It seems to me that occasionally the universe saves up the rain in order to force us to send the weekend at home instead of dillydallying around garden centres, car boot sales and the God Forsaken nightmare that is the out of town retail centre...

And so it comes to pass that we find ourselves wandering around a grey little house, droplets of rain on the windows like prison bars between us and the garden we long to get stuck into, and a head full of frustration for woebegone plans.

But instead of seething with weather related resentment (a furious waste of time!) we should instead embrace the opportunity to hug our house, play some gorgeous music and putter our way through to the kind of snuggly, sparkly, purposeful Saturday afternoons our hearts will always treasure...

*Set the mood with music played very, very low. Keeping the volume down re-trains our ears to really hear the music and instils a sense of calm. Download Brian Eno's Discreet Music

*If you are feeling rather blah burn pine or rosemary oil to lift your mood.

* Call me daft but I've always found hand-washing my laundry to be a sure fire route to near nirvana... Clean fragile vintage lace by putting it into a jar of soapy water and gently shaking. Leave to soak, then press between towels, pin flat and leave to dry.

*Have a terribly English, cosy little lunch of cucumber sandwiches (salt the cucumber beforehand and leave in a bowl in the fridge) and teeny bite sized chocolate dipped shortbread with Earl Grey tea.

*Do something meditative like shelling peas (serve with feta on warm bread for supper later..) or polishing silver. A repetitive action that allows your mind to wander into that really rather glorious state you occasionally horrify yourself with while driving...

*Make chilly Summer evenings smell deliciously fresh by using coils of dried lemon skin as fire-starters with twigs and bundled newspapers. Dry the skins by baking them in the oven on a very low temperature and storing them in a vintage mason jar away from the light.

*Steep 2oz of fresh rose petals in cider vinegar. Leave in a jar on the sunniest windowsill of your house for ten days, then strain and sprinkle over beetroot salad. Or soak a cotton hanky and apply to your temples to ease tension...

* Waste not, want not. Melt down all your old bar of soap, gently tint with vegetable dye and pour into Madeleine Tins for really rather scrumptious bars of  oyster shaped soap when set...

*Take a headache for an afternoon nap with a cup of rosemary tea. (Steep rosemary in boiling water for five mnutes, strain and pour into the prettiest cup you own). Open the windows in your bedroom and let the rosemary ease your headache as you listen to the rain dancing on the pavements. 

*If you don't have a water butt, run outside and stand your watering cans and garden buckets right way up to catch the rain for watering on dryer days.

*Re-connect with your partner. Designate a gorgeous notebook to a "written conversation". Leave it in your bathroom or a bedside drawer and use it to write down the things it is sometimes hard to say. Sorry. I love you because... please put the bins out... It will in the long term become a gorgeous record of love, forgiveness, hopes and dreams.

Let me begin with an apology... a little while ago somebody emailed me to ask my thoughts on creating a cosy room for her children, and I thought my thoughts and planned on committing them to paper and then promptly deleted the said email and did the Mommy concerned a rude injustice... and so here in apology, they are...


Because we are prone to the odd estranged spat, my sons Daddy, Mark and I have an ongoing feud about what constitutes a heavenly child's bedroom. I say that in the circumstances the only opinion he is entitled to is the proper way to wring his own neck and he says clearly I am determined to keep my little boy a cissy baby for the rest of his days and why on earth shouldn't  Finn enjoy the nightmare that is the odd stenciled Power Ranger or three instead of floral pillowcases and vintage teddy bears?


(Come bite me Matey because over my dead body will Finley's room be anything other than an extension of the rest of our house, a homely, cosy  place to rest his head at night and a warm, snuggly room layered in his own history...)


Now at the risk of sounding like one mighty stroppy Mama, I think you will probably guess that here's a thing I feel strongly about. When I worked as a decorator I would wander around houses suffused in style then find myself in a room covered in footballs, or Barbie Princess or Star Wars or  Shrek that clearly had nothing to do with the rest of the house. Rooms upon which the door would always be kept firmly shut so the rest of the visiting world wouldn't have their eyes singed by sheer commercial ugliness. I won't have it, I tell you! I won't have it! It's not that I want to stifle  precocious little dreams, but more that as a sensible person I feel the urge to point out that Ben 10 does not a sleepy paradise amake...


And so  I would present the  poor misguided parents with my five point plan for cosy kid's rooms  and avoid the menacing gaze of  five year old monsters  determined to sell their childish little souls for a  luminous dolphin duvet cover...


1. First and foremost remember that all rooms are part of a greater whole and shouldn't give you the aesthetic heebiejeebies when you enter them. Stick with your own decorating rules and refuse to be charmed by a sloppy kiss. No in the world of having a cosy bedroom means No. So stick to your guns and tell whiny teenyboppers they will be free to stick Bratz posters on their walls when they too are mortgaged up to their eyeballs...


2. If a room is going to grow with a child and not require the constant hassle of re-decoration, one must insist upon offering the little munchkins a blank canvas devoid of commercial horror or passing whims. Give in at your peril you crazy Mommy.


3. Treat children with respect and you teach them a valuable lesson. It is tempting to fill kids rooms with childish plastic storage solutions you wouldn't entertain anywhere else in the house. Don't. Avoid Ikea! Seek out cheap but sturdy  vintage furniture,  and teach them to understand that you value their personal space enough to want to give them proper furniture and expect them to treat it with respect.


4. Two things. Offer them something precious. Something they know you value.  Your childhood jewelery box, the chair they like to snuggle up on from  your bedroom, a vintage quilt. Give it to them and offer your trust. Try in this gift to instill in them respect for the history inherent in objects.  Then give them something that respects their privacy: a tin for secrets for little ones, a vintage cupboard with a key for older children, a bolt on the inside of their doors for teenagers. An offer of trust is rarely underestimated by good  kids and we should break it only in cases of moral life or death....


5. Trash. They are kids and whether or not we find it abhorrent, trashy stuff appeals to them. Some of the most charming rooms combine cosy vintage schemes with occasional child instilled flashes of trashy brilliance... Temporary flashes of brilliance that is, not objects of  permanence like wallpaper or car shaped rugs. And not so temporary they leave marks on our walls if you please, so stick a poster to the wall or a sticker to the window on pain of death...


Once the ground rules are in place, we can then begin to create a room that nurtures their little souls. To me the ideal reference point for kids rooms is the old fashioned image of an Edwardian nursery. I only have to think of the nursery Mary Poppins charges were blessed with to smile a happy little decorating Mommy smile...


It's not that I'm asking our children to live in yesteryear. Certainly their collections of Doctor Who Monsters and Polly Pocket nonsense aren't to our eyes, as appealing as Victorian blocks and furry little dogs on wheels we would choose for them but most of us wouldn't deny them their current fads,  we just don't want them to become permanent fixtures  in our homes. We want our children to have rooms that become places of refuge. That aren't re-invented every other year in time with the latest Disney Blockbuster (Ratatouille Rats on your walls kids??) but layer upon the purity of their newborn nurseries all the things they have done, created,  found and been given since  they were in nappies.  Rooms that teach them  to treasure the things that matter to them and eschew all the values of an otherwise throwaway society that tells them objects, furniture, art etc, etc have no real value in a world where the whole lot could probably be replaced for a hundred quid... 


And so in essence what I am trying to say is that in my eyes, decorating and looking after our kids bedrooms offer us an opportunity to teach them all manner of things I haven't got the time to explain here... lessons about respect and personal history,  gratitude,  care and sustainability. We have the opportunity to offer our children our trust, to show them the meaning of ritual and to help them understand, on a very personal level, our obsession with creating homes that nurture family life...


Puttery Treats For Children's Rooms.
Smell is perhaps the most important of of our senses and the soothing scent of  lavender is  probably the best choice for  babba's rooms.  Create  natural surface and carpet cleaners scented with lavender and store them in a closet in their rooms.  Buy  bulb rings (the safest option for kids rooms) and put the lights on half an hour before bedtime to let a gentle fragrance fill the room and soothe them to sleep. 


Warm their beds with a microwaveable wheat based lavender cushion, or a hot water bottled tightly wrapped in one of their old favorite jumpers sprinkled with a tiny bit of lavender oil...


Make their beds as scrumptiously cosy as you can  with good old fashioned sheets and blankets. Seek out vintage English  feather filled eiderdown's on Ebay because they are  often the perfect size for kids beds and offer incomparable warmth.


On cold nights layer the mattress with two or three blankets  and cover them with a flannel sheet for  scrumptiously cosy beddy-byes. Show them where to find extra cosy  crocheted blankets in their own rooms if they need them on cold nights...


Have a fabric covered pin board in their rooms from when they are very tiny and create an ever changing collage of their little lives.


Make their rooms a major part of their bedtime routine.  Bundle towel wrapped babbas into dimly lit bedrooms after bath time and dress them in radiator warm jim jams there.


Keep an ever changing basket of bedtime stories by their bed. Have photographs of far away loved ones on their bedsides to say night night to...


Take them to antique malls occasionally and let them choose something for their rooms.



Have cushions on the floor cos kids like to lounge. Start a demented search for 70's  zoo prints and 50's cowboy and indian scenes...


Give them their own photo albums. Buy something similar on a yearly basis so our kids end up with a shelf full of personal memories.


Seek out elaborate vintage gesso frames and create a gallery of their own art hung with all the consideration usually only offered to Picasso's...


User whicker picnic hampers, vintage suitcases or lloyd loom  laundry baskets to  give ugly Power Rangers a home all of their own...


Don't banish all toys they have grown out of to the attic. Choose one item per year to mark the passage of time and keep it in the bedroom somewhere. Stitch fussy wuzzy too tight jumpers into cushions. Stretch printed t-shirts over canvas and create a wall of art that  brings back  instant memories...
 

Help them create a comfort drawer all of their very own. (But ban anything edible!). Give them memory boxes and a very very special tin for a five year diary with a teeny little key...


Wrap babbas in an oh so special beddy byes blanket while they drink their milk on your knee. Write older children love letters and leave them under their quilts to be found as they turn back their covers...


Throw their windows  open as soon as they get up. And teach kids not to make their beds in the morning but to pull all the covers back from their mattress.  I don't care how it looks, it's healthier...


Seek out vintage children's wallpaper and line  all their drawers with it. Don't forget to sprinkle baby talc underneath...


Use Christmas and birthdays as the opportunity to buy heirloom quality gifts they will come to treasure. Let Santa and his elves provide all the rest of the plastic junk...


Don't rigidly conform to sexual stereotypes in little kids bedrooms. Instead go for over all ambiance. Finley was recently thrilled to find his bed made up with a floral pillowcase usually to be found gracing my bed. (I just thought it looked kinda cool with his rabbit duvet, flannel sheets and  patchwork quilt) He saw it as a gift. A little bit of me...


And once in a while make a big occasion of a candlelit bedtime story, snuggled up to high heaven in these scrumptious little sheets...

I'd like to explain away my absence by telling you that I took myself off to a far off field, erected a flower sprinkled tent and spent a fortnight at one with nature. But that would be a lie and no-one likes a liar. Instead these two weeks passed in a haze of sickness and sun. And thunder and pale pink roses and Percy Pigs. And Mariana by Monica Dickens and reading for the Playground Mommies Bookclub and Sportsday and a really rather fabulous Summer Fete complete with tombola and seaside donkeys. (Donkeys make my day). There has been a devastatingly awful Red Leicester quiche presented to someone I wanted to impress, the replaying of this song maybe a hundred times a day, not enough laundry and a whole lot of mourning for my beloved twinkly green car. There has been flesh coloured gladiator sandals and toes painted the colour of Summer pudding. A new found craze for Gossip Girl I am embarrased to admit to, plans for Summer staycations, chocolate limes by the dozen, sheets sprayed with lavender mint water, and nights stuffed full of chaotic, exhausting, and once ever so slightly raunchy, dreams. But there has been no camping. Do you hear me? THERE HAS BEEN NO CAMPING. Camping, or rather the lack of it, is causing lapses in my dignity. I haven't been you see. Not ever. Not once in thirty seven years. We weren't a camping family. My Mum thought she was slumming it when we owned an eight berth caravan complete with shower room and microwave. And then I grew up and the need to camp was lost in a haze of babies and businesses and dubious 18 to 30 style soirees around the Blackpoolian equivalents of the continent, and the very idea struck Mark as downright ludicrous so it was set aside in favour of pretty bed and breakfasts in the Lakes, and all was well and good but it wasn't kisses under the stars, and makeshift hummous in a tin can and falling asleep to the music of the crickets now was it? No it blooming well wasn't. (Is blooming a swear word?) And so I have taken to begging people I know and random passing strangers to take me camping. I even wrote it in my now defunct internet dating profile. (Wanted: man who will teach me how to ride a bike and take me camping) and during the last Mummy Bookclub I made a DOWNRIGHT show of myself by almost getting down on my hands and knees and setting aside the business of the evening (discussing Water For Elephants), begged the camping Mummies of the district to strap Finn and I to their roof racks and take us with them. And they laughed and they made all the right noises and then they WENT WITHOUT US! Hmmmm. See the thing is this: In my head camping...actually let's call it glamping, is a gloriously pretty, Brocante like melee of fairylights and floral flasks. It is all about spotty wellies and sausages and camp fires and vintage quilts and moroccan lanterns and marshmallows and maybe even a sheepskin rug or two. There is no room in this decadent dream for squatting in forest clearings, baked beans and kids who won't go to sleep because there is a family of earwigs in their sleeping bag. And there's the rub. And probably the reason why people laugh out loud and Diane nearly gives herself a coronary giggling everytime I mention it. People seem to be of the notion that Alison+Camping=Cause For Much Hilarity. Certainly the men of the internet didn't take me seriously and offerered mini breaks in Paris instead (Paris?? Pah!) and current 6 foot 4 beau is studiously ignoring the very idea of it. It is a scandal. There is more to me than false nails and fairy lights! I could camp. I could rub sticks together and cause a fire. I could happily sit inside an ugly tent and listen to the rain battering the canvas with only a Dorothy Parker anthology to keep me company. I could bathe in a stream in a frilly Victorian nightie and drink peppermint tea from a tin mug. I could assemble a glorious cheesecake from a packet of digestives and a tub of Philadelphia and waltz my way around a muddy field. I could, I could, I could. And I will. Mark my words, the universe is conspiring to take me camping. A long lost friend re-discovered via the medium that is Facebook (all hail thee Facebook!), she with whom I shared my first experience of a campsite (though we were caravanning) as a seven year old now runs a rather fabulous blog in honour of all things camp (no, thats not right is it?) with her husband. And: and, I tell you, another friend has set up a real camping site in her rather large back garden and me and the tent I haven't got could go camp there anytime we wanted. Heck we could walk there in ten minutes. And nip inside her house to use the loo. Who said Alison May wouldn't make a happy camper?