Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.
She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.
Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.
There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy 🙁 It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.
On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?
After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.
It has been a fun one though.
Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!
And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...
Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.
Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!
Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.
Art and Craft, Building Maintenance, Domestic, Events and Outings, Gardening, Health, Lojban, Recipies, Relatives, The Family, Wines and Preserves | sarah | 
Sun 6th Jan 2013 11:17 pm | 
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Yesterday my friend visited - she is in her seventies, she bought loads of books and pretty trousers for Jeans and a teddy and dolly for Mary and for me purple, pink and white flowers. She reminds me of how proud I am of how I've set things up in this house - here they are at the dinning table.
The pink jacket Jean is wearing is from her too. I love our dinning area 🙂
I have loads of pics of improvements we've made which I really should post at some point. This time last year we were desperately waiting for the mortgage to go through after having negotiated a cheaper price. Alaric and Mary were ill with pnumonia and I was still using the crutches.
Things have changed for us drastically and even though the workshop has leaked and maybe ruined some of Alaric's tools things are still on the up. Over the next week or so he and my dad will make it safe for at least the winter, Monday he sealed some of the gaps in the bathroom and did some general mantinance things.
We have purple carpet on what was bare concret, with a purple setee from my family and purple curtains from my friend (same one who popped round today). We still haven't unpacked everything which is dreadful as we are approaching the 1 yr mark rapidly but at the same time I have just unpacked my Harry Potter lego which was still in the boxes we moved from Essex! They never got unpacked at The Bakery!
Last week we had my friend Becca visiting with her sister and little niece. This was something that wasn't really possible before as there was no were really to put anyone - oh we still had house guests but that had to be willing to sleep on the floor/sofa so was out for anyone with any sort of back problem!
(they bought astronaut icecream with them!)
We had a Baby Bake Off whilst Jean was at school!
I love the fact that people can tell it's our house by the fact there is a purple butterfly on the house and the amazement that I did not put the butterflies and dolphins in the bathroom - they were already there!
Yes we have had to give up the idea of bees (urban bees would upset the neighbours), but plans for chickens are under way. Main limiting factor is money is going to be tight again in the new year 🙁 But we plan to make a list of what and when we are doing certain things to the house and garden at New Year 🙂
We love our house! Everything from the kitchen that lends itself to our epic cooking feats to the Hammond Organ we accidently bought! This was dinner yesterday - Jean wasn't impressed but it was yummy.
This is the first of our tomatos off of our Russian Purple plant that Alaric's cousin Violet gave us! Jean has been tending this plant - watering and things - it lives in the propergator and so is about five times the size of any of the plants I have grown from seed and which live outside!
As of yesterday our garden broke even on the amount of money spent on plants, soil and pots, ok so it is a slight cheat as we bought alot of stuff with us and have been given a lot of things and that does not include Mary's apple tree but still I am very happy with this. Especially as everything is in pots and containers!
Above are some of our crops 🙂 At the weekend I bought a lovely rosemary plant for 50 p too 🙂
I love my salad! Recipe is on Salaric Cooking.
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