Angel Jem's City Cottage

Bleurch. I wasn't at school yesterday and the only thing I am doing today is pushing keyboard buttons to type a blog entry. Bleurch. I slept from.... well, I suppose I actually slept from 11pm on Thursday night to 4.30am this morning, give or take a 2 hour spot yesterday (timed nicely to coincide with the Chase and the Twitter feed) and then tossed and turned for a couple of hours before sleeping in until 11 this morning. My Saturday will be a quiet one, I fear, with Sunday being a chance to recuperate before school on Monday and another wearying, bone-tiring week. I am not feeling the joys of January. Not. One.Bit. So apologies again; I am behind with my blog reading, blog commenting and blog writing. I hope to get a pattern in my life at last this week and be back with Menu Monday, Wind Up Wednesdays and Fridays. For now I am going to snuggle up and grab a hook to see if I can get any further with the Princess' blue blanket. I saw Posy 's Instagram feed with a be...

I'm trying (failing; trying again) to gather up my dust bunnies and banish them. Somehow, going public about being a Bunny wrangler was not the best thing to do. All the OCD (by which I mean reasonable housekeepers) at school were disgusted, and the slobs like me have nothing but praise about my feminist honesty. Nuts really, we do all have dust bunnies, don't we? And artist Susanne Proulx has a good idea; she takes the dust and turns it into dust bunnies. At $375 a pop, I won't  be diving out to add to my collection. I googled Dust bunny to see what I could find, and just love this idea. I took the link from a post you can get to here; Follow the Piper/Dust Bunnies Peter says I should see if there's a market for them here. I think he just wants me to start making decent money in any way possible. I'm thinking something more bunny and less dust like these would be better! And I have another confession to make... I must be a very bad mother. I am letting my ...

After the bright lights of Christmas and the excitement of The Chase (did I tell you I won the Chase? I must have!) I am finding myself looking forward to what remains of the winter. Whether it's because it's finally started to feel cold, with breath steaming in the air, or because I'm just feeling so positive, I don't know. I do know I don't want to slip into my usual post-Christmas slump, so I'm desperate to make the most of the season. I signed up to an e-course, called Hibernate run by a rather lovely blogger called Heather of Beauty That Moves . Over the next four weeks it aims to help me retreat and restore, with a little activity every day. And it's another way of building friendships through the world of blogging. I'll be posting about the beautiful, interesting things I do here, and putting pictures up on Instagram. Be prepared for lots of twinkling lights and flickering candles, with mugs of chai and frothy coffee a plenty. And br...

I was on The Chase last Thursday (7th January) in the first big win of the year This was filmed last June, so I could watch myself on TV and read the live Twitter feed for #thechase. I wasn't in the habit of reading this, but it being my only probable appearance on TV (except for a 10 second shot of me in Songs of Praise) I was indulging in a deep case of curiosity. On the Chase I introduced myself as "Jo, a learning mentor, aged 47 from Liverpool!" (you have to sound excited on the introduction, the production team insist you are, and make you film again if you aren't) And Twitter started. C W North West, England Jo advising Andy goes high what's the betting she goes for a minus offer - she looks the type #thechase R Steph is leading me to believe she's gonna be a LOW f******d #thechase R Cancel that last tweet, I meant Jo! #thechase S T Jo is already talking about going low #TheChase R I'm predicting a thief up next! #thechase JF Jo looks a BIG lass.....

OK, heads up, friends; I shall be writing a post at the weekend, but for all my blogmates out there; I am actually on the Chase this Thursday (7th January) at 5pm on ITV. As a contestant!!!! No details (I signed the contract!!) but if you want to see a walking, talking Angel Jem and to have a really good laugh, then watch me. I'll see you here on Friday!

aspire əˈspʌɪə/ verb 1 . direct one's hopes or ambitions towards achieving something. "we never thought that we might  aspire to  those heights" synonyms: desire (to), aim for/to, hope for/to, long for/to, yearn for/to, hanker after/for/to, set one's heart on, wish for/to, want (to), expect (to), have the objective of, dream of, hunger for/to, seek (to),  pursue , have as one's goal/aim, set one's sights on;