Amongst the flora

Hello! 
I don't think I have taken such a long blogbreak in about 3 years!
It didn't happen intentionally, but somehow, I haven't had much to blog about (well, I have, but I haven't found the time!), nor had the time nor the inclination!
All is fine here.  Some wedding things are beginning to happen- it's hard to believe in under 50 days I am going to be married!!!! Kind of crazy!  SO much still to do or sort out. 
We've been having marriage prep classes with the vicar which have been really really useful for both of us, even CBC who doesn't share my religious beliefs and I really would recommend them to anyone considering marriage!  We've booked transport for our honeymoon there and back and just booked three nights accommodation.  We're going to Switzerland which will be lovely but lots to sort out!! 

On Friday, I sang in a 'Songs from the musicals' evening at church, as part of our centenary celebrations, singing a whole range including those from Phantom, Wicked, The Sound of music, Girl Crazy, Go go nanette. It went miraculously well considering the last three days I could barely sing, croaking away.  On the day I TRIED to save my voice and drank hot ribena all day (the remedy of the 80's child!) and my voice suddenly came back at the start of the concert and lasted all evening without the slightest croak!  It was a miracle!

We went out for drinks for a friend of CBC's birthday in Earl's court on Saturday evening which was fun as I found a TARDIS!  It was nice to finally meet her, particularly as she is singing at our wedding!
School has been fine.  Next week, I have 2 trips out. One to go and teach year 6 gamelan on a real gamelan at last (but scary!) and one to take my Year 2 choir to sing at a festival!

I was really happy to wear this dress last Thursday.  I love Skater style dresses and it was perfect for what was a warm and lovely day! Add a fedora and all is good!

I'm off to lindyhop now (been going to regular weekly classes for 5 weeks now!  SOOOO cool!)

Take care xxx

52 weeks of happy- flowers, caravans and Atomic Mildred!

1.  I was so happy to meet the lovely Miss Simmonds Says on Sunday at my weekend Music Camp performance.  It is really surreal to meet another blogger but really cool!  We didn't get a huge amount of time to chat but it was so so lovely to meet her and she is just as lovely, if not nicer, in real life!!! Plus her hair is the most awesome thing ever!!!  Thanks so much for coming Clare, it was a delight and I hope to meet you again another time soon!


2.  Speaking of camping, the rampant wildlife was a beauty to behold at the weekend.  There were flowers in abundance.  Everything was green and verdant.











It was lovely to sit in the arboretum and sitting doing some cross-stitch (yes, you heard that right!  Crafty-blog link ups have somehow inspired me to try new things!)
The sun shone and it was beautiful despite one or two cold spells.
It was a sheer pleasure to see friends old and newer and be with them in my happy place, a place that is so familiar for me, a place that rarely changes.  For me, a person who likes things to stay the same, it is always special, always meaningful.  It is always there, those friendships remain, those opportunities to make beautiful music remain, those ties remain.  Though much else may change, it will always be there, I am certain!

3.  I thought it was appropriate that the Apprentice was about caravans as I got to sleep in my friend Ellie's caravan this weekend as I arrived too late to put up a tent.  It was sheer luxury to be there and to have a heated caravan with hot water, toilet, bed, curtains so it wasn't light and to share it with a friend! Her caravan is beautiful!

4.  Oh my year 3 recorders!!!! They've been doing composition tasks based on road rhythms, making their own melodies!  Today, they created really successful pieces which made me really happy!!! I shall quite miss teaching them the recorder next year!

5.  We had a borough-wide singing festival today which I took my choir to.  They sang beautifully, we had a jolly good time. Their solo went really well, and though at the time, I wasn't sure how well it came across, and thought the other schools sang amazingly! However, several people came up and asked me how on earth I managed to get my children to sing in 4part harmony with completely independent lines.  I am lucky that my children this year are just not phased by singing harmony lines and indeed, really enjoy the challenge.  I also looked at the other school choirs and noticed there weren't more than 3 boys in other school choirs.  I looked and noticed that I had 9 boys- so glad that this is something that has changed in my choir 'demographic'.  It's a good thing if it is appealing to boys!

What's made you happy this week, apart from looking at sweetie earrings of course!? ;-)
xx

Ear candy

I have a penchant for eccentric earrings.  Things that look like they should be something else.  Or something different or quirky.  My Scrabble tile earrings, Pride and Prejudice and Lego ones take pride of place in my collection.

At the Big Church Day Out back at Bank Holiday weekend, I came across a stall from a company called DIY beads who were selling beads and you could make them into necklaces and bracelets at the time.

There were all sorts of cool and fancy ones. But the ones that attracted me the most were the sweetie ones.

Pink Shrimps are one of my favourite sweets so it was inevitable I would squeak and reach for these ones instantly.   The bananas, eggs and love hearts followed in that order.  It was a simple matter to bend a jump ring and add them to it plus earring backs.  Really not really craft in my case or making but simply the opening and shutting of rings of metal! 

Thus, because I feel a bit of a cheater, here's something else I made- a card for a fellow blogger's birthday.

My sister has a really cool dress-shaped punch.  As a birthday present- she cut me a box of dress shapes in different patterned papers. What a cool idea- it cost her very little but was a huge help to me!
I layered the dresses upon 3d pads to accentuate the bottom half and then added paper-shredded strips and some punched butterflies.



Linking up to Ta Dah Tuesday
Creative Mondays


Super Handmade Sundays with Sarah:

In and out linking party with Cynthia

Bloggers on the Orient Express

Hello there!

Inspiration Monday with the Two Birds has come round again and here we have Katherine McPhee (again, not sure who) is here in an intriguing outfit combo of denim, maxi-skirt and statement necklace.



As is quite often the case, I didn't quite have anything to fit the tee but decided to reverse the top and skirt colours and add a statement necklace.  Well, statementish.
Skirt- Per Una, blouse- Oasis via thrift/charity shop, shoes- local shoeshop, necklace- Accessorize, corsage- F21, denim belt which doesn't know what to do with itself- part of skirt.

Not my favourite look on me ever, bit bland but I am always up for the challenge of trying to fit the bill!
Did I tell about my blog dream last week.  In fact, NO I didn't, as I went away for the weekend and thus haven't been able to blog.

Well, I dreamt that somehow, we had organised a blogger weekend on the Orient Express.  It was international and so many of you came along!  I remember particularly being excited when I came across Katie Hook Line and Sink Her who had  canary yellow hair in my dream (sorry Katie!) and sitting down and eating cake and all sorts and Char sewing a dress!!!
4 days on, lots of the details of it are now hazy, wish I'd typed as soon as I woke up but I do remember a lot of wandering through the train and finding it surreal I was seeing some of you in real life!!! I've now met 2 blogging friends in real life (one yesterday!) so maybe that was on my mind!

SO, was that just a random dream or is somebody somewhere trying to organise a blogger train journey!  Mwa ha ha!!!!!

xx

A look into the mind of a junior tempter!

Hey!

I've really struggled to write my book posts in recent times- I just haven't wanted to write book posts.  I haven't read a huge amount of books in recent times but even those, I just have felt ambivalent about writing.  However, I love rereading a favourite book
One of my favourite books that I have read, which really challenges me is The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.  This is a fiction book in which a Senior Devil writes letters to a Junior Tempter advising him on the best ways to tempt his human to vice and thus secure his soul for eternity. If you read it on the surface, it is an interesting book.  The character of Screwtape is so delightfully vile.  I'd like to read the letters that Wormwood, the young tempter writes that prompts these answers but sadly not!
On a deeper level, it contains a lot of C.S. Lewis's theology and beliefs about Christianity, God, the Devil etc.  Even if you don't have a faith, it's a seriously interesting book.  As you read of Screwtape's disparaging comments on the conduct of Wormwood, it does make you think about moments in your life and thoughts that go through your head and make you wonder and think "But that's exactly what happens to me, or what I end up thinking!" and actually wondering just how much temptation and thoughts are put into your mind and what is from you and actually start to think about the temptations that come your way.

It also makes you think about and look at death in a different way.  How love is viewed by someone who just doesn't understand it, how all that is noble and beautiful could be abhorrent to someone with a depraved mind and quite simply, no matter what your beliefs, you can read this book in so many ways and still enjoy it!!!  Let me know if you give it a go, I'd be delighted to know what you think!


Image comes from the great www.foyles.co.uk where you can buy this book.  I am still anti-Amazon until they start paying their tax

Lady in Flowers (SIA)

It was Style Imitating Art with Salazar of 14 shades of grey. This week’s SIA inspiration is “Illumination” by Colette Calascione:    Aren't I silly, I feel a bit silly putting up a naked lady picture, even though she'd covered in flowers and has nice wallpaper, shawl and crocheted chair! In retrospect, I could have gone with hairflowers, floral crowns and pearls but ah well!!!





I bought this blouse from a vintage shop in Nottinghill gate in February and at the time, I kind of regretted it because I didn't try it on and was suddenly aware I looked like a bit er- like I was an octegenarian! Combined with these White Stuff tweed shorts, I didn't mind it so much! I love it in summer where I can wear my collection of straw hats- this one was from TK Maxx a long time and was one of the Mum's wedding hat quartet!  The floral brogues don't really photograph very well but never mind!  I have very pale legs.  However, not even that will convince me to try fake tan- no way!

This afternoon, I unfortunately didn't get to teach music as the year 5 teachers wanted to do a Greek food afternoon.  I was a little miffed about it as they've missed music lessons for 2 weeks now and I am on another trip next week so they wont have it again.  I had got all my resources ready and didn't have the time to go through the lesson.  Plus, I wondered why they used today to do it but anyway, such is life.  However one of the activities was tasting Greek foods.  Each pair of children had a plate with Greek olive bread, olives, feta, dolmova (the vine leaf thingies), marinated peppers, and a tomatoey dish and a aubergine dish.  It was really funny because apparently, the other class were all saying, "Urgh, it's disgusting!" and being complete drama-queens (one says it and the rest follow suit).  Whereas, in our classroom, they were a little more open-minded and tried everything and saw it in a positive light and liked most of the items and were raving about them.  We had various 'hoover' children who went round and ate up all the scraps of their favourite item.  A adored olives and ate all those up for grabs, J loved the vine leaves and happily munched his way through them, U loved the peppers and swiped those and the majority ate the lot. Everyone liked the feta!  I told them that they obviously had more sophisticated taste-buds than the other class! They liked that!

Hope all is well with you and thank you for the recent spate of kind comments!  Welcome to the lovely new following people as well- tis so kind of you to visit my little ol waffly blog!!!
xx

With cat-like tread, across the seas we go

You get super brownie-points if you can tell me where my blog title comes from!

Ages ago, I saw a wonderful tutorial on Kate-Gabrielle's Scathingly-brilliant blog for how to embroider your own cat shoes.  I thought this looked a great idea and decided to give it a try.   Her tutorial is here- I'd advise you to go to her blog for the proper tutorial.  This is more my own take on the experience rather than amazing original tutorial.  That would be plagiarism!!

1.  You need to find a pair of cheap flat shoes.  You could do it with heels but they'd need to be something you can pierce easily with a needle. I have looked for ages and found this pair with plimsol-like material in Asda for £6- I knew a needle would easily pass through these.

You can find them here at Asda. They also do them in grey!

2.  Next, I drew round the front of the shoe and then drew a cat face on it.  I kept it fairly simple.  I then scribbled on the back of the paper with a white pencil and then placed it over the shoe and drew hard over the design with a medium-sharp pencil (not too sharp or it will go through the paper.).  Kate used tracing paper but you don't need to- I couldn't find any!

3.  Then you start to sew with embroidery thread (and a sharpish needle).  I chose to use biscuit-coloured thread as it was not so stark as white might be.  Kate advised that you start from the bits further inside the shoe as they are the hardest!  I had to go over the white pencil face with my white pencil a couple of times as it rubbed off a bit. I had trouble with finding where to put the needle through- it was mostly guesswork. I know of no other way to miraculously find where the needle needs to go otherwise!

4.  Finally, I decided not to go with green eyes but used pink Pebeo- 3d touch paint to colour in the nose.

5.  I intend to sew on a little pair of black felt triangles (with mini pink triangles on top) to the top to make ears at some point but right now, I think I will wear them as they are.

6.  If you decided to make a bunny version of these shoes (Asda do grey shoes), you could easily add a pair of floppy ears and then add a white pom-pom to the back to make a cute tail.

Linking to:


Sarah's Super handmade Sunday


Claire Justine's Creative Mondays

Cynthia's In and Out link party

Lakota's Ta dah Tuesday

Debaubled.

I smiled when I saw this celeb called Lauren Conrad wearing this IM Monday outfit with the Two Birds- skater dress and hat- yes, I like the sound of that!



You have seen this dress once before-it was the base of my Dalek dress.  I extracted it from the bag it was in, along with the sink plunger and whisk and debaubled it.  Add a straw hat and turquoise pumps (couldn't find my electric blue shoes sadly!)

I came home today because I felt really unwell- queasy and had horrid tummy cramps.  I changed into the skater dress which is really good because it doesn't clench your tummy.  I wasn't going to do it today but my mum came over to see me when she discovered I wasn't feeling well.  Being in the garden was restful and restorative- sunshine is such a beautiful thing.

Hope you are ok.
xx

Squiffy in the park!

CBC likes to begin his SMS missives usually calling me some sort of name like fluffy or squiffy.  Unfortunately, his latest facebook status amusedly informed the world that I was indeed squiffy in the most common meaning of the word.  I do not usually drink as you may have read.  Not for really any other reason other than I loathe the taste of most alcoholic beverages and would much rather save my hardearned cash and spend less on a lovely fruity drink rather than something bitter that makes me grimace (case in point, visiting the Moet et Chandon cellars last year, the champagne coinnesseur (spelling?) caught me pulling the most abject look of utter loathing when I tried the 2002 vintage rose champers!).  If I did like alcohol, I probably wouldn't drink more than one anyway, it does feel rather expensive and I wouldn't want to make a twit of myself, personally, anyway!!

However, CBC and I decided, since various supermarket proseccos were on special offer, we would try some for the wedding toasts.  We thus purchased 4 bottles from Waitrose, Tescos, Aldi and er- Waitrose and invited some friends over to taste them!



We set some Carrs water biscuits out for in between neutralizing and then began.

Up first was the Tescos San something or other at the second cheapest price.
A good start- it was fruity and for me, it didn't make me wince- a good start.

Then Waitrose with the green label.  This didn't get the grimace but nor did it get a smile.
Aldi, mooted by others as fine, was utter ming for me
Finally, the more expensive Waitrose one was neither here nor there. Meh, in other words.

We then tried swigging them.  At which point, I was suddenly aware that my head was spinning. 

In the end, Waitrose more expensive won, but I am working to try and get him to go for a slightly cheaper option which came second.

As various factions got changed out of the cycling garb above (they'd just returned from a ride.  I was so envious!), we decided to walk into town to go and have fish and chips.  CBC found it hilarious that I was a little giggly.

In the park, as 3 zoomed ahead (I thought I was a speedy walker!), having had bad light in my own garden, I demanded CBC took shots as I have not been in the mood to blog this week (not a bad mood but not really in a bloggy mind)







I have culled a lot of clothes this week.  My sister has had some, the charity shops and clothing banks had more and 2 church friends had some.  I was tempted to say goodbye to this blouse not because I don't love it, because I do- it has a slight cutesy Japanese feel to it in my mind (don't know why, it just does) but as it is silk, I felt that perhaps I am too lazy to take the good care of it that it deserves and I could imagine a teenager at church looking lovely in it.  However, I thought I'd give it a spin before.  It was brand new from Barnados.  The skirt (really dress)- Monsoon, shoes- Cath Kidston, cardie (DKNY present from sister).  Necklace, put together by me (cross bead from DIY beads) and mini-egg earrings-(put together by me, also from DIY beads)


In town, we bought our fish and chips and took it back to the park to eat it!  It always tastes better outside! 
Amazingly, as we walked along town, I found my eyes linking with a little girl.  "My goodness, she just looks like my niece!" I thought to myself and then looked up and saw my brother-in-law and his parents!!!!  An amazing coincidence- they don't live anywhere near that town but decided to pop for a meal there!!!  As CBC chatted to them, gorgeous niece said, "BMW Kezzie!" and lo and behold, there was one just driving by!  What a lovely and unexpected treat!

Finally, CBC walked me back to the station where I returned home.  Not so squiffy anymore after food, I returned home happy that half-term had ended on such a positive note with me here, a few hours later, ready to tell you the tale!!

Have you enjoyed the sun?

xx