Angel Jem's City Cottage

Too much of this... Leads to this. We’ve been using a lot of sellotape recently. When the rain falls, making bases for spy mice from boxes seems like a good idea to 9 and 7 year olds. My 11 year old is still asleep in bed. Teenage years start early, I suppose. The sun is shining today, but that would only make the second sunny day this holiday. We’ve got good at doing inside things... plenty of free swimming in a posh council pool, and a lot of dodging raindrops in the park. No, wait, cancel the sun warning. It’s raining again. Great British weather.

I know this, people told me so, but I didn't realise how hard it would be. I know it's the right thing to happen, but watching my three move on is so hard. DP has had his last day at Junior school. Seven years in the blink of an eye. The Princess has moved on to Juniors. I have no infants, not at home, not at school. And she jumped over the rainbow as well, so next September she's a Brownie. 6 weeks of glorious (wet) summer lie ahead and nothing to do.... well, except for the park, the zoo, the woods nearby that we found last month, the borrower's houses we're planning to make, the t shirts to decorate, the sewing, knitting and embroidery.... and a week in Wales. So, to celebrate, we spent the afternoon playing on our DS..... and I played on the computer. Chill.

We visited Beamish in June, and what struck me once again was how much we have to learn off the olden days that we have actually forgotten. All those green things; recycling, make do and mend, make your own, grow your own that are circulating back into fashion after such a long period of excessive consumption were as natural as breathing to the people in turn of the century vilages all over the country. Why did we forget that after every boom comes an inevitable bust? I loved the obviously homemade pan holders... the newspaper shelf liners..... the homemade bread (smelled gorgeous!).... and the evidence everywhere of green values. Waste not, want not. I could write for ages of the things I saw and felt about Beamish. But most off all I could write of the effect it has had on me since. No shopping, no new clothes (except for a pair of trousers and a silky nightie... both necessary) and more homemade food than ever. Frugal, frugal, frugal.

I'm on a weightloss journey, and since it's not really what I want to blog about as a DomCom, I'm developing a split personality and having a new blog specifically for this. Find it here if you want to see the incredible shrinking Angel.