Getting to know you

The first day with a new student is always a bit challenging. Poor things, I do feel for them. Plonked in a strange country, usually not understanding much of the language and with Scary being a typical monosyllabic teenager. However, they seemed to be getting on reasonably well considering we lacked the usually chatty Mad One. (Scary on the right here.)


The Maze at Escot proved quite demanding. Those rotten buggers have gates that they change each time you go there! Yes, this is the middle but we are on a bridge only about 20 feet away!
We did make it to the centre, but only after following someone that looked like they knew where they were going!

The tyre swing came next, while I sat on a wonderfully rustic carved seat looking at the sky!

Another swing now. Come on Scary, put your back into it!



That's a bit better!

Spanish girl gets it right away!

I think we're going to get on well with this one. Despite her lack of English, she smiles, eats well and has impeccable manners.


Roll on tomorrow when I get my Baby back! Good excuse for a cake, don't you think?

Country Living Frustration

I bought this rather inviting magazine this morning:


but I couldn't read it! I just had toooooo much to do.

We were due another student this evening and her room, and the entire house, was a complete mess!

So all day I've been moving, cleaning, polishing, hoovering and making beds. Now I get to sit down with it (and the remote control, by the way, which I don't get very often) but Mel Gibson is distracting me!

At the library yesterday I also picked up this:

but Scary says under no circumstances does she want knitted bra and panties! She is a spoilsport isn't she?

My baby's all grown up!

I've had a day of mixed emotions. My youngest, the Mad One, is going on her Year 6 residential trip this weekend. She is SOOOOOOOO excited! A whole weekend with her friends, doing wonderful things like abseiling and getting covered in mud. (And just being away from parents!) I can't help but share her enthusiasm but deep in my heart I remember when Scary did this, that weekend was the turning point from child into young adult.

How can all those years have whizzed by so fast?

Scary, meanwhile, has died her hair black (instead of the blond, remember?), went out last weekend on the Saturday with one boy, stayed at her girlfriend's house overnight, and came back with a different boyfriend on the Sunday! Hmmmm.

Marathon Runner says I need to get a dog! No thanks, I say, I'll wait for some grandchildren. That usually shuts him up!

Teacups & Midsummer

Merry Midsummer (yes, I know I'm a bit late)!

Aren't they lovely?

These are the cups I use twice a week to make tea and coffee at the Senior Citizens Centre. My Nana used to have a set exactly like them and it feels somehow right that I am a temporary guardian of something so steeped in my own history. I know I am in the minority here! Marathon Runner tells me frequently how eccentric I am, forming attachments to the strangest items. (I think a very old fork and a geometry set feature high in this list.)

On the 'for sale' table there was a lovely assortment of three cups, four saucers and one plate just begging for a good home! Who could resist that?

Roses and coconut buns!

Doesn't it feel really decadent to have a design on the inside of the cup?

Talking of roses, I wish you could smell this one. It is Alec's Red, a hybrid tea.

Now Midsummer's Day is over, it's all downhill til Christmas!

Do you really mean burlesque?

Let me introduce you to Henrietta.


Do you think she's cute? I got her at the Exeter Craft Fair on Saturday. I have several already from John Hilder in Seaton. Look at her lovely wings and tail and what do you call those things down her back?



It was a lovely day spent with my Mad Daughter, although she doesn't always share my enthusiasm for all things crafty. The trick is to keep feeding her!





Talking of feeding people, soon my friend and I have to make some refreshments for a play at School. We did it last year and all our cakes and bakes went down rather well so, guess what, we've been volunteered to do it again!



This show has been written by a teacher at the school, so we had no idea what it was about. Said teacher asks my friend very kindly if we could dress up and 'theme' our refreshments. Hmm, she says, what theme? Burlesque, he says. Off she trots, what's burlesque, she asks me? Hmm, says I, think it's a bit sort of can-can dancer. I'll go home and have a look on good 'ol Google.


My face must have been a picture when I looked at Google images. Oh I say, oooh really, have I got this right? It took me fifteen pages to find any ladies with a decent amount of clothes actually on! I don't think they make those tassles in size 36HH! Scary Daughter and Marathon Runner think it's hilarious. Having spoken to him again, I think we've come to the conclusion that what he really means is sort of Gothic Victorian. Damn, I was just getting the corset out!


So anyway, we've decided to go with a black and white theme for the refreshments, so I had a little practice tonight with some (ever so slightly out of date) black icing I found in the cupboard!



What do you think? Will this do?

Maybe I can get some black paper cases.

I still rather fancy that corset though ...