Angel Jem's City Cottage

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...

I have been busy over the past couple of weeks. I think life (for me) seems to get faster the older I get. Certainly, I look back at the days of at-home motherhood with a yearning I didn't expect to feel. When the most I got done in a week was 2 or 3 days supply, and they weren't guaranteed. Work is pretty full time, of course, so I find myself trying to fit a life into 2 days of the weekend. And since I love me a good bit of downtime and solitude, I find I'm fighting the urges to rest and relax or to get up and do. So I feel very Jekyll and Hyde. I'm either calm efficiency and getting the house cleared well, or collapsed on the sofa, remote control in hand, guinea pig on stomach and bewailing the days when I was able to watch daytime TV alone. I have no idea how full time workers fit in housework. I know that possibly before I began full time work I should have cleared the house, so that I could now consider getting a cleaner in to do a bit for me. As it is, I ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

Where do the days go? Forget the days... the weeks fly by and before I know it, I've missed months of blogging and I'm reading and playing catch up on all your posts and drowned in a sea of bloggy friendship misses. I'm back in the room and (hopefully) here for a loooooooong while. When did I last post? Oh my goodness, June 5th!!! 2 months ago! I was still working at school and still looking ahead to finishing and I haven't told you everything that is happening in my life and oh my goodness it has been fun and... stop! Go and get a cuppa. This might take some time. So, my life at the moment. I am working with this man (just kidding!) who is just the best husband a gal could have. He's training me up into the dark side of the force and showing me how to manipulate people (well, insurance companies at least) to pay out for injuries. This is where I work. It's an office, and there's not a lot you can do to make an office different except to be Goo...

I am really enjoying my holiday. This week I have taken off every one of my commitments; no where to g, no one to see, just a chance to DO stuff in the house. I know I work what is laughingly called 'part time', but it really stops me getting things done. I miss whole days just pootling, or taking a sickie from supply to paint or decorate a room. Now I must really store up my plans to do during holidays, and I have done precious little over the last couple of years. This year I want to get a lot done. I've started this week with the boys' room. It hasn't been decorated for 13 years, and they aren't the little children they were then, so a more adult approach to the room seems sensible. Above is the before shot; blue walls and piles of everything. Don't get excited, the after doesn't look a lot different. I gave the lads the choice of colours, and they said they liked the colour it was, and why did I have to paint it at all? Duh. Part way thr...

I have read (and listened to) The Secret recently. I think I can see the reasoning behind some of it, like you get what you focus on, you create your own luck through self belief and that you can achieve what you want to. There's a whole element of the book that talks about manifesting what you want; that you talk and act and think as if you already have the job, house and other attributes of the life you want and they will be manifested i.e. made real. I'd like to think so. I want to believe that my life can work out and be as good as I want it to be.The Secret says that something as easy as a parking space can be manifested if you only believe that it is there for you and, I have to say, the space I want is usually in the space I want it to be either straight away or within a short time. I've always been a bit Pollyanna-ish, always expect the best and see the good in every situation and I am still seeing the positive where I am now, but I'm beginning to feel th...

Who knew that having a new business was just like having a new baby? No, don't laugh. Listen to this story. It was about a year and a half ago that Mr Angel Jem read this book, The Litigators, by John Grisham. I love JG, I read a lot of JG for the same reason I watch a lot of courtroom dramas and sit on a Sunday watching football. Mr AJ likes them, so there's a lot of it about and it's well worth sharing an interest together (and, no, he CANNOT crochet, although his Mum used to dressmake and he has a lot of respect for useful crafts.) The role of the book is crucial in our story. The hero, David Zinc, has it all; a good job in a big firm, a big BIG firm. But it takes all his time and he is working for the firm. So one day he walks out. Just goes, sets off, gets well drunk in a bar and wanders off to a very dubious part of town where he meanders into a 'boutique' (meaning small) law firm and asks for a job. We were in London. Seriously. Staying for a week in...

And then I take a deep breath and realise that I spend a fair portion of it sat at a computer sorting it out for someone or other.  At work, I have become the website administrator, responsible for sorting out and updating the school website. I'm chasing up statistics and policies, photos from the class face and the statutory items that need to be on a website. Fun. Oh, and I get to work with different children to get news stories (writing for a purpose) so that the site has an element of 'pupil voice'. I only have 50 minutes a week timetabled for this, so it's a tight squeeze and very often, I expect, will take some home time up as well. At home I have my other IT hat on, as website manager and techie for Mr AJ. Business goes well, but we are slowly getting it set up and ready for a full launch shortly. Then I get to be a blogger, and to interface with my bloggy mates on t'internet. You have probably noticed I'm absent at the mo. Sorry. I hope to get...

And it won't get any easier as time goes on!! I spent three days this week in a computer room having training for a legal software system. Of course; because I'm a qualified teacher, so it makes sense. (not) Actually it sort of does make sense. Mr AngelJem setting up as a solo practitioner is only possible because there are case management systems out there that do away with the need for a secretary or even a load of letters posted every day. And D Day is approaching fast; like he has 3 days of employed work before we go solo. Taking a chance like this needs everyone in the family to be supportive. This week was made possible and smooth because my parents collected and cooked for us three days in a row. It's our future, so it needs me to back him up with all the support I can. Going on the training gave me an insight into his career, which it is so easy to go through life without, and an input into the firm. I'm the IT consultant, the girl who can do. And I wil...

I breathe a sigh of relief. This is the first time in three years that I haven't started with a full time cover position and, although I know I will miss the money, especially since day to day supply is as rare as rocking horse droppings in September, this year I feel the need for the break, the time at home to set up a workable system and to get my life in order. You see, Mr Angel Jem has decided to jump off the corporate ladder and go freelance. OMG. And I get to be his IT lady. Apparently 6 years blogging gives me experience enough to set him up and deal with his day to day problems. For anything bigger, there's still the Big Guns. Who knew? And from October 9th our guaranteed income drops to...er, yes, that's right, em, zero. Don't ask. So making it work, that's like, really crucial to me, ok? I will work whatever whenever to make sure Mr AJ gets his dream of autonomy. So if you need a good personal injury lawyer in the North West or North Wales, get ...

I'm still mad busy with applications. No interviews, no chances. I am not doing well at getting full time work. But I keep trying. I'm back in my favourite Matt Malden. I have been through Mr Chameleon and Antonio my red hot Chilli Cuban,  but I always keep coming back to Matt. I keep on trying, but he is the One.  And I did give Antonio a good go; he is set up beautifully.  Here is the eye candy to prove.  Look at the washi tape;  look at the top tabs,  just look  look  look. *sigh* Perhaps if I had full time work and a larger bag everyday I would........ but A5 is just too big for day to day use. I keep on trying. I keep on trying.