A man in uniform.

I've never subscribed to the whole 'I love a man in uniform' thing until about half-an-hour ago. I was driving Toddler to pre-school, rounded a bend in the road and saw a man crossing in what looked like a 1950's airline pilot uniform. As I rounded the corner and clocked him crossing I said 'Wow!' It just popped out like that-'Wow!' In the moments that followed I tried to analyse why I'd said it. The man in question was probably mid to late 50's, average build and looks. If he'd been in normal clothes I certainly wouldn't be writing about him now. Must have been the uniform.

If I'd have known that it would be the last time I'd see you.

I feel as though I've been given a strange sort of 'gift'. My Mum who went to live overseas a couple of years ago has been staying with us whilst we've been renovating our house and making the transition to a family of four. She'll be 69 in a couple of months time and apart from being a type 2 diabetic seems to be in fairly good health. However she is nearly 70 and the plane ride is 23 hours long so I'm thinking that there is a higher than average probability that a day at the end of August may well be the last time we ever lay eyes on each other. Having this knowledge-What do you say? What would I have said to my Dad had I known that it would be the last time I'd see him. As it goes I think the last thing I said to him was probably 'Bye.' I've thought about writing this post for a while and it makes me cry every time I think about it. What to say? I'll probably stick with the time honoured 'Thanks for all your help. Love you. Bye.'

R.I.P. kettle

A couple of days ago our kettle just stopped working. I knew Him Indoors was out and about for work so I asked him to stop by one of the nearby supermarkets on his way home to pick up a new one.

He was asked to bring back a cream or clear kettle and this is what he brought back.

I made the point that that was not what I'd asked for.

But it goes so well with the splashback was the reply.

The light is slightly different in the two shots but they are indeed a near perfect match.

Don't you just hate it when they're right like that!



Photo round-up (or Lazy mummy way to blog).

Oh dear...where does the time go? Near enough every day I say to myself, "Must get on with my blog, haven't written anything for ages," and then it's bedtime and another day has passed and I haven't done a thing except look after the house and children. Very important jobs I hear you say and yes they are but surely I must be able to fit something else into the day? I think my time management skills need a serious looking at. To that end this post will be a series of photos taken over the last few weeks that I could have turned into independent posts but just didn't have the time to. Here goes...

Rain, rain go away.

Onwards and upwards with the house renovation-next job to tackle-The Dining Room.

The 'Dorothy the Dinosaur' balloon that cost more than a King's ransom.

Rainy day art work.

Street party fun with Toddler A.K.A. Her Maj.

The Village gets into the Jubilee spirit.



Baby doesn't like the limelight.

A friend of mine in the village is very arty (I am not in any way arty). She's trying to get her photography up and running and has quite a bit of experience photographing older children but no experience photographing babies. She asked me if she could come round and do a shoot with Baby and I jumped at the chance. I offered to pay but my friend said to wait and see how it turned out first.

She's just left after spending a good couple of hours here trying to catch Baby at his best. He didn't smile once! Not once! He's not an overly smiley baby but he does have a great smile. (All babies do don't they?) I tried everything that normally makes him smile and nothing worked, nothing. My friend tried too and worked really hard to get some good shots. Baby fell asleep half way through the shoot for about 15 minutes so that explains a lot. He woke up and did some more shots on his tummy and then it was time for us all (Mummy, Toddler and Baby) to have some shots together. Still no proper out-and-out smile from Baby. I guess he just doesn't like the limelight.

It's nearly finished!

Today I'm linking up with the lovely Catherine at Making it as Mum for the Making it Home part of her blog. Catherine knows about all things home and knows how to make a space work-oh, how I wish I did!

Well, the kitchen is nearly finished. It has taken ages! (The work started back in September) Him Indoors has done most of the work all by himself saving us thousands. (My friends are quite envious of having a handy husband-"My husband would call someone in to change a fuse" was a comment from one friend.)

Purple splashback. I wanted a 'statement' colour here as everything else is very safe and neutral. We'd originally chosen a blue/purple but they sent this one by mistake and I'm so glad they did as when we held up the blue/purple sample against this one we realised that colour would have dragged the whole thing down. Thank you renovation Gods! The beauty of this is because it's just screwed to the wall it can be changed at any time. (I will definitely NOT be changing it any time soon.)

Behind 'the tower' is the boiler and cylinder-a huge thing that looks very complicated to me. Anyway, Him Indoors built the housing and put the doors on. At some point, when time allows, but sooner rather than later we'll spray paint the bottom two doors with blackboard paint so we and Toddler can let our creative juices flow. Toddler loves drawing and mark-making so that should be right up her street. Also it's at the opposite end of the kitchen from the cooker, so well away from any danger.

If you've got a renovation, decoration or interiors post you'd like to share you can link up to the Making it Home section of Making it as Mum here.

Oh no...today is jab day.

Today is jab day...I hate jab day. Immunisation, inoculation, jab. Baby will be having his second lot of jabs this afternoon. I get quite shaky normally but today will be even worse as this is the set that Toddler had a reaction to. When Toddler had these jabs the right side of her face was affected. It was if someone had drawn an invisible line right down the middle of her face and everything to the right of that line was affected. Her eye and right side of her nose and lips swelled. By the time the doctor saw her the swelling and redness had subsided to almost back to normal. An appointment with the consultant followed which didn't clear up the cause of the reaction unfortunately. The nurse spoke to me at Baby's first jabs appointment regarding Toddler's reaction. I said I was happy to go ahead with the second set of jabs as I know he won't necessarily react the same way and Toddler has not reacted to any jabs since. The consultant also mentioned that it might have not been the jab and could have been some sort of external irritant and the timing was just coincidental. Still hate jab day though.