Thursday, 19 November 2009

Pretties From the Pinboard


 (All images credited on the pinboard)

Because it is November and November isn't clean and fresh like September, or sparkly and twinkly like December. Because it is cold and grey and there are only so many soul reviving cups of tea a girl can have. Because November is just crying out for a splash of pretty colour and sometimes when it is very cold, inspiration wraps itself up in Welsh Tartan blankets and refuses to come out and play. Because I just thought a wander around my lovely Pinboard might give you a dose of happy and happy is hard to say no to isn't it?


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A Blank Canvas



There is a big bit of me that rather thinks it would be bliss to give away all my possessions: all the tchotkes,  ornaments and pieces of hard won, much loved furniture, and start all over again. To obliterate all my yesterdays (for don't they so very bossily, dictate all our tomorrows?), and whitewash these four walls. To create for myself the kind of blank canvas thats says, come now, be who you want to be, without compromise or personal nostalgia.

But alas, my heart will not let me: for isn't it emotion, not money, nor time, that binds us so drastically to our own history- emotion, that will not let us part with the proof of how we got to where we are? Each candlestick, every trinket, all those books, that say "remember?"  

It is so.

Which is why it is fun to play. To fill pin-boards full of inspiration for rooms we might never re-create. Swoon over magazine images of interiors more daring than we could ever dream up. Create collages full of possessions we can only dream of owning and seek out blogs that fill up our rss feeds with rooms so beautiful they make us want to cry into our chocolate muesli.

Today Home and Garden magazine, in association with the oh so terribly English fabric and wallcovering company, Sanderson, is offering us the very same kind of opportunity to play and in the process win £1000.00 to spend at Sanderson. The competition involves creating a scheme for the room in the image above, and should you be lucky (or clever!) enough to create something heart-stopping, have it featured in the magazine in 2010.

While the likelihood of me getting around to entering is slim, the competition got me thinking this morning about decorating my living room, something I suspect I have been boring you with for the past three years. My hearts desire includes white walls and a high-backed, winged armchair in which to sit and read, a wall full of junk shop art and floor to ceiling bookcases.

Tell me now, if you could start again, what would your dream room look like?

P.S: Last night I fell head over heels in love with An Aesthetes Lament, one of the quirkiest, loveliest decorating blogs on the net, not only because of it's authorative, knowledgeable tone, but also because the writer and her husband have set about cooking every recipe in Elsie De Wolfe's "Recipes For Successful Dining"...


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Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Chocolate Hob Nobs and A Hug



Last night, in the wee small hours, having layed down my book and finally decided to get some sleep, I crept into Finley's bedroom to make sure that he was tucked in good and tight. And there he was, my very own topsy-turvy angel, lying snuggled in amongst the gang of furry friends he insists on taking to bed. So as I pulled his patchwork quilt up to his chin, I simply couldn't resist leaning in to press a little Mommy kiss on to his little babba forehead. Bad move numero uno, my friends. As my lips touched his skin, he swung his arm around my neck and grabbed me in an affectionate, come life threatening, head lock.

And there we were: him lying on his side snuggling his Mummy's head like it was the kind of prize trophy he wouldn't give up for a big dog (and you know how much he wants one of those) and me, the owner of said head, bent over his bed, bottom in the air, too terrified to move in case I woke him up, and in apparent horror at finding himself being suffocated in the night by hairy monster, subsequently woke the entire neighbourhood.

And so there we were. His grip wasn't loosening and I wasn't getting any warmer because flimsy nighties are useless when one finds oneself stranded around the house when one should be in bed, and let it be known here and now, full length thermal nighties of the kind I once cherished are very, very hard to find these days, and even I, the kind of woman rather partial to winceyette (I love that word, it just smacks of cosy doesn't it??), draw the line at this sort of affair.

But I digress, because there we were. And in the event I felt there was no choice but to sort of drag the quilt over my hunched back and kneel at the side of his little iron day bed, breathing in my sleepy son's biscuity, night-time breath and looking for all the world like I was praying for release. Just two seconds later I suspect I was asleep. In fact I must have been asleep because I was of the notion that I was walking around Debenhams (of all places) when smack! my erstwhile little boy rolled over and punched me in the eye.

Oh yes m'dears. Smacked me he did. I screamed. He screamed. We all screamed. And the sleepy sacrifice I had made not to disturb his dreams was damned to hell and back and my son was wailing about Doctor Who and I was hopping around the room trying to see out of an eye rather spectacularly displaying the odd phenomemon that is eyelashes worn inside out, and five minutes later I was hopping again, jumping around icy cold lino in the kitchen, warming milk and wondering, who, who, in the name of all that is holy, would be a Mother??

And so today I am tired. Sleep wouldn't come after the trauma of a midnight accident, and then this morning I stepped out into rain so torrential, (dragging my exhausted little uniformed munchkin behind me), that I bawled at everyone I met "Oh this bloody weather!" like some kind of wellington-booted, malfunctioning, cursing, Stepford Fishwife. It wasn't pretty I tell ya.

And now it is Wednesday, baking day, and I am in need of sustenance and a hug and in the absence of a boyfriend rather dramatically dying of flu, I am yearning for the kind of comfort food you shouldn't discuss in public, but as there isn't a mars bars in which to fry a banana in, in the entire house (and for the sake of my thighs, hopefully on the planet), I have settled on chocolate chip hob-nobs and there is a little batch baking as we speak...

Clearly the lessons I rather sharply impose on you, are utterly wasted on me...

But should you too, have suffered horrors of the night-time kind, feel free to join me in a biscuit fest, to be served of course with ice cold milk and the central heating cranked up to full blast. It is November. We are Mommies. We deserve it.

Chocolate Chip Hob Nobs.

Ingredients.

8oz Self-Raising Flour
8oz Golden Brown Caster Sugar
8oz Butter
8 oz Porridge Oats
Handful of Chocolate Chips
1 tbsp Golden Syrup
1 tbsp Hot Water
1/2 tsp Bicarb Soda

Method

Melt the butter, sugar, water  and syrup gently in a pan. Stir together oats, flour and bicarb and add to warm butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chips, then roll into little balls and place onto a greaseproof papered tray. Flatten each ball with the back of  a spoon and cook until golden on gas mark 180 degrees C...

Et voila... compensation for the trials and tribulations of living your life, in a chocolate sprinkled biscuit.



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Monday, 16 November 2009

Vintage Bird Decorations



Ooooooooh look! My Ebay find of the day... Thirteen of the cutest little pink birds sitting atop glittery fircones and swinging from pink ribbon attached by somebody's Mum in the glorious 1950's...

Wouldn't they look just DIVINE decorating a  white tree or the barest collection of twigs?

From Ebay Seller 57FordFairLane500.

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