even thought I should have brought a book.

Apart from pottery painting they also do letter decorating with fancy papers that you are able to take on the same day so I have a feeling that that is what we will be doing next week. For now enjoy the summer holidays!

More Suffolk puffs

My work table was a very happy place to be today. Girl monkey's friend Mia left a bunch of lovely flowers at the front door yesterday afternoon and I put them right where I can see them all the time. I looked after her and her little sister on Friday and she thanked me with these in her favourite colour purple (even her bedroom is purple!). Though I have always said it is not my favourite colour it is starting to grow on me and I really like the shades of the flowers. 

Girl monkey made a lovely drawing for me last night that I could use as a 'design' and as she had such a poorly head on Sunday I wanted to make a little surprise for her . 

I had this maternity top lying around in the pile of fabric that needs sorting out and made a little skirt out of it. I am not used to taking pictures yet of works in progress but luckily remembered when I cut off the top. So here we are.... and of course I could have ironed...

I used her design to decorate the front and back of the skirt with some Suffolk puffs (there's a surprise!) and some buttons. There are three on the back but with shorter stems and a little closer together.  She was delighted. 

I took boy monkey on the bus after nursery to do some shopping at Hobbycraft and the book stores. I picked up a couple of lovely books. I really liked Danielle Proud's House Proud, I had wanted it for a while but had never seen an actual copy so this was a nice find. I think I have unknowingly tried all the projects in the book but it is so nicely put together that it is certainly worth adding to my craft library. 

After picking up girl monkey we went to the children's art gallery at school. It was so nice to see the art works of all the years together, there were some really stunning pieces. Boy monkey did "Myself" and girl monkey "Island at night". I quickly wanted to put a red dot on them in case someone else would snap them up! Girl monkey encouraged me to buy several other pieces and didn't quite understand that mummies and daddies might want to buy their own child's work (and just that one). Both monkeys's works have a proud place at home now. 

Sunny Manchester

What a fabulous day this was! Glorious sunshine, not something we see every day in Manchester. I started off so well today making some more necklaces to take with me on Thursday when I will have a stall at an event at one of the local tennis clubs. But I found myself gazing out of my window..... As you can see I am not much of a gardener, either having lived in places for a very short time or not having a garden at all prevented me from getting green fingers but I am very proud of the monkey's sunflowers and other plants we have growing at the moment.

After having made just three bead balls I had the intention to make loads of Suffolk puffs. Just about all my accessories are decorated with them, I just love making them and love the shape and they are so versatile but I didn't get any further than just this teeny weeny blue denim one :

Hmmm.... I made myself my favorite morning drink. I made my smoothie of the day with 1 cup of Greek yoghurt, 1 medium size banana, juice of one lemon and a handful of red grapes. Very refreshing. 

I am now going to curl up with my book. I am reading a hilarious novel called The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn. It's about a woman who had it all but loses her job and finds her husband cheating on the same day. She reinvents herself as a private school admissions adviser and it is just so funny, can't stop reading it!