Welcome to a scrumptious new week Housekeepers! And here I am, hands liberally doused in Wild Roses after half an hour spent rather blissfully hand-washing my smalls, (because cheap thrills have always been my bag!) and reflecting on what has turned out to be a quite lovely few days in which I do hope you didn't notice I quite simply didn't get around to blogging a single word...

You see my darlings I was busy, fit to bust, living! Yes indeed, while I am more likely to be found hanging around the corridors of my Google Reader and browsing the aisles of Amazon, last week I stepped out my front door (a door let it be known, in dire need of painting!) and went dilly-dallying all over the North West. I shopped for England. And Mothers Day. And Richards Birthday. I walked till my big old legs ached and watched more movies than I remember watching in a long, long time. I read. Of course I read. I ate blueberry yoghurt and ginger muffins and drank elderflower water till it came out of my ears. I bought my Dad a huge big pot of the all new really rather fabulous Marmite X-O from Selfridges, because he is a lover not a fighter and dragged by the ears by my son, I even attended a rather frighteningly happy clappy Mothers Day Service at the church next door. Because one has to show one's face occasionally or else the Vicar who passes my door a hundred times a day reserves a really rather spectacular "Well aren't you the scum of the earth" face, just for my benefit methinks, if I do not, while poor little Finley believes that if he finds a leaflet in his school bag inviting him to church, he has probably been personally invited by God and will be struck down if he doesn't go. So the long and the short of it is that we went. And quite frankly it was as awful as I could have ever dared hope and let it be hereby noted that our dear vicar resides over his Parish with all the smarmy smug charm of a cross between Hugh Hefner and Peter Mandleson, and were it not for the fact that religion takes place in churches I often wonder if I could get around to liking it and the whole business of contemplating all that might exist beyond my own deeply limited imagination.

But enough already with my religious ranting and let me get to my lists...

Things I Watched Last Week
* Motherhood. In a moment of sheer extravagance I chucked it into my trolley in the supermarket and spent Saturday night in the company of Uma Thurman as she thoroughly over-dramatised what it is to be a harassed blogging Mummy. Luckily for her I do so enjoy watching a bit of the kind of dramatics I usually only experience in my own head and there was much tenderness to be found in this little film so should you find yourself with an hour or two to spare I really rather recommend it...

* Alice In Wonderland. Hmmm. I'm still not sure how I feel about this visually stunning spectacle. It was a kind of spliced and diced version of a story we know and love. and that is fine but... oh but, oh but, oh but oh....Suffice to say that while I found Helena Bonham-Cater beguiling in the extreme, Finley thought she was utterly terrifying. Oh and Johnny Depp's Scottish accent made me giggle.

Things I Read Last Week
* 84 Charring Cross Road. For the love of books. Read every morning while I drank lemon tea and ate Munchy Seeds. As if those darling letters had popped through my own letter-box and I was reading them over breakfast. The perfect bite-sized literary treat. Read it as soon as possible. That I must insist upon.

* At Mrs Lippincotes.  This months book choice. And it was plain old WONDERFUL. More later in the week on this very subject. I promise.

Things I Baked. And Ate. And Swooned Over.
* Easter Biscuits. Because Marks and Spencer's version are a short-lived joy and being a bad person I want to eat them all year around so I hunted out a similar recipe, added dried cranberries and lemon juice and lo and behold my very own, burnt around the edges version of my current elevenses of choice. Delicious.

Things that Made Me Happy.
* A card in the shape of a handbag with a heart shaped chocolate inside made at the fair hands of my own little munchkin for Mothers Day, and accompanied by a copy of  the Julie and Julia DVD, which I am thoroughly looking forward to sitting down to this evening with a great big pile of magazines ripe for culling. Because I am a Mummy. And a Woman. And I can multi-task on a Monday night if I feel like it.

* A man dressed in an African Tribal affair in the centre of Liverpool, banging a big old drum and singing Robbie Williams songs. Because we are so terribly cultural in Liverpool don't you know? And he made me feel like dancing right there in front of Primark.

* Oh and speaking of Liverpool: Come Dine With Me with Claire Sweeney and Tom O'Connor and the mean lady out of Kim and Aggie who fancies herself something shocking and can't cook for a big clock but made Richard and I laugh until tears ran down our cheeks last night....

Oooh I could go on and on. You see last week I stopped letting PMT get the better of me, and decided to consider my glass full to over-flowing with somewhat invisible liquid and enjoy myself, all day every day, just because enjoyment is a choice and we are allowed to choose happiness and it's ok-ness everytime. And so I did. And Mum's roast dinner was divine and Finley waking me up at three o'clock in the morning to discuss goodness knows what wasn't the end of the world and even being forced to endure Snakes On A Plane wasn't worth crying about, because there is a huge bouquet of peach roses on the mantle-piece and a new Amazon parcel full of wonder waiting in the porch and today is the start of  another week I can bless with all manner of inspiration, should I so feel like it...

Bit's of loveliness happen all day everyday don't they, so I'm off to empty the washing machine.
Glass full to over-flowing. Glass full to over-flowing. Glass full to over-flowing. Keep saying it and one day you will believe it: I'm living proof of that, because perhaps its true: love life and maybe it does love you back.