Making the most of Summer!

The summer weather has made us all try to take advantage of the still light evenings and the warmth. This evening April and I had the 3 girls so Lisa and Tom could go for a kayak and then a swim and have some supper .. just the two of them. I still appreciate that Cols Mum and mine did so much for us that I am always happy to do it for them..

Annabelle is just about walking and Little Pops (Col's Dad) was playing hide and seek with her watching from our kitchen window.. you can just see him peeping from behind the curtain!

Summer Children:  Ross & Lilly.

We joked that History is repeating itself, Ross got the 50cc quad out which we bought when Lisa was about 7, it's been welded up and rebuilt a fair few times in the last 19 years, and still creates joy in a child.. and a grown up!

Linking up with my challenge over at Lucky 7s here is a summer sunset.. we have had the most glorious shows of sun and light this year.. and if I wake early tomorrow I will give you the sunrise too!

Through my kitchen window..

Kitchen Container view!

Even a whole bunch of containers living (temporarily ) in my eye line could make me fed up with the view out of my long awaited kitchen window!

Pops is so lovely..He always makes sure I have some flowers on the windowsill..The orchid is the one from when Lyla was born and the Peace Lilly ( in need of some TLC or feed!) was a gift from our friend Hazel when she came to my Mum's ashes day almost 6 years ago.. I really must repot it!

I also have extra lovely light from 3 Velux and the glazed door panel.. not much chance of missing much ;-)

Happy 28th Ross!

It was Ross' birthday yesterday..28 years old.. I remember it like it was yesterday.... as you do!

We all got together for a slightly windy but sunny barbecue and as he had his proper (cappuccino) cake for his weekend friends event Jordan made this lovely blueberry and lemon fat free offering .. almost like a pudding and with fresh fruit ..awesome! 

It is also Lisa's birthday this week, Ross was 2 and 3 days when she was born.  She and Tom are having a couple of days away so look out for some picture heavy posts over the weekend!

My family : Girls and food!

Crafty Me?

Not much craftiness going on in my house the last year or so, but my untidy scrap room will be sorted one of these days and I will return to photos and memories.. just that right now I am happy Making The Memories and will scrap them some day when I am not out there quite so much!







So Crafty for me today is 'stealing Ross's pictures'.. these are a few from his GoPro camera , not bad for stills from video.. it goes under water so I wanted to share the jellyfish pic especially xx

(Sorry for speed blogging but I want to keep it up but have a busy week so apologies if I don't manage to comment, will definitely peek though!)

December Daily : 2

Ross' Christmas tee!

Mornings..

Ross should be a Gemini! Come the morning he is either dead miserable, taking a good while to 'come to', we call him Cornflake Man, you know the one who is like a caveman growing more like us as he eats his Kelloggs... or he is so perky he makes you want to lamp him!

I came down yesterday morning and he was on perky mode; to be fair he has been this way since he started his school job, it is a half hour drive in and he likes to be on time, so he gets going early...unlike the rest of us..urghhh,especially when you have had a late night over the weekend! Kate in particular isn't great in the mornings, school days especially, so tMonday she was chasing Ross about giving him grief for being so awake!

Famous for her dry sense of humour Kate observed as she was eating breakfast..

'if Monday were a pair of shoes it would be a pair of Crocs!' 

(Now I know they are very light, very versatile and an addiction once you have some..I may have alienated myself from half my 'readers'  but you have to admit it was funny!,)

I think they take after me, I never was a morning person, always got in trouble with Mum for saying some of the words you shouldn't say when we overslept and I was grumpy!

This morning I woke early, unusual for me, but it was a lovely morning, lovely enough to take this picture across the yard..I made a coffee and went back to bed for half an hour, suddenly I get why people like waking early.

This is the view from my other bedroom window, down into the extension. Concrete for the slab arrives Thursday and you can just see the utility around the corner..can't wait.. well, yes I can.. that's something I have learnt about myself., that whilst I feel nervous and excited about something and think that maybe I just can't do it, (childbirth, moving homes, dentist, anything which gives you that unknown pit-in-your-stomach kind of feeling), but when the time draws very close a kind of composure sets in and I can !!!                                                                        

                    

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!

365/256 Arms.

I went for a hair cut (well roots and a trim..!) and then did the ironing this evening so it's a quickie again tonight, Work has been busy and I haven't had much chance to catch up on emails or blog comments either so if you can bear with me..

Arms.. mmm.. a couple of images spring to mind, so many of our pictures show a child or other person loved one being held in our arms, isn't a hug just the most wonderful thing, especially from someone you see a lot and sometimes don't always take time to enjoy the moment with..

Jordan has a birthmark on her upper arm, sometimes people think it is a burn scar. She is quite attached to it and teases me that she should get it tattooed so it stands out more or to make a feature of it, not just a strange dirty looking mark!  Zac has a similar mark on his back and I think Kate has one on her leg.

Thought I'd indulge myself with the picture of me with Ross in my arms, all gorgeous 8 months of him in 1987... xx

...and Zac hanging off the lianas of a hige banyan tree on holiday, we do this for a picture every time we go there, but the kids are getting taller now so it isn't so high up!

365/137 candid

Not even sure what number today is .. but this is my Ross catching up with Col this evening... Blogged from my phone so its unlikely to be linked until the morning. Early bed nursing cough and cold .. lady flu .. urghhh xx

(Next day, smiling now as I analyse the candid-ness.. it must have been unposed, he is holding a pile of ironing including stripey boxers!)

365/131 Sandy.

Living so close to the sea I should have found this easy but we are kind of 'not-beachers'.. but I also thought I'd give you a potted history of Zac's first half of his leave...

...well first thing home he got his joining info for the next ship and his Australian visa..(!) has bought another suitcase and is going to do a Competant Crew course, live-aboard next week in Falmouth, he missed a paintball session but made up for it with a mini college reunion and earlier in the week he and Ross went paddle boarding.. (here on the sandy beach)

 we're hoping to have a bit of a bash next weekend....fine weather is booked and fancy dress costumes are being discussed.. the theme is kind of Rock Stars and Super Heroes as the kids all have people they want to be..anyone 'larger than life' I reckon and Col has a secret weapon planned.. if his Seaplane Pilot for New Year was anything to go by he'll be a big hit!  

The kids all seem to want to be Avengers and that's not Purdi or Honor Blackman!

365/97 Pastel

Well not much in our lives is pastel..! We joke that Colin sees most things in black and white, it'seither right or it's wrong and as I am the peacekeeper of the family I suppose you could say I must be pastel... though if you wander about my house it is generally Red!

So, browsing through my gallery I found this distressed layout of Ross surfing at Sennen.. almost pastel coloured I reckon!

365/40 Compact.

I picked up the prompt early this morning and am getting quite good at having the word running beneath the surface, on the prowl for a link. I didn't have to but I took Kate down to school and really enjoyed the drive, a crispy frosting over all the hedgerows.. would have made good 'fence' pics yesterday!

Just as I dropped Kate I grabbed the moment and banked this pic.. the ubiquitous compact of blusher.. or as they call it now.. bronzer. Some blurring as I was under pressure not to embarass her at the school gate!

Good dqy pretty much, nice and bright, pretty perky all round and over lunch the light came on and I realised there was another pic to be taken..and the chance to show off Ross' handiwork. It was about a fifteen months ago when he expressed the wish to create himself a 'cabin' in the garden.. to be fair, at the time he was sleeping in our tiny 8x6 bedroom and his feet were almost hanging out the doorway...

.. and so it was.. after much effort on the part of Ross and Colin, and a good few helpers around the edgs, that in December he moved into 'the Cabin' It's the finishing touches which have been so sweet, a 20 X 10ft garden shed is now a cosy one bedroom home with shower room and a brilliant kitchen area, with all you need to make a mean fry up. My favourite bit is the pine breakfast bar with shelving underneath... we smile when he tells us that from a three shelf unit, he gets one and April fills the other two with her shoes!

...yes, it's almost like a kitchen area from Ikea..'compact'...x

365/38 Damaged..

Well when I saw the prompt for today I wondered if anything would give me the chance to blog the events of the day as well as doing the challenge....mmm, I wondered if I would show the empty bottle of wine Ross and I might want to 'show the damage' of tonight, or maybe the damage you have to inflict in order to improve it, creating rubbish before the cleansing is revealed..!

It was a hectic day in all things 'STS' and we were all busy getting things done when there was a power cut. The workshop guys soon realised that the kettle wouldn't work so they got busy washing their cars.. and in the office we pretended they were on TV! (watching out the window as we had to pull the blinds up to max the light)

And so to 'the damage'.. when the power returned our server died, we had to call Pawel, our resident computer-doc in and here he is examining the patient. Seems we will need a new server but it's not before time ... and we will also be renewing our database system next week as Ross joins us and we need more user space.

(For those not in the know, our eldest son is joining us full time next week, taking on a whole range of jobs, all the roles we do not have full time posts for but are essential to us getting on and growing the company more.. he is slightly OCD as I have mentioned before so we think he'll love getting to grips with stores / stock taking and also getting to learn on the job, all about our kit so he can go out to visit customers and train them, saving Col precious nights away.. the appeal of nights in a Premier Inn have long gone, unless for the tasty jobs!)

Ross has always fancied working with us, but sometimes you and they have to grow enough for the time to be right to work with your kids...and when he decided to look at a job in car sales, happy to apply himself to that, we grabbed the chance to have him before someone else did!

365/24 Motion!

Well I thought this one might get the better of me, unless I decided to go out to our workshops and find someone working on a trolley or go out and stand by the roadside...

But I was rescued by a lovely gesture : my eldest offered to make the tea... a lovely Thai Green Curry.

Trying to tick off one of my 'things to do soon' list I am away for the night tomorrow to meet Colin and enjoy 'doing not much' so it was a golden (and rare) opportunity to go upstairs after work and have a nice long bath. 

I couldn't keep from meddling though, still ended up stirring in the fish and getting the rice pinged in the microwave... oh and I did the dishes too!

Motion.. ahah.. Ross stirring his curry.. challenge sorted !

What you'd call a brisk walk.

Living inCornwall we don't always make the most of it and this year Ross and April have made a resolution to do something at the weekends and enjoy what all the holiday makers enjoy for only a couple of weeks a year. Last weekend was Nanjizel beach and today I went along for awalk from Penberth, up over the cliff and to the Logan Rock pub for some lunch before down the hill again to fetch the car. It was lovely, the sea was grey and wild but when the sun came out it turned blue and beautiful.. 

I was quite well behaved, not too heavy on the nostalgia, perhaps because we weren't really dawdling due to the easterly wind and consequently a nice chill. But there was no rain and it was fab to get up on the cliff and see the cove from up there. Porthcurno bay was gorgeous with a huge flock of birds enjoying the wind and surf on the sand bar off Pendne and Prie beaches.  

We were surprised the walk was quite quick, I think that had something to do with the weather making us walk a little faster..and the rest to do with the fact that I remember the walk from when I was about five or six years old, little legs dragging up the side of the cliff and the whole event seeming to take hours... even Ross remembers the cove as being a lot bigger when he used to go there as a little kid..x

I love rocks covered with Lichen!

Devil is in the detail..

..or so they say.. and it's a devil of a job getting the tablet equivalent of the right click to come easy!  But hey, whatever..the manual is a pdf so you have to read it, then exit it to see what it means in practice..I know, maybe you should get the manual up on your pc so you can read it whilst playing with the tablet... yeah, right!

Oh, where was I? Ah, yes, detail...I used up some of the clothes labels I have had stashed away and they worked into this surf layout perfectly. I have been promising Ross his album now for a while, but the more I scrap the longer each page takes...
and don't you just love the cloud stamp..x

How is it?

..that we have been without a computer in our kitchen for the past three weeks (it lives above the boiler which became very old, infirm and subsequently died), so during all the upheavasl Ihaven't been blogging,I say because I had no pc to take pics from...but now I am blogging off my tablet, along with some pics taken on it... but the question reains why I did not take them before and get going... who knows.. it's a strange old world..

So I'm not going to write too much for the first post, as i need to check out how thisis thing works.. and dear Zac is too far away to cry 'help!' and hear any decent re

 Okay, so I'm having a few probs sizing these, but hey..they are the two layouts I did in September. The theme was summer collage and we used strips of all kinds of paper, I tried to keep mine relevant, strips from Boardmaster ads, surf events and even old RipCurl posters..then we covered them to bind the look together and lost almost all the detail.I wasn't sure if I liked that but when I revisited the page in October it all came together, esp with the fab little cloud stamp I borrowed from Linda...why does she always have the best ever stamps!

th

51 is the new 50 . . ?

Whilst I can hardly say my 50th birthday went past unnoticed the fact that Zac and I spent half the day on trains to and from Cardiff meant we had a kind of wearied celebration on our return. Col and I went away later in the year but I have always kind of felt like I should have marked the passing of 50 years with a more family gathering kind of occasion.


Well as those of you who really know me can vouch, I am not an early kind of person and perhaps in this case a whole year behind!  A few weeks ago Colin's Uncle Bill said he was going to be in the country and hoped to come visit, and sure enough it was over my birthday weekend!  I didn't make much of a deal of it, kept it kind of low-key and amazingly the last few days have been the perfect kind of family weekend. . a kind of Cornish equivalent to an Indian wedding I reckon!


Lisa and her family were going to a wedding so they came by Thurs eve, introduced their latest addition and generally hung out . . I had some great gifts, books and DVD and also a trip to see the Vagina Monolgues with two of my girls. . our first family girlie event really ... my they are all growing up. . proper presents and everything..love you xxxx


Well last eve Col's brother and co. came down to see Uncle Bill and we had a big curry night. . Iwas aided and abetted by Ross' April who has recently had the Jones family 'baptism of fire' and appears to have come through unsinged... though onion chopping brought a tear to her eyes!   Then we had cake from JB and I got a clutch of great pressies. . a set of luggage? No, it was a very cool black craft baggage set and inside some great papers, letters and plenty of inspiration. . it seems Uncle Bill took pics through the whole purchasing event so there's a layout or two in just that. . .. and as they say it is the day to day moments you scrap whch make it so special.

Bedtime, late on at 2am was also a nice surprise.. go on.. guess.. No!... My Col bought me Samsung tablet and I wrote this entry on it.... while listening to the Top 30 from September 1973.. everything from 'All the Way to Memphis' and 'You Can Do Magic' !! (a momentous year, my last summer in Penberth and 13 years old, a real right of passage..

(mmm, Mandy, looks like I'm a lucky little Princess too!)

..no doubt Uncle Bill has pics of this event to follow!

PS Most amusing gift.. a plaque from Jordan...

'Remember, as far as anyone knows.. we are a Normal Family'

PPS Have had great calls from Zac too, sounds like he's having a great settling in time, and we'll see him soon.. if all the excitment of the Boat Show, ship visits and paintballing allow!

Sunday weekly!

It's getting a bit that way, only managing to settle to some blogging on a Sunday, but hey, better than a blogless fortnight or more like before when I've needed the 'Karen-prod'

It's been a hectic week, we put off a trip to meet friends in Amsterdam as we are so behind at work and what with other family doing their own thing it was going to be a small logistical moment to organise and relax enough to make the time really enjoyable.

Also.. Ross turned 25 on Friday! Half my life and all of his.. I told him that so far he'd just been practicing and now he could go enjoy all he's learnt.

I think he liked that and it's true really, you don't even realise you're alive 'til you hit the teens and then you make all the mistakes 'til your twenties!  He's loving surf coaching and the summer will kick in now and keep him busy for several months.

Some of his best pals came over for a barbecue and he and Colin did a great job prepping the vans / field / barbecue and it all went smoothly. (Lilly was centre of her world as ever and took a liking to Ross' mate, always fun to watch her dictating the odds and the guy in question toeing the line.. amazing talent at three, it will be interesting to see her at twenty three!!)

It's quite an odd feeling thinking I've been a mum for half my life. but those times when you wonder what you've actually been doing and you look at the family and think to yourself.. yeah, I ticked the box!

Meanwhile, Zac and Lucy are sunning it up in Ibiza and we're waiting to hear all his stories when he gets back next weekend..

.. we tried to get a trip out in the boat today but weather stopped play, it was just too grey and sloppy looking to make it worth the effort. So we retired back home and enjoyed the British GP from Silverstone..always fun as being an old airfield it's often wet one side and sunny the other.. makes for interesting tactics! Just glad we weren't there camping.. or anywhere camping to be honest.. why would anyone do that when en-suite is an option???


As usual for the last few weekends I've had a grim headache this afternoon.. been analysing it and usually need a sleep to clear it, but today I tried a cup of coffee and a hot bath and it worked.. as I thought..it's caffeine withdrawl! By lunch in the week I'd generally put away about six cups of tea or coffee, weekends are different.. don't want to give the coffee up though..mmmmm.... go to intravenous maybe?!

Still tidy!



Almost afraid to go in!



Well here's the 'after' photo, and see how the curtains are open! Even hoovered the carpet today because I can see it again!! Thanks Ross, looks like I might be able to pimp him out to all my pals with untidiness in their lives!

I remember visiting an Old People's home when my Mum needed a place for respite, took Ross with me to a place where the huge office was like an absolute pit! As we left he said,  'Did you see that room, I almost offered to stay behind and tidy it for her!'

There's got to be a million made for him there somewhere? mmmmmmm...

(off to watch my guilty secret.. 'Big Fat Gypsy Wedding')

On the bright side...

I'm not sure when Ross first exhibited his slightly OCD tendancies, perhaps when he was two or three and Brio mad. Do you remember that wooden train set they used to have set up in Early Learning? Maybe it was when he used to line up all his cars, and the one with the trailer which took a boat on it, in a tidy line along the steps into his play space?

well we sometimes give him a little amount of grief for it, because tidying things out of sight is not always the best thing when he's then out of the house so much and we're all looking for the offending article. I guess if we all had places for stuff in the first place we wouldn't be moaning, but there's so many of us it's hard to have a place for everything.


How it was...



Anyway, tonight I collected big style. I cooked a great roast and soon after Ross dragged me off to tidy my scrap room..it was a big job, there was no desk to be seen, bags all over the floor and a host of plastic boxes, shame there was nothing in them. 

Two hours later and I have a room to be proud of, lots of things sorted and even the stuff that isn't sorted is stashed away in drawers and seems almost manageable... funny how since I began scrapbooking I have more photos, reprint, scans, zooms, photoshopped, pictures taken just for scrap-sake!  yes, we managed what I never do, to get past the piles of old kids school reports and birthday cards from years gone by, to create almost a system.

(The only thing is, all the soft toys which were quietly nestled on the tall shelf around the edge of the room, have been ousted to a basket on the landing, next to all the other things not deemed worthy of a place in 'Mum's scrap heaven.'  A job for another evening methinks)

..but it really is good to see 3 layouts awaiting completion laid on the desk, tools in my big mug alongside and brads and pens waiting to adorn the pic of JB and her guitar. I can even put a chair back in there now! But does this mean I have to scrap in there? I quite like bagging up some stuff and scrapping on the kitchen worktop, TV on to listen to and the kids inning and outing.. well at least I'll be able to find the bits I know I own, but so far haven't used because they're there.. somewhere!

Thanks Ross, my hunney! Hoping I can do you justice, and who knows if those layouts get finished I might even be able to open the curtains in there again (currently on night mode all day as I fear the effect of the sun gazing on the photos etc. day on day.)