Willow House

It's the time of year

When chocolate cake comes out of the Willow House kitchen with an almost monotonous regularity - birthday time.

We have four birthdays between now and Christmas starting with the my eldest child, the son and heir. As you can see he is still quite fond of Halloween.

This weekend we celebrated James birthday with a trip to the Pleasure Beach at Great Yarmouth. Unfortunately I'm only allowed to show you this photograph, under pain of death.

Needless to say 3 teenage boys weren't at all interested in a puppet show, it was me who was charmed by the nostalgia of these puppets. The boys spent the majority of their time diving between the Roller Coaster and the Dodgems. And a jolly good time they had too, crowned by the fact that there was an end of season firework display as well.

So Happy Birthday James.

(One down 3 to go, then it's Christmas!)

Coming home

Yesterday this china elephant of foriegn make returned home to England. The elephant orginally belonged to my maternal Great Grandmother, the lady on the right of this photograph

Grace, 1872 - 1940

When she died the elephant went to my Grandmother,

Lily Emily, 1907 - 1991.

Some years ago my Mother finally left these shores and emigrated to the USA and my Grandmother gave the elephant to her. The elephant travelled from the East Coast to the Wild West, back to the East Coast via the Deep South even spending a brief sojourn in England only to return to the Mid West before my Mother finally ended her days in Virginia.

Pauline Joyce, 1939 - 2004.

Yesterday the elephant finally returned to England, home to me, having spent a couple of years or so in a box in my brother's garage in NYC. Somewhere along the line the elephant has aquired a calf.

Oh the tales those two could tell.

New skills

As most of you will know my husband Stuart broke his leg in March and can't really get around much at the moment. He is very good on his crutches but as his consultant has warned him that if he damages the repair to the leg there won't be anything left to mend we are being extremely careful. So the poor chap can't get out.

A couple of weeks ago he started to moan about the length of his hair, can't you just tell when someone starts to feel better? Now there is no way that either of us want to risk a visit to the hairdresser at this stage so imagine my delight when my eye fell upon this in a discount book store

a DIY Haircut kit, complete with scissors, hair clips, comb and book published by Tony Potter Publishing Ltd, www.tonypotter.com

I ummed and arghed a bit, discussed the pitfalls with Stuart and he told me to just go ahead buy the book and cut his hair.

So I did, I bought the book and ummed and arghed a bit more. The kids saw it and showed great confidence in their Mother's abilities.

"You've got to be kidding right?"

"No way are you coming anywhere near my hair with a pair of scissors."

"Mother don't you realise that qualified hairdressers, people who have been to college and are trained to cut hair, not just read a book, have made a mess of Father's hair?"

Stuart's attitude, "I don't care, just cut my hair."

So I did. Yesterday afternoon we had a hairdressing session on the lawn. Complete with audience. Everyone gathered around their Father to offer support and commiserations. A great gasp went up as I muttered, "Hang on a minute I just need to consult the book to see what I have to do next."

"I thought you said you had read the book?"

"Well, I have but I can't remember what to do"

Through cries of, "Oh Mother."

"Aren't you supposed to..."

and "Now look what you've done"

I snipped and snipped.

Am I going to show you the end result? No way. Let's just say I've seen worse haircuts and I've also seen a lot better but on the whole it's not too bad.

New career? I don't think so.

Time off for good behaviour

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou for all your get well wishes and overwhelming support I can't even begin to tell you all how much it has helped. But it has.

Things have settled down at Willow House, we have all quickly adapted to our new roles. I am busy, busy, busy which isn't really like me (I'm usually rather lazy) but it is something that I can cope with. Stuart is now able to get around on crutches but still has to spend most of the day with his leg up. He is still in pain and we seem to be spending an awful lot of time at the hospital, 3 times this week and 2 appointments for next week.

But this afternoon with about 6 hours of rugby, (will Johnny Wilkinson save the day? on the TV, I have time to myself. I should be catching up with the accounts but don't tell anyone.

Of course any time off for good behaviour is bound to end in a little shopping and as you can see I managed to get some new (thrifted) treasures; an embroidered tablecloth, some damask napkins, a lacy crocheted doilly and a Gerald Durrell containing not one but two of his books.

And what will I do with the rest of my time? Well definetly a nice hot bath and then I may just curl up with a book for a couple of hours. Bliss!

I wasn't going to tell you this

Just a quick note today, really just to explain that my posts and visits to your lovely blogs are going to be a bit irratic for a while. My husband, Stuart, fractured his leg at the weekend, it has been put together again with enough metalwork to have kept a blacksmith in business, but he is very poorly.

He came out of hospital yesterday afternoon so as well as chief cook, bottle washer and taxi driver I now find myself with nursing duties and a business to run.

Am I about to panic? You bet! I suddenly find myself responsible for the family income for the first time in about 20 years. Bit daunting but never mind we'll get by.

See you all soon.

Weird, who me?

Is someone out there trying to tell me something? I've been tagged three times now for this six weird things about yourself thing, thankyou Claire, Tut-tut and Jenny.

Of course I'm quite convinced that I'm entirely normal and that there is absolutely nothing weird about me. I asked the family to come up with just one weird thing about me each but they said it was too difficult as everything about me was weird!Thanks for your support chaps.

Well here goes:

1. I was born on the 27th, married on the 27th and my eldest son was born on the 27th. Not all the 27th of the same month but I guess that is kinda wierd.

2. I like cemeteries, when I was little we often visited my Great Grandmother's grave in Kettering followed by a trip to Wickstead Park which was fun. My little brother who didn't have these experiences thinks it is "real weird" to like cemeteries.

3. My children think it is really weird that a grown woman still "plays with paper and paste" ie. papier mache.

4. I always end up reading the end of a book before I finish it, usually before I have finished the first chapter. Everyone thinks this is weird especially as I read a lot of murder mysteries, they can't see the point in my continuing to read the book if I already know "who did it". But I can never wait to find out and I like to see how it all evolves, well that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

5. I' m allergic to other peoples cats. Now that is weird, we have cats of our own yet other peoples cats inevitably give me the sneezes.

6. I am a very private person and yet I have a blog, you guys probably know more about me than my best friend. The kids definetly think I'm weird for blogging!

Well that is it, now apparently all that remains for me to do is to tag 6 people and leave comments on their blogs telling them I have done so. I feel a bit awkard about this but you'll play won't you Wendy? And with a blog named Weirdbunny I really do have to tag you Julia. Next I'm going to tag some fairly new bloggers : Janie, Alison, Vanda and Claire, I know you'll all offer them your support by popping over to their blogs to take a look.

Lunch

Spent so long trying to set up my "Blogs I read" TypeList that Stuart made me lunch.

Aren't I lucky?

He picked the flowers from our garden and the mantle in our bedroom seemed the best place for them which gives me  an opportunity to introduce the family:

From left to right: Stuart & myself at James Christening (he is now 16, these pictures were taken a few years ago. Edward, Alexander, James and me again this time as a child with my Grandparents.

The powder compact was my Mother's, the little glass salt cellar belonged to my Great Grandmother, the china dog peeping over the picture frames is a much loved charity shop find, the perfume bottle and pot are recent presents from Stuart. Oh and the cherubs are Gisela Graham.

Games Day

Up early today to get my eldest son, James, to his local Games Workshop store by 6am.

Why?

Because today is Games Day.

For those of you who don't have sons, husbands, boyfriends etc into Warhammer Games Day is when several thousand "war gamers" descend on the NEC to play in tournaments, enter painting competions, view newly released models and attend workshops.

Although James is a rather talented painter even he won't enter the coveted Golden Demon competion, at least not this year.

Here is one of his models -