Trips away

A little while ago The Husband and I went to Edinburgh, TH was working and I packed up and went along with him. He had found a nice hotel that would also allow dogs which was quite close to the town centre. We packed up one day, jumped into the hire car-which by the way was MUCH nicer than our own-and headed down south.

Although we’ve got family there, we don’t often get to visit, so I was very excited. I always get quite excited when I see the forth road bridge and luckily we got into town and found the hotel quickly.

As TH was working he got himself all set up for some emails and contact with the office while I whisked Daisy Dog away for a little walk. To tell the truth I always like to go out for a little explore when I find myself in a new destination. TH had himself a little nap when we got back and I took myself off to the gym and swimming pool. By the time we both felt like it was time to eat, we were much too late to find anywhere normal, and so we wondered down to The Hard Rock Café for some burgers, fries, nacho’s and potato skins, quickly followed by a giant sundae. It was supposed to be a joint dessert, however TH isn’t a pudding person and I happily devoured most of it!
As TH had to get off to a meeting quite early the next day we took Daisy Dog off for a wee walk and headed to bed. Just a teeny bit squished as no matter how many blankets and cushions we took Daisy had to be squeezed into the middle!

Birthday Presents

Because The Husband was away for my actual Birthday you may remember that i had two birthdays

It didn't mean i got two lots of presents....but at least it means they were spaced out!

No Birthday of mine could be complete without a candle..could it?  I haven't had this one before but it smells lovely.  I adore sweet, sweet scents and this one was worth waiting for.  Im awful at keeping canldes for Autumn and Winter, but this one won't wait!

My main present was this perfume...i am utterly addicted to Amazing Grace by Philosophy and luckily got this perfume!

I got some nail polish, bottles of wine, westie related things and lots of vouchers!  I love getting vouchers as not only do you get to say thank you for being so kind when you receive them, but you also get to tell the person what lovely thing you bought with their kind gift

Tea

This counts for excitement when you're married.

A nice day for a drive

Last week while The Husband was away my Aunt and Uncle called and asked if I'd like to go on a trip with them.

 

So i packed up Daisy Dog and headed out for the weekend 

I spent the Saturday night with them and we headed West for the trip on Sunday bright and early 

We went to a beautiful place, i definitely want to come back later in the Summer with The Husband 

And i guess we'll be visiting next year too, as its a bit of a tradition really

and I'm very glad to be part of it.

I promise to share more later as I'm a bit caught up with The Husband being home today, and just much too excited to do anything.  Hopefully we'll be having more trips into the Cairngorms so i can get much more pictures...ooops, I've said too much!

Have a great weekend.  I hope its nice where you are!

We were spoiled for too long...

We were too spoiled for much too long. We ran around last week shouting "We're hotter than Ibiza, we're hotter than Ibiza."  And indeed, we were.  It made the local news on the hour every hour.  We were warm, no, strike that...we were much too boiling hot for a village on the North East coast.  Windows were perpetually thrown open and at dusk every night i ran outside to try to water the plants.  Too many of them took a bit more sun than was good for them and my  poor sweet pea's have dwindled down to about a pot and a half worth now.  I still hope that they can come up through my roses later in the summer.

Last week was a reading week, just reading in the garden, and the occasional nap.  "We're not made for this weather," we would tell our neighbours.  I knew too well that we all got a little bit more friendly when it snowed outside, but i never have gotten the oppertunity to find out we were more open to peeping over garden fences in the Summer heat to chat too.

We had it good for too long, it started to get too 'close', even spending the day down on the beach didn't help.  There was no 'air', no breeze or freshness.  My head hurt non-stop for a whole week, we all felt the pressure building above our heads....then...BANG!

A giant thunder and lightning storm.  It lasted all night and the rain poured down.  Giant drops, not spring or summer showers.  Wild, crazy, howling, thrashing wind and storms.

Dasiy dog barked twice and went back to sleep.  I sat in the porch for a while watching it all, but quite frankly it got a bit dark after a while and the storm calmed and i headed off to bed.   

In the morning my head didn't hurt and it was cool outside. The next couple of days The Storm was all we spoke about...very British, its all about the weather! "Did you hear the storm?", "Were you kept awake by the storm?", "Cleared the air, that storm did, didn't it?"

We will never be happy, unless we're just happiest talking about the big news in the village, which apparently is just the weather.
Have a great weekend, The Husband is home and i couldn't be happier!
x

We're hot

The pup is in the porch panting, I've lifted her inside twice, but she crawls back into the warmest place in the whole house and pants....The windows are all thrown wide open and she has a bowl of water with some ice cubes in it in three different rooms...she is doing well, nobody looks after me when its too hot to do a thing.

Everything is so happy that the sun has come out to play, its all so green and luscious.

I think she is soaking in all the heat she can while it is hot.  We had a dog that would have to be dragged from the fire side when he got too hot, so i know that its in their nature.

She hid under the lush foliage of the bushes in the garden earlier this morning, but then collapsed into the sunshine on the patio.  Its too bright to sleep and I've already tidied up the house, ran outside re-potted a whole bunch of things i should have cared for long ago and tidied up the garden.  Now that i feel like closing my eyes in the sunshine i know i need to head off to work and put in another couple of hours!
Roll on the weekend, it is going to be good!

Bloggyness-whats in a name?

There are so many why this and why that blog posts at the moment it got me thinking about my own blog and there are a couple things i was thinking to myself, which i sort of thought i could share so that if you ever think...why the heck did you do that, then you'd know...or maybe have a bit more insight.

Its obvious I'm not any sort of professional writer, and i think as with most blogs i write how i talk, and so when if you were to bump into me in the street and i said something where you did think...ooh doesn't that sound pretentious/nutty/rude i could correct myself, but on here i cant...so that's the why out of the way!

Today i thought id say why i wanted to tell you all about the title of this blog...Homemaking Heaven.

I started this blog in 2009, but didn't really do much with it.  I remember it was only a couple of months after getting married and The Husband and i had visited friends on the other side of the country.  It was an amazing trip and i loved every second of it, although i was a bit frightened to go.  Yes, it was my best friend, but i had hardly seen her in ages and the meeting before last wasn't all i thought it would be....you see my friend already lived with her long term boyfriend, toddler and was pregnant again.  She lived in a big house in the middle of a small island.  It looked perfect and from the way she spoke it was.  I was much too caught up in my wedding to really get into asking her how everything was, although i know now that if i scratched the surface i could have seen it was all a front.  I wish i had done, but she had 'put me off the scent' and i fell for it.

My lovely sweet friend did what i guess lots of women do, she put on a front.  And on this particular meeting i soaked it all in.  She had spoken of her perfect makes, bakes, life, chores that practically do themselves and her perpetually happy look on life.  So when The Husband and i went to visit our friends again later in the year i was intimidated and then some!  I fell short of her in every aspect there could be.  My cakes fell in the middle, i covered them with butter cream or just filled them with fruit.  I never stuck to any make at all.  I grew inpatient and gave up, my makes went as far as tying ribbon to things.  The dust piled high in my house as i was always too busy either with the wedding, university, work and trying to spend time with my husband.

However when i met my lovely friend i saw her stories for what they were.  I was so ashamed I'd let her tell me these things.  I felt awful that my wonderful, funny and very witty friend felt she needed to portray herself to be all of the things she told me she was, and i felt awful that i got jealous. 

I started to think about what homemaking was.  Was it being perfect at everything, what extent of chores to makes needed to be done in the home by the woman or family in the house.  Could you be a homemaker who threw their hands up in the air and said they didn't want to do various things?  And that's where this blog came from.

I wanted to be a homemaker, but i couldn't do everything.  I wanted to make the best life for my family, but i didn't know how to.  I wanted to say at the end of my day that it was a success, but i was still scared to say i was proud to make house...i didn't want to be seen as a child at a plastic kitchen set and a dolly.  I wanted to be part of the growing number of women that know it is worth their while making things for their family. 

I guess this blog is all over the place, sometimes its busy and sometimes its quiet, sometimes i have lots to do and sometimes its a bit reflective.  I think and imagine it will change as i change, but it came from a tiny seed, and a tiny thought, it was about my friends, my family and my life....and a dream about how i wanted to make my own life.

luxury is....

luxury is....

time to enjoy the papers in the morning with a cup of steaming hot tea or coffee.  The tea must be deliciously sweet and utterly tempting, much too milky for others to wish for, but perfect for me.  The cup gets carried carefully back to a warm bed and the tinkling of china stops its bell like warning that I'm walking with hot delicate substances.  The Husband is waiting and we unfurl the papers.  The main paper goes to my partner and i tear into The Weekender.  The plastic packaging is thrown on the floor for now, only to be something I'll slip on later, but for now my head is on a propped up pillow and I'm happily gazing up at my new magazine.  Like all glossies i flick through all of the pages, abandoning the contents page for others, i find what I'm looking for...'readers comments'.  I laugh out uninhibited, for today I'm not on the bus reading, this weekend is the best type of weekend.  I am at home. 

I flick through again, and not finding anything to instantly take my fancy i move on to the next section of paper, and the next, and the next...piles of wreckage are strewn around the bed.  Crumpled sheets of paper, messily folded or crushed into squares surround The Husband and i on our once fortnightly life craft of sanity.  Its the best sort of weekend.  I'm not working and its one for pottering.  Everything is lazy and slow.  The roast is slow, our walks are slow, it is comfortable.  For two whole days we are the Lord and Lady of our own little manor.  No rushing, no buying, it is all our own convenience. 

The weekend is ours to prod fires, take afternoon naps and day dream with the dog on our knee.

Happy Birthday...no...unbirthday

Hello all!  How are you today?...we could do with some of the bright sunshine that kept April so glorious!
Today is my Official Birthday..twenty...ahem, something, something years ago i was born on this day.  However The Husband, as well as most of my family are either living in an other country or are away on holiday, or indeed, in TH's case, away with work.  Its most unfortunate, that's for sure, but it is the way the cookie crumbles.  So here i am all on my lonesome.

Aha...I'm not too sad though, well, not sad at all about my Birthday.  I do miss TH, but its work and that's that.  BUT i am going to do some very lazy, selfish, glutinous things today and not one single person can stop me!  Not only am i like the Queen who has two Birthdays, i am utterly untouchable as nobody can ever tell you off on your own special day.
Saturday was my Unofficial Birthday, or Un-Birthday Tea as Alice in Wonderland sat down to.  We had an extra special lovely day, followed by a very lovely Sunday morning and then TH jetted off and left me to my own devices.

Daisy and i will eat our own favourite food, go on our own favourite trips and i will certainly get to visit an awful lot more thrift shops than normal.  Usually I'm much too afraid as i know I'll spot something i want, and i know it will be too difficult to sneak into the house!
x

The Caravan Love

I turn left...i turn right...and its caravans, caravans, caravans everywhere....Oh how i wish i had one too!!!
The CK mag, other lovely bloggers planning trips away for summer sunshine, packing up the bare minimum and heading to where the clouds deem fit to part over good old Blighty!

We've got a little jar in the living room which occasionally gets filled up with two pound coins and the Scottish one pound coins when either The Husband or myself check our pockets and purse.  Every so often a note may get dropped into it and excitement fills the house the closer we get to filling our jar. 
However, just as soon as the jar gets filled up another unexpected bill or something or other pops up and the jar gets emptied again.  Hopefully it wont be like the pixar film UP, we will one day be able to get what we want!!
We're going to continue attempting to fill it up, and we need to clear out the loft, so hopefully we can put some things up in ebay and have some money squirreled away in paypal which will make us less likely to 'break into it'!
Maybe by next Summer we can have an empty jar...but a caravan in the drive way.
Good luck with all the caravan posts!! I'm ever so ever jealous, but i promise i wont be bitter.
x  

Hang whitewash

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing."  - Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Its done!! Its all been done.  I'm sure the very best of you...or indeed, the most diligent, were finished their spring cleaning many moons ago.  I, however, have only just finished, and i am still very proud.
 
I had a bit of a Mole moment and got to the point where i knew it just had to BE DONE.  It was done, but i also knew i had to just put the wet cloths away after a powerful wash and say that's that for now.
 
The sun has come, and is currently hiding, the windows have been thrown open so that it is pleasantly cool and every cushion and rug has been bashed to bits, all of the ornaments that get quick dusts at all other occasions got a good proper wash and at one point everything was in the middle of each and every room.  It is done.  It is time to let the sunshine in.  It is time for the adventures of Summer.

One million miles an hour

WOW, what an amazing couple of weeks, well, much longer actually...but doesn't everything seem to be 'happening'. 

In the world...THE Wedding, it was so beautiful and took up lots of time watching those beautiful pictures unfold, then crazy things happening in the real world.  You can bump back down to earth and see all of the horrid things about, but then you watch the news and pray that things going on in far away places will change because of massive changes all around.
Right here in our own little corner of the world we've been very busy.  The garden is coming together and its so exciting.  To see things you planted ages ago, things you buried in the earth with the hope something beautiful would come of it.  A small egg shaped grubby bulb, a packet of teeny tiny seedlings and lots of love and hope....

Easter Time

Are you getting your homes beautifully ready for Easter? I am!! Well, this weekend we’re really getting into it as we’re hoping that some lovely friends will be able to pop in by, if they can’t manage then we’ll have a very colourful house anyway.


I'm going to be piling up some pretty painted eggs in bowls with some lemons and limes, this will be going on in the kitchen as I’ve always got masses of lemons in there anyway as they’re so good for everything. In the living room its going to be much paler and softer. I love my pastel colours and the white walls throughout the house can obviously carry off any ‘look’.

What does one do when husband dearest is out of town?

Go shopping of course! I mean what does one do when he is in town anyway?!! The amount of ‘new’ books in the house is alarming, and I know that I have to start re-arranging the shelves again to fit everything in. While in the local library I saw a stall with some donated books for sale on it, all of the proceeds were going to organise children’s activities in the school holidays, so naturally I assumed everyone was a winner and strolled on over! What did I spy? Twilight Series..YAY! Now you can’t even say I'm only having something to do with it because of Edward Cullen, as it’s a book, so I can claim the high road…well, for now anyway. It’s a bit Mills and Boon-and I love it! So for the grand sum of £1.20 I got four paperbacks which look like they’ve only been read through once if that.

Then a little wander later I come across some more cute Winnie the Pooh books. It’s a little set of four as well, in a little hard cardboard case with four Pooh stories in it. I love some of the poems in them, E. H. Shepherd is an amazingly skilled and I fall in love with each and every one of the pictures again and again. I think people that can draw for children must be so, so on the ball to capture those little minds and keep them dreaming. Those drawings stay with you forever and ever, and when you are small they mark a time in your life as much as the books do. I have about five meters of children’s books and no children as yet, but as soon as we are blessed I hope that I can instill a massive sense of value in books for them. Its quite funny thinking about how much children’s books there are, as yes there is about five meters, and the cost…um, less than ten pounds!! So although I do miss TH, I defiantly think that I can get off with an awful lot more naughty spending when I don’t have to hide things when I walk through the door!

Egg carton seedlings

Ok, who did this in school?  Hands up now!  With all of the eggs we’ve been going through making cakes and Easter related decorations we’ve got bundles of egg cartons about.  So I’ve been gathering them all up and planting seeds in them, just like when I was at school!  How sweet-it brings back an awful lot of memories of trudging to school through April showers.  So hopefully I’ll have lots of beautiful seedlings, and look Mum, I did listen in class!

Sun-shiney HELLO!

It is spring, well and truly gloriously beautiful spring!  Problems with my laptop mean that I'm not taking part in a meeting and I'm probably going to be heading out shortly to plant some more seeds.  I'm exhausted already from going out with the dog for an exceptionally long walk-hey don’t say anything, two hours is a long walk for Daisy Dog and I.  So this is a very impromptu ‘hello out there in blogland’, I hope that you are having as lovely (but most probably better) weather as we are here.  It’s not often that we can boast about that in the North East!  We're being warned that it will turn slowly, and we've even been told that SNOW may come our way!

Lambies in the field.

Nothing can bring you more pleasure than peeking over a fence into a farmer’s field and spotting some jigging, leaping, frolicking lambies!!  They are utterly adorable and can instantly cheer you up.  The way they spring about, the way they trot after Mummy Sheep, the races they partake in until they notice Mums at the other end of the park!  I love them, The Husband and I have been heading for and from work for the past couple of weeks shouting out and pointing whenever we see a field of those marshmallow innocents. 

Driftwood goodness

I've recently taken to collecting the bits of wood i see down at the beach when walking Daisy Dog.

Walking slowly down on the sand while the dog jumps back and forth, running at and from the crashing waves.  I spot something in the distance that i can instantly imagine playing a role in the garden.  Something to sit on, something for flowers to cling to, something for a pot of herbs to rest on.

Liberating peices that have collected on the sand.

Some are parts of fences or bits that have already been used in a bonfire.

Some are beautiful and will be kept for something...we dont know yet, but they will make a display of some sort.

Soft and tactile.

No more sandy shoes!

Oooh ive just been having a look at the wonderful Martha Stewart website (she was on an Oprah repeat and i couldnt help myself) and i saw the most fabulous ideas for outliving.  Living by the sea means that we go down to the beach every day, and so every day sand gets pulled back into the house and kicked all over the place.  The website states that you should set up a 'rinsing station' at your front door.  All you need is a teak bath mat which provides slip-free footing and good drainage. The steady stream from an ordinary watering can cleans every unwanted speck from your feet and flip-flops or waterproof garden shoes.

I'm off to get some supplies that will make this Summer much easier!...if summer comes after this misty Spring time!
x