Angel Jem's City Cottage

I love my birthday present. I ordered it off Etsy, from a shop called Strawberry Notebook. I saw it on This Bug's Life, where Janet waxed lyrical about the service and the communication and the kindness of Diane, the shop owner. It's all true, Diane is lovely and she does keep you informed as to what and where she's up to, but it was the concept that got me. Because I thought with this in my bag then maybe, just maybe, with the right pair of shoes I could be just a little like a middle-aged (and slightly over weight) version of her.... No, not Amy..... her... River Song! The product is called River Song's Journal . It's handmade in Florida by Diane, and based on the Midori Travelers Notebook elastic system, the system where you use elastic bands to keep a few notebooks together to organise your life. People use them as planners, or journals, some even use them as wallets, but I haven't tried to yet! I have moved into the system instead of my Filofax ...

I am absolutely chuffed with my birthday present!! I ordered my own present, because Mr AJ would never think to buy me something so silly or off the wall. It came, on Saturday last, and I waited til Monday to use it (parties can be so inconvenient; good fun, but inconvenient!) and I have been using it ever since. What do you mean you don't know what I got? Haven't I said? Didn't I tell you? No?.... oh I'm so sorry. Am I going to tell you? That would be telling. Spoilers! Come back in 12 hours if you want to know x

The week has flown past, hasn't it? And I can't believe it's school again on Monday! But in the meantime, I mean to use my last few days wisely. In drinking chai and meditating.  I took my son, James to a revision lesson at his school this morning so on the way home I stopped off at the park and had my chai and 10 quiet minutes. I watched the dogs playing and the rain raining and returned home feeling very chilled. And then I started on a tidy up. Usually I run a mile from cleaning and tidying, but this hadn't been done for a while and needed to be done; I have sorted my kitchen cupboards. Really. I have emptied and binned the out of date food, lined the shelves and placed the stuff back in (with a slight fiddle to reorganise them more ergonomically) and I am happy. No, more than happy. I am pleased with the result. The red pvc is my old table cloth that got ripped by a stray plastic storage box and was therefore not going to stay on the table. I mea...

After seeing the Cunard liners (do you know the joke? Keep reading to the bottom to see it!) on Monday we went into the toon (sneaky Newcastle reference there!) and went to Waterstones. After having bought books for Sarah, promised books to David and tried to force something printed on James ("Listen, Mum, I'd rather have more money on my Steam account")  I spent a happy 15 minutes (I counted) looking at cookery books. Have you seen my sidebar? I now have a direct link through to Amazon and my favourite cookbooks. If you click through and buy from there, I actually make a little cash, now I'm an Amazon Associate. (not a lot; I won't be living the highlife on the percentage I get) I am still loving all things Scandi, so I went looking at the regional cookbooks. There are a few that tempted me to pull out my birthday cash, but then I saw The One, the one that I knew I wanted to buy, to use and to share with you, my friends. Fika; The Art of the Sw...

I have said it before and I WILL say it again, but I love my city. I wasn't born here, but about 10 miles away and moved here when I was 25, so not even half my life yet. This weekend we have played host to a fantastic sight; three massive ocean liners, all in the river, all turning, all drawing fantastic crowds from across the North West.  I can testify to the crowds being massive. We went to see the three ships together on Monday and pushing through to catch a glimpse was a real job. I pity anybody who had children, or a wheelchair or a tottering relative. It was a crush. But, oh, the majesty of seeing three.... three.... ocean liners, one after another, steaming (and, yes, I know they don't steam any more!) up the river, to come to an almost full stop and then half turn to salute the crowds before executing a three point turn and sailing back up to the Pier head. I loved it, I really did. And afterwards we went into town, to look at the books (and per...

There are small pieces of detritus left everywhere.... Tea cake wrappers on the tables and shelves..... The biggest serving pot and other bits and bobs left out on the table, moved across especially for the party.... Washing up all over the kitchen..... And I take 4 peanut buttercups, a Tunnock's Teacake (I had one of these with a candle in as my birthday cake last night!)  and a BIG cup of chai to sit with my feet up, quietly, watching.... https://soundcloud.com/samuel77/home-fires-main-theme?in=angeljem/sets/good-music