Pants

Oooops.  I seem to have fallen off the blog wagon for a bit.  Life has been a whirlwind and while I've really been enjoying having the kids at home, I seem to get to the evenings, which is when I usually do my blog posts, and find that it's all I can do to lift my wine glass to my lips I'm so tired.  So hey ho, apologies for the quiet and I've just got my fingers firmly crossed that absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
So anyhoo, how do you like the pixie wings in the pic above?  No self-respecting girl can go to a festival and not wear wings, apparently...  I resisted the urge, but I did spend rather a large amount of time in my wellies, which are yellow - does that count?
Now, rather than try to summarise what's been going on over the past week or so, which frankly would take me about three days, I'm just going to share with you three stories on a similar theme.

1) The dress

This incident occurred at the Just So festival and it made me chuckle to myself because it seemed to sum up the whole thing so well (well, that and the fact that I was hideously sleep deprived at the time, which might have had something to do with my hilarity).  Anyway, I was waiting outside one of the toilet blocks when a little girl came down the steps to her mum, who was waiting next to me.  'Oooh' said the mum 'do you want to take your dress out of your knickers, darling?'  'No'.  'Uh, okay then.'

2) Pizza

This again took place at the festival.  Picture the scene: Mr N and middle are in the 'foodie' part of the festival, ordering a pizza for our dinner.  Once they placed the order, the woman serving said that there was about a 20 minute wait and so she'd call them when their pizza was ready.  She then asked them what name she should put on the ticket so that she'd know who to call when it was done; to which middle replied: 'Maloney.  Knickers Maloney.'

3) The toll bridge

The journey home from my mum's in Dorset involves a rather scenic trip through a gorgeous village called Bathampton, which has a tiny toll bridge that we need to cross in order to get to the M4.  For reasons best known only to himself, and probably mainly because he's an eight-year-old boy, big had decided to take his trousers off in the car when we left my mum's house.  As we approached the toll bridge he became a bit concerned that the man collecting the money would see that he was sitting there in his pants, so after a big old fuss he put a pillow over his legs to protect his modesty.  Mr N, hilarious wag that he is, pretended to shout out of the window that 'my son's not wearing any trousers.  He's sitting here in his underwear.  Come and see my son in his undercrackers etc etc.'  To which big calmly wound down his window, stuck his head out, looked at the man collecting the toll money and said 'my dad's wearing knickers today'.  I'm still not sure how I managed not to crash the car.
I'd like to pretend that the subject of bottoms and underwear gets less hilarious the older you get, but actually, I don't really think it does, does it?

Middle and I made a few little essential snack items to take with us to Just So, including the amazing rocky road from my new Avoca cook book (was delicious - yum yum).  And what did I do with the left over marshmallows?

Why, I put them in a jam jar and tied them up with greaseproof paper and a pink ribbon, natch. x

That was the week that was

Well hello there, lovely ladies, and how are you all?  I am making a quick bloggy pit-stop in between bouts of frenzied activity of one sort or another.  As I type I am licking jam from my fingers (makes it tricky to type properly when your fingers stick to the key pads, you know) having just spent a very happy hour or so making greengage jam from fruit picked by me and my gang from my gran's garden (the garden of flowery loveliness, you may remember).  Greengages are one of my all-time favourite fruit and I am pleased to report that after our recent picking session, the boys are converted to their sweet loveliness too.  If this jam works out well, I will be writing a post about my efforts (once the jars have cooled sufficiently for me to label them and put little crinkly hats on them ready for their photography session - can't have naked jars on my blog, that simply wouldn't do).  However, if the jam fails to set properly, I will never mention it again in my shame and will have to live in the hope that you will get collective amnesia and forget I ever mentioned it.  Fingers crossed...
Anyhoo, the eagle-eyed among you may have spotted those rather intriguing-looking circles at the top of my post and be wondering what they are all about.  So, with a small drum roll and slight nod of the head, I present you with the first official glimpse of my summer hols blanket.  Dunh duuuuunh:

 

Yeah babeeeeey, I LOVE this blanket.  This is not a blanket to be used as an accessory for pirate-related activities (a la springtime throw).  No sireee, this is MY blanket and it will be treated with due respect, or there will be serious talking-tos going on, and maybe even a bit of sitting on the bottom step.  And I haven't even finished it yet.  Don't let them say they haven't been warned...

So the past week has seen a bit of jam-making, a bit (a lot) of crochet, a bit of this:

Oh god, please don't drop them...

A bit of this:

quite a lot of this:

Oh yes, bun-bun comes in three different shades - no colour discrimination in this house...

And the final, rather thrilling thing, that happened this week was this:

Ooooh, open this one first, mummy

My amazing giveaway presents.  Thank you so, so much Catherine, I love them all and can report that the chocolate was most delicious - a little thank you will be winging its way to you soon. 

Right-ho, must dash, my next bout of frenzied activity involves packing an excessive amount of bunting and a big box of wine for our trip to the Just So Festival on Friday.  Eeeeeekkk!!!! x

Domestic-ness

Aaah, more of my lovely sweetpeas.  When I was pregnant with baby n, the smell of these used to make me barf and every other year I've tried to grow them, I've managed to kill them (how?) so I am completely, disproportionately thrilled that I have managed to keep these ones alive and not throw up every time I walk past them.  Happy days indeed.

Here's a thing: I have gone so completely crazy making my new summer hols blanket that my hands actually ache as I'm typing.  Jeez - a crochet-related injury - does that make it a sport?  Olympic crocheting anyone?  Well, yes please, that would be great; but I'd only participate because Olympic sports are no longer done naked as they were originally (I know about the naked thing because I watched Horrible Histories every day for the entire Easter holidays with the boys).  I have the missing blue yarn in my sweaty mitts now, though the second mint-coloured ball that I ordered from eBay has yet to arrive (cue panic attack).  Just to say a really huge 'thank you' to all you lovely, lovely bloggers who offered to bail me out in the missing-mint-yarn-nightmare.  I really appreciate your kindness and I've tried to contact you all to say thanks, but Linds I can't get in contact with you for some inexplicable reason, so I'm sorry - I have been trying!

So today has been a ploddy, domestic kinda day, which is always great.  I sneaked in a little, tiny quiet moment in bed this morning feverishly working away on my new blanket before I was rumbled and the child-menagerie came and jumped on my head.  (Ha ha, I say 'moment' but in actual fact it was more like an hour and a half.  How brilliant is that?  I love my husband quite a lot, he's so good at containing the mayhem so I'm left in peace...)  We took the kids to the park this afternoon after a long and heated debate about which park we should go to - I won the argument and we got to go to the one with the massive death slide, which I absolutely love.  Mwah ha ha!  This park also has the added appeal of being next to a huge field with goal posts in it, so the boys weren't too disappointed that I forced them to go there.  

I got a little bit excited when I saw these:

(They were transported home in a poo bag that I filched from a passing dog-walker.  Needs must...)

I got even more excited thinking about what calorie-laden delight I was going to make with them.

This did the trick:

Mr N actually blanched at the size of the portion I gave him, but I noticed he didn't actually leave any.  Pig. x

PS - we're off to sunny Dorset for a few days tomorrow so a) if you're a burglar, remember the thing about the hungry, slavering Rottweiller: and b) I may be a bit absent on the blogging front for a while, sorry; and c) if you're Cuckoo, lock all your doors because I know where you live and I'm coming to get myself a crochet hook roll...

A ta-dah and a plea for yarn

Well, lookie here....it's a completed African flowers make.  Yippeeee!

Yep, it's done and dusted (and you thought all I'd been doing lately was spreading paint around the place).  This was a funny old project - I plunged into it in my usual 'feet first, engage brain later' way - I bought the yarn solely on the basis that I loved the colours and it was half price, then got it home and thought 'uuuuhhhhmm.  Okaaaay.  I wonder what happens now, then?'  Then I found the pattern for the African flowers (here) and fell head over heels in love with it; and before I knew it, I had a pile of hexagons and still not a clue what the heck to do with them!  I kept scratching my head thinking 'hmmm, maybe a bag?  Or what about a baby blanket?  Right, erm, I could make a....'  You get my drift?  But in a moment of un-inspired clarity I decided to make a cushion.  And here it is:

Oh, hang on, the crochet ninja's getting in on the act again...

And I'm jolly pleased with it too.  It's lovely and soft, and it's also squishy, and I do really, truly love the colours, and those little hexagons are a dream to make - I thoroughly recommend making them (though perhaps with a little more purpose than I had while I made mine).  

So there you have it: my African flowers cushion.  Ta-dah!

So, on the 'what's in the pipeline' front we have, firstly:

this rather sweet, but slightly un-loved child's rocking chair that I was given by a lovely lady that I used to work for.  My plans involve a lick of paint (even as I write those words I'm thinking 'whaaaat MORE painting?  Noooooooooo') and this stripy little beauty (oh, that looks suspiciously like another cushion in the making):

At the rate I'm going, the children will be afraid to sit down and watch television for too long for fear that I might decide to give them a lick of paint too - nothing in our sitting room is safe from me and brush.  Actually, thinking about it, even the thought of being covered in white eggshell probably isn't enough to impel my boys to get off the sofa and actually do something.  It might actually do some good for baby n, however; it would cetainly cover up the muck at the very least:

Hmmmm - what do you get if you cross a Calippo that's been taken out of its tube with a very dusty play park?  Sticky little toes, natch...

And the second, even more exciting thing in the pipeline involves this (just brace yourselves, how much excitement can you take in one blog post?):

Now, here's something I learned when I ordered this yarn: it's hard buying yarn on the internet if you haven't seen it in the flesh previously.  I couldn't see the colours grouped together when I ordered them, and I saw immediately I opened the package that a) the greeny colour is just wrong and b) I need more blues.

Anyhoo, I placed another little order and now have these lovely colours to play with.  And you want to know what I'm going to make?  Why, it's another blanket that's tickling my fancy.  This one is for my new-look sitting room (the springtime throw has now been relegated to the kitchen sofa - it just wouldn't look right with the grey walls, you know).  I wanted to make it with cotton, but couldn't justify buying Rowan yarn (though it is my absolute favourite), so I thought I'd give Rico creative cotton a whirl.  I bought it from this website here and I can thoroughly recommend them as their service has been very quick and friendly.  They did slightly mess up my order and sent me four balls of one colour and none of another, but when I told them about it, they were great and immediately sorted it out for me.  So I have another shade of blue to add to the collection above, but at least I've got enough to be getting on with (me and my instant gratification).  

And this is where my plea for yarn comes in (please don't have fallen asleep by this point, I know this is a waffly old post - I did warn you that my mojo's deserted me).  The mint colour has been discontinued and they only had one ball left and I need two!!!   Eeeeeek.  Does anyone have any of the mint colour knocking about, that I could have?  Pleeeeeease.  I will pay for the yarn, I will pay for the postage, I will write lovely things about you on my blog, and karma will surely repay for your kindness.... x

Hurrah, for I shall paint no more

So, I know I usually do my crochet update at the end of the month, but this month I thought I'd really rock the boat and NOT do one.  I know, hold onto your hats...
Most of my energies over the past week or so have been focused on this:

Aaaah, happy sigh - look: it's my new-look fireplace (as opposed to New Look fireplace).  Decorating this room has been a beast.  It's taken me the best part of a week and we've been living with the television on the dining room table, books all over the place (thanks to the relocation skills of baby n, who's obsessed with them) and paint spread liberally and randomly throughout the house; but.....it's do-one!  yippeeeeee.  I had a major wobble re the colour the second day of painting, but now I absolutely love it.  Deeply, deeply love it.  I know I'll find it very hard to even let the children in the door at first for fear that they might smear, scratch or otherwise sully its pristine beauty, but for a couple of days at least I can sit and feel proud of my lovely new sitting room.  But here's a teeny, tiny confession: while I'm not the most enthusiastic cleaner at the best of times, I'm certainly not a slob by any means - I'm somewhere in the middle of the spectrum with Kim and Aggie at one end and squatters at the other - but when I moved the sofas, I was somewhat startled to see a big, flashing neon sign saying 'welcome to spider-land, we hope you enjoy your visit'.
And who knew that spiders pooed so prolifically?  Ew.  Ew.  Ew

Oh goodness, if you look very closely at that picture, you can see that Dr Who seems to have magically appeared in my sitting room.  Perhaps he's heard how fabulous and spider-free it is now...

And on a completely other note, I have finally got round to thinking of my seven 'interesting' facts for the award that Fluff Pot and Dinki Dots kindly bestowed on me recently.  You ready? 
1) I've got a piece of pencil lead embedded in my finger.  I've had it since I was about seven and I still can't for the life of me think why my mum didn't dig it out with a needle in the style of a splinter-removal.  Oooh, I've just remembered that I've got a bit of glass embedded in my heel too - this is as a result of getting into the car barefoot just after Mr N had broken the windscreen by rear-ending someone when we lived in NZ.
2) I secretly long to be able to make myself invisible in the manner of a super hero.  How brilliant would that be? 
3) I am absolutely, properly terrified of drowning.  No idea why, I've never had any bad experiences in the water - but if I can't either see or touch the bottom, I have a full-on panic attack, which really isn't my usual style at all.  I had an incident in South Africa involving me in a bikini, a waterfall, a panic attack and several bystanders.  Humiliation means nothing to me when it comes to my fear of water.
4) I let people intimidate me too easily.  It drives me bananas.  I can feel myself coming over all intimidated and then I get annoyed with myself for letting them do it to me, and that just makes it worse.  Grrrrr
5) The most precious non-human things to me are my silver bracelets.  I have seven of them and I never take them off.  Each one has been given to me by one of my best people and I love them beyond all reason.
6) Certain words are guaranteed to make me smile.  Egg, for example.  Just brilliant. Other words make me squirm - like 'pamphlet'.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.
7) I have had recurring toilet-related dreams all my adult life, especially when I'm not very happy.  Sometimes I find myself sitting on the loo and realise that there are no walls and I'm in full view of the whole world with my knickers round my knees; other times I am in a huge building and just can't find a toilet; and other times there are hundreds of loos but they're all so bad that I can't bear to use them.  (I really, really hope none of you are psychologists...)
On a confessional note again: I've really been feeling like I've lost my blogging mojo lately.  I don't know why, there's no particular reason, but I just can't seem to get into the whole 'writing my usual drivel' mode at all.  I've got so much to talk about, especially on the crochet-front, but I just can't seem to get my head around actually writing about it all.  Blah. 
Having said that, something rather exciting and blog-related did happen to me today: I won a giveaway!  I know, I can hardly believe it.  Thank you so much Catherine, this couldn't have happened at a better moment, you've really put a smile on my face.  I am soooo looking forward to receiving a rather exciting parcel and I promise I will do a proper post about it when it arrives.  (Pfftt - I just typed 'abou tit' then - snort, snort).
And with that, I will love you and leave you.  Fingers crossed for the speedy return of the elusive mojo x

Well hellooooo there

Bonjour, bonjour (rhymes with 'sewer' and has to be said in the voice of Del-Boy please).  I'm ba-ack!
Before I go any further, what do you think of this little Lego set up?  I made the mistake of saying to Mr N and the assembled crowd of mickey-takers that I thought the hen was probably my favourite Lego figure (clearly there are two things wrong with this: 1) that I know any Lego figures is worrying, but the fact that I have an opinion on them is almost too much; 2) I need to get out more), which prompted Mr N to hilariously put said chicken on the head of this rather fierce-looking blacksmith-slash-warrior and say that he thought it looked much better laying a human in the manner of an egg.  Cue raucous laughter from everyone else.  Oh, the japes we have chez Nut...
Anyhoo, I have survived my journey to the big smoke and I'm back, refreshed and ready to plough on for the next two years without a break (hmmm, slight exaggeration maybe, but god, I needed to recharge my batteries big time).  I foolishly forgot my camera, but managed to take a couple of slightly dodgy photos of an amazing rooftop garden with my phone:

I quite badly want one of these for my garden:

Oooh, and look at the view:

I kept saying 'oh, hang on a mo, I just need to take a photo of this for my blog' while my friend wisely walked ten paces ahead of me, whistling casually to herself, pretending she didn't know me.

One thing I didn't take a photo of was the mojito we had sitting outside, at a great Cuban place Mr N and I used to go to when we lived in north London - it was lush and I could have had about twelve, but then I'd have been bankrupt and lying under the table in an undignified manner, so instead we went back to my friend's house and had pasta and watched a crap film.  Perfick.

It was just brilliant to be away for a while (hmmm, that makes it sound like I hate being at home, which I absolutely don't, but sometimes it's just nice to be reminded that you exist outside of your children and that, indeed, you are an adult - albeit one who has opinions about Lego men).  Even the train journey was great - on the way back on Sunday, I was in first class - facing the direction of travel (no travel sickness for me, no sireee), no-one next to me, with my crochet and free food and drink brought round by a man with a trolley...happy days.

And blimey, it's been a whirlwind since I got back - it emerges that poor old middle nut's been getting abdominal migraines (I'd never heard of them until now) I did my impression of a mummy trying hard not to panic, but failing completely, when he calmly announced that he'd been suffering loss of vision and seeing shimmering lights for 'a long time now, mummy'.  Cue mad dash to optician (20:20 vision and full colour vision too), followed by mad dash to doctor: 'okaaaay, so he's been getting migraines you say?  Uhm, isn't that a bit unusual in a five year old?  WHY shouldn't I be concerned about this, exactly?'  His consultant's appointment came through this morning, so I'm hoping they'll be able to shed a bit more light on it for me.

I've also been a busy bee painting our sitting room - I blame Julia - she inspired me to get off my bum and just do it.  It's taken me two days of blood, sweat and tears and I still haven't finished it.  Ha ha - that makes it seem like we have some sort of palatial sitting room.  We don't.  I just get very easily distracted and the paint doesn't seem to be going on very evenly (I absolutely love Farrow and Ball colours, but blimey, it's hard work getting the stuff on the walls properly...)  In my head, I had 'Nordic vintage seaside handmade-esque' as my inspiration; so have plumped for muted blues and greys with bright white and natural fabrics.  What I now realise is that there's a fine line between that and 'Prisoner Cell Block H-chic'.  I'll keep you posted.  Photos will follow, if the warders will let me smuggle in a camera.
Finally, I have also been working hard at my crafty bits and bobs - my African flower creation is finished - I'll do a ta-dah when I do my monthly round-up in a couple of days.  And I have also finished the skirt I was making for baby n.  Now, before I reveal this item of clothing, I want to point out that this was clearly going to be cursed from the moment I started it - I should have taken the 'chopping-fabric-to-exact-width-of-waist' incident as a warning, for what she has ended up with isn't, in fact, a skirt; it's more of a ruffle.  It would fit a newborn baby who happened to have the girth of a sixteen-month-old.  Now, trying to get the girl to stay still long enough to take a photo was like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling, or maybe she was just embarrassed by the fact that her nappy was on show, but anyway, good luck with the following series of pictures:

The amazing one-legged girl

She's clearly spent way too much time watching what I do every day

Check out the tummy on her

Introducing bun-bun #3

Oh, and before I go, here's another little snippet of my life post-London - and let this serve as a stark reminder that we all need time to recharge our batteries, because god, sometimes they are drained in the blink of an eye: on Monday night, after a full day at work, I got into bed looking forward to a good night's sleep...twenty minutes after nodding off, middle started throwing up.  After clearing up said vomit, the sweaty-headed boy got into bed with me and Mr N got into his bed (the top bunk); shortly afterwards, baby decided to have a bit of a cry.  We gave her some milk and a bit of a cuddle thinking she would go back to sleep as normal children would - Mr N climbing back up on his bunk bed and me getting back into bed with my sweating, slightly delirious son.  SIX HOURS LATER she finally stopped yelling and went back to sleep.  Let's just say that none of us was firing on all cylinders the next day x

Tonight's performance features...

...bun-bun #2 in the starring role.  Selected from a cast of six possible candidates, this rabbit was chosen for his uncanny ability to look like he is struggling valiantly against the quick clothes (as in 'quick sand') that are about to suck him into the laundry basket.  There are two things I need to explain at this point: 1) we have six bun-buns - as you can see from this one, baby n sucks them (ew) so I operate a strict washing/drying/sucking regime; 2) not sure why these rabbits are all male, especially as two of them have floral ears, but they most definitely are - perhaps they're just in touch with their feminine sides.
In a supporting role, we have an army:

I suspect, looking at this photo, that big n might have a touch of the perfectionist about him (I want to say another word there - one that describes a complete 'perfectionist', but I'm worried my blog might start appearing on all the wrong sort of Google searches if I do).  I am considering enlisting this battalion's help in trying to maintain some semblance of order over the next few weeks - I fear that threat of mutilation or death may be the only way forward.
And the role of chorus line, is capably filled by the African flowers:

Did I mention that I love these?

And let's not forget the understudy - seen here helping the director to Google 'how to dry bay leaves' on a smart phone:

So, there we have the cast - the series continues at a later date, for I am off for a fews days now - heading for the bright lights of the big city (that and my lovely, lovely, oldest friend) for a blissful child-free weekend.  I'm thinking: wine, Bridesmaids, crochet, duvet/sofa combos, Festival of Britain...oh, the possibilities are endless when the babes are at home with daddy for the weekend.  So, with a flick of my locks, I will bid you adieu and ride off into the sunset (cue the music, maestro) x

PS - I have to say a really huge 'thank you' to Becky at The Fluff Pot for also nominating me for the Versatile Blogger award.  Thank you so much, Becky - I think that's what you call a double whammy!