The 15 Minute Rule And I Have A System

 My life is a constant yearning to be more organised. I don't think I am too terribly disorganised but there is plenty of room for improvement. I spend so long organising drawers and cupboards perfectly but no one else seems to understand my system. I have always collected vintage tins and like to put them to good use so my drawers and cupboards are full of them. They cheer me every time I open the cupboards! I can't understand why no one else seems to be able to remember where things are. This was a recent conversation I had with my younger son who was looking for batteries for his TV remote control. I said "They are in the Queen's Jubilee tin in the second drawer down." In the Golden Jubilee tin not the Silver Jubilee tin" I called after him. Silence for a while then he called back "They're not in here." "They definitely are" I shouted back "No they're not" Off I went to the kitchen. "Well of course they're not in there" I said "You're looking in the Queen's Coronation tin!" "How would I know that?" youngest son exclaimed. I felt like saying "How could you not!" I'm beginning to think maybe my system is too complicated for everyone else. 

After a a visit to my eldest son's flat in Hastings last year (in that short little window of time we had some freedom!) I was amazed at his organisation skills. It was beautifully organised, everything in it's place and totally minimalist. I'm not kidding myself I could ever be minimalist  but I am well aware I should have a clear out. It's ever so hard at the moment as charity shops are all closed but I have got together three large boxes and I'm going to fill them with things that I will take to a charity shop when restrictions lift. This is where the 15 minute rule comes in.

If there is a job you keep putting off as you feel you don't have time or it's too tedious, in my case sorting out things to get rid of, just put aside 15 minutes a day. No matter how busy you are you can nearly always find 15 minutes in the day. The trick is to be quite firm and stop after 15 minutes. If I spend 15 minutes each day all the way through lockdown adding to the boxes I will have cleared out so much. In fact the way things are going with this lockdown I may be well on my way to becoming minimalist! Apparently you can write a novel in the 15 minute rule within a year. So anyone out there who always says "I would write a book if I had the time" give it a go. 

Another box I have put aside to add to is items to take to the caravan. This is much more fun as I am so looking forward to going to the caravan with all the new items. I have bought a new stick on battery operated light for the toilet as the light in there is so dim. I say new but it is a genuine 1970s one which will look the part perfectly. 

My Dad had is first coronavirus vaccination yesterday which seems so thrilling. A step nearer to some sort of normality. I'm off to do his shopping today, so at least I'm getting out and about. Have a lovely day everyone what ever you are doing. xx

Chaos, Curtains And Crochet On A Snowy Day

 Well the promised snow arrived and it all looked very pretty. Once Tom had changed the ducks frozen water and we added an extra heat lamp into the inside quarters of the aviary we decided that we would stay inside in the warm. Luckily neither Tom or my youngest son or daughter were working today. However in no time at all the usual snow chaos ensued. We only live at the top of a small hill but that is enough to cause car accidents in this sort of weather. One car had skidded into a parked car and another skidded backwards off the road into someone's fence. It happens every time we have snow. Luckily this time a pair of very enthusiastic young NHS Track and Trace workers arrived and pushed the cars up the hill and once grit from the big yellow container, that is always full in the winter, was scattered about calm was restored. I suppose with hindsight the grit should have been scattered before the snow!

In the afternoon I decided I would start making the remaining curtains I needed to make for our 1970s caravan in the hope that it won't be too long before we will be able to go and check on it, when this lockdown finally ends!  The little toilet cubicle in our caravan is ever so dark with just a tiny frosted window so I wanted to make some really bright cheerful curtains and what could  be more cheerful than Snoopy. I absolutely adore Snoopy! All my old school friends laugh at me and say I have never grown up as I used to have Snoopy all over my books at school and they are right I haven't!  Who couldn't be cheered by this lovely material.

Snoopy Fabric

The shower cubicle in the caravan is very cleverly designed. The shower tray folds up when not in use, the door folds backwards and the area becomes extra space in the caravan with a second door going outside. So I want the curtains on the window in there to match those in the rest of the caravan. Luckily I have just enough of that material left. 

1970s Curtain Fabric

I managed to cut the curtains and lining ready for sewing but unfortunately didn't have enough header tape for either pair. We are lucky enough to have a wonderful little local knitting and sewing shop but of course it is closed at the moment and sadly won't be open for the foreseeable future so I have been held up waiting for some to be delivered. 

The rest of the day was spent quite productively sewing back together squares that had come adrift on this double sized crochet blanket. I bought it for just £2 at a jumble sale (pre covid! How I miss jumble sales) and think it will look really nice in the caravan.

Crochet Blanket

Bad weather days can be quite nice sometimes. I can always find things to do around the house and feel yesterday definitely wasn't a wasted day. 

Much of the snow has melted this morning and it is lovely and sunny, but feezing. Tom is off again but our youngest son and daughter are working. The pavements look very icy so I think I will wait a bit to walk the dogs. A day of work and hopefully I will find time to get a few more bits sorted for the caravan. I hope everyone has a lovely safe day what ever you are doing. xx

I Feel For The Children

 It was such a beautiful day yesterday. By the time my daughter and I met up for our walk the clouds had burned away and the sun had come out. It was cold but not so cold to spoil the enjoyment. My daughter and her partner are police officers and they both had coronavirus just after the New Year. This was one of her first walks and although she is much better she still gets a bit breathless. I know from experience even if you recover well the breathlessness can carry on for a while. It was so fresh at the top of the hill though we stood and breathed in the air to exercise our lungs. It felt wonderful! I'm sure Tess my border collie thought we had lost our  minds.

The View From Oaks Park

There were little signs of spring everywhere. I don't care what the news says I just know things will seem better by then. There were families out in force walking with their little children. One family were walking along singing away. To jolly the little one up as he was looking decidedly miserable they were singing "Nick Nack Paddy Wack" as they walked. My daughter and I really laughed as that is exactly what we used to do on long walks! 

Snowdrops In The Park

Poor children I feel so much for them in this pandemic. Disrupted school, not seeing their friends and in a world were they were already so over protected, in comparison with my childhood, growing up obsessed with germs. I fear the harm it will do. I have thought a lot about the freedom we had as children. It was not just the freedom to play out for hours unsupervised but there was zero health and safety in the 1960s.

   I mentioned yesterday that two ten year olds would look after a whole class of five year old during wet play, that was the joy of being a "lunchtime monitor" reserved for the top class of primary school. There were however many other coveted jobs at the time. Every class, even the very little ones, had milk monitors. Two of us would go before break time to prepare the little milk bottles for the rest of the class. One would carry the sharp scissors and the other the box of straws. The only instructions being "Remember to hold the scissors downwards when you are walking down the stairs!" As a six years old I clearly remember pushing the straws through the silver top of the tiny little bottles after the other child had pierced the hole with the sharp scissors. 

However the job I enjoyed most and couldn't wait until it was my turn was the rubbish monitor! On a Friday afternoon I would take the waste paper bin down to the convent garden incinerator. I would carry the little metal bin through the vegetable garden to the big stone incinerator. I had to drop all the rubbish into the smouldering ashes below. Depending on what was in the rubbish bin the flames would burst into life shooting upwards to the top of the incinerator. It was such fun I would find myself looking all around the kitchen garden for more rubbish to drop in. I think I may have had eight year old pyromaniac tendencies! I doubt our school was alone in total lack of health and safety at that time and I'm sure it didn't do us any harm. I feel more harm is being done by the cautious way children are brought up now, which I'm sad to say I think will get much worse in the coming months. Apparently snow is on the way today and it feels cold enough for it. Tom is off work after a week of 3.30 am starts, so I think we will just sit inside by the fire and watch it. I hope everyone has a lovely day what ever you are doing. xx

A Most Desirable Residence

 It was a lovely sunny day yesterday. It really lifted my spirits and made me feel so much more productive. In the morning I pottered around the garden tidying up with my little friend the fox sitting at the end in the sunshine watching me obviously enjoying the change in weather too. Later on after my lunch I set to on a job I had been planning to do all week. I love collecting old vintage toys and doing them up. I have bought so many at auctions, car boot sales and jumble sales and I get so much pleasure to think I am giving a new lease of life to a child's once precious plaything.

I've always had a love of old dolls houses. When I was little my sister had a lovely dolls house our Dad made for her. It had electric lights, a little bathroom, a kitchen and even a little toy 1960s television in the living room. We would play with it for hours. I remember when I was 10 years old and in the top class of primary school, two of us would have to go to the kindergarten class to look after the little ones on our own when it was wet play. (Yes really!). It was such fun we did what we wanted. I would spend the whole hour sitting down on the rugs with the little girls playing with the dolls house. It was enormous and such fun, they hardly got a look in! Our dolls house is long gone sadly, though I have some bits of furniture given to my daughters to play with when they were little.

  I had been looking for a replacement for a long time without success until I found this one at an auction for only £25. It is from the 1940s or 50s and is just wonderful. All the metal windows and door are intact with a little number 9 next to the front door.

A 1950s Dollshouse

The original heavy embossed wallpaper is still on the walls in perfect condition. The floor has a covering that has been made to look like 1950s lino. When you look through the front door you just want to walk up the stairs. 

The Interior Of The 1950s Dollshouse

I have a few little bits of furniture but have been promising Scarlett I will get some more. She loves it and spends so much time playing with the few little bits we have. I have decided all the furniture must be vintage 1940s or 50s and I picture it just like the one in the Kindergarten classroom of my primary school. I really wish I could mooch around at car boot sales to try and find some but it's not to be yet so I will get some bits on ebay which of course is easier but more expensive and not so much fun.

Today I stuck down the corners of the flooring and scraped off the ripped brick effect paper on the bay at the front of the house. I'm trying to keep as much of the original as possible so decided not to replace all the paper but just the damaged part and painted the bay cream. I remember ours used to have a little red and white table and chairs in the kitchen and I still have one of the white chairs and a highchair. I have managed to find some old Barton red and white kitchen units and a table on ebay so it will soon be on it's way to becoming a very desirable 1950s residence again!

The Newly Painted Dolls House

I phoned my Dad at the end of yesterday afternoon to see what sort of a day he was having. He can't really get out to do any gardening at this time of the year and like everyone is getting fed up with the same old local walks so I thought maybe me, asking him advice about restoring the dolls house would cheer him up. He had anything but a dull day! Apparently there had been a car accident outside his house. Four university students had been in one car and the the young girl driver skidded on some ice and collided with a lorry. He had been outside helping the people involved, luckily no one was injured just shocked. It had taken hours to sort out and clear all the debris away and being the kind person my Dad is he was involved in it all. Isn't it terrible all I could picture when he was telling me the story was all those people breathing on him! He's so close to having his vaccine on Monday and I keep worrying now. Oh dear.

It's not such a nice day as yesterday today but it is dry. I'm meeting my eldest daughter for a walk this morning which I'm really looking forward to. I hope everyone has a lovely day what ever you are doing. xx

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I Talk To The Trees....

 Or so my Mum and Dad would sing to me from the old 1950s song when I was a little girl so I think I may always have done it! I'm not sure if it works but I'm trying everything in an attempt to nurture and encourage all my little tree seedlings. Last autumn Scarlett and I went all around local parks with our pocket book of trees, little freezer bags and labels to collect seeds from different types of trees. It was so much fun and Scarlett entered into the spirit of it completely. 

I love trees and already have lots of little saplings in pots. I have collected conkers, acorns, silver birch seeds, berries from hawthorn trees, rowan trees and elder trees. I already have little holly trees, cherry trees, fir trees, horse chestnut trees, oak trees and unidentified trees! I have gone tree crazy! Our garden in the summer is starting to resemble a forest in pots and I couldn't be happier. I'm not sure quite what I am going to do with all these trees yet but I am getting so much enjoyment growing them. 

Last year during the first lockdown I bought a little greenhouse and had mixed successes with my growing. I think a lot of the problem is our garden is very shady. So many trees in pots! However I nearly always have success with my tree growing. We planted our seeds and berries in four different ways. Some in pots in the garden, some in pots in the greenhouse and some in the little fridge in the greenhouse to "stratify". (I love that word!) and some in a little heated propagator. I must have success with a few of them.

Scarlett came yesterday and she was thrilled to see our first successes. I don't think she can believe seeds she had such fun collecting and planting are now starting to grow in the little heated propagator. Along with the trees I added some azalea and hibiscus seeds I collected in my Dad's garden last October. The problem is I'm not sure what is coming up. I thought I would remember exactly what seeds I planted but I think lockdown must have affected my memory!

 I have no idea what is in there so for now I'll just keep talking away to them and coming from a background where there was constant singing and music I can never miss the opportunity of bursting into full song. I think I'll sing along with this one today! I'll keep you informed how they progress. Have a lovely day everyone what ever you are doing. xx

I ❤️ New York

 When I was a teenager in the 1970s I was USA obsessed. Fab 208 magazine, which I loved, had a Hollywood correspondent and I eagerly awaited the news every week. David Cassidy was my favourite pop star and I constantly imagined myself living there and just bumping into David whilst out shopping! Pete Duel, Ben Murphy, Mark Slade, all American TV actors I had photos of all over my bedroom walls. In 1973 my Dad started going on yearly business trips to America, he would phone weekly, international calls had to booked in those days through an international operator, and hold the phone to the window so we could hear the constant police sirens on the streets of New York. It all seemed so exciting for me who had been brought up on a TV diet of Kojak and Starsky and Hutch. 

In 1977 my sister and I had left school and we both worked in London. I can still remember the excitement we felt when the opportunity arose to go with our Dad and Mum on one of his business trips to New York then Washington. My dream, finally! We arrived in New York in a June heatwave and I felt as if I was in heaven! I remember one particular day when I sat outside a cafe in a square in New York waiting to meet my sister, after we had visited different shops. I sat with my cold drink in the sunshine and I remember "Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gayle was playing loudly around the square. I felt overwhelmed with enthusiasm for the life ahead of me. I could travel, see all these places, it was all ahead of me! I loved Washington too when we travelled there a week later but somehow I feel that "I Love New York!" is still stamped on my soul! 

Me In New York 1977

My sister, me and my Mum in Washington 1977

I still was obsessed with New York for a few more years, fuelled with songs like Native New Yorker by Odyssey, New York, New York So Good They Named It Twice by Gerard Kenny and of course the film Saturday Night Fever I told everyone who would listen that this is where I would end up. When I started by nursing training in 1979 my room in the nurses home was covered with photos of New York.  It didn't happen though. By the time I was 22 I was married and had the first of my four children. I really wouldn't change a thing but I can't hear the song "Don't It Make Your Brown Eye's Blue" without being transported back to that square in New York in 1977 and still feeling that surge of excitement at the thought of a life of travel. 

  In the run up to the the inauguration of Joe Biden In America it has made me think of my love of the country all those years ago. In these difficult times the country has had recently it is easy to think it is so different now but of course in the most part the American people are still those wonderful people I fell in love with 44 years ago and I wish them nothing but the best in this next chapter in their history. xx

Dipping In And Out

 I keep doing something, that really frustrates me when I find it on the internet! I do a google search for some piece of information and then am taken to a blog. The writer covers something I am very interested in or need to know and I am thrilled to have found it. I keep reading, "This is just what I was looking for! " I think. This writer with a bantam with a sore foot, a pear tree with orange spots or even a new diagnosis of cancer covers just the problem I have. Then it stops. I look at the date March 1918. What happened next I wonder. Did the bantam recover, the pear tree survive or even the writer survive? It happens all over the internet, so frustrating and I am a culprit too. 

The problem is I find very painful times hard to write about and then just as hard to re read. I think to myself I'll have a little break to recover and then the habit is broken. I post quite often on instagram and keep in touch with some of my dear blogging friends on there, but the writing habit is something, most of the time, I find incredibly relaxing. I sometimes think I should start a new blog. I turned 60 last year and have such plans. Maybe not for the moment but definitely for the future. Then yesterday I suddenly thought why start a new blog? Why not revisit my old one. I always feel I owe it to anyone who stumbles across my blog with a new diagnosis of thyroid cancer. That terrible time when you world is caving in and you are searching and searching for some sort of reassurance. I can now be that little bit of reassurance and I think if only for that reason I shouldn't start a new blog but update this one. 

It's all progressing very nicely. I am having six monthly out patients appointments at the Royal Marsden. They had put me on yearly but after a few problems with symptoms like palpitations due to fluctuating thyroid levels I was put back to six monthly. The Royal Marsden at Sutton, I think, are the most wonderful people in the world, I have complete trust in everything they say.. I always say now that from something that seemed so terrible my cancer diagnosis actually turned out to be a blessing as it has made me appreciate every single day. 

Even in these difficult times it has helped me look on the bright side. I keep thinking I have got through so much I'm not letting this ruin Tom and my plans for when he retires. I keep planning and thinking and try to end each day with a positive thought of something that has happened during the day. We all had coronavirus last April. Tom who started working back on the London buses a few months earlier, caught it first, then me, then my youngest son and daughter. Feeling incredibly ill, we all had to drive to Brighton to be tested. It was very early days of testing and even in my weakened state I thought I could have written a sit com episode about the day! With positive test results and a day we still laugh about I suppose it is all part of the tapestry of life! There are still so many things to enjoy in each day. Never have I felt the early signs of spring in our garden offer more hope than this year.

   I have lots of things to share and will keep dipping in and out. If I am not posting I would love it if any visitors popped over to instagram (link in the side bar) to see how I am doing. Even if there are absences, as a famous person once said, I'll be back! xx