Angel Jem's City Cottage

Whatever else you do today (hello! I'm writing this a day late on Thursday: better late than never) go and vote. I don't care who you vote for, just vote. And if there's nobody you want to vote for, go and spoil your ballot. Spoilt ballots get counted as well, and can be a form of protest. On to Wednesday Wind Up. I've had a bit of a slow wake up this week, I think I either have a water infection or a cold, I find it so hard to get out of bed and into work. Or perhaps the sunny mornings just make me wish occasionally I was still a SAHM. Oh, the things I could do with a few days at home now! Never mind, that's not my season. I work 9 to 4 most days, so that's what I do. What am I reading this week? I finished reading Gone Viking by Helen Russell. It was funny, and touching, and all the things I wanted it to be. A good happy read, so that was fun. I also finished Happy by Fearne Cotton. It was interesting: while I was reading it, I could hear Fearne...

Wednesday is usually a good day in the office. I get in early, after dropping David off at the station at 8 for University at 9.30. I can clean, run backup, get the first cup of tea in and be writing at my desk, all before 9am. I leave by 4, to tutor a child, so the day is even a shorter day than usual. I think my early morning quiet session will be a good time to do my weekly round up. So here I am, only a week later than I thought! What am I reading this week? I had to mostly read Reservoir 13 for bookclub on Monday. It did not go well. I know it's won all sorts of awards and been raved about by people,had prequels on Radio 4 and all the things that meant I should have liked it.... but I just didn't. I don't know whether part of that was I was reading in very short bursts and often late at night in an incredibly busy few weeks, or because the style is deliberately disjointed, with no identifiable main character. I didn'y have sympathy for any of teh character...

Wednesday Wind Up :  How glad am I that I started these posts, a couple of years ago? I have been rereading some old ones and it's such an easy way to keep tabs on life. I'd forgotten buying a watch for playground duty (that watch, like the rest, didn't last). Or how many books I used to read. Any how, I'm back, and this time it's personal. As in, this is my personal blog, my online diary. I'm still hyggering away with How To Hygge The British Way, but that's not a family blog. I can't share things at a whim, I find it more of a thinking space than a chatting place. I need both. I have missed you all, and after I posted on Monday I had two beautiful replies saying welcome back. Thank you. I have been to the Emerald City, and it was all very well, but there's no place like Home. So my plan is, even if only on a Wednesday or Thursday for the Wind Up, to post regularly over here. Just for me. I don't expect people to follow or comment, a...

So I sewed up a pair of slippers instead. As displacement activities go, it is one of my best. A couple of hours stitching, a couple of hours watching 15 to 1 (my quiz show of obsession at the moment) and a good rest. It would, after all, be what the Doctor ordered, if I ever got to see a Doctor. Unfortunately, and I guess I'm not alone in this, my surgery has a new system of appointments so that you can no longer book ahead an appointment unless you stand on one leg in a thunder storm for an obscure hour between gleaming and gloaming on a night that may or may not be a day as well. Or you have a telephone consultation with a doctor who may or may not want to see you that day. But if you do that, you must ring at 8am promptly to join the queue and talk to the rottweiler who may or may not pass your number on to the medic. I am not cross. I am not at all cross. I just hope that I actually never need to use the service until it has collapsed and recovered again. Back to...

Oh my Gosh! It feels like I haven't posted a wind up for ages! My little City Cottage is in need of an Autumn tidy up and a clear out of ideas and attitudes. After all, this is where my friends are, not my followers. Here's my wind up; What am I reading this week? I'm reading every hygge book going; I have about 7 so far and another one on order for the end of October. The more I read, the more I like and the more convinced I am that hygge is what we do naturally; that all I need to do as a Hygge Ambassador is send people your way; all the homemaking, caring, crafting, living that you do and share on the interweb; that's hygge. Apart from a mass of Hygge books, I read This House is Haunted by John Boyne. It's a good old-fashioned ghost story in the tradition of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black or Henry James' Turn of the Screw . Eliza Caine loses her Father and takes a job on impulse at a deserted house in Norfolk. You could have told her it wasn...

I keep writing posts at blogger, and changing them, and having multiple posts show up in my post shelf, some of which are on the blog and some of which aren't. I am not a happy bunny. And it's not just this blog; I run Peter's blog on Blogger as well, and Sarah has started a blog to run alongside her business GCSE project. And they are all playing the same game with me; every blinking draft I write gets stored on the post index. I need to take a closer look at the settings. There must be something I've fiddled with. Anyhoo. On to business. How are you all? I am well, thank you, and working hard. We have a case management system which I haven't been able to use until today... and now I have a log in and all of a sudden Peter's come over all efficient and telling me to do stuff like payment letters and requests for medical records. Honestly, you'd think he pays me to do his donkey work...... oh, wait... yes, actually he does. And the promise of a cut of a...

It's funny how you can have waves of shopping, isn't it? There was a year when everything I got was black... or red... or had squares or circles on it. I took Sarah off to Yarndale again this year, so I suppose it shouldn't have been too surprising when the shopping ended up having a common theme to it. But first... Yarndale . Sarah and I were both shattered after a week in school/work (and following on from a weekend away last week) so we cancelled the planned weekend away. We were due to Yarndale (that's a verb, it means spending time browsing yarn and stroking a lot of alpaca) yesterday, but had a pootling day at home instead. My living room is clean and smells nice again now. That only lasts until tomorrow, when the guineas will do their worst. So we decided that today was the day. We were up and out at 10.30, and at Skipton for 12.30. Last year we went on the Saturday and it was packed, like standing room only packed. The fact that we drove straight i...

At the Handmade Fair there were lots of small, contagious objects that caught my fancy. If I could have, I would have bought loads of trinkets and doo-dahs, but neither my purse nor my house will support uninhibited spending. So I set a limit and did my best to walk around and see everything before I bought; with the exception of Sally's Shed. I'd looked at these on t'internet before and loved them. In reality they were even cuter than I thought and I couldn't resist a couple... or it may have been three. They look lovely lined up on my mantelpiece, but they are destined to go on my dresser which is getting quite a homey theme going on. I love pinning inspirational quotes on Pinterest so I loved the range of cards by Rachel Seymour. I love this quote. We should all take time to do this. It was a Handmade Fair and I knew I wanted to bring something to do home. When I saw these kits from Corinne Lapierre I just had to have the owls for Sarah and then th...

This weekend Mr Angel Jem (OK, Peter of Peter Kneale Solicitor . Let's not pretend anymore) had a day's training to do in London of all places. Would I like to go to? It would mean I was all alone.... in London... all Saturday. Would I like to go???? I don't think I have said YES!! quite as quickly or enthusiastically as since he proposed, and I'm ashamed to say I may have been a little more emphatic about it. I was absolutely happy about the idea of a day alone in London anyway since my little jaunt for The Chase last June which I very naughtily never blogged about! I was quite happy with the idea of just sauntering around and watching the world when I found out that The Handmade Fair was on just the weekend I was there. I like Kirstie Allsopp anyway. Her programmes are fun to watch, and what she can do with a junk pile is nobody's business. I signed up, dressed up and went. On the advice of my husband, I wore a summer dress. Big mistake. Although on the...