.....and a Happy New year

From my house to yours......

Happy New Year

x

Merry Christmas

You will see in the next few photos that my Christmas tree decoration obsession hasn't got any better!

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas.

x

Tales of the unexpected

Having trained as a florist when I left school, I ADORE  flowers. 

Much to my surprise my husband came home with a this gorgeous bunch of roses last night. 

M&S dont you know!

£15 worth...............reduced to 50p!

Why he told me that bit, I've no idea!

A knock at the door

On Friday evening after I'd dropped my husband at the train station for him to get the train to Brighton to watch the football, my daughter and I planned an evening watching tv.

 At 10.30 the front door bell rang. To say I panicked would be an understatement!

 I wasn't expecting anyone and was really scared (it doesn't take much!) to open the door.

 We went in to the hall and could see a figure through the glass. I whispered to my daughter not to open the door and that I was going upstairs to look of of the window to see who it was.

 As I started to go up the stairs, my daughter said she was going to answer the door. I grabbed her arm and in a very firm whisper, told her not to! 

She acted so out of character by saying it was fine and that she was going to open the door, that it made me panic even more. She had this kind of half grin on her face that I found really unnerving.

She grabbed the door handle and opened it and there stood our son.....all 6ft 6 of him who had travelled all the way from Uni in Loughborough to surprise us!

Our daughter knew he was coming home for the weekend and had kept it a secret since last Sunday.

What was a mother to do?.......burst in to tears of course!

What a lovely start to the weekend!

Showtime

As my last few days of freedom will soon be at an end and the Christmas rush will soon be upon me, my daughter and I took a trip to London on Saturday.

First we headed for the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden. Its such a busy place, always a selection of street entertainers who spend hours on end standing still in a statue-like pose and covered in gold or silver paint. 

The smell of food always make me hungry, along with shops like The Primrose Bakery and Hope and Greenwood. I did buy a few bits in there which I'll share with you another time.

This enormous Christmas tree had the most gorgeous red bow that I would love to have bought home with me......quite how I don't know!

But our main reason for the trip was to go here, to the Novello Theatre to see the musical 

"Mamma Mia'

And what a show it was too! 

Mind you I've nothing to compare it with as I'm ashamed to say it's the first London show I've ever been to. How sad is that?

The theatre was much smaller than I was expecting, which made it all the better. We had really good seats near the front and I have to say the performance was flawless.

All the way through I was itching (along with my two left feet!) to get up and dance and we all had a chance at the end when the lycra clad cast came on the sing a few more Abba favourites.

Both my daughter and I said we would happily have paid again and gone back for the evening performance. If you've not seen it I can totally recommend it.

A little bit of retail therapy was in order too and these tree decoration came home with me.

Flip flop wearing Santa on a Harley......how cool is he?

Santa on a jet ski perhaps?

Or a ballet dancing giraffe?

I will photograph our tree this year just so you can see that I really don't need any more tree decorations but I just cant resist them!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend too.

Flying Santa

The shops are gradually filling up with Christmas decorations and I can never resist buying a few new ones each year.

This one had to come home with me!

Thought I'd just add....he's a Gisella Graham design if you're interested in taking one home yourself!

Anyone seen my glasses?

 

Some of the names and sayings I get asked to write on my glasses cases are very funny, very sweet and sometimes very long! Sometimes a little too long to fit on so I need to make my 'machine needle' writing a bit smaller- not easy when you have large handwriting.

  I had one of those to do today and had a couple of attempts to get it right. I stopped when I realised it wasn't all going to fit on and ended up with this one...'Have you seen my glasses?'

 If you would like a chance to win this one, then hop over to my Facebook page....( link on the sidebar)  leave me a comment and I'll choose a winner on Friday 19th October.

Good Luck!

Thank Crunchie it's Friday

I say thank Crunchie it's Friday but I know I wont have much of a weekend as I've so much work to do. It's not long until the notonthehighstreet.com Christmas Gift Guide is out and I've been getting prepared for it since April, would you believe!

I've had a very busy two weeks.....I think some people are doing their Christmas shopping early!

Anyway on to more important things......the winner of my last bag giveaway.

As usual, in the old fashioned way, all the names written out...

In to the new little bowl I picked up in Waitrose yesterday

                                                                     And the winner is.....

                                                                    Pembrokeshire Lass!

Please email me your details and I'll pop it in the post to you on Monday.

Thank you to everyone for entering, I'll do another giveaway next week before the mad Christmas rush begins!

Babooshka, Babooshka, Babooshka ya ya!

This is the third and final bag I have to give away.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I made these to add to my notonthehighstreet.com shop in the very beginning but not only do they take quite a while to make but they are also a complete nightmare to photograph!

So.. I decided to offer them to one of you lovely bloggy friends.

If you fancy a chance to win it all you have to do is leave me a comment and I will choose a winner next Friday 12th October.

If you have entered one of my giveaways in the past please feel free to enter again! 

Mum's day

A patchwork of flowery loveliness for my mum whose birthday it would have been today

xx

Chocolate overload

I popped to Brighton this morning and as I passed 'Choccywoccydoodah' I thought I'd take a few photos...not very good ones though!

Very clever seeing as they are all made from chocolate.

Some I like.....some I don't!

Night owl

Late on Saturday evening I had an idea for a new phone case. I knew I couldn't wait until the morning to get sewing so I took myself out to the workshop and stayed there till it was finished.

Yesterday I added it to my notonthehighstreet.com shop.

Hopefully they'll be flying out of there soon!

Somewhere over the rainbow

We popped in to M&S this afternoon while we were out taking one of my sewing machines to the sewing machine Doctor.

I had to take a photo of the towels display.

Aren't those colours just gorgeous?

I did add a cerise pink one to my basket. 

Well it would have been rude not to!

Fluff Friday!

Heaven in a 213gram jar!

Blowing away the cobwebs

A lovely walk along the seafront

A drive along the coast

Through a few lovely villages

and lunch in a village pub.......my kind of Sunday!