A Belated....

.... Happy Birthday to my lovely Simon;


He got to lay in bed and was brought presents and Elizabeth-made jammy toast when I had had enough of the over-excited children and was ready to kill them we felt he had rested enough. We had a lovely day together, his Mum came for a huge roast beef lunch and we all snuggled and watched a movie in the afternoon. The children and I made his favourite cake and one big and one small boy (Nathaniel) thought it was fun to try and steal the decorations from the top;


The girls made some beautiful gifts for their Daddy, I'll post some pictures soon.

We've been enjoying the spring sunshine;

And I have knitted a cat;

It looks much better in the 'flesh' and is for my friend's birthday. I will definately be knitting another before long!

Daisie xxx

I Knew It Was Bad But Really?!?!

The cupboard in the sideboard where small people's books live, getting changed regulary with books from upstairs to avoid reading the same story every single day;


The boys love to choose books and look at pictures and tell each other stories;


There are very few books in the kitchen as I tend to not follow recipes or follow them only once and modify for our use;

The fancy book case for fancy books which now lives in the new space we have created between the front room and the dining room;

The new mega bookcase in the front room, the books continue to the floor behind the sofa;

There are books on the unfinished landing awaiting a new shelf to reside on;

The bookcase under the window in our room, the middle shelf is currently empty as some of these books have moved downstairs, I don't think it'll be empty long;

The shelves next to our bed (my side, excuse the debris) for current reading;

The "over-spill" bookcase in Elizabeth and Nathaniel's room;

The bookcase behind the door;

Nathaniel's bedside table;

The shelf above Elizabeth's bed;

The book case behind the door in Francecsa's room;

And the shelf above her bed;

Francesca hasn't had just as much time in Waterstone's with Daddy that Elizabeth has yet but am sure she'll catch up soon!

So there it is in all it's glory, am sure there are worse habits to have and instill in your children?!

Daisie xxx

It's Been So Long Since I Blogged

That I forgot Blogger puts the pictures into a post in reverse order and I can't be bothered to find the time or the energy to change it so this post will be upside down, sorry!

There are signs of spring in my garden, one solitary daffie, sitting proud under the grey skies;


Red Nose Day last friday, the girls were asked by school to come dressed in red, not having anything red or the money/time/inclination to aquire a red outfit for each of them we opted for red hair ties and red nails;


I went to work in my pyjamas, as did my collegues, haven't lost my marbles (well, not quite), we did something funny for money, some of the staff got sponges thrown at them, we all baked cakes for an after school sale and one member of staff painted faces for a donation. It was a great day and being a fool forgetting about the attire for the day I had booked some home visits, none of the families I visited seemed to mind much but I did get some funny looks in the chip shop at tea time!

I've had a birthday. I got some lovely little gifts and some generous donations to the "Hearth Tile Fund" from family and friends. My MIL bought me these sunny daffies;


The bookcases are filled (and are not big enough as I expected), please remember back-to-front pictures, and the house is coming together, the dining room has been rearranged and furniture is now in it's proper place, the house feels bright and airy, there is more room for train track building;

And wheelie-bugging and ball rolling and story telling and cosy knitting and chasing games and space of your own;

We really do have a book problem though and may soon need to attend BA: Hello, I'm Alex and I'm a bookaholic. I'll have to take you on a pictorial tour of the house and then you can see our problem in it's full glory.

Apart from a chest infection (or three) nothing much has been happening round here, I finished Francesca's hand warmers and they have not been off her hands since, I am currently knitting a birthday gift for someone, shhhhhh, and the girls have been off school so far this week feeling poorly and taking antibiotics and regular paracetamol so we have enjoyed the time together for snuggles and crap telly watching and they have been crafting away for their Daddy's birthday at the weekend.

Hope you are all well and enjoying these early signs of spring.

Daisie xxx

Lordy, I Think We Own A Library!

Well the book shelves are up (except the bit on the left that we need to Dr Bob the shelves for to make it fit from wall to wall);


They are 2.4m high so just enough to stand books on the very top if we run out of room, as I suspect we might! It feels a little full, for want of a better word, dark and crowded. It will be fine and just adds to the comfy atmosphere of the room. It's always hard when we come to refill a room. We empty it, pull all the walls down, rewall, plaster, sand and paint, the room is empty for such a long time that when it has furniture and life back in it it always seems like a tight squeeze.

That feeling is not helped at the minute by the sheer number of books waiting in an orderly (?) manner to join their friends on the shelves;

Simon spent all day yesterday carrying boxes out of the attic and down the stairs, I think he has muscles on his aching muscles this morning. We gave up at 11 and went to bed with the shelves half full, hopefully the boxes will all be empty by tea time!

In other long overdue news one of my monkeys got a mention by Tanya over at Cards With A Difference in her regular Folksy Friday blog post. Thanks Tanya!

And Little Blue Mouse awarded me a 'Stylish Blogger' award (here I must confess I have forgotten to nick the picture to add to the post so you'll just have to wait and see it in the sidebar when I get round to it). Now I have to nominate people, which I'm not going to do (bad me), I'm going to say if you'd like it then you have have it as long as you tell the blogiverse seven things about you. I need to now tell you all seven things about me that you don't know but to be honest I'm not sure that there are seven things that you lot don't already know. But I''l try.......

1. I am the oldest of five children and I was home educated until I was 11.

2. You all know that I like to cook and bake but I love chopping veg, lots of veg into small regular pieces for soups and pasta sauces etc, when I am having a bad day it soothes my soul (now you really know I'm a nutter).

3. I look at motorbikes longingly, Simon and I went everywhere on his bike before I learned to drive and unless it was a food shop or me going to work we still went everywhere on the bike. He took us on long journeys and I would often fall asleep against his back. I haven't been on the bike since I fell pregnant with Elizabeth. I can't wait for the children to be all grown up so I can tuck in behind him again and we can have adventures.

4. I'm a laundry sniffer, nothing smells better than a load of freshly washed clothes hanging to dry!

5. I always wanted to play the saxophone when I was younger but never learned.

6. I'd love to have the money and live in a suitable location to run a little tea/book shop. I think it's our retirement dream for Simon to be pottering around with old books all day while I bake cakes and brew big pots of tea for visitors.

7. One of my favourite lunches is houmous and avocado snadwiches, mmmmmmmmm!

I suspect that not alot of that was new to you but I like to try.

Anyhoo, I need to go off and dye my hair, we all had a haircut yesterday, I've had mine chopped back again like I did in November and then when I went for weekend supplies I found some amazingly purple hair dye down from £8 to £3, it would have been rude not to bring it home really! Then I am hoping to pop out without the small people in search for a wedding outfit. Wish me luck!?

Daisie xxx