Christmas Cheer and what to call the New Year

Right, can I just get something off my ample chest? Something that really bugs me?

What year are we in? What year will it be on January 1st?

It's now 2014 and then it will be 2015, of course. But how do you say those years?

I guess you say two thousand and fourteen and will then welcome the New Year by saying "Happy two thousand and fifteen" over a glass or two of champers.

Right?

But is it right? Really?

We all used to call 1999 "nineteen ninety nine".....as did Prince or AFKAP or whatever the heck he is now known as.

Then we kinda had to refer to 2000 as two thousand as it wouldn't sound right to say "twenty hundred". But once you get to 2009 and have called it two thousand and nine, you should then leap to "twenty ten" and "twenty eleven" and so on.

Because I was born in 1975 (I know, an utter spring chicken), it was "nineteen seventy five" and never ever "one thousand nine hundred and seventy five".

OK, what are your thoughts? Let me know. But I am calling the new year "twenty fifteen" cos that's what it is.

Moving on, cos my brain is getting a little addled with numbers now, how was Christmas?

Ours was wonderful, once again spent at my parents. We went to Christmas carols at the church where we married, tucked the children up in bed and then tucked into gin and cheese and then Christmas Day was wonderful. It zoomed by. We were Merry, games were played, the children's happy faces warmed my heart and I thought of those who were no longer with us, and silently raised a glass in honour of them all.

Here are the highlights and hey, Merry Twenty Fifteen darlings.

Firstly, Sweet Child turned one on December 23rd. We enjoyed a sweet little birthday tea party at my sister's on Christmas Eve but I don't have photos of her to show off yet. She wore a Rose pink floral frock and looked adorable. I shall show you in a future blog post.

She has been walking for a few weeks and struts around in these little darlings:

And here was our Christmas.

Now, where did I put that final tub of Quality Street?

News in brief

And so here I am on this cheery Friday morning, washing my husband's pants and wondering how life got to be this good...

Actually it's an improvement on yesterday. Yesterday was a slog. I had three ill children, all whinging for Calpol, or wiping their noses on their sleeves and spluttering in my face.....which really bugs me and I had to boil my husband's football socks for half an hour in the same saucepan I needed to cook dinner in. Gah!

The boiling socks saga was totally my fault, but I shall blame him a little. He comes home from football with a billion tiny black particles of rubber attached to his socks, from the all weather pitch they play on. I tend to go mad because they all end up all over the floors in every room in the house and I end up finding them in our bed, in the washing machine,  in the loo (how?) and under the table.

And so this time I chucked them out in the garden to deal with at Another Time.

Another Time didn't happen as soon as I had hoped because every child got ill with the high temp virus. The one I am trying to fight but feel it may be a losing battle.

But yesterday the time came; a small window of opportunity to wash the football socks. And then I saw them....slugs all over them from where they had been in the garden all week. Leeches. Baby wood lice. Dead spiders. And scary creatures I can't even identify, that wouldn't have been out of place in I'm a Celebrity.

So I carried them in with chopsticks, while the baby watched me as if I was completely mad, and boiled them to death. The socks and the creatures. I think a lot of creatures were semi dead anyway, from living in his sweaty socks for a week.

Then I carefully picked off all creatures with the chopsticks and put them on the bird table to cheer my poor feathered birds up in this gloomy weather and washed the socks in the machine.

Think I prefer all the black rubber particles everywhere to be honest. Slimy, wriggly things ain't my bag.

And so the husband pant washing event is actually a damn sight nicer and there are no chopsticks involved.

Because the kids have been ill for weeks, I haven't been to many cherry tree shops, however, I was DELIGHTED when I spotted this Gabrielle Parker floral wrap dress.....in my size......for £4. I love it. It's a true bargain.

In other news, the baby, she who is better known as Sweet Child, is walking and trying to run and trying to open doors and escape...

The other two are slowly recovering. This was taken before heading to the beach, the week before they fell ill.

And the dear Sweet Child has had her first Christmas party at a toddler group which she loved.

I want to end this by apologising to those who kindly emailed me and I haven't had the chance to reply yet, but I will. 

Once I have tackled the pants.

Then I will email you briefly.

BRIEFly.........

Geddit?

More of a BOG post this week.......(shudder)

So, my lovely follower from Istanbul gave me a kick up the sizeable derrière to write another blog post. Seriously, it's been a madly busy time but yes it's definitely worthy of a blog. However, one needs to keep it all brief or else you will end up weeping in despair like I did on Sunday and Monday. I fondly refer to those days as Poo Gate.

Firstly, on a brighter note, there has been cherry tree shopping in epic proportions, compared to recent times when I haven't really found the time to scour for second hand bargains.

Sweet Child is the one to really benefit from this as baby clothes are usually in amazing condition as not worn much....unless you feed them bolognaise sauce while they wear crisp, white clothes. Then those garments become mere dusters. and I weep....again.

OK, the dress, top and head scarf (after the strawberry hat pics) are second hand. The dotty Jasper Conran dress cost just £1.50 from Dorothy House. I love it too much.

The dotty head scarf was 50p from Oxfam and I think we will be sharing it as I love a 50s look.

I also bought this Laura Ashley dress from Scope for £2.50. 

I love the detail on little girls clothes.

I also bought this gorgeous knitted dress but she would NOT pose in it at all. It was £1 from Help the Aged.

There is also this fab babygro from H&M, snug velour.

Oh, with a cute matching heart on the bottom!

There has also been the purchase of this Blue Zoo frock for £1.

Then I picked this up for me.

It's a really heavy ornate bird cage for a whole £1.50 from Scope. I think I love it too much. I have named her Verity. 

So, in other news there have been some very early starts....

and there has been a very cute baby....

There has also been the christening of Sweet Childe...

And after a roast lunch in our lovely local, I put on traditional afternoon tea with 1940s music. It was fabulous. Oh and everything except the frosted cake stand is from the cherry tree shop, including a whole tea set from Oxfam.

And the reason for my weeping this week????

On the same day as the christening, our house decided to have a major blocked drain and toilet problem. Nothing quite like raw sewage seeping through your downstairs loo while guests mingle in their Sunday best. It didn't ruin the magic of the day, but it made things a little shite to say the least.

It got quite a lot worse on Monday which tipped my OCD about poo over the edge, quite frankly.

You would have though Ebola had come to my seaside town if you had seen me during the clean up...

But £300 poorer and no longer feeling contaminated after watching two drain men walk raw sewage in and out of my house as they Ummed and Ahhhed about the drains outside and loo inside, I now feel cleansed and at peace with the world again.

Oh and on a final note and show casing my cherry tree plate, can I show you the cheese crisps I have been making?

Totally gorgeous as Sweet Child will demonstrate, although she then choked so I will wait a little longer before dishing them up again.

But you basically dry fry slices of cheese and watch for three mins. It's the flipping future I tell thee...

Chicken Licken Good

I had a delightful surprise last week. One of the lovely readers of my blog, Ellie, sent a copy of the vintage Ladybird book Chicken Licken to me, complete with a pretty greetings card. So full of thought, that lovely Ellie, and she's now completed my collection in that particular series.

Whoop whoop, I am one step closer to owning 'em all.

In other news, I have had the inlaws staying for three nights. A lot of cake has been eaten, it has to be said.

See the plate with roses on in the above pic? My latest cherry tree purchase...six for £3.50 and I love them.

The weather is utter misery but I am beating the blues by dreaming of a white Christmas and snuggling up with the girls...the Prince was out when we took this...

Baby led weaning continues to create havoc in the kitchen......

My mornings are still very early but someone is full of beans......

is it time for a snooze yet?

Time for a little whine (but not actual wine)

So while the Husband finished his shift in the Big Smoke last night and swaggered off to some glitzy trendy bar to meet up with his London friends...AND stay the night...my Friday night was typically nuts in the land of domesticity.

While he supped copious amounts of beer and spoke to real adults about proper things, without being interrupted every ten seconds by a child needing a wee, poo or food, and no doubt ending the fabulous evening on a high with shots of Sambuca, I walked around the house with my hands held up to my face in pure Edvard Munch Style. I felt like screaming only I was too shattered from a 5am start.

Every room was trashed, except our bedroom which is always a haven of calm, it's the law.

Even though this little madam shares our bedroom.....and quite often our bed. 

The Prince had pulled out every single pair of pants and chucked them on the floor of his bedroom. There were about 47 pairs of primary coloured Y fronts. Every single drawer was pulled out with a mass of clothing spilling out, toys all over the place, Lego all over the floor. It was like a down market charity shop. You know the ones. The ones that smell a bit funny and are more like a jumble sale and have weird ornaments like owls covered in the world's tiniest sea shells.

He didn't have weird ornaments everywhere but the place was littered with Play Mobil and Star Wars tat. Five light sabers just ready to trip me up and teeny tiny plastic bits on the carpet that flipping hurt your bare feet.

Then the baby, the Sweet Child, started climbing the stairs with a breadstick wedged in each clammy little fist, which was an accident just waiting to happen so I dashed back down to scoop her up, just as she dropped both breadsticks and the Prince ran out and demolished them both into micro crumbs.

Then I looked in the bathroom. If there hadn't been a bath and toilet in there, it would have been hard to guess what sort of room it was. The Princess had just dumped loads of clothes in there, and there were books and toys strewn everywhere. I could feel my stress levels rising just ever so slightly as I am a tidy freak, it's the Virgo in me.

I opened the cupboard on the landing and five towels and a duvet fell on my head. Then I set foot in the Princess's room but one look around made me step away immediately. It was carnage in there.

Downstairs wasn't much better. There was food all over the kitchen floor, plus hair, as I am still shedding loads post pregnancy. The highchair was covered in Weetabix which had congealed and hardened like concrete, the washing up was practically falling out of the bowl and there was still washing on the line.

In the living room, the Prince and Princess were fighting over who was playing Minecraft on the iPad and suddenly I felt overwhelmed.

It was safe to say I wasn't exactly on top of things as I had chosen to spend the day enjoying the last of the summer by the sea. This was my punishment for taking time out from chores.

And so I set about sorting it all out, with my small army of helpers. Who gave up after three minutes because "they were ever so tired after working all day at school and their feet hurt and they might have a headache."

By 11.30pm, the house was gleaming, all three children were bathed and snoring, and I collapsed in an exhausted heap on the sofa with an Ovaltine, reflecting on how different my Friday nights were before having kids.

We used to live in Bath city centre and would leave work, hit the cool bar just yards from our flat and drink gin and tonics til the bar closed and we moved on to a club. 

But as I dragged myself up to bed and kissed each child on their marshmallow soft cheeks, I knew I wouldn't swap it for Friday nights in fancy bars.

This was my life now, it wouldn't be for ever, and socialising will happen again at a time I will be wishing my children were still young. Probably.

Look at the difference in a few months!!!!

AND I bet the husband will wake up with one hell of a hangover today, ha!

Mind you, I feel mightily hungover on three hours sleep and there wasn't a drop of alcohol consumed. Hate that.