Love Songs and latest!

Well I did get here again before February Week 3 was over..it's been a busy few days in trolley world and the Jones household! 

 The builders are coming! Currently next Wednesday is the most up-to-date arrival date, but my porch is empty and ready to be knocked down after 16 years, ready for our new space .. and hopefully before the year end, my new kitchen. It's not that it will take til December but we are thinking that maybe we will live with the space a little while til we decide how we want it.. lots of cupboards and storage but it is going to be our family space for the next 15 years so kind of a big deal.

Col has gone off today, he is seeing distributors in France and Belgium and I am going up to meet him and see Zac on Thursday, out to see Al Murray (the Pub landlord comedian) on Friday and then a lazy trip home by Sunday.  It always takes a bit of organising, in my head as much as logistically with the kids etc, but I am looking forward to it. As they say a change is almost as good  as a rest!

Ross, April, Pops and I were out in the garden a bit this weekend, it doesn't happen often but we were all pleased with what we did, we all like to see results, what with gardening not being 'our thing'.  Lots of weeding, removal of the detritus of many years and consequently some extreme barbering of the bushes! I am glad Ross isn't looking to have a career in hairdressing, everyone would be on a Number 1 short back & sides.

and this was just the start of it!



Clearing up.. for now!

The front garden has old walls and pathways hidden under many years of overgrown woody bushes, brambles and ivy so we have decided to tackle it, so a tidy up job turns out much larger, just hope we manage to see it through.

Needed to give you a couple of sunset shots Kate took in the car the other day, I was saying to her how you can understand seeing that why the pagans worshipped the sun. Imagine not really knowing how the world was but realising that this huge orb of warmth would disappear each night and reappear next morning, the days gradually getting longer and then shorter again.   In tropical countries when you are on holiday sunsets seem to take on a big significance too, maybe it's just the honeymoon romantics..
  

...talking of romance, here is mine and Col's 'love song'. It's really a little cheesy and not very well known, but it is probably the only single he ever gave me, I think it was on cassette.  He was a big fan of Feargal Sharkey, he was the lead for the Undertones (think Teenage Kicks, My Perfect Cousin .. Col's era, even if I was a bit of a Motown Girl!)

Well in 1991 I was 30 years old, married, not particularly unhappily, but kind of treading water with two young children.  I spent a lot of time alone with the children as their Dad worked away and when he was home family-time was not the easiest option for him, being not a very relaxed or emotionally settled kind of person, often I would tell him to go scuba-diving or something if he needed to get his head straight after being away, after all I was operating pretty much as a single parent most of the time in any case.. (he was a saturation / deep-sea diver which involved living in a chamber for several weeks at a time, and it wasn't an easy transition for him when he came home) 

Add to this the fact that I had been 18 when we started out, ended up being 30 years old and not exactly the person he wanted 'in the box' he had allocated me ( ;-) )  I think I wanted more children, a full family and this wasn't on his agenda, he always wanted 'this phase' to be over so we could do one or other of the wonderful things which would be on the greener side of life, you know over the hedge, where everyone else appeared to be living.

Well we had a few close friends, one of them was a lady who I knew he liked, this made me see things more clearly, she was nothing like me, I was never going to fit in the box was I ? (Nor was she as it happened..)  The other pal was Col. He had known us since he moved to Cornwall around the time we got married. He used to go sport diving with my husband and then come home and hang out with us, often chatting to me about this and that while 'he' had his head in a book..I think it suited him to have someone to amuse me and we were a happy band of pals.  Col helped out a lot, house moves, looking after stuff if we were away, he even saw Lisa first and collected her Dad from the airport when he got home...

As time passed I tried to find Col a girlfriend amongst my pals, usually they had a ready made family, but I wanted him to find someone amongst our crew.  We talked a lot and it emerged that his ideal girl was .. well.. very like me.  Now my self-esteem wasn't so great and I didn't quite get it, but I did eventually. You see, I had to fill the space I had been trying to fill with some of my pals! We talked loads, Col was really honourable but it was clear to him I wasn't getting the care I needed (nor were the children in my friend's opinions afterwards, which was interesting).  I examined my current existence (and to be fair it wasn't much more, school, toddlers, mumsy chat and the domestic routine..) and I wasn't really 'looked after' in the way I wanted, emotionally..

One thing led to another, many hours of soul searching, putting it right in my head, justifying that this was going to be an okay decision for others as well as me..   Until this point we had never been together, despite some people thinking it was odd how friendly we were, but within four months it was done and dusted, I moved out with the children and into a rented house.  Col joined us and it seemed auspicious that even the first day the kids didn't bat an eyelid about me having him there. I think the fact that Col also worked away and I was the constant parent, things didn't really upset them too much.

Well ... it was a little more complicated, and to be truthful, quite hard at times, but we were meant to be together...one day before I left I was having a real tough time making sense of the potential anguish everyone would suffer, Col even suggested I stay put for a few months to be sure it was the right call for me, but I was anxious that we never had bad history, you know, when you look back and there is a period you wish was more positive and no room for recrimination..he told me that whilst we might not always have lots of money, might not always have it settled and easy, might have some ups and some downs,  he would always look after me and put me first..( I did ask a few times in the first ten years when the ups were coming .. but they did, we worked hard together and I think that working together for the same aims if the best way to grow together in the same direction)

This is the song he bought me in the first few months we were together.. 

..I think that's all for now!

Blog Friends Forever..

Oh how great it is to be in touch with everyone. I just loved the sentiment Janice shared as a comment on my last post ..

I like the idea of BFF standing for Blog Friends Forever, as I reckon that's got a pretty good chance of holding true, given the nature of blog world - the pen friends of the 21st century and not under the stresses and strains of regular face to face contact!!!

..Janice and I (and Karen) separately went to a Just Scrapbooking weekend way back about five years ago and although we didn't chat much at the event we swapped blogs and as that involves gradually sharing and learning lots about each other, without having to organise times and dates to drop in on each other, I believe we have become good pals. 

 

I really really like the idea of the new 21st Century BFFs, after all, its a real friendship, listening to the woes, sharing the humour and the mundane and sharing words of comfort and appreciation as you feel it.. perhaps it is even better as we do not have to talk whilst head bobbing over children, the oven and todays other demands, we share together when we choose...

 

.........talking of which..I just had an email from Anne over at Splashes of my Crafy Life...yesterday at her place. Anne was telling us that Rhea had to go for some tests as she had some problems walking.

 She has asked me to tell everyone she may be a little elusive on the blogging front for a while as the vets have suggested some other routes to a diagnosis. This will mean quite a bit of toing and froing and Anne fears she may not be able to join in much for a while.. I have told her that is fine, but she wanted us to let you know.

 

I know everyone will be thinking of her, we know how special the girls are for her and Dennis and we send love, hugs and wish them well....xx

BFF?

Well I have prompted my blog friends to explore the stories of the BFF Best Friends Forever... and here I am wondering if I ever had one?  It's not a sad thing, it's just I don't remember ever having a friend I was that way with, you know, inseparable, had to sleep over all the time, couldn't go a day without talking to...

..I grew up in a small community where most of us were related, our parents were cousins and despite us not being very closely related like first cousins we had a common history and even now we share the same memories and we have not fallen far from the trees.. 

As I was kind of an only child, my brother was 11 and at Secondary School when I was born, perhaps I grew up happy enough to not have someone around me all the time..I recall my eldest daughter commenting once that she would hate to live alone, and that was at a time when all I thought she wanted was to be away from us.  Living in our extended family has definitely made all our kids able to enjoy company but also make a space for themselves when they needed some quiet.

At our local school, St Levan, we often had children coming to us for only a few terms, their parents worked at Porthcurno Cable & Wireless Station and would often be moved around after a few years, others had Dads in the Coastguard Service and again it was a shame when a new friend had to move away when you were just getting to know each other. 

I remember Alison Normanton, and her sister Carol, gorgeous girls with blonde curly hair, at our Junior school. They wore uniform gym slips and shirts and ties but we didn't have uniform, I guess it was from their previous school.. they really stood out in the year photos.   Alison was so funny, she got a big telling off one day for miming the story across the desk to me as our Head was reading us some tedious book on a Friday afternoon.  Two years or so and they were gone, I think to Wogga Wogga(?) in Australia, we never did do well on the pen-pal thing though.

Other times names cropped up many years later.. I recall a cute little lad called Nicky Nash, I think a bit younger than me, but I had a soft spot for him when I was about 7, you know how cute 5 year old boys are when you are getting gangly at 7!
Turns out he is now a captain with Princess cruise ships, though my Zac has not met him yet, and he only lives about five miles from here, even though he left the school after a year or so..story goes he hit one of his ships against a rock or something and got the nickname Crash-Nash!

Probably my best girl friendships came at 16 when some new girls joined our group to do 'A' levels, we stayed in touch after we all went to Uni but it kind of tailed off when we all got married and didn't stay too friendly. Now I bump into them sometimes, but it isn't the same, again we are all close to home and have raised our kids, in fact Ross often comes home with a new Facebook pal and turns out I was at school with their mum!

Of course I had almost forgotten my best childhood friend, Teddy, I have written about him before., last year this time actually.. here!  He lived right opposite me, about three years older and was probably more like a brother growing up than my teen hero!
I was a sweet gullible thing, believed everything he told me...and this is the best one.. In July 1965 Ronald Biggs the infamous Train Robber escaped from prison and it must have been on the television and the radio (we didn't have  TV til I was 9) as big news. Teddy let me into a huge secret....

'you know that Ronald Biggs who escaped from prison.. (not sure I did to be fair!)... well he is hiding up Jonack Lane, near the crabpot stands'

                            ... well, you know, I didn't know whether I believed him, but I sure as hell didn't go up that Lane for ages!

Even when I moved in 1973 we stayed in touch, met up for lazy Saturday lunches and evenings listening to Roxy Music and Bowie, (and for this musical influence I thank him wholeheartedly) but again marriage beckoned to other people..even though lots of people thought we were a pair!... and we lost touch, but now and then I see his family and hear his news..

Affairs of the Heart...vintage Valentines

It's my week at Lucky Snapping Over here and I have been lucky enough not to have duplicated anyone else's ideas, it was always a gamble to talk about Valentine's and all things hearty and flowery on week three of February!  But don't worry, as the week progresses I do have some extra ideas beyond the 14th February but wanted to see what everyone thinks first!


Sisters in 1969, in their mid-40's



I have an old story about a secret Valentine. 

 Way back in about 1944 my Dad would have been about 22 and serving with the Royal Navy in the second war. He was courting my Mum, a few years younger, who lived in the village about three miles away. They would be married in 1946.  Now my Mum had an older sister Edna, a brusque busy kind of woman even then, quite formidable to me as an Aunt in the years to come and I guess similar in her ways as a young woman. 

 

She wasn't a very relaxed kind of girl and as far as I know she wasn't really interested in boys, or they in her I imagine, though I may be doing her a great disservice here.
Mum told me that she and Dad used to meet for a walk down the country lanes after Chapel on a Sunday evening and often went along with other couples like Gary and Betty, Mum's oldest friend from school.  They used to keep it quiet and 'don't let Edna know' because she would tell their Mum... ahhh,  life was so risquee in those days don't you think! ;-)

Edna never married and was a stalwart of the village, especially the Methodist Church and the school where she was a caretaker in later years.  I was only talking with Colin about her yesterday and how Mum only knew of perhaps one possible suitor, but somehow that wasn't right, one of them wasn't good enough for the other....or something, the kind of things which bothered people in those days.  I think he may have been a minister's son, or maybe she once 'held a torch' for a minister's son, either way she would have made a great preacher's wife, after all she was kind of married to the Chapel in her own way in any case. 
 
Are you getting a feel of Walton's mountain here, all Mrs Godsey and all that?

In later years she cared for my Gran and kept busy with all kinds of village relationships through the chapel or WI and several part-time jobs working for old people she once worked on the farms for.

Well one Valentine's Day Aunt Edna received a small envelope. Inside was a matchbox with (I think) a heart drawn on a piece of paper, or maybe a note, I'm not sure.   Amazingly the postmark was smudged so she had no idea where the package had originated. Well it was the subject of much discussion, and I am sure even for a 'spinster of the parish' a fair bit of excitement in a world scarred with the War Years.

Well Aunt Edna never knew who had sent the Valentine's token.... not until many years later, the late 60's around the time my dad died, did she find out he had sent it down from Scotland when he was being posted there for trips to Iceland. It must have been quite a lot of fun for him, mum and probably the people around them to see her so bemused as to the origins.

Not quite the big deal Valentine's tease we get these days, but just as effective.

Impossible not to..love the view!

..and impossible not to appreciate the bright blue skies, the gorgeous much-missed sunshine and the blustery winds as we went out west today!   After the grim, grey week both weatherwise and in my body and soul it was fantastic to blow the grey cobwebs out and enjoy these scenes at Porthcurno.

My faith in camera phones was restored when I looked at these, I bemoan the phone for it's impossibly rubbish camera but really I ask too much of it to work indoors in a not well lit house. Like me, give the phone some sunshine and good vibrations and it comes good! ;-)

Those who know me will notice that I have included a gorgeous little springer spaniel doing what they do best; chasing sand, running for all they are worth and getting good and deep to ensure the spaniel aroma is on max-setting when they get in the car!  Three more of them arrived together just as we were leaving.. crazy dogs, they launch themselves off the cliffs with a leap of faith / stupidity that usually comes good, quite simply they are energy on legs, in my experience the more you walked them, the farther they would run! xx

The cobalt blue sky as we left the church having taken flowers for Dad (91 yesterday).

Col remarked on the simple vapour trail of the plane and pondered on the conversations taking place above us.. champagne in First Class, just cruising over Land's End etc..

Certainly I topped up my levels today..and red pepper soup at the Logan Rock beside a log fire was the perfect end to the trip out..xx


Oh and here, somewhat belated is my February visit to Porthcurno for 'the View'

February



 

January

...still quite barren from a growth point of view but much brighter and rougher today than in January..

'The' Impossible..

I was just googling the word to see if it threw up some more inspiration for Anne's prompt. How could I have forgotten? 

Two weeks ago Col and I went to see the film 'The Impossible'; it is based on the true story of a family who like many others were caught up in the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.  I think the title is kind of strange because it doesn't really tell or remind people what the film is about, depsite being quite descriptive, so I have found many people have not heard of it, let alone seen it.

We have a kind of close feeling about the events as we had just been on our first family holiday to the Maldives, taking all the kids away for the first time since they had become 'handle-able' so to speak!   I wrote about the holiday in my serendipity post here. We had been home a couple of days and celebrated Christmas before being rooted to the TV all day Boxing Day as the events unfolded, and unfolded some more. 

The film is very good. Yes, it obviously has some CGI, how else would they portray the events of the day, but it is very believeable and you never feel like you are watching something made to 'entertain' you, which I also like because how could you if so many were lost. ( I just found this which just shows how the director was aware of this too..this. )

What made me really think was how damaging just being in the huge swell of water must have been as the flow got underway. You imagine being in a big surf and that, for me, not being keen to get my head fully under water, is bad enough, but the film makes you realise how the water is soon carrying trees, cars, gates, windows, anything in its path.   The scenes reminded me of the opening scenes of Private Ryan, where the bullets could be seen and heard piercing through the water...  conjuring images and sounds you had not quite imagined but once seen, the realisation of how awful was quite apparent ....so very poignant and very, very memorable, and I'm not one for being able to relive film scenes...

Dear Kate, she also went to see the film, after us, her chap said he still hasn't seen it.. as he spent the whole film consoling her. She said it made her cry from the start, when the family were on the plane to the holiday.. poor hunnie, sometimes you feel sad inside and a film just nudges you doesn't it...x

Impossible?...yes, on reflection!

Well over at Lucky Snapping Anne has asked us to reflect on something which seemed like an impossible task.. Just over here!

I was a little late getting my views posted for week 1 of February and you may have missed it, I'm not sure, but it is here, I promise.. oh, yes, well.. it's here..! 

And now here I am on Thursday wondering about 'the impossible' .. but worrying that I am starting to be late with my posts all the time... ahh being late!...can you see the thoughts growing?....that's me.... always almost late.... and consequently that makes 'being on time'.. impossible!    Maybe it was because I was over two weeks late being born, it continued then when I had all my brood, Ross was two weeks late and the others all a good few days.  The concept of having a baby early did not come into it.

It's not that I am very late, in fact sometimes I am even running on time, or perhaps a little comfortably early.. but that means there is an extra few minutes to ... dry my hair, nip back indoors to collect something, do the dishes before I leave.. or most probably just lie in bed the extra few moments which will start off the lateness before the chance of a rogue moment of earliness is even allowed to peek..

When Col & I married we drove in our car to the Registry Office, we got there after our friends.. and that's not really fashionable at that kind of wedding. The children have grown to expect it, they have a kind of 'Mum's timing' thing going on, take the time I said and add ten minutes, so you see, it's not that late, not hours, just fashionably not on time!  ;-)

Going back to 'impossible' I have given this a little thought. I don't think I think of things happening that had 'impossible' feelings at the outset, I guess I wouldn't even embark on something if I felt like that about it... oh, but when it's done, when I am sitting here pondering back over things, so so many things we have done look NOW like they must have seemed impossible.

In 1997 we were parents to five children under 12, the baby (Kate) was three months old and we had been quietly thinking of moving house. Col was working on civils dive work which had become very weather sensitive and every job had to be a success, he was looking to do something else...we needed somewhere he could have workshops and have some scope..

Col's folks were interested in buying somewhere with us, a place of their own but alongside us, to be good for us at that time and good for them later when maybe they would need us.  We had looked at one place, a farm with farmshop on quite a busy road, it was okay, food for thought, but it was digested and spat out as not the one!  

A few weeks later I saw the details of a old ivy covered farmhouse with lots of outbuildings and 9 acres of land.  We went out to drive past it, we had only been through the village a few times before, but we were pleased to see it was at the start of a lane just on the edge of the village, so it was good for a wander to the shop, but not too far for the kids that they couldn't go on their own.  It was only five miles from where we were and we ... well I.. fell in love. I think Col saw the potential too of course, probably from a getting away from the crowds point of view (the place we lived in at the time was getting a bit built up)... so we showed some friends and our folks.. 

Gran's annexe will go here!

The front garden with it's very mature rose bushes and monkey puzzle tree was just fabulous, many a child could be reared there ... little did I know that the front path would be dug up for new water and power supplies, that the roses would be taken up as they were so mature the thorns were like wooden spears, not child friendly at all!  Only that monkey puzzle really survived the practical ideas Col had to make the place easy to maintain, gone were my secluded Victorian pathways and overgrown hedges.. but I'm cool..

The house was.. a disaster.. wallpaper peeling off the walls, asbestos panels to remove, a fire damaged floor, no plumbing or heating in the main house and that was just the obvious stuff!

But we quite fancied it.. there were two barns, one for his folks... and.. hey wait a minute.. if we move I will still spend a lot of time toing and froing to my own Mum.. lets get her to come too!! So she did! To be fair she had a nice bungalow in our old village and would probably have been fine there for a few more years, but it was going to be easier if she came along....

.. so they came along.. us 7, Col's M&D and my Mum. We sold our houses and rented a 4-bed bungalow for three months while we did a gut and make-liveable job on the 'big house' as Col's Mum named it.  Ahhh and here's the rub.. Mum and his folks got caravans and lived in them in the field alongside the barn for up to two years before they moved into their places...summer 2000 Mum moved into her annexe and we were finally all sorted, ...well it's still a work in progress but aren't most homes. 

Where the workshop joined the barn (his folk's house!)

The story goes that Jean and my Mum used to sit in the caravans over in the field, looking back at the delapidated farm buildings, big digger trucks, old farm detritis and so much work that needed doing and they would ask each other just what we had done..!! 

I think they thought it was an impossble task.. but like us they must have not really thought so because they came on the journey too.. takes quite a person to live in a caravan for almost two years when you are in your 70's, especially by choice! 



Caravans just on the right in the field!

But those days of kids playing in building sand and Kate (with two bottles, one in her mouth and one in her pocket) crawling across the wooden planks to Jean's caravan are all the things memories are made of.. just like the impossible tasks!

I must just add here one of Colin's favourite quotes ..

'If at first you don't succeed.. get bigger kit!'

We were storing this big swingshovel at the time and got to use it for the demolition work.. only trouble was it had some faults, it had an inclination to swing to the left, so you had to be careful you didn't wipe out a building when just trying to make 'improvements' !!!

The views from here!

Well I am here racking my brains as to why I haven't posted anything since last Monday... no real reason, but in winter I do find I have weeks where I just want to curl up and hide until it's over.. you know the kind of cold-to-your-bones damp days when there isn't much nice going on and not much to report.



Week 4..xxx



Kate had a horrible cold, they always manifest with her as bad ears, throat and she also had/ has an awful night cough, so she was home several days and somehow that throws me out, her not getting going in the morning kind of makes me sluggish too!  Lyla was over a couple of days with April, it's nice to have the family all working together though, JB and Kate seeing plenty of their nieces.  

Lisa came by yesterday with the three girls, Tom was away overnight visiting Zac for a very wet, boggy painball game so we did the girlie day. That was nice, more eating, drinking tea aftetr tea and of course I got to bath Annabelle..lovely! 

It was so lovely going to fetch them all, a super-mum and her tiny baby and two little girls, both in bunches, chatting away to me in a real animated way... they reminded me of the little 'uns in the Sound of Music, you know, the one who is always out of time and shouting loud at the end of the line!

In the evening Col and went out late and saw that new film 'I Give it a Year', good fun, not a must-see at the cinema but lots of laughs even if it was a little chickflickish, an easy night out anyways and a nice end to the weekend...

.....before another day in office-land.  Poor Col, he had an afternoon of it, he tries so hard to keep everyone in the loop, gives them the chance to have an opinion and be part of what we do, then they just make you feel like you should be a lot less bothered and not try to be so personable with the crew!   You know sometimes he hates his job, he says he never did want to work in an office and he never got told at the interview what he would have to do.. that's a laugh, no-one interviews you when you are self-employed do they!  Other times he says he would sack himself if he could!  He just isn't an office bod you see and sending quotes, selling equipment and dealing with funding and projects all means you drive a desk a lot of the week!  



Yard view.

At least at the weekend he got outside and some clearing up done with Ross, lots of granite to move from the new room site.

Meanwhile April and I cleared the porch..so much junk, so much you don't need but don't want to throw away. My Mum's place is becoming more and more a safe haven for things you don't want to 'shedify'.  Also we store some food and drink out there so it had to be brought into the kitchen to find a home, makes everywhere seem crammed and untidy, but I just hope I get more storage and can 'cleanse' it when we are done.



Window view.



I joke that once I have this new room my plan for the next 15 year revival is to have our upstairs and Mums flat made into one and a super kitchen built so we can live out our retirement there..well if I plan it now, 15 years is about right for the birth of a new kitchen 'round here! (all good humoured banter and I do love to ponder a plan for the future.. so you see I am no completely rooted in my past! ;-) )

I used to feel real cabin fever when I didn't get out of the house, but lately I am enjoying the time here just chillin'.  So I never got to POrthcurno or the Mount for my views away from home.. oh dear.. but there's a plan. My Dad's birthday next Saturday so I will venture west with flowers and get my Porthcurno picture for Feb then.



And yesterday Ross & April kindly got me some great pics of the Mount.. better than I could have hoped for.. not sure which one to choose either..  (it is okay if someone else takes them, especially if it was for the challenge!)

February sofa view!

   



January

 That title kind of reads a bit strange but it will all fall into place as the months progress. We are back on Week 1 of the month and Jen has given us the next line of the poem from Sarah Coleridge....    February brings the rain, thaws the frozen lake again.

I am sure the rain will not be a problem but getting a touch of frost may be hard here as so many of the views I chose are very close to the sea..

The monthly 'Sofa View' however will not be affected by the weather.. but I am doing it all the same! Yesterday all the family came over, M&D, three little girls and we all got some lazy time together.. well maybe not JB and Tom as they took Lilly to wash cars in the yard but great fun was had and the big girls had a bath too, so that was another Sunday night chore off their list which if I recall helps a lot!



February?





Jordan took some nice pictures and I took a few on my phone, this one is very similarly positioned to the January one (also a rubbish quality as on my phone!), but it shows Lilly in a sheep outfit and Lyla cuddling up, much to Lilly's annoyance!

..and as for baby Annabelle.. well she and I had our little bit of time too. It's hard when there are young ones who know you so well, not to feel like you are leaving them out, but they were fine and I snuck the little one upstairs for my first time bathing her in my bedroom sink...  Heating on, towels soft, April on camera and me on Nannie mode.... I just loved it, we talked... well, she listened and I talked!  She cried a little but not too much and we washed her hair and rinsed her off, then cuddled up in some warm towels. 

It all is so second nature and comes back to you in an instant, I found myself telling April all the things the lovely midwives at Bolitho (Maternity Home) told us as first time Mums .. how to rest them on your wrist and hook your little finger under their armpit to stop them slipping away from you in the bath, how you should really take the vest off down over the body to stop getting germs in their eyes, oh all those things which made a baby so precious.

Some of the pictures were in B&W and we will no doubt be scrapbooking them, but then we saw the warmth come into them as the colour pictures .. a gorgeous yellow babygro Uncle Bill brought us for Lilly, almost five years ago, when he was here for Ken & Jean's Golden wedding...a lot of water under our communal bridges in that five years..It was just like new as Lyla had the hip brace and couldn't wear lots of the first size things.

We think that Annabelle may also have to have the hip brace for a while, but it is common with breexch babies and after the unknown with lyla it is less of a worry this time. Also she just got results back all okay today as she had been jaundiced for a little longer than expected .. I was so pleased, a little family so busy doesn't need any extra worries..but it is strange how you don't know how much it was on your mind until the relief of an all good result comes to you.. x

 ..anyways, I go on too long.. I think this will be my Sofa View for February..

February!



Precious? Well I kept it 35 years.

So it's Sian's Story Telling Sunday again, you can join in over yonder! at High in the Sky!

This year Sian has asked us to story tell our precious items, and today she herself has chosen a postcard she received aged 10 years old, not depicting a momentous event today, but most precious at the time and obviously something she has never felt she wanted to be without.  I have something similar. I don't feel hugely strongly about it, but it is a small reminder and there doesn't seem any reason to not leave it in the little jewelry box with the charm bracelet from being a bridesmaid age 6 and my first signet ring.

As you may imagine there is a back story or two!

I was christened Kathryn and pretty much always called that by family and friends until I was a teen.  One of my first boyfriends, a lad from Mousehole had a Mum who's sister was called Kathy. She was a fab lady from Leicester and although she suffered with horrendous arthritis, to the extent that she could ride a bike more readily than walking, a\nd as a 15 year old I really loved her.. she called me Kathy and my Mum became 'Kathy's mum' to him and history was written. 

Now this is the bit I cringe about... I must have been a pretty pretentious teen in my own way (though on looking back I am sure I was pretty square.. but weren't we all in 1975 compared to pretentious of the 21st century?) because I kind of didn't like 'Kathy', especially 'Kathy Thomas', not sure why, it just didn't run off the pen, so I must have tried it out a few times and with the flourish of a teenager who was fairly academic (and in those days that meant being a pretty good essay writer as much as being a smart-ass!) I finally decided that it I was going to be stuck with Kathy, then I would make it a bit different and Kathi was born!  It ran off the pen nicely when I signed it and I liked how it looked on cards and stuff.

What I didn't expect was how stupid it looked when written by friends with tidy oval handwriting and the people who still practiced that joined up stuff we learnt for the 11+

Even today I use it still but have people apologising for spelling it wrong when they have sent me an email. When people ask if I am Kathi with  K or a C I take a breath, sigh and say whichever, then agree it is a K... then send one back and they must wonder.. why didn't she say it ends in 'i' but no 'e'... and if they do I just say, oh well I must have been a pretentious teenager.. and hope they smile too!

So, then there's KathiJo.. I know it sounds like a gingham-skirted-cookie-baking-southern-mom from Texas or somewhere, but it's actually just the first name hotmail would accept that didn't require a load of numbers too... and so Kathryn became Kathi became Kathi Jones who finally became KathiJo your blogger pal!

... and you may wonder, what precious item prompted this explanation?

(which in the true reason for my blogging, will one day explain in my usual protracted way,  to my nearest and dearest should they be ever wondering when I have long forgotten..why I was called Kathi..)... this necklace a(nother) boyfriend had made especially for me in about 1977. 

I think he had worries about how I actually spelt it.. but at least I knew it was made just for me because how many others were about just then!   Every now and then I find this in the little box and tell the story of how we had a whirlwind romance during my second year of A levels, prompted by his Dad (on holiday in Mousehole) suggesting he send him to take me out! He arrived in his Dad's car, took me to eat somewhere proper and even got out to open the car door for me.. well, we just weren't used to it in these parts were we.

Sadly a year on we had done it all, planned our lives, got engaged, he moved from London to live here, his family were moving here too anyways... and then the rot set in.. life was real, I was way too young, he liked his beer way too much and I got three good 'A' levels and realised that there was more to life than being a wife waiting at home until the pub called last orders! 

My darling Mum never judged for a moment, sat by, quietly not saying much at all, supporting during the high days and the low days, I bet she lay awake a good deal at night wondering just what would happen... but I made my own choices, eventually the right ones and it was over. She didn't say I told you so because she hadn't, but I knew she had thought so..... and about three years later the same guy was lost on the Penlee Lifeboat in 1981.. it was a strange thought, I saw his Mum and she said she was glad we hadn't worked out as I would have been a widow that day and probably had lost a father to my children. 

Truthfully the whole disaster was such a sad time for the village, I didn't feel worse about him than any of the others I knew and my step-father probably felt worst of all because he lived with and saw raised several of those guys in 1960's Mousehole.... but maybe there is a little more to the story of the necklace than I realise and maybe why I kept it longer than I may otherwise have done....a kind of a symbol of the innocence of a young romance in days when no-one can have predicted what would happen in the future... and now that little bit of story has been told..

Funny too, as I feel sadder writing about this now than ever before..xx

Still here.. I can sing a Rainbow!

I was thinking that maybe the soapbox moment below sapped all my blogging energy as I have been absent the past 7 or 8 days, just a little busy, weary and not a lot to tell.. so that's okay isn't it?  I still keep an eye on the updates from almost everyone but it was only now I got here.. thought it best to write something before the new week's challenge begins!

Zac was home last weekend, he finished college early Thursday and had enough time to make the drive worth it and get three days at home, also he got to visit and see his new niece... awwwhh.. she is doing great, and so are the girls, still boisterous, bossy and bundles of energy, but that's children isn't it! 

We will have her over for a proper ophotoshoot tomorrow as Dad is off paintballing (new dad speak for complete-mental-replenishment-from-new-fatherhood!)

Saturday evening us two, Zac & Jordan went to PIzza Express in St Ives, calling for a gorgeous berry cocktail at the Hub first.. mmm, well that was just me, it's not really a 'man drink' (well not one a man would confess to anyway!)  I had a large wine with the meal and we had a real nice time.. but boy, I peaked way too soon, home by 9.30 and I was so so tired as we settled down to watch a film in front the fire... what a lightweight!

I did take this nice picture of the fire, which we have swapped using (damp) wood in for coal and it looks so yummy and we can even get it to stay 'in' overnight!

I was thinking this would make a good INDIGO for the rainbow colours challenge set by Janice this week over here! at Lucky Snapping.

I have really enjoyed seeing everyone's offerings and even learning a bit about the colour indigo off Wikipaedia... useless fact coming up.... Indigo, Orange and Violet are the only three colours named after 'something'.. Indigo is a dye by all accounts, I reckon we see it most in the dye on the inside of denim jeans.. ahah

Oh and in the week Col was away and I got down to a bit of crafting.. I finished a layout I started back in our December Just Scrapbooking class. We went back to basics and had a few challenges, one of the sketches I chose was this one, and you can see it.. just about.. in the layout below!

It was Jordan's 18th and she has swapped it out of the frame which used to have her 16th birthday layout, with a now un-friendly friend in it., good job your Dad always stays your Dad so she can keep the Coming of Age picture up for years! ;-)

I used a school achievement medal for ARt and some misic and also a pic of the plate for her dessert.. all the things she loves.. oh and then there is Dom! ;-)

I bought the Merry Christmas 2012 tags in the sale, they are great date reminders and I was organised enough to have the house Christmassed a good deal in time for her birthday last year so that day is our kind of day to start celebrating!

Happy 18th JB ...Love you xxxx

So.. today was scrapbooking over at Newlyn, we had some lovely messy time with gesso, inks and paints, all with a lose theme of board games, April came too and I think we switched her onto art journalling again.. result!...........

...........but more on that later this week.. for now this is a medley of my favourite colours of the rainbow images, I love how they are all features of nature and how colours in nature are rarely definitely one colour, but that the morph, as does a rainbow, through the whole spectrum....and I couldn't leave out Lilly in her rainbow dress could I? xxx