Saturday afternoon

On Saturday afternoon we decided to visit Monks House the country home of Leonard and Virginia Woolf in the beautiful village of Rodmell nestled in the Sussex Downs. We are lucky as this is such a short drive from us and have been able to visit this beautiful property many times. As it is a National Trust property photographs are not allowed in the house but if you look here you will find some of the rooms.



Just a few miles away from Charleston, the home of Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell, this lovely house was owned by the Woolfs until Leonard's death in 1969.



It provided a refuge for Virginia when the stresses of strains of London life became too much and they did move down here properly when their London property was bombed during the war.



Here is the entrance to her bedroom. It is separate from the house and to enter it you would leave the main building and walk a few steps across the garden - not so appealing in the cold winter months, It was apparently intended to be her writing room but she did not want to write in there, she loved the bright sunniness of the room and the views that opened out across the garden. It is a lovely room, quite self contained with beautiful tiles around the fireplace that were painted for her by her sister Vanessa Bell.



Virginia Woolf was able to walk across the Downs to visit her sister, across the water meadows that flanked the property and over the fields to Charleston.



Because Leonard continued to live on at Rodmell long after Virginia's death the house has been beautifully preserved and many villagers are still alive who have memories of the couple.



On Saturday we were fortunate to meet one of the stewards at the property who was the daughter of the Woolfs' gardener.



She told me that Leonard was very interested in her family and would often ask her as a little girl how she was getting on at school. He would always ask what she was reading and on one occasion, on hearing that she had nothing to read, he took her into the house and asked Virginia to help him find something for the little 9 year old to read.



As they had just moved down from London there were piles of books everywhere and eventually Virginia pulled out a book for her to read. On hearing that this little girl had done well in her exams Leonard gave her five shillings and would go on to be a referee for her when she applied to train as a teacher.



Apparently he would bring crates of apples from his orchard to the village school (maybe in the vain hope of stopping the boys scrumping them!).



She found Virginia to be quite formidable, I think I would have too.



There is a large vegetable plot which is now tended by the tenants and villagers.



When we were there we got talking (again!) to a villager who was digging up some veg and he asked the girls if they knew what the big tree was in front of them. They didn't know and he told them that it was a walnut tree planted by Leonard Woolf in 1930s.



He asked us if we liked pickled walnuts and then gave us a huge bagful to pickle. So we shall think of Monks House at Christmas when we eat our walnuts - does anyone have a good recipe for pickled walnuts - we need to do them justice!



In the garden stands Virginia's writing room, A modest little building with the village church behind it, their orchard to one side and the beautiful garden in front.



It is just a short walk from the house and must have provided her with the calm and solitude for her writing.



Although this house is far smaller than Charleston it does retain an atmosphere of a home. it was as Virginia said "an unpretending house" that had many writers visit and stay.



A home that seemed quiet and calm, a home where much reading and writing and entertaining was done and a garden that Leonard enjoyed for many years.



It is from this house that Virginia walked in 1941 leaving behind a suicide note to her husband and amongst the words were these : " I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been." Her ashes are scattered in the garden along with those of her husband.

Seaside Sunday

M went to visit his father yesterday who's been poorly recently. The girls and I decided to spend the afternoon on the beach. We drove along the coast, away from the city, out and over the Downs. We turned the car radio on to FIP and imagined we were on holiday. Not such a hard thing to do with the sun shining, the sea glistening in the sun on one side and the green hills and hedgerows of the Downs on the other. Little Sister said that it felt like summer, she wasn't wrong.



Ten minutes later we were sitting on a near deserted beach, listening to the waves lapping against the rocks and eating our sandwiches. I do know how lucky we are to live where we do, the coast and the countryside literally on our doorstep. Fortunately my daughters appreciate it too. Big Sister said to me yesterday that if we ever had to move away she would miss the sea so much. Not that we are always down on the beach, in fact in Summer we rarely go the main beach, preferring the grey somewhat desolate winter months to walk between the piers. We tend to pack a picnic and drive out for our days by the sea.



I'm glad they appreciate the beauty of the sea, how calming and relaxing it can be. How you can just literally lose yourself staring out onto the horizon watching a boat sailing past, when the sun shines you could be anywhere. When I was little days out by the sea seemed to involve days of planning. We would always go with various Aunts , Uncles and cousins. We always had egg sandwiches and we were always stuck in endless traffic jams. It being England we would check regularly to see what the cows were up to every time we past a field. Cows lying down were always such a bad sign - and they invariably were!!! Whatever the weather though we always had such fun.



I remember reading my daughters this story by Shirley Hughes. I loved it and they loved it. It seemed to capture all the excitement and magic of going to the seaside and I seem to remember that a lot of time was spent preparing the food to take as well - I have such vivid memories of the food being packed for our seaside days out when I was little, eggs being boiled, oranges chopped and cakes being made. What a lot of packing was involved ...



It was a lazy affair for us yesterday, some sandwiches, fruit, cookies and crisps which resulted in a very heated debate and a lot of reminiscing over favourite crisp flavours!



We took our books, the girls paddled, held hands (a rare occurrence these days) and discovered that they do enjoy each other's company despite the age gap.



Little Sister brought her drawing book, I remember never sitting on the beach without mine either when I was little. Big Sister was determined to soak up the rays and most of all we chatted. Sitting by the sea it does feel that time stands still, there is time to chat, to laugh and play. Us three girls like Russian Dolls (I am no longer the tallest!) spending time together, making memories of a Sunday afternoon. I realised on the drive home how wonderful our blogs are to record these kind of days, to capture days together when, deep down as a parent, you know it won't be long before your children stop wanting to share sunny Sunday afternoons with you. I hope they remember their days by the sea as fondly as I do my hazy childhood memories. Of course, just like when I was little, we bought 99s on the way home, our noses were pink (you were right Mrs Custard), our clothes smelt of the sea and our bags seemed to take forever to unpack.

An AB FAB kind of day

This post could have gone one or two ways - it could have been a tale of bad Monday morning blues, grey skies and cat vomit but instead is one of Sunday afternoon grey skies and a trip to the countryside to revisit one of our all time fav places. It was a close call but here was a tale I wanted to share and besides the photos were far prettier!



This weekend M and I both felt in need of cheering up and it being Father's Day M got to choose what we were up to. A visit to Charleston Farmhouse was what he really wanted, we hadn't been for a while and he was having serious withdrawal issues! Readers of this post will know how much we love the work of the Bloomsbury artists and how lucky we are living so close to much of their old stomping ground.



So just a short drive away (and a brief entanglement with the London to Brighton bike ride) we found ourselves at Charleston. M and I use to pootle here in my old 2CV when we first moved down from London and it seems that we were here most Sundays when it was first opened to the public.



What I will always remember is that my 2CV somehow always just made it there before smoke started to come in through the dashboard, how we always came home thoroughly in love with the place and how M just adores the smell of the cow manure that hits you (the smell that is, not the cow poo) the minute you trundle down the little lane into the car park! Unfortunately it is now a smell that we will always associate with the place.



Even after nearly twenty years of visiting this house never loses its magic.



Even the beautiful dove grey paint of the woodwork makes me smile.




From the early days when restoration work was still in process and in evidence until today it has always been much more than a showcase for the work of the Bloomsbury artists, it has been very much a home. You get the feeling on entering that the owners have just slipped out for a walk and rather like Goldilocks you can snoop around this wonderful home undisturbed. What is also wonderful about the place is that the paintings on display always vary, items are donated, things turn up or are loaned and so you are never sure what you might see.



Unfortunately no photography is allowed indoors but if you visit hereand here, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. No surface has been left unpainted, furniture, doors, tiles all have been painted. Lampshades have been made from wonderful old fabrics, upturned handglazed colanders used as lampshades, handmade crockery, paintings that would make you drool, and the worst thing is that it all looks so deceptively doable!



The garden was planted as an artists" garden.



Forgive the greyness of the photos it was a dreary day, there are masses of wonderful flowers here, hidden corners, areas where you could imagine Duncan Grant or Vanessa Bell sitting with their easels looking out onto the Downs or on their own little patch of beauty.



Terraces where you could imagine Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and E M Forster involved in some heated debate. The pond where the children would spend hours mucking around on rafts







Beautiful statues made by Quentin Bell, perfectly placed



- I wish I could do the place justice!



Not a bad way to celebrate Father's Day eh? A good day, a happy day, you might say a fabulous day.



What made it an Absolutely Fabulous kind of day was a chance encounter with Joanna Lumley - Mr Ragged Roses was a very happy man!

Rambling Roses

Looking out of the window this past week you could be fooled into thinking that we have fast forwarded to Winter half term, grey skies, rain, rain and more rain. Not that this is the view from my window - mine offers views of half munched plants left over from the National Snails' Convention that seems to take place daily in my garden. But I'm rambling already - what we wanted was to go in search of views like this. No car, proper walking, picnic lunch and rain macs.



So the other day we took a train to here. A little village nestling in the Downs that we have driven to many times before but this time decided to meander around on foot and walk on to another village across country.



I really love this part of the country even when it's grey the greenness of the softy rolling Downs and the beauty of the plants never fails to move me. One of my favourite, gentle books is "A Postillion Struck by Lightning" by Dirk Bogarde. It is the first part of his autobiography and he writes of a seemingly idyllic childhood where he spent long periods in his family's house in this part of the South Downs. It is a beautiful book.



We had no plan really other than to visit our favourite church. So we walked past our favourite country pub (not without some wavering) and soon arrived here:




St Michael and All Angels Church in Berwick Village. It is such a beautiful church dating from mid 12th century. Nestled amongst the Downs, in a quiet pretty village, on passing you would have no idea of the other treasures that it holds. Inside it is tranquill and still, the views from the windows reflecting its beauty. The stained glass of the windows had been destroyed by bombs during the war and were replaced by plain glass making the church lighter and brighter. What makes it so special for me are its wonderful murals and paintings. Just a few miles from the church lived the artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell (their beuatiful home is perhaps our favourite place to visit) and they were asked to paint the church. It was a bold and brilliant idea. (it might be worth clicking on the following photos to enlarge them).



The Nativity by Vanessa Bell. It is set firmly in local countryside - a Sussex barn, the Downs in the background and local shepherds used as models. It's lovely soft muted colours work so beautifully in its setting.



This wonderful painting is by Duncan Grant, he has incorporated kneeling figures of local serviceman and churchmen.




Below it on the Chancel Screen are The Four Seasons, Dawn and Sunset. These illustrate typical Sussex rural scenes of the time.



My favourite is the pulpit. Originally painted by Vanessa Bell but later destroyed by vandals, it was replaced by work from Duncan Grant using designs from, their daughter, Angelica Garnett.



Each panel is a wonderful painting of fruit and flowers and the colours and detail are just so typical of their nearby home at Charleston.



I have always loved the soft dove, almost lilacy grey that they used.
Inside the Chancel there are wonderful frescoes by Vanessa Bell's son, Quentin Bell.



This is one is so beautiful and its delicate tones and lines remind me of the many illustrations and designs of the Bloomsbury group.



If you're ever passing by, it really is worth a visit. It is a church firmly set in the countryside and a church that has let the countryside in.
So we walked on and on.



Passing beautiful cottages,



seeing lots of cows, rabbits and a heron.



With our arms held high to avoid the nettles and our legs flagging we finally got to Alfriston for our picnic.



Another gorgeous house to admire (of which there are many here). This being one of our kind of rambles we of course come on the day when everything is closed and the next bus to the station is 3 hours later!



But it didn't really matter, we stopped for ice creams and the walk back didn't really seem that long. It was the next day when I tried to move my legs that I noticed!



Fingers crossed for a sunny weekend - have a good one
x

Enchanted April

Thank you all so much for your lovely, warm and supportive comments on my last post. As you can see from the above photo, Big Sister is back enjoying life again. The exam went well (she thinks) and it's another week of revising but the weekend was fun. Here she is enjoying the freedom at Heaven Farm.



I can't believe that it's a year since we last went for our bluebell walk and the bluebells this year were even better than lasts.



It's a poorly Ragged Roses writing this post, having spent the past 24 hours sleeping and being sick I am trying very hard to muster up the enthusiam to do justice to this magical place.



Acres and acres of blue ribboned land, birdsong and the trickle of streams.



Ancient trees, deer and we're sure the odd fairy or two. Look at this glittery dust we found on a tree,



proof if ever there was ...



It was a grey day when we visited but this seemed to enhance the colour of the bluebells.



What a wonderful colour combination, the fresh vivid blues and vibrant greens and I wish you could have smelt the flowers too. The smell of pure, fresh Spring!
I think I need to have a little rest again now and I'll leave you with some more photos. Sorry if I made any of you shed a tear on the last post I'll be round with some ice cream and mad mum dancing when I'm feeling better. Have a good few days.

What a difference a day makes

Hello! I can't tell you how good it is to be back, looking forward to catching up with all of your news over the next day or so. Before I do, here's the highlights of the past few days. Our weekend was one of two very distinct halves:



SATURDAY - RIVER VIEWS
We took the girls up to London for the day. A day of visiting galleries, walking along the river and eating. It was a good day. Grey but good, as if all the colour had been bleached from the city. The sort of grey that affects all your senses, mutes the noise and softens the sights.



We started off at the Tate where the girls fell in love with all the wonderful Pre Raphaelite paintings, (particularly the very lovely and romantic "April in Love" ) and mooched around the galleries in awe of all the colour and beauty that they contained.



We walked along the embankment and London and the Thames reminded me so much of one of the Whistler paintings I had seen. Grey, soft and quiet. There is nothing like walking around a city to fully appreciate it. No matter how many times you drive around it, it's only when walking that you can appreciate the scale and beauty of its buildings and stumble across hidden treasures that you never knew were there.



This monument commemorating the abolition of slavery in the grounds of Parliament, I had never noticed before.



Big Sister was very excited to find the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst and Little Sister listened (perhaps pretending to be interested) as she told her all about the suffragetes.



Even in busier parts of London and the hot tourist spots, there was time to stop and marvel.



I love the mix of old and new London in this photo.



We carried on walking down the embankment opposite the London Eye towards Somerset House and went to the Courtauld Gallery. This has to be one of my favourite art galleries. When I was at school I remember my art teacher always going on about this place but I think it took me about ten years to finally visit it. If you ever get the chance and haven't been it really is worth the visit. Quiet and out of the way, it houses a wonderful collection of Impressionist , Post-Impressionist and Bloomsbury paintings which for me was the highlight of the trip.
The girls loved it and want to go back for more, I think it was one of our best days in London.

SUNDAY BEST (the one where Miss Blossom finally gets a dress)



A day of colour and unexpected sunshine. An early trip to the car boot where I find a lovely little vintage dress for Miss Blossom (only £1). I've got my eye on it for myself but she is rather more endowed than me and I would feel mean taking it from her now. So out into the garden she came, all dressed up and she held court over my car booty.



This could be mistaken for a spot the difference photo from the last post. I was lucky enough to find candy stripe pillow cases for last week's sheets. Another enamel tub and an old flour pot which is destined to become a flower pot of a different kind.



A couple of apothecary bottles from an old local chemist shop which now sit on the groaning bathroom shelf.



This tea cup and saucer were just too pretty to ignore and they came running home with me. They reminded me of all my floral postcards which came outside to be sorted.



Sssssh I'll let you into a secret, I'm not the only squirrel around.



Meet Sir Squigs the fattest squirrel in town. He spent the afternoon admiring my treasures and, unfortunately, digging up the bulbs but we love him (not as much as the cats do as he provides their only form of exercise).



MONDAY - THE DAY I NEARLY LOST IT ALL

The girls went back to school I sat down to catch up at the computer and within five minutes the smell of burning and the computer had died. I spent the day beside myself. Am I the only one who never backs anything? All my photos. contacts, work details - everything had potentially disappeared. I didn't sleep well. It was a black sort of day.



But hooray M took it to work and the hard drive was retrieved (does that sound right?). The memory board had burnt out (I know the feeling) and we have had to borrow a computer. So a happy ending of sorts.
Right I'm off to catch up with all your lovely news while I can. It may be a grey drizzly kind of day but I'm so so happy to be back. Sorry again for the length of this post - 48 hours without internet access is a long time!

Spring in our steps at last

It's been a great start to the Spring school holidays here. We've been lucky enough to meet up with lots of friends, begin the week with snowladies in the garden and end it with a day on the beach. How lovely it is to be back out in the garden again, to hear the girls laughing outside and to feel that the shorter days are behind us. Even my two lazy cats have been smitten. The other day we were all in the garden when one came charging out from the house and straight up the very, very tall ash tree at the back of the garden. For a cat who finds moving from one sofa to another requires the most supreme of efforts, this newfound energy came as quite a surprise to us all. What she hadn't realised was the height of the tree and that of course she needed to get down. Imagine the scene, little sister sobbing on the garden bench, me trying to stay calm sitting on top of the garden shed trying to "talk her down", two teenage girls flapping around and the cat crying. Eventually after much shrieking we decided to try the ladder. Needless to say it took us a good ten minutes to work out how to extend the ladder safely against the tree and when we had we turned round to see the cat sitting smugly next to me on top of the shed! Cats, who'd have 'em!



Yesterday afternoon both daughters were out and I decided to get on with things. I hate to say it but the rug, cupboard hanging or the dreaded hall painting weren't even tackled. I'd bought an old pair of steps from the junk shop a couple of days ago and couldn't wait to use them. They were covered in paint stains and had an old plastic seat cover that was ripped. so I gave them a lick of paint, some of my favourite old fabric and a flourish of ric rac. What do you think? I'm pleased with them and at long last I can reach the top of the bookshelves without climbing on the very wobbly computer chair.



A whole new world opened up for me. Books I hadn't seen in years and cobwebs too. This is such a lovely book. Written in 1952, it's a journey along the Southern coast of England exploring the towns, villages etc beside the English Channel. It has wonderful colour plates by Keith Baynes.



I love this one of Brighton pier



and this one of Dungeness, before the power station. It's a great book and has great stories of villages and towns from Devon to Kent.



It wasn't good enough to just look at the pictures though - today we drove along the coast and spent the day at Rottingdean.



I love this village, the quiet little pebbly beach, the mixture of old beautiful cottages and the grander houses in which people like Rudyard Kipling and the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones once lived (this is his house).



So a day on the beach, eating chips beside the sea and doughnuts from the bakers. Coming home with sun kissed and newly freckled faces - lovely.

Feeling bookish

Thank you all so much for your lovely kind comments on the last post. I am beginning to feel better and slowly catching up on some sleep. You are all so supportive, thank you!



Our half term started at the weekend with a trip to the British Museum in London (yes another project to be completed during the holidays). I cannot believe how lucky we are to have so many treasures to view in our museums, not sure whether they should still be there or returned to their native countries, but that's another story. I love the British Museum.



The majesty of the building and the magnificence of its contents never fail to leave me awestruck.



As we strolled around the Egyptian rooms it was so hard for little sister and indeed, all of us, to believe that these artefacts had actually been made by the Ancient Egyptians themselves. Learning about the Egyptians in a classroom is one thing but seeing real sarcophagus, mummies and treasure is another.



The museum is in one of my favourite parts of London - Bloomsbury. I could walk its streets for hours, there is so much history around here. When I was a student I loved strolling around the colleges and visiting the careers office just to have a nose round the buildings. Rows of gorgeous Georgian houses and beautiful squares, blue plaques on many of the homes. It is easy to imagine the Woolfs or any of the other "Bloomsberries" strolling around. So many hidden gems behind those facades. It would have been wonderful to have visited in the 20s and 30s.



A few months ago I read about a publishing house in this area of town that I wanted to visit. I forgot the name and had almost given up when out of the blue I received an email from somebody who reads my blog, We'd been writing to each other about the books we were reading and she asked me if I'd heard of Persephone Books - that was it, the name of the publishers! Thank you Jackie! We managed to squeeze in a visit to the shop as well as it was just a short stroll from where we were.. It is everything I imagined, a beautiful little shop, in a beautiful street filled with beautiful books! Quiet and unassuming from the outside and totally enchanting and seductive inside. Rows and rows of beautifully printed and packaged books, mostly by women dating from the early to the mid-twentieth century. Books that have been neglected and overlooked have been given a second lease of life - I wanted them all.



Each book has a beautiful dove grey cover with gorgeous patterned endpapers and matching bookmarks. Some designs are based on fabrics by the Bloomsbury artists for example or a 30s scarf or print dress.



The hardest part was the choosing. I came home with three new books. "Marianna" by Monica Dickens, which promises to be like "I Capture the Castle" so that had me hooked, "William, an Englishman" by Cicely Hamilton which is a novel set against World War 1 and "Miss Pettigrew lives for a day" by Winifred Watson which is described as an adult Cinderella tale. I could have bought them all. You can even buy them ready gift wrapped if you could bear to part with them as presents.



The website is wonderful and the mail order is very fast, but if you get the chance try and visit the shop and see the books firsthand (and the beautiful 1930s dress that's in the window!).
I came home grinning. clutching my beautifully wrapped treasure. I've started Marianna and really enjoying it too. I wish there were more shops like this, it was more than worth the five minute walk from the museum. If you're up visiting a museum and have had quite enough of queuing in the gift shop, I can recommend this detour.

A reminder

Just in case I forget just how beautiful the sky was this morning I took my camera with me for a wander round town. Some things we take so much for granted that we no longer notice them. I can't remember when I last stopped and looked at the Royal Pavilion as I walked through its gardens to the town centre or the Lanes. How could I have got so used to its sheer "out of placeness", its flamboyance and beauty? I stopped in front of it for a few minutes this morning and wondered at its spectacle. Against the sky, you could be fooled into forgetting that you were indeed in a busy English seaside town.



Another thing I am in danger of taking for granted round here is the sheer abundance of art available to us. As I turned to take photos of the Dome (the former stables of the Prince Regent and now a concert hall) I remembered that the museum in the same building was staging an exhibition that I had long been planning to see.



I'm glad I took a detour. The exhibition, charting the history of the little black dress, since its introduction in the 20s by Coco Chanel, to the present day was wonderful.


I think we probably have all had at one time or another that little black dress in our wardrobe to fall back on. That little staple that makes us feel good and is always dependable.



Thanks to Audrey the little black dress is now an icon. Although, the Breakfast at Tiffany's dress wasn't present there were dresses from the 20s onwards. Having never owned a designer frock I marvelled at the sheer beauty of these creations, their cut, fabric and design. I wouldn't have minded any of them being in my wardrobe! I have been watching the fascinating series about Savile Row on TV and drooling over the bespoke tailoring and cut of the suits and glimpses into the parallel lives of those who buy them, some of whom are pure eccentrics (last week an explorer came to have his explorer's suit altered, he was just off to the Amazon to hunt down a meteorite - and I thought Indiana Jones was pure fantasy). Having seen close up today the beauty of a couture dress I can fully understand the temptation, if not the price!

Sunday Stroll

For those of you who were unable to get out today or had the benefit of the beautiful weather why don't you come along with us for a stroll? It's just the three of us, Big Sister has gone off with a friend. Up to our favourite spot on The Downs. Little Sister is leading the way, wrap up warm though it's a bit chilly up here.



Clambering on we go as Little Sister rushes ahead shouting "I'm Free", in fact we are all free today, free of the confines of being indoors and able to enjoy such beautiful countryside.



The Downs are slowly waking from their wintry sleep and things are still a bit slippery underfoot so be careful. No signs of flowers up here yet although plenty of new shoots and buds appearing on trees and shrubs. In amongst a clump of trees we find this moss covered branch. Isn't it a beautiful green?



Along this country lane down into the village where we find clumps of snowdrops, primroses (yes primroses) in bloom and so many daffodils just waiting to burst. At the bottom of the Downs across a track a Hare jumps out in front of us and hurtles into the hedgerows.



Back up now to the top, it's a long steep climb and for people with little legs it seems to get longer and longer.



Just when you think you're getting closer to Daddy Longlegs...



he steps up a gear and moves further away, leaving us stragglers woefully behind.



Keep going we're almost there, it's worth it, the view from the top is really beautiful. Home and a cup of tea are only five minutes away!

What year is it?

Yes we did make it out on Friday! For some strange reason everything fell into place, the oldest went off to her sleepover, dressed as a corpse bride and returning on Saturday looking more like a zombie (without the help of make up, thanks to no sleep!). The youngest decided to be a little angel, enjoyed being alone with the new babysitter too. So off we went, me, M and two other male friends who's partners had also had babysitter problems and were forced to stay at home (must have been something in the air on Friday). We went to see Iron and Wine play and were immediately transported to the late 1960s in California, what a beautiful, beautiful sound, well worth all the stress of earlier on in the day. Beautiful!


We came home expecting little sister to still be up, watching TV with her new babysitting friend and were somewhat surprised (perhaps that's too mild a word} to find little sister tucked up in bed and , somewhat disconcertingly, a teenage boy sitting in her place on the sofa! He turned out to be very sweet and apparently was there keeping the babysitter company whilst she sat for us and her other friends turned up (who were incidentally at the Iron and Wine concert too, instant boost to our credibilty ratings there!).



Lazy day on Saturday, time in the garden raking up all the leaves - haven't we been lucky with this weather? It feels like early spring and judging by the amount of bees and butterflies spotted in the garden I'm not the only one to think so.



A pile of cupcakes to reward the gardeners whilst we listened to party stories from both girls and I even found time to make some new things for my Etsy shop. I've just finished a mountain of pompoms for a couple of orders, so it was nice to do something different for a change.


Sunday morning I woke up early and went to the car boot. So glad I did - I found this gorgeous pegbag in the loveliest 50s fabric. Pink, aqua, dove grey and seashells, I'm in love. I also found some pretty little glass bottles in that lovely shade of blue that old glass has. One is an old Boots Chemist bottle, complete with glass stopper, another medicine bottle and a tiny bottle of Eiffel Tower lemonade, from the 1950s. They'll all go upstairs to keep some others company in the bathroom.


The weather was too good to waste yesterday and we finally persuaded Big Sister to muster up the energy to come with us to take little sister to the park.

Another time warp here as quite by chance, we stumbled into the Veteran London to Brighton car rally that was nearing its finish and was using the park as its final check point.



I'm not a great car lover, as long as my car is safe, reliable and gets me from A to B I'm happy, but there is something to be said for the beauty and romance of these old cars, well, apart from the trails of smoke they leave behind and the achey bottom little sister said you would have if you sat on a wooden seat all the way from London!

Big Sister, little sister and big blue skies

I'm feeling almost normal today. Which is great news since I think I need all my energy to relive the experience that was the Big Sister's birthday party at the weekend. She wanted a Murder Mystery but all her friends had had them recently. Quite by chance we stumbled across the idea of a "Big Sister" party instead. It was to be along the lines of "Big Brother". So on Saturday we had a house full of teenage girls for 12 hours. They came for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and, the best bit, were evicted at 10pm so no sleepover! They were each assigned characters to play in the house and had to fill in questionnaires to return to Big Sister, via the big sister at school. We turned one room into the Diary Room, I was Big Sister and M was Big Bother (the camera crew), Little Sister ran around delivering tasks and summoning people to the Diary Room. Despite loosing a day planning it and me feeling very poorly it was a great success and dare I say it, lots of fun.
They key was to keep them busy. Over breakfast they had to compile an anthem in honour of Big Sister that they had to sing throughout the day whenever they heard the foghorn! (can't think what the neighbours thought). Friends said it would be good to turn this to our advantage and give them tasks like building the much needed new garden shed or redecorating the hall. The closest we got to that was telling them that one of their tasks was to prepare, eat and wash up lunch in an hour. The look of horror on their faces. 45 minutes to cook pasta!!!! Big Sister made them bring the washing in, blindfolded, through an obstacle course. They had to paint portraits expressing their inner selves (not their real inner selves, but their given characters). Pop videos were made and filmed, a 5 minute soap opera based on Romeo and Juliet was produced and lots of time was spent being called into the Diary Room to be teased and probed by M and me! I have never seen a group of girls so animated before (well, apart from the prospect of an afternoon's shopping at Topshop).



The day after Big Sister's party as reward to us, we decided to walk over from the beautiful village of Glynde (home of Glyndebourne Opera) to Lewes. It was such a warm, sunny day it felt like Spring.


The scenery was beautiful, even the girls admitted it and the oldest even turned off her Ipod to admit that it was the biggest sky she'd ever seen, praise indeed! Seconds later she walked into the biggest cowpat I've ever seen, teenagers are safer at home. If you ever get the chance do this walk, its lovely.



This week being halfterm we are once more snowed under by the weight of school projects needing to be done. My youngest has got one to do this time, The Tudors, a power point presentation on their clothes and fashion! Having done the Tower and Globe theatre we decided to go to Hampton Court Palace instead, I'm glad we did it was a good day out and my daughter just lapped it all up. Ghostly walks, tudor intrigue, children's workshops on how to succeed at Court, wandering around the Maze, it was a wonderful day. I remembered my dad taking me to Hampton Court when I was little and I can still remember the sense of awe when I first saw it, It is a fantastic building, absolutely steeped in history.

I also developped a strange fixation on the chimneys, I have never seen such beautiful chimneys before ....!! Couldn't take my eyes off them,
Sorry that this is such a long post, but this is what happens when I've been starved of energy and computer contact!
The other day I received this award from Carol , Carol has just started blog