Angel Jem's City Cottage

Yes, I know, 6 weeks have flown past in the blink of an eye. I will have no other posts for May if I don't post this one. I do have a rather good reason. A story to tell. It has sadness, joy and a lot of cheekiness. Pour a cuppa, grab a box of tissues and let's go. Many of you will know about this beautiful young lady, my Sarah (Princess) She was 14 in February and asked for some pets. She's been on about getting a hamster or a mouse or a cat or a dog for years. Mr Angel Jem is..... not a pet lover, shall we say, and has until now always said no. No. Definitely NO. But this year Sarah is 14. She's capable of cooking a meal for us, doing the washing, taking care of herself and the house when I'm too busy/tired/ill to do it. She has, in other words reached the Age of Responsibility. So I looked into what pets were available. Chinchilla. 2 for £200. Yeah, right, like that's ever going to happen. Rats. They may be very clever but.... the reputatio...

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...

 I will apologise in advance for the length of this post; there's a lot of pictures and I can never just sum up things in a word or two. When Man invented so many excellent words and ways of saying things, why should we reduce it to a few terse interjections?  And besides which, I have thank you s to say to my Yorkshire friends, without whose posts today might not have happened. I can't even remember who visited; I know Diane of Heart-Shaped did , but I'm sure somebody else did as well. Apologies. If it was you, comment below!  The children (young adults) are with my Mum today as we have a weekend just a deux for a change. We like heritage and industrial history so when Mr AJ asked for suggestions, I said "Saltaire.". He hadn't heard of it before, so he looked it up, agreed it sounded good, and took me there. The picture above is of the United Reform Church. Saltaire is a model village built by mill owner Titus Salt. He and his family are buri...

Wednesday was a brief break from London city centre itself. We headed off to the Warner Bros Studio Tour The making of Harry Potter;  it was the most expensive day out we had, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime-probably experience, so it was money well spent. And the whole day is a really magical experience if you're a Potter fan. From Privet Drive, to Hogwarts Castle, from the creature shop to the souvenir shop the day is a brilliant and enjoyable time for a fan. We spent ages wandering around gasping and calling each other over, we queued for the broomstick ride, we sat on the Express as the Dementors flew past and we spent ages just staring at the details on the scale model of Hogwarts. We wanted to watch the films one after another after the end; too bad we were at a holiday house and had left them at home. Bad Dobby. Bad Dobby. We shall have a marathon session this summer one day. Anyway, it is a place best experienced in pictures and music, not words, so I shall let my little...

Eldest Son has quite an eclectic taste, but when he gets a passion he gets.a.passion. And Sherlock Holmes (in book , film or TV guise) is one of his passions. I think it started one wet welsh holiday, when the best reading on offer was one of those huge Complete Short Stories. He devoured them and we have never looked back. I would go so far as to say he is most definitely a fanboy. So when we saw that the Museum of London had an exhibition on about Sherlock (The Man who Never Lived and will Never Die) we began to plan. Sunday was the last day, and the only time it matched our holiday plans this year. We booked, we went, we really enjoyed. The Museum of London is a little off the beaten track, lying a five minute walk to the north of St Paul's and near to the Barbican Centre. It's a good museum, dealing with the history of the capital from prehistoric time until the present so I knew we would have plenty to occupy a day there. We walked from Holborn tube station to th...

We went away last week to stay in Harrow; that's why I was off the radar. I know it sounds silly, but I don't like to advertise big absences on the web, especially not now Mr AJ's business uses the home address as a base. It's just a precaution, not a reflection on how trustworthy I think my blogfriends are! But anyway, we went and had a fantastic time so, with your permission, (or not, I really don't mind and I'm doing it anyway) I have written up the day by day account and I am going to post it here as daily as possible when I get back to work. So, Day One; We travelled down on the Friday night and stopped off at Bicester Travelodge. We find breaking the journey down helps so much from the point of view that you get an extra night away, the adventure of a night as a family of 5 crammed into a room for 4 , and the early start next morning which gives you virtually an extra day of holiday. Usually when we go to Harrow we use it for shopping, settling in...

Oh, I have had such good fun with this! You see, I am British, through and through. Born in Rainhill, lived there til I was 25 and currently a resident of a leafy middle class suburb in Liverpool. But this year I have adopted another country. I wanted to learn Danish (don't ask) and in a small way I am, but I have found myself studying the customs and characteristics of the country as well. It is no use knowing the language of a place and being ignorant of its culture, yes? So this post I am going to talk about my adopted country. No, I don't live there, yes, I have never  visited YET but it is top of my list for places I want to go to. One day, when my Viking longboat comes in. How do we Danes and quasi-Danes celebrate Christmas? I had fun looking this up. And even more fun trying to use some of the ideas in my life. The Tree; The Danes decorate their Christmas Tree with a  silver or gold star on the top, never an angel. They use strings of small Danish flags (Dane...