Angel Jem's City Cottage

My shower is broken. No, let me rephrase that my shower is very broken. It leaks and it has made a damp patch on my ceiling. Imagine the picture, I like taking pretty pictures of my house but even I draw the line at the lunar landscape currently in formation on my hall roof. So, I got my DH to ask at work for a plumber. He came home yesterday with a name and a number... that's all, one little forename and a mobile number. And this man is going to see my ensuite? Worse than that, he has to pass through my bedroom to get there? My instructions (for me from DH, don't go thinking I have any authority in this house; it's why I want a cat.... except the cat would be more in charge than I am...) were to ring Jimmy the Plumber and arrange a meeting. It was only as he answered and I said "Hello, is that Jimmy the Plumber....." that I got a dreadful feeling. I desperately wanted to say it in a Scorsese way, you know, a New Yoik gangster way, a "I'm ready for you to...

My technological wizardry is about as good as my ability to resist a cream cake (you know, the Waterfields caramel doughnut with the sticky caramel icing, the vanilla scented cream that oozes out with one bite and the solid white chocolate medallion on. The sort of cake you have to reach for in times of crisis like forgetting to put the cat out, putting a cup down on a table without a coaster and , well, generally, anytime) so when my DH rang from work with the simple instruction; 'e-mail those pictures to me', I was ready. Two weeks later I finally sat down to send them. Technology cannot be rushed. If the computer can be bolshy so can I. First attempt; g mail. I attached all the files (16 pictures). No good. Too much information and my computer said no. ( I had a boy in a class last year who communicated by Little Britain. Computer said No was his favourite, Want that one came a close second. Having never seen the programme I was baffled but pigheaded enough to want my own wa...

I have never wanted to be in the army, really, but I do think I make a good Gunner. You know what I mean, I am gunner do this and I was gunner do that and we're gunner meet up for coffee... someday. My gunner list is getting bigger by the day. Apart from getting my blog boogie back I want to do so much around the house, to get crafty with wool, material and paint and I am gunner find the time..... someday. But I don't do everything I hope to. Time's winged chariot and all that. (good title for a book; I thought of it first, hands off) And that's fine because that's where my life is. So I'll catch up with some old news. We went to York during half term week and really enjoyed it. We stayed at a lovely cottage on a farm, where there were hens and cats and dogs wandering freerange and, best of all for my three, 4 free range children who were ready and willing to play. We didn't get as much done as we had planned, but that was fine. They played and it was just l...

Your Inner European is Irish! Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table. Who's Your Inner European?

Look at the blue sky! Just look at it! What you can't see it? What? The quilts are in the way? Oh, Those quilts! They're just two quilts I picked up in Barnardo's for £6 each.... Mind you, there is a sting in the tail. They must have been owned by a dog because there is felted hair all over them so I not only had to wash and dry the blasted things but to stroke them all over with my hand covered in sellotape. Thrift comes at a price. And as I stroked all the dog hair off, all I could think of was this....

Yes! Don't you love it when you get a result! I had a spare half hour today (OK, so I was supposed to tidy my bedroom, but it wasn't raining and you take your pleasures when you can in England) and I spent it very well indeed in the garden, transforming a small patch of my earth from this.... to this.... (apologies for the difference in tone; I know the before is actually a better colour, but the after is neater) and here is the pathetic flower currently sole occupant of this bed. I was so guilty that, with my spare half hour when the Princess was at a party I had to go to the garden centre and get some bedding plants. Watch this space... No not THIS space! Mind you, gardening is a long term commitment. The other corner of my garden looks like this... Yes, that is ground elder in there. Loads of it. I am as we speak blasting it with glycophosphate and pulling out every bit of root I can find... well, not literally as we speak. I was doing it 10 minutes ago until the rain began ...

Last Saturday I had a half hour to spare so I visited the local Oxfam bookshop. Devotees of second hand bookshops will know that shopping in them is less about finding what you want than finding what you need. You can walk into a SHB wanting the newest novel, or a book on gardening, or just to browse and can exit with what must have been someone's collection of knitting books from the 30's or 40's with a book on embroidery and an illustrated Hans Christian Andersen without breaking into a ten pound note. I love old craft books. It strikes me that, like that wonderful French magazine, Marie Claire Idees , they presuppose a level of ability and pre-knowledge that is missing from most English craft magazines. Where we get numbered and full colour illustrations to explain often simple steps (as if every reader were a beginner) old books know that they can mention a particular stitch or step and the reader will not even need to think about it.. they have the language of craft a...