Angel Jem's City Cottage

Thursday throw up. Doesn't have the same ring but is probably what I do most weeks; throw up my Wednesday Wind up onto the computer in a rush in between sorting out the weekend and finishing off the day. What am I reading this week? The Book of You was unsettling but a good read. I quite liked the ending (no spoilers!!!) but all the way through I was like, why doesn't she just go to the Police???? And I have begun  The Book of Lost and Found . It's good so far, but I have only just started it. A tale of ballet dancers and hidden family secrets. What have I watched this week? We are watching The Following on Pick (I think). It was on Atlantic originally so we couldn't get it, but now I am very happily watching a saga of serial killers based on Edgar Allen Poe, and enjoying watching it with my big boys. At some point I find I'm looking at them and thinking that they are old enough to watch the same TV that we do. Life was easier when they watched Thoma...

Jo (Through the Keyhole) knows me so well. I bet most of you did as well. The shelves did not linger in a garage waiting for me to feel inspired, they were done, dusted and in place in time for Downton Abbey last night (no spoilers!) And like an amazing Welsh Dragon, it stands in my dining room, ready to be populated with my best bits of fripperies. Love it, absolutely love it. Eye candy warning; there are some pictures coming up! So it will sit here and wait until the shops and garden centres stock up their fairiest of fairy lights, when I will get me some white corded lights (as many and as long as possible) to string up, Nigella-style, and indulge my inner whimsy with decorating the shelves with many happy memories and cards, postcards, mugs, jars and other detritus of a life lived happily.

It took me ages to find the post I needed. I am a really bad recorder of things sometimes. I thought I'd blogged about my welsh dresser (bargain £60 at Oxfam) but it transpires I never have. Or at least not with pictures and much joy. But I found a post with a bad picture of it here; My Best Friend for Afternoon Tea You can just see it in the background of the last photo. That's my dresser. It was in my dining room until Mr Mister told me it was golden pine and not mahogany and, ergo, did not match. I moved it to the garage and left it there, mourning my lost storage and especially the loss of a living style I was seeking (cottage kitsch; I love it!) And it stayed there. For. Years.  And I wrote my planning list every year including "Paint dresser" And every year the list entry remained unticked. But this year a little fire has entered my belly. Or I've found my house mojo at last. For last Sunday in a golden autumn afternoon of sunshine and printer fai...

Another week passes and it's Tuesday night as I write this, watching Iron Man III (one of my favourite Christmas movies) and wishing it were possible either to go to bed at 8.30 or to take a drink of tea and feel suddenly wide awake for 3 hours before crashing to bed again. I think the sudden darkening of evenings and an overflow of issues to do with work at both school and home are pressing on me. I am not my happy Pollyanna. I need to sleep well, and soon. What am I reading this week? I finished Issy Bradley and it was still good at the end. I like it when a book that starts well ends well. So I moved on; The Book of You It's weird, but good, about a woman who is being stalked (and by stalked I mean in actual danger) by a man she walks with. Clarissa was doped and date raped by Rafe, and now she wants to keep away from him, but he doesn't want to leave her alone. She can't get treated seriously by the police so a charity advises her to keep a record, and she ...

I cannot believe that a month ago I hadn't even planned to make a new blanket this year. I had my bedroom granny square blanket sitting doing NOTHING and was planning just to sidle slowly down into Christmas crafting. And then I got a bug; not an illness bug, but an inspiration bug. You remember this picture above? And I sent for the wool? And I started and sat for HOURS just hooking happily along in the car, by the beach and EVERYWHERE??? And I never said, but my big fear was that when the holiday was over the half-finished blanket would sit unloved and alone while I got on with teaching and tutoring and life. How wrong was I? I mean, I haven't sat and crocheted all day at school. They don't pay me enough to do that. They really don't. But I would do a quick row while I sipped my morning chai, or watching the footy, or even Great British Bake Off was perused whilst my hook slipped effortlessly in and out. And then I sat for a couple of evenings with...

What am I reading this week? I'm reading a strange book called A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray. Well, I say strange, but I mean good. I picked it up as a recommendation from Waterstones or Richard and Judy, one of my summer reading list that I am still working my way through. I didn't realise that it was about the Mormons, not in Utah but in Lancashire and that I would be picturing the places in the novel as I read. Queens Drive? Yes, I drive there every day. Preston, Southport, check. Been there. But the setting is actually immaterial to the story. Issy Bradley dies of meningitis and her family have to deal with this in however they can.  For Dad, that's the certain sure knowledge that they will meet again in heaven. For the others, that knowledge is not so certain, and neither is their attitude to the Mormon faith. It's a first novel, but I hope it won't be the last. I have really enjoyed it. I know more about Mormonism, and though I would never ...

There are parts of the year that are fun, fun, fun, and parts that are both good and bad. I find September is balanced on a knife edge. I like the start of a new school year, the renewal of intentions, the creation of fresh new pages of plans and the planning for life ahead through to Christmas, but I also dread the start of new things; new classes, new people to relate to, new timetables and new pressures. Yes, I know, I'm classically conflicted. Very Dickensian; it's the best of times and the worst of times, the most exciting and the most nerve racking, the happiest and the saddest. So last week I sat and planned my month worth of meals. I do a month at a time to save me sucking the end of my pencil more than once a month. Here are the meals we will be eating this month Chez Nous. (I've included the days already gone by for archive reasons) 1;  Baked Aromatic Chicken 2; Lasagne and broccoli 3; Salmon with tomato pasta 4; Hotdogs and chips/ Peter to choose our m...

Series 9 of The Chase has started and I am really delighted to see it on, for reasons I cannot go into here. But I'm gutted; there's a new chaser, called The Vixen. Her first show is tomorrow. This woman has my dream job! Can I write and complain?