tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86561755687866052392024-03-13T11:48:24.613-07:00BrocanteHomeLife, love and vintage housekeeping since 2005...Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.comBlogger331125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-51062241808689690232010-05-13T07:38:00.000-07:002010-05-13T07:38:26.333-07:00A New Era<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S-wFg5nYKpI/AAAAAAAADUs/Iw4JT1o7or8/s1600/house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S-wFg5nYKpI/AAAAAAAADUs/Iw4JT1o7or8/s400/house.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b>Yes Darlings. BrocanteHome is moving house again.</b><br />
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This will be my last post here on Blogger as I have, with heart in mouth experienced the steep learning curve that is hosting my own site at Wordpress.Org, and after a month of the hardest work I can remember since I had to pull my guts out to pass my maths GCSE, the site is almost ready to receive visitors...<br />
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I say almost, because I fully intended to invite you over on Monday morning, but today Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris and editor of The Lady tweeted about a post I have written over at the new site about her magazine and before I knew it, just like that, my little old secret was out and I noticed a whole lot of unexplained visitors hopping all over the pages of the all new Brocante...<br />
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And so here we are, a few days earlier than I had anticipated with, many of the i's not quite dotted as scrumpiously as I had hoped and an entire section still not yet live (wait and see!), but heavens if I carry on faffing with my fiddly need for perfection I'll still be faffing when they put me ten feet under...<br />
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So here is what is going to happen: BrocanteHome here on Blogger will be live until Monday, then fingers crossed it will start to re-direct all traffic all by itself and you will be dragged by your pretty little knitted slippers over to the new site: the only thing you need to do is change bookmark and blog links to the new address if you would, while all feeds will be automatically re-directed and there shouldn't be any need to re-subscribe if you view Brocante in a reader...<br />
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I have decided upon this change for a number of reasons: a while ago I asked you what you thought of the current design and many of you suggested that you had preferred Brocante in it's previous happier, dotty incarnation (Hint!). While many readers also suggested that Brocante was both difficult to read and worse than that, almost impossible to navigate and even my own Mum declared problems searching for old posts and reading the text without glasses and a 200 watt light. So I listened and I dwelled and I ruminated on the idea of tackling something quite new to me (and previously rather terrifying) and before I knew it I was sitting with one of the Playground Daddies being taught the in's and out's of Wordpress, and keeping myself up till silly o'clock at night investigating the joys and endless possibilities of the rather wonderful little delight that is the Wordpress Plug-In.<br />
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A couple of months later and though I am almost bald with worry about such a big change, most of the Blogger posts have been imported and organized and we are ready to roll...<br />
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<b>Wanna go see? </b><br />
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View the front of the site here at <a href="http://www.brocantehome.net/">http://www.brocantehome.net</a><br />
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and hop straight to the blog by clicking <a href="http://www.brocantehome.net/blog/">http://www.brocantehome.net/blog/</a><br />
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And please, please, please don't forget to leave your thoughts in the comments or contact box.<br />
I've always been a girl open to suggestion!<br />
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<b>See you at <a href="http://brocantehome.net/">BrocanteHome.Net</a> very, very soon.x</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-24627833998348230942010-04-28T04:40:00.000-07:002010-04-28T04:40:57.737-07:00See You Soon!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S9gbzWl3VRI/AAAAAAAADN0/blgCFoi1D5o/s512/goodbye2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S9gbzWl3VRI/AAAAAAAADN0/blgCFoi1D5o/s400/goodbye2.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><br />
Hello Darlings, now please don't panic, because my <i>See You Soon</i> is there for a very good reason indeed. While it might at first glance seem as though I have quit the blogging party to go strutt my stuff at the nightclub around the corner, in actual fact, I am very, very, very busy working on a little something behind the scenes, and all will be revealed hopefully by the end of next week. <br />
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If by then I haven't suffocated under the mountain of laundry I am steadfastly ignoring whilst all my efforts are concentrated on re-igniting my little old blogging flame, I will meet you here then, and in the meantime, for all those of you who cannot live without a fix of Brocante in your homemaking day, the <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/45203026/puttery-post-annual-subscription">Puttery Post</a> will be in your in-boxes as usual.<br />
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Till then my Sweets, I bid you adieu...xAlison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-67622018845015187342010-04-21T03:42:00.000-07:002010-04-21T03:51:48.787-07:00Housekeepers Carousel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S86xlTz_aTI/AAAAAAAADNM/P-jOWL2R7H4/s1600/AprilCollage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S86xlTz_aTI/AAAAAAAADNM/P-jOWL2R7H4/s400/AprilCollage.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://brocantehome.tumblr.com/">All images credited on my Pinboard.</a></span><br />
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<b>Woo hoo! The Carousel is back in town, so hop on board and lets go for a spin around all that is scrumptious in this lovely little world!! Oh Ok, enough already with the over-enthusiastic exclamation marks. Grey chin hair proves beyond all reasonable doubt that I am not a teenager...</b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">* So first up, my April collage above.</span></b> Crocheted squares, saucers full of pastel buttons, roses, ballet slippers, a desk I wish I could set up shop at, and right there in the middle, a portrait by the great Russian artist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Serov">Valentin Alexandroitsch Serow, called Children</a>, taking centre stage because standing there that little boy looks just like my Finn did this morning before he left for school in his Summer school uniform of shorts, shirt and requisite, Year One,<i> gap, where the teeth used to be</i>...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S865Cqk5xNI/AAAAAAAADNU/EyzqROH8uWk/s1600/MietteWallpaperCookies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S865Cqk5xNI/AAAAAAAADNU/EyzqROH8uWk/s400/MietteWallpaperCookies.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b style="color: #e06666;">* Next along, these divine <a href="http://www.miette.com/mailorder/index.php/cookies">Miette Wallpaper Cookies</a></b> spotted on <a href="http://www.designspongeonline.com/">Design Sponge</a>. Did you ever see such pretties? And oh the possibilities if you are clever enough to translate pattern into baked goods! Me I can't even turn cookie dough into baked goods so the chances of getting fancy with an icing bag are slim to none, because although my darling sister bought me the retro inspired <a href="http://www.lakeland.co.uk/tala-icing-bag-set/F/product/13042">Tala icing bag tin</a> for my birthday I am yet to get to grips with filling it properly, let alone doing swoon-worthy florals on (burnt) biscuits. Still, a girl can dream can't she? <br />
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<b style="color: #e06666;">* Moving quickly on, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Wages-Dorothy-Whipple/dp/1903155754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271840037&sr=8-1">High Wages by Dorothy Whipple</a>,</b> which was quite the finest example of early twentieth century girl power I have read in a long time, telling as it does the tale of a young girl who equipped with talent and a good eye, takes herself off from the dress shop floor on which she works to the ranks of owner in a period when both her sex and social class went vastly against her. Though my copy of High Wages was the orange and white Penguin, one shilling version bought for a song on <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/">AbeBooks</a>, it has not so recently been re-issued by Persephone (with a foreword by <a href="http://yarnstorm.blogs.com/jane_brocket/">Jane Brocket</a>) and is I think, required reading for any woman doubting she has the gall to set up by herself. Or for she who has ever known the futility of loving a man tied to a marriage he cannot leave.<br />
<b>(Ooooh and while I'm on the subject of Persephone look out for <a href="http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/">Paperback Reader's</a> "Persephone Reading Week", running between May 3rd and May 9th, now won't you?)</b><br />
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<b style="color: #e06666;">* Dreaming about a long car journey. </b>An afternoon nap on a very hot day. Remembering how it was to be pregnant through the hottest Summer this century. Mistaking wind for the flutter of a baby in my stomach. Dipping ginger biscuits in melted chocolate. Wearing a silk slip. Wrapping old books up in ribbon tied parcels just for the hell of it. Waking up with violent scent of hydrangeas engulfing my bedroom. Feeling momentarily, bizarrely, petrified by it. Assaulted by fragrance before I have opened my eyes. Seeing Sophie Dahl reading the very copy of the collected works of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Dorothy-Parker-Penguin-Classics/dp/014118258X/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271842072&sr=8-11">Dorothy Parker</a> I have hidden under my bed for fifteen years just in case my Mum takes it into her head to demand it back (you can't have it, so let it go Mummy!). <i>Misty Morning, Albert Bridge</i>. Dwelling on disappointment...<br />
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<blockquote>"Disappointment is considered bad. A thoughtless prejudice. How, if not through disappointment, should we discover what we have expected and hoped for? And where, if not in this discovery, should self-knowledge lie? So, how could one gain clarity about oneself without disappointment? We shouldn’t suffer disappointment sighing at something our lives would be better without. We should seek it, track it down, collect it. <span class="quote"> One who would really like to know himself would have to be a restless, fanatical collector of disappointments, and seeking disappointing experiences must be like an addiction, the all-determining addiction of his life, for it would stand so clearly before his eyes that disappointment is not a hot, destroying poison, but rather a cool, calming balm that opens our eyes to the real contours of ourselves.”</span></blockquote><br />
<span class="quote"><b>Pascal Mercier, <i>Night Train to Lisbon</i></b> <br />
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</span><b style="color: #e06666;">* Now contemplating Christmas in April.</b> Quite accidentally, because LoveFilm, in their infinite wisdom have seen fit to send me <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Holiday-Robert-Siodmak/dp/B000NDGX1Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1271842466&sr=8-1">Christmas Holiday</a>, when I was hoping for Once. Still an afternoon with Deanna Durbin is never a wasted one, and throw in a teapot full of Earl Grey and this years <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/35147964/the-christmas-planner">Christmas Planner</a> and I do believe I've got myself a par-tay. Albeit a dememntedly out of season one, but apparently that's how we roll around here: I have watched this Target Christmas advert a few times over, because I have never heard Rachel Ashwell speak (she's got a kind of transatlantic thing going on, as I suppose you might expect), and in one scene during this little video she is, <i>fleetingly</i>, the spitting image of Alison Steadman of Abigails Party and Gavin and Stacey fame...<br />
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<b style="color: #e06666;">* Still feeling astonished that I didn't know <a href="http://www.cathkidston.co.uk/">Cath Kidston</a> and Kirstie Allsop were cousins.</b> Though as my parents like to (frequently) remind me, the gaps in my knowledge are chasms devoid not only of geography and world events, but clearly that which I purport to know. But there you have it. I'm a purporter. One shouldn't trust me further than you can throw me. <i>Dear Darling daughter, we love you, but you are thick</i>.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #e06666;">* And finally, in celebration of National Poetry month,</span></b> Katherine Mansfield's Camomile Tea, because occasionally melancholy comes wrapped in gratitude and contentment.<br />
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Outside the sky is light with stars;<br />
There’s a hollow roaring from the sea.<br />
And, alas! for the little almond flowers,<br />
The wind is shaking the almond tree.<br />
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How little I thought, a year ago,<br />
In the horrible cottage upon the Lee<br />
That he and I should be sitting so<br />
And sipping a cup of camomile tea.<br />
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Light as feathers the witches fly,<br />
The horn of the moon is plain to see;<br />
By a firefly under a jonquil flower<br />
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.<br />
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We might be fifty, we might be five,<br />
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!<br />
Under the kitchen-table leg<br />
My knee is pressing against his knee.<br />
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Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,<br />
The tap is dripping peacefully;<br />
The saucepan shadows on the wall<br />
Are black and round and plain to see.<br />
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<b>Have a lovely week Housekeepers. </b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-20834711526766199652010-04-20T04:56:00.000-07:002010-04-20T05:03:01.802-07:00Free Dividers For Your Housekeepers Planner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82NsvdAi4I/AAAAAAAADMY/YBOuK0AIpZ4/s1600/planner112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82NsvdAi4I/AAAAAAAADMY/YBOuK0AIpZ4/s640/planner112.jpg" width="380" /></a></div><span id="goog_1146131981"></span><span id="goog_1146131982"></span><br />
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Hello Housekeepers, this is a drive by post to point you in the direction of a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/30223094/Housekeepers-Dividers">new set of free dividers</a> for your <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28971547/Housekeepers-Planner-Blanks">Housekeepers Planner</a>. The dividers are simple in design and split your planner into eleven categories:<br />
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<b>Calendar and Routines</b><br />
<b>Addresses and To-do's</b><br />
<b>Meal Planning and Recipes</b><br />
<b>Housekeeping and Care Instructions</b><br />
<b>Shopping Lists and Receipts</b><br />
<b>Insurance and Inventory</b><br />
<b>School and Medical Records</b><br />
<b>Financial Records and Banking</b><br />
<b>Decorating and Puttery Treats</b><br />
<b>Miscellania and Grace Notes</b><br />
<b>Blogging and the Internet</b><br />
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You can download the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/30223094/Housekeepers-Dividers">dividers here</a> and for those of you who have requested a few screenshots of the planner itself, please find afew examples from the sixty pages included, below...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82Qyo9mItI/AAAAAAAADMo/em8dMDddpYw/s1600/planner113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82Qyo9mItI/AAAAAAAADMo/em8dMDddpYw/s640/planner113.jpg" width="380" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82RccxSecI/AAAAAAAADMw/ssH-AdliW-k/s1600/planner114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82RccxSecI/AAAAAAAADMw/ssH-AdliW-k/s640/planner114.jpg" width="380" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82SMJA4j4I/AAAAAAAADM4/lINoSMIVTKc/s1600/planner115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82SMJA4j4I/AAAAAAAADM4/lINoSMIVTKc/s640/planner115.jpg" width="380" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82S1S29-0I/AAAAAAAADNA/SgkEAEsIDTU/s1600/planner116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S82S1S29-0I/AAAAAAAADNA/SgkEAEsIDTU/s640/planner116.jpg" width="380" /></a></div><br />
And if that doesn't persuade you that life is scrumptiously easier when you are the proud owner of a <a href="http://brocante-home.blogspot.com/2010/03/vintage-housekeepers-planner-is-here.html">BrocanteHome Vintage Housekeepers Planner</a> then I'll be darned if I know what will!<br />
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Don't forget that you can download the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28971547/Housekeepers-Planner-Blanks">free set of blank planner pages that accompany the planner here</a>, and by special request I am working on a new PDF scrumptiously packed with every home-made cleaning recipe I have ever mentioned on BrocanteHome and many more besides, so keep an eye out for that in the next few days...<br />
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<b>Have a gorgeous day Housekeepers, and as always, please accept my great big thank you kisses for supporting BrocanteHome. I hope you all know how very much my little Finn and I appreciate it...</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-87848719524154569762010-04-19T04:03:00.000-07:002010-04-21T05:27:23.393-07:00Slow Love by Dominique Browning<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S87u001YvsI/AAAAAAAADNc/_RxpQ_qvINM/s1600/slowlove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S87u001YvsI/AAAAAAAADNc/_RxpQ_qvINM/s400/slowlove.jpg" width="281" /></a> </div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
<b>If books are literary medicine then Dominique Browning's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Around-House-Garden-Heartbreak-Improvement/dp/0743226933/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271674492&sr=1-2">"Around the House and Garden"</a> should be the salve prescribed to every woman who finds herself abandoned in the former marital home.</b></div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">When Mark left I truly believed that I would never come to terms with it: that the memories scratched on to every surface he had previously called home would eat me up until there was none of me left. But it didn't happen. <i>Of course it didn't happen</i>: we women are stronger than that. We keep on keeping on until the day comes when memories are simply that: no longer threatening to have us coming undone at every turn but lying, <i>still, washed, harmless,</i> beneath everything we have created since.</div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">Though it is true that, four years later, I still sleep on the far left side of the bed, clinging on to the edge for fear that my very presence will sully someone <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">else's</span> dreams, elsewhere Mark's shadow no longer haunts the house. This is my house now and I lay claim to everything in it: to the treasures I have found and bought without his consultation, the remnants of relationships I have enjoyed in his wake, the evidence of our little boy growing up without his Fathers constant sleight of hand. This is my life now: and though in many ways it a lesser life than the one before, though the car doesn't work, the living room fire died, the house is falling down and today, <b><i>oh joy of all bloody horrible joys</i></b>, even the toilet has given up the ghost and requires the administering of a bucket of water to flush it: regardless of all of that, this is my life now and in my own quiet, barely acknowledged way, I celebrate it daily. </div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">Along the journey from Hysteria to Acceptance (making stops at Sorrow and Complete<br />
and Utter Madness long the way!) I was supported by the voices of women, both family and friends, my darling, precious <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">Brocante</span> readers, and when everyone else was tucked up in their own beds and it was just me and my four walls, the voices of women in the books I used as talismans against my own self destruction. Books written by women who had already tread the boards of marital failure and lived to exquisitely tell the tale.</div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">That the arrival of a gift from <a href="http://www.simpleabundance.com/">Sarah Ban <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">Breathnach</span></a>, containing the 10th anniversary edition of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Abundance-Daybook-Comfort-Joy/dp/0446563595/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1">Simple Abundance</a> and a copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Creating-Belonging-Simple-Abundance/dp/0696225573/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_4">Moving On </a>should have been so timely, arriving as it did just a month before Mark left, strikes me now as rather <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">spookily</span> foretelling, and looking back, I remember receiving the beautiful pink and green parcel and going upstairs to our bedroom to jealously guard it, closing the door behind me and opening it in floods of tears and not really knowing why. Knowing only that though there was something seriously wrong with my relationship and that this gift from the stranger who had effectively shaped the woman I was, acknowledged that somehow I was still worthwhile and there would always be a tomorrow.</div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">But at that time, though I tucked <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Creating-Belonging-Simple-Abundance/dp/0696225573/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_4">Moving On</a> into my Comfort Drawer, I couldn't bring myself to read it because I simply wasn't ready, so in the weeks that followed, weeks when I couldn't write and lived on cucumber, in those weeks, I read and re-read Dominique Browning's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Around-House-Garden-Heartbreak-Improvement/dp/0743226933/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271674492&sr=1-2">"Around the House and In the Garden"</a>, a book I discovered through the pages of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Romancing-Ordinary-Year-Simple-Splendour/dp/0743428838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271674834&sr=1-1">Romancing the Ordinary</a>, and a book that would come to be my guide to allowing your house to gently heal your heart.</div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">And so it was. That Summer of 2006 I trawled nurseries and boot sales every weekend while my son was spirited away by his Father. The house never looked lovelier, and though for a while I believed that Mark would be seduced homeward by the pretty <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">auriculas</span> in the little laundry room or the candles constantly burning on the mantelpiece, eventually I came to understand that I had to do it for myself, or not do it at all, for there was nothing to be gained by domestic ritual or <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">puttery</span> prettiness other than the peace it cloaked my shoulders in. That it was indeed time to move on...</div><div style="background-color: white;"> </div><div style="background-color: white;">So I did. Sarah Ban <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">Breathnach</span> did. And Dominique Browning did, until the day came when the magazine she edited collapsed and once again life changed shape. A calamitous fate no doubt for Browning, but a serendipitous one for us, as she has once again put pen to paper to transcribe her elegant telling of what it is to have your world up-ended, and yet again have to re-invent the future you had so cautiously etched upon your heart. </div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">Slow Love <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/magazine/28fasttrack-t.html?pagewanted=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesbooks">(excerpted in the New York Times magazine here)</a> tells the story of what happened to Dominique after the rug was pulled from under her career and how as a result she embraced a new way of living, described in her own words as "<i>engaging with the world in a deeper, more meaningful way, learning to appreciate the beauty of everyday moments, and taking time to share them with one another</i>", inspired by the aftermath of navigating all the "<i>speed bumps</i>" we encounter in life, "<i>the ones that surprise and challenge us, and the ones we put there ourselves, with purposefulness</i>".</div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">That we should be so sharply defined by what we do, is an error integral only to life in the 21st century, but in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Love-Pajamas-Found-Happiness/dp/1934633313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271673845&sr=1-1">Slow Love</a>, Dominique Browning sets about exploring what it is to exist without the confines of a job title, and after an all too necessary period spent lolling about in pyjama wearing despair, sets about showing us yet again that there is life after the mini deaths we mourn so very, very deeply.</div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;">So until <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Love-Pajamas-Found-Happiness/dp/1934633313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271673845&sr=1-1">Slow Love is published </a>I am prowling around <a href="http://www.slowlovelife.com/">Dominique's blog</a>, and remembering the kind of clarity one gains in the aftershock of losing what we once held dear. </div><div style="background-color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white;"><b>Life goes on, Readers. If there is one thing I know for sure, life goes on.</b></div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-5116431985047125542010-04-09T02:02:00.000-07:002010-04-09T02:04:36.302-07:00Housekeepers Question Time!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7Hgb2IQ7WI/AAAAAAAADHs/jVm_ge0qZGk/s1600/question.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7Hgb2IQ7WI/AAAAAAAADHs/jVm_ge0qZGk/s400/question.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Finley is six now and more often than we ever did before I find we are coming to the sort of blows that usually have me bursting a blood vessel in the effort not to scream and stamp my slipper shod feet while he looks back at me with the kind of nonchalance a little boy only wears when he is busy internally marking another cross on the <i>"there she goes again"</i> chart.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The cause of our arguments?</b> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Mess. Finley is a one boy mess machine. And this is no ordinary mess. This is Finley mess, this is <a href="http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/proprioceptive-dysfunction.html">Sensory Processing Disorder</a> <i>I can't stop bouncing off the wall's</i> mess. This is <i>my head is very busy thinking great big thoughts and I'm sorry but disorder doesn't register in my brain</i> kind of mess. The kind of mess that shouts with sheer, utter joy twenty four seven and has his teacher shaking her head in utter bewilderment at me and declaring, "We've never had a child like him." The kind of mess that wears holes in the new school trousers I seem to be buying fortnightly. The kind of mess that falls off chairs and leaves a trail of crumbs everywhere it goes. The kind of mess with a permanently snotty nose, dirty fingernails and a couldn't care less attitude to a level of desperate untidiness that makes all grown up, desperately tired Mommies want to hug it away, disinfect him from head to foot and take a chuggy chuggy train ride to a place where scrumptious little boys don't dash around the house breaking, <i>quite accidentally</i>, everything in their path.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I love my Finley to bits but I am fighting a permanent battle against chaos, and I am starting to wonder whether perhaps now is the time to draw the line: to get all hard-line about the mess and start inflicting rules and chores and Mommy directives to save me going completely off my head. Don't get me wrong: I'm no pushover, but perhaps because I've been so consumed by making allowances for a condition that dictates his ability to keep still, and focus and organize everything from his school-work to his thoroughly haphazard attitude to clothes, I have let him get away with a bit more than the average Mommy would generally tolerate. I worry that what is oblivion to mess will one day develop into a complete lack of respect for she who has to clear it up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>So my question for today is this: should our babba's have babba related chores?</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b></b> Finley is six- how much do you, or <i>did you</i> expect of your six year olds with regard to keeping his or her corner of the world tidy? Is interrupting playtime to set your child up with a duster and polish tantamount to evil?. Am I on the road to ruin by allowing him to be a child while I bang my head against a flock wall? Is it too late to inflict a little tidiness upon his gloriously happy, carefree, curly topped soul?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>Help Housekeepers!</b></div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-49534485569553738372010-04-07T03:11:00.000-07:002010-04-07T03:13:25.947-07:00A Very Puttery March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7xaC0Y4qnI/AAAAAAAADJE/0AZkUOG8Ho4/s1600-h/bath2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7xaC0Y4qnI/AAAAAAAADJE/0AZkUOG8Ho4/s400/bath2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Already we have said goodbye to March and April is shimmying her flirty little self on our doorsteps, suffering as always from a touch of weather related schizophrenia and promising more than she has got to give, while we Vintage Housekeepers fling open windows willy-nilly and dream of accessorising our aprons with a pair of twinkly flip-flops and a rosy pink pedicure.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On the <a href="http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36199284&ref=sr_gallery_1&&ga_search_query=puttery+post&ga_search_type=all&ga_page=&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title">Brocante Puttery Post</a> last month we were busy doing our best to breach the goose-pimply distance between Winter and Spring by embracing the teeniest of Puttery Treats: little bits of lovely nothing that at once pamper our soul and remind us why home-making the BrocanteHome way is so utterly central to our way of life- from taking vinegar baths to creating a household mission statement, discovering the benefits of tulips and treasure hunting for the perfect vintage dusting gloves to pop into our housekeepers box, printing "Family Cards" and celebrating National Fragrance day, and much, much more. But my absolute favourites from last month?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i>Chamomile Sunday</i> from March 28th</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>By the time the hurly burly of another weekend is done and dusted and I have spent an efficient hour or two making sure the rest of the week will run as smoothly as my Housekeepers Planner suggests it should, I am usually thoroughly exhausted and ready for my bed. You see I believe that Sunday evenings were designed to be spent in bed with a period drama on the DVD, and the scent of lavender spritzed upon our nighties...<br />
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Tonight spend a while organizing your week, then put the house to bed and go upstairs to run a bath. Run it as hot as possible, then add five chamomile tea-bags to the water and allow to steep until the temperature feels bearable...<br />
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Play something suitably soothing (I favour Mozart's Prussian String Quartets: No.21 and 22) and then get into the bath for a ten minute soak: no more or else the water will go cold and we want to take the relaxing benefit of this warm, chamomile soak back to bed with us.<br />
Climb out, pat your skin dry and climb immediately into nightclothes warmed on the radiator. Then go to bed and read or watch something gentle, (I am watching Berkeley Square this evening.) while sipping on more chamomile, a drink named after us all by Old England, for whom Chamomile once meant "woman"... <br />
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Goodnight Sweethearts.x</b><o:p></o:p><br />
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</b><br />
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</b><br />
<b>And <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>The Housekeepers Pencil Case</i> From March 11th</b></span></b><br />
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To my mind the start of a new season should always include a trip to the stationery store: because (bless my cotton socks!) nothing makes me feel quite so efficient as owning new paper and pencils...<br />
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Tonight while about to sit down with my spanking new <a href="http://brocante-home.blogspot.com/2010/03/vintage-housekeepers-planner-is-here.html">Vintage Housekeepers Planner</a> it struck me that I could do with a really rather scrumptious version of the schoolgirls pencil case: stationery all of my own unlikely to be pilfered by my resident six year old... <br />
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And so this weekend I am setting us all a little project... to fill the prettiest all grown up pencil case we can find with our very own collection of essential bits and bobs for journaling the bestest parts of our day.<br />
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1. Start by choosing a pencil case. Take yourself shopping with something scrumptious in mind, re-purpose a make up bag, or sew the simplest envelope style case from a scrap or two of fabric and hold together with a couple of vintage rhinestone buttons or a ribbon...<br />
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2. Now add your very favorite kinds of pens and pencils. I like a certain kind of ever so cheap, extra fine propelling pencil that I buy by the dozen, and always have a gel pen in a range of pretty colored inks or six available (I favour green or violet ink, while the most stylish woman I know signs everything with a dash of pink), so a couple of both these pencils and pens will go in my case...<br />
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3. Next up I suggest a tiny roll of double sided sticky tape, a small pair of sharp craft scissors, and if you can get hold of them, a pair of wiggly edged children's scissors that turn every little bit of scrap paper collected into a work of art. (Don't forget to add a little loop of fine ribbon to the handles of both scissors so no-one is in any doubt as to whom they belong!)<br />
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4. Find a glue stick and wrap a pretty sticker around the tube, add a small stapler, a box of staples, and a craft knife. <br />
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5. Then seek out the tiniest vintage pill box you own and fill it with paper clips.<br />
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6. And finally treat yourself to the prettiest, silliest pencil eraser you can find: they come in the most fabulous designs and their sweet smell will send you hurtling back to your childhood every time you open your pencil case...<br />
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<b>Have fun Housekeepers!</b><br />
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Should the Puttery Post take your fancy you can sign up for a <a href="http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36199284">years subscription on Etsy,</a> (the cheapest option!) or pay by <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=K2YCXJ3YPC5BS">monthly subscription here</a> and get my emails delivered direct to your in-box or should you prefer you can simply download each months Puttery treats for $3.00 a month below...<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cart;i=630217;cl=64139;ejc=2%22%20target=%22ej_ejc%22%20class=%22ec_ejc_thkbx">To buy and download January's Puttery Treats click here...</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cart;i=630224;cl=64139;ejc=2%22%20target=%22ej_ejc%22%20class=%22ec_ejc_thkbx">To buy and download February's Puttery Treats click here...</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cart&i=663331&cl=64139&ejc=2%22%20target=%22ej_ejc%22%20class=%22ec_ejc_thkbx">And to buy and download all of March's Puttery Treats click here...</a></div><br />
<b>Happy April Housekeepers!</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-82538013514765644742010-04-06T09:22:00.000-07:002010-04-06T13:10:18.974-07:00An Easter Wedding<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tRW82_oqI/AAAAAAAADIA/Wc_8DiXqfmY/s1600/wedding11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tRW82_oqI/AAAAAAAADIA/Wc_8DiXqfmY/s400/wedding11.jpg" width="311" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The Bride and Groom and our little Munchkins.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tRp98XjUI/AAAAAAAADII/L0Mf0r_P-3U/s1600/wedding111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tRp98XjUI/AAAAAAAADII/L0Mf0r_P-3U/s400/wedding111.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>My gorgeous Mum and Dad.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tRLcb734I/AAAAAAAADH4/t1EgjgxjceM/s1600/wedding1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="340" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tRLcb734I/AAAAAAAADH4/t1EgjgxjceM/s400/wedding1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>My sister Helen, Barbie and me...</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tSJc5KMaI/AAAAAAAADIQ/5dVgInRtwbo/s1600/wedding1111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="347" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tSJc5KMaI/AAAAAAAADIQ/5dVgInRtwbo/s400/wedding1111.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The Sisters...</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tSeSaMX1I/AAAAAAAADIY/BT-AVo13e2E/s1600/wedding11111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7tSeSaMX1I/AAAAAAAADIY/BT-AVo13e2E/s400/wedding11111.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The men in black and their little white Princess ...</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And so it came to pass that three generations of our family set sail from our respective parts of England and swooshed our way up various motorways to gather on Good Friday in a hotel in Lincolnshire for the marriage of my Mum's sister Barbie to Steve, otherwise known by the little people as Steve-Break-The-Light because once upon a time he did and it is apparent that some things are never forgotten.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">All went swimmingly. My dad gave Barbie away with panache and informed the gathered congregation that as a child she had had him and Mum deeply harassed and he had been wanting to give her away ever since while I spent an inordinate amount of time asking passing pretty cousins to check the whereabouts of my eyelashes which owing to my truly dreadful ability with make-up and glue were dangling somewhere in my cleavage like spiky spiders for most of the wedding.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> But despite such spiky handicaps, my Darlings, I still managed to catch the bouquet by proxy. <i>By proxy </i>because I wasn't actually there when Barbie threw it, and it was in fact Helen who caught it, but as the very thought of getting married again gives her the heebie-jeebies, she delivered said bouquet to me, and so I declared it a valid catch, at which point, Richard with the fear of God in his eyes, took me aside and told me, quite sternly, <i>"not to be getting any ideas"</i> and my Mum in defence of my honour informed him that she would never allow her 38 year old baby to marry a man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Heston Blumenthal regardless so let that be the end of the discussion. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And it was, and we went down a line kissing strangers with me introducing everyone to Heston, declaring my intention to run away with the best man who looked in need of a wife brave enough to tackle various sartorial mis-demeanours, and moaning to unsuspecting old ladies about the headache brought about by the application of Cheryl Cole false eyelashes and the impossibility of dating a refusenik. And then I sat down and behaved myself for ten minutes, until the service of roasted red pepper soup, when having worn myself out pinching Richard while nobody else was looking, mid-wedding exhaustion set in and the eyelashes were peeled off and abandoned altogether because sadly, glamour was never my forte and it is clear from the photos above that though I come from a clan of glamorous slithers of women who all look spookily similar, I am in fact an interloper from the <b><i>Land of the Brunette Giantesses</i></b> and will one day have no choice but to step out in search of my people.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> Still nobody noticed the intruder in their wake, until she <i><b>(I)</b></i> decided to scare the horses and took to the dance floor to perform a rendition of Greased Lightening that had Richard shaking his head in sorrow and shame and my Mum in convulsions. Some sort of divine red sorbet was served, champagne drank and a delicious platter of cheese served at half past goodness knows when, by which time the little boys had abandoned their aviators in favour of skidding on their knees across the dance-floor and many men in earrings, (because it seems that, despite all pertinent advice to the contrary, diamond earrings are all the rage with middle aged men in outback of Lincolnshire) had joined them in an effort to bring on the kind of heart-attack ready red cheeks that only occur after a little too much beer inspired Dad-dancing to Showaddywaddy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The night lingered on. Little Kiera, the blonde darling above, continued to shine, and ultimately all our side of the family ended up squeezed into one corner of the room, perched on each others knees and squashed up on three sofas, where the true extent of the effort exerted by my sister to be sociable was seen in her glazed borderline-demented grin, Richard spilled an entire glass of wine down my front (Though this is much disputed, as it was my wine and I concede that I was indeed holding, said glass at the time), and Barbie, in all her lovely wedding glory turned out to be parading the price label on the soles of her wedding shoes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It was lovely. About ritual and celebration, family, pretty dresses and kids (read Finley) that wander around in search of balloons while speeches stuffed full of love are made and glasses raised in joy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Dear Barbie and Steve, <i>Steve-Break-The-Light</i> , please, please, please can we do it all over again next week?</div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-86441705491783074782010-04-01T01:18:00.000-07:002010-04-02T00:02:29.883-07:00Free Vintage Images<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HCqNzTzXI/AAAAAAAADGc/6MnSqy6aS-s/s1600/001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HCqNzTzXI/AAAAAAAADGc/6MnSqy6aS-s/s400/001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The Soot Fairies by Arthur Rackham. </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HC_4yYiOI/AAAAAAAADGk/w-1RS-RnKmk/s1600/003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HC_4yYiOI/AAAAAAAADGk/w-1RS-RnKmk/s400/003.jpg" width="306" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The Meeting In the Meadow by Joyce L. Brisley</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HDKh23bII/AAAAAAAADGs/9AkZxhZ_ryc/s1600/004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HDKh23bII/AAAAAAAADGs/9AkZxhZ_ryc/s400/004.jpg" width="305" /></a><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>And The Sewing Party by Cicely Englefield</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">After a week spent hunting for the kind of vintage ephemera that makes my toes scrunch up with happiness, I am thrilled to offer you three lovely images from my own collection, scanned and optimised for your pleasure and now yours for the taking. Simply click on each image in turn to view the full sized version, then right click it and save it to your computer to use however you will...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Have a lovely day won't you?</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
P.S: Have you bought your <a href="http://brocante-home.blogspot.com/2010/03/vintage-housekeepers-planner-is-here.html">Vintage Housekeepers Planner</a> yet? It's quite the most perfect project for the Easter holiday for old fashioned homemakers across the land...</div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-43662872967917738162010-03-31T03:42:00.000-07:002010-03-31T03:42:00.241-07:00Alisa Noble<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7G8nXumIgI/AAAAAAAADGE/p3dAewGsZLE/s1600/alisanoble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7G8nXumIgI/AAAAAAAADGE/p3dAewGsZLE/s400/alisanoble.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7G84Zs3MsI/AAAAAAAADGM/kWBYyIJ5zK8/s1600/alisanoble2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7G84Zs3MsI/AAAAAAAADGM/kWBYyIJ5zK8/s400/alisanoble2.jpg" width="292" /></a></div><br />
Oh my goodness I have been meaning to share these these gorgeous journal pages from Alisa Noble of <a href="http://lifeisabeautifulplacetobe.blogspot.com/2010/01/treat-for-me.html">Life Is A Beautiful Place To Be</a> fame for the longest time, because not only are they scrumptiously lovely (as all of Alisa's work is, they were also inspired by my very own <a href="http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36199284&ref=sr_gallery_1&&ga_search_query=puttery+post&ga_search_type=all&ga_page=&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title">Puttery Post</a> and I'm not sure there is a higher compliment than to have your work inspire something you so ardently admire yourself...<br />
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Based on two posts from the beginning of January, Alisa has taken my suggestions for choosing a word to inspire you throughout 2010 and creating a list of books you want to work your way through monthly (come hell, high water or a brand new Marion Keyes!) and created the kind of pretty I couldn't put together if you offered me free reign in the Brocante's of Paris as a reward...<br />
<br />
But then that is the purpose of the <a href="http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36199284&ref=sr_gallery_1&&ga_search_query=puttery+post&ga_search_type=all&ga_page=&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title">Puttery Post</a>: it isn't about inflicting my puttery will upon you, it is about giving you daily starting points for thinking, and dreaming, and home-making and creating, and from those starting points letting your imagination fly, whether I'm asking you to create a garden journal or take a chamomile bath... <b><i>the degree of lovely, you see, is always up to you</i></b>.<br />
<br />
Thank you <a href="http://lifeisabeautifulplacetobe.blogspot.com/2010/01/treat-for-me.html">Alisa</a>, for being one of my Vintage Housekeepers, and for being so very, very talented.Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-59855298093625846482010-03-30T03:59:00.000-07:002010-03-30T09:28:11.241-07:00Nostalgia Organics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HSIDlSDmI/AAAAAAAADHM/YOB1xvbg3MA/s1600/nostalgiaorganics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7HSIDlSDmI/AAAAAAAADHM/YOB1xvbg3MA/s400/nostalgiaorganics.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Some days I get happy because the world is stuffed with wonderful things just waiting to be discovered. On my joy list this week? Finley's Egyptian dance (laugh out loud funny!), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/High-Wages-Dorothy-Whipple/dp/1903155754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269946223&sr=8-1">Dorothy Whipple's "High Wages"</a> (I have acquired a lovely vintage orange and white Penguin edition this weekend), the cream chiffon top I am wearing to my Barbie's wedding on Good Friday, this <a href="http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2008/01/ribbon-jar.html">utterly divine idea for storing ribbo</a>n, and the Delicious Miss Dahl, because no matter whether Sophie does or doesn't live on the scrumptiously pretty set and despite all the snarking her cookery program has inspired in grown men who should know better than to dress their envy in vitriol, I am thoroughly enjoying this series and won't hear another word against it! <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1260553/BBC-food-critic-Giles-Coren-brands-Sophie-Dahls-BBC-cookery-sickening-sham.html">Do you hear me Giles Coren</a>? Girls like us ADORE watching girls just like us (but prettier!) whip up a rhubarb and rosewater version of Eton mess in the prettiest kitchen in the world and no amount of schoolboy twittery sniping is going to changes our minds ok??<br />
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<object height="315" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nys4FPRug8A&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=eddbc3&color2=eddbc3&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nys4FPRug8A&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=eddbc3&color2=eddbc3&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="315"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Anyway what was I getting to? Ooooh yes <a href="http://www.nostalgiaorganics.com/index.html">Nostalgia Organics.</a> Because <a href="http://www.nostalgia.typepad.com/">Elea Lutz's</a> darling joyful website makes me smile and who couldn't love a bar of organic everything, citrussy-lemongrass exfoliating soap wrapped in vintage inspired fabric and christened Happy Days Soap? The whole matter just oozes joy and a positive spin on the damn caboodle that is living in the twenty first century doesn't it? I mean who needs to stress about who to vote for in an up-coming election when one could take a shower that makes us smile, dab a bit of <a href="http://www.nostalgiaorganics.com/dillydally.html">Dilly Dally</a> on our pulse points and set about creating something that will have us swoon in sheer rhubarby delight...<br />
<br />
Happy days. Because we have to pocket them. And line them with lavender. And bake from the heart and love with all we've got and read all that makes us want to explode with inspiration and seek joy for the hell of it. Because even if the country is going to the dog's, and no amount of that nice Mr Cameron can save it, we can make our own worlds, the worlds within our own four walls as joyful as possible and Nostalgia Organics is a company making that kind of joy it's raison d'etre...<br />
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Happy days my Sweets.Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-60514187580935167612010-03-30T01:23:00.000-07:002010-03-30T01:25:09.525-07:00Modern Butterflies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7GzYH5ZROI/AAAAAAAADF8/E9hPnn0vmjw/s1600/005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="600" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7GzYH5ZROI/AAAAAAAADF8/E9hPnn0vmjw/s640/005.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<i>"The Butterfly who loves cigarettes, but can never learn to lay a fire...</i><br />
<i>The Butterfly who adores dancing but is to nervy to dust a room...</i><br />
<i>The Butterfly who lives on the phone but never has time to answer a letter...</i><br />
<i>The Butterfly who delights in matinees but household shopping makes her tired...</i><br />
<i>The Butterfly who devours fiction, but cannot cook a dish to save her life!"</i><br />
<br />
There is a case it seems for not having too much fun. One could you see, be accused of being a Modern Butterfly and I trust you wouldn't want that...<br />
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<b>Me Darlings? Why I am far too nervy to dust a room...</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-38045893958861748032010-03-29T04:24:00.000-07:002010-03-29T04:27:30.829-07:00Doing the Next Thing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="goog_966625152"></span><span id="goog_966625153"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7CFxgu6cdI/AAAAAAAADEk/s97-N4KI10s/s1600/lazypeople.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S7CFxgu6cdI/AAAAAAAADEk/s97-N4KI10s/s400/lazypeople.jpg" width="382" /></a></div><br />
<b>"What is the hardest thing in the world to do?</b><br />
Not in the least what most people might suppose it is, yet if we are brought up sharp we all discover what our greatest difficulty is.<br />
<br />
<b>It is doing the next thing, whatever that may be.</b><br />
<br />
Most of us know the difficulty only too well. The last thing we can do, or feel inclined to do, is the next thing, the duty or the task that stares us in the face asking to be got through. Anything but this. The next thing but one is easy enough, and we should enjoy tackling it. But the next thing...No! it's beyond us. And it's always there, we can't get away from it.<br />
But there's another way of looking at it. If it is an obstacle it is <i>also an opportunity</i>. Doing the next thing is a panacea for nearly all our woes.<br />
<br />
<b> You live in Botheration Buildings and you long to move to Peace Place.</b><br />
That is you have dozens of things to to, business of all kinds to get through, endless matters to arrange and you are bewildered and feel you will never get through them. You seem on the verge of apoplexy or insanity. Keep cool. Do the next thing; get it over as quickly as possible, and the battle is as good as won. You will have got up steam.<br />
<br />
<b>"But what <i>is</i> the next thing?" </b><br />
Generally that is clear enough - if you are only willing to do it. If not, it is any one of the crowd of things waiting to be done. Which of them you choose matters little; do it- and the muddle begins to straighten out, and you can go ahead with the rest.<br />
It's the same with an attack of the blues. We all get this horrible complaint at times and it is always worst when we can discover no cause for it. It just comes - and down we go.<br />
<br />
<b>Can't do anything, don't know what's the matter, but do know that everything's wrong.</b><br />
Gloomy thoughts, dreadful forebodings, hopeless inertia. You know all about it; you've had it too often.<br />
There is one cure for this malady- do the next thing, and do it straight away. And the next thing is probably something quite simple. It may be putting your boots on, writing a letter, making up your cash account, straightening your table. Anyhow, there it is. Do it and you'll feel more than better. You will be all right. The exertion will shake off the heaviness and set up a healthy chemical action of the brain. You will forget your wretched self- the cause of your misery.<br />
<br />
<b>And blunders!</b><br />
We are always making them, even the wisest and the cleverest of us and sometimes they seem to have made shipwrecks of our lives. Nonsense! We must start afresh, and rebuild what we have stupidly knocked down. Here too, the only way to put things right is to do the next thing. And as with bothers and blues, that next thing is generally obvious and simple. It isn't quite obvious? Well do <i>something</i>, and that will be the next thing.<br />
<br />
As an Oxford coach used to say to a crew before a race...<br />
"If your button gets out of the rigger, do any blessed thing- but go on rowing. " There's always one thing that you <i>can</i> do. Do <i>that</i>, and you'll do the rest.<br />
<br />
<b>Go on, but don't go on sitting still."</b><br />
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By W.C.Buncher, 1922.</span></b></div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-84905589913658695612010-03-26T03:01:00.000-07:002010-03-26T03:11:43.062-07:00Pages For Your Housekeeper's Planner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6yA2_PeFhI/AAAAAAAADDg/UHj-Hagufns/s1600/list.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6yA2_PeFhI/AAAAAAAADDg/UHj-Hagufns/s400/list.jpg" width="317" /></a></div><br />
<b>Happy Friday Housekeepers! </b><br />
Today for your home-making pleasure, those of you who have bought the <a href="http://brocante-home.blogspot.com/2010/03/vintage-housekeepers-planner-is-here.html">Vintage Housekeepers Planner</a> can download ten pages of blank forms to customise to your hearts content, absolutely free of charge. Based on some of the planner pages already included in your download, but with all Brocante formatting removed, you can now plan anything you like: from what to pack in your holiday suitcase to what you have got stored in the deep, dark cupboard under the stairs...<br />
<br />
Download the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28971547/Housekeepers-Planner-Blanks">blank planner pages here</a> and as always stay tuned: I've got more pages for your planner coming very soon.<br />
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<b>P. S: Apologies to those of you who had been trying to buy my </b><a href="http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=43476856"><b>550 Puttery Treats Download on Etsy</b></a><b>, I hadn't realised it had sold out, but have now re-listed it. Easter is just the perfect time to get a little puttery isn't it?</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-82722000588110661332010-03-25T06:16:00.000-07:002010-03-25T06:24:37.720-07:00Housekeepers Carousel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6tCyUPWaZI/AAAAAAAADB4/_2pdvOIe9ME/s1600/SpringCarousel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6tCyUPWaZI/AAAAAAAADB4/_2pdvOIe9ME/s400/SpringCarousel.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kzfxqudN4x1qzwhhno1_500.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">All images credited on my pinboard.</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>Hello Sweethearts, is it just me or does it feel like many moons ago that the Carousel came to town? </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>After two weeks of miserable sickness for poor Finley, I have, with my heart a little in my mouth and a list full of "what to do's" for the teacher, delivered him back to school and spent a rather darling morning gathering my thoughts, hanging out a silly amount of laundry and conjuring up this scrumptious little list of all that has inspired me while I have been doing my duty as a slightly grouchy Nurse Mummy, pinned to the sofa with a rather large six year old attached to my chest...</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">* First of all I must confess to going on something of an <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>Elizabeth Taylor bender</b></span> which I think you will agree is no bad thing when we are talking about a woman who can write something as quietly harrowing as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Game-Hide-Seek-Elizabeth-Taylor/dp/1844086194/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269515721&sr=8-4">"A Game of Hide and Seek"</a>, a book that will have every woman with even the merest hint of fire in her belly biting back the kind of tears she has long refused to let rise. Though I have read it before, this time around it seemed to cut that much deeper: consider for example this passage...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>"When she married Charles, she had seemed to wed also a social order. A convert to it, and to provincial life, and keeping house, she had pursued it frantically and as if she feared censure. No-one had entertained more methodically, or better bolstered up social interplay. She had been indefatigable in writing letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations; remembered birthdays and anniversaries; remembered bread-and butter letters and telephone messages after parties. She had tried to do everything right for her daughter; had never missed a speech-day or an end of term concert; had talked to form-mistresses and shown interest, as they themselves put it.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>But now she flouted what she had hepled to create- an illusion of society, an oiling of wheels which went round but not forwards, conventions which could only exist so long as emotion was in abeyance"</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And this one...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>" When she and the other women discussed recipes, children's ailments, clothes, she entered in, and offered up with forced enthusiasm. "It is all my world!" she seemed to declare. "To make a really spongy, sponge cake, my whole ambition!" When she reached home, she would despise herself, and idly wondered if any of the others were playing the same game."</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Any? Or all of them? <b><i>All of us?</i></b> It is I think the line "as long as emotion was in abeyance" that is most painful for me. I see it all the time. The lies women tell themselves. The lies they live with utter dedication to their own containment. The rituals they use as walls between their lives and their authentic selves. I see it and I contribute to it because I know no other way to confront it without bringing my world and other peoples tumbling down. Elizabeth Taylor saw it and she described it and there is a bit of me that needs to know whether she had more guts than I do, so though I am currently drowning in her writing, and awaiting a few modern film versions of her work (Angel and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont are on my Lovefilm list), I have placed <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Other-Elizabeth-Taylor-Nicola-Beauman/dp/1906462100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269517332&sr=1-1">The Other Elizabeth Taylor</a> on order and await it with much anticipation...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">P.S: The Atlantic article referenced in one of the rather caustic Amazon reviews is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/09/the-other-elizabeth-taylor/6125">here</a>... </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>* Next up, after that rather hysterical start:</b></span> a video that had me hysterical in quite the opposite sense of the word. Discovered at <a href="http://www.nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/">NieNie</a>, Solid Potato Salad had <i>me</i> in happy fits and Finn falling off the sofa with tears rolling down his face, rather setting his recovery back with the effort required to practise getting his legs over his head while warbling about salad...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><object height="315" width="430"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BNR74UCidBI&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BNR74UCidBI&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="430" height="315"></embed></object></div><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">* Then on to quite a severe bout of creative jealousy,</span></b> because I never saw a lovelier thing than this <a href="http://pamgarrison.typepad.com/pamgarrison/2010/03/wip-stitching.html">Pam Garrison piece of scrumptious, bohemian, vintage and homely stitching</a> for the sheer sake of creating something for us all to drool over.<br />
Hopping all over the internet for details of the film version of Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, David Tenant was supposed to be filming in 2007 and coming up with exactly nothing. Wondering what happened to it.<br />
Drinking Ginger Cordial to ease a poorly tummy. Nursing ambition until the time is right.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>* Dwelling on my favourite words:</b></span><b> </b>Debauchery. Shine.Verdigris. Comely. Home. Pernicious. Epiphany. Dalliance. Scrumptious. Fleeting. Mummy. Peccadillo. Violet. Divinity. Euphoria. Camellia. Madeleine. Ingénue. Erotica. Cosy. Lassitude. Aubergine. Friend. Chartreuse. Library. Serendipity. Thou. Pyjamas. Pomegranate. Ethereal. Sensual. Bruise...<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">* Playing The Girl by City and Colour</span></b> over and over. "<i>You sacrificed so much of your life in order for this to work. While I'm off chasing my dreams. Sailing around the world..." </i><br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>* Feeling outraged on Martha Stewart's</b></span> behalf after one of her former close friends sold out and wrote a book about their former friendship, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Friends-Martha-Me/dp/0061661279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269521751&sr=8-1">The Best of Friends: Martha and Me</a> But sadly, not outraged enough not to have ordered it because I am a salacious gossip and an utter hypocrite. I apologise. Bitchy curiousity becomes me. Also on the subject of Martha, hearing rumours that the Hallmark channel will be running re-runs of much of Martha's TV back catalogue from March 29th, which may be good news for British Sky TV viewers who might just be able to watch her for the first time this side of the Atlantic... </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>* And finally amusing myself with </b></span><a href="http://www.colorstrology.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>Colorstrology</b></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b> from Pantone</b></span>, and discovering that my birth date means that my colorstrology colour is Basil, which makes me innovative, expressive and an originator and goes on describe us Basil people as...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"..Likeable and fun to have around. You seem to know what position to play when inter-acting with other people. You have a quiet self-assurance that lends you ease in communicating or dealing with others. It is important for you to be active and learning new things. Your personal colour embodies life and vitality. Wearing and meditating, or surrounding yourself with the colour Basil keeps you young and thriving. It can also be a strong aid when dealing with finance and health concerns."</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>To which I say "hmmmmm".</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b> What's your Colorstrology colour, pray tell? </b></div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-71978006818876645272010-03-22T04:14:00.000-07:002010-03-22T04:15:30.581-07:00My Sick Babba<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6dOShbgelI/AAAAAAAADAc/9KCV7e-Lz1M/s1600-h/finn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6dOShbgelI/AAAAAAAADAc/9KCV7e-Lz1M/s400/finn.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Hello Sweeties, this is just a quick note to apologise for the lack of Alison around these parts in the last week. Finley hasn't been well for a week and together we have endured sleepless nights and, over the weekend, (my birthday weekend, sob!) a rather scary visit to the hospital so we are utterly exhausted and due to spend yet another afternoon on the sofa while we wait for signs that he is on the mend.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">As soon as he can spare me I will be back online, m'darlings. Have a lovely week.x</div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-7851372396128878252010-03-17T04:48:00.000-07:002010-03-17T04:49:58.132-07:00Sophie Dahl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6C4La4zA5I/AAAAAAAAC_E/__QlQJFj3wQ/s1600-h/sophie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S6C4La4zA5I/AAAAAAAAC_E/__QlQJFj3wQ/s400/sophie.jpg" width="290" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There are women in this world I fall head over heels in love with and from the moment she tumbled down the catwalk, all cleavage and pale flesh, wide eyes and bambi-style bewilderment, Roald Dahl's granddaughter was one of them.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Perhaps it's because she looks so very like my Mum. Perhaps it's because <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Grown-ups-Sophie-Dahl/dp/0307388352/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b">Playing With the Grown Up</a>s, her vivid,semi-autobiographical novel was jam-packed with the kind of terribly English, whimsical description we Vintage Housekeepers adore. Perhaps it's because her perfume column in Vogue makes me want to drown in her scented words, or perhaps it's because she manages to combine beauty, with intelligence and a gorgeous dose of the kind of authentic frippery that always inspires both envy and adoration in my all too willing soul.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Next Tuesday evening marks the first of six programmes, turning Sophie's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Dahls-Voluptuous-Delights-Appetite/dp/0061450995/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268825168&sr=8-1">The Voluptuous Delights of Miss Dahl</a>, into the kind of scrumptious cookery programme that is more about lifestyle than it is about the food. While I suspect comparisons between Sophie Dahl and Nigella Lawson are inevitable, the recipes in Sophie's book are lighter and somehow frillier than the delicious cream drowned stodge Nigela is prone to serving up, and each week is themed rather fabulously, around emotion and the kind of ritual I suspect we will all relate to, with episode one being dedicated to the art of enjoying a "Selfish Day"...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #50555c; font-family: verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.333em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b>"Sophie Dahl revels in the joy of cooking for one on a purely selfish day. Shutting the world away and answering to no-one on a day that is indulgently independent means cruising the food boutiques and cooking simple dishes with the finest of ingredients.Her selfish day begins at breakfast with her take on an omelette Arnold Bennett and the preparation of peanut butter fudge.</b><br />
<b>After a sweep of the local cheese shop she's assembling a buffalo mozzarella bruschetta with shaved fennel and courgette salad for lunch.</b><br />
<b>Finally, inspired by a picture of an old Hollywood screen siren and an art deco cocktail shaker picked up in a second-hand shop, it's time for dirty martinis and a dinner of roasted halibut with spinach and watercress sauce, healthy sweet potato chips and wild mushrooms, followed by rich chocolate pots with brandy soaked cherries.</b><br />
<b>By the end of the day, Sophie feels ready to share again...maybe."</b><br />
<br />
Sounds wonderful mais non? Mais Oui! If for nothing else, watch it and weep over the gorgeous, bunting festooned garden tableaux to which Sophie delivers her rose petal sprinkled meringue...<br />
<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;"><object height="400" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><param name="FlashVars" value="playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Ftv%2Ffeatures%2Fmedia%2Femp%2Fplaylists%2Fthe%2Ddelicious%2Dmiss%2Ddahl%5Fpreview%2Exml&config_settings_skin=silver&config_settings_showFooter=true&"></param><embed src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="400" height="400" FlashVars="playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Ftv%2Ffeatures%2Fmedia%2Femp%2Fplaylists%2Fthe%2Ddelicious%2Dmiss%2Ddahl%5Fpreview%2Exml&config_settings_skin=silver&config_settings_showFooter=true&"></embed></object></div><br />
I can't wait!<br />
<br />
<b>The Delicious Miss Dahl, BBC 2, March 23rd, 8.30pm</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-66711803896940400922010-03-15T04:29:00.000-07:002010-03-15T08:41:13.398-07:00That Was the Week That Was<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S54CjkrMgBI/AAAAAAAAC-c/eqi6tqdHg3k/s1600-h/mumsday2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S54CjkrMgBI/AAAAAAAAC-c/eqi6tqdHg3k/s400/mumsday2.jpg" width="292" /></a></div><br />
Welcome to a scrumptious new week Housekeepers! And here I am, hands liberally doused in <a href="http://www.cathkidston.co.uk/p-14082-cath-kidston-wild-roses-hand-cream-balm.aspx">Wild Roses</a> 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...<br />
<br />
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. <i>Of course I read</i>. 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 <a href="http://www.marmiteshop.co.uk/productdetail.jsp;jsessionid=KOFCHBDINPCA?productPK=unittest-ia9HbdRrFyQb2k5hqN3IEb-1">Marmite X-O</a> 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 "<i>Well aren't you the scum of the earth</i>" 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.<br />
<br />
But enough already with my religious ranting and let me get to my lists...<br />
<br />
<b>Things I Watched Last Week</b><br />
* <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Motherhood-Uma-Thurman/dp/B002VRNJFI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1268649522&sr=1-1">Motherhood</a>. 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...<br />
<br />
* 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.<br />
<br />
<b>Things I Read Last Week</b><br />
* <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Charing-Cross-Road-Helene-Hanff/dp/0140143505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268649968&sr=8-1">84 Charring Cross Road</a>. 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.<br />
<br />
* <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Lippincotes-Virago-Modern-Classics/dp/1844083098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268650425&sr=1-1">At Mrs Lippincotes</a>. This months book choice. And it was plain old WONDERFUL. More later in the week on this very subject. I promise.<br />
<br />
<b>Things I Baked. And Ate. And Swooned Over.</b><br />
* 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 href="http://bakingforbritain.blogspot.com/2006/04/sedgemoor-easter-cakes-somerset.html"> a similar recipe</a>, 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.<br />
<br />
<b>Things that Made Me Happy.</b><br />
* 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. <br />
<br />
* 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<i> don't you know</i>? And he made me feel like dancing right there in front of Primark.<br />
<br />
* Oh and speaking of Liverpool: <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/come-dine-with-me/4od">Come Dine With Me </a>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....<br />
<br />
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<b><i> it's ok-ness</i></b> 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... <br />
<br />
<b>Bit's of loveliness happen all day everyday don't they, so I'm off to empty the washing machine. </b><br />
<b>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.</b>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-48639722710792938642010-03-10T02:53:00.000-08:002010-03-10T08:00:26.084-08:00Hello Darling Spring...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S5dvWpp3pYI/AAAAAAAAC90/W3FjFM4JVuU/s1600-h/spring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="560" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S5dvWpp3pYI/AAAAAAAAC90/W3FjFM4JVuU/s640/spring.jpg" width="380" /></a></div><br />
Spring is such a gift isn't it? We muddle our way through Winter trying to see through the blankety walls we build between ourselves and real life, cursing cold and snow and bin- men who abandon our wheelie bins on frost covered paths, and it feels as though it will go on forever. That never again will the sun make the dust dance, nor will we dare to step outside without three thermal vests and the lesser spotted Long Johns...<br />
<br />
But no sooner are we resigned to a life rich in hot chocolate and frost bite, then lo and behold, with a flick of her glittery wand, Mother Nature banishes Winter and Spring settles upon our souls, inviting us to run to the school gates without a coat and pop into the garden three times a day to watch the buds of our chamelia unfurl before our eyes. Inviting us, most <i>curiously</i>, to be better than who we already are.<br />
<br />
This morning I woke up terribly early, the gnaw of period pain interrupting a gloriously vivid dream and making it impossible to sleep. And so I tumbled out of bed, all mussy hair and ruffled white nightie and crept like the ghost of myself, down the stairs.<br />
And there it was: Spring. Right there in my living room! She'd let herself in, all green and bright and beautiful. The ivy wrapped around the tree outside my window suddenly alive again. The sky the kind of crisp blue only Spring can deliver. The milkman whistling and jangling and happy.<br />
<br />
And so I sat and did nothing. Staring at the sun making patterns on my Victorian floorboards, doing nothing, reading nothing, sipping peppermint tea and making reckless plans. Dwelling on a weekend full of sorrow for a friends loss, fear of the kind of sinister goings on that have a nearby house and it's occupants held up by knife-point, and sensing that my relationship is in jeopardy because I'm too old for living right there in the moment with no plans for tomorrow. Because without plans we are lost. Because without plans we are at the mercy of trusting every fluttery emotion, unable to wrap ourselves up in the certainty of a bigger picture, no matter how vaguely sketched. Because without plans we drift, and nobody appreciates a drifter. Because as always my Darlings I am a slave to my hormones and my emotions <b>cannot always be trusted</b>, no matter how lyrically I might spill them out... <br />
<br />
It is a time for starting again, Spring isn't it? A time for shrugging off cocoons and fluttering our wings again. For getting a grip on what <i><b>is</b></i> and not what we hoped it might be, choosing to re-invent the same scrumptious wheel, and popping possibility like paracetamol, unhindered by the debilitating comforts of Winter and not yet exhausted by the heat of Summer.<br />
<br />
Spring I think, is more than anything, about celebrating life: new baby bunnies, frolicking lambs and ours. Our lives! It is about saying <b>this isn't all there is</b> and on this, the first day of my self-declared Spring, I can go out and chase life up and down the lane! I can channel Alice and admit that I used to be much <i>muchier</i>, that somewhere along the way I lost my <b>muchiness</b> and today, today my friends I am going to hunt high and low for it, and take no nonsense and remember to be myself and see the Doctor about my twitchy eye and make lemon curd and a birthday cake for Richard with hopes for tomorrow baked right there in the topping and hang out a line full of lavender scented aprons just because I can and sweep the front path and work on the project that makes me feel giddy and resist screeching when my son's teacher fails to notice that yet again he isn't in the line of children she is supposed to be delivering safely on to the playground, and instead go into the classroom myself and get him and the coat he hasn't quite managed to pull on and issue my icy, but effective<b> "I'm so disappointed in you again Lady" </b>face to dear old teacher, and whisper the (probably unlikely threat) of a letter of complaint and take him home and stuff him full of love and gluten free cornflake cakes and make the damn cardboard house for the school project that has turned into an a quite hideous display of parental talent and ostentation and maybe sign myself up for a course in anger management while I'm at it?<br />
<br />
<br />
Ah Spring. You are quite the devil aren't you? Who knew you could inspire such emotion? <i><b>Muchiness</b></i> ebb's and flows, but as sure as Easter eggs are chocolate, you return, and I for one, adore you.Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-5655878345733864112010-03-09T05:26:00.000-08:002010-03-09T05:28:04.505-08:00The Vintage Housekeeper's Planner Is Here!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S5ZDDQxHVhI/AAAAAAAAC8w/5sF3RPCbx6w/s1600-h/family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S5ZDDQxHVhI/AAAAAAAAC8w/5sF3RPCbx6w/s320/family.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Heavens above would you look at this, the day I'm not sure any of us believed would ever come has finally arrived! Yes my scrumptious, patient Housekeepers, the BrocanteHome Vintage Housekeepers Planner is finally available and I do believe it was worth waiting for!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">With sixty downloadable pages, charts, logs and forms there is absolutely everything you need to start to plan a life more organized: a home-maker's dream of routines, rituals, accounts, and records that will I hope make all the difference to your life as a Vintage Housekeeper and help you create the space, time and money to enjoy as many Puttery Treats as you feel you need: because that's what organization is all about really isn't? Shoving the dull stuff out the way so you can get on with living a truly fabulous life! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>So what is included in the download? </b><i><b>Are you ready for this??</b></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Housekeepers Creed</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A Page-A- Month 2010 Calendar</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Dates To Remember</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Morning Routine Planner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Evening Routine Planner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Weekly Routine Planner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Daily Planner Page</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Weekly Meal Planner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Monthly Dinner Planner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Shopping List</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Kid's Chore's Start Chart</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Favourite Family Recipe Cards</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Freezer Stock List</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Pantry Stores</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Dinner Party Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Grocery Price Check</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Important Addresses</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Birthday Gift Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Insurance Organizer</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Valuable Items Inventory</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Electrical Goods Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Credit and Debit Card Log</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Bank Account Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Everyday Spending Log</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Housekeepers Weekly Budget</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Housekeepers Monthly Budget</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Medical Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Medical Appointment Log</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">School Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">School Attendance Log</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Parent and Teacher Discussion Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Babysitter Information</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Emergency Caregiver Information</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Gardeners Annual Tasks</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Seed Starting Notes</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Houseplant Care</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Our Pet Log</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Internet Password Log</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Online Order Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ebay Sales</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ebay Purchases</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Book Wish List</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Library Book Record</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Favourite Puttery Treats</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Decorating Organizer</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Weekly Gratitude</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">21 Lovely Things.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I have based the Planner on the original Brocante Planner with a new design and colour scheme and many, many more pages and organizing ideas. Over the next year I will continue to offer free add-ons (blank pages, dividers and worksheets coming free to all Planner buyers next week!) and supplemental packs for sale (by popular request, for Empty Nesters, new Mummies, special events etc...) and this should mean that in the long term you will be able to organize your entire life through the little dotty wonder that is the Vintage Housekeepers Planner... </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>Should you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me </b><a href="mailto:brocantehome@gmail.com"><b>here</b></a><b> and in the meantime go right ahead and press the button below and buy yourself a teeny dose of bliss for just $17.50...</b></div><br />
<center><a class="ec_ejc_thkbx" href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cart&i=638835&cl=64139&ejc=2" onclick="javascript:return EJEJC_lc(this);" target="ej_ejc"><img alt="Add to Cart" border="0" src="http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/ej_add_to_cart.gif" /></a></center><center><br />
</center><center><a class="ec_ejc_thkbx" href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cart&i=638835&cl=64139&ejc=2" onclick="javascript:return EJEJC_lc(this);" target="ej_ejc"></a><b>Oh what it is to be organized Housekeepers!</b></center>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-32604125993175554202010-03-05T07:21:00.000-08:002010-03-05T07:23:24.256-08:00Because There Is No Milk In the House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S5ENGtF8l8I/AAAAAAAAC8Q/gejL9UEAbg8/s1600-h/glum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S5ENGtF8l8I/AAAAAAAAC8Q/gejL9UEAbg8/s400/glum.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Friday. Though there are things to be done and food to be bought, you return from the school gates and curl up with a book you need to finish before evening when the playground mummies will gather to discuss it. Though you are one hundred and seventy pages in, there are more than three hundred pages left before you will be able to deliver your view from an educated standpoint without sounding like you have gathered opinion from one of the many on the internet now seemingly shaping your personality.<br />
You read and because there is no milk in the house, drink sweet black coffee, pulling a musty scented blanket up to your chin and turning your phone on to silent so it's shrill ring will not disturb a world inhabited by gay men and sneering politicians. You lose yourself in it and everything beyond your sofa and the furtive realm of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Line-Beauty-Novel-Alan-Hollinghurst/dp/1582346100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267802096&sr=8-1">Conservative Britain circa 1986 </a>ceases to exist, though guilt weighs heavily on such absorption.<br />
You are avoiding yourself: this you know for sure.<br />
<br />
You are frightened of the weekend stretching ahead of you. A weekend that by your own insistence, you will spend alone: face to face with what you want. <i>What you need</i>. But before that there is an inevitable end to deal with: a story rich in vice and greed imploding on itself. With just ten pages left, at midday you find can't bear it, so you get up, unravelling your blanket like so many bandages. You find <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Lippincotes-Virago-Modern-Classics/dp/1844083098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267802341&sr=1-1">Mrs Lippincotes</a> neatly packaged in the porch and gather it up with a fistful of bills. Then you cook plain pasta and eat it sprinkled with nothing but black pepper from a bowl older than everybody you know. Your skin feels tight, shrivelling up, no doubt, in anticipation of your 38th birthday in a few weeks time. There is no milk in the house. Your burn your thumb. For the second day running you bite back tears. <br />
<br />
The thought of housework appals you. Days like this come rarely now, so you allow yourself the petty indulgences of self inflicted melancholy. You read the last ten pages of the book and tap two fingers into the fleshy side of the palm over and over again. You have stepped outside yourself and don't want to step back in to the obligations of housework. Or childcare. Or behaving like a normal human being. Though reading in the middle of the day strikes you as something akin to sin, you don't want to stop, so when you put down the most deserving of Man Booker Prize winning book club choice you barely allow yourself time to cross the decades before plummeting into Elizabeth Taylor's story of a woman unwilling to conform.<br />
<br />
<i>Reading</i> in the middle of the day. You suppress a <i><b>tsk</b></i> and carry on.<br />
<br />
There are just two hours left now until real life will drag you back on to the playground to pick up a child still so very high on what it is to <i>be</i>. Suddenly having no milk in the house strikes you as the worst kind of abbhoration: the most telling sort of domestic neglect. Tonight you must go to book-club and pretend to be normal. The sort of woman mindful of what is in her fridge. You shove feet into boots as comfortable as slippers and go out into a shock of sunshine. You must not bring a child into a house without milk. Children need milk the way Middle England needs wine: for fortitude and back-bone. Comfort and strength. You walk along, opinion springing unbidden to your mind. Opinion that will die a death on your tongue when faced with the good housewives of Aughton later on. But no matter, you <i>know</i> what you know.<br />
<br />
You walk home the long way, up the hill, huffing and puffing with life. The weekend is here. There is milk in the house. You are still capable of independant thought even if you cannot express it. Not so much unwilling to conform as unable. But all is well. <br />
All is well regardless. You dab another drop of Rescue Remedy under your tongue and try to come to terms with it.Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-15781655810594018772010-03-04T05:21:00.000-08:002010-03-04T06:31:33.578-08:00Housekeepers Carousel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4-efAnlHWI/AAAAAAAAC7Y/z5LLsRN3m-M/s1600-h/madonna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4-efAnlHWI/AAAAAAAAC7Y/z5LLsRN3m-M/s400/madonna.jpg" width="272" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>Welcome to my second Housekeepers Carousel: a quick round-up of all the things that stirring my emotions this week...</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">*First up, </span></b><a href="http://wulfing.artpassions.net/"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">Sulamith Wulfing</span></b></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">.</span></b> When I was a little girl my Mum owned a book called "Childhood" which combined Khalil Gibran quotes with images, like the one above, that at once bewitched me and sent a little shiver running down my childhood spine. The other day while hopping around the internet I came across that same <a href="http://wulfing.artpassions.net/">beautiful art</a> all over again, and for a little while I was a girl again, stirred by the beauty but still bewildered by the sorrow in the eyes of the children described.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">* </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">Next, <i>music</i>, because I feel like dancing this week.</span></b> And throwing every window in the house open and saying hello to my chamelia which has finally got around to blooming and wearing a frilly pinny to serenade the mop brush, and having a little cry because relationships are so bloody hard, and seeking comfort in yesterday and worrying a little bit about tomorrow and mostly just playing First Aid's "Ghost Town", the first song in the player above, over and over again because the words spike me, then mixing it all up with a whole dose of happy and memories and the kinds of songs one should really only play in the car so no-one need ever discover just how ludicrous you really are. And yes, I am talking about Rupert Holmes "Pina Colada" song. Click the arrows to hear whats on my (eclectic!) playlist this week...</div></center><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4-qwwjcNWI/AAAAAAAAC7g/XJcjxAXMcYA/s1600-h/keepingthe+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4-qwwjcNWI/AAAAAAAAC7g/XJcjxAXMcYA/s400/keepingthe+house.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>* Watching </b></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Vanity-Fair-Widescreen-Reese-Witherspoon/dp/B0006FO8E8/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1267705507&sr=8-2-fkmr0">Vanity Fair with Reece Witherspoon</a> as I write. Eating a tiny lunch of gouda cheese and yellow plums. Considering getting off my bottom to walk to the post office and procure a Cadbury's cream egg. Waiting for the delivery of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Rooms-Happiness-Yourself-Imperfections/dp/1401323359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267706173&sr=8-1">The Nine Rooms of Happiness </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/081297784X/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance">Keeping the House</a>, because rumour has it, it is some kind of wonderful. But rumour could of course be wrong so I will keep you posted!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4-rvx-mPlI/AAAAAAAAC7o/P2BHmDd6OLM/s1600-h/manifesto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4-rvx-mPlI/AAAAAAAAC7o/P2BHmDd6OLM/s400/manifesto.jpg" width="308" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">* <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ea9999;">Thrilled by the </span></b><a href="http://www.joyjunket.com/joy-junket-manifesto/"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ea9999;">Joy Junket</span></b></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ea9999;"> manifesto</span></b>. Making room for (even) more joy. Waiting with bated breath for mail order to arrive at Anthropologie.Co.Uk (Any minute now!). Feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities provided by Wordpress. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1252954/Cath-Kidston-pocket-30m-sale-brand-20-years-shop-assistant-created-famous-nostalgic-designs.html">Irrationally excited for Cath Kidston.</a> Horrified by the bitterness of Middle England in their reaction to her success. Making this Mark Twain quote my mantra...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>"Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol. You want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment."</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;"><b>* And seeing a bit of everyone of us</b></span> in this snippet I found I don't know where, (but please feel free to enlighten me if you do)...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>" These are the kind of girls who hang dream catchers above their bed, who eat pomegranates and read old history books for fun. These are the kind of girls who take pictures of their hands with disposable cameras and wallpaper their bathrooms with pretty roses. These girls sketch eyes and mouths and little drawings all over things, they look you right in the eye and almost through you when you speak to them.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>These girls camp out in their backyards for fun, they light candles everywhere, and if you visit them at home they usually have all sorts of animals. Their wardrobes are filled with silk robes and bows and hats, they drink tall glasses of milk and snack on chocolate while they watch the sun rise. These are the kind of girls who ride bikes through the city to the cinema that plays old movies in the middle of the day. They watch "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Rosemary's Baby". These are the kind of girls who are quiet in public. They were the kind of girls who put too many marshmallows in their hot chocolate and when the sun came down, lit the fire and pretended to be in the North Pole. They would water colour things they couldn't see, and eat French toast for lunch. These girls were the kind of girls who always believed in unicorns, they believed in the power of love and dreams. They were the kind of girls who gazed out of windows at bigger worlds, and rain made them think of faeries and tree houses. In the Summer they read Jane Austen and listened to Fleetwood Mac while sipping cold tomato juice.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>They told ghost stories under huge floral sheets, candles glowing beneath their faces. The spooky endings made them scream and laugh. They huddled together so they wouldn't get too scared. Every sound outside made them jump." </i></div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-30341483637873732052010-03-03T03:19:00.000-08:002010-03-03T03:22:01.347-08:00Rosy Royledge Shelf Trim<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S448arTszII/AAAAAAAAC6o/wqvvyilULxI/s1600-h/rose1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S448arTszII/AAAAAAAAC6o/wqvvyilULxI/s400/rose1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There can't be a prettier sight than opening a cupboard and seeing shelves trimmed with roses which is why discovering lengths of <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Box-PINK-ROSES-Vintage-ROYLEDGE-SHELF-PAPER-EDGING_W0QQitemZ370343013545QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item563a29eca9#ht_4413wt_1165">vintage Royledge paper edging</a> ($8.99: auction ends March 8th 2010) on <a href="http://www.ebay.com/">Ebay</a> is always such a pleasure, with the rosy length above being a particularly scrumptious example...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S45DFWZH_vI/AAAAAAAAC6w/ksoyINixTIY/s1600-h/royledge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S45DFWZH_vI/AAAAAAAAC6w/ksoyINixTIY/s400/royledge.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=royledge&_sacat=See-All-Categories">Royledge</a> was a company producing the most scrumptious of shelf trim, lining and a collection of rather fabulous "Roillies", aka paper doillies, most pertinently from a vintage housekeeping aesthetic in the 1940's and 1950's. While shelf trim and lining from other companies can often be found while treasure hunting it is the site of box of Royledge trim that most delights my heart, because it is so often scattered in the kind of pretty florals we all adore in color schemes that haven't dated...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There is just something so puttery about lining and edging shelves in happy little patterns that I can't resist, though of course exactly the same effect can be achieved with lengths of vintage lace or ruffly trim...</div>Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-61071132184999837632010-03-02T01:43:00.000-08:002010-03-02T01:43:14.322-08:00Let Sleeping Babies Lie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4zcrXtjsqI/AAAAAAAAC4s/A9a5CU7s3qE/s1600-h/finleyasleep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4zcrXtjsqI/AAAAAAAAC4s/A9a5CU7s3qE/s400/finleyasleep.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Just because I never want to forget how precious he looks when he is asleep.Alison Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12883092950196612309noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656175568786605239.post-3946163007258490492010-03-01T07:15:00.000-08:002010-03-01T07:22:13.452-08:00A Very Puttery February<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4vICEDpwtI/AAAAAAAAC4E/CTLVWOtlV8I/s1600-h/linen3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wehuf0kkoO4/S4vICEDpwtI/AAAAAAAAC4E/CTLVWOtlV8I/s400/linen3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Goodness, commit to doing something once a month and in the blink of an eye, a whole month passes by. Because, yes Sweethearts, it is time for all my <a href="http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36199284&ref=sr_gallery_1&&ga_search_query=puttery+post&ga_search_type=all&ga_page=&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title">Puttery Post</a> lovelies to check their in-boxes all over again and discover this months Puttery Treats waiting to be collected in one easy download...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">February was I think, a rather fabulous puttery month, jam-packed with a series of treats created by little old me and designed to deliver a little good old fashioned homemaking efficiency to your door with all the scrumptiousness you have come to expect from BrocanteHome. Between de-stinking slippers, writing "Happiness" cards and wafting up home-made tumble dryer softener, this month on the Puttery Post we also got to grips with the menace that is the abundance of chargers we are now required to own, organized a Read Me Later file, mixed up some flu-fighting home-made hand sanitizer, chose a "Flower Book", created some "Just Because" bowls and awarded someone we love with dinner on an "Aren't You Wonderful" plate...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">All that and much more! But my favourites this month? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b>The <i>Read Me Next Shelf</i> from February 3rd</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>If you are anything like me you probably have a barely checked book fetish, and find yourself acquiring book after book with hardly a good hour to spare to read!<br />
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While words may be essential to your survival, the constant acquisition of new books is bad for your purse, so today let's do battle with "<b><i>Gotta have New Books Syndrome!</i></b>" and instead establish a system to read what we already own before we go trawling the second-hand book shops for one more vintage literary treasure to add to our collection... <o:p></o:p><br />
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1. First choose a place where "books you haven't read" are going to live. Empty a bookshelf, choose a big basket, or allocate a window ledge on which to store them: preferably somewhere you pass frequently so you will be constantly reminded what is available to read...<br />
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2. Scour the entire house for all the books you haven't read, then sort them into two piles: books you won't read in a million years and books you still plan on reading.<br />
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3. Give away or recycle the books you won't read in a million years. Today!!<br />
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4. Place all the other books on your "<b>Read Me Next</b>" shelf. Add library books and borrowed books while you are at it...<br />
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5. Finally (and this is key) make a list of the books you haven't read in the back of your <b>Book Journal</b> and tick them off one by one...<br />
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<b>Only when the shelf is empty are you allowed to go book shopping!</b><br />
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<b><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And <i>The Bedside Table </i>from February 11th</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I always think that the bedside drawer is the one place in the house we should regard as sacred: that it is a private, secret, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">cosy</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> place that at once speaks of our more sensual selves, whilst providing a comforting space in which to keep those things that safeguard us in the middle of the night.</span><br />
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</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Today let's tip out all of the nonsense we have accumulated over a lifetime of shoving in goodness knows what and re-invent our private little worlds in a way that does just justice to who we are and what we need when we are snuggled up under the cosiest of quilts. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b><b><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><b><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Empty the drawer and return anything that doesn't belong in it to its rightful home. Wipe the drawer out with a cloth scented with lemon juice and lavender oil, then go through your stash of vintage linen and source a pretty embroidered runner or tray cloth to use to line your drawer.</span></div></div></div></b></b></div></b></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Now comes the fun part: choosing the items to put back in your drawer.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">First of all think practically: every bedside drawer should contain a spare set of house and car keys, a spare mobile phone with pay as you go credit available, a torch, a packet of matches and a couple of household candles. (Don't forget to copy a short list of emergency and family telephone numbers on to the back of a vintage postcard in case the mobile fails). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Next up, add spare reading glasses, a tiny little photograph album with your most treasured family photographs in, your journal, a couple of the kind of pens that make you smile, some pillow spray, paper handkerchiefs, lavender sleep balm, aspirin and herbal sleeping tablets.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Other ideas? A small packet of facial wipes. Private letters wrapped in a hankie and tied in a bow. A tube of hand cream or preferably an all purpose balm like the very wonderful night-stand classic that is Elizabeth Arden's Eight Hour Cream. Bach Sleep Remedy. Massage oil. A tiny notepad. A pretty embroidered handkerchief. Vic's Vapour Rub. A packet of parma violets for sweet breath first thing in the morning. Lip balm. A book that is important to you. A secret bar of the darkest, most scrumptious chocolate you can find. A bundle of short lengths of ribbon for book-marking. A little batch of post-it notes. A pashmina folded flat for draping around cold shoulders. </span><br />
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And of course anything else you need beside your bed. Night night Housekeepers..<br />
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