Angel Jem's City Cottage

It's been so long since I posted a wind up!! I can hardly remember the categories. I'll make them up for today. Reading I'm reading ... well, nothing in particular. I was supposed to read Ben Elton's Two Brothers for Book Club on Monday, but I missed it due to the funeral and didn't have to admit that I hadn't actually finished it. I like it so far. Next month's book is The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. Fortunately I read that a few years ago, and it's short, so I might just quickly read it and then finish the other one. Making Apart from a mess, I'm still supposed to be making the hygge shawls from the Scheepjes CAL this year. Time in the evenings seems to have been at a premium, so my CAL sits in a corner, unloved, unwanted and undone. This weekend, I promise, I'll get my mojo back and go for it hell for leather. If I could just catch up with the embroidery part.... Watching On TV we're still watching Game of Throne...

Yesterday we went to the funeral of one of Mr AJ's cousins. She was called Paddy, although she'd been christened Irene, because her Dad had wanted a boy. Now, Peter's family are a dying breed. We had six cousins in total there yesterday and there were only another 3 or 4 missing. At our wedding, my family could have gone on forever: his was distinctly smaller. And 24 years have only made it shrink more. I'm rambling. Yes. Back to my point. My point is that her true family actually weren't the relatives. There were 5 or 6 neighbours there, many of whom had known Paddy for the 40 years she lived in the house, who talked about her with such love, and sadness at her passing, that it made me smile. They had given her food, took her out for drives, been there for her when the closest family were almost an hour away. Two of them even had power of attorney at the end, because of the closeness and the proximity. I wish we could all say that we had neighbours as clos...

Happy Mother's Day so far. I hope if you have children, then you've organised them rather better than I have my own. So far I have made my own breakfast, bought my own present, written the shopping list and even read an Improving Book. I'm feeling weary and wondering what to do with the afternoon. It's a good job there's no football on this afternoon or I'm sure the pressure to watch it would be the last straw. As it is, I've been told that I will not be able to Finish Off the Bedroom Clean that I was doing yesterday because there is Important Work for DH to do. So my list for the weekend has sort of gone South. I think I shall alter it. The sun is shining, and the meal I'm going to make for my parents is an easy slam in the oven one, so I may set off for a walk in the woods to clear my mood.And any spare time I have left, I'll get on with my Hygge CAL. I'm well behind with it. The idea of crochet with embroidery was irresistible, but ...

We are a Grandmother. Yes, there's my age showing through. Does anybody else remember Margaret Thatcher (curse her or bless her as you like) coming out with that statement? Good grief, but she was skitted for that. Anyway, what I mean to say is I am the proud guinea pig Grandma to a herd of oh my God Guinea Pigs. How many did we have last time? Two? Three? Well, let me introduce the herd. Lorelai This is Lorelai. She is named after the Mum from the Gilmore Girls. She's big (over 1kg) a little bossy and also very, very hairy. She's also the only one of the original guinea pigs from last March left. (RIP Teddy and Olga) Sherlock Sherlock. She's David's guinea pig, and he named her. Sherlock can disappear into holes you would swear aren't there. I think she creates black holes and disappears into them. She is very cute, and it's so lovely to see a massive bearded 19 year old go as soft as jelly when he holds her. We really could have called h...

No, not a real baby, of course, but a book baby. I've been absent for the past few weeks because I've been incubating a little project all of my own. It's quite time intensive, this writing business and, I have to say, I think Virginia Woolf had an easy time of it with no children, no guinea pigs and no full time work to get in the way.It took me at least a week to get the first page written, and a few good weeks after that to finish the whole book. Can I introduce you to 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way ? It's a hygge book, of course, but one written specifically from a British rather than a Danish point of view. A book for the hygge-lover who has read Meik Wiking's Little Book of Hygge or Bronte Aurell's Essence of Hygge , loved the idea and is now sitting thinking "Well, that's all very well, but how do I hygge in the UK? We don't have short hours, a good work/life balance or decent Danish pastries in my home town." You know, when...