Who Said Life Was Fair???

My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for about 5 years,  it's weird but until we got married I thought my "baby making" days were long past me, with two boys hitting their teens I really did think I'd done my bit for the continuation of the species and I was done with all that.   But getting together with Pie and seeing what a great stepfather he was and how much he missed his own children it reignited in me the desire to go through the hellish experience that is pregnancy.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, pregnancy never is for me, but I did think it was possible and I thought it would be worth it.  But I didn't think it was going to be this hard.  When we started trying I thought we had lots of time but it's amazing how fast that time slips away from you and suddenly you are 5 years down the line and it's pretty much too late.

After seeing Mr Shehata in April and discovering that my problem with getting a pregnancy to stick was killer cells I was prescribed steroids to surpress the killer cells, aspirin to keep my blood thin and high doses of vitamins.  I came away from that appointment feeling so positive,  at last there was an answer and a possibility of having a baby.  I'd been getting pregnant regularly so I didn't doubt that we could do it again.

But here we are, the year is coming to a close and we still aren't successfully pregnant and it appears that the very drugs that were meant to help me stay pregnant may have ended my chances of getting pregnant at all.   Since I started taking the steroids I had noticed that my cycle had changed radically,  I had gone from a strict 26 day cycle to a 35 day cycle and then experiencing mid cycle bleeding as well. Using ovulation sticks every day it also appears that I am no longer ovulating, the first month I thought ok maybe I screwed up the tests and I missed the day but after 2 solids cycles of testing I know I didn't miss it, it just isn't happening.

So how do I feel? I can't honestly say yet,  I don't think it's actually sunk in quite yet, the part of me that should feel sad is so numb at the moment it isn't feeling anything, but part of me feels guilty for feeling relieved, I haven't had to make this decision myself my body has done it for me, my body has quit on me!  

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Soft Play Purgatory

Recently I had my first re-experience (hmmmm is that a real word???) of soft play, you know,  those indoor playgrounds that are full of climbing frames, ball pits and slides etc. Oh good god the torture of it.  My boys are 17 and 14 so it's a very very long time since I have set foot over the treshold of one of these places and I had forgotten totally what they were like. The first thing that hit me was steam, I mean I know it was raining outside (really heavily... in fact I was at that point considering googling plans on ark creation) so I guess an element of the steam might be kids and parents coming into this hell hole slightly damp but I think also that the steam might have just been the sweat off the kids and the constant CO2 created by their open mouths as they screamed.

And scream they did!!!

We were there because my stepchildren were down visiting us during the school holidays and at 7 and 4 they are a lot younger than my boys so I am having to re-learn how to entertain small people again... not easy I can tell you, but probably good practice if we ever do achieve our aim of having a baby.

The second thing that struck me was the wall of noise.  I am wondering is tolerance of softplay venues, parks etc something you get an immunity to?  I ean when my boys were small I remember taking them to these softplay places and sitting quite happily with a book whilst they ran themselves into exhaustion and the noise never bothered me, yet here I am a few years later and it was like being locked into a room with 100 howler monkeys all screaming at the top of their lungs and it was absolutely excrutiating.  I looked around and there were all these other mums sitting quite happily chatting with each other and yet I could not even hear myself think!!!

I ended up digging into the bottom of my handbag and fortunately found some earplugs which I gratefully shoved into my ears... trust me you could still hear the screaming and shouting... and crying as little Johnny bashed some other kid or vice versa... it was just now at a reasonable dull roar.

I did have a genius thought though if the armed forces ever decide they need new methods to extract information from detainees they could always tie them to a chair and stick them in the middle of the ball pit and just let the kids have fun throwing those plastic balls at them and let the detainees endure a few hours of 100 howler monkeys... oops I mean darling children... a few hours of that and they will be begging to tell what they know.

Good Read - Kill For Me by Karen Rose

After finishing the last Karen Rose novel - Scream For Me, I just could not wait to get into this one,  it had been sitting beside my bed gently taunting me, whispering ... read me... read me... you know you want to... do it... give in.  So I did!  Am I ever weak when it comes to a good book.

Considering that in a good killer thriller the writer has to have all the characters in the novel from very early on, Karen Rose really does do a good job of keeping you guessing.   I mean it's really not fair on the reader to have them get to the last chapter and then spring the murderer on them as being someone that hasn't been involved in the plot from the beginning... that's just cheating!  So Karen doesn't cheat!  The buy guys are there right from the beginning right under your nose but you just don't know it... that's how cleverly written the book is.

One thing I didn't like was how many law enforcement officers bit the dust, as the body count racks up quite a few of them are the good guys.  Now I am not an idiot, this is how life works, the good guys don't always come out in one piece but it still made me a bit sad nevertheless.

The romance in this book was a little bit more muted, it definitely took second place to the killer thriller part but it was definitely a page turner and the plot twists just kept mounting.

I read the book in 3 days... bit of a clue as to how gripping it is.

Herby Roasted Sweet Potatoes

I am really really into sweet potatoes... I never really had them before I had to think about the sugars in my diet. Apparently having PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) often means that sufferers have insulin resistance which means weight gain is very likely.  The only way I have found to control weight as a PCOS sufferer is to try and keep sugar (carbohydrates) to a minimum which isn't easy as one of the problems of having PCOS is an extreme sweet tooth... how unfair is that then???

So avoiding foods like pasta, rice, bread and potatoes is really important as they are quite high on the glycaemic index (lots of sugar)  who knew?  Not like they taste terribly sweet, ok well bread can if you smother it in jam...mmmm jam... no stop don't get me started.

Anyway a good alternative to potatoes and rice is sweet potatoes, the name is a bit misleading, even though they do have a slight sweetness to them, they actually contain a lot less sugar than potatoes and are much lower on the glycaemic index.  Nature is well weird.

One way of cooking sweet potatoes is to roast them, you can actually cook them almost anyway that you can cook a potato, roast, mashed, chipped or boiled (although boiling isn't as nice) and you can't really do them like a baked potato, well you could but the skin is quite tough. You can even make really healthy sweet potato crisps and they are just yummy. I may do a recipe for that....can you bear the suspense?

Anyway enough of this onwards to the recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4 people)

2-3 Large Sweet Potatoes

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Pepper

Salt

Mixed Herbs

1 Teaspoon Medium Curry Powder or Tikka Spice (optional)

Peel and chop your sweet potatoes, give them a rinse under the tap and then pop the on some kitchen roll to let them drain for a few mins whlst you make the coating.

In a bowl mix, the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, grind some pepper, salt and a couple of pinches of mixed herbs as well as a teaspoon of Medium curry powder or tikka spice.  Stir it together well.

You can just miss out the curry powder, it gives a nice spice but if you're having something like roast chicken with the sweet potatoes you might not want spicy.

Toss the sweet potatoes in the coating, making sure all the potatoes get a thorough coating.

Lay your sweet potatoes onto a tin foil lined baking tray.

Cook your sweet potatoes in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees for 20 mins, it's a good idea to turn them over 10 mins into cooking to make sure both sides get a chance to crisp up.

You can serve these with any meat you like really but works especially well with roasted chicken.

I served mine with oven cooked pork loin chops and mixed veg and lots of gravy... YUM!!!!

Good Read - Scream For Me by Karen Rose

I bought this book because it was cheap and the write up intrigued me, I do like crime novels and this one was written up as a crime romance. Hmmmmm thought I, might be a bit different. I'm a huge fan of the Bones series and it seemed to me that this book might be along the same lines.  

Oh boy was I ever suprised when I started reading this book, after reading the prologue and the first chapter I found it impossible to put the book down.   I didn't know that the books was actually the 2nd book in what amounts to a trilogy, so I have kind of started this series in the middle, but I can definitely say I will be reading "Die For Me" and I don't think having read the 2nd book first will spoil that for me.  As this story really does have it's own legs to stand on.

The story is really very very complex and Karen really does keep you hanging until the very end of the book with lots of surprises along the way, just when you think you've got it all sussed out, bang you get smacked between the eyes by another twist that just  throws you completely off track and back at square one having to re-assess all your assumptions again. 

I found the main characters predicaments really quite sad and I found myself rooting for them both having had such a dreadful early life it's actually quite surprising that they are as grounded and sane as they are!  

It does have to be said that a lot of the events in the book, although essential to the story, are really quite graphic and if this book ever gets made into a film it will be a pretty heavy duty movie.

If you are a fan of crime novels, crime romance then definitely give this book a whirl, I read it in 3 days as I just could not put it down and it was a rollercoaster ride that I loved every second of, even the hard bits, even the sad bits.

Hols in Weston Super Mare - July 2010

Two firsts for me on this trip,  I'd never been to a Pontins and I'd never been to Weston Super Mare... so that's another two things ticked off the list.

I have to say when we arrived at the Pontins I was a bit shocked, it was like walking onto the set of Hi de Hi and not in a good way. 

The point of this trip was really to meet up with our friends Natalie and John Milne and their daughters.  We'd been looking forward to this trip for months so even dodgy Pontins wasn't going to spoil it for us.

I did almost rethink that thought however when Natalie showed us to our "chalet" or "shitlay" as I renamed it. It looked somewhat different to the pictures on the Pontins website and we found ourselves faced with either sleeping on the worst sofa bed or two of the smallest single beds I have ever seen in my life. Hmmmmm decisions, decisions!

We opted for the sofa bed which in itself presented us with some major problems.... whoever had used it before us had put it away so badly that I almost broke Pie's fingers when the two of us were trying to yank the bed part out of the sofa.

We'd taken a bit longer to get to Weston than expected due to a slight detour, Pie's fault... don't ask!

So by the time we got there we had missed dinner and had to settle for some fish and chips (me) and sausage and chips (him). It certainly wasn't cordon bleu but it was hot (burnt my tongue) and filling!

I slept surprisingly well on the demon sofabed, mostly due to alcohol anaesthetic, that and the major dip in the middle of the sofabed which meant we both ended up snuggled up quite intimately... it was either that or tie ourselves to the sides of the damn thing to stay in place.

The weekend itself went too fast, spending time with Natalie, John and the kids was so much fun, we went to a funfair and had a wander around a market and played Rock Band late into the night... fueled but the copious quantities of alcohol that Natalie and Pie had seen fit to bring on the trip.  

I haven't laughed so much for a long time... and can't wait to get together again. By the time Monday came I had become quit fond of our "shitlay" having spent time naming all the fleas... actually that's really unfair, although the "shitlay" was quite run down and in need of refurbishment it was spotlessly clean and there were no fleas... I promise.

The other thing that was quite impressive was the food at the restaurant within the Pontins, well cooked, good portions and really nice, friendly staff who obviously worked very hard and enjoyed their jobs.

More Pictures

Little Miss Bizzy

The funfair a short walk away from the Pontins Park

The Girl Racers!

Getting some body Art

Pretty!!!

Who can resist that face?

Lolly and her deserts

Time to Rant - Politicians

There are few things in this world that are guaranteed to get me riled up and ready to rant than career politicians. (ok that's a porky pie, there's plenty of things)  I don't mean Joe Bloggs, the man/or woman off the street who decides to stand up and be counted and represent their community... I mean the people who come from (in the main) quite privileged backgrounds, who trot off to University and study politics for years and then come straight out of university and go straight into their jobs of "Politician".

Why does this cause me to have a rant, I hear you ask.... well... think of it this way, if you are sick and you need someone to diagnose you, would you go to you MP's surgery to have them diagnose you?  Or would you take yourself off to your GP, someone who has had years of training in medicine, to work out what is wrong with you?  If your car is broken down, do you go and see your MP or do you go and see a mechanic?

Why then do we trust career politicians who have no had any experience of running companies, who have never worked in the NHS, who have no medical training or business training to run as big a company (and don't be fooled, the NHS IS a business) as the NHS? How... exactly.... are career politicians qualified to decide how money should be spent within the NHS, where is their business qualification?  Where is their medical experience and qualifications? What makes them think they know so much better how to run the NHS better than people who have been working in the field for their whole careers?

The latest comical plan by the Conservative Party to reorganise the NHS is just laughable, especially since the current structure of the NHS was initiated by the Tories in the Thatcher years. It's so easy for them to try and palm the blame off onto the last government but we're not all as stupid as the Tories think and some of us were around when they were last in power and remember what they did.  The Tories were the instigators of the endless league tables and beauracracy.  

If the Tories are serious about reorganising the NHS in a way that a) will work and b) is cost effective then really the Career Politicians need to get out of the equation altogether. Bring in people who actually know what they are doing. As much as they would like to blame the NHS's situation on "Management Overload"  They are wrong, management is essential within the NHS, it is a given that, thanks to the Tories, management is top heavy and could use some pruning, but without good management the NHS would fall to pieces, everyone has a role to play, doctors do the doctoring, nurses do the nursing and the management and admin do the boring paperwork and gruntwork that keeps the NHS ticking over.

What makes me so angry is this stupid assumption that reorganisation is the way forward... we're in a recession, wasting £1.5 billion on reorganisation is not only insane it's wasteful and insulting to us, the taxpayers.   People are worried about whether or not they are going to have a job tomorrow, whether or not their children will be able to go to university or even whether or not they will be able to eat and our Government thinks it's ok to throw around £1.5 billion on reorganisation of an institution that they reorganised the last time they were in power...

I guess it is really easy to sit in a protected ivory tower, where you know your job is safe for 5 years and chuck around sound bites and taxpayers money.

New Project - Spare Bedroom

I'm moving on to my next project, I need to get this one done in time for the summer holidays,  I apologise in advance to the previous owners of our house, particularly Becca whose lilac bedroom is about to radically change.

As this is a spare bedroom and where my stepchildren sleep when they visit we need something that is child friendly and cheerful but without being too babyish as guests will also be using this room so we have decided on Dulux Buttermilk emulsion in Silk with fresh satinwood in white on the woodwork.   

Wish me luck... I'm going in!

Home Decorators Secret Weapon

Believe it or not one of the most valuable tools in my home decorating arsenal is....drum roll please!.... Cling Film!  Ordinary food wrap,  I always keep a roll of it in my decorating box, in fact mine is a catering sized roll I use that much of it.

I'm not the fastest painter and decorator in the world, especially when I am trying to work my way around a room that has a a pile of stuff in it I'm lucky if I can get more than a couple of walls done a day, specially if trying to turn a room with a strong paint colour into a lighter colour.  

I find that wrapping rollers and paint trays in cling film between work sessions stops the paint drying out so that the next day I can just rip off the cling film and get on with the work.  I find that the cling film will keep the paint fresh for almost a week, at a stretch... anything longer than that is pushing your luck though and even the most well wrapped roller or brush will go rock hard after a week... but it works well on emulsion or gloss paint as a short term measure.

It's Official - I'm a Gleek!!!

I give in, I admit it, I am sure there is some kind of treatment programme but I can't promise to go and take part. I am loving Glee far too much. Oh if only we had had Glee Clubs when I was at school, I would have been in there.

I did take part in everything remotely "drama" at school, I was in every single school show that was put on, I strutted my stuff, sung my heart out and made a complete arse of myself at every opportunity and loved it... yes you heard me, I loved it!!

Having said that, I have since stolen every single piece of evidence that my parents ever had that I took part in these events. These have been ritually burnt so that my kids will never find them.

We missed Glee when it was on television so we thought we just had to get the boxset when it finally came out. Absolutely brilliant stuff, following the dramas of Rachel, Mr Scheuster, Finn, Quinn (if I ever have twins I know what I will be calling them!) and the evil Sue Sylvester, one of the funniest characters ever, her one line put downs are just so funny.

And the voices, wow the voices, some seriously powerful voices that just blew me away, I actually had shivers down my spine when listening to some of the songs, Mercedes (Amber Riley) in particular has this powerful belter of a voice that just stops your breath!

The only bad thing about this series for me was that it ended. I was so sad that there was no more episodes on the disc!  Roll on series two, I still haven't managed to put it on the sky box so we'll be buying it on DVD.

If you are a Glee virgin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2FMdOLyRcA enjoy!!!

Glee Links:

http://www.e4.com/glee/

http://www.facebook.com/Glee

Get the DVD here:

Cleopatra's Daughter

I picked up a copy of this book during a visit to Tesco, it was one of those impulse purchases that so often happen in that very dangerous shop.  One of those "oh I go in for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread and come out having spent a £100 on a ton of stuff I didn't intend to!" moments. 

The cover was what really attracted me, I am a sucker for costumes. I thought the title might be a bit of a play on words as I didn't actually know that Kleopatra had any children other than her first son Caesarion. But once I read the back I thought oh hang on maybe she did... and sure enough having since googled it Kleopatra did indeed have 3 more children with Mark Antony before it all went tits up for them. 

I found the book fascinating, from page one I was hooked, drawn into the story of Selene, Kleopatra's daughter and what happened to her after her parents died. 

The first thing that struck me was the selfishness of her parents.  Mark Antony killed himself in the traditional Roman fashion of stabbing himself with his short sword because he thought that Kleopatra was dead (but he didn't actually wait to find out...numbnut!) and then Kleopatra killed herself with a cobra. Traditionally this is thought to be because of the grief of losing Antony but the reality is more likely to have been because she didn't want to be enslaved by Caesar and paraded through Rome in chains.

But it did mean that she left her three surviving children Kleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus to the mercy of Caesar and to the most likely fate of slavery. 

The book follows these three children and what happens to them and is truly rivetting, the descriptions of their journey, the life they lived and the intrigues that surrounded them.  Michelle Moran manages to weave a convincing story as well as drawing in real historical facts and events into the story.

Definitely one I would recommend you read if you like history and a good story.

Steam Rally - Stoke Goldington 9th May 2010

My husband suggested a day out at a local Steam Rally, as the weather was really quite nice and I have never actually been to a steam rally it seemed like quite a good idea, or at the least an opportunity to get out in the sunshine and spend a bit of time together. 

I had the most fantastic day,  I was shocked by the sea of cars in the huge field that served as the car park for the event... this was a country event on a scale I have never seen before. But that's what happens when you are a city girl by birth.

Once we were in past the entrance the first thing I noticed was the helicopter buzzing around, I was seriously tempted by the idea of a ride, but the queue was huge and there was just so much to see I didn't have the patience to wait!

The event was laid out in sections, with small steam machinery being the first section we had to walk through.

Walking up through the market stands I bumped into Therese from Baby Dimples Reborn Nursery pushing her gorgeous coach pram with one of her dolls in it, doing her bit to spread the word about reborning! It was fantastic to see a reborn artist out and about showing off their work, we spent some time chatting about the art and it was fascinating to see how many people came up and peered into the pram looking at Therese's work.

I loved seeing all the craft work on display, there was just so much to see, the beautifully handmade bird houses made a fa ntastic display in the sunshine, I was so tempted by the birdhouses but then I thought, hang on, three cats and a captive audience of birds??? Possibly not the cleverest idea I've ever had so maybe not.  Anyway the birds are so scared of our cats they won't even come into the garden to take the seed we put out for them!

 

Inside the craft marquee were a range of stands from homemade sweets, jewellery and cards to traditional crafts like basketry, woodworkers, cider makers and honey. 

It was fascinating watching people working at traditional crafts, it's great to see that people are still managing to make a living at these crafts and keeping them going in a world where mass production has taken over.

I saw and fell in love with a beautifully crafted wooden apple which I just had to have.  Heavens knows what you do with a wooden apple, apart from wipe dust off it from time to time but it was so pretty I just had to have it. 

I also came home with a hand turned white and lavender pot that is going to live in my art room and hold all my paint brushes.

There was just so much to see and do, we wandered amongst the restored vehicles, tractors, steam engines and crafts for hours and there wasn't a moment that I felt bored or uninspired.  All in all a brilliant day and I can't wait for next year. 

Photo Gallery   Please enjoy!

Beautiful Wicker Dolls Houses

The Tudor Wife

I love to read, as a child my father would say that I would read absolutely anything, including the back of a cereal packet if I got desperate, and he was right.  I was quite voracious in my appetite for books, I think by the time I was 12 I had worked my way through the kids section of our local library, Jubilee Gardens in Southall and was working my way quite happily through the adults section.  I think the ladies at the counter were often quite shocked to see me trundling up to the counter 2 or 3 times a week with my allocated 10 books.

I've just finished "The Tudor Wife" by Emily Purdy. Brandypurdy.com/ Essentially this is a historical fiction novel, it's the retelling of the Anne Boleyn and Henry the VIIIth story, following Henry's chase of the very unwilling Anne, a very well known historical event but this time told through the eyes of Jane Parker who became Lady Jane Rochester when she married George Boleyn, Anne's beloved brother.

I found Jane to be a thoroughly unlikeable character, right from the start she comes across as an obsessive character, the subject of her obsession being George Boleyn, in modern day terms she would have been thought of as a stalker or even a bunny boiler such is her need to control and own George. Jane doesn't seem to understand that George's lack of love for her is George's fault and seeing the closeness of the relationship George and his sister Anne have decides that Anne is to blame for her not being able to make George love her and takes her chance then to revenge herself upon Anne whenever she can.

Given that the historical facts do indeed show that Jane Parker was one of the chief witnesses that Henry and Cromwell used to get rid of Anne, she is the principle witness and accusor in the trials that brought about Anne's death, accusing Anne not only of having affairs with courtiers but even going so far as to accuse her sister in law of having an incestuous relationship with her brother George. It is quite easy to imagine this story being quite accurate. 

Jane herself comes to quite an unpleasant end being beheaded herself in the same way she helped to have Anne's head lopped off  and when that part arrived in the book... at the end... funnily enough... I found it very difficult to raise any semblance of sorrow for the character.  My first thought was "well you had that coming love!"

Come on You Saints!!!!

My husband talked me into going along to a rugby match, it was my first time, he'd asked me so many times I thought "what the hell, why not"

So we trot off to The Saints Rugby ground in Northampton, the grounds is called Franklin Gardens because apparently originally it was a civic public gardens. You have to wonder whose brilliant idea it was to get rid of that (yes that is sarcasm).

I was shocked at just how many people attend a rugby match, it was just this sea of people heading towards the grounds. I was even more surprised by how many women and girls were there, all in their Saints shirts, I felt quite out of place in bright pink... I must have clashed terribly with the sea of green shirts.



I'm not entirely sure who these guys are supposed to be, but you have to admire their courage in being prepared to walk around dressed as complete numpties.






My husband had been telling me about this stand, Hog Roast, his dad had tried it at a previous match and pronounced it delicious, so we duly queued up with quite a lengthy crowd, the smell from the roast was tantalising and I could feel my tummy rumbling. It was like it was screaming, bring on the pig people and do it quick!!





We were presented with a soft roll just stuffed and brimming over with roast shredded pork onto the top of which was piled strips of crisp pork crackling and then was topped off with spoons of apple sauce...

Absolutely divine! Bliss in a Bun!

The rugby match itself was going to have to be good to top the food.

And it was... it was loud, 15,000 people in the stands all singing the Saints Anthem, When the Saints come marching in, which was really nice, harmonies and everything, but I did have to question which bright spark felt the need to add "oi oi" to the end. Why????

I loved the mascots though, they were so cute, they had a boy and a girl version of the mascot walking around and waving to the kids and posing for photographs. Bet the poor lad who got stuck with the girl costume was hoping his mates didn't see him dressed like that.

Unfortunately the Saints kind of gave it away in the end and failed to convert a try (so I am reliably informed) and we lost by 1 point. Gutting, specially as there was a very vocal opposition supporter right in front of us who felt the need to poke fun.

I took loads of photos of the event, well you have to when it's your first ever live rugby match!

Final Score - Northampton Saints 27 - Saracans 28

I can't say that I have been converted into a mad rugby fan, but I did enjoy the event and would definitely do it again.

But this has got to be my favourite moment of the day, look at that face, that is one happy man, he's having a great time... good food, sports and he got me to go to a rugby match. Good times!!!

What's That All About?

What is it about a skip? Obviously when you have work done at your home you generally have to have some way of disposing of all the accumulated crap that gets produced by the job.

When the skip showed up on the first day of the job I have to admit to being a bit surprised by the size of it, I thought to myself there will just not be that much rubbish coming out of this... but now I have worked it out it's quite possible that they don't order a big skip by accident, that maybe just maybe they know what will happen once it's outside your house... that the skip gremlins will sneak along in the dark of the night and chuck their crap into the skip you are paying for!

One night we went to bed and the skip was half empty when we got up in the morning it was full to the brim, we'd inherited someone's broken down washing machine or is it a dryer? Some empty boxes that weren't anything to do with us and assorted other junk dumped by people in the dead of the night.

Why do people do that? Would it kill them to knock on the door and ask? It's not like we bite... well actually I do but only when asked nicely! It just seems so sneaky to me to creep around at night just to dump stuff in someone else's skip, specially when the local dump is a 10 minute drive away.

I was glad when they came and took it away in the end, I would have been mightily pissed off if they had said "sorry we can't take this because it's been over filled."

Dream Office - Part Four

Finally my art room is finished, after several days hard graft painting the walls and the ceiling, it has to be said the ceiling was the worst bit, specially when my husband got a bit of an electric shock from the lights when he took them down to let the ceiling be painted... lesson learned... turn off the electricity even for the simplest of jobs, it's not worth the panic attack. Several days later his fingers were still slightly numb and covered in odd white spots!

I am loving the white walls, I was worried it would look really clinical but the addition of a cream roller blind and touches of colour, like the bright hanging pots on the wall, from Ikea stop the cold feeling and the brightness of the walls really does take advantage of the daylight available in the room, making it a pleasant working environment even late into the evening.

I'm trying to be careful and not rushing to bring every bit of craft stuff I own into the room, it's so tempting but if I do that I will just be surrounded by "stuff" and then it will be too difficult to sort it out. We've put in two white Billy bookcases from Ikea and a sofabed and I can see where I will be putting my filing cabinet, which will one day be modgepodged... it's on the list of "to do's".. once I finish the rest of the house that is!

And I think there is going to be one more bookcase in the room... trust me, every shelf will be filled, I have so many art and craft books it's untrue and I can't wait to unleash my creativity, however that is going to have to wait until the practical stuff gets done... oh the trials of the frustrated crafter!