My Best Friend's Wedding

To my darling Tallulah,

Today is your wedding day! I am proud and honoured to be your bridesmaid alongside your lovely sister and my darling girl, Biscuit. It seems to have come by in a whirlwind. You met Mix a relatively short time ago, but you knew, and I knew, you'd found the right man for you straight away. You've kissed your fair share of frogs in your time, but let's not talk about that hey?  I couldn't be happier that you've found love at last. Mix is wonderful, he will protect you, adore and and take care of you, which is exactly what you deserve.

We first met many, many years ago when you were studying music on the same course as Mr Noir.  We've always got on well, in fact I don't think we've ever fallen out! I've probably annoyed the hell out of you at times, but we've certainly never had any raised voices, have we?

You were my one and only bridesmaid when I married Mr Husband four years ago. You held everything together, looked beautiful and even caught my hat when I laughed it clean off my head! You were there by my bedside the day after Biscuit was born, making me tea and making sure I was ok. You're Biscuit's Godmother and you do such a great job. She thinks you're the bees knees! You are one of the few people in this world that I would trust to raise my children if anything were to happen to us. 

We've had so much fun together, some amazing times that I will never forget. From chasing buses through London, to climbing up water towers in the dead of night, armed only with helmet torches. We've danced, drunk, scoffed scampi fries and spooned. You can kick like a mule!! We've holidayed together, sneakily half inched bottles of wine together and injured ourselves in various hysterical ways. But most of all we've regularly laughed like we might actually wee.

I love you like a sister. I hope you have the best wedding in the history of weddings and the happiest marriage in the world. Because that's the very least that you deserve. I have so, so many happy memories with you. I just know today's going to be another one to add to my collection. 

Here's to you my partner in crime, I love you. LOVE YOU! Now p-p-p-put your teef in and get yourself wed!

Currently....#17

Good Morning to you and a very happy Thursday indeed!  It's that time once again so together with Ot and Et and  Harvesting Kale I'd like to share what I am currently....

Eating: crisps, I have been eating bucketloads of crisps!! I wish I could say I'd been eating a delicious selection of vegetables or something delightfully cosmopolitan, but it wouldn't be true. I don't get time for lunch. I eat crisps. 

Loving: the way Wiggles eats peas! O know that sounds bonkers, but i just love it!! I have to put them on a fork for her one by one and she very gently gums them off like a Mummy dog holding its precious little puppy in her mouth. It's the cutest thing. And I stuff her full of peas because I love watching her so much!!

Missing: we received an invitation to a very lovely friend's wedding this week and I am gutted that we are going to have to miss it. We've already committed to doing something else on the same day. Isn't it typical? Two things at once! So sad to be missing it, she's such a sweetheart, but I wish them both all the very, very best.

Moving: I moved today in a way I haven't moved for ages. At Biscuit's Parents Lunch this afternoon I was forced to skip. SKIP! With an actual skipping rope. I haven't skipped for, maybe thirty years? My whole body bounced. I am not programmed to be in such a way. I did it though, go me!!

Taking: At work this week a very sweet girl was giving away shoes. You heard me giving away shoes!!! She has been diagnosed with a back condition that meant she has to wear a particular type of shoe and the majority of hers are now off limits. Poor love! So I was lucky enough to be the same size and took home three whole pairs!  FREE SHOES!! Life is good! 

Next week: Borrowing, Dancing, Building, Throwing, Buying.

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Shine on...you crazy diamond?

The wonderful and completely gorgeous Hayley from Sparkles and Stretchmarks  nominated me for a Shine On award, which was so lovely of her. I have been a bad, bad tardy blogger and it's taken me ages to post this, for which I can only apologise!  Hayley recently gave birth to a gorgeous little baby boy called Tyne.  Congratulations once again Hayley! And thank you for my nomination. I love reading Hayley's blog, she's such a happy, positive person she always puts a smile on my face. Plus Tyne is seriously adorable.  Here are my answers to the questions Hayley asked me:

1. What song makes you emotional and why?
Hurt by Johnny Cash. The first time I heard it was on a Saturday night at a friend's house, MTV was in the background. The words, the tone of Cash's voice and the images were captivating and heartbreaking and jaw dropping all at the same time. When that song finished I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. I had to sit down and collect myself. It left a mark on me that's there to this day. If you've never seen or heard it, I urge you, deplore you to look it up on YouTube.

2. What beauty product could you never be without?
Blusher, without question!! I look like a ghost without it, a grey ghost.

3. What birthday of yours was most memorable and why?
This is such a hard question, but I think I'd have to say 2008. I was in labour with my oldest daughter, she was born two days later. At the hospital people kept satin "Ahhh, it's your birthday, how lovely!" And just kept thinking that it was the worst way to spend a birthday ever! Strangers doing unspeakable things to my fanaca and no baby at the end of it!!!

4. What were you like as a child?
Geeky. Sometimes loud, sometimes quiet. Desperate to please.

5. What was the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?
This is a surprisingly hard question for me to answer as a shed load of embarrassing things have happened to me in my life. In fact so many that narrowing my choices down to just one is pretty tough! I'd say one of the most embarrassing happened many, many years ago when I went to a very popular club in the nearest big town. I've never been a big fan of clubs, always preferring bars, but this was an alternative night so I felt a little more at home. A lad that I was completely smitten with at the time was there and I really wanted to impress him. I'd worn my stripy tights and long flowery skirt. I probably looked like a right old hippy! The young man in question was stood at the bottom of a big dramatic staircase. I walked in, said hi to him in what I thought was a sophisticated and aloof way and walked up the stairs. Only I caught my foot on the bottom of my skirt on the first step. I then proceeded to walk up the inside of my skirt on the dramatic staircase, that was the focal point of the entire room, until the point where I was laying on the staircase like a beached whale, unable to move, flapping, unable to free myself. Boy at bottom of stairs looked at me, turned on his heel and walked off. Swine! The shame still haunts me....

6. Tell us about your morning routine?
I guess this question is referring more to my beauty regime, but as a Mum with two small children I don't have much time in the mornings for me. A swish around with a hot flannel and whack a blob of blusher on each cheek and I'm pretty much done.... My morning routine with the children generally involves me chasing around after Biscuit shouting "Where's your book bag?" And "Put your shoes on. PUT YOUR SHOES ON!!!!"

7. If you had to eat only one meal for a week, what would you choose?
Hmmmm, a whole week? Crispy duck pancakes? I think I could manage a whole week of them! Plus cucumber and spring onion would be my vegetable quota too, right? Not to mention plum sauce!!!

8. When you go the cinema, what snack food do you buy?
If there was candy floss on offer I would hoover it up! I'm not a big fan of cinema popcorn, it smells like guff to me, if there was a posh salted caramel popcorn kicking around I'd definitely want to get my hands on it!


9. If you had to marry a famous celebrity, which one would you pick and why?
Can I say Helena Bonham-Carter? She rocks! I don't want to go with convention choose a bloke because as far as I'm concerned Mr Husband is the best boy ever and I'd never want to be married to any other man but him. Sick buckets I know...

10. Where are you from and what is the best and worst thing about that place?
Originally I'm from Yorkshire, although I haven't lived there for many, many years. The best thing about it is that it's where all my family are. The worst thing? That its so flippin' far away!

I'm not going to nominate anyone particular, as I've completed a couple of similar things recently and I don't want people to get tired of me asking lots of questions, but if you would like to take part and answer Hayley's questions above as well, please do.  Be sure to leave a comment to let me know so I can have a nosey at your answers!

Love, love,

 

Magic Moments....#9

Good Morning one and all!! I trust you've a had excellent weekends?

I'd like to link up with The Oliver's Madhouse for the Magic Moments series once again. Here goes!

I'm sure I've shared the details of our living arrangements in vague terms before, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain our set up properly....

When Biscuit was fourteen months old we all moved to the little village that I'd grown up in. We rented a lovely little cottage right beside the church, about a five minute walk from my Mum, Dad and Brother. 

We'd lived there for about two years when my Dad asked us over for lunch as there was something he wanted to discuss. When we arrived that day he told us he'd woken up the night before with a grand plan that had come to him. It was an open secret that we would never be able to afford a mortgage on our household income and I know this pained my Dad. He firmly believes that renting is dead money. And in some respects I agree, but it never particularly bothered me. Certainly not to the same degree!!

My Dad told us that he had worked out that he could extend my parents home, then divide it up to create two separate (but joint) houses, one for them and one for us, if we would consider coming to live alongside them. 

This made sense in so many ways! We'd have more space, have an extra bedroom so could have another baby (hence the arrival of Wiggles a while later). We wouldn't be renting, we would be able to live in a house we would never be able to afford on our own and we'd have more security for our little family. We would be on hand to help out with caring for my older brother who has severe learning difficulties and will always live at home. We'd be company for my Mum during the week when my Dad often has to work away and in later years we'd be around to make sure they were ok.

What followed was my Dad drawing some very clever and detailed plans, submitting them to an architect to get them drawn up, Planning Permission refusal, some adjustments, Planning Permission acceptance! Finding the best builder in the world, a whole lotta rubble, packing up, moving out and moving in.   My Dad was very clever and utilised the existing buildings that they had, even turning the old garage into their new bedroom!  I am so proud of him for having such excellent vision.

This is our before picture, Mum & Dad's old garden and conservatory..

The conservatory down and most of the garden removed - although you can see where it used to be...

The garage - which became Mum & Dad's bedroom...

The new extension from the inside

Our lovely builders hard at work, and nearly there!

This is the final product from the garden, taken in 2012.  You can see the new extension on the right and the gararge that's now the bedroom at the bottom.  Oh yes, and Biscuit in her paddling pool!

We made a few adjustments here and there to make the place our own, but we've now lived this way for eighteen months now and it's great. It really works for us. Apparently living together as a family and pooling resources is is much more popular overseas than here in the UK, but with ground rules and common sense there's no reason that it it shouldn't work for others...

I love to see how close the girls are to their grandparents and Uncle and I feel really lucky to live the way we do.  And the live in babysitters are fantastic!!

I am so pleased that my Dad had this flash of inspiration that lead us to where we are today.  I suppose this was his Magic Moment really, but it really has changed our lives for the better and I love him for it.

 

Silent Sunday - 19th May 2013

20/52

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013.

20/52 Box fun

In many ways it's lovely how children find pleasure in the simplest of things, a ball of wool, a cardboard box, and spend hours enjoying them.  In other ways it makes me regret filling my house with miscellaneous pieces of brightly coloured plastic that get wedged down sofas and behind radiators.  This week my two sweethearts enjoyed a simple flat cardboard box for about an hour.   It was a tent,  it was a car, it was a sledge and probably many more things besides.  I love how this caught Wiggles peeking out and Biscuit's cheeky grin. I could snuggle those two right up.

Currently....#16

Hello my lovelies!!! How are you diddling?  Anyone notice that I skipped a week last week?   I am feeling twice as Currently-ish now!!! So off we shall trot to join in with Ot and Et and  Harvesting Kale for this weeks post.

I am currently....

Hoping:  At the moment I am hoping that we can sort out going on a little family getaway in August. Logistically it's proving a bit tricky. But with luck and a tail wind we'll all be able to go and visit Aunty Polly by the sea for a lovely break later this year. Hoping. Fingers and toes crossed.

Reading: blogs, blogs, blogs. I recently performed a blog cull. I know that sounds harsh, but I really needed to really narrow down my reading list so that I can commit to and comment on and get to know those I do follow. And I'm happy with my decision, and I feel relieved. I love every single blog that I now follow. You are all amazing!

Wearing: I went to my best friend's Hen/Stag do on Saturday night and wore a very pretty dress.  Not that I don't always wear a dress, but this was one that I particularly like! I don't know when it happened, but I'm starting to feel like my wardrobe is growing up a bit. I look at some things now and think, nope, I'm too old for that!! I am so looking forward to her wedding though....

Me and My Girl, Me and My dress.  Well, a bit of it...

Making: This evening I went to a Make Do and Mend Class I my village. We all made wrist pincushions. Mine was rubbish, I got stroppy, hid it in my bag and refused to finish the job. I went off to wash up instead. I hated it. I want my money back. I've learnt more from YouTube. Grump, grump, grump :)

Playing: Wiggles has just taken to pointing! We've been playing lots of games of "Where's Mummy?" "Where's Gran?" "Where's this? Where's that? Where's the other?" She also loves a good game of "Give Mama a kiss!" Which essentially involves that dribbley little sausage slobbering all over my cheek. I love it though and I love playing games with my little wriggler.

Next week: Eating, Loving, Missing, Moving, Taking.

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