UPDATED! 5 brooches continueth with a tenuous TARDIS Tuesday tangental twist!!!

* Sorry, got my HTML all in a muddle and it obscured all the brooches- so let us try again!!! Hello there mi hearties! I hope that all goes well with you.  I saw a pirate parrot brooch (not bought) today which has flavoured my remarks with a nautical twist. 

Enough of that skullduggery, onto the main event.

I thought I'd continue with the brooch fun and continue to share some of those I own. I've made a few over recent times, but even I was surprised how many I appear to have (and still do have) to post.

Speaking of which, I am honoured that I am joined in the brooch sharing by two lovely blog friends, Ang and Val, who made reference to my posts (apparently I ordered Val! Er, I think I did!).  If you love brooches, do go and check out their lovely ones! Val even makes her own!

 Monday's offering was a EDIY (my new term of easy DIY in which item is stuck to brooch backs). This is the second of the Lidl Autumnal decorations I felt had a destiny to become a brooch-he was quite cute to wear on my lapel to stop a boring chambray shirt (and boring trousers) being too yawnsome.

Tuesday- I know Curtise likes this one- I bought this giant red button brooch in a charity shop a year ago or so and I usually wear it on my red beret but last Tuesday, I felt the heart cardigan lacked that certain je ne sais quos and it jumped ship! I like the toddler feel to this one!

 The first day I wore this blouse bought from Char's blog sale, I wanted to team its simple monochrome scheme with this felt EDIY toadstool brooch. Heck, I hate mushrooms when I eat them, but even I cannot resist a fairytalesque red spotty toadstool! I imagine Pom pom will like this one!

The cloud and plane dress is back with this charity-shopped yellow vintage tin brooch to represent the sun in the sky- it leaned far too much though!

And finally, we have the tenuous TARDIS Tuesday tangent- this Doctor Who logo pin. I've had this one since I was 14 and it is the McGann film logo.  My friend Sarah and I travelled up to London and were in HMV. I asked at the counter if they had any Doctor Who things (I was a brand new fan) and they handed me and Sarah these pin badges that were being given away with any Doctor Who purchase but they were happy to just give them to us! Freebies!!! I used wear it on my blazer to school along with my Prefect badge as a nod to Ace, a character from Sylvester McCoy's era who had lots of pin badges on her bomber-jacket sleeve. Yes, and when I got a bomber jacket, I added them to the sleeve along with my Blue Peter Badge (oh where is it!?!?!??!?!!).
You might notice it is nestled against what could tenuously be described as TARDIS blue.

But no, I am not finished there with why this is a TARDIS Tuesday post:

"Dark star alloy. Goes through armour plating like a knife through people. It's pretty though isn't it. Got it from the olden days in Gallifrey. The Doctor gave it to me when my daughter..."
"You cant kill a Dalek with a brooch!"
"Yes, you can!"

Did you catch that in Doctor Who on Saturday?  Seee, even Doctor Who is in on the brooch act!!! A brooch used as a plot device!!! Ha ha, I'm so ahead of the game!!

Speaking of which, I favourite line of the show, which so many other people didn't allude to:

"I hope you are grateful It wasn't easy to procure and very nearly unique of course. You should feel privileged. The only other... CHAIR on Skaro!"

I LOVED that line! And the Doctor reacted to it so nonchalantly!

So, I'm proving to you again, how tiny your nod to TARDIS Tuesday can be- even a little brooch!

xx

An InLinkz Link-up

Mr Badger is at Not the last Knight of the Proms!

Mr Badger has been enjoying some cultural experiences. 

Last Saturday, we took him along to the performance I was playing in, entitled "Not the last Knight of the proms!"

This was an event put on by the church in a village a few miles away from us and I was playing a flute duet with my friend A.

We rehearsed in the afternoon and then in the evening, we arrived to find the church decorated in merry splendour!

Mr Badger saw lots of events including a harp version of 'It's a small world'.

He enjoyed watching the choir sing Disney medleys in the first half.

He looked askance when he saw how many fast notes I had to play towards the end of the flute duet with nowhere to breathe! He joined in with the applause at the end.

After the interval, I think what he loved best was the Hygge created by the loving affection with which the church was decorated in a riot of colours- flags, balloons, bunting for the recreation of the British Last Night of the proms! There was a comfortable, enjoyable vibe throughout!

Everyone came back to their seats happily and saw the change in decor!

And Mr Badger gleefully saw that party-poppers, screaming balloons and squeakers had been placed on the pews!

He grabbed a squeaker instantly! The fun thing about it, was everyone was encouraged to misbehave during this part of the concert, letting off balloons, party poppers, squeakers whenever they wanted.

Britannia came in triumphantly ready to sing 'Rule Brittania'

as did Mr Brittania.

The words were in the programme and Mr Badger joined in with all the classics such as
Jerusalem, Brittania, All through the Night, there's no place like home, Auld Lang Syne, Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Sailor's Hornpipe.

Lots of fun with squeakers!

and balloons!



And he was very impressed that I discovered that I could use my party squeaker to emulate the last part of the tune of the Sailor's hornpipe!


Mr Badger decided that he'd very much like to come back in two years for the repeat performance!

xx

Photo an Hour September 2015

I have forgotten about Photo an Hour for months so this time, I saved it to my email calendar and put a reminder in my phone.   I also have a little problem because I don't wear a watch and what I was doing yesterday meant I didn't have my bag and thus phone to hand for exact times- thus there may be approximations in times.

 8.30(ish)am - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.   Oh dear, CBC was downstairs making a tart for the birthday party we were going to today and I was zonking in bed!   Think I'll go back to sleep!

 9.30amish- Dashed downstairs to see what CBC was up to before the shower.  There is the finished tart.  Blackberry and walnut French crumble tart.  It comes from a great French recipe book. The previous night, I went out in the relative dark to pick blackberries and then we had to go hunting through all the supermarkets to try and find more.  We located the last two punnets in town!

 Oh and bonus photo- CBC made some star pastry biscuits with the remaining pastry and walnuts.

 10.30am(ish) - On the train to London. CBC is marking work with his cello crammed beside him whilst I sit and read Georgette Heyer and eat a ham and tomato roll.  My viola is on the floor.

 11.30(ish): LATE! I spent the day following that cello! We rock up to Pimlico Academy for a party which starts with a string orchestra rehearsal.

 12.30pm(ish)- Playing my viola. Bloomin heck, my left wrist and arm are in agony! Muscles I haven't used for ages were getting a workout on Brahms, Scottish folk songs and Piazzola.  The reason we were there was for the conductor of our orchestra's 40th birthday party- he was having a massive fun day.  I usually play flute for him but he's one of the people who remembers the secret that I play the viola. At one point, he turned round and grinned at me and said, "Ha!! How is it?!".
"Awful!" I responded.  He then ended up sitting in front of me during the folk tunes and turned round and grinned at me as I was playing tremolo loudly!

 1.30pm(ish)- performing to the other guests who had arrived.  Here, T, the conductor is introducing the next part of the proceedings.

 and here's the final piece- Piazzola, Libertango arranged for String orchestra and pan pipes. Oh my!!! The pan-pipe player, Michele Tirabosco,  is a professional from Geneva and he was INCREDIBLE!!!! I have never heard anything like it!!  Here's a performance from him from Youtube! Amazing!

 My friend's toddler was loving my gold sequined Toms shoes!!

 And another friend has snapped his Achilles-tendon.  Check out this Pirate Peg contraption for enabling him to walk! What bad timing to damage his leg like this when his wife is due to give birth in 6 weeks!

 2.30pm :  Mmmmm, enjoying the delectable assortment of dishes everyone bought along. It was like  'bring and share' concept- everyone bought something along,enough for 6 people so there was a huge selection! This cabbage was delicious and I adored the sweet potato skewers best too!

 3.30pm  We're in the middle of a gospel choir singing workshop with Ken Burton which T booked as he thought it would be would be a great experience for classical musicians, dancers, ballerinas and classical singers who would be at the party! It was amazing! He is a brilliant leader!

 4.30pm- We are in the middle of the second half of the workshop. You can see the smiles on the faces of my neighbours.  We were divided into groups here and improvised our own riffs

I seemed to miss 5.30 through chatting!

 6.30pm(ish) Leaving Pimlico academy. Bizarrely, there was a suit of armour in the entrance of this otherwise incredibly modern school!

 7.30pm(ish):  STILL not anywhere near home.  Oxford Circus station was closed so we couldn't change to the Central Line to get to Liverpool Street so we changed at Green Park to get the Piccadilly line to Holborn. But at Holborn, there were massive delays and we were literally standstill in the corridors of the station so we climbed up to surface level and hopped on the 8 bus to Liverpool Street.

 Passing St Paul's Cathedral.

8.30pm(ish) watching the Rugby at our friend's house. I eventually got bored and walked home to watch Doctor Who.

9.30
10.30
11.30
Hmmm, forgot to take photos from then on! Sufficed to say, I ate crisps, watched Doctor Who and read a book, had a shower etc! All fairly mundane!

Linking up with Jane and Louisa with Photo a Day!

Dusky aubergines and chocolate cake.

Good evening!  I hope you are well and having a lovely start to your weekend!

I apologise for the quality of the photos but they were from the day I first had my hair cut and it was late by the time I was able to get home.

I look wistfully at these photos where I am wearing a sleeveless dress,no tights and light ballet pumps and think of the unpredictable weather which necessitates a yellow raincoat, Doc Martens, cardigans and a longsleeved top and I frown.  There's still hope of a late warm spell in my heart!

My hair looks so shiny and bouncy and shaped here but I am terrible at styling my hair so it's now doing a weird flicking bushy version- a bit Hermione Granger!

I've decided the fruits are aubergines on the recently charity-shopped dress! Too big for plums!

Today at school, we had a Macmillan coffee morning to raise money for the Cancer charity. Staff brought in cakes and sold them to parents- I nipped in at breaktime to buy a cake and chat to parents.  I ended up chatting to two parents about their foster daughter who's just joined and apparently is loving music and Tudor dance so far- we then ended up talking about what beginner instruments sound like sick animals:

Saxophone= sick cow

Oboe= sick duck

Violin= Dying cat.

I'd missed breakfast apart from a piece of toast so I ate some chocolates that had been brought in by some teachers for Eid. Then I ate a piece of chocolate mars bar crispy cake with the parents- it was SO sickly. At lunch, because of Tudor dance club and setting up the room for the year 5's, I didn't have time to eat.  Then after school, there was a teacher's tea-party whilst I had Music Makers club and they saved me a plate of cakes which I felt obliged to eat. I felt thoroughly sick after a slice of Apple Strudel and a large chocolate slice. It was then that I realised that all I'd eaten all day was chocolate cake. I feel now,like I never want to see cake or chocolate again!

Hmmm, one of the year 1's (5 years old) ran over and hugged me after music- she leaned against my tummy and then turned round and suspiciously said, "Are you pregnant??" .  

?@£%@!!!!!!

"No, I just have a very full tummy at the moment!" I retorted delicately!

HUMPH!!!!

Hope all is well with you and a 5-year old hasn't indicated to you that you clearly ate all the pies!!!

xx

Things I've loved this summer

Ok, let's just clarify that it is STILL SUMMER, no matter what the weather, the month, the bloggers of this world, the world in general, may think! But since it IS getting rather less summery, I thought I'd share my summer highlights- I saw the idea at Second Hand Susie!

1. Going to TWO mazes in the space of the week. 2 ticked off from my 'Mazes I want to visit' list.Yes, that's  real list!

2.  Runner bean success!!!! Up till today,I have harvested about 138 runner beans!

It's the first time I've grown veg by myself.  The carrots were successful too- the courgettes have been plagued by snails and slugs though I had one or two! I also have to say that concentrating on gardening has led me to spend time with my Mum - it was lovely to garden with her with excitable chatter or companionable silence!

3.  Igor Stravinsky violin concerto! Nicest flute part of the week at Music Camp.  Also loved playing Beethoven's 6th symphony, conducted by Tom, from the same parts we used when I last performed it with him conducting. It was like returning home!

4.  Walking on the Rannadale knots and paddling in Lake Crummock Water again with CBC and WOMOTM, my two favourite walking partners!

5.  Haltwhistle outdoor pool- it was lovely swimming there again after about 3 years!

6.  The best letter ever from my penpal KT- it was like a treasure hunt! An A3 sheet with numbered coloured shapes on which I had for  the subsequent numbered section!

7.  Going back to Barter Books in Alnwick!

 Loved it- ate cake, came home with several Whodunnits that I'd not heard of- Michael Bond, Monseur Pamplemousse, A Daisy Dalrymple book, The Moving toyshop and more!

8. Mammoth card-making sessiions! One of my favourite holiday activities! I made about 15 and it was great!

9. Giggling in the car with CBC about something ridiculous-not sure what but it was funny!

10.  CBC spotting a cloud that looked like an eagle! He pointed it out which surprised me since he usually groans at my, "Looooook, it's a cloud shaped like a t-rex!"-style exclamations!


11.  Cat time with Chloe! Even if she meow for England!

12.  Making an apple and blackberry crumble with apples from my Mum's friend Lin's garden and the blackberries I picked from the brambles which are pulling down the fence at the back of my garden. They're finally useful for a reason!  And the fact I got away with using veeeeeeeeeerry out of date flour in the mix without CBC suspecting! Don't tell him!

13.  Making a vegetable soup on a miserable day using my own carrots, runner beans, courgette and then adding onions, tomatoes, lentils and macaroni! It was really nice and made CBC say this is how Minestrone should be!

14.  Watching about 120 Lost episodes on DVD and Youtube- so nice to see Jack, Kate, Locke, Sawyer and co again and wonder about what the smoke monster was, what was down the Hatch and who The Others were!  I did this whilst making cards.

15.  Making my first skirt! SO proud of myself!!!


16.  Being a bookseller on Words on Water for 15 minutes!


There are so many, but these were some of the best!
What were your Summer highlights?

xx