My two newest culinary fetishes: onion spelt crackers with the merest slither of the maturest cheddar I can get with orange juice for breakfast and a spoonful of black and peppercorn mustard to be served with almost everything else... The Kenwood (Delia Cheat) mini chopper currently transforming my kitchen life if only because I don't have to do battle with my oh so complicated food processor on a regular basis and I can whip up a terracotta bowl full of hummus in the blink of an eye with this little gem... And here lie's the terrible truth: where sensible people have kitchen gadgets and other relevant but pretty little frippery, I have school ties and plastic sports day medals. I clearly consider kids vitamins and little pots of yeast to be worthy of display, and this dresser represents only a fraction of my darling little dilapidated kitchen. And finally my Mums recipe, split pea soup, blended for all it's worth into golden yellow nectar. To my utter mystification now, when I was child my Mum and Dad used to get a little delirious about this salty soup, while I with all the snobbishness of a pampered suburban schoolgirl wouldn't touch it, truly believing that my parents fondness for it harked back to a yearning for the relative poverty of their youth, when a bag of peas, a scrag end of gammon, two carrots and an onion were considered something of a feast... And now I can't get enough of it. Yesterday, in wont of gammon, I substituted a couple of slices of smoked bacon and a few salty chunks of pancetta, and added half a bag of split yellow peas, the said carrots and onions, a couple of sticks of celery, salt, thyme, cloves and black pepper, and two hours later found myself with a cheery bowl of homely frugal bliss. Have a lovely weekend Housekeepers.

If you have ever wondered why I don't post many photographs from the house, it is because the light in this low ceiling-ed 1860 terraced cottage absolutely STINKS. There simply isn't any. Watching Finley and I step blinking, out of the front door, must be like watching a family of moles poke their little heads out of their muddy little undergroundholes. You see, call around here for afternoon tea and even in mid-summer you will find yourself, legs propped upon my red velvet sofa, sipping iced tea and nibbling a cucumber sandwich in the light of four lamps and many a twinkly china-cupped tea-light. Should necessity strike and a photograph be absolutely necessary the only decent light to be found is in the bathroom, which is thankfully big enough in which to swing a possy of cats but hardly desirable for the kind of oh so gorgeous food photography I find so utterly mouth-watering on other blogs... What in heavens name has this got to do with Pixie Blossoms? Frankly not a lot other than while perusing her lovely collection of sewing notion cards I was filled with the kind of envy apparently untempered by the idea that Zee's gorgeous photography is the result of the serendiptious chemistry between her clever eye and beautiful spirit, and nothing to do with the fact that she may or may not be blessed with decent light... Go see her Etsy shop, then come back and give me a good talking to- because let's face it a bad work-woman always blames her tools.

" Did it ever occur to you that an inspiring idea is hidden in the hackneyed occupation of "going for a walk"? You start out with a destination in view; how small are your single steps in comparison with the miles they measure out, yet you add step to step; half unconsciously you cover the ground; at last you arrive and you have not found the journey so long after all. Sometimes you start off tired, your steps are slow, you move languidly; but you have determined to reach a certain place, and little by little, one step taken and then another, mere habit helping to bear you on, you reach your journey's end. You may even have to rest by the way, but you must arrive; and so you go on again to find the peace of an accomplished task rewarding you at last. If we would only carry this spirit of determination, of persistent effort, into our lives, what tasks we could accomplish, what heights we might attain! It is the doing of the daily task, the step added to the step, that accomplishes the great things. Probably you know the often-quoted story of the scientist who was wife was always twenty minutes late for dinner. At the end of the year he gave her a book which he had written in those daily twenty minutes. Next time you go for a walk, notice how short each step is by itself, how slight the effort needed, yet finally you arrive, and realise it is just this slight, yet perservering effort that will bring you to the Promised Land." The Girls Own Annual, 1919

Woe is me. I can hardly bear it. First my beloved Mary Englebreit, then Country Home and Cottage Living, then my lovely Eve, then Blueprint and now Domino... Magazines are folding left, right and centre. And I guess that darn old credit crunchy business is to blame.. but is it really, or does this mass closure of magazines we once loved suggest that our needs are being met by the abundance of excellent, beautiful inspirational blogs with writers at the helm able to provide daily fixes of gorgeousness in a seemingly never ending stream, without interruption from pages and pages of adverts? Only the other day, I stood in Borders and realised to my utter amazement that I now only regularly buy one British interiors/lifestyle magazine (Country Living) compared with the eight I used to buy monthly just five years ago. And I don't really know why, other than to say that much of the content started to seem almost re-hashed... While this whole business is terribly sad and represents one more example of how we are being forced to re-think every aspect of the way we live, perhaps it simply means that in the future artisan magazines and journals like those created by Stampington and Company (Have you seen Apron.ology??) will thrive, supported by a buzzing blogosphere willing to spend what money we still have on publications that reflect and support our lifestyle, with the kind of attention to detail all too often sacrificed by big budget magazines in an effort to keep their advertisers happy. It's a whole new world isn't it?

Every time I look at the horrified expression on this red haired ladies face I laugh out loud. The poor darling looks mortified and no wonder for isn't it just like a man to not to think of editing out a photograph so clearly not fit for human consumption??

This is an image taken from the front cover of John Bull magazine, (March 7th, 1959) and is just one of the 48 charming representations of British life in the fifties I procured in what can only be described as a scrap in the Animal Rescue Book Shop last week.

Now treasure hunting in this particular shop is always an experience, if not because of the quite foul smell, then because it is staffed by quite the oddest assortment of animal lovers you have ever met: on this occasion a lovely Chinese man with a green cardigan and charming buck toothed smile, accompanied by a gentle fuzzy haired giant of a man who both rocked back and forth constantly and talked ten to the dozen. Neither could do enough for their motley crew of customers (me) and I swear better customer service could not be found in the whole of Lancashire. But I digress...

So there I was, skimming the shelves as fast as possible, (because the shop smells so very badly my Mum won't come in and was hovering chilled to the bone in the doorway), and exclaiming in glee when I happened across a frankly over-priced ode to Beauty, circa 1956, complete with the delights of the banana diet and the frankly ubiquitous recommendation of laxatives for a healthier happier digestive system.

Feeling all was well with the universe, I hurried to the counter, handed the book to the rocking man and noticed out of the corner of my eye another man shifting through a tower of vintage magazines. I looked at him and he looked at me.

"OOOoooh" he said, "someone else who knows a bargain when she see's one. John Bull's love. I only want the ebay saleable ones, you can have the rest..."

Having established that this lovely collection of John Bull magazines were to be sold individually for 40p each or for a sum to be agreed for the lot, I offered £10.00 and after much debate amongst themselves, and the possibility of a phone-call to the powers that be discussed, the Chinese man looked in a worried fashion at his calculator and said £12.00 and I didn't feel like arguing because he was so very, very nice, and said yes and that is when the trouble began.

The Ebay seller had chosen three copies, and the other 68 were for me. The attending staff were troubling themselves for a carrier bag, when up shuffled a man in an anorak, hood pulled up and dark jazzy sunglasses quite unnecessary on such a dull day, apparently glued to his face. He listened to me waxing enthusiastically about my exciting hoard and all of a sudden made a grab for a handful of magazines.

Put them down Chris, said the man behind the counter, who was obviously used to Chris making unforeseen literary heists on giddy customers.
No, said Chris, I'm having them.
This lady has already bought them. Put them down Chris!
No, said Chris, shoving them inside his anorak.

Now at this moment I was prepared to hand over my twelve pound regardless and make a hasty exit, when to my utter horror, naughty Chris made a second lunge at my stash and picked up another handful, this time grabbing one of the best covers amongst them, (A rather horrified young lady in glorious fifties underwear, hiding behind the curtain, while a whistling window cleaner got to work).
The poor befuddled staff looked mortified and helpless and kind of hopeless, so it was clearly up to me to take charge of the matter, but grappling with Chris who was clearly madder than a box of frogs wasn't an option, and screaming blue murder might have had the delicate staff in tears, so offering ten pound for my depleted pile of magazines and beating a sharp retreat was my only option. So that is what I did, I paid for the fifty magazines remaining, told them I would be back later to pick them up and left them to deal with Chris, who was now sneaking the pointy bra-ed lady on the cover of the issue I would have sold my granny for, in and out of his anorak and sneaking furtive glances at it as if he was in Soho.

And all's well that ends bonkers. Except that wasn't the end of it. When I went back the highly excited man behind the counter told me he had been able to sort Chris out and had managed to get all the magazines back and I congratulated him with all the delirious glee such a difficult feat deserved and lugged my load home where upon a quick count of the mags in the bag revealed that they now numbered just 48...

It is a mystery worthy of Enid Blyton, but not one I care to dwell on, so delighted am I with those that did indeed make it home to chez Brocante... images which I'm sure you will thank me for once I get the tired old wheels of my scanner into motion...

Though I am slightly ashamed to admit it, I've never quite understood the concept of budgeting. Money comes in, I stare at it in astonishment, then go out and spend it on whatever I need to hold hearth and home together.

I have all kinds of theories about my dubious relationship with money that I won't bore you with here, suffice to say finding myself living through the first recession I remember as a home owning adult, it struck me that perhaps it was time to identify exactly how much of my hard earned pennies are going on joyful unnecessaries while I all too often find myself feeling borderline poverty struck in the aisles of the supermarket..

And so on January 1st 2009 I started a little experiment: I would write down every single penny I spent and finally discover what it is that is eating my money...

Below is my expenditure from the first four weeks of 2009. (I know it isn't thought polite to share the details of one's finances, but it seems that there isn't a tad of me I now consider private, bless my silly soul.) This was probably a quiet month in term of socializing and also a very good month with regard to bills. The car is currently off the road so there was no expenditure there, though because it has been so very cold gas costs have spiraled. I have no idea whether this represents the normal spending pattern of a thirty six year old single mother of one little munchkin, but I would be interested to hear your own views and ideas on budgeting. Am I spending too much on food? Not enough? Is my book/magazine obsession out of hand? Percentage wise do you and I have similar spending patterns or is my expenditure a bit skewiff? Have you got any budgeting tips that will transform my life in an era when tomato puree (my credit crunch price barometer) was 26p last week and 49p this week?

Bills.(Note: Mark pays the mortgage in lieu of maintenance)

Gas and electricity: £120.00 (14%)
Phone and Broadband: £55.00 (6%)
Council Tax: £100.00 (12%)
Parking Ticket (!!): £38.00 (5%)
Insurances: £54.00 (7%)
Dog Sponsorship For Finn: £8.00 (1%)
DVD rental: £13.00 (2%)

Shopping.

Food: £170.00 (21%)
Sundries: £30.00 (3%)
Books and Magazines: £67.00 (8%)
Clothes and Shoes: £15.00 (2%)
Gifts: £45.00 (5%)
Vintage Treasure: £30.00 (3%)

Miscellaneous:

Entertainment and Eating Out: £60.00 (7%)
Computer Software: £22.00 (2%)

Total: £827.00

And the challenge? To reduce my expenditure by 5% month by month until the end of 2009. Watch this space...

I have long believed that the universe, or our personal God, or perhaps just sheer serendipity endeavors to whisper just the right words into your soul at just the right time. Yesterday while flicking through The Creative Entrepreneur (which is one of the most well executed business books for creative women I have ever come across) I read this gorgeous quote from Martha Graham...

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action: And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. You must keep that channel open. It is not for you to determine how good it is, nor how valuable. Nor how it compares with other expressions. It is for you to keep it yours, clearly and directly."

..and it resounded loudly deep inside my ever insecure stomach because we are always so quick to compare, and to imitate. To analyse ourselves and declare ourselves wanting. To say this isn't enough. This is too much. I am not her. I will never be her. Oh how I want to be her. To abandon work before it is completed. To never even start. To see too much of our awful awkward selves in everything we create. To let ego dance around everything we do, pulling tongues and calling us terrible names. To find ourselves quite unable to read what we have wrote, stare at what we have painted or look at ourselves for long enough in the mirror to see what the night has done to our face. But you know what? Our only obligation is to keep on keeping on. To exist in our own little bubble, churning out whatever it is that spills forth, and totally believing in it. That is all anyone can ask of us and everything else is just dried up gravy. So, though I live in fear of who I might be, I'm keeping on keeping on, clearly and directly. Martha's quote was merely a timely reminder that the world would not have it otherwise. Not for any of us.

I haven't exactly got a cold, but the potential is there if you know what I mean, and I do so enjoy indulging my inner hypochondriac in the depths of Winter. Remember last year? I was on my last legs from  January to March and hell on earth it was too. If anyone can make a meal of  the odd little infection, it is I, Alison Joanne May.
But not this year. This year I am fighting the battle against January ailments with a vengeance. I will no more lay down and give in to the demon cold than I will hire John Pawson to decorate my living room (though is it just me or does that monastery look divinely peaceful? I want to take a holiday there.)
And so I am fighting the good fight with an armory of scrumptiously cosy treats and I insist you do the same...


1. Bed socks.
You must have bed socks. Ok so they are not remotely sexy but they can look effortlessly vintage chic with a too big for you white Victorian nightie and a snuggly cardigan. Hunt some out, stitch yourself a little sock bag and hang it from your bed-post.
2. The Blanket Cardigan.
Fold the top quarter of a blanket over and stitch 35cms in from each side to make some makeshift armholes. Adorn as desired et voila! A pretty blanket that will stay sitting round your shoulders and guaranteeing warmth through another episode of Ugly Betty. So you look like a Granny. What the hell, you are warm.
3. Herbal Cold Tea.
At the slightest sniffle of a cold, make yourself some herbal cold tea, then take to your bed and refuse to budge.
4. Candles.
Now I have no idea whether I am right or wrong here,  but I will argue till I'm blue in the face that lighting lots and lots of candles warms you up. My Dad says I am talking nonsense, but whether the effects are purely psychological or not,  I find that lighting, cinnamon, clove or  other wintery spiced candles  makes me feel cosier. As does a red blanket or two. And the scrumptiously cosy red floral bedding I am currently retiring to...
5. Mustard Foot Bath.
Warm feet, warm heart. Or something like that. Mustard oils are absorbed through the skin and elimanated via your lungs, promoting a beneficial anti-bacterial action and causing skin irritation mild enough to make you feel warm. Warm towels and socks on the radiator as your feet soak then snuggle up your tootsies and I guarantee you'll feel better...
6.  Bake  Bread.
Nothing makes me feel more homely than the smell of bread baking. Make soda bread and serve it with crispy bacon and mushrooms swimming in garlicy oil.  Set the breadmaker to wake you with the delicious aroma of hot flaky bread  ready to be served with big bowls full of hot chocolate. Or eat makeshift suppers of warm ciabatta sprinkled with olive oil and sea salt, melted brie and red wine to warm you up from the inside out.
7. Hibernate For The Weekend.
While my Mum has something of a dicky fit if I stay in the house for longer than twenty four hours at a time, I am a great believer in the healing powers of hibernation. Don't feel like going out much? Don't. Fill the pantry with staples. Arrange to have a box of organic veg delivered. Keep a vat of scrummy soup on the go. Go the library and take out a huge pile of books. Don't bother going out for the daily paper. Don't spend hours on the phone. Stay in till you feel better and enjoy the peace of your own or your families company.
8. Curtains.
Close every curtain in the house as soon as the afternoon sun dies. Both in an effort to conserve heat  and to trick your mind into thinking that the house is warmer than it is. It may not be terribly green but keeping a lamp on in every room and every passage way- in fact setting timers so they switch themselves on as dimly as possible as soon as dusk settles, will reinforce the feeling of welcome and warmth in your home and you will not experience the disconcerting jar of switching overheard lights on as you go about the house in the early evening...
9. Draft Excluders.
Can't be bothered stitching vintage fabric wrapped draft excluders? Fold a blanket in half and roll it into a sausage, then tie both ends christmas cracker style with a length of thick velvet ribbon and press your home-made door snugglers up against the drafts creeping through every entrance way in the house.
10. Thermal Vests.
Now the problem with thermal underwear is this: once you move into it for the Winter you have to expect to  freeze should you decide to venture out without it till around about July. But oh my  it is just so yummy. Buy a selection with lacy edges pretty enough to peep out of layers of fine knit woollies and make handwashing them in lavender and letting  them dry on padded hangers a quick, but really rather scrumptious evening ritual.
11.  Nursery Suppers.
Give up dinner for a few nights and instead offer the kids a  very old fashioned high tea when they come home dithering from school and a light nursery supper  (boiled egg and soldiers?)  an hour before they go to bed..
12. Handcream.
Stand a tub of handcream in a bowl of boiling water while you wash the dishes then treat yourself to a warming hand massage when you  remove your Marigolds...
13. Water Bowls.
Fill pretty little bowls full of water and a few drops of aromatherapy oil and leave them in the vicinity of every radiator in the house ready to counteract the dreadfully skin wrinkling effects of central heating.
14. Early To Bed.
Set the scene right and your bedroom is the snuggliest place to be when it is very, very chilly. Line the sheet you lie on  with a wool blanket so the bed feels warm on your skin, switch the radio to Classic Fm,  spritz your pillow with eucalyptus,  pile an extra quilt or  two on top of the bed (I do adore burying myself in  a muddle of cosy blankets) take a cup of chamomile to bed and snuggle up with an old fashioned love story or a thoroughly modern man.
P.S: This was post number 1000 on BrocanteHome!!

Oh my goodness me. Is Spoonflower the best idea since cheesy ciabatta? And it's as cheap as chips too! This in the year I finally find myself with a working sewing machine. Maybe my creative side will come out of hiding and run a little wild...

Gorgeous though he undoubtedly is, Finley isn't an easy child to bring up. Like all boy's of his age he is constantly on the move, but he combines this permanent motion with relentless conversation, 1001 searching questions, and a running commentary of his every move, which is quite frankly exhausting. Though he is cute enough to get away with it, his hair is wild, his clothes are always undone, and his fingernails are dirty, and this alongside the fact that he can render a room immaculate to bombsite in the apparent blink of an eye, merely by hurtling around it and leaving destruction in his wake means that life as his Mummy always feels a little out of control... though my grubby little munchkin is rarely naughty, always polite and possesses emotional intelligence extremely rare in children of his age, so whether or not I feel demented is totally eclipsed by pride for a little boy who can with a simple sentence or two bring tears to the eyes of everybody in the room, so heartwarming is his sheer joy in everything he encounters and his skill in putting that joy into words. Though all Mum's like to think their children are special, I have always known that there was something different about Finley: that he wasn't like other children, and his first experience of formal education immediately resulted in assessment. Finley, I was told, wasn't right. He fell over too much. He was lacking in the scissor skills department. His gross and fine motor skills didn't marry with his very obvious verbal intelligence, he chewed his nails and worried too much and all of this implied that there was something wrong. That in their words, he would never fit into the standard educational system because his glaring innate creativity and emotional intelligence marred by his inability to stand up without falling over or running across the room and chucking himself at the wall just for the fun of it, would mean that he would struggle to fit into the typical classroom scenario. For a while Dyspraxia was talked about in hushed tones (as if it was a life sentence) but was ultimately dismissed by occupational therapists who declared him fine and dandy, said look, he can thread beads and draw perfect triangles: he can kick and catch a ball, walk along a straight line and though he is a tad wobbly, crawl around with his left arm sticking out at right angles to his body as requested: so let that be an end to it. He is a joy. Send him to big school and see how he fares. And so that is what I did. I sent him, and he took to it like a fish takes to water, loving the interaction with other children, adoring his teachers and enjoying the challenge of learning to read. And then the jungle drums started beating all over again. His letter formation was dodgy. He worried out loud about too many little things children his age didn't need to worry about. He pre-empted danger where there was none to be found. He threw his coat at his hook and dashed off to play without seeing it fall to the ground. Once he even managed to fasten up his shirt inside out... Finley, by all accounts, wasn't right. Could it be Dyspraxia, they whispered? Well? Could it? You tell me, I whispered back. Perhaps he was just five and very busy? Perhaps he's just bright and pre-empts danger because he is clever enough to work out that it does in fact exist, that this is a child with Coeliacs disease, a child used to identifying personal danger. Or perhaps, yes, perhaps, there is something wrong. Some of me wanted to say, You know what? Come back in two years and let him be a child for now. Some of me wanted to say, rather this spirited child, than the one in the corner so meek, the one internalising her every fear rather than talking it to death until it is understood. Rather this than the child who scowls and seeks perfection in everything he does. Rather this. And the rest of me understood that this is a child who one way or another has to fight his way through an educational system that will keep on drawing attention to his differences. That this is indeed a child who will not let me sit down without crawling on top of me and squashing his body against mine, who cannot bear hair cuts or hair washing, cannot tolerate the sound of the kettle boiling or the vacuum cleaner working, worries about the risk of the toilet flooding and is so afraid of dogs and goats he will run into oncoming traffic rather than come face to face with one. (Though thankfully loose goats are few and far between in these parts). That this is a child who is different and that it is my duty as his Mummy to give this difference the respect it deserves so we can all muddle our way through the school years. And so I began reading. I read The Spirited Child and The Sensitive Child. I read up on the symptoms of Dyspraxia and associated disorders, googled case studies, read The Sensory-Sensitive Child and finally found something that rang true with me. Sensory Processing Disorder described, almost exactly, my perception of Finley's difficulties. SPD with a particular leaning to Proprioceptive Dysfunction explained Finley's quirks and made sense of my experience of mothering a child like him: both the heart-ache and the exhaustion. And more than that, SPD was occasionally linked with children with Coeliacs, due to the fact that more than 40% suffered damage to their central nervous systems before diagnosis. I was ready to go in all guns blazing. I was ready to go in and fight the same kind of battle I'd had to have Finley's Coeliacs diagnosed in the first place: twelve months of knowing in my heart what was wrong with my child, but watching him slowly starve to death while the medical system investigated everything from weak stomach muscles to cystic fibrosis and stomach cancer, all the time ignoring my pleas to test him for what seemed all to obvious to me. So I was ready to do battle. And then a nice little woman called Pauline arrived, case notes in hand, admired my chipped paint and sat on my sofa and said that they in the Occcupational Therapy department at the Children's Centre had come to the conclusion that Finley had Sensory Processing Disorder, with clear Proprioceptive failings that could indeed be compromising his ability to manage a classroom situation. I could have kissed her. It isn't of course an answer. It is in fact merely a label. Sensory Processing Disorder covers a huge spectrum of difficulties that vary by both degree and impact. Nothing alters the fact that Finn is managing well, that he can now almost read and write and that label or no label, the kid can't stop talking. Life with him isn't easy. He is more demanding than the next child, but to me it is the fact that he asks me questions I cannot answer that is the exhausting bit and everything else is just a scrumptious little bit of the eccentric little boy he is. Eccentricity that is very real because Finley isn't experiencing the world in the same way that you and I do. And long may it last because chatterbox he may be, but I wouldn't change one little sausage of him. Not a single gluten-free sausage.

Call me intolerant, (and those who know me often do) but I find it very difficult to relax in a dimly lit room not twinkling with at least one candle, whether it be a tiny tea-light dancing in a teacup or an entire mantle-piece laden with creamy white cathedral candles.

To me candles represent the switch off hour. They are associated with pleasure, with ritual, and with the marking and passage of time and they have been the focus of one of my most enduring collections for more than fifteen years so essential are they to my emotional well-being.

One of my most loved domestic treasures is a large scented paper lined wooden hinged box full of my candley accouterments and when the work is done, when the house is spick and span and the kitchen is swaying in tune to the hum of the washing machine, I putter about with my box under my arm, replacing burnt out candles, scraping wax off candlesticks, trimming wicks, and sprinkling aromatherapy oil into the base of candlesticks and holders for the blessed gift of my signature scent, before collapsing into my dilapidated red armchair with a cup of cherry cinnamon tea, and letting my frankly harassed little mind do nothing more taxing than fire-gaze on a miniature scale…

In my candle box?

Tiny little scissors, a blunt knife, small wads of newspaper, tea-lights, household candles, matches, a long handled lighter, a little leopardskin salt cellar, a bar of white baby soap, candle snuffer, aromatherapy oil, and a little scrap of dusting cloth…

And the Brocante guide to making the most of your candles? * Don't burn individual candles for longer than three hours each. * Sprinkling a little household salt around the top of each candle before lighting will prevent it dripping as will swiping a bar of soap up and down the long surface of the candle. * Keeping candle wicks trimmed to 1/4 of an inch will guarantee an even flame, reduce smoke and extend the life of your candle. * Put scratched or tired looking pillar candles into the leg of a nylon stocking and roll it about to reduce scratches and revive scent. * Fitting an elastic band around the neck of a candle will mean that it will extinguish itself when it reaches it. * Candles spoilt by soot can be cleaned with a soft cloth dipped into methylated spirits. * In the absence of long matches, awkward to reach candles can be lit with a long piece of uncooked spaghetti. * Wax can be removed from glass candle-holders by washing them in a solution of warm water and ammonia. * Coating the wax of a candle with clear varnish will mean it will last last twice as long. * Leftover remnants of candles can be melted down, then rolled newspaper dipped into the molten wax and allowed to dry for use as firestarters...

It is three o'clock in the morning when the landing light is flicked on and I hear the thunder of five year old feet bang down the stairs and then, more disturbing perhaps, the house fall back into screaming, noisy silence. For a moment, disorientated, I wonder if I dreamt it, but no, there is a shaft of light poking under my door, and my little boy is indeed wandering around the house when he should be navigating the toadstool sprinkled realms of the Magic Faraway Tree. I run down the stairs calling his name, and find a pajama clad bundle squashed between the red sofa and the bookcase. "Hello Sweetie, what are you doing?" I ask. " It's not quite morning Mummy, so you go back to bed, while I play" he says. "Well no Darling, it's still very night time, and you have to come back to bed too." "No" he says firmly. And by the looks of it, he means it. I am flummoxed. I bend down shivering, and try to pick him up, but he will not be moved. Noooooooooooo, he screams and kicks me sharp in the stomach. His little foot ice against my bare flesh. I grab him, but he is a slippy little fish and nothing he says is making sense. He is kicking and hitting me and now he is crying and we are grappling like world champion wrestlers on the living room floor, and his voice is reaching decibels never heard before and goodness knows what the neighbours must be thinking, because deaf as they may be, don't they hear every pin drop, every little sigh I ever utter? And then there is silence. And stillness. And apparently: clarity. "Kath is hopeless isn't she Mum?" Kath is my closest friend and there isn't a single aspect of her that is even remotely hopeless. "Is she Finn? Why?" "The way she walks back to her house is just hopeless." And there we are. My son and I: sprawled across the rug, under a blanket I have dragged off the armchair, discussing my dear friends misdemeanors, both our faces wet with his tears. And it is at that moment, as I stretch out one of his beautiful little ringlets, that I remember a line from the book I fell asleep with... "Ah, the martyr's robe of single motherhood... you don't often wear it." I remember it because I want to wear it now. Just for a hour or two. I want to wear the martyrs robe of single motherhood, because it is three o'clock in the morning and there is a long scratch burning on my left breast, and he wont walk back up to bed and he is so heavy my back buckles as I struggle back to the bedroom and then he won't get back in his own bed and insists on sleeping in the gap that is in mine and there is no-one to wake and say, well hell's bells, what was all that about? There is no-one who will look at the huge big spot flaming on his cheek and look at me and say, no baby, it's ok, it wont be the dreaded chicken pox. No-one who will make reason out of what just happened because no-one else saw it. I don't often feel it, the absence of the other parent. For the most part I revel in being allowed to make singular decisions about how my child is raised, while consulting Mark on only that which I choose to share. For the most part single motherhood offers independence and a huge, daily sense of achievement. It offer's unparalleled closeness to my son, and perhaps more pertinently, a sense of us against the world baby, unnecessary in more traditional shaped families. But there is alway an element of loneliness. Something Joanna Trollope explains better than I can, in Friday Nights, when she writes: "Being alone, Eleanor knew, was not in itself undesirable: it was the circumstances of aloneness that made it either friend or foe. and being alone with a small dependant child, and thus in a situation considered by the conventional world to be ideally a matter of partnership, was not a situation for the faint-hearted. Sometimes, Eleanor though, watching them over the top of her reading glasses, the set of those young womens shoulders indicated that their hearts, for all the outward show of managing, were very faint indeed." It isn't so much the burden of "managing" that contributes to this constant sense of being without something important, so much as carrying the weight of the responsibility that is shaping a childs world. I don't mean the sheer physical battle that is working, and running a house and bringing up a child on your own. We are, each and everyone of us, capable of that when we have to be, and of course I understand that even some Fathers in stable marriages are able to offer very little help in terms of the physical aspects of parenthood because they are too busy earning enough of a living to survive. No I don't think I am referring to the school run, evening bathtime, or even the late night dragging of a mini refusnic up the stairs. It isn't that the world outside my door ceases to exist after his bedtime, or that adult needs come way behind the teeniest of childish demands. No it isn't that. The burden comes from the constant questions we load upon our own shoulders. The dailiness of the guilt we learn to live with. It is the never ending worry that there is too much of ourselves in our children. That there is no-one else to dilute the aspects of our personality we would not wish upon our offspring. No-one to help us see that many of our fears are ridiculous. No-one to shine a torch through the dark tunnel of parenthood, and say, well heck, I'm not sure that this is the right way either, but I'll hold your hand till we come out the other side. Single motherhood you see is all just grappling in the dark, permanent scratches upon our breast and oh joy, the utter devotion of a child whose random little kisses all too often acknowledge the tiny daily sacrifices we have no choice but to make.

From Ebay Store, Mountain Kinfolk...

Yesterday vanished in a haze of snow and nonsense, and to say I achieved very little would I think  be rather  over stating the case.


But Housekeepers I was  full of good intentions: and if thinking about being naughty is as bad as doing it, then in my rather  warped mind, writing a list of   scrumptious ways I could improve my house and home is twice as wonderful as actually having done them...
I am clearly off my trolley and that is I think, my prerogative.


1.  Transfer Finleys ridiculous  number of hugely complicated jigsaws into ziplock bags and find them a pretty box to live in. (i.e: one I find acceptable hanging around the living room).
  
2. Make a huge big vat of chicken and lentil soup, because soup, welsh rarebit with crispy bacon and frothy milky mochacchino are the only acceptable foodstuffs when it is snowing.


3. Plant broad beans in little cups and saucers for Finn's "Jack and the Beanstalk" homework.


4. Shake out the sheets and pillowcases in my linen cupboard and re-tie them in gingham ribbon according to size.


5. Clean out the hoover filter and sprinkle some dried lavender buds into the chamber for fluffy carpet freshness.


6.  Cover my big (read ugly) scrapbook in something pretty in order to have somewhere to stick Finn's "art" into, rather than appall my Mum, by chucking it in the bin...


7. Wrap little bundles of oatmeal in muslim, then add to a milky bath to sort out skin chapped by a chilly winter.


8. Create extra little oatmeal bundles tied with ribbon and sprigs of lavender and leave them sitting prettily on the glass cakestand on the pink linen cupboard in my bathroom.


9. Wipe the little panes of glass in the living room window with a tiny bit of washing up liquid to prevent them steaming up with condensation, or indeed being decorated by Jack Frost. (He slips right off  ever so slightly greasy surfaces, bless his  cold heart!)


10. Cross -stitch, french laundry style, tiny little "A's" into the corner of the fluffiest white towels I own. I see no reason why I shouldn't keep the the most scrumptious towels all to myself...


Maybe next week, Housekeepers. Maybe next week.

So because I fancy myself as Oprah Winfrey this morning, I feel obliged to share with you the things I know for sure. True, those things that have acquired certainty of truth in my warbly mind are a rather mixed bunch, but life is really rather like that isn't it? One minute you are debating the merits of great literature and the next you are  sure as eggs are eggs that in a parallel universe Mariah Carey is a topless model.

And so, without further ado, a whole lotta nonsense I also know for sure...

1. Watch the kettle and it won't boil. Just to get on your nerves.
2. In order to get things done, you have to do them. There is just no getting round it.
3. Make a date and you will grow a boil on your chin in ample time to dazzle him.
4. No-one can see dust in candlelight.
5. Kids have got a buzzer in their brain guaranteed to go off at inopportune moments.
6. Dipping your breasts in a  bowl of water is not the easiest method of  ascertaining your bra size.
7. Getting in the shower without brushing my teeth first would probably kill me.
8. Do the school run  looking a bugger and you'll find yourself standing next to the local WAG.
9. Eating jelly lips for breakfast is perfectly understandable when you feel a bit miserable.
10. But eating jelly lips for breakfast will make you fat for sure.
11. However contrary to popular belief,  most men don't mind hips made of jelly lips. It's us who need to get over them.
12. Commercial air fresheners are the scourge of modern society.
13. Getting up an hour earlier than usual bloats my stomach. Who knows why?
14. I'd have made an excellent Land Girl during World War Two.
15. You mustn't breathe if you find yourself sleeping next to me. I don't like people who breathe.
16. God attached these legs to this bum and then fell off his chair laughing.
17. Putting anything from chin hair to your relationship under the scrutiny of a sixty watt bulb is never a good plan.  Life is best lived in the bliss of dusky oblivion.
18. Lots of things taste better in someone else's house.
19. Cheap jewellery, vintage or otherwise, turns you green. (But looks divine regardless).

20. Hurt wraps your heart in barbed wire. I'm positively spiky these days...
21. The answer to most problems is chocolate, lavender and paracetamol. Occasionally all at once.
22. Scrabbling around on your hands and knees is the only way to uncover buried treasure. Down you get.
23. Eligible batchelors over the age of 35  are eligible for a very good reason or ten. Trust me: I've endured them all.
24.   If you press your ear hard into your pillow you can hear your heart banging in your brain.
25. Finley was sent to drive me  to the brink of sanity and leave me dangling there naked.  Raw. Exposed. And a teeny bit bonkers.
26. Beans on toast is the nectar of the Gods. Served with a sprinkling of grated cheese if you don't mind.
27. Russell Brand is sex in a hairband. A legend in eyeliner.
28.  Fairies nibble my nails while I'm asleep.
29.  I'm never going to be grown up enough to like olives.
30. I look a fright in gold lurex. I do believe I have photographic proof.
31. Wish too hard and it will come true. Then what ya gonna do??
32. Sometimes the water you boil your cabbage in tastes as good as a nice cup of tea.
33. Look enigmatic and you'll get away with murder.
34. Reading the instructions makes all the difference.
35. Dating in your dotage is exactly the same as dating in your youth: except nowadays it is appararently obligatory to throw a bit of lip nibbling into the equation during the first kiss.
36.  It is physically impossible to tickle yourself. It's such a shame.
37.   Education is a gift.
38.  No-one is ever going to take me camping. Damn you all!
39. Even the woman who looks like she lives in a magazine spread occasionally loses her keys or sprays hair mousse under her arms.
40.  Somedays soup out of a tin is tastier than any homemade effort.
41. The nights I can't wait to get into bed are the nights I'll find myself suffering  restless legs and a  busy brain.
42.  I like my bed better  than yours.
43. I will never forgive Santa for not bringing me the patent leather high heels I asked for when I was twelve. Never ever never. That man is in my bad books.
44. There is no escaping your children. They follow you round  like irritating gremlins and make  unreasonable demands on your time and patience.
45. I am more tolerant of dirt than most women.
46. Old men with yukky coughs go to public libraries to  spread their germs.
47. Eargasmic is a  very good word indeed. Crackling fires and the pitter patter of summer rain are fine examples of eargasmic sounds.
48.   I am never going to be a lorry driver. No siree.
49.   I can't behave myself long enough to get to the bottom of my ironing pile.
50.  The  idea of a heaven for children waiting to be born as in  The  Bluebird is  utterly blissful.
51.   Reality Tv is a fiddle.
52. Actually having watched the tv crew black out my windows at 11.00 in the morning, I now consider all tv to be a bit of a fiddle.
53. That said I am at my happiest sitting in front of Coronation Street with a bowl of Scouse on my knee. You know where you are with Scouse and Vera Duckworth...
54. You should never judge a man on the kind of bath he has had installed.
55. If you don't eat you will lose weight. (Its pure magic).
56. Toilet humour of any kind isn't funny. Unless you are six.
57. The universe truly is conspiring to make you happy, you just have to st0p getting in it's way.
58. Bed is the best place to be when you are blue.
59. Twenty words are better than ten.
60. Everybody likes gin and mushrooms. And people who say they don't are just being awkward because both things are deeply inoffensive.
61. A leopard never changes it's spots, but sometimes it can do a really rather excellent impression of a zebra.
62. Barbed wire isn't impenetrable.
63. I like what I like and I prefer it if you like what I like too.
64. Traffic wardens were tell-tales at school.
65. Even though I have told Finley he can have a dog when he is five, I am NEVER having a dog. Until he's five.
66. Food is not always the way to a mans heart. Some days they just aren't hungry.
67. Regret is a waste of energy. Onwards and upwards please.
68. People only pretend to like Christmas Pudding.
69. You are never going to see me in a mini-skirt.
70. Though I'm sorry to say that the good ladies of the Harper Valley PTA probably wouldn't approve of me regardless.
71.  No-one knows your child better than you do.
72.   Christmas Eve is the most magical day of the year.
73. There but for the grace of God goes the Mummy sneering at you in the freezer aisle while your babba has a hissy fit because you won't let him have another packet of Monster Munch.
74. Even mean people are sad under their skin. There is always an explanation. A reason.
75. One of your baubles will have smashed in a mysterious fashion when you come to decorate your tree.
76.  The Spice Girls are single handedly responsible  for destroying real Girl Power. It's mostly Victoria Beckhams fault.
77. You mustn't judge your friends. Even when they say something that makes you want to smack them.
78. Smacking your friends is deeply innapropriate. However telling them they are wearing bad shoes is occasionally called for.
79. Pressing your knuckles deep into the sockets of your eyes is a surefire route to temporary bliss.
80. Get carried away with fancy schmancy recipes  for a dinner party and trust me you will regret it.
81. Secondhand bookshops are tiny corners of heaven on earth.
82.  James Dean was the  most beautiful man to ever  exist.
83.  If there was something precious to be kept, my family wouldn't choose me to be it's keeper.  I am not to be trusted.
84. Give a dog a bad name and your sister will never let it go.
85.  The day I accidentally smacked myself  in the face  (while swinging my arm back to smack him) and knocked myself out is NOT the funniest thing my Dad has ever seen.
86. I look great in a certain shade of hard to be found coral
87. The Mommies with bobs and serious glasses at the school gate find my wellies and snazzy scarf combination a bit too much too take at nine o'clock in the morning.
88. Happiness is a choice. You have to choose it.
89. Snobbery is the worst kind of social deviance.
90. When things couldn't be worse you will find solace in poetry.
91. Internet dating was invented for optimistic fools. Bless us.
92. Banishing germs with a barrage of chemicals won't prevent your family members from developing the lurgy. If they are gonna get it, they will get it.
93. I wouldn't mind being Sophie Dahl.
94. Wearing holey knickers doesn't make you a bad person. Just one who knows the meaning of comfort.
95. Crying helps. In most situations.
96. Occasionally I get my virtual and my real life confused.
97. Nothing feels as utterly scrumptious as a kiss from your babba.
98. They don't make movies like they used to.
99. Blogging changes lives.
100. Having a room of one's own is terribly important. (Though an armchair will suffice)
101. I don't know a thing for sure...

It is Tuesday. I am ashamed to say that I have fallen behind with the ironing and (yet again) forgotten to put the bins out. There is a vintage Fisher Price Playschool alongside a complicated arrangement of lego people on the living room floor, a smudge of goodness knows what on the kitchen counter that will not be budged by organic means alone, a trail of spidermen I am forbidden to move climbing up the stairs and two unmade beds flouting my blatant neglect all over the bedroom floors. (And let's not even discuss the bathroom unless you are made of industrial strength stuff...) Somebody string me up and whip me. Or blame the curl dangling right down the middle of my forehead, compromising my chances of being a good housewife, because when she was good, she was very very good and when she was bad, she was horrid It's one of those days. I am officially horrid and obliged to confess my domestic misdemeanors to those of you I am certain, live in puttery pretty palaces and would never dream of standing at the bottom of the stairs and chucking stuff upwards to save your legs... I blame the blogosphere. Is it just me or is the internet a dangerous place as far as housewifely guilt goes? One prowls around the blogs of many a vintage lovely and comes away wanting... chocolate and a hug from your Mum and life before kids, and a house in California and a dog called Pooch and that cherry red coffee table and her way with a glue gun and a pile of old postcards... Life in your own little grey house seems dull and suburbanely and dare I say it, a little dusty in compaison. You project all manner of layers of perfection upon the shoulders of your fellow bloggers. You make excuses for yourself. You suffer from the kind of bloggery envy you would never dare confess in polite company. You feel, oh isn't it just downright awful, a little ashamed. And though you know it is a nonsense, that even Martha Stewart must have her secret slovenly habits, you rather wish someone would declare a housekeeping amnesty for just one day and one by one stand up and be counted in the Horrid Housewife stakes. I, Wilma of Wigan, only change my pillowcases every six weeks. I, Cara of Cleethorpes, bake fairy cakes every Tuesday morning and eat them all before the kids get home from school. I, Doris of Dagenham, take pretty pictures in the only tidy room in the house. I, Alison of Aughton, am thoroughly ashamed of myself. But I will go and apologise to Bertha the Goddess of Baking Powder, attack that nasty stain with new found vigour and resolve to keep my envy in check when I wander round the lovely little village of Blogsville.

Did you ever see that episode of Friends, where Monica moves into Chandlers apartment and nearly kill's herself trying to make it scrumptiously hospitable, then invites the gang over to enjoy her efforts, while she curl's into a ball and fall's fast asleep? That's me today... I'm Monica... eager for you to have a lovely time in the all new, singing and dancing version of BrocanteHome, but a wee bit too tired to enjoy it myself... But please don't feel guilty. While it has been a major task re-creating BrocanteHome on Blogger (and heaven knows there are still tasks to be completed and links to be made), it isn't that which has me aching to pull a blanket over my head and fall asleep... ah mais non... rather it is a book that for the first time in many a year, I stayed up last night to read from cover to cover... There are books in this world I get all uppity about and refuse to read on point of principle, because, and do Darlings, do forgive my outrageous snobbishness, they have been commandeered by those who have never read a book in their entire lives! The Da Vinci Code is a case in point. The Harry Potter series another. A Short History of Tractors In the Ukraine a third. And if I'm honest when I saw every other women on the train reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, this wonderful book nearly fell victim to my rather ridiculous methods of literary de-selection. But oh how grateful I am that it didn't, because I really cannot recommend it highly enough. I was lost in it. Utterly lost in the lives of characters whose astonishing personality's and experiences crept under my skin within a few short paragraphs of a series of beautifully written letters, that are part love story, part history book, and ultimately all heart. Describing in terms that pull no punches, the occupation of Guernsey during the second world war, this isn't a frilly domestic book of the kind I usually recommend, but neither is it drowning in so much historical detail to make the lovely gentle plot superflous. Rather it does a wonderful job of showing us facts while letting us lose ourselves in lovely fiction and at the end leaves us quietly wanting more and indeed all the better for what will be for you too, I am quite sure, something of an experience. Beg, borrow or steal it: I cannot offer you a more enjoyable literary excursion than this...

Oh my, does anybody else love this song as much as I do? Everytime this advert comes on I stop in my tracks and float away on a bergamot scented cloud... A little googling reveals it to be Neopolitan Dreams by Lisa Mitchell and I'm loading it onto my laundry playlist on the Ipod as we speak... Tell me this and tell me no more: is it desperately sad to have your play-lists sorted by housekeeping tasks? No? Then perhaps I'll upload my play-lists for you one day and we can all crawl under our duvets to the very same tune...

Why is it that to so many new beginnings are so terribly painful, when by their very nature, they promise so much joy? Is it, I wonder, because before we can say hello, we have to say goodbye? My Mum and Dad are moving house. After twenty five years they find themselves up to their eyeballs in suitcases packed tight with all our yesterdays, emptying a loft bloated with the flotsam and jetsam of our childhoods, and packing into tea chests only that which they will be able to fit into the tiny but perfectly formed cottage in which they will start again, just two minutes around the corner from Finn and I. I am excited for them! In my mind there is no room for sadness or regret for what amounts to bricks and mortar... though it has in the past few weeks become astonishingly clear that packing up our family history is a telling old business, and that the way we view what matters differs hugely from person to person, even in a family as tightly knit as ours... Whereas Helen wants to keep every little scrap of paper she ever wrote on, every book she ever read and every tiny little plaid skirt she ever wore, because she wants to remember who she was then, I am more than happy to cherry pick through the mountains of junk we once saw fit to keep and treasure forever only four pretty (and oh so desperately seventies!) little me dresses, a pile of Princess annuals, a couple of cute dolls and an absolutely hilarious A-Level Art wall hanging I am too mortified to show you. (I know who I am now). While they bag up all of Helen's university files, and ring me every half hour to keep on checking I am ok with them binning mine, Mum cries and Dad wonders out loud whether the hot water is heated by the combi or immersion in the new house. For Mum every little scrap of our childhood is at once precious and overwhelming. The house she is leaving is the one her Mum came to visit the day we moved in , the one where our Darling Roy sat a few Christmases before he died, and the one into which her girls, me and Helen, carried our new little babba bundles, and watched our babies grow into tearaway cherubs. For Mum all her memories are written on the walls of the house she is leaving. But it isn't true is it? Memories don't paper walls. They decorate our hearts. And wherever my Mum's heart is, mine is sure to follow.