My calendar image for April is used with permission from Ali of Domesticali, one of the nicest blogs you could wish to read. If I have just two minutes and a Bloglines homepage full of updates, I find myself picking it out to read first.
I know that Spring is about eggs and yellows and greens, but I defy you to find an image more Eastery than Ali's cupcake - even though the original post was in November. (I play fast and loose with the seasons, as you may have noticed.)
But I'm looking at that chocolate cupcake and wondering. Mr Coffee and I gave chocolate up for Lent. I'm rather disappointed not to have lost a stone, but also rather surprised to find I don't miss it anymore.
But just one bite, and I know it will be all downhill.
I got the new Kew catalogue today. I never bought anything from them - let's face it, I buy very few things from anywhere - but it's always nice to have pretty things to put into the recycling.
Kew models usually hang around in white rooms with posh furniture and big windows, wearing navy blue clothes and very red lipstick. They usually look very sullen. For some reason, however - perhaps to cheer them up - this year they have all got in their car and gone for a day out in a tin caravan.
Here is one of them standing outside it. See how she laughs! "Look at me! With a tin caravan! I know! In a field! That green stuff underneath my feet - I wonder where they bought that from?"
I don't know about anyone else, but I am sick to the back teeth of tin caravans. Over the last few years, models from everywhere you could possibly buy clothes from have had days out in their tin caravans. White Stuff. Cath Kidston. (Though, to be fair, Cath Kidston did used to make tents, and besides, if you were to find yourself wearing this floral-with-a-bow number you might want to drive into the middle of a field and hide.) The last Fat Face shop I went into even had the side of an actual camper van propped up on the wall of the changing rooms.
For anyone like me, who was actually forced to holiday in a caravan, the idea of swanning around in it wearing new clothes from catalogues is hilarious. For a start, we don't even need to talk about why wearing white on a caravan site isn't a good idea.
And where are the anoraks? One of the Kew models is wearing a mac with three-quarter length sleeves. Why? Are wet wrists the new way to go? Are we having too much fun to care about the water-resistance of our watches?
Why is no-one carrying a chemical toilet? Also, why are there no children anywhere? The only possible reason you would be on holiday in a caravan is because you have children - either because you believe that this will be a lovely holiday in the outdoors for them which they will remember forever fondly (I do remember it mother. Not fondly) or because you are too skint to afford a hotel because you have to spend all your money on keeping your children alive.
So. No chemical toilets. No knickers on a washing line strung up between the caravan and the car. (Usually no car. How did they get there? Were they abandoned?) No children, dressed attractively in dark blue waterproofs and scowling. No dads or grandads sighing and holding a mallet. No-one shouting at one another.
What is the point of them going at all, if they're not going to do it right?
One of the ironies of my blogging life is the fact that most people who find me by accident do so by innocently googling 'crafts for children'. They then find themselves reading this post, where I blether on about how useless I am at doing crafts with children.
Poor souls.
So just to cheer them up, I thought I'd offer an update on my craft attempts.
(from left to right(well, roughly): haunted castle from the Charlie and Lola magazine, princesses from Klutz, various Christmas crafts, hearts garland from Kids Craft Weekly,sea monsters from Mr Maker, bits of Fimo, ladybirds and hearts card from Kids Craft Weekly)
Another wonderful discovery has been the Galt Silk Painting Kit. It's a challenge to find age-appropriate projects that an older child can complete beautifully if they have fine motor difficulties. With this kit, you make small dots of paint, which spread automatically and stop at the gutter. It's practically impossible to produce something which isn't very lovely.
And a further small tip for the truly talentless. I have found that even if you are completely useless, a cheat's way to be the kind of parent that you want to be is to pretend to be the kind of parent that you want to be. It fools a 4 year old. It fools an 8 year old. If you don't keep your wits about you, you may even fool yourself.
I love daffodils. So I was going to buy some. But then my mother turned up with some...
...and then one of the Safari Supperers from the last post brought some to say thank you... (if my university friend Ali is reading this, she may well recognise that vase)
...and then a parcel came! A parcel! So exciting! It was from dottycookie, who had very kindly offered to send me one of her little carrier bag tidies for my mother, who is addicted to carrier bags. She rustles.
But not just a carrier tidy - she also popped in two rings for the Little Lattes, and yet more yellow-and-green spring goodness in the form of a crochet brooch. Dottycookie is officially one of the nicest people in the world.
I have been amply provided for with daffodils - it seems time to share the joy. I'm off to buy a bunch or two to give to the next friends I meet - and I hope you enjoy your glimpse of mine.
A first visit to the Garden Centre! It must be Spring!
(Don't you get sniffy with me about the chemicals. I have a disabled ramp in my garden which becomes covered every winter in a layer of delicious slimy algae. Being green is the last thing on your mind when your child is standing at the bottom of a slithery ramp tapping it nervously with the end of a crutch.)
Anyway, it's not like I'm going out there anytime soon. It's hideous. I'm content just to peer at it through the kitchen window.
(self portrait with moss and tarpaulin)
Sunday was great for the simple reason that there was SO MUCH CAKE. My mother had roped me into hosting a dessert course for the church Safari Supper on Saturday night, which necessitated baking far too much stuff in case anyone didn't like any of the other stuff. In case you are a very lucky, blessed person and you have never had to attend a Safari Supper, this is a bizarre social occasion where you trudge around the streets having a four-course dinner in four different houses with different sets of people every time, in order to meet as many people as possible whilst keeping to an almost military eating timetable. With MAPS.
(Please tell me other people do this. Please tell me that Anglicans are not just, you know, weird.)
So Sunday morning found us with a fridge full of carrot cake, lemon drizzle cake, pear tart and chocolate brownies. And no day can go wrong after that.
Especially not with visiting grandparents around to brush up on their cycling training skills, last used when Mr Coffee was a lad.
I started a new job this week. It's always a worry, starting a new job.
I have worked in offices with lovely real coffee, and staff who knew how to froth milk; I have worked in an office where a jar of Nescafe was guarded angrily by a woman with her hair in a bun who wrote warning notes on the milkbottles.
I have worked on a freelance contract which allowed me to sit around a fantastic cafe all day with my laptop, sipping hot chocolate out of a French bowl. I have worked on a freelance contract where my 'office' was a cupboard. (You think I am exaggerating, and imagine a file storing room or other roomier environment. Don't. It was a CUPBOARD.)
This one is going to be fine, I think. There is real coffee, and I sit under a window. It has frosted glass and no view, but it is a window. I am not in a basement. The people are friendly and welcoming.
Whatever the job is - these are the few important things that, for me, make going to the office okay.
I have ventured into the garden for the first time this year. I stayed long enough to hang out the sheets and then I fled back inside.
It is not a pretty sight.
I have been to driftwood's blog, and I have admired her self-seeding poppies and her lush green lawn and her budding wallflowers, and I wanted to respond in kind. But I cannot. I have nothing. I tried to take a picture of my bank of spring bulbs (in reality a patch of land with a few straggling snowdrops at the edge of it) but the neighbour's cats had left, erm, presents which you probably don't want to look at.
(Where on earth are my spring bulbs? They are coming up all over the place around here except in my bl@@*y garden. What happened to them?)
Here is a patch I planted in Autumn with some lovely, jewel-coloured wallflowers. Wallflowers are such good value! They come into life in the dead of winter and are there ready to greet you when the sun comes out.
Yes. I'm wondering where the wallflowers went too.
(Oh, if any of you are passing Waterstones, check this out)
My calendar image for March is used with permission from Grace at Uncommon Grace. I am constantly in awe of how calm and centred this woman is, and how her children will seem to sit still for at least a damn minute in order to appreciate the projects she plans.
Maybe this is not a coincidence. Hmm. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here. Wonder what it is.
(Oh, and I know knitting is hardly seasonal and has very little to do with March. But look, there are lambs on the linked post, what more do you want?)
My calendar image for April is used with permission from Ali of Domesticali, one of the nicest blogs you could wish to read. If I have just two minutes and a Bloglines homepage full of updates, I find myself picking it out to read first.
