365/102 Elegant..Bristol!



I always wanted to live in a flat.. but one like this!

 We had the best day yesterday.. sunshine and city walking, it was almost like Paris in the Springtime! I took Col shopping and we had so many laughs, well you can't have a new wardrobe and fill it with all your old tee shirts and stuff can you... so he is the proud owner of new shorts, shirts and tees.. and it was almost as much fun as buying for me!

After a super lunch of swordfish at Mud Dock we snuck into Ikea and picked up a couple of new tables so we have tables as nice as the decking!

365/101 Clutter.

I heard a woman discussing 'Clutter' on the radio yesterday evening. She reckons that if you haven't used it in a year and you don't love it, then it is clutter and you should get rid of it!

In that case the sight in my scrap room is not clutter.. I love it all and have used (some) of it in the last two months!  That allowed, it does need a bloody good sorting out!

365/100 Gentle..Easter Monday!

Well there was a gentle feel to the whole day, getting things done and dusted (no, not that kind of dusting! whatever next..) so Col and I could sneak off for a couple of nights in Bristol. We left in a gentle drizzle, pure Cornish weather turning to a good soaking for the ground by the time we got to Bristol.


Stolen image, but gently does it!



We stopped at Exeter and crossed the Cathedral Square to get some food at Pizza Express, one of our favourite haunts when we have been there before. It was such a lovely moment when we stopped at the same time on the cathedral steps and remembered that it was almost 21 years ago exactly that we met there and had our first kiss.... awhhh, we had such a lovely meal, remeniscing about the last twenty years and picking out our 'best bits'!!



365/99 Lots and lots.

Well we were expecting Lilly to burst through the door today, proclaiming the arrival of the East Bunny at their house, followed by the discovery here of many things for sticking and gluing which he (and I) had purchased a few weeks back, but a nasty bug had descended at their house mid-week and kindly they have given us all a wide berth whilst recovery continues...

 

Colin and Ross have been busy the last few weekends getting two more batches of decking down, it's looking great.. the plan is to box a piece in around the edge for seating.. but all we really need is a new table or two and we're good for summer..

 

..lots and lots of decking!

 

(Oh and a footnote on the popular Crunchie cookies.. we add the chocolates after so they aren't destryed in the baking!.. just so you know.. x)

365/98 Girlie.

  



This should be easy! I have three girls and two boys and two grand-daughters, but what to use as my photo ...mmmm....only one of the girls has been truly girlie from an 'all things pink perspective', but as they've grown older the other two have traded their greys and now you could say they definitely have their own womanly style.



As a brood we females of the Jones clan have a penchant for all things lace up and a trip to Plymouth shopping (near birthdays in July and December usually) have become easier now we kind of all know each others girlie style...

Jordan always manages to modify something to make it her own.. even at New Year she made her own 'Sea' costume while the rest of us went all traditional ooo-ar Pirate-ish!

JB loves to cook, especially desserts and cakes, and yesterday when I finally got out of bed it was to the whaft of chocolate cookies she was making her her b/f's birthday.   At my suggestion (well I have to take some credit as she is now the family baker and I am somewhat redundant!) she added chunks of crunchie , fudge, white choc and maltesers instead of the usual MnM's.. and they were delicious.. maybe she has made herself a little Easter family tradition!

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!

365/96 What is that?

Oooohhh, a difficult prompt today. Loads of scope but nothing has happened to make me say this to myself, or anyone else for that fact..so from the comfort of my sofa, after the day is almost done I have chance to consider the options!

You may recall we had a party for New Year and Col and the kids set up a couple of projectors and screens for showing music videos.. it was a lot of hard work for JB and Zac getting all the videos but it made the party.  So, about three months on we still have all the hardware in place and in the kitchen of a weekend we still have our own mini music session!  

Another party is due mid May, with Super Heroes and Rock Stars as the theme.. anyone who is larger than life really! ... so it seems daft to take it all down now...doesn't it?.. heck, I am getting very laid back in my old age, one time I would have been really nagging to tidy the ceilings up, but hey, does it matter... or maybe I am nagging but as it falls on deaf ears it really doesn't count!

The second pic is of a beautiful metal piece of art Col gave me a couple of Christmases ago.. a shoal of metal mackeral, so symbolic for me, the mainstay of my family's income during my childhood..

365/95 Noisy.

.. well day 95 passed pretty uneventfully and come the evening I wasn't inspired.. and then it happened..our Zac man arranged to call us from San Francisco and we planned to Skype!  Well I do have Skype on my tablet and we have done it before on the kitchen computer with Will & Michelle (but no webcam there now) so tablet it was...

... Kate reported that Zac was now on Facebook and his contact was.. imminent!! So the Skype call came through... and it was so noisy!!.. lots of interference, we could just about hear him but in between there was lots of what you can only describe as a cross between radio squelch and Dr Who special effects..I suggested we resort to text messaging on Google or something but I would tell both Zac and Col were reluctant to plump for writing when talking was an option!

So eventually Zac managed to find a nice little corner in Starbicks on San Francisco Pier and called us with Skype (voice only though) on his HTC instead of his laptop.. it was about 9.15pm by then.. and we all got to chat with him, despite a few mis-connections later.. and I even managed to get the ironing done and go fetch JB from work in the time we chatted with him, Ross and April too.. JB got to have a bit of a natter too, but she misses him so much it was kind of too hard as she obviously had so much she wanted to ask / tell / moan about with him..but he'll be back for all of May and they will play X-box and catch up big style!

Almost three hours later we had to drag ourselves to close the chat.. and when we woke up this morning we had that kind of sweet awakening feeling you have when you know last night had been a good one!

365/94 Teeny weeny... thoughts of Rob xx

I was thinking I'd be stumped for a picture or story for this prompt, but Lilly was over for the day and I asked her how much she loved me... she reached behind her back and touched her hands together and then brought them round..'this much' she said.

Then Kate was here with her b/f Liam and I asked Lilly if she thought Kate loved Liam and she pinched her finger and thumb together, almost touching... 'ahhh, teeny weeny' I suggested and she agreed!

The main subject today has to be a small tribute to our lovely dog Rob.. he's been getting old and tired of late and this weekend his legs called it a day and yesterday we took him on his last journey, a little quieter and less excited than usual, but still our calm faithful bud..but safe in the knowledge that he will be long loved and remembered..

 

 

...he was a 'P-reg' according to Simon who owned him on the farm before he came to live with us.. (he wasn't much for rounding up sheep, preferred people and to sit beside you with his head on your leg.)  So Rob came to live at ours about ten or eleven years ago and soon became part of the family.  he was such great company for Zac especially on his adventures down the field.. one night he and Joe slept out in their tree house and Rob slept under it, he was growling before Colin got within 50 yards of checking up on them... so protective.



Bathtime for Uncle Bill's visit

I had to email Zac but had kind of forewarned him, which made it a little easier.  I guess that's how it goes when you're away from home a lot, there's things you can plan to be here for and things you are going to have to hear in a letter or phone call.. big hugs and wishes we could make the world a little bit 'teeny-weeny' so I could give Zac a cuddle right now... but hey, he'll be home this month!  Yay!!

365/91-92-93 Games - Costume - Childhood.

So... did you miss me ? Yeah? While I was away? ..dah de dah!
.. well actually I didn't go anywhere far, I just kind of had a blog lull..not sure if it was the words or just not much to say.. but here we are, another week begins and the news is in..

Games.. my Col isn't a games or card playing fan, but the kids have still managed to enjoy a few Monopoly sessions and also Labyrinth which Lisa brought home from a German exchange visit about ten years ago.. Lilly likes it now, carries the counters and cards around and I guess someday she'll learn how to play it. When we go on holiday the kids and I play cards, most of the games they learn at college! 

 

Costumes..well the fancy dress party from New Year springs to mind, it was great fun, a marine / nautical theme in honour of Zac's impending trip .. my Col wasn't keen to don a comedy outfit so I came up with the idea of a seaplane pilot..easy one.. shorts and a shirt, flipflops and the captain's hat JB found him for Christmas... mmm, still a tad on the tame side...but add some sticky name tags and a moustache and shades and he had us all in fits... (It was suggested there were elements of 70's porn star about him, but hey, I wouldn't know about that!!)



Costume / games/ still a child at heart xx

But as they day progressed yesterday I had an idea to combine the prompts for games and costume with some notes about our Zac and his love of camo gear, tree house building and subsequently paintball playing....the year we first bought him camo gear for Christmas he wore it all day, the coat and hat and everything, he was about 8 years old.  There followed several years of tree house building, camp making and plans for full on mudball wars with friends and older brother!  As ever with Zac he loved the planning and execution of the plan more than the actual game at the end.

One of our favourite pics of Zac in his camo gear is not very great quality but I will try to take a copy of it..him and his pal Joes coming up the field with faithful Rob the farm dog who was Zac's shadow for many years.

..and there you have it.. Childhood and all its innocence and joys.. x