10 things to be thankful for: End of January thoughts

These photos were taken on Sunday as we set off to town after church to meet our friends in Waitrose for tea! We decided to have a nice Sunday wander before heading off to our friend's house for Sunday Lunch Club.
CBC's reaction when he looked me up and down in this attire was, "What on earth are you wearing? A random assortment of garments?" Yes, it does look like that but in my mind, they all kind of matched etc.  Just the facts ma'am:
Hat: had it AGES/YEARS intended as a gift for someone but I forgot who, so it lay dormant until I decided I needed to wear a navy beret that day.
Dress and Belt: Primark sale with Flapperdoodle collarclips
knitted waistcoat: Peacocks
Shoes: Deichmann
Socks: Jack Wills via Sophie
Handbag: Bailey and Quinn via Debenhams 70% off sale!
Black tights: Kezzie's anonymous black tights collection
Oh and several tops on underneath!



I've alluded to the January blues a few times. I and others have felt them, but I am thankful for several and indeed many things which I like to list.

1.  The fact that it hasn't snowed and I haven't slipped or hurt myself (once you've done this and broken something, you tend to be more nervy. Much as I'd like a snowday, I don't like the dangerous Aftermath)

2.  The events and occasions with friends: Sunday lunch club, lunch in London, Indian cooking course and others.  Having things to look forward to makes life seem better.

3.  I'm incredibly grateful for uplifting sermons at church that encourage and inspire me. I don't think my prayer-life has been at all diligent when I most need it and I am grateful that God has 'got to me' in other ways when I am so rubbish.




4.  A series of really, really enjoyable and enthralling books has given me that gleeful excitement that comes to me when I know that in x number of minutes, I can return to my fictional friends and immerse myself in their world.  Exceedingly grateful for the 6 Georgette Heyer books purchased for 50p in the charity shop!

5.  For my school children being relatively productive, enthusiastic and well-behaved, particularly when I am not feeling 100% smiley!  Some really nice musical outcomes and responses. The kids that sat through the entire ballet of Petruska on DVD on Monday and enthusing about it!

6.  For today: I went on a course about Artsmark, which ended up being a bit pointless, but I went with my colleague who I haven't chatted to much before and it was lovely getting to know her. She's only a year older than me, so this was great!

7.  You lovely, lovely, supportive, sweet, kind and thoughtful people who brighten my day every day with your wise words, encouraging words, complimentary words or empathetic words. You know you are great!

8.  A forgiving husband when I am a mardy cow!

9.  A wonderful return to swing dance classes last night- a great teacher, fun times, and getting to finally dance with the COOL teacher who we met 1.5 years ago. He's a dude!

10.  The fact that there are only 2 weeks until half term

Blogger snail mail mark 2

I took part in another round of Gemma's Blogger snail mail.  I was Gemma's partner last time and this time I was paired up with the super Janet of Words that can only be your own.  I already read Janet's blog so this was cool.  We exchanged some e-mails. It was nice to correspond with a fellow teacher, though of the secondary-kind, and we go to know each other.

Last week, we both got around to sending our parcels. I picked up Janet's on Saturday on my way to London.

Unfortunately, in my excitement, I opened the presents on the train so I cannot show you them beautifully wrapped but they were wrapped in my favourite colour, turquoise tissue paper.




A cute Hip Hip hooray postcard held a friendly greeting from Janet.

What was inside the parcels?





Up first, I found a very interesting book which Janet had told me was her favourite of the year. I was delighted. I always love a new book, especially one that someone else loved!  This one sounds very intriguing and I love a good historical novel, especially one with a mystery involved! Great choice!



I have admired some lovely crafty items Janet has made on her blog and I was really impressed by the beautiful polka dot and floral purse she made for me- I love little material pouches like this as I really like to put jewellery in them when I am going on holiday.  I have one but necklaces and earrings always get tangled so it will be great to have two so they can be kept out of tangles way!

Inside it was a lovely Burt's Bee plum lip shimmer. I really like Burt's bee products, they are good quality and I really prefer to use more natural products (I try to use only SLS-free shower products etc) so I was really chuffed to receive this. I've got one of their tinted lipsalves which doesn't really give much colour, so I am really intrigued to try a lip shimmer!


Finally, the last item was really exciting! I have seen a print like this on Etsy before with different designs like typewriters and butterflies so to have a beautiful TARDIS one is super cool!  I can't wait to frame it and then put it up alongside my print from Gemma and finally put my 2 old framed Doctor Who prints from my old house! Geekily, I love the fact that the page that it was printed on had the words Figured Bass at the top- a musical term! Mwa ha ha!!!

Thank you Janet, I loved the items you chose for me, very kind and thoughtful.

I will share a post of what I sent to Janet soon, as I finally got a bit of a crafting thing on!! x

Have you taken part in any swaps recently? DO share if so!x

P.S.

Lizzie, I hope you get better soon!
Julia- Nicole must be SUCH an interesting person with all her world experience! Your cookery books sound good!
Nicole- sadly not!
Denise, Birds and MariaFelicia- I do too! It's weird, but up until about a year ago, I wasn't bothered by Indian cuisine- but then I discovered dahl and it has opened up my taste buds!
Char and Jan- this is my first cooking workshop! Not thought to do any before!
Thrift deluxe- the chutney is SO TASTY!
Laura- ha ha, I haven't made any yet!
Curtise- lucky your kids like things like that now!
Lisa- pinickety? How so? I'm quite fussy about sweet things! And I hate mushrooms or fruit (except coconut) in savoury.

An unexpected day of Indian cooking

Isn't it true that the best plans and things that happen to you are often unexpected.  Friday night, CBC and I were sitting upstairs watching Doctor Who on my laptop when his brother texted saying he had a spare ticket for a place on an Indian Vegetarian cooking day.  Both intrigued, we found out more, and after some booking online, ending up booking an extra ticket for us both to go.  Knowing nothing and having no time to look it up, we headed off to Putney on Saturday afternoon Sivananda Yoga Vendanta centre.   We arrived a bit late due to CBC's Saturday morning teaching just as the theory had been covered talking about different foods and how they are good for us or what they do.  This followed with demonstrations of cooking several dishes: Lentil soup, bulgar wheat and an amazing carrot and coconut chutney; amazing tahini salad dressing, curried vegetables and a sweet rice pudding.  This was a great course for us to do right now at this time because CBC has turned vegetarian in the new year so whilst as you may know, we eat a lot of veggie food anyway, this meant we wanted to get some more ideas of how to make lots of dinners.  The thing that stood out for me was the spices and how to get them to make your food taste amazing.  Toasting seeds makes a difference; chancing your dish at the end (adding in the herbs and spices), all the different ingredients and how you put items together.  At the end of the workshop we had a group Ommm (was unexpected but made sense because of the place) and a song which we'd missed at the beginning and then we ate: we were all served up on these metal trays and the quantity was perfect. I was pleasantly satisfied and yet not at all  full. Nourishing your body with the right things in the right quantities was achieved with the portion.   It was utterly fascinating and we're really glad we took the chance to attend. There were some real ayuvedic and yogic food people there who knew a lot! We all (me, CBC, his brother and friends) felt rather a fraud!

The dahl lentil soup will be the first thing I try as Dahl is my favourite Indian dish!

Have you been on any cookery course? How did you find them?

xxx

#What is it? #22

A new direction for What is it? this week. I present to you, a piece of art created by my fair hand- well it happened....



What is it? Now you can interpret that as what medium I used for my 'art' or you can interpret what image it created.... or both!!!!


Last time, we were in more familiar cloud-territory



I thought this looked rather like a cross between Pacman and Animal's face from the Muppets (can you see his eye, he's looking at you, his mouth is opening to the right)
He's the main cloud in the middle, not the one slightly to the right or the edge clouds.

But what did YOU think?!

12 comments:

1. 
   RedSetter12:17 am

   I'm going for side on view of the brain, Kezzie.

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   Elizabeth Rebecca12:43 am

   I think it looks like a cloud version of a roast chicken.
   
   Lizzie Dripping

   ReplyDelete
3. 
   Julia1:09 am

   To me, it looks like a dog with a watchful eye. It looks like he laying down and has one of those studded collar around his neck, and he has his mouth opened. It could also be a laying dragon that is tied down. That's what I see in this interesting cloud.
   There is definitely an eye in there...
   
   Enjoy your weekend Kezzie.
   Hugs,
   JB

   ReplyDelete
4. 
   Shybiker2:59 am

   I always like your cloud pictures. They're like Rorshack tests. I'm a little embarrassed to say that looking at this one reminds me of... um... male equipment. Sorry!

   ReplyDelete
5. 
   Shamu Boo4:56 am

   A baby inuit bending down to kiss a baby seal.

   ReplyDelete
6. 
   Shawna McComber7:39 am

   LOL-Ally! Yeah, I saw that too but also saw a baby elephant's head in that cloud and the child's veg sculpture looks a bit elephantine too. An elephant-dog, elephog?

   ReplyDelete
7. 
   Anca7:48 am

   I have to vote for elephant too. The exhibition sounds like fun, it's so nice to see what kids can do.

   ReplyDelete
8. 
   Jan8:21 am

   Its a large fluffy bunny, lying face down! Jx

   ReplyDelete
9. 
   thrift deluxe8:28 am

   The cloud looks like a puffin's head to me.

   ReplyDelete
10. 
    Pink Haired Princess1:47 pm

    Oh I can't see anything this time, keen to see what you think.

    ReplyDelete
11. 
    welovefur3:10 pm

    Wuaoooo I love your blog I hope you will like mine
    
    http://instagram.com/ladyfur?ref=badge
    
    http://www.welovefur.com

    ReplyDelete
12. 
    Fat Dormouse2:49 pm

    There is a bit of a grand piano shape coming out of it, I think. perfect for a musician such as yourself!

    ReplyDelete

Lots of variety this time, no common view! Julia's mention of the eye is a key feature of my view too and a few people thought of heads. My favourite was Lizzie's Cloud chicken! Ha, you made me laugh, are you hungry?? Ally/Shawna, er WHAT equipage exactly??!?!?! Not seeing anything remotely fallic! I'm a bit scared by Welovefur. I want to be friendly, but I'm not sure with an instragram name like that, that I dare click over!!x

Leave your comments in the box below, join in the fun
xxx

A touch of red

Hi there!

How has your weekend been?  Enjoyable, I hope.
I had an exciting/interesting weekend in some ways, including a cookery course and Sunday roast club, a walk in the park, picking up of a parcel, great church service and some housework!

Image borrowed from wornontv.net

Since TARDIS Tuesday and Visible Monday are upon us, I decided to try and cosplay in a tenuous way, this outfit worn by Clara Oswald in Doctor Who.

The main features I tried to incorporate were the 

• red and black pattered skater skirt
• Asymmetric cropped jacket
• Heeled lace-ups
• Red collar detail

Image borrowed from DanielfFaust

Here I finally  christened my charity-shopped grey wool jacket (this is as close as I personally will currently be getting to a leather jacket in current times), Bailey and Quinn red leather handbag and Clarks ox-blood shoes both bought in the post-Christmas sales.



Underneath the jacket, I wore a Peter-pan collared top and Cashmere jumper, both from Primark, ancient. Black tights are presumably ancient. Who can tell the difference between black tights?

 Admittedly, what I am wearing is a bit different but not a bad Cosplay, I hope!  

I must dash. Have not been free to blog all weekend so this is it! Breathe a sigh of relief....

Enjoying linking with 3 lovely ladies...
Linking with the lovely Maricel of My closet catalogue for TARDIS Tuesday.

P

Creative Mondays with Claire Justine



Linking to Visible Monday with the ever wonderful Patti at Not dead yet style



A

Into the Woods

10 things to do to combat the January blues?
1.Find somewhere pretty, new, adventurous or exciting to explore, even if just for an hour or so.
2.  Breathe fresh air, straight from the trees
3.  Find a tea room after going for a walk....

On Saturday, following our Maldon sojourn the other week, CBC and I decided that we would try to take a walk in Danbury, the following Saturday. Admittedly, we set out later than hoped, but we did so.  Wrapped up in warm clothes, we parked the car and set off Into the Woods (cue Stephen Sondheim music. By the way, are you going to go and see Into the Woods? I saw it at the Royal Academy of Music when I worked there. It was the end of year production by the Musical Theatre postgraduate students and H (Ian Watkins) from Steps was on the course at that time. He played The Baker, and very well he did it too.  Credit to him for going back to study)

It was, luckily, a dry day, though there had been snow/rain earlier in the morning.
We headed off along the winter-ravaged, cracked path, trees on either side. Bare, bristly or taken over by holly.

The trees have ears.

Seeing this tree with its smooth limbs but many in number- what curiosities we did see.

The palette of colours was of winter hues but there was a tiny peek of bright gorse.

 The ground became boggy. Perhaps a trap? We took a detour off the main path.  "Do not stray from the path Red Riding Hood," said her Granny. Who listened to their Granny?


Curiouser and curiouser. What are these strange ladders?

Just occasionally, a blast of brilliant sunlight illuminated everything and made it glow.

Is it a dragon eye?

Deeper and deeper, they wandered into the forest.  Little trail of bread crumbs  are no more! Were eaten by gluttonous,mischevious birds.


Hark Gretel! What shall we do?

A carpet of brown leaves upon the ground may be the only place we can rest our weary heads.  Lucky it is still daylight!

In circles they walked. but the holly reigned supreme and they had to turn back as the path was blocked  on all sides by prickly holly.

A set of stepping stones beckoned a way forward over the sticky mud


Walking off the path to avoid the boggy. churned up paths from mountain bikes in profusion.

Seeing this branch, it was almost a transfigured being. Is it the huntsman, turned to wood by a vengeful queen?

The sun broke through the trees.

We saw a clearing...



And strangely, as if by some strange miracle,we found ourselves back at the point where we had left the path.


Yet neither of us remembered these strange markings.





I climbed aloft a branch in my little red riding cap.

We headed onwards

Oh NO! Is that a wolf?




All safe, away from fairy tale villains and back to the car, ready to live happily ever after. (and eat cake)


xxx