Clean Cars, Clean Cupboards & The Big Bad Bed Swap Row!

Monday again! The weekend seemed to whizz by at top speed and here we are again, back on the treadmill of everyday normal life. The little ones were back at school today, they trotted off quite happily, glad to see their friends again. I came home to a strangely quiet house and did the normal Monday chores before tackling the worst job in the world - cleaning out the very filthy car.

It had reached that point when drastic action had to be taken. I hoovered up endless crumbs, dirt, squashed sweeties, washed stains and stickies off seats, threw away loads of rubbish and sweet wrappers, removed various coats, rugs, gloves and four odd socks, polished the dashboard and finally restored the car back to a condition that is fit for humans to travel in. I treated the old girl to a whizz through the car wash and she looks so much better for it. I am now officially promising to take better care of her in future. I am not going to allow the poor thing to ever get into that state again - promise.

The weekend was fairly relaxing, we spent time out in the garden on Saturday morning before heading off to spend a very pleasant day with the In-laws.

I took a few pictures of some of the lovely flowers that are blooming and looking at their very best.

These Arum lilies were bought back in March with only two flowers open, haven't they gone mad!

The poppies are looking fab too, rain please don't wreck them just yet.

All the roses are looking magnificent this year, I reckon the really cold winter did them the power of good.

The strawberries are getting fatter by the day, they just need to ripen up now.

Saturday morning brought great excitement when the postie delivered my fairy tale swap parcel. Vanessa at hapi-ness sent me these gorgeous goodies. She apologised as two items she had ordered for my parcel hadn't turned up. I think the parcel was pretty fab even without the items.

All wrapped up and ready to open

I got all of the following:- two fab china cups and saucers, a bag of sweeties, some Hansel & Gretal note paper, a very sweet spotty diary, a gorgeous smelly bath bomb, a very sweet little note book and some fairy tale packing tape. Thank you so much Vanessa, once again you have proved to be a great swap partner.



Saturday morning we took a walk up the road in search of some of these little beauties...

Elderflowers. We picked lots of flower heads, here we are picking away....

We took them home, gave them a good shake out and placed 20 heads into a large bowl. We then added the rind from two lemons and the two lemons sliced up, 75 grams of citric acid.

We then added 1.8kg of granulated sugar into 1.2 litres of water and brought the sugary liquid to the boil. We very carefully poured the boiling sticky syrup over the flowers and lemons and left them to steep for a day.

We carefully strained the liquid through a sieve and muslin cloth and bottled up the golden liquid into bottles and made our very own elderflower cordial. Delicious diluted with water - fizzy, spring or plain old tap. These three bottles will be gone in a flash.

Sunday - Mr P was up early and headed off to play golf, so I got up and decided to sort out some of the worst offending kitchen cupboards. I long to have a dresser so that I can display all my vintage china and cornish ware but that's not going to happen until we move house. In the mean time I will just have to make do with a glass fronted kitchen cupboard.

This cupboard looks much better for a wash and sort out. Before it was full of odds and sods. I even cleaned out the medicine cupboard, some stuff was 6 years out of date!! Note to myself - CLEAN OUT CUPBOARDS MORE OFTEN YOU LAZY MOO!!

After the mini spring clean we poped out to the magpies nest which is held every month. I found this pretty cup and another Stratton compact for my collection. Alex was desperate for me to buy him a ship in bottle, it was horrid, so when he came home he made himself one from an old jam jar and a paper boat! I treated Daisy to a couple of Wade Whimsies for her mini collection.

Guess who went to a Jamie Oliver at home party the week before half term? Guess who has absolutely no will power and bought three new storage jars with ceramic pea green lids, a mixing bowl with a pea green rim and an over priced "make your garden feed you" tea towel. Yep you guessed it! I must stop buying, I must stop buying - repeat after me!

It all went a bit pear shaped on Saturday night in our house and resulted in what has now been officially called "the big bad bed swap row " - it's long and messy story which involved a poorly Alex who would not sleep in his bed (he wanted to sleep in our bed with Mr P), an hysterical Daisy who point blank refused to swap beds and sleep in Alex's 3/4 sized cabin bed (so that I could sleep in her single bed) and me who was nearly bed less at one point. There was lots of crying and sobbing, hysterical shouting and threats of "you will be sleeping in the play house if you don't stop crying" - not a pretty scene at 10pm.

The row highlighted the fact that 3/4 sized cabin beds are rubbish for fully grown adults particularly when you can feel the springs in the worn out mattress. So today I ordered Alex a very smart new full sized single bed. This prompted the "we must decorate his room" conversation and so a date has been set for the weekend after next. I fear a busy few weeks on the horizon.

Off to knitting group tomorrow and book club on Thursday, looking forward to both. Have a great week.

Till next time.

Alison

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