Happy Birthday to me !!!

It's my birthday today and it's snowing - yay !!

(photo of my garden this morning, please note classy looking clothes line)

(we really should eat these pumpkins)

However, Twiglet and I were a bit gutted he's not having a snow day off school.

I was greeted this morning by birthday messages in the snow.  

Happy Birthday from Mr Twigs and TITS ! from Twiglet - 9 year old boys, honestly, don't know where he gets it from ( I was impressed with his letter formation though :)

I plan to spend the day watching the Cranford DVDs that I got for Christmas, learning to crochet, spending my birthday money online, browsing blogs, eating chocolate and doing what I please (only journeying out to walk down to school for the young man this afternoon).

 In other news, here's an emergency fish pie I made last night.  Was going to be topped with potatoes, but my peeler snapped!!  

Hence emergency pastry topping, very nice too.

 Twiglet has finally tidied his bedroom with the help of his Dad, he very generously agreed to give these games to the Sally Army shop for someone else to enjoy - good lad.

 Mr Twigs is coming home tonight to cook posh nosh for dinner.

Tip top - another year older but definitely not a year wiser !!!

Thought I'd leave you with another classy garden shot, our bottle mountain in the garden, you can't say I'm not an honest blogger :)

Twiggy xx

A good read

Hello peeps, well we have done very little at Twiggy Towers today, it's very cold, snowy and icy, we attempted to take a pile of rubbish to the tip but it was closed due to the weather (2nd attempt since Christmas!) so we had a snowy scenic drive, however it was so grey there was no point taking any photos.

We are now just mooching, which makes a nice change, roast lamb cooking in the oven, glass of wine nearby and a bit of The Alarm playing in the background, smashing.

Anyhoo, I really do intend to read more this year and push the boundaries a bit as I always seem to stick to crime fiction and have my usual favourite, Stephen Booth (lovely chap, we met him last Summer at a reading event), Ian Rankin (ditto) and Peter Robinson (ditto) crime writers are a sociable lot aren't they :) Ann Cleeves (haven't met her :) Reginald Hill (never met him).

Do you have favourite books? the two I always return to when I'm ill or out of sorts are Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and The Magic Cottage by James Herbert, pretty eclectic choice!!

My lovely mother in Law bought me a book for Christmas (I always look forward to a Christmas read) it was  Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis. 

 Now reading the synopsis it was right up my street, a ghostly mystery, but flippin heck I found it hard work. 

 I was determined to finish it as it was a gift but I did struggle, perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind.  

Ho hum.

Mind you I have struggled with a few books that have been recommended to me over the years, Ulysses by James Joyce, Lord of the Rings and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, still have them all, still can't stick with them.

Mr Twigs loves science fiction and whenever I used to see Douglas Adams interviewed and Terry Pratchett, I thought they were fantastic and incredibly funny but I just can't get into their books and we have lots of them!  

Mr Twigs is very well read (his parents are both retired English teachers, so he didn't have a choice :) and tells me I must read all the Sherlock Holmes books, I've only read Hound of the Baskervilles, which I did thoroughly enjoy. I haven't read much Dickens either, so if you have any recommendations please throw them in the mix.

I have a need to read!!

Keep cosy.

Twiggy 

Winter warmer

(Photo from Jan 2009)

Evening, well it was so windy up here yesterday, my knickers didn't blow away but my for sale sign did, 61miles per hour and my house for sale sign ended up in next doors garden!!

Today we began with ice, had many snow showers and experienced what the media have christened thunder snow??  a thunder storm involving snow.  

Blimey I thought the kids in school were going to go nuts, I felt a bit beside myself too to be honest, livened up the accounts no end :)

Right apologies for short post, being Friday, all day at work, home to my beloved slow cooker and a beef stew followed by rhubarb crumble and custard and a pint of Tetley's Hunters Ale. 

 Tiptop.

Righto, readers of old will know my complete love for David Tennant, I am now deserting you to go and watch him on the Graham Norton Show (Mr Twigs like Olivia Coleman - who doesn't? she is completely lovely, so something for everyone.

Now it's my birthday next week, do you think my eternal birthday wish might come true??

Twiggy's Birthday Wish

Now he is indeed a Winter warmer.

Ding Dong.

Stay safe and cosy.

Twiggy xxx

Chuffin Nora to be jolly...

That's the first line of Deck the Halls according to my niece, she has sung this version since she was tiny.  I have no idea why that came to mind, but thought I'd try John @ Going Gently's theory of hook em in with a good title.  However John, I don't think anyone could surpass yours from yesterday, it's still making me laugh today.

Anyhoo, a day of errands for me today.  We share a car, so had to drop hubby off at work, take Twiglet to dentists, go to post office, drop him back at school, nip to shops, take car to hubbys place of work, so he could bring me back home and keep the car - phew!!
Blitzed the house, created a mountain of crappola to go to the tip, Twiglet has tidied his room and finally agrred to get rid of 12 games!!! some he wants to give to a chazza shop near Grandmas for another little boy to enjoy, the others to sell on Ebay.

I trotted down to school to pick the young lad and his mate T up, I have no idea what they are up to upstairs but it's noisy, this must be what it's like having more than one human dynamo :)
Righto better go and get the pizza going for the young sirs.

Apologies for lack of photos, I've done this blog post on my Kindle, so I also better apologise for the lack of links and any typos:)

Keep cosy, it's flippin freezing up here and we've had 2 snow showers but they have not settled as yet.

Twiggy x

Oh how I love thee.......

Phew, Twiglet and I battled through torrential rain and gale force winds after school tonight. 

We got wet through, fell through the door at 4.20pm, me thinking oh flippin heck I''ve got to make blimmin dinner now.

Then I remembered I'd left a chicken casserole bubbling away in the slow cooker - this made me very happy.

By 4.30pm, we were sat in our cosy jimjams scoffing dinner.  Result !!

Oh slow cooker (from Freecycle) how I love thee, it's nearly as good,(but not quite obviously) as my Mum having dinner ready for me when I came home from school when I was a young 'un.

It's blowing  a gale up here on the tops, as it did last night, we are curtains drawn, hunkered down for the evening, I'm planning on watching Allotment Challenge, Mapp and Lucia and doing a bit of stitching.  

Yay for January evenings.

Keep safe and cosy. 

Twiggy x

Back to it & Christmas Makes

Blimey it's windy up here at the moment.  

We are back into the swing of things, Twiglet is back at school, Mr Twigs at work, me working part time, studying, being domesticated !!

The decorations came down on Tuesday and the room now seems huge.

As promised here are some photos of some lovely Christmas makes. Apologies for the blurred photos, it's impossible to take a good photo at the moment as it's so dingy.

 Lovely Twiglet makes.

 Love this salt dough ornament.

 Christmas Art Club makes - clever lad.

 How cute is this calendar.

 We received this card from one of our neighbours with a photo of their dog Woody, I think it's hilarious, he does not look impressed!

 My gorgeous card swap from Andrea over at Indigo Blue isn't it lovely?

Not forgetting Twiglet's fab card he received from one of his school friends, a hand drawn Dr Who inspired card, complete with tardis.  I love the fact she wrote in it ` I can't wait to see the Dr Who special, can you?' 

Fabtastic.

Righto, swapping Ken Bruce for  a pilates DVD now, trying to sort out my cronky old back.

I bought a new yoga mat from Aldi yesterday for the princely sum of £7.99, it is designed to grip the floor.  

This is excellent as we have laminate floors and  in the past I'd start at one side of the room and finish on the other, good fun but not very safe!

Twiggy x

The last hurrah !!

So we were back to school yesterday, crikey it was busy.

(This is a very photo heavy post)

Twiglet and I were in our pjs by 5pm eating our beef stew kindly made by the slow cooker.

The next 3 days will be chores and studying for me and probably sneakily watching all the Christmas TV I haven't watched, while doing the ironing - simple pleasures.

Anyhoo, before we returned to school on Monday, we had a gorgeous afternoon on Sunday.  It was a lovely crisp day so we went for a walk around Nostell Priory, I used to work here quite a few years ago and I really do love the place.

 Aren't these wooden sculptures lovely ?

 I love these little reindeer.

 Twiglet had a lot of fun trying to break the ice and skating across the shallow puddles.

Then home for a lovely gammon joint for dinner, that we didn't get around to eating at Christmas.

I flippin love Wintery Sunday afternoon walks

Twiggy x

New Year Thoughts and Eclectic Gifts

Hope you had a lovely New Years Day, we spent it with Mr Twigs family and had a really nice time.

Also enjoyed some top TV, Esio Trot, Miranda finale and Quartet, not forgetting of course University Challenge !!  (young fogey alert).

Well Mr T had to go into work today so the young man and I did our usual circuit up to the pond and fed the ducks.

Crikey it was cold and windy, but look the snow has all gone now.

He spent the rest of the day, with one of his neighbourhood friends, firstly round here and now round at theirs, so I caught up on domestic excitement - woo hoo ironing and cleaning!

Twiglet couldn't resist revisiting the icy puddle now it has melted, he enjoyed a paddle this time!!

I don't make resolutions but as per my previous posts I am just going to do stuff, I  have been given a gorgeous RHS diary for Christmas, so I can record my progress.

I am also joining in with lovely Ilona over at Life After Money but instead of choosing one word for the year, I will choose two.  The first one is `positive' as I do suffer from the black dog, usually when I don't keep myself busy and the other word is `make' which hopefully will help me on the busy front.

Now onto the eclectic gifts, I am always grateful for any gift I receive but must admit sometimes when people really give me a spot on gift, well I love it.  

They aren't expensive ones, they are often handmade or just exactly what I would buy for myself.

Mr Twigs favourite gift this Christmas was the giant festive box of Tayto crisps we gave him, to remind him of our lovely hols in Ireland :)

Here are a few of mine:-

Many from my good friend C, who just knows what I like.

Little Le Creuset jam pot - I eat a lot of jam and marmalade....

 

Some of her beautifully presented home made and homegrown  jam.

 A make your own zombie kit - you never know when you might need one ! 

My MIL bought me this gorgeous writing book, it is very shiny hence rubbish photo.

My Secret Santa gift a guineaa pig nativity book, the laughs this has given us over Christmas, it has been passed around at every family gathering. 

 I have been told by Mr Twigs I can't dress our guineas up as Herod or Angel Gabriel - big killjoy.

 Sewing machine cover made by the very talented Jo over at Solstice Days.

Lovely stuff indeed.

Twiglet has also made some terrific gifts at school, I will do a separate post for those as they are my very favourite things.

Remember the cake band I missed last Christmas with and finished off in January 2014? 

Well I took it out to wrap around my Chrimbo cake and after all that effort the chuffing thing  wasn't big enough.

I will have to make a smaller cake next year.

Finally, the house smells lush as I'm currently baking this bread and butter pudding for dinner.

I didn't have some of the ingredients so have added mixed spice and brown sugar, it smells like Christmas - yummy.

Righto, the young man has returned for his curfew and I need to make a main course for dinner.

Mr Twigs clan meeting is tomorrow - 28 of us now, so that should be nice.

We are back at school on Monday - ho hum.

Take care.

Twiggy x