I'll Try With A Little Help From My Friend

Sorry I've been away for a while, things just went a bit mad and there was no hope in the world I'd get 10 minutes to blog, let alone read other blogs. But it seems to quieten down a little, so hopefully I'll be back a little more often. I've hired a new help in the house to make things easier, he's still a little unexperienced and unorganised but hopefully things will improve soon.

Five things I can tell you about the past weeks and the next days:

1. The last fair went really well, I had a lovely day with lots of sales and am now getting ready for the next event. My new blankets are selling really well which makes me very happy.
   
   
2. I am a very lucky girl this week-end as my husband has decided to take me on a surprise week-end for our 4th wedding anniversary - well it's now no longer a surprise because after the consumption of about a bottle of wine last week-end, in front of me he told a friend that 'we're off to Flor....' and then realised what he was doing. I figured that a week-end was too short to go to Florida so yes, we're going to Florence this Friday. Hurray! Without Luca. For the first time. Gulp!
   
   
3. There are 6 weeks left to Christmas and I officially started browsing for Christmas gifts and wrote down my list of Christmas cards whilst the photos were uploading for this blog. There is no escape now.
   
   
4. Toddler lunchtime naps are highly overrated - at least this is what Luca decided, and so we don't really do them anymore. Help!! Mind you maybe we can use that time for some more household cleaning training.
   
   
5. I am desperately trying to come up with a 5th point but it's getting too late so I'll give up before I start writing rubbish.
   

Words and Pictures

The lovely Sandy at Baby Baby suggested a Photo and Book tag.

These are the rules for the photo tag:

• Mention who tagged you.
• Go to your photo files…Select the 6th photo folder.
• Select the 6th photo in that folder.
• Post that photo along with the story behind it.

Here we go - my photo folder goes all the way back to 2001 and in January 2002 I had the chance of travelling to Antarctica with my mum. After a long flight to Buenos Aires, then another long flight to Ushaia, we boarded the ship. Three days through the Southern Ocean and we finally arrived - it was, and still is, a truly magical place where we had the chance of staying for three weeks. I think I came back with about 700 photos and the one above is just one of them.

***

The rules of the book tag are:

• Collect the book that you have most handy.
• Turn to page 161.
• Find the 5th complete sentence.
• Site the sentence on your blog.

Oh this is going to be a boring one:

"A Creative Commons license is a way to tell them what they can do."

from "Get to the Top of Google" by David Viney. I'm currently reading it because I haven't done much in that sense for my website and I certainly won't have any time for it in the next two months but it's on my to-do-list for the New Year. The scary thing is that that's only two months away.

So if you fancy it, go and do the Photo and Book tag yourself and see where it leads you.

Holiday Guilty Pleasures

Recently when we were on holidays it struck me that every time we go away and rent a cottage, we have a tiny fridge. And this fridge is never very full, in fact last week it looked like this:

Given that we were 3 adults and one toddler (who really eats just like an adult), it amazed me that our holiday fridges always seems so empty. At home our fridge is gigantic, you could literally fill it with food for a small army. So I started questioning my shopping habits at home, wondering if maybe we just bought too much of unnecessary stuff. But we're quite good and hardly throw anything away. And then I realised that

a) we don't have a little corner shop within one minute where we can quickly stock up on a pint of milk or a box of eggs when needed. No we are in driving distance of event the smallest of shops.

But most importantly in dawned on me that our holiday diet consisted of a whole lot of these

and those

and occasionally even this (mind you this was a kids portion ...)

If you ever pass within 5 miles of Padstow you MUST stop at the Chough Bakery * - but be warned, those are truly the best sausage rolls and raisin buns in the world. I promise you will not be able to eat a different sausage roll ever again ... now come to think about it that might not actually be such a bad thing. 

 

 

* And if you follow that link you will see that they even do NEXT DAY DELIVERY, although I have chosen to ignore this for the time being.

A Little Piece Of Paradise ... No Matter What They Say

Sorry for not having blogged much these days - we're away. In fact we're enjoying a week in Cornwall in a beautiful little fishing village, we have rented a gorgeous little cottage, we have fabulous weather, it couldn't be any better (well apart from the fact that I didn't expect it to be THIS warm and didn't bring ANYTHING for the beach. But that's just an excuse to go shopping tomorrow).

It's a real shame that villages by the seaside like this are hard to find, luckily the people here are preserving what they have whilst still making it attractive for visitors. But it seems that not everyone is so happy with this.

Last night we enjoyed dinner in a little restaurant and left around 9. We (myself, husband, mother and 2-year old) stepped out of the building onto the very narrow road, just as a car came speeding around the corner. As my husband signaled to the driver to slow down, said driver let out a few words that I won't repeat. Just then a second car came towards us at an even quicker pace, and again we tried to slow him down. But the driver just poked his head out of the window and shouted 'oh just get off the f***ing road'.

It was a stark reminder that all may not be well in paradise - what a shame. But I won't allow one idiot to spoil a fantastic week.

Try This

I love going on holidays in May because if you go somewhere warm, it really gets you in the spirit of summer once you come home. This year we spent a week in Positano, Italy, and I have a feeling we might be heading back there next year. Whilst sitting on the piazza in front of the beach, I discovered this - now I'm not one to entice you to drink, but really you should try this, it's just so lovely. It requires a little organisation because you can't find it in the regular shops and will have to order it online, but boy is it worth it.

APEROL
Throw a couple of ice cubes in a tumbler.
Add
1/3 Aperol
1/3 Prosecco
1/3 Sparkling Water
1 Orange slice

Sit back and enjoy.