Spring Cleaning & Tidying Away The Junk!

We’re settling into the new house very slowly, part of this is the face we are doing so many other things, but for the most part its because we have so much ‘stuff’. Things pile up and I distinctly remember saying before the move that I was much too busy and I would sort it once I got to the new place…oh how naive.


One possible good thing to come from this is that I didn’t just throw these things away to get rid of them quickly, this means that now they can be sold on ebay, gumtree, car boot sales or any number of places. The important thing here is that they get sold!

I have loads and loads of ball gowns and cocktail dresses that I bought when I was a cadet for all of the dining in nights and when I was a student for the balls there. I got a new dress for each occasion, (sometimes six a year) as well as a new pair of heels and a bag. I got my hair done up and some beauty treatments as well-just for the fun of it. I mean, I had my part time job in a clothes shop and real life when I was a grown up would be like this, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? …oh how naïve.

So although I haven’t been a good thrifty, frugally saver my whole life at least I have items I can and will sell to make up for it. TH has put his old camera on gumtree, there are some random things we found on ebay and yes, those pretty silk gowns are going too.

I didn’t do as well as I thought I would when I sold some things before from the old caravan. I completely miscalculated the cost of shipping and ended up barely breaking even, minus a product I pretty much gave up for free. I now use a courier company to deal with this as it’s really not worth the hassle trying to carry it down to the Post Office (sorry-I promise I use them for lots of other things).

I found one here which is very used to dealing with eBay purchases and all you need to do to get a free quote…free being the operative word…is put in a couple of details so they can contact you. I absolutely hate having to sign up for no good reason or so a company can send you a bunch of spam, so I am super wary. If you want the cheapest quotes you have to be flexible, but I think we’re all used to that now, and when I put things on eBay I always make it clear I’m not a shop and people are always very patient.

The good thing is you don’t need to make half a dozen phone calls to get quotes for a courier-they get in contact with you. For some reason I always used the Royal Mail because I thought it was easiest, but it isn’t really if you have a great big thing or an awkward shaped parcel you need to send on. I think this is the way forward for future swaps, especially I am able to take advantage of the local delivery page which shows people in your area needing things moved about.

Hopefully I’ll be able to keep the postage costs down and get our things to any eBay purchasers. All these little pennies will hopefully not take too long to add up, and at the very least, we’ll be having a spring clean!

Looking Forward

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Come Out, Come Out.............

Where is Spring? I got so excited about it when the snow went away at the beginning of the year, but I can’t seem to find it. Is it under the bed…no, not there, is it in the hallway (where everything always seems to get left)….no, I’ve had a look and it isn’t there either…has it been in my pocket all along? No, Spring isn’t anywhere.
Last weekend there was a big snow again. We headed out on Sunday morning in a blizzard, but by the time TH came out of Church it was all melted away. I can’t wait for little Daisy Dog to get out into the sunshine like she used to do. She just sits up at the slabbed area looking out onto the hills, I’m sure she’s thinking what I’m thinking!

Keeping Warm

Snow falls steadily outside of the window.  I have given up on Spring time thoughts, the weekends are for napping…

The Snow Outside

What an exciting couple of days of snow.  It started here on Sunday and didn’t stop in our neck of the woods until yesterday…there has been no snow since so I think it is just going away slowly now.  There are patches of grass in the garden, mostly around the shrubs and trees, but even more exciting than that is the fact that I can see little shoots of plants coming up!  This house was in an awful state when we moved here and the garden was so neglected in general that I didn’t believe I’d have any pleasant surprises.  How wrong can I be?  It’s wonderful and that bout of snow didn’t put me off my spring time prep!

Spring in my Step

I have a confession; I have my ‘Easter head’ on. My mind is on Spring, and Easter celebrations and the idea that I will come home from work one day and it will still be bright and sunny. We are lighting the fire less and less, although the heaters are still on. I do have to say that part of that is because the house was so wet and cold when we first moved it, but now it’s becoming nice to have the windows and doors thrown open wide, so I imagine we will need less heating as we really get into March.


After Christmas I always feel like I should be dropped straight into Spring or at least allowed to hibernate, so I have slowly been biding my time and I can feel now-after the stress of pre-Christmas moving-that this house will be good to us.

I am longing for pastel shades and daffodils, leaping lambs and gardening. Spring, to me at least, is about having energy. This is a season for being busy and hardworking. It must be about digging and planting. It must be about cleaning and brightening the place up, and I can not wait to get started.

Everywhere I Look Around

The Husbands Birthday is very soon and I can't help but plan and organise it along with all of my Easter ideas.

Spring has sprung and I couldn't be more egg-cited...ok cheesey, but I told you I couldn't contain it!

Spring is in the Air

I just couldn't help myself.

I am in L.O.V.E. with everything pastel at the moment.  I am supposed to be planning a Birthday tea for TH and then an Easter 'get together', but I am too busy looking at utterly delicious pictures.

Birthdays Are Coming

Birthdays are the most wonderful sorts of days, only surpassed by Christmas Eves in which everybody joins in the excitement. When I was little Birthdays meant wearing a badge on your blazer to school proclaiming your new age. Birthdays were for friends for tea and a party at the weekend in the village hall. They were, quite literally, for jelly and ice cream and musical statues. I hear from friends with little ones about extravagant events and if that’s the way its going, I’m sure my nephews would think I lived in utter poverty with just a game of pass the parcel and party songs which were solely meant for twirling to.


It is TH’s Birthday soon and this year it falls during the Easter weekend. We are having about ten people over and I’d love to do a really pretty theme. I hope to have the house covered in pastel colours and hopefully it will be a nice weekend as we plan to have a BBQ. The kids can be entertained with an egg hunt, and the grown ups entertained by some pretty drinks! I’ve got these cute little glasses and some of those paper straws I’ve seen everywhere. I also bought some Happy Birthday bunting and I think you get really sweet paper plates etc. now so I will get those too. Hmmm, I just need to get a present, eek!

Spring Time

Exciting plans ahead...

January

January can so often be a gloomy sort of month. I know that I feel deep down inside that seeing as Christmas is over it may as well rush into spring. I want to see the bulbs and go from deep rich colours to more muted tones. I then zip forward a couple of months when I start to plan our summer holiday, and by the time that’s over its autumn and I might as well get planning the Christmas shopping trips all over again. This has been the cycle for a little while-but long enough for me to get into it-and I want to stop it.

How dull to plan your life away, constantly wishing I was a couple of months ahead of where I was. There are wonderful things in January that I should be grateful for now. I don’t want to get to a busy weekend in spring planting out seeds and wish I could be wrapped up cosy like I should have been in winter.

This January I hope to be different. I have read so much in papers about failed New Years Resolutions, and so I aim to make this difference through celebration of the season. I hope that by ensuring January is kept, well, January like I will see it for what it is and what it can give me.

This means buying in season, and following January pursuits-marmalade making included. It means being true to what your body tells you. I don’t crave salads, I want soups. Last night we had the most delicious bangers and mash, not exciting, just slowly sautéed onions made into thick gravy with gorgeous butchers sausages and lump free mash- heaven after a long day, and definitely worth waiting for.

We are still on for having game-feathers and furred, and although we can no longer pop out to buy super fresh fish from our little village harbour I still want to eat seasonal seafood. I am always keen on buying up veg and using it to bulk up meals and winter root veg is the best.

We now live outside of the village and rely heavily on a boxed veg scheme and a local butcher for much more of our food. I hope that this keeps me in line to succeed in my aim. I love reading about what everyone is up to this January and imagine I will be getting lots of ideas!!

Spring has come!

“There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

When i came back...

Hello Blogging lovlies!!  I see that everyone has been super busy taking off all those extra layers of woolies and getting into the Spring-time mood!
I've just been working....and working.........and working, although i really must admit that i love my job, and can't believe i only started in December.
My plans for keeping busy over the weekend have been really good.  I'm pleased to say that i've done 'something' at the end of each week.  Now, im not claiming that what i've been up to is super exciting, or even very interesting to other people, but we've had a grand old time just getting up to stuff, going on walks, visiting charity shops etc...

Now i really must say that i've not been blogging a lot and that for the last couple of weeks i've been meaning to post about the BLOG LOVE SWAP....Ooops, that was a long time ago...i may upload lots of pics by way of apology.
However, i am beyong grateful to the lovely, funny and very talented Pene over at Scrap my Midlife Crisis which is such a great blog.  Now i have to admit that when clicking on links between recent posts and thereby finding this amazing blog i did firstly click because i saw a cute little westie by the name of Daisy (just like my little madam)...but you can't help but stay on the blog looking at the beautiful makes, funny pics and all round 'good banter'!  Now this very talented lady has done something else very lovely.  She has given me an award!  And (drum roll please) it's my very first one!  I feel awful that i haven't been in Blogland for ages and haven't seen it, but i promise you that as soon as i did click on my little old blog house and saw that i had comments i hadn't read i went away and posted this message right now!!!
So thank you, thank you, thank you!  I am very excited, happy, grateful and touched that you even thought of me!

There are still some things around..

Every where i pop my head in blogland there are some more Spring stories and pretty pastel flowers.  Up here in the North of Scotland its still a bit frosty and there is still sleet coming down on us every so often, we don't have any spring things yet or pretty pastel flowers.  We still have cold.  We still have wet, and inside of the house we've still got some decorations I've forgotten to take down....oops, bad luck.  So here they are now, not to be seen until the end of this year!

Lots of cook books, and a bit of home made decorations 

Darn flash!  I do love Paddington 

I love my cookbooks, very varied and good to read up and get lots of ideas from 

Even the cups got a little tinsel on them

This corner doesn't look too festive... 

oops, i spoke too soon! 

these lights are staying up, no matter what month it is, i love the light glow in the evening 

All the bags piled up on the sofa ready to go into the loft.  Poor rabbit, he cant see a thing! 

The tea shelf, just a wee bit of tinsel still hanging around.  I promise this week its all coming down, all the bits i thought id gotten earlier, I'll find and put up in the loft!

Summer is about being outside. Busy or still, it’s about feeling the warmth on your skin.

I tend to think of Summer and Winter as still months, while Autumn and Spring are busy.

 Spring is sowing and organising, it’s all about tidying up inside and throwing all of the windows open.  Autumn is about gathering the bounty, but the months before and after are about enjoying the peace.
 

We are in Summer now; we are feeling the benefits of the work in Spring.  We are clear and clean inside.  We are already tidied away and at peace in the house.  The clutter has been cleared-the very best a hoarder can clear away things.

Right now I feel I need the peace and the quiet and the flowers in the garden.  Right now I need to sit, bare foot staring out at the bumble bees.  I need the still, still summer.  The long days, the bright mornings.

Things are changing-the seasons as well as in our home.  We’re making decisions and facing tough choices so we are welcoming all that can bring calm.

I hope you are surrounded by the ones you love and having a much more peaceful existence in your own homes.

x x 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’.

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!