It was a much brighter start yesterday morning so after breakfast Scarlett and I set off for the morning before the promised rain arrived in the afternoon. I had a couple of bags of old clothes to take to the recycling bank and a bit of shopping to do but once that was out of the way we went to a local park for the real mission of the morning. Scarlett just loves collecting things when she is out and about. Twigs, feathers, leaves, pretty stones, they are all brought proudly home to display. This autumn however has bought a new obsession in her little two and a half year old life. Conkers! My eldest daughter has bought her a little basket they call her "foraging basket" and she couldn't be more excited. Scarlett's latest obsession has coincided with my interest in learning about foraging for food, so it was with mutual excitement we started our search.
I have been reading about making washing liquid for laundry from conkers so thought it would be a perfect time to collect enough to try. It was a really enjoyable way to spend our morning.
I told Scarlett we must leave enough for other people and for the squirrels to have some food this winter. Coincidentally only this week there has been reports that the Horse Chestnut Tree is under threat and may even become extinct in the future following declines caused by the leaf-minor moth so next time she comes we will plant a few in pots to grow some trees. I already have two lovely horse chestnut trees in pots that I grew a few years ago, one of which that is now taller than me, but no harm in planting a few more.
Scarlett took some home with her and the rest I have sitting in the dining room waiting for me to make the liquid detergent with later in the week. I will share how well the experiment in my new foraging lifestyle goes.
Happy 1st of October everyone. I hope your day and the month ahead is a happy one. xx
Yesterday was a family Sunday. A day when we were all at home. The sort of day I love. The weather was wet and windy but it makes me look forward to evenings round the fire as winter approaches.I took the dogs for a walk in the morning and although there was a steady drizzle, wrapped up in a rain coat I don't really mind. At least the park was nice and empty, except for the usual dog walkers and one poor young woman trying to settle her screaming baby by pushing him round and round in his pram. I tried giving her a sympathetic smile as we passed but she ignored me, probably feeling too stressed. While I was there, there was a spectacular sight of a large flock of starlings flying in to land on the grass. The wet weather must have brought some kind of insects to the surface. I think it is called a murmuration when starlings fly like this and I waited hoping to catch them flying away but they were far to engrossed in whatever they were eating I'm afraid.
The afternoon was spent dodging showers while I planted some pansies in the window boxes and trying to bake a chocolate cake for after Sunday evening tea. I use the word trying as it was only when I had got all the ingredients out I realised that I was missing cocoa and had to run to the Co-Op in the rain to buy some more. My raincoat was certainly getting some use yesterday!. I was starting to think the chocolate cake was not meant to be as when I got my Mum's old Magimix out to mix the ingredients it wouldn't start. I realised the power knob at the front was missing. The only way I could get it to work was to stick a screwdriver in the hole where the knob had been all the time praying I wouldn't get electrocuted. This is obviously my next mending project! All in all it was a nice productive day. The pansies look quite bright in the boxes even if it is far to wet to take a photo of them and the cake turned out not too bad considering.
We spent the evening chatting over a nice cup of tea and munching on chocolate cake while looking out at the hooley that was blowing outside. Yes quite a cosy sort of a day really. I'm hoping as I'm looking after Scarlett for the day today the weather might be a bit better. What ever your doing today I hope you get a bit of sunshine and your day goes well. xx
Last night Tom and I were babysitting for my eldest daughter and her partner who were going to a Queen tribute concert. They has warned us that bad weather had damaged their sky sattelite dish and the only channel working was Sky Sports (Hmm!). So when football had finished and Scarlett was asleep we looked through the Catch Up channels for something cheerful and light hearted to watch. We settled on an old Christmas special of Darling Buds Of May. We haven't watched an episode of this programme from the early 1990s for years and years and even though it all did look very dated we both said we did really enjoy it for a change. Christmas with the Larkins looked so perfect and idyllic my spirits were definitely lifted by the end of it! One thing I did think was that although I'm sure life was far from perfect or "perfick" as Pa Larkin would say in the 1950s there was no telelvision to intrude on a family Christmas.
Not just Christmas but everyday life seems to be completely ruled by it. While I love some dramas I'm afraid I have made a descision that, for my health, the news programmes have to go from my life. It's not just politics which is so dire and depressing at the moment but the news seems to report on only misery, cross county lines gangs, modern day slavery, stabbings, starvation, war and endless ... no I won't mention the B word, all in our living rooms 24 hours a day. From now on I am just going to get a quick round up on an app on my phone and not watch it anymore. When Tom and I are in our caravan we choose quiet sites and don't have a TV or WIFI and often not even mobile phone access. It is heaven, we listen to music on our little 70s cassette player and play cards or a board game, walk the dogs and just relax.
Could we live an adaptation of our caravan life all the time? It is something Tom and I discuss endlessly at the moment. We are definitely a family of frustrated hippies! We all long for something simpler and unless you grab your dreams I'm scared we will be taking them to our grave. We will keep planning for now and we have bought a bigger 1970s caravan this summer, which I will share photos of soon, but I am sure that in our future there will be some big changes.
I have thought about my blog and all the dear people in blogland often over the past year. After a gap of blogging and a new computer I found I had somehow got locked out of this google account. Instead of sorting out the problem straight away I opened a new account and put that problem on a back burner as I often do. But a new me has been emerging in the last few months! One that fixes and mends! I suddenly decided that I will sort out so many irritating little problems. I have decluttered all the small outgoings on our bank account (How easy it is to hang on to a small house accident policy costing £5 a month for years as it takes precious time to sort it out) fixed broken items in cupboards which are now perfectly useable and have started to use other precious items I have put away, what am I waiting for I asked myself, life is too short to have unused items in cupboards.
Over on instagram today I saw Marlene has started a new blog which looks right up my street The Secondhand And Savvy Shopper. That's it I thought I must sort this problem out so I settled down earlier today and went through all the steps to resolve the problem and that's it sorted! I can't tell you how pleased with myself I feel and how happy to see so many of my old favourites still going strong.
I have found this problem solving is becoming a bit addictive. I had such a feeling of satisfaction when I cancelled one internet provider and returned to another saving myself £50 a month doing so. I had been putting it off over and over again thinking it would be hell, well to be honest it was a bit, but it is done and £50 is a lot of money to save. I wake in the morning thinking what problem can I solve or item can I mend today! If I'm not sure how to do it I look on youtube there is always someone telling you how to do it. "It looks very light in here tonight" my youngest son said as we settled down for our evening meal a few days ago. "That's because I have fixed a light that was put away in the cuboard and put it out" I said proudly! It was only a 50p car boot sale buy but I couldn't have been more pleased.
So that's it today's problem solved. I'm off to read a few blogs and hopefully my new organised self will get round to writing a few posts too!
This week my sister and I have been helping my Dad clear out some old boxes in his shed. We have found allsorts. One box was packed with old annuals and coincidentally, to coincide with their 60th birthday, we found a pile of Blue Peter annuals. What pleasure we got from them as children.
Looking through the pages I realised how much I had learned from them. A few weeks ago I was bathing the dogs and having a moan. "Why is it always me who baths the dogs?" I asked. "Because you know just how to do it" replied youngest son and daughter. "I wasn't born knowing how to do it." I said" I read how to in my Blue Peter Annual!" The truth is I did and it has stuck in my mind all these years along with so many other interesting things.
I loved every article and episode about dogs and can remember so clearly Petra's puppies. I loved Patch, John Noakes puppy and was heartbroken when he died, although I loved Shep the Border Collie, his next dog too.
I remember all the old episodes with Christopher Trace, Valerie Singleton and John Noakes and the slightly later ones with Peter Purvis.
Then there were all the things we made! Sugar mice, little pots to keep washing up brushes in and of course there was the Advent Crown. We struggled and struggled with our Advent Crown and it fell apart after one advent. Blue Peter presenters seemed to drag out their one for the next twenty years I'm sure they were just remaking it and pretending it was the same one!
The item that was made on the programme I loved most was the farm. My Dad made one for me and I kept it and played with it for years. It brought me so much pleasure. I am trying to recreate it at the moment but that is a whole other story.
I was obsessed with the programme, I collected for all the Christmas appeals, entered the competitions, bought the jig saws, wrote in asking for autographs and managed to win a badge. I still have it somewhere! When my children were young I would watch it with them and incredibly the same format was cleverly adapted for those times. I just wish I had bought them annuals at the time and I may be getting some help bathing the dogs now!
I'm so glad the programme is still going strong for Scarlett to enjoy when she gets a bit older and as soon as she is I will definitely be watching it with her. For anyone who grew up loving Blue Peter, what ever age you are I hope you enjoy this video marking the 60th Birthday. It certainly brought a tear to my eye!
When we bought our 1970s caravan I thought it would be fun to fill it with my 1970s collectables. I mean I have enough of them. Tom laughed at me but as always just humours me! What fun we have had. I'm always looking out for more finds. My youngest daughter's boyfriend found an old 1970s cassette player in a skip and I found the most fantastic bright orange cassette storage case at a jumble sale for 50p. We scour jumble sales and car boot sales for old 1970s cassettes, which is not easy, where on earth have they all gone? Then in our caravan our evenings are spent listening to Motown, cooking meals on our little gas cooker, drinking wine and sighing about how beautiful the view is! From laughing at me in the beginning Tom loves it. It is the most peaceful and stress free experience.
We have chosen very quiet caravan sites. The caravan club has lots of sites called Certified Locations which only have five caravan pitches. Some weekends we have been completely on our own. It has been Heaven.
We are still hoping to get another couple of weekends away before winter sets in. I have a couple of new Diana Ross cassettes that I have to listen to!
"I haven't written a blog post for months!" I said to me eldest daughter the other day. "They are going to think you have died" she replied. Oh no how dreadful. Imagine if someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer googles "Follicular Thyroid Cancer" and finds my blog, then comes to the same conclusion. It couldn't be further from the truth I'm very much alive and kicking! I remember those first days after diagnosis you feel so desperate and worried and cling to stories of people who have recovered and skim through the the other stories praying that won't be you.Well for any person who is in that situation I will tell you how things have been going.
The last time I wrote about my thyroid cancer I was just starting the treatment at the Royal Marsden after my two operations. Luckily with thyroid cancer you don't usually need chemotherapy but have Radioactive Iodine Therapy. The hardest part for me was the diet I had to go on for two weeks before the treatment. No dairy or fish and as I don't eat meat anyway, I had to become totally vegan. No chocolate either at least I could drink wine! I had to go to the Marsden for two days before admission for injections and in June I went in for the treatment.
"How long will I be in solitary confinement?" I asked the doctor. He visibly flinched. "We like to call it isolation." he answered. I felt like saying I'm in a room on my own, with no visitors or staff members allowed in and my food is passed through a flap in the door, in my view that's solitary confinement! The treatment was fine though, I had a lovely little room with a TV and I took my laptop in even though it did have to be wrapped in cling film! I had a full body scan before I was discharged and had restrictions as to who I could be close to for five days.
The worst day for me was going back to get the results of the scan two weeks later to see if the cancer had spread. In your life you imagine pictures of the future, weddings, grandchildren, family get togethers and in my mind I was there in the pictures as an old person. In the months after my diagnosis suddenly those pictures were hard to imagine. I may not be in them. As I sat waiting for the results I thought what ever happens I will try to make the best of it all, no point making a fuss, but I was very nervous and had wanted to be on my own, I didn't want to have to worry about anyone else's feelings but my own at that moment. When the doctor came in smiling and told me the scan was all clear it was incredible. Like Marty McFly in "Back To The Future" I could instantly see myself appearing back in the pictures!
Being diagnosed with cancer has definitely been a positive experience for me. Every day I wake up and if I feel a bit down I think "Stop it. you are alive and have a life!" I enjoy every day now and think I always will. That has been the main reason I haven't been able to write my blog really. I have been doing everything I ever fancied doing! Weekends in our caravan, trips into London, Highclere Castle. meet ups with old friends and afternoon teas. I try not to waste any day. If it is just a quiet day working and pottering in the garden I love it. I look at my little garden and the flowers and think how lucky I am. Oh and then there is the new puppy! What fun she has been. If there is anyone still hanging on in there with me, I will try over the next weeks to fill you in a bit on what has been going on. Here is a photo of our little 70's time warp caravan until the next post when I'll share some more photos of her.
