Special days

Thank you to everyone for your birthday wishes, cards and general good comments.

I had a lovely birthday. My darling husband gave me the cutest little Radley handbag. This one here in fact. And though it may be small it is big enough.

It came to my attention whilst getting ready to go out for that lovely lunch a few weeks ago that I didn't have any 'grown up' handbags. Not one. I'd gotten so used to going out armed with a rucksack/backpack that even though I haven't needed the capacity I'd still been lugging about a basically empty backpack style handbag. Luckily for me Richard reads my blog and bought me one.

I received lots of cards and, strangely, they were mostly handmade. I obviously know crafty sorts of people. LOL. Cherry even popped by to drop off her card and we sat in the garden until it became too hot and we had to move indoors. Hopefully the children haven't put her off visiting again.

Saturday was another beautiful day and in between taking Katarina off to dance lessons and Harriet off to drama school we, by which I mean the royal 'we', created a new top for our patio table. Why a new table top? Whilst we were still living in Canada and the house was on the market we were advised by our Realtor to keep the patio furniture looking 'good' which translates to: put up the umbrella, put out some fresh flowers on the table etc. etc.

We duly took note and complied and then went to Bermuda for a break (boy did we need it). Whilst we were there the tail end of a hurricane, can't remember which one, hit off the coast of Nova Scotia and promptly lifted up our umbrella, together with the heavy base, and smashed it up against the glass table top. You can imagine the look on our Realtors face when she arrived one morning to open up the house for a viewing!!! Thankfully it was safety glass but added up to a lot of mess and no table top. Things proceed notoriously slowly in NS so we just couldn't get a new top ordered before we left and so currently have a gaping hole.

Ah, but no longer. We now have a lovely slatted wooden top that now just needs to be stained.

As Sunday was Fathers Day I gave Richard a break and said he didn't have to stain the table top - he can do that next weekend - mwuhahahahaha.

Sunday started off a little downcast but we decided to go out and at least get some fresh air and let the children burn off some energy. We went to Avebury (another interesting link here) where we had lunch at the Red Lion pub. Good old pub grub and a couple of Old Speckled Hens for Richard and then a walk around the stones. By this time the weather had returned to the hot and humid state it has been in for the last couple of weeks but thankfully the sun was dimmed by some hazy clouds.

The children were most disgusted as the sheep had been in one of the circles and you couldn't put one foot in front of the other without stepping on something unpleasant. Ah, country life! They had a blast though and Noah experienced his first brush with stinging nettles, not once but twice - you'd think he'd learn his lesson the first time, wouldn't you? So, followed a brief botany lesson and a hunt for some dock leaves (they really do work). We ended the day, as all great summer days should end, with an ice cream from the ice cream van.

Yes, my children are now aware of the ice cream van. Long gone are the days that I could tell them that the chirpy little tune they could hear was the fish van letting us know that they have fresh fish for sale. Bad mother, bad...

So, that's pretty much caught me up to date, apart from the fact that I also managed to complete an entry in the latest circle journal I am currently signed up for. Just need to get myself in gear and take it to the post office.

Oh, and to add that the weather was not so good today. It keeps looking like rain is threatening but it just hasn't. It's in the air though, I can feel it in me bones.

And finally a LO which I completed at PaperArts a couple of weekends ago but just hadn't got around to scanning and posting.