Angel Jem's City Cottage

But then I'd have to tickle you. No, not really. I feel like I've been away for ever. Absolutely yonks, but it turns out only to be about 6 weeks. I think time is both going the slowest I've ever known and as fast as a bullet at the moment. Which is to say, that time inside school travels at a snail's pace, while any time away from the institution just disappears in an Einsteinium-speed-of-light way. I am not enjoying work. There, I said it. I enjoy the teaching and the children and a lot of the staff are lovely but not (unfortunately) the one I work with. And that's not getting better. And telling people about it doesn't work and I feel under used and undervalued and sad. And I got a BAD virus, like a humdinger-block-both-ears-and-make-you-deaf virus that has kept me at home and bed bound with vertigo for the past two weeks. I'm on my second set of antibiotics and finally today feel better. Don't rush me, but I feel not bad. As in not 100% but bett...

I am inordinately proud of my front door. If you remember, last year I painted it and spruced it up a little, but it was still crowded and cluttered, just because my style is slightly cluttered and crowded. Last week I decided that the summer styling of my door needed something a little more elegant, less in your face. So I cleared the pots away, cleaned the brass and washed the step (still haven't painted the window frames or eaves yet!) and felt rightly pleased with the effect. For about £10 (two cheap marguerites and two pots at £1.25 each) my door has a little more grace and elegance.  And because a little is good and more must be better, some purely gratuitous shots that I fiddled with using my camera.  The Painting effect  Toy Camera 2. My first camera when I was 10 automatically did this. It was a 110 with film on a double ended cassette. Don't tell me, you're too young to remember 110 cameras. At least it wasn't a box brownie!  Cross effect....

The bank holiday is behind us, and we are fast approaching the next break from school. I'm not doing a proper Wind Up because not a lot has happened since last week, but I wanted to share with you something that the Princess made me make. My daughter takes after me (a lot) and when we browsed Pinterest and really enjoyed some of the summer activity lists we saw, She went off to her bedroom and brought me one she had written. My daughter has dyslexic tendancies and spelling is a big issue for her, so any writing she does is special. I love it, but She wanted it to be smart and readable and to be Pretty (because what is life for, if not to be Pretty?) So I tweaked it, and fluffed it, and here it is. A beautiful PDF that you can use as well. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5BYpKO-OK3cQ09kOW5FdElCMlU/view?usp=sharing

I think everybody likes a new toy to play with and my (very) late Christmas present came this week; with amazing potential to keep me playing from now until the battery runs down. I now have a Nikon Coolpix camera; it's got a good zoom but doesn't take up the big footprint of my Finepix camera so it's a good one for taking out. I keep it in my bag, and it will go everywhere with me from now on so that I can capture the sights I see. The Finepix has a much better macro facility, so that will be my home camera for the small and intricate things I take at home. Playing with a new toy is always fun, and this new camera has a range of inbuilt features that I have really had fun with, most specifically the special effects. Most beloved by me, the colour spotting function. Now I can do a few shots that I have always wanted to and you, my dear readers, will just have to smile and suffer the efforts! Yellow colour spotted. See the walls? Yellow colour spotted against a b...

I am learning Danish. This is not a sensible thing to do. I have no plans to visit Denmark this year or next (but at some future time) and I know nobody Danish at all. AT ALL. Except, I feel I know... Those jumpers!! The eternal life-work-fancy bit on the side triangle!! (my fancy bit is a bar of chocolate!) The mind palace; and that eternal regret that I can't act in my mother tongue let alone another one! Then I read this book; Fluent in Three Months. OK, I'm half way through it really, but I get the total immersion idea. The live the culture to learn the language and spend hours a day doing flashcards and learning the sentences. Hej! Hvordan g å r det? Hyggeligt at se dig! But I have a mission. I am getting a box set for my birthday. No, not Breaking Bad, although I want to watch that too; but Birgitte, her of the sharp suits and the power play in consensus politics. Yep, Borgen is mine in 2 short months. And I want to be able to truthfully say, ...

We were at a farm owned by my Uncle (L***; he will kill me if I mention him online, on Facebook or show a photo of him. Sorry x) and run as a Bed and Breakfast by my Aunt Kate. You can find it here; the name is Kate's Kottage . I wish I'd taken pictures of the inside of the house. It's a very lovely welcoming Irish home, with a warm wood burner, a teapot on the range and one of those big 'we live here because it really is the heart of the home' kitchen with a fantastic view out over Bessy Bell. When I finally become a best selling author and get writer's block on my second novel I am coming here to sit at this table and write. No kidding. You could just watch it all day. Uncle L*** has many fingers in several different pure Irish beef pies. Seriously, the man never sits still, between gardening with Leonard Cheshire as a volunteer, lambing, driving his truck over the fields and other things he does, but one of his main roles is that he runs a shooting sch...

My my, 2013 already! How did that happen? And I know 2012 was a bad blogging year for me. Don't know what happened. I didn't spend a lot of time online, I kept thinking of posts and them *cough* forgetting to write them. Even going mobile didn't help. Shame on me. Especially since blogging and being a part of the blogosphere made me happy. So I have one resolution; to blog more. That means I have to live more to have stuff to blog about. This site will be my home site, my life base and the place I come to pour out my heart and mind... thanks for listening!.... but I wanted a shorter route to post just one thing a day, a happiness project I have been thinking about. Happiness was hard to define last year, easier to say what stopped me being happy (work, money, some people, not having a purpose) and I didn't feel my usual happy self. That's probably a big part of why I was so slow to post. Having a deep belief that a gratitude attitude influences happiness I am se...

So far this afternoon I have connected up the new modem (computer still not working; only my laptop. That's MY laptop; they can't use it), decided on a green and cream theme for my downstairs loo, posted replies to all the blogs I've read today and had three cups of tea. There are six children in my care. Look at the lunch they had... count them... SIX!!! They are so good and lovely I may possibly get a chance to read a book.... or is that too optimistic? They're friends who live for most of the year in Abu Dhabi and only come back in the summer. The ages match mine almost exactly, one 11, one 9 and one 6, while the genders match, too. And every summer we meet up it is as if the last year has never happened. They play together. They eat with gusto. And they part for the next 12 months quite happy with their friendship.